Agent Scott took a few steps toward Gabby, until he stood directly behind her. He reached down and ran a hand over the girl’s hair. Michael shivered.
“There is much you don’t understand,” the agent said. “And there are a lot of people out there who’d like to see you locked up or dead. The rules of the world are changing, Michael. I think you know that.”
Scott’s eyes flicked up then, over Michael’s shoulders. He seemed to signal someone. Michael looked back, but they were alone.
“Now we can truly get down to business,” Scott continued. “We can let it all out. You have an opportunity here. All of you. The line is being drawn. And trust me when I tell you that you’ll want to be on the side of the VNS.”
Michael slowly shook his head. “This is sad. I wouldn’t be surprised if you claimed a Tangent took over Weber’s body next. Maybe even Kaine himself.”
Scott looked at him quizzically, as if what he’d said genuinely surprised him. “Is that what you think’s happened? Do you think Agent Weber has been taken over by a Tangent, Michael?”
Michael turned to Sarah, then Bryson, and glanced over at Walter and Helga by the door to the hallway. All of them gave their own version of a shrug. He faced Scott again.
“We’re done here,” he said. “We’re not going to let the world be possessed by a bunch of coded programs. And Gabby’s coming with me. Either arrest us or don’t, but we’re finished with this conversation.”
“Wait!” Scott barked when Michael took a step toward Gabby. His voice was so loud and sharp that Michael froze.
“Please,” he said. “Just…hear me out. Or…she’ll be very upset. Please.” All of the man’s confidence had suddenly disappeared. Michael stared at him, waited to hear what he had to say.
“Kaine is trying to turn you against the VNS,” he said. “He’s off message. I mean…he was never supposed to do any of this, and he’s destroying everything!” He shouted this last part, losing his composure completely. “He wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Agent Scott was whispering now, staring off into the distance. “Kaine failed us.”
The room was quiet.
6
“What’s wrong with you?” Sarah finally asked, stepping up to stand next to Michael. “Stop talking in riddles and just tell us what’s going on.”
Scott’s eyes snapped back into focus, and he turned to look straight at Sarah. “This is between me and Michael!”
Michael took a half step backward, completely stunned. Even though it was entirely possible that this man had been taken over by the Mortality Doctrine, it shocked him to see the agent act out with such a childish temper.
“That’s enough,” Helga said. She raised her gun and aimed it at Agent Scott. Walter followed Helga’s lead. “We’re taking the girl and we’re leaving.”
“No, you’re not,” Scott replied. “You have three seconds to put those weapons down or you will all die. Right here, right now. All except Michael. Weber needs him.”
“What does that mean?” Michael asked. The situation was rapidly deteriorating, along with Michael’s patience. “Why would she need me? Why does she keep coming back to me? I don’t get it! She set us up!”
“One,” Scott said. He nodded toward Helga. “Two.”
“Put the guns down!” Michael shouted.
“Enough is enough!” his nanny responded.
“Just…just put them down for a sec.” She did as he asked but didn’t look happy about it. Michael returned his full attention to the agent. “Just let us leave. If you really think Kaine is…some villain, then that’s great. We’re on the same side.” His effort to soothe things seemed a complete waste. Scott’s eyes shone with something like madness.
“We thought we could turn things around,” the agent said, looking everywhere and nowhere at once. “But it was too late. It doesn’t matter what Kaine did or does anymore. We have to stay focused and see this through.”
“Fine!” Michael yelled. “Do what you need to, but let us go!”
“Don’t listen to him,” Scott responded, as if he hadn’t heard Michael. “Don’t listen to a word Kaine says. He’s not…he’s not…”
“This is bullcrap,” Sarah said. She marched toward Agent Scott where he stood behind Gabby, shoving past Michael on the way. She reached Gabby and pushed Scott right in the chest, causing him to stumble several steps backward. Then Sarah started working at the ropes that tied Gabby to the rickety wooden chair.
“Stop!” Scott yelled at her. Michael stared, not sure what to do.
“You really shouldn’t mess with him,” Gabby whispered to Sarah as she worked loose some of the tighter knots. One end of a rope fell to the floor with a thump. “He’s unstable. And all those people down below are dangerous.”
Michael recovered his wits and went to help Sarah. He dropped to his knees and began working on a knot around Gabby’s ankles.
“You can’t do this,” Scott said from a few feet away. “I told you to stop. Michael, stop. You’re the First, and Weber needs your help to see the plan through. I’m not a Tangent and neither is she! We’re the same as we’ve always been. We can end this. But you have to…you have to obey her!”
Michael ignored him, refusing to process another word he said. He finally got the stubborn knot loose enough to yank the rope away from Gabby’s legs. And then the world erupted around him.
A jolting concussion of noise shook the room like an explosion. Michael’s ears rang and he fell backward. He gazed up at the wooden beams stretching across the ceiling, then looked over at Agent Scott, who held a gun in his hand. There’d been a scream at some point, Michael knew that, but who was it? He searched the room until he found Sarah. She’d taken several steps away from the chair, where Gabby was now freed from her ropes.
Sarah’s hands were over her chest.
Her shirt was red.
