They sat in silence for at least a minute, stealing glances at the trees and bushes around them to see if anyone might be spying.
Bryson broke the silence. “Wow. Why would they ask three teenagers to solve their problems?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Michael said. “Agent Weber said others would be searching, too. Maybe they’re finding the best gamers and coders around and giving them an opportunity to crack whatever secret location Kaine has created. She knew we could hack and code. I’m telling you, it wasn’t a joke.”
“But how can we do anything the VNS people can’t do?” Sarah asked. “That’s their whole job, and frankly it scares me that they’re trying to pawn it off on kids.”
Bryson scoffed. “Old geezers always know that the next generation is smarter than they’ll ever be at this stuff. I mean, we hang out in this place. We do know it better than anyone. We can do it because it’s not our job. It’s our hobby.”
“And it has to do with more than programming,” Michael added, glad that Bryson was making it sound legitimate. “They need users, not just makers. Who’s better than us?”
“You sure that’s it?” Sarah asked. “Or do you just want an excuse to play?”
“Don’t you?” Michael asked.
“Yeah, well.” She shrugged and smiled.
“And what was that little part about being set for life if we find it?” Bryson asked. “That lady better have meant all three of us, not just you.”
“I’m sure she did,” Michael answered, even though he didn’t know for sure. “We’ll be rich, work for the VNS, whatever. But we absolutely can’t tell anyone about this.” For some reason he couldn’t bring himself to mention the less-than-veiled threats Agent Weber had also doled out. But then, maybe they didn’t apply to his friends.
“I admit, it sounds fun—it’d be a good challenge,” Sarah said.
Michael agreed. A game that wasn’t a game anymore—it was more important than a game. In that second he got so excited to start that he almost stood up, ready to move.
Bryson must’ve read the expression on his face. “Hold on to your pants, there, brother. We’ve gotta be sure about this.”
“I know,” Michael replied. “I am.” And he meant it fully.
Something happened then. An uncomfortable oddness suddenly permeated their surroundings, flooding Michael with fear. Everything in the park around them slowed to a crawl, like a fly trapped in syrup.
Sarah’s hand was moving to tuck her hair behind her ear. Bryson’s mouth was stretching into a smile—his mischievous one, his way of letting everyone know he agreed and was committed. The tree branches above them swayed lazily. A bird flew past, and Michael could see its wing move up, then down. The air thickened, filled with a stifling humidity.
And then it all disappeared in a flash of light, replaced by spinning stars and a maniac’s laughter.
5
Michael’s body had been subjected to everything imaginable in terms of motion within the VirtNet, the Coffin always doing its trick to make things as realistic as possible. Roller coasters, diving airplanes, rockets being shot to other universes at light speed, more falls than he could ever count. But whatever happened to them in that moment felt like it was going to rip his body into a hundred pieces. His stomach turned and his brain split into ten kinds of pain. All the while, stars spun, and he couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed. He lost all awareness of his surroundings, and he suddenly wondered if the Coffin would be able to handle the stress.
Abruptly, the craziness stopped. Michael’s insides clenched and he heaved, but nothing came out. He slowly regained his breath and looked around. All was frozen in darkness except for small lights winking in the distance.
There were two bodies next to him. He could barely see them—they weren’t much more than shadows—but he knew it was Bryson and Sarah. It had to be.
The lights began to swirl, then coalesce, moving more rapidly with each passing second—collecting immediately in front of them into a ball that grew larger and brighter, until Michael could barely look at it. It spun like a celestial body, pulsing with brilliance.
Michael and his friends—floating, frozen, silent—waited. Michael tried to speak but couldn’t. Tried to move but was paralyzed. Fear surged through every last inch of him. And then a voice spoke from the blinding ball of light, throbbing with each word. And it was terrifying.
“My name is Kaine,” it said. “And I see all.”
6
Whatever had paralyzed Michael didn’t release its hold on him.
The chilling voice continued, “Do you really think I’m not aware of VNS and their efforts to stop me? Can you imagine that I’d let anything happen within the VirtNet that doesn’t serve my interests? This is my domain now, and only the boldest, the strongest, and the smartest will be allowed to serve me in the end. VNS and players like you will be rendered utterly insignificant.”
Michael strained to break free from the force that held him.
“You have no idea the power I have,” Kaine’s voice said. “I’m warning all who try to stop me. You will not be warned twice.” The voice paused. “See what awaits if you don’t heed my words.”
The ball of spinning light vanished, replaced by a huge rectangle that looked like one of the screens on which they used to watch movies decades ago. Images flashed across the screen as it grew wider and taller, until it almost filled Michael’s entire vision.
It was as if he’d been inserted into the mind of a lunatic: A city of rubble, devoid of color, people huddling in the gutters.
Several slack-jawed men in a smoky room, seemingly waiting to be burned alive as flames licked at the edges of a door.
An old woman in a rocking chair, slowly raising a gun.
Two teenagers, laughing, pushing little kids off a high cliff and watching them fall.
A hospital full of frail, sickly patients, its door chained and locked from the outside. Several haggard-looking people splashing gasoline on its walls, one of them pulling out a lighter.
