Michael took a deep breath and exhaled. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just seems crazy that they’re asking us to do this. With all those fancy agents at their disposal. Sarah’s mom and dad—their lives are on the line, here.”
“But we’ve proven ourselves,” Bryson said with a shrug. “Honestly, would you really trust someone else to do this? It’s us, man. The Burn-and-Pillage-y Trilogy. If anyone can pull this off, it’s me, you, and Sarah. Slip in, do our business, save the world from a psycho, slip out. Weber’s agents find Sarah’s parents. Boom. We can retire.”
Michael had the sudden, embarrassing urge to hug his friend. He’d needed a pep talk, and he’d gotten it. Bryson punched him in the arm, and Michael guessed that would have to do.
They walked out of the bathroom together, ready to destroy Kaine.
No one spoke much as they prepared for the Coffins. A few bites of protein-rich granola bars, a full-sized bottle of nutrient-saturated liquids, stripping down to their underwear. Handshakes and hugs—Michael hated that part. Without meaning to, they were acting as if this would be the last time they ever saw each other.
If anyone was bothered by Agent Weber’s being in the room while they stood there almost naked, no one showed it.
“I’ll be in my own private NerveBox,” Weber said, “just upstairs in my office. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous spot in fifteen minutes. I’ll give you the Lance device, and you can be on your way.”
That was it. No more explanations, no more time for questions.
Weber left. Michael stepped into his Coffin, closed the lid.
The NerveWires snaked their way across his already moist skin and he closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he stood in a large white marble room. The veins in the stone pulsed, as if some kind of toxic liquid were pumping through them. Sarah was there; Bryson, too. And Agent Weber—all three of them dressed just like they’d been in the Wake before stripping down.
“So we meet again,” Weber said with a stiff nod. She turned away from them and walked to one of the bright walls, where she reached out and tapped a pattern on its surface. After a moment something hissed and snapped; then a drawer slid open.
“Here we are,” she said as she pulled out a black bag with a strap, handling it carefully. Inside was something boxy, making it obvious what the bag contained.
The Lance.
Weber turned to face them, taking a long look at Michael and his friends, as if assessing whom she trusted most to carry the precious device. The device she’d spent years programming.
“Take this, Michael,” she said finally, handing him the bag.
He accepted it after the slightest hesitation, wondering why she chose him, then slipped the strap over his shoulder. With the bag resting against his hip, he unzipped it and peeked inside, to see exactly what he’d expected: gleaming metal and colorful wires. Weber leaned over, her hair brushing his face. She reached in and pointed to a small keypad on the side of the device, then flipped up its protective case.
“You see that?” she said. “Once you have this open, it’s eight numbers. I trust you have the password memorized by now.”
“That’s it?” Michael asked, feeling stupid. “Activate this and all our problems are solved?”
Weber stepped back and nodded. “Just like I told you—find the building, break in, find whatever it is that represents his central programming. Insert the Lance device, enter the code. The results will be messy. Get out fast and either find a Portal or I’ll Lift you myself once I know you’re clear. I just wish it were less dangerous.”
“Why do I get the feeling things probably won’t go so smoothly?” Sarah asked, her arms folded as she stared at the bag on Michael’s hip.
“That’s why I’m sending you three,” Weber replied. “I trust you. I’ve seen what you can accomplish. Things are … very complicated among my agents. This needs to be a quiet, small operation.”
“And the Hider codes?” Bryson asked. “Those are still all in place?”
Weber nodded curtly. “Of course. Kaine should have no idea you’re coming. The same applies as before—you won’t be able to see the code like you’re used to, and Lifeblood Deep is realistic on a level you absolutely won’t believe until you see it for yourself. Use your NetScreens if you have to.”
She directed a sheepish look Michael’s way. He’d lived most of his life thinking the Deep was the real world. It was a painful reminder of everything he’d lost.
“Now, any questions before I send you off?” Weber looked eager for them to get to work.
Michael and his friends traded looks. And shrugged.
Agent Weber appeared satisfied, almost smiling.
“Good,” she said. “Time to Squeeze you into the Deep.”
Michael’s back was pressed against the marble wall between Sarah and Bryson. Weber had told them to hold hands, to not let go no matter how bad things got. Bryson’s hand felt meaty and sweaty, Sarah’s dainty and soft. Michael liked hers a lot better.
Weber faced them, standing a few feet away, a grave look on her face. “I’ll be doing most of the work,” she said. “All you have to do is close your eyes and endure the … intense sensations you’re about to experience.”
“You mean the unbearable pain,” Bryson muttered. “Pain that’s going to make me cry.”
Michael smiled a little, but his heart thumped like the foot of a nervous cartoon rabbit he’d seen on the Vids years and years ago. He wanted to get this part over with.
“Pain, yes,” Weber replied. “But there are also things worse than pain. Just keep hold of each other, try not to panic, and … endure. It won’t last as long as you might think. Once you’re in, get the job done as quickly as possible.” She looked at the bag on Michael’s shoulder—he’d slung it across his chest to make sure it didn’t fall off. “You know what to do, right?”
He nodded stiffly, impatient to get going.
