The Rule of Thoughts

  Michael’s mind went blank, and the tiny bubble of hope inside of him popped. How could he have thought he might get something past Kaine? Kaine was a god in the Sleep—certainly wherever they were now. This time when Sarah spoke it filled Michael with relief.

  “If you want to learn how to mix with humans, then you have a lot to learn.” It was as if Sarah were scolding a badly behaved kindergartener.

  Michael stared at her; his jaw dropped so far it might as well have become unhinged.

  Kaine was just as taken aback. The Tangent actually stammered. “I … You … I’m not going to stand here and be lectured by a child.” He pointed at Michael. “By one who is my creation, perhaps, but not by you.” His finger moved to Sarah.

  The Tangent took a step closer to her, leaned forward until their noses were almost touching. “I’ve tried to be reasonable,” he whispered, “and I can’t comprehend how you could possibly turn your back on immortality. Not just for me, for all—humans and Tangents alike. There are things in motion that are too late to stop. But I have new plans, great plans. I won’t tell you more until I have a commitment. And it would be wise to decide before the KillSims arrive.”

  And then Kaine disappeared.

  Michael didn’t know if he wanted to hug Sarah or shake her. Either way, he went to her and grabbed her shoulders. “What … what was that?”

  She wilted a little. “Sorry. I’m just so … I just … I want to kill him. He’s nothing but a string of code—there has to be a way!”

  He understood how angry Sarah was—Kaine had her parents—but what she said still hurt. Up until only a few days earlier, that was all he’d been, too. A string of code. She saw it in his eyes before he could hide it.

  “Oh! Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she said in a rush. “It’s not my greatest day ever. Or week.”

  Michael hugged her, not knowing what else to do. “I know what it’s like.” He was thinking of his parents, who’d been taken away from him also, but he didn’t know if she could understand that.

  The buzz of static reverberated along the glowing purple plane under their feet, an almost electronic noise that ran through Michael’s body. Pulse after pulse, the sound picked up speed, getting louder and louder. Footsteps. Over Sarah’s shoulder, Michael saw a group of shadows appear, dark against the purple glow of the horizon, bounding toward them on four legs. Fear rose in his throat. KillSims. Several of them, charging in.

  Sarah must have felt him tense up. She pulled away from his embrace and turned to look.

  “I guess he meant it,” she said, her voice neutral. Her words made Michael think of ice. Big chunks of ice, cold and hard. “Bryson? Get up.”

  For a second Michael had totally forgotten about their friend. He’d been so quiet, sitting on the ground, not moving.

  “Hey,” Michael said. “You okay? We’ve got a problem here.”

  He moved closer to Bryson, then pulled up short. The shadows had been hiding what he could now see clearly.

  Bryson’s eyes were closed.

  Michael allowed himself to feel a tiny dusting of hope again. Bryson had done the smart thing and gotten straight to work on the code as soon as Kaine had disappeared. And Bryson was brilliant when he really got down to it. He’d been the one who shut down the crazy old lady trying to kill them with the flying ropes in the Devils of Destruction lobby.

  And Michael really, really didn’t want to fight the KillSims again. Not after what had happened at the Black and Blue Club. Come on, Bryson, he thought, pushing it out there like he was appealing to God. Take us away.

  The creatures were much closer, their muscular, wolflike bodies bounding along the ethereal purple ground, growling electronic snarls. Their footsteps blended now, a constant, thunderous thump of static. Bryson was their only chance. Sarah took Michael’s hand, and silently, they faced the monsters coming at them. What had to happen was obvious.

  That lump of fear lodged in Michael’s throat had doubled in size, making it hard to breathe. There were at least ten KillSims. He thought about trying to pull a weapon in, something stolen from a game, but he didn’t have enough time, especially with the code being so hard to touch. Plus, his identity had made everything complicated—the weapons and skills he’d amassed in his old life were behind layers of firewalls. And siding with Kaine was not an option. They’d just have to do their best to hold the monsters off long enough for Bryson to work some magic. Break them out.