The horrifying scenes continued, flashing one after another, growing more unspeakable. Michael’s body trembled with the effort to break free. It was worse than any nightmare from which he’d ever struggled to wake.
Kaine’s voice spoke again, coming from everywhere at once.
“You know so little about what’s really going on. You are children in every sense of the word. All this and more awaits your mind if you continue.”
And then it ended. Everything vanished, and Michael found himself back inside his Coffin. But his throat hurt, and he realized he must’ve been screaming for quite some time.
CHAPTER 4
NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER
1
Michael thought Tanya’s suicide had been bad, but this time he was barely able to pull himself out of the Coffin. He didn’t even bother putting on shorts. Trembling, sweating, he stumbled to his bed. A part of him still floated in Kaine’s version of a deep-space theater, surrounded by the horrors he’d predicted for Michael’s future. For his mind, whatever that meant.
It made his skin crawl. After a lifetime of seeking out wilder and wilder experiences, he’d had two run-ins inside the VirtNet that made him long for the days when everything had been fun—and not quite so wild. He didn’t care what the VNS was offering, what they’d threatened if he didn’t try to help. Seeing someone rip their Core out before his eyes, and Kaine’s vision of punishment should Michael seek him out, had made up Michael’s mind. What if the man could somehow reach him even in the Wake? Michael had never had that paralyzed, helpless feeling before, inside the VirtNet or out.
He didn’t know how he could possibly fulfill the challenge the VNS had given him. Shooting aliens, rescuing princesses from goblins, dealing with Lifeblood’s day-to-day drama, then Lifting out of it all to do homework seemed just fine—and Bryson and Sarah would always be there in the Sleep to do it with him. He’d just go back to his normal, boring l
ife. He never wanted to cross paths with Kaine again.
Firmly believing that, Michael was finally able to fall asleep.
2
The next morning, a dull and dreary Sunday to match Michael’s mood, Helga made him eat cornflakes for breakfast, claiming she had a headache. He wanted to tell her she had no idea what a headache was. To tell her every little detail of the fun time he’d had with Kaine the day before, ask her if she thought maybe that kind of experience sounded a little worse than a few hours of brooms, dusters, and laundry baskets.
But he liked Helga too much, and he was ashamed for even thinking it.
So instead he told her how sorry he was and ate three bowls of the cereal she’d set on the counter. Then he took a very long and very hot shower. Afterward, he felt a little better; the memory of his encounter with the cyber-terrorist started to fade, almost as if it’d all been a nasty nightmare.
The rest of the day was spent trying to forget it all. He jogged a few miles, took a long nap, ate a perfect lunch: sandwiches, chips, and pickles. He finally settled down in the Chair to have his inevitable conversation with Bryson and Sarah about the Kaine extravaganza. When the EarCuff flashed its screen in front of him, there were already messages from both of his friends on the Bulletin.
It looked like they were all in agreement. Games were games, but dealing with some psychotic man who was terrorizing people and couldn’t be handled by an organization as powerful as the VNS—well, Michael thought, that was a different story. His friends agreed that it’d been a nice offer, but … no thanks. Kaine was too dangerous, and he made the threats from the VNS seem cute. The programming feat he’d done to trap them was unimaginable.
When the question arose of whether Michael should let the VNS know about his and his friends’ decision, he figured not. He didn’t want to talk to those people. Hopefully they’d been bluffing. Maybe they really had offered the challenge to a slew of gamers, betting that some of them would continue. Michael didn’t plan to find out—he was a little scared to go back into the Sleep but figured Kaine would leave them alone as long as they didn’t start snooping. As long as they heeded his warning.
Michael and his friends ended their conversation by saying they’d hang out later in Lifeblood, go gaming, leave the whole affair behind.
But things didn’t quite go as planned when Michael hooked into the Coffin later that afternoon. Instead of Sinking into the VirtNet, all he saw were big block letters:
ACCESS DENIED BY VNS
3
They’d cut him off.
Michael got out of his Coffin and ran to the Chair, tried his EarCuff. It didn’t work. He ran to the couch in front of the WallScreen and clicked the TV controls. Nothing. He could hear Helga walking around the apartment, huffing and puffing, trying to make calls. But cell service had been disconnected, too. Michael went back to his Chair and attempted to hack his way into the NetScreen for an hour, to no avail.
Cut off. Completely.
All he could do was go to his bed, lie there, and stare at the ceiling, feeling sicker by the minute. How in the world had he gotten into such a mess? In a matter of a day or two, his life had been hijacked by the VNS and threatened by a madman. He missed the days when school and an occasional stomachache were the only things he had to complain about.
But anyone who’d known him for more than five minutes could have guessed where his thoughts headed next. Yes, he’d been shown a vision worse than anything he’d ever laid real or virtual eyes upon, and he’d been promised it would be his future if he did what the VNS wanted. He had no doubt that the VirtNet could be programmed that way for him. Kaine was exactly right: when you had the power to make someone see and experience anything, there were definitely things worse than death. And that bottomless trench had been dug in front of Michael.
