Michael sat at the table, gaze fixed on the window, thinking.

“Pretty sure,” he answered. “Especially the voice. You gotta remember, the first time I met her was in Lifeblood Deep, but then she came to my apartment—Jackson Porter’s apartment—right after I woke up there, and she looked basically the same. I guess it makes sense that she designed her Aura to look the same as in the Wake since she didn’t want me to know I was a Tangent.”

“Okay. I guess. So what does it mean that she found us here? That’s the big question.”

Michael shook his head in frustration. Someone’s appearing at their secret location raised way too many concerns. “I have no idea. What’s weirder is why she’d be all secretive and spy on us. Why would she have come to me at that apartment, then?”

“She’s probably trying to hide from Kaine, too.”

“Well, we needed to find her eventually anyway. Once we’re with Bryson again, we have to make sure the VNS knows what Kaine did to me. I keep thinking about that crazy lady on the train. What if … what if Kaine hasn’t just put other Tangents into humans, but is also controlling them somehow?”

Sarah’s face paled a bit. “Or maybe he’s just programming the Tangents to do what he wants before he … does the Mortality Doctrine thing to them.”

Michael’s mind went back to the train incident and the warning he’d been given. Three days. Three days had already passed and they’d still eluded captured. The next time Kaine found them … Well, Michael didn’t want to think about it.

“What are you pondering over there?” Sarah asked.

Michael sighed, trying to breathe out all the turmoil boiling in his chest. “I’m just thinking about your parents again. They could be anywhere—how will we find them? Not to mention mine. At some point I need to go back into Lifeblood Deep and look for them and Helga—even though Kaine claims they’re dead, deprogrammed, whatever. And … I’m just second-guessing bringing Bryson into this. Second-guessing everything.”

Sarah stood up and came over to him. “Bryson’s in it whether he wants to be or not. We need to find him before Kaine does. As for our parents … look, we know Kaine’s behind it all. Going forward is the best thing we can do for them.” The pain in her eyes showed she was trying to talk herself into believing that, too.

Michael looked up at her. “Then let’s get Bryson.”

Sarah nodded. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

Sarah sat down across from Michael at the table and they both closed their eyes as if they were initiating some ancient ritual. And then they dove into the code.

There were hundreds of ways they could’ve conducted their search for Bryson, and it felt like they had considered them all in the day or two before Sinking. They’d discussed everything from posting a message on the Boards to wandering the mall, hoping they might bump into him. Seeking him out in the Wake, like Michael had done with Sarah, had even been tossed in as a possibility. But based on everything they knew and the dangers they’d encountered so far—and knowing that Kaine could be watching every nook and cranny of the VirtNet—they decided to go about it a different way: by doing what they did best.

Hacking.

No matter how bad things got, there was one thing in the universe as certain as the sun rising in the east and people kicking the bucket when they got old: Bryson would keep gaming. He loved it, lived for it. And since Michael and Sarah knew all of his favorite games, they knew where to look. And how to do it without anyone ever knowing. They’d never had much reason to truly cheat at a game before—it kind of defeated the purpose. Winning by cheating was as fun as not playing at all.

But now things were different, and luckily they knew the programming of Bryson’s favorite games as well as he did. Because they all had the same favorites.

Lifeblood was the obvious first choice, though just the thought of it made Michael’s heart hurt. Too many memories.

“I miss this place,” Sarah said when they started. “I haven’t played since the Path.”

Michael didn’t respond; he was officially in the dumps.

Running in the program’s background, the two of them jumped from location to location within Lifeblood, seeing it all in code, searching for the imprint of Bryson. They were breaking about fifty-three strict rules and regulations, not to mention VirtNet etiquette, but it was a good test of whether their new identities would protect them. As Michael scanned the most likely places their friend would be, he thought that so far, so good. Except for that minor—major—bump of Agent Weber finding them. But they’d know if and when Kaine did the same.

San Francisco. Paris. Shanghai. Tokyo. New Africa. The Antarctic Waste. Old Vegas. Duluth. All the hot spots. No sign at all. Not even a trace of Bryson having visited the regular places recently.

Sarah squeezed Michael’s hand, all the signal he needed, and soon they were sitting in the tree house again, swirling code forming back into trees and sky.

“If he’s not in Lifeblood, you know what that means,” Michael said.

“Yep.”

“He’s hiding. He knows something’s up.”

“Exactly,” Sarah agreed. “But there’s no way he’s staying out of the Sleep. We just need to look in his … shadier locations.”

Michael almost laughed, remembering a slew of escapades. The kicker was an image of Bryson, naked as the day he was born, being chased by seven mermaids that were so angry they had sprouted legs. He’d never admitted exactly what he’d done.

“So where to, then?” Michael asked, glad to see Sarah had a hint of a smile on her face. He didn’t have a rational reason to think it, but her parents’ getting kidnapped didn’t seem as bad as his finding out that technically he’d never had any to begin with.

“How about The Lair of the Spider Queen?” she suggested.

Michael rolled his eyes. The Spider Queen had always been a target for Bryson. And he had yet to get so much as a kiss, though not for lack of trying.

“As good a place as any,” Michael said.

They closed their eyes and dove back in.

It took three hours, but they found him, in the eleventh place they looked—a game called Curious Ways to Die, one of those games where you could lose your life in ridiculous situations and have a good laugh at the same time. It was a sick world.




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