The agent gave them a warm smile, her face creased in what Michael could swear looked like sympathy. It helped, a little, and if Michael had been alone he just might’ve hugged her and said goodbye.
“Okay,” Weber said. “Close your eyes.”
A good minute or two passed before the process began. Michael counted the seconds down for a bit, then abandoned the idea when his anxiety spiked even more. The first thing he noticed was the dimming of the lights. Darkness swept over them, and he had the urge to open his eyes. He didn’t really know if Weber had meant they needed to keep them closed, or if that would only help. Crap, he thought. He should’ve asked her.
“Do you think—” he started to say, but a loud humming cut him off.
It felt as if the air suddenly had weight, as if it was pressing in on his eardrums with a heavy buzz. His skin tingled, and he shifted on his feet, feeling more and more uncomfortable. All he could do was hold on tightly to Sarah’s and Bryson’s hands and not let go. No matter what. He needed them—he was far more scared than felt natural. Maybe it was the uncertainty that made it so bad.
The world pressed in, the sound getting louder. Michael imagined the LiquiGels back in the Coffin, pressing in on his skin as if he’d lain down in water that was freezing solid. He tried shifting again, but it did no good. The strain made him feel every pulse of his heart beating, feel the pumping of the blood in his temples, his neck, the crooks of his elbows, everywhere.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Something pulled him away from Bryson and Sarah, but he held on to his friends. He curled his fingers tightly around theirs, refusing to let them slip away. His eyes popped open on instinct and darkness filled his vision, so he closed them again. That tugging sensation continued, but instead of trying to yank his friends out of his grip, it worked on his body, every part of it, as if some force was trying to pull his muscles and bones and skin and sinew—everything—apart. Stretching him, impossibly. It hurt, an achy strain turning worse by the second. Then came the pain—little jolts tha
t made him gasp. Parts of him were snapping.
It’s the Sleep, he told himself in a rush of panic. It’s not real, not happening. Endure. Don’t let go. He thought he might’ve heard Bryson trying to say something, but it was lost in the humming buzz that pulsed in rhythm with his heart, felt in every vein he had.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The pulsing of his heart. The pulsing of the noise, pressing into his ears, his face, his skin.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The force continued to work on him, stretching him forward and backward into a long trail, making him shudder when he thought of what his body must look like, how thin and grotesque. The pain intensified, lancing through his nerves, becoming unbearable. A constant rush of brutal agony, as if something wanted to rip apart every molecule in his body. He screamed, but he let out nothing but a dull memory of sound swallowed by the buzz. The force pulled him, thinned him, stretched him to infinite lengths, making the pulse of his blood stronger and louder.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
On some distant edge of his mind, he knew that his fingers were still clasped around Sarah’s and Bryson’s, but everything was like a string, a thin cord of tissue, full of pain.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Thinner.
Harder.
Pain.
A storm of humming, buzzing, thumping.
Screams.
Holding on to something that made no sense, lines of code, barely there.
The world, collapsing.
Pain. Oh, the pain.
Spinning.
Crushed.
His mind, finally unable to handle any more, gave up and shut down.
All was nothing.
Not even a thump.
He floated in emptiness, completely unaware of time passing, barely aware of anything at all. But the pain faded, and the darkness held him, and he slept.
He sensed a brightness, a glowing red that woke him up. He blinked several times, then squinted to keep his eyes open. He lay on his back. The sky hovered far above him, several buildings converging to a point up in the blue, as if they were fingers reaching for something he couldn’t quite see.
His head swam with grogginess, and when he rolled over onto his side, that didn’t help. Woozy, he paused and saw Sarah and Bryson close by, still asleep. They were at the end of a long alley, no one in sight, and not much of anything else except cement and dust and trash. The wet warmth of the air made him feel sticky, greasy.
The crisp realness of his surroundings made him realize that Agent Weber had done it. She’d really done it.
Michael and his friends were inside Lifeblood Deep. She’d Squeezed them through the intense complexity of its code. He was home—back where he’d always lived. He didn’t know how to feel or what to think. Maybe, just maybe, his parents and Helga were somewhere in the Deep. Trapped, imprisoned, or something. Had they really just vanished, their code wiped away? He swore to look for them, to search every last digit of code if he had to. As soon as they dealt with Kaine.
Which reminded him of everything in a flare of panic.
“Bryson!” he yelled, quickly checking his side to make sure Weber’s bag was still there, the strap across his chest. He felt the bulk of the Lance, the sharp, hard edges giving him a small dose of relief. “Sarah! Wake up!”
Michael’s friends groaned, rubbed their eyes. Blinked and squinted as much as he had. But soon they were all on their feet, the ordeal of the Squeeze in the past, become a mere memory more quickly than Michael would’ve guessed.
“This place is fantastic,” Sarah said, turning in a circle as if she’d landed on another planet. “It’s so … real.” She reached out and touched the rough cement of the closest building, which towered dozens of stories above them. “You can barely tell we’re in the Sleep.”