  Hunchbacked, muscled beasts of shadow. Pounding the purple ground with their enormous paws, jaws snapping, the world full of noise. Kaine had given Michael one chance to show he could trust them. They’d failed his test, and the Tangent wanted them ended. Life sucked out, brains dead, bodies to follow soon after. Game over.

  Sarah let go of Michael’s hand and braced herself for a fight. Legs bent, body crouched, hands up, balled into fists. Michael thought her expression alone might murder a couple of the beasts. He tried his best to follow her example, but in his heart he knew there was no way they could win like this. He held up his fists anyway, sweat beading his fabricated skin.

  When the KillSims were ten feet away, a large black hole suddenly appeared in the surface before them, jolting Michael and Sarah to the ground. The KillSims were moving so fast they couldn’t stop. Michael lay there watching the creatures, one after another, fall into the abyss at their feet. Their static growls faded quickly as they vanished into the black chasm, and in a matter of seconds they were gone.

  Michael didn’t even have time to register what had happened. As soon as the creatures disappeared, the entire world around them started to fade, the code reappearing like a swarm of bees. Then, in a flash, there was nothing, and Michael found himself back in the Coffin.

  They were out. In the Wake. Safe. Bryson had done it.

  They’d won. The smallest of victories. A tiny hill compared to a towering range of snow-capped mountains, Michael knew, but a victory all the same.

  Watch out, Kaine, Michael thought.

  Unfortunately, Bryson wasn’t around to celebrate. Michael would’ve happily endured the inevitable gloat-fest.

  Michael and Sarah sat at the small kitchen table of the apartment they’d rented. They’d cleaned up and eaten a quick meal of instant lasagna. It tasted like crap, normally, but simple hunger made it a delicious feast.

  “What did he mean about having connections?” Sarah asked after wiping her mouth with a napkin. “And that you were put in the body of Jackson Porter for a reason?”

  Michael shrugged, his thoughts too wild, too all-over-the-place, to come up with an answer. The one thing that came to mind immediately was Gabriela. Her dad lived in Atlanta, which was where VNS headquarters was located. Michael had been through too much to believe that could possibly be a coincidence.

  “We have to find Bryson before anything else,” Sarah added. “We need to make sure he made it out. It couldn’t have been long before Kaine saw what was happening. He could have swooped in to end things himself.”

  Michael tried to laugh the suggestion off. “Come on. You know Bryson. He would’ve made sure to save his own hide just as soon as ours. He’s probably eating hot dogs and patting himself on the back right now.”

  “Yeah.” Her deadened voice showed she hadn’t been convinced. “We need to find him, talk to him. And as soon as we can. Kaine’s not going to let us just walk away from this.”

  Michael sighed. He had to agree. “Let’s go back into the Sleep, look for him again. Then decide where to meet in the Wake.”

  Sarah stood up. “No. No way. Kaine’s too smart. We have to leave. Now.”

  “Wait, what’re you saying?”

  She was already halfway to the door, but she turned back to face him and looked disappointed that he wasn’t on her heels. “Michael, listen. We can’t go back into the VirtNet. We just can’t. At least in the real world we have a fighting chance against Kaine. We can hide without him tracing us here. Now come on.”

  This time he obeyed.
>
  They went to a nearby park and found a bench that was off the main path, hidden in a copse of trees. Michael kept reassuring himself that things were different in the Wake—Kaine wasn’t a god in the Wake. The Tangent and his KillSims couldn’t just magically appear any time they wanted to.

  “All right,” Sarah said, patting her knees. “All right. We can do this. We just need to be super careful, stay on the run, keep changing our identities, whatever. And we can’t go back into the Sleep, no matter what.”

  “But Bryson,” Michael said, hearing a slight whine in his own voice. “Like you said, we have to find him. We can’t just hang him out to dry.”

  Sarah patted her knees again. “I know. Look, we can use our NetScreens every once in a while. Kaine can’t physically hurt us there; he can just use it to trace our location. Right? So we use it against him, logging on sporadically and in weird places. Hopefully Bryson will be just as smart. Let’s send him a message. Come up with some kind of code.”

