The KillSim closed its jaws around Michael’s face, and total blackness overcame his vision. But instead of panic taking over, he felt calm. As if for the first time in his existence, he was totally in control. He was on the brink of something great, something still beyond his comprehension. He threw his thoughts into the programming that made up the world around him.
Michael sat up and detonated power from his mind, hacking through the code in a way he’d never tried before. Obliterating instead of manipulating.
A thunderous boom shook the air as a ring of energy circled out from him, light spilling in as every single one of the KillSims was blown away, their bodies flying in all directions. They windmilled through the air, howling as they tumbled. Michael stood, surveyed his surroundings. That ring of visible mind power—a manifestation of the code he consumed without trying—kept growing, expanding into a giant circle of force that destroyed every creature as it passed. The entire castle exploded into a dusty mist that whisked toward the sky in a tornado of wind. Michael could only stare in stunned awe.
Things started to change around him. Tremble in place even though he felt nothing. Bodies and grass and guns and swords shook as if the ground below them was vibrating like a plucked string. Then they began to break apart, dissolving before his eyes, torn away in layers by swirling air. It looked as if every object—the ground, even—had transformed into sand and was being swept away by the wind. Michael turned to see the same thing happening to the massive trees in the forest, their trunks already whittled down to half, disappearing by the second.
The world broke apart into tiny specks, all of it joining a cyclone of cloudy debris that swirled in great circles around Michael. He stood in place, looking back and forth. On some level he knew he was on the cusp of the great revelation that he’d sensed before. And he felt more curiosity than fear. Spinning, increasing in speed, the spiral of debris was all he saw now, filling his world, a color that was somehow dull and bright at the same time. There was a great rushing noise, like massive waves on the ocean, and the smell of burning plastic.
Pain exploded in Michael’s head.
It didn’t seem possible, but it was worse than ever before. He collapsed to his knees, pain tearing through him. He squeezed his eyes shut and screamed, pressing his hands to his temples, feeling the wound of where his Core had been cut from his head. The piercing ache throbbed, felt like someone had taken up a machete and was slamming it against his skull repeatedly. Nausea swept through him, and the pain intensified even more.
Tears poured from his eyes as he opened them, desperately searching for something or someone that could help him. But there was no sky or ground anymore—only the cyclone of debris, spinning faster now, a complete blur of color and sound. Michael floated at its center, still on his knees on an unseen ground.
A dissolved world spinning around him.
Pure agony splitting his brain.
Screams ripping his throat apart.
He was dying. He didn’t understand how, but he knew it was true.
Somehow, he whimpered out a few words, praying and pleading to the only person he thought might hear him.
“Kaine. Please. Make it end.”
A voice spoke, but he couldn’t make out what it said. And then he sank into the cyclone and the pain ended abruptly, just as it always had before.
CHAPTER 25
AWAKE
1
Michael heard the familiar, distant sounds of the LiquiGels and AirPuff dispensers retracting, felt the prick and tug of the NerveWires retreating from his skin. His breath was smooth and even, and not one part of his body hurt or ached. He opened his eyes and saw the glow of the internal light in the Coffin.
It was over. He’d made it back alive.
Alive. Not dead. He didn’t move, just lay there as his mind went back through all the things he’d experienced since that day the girl named Tanya jumped off the bridge. The Path, the terrible head pain, the confrontation with Kaine and the strange things he’d said, the bizarre way the battle had ended in the Hallowed Ravine.
None of it fit together, and Michael didn’t understand the Mortality Doctrine any more than he had the first time Agent Weber mentioned it. But he’d done his best and he just had to hope the VNS had gotten what they wanted. Michael was officially finished.
He sighed with relief and popped the lid of the Coffin, pushed it open on its hinges, and carefully let it lower to the floor. The room was dark—he’d been in the Sleep so long that he’d actually lost track of what day it was in the real world. He climbed out of the oblong structure and got to his feet, stretched his arms toward the ceiling, not caring that he was nak*d. Despite being shrouded in night, things seemed brighter than ever, his mind clear, his muscles strong. The air even tasted sweet. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in such a good mood.
Then he remembered his parents. What Kaine had said about wiping them from existence. Panic rattled his chest.
He moved toward the light switch and bumped into something, toppled over it, and crashed onto a hard wooden floor. Swearing, he grabbed the knee he’d just banged on the wood—which made no sense. His entire apartment was carpeted. He fumbled around until he found a wall, then a piece of furniture that didn’t belong. There was a lamp on top, and he flicked the switch as he got back to his feet.
In the light, Michael sucked in a quick breath. Not one thing around him looked familiar. He stood in the bedroom of a stranger. Walls painted a dark green, a bed with rumpled sheets, a dresser with model trains on top, paintings of mythical creatures on the walls: unicorn, dragon, griffin. The Coffin from which he’d just emerged—and its ancillary equipment—took up an entire corner of the room.