Getting redder.
Blood seeped between her fingers, ran over them, dripped to the floor. A stain of scarlet spread across her shirt. But she was silent, as if it didn’t hurt at all, staring down at herself in disbelief.
She finally looked back up at Michael, who lay on the floor in shock, and sadness crossed her face as she fell to her knees.
“Sarah!” Michael shouted. He was scrambling, trying to get his arms and legs to work, trying to get to her. She was on her side. “Sarah, Sarah, Sarah,” he mumbled as he held her gently by the shoulders, scanned her bloody chest as if there were any chance he might know how to save her. “Sarah,” he said again.
She looked up at him. “I love you,” she whispered. “Every word. I meant it.”
Michael started to tremble.
And then Helga was there. She swooped down as if from the sky and tore him away from Sarah, picking him up as if he were no heavier than a bag of groceries.
“Take him!” she yelled. “Walter, take him and get him out of here!”
“What?” Michael said, dazed. “What’re you—”
“Get him out of here or it’ll never work!” Helga bellowed. “I only have one shot at this. Bryson, you too. All of you. Out!”
Walter ran over, grabbed Michael by the arm, started pulling him away. Michael tried to fight him off, but the man was too strong. Michael felt a darkness passing over him, blocking out the light. He saw shadows on the edges of his vision. A painful fist closed over his heart and squeezed without mercy. Bryson was nearby, looking around, dumbfounded, the blood drained from his face.
“Sarah!” Michael yelled, unable to do anything else. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be. “Weber!” he screamed, throwing all his fury into the name. “Weber!”
But she wasn’t there—just Agent Scott. The man stood in the same place as before, the gun still in his hand but now at his side. His face had gone white, but his eyes were cold. He turned them toward Michael.
“You should have listened to Agent Weber,” he said. “You should have listened! May this girl’s death teach you a lesson!”
“I’ll kill you, you…”
Walter dragged him out of the room and into the hall, Bryson following, stunned into silence. Gabby was there, too.
“Give her a chance, boy,” Walter whispered to him. “She knows things you don’t.”
Michael didn’t care that Scott had pulled the trigger. Agent Weber had just killed his best friend.
The last thing he saw was Helga, hunched over Sarah’s lifeless body.
CHAPTER 9
UP IN THE NIGHT
1
How could the world continue to turn? It was the question Michael couldn’t stop asking himself over the next few hours. Their car sped along the freeway, the other two following just as before. It was silent except for the hum of the engine and the bumps of the road under them. Gabby sat in the middle up front, between Amy and Walter, who was driving as if he were on a family vacation instead of fleeing the scene of a murder. Michael had insisted Gabby sit up there, refusing to allow her to take Sarah’s place in the back. It was wrong. Everything in the world was wrong.
Michael’s heart ached more than he could bear. He sat with his head against the seat behind him, eyes closed so that no one would talk to him. The countless questions he had would have to be worked through later. They demanded answers and filled him with hate and anger. Had Gabby been forced to trick them, or was she a part of the scheme? And why had Helga acted so strange?
He pushed the questions away for now.
Sarah had told him she loved him. Him, a Tangent.
She was his best friend.
And he’d seen her die twice now. Well, much more often than that while gaming, but that day on the Path, in the caves, with the lava, had felt so real.
This was real.
Sarah was dead.
Dead.
Shot and killed by a man who was supposed to work for the good guys. A group the world was supposed to trust. Though, really, it was Weber who’d caused all this. The woman who’d made him drag Sarah into the chaos of Kaine and his Mortality Doctrine in the first place.
Sarah was dead.
Eyes closed or open, all he saw was her. Hands bloody, clasped against her chest. The look on her face. Shock. Betrayal. A childlike sadness. What he’d seen in her eyes, more than anything else, was this: Michael, I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die.
Twice she’d said she loved him. Had the first time really been only that morning? He knew she’d meant it. It was the love of pure friendship, something that one day might’ve blossomed into something greater, eternal, powerful. He loved her back. He loved her so much.
Michael shook silently as tears squeezed their way past his closed eyelids and trickled down his face.
2
And so it went for hours. Michael was in shock—too numb to be angry and hurting too much to speak. He had no idea what was next.
So he just followed, blindly, for hours.
They drove.
Arrived at an airport. They were ushered through a private entrance.
Went to a small hangar, to a plane.
There was another man, another woman. As faceless to him as the rest. He followed his friends up a set of stairs into the plane. Sat down. Buckled in.
The plane exited the hangar and at some point took off. Michael leaned against a window, his cheeks still wet, his eyes burning. He watched as the ground slipped away below, endless trees and hills and buildings and streets shrinking. And soon after, darkness swallowed the world.
They flew for several hours, in a roundabout route, to get to Washington, D.C. Helga explained that it was time to regroup and that they were taking the opportunity to hide, in the air. She tried to talk to Michael several times, but he pretended to be asleep.
At some point, in a welcome escape from the pain, Michael actually did fall asleep, fleeing into an even deeper darkness, where no dreams waited.
3
It was Helga who woke him up. She was sitting next to him when he opened his eyes. It took a moment, but the pain came crashing back in.