  She smiled, a sweet attempt to make things seem a little less crappy. Michael was glad for it.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “It’s a plan. Stay smart and run. Sounds like a sweet life.”

  “Should we use my NetScreen or yours?”

  “Yours. I think Kaine might have a little better chance of finding me no matter how many times I make a new and improved version.” He thought of Jackson Porter then, and hated himself a little for being so glib.

  Sarah squeezed her EarCuff, and as soon as the screen projected out in front of her, Michael could almost hear a clock ticking. With every passing second, Kaine might be on to them, moving in, sending someone to kill them.

  “What do we want to say?” Sarah asked. “I’m drawing a blank.”

  Michael’s palms were sweaty. “I don’t know. I’ve never met Bryson in the Wake. He could live in China, for all we know.”

  Sarah scoffed. “Did Kaine fry your brain? We’ve talked about this before, all those times we were supposed to hook up somewhere. You were always the farthest away, so he should be close, even if he’s hiding out. We just need to be smart. Come on.”

  Michael sighed and pushed his brain to actually work. Dan the Man Deli popped in his head, as did his favorite food there—the bleu chips. Stupid, maybe, but that was the connection that stood out the most, one Bryson would know for sure.

  “Are there any restaurants in the Wake around here that serve bleu chips?” he asked Sarah. “That are, I don’t know, famous for it or anything?” His stomach growled when he imagined the heaping plate of baked potato chips smothered in bleu cheese and bacon.

  She looked at him sideways. “Are you really that hungry?” But then she nodded to show she’d caught on. “There is, actually. Stoneground. Not as tasty as the virtual ones at Dan the Man’s, but Stoneground always yaps about how theirs are the best in the world.”

  “Then that’s it,” Michael said. “How about this: Dan the Man’s. Wake. Mmmmm, dee-lish. My favorite. Especially for breakfast.”

  She agreed, sent it, then logged out. They walked away from the park as quickly as they could without looking suspicious. Just in case.

  It took three days for Bryson to show up. It felt like three years. Sarah had a picture of the real version of their friend that he’d sent her a long time ago, prominently displayed in her wallet as if he were a boyfriend; Michael was jealous, but he’d studied it a million times. They both needed to know what he looked like if—when—he did finally appear. Bryson wasn’t much different from his Aura. A little thinner, a little less … muscly.

  Every morning, Michael and Sarah went to Stoneground and sat on a bench across the street, taking turns keeping watch. The restaurant didn’t even open until eleven o’clock, but that was to their advantage. It made it less likely that someone who figured out the message would pinpoint the place, since they’d mentioned breakfast. He just kept hoping Bryson was as smart as he always claimed.

  The days were brutally long. Especially with no school, no job, and worst of all, no VirtNet. And the constant fear that a Kaine-controlled Tangent might show up at any time, ready to tie up loose ends. It made Michael’s nerves feel like piano wires, tightening every hour. He and Sarah talked. A lot. They also found an old bookstore and read actual paperbound books for the first time since they were little kids. They gave up on Bryson each day at noon—he’d come in the morning or not come at all—then trudged back to the apartment. Food tasted bland, no matter what it was, and time crawled along like a dying sloth.

  So when Bryson came shuffling down the street at nine-thirty-four on the morning of the third day, hands in his pockets, head down, glancing around every few steps, Michael jumped off the bench. He had to stop himself from shouting with joy and running at his friend like a crazy person.

  “What are—” Sarah started to say, but then she saw him. “Holy crap. He actually made it.”

  “Go to the bridge,” Michael whispered, though no one else was close by. They’d found a nearby park with a narrow river, the water rushing along just enough to mask their conversations if they stood on the bridge that crossed it. “I’ll get his attention and have him follow me there to meet you.”

  “Okay.” Sarah stood up and jogged away, disappearing around the corner.

