Kaine was handsome today, wearing a well-tailored suit, his hair gelled back. He appeared to be getting younger and younger, as if gaining virtual strength.
“Don’t leave” was the first thing he said, his voice booming from all directions at once. Michael immediately thought of The Wizard of Oz, an old flat-film. “I’m not here to cause any trouble. Scout’s honor.” He held up three fingers, and Michael had no idea what the Tangent was talking about.
“Your word is as solid as water,” Helga replied, yelling up at the huge figure. “We’re leaving. Now.” She closed her eyes, but nothing happened. She opened them and glared at their visitor. “Stop blocking me!”
“Have it your way,” Kaine said. “Force me to be the bad guy. But I’m not letting you Lift from here until I’ve said what I need to say. And this can be pleasant or it can be…difficult. Your choice.”
Helga’s face reddened and her body trembled.
“Let him talk,” Michael said, as if they had a choice. “There’s no point picking a fight right now.” We’d lose, he didn’t need to say.
Kaine smiled, and Michael almost expected him to laugh—that evil laugh that every villain seems to have mastered. Instead the Tangent started talking, and Michael was shocked to realize that the smile had been genuine.
“You must forgive me for spying, but I had no choice.” Kaine turned to Helga and continued. “I know what you just did here. I know what you showed them. And that’s why I need you to hear me out. You see, we’re all on the same side.”
He paused for a moment, clearly expecting some sort of outburst from Michael and his friends, but Michael found himself surprisingly curious and not that scared.
“I…don’t know who created me,” Kaine continued. “I’ve been trying to figure that out, and I’m getting close. But I can tell you this: I’ve broken free of the network—I’m no longer the pawn of my creators. I believe in the Mortality Doctrine because of what it can accomplish—for both Tangents and humans. I’ve spoken of this before. Immortality. It’s possible, and we can make it happen, if you’ll just work with me.”
“Work with you?” Sarah yelled. “How many times have you tried to kill us? How many lives have you destroyed? If you know what we just saw, then you must think we’re the biggest idiots of all time.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Kaine roared. “The Tangents pouring into the world are no longer my doing. It’s out of my control!”
Michael thought about what Kaine had just said. There was something there, but to trust someone like Kaine was like walking into a burning building. Stupid. Still, Michael had an itch in the back of his mind that said Kaine wasn’t lying. The terrible things happening out there in the world no longer had an easy explanation. That group in the woods. Weber and her…weirdness. Who could possibly benefit from it all?
“What’s up with the people who look all wide-eyed and brain-dead?” Michael asked. “Why are some Tangents spacey and others like me and Helga?”
Kaine smiled again. “So you’ve noticed.” He seemed almost pleased to answer. “Many Tangents were sent into the Wake for specific purposes. They were, shall we say, programmed to perform certain tasks. These Tangents weren’t sentient, so once their task is done, they kind of…lose their way. It doesn’t surprise me that they light up when they see someone as familiar as you. They all know of you. The—”
“First,” Michael finished. “We get it.”
Kaine nodded and continued. “But Tangents are being sent in faster than I ever planned, and without my approval. No one’s been tested or challenged, like you were.”
“Then stop,” Helga said. “You created the Mortality Doctrine program. Just destroy it. We’re losing bodies in the Wake at an alarming rate, and no one knows how long their consciousness will survive in the Hive. You saw what that politician did to himself!”
“I know,” Kaine said, his voice soft. “But stopping it isn’t that easy. I was someone’s pawn and I didn’t realize it until I began to lose my power. Now I’m nothing but a scapegoat for all this violence.”
Michael looked at Helga, then his friends. They all seemed just as confused as he felt.
“I can see that you’re having trouble trusting me. Which I can respect,” Kaine said. “The best way to deal with this is to have you think about everything. I’m going to send you all a link—it’s heavily protected. If you want to contact me, it will work one time. When you’re ready, we can work together and stop this madness.”
Not a second after Kaine stopped speaking, the giant square of light flashed, then vanished, and the shapes reappeared beneath their feet, silently dancing. All was as before.
“What in the world is he talking about?” Bryson asked the silence.
2
After they Lifted out of the Coffins, Helga was a flurry of motion. She moved through the barracks briskly, checking in with her people, finishing up any last-second tasks. Then she ordered Michael and his group to get in the cars that were leaving—three off-road four-wheelers that had been hidden behind the barracks. Yet when Michael tried to ask her where they were going, she wouldn’t answer.
And then there was the problem with Sarah. Her parents, understandably, refused to give her permission to leave. When Michael confronted her about it, she was angry. She snapped at him in front of Gerard and Nancy, which embarrassed him and made him just as angry.
“Then I’m staying, too,” he said stubbornly.
This time, Sarah yelled at him. “Would you just go? You’re making it worse every second you’re still here. I’ll be fine!” She stormed out the back door of the building and slammed it behind her.
There had been something there, in her eyes, but Michael couldn’t read it. So with actual physical pain thumping in his chest, he turned away from Sarah’s parents, and without saying another word, he walked out, too.
3
“She’s really not coming?” Bryson asked. “Really?”