“Tell me about it,” Michael muttered absently. Images of his family filled his head, but they needed to get moving, no time to waste. No matter what Agent Weber had said about their Hider codes, he’d never again make the mistake of thinking Kaine couldn’t find them. “Let’s get this over with.” Bryson had his eyes closed but opened them when Michael stopped talking. “Just like the last time she sent us in. No code. Her programs are stronger than ever.”
“I’ve got all the info loaded,” Sarah replied. “Just a sec.” A quick squeeze of her EarCuff and the green NetScreen projected in front of her. She made a few swipes and taps. “Wow. Weber’s good. Squeezed us in really close. It’s less than half a mile from here.”
Michael looked down at the bag again. He wanted to get rid of the Lance as soon as possible. “Let’s go, then.” It seemed like he should’ve said something a little more pep-talky, but that was all he had.
Bryson cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Kaine! We’re coming to get you!”
Sarah slapped him on the shoulder. “What’re you doing?”
“Yeah,” Michael added. “That might be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”
Bryson shrugged. “I hate that piece of rat-trash.” And it was hard to blame him.
The three of them ran down the alley toward Kaine.
Plenty of pedestrians walked the sidewalks in front of the building they wanted. It looked just like it had on the huge map Agent Weber had pulled up back in the VNS War Room. Wedged between two tall buildings, three stories, a few small windows, made of an ugly mixture of steel and cement—the thing was an eyesore, and Michael couldn’t guess what possible historical significance it had. Maybe as one of the most hideous, nondescript, useless buildings ever constructed?
“Huh,” Bryson said. “I would’ve thought he’d live in a palace or a castle.” The three friends studied Kaine’s home from a block or so away.
“Too obvious,” Sarah replied.
Bryson spit on the sidewalk. “I can’t wait for this to be over.”
“I get to do it,” Michael said, anger rising in him like a red sun.
“What?” Bryson and Sarah said at the same time.
Michael broke his gaze from the building. “I get to place the Lance. And trigger it.” He paused, trying to find the best way to say it. “I’m glad I get to kill him.”
His friends didn’t say anything. Bryson nodded; Sarah looked down at the ground, as if she was worried about him. Or thinking about her own mom and dad. But Michael had to do this. Kaine had taken away his family, his life, Helga. It didn’t matter that Michael was a fake, that he was nothing but a program. He’d loved his parents; he’d loved Helga. He’d been happy. Getting a bag of real flesh and bones to wrap around his intelligence would never make up for that.
He was going to kill Kaine, even if the Lance’s effects were as messy as Weber predicted. Even if every last KillSim in the Sleep came at him, he’d set the thing off before going down.
“We ready for this?” Bryson asked. “Time’s a-wastin.’ ”
“I’m ready,” Michael said.
Sarah looked firm again. “Me too. I just wish we had a better plan. It’s going to be so hard doing this without swimming in the code.” She flicked a hand up by her EarCuff, as if disgusted by it. “I guess this stupid old thing will have to do.”
“Yep,” Michael said. “It will.” He had no doubt they could get inside that building and get the job done. The part that worried him was getting back out—Kaine would have his creatures swarming the building as soon as he realized there were intruders. “The skyscraper next to it has a sunken alcove in front of the doors. We can hide there while we work on Kaine’s security system.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Bryson said. “Try to look like goofy Deep tourists while we walk up to it. And don’t stare at the building we wanna get into.”
“And don’t walk fast,” Sarah added. “Or slow.”
“And—” Bryson started to say, but Michael had already started walkin
g.
“Just come on,” he said, unable to wait a second longer.
They made it to the alcove of the neighboring building without incident, and no one seemed to give them more than a passing glance. Teenagers, one with a bag strapped across his chest, Sarah with her NetScreen already blazing—they looked like students, and sitting down to work only added to the appearance. Michael wondered about all the people around him—weirdly envious that they’d all worked their way inside Lifeblood Deep somehow. Of course, a lot of them were Tangents, programmed to make the world seem as real as possible.
They’d divvied up the jobs, and Michael’s was to shut down any alarm systems—both the audible kind, which might bring guards and curious people running, and the communications kind, which would bring Kaine’s army of who-knew-what this time around. Sarah worked away at the firewalls, trying to find ways to slip past them. Bryson went at the cameras and locking systems.
As he worked, Michael kept thinking back to when they’d tried to break into Ronika’s Black and Blue Club. It seemed like a million years ago. He longed for the day when they were able to break by doing something as simple as tricking a couple of idiot bouncers.
“This is … weird,” Sarah said after they’d all been working for a while.
Michael knew what she meant. The systems were unlike anything he’d ever come across—very basic, and despite being multilayered and heavily fortified, there was hardly any of the usual sophistication.
“I know why,” Bryson replied, looking intently at his screen. “My dad’s taught me a thing or two about the old days of programming. This is patterned after a super-old system. Like, from decades ago. Why would Kaine do that?”
“To avoid suspicion,” Michael said. He glanced at his friends, but they were too busy to look up. “If he had something really advanced and heavy, that’d just make people really want to know what’s inside. And considering he’s in the place that has the best-of-the-best gamers and hackers in the Sleep, that’s not a good thing. It’s like the old hiding-in-plain-sight thing.”