Boy in a White Room by Karl Olsberg

Author:Karl Olsberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

What happened?” Henning Jaspers says. “You just disappeared.”

He’s standing next to me in the white room. The walls are blank, apart from the one that now has a door in it. Henning can’t see it, but I can. And I’m the only one who can open it.

“How should I know?” I say. “Everything went black. I was pretty scared, as you can imagine. It was like being buried alive.” My computer voice still doesn’t really show my feelings, so it’s easy to hide the lies Marten and I spoke about.

He looks at me for a second. “I don’t know what you’ve done, son, but I’m really worried you may just have put yourself in serious danger.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Don’t lie! You’re forgetting we’re constantly monitoring your brain waves. You’re hooked to the world’s most powerful lie detector. Tell me the truth.”

“Or?”

He sighs. “Manuel, this isn’t a game. It’s deadly serious. Marten Raffay wants to get back at me. I don’t know what lies he’s told you, but they must have been pretty convincing if you believe him over your own father.”

“You’re not my father,” I say.

“How can you say that?!” he yells. “How could you ever say such a thing, Manuel? After everything I’ve done! Everything I’ve been through! We stood at your mother’s graveside together—remember that?”

“I remember standing at a graveside. I just don’t believe it was my mother’s grave.”

“I won’t listen to any more of this! I don’t know how Marten’s managed to turn your head and I’m really hurt you’d believe him over me. But I won’t put up with this! I’ll make sure he leaves us in peace. Until then, you’re safe here. Sorry, Manuel, but for now I’m withdrawing all your privileges. You won’t get to browse the internet. You can play computer games, watch films, read ebooks, but from now on you’ll have absolutely no contact with the outside world. We’re going to have to review all our systems. It could take weeks, months even. And it would really help if you told us how he managed to contact you. The more you help, the more likely I am to let you back on the internet. Maybe I’ll even let you talk to Julia. But she isn’t your sister, so I’d have to get her to realize that she has to stop lying to you. Marten was probably using her. Who knows, maybe you’ll even become friends.”

I say nothing. The fact that this man is using Julia to try and get me on his side is all the proof I need. I’ve done the right thing.

“All right, up to you,” he says. “Your choice. I just hope it doesn’t take you too long to realize it’s the wrong choice. Bye, son.”

“Bye.”

His avatar disappears and Pieter’s pops up a short while later.

“Hi, Manuel. What’s going on? Your father’s really upset.”

“He’s not my father.”

“What? Why do you say that?”

“Not important. Leave me alone!”

“Listen, I’m not sure what’s going on here, kid. But I’m on your side.”

“You work for the man who says he’s my father.

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