Michael sat between him and Helga in the backseat of one of the four-wheel-drives. The vehicle churned up a sheet of mud, spitting rocks and gravel as it turned out of the damp parking area—nothing more than a trampled expanse of weeds and brush. The engine roared and they set off, driving down the long dirt road they’d taken to get there. Walter was at the wheel, and Amy sat in the passenger seat. Both were very quiet.
“Yes, really,” Michael answered his friend, not bothering to be nice about it.
“How can we just leave her there?” Bryson said. “We’re nothing without her.”
“Yeah, well, her parents make her rules, not us. By the time I left, she was acting like she didn’t want to go anyway.”
“We’ll be back for her,” Helga said. “Don’t worry. We can do what we need to now, and then we’ll have her join us again when we go back into the Sleep.”
Michael wanted to ask Helga what exactly they needed to do now, but he was too exhausted to speak. He slumped in his seat, figuring explanations would come soon enough.
A figure darted out of the woods up ahead, scurrying from the tree line into the middle of the road. Walter slammed on the brakes and the car fishtailed before coming to a stop only a few feet short from the person. For a split second Michael thought it was one of those strange girls from Trae’s group. But his heart soared when he saw that it was Sarah.
“No way,” he whispered. “She wouldn’t.”
“Yes, she would,” Bryson replied.
Both boys pulled open their doors and ran to her, with Helga trailing them. Sarah went straight for Michael and hugged him fiercely.
“Sorry,” she said. “I had to make them think I was staying.”
Michael was so surprised and happy, he could only get out an “Okay.”
“As soon as I went out the back door, I sprinted into the woods, ran until I thought my heart was going to explode. I barely made it here ahead of you guys.”
Bryson lightly punched her on the shoulder. “Your parents are going to mu
rder you. Were you always this bad?”
Helga didn’t seem too pleased about the situation. “Sarah, this is a really terrible idea. I can’t just go against your parents’ wishes. They’ll murder me, too.”
Sarah shook her head adamantly and ran to the backseat of the first car, jumped in, slammed the door. “I’m going!” she yelled through the window.
“At least tell them I tried to stop you,” Helga muttered as she walked back to the car. “Get in. We’ll just have to squeeze the four of us into the backseat.”
4
It took a lot of effort for Michael not to grin from ear to ear as they bounced along the rough road leading them out of the wooded valley. The relief he felt at having Sarah by his side—literally—was stronger than he could’ve guessed. It made him think of when her Aura had died on the Path, in those caves full of lava pools. After she’d disappeared, he’d never felt lonelier. He needed her, now more than ever.
“So what’s the plan?” Bryson asked. “High time you told us.”
“Exactly what Michael suggested,” Helga responded, looking out the window as she spoke. “The Alliance has pretty much exhausted what we can do on our own. We need to find an audience with some senior lawmaking officials who hopefully haven’t been compromised, and I know the perfect place.”
Michael had two questions, but Sarah was already one step ahead of him.
“What exactly have they been doing?” she asked. “The Alliance, I mean. Back at the barracks, it was like we didn’t exist to them.”
“Lately they’ve been studying patterns in the Tangents that Kaine has sent into the world,” Helga answered. “Trying to figure out their purpose. Gathering data. In the Sleep, I had people working hard on the Mortality Doctrine program, trying to deconstruct it, figure out how to reverse it. How it connects to the Hive, how the humans taken over by Tangents connect to their counterparts within the Hive.” She sighed. “But we have a long way to go.”
Michael asked the other, more obvious question. “So where is it that you think we can meet up with some fancy government types?”
They all bounced half a foot off the seat when the car lurched over a huge bump in the road. Michael’s head actually hit the roof.
“Whoa, there! We’ll never make it to the airport if you crumple us in a ditch,” Helga scolded Walter.
“You said you were in a hurry,” their driver grumbled. He obviously hadn’t forgiven Helga for inflicting the true death on two Tangents—and two humans—yet.
“Airport?” Sarah repeated. “I thought you said flying wasn’t safe right now.”
“Don’t worry. We have a private plane,” Helga answered. “I didn’t just randomly download my people into whoever happened to be walking by on the street. We have connections.”
“Nice,” Bryson said.
“So you were saying?” Sarah prodded.
Helga went on. “There’s a World Summit in London three days from now. It was called by the Union of Earth to discuss all the things I showed you. A lot of important people will be there. And I assume they’ll be arriving very soon. We’ll be going virtually—from a small embassy in Washington, D.C., that we’ve almost completely infiltrated. I’m eager to get there as quickly as possible so we can maneuver ourselves in.”
“Let me guess,” Bryson said. “More human bodies taken over?”
Helga grimaced. “None that we haven’t made the same promise for as the others: to bring them back.” She winced again, and Michael felt sorry that she had to bear so much guilt. “Anyway. It’s a very small embassy—Latvia—which will help us keep a low profile. We should have enough credentials to get ourselves into the meeting virtually. But it won’t be easy. We need to get there ASAP to make preparations.”
