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technology needed to invade the Realm and wage MindWar.
    So that’s who Professor Jameson was. But more importantly, he was also Molly’s father. And if he was here, then Molly was probably here as well.
    Jameson and Rick’s dad saw Rick coming and quickly stopped talking. They turned to greet him with bright smiles. The Traveler was the smaller of the two, a short,narrow man, bald, with thick glasses—very unlike his broad, tall, athletic son. Jameson was bigger and more disheveled. He could never keep his last few strands of hair properly combed or keep his shirt from coming untucked around his paunch. A big, slouched, sloppy St. Bernard of a man.
    Professor Jameson reached out and shook Rick’s hand in both of his, meeting his eyes with a meaningful look. Rick had saved his daughter’s life barely a week ago—shattered the very boundaries of the Realm to sweep her out of a closing ring of enemy gunmen. Rick wasn’t sure how much the professor had been told about the adventure, but it seemed he’d been told something, judging by the look of affection and gratitude in his eyes.
    Rick shook hands with him and turned to his father. “How’s Victor One doing?” he asked.
    â€œBetter,” said the Traveler. “They’re in there.”
    They? thought Rick, and an unpleasant feeling fanned out over his chest. He didn’t want to admit to himself what the feeling was, but it was hard to avoid the truth: it was jealousy. He turned and looked through the doorway and . . . yup, it was jealousy all right. Now he was sure.
    Victor One, the Traveler’s personal bodyguard, had heroically gone in search of Molly when she’d been kidnapped by Kurodar’s operatives. The two of them had fought side by side in a desperate battle to survive. Victor One was a cool, tough, ex-military man. Not to mention craggily handsome. Also not to mention relaxed andwitty in a way the intense, passionately competitive Rick could never hope to be. Rick had brought both Molly and Victor One to safety in the end, but not before the bodyguard had taken a bullet in the chest, about two inches from his heart. A bad injury. If Victor One had come any closer to dying, he’d have to buy a harp. But now, only a week later, he was starting to mend. He lay on the narrow hospital bed, pale but awake and alert. He had a half smile on his rugged face. And his humorous blue eyes were trained on Molly.
    Molly was sitting at the foot of the bed, smiling down at him, talking softly. She looked good—to Rick, she always looked good. She was tall, nearly six feet, and had a powerful athlete’s build. But her face was delicate and pretty, with soft brown eyes and a small nose peppered with faint freckles. She was wearing a purple-pink sweater and white jeans, which struck Rick as appealingly girly—and made him more jealous still. In fact, the sight of her—the sight of her there with Victor One—hit Rick hard in all kinds of ways he didn’t want to think about.
    There had been a moment before all this crazy MindWar stuff happened . . . a moment when Rick, to his own surprise, had found himself kissing Molly, their long friendship suddenly melding into something else, something more. But whatever their relationship was and whatever it was about to become, it all pretty much ended when his legs were shattered. After that, after he lost his football life, he didn’t want to see Molly at all. Or, that is,he didn’t think Molly would be interested in him. And he didn’t want her pity, that was for sure.
    And then, in the Realm, he met Mariel.
    There was nothing like Mariel in RL. The majestic, beautiful silver spirit who gave him strength and weapons when he needed them, who taught him how to use his spirit to manipulate and transform the Realm’s substance . . . Rick’s feelings for Mariel were incredibly powerful—but what were those feelings exactly? Every