  As Bryson approached the front door of Stoneground, Michael casually walked across the street at an angle, heading to a spot ahead of his friend. When Bryson saw him, he didn’t flinch or change his gait, just kept walking. Michael did the same, not looking back again. Who knows, he thought. Someone could be watching us. Better safe than sorry.

  Despite the circumstances, Michael was excited for their long-awaited reunion in the real world. He picked up his pace, heading directly for the park.

  Sarah was waiting just where they’d planned. She stood leaning over the railing of the wooden bridge, looking down at the water rushing by. The bridge had once been painted red, but all that remained now were flecks of old paint clinging to the dull-colored wood for dear life.

  Michael reached her and plopped his forearms on the railing next to hers.

  “It’s about time he showed up,” he whispered.

  “About time,” she echoed with a smile.

  “Quite the romantic spot you picked out here.”

  Michael turned to see Bryson for the first time, up close and personal, in the real world. He’d aged since the picture had been taken, thinned out even a little more. His blond hair was on the shaggy side, and he had at least three days’ worth of stubble on his face. But his blue eyes were bright, and it only took an instant for him to transform in Michael’s mind to the Bryson he’d always known.

  “Glad you figured out our amazingly brilliant clue,” Michael said.

  Bryson shrugged. “I won’t mention all the money I spent dogging it to the wrong spots before I finally found it. Oops. Guess I just did.”

  “I think it’s high time we had a group hug,” Sarah said.

  The three of them wrapped arms around shoulders and squeezed. They pulled apart and just stared at each other, an awkward moment that Michael knew wouldn’t last long. Though they all looked a little different—a lot, in his case—they were the same smart-aleck, know-it-all, best-hackers-in-the-Sleep, teenage troublemakers they’d always been.

  Bryson broke the silence. “So what’ve you guys been doing since … our little journey through the magical worlds of the mighty VirtNet? Wasn’t Kaine so nice to sponsor that?”

  “Lying low,” Sarah answered. “Sick about my parents. Waiting on you.”

  “We didn’t want to do anything until we were all together again,” Michael added. “And Sarah’s pretty insistent we don’t Sink. You know how she is once she makes up her mind.…”

  “I don’t blame her,” Bryson said. “I thought we were good, guys. Until we met this Kaine snake.”

  Sarah folded her arms and leaned back against the railing. “So what’ve you been doing?”

  “Me?” Bryson replied. “I’ve been hiding m
y family, sending them all over the place. I told them everything, and I don’t care who finds out. It was the only way I could talk them into getting away.”

  Sarah shifted her gaze and stood up straighter.

  “Sorry,” Bryson murmured. “Dumb thing to say when your …” He didn’t need to finish.

  “It’s okay,” Sarah said, breathing in sharply and visibly shaking herself a bit. “All the more reason to get working. Kaine made it sound like they’re still alive. We’ll find them.”

  “Amen,” Bryson whispered.

  Michael thought of their narrow escape from the KillSims. “How did you do it, anyway?” he asked Bryson.

  “Do what?”

  Sarah sucked in a gasp. “Whoa! Write this down, Michael! Bryson’s being humble! There’s a first for everything.”

  Michael smiled, but Bryson looked genuinely confused.

  “What’re you guys talking about?” he asked.

  “Oh, come on,” Michael said. “You want us to get on our knees and bow down, praise you for saving us?”

  “Saving you? You mean from Kaine? Our picnic with the KillSims in the Land of Purple?” Then he laughed, and not the contagious kind that made you feel good. For some reason it creeped Michael out.

  Now it was Bryson’s turn to see the look of confusion on his friends’ faces.

  “What? You’re serious?” he asked.

  Michael rubbed his temples and closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again. “Why do I feel like I just got sucked into another dimension? What’s going on?”

  Sarah took charge. “Bryson, we saw you messing with the program. We know you pulled us out of there somehow. I don’t know how—I could barely even see the code—but whatever you did—”

  Bryson cut her off. “Guys. Guys. It wasn’t me. Yeah, I was trying like a madman, but I didn’t crack anything. I just assumed you heard the same thing I did.”

  “Heard?” Michael repeated. “Heard what?”