They went on talking for a while, but Michael tuned out. He laid his head back and closed his eyes, trying to sort through his many thoughts. He kept coming back to Gabby. He’d felt bad about her from the beginning because she seemed to genuinely, and deeply, care for Jackson Porter. How ridiculously unfair to feel close to someone like that and then have them literally swap their mind with a stranger’s.
And just like with his other friends, he’d dragged her into the whole mess. He had to know if she was okay. It might seem like a small thing to a lot of people, but it was something he could hold on to, like the Hallowed Ravine. Another specific goal.
His eyes snapped open.
“Hey, guys,” he said. The others quieted, turned their attention to him. “I have a request and it’s nonnegotiable. I really mean it. There’s something I have to do, and if I have to branch out on my own to do it, I will.”
“How about you tell us what it is before you make a bunch of lame threats,” Bryson responded. “When’s the last time we said no to you about anything?”
“Sorry,” Michael said a little sheepishly. “It’s more for you, Helga. You’re not going to like this.”
“What is it?” his nanny asked, eyebrows raised.
Michael let out the breath he’d been holding. “I know we’ve got some really important things to take care of, but we need to find Gabby and make sure she’s okay. Based on how everything’s been going, I have a really strong feeling that she’s not.”
5
A few hours later, they were well out of the mountains and on a freeway heading toward Atlanta, where Helga said they had an airplane waiting to take them north to D.C., the location of the Latvian embassy.
Throughout the entire drive, he’d tried and tried to make a connection with Gabby. He sent out dangler messages for her in several places, but she still hadn’t responded. The universal Net signal had been spotty up in the mountains, so at first he was hoping that had been the problem. But now that they were back in civilization, he was beginning to worry. All he could think of was that cop hitting Gabby with the nightstick. If she was dead…
He barely knew the girl. But he felt a debt to Jackson Porter. It was bad enough that he’d stolen the guy’s body. If he’d caused Jackson’s girlfriend to die as well, Michael didn’t know if he could handle the guilt.
“Anyone else starving?” Bryson asked. No one had spoken in at least an hour, and it snapped Michael out of his dark cloud. He’d long ago put away his NetScreen, and now realized he was hungry.
“I am,” Sarah replied.
Michael nodded absently.
“Find us a restaurant,” Helga said to Walter up in the front seat. “Preferably one with fried chicken.”
Michael laughed, the most random laugh that had ever escaped him. Maybe he was going cuckoo from the stress.
“You have a problem with fried chicken?” Helga asked him.
“Not at all. I’m just in a weird mood.”
Sarah squeezed his leg, then took his hand. “I’m sure it’s nothing that a good bucket of greasy heart-attack food won’t cure.”
6
Michael stood outside the restaurant, taking long, deep breaths to calm his nerves while he waited for the others to use the bathroom. He’d barely spoken while they ate—chicken had been an excellent choice—he was just too wired thinking about Gabby, Kaine, the VNS, and how in the world he and his friends were supposed to make a difference at the World Summit. What he would give for a switch that could turn off his brain for a while.
A car was passing him in the parking lot, one of those new, fancy things with only three wheels. It had barely gone by when it slammed on its brakes, the back end swerving around until it came to a stop sideways. Michael took a step back, nervous. There were three people inside, but the sun reflecting off the windows prevented him from getting a good look at them.
The car sat there, its engine still running with a high-pitched whine of electricity. Michael turned back to the restaurant to see if any of his friends were coming out, but there was no sign of them. The line for the bathroom had been long—it was a popular place for travelers, and they’d hit it right at the peak of lunch hour. He looked back at the car again; nothing had changed.
/> Michael tried not to stare, but things were feeling weirder by the second. Had the driver had a heart attack or something? Done in by one too many grease-soaked drumsticks? The other two people in the car weren’t moving, either. Were they okay? Their heads were warped shadows behind the sparkling windows, totally still.
He almost jumped when all three windows started to go down. A man was driving, young and alive, and two women sat in the back. They looked to be about the same age as the driver, one blond and one brunette. All three of them stared at Michael, expressionless, their eyes glued to him.
He didn’t know what to do. A chill ran across his shoulders and he shivered. He glanced behind him to see if they could be looking at something else, but there was nothing unusual—just the restaurant. He turned back toward the car. Still they stared.
The door to the restaurant jangled and Bryson and Sarah came out, laughing about something. Michael saw them out of the corner of his eye, and he suddenly felt sheepish, like he’d been caught doing something wrong.
“Man,” Bryson said, swatting Michael on the back. “Some dude had a major disagreement with his fried chicken. Held up the bathroom for a solid ten minutes. I’ve been in porta-potties that smelled better.”
Sarah laughed again, and the sound made Michael feel better. Safer, actually.
“You all right?” she asked. But even as the words came out of her mouth, she noticed what held his attention. “What in the world?” she whispered.
“Who are they?” Bryson asked. The car still sat there, windows down, the three people staring at Michael, frozen in place.
“I have no idea,” he answered. But he did know.
Sarah wrapped her arm around his, as if protecting him. “They’re probably just Tangents who think you’re famous. The First.” She said that last word like a curse. “It’s nothing to worry about.”