strange to run across a problem now and then.”
I nod as he speaks, encouraging him to go on. It all sounds reasonable enough.
“So that’s when I initiated my return frequency. Only it didn’t work.”
“Did you try yelling really loudly?” I ask with a rueful grin, remembering my ridiculous display last night.
Wyn smiles at me. “Believe me, I would have broken your eardrums if you’d been here. I think I tried about a half dozen times before I gave up. It’s a panicky feeling,” he says, as if letting me know that my temper tantrum last night wasn’t completely uncalled-for. “I spent the next twenty-four hours running all over the place, trying every door, yelling random codes, killing myself over and over . . . that’s how I ended up falling asleep on the beach, in fact. I’d just taken a running swan dive off the seawall, hoping I’d break my neck and reanimate in the Landing.”
“And instead you took a cozy nap with crab daddy,” I say, peering down at the beach below, though there wasn’t much of it left. The tide was rolling in fast now. “Surprised you didn’t drown.”
Wyn stopped and looked over the seawall with me. “I’ve been fooling around with the tides, trying to create a schedule for them that mimics the real tide charts of Havana. It’s almost high tide now. In fact, we’d better turn around and make our way back if we don’t want to get splashed. The bigger waves come right over the wall.”
“So back to your story,” I say as we turn around and head back the way we came. In the distance I can see the towering white Hotel Nacional gleaming in the morning sun. It looks like a palace. “What happened after you woke up on the beach?”
Wyn shrugs. “I tried to keep calm. I figured my grandmother would be the first to notice I’d been gone too long. I knew she’d be worried and probably call my father, and that my father would send in one of his programmers to fix the problem.”
“So you also thought it was a technical issue,” I say. “But yesterday you told me that someone was intentionally keeping you trapped here?”
Wyn’s face turns dark and he shoves his hands into his pockets. “We’re not the only people here, Nixy.”
“What? How do you know?” I ask, eyeing the Meeple around us.
He shrugs. “The subtle differences that come from a lack of script. Small idiosyncrasies. I don’t have to tell you about them. You just know, don’t you?”
I nod because I do. I’ve always been able to sense my marks, even when they’re surrounded by Meeple. But I also knew exactly what I was looking for. Who I was looking for. “Have you spoken to them?”
Wyn shakes his head. “No, they’ve been successfully avoiding me. They try to blend in with the crowd, but I programmed this entire world from scratch . . . and they just don’t fit in.”
“Have you tried chasing them down, capturing them?”
“Of course. I thought maybe you were one of them yesterday, that’s why I —”
“Mugged me?”
“Sorry,” he says, the sheepish grin back on his face. “They always get away from me, initiating their return frequencies before I can even talk to them. So I guess you could say I was trying a more . . . forceful technique.”
“Yes, I could say.” I swat him again on the arm to let him know I’m kidding. Then I silently chastise myself for reverting to first grade. Why do I keep hitting him?
“Did you ever consider that shooting me yesterday might simply have reset me back to the Landing?”
Wyn nods. “It was a risk, but I had nothing to lose. I figured if I couldn’t shoot myself back home, maybe no one else could get back that way either. Besides, I wasn’t really going to aim at your head . . . I figured I’d just pop you in the leg and maim you if you got out of hand.”
I bite my lip, but I know I’m smiling anyway. “So where do these non-Meeple people usually hang out?” I ask, tucking my hands under my arms to keep them from touching him.
Wyn gives me a sideways look. “Usually they just follow me.”
I stop then and whip my head around. If these rasshøls are the ones responsible for this mess, I’ve got a few choice words for them. After I knock their teeth out, of course.
“How can we draw them out from the—?”