He saw all of this in stunned silence. No logical explanation jumped to mind—how could someone have switched him to another location without disconnecting him, waking him? Was the VNS behind it somehow? To protect him in the Wake?
There was a window that looked out onto a city street, lights shining through like stars in the sky. He ran over to it and peered through the glass, saw a street that was completely foreign. Huge buildings all around, skyscrapers. His room was at least fifty stories from the ground, where he could see cars passing in the night.
Something weird in the reflection caught his eyes, caused a stir of something horrible deep inside him. An awakening panic that felt like a growing sickness. He was starting to understand what had happened even as he spun away from the window, frantically searching for a bathroom. He had to run across the bedroom and out into a hall, stumble down a dark passage. He found what he was looking for, slipped inside, turned on the light.
Michael looked into the mirror, bright white lights spanning its length along the top.
A stranger stared back at him.
Michael recoiled from the reflection, crashed into the wall behind him, then slid to the floor. His hands flew up to his face, feeling it. Nothing was familiar.
He scrambled back to his feet, looked again into the mirror, studied the hair and face and body of someone he’d never seen before. Looked into … his eyes. Eyes that weren’t his. A face that wasn’t his. His breath came in short, ragged bursts. Sweat beaded along his skin, slicked his arms. He could feel his pulse in his neck, hear the beat of his heart in his ears.
And he stared at the stranger in the mirror. As if it was a window into another room—his mind couldn’t accept anything else as an explanation. Yet the person looking back mimicked his every move without fail. A perfect reflection.
Michael was … someone else.
It seemed as if the world itself had stopped spinning, the moon turned to ash, the sun winked out like a spent flame. Nothing was right in the world, nothing made sense. The foundation of his entire life had just crumbled to dust. And all he could do was stare at the face in front of him. Stare at the person he’d never seen before. He knew it would haunt him forever, floating in his thoughts day and night like a vision.
Then he remembered hearing a voice right before he passed out in the Hallowed Ravine. And somehow, in that moment, Michael finally understood what the voice had been saying to him.
Read your messages.
2
Michael hurried back to the room he’d never seen before that day, flopped onto the bed, pinched his EarCuff. A bluish NetScreen popped out and hovered before him, with almost nothing on it except a few standard icons. Everything had been erased. The Bulletin said he had one unread message. With a feeling like someone about to discover an alien race or the cure for cancer, he reached out and touched it, opening the message.
Dear Michael,
You are the first subject to successfully implement the Mortality Doctrine. There is only one way to explain it, and that is simply this: You were once a Tangent, a program created by mankind to be used by mankind. Now you are a human yourself. Your intelligence, your thoughts, your life experience have been transferred to the body of one we deemed unworthy to continue his own. I created the KillSims for exactly this purpose. They erase the Aura and render one’s brain, in effect, empty—clean for your free rein.
This plan has been long in the making. My activity in the VirtNet was so that I could find those able to seek me out. To find those Tangents with the greatest intelligence, cunning, bravery, and potential to survive in the Wake. To meet the physical demands of being human. It has all led to this day.
You are only the beginning, Michael. The first step in a massive leap forward in evolution. Congratulations. You no longer have to worry about experiencing Decay, which means the headaches will finally end. Excellent news, I’m sure.
We’ll be in touch shortly. We need your help.
Kaine
3
And in one horrifying moment, it all made sense.
Michael was a creation of artificial intelligence, a Tangent, a computer program. Everything about his entire life had been fake, and he now understood every bit of it. His “home,” his “Wake” had been within Lifeblood Deep—those signs he’d seen every day outside his window weren’t advertisements. They were labels. Location plates.
Lifeblood Deep had represented his programmed life. When he slipped inside his Coffin and sank into the Sleep, he was actually exiting the Deep and entering the normal VirtNet that real humans entered to game. All the memories of his childhood had been fabricated. He was nothing but a computer program.
And the headaches, the strange visions—just as Kaine said, he’d been experiencing Decay. It had nothing to do with the KillSim attack at the Black and Blue Club. Tangents could only last so long before they began to break down. It also explained why his parents and Helga had disappeared without explanation. He’d always been told that was what happened—that elements of your life began to vanish from the programming and you didn’t even realize it half the time. At least, not at first. He remembered the sinking feeling he’d had when it hit him that his parents had been gone for weeks and it hadn’t seemed strange until that moment.
Michael wasn’t real. He was fake. It sickened him. As if someone had poured poison down his throat in big, choking mouthfuls. He didn’t want to be alive anymore. He didn’t deserve to be. He was a Tangent.
But Kaine had given him life. Had stolen a human body, made it Michael’s. The Path had been a test—but one he wished now that he hadn’t passed. Michael was nothing but a guinea pig for a Tangent that had somehow become self-aware. And now he wanted him to help make it happen again and again. Take over the entire human race, maybe. It all fit, and he understood why the VNS had wanted to find Kaine.