They’d landed, and Michael looked around, saw that they were the only ones still on the plane.
“Michael,” Helga said, her voice soft and gentle. “I haven’t wanted to disturb you, but—”
Michael stood up and moved past Helga. He still wasn’t ready to talk. He walked down the aisle, toward the door. It was open, and he descended the stairs.
“There’s always hope,” Helga shouted to him. “Remember that, Michael. There’s always hope.”
He ignored her, walking blindly into the mist enveloping the tarmac.
4
Helga let him go, which really surprised him. As stubborn as he was, she’d always been a lot more stubborn.
Their private plane had landed at a tiny airport, just a series of covered pads, one long landing strip, and a little building that served as a terminal. Although he couldn’t see much through the thick mist, he finally found an open fence and a road leading away.
He took it.
5
Michael walked for an hour, his mind a factory of thought. The mist crept through his clothes, soaking them, chilling his skin. He couldn’t stop shivering, and spent the walk rubbing his arms for warmth. Items on either side of the road suddenly appeared out of the gray fog, looming over him, only to vanish quickly as he passed by. Hulking trees, random parked cars, mailboxes, and a gloomy pedestrian here and there.
Michael kept walking. Kept hurting. Kept thinking.
Countless questions, zero answers.
Why? That was the question that dominated them all. Why?
Gabby, forced to help the VNS bring them to her. Weber herself, a complete mystery. Did she and Agent Scott really represent the entire VNS? Was the whole organization corrupt?
And Sarah.
He saw her blood everywhere he looked. In the mist, in his mind, on the wet surface of the road. Everything around him looked red. It hurt so much.
Then he stopped. That’s it, he told himself. The more he thought about it, the more it hurt. The solution was simple: no more thinking about it. He had to stop or he’d just keep sinking deeper and deeper into something he might never claw himself out of.
Lights appeared in the mist up ahead, growing brighter every second. There was some small part of him, still logical, that told him he needed to be careful. He had enemies. How many times had that been proven? He slowed but headed toward the lights, taking extra care.
The first thing that revealed itself was a simple convenience store, with glass doors and windows, a bright interior stocked with shelves of bread, snacks, other goods. It was small, but quite a few people were inside, walking its aisles. Michael, hoping that his encrypted currency credits were still safe, decided to go inside and look around. Buy something sweet. Lots of things. Maybe gorge himself. He deserved a break, and he assumed Helga would pick him up at any second.
An electronic bell chimed when he walked through the door.
A few people—a man, two women, a couple of kids—looked over at him as he entered, then went back to their browsing. He watched the man pick up a tall carton of bean chips, study its ingredients as if somehow, magically, he’d discover that they were good for his already bulging waistline, then tuck it under his arm as he moved along. Michael glanced at the cashier, a teenager who looked as if he’d rather eat rocks than ring up the line of customers waiting for him.
Michael turned toward the wall of cold drinks and stopped. A boy, maybe ten years old, was standing in his path, staring straight at him with that same unsettling blank gaze he’d seen on the people in the car at the chicken restaurant.
Abruptly, the boy spun on his heels and walked in the other direction, disappearing around the bread shelf. Michael took a deep breath, wondering if he should get out of there.
No.
He was sick of running. He was the First, after all. Right? If there were Tangents in the store, they could just look on and admire from afar. He wanted a snack and something to drink, and tha
t was that. He walked to the first panel of drinks, the many flavors and combinations flashing across the glass in silly animations. Michael moved to the second panel, then the third. There he saw some weird combo of grape and pomegranate with a shot of caffeine and chose it. A whoosh and a puff of mist later and his drink—ice-cold in a tube of ReSike—appeared in the dispenser.
As he picked it up, he glanced to his left. A man stood there, his hand frozen halfway to the shelf in front of him to pick up a candy bar. He was clearly watching Michael out of the corner of his eye, but he went about his business as soon as he realized he’d been spotted. Michael quickly looked in the other direction, sure a woman had been staring at him before jerking her head away. Then the boy appeared again, gave Michael a long, lingering look, and walked on.
Michael shook it off. He headed straight for the spot where the man had gotten his candy bar and grabbed the exact same brand, giving the stranger a wink and a smile as he did so.
“I feel like someone’s knocking around in my head,” he said to the man, who gave him a worried look. “Sometimes I’m just not myself. Candy helps. You?”
The man turned and hurriedly walked away.
Michael wondered if maybe he’d finally snapped from the stress.
He grabbed another candy bar, a bag of bleu chips, and some beef jerky, then headed for the cashier. His thoughts were a cyclone—it felt like he could no longer tell the difference between a casual glance and a glare. Who was watching him? Who wasn’t? Who might just be wondering how one person could need all that junk food?
Sweat trickled down his forehead. He felt like every single person in the store was staring at him now. He looked down at his feet as he waited in line, suddenly afraid to meet anyone’s eyes. He should never have come into this store. The world was too dangerous, and his face had been plastered all over the NewsBops. He had no way of knowing who was on his side and who was against him, who’d been taken over and who hadn’t. Surely the folks in this tiny convenience store on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., had escaped the Mortality Doctrine. Right?