Then someone has taken his access away, and there was no chance he could live with that.
More important, Agent Weber’s words now haunted him more vividly. She’d threatened him and his family, and cutting off his access was definitely only the beginning of worse to come. Michael had to get things square. Maybe he’d been too quick to give up.
He got out of bed and decided to stop feeling sorry for himself. He knew the VNS would give him another chance—he’d seen firsthand what they were dealing with. And if they’d come to him for help, they needed it desperately. The horrors of the Kaine vision had faded a bit; Michael’s calmer, more rational side had begun to think that this was no different from any other VirtNet experience. None of it was real, and as long as he was careful, he could do this. In all his years of dinking around in the VirtNet, he’d never met anyone better than he was at coding or hacking, or who’d gotten closer to Lifeblood Deep so quickly. Kaine was good, but he was just another gamer after all.
Michael was ready for the challenge, and kind of ashamed that he’d cowered in the first place. How could he ignore threats against his family?
Mrs. Perkins next door just about had a heart attack when Michael pounded on her door. She opened it up with wide eyes and half of her face covered in some kind of greasy cream, her hand on her chest.
“Why, Michael,” she said, her eyes rolling in relief. “Goodness gracious heaven and earth. What’s wrong? You almost—”
“Gave you a heart attack, I know. Listen, I need you to do me a favor.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Well, I’d expect a little more politeness if that’s the case.”
Michael loved Mrs. Perkins. Really, he did. She smelled like baby powder and mentholated gel, and she was the nicest lady on the planet. But right then it was all he could do not to push the woman out of the way to get to her phone.
Forcing himself to be calm, he said, “I’m really sorry. It’s urgent.”
“Apology accepted, dear. What can I do for you?”
For some reason, a smile broke out on his face. “Will you call the local VNS office? Tell them that your neighbor Michael says he’s back in. Tell them I’ll find what they’re looking for.”
4
His access was reinstated immediately. He knew from his message board that Bryson and Sarah had gone through the same thing and that they’d taken it just as seriously as he had. School on Monday was the most agonizing thing Michael had ever sat through, but by that evening he’d reconnected with his friends and they decided to begin their investigation the next afternoon.
They were determined to be more careful and less open this time. They’d use their coding and hacking skills like never before. There was a reason the VNS had chosen him and his friends, Michael thought, and he was glad for the reminder of the lengths they’d need to go.
We can do this, he told himself. Over and over.
CHAPTER 5
THE OLD MAN
1
“While you guys were wigging out,” Bryson said, “I was putting a Tracer on Kaine’s Aura. We’ll know next time he gets close.”
Michael was sitting with him and Sarah in a tree house on the outskirts of the outskirts of Lifeblood, a place they’d coded—or built—in secret. It was in a small forest that Michael was pretty sure even the programmers of the game didn’t know about.
“Did you upload the Tracer to us yet?” Sarah asked him. She was so good at keeping them focused.
“Yeah.”
“Good. And I think if we use my Hide-and-Seek program and Michael’s Cloak-and-Dagger, we should be able to avoid that snake for a while.”
“Or at least stay two steps ahead of him,” Michael added. He and Sarah had worked together to create the two masking programs, which had come in handy more than once.
They went silent for a moment, closing their eyes and concentrating to access the raw data of the world around them. Michael pulled up screens and connected with his friends; then they shared codes and installed programs and made sure everything was linked and good to go. No one needed to say that they should’ve been smarter the first time around, but at the time it had almost seemed like a har
mless game. Which, Michael told himself, had been really stupid.
When finished coding, he opened his eyes and rubbed them—they were always a little bleary after linking to the code. He got onto his knees and looked out the window that faced the side of the forest leading back into the main sections of Lifeblood. It was foggy this far out, since the programming was weaker, but Michael liked it. The tree house they’d constructed through their own programming tricks was warm and well hidden, so it felt cozy and safe. Just add some knitted socks and a stocking cap and he’d be an official grandma, he thought with an embarrassed grin. But there was still a part of him that feared the things they were about to get into. A huge part.
“So?” Bryson began. His question was obvious.
“The old-timers,” Sarah answered. “That’s where we start.”
Michael snapped out of his funk and let his adventurous side take over again. “Definitely,” he said as he turned and sat back down. “Those geezers outside the Old Towne shopping district will know something, if anybody does. Throw ’em a few credits to Casino and we won’t be able to shut them up.”
Sarah was nodding, but her eyes were focused on the same window Michael had been gazing through. She never looked at you when she was deep in thought. “I’m trying to remember the barber’s name. He must be a thousand years old.”
“I know that dinosaur,” Bryson said. “We used him when we needed to get the passwords for the Pluto mission. You’d think the guy would buy a breath-mint program. I had to keep sucking air through my mouth, he smelled so bad.”
Michael laughed. “If you had every gamer in town knocking on your door for advice, you wouldn’t do anything to make it easier on them, either. His name’s Cutter, by the way.”
“That’s where we go,” Sarah said. “We’ll just plug our noses.”