The Reality Bug
First edition cover
|
|
| Author | D. J. MacHale |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Victor Lee |
| Country |
 United States
|
| Language | English |
| Series | Pendragon |
| Genre | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Aladdin |
|
Publication date
|
September 1, 2003 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback & Hardback) |
| Pages | 384 pp (first edition, paperback) |
| ISBN | (first edition, paperback) |
| Preceded by | The Never War |
| Followed by | Black Water |
The Reality Bug is the fourth book in the Pendragon series by D. J. MacHale. The world is all about peoples' imaginations. People create their own fantasy worlds and live inside their dreams.
Bobby begins on the territory of Veelox, with Gunny, where they land in the dark room outside the Veelox flume. Bobby and Gunny encounter Saint Dane and believe they have him cornered, however, twenty realistic holograms of the villain suddenly appear around him, allowing the actual Saint Dane to escape (to a territory called Eelong) amidst the confusion. Bobby and Gunny decide to split. Gunny will immediately go to Eelong and report back later with news while Bobby stays on Veelox because Saint Dane had mentioned that it is on the verge of destruction.
Bobby hates the darkness and is worried if the inhabitants of Veelox are floating giants after meeting Aja Killian, the local Traveler, in the form of a massive holographic face. Bobby doesn't know if the huge hologram is life-sized. He meets up with a very ordinary, humanoid Aja in a city much like those on Second Earth, called Rubic City. The only differences are that it is deserted, and there is a huge structure called the Lifelight pyramid looming over the town.
Aja explains that Lifelight is a virtual reality world—a computer that gives people's desires the appearance of being real. Almost everyone on Veelox is in it, living out their own perfect virtual lives.
She takes Bobby through it, and he is amazed at the vedders, who are the "physical" caretakers of the bodies, and the phaders, computer geniuses running the place. She is one of the latter.
Bobby experiences his own fantasy "jump"; he meets his family, plays with his dog, Marley, and plays a basketball game where he and his team simply cannot lose. It's a tight game, though. He has to be dragged out by Aja after going into OT.
Aja then explains that, because Lifelight is so perfect, hardly anyone leaves. No food is being made. The territory is dying. However, she has a way to stop Lifelight....a Reality Bug that preys on fears to make it all less-than-perfect. She then takes Bobby to where he left off in his fantasy, but uses her virus to make it different. His opponents are taller, his coach has a heart attack, and he is injured.
While in the locker room Aja tells him is this is how to save the territory. However, a Saint Dane hologram appears and tells them that the bug is working "far better than you could imagine".
Saint Dane is right. The Reality Bug has become far too realistic; its use of fears to dilute the jumps has a placebo effect on people, in that if they die in their fantasy, the death is real. Aja put Lifelight into suspense to keep the jumpers safe and to try to find a solution. Only one man can stop the rapidly evolving virus; Dr. Zetlin, who invented Lifelight and the only one to know of the origin code, the key to purging the bug from the processing code.
...
Wikipedia