Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1: The Coffin
Chapter 2: The Proposition
Chapter 3: A Dark Place
Chapter 4: No Choice in the Matter
Chapter 5: The Old Man
Chapter 6: Through the Floor
Chapter 7: Black and Blue
Chapter 8: A Very Short Man
Chapter 9: None Shall Pass
Chapter 10: Three Devils
Chapter 11: In the Trenches
Chapter 12: A Dire Warning
Chapter 13: The Floating Disk
Chapter 14: Spooked
Chapter 15: A Door in the Distance
Chapter 16: An Isolated Man
Chapter 17: Night on the Couch
Chapter 18: The Feet of Ancestors
Chapter 19: Heat
Chapter 20: A Body of Silver
Chapter 21: Two Doors
Chapter 22: In Through the Outhouse
Chapter 23: Meeting of the Minds
Chapter 24: Worthy
Chapter 25: Awake
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
THE EYE OF MINDS
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 17419 5
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2013
Copyright © James Dashner, 2013
Cover design copyright © Kekai Kotaki, 2013
First Published in Great Britain by Doubleday, 2013
The right of James Dashner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
RANDOM HOUSE CHILDREN’S PUBLISHERS UK
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THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This book is dedicated
to Michael Bourret and Krista Marino,
for making my career,
and for being good friends.
Michael spoke against the wind, to a girl named Tanya.
“I know it’s water down there, but it might as well be concrete. You’ll be flat as a pancake the second you hit.”
Not the most comforting choice of words when talking to someone who wanted to end her life, but it was certainly the truth. Tanya had just climbed over the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge, cars zooming by on the road, and was leaning back toward the open air, her twitchy hands holding on to a pole wet with mist. Even if somehow Michael could talk her out of jumping, those slippery fingers might get the job done anyway. And then it’d be lights-out. He pictured some poor sap of a fisherman thinking he’d finally caught the big one, only to reel in a nasty surprise.
“Stop joking,” the trembling girl responded. “It’s not a game—not anymore.”
Michael was inside the VirtNet—the Sleep, to people who went in as often as he did. He was used to seeing scared people there. A lot of them. Yet underneath the fear was usually the knowing. Knowing deep down that no matter what was happening in the Sleep, it wasn’t real.
Not with Tanya. Tanya was different. At least, her Aura, her computer-simulated counterpart, was. Her Aura had this bat-crazy look of pure terror on her face, and it suddenly gave Michael chills—made him feel like he was the one hovering over that long drop to death. And Michael wasn’t a big fan of death, fake or not.
“It is a game, and you know it,” he said louder than he’d wanted to—he didn’t want to startle her. But a cold wind had sprung up, and it seemed to grab his words and whisk them down to the bay. “Get back over here and let’s talk. We’ll both get our Experience Points, and we can go explore the city, get to know each other. Find some crazies to spy on. Maybe even hack some free food from the shops. It’ll be good times. And when we’re done, we’ll find you a Portal, and you can Lift back home. Take a break from the game for a while.”
“This has nothing to do with Lifeblood!” Tanya screamed at him. The wind pulled at her clothes, and her dark hair fanned out behind her like laundry on a line. “Just go away and leave me alone. I don’t want your pretty-boy face to be the last thing I see.”
Michael thought of Lifeblood Deep, the next level, the goal of all goals. Where everything was a thousand times more real, more advanced, more intense. He was three years away from earning his way inside. Maybe two. But right then he needed to talk this dopey girl out of jumping to her date with the fishes or he’d be sent back to the Suburbs for a week, making Lifeblood Deep that much further away.
“Okay, look . . .” He was trying to choose his words carefully, but he’d already made a pretty big mistake and knew it. Going out of character and using the game itself as a reason for her to stop what she was doing meant he’d be docked points big-time. And it was all about the points. But this girl was legitimately starting to scare him. It was that face—pale and sunken, as if she’d already died.
“Just go away!” she yelled. “You don’t get it. I’m trapped here. Portals or no Portals. I’m trapped! He won’t let me Lift!”
Michael wanted to scream right back at her—she was talking nonsense. A dark part of him wanted to say forget it, tell her she was a loser, let her nosedive. She was being so stubborn—it wasn’t like any of it was really happening. It’s just a game. He had to remind himself of that all the time.
But he couldn’t mess this up. He needed the points. “All right. Listen.” He took a step back, held his hands up like he was trying to calm a scared animal. “We just met—give it some time. I promise I won’t do anything nutty. You wanna jump, I’ll let you jump. But at least talk to me. Tell me why.”
Tears lined her cheeks; her eyes had gone red and puffy. “Just go away. Please.” Her voice had taken on the softness of defeat. “I’m not messing around here. I’m done with this—all of this!”
“Done? Okay, that’s fine to be done. But you don’t have to screw it up for me, too, right?” Michael figured maybe it was okay to talk about the game after all, since she was using it as her reason to end it—to check out of the Virtual-Flesh-and-Bones Hotel and never come back. “Seriously. Walk back to the Portal with me, Lift yourself, do it the right way. You’re done with the game, you’re safe, I get my points. Ain’t that the happiest ending you ever heard of?”
“I hate you,” she spat. Literally. A spray of misty saliva. “I don’t even know you and I hate you. This has nothing to do with Lifeblood!”
“Then tell me what it does have to do with.” He said it kindly, trying to keep his composure. “You’ve got all day to jump. Just give me a few minutes. Talk to me, Tanya.”
She buried her head in the crook of her right arm. “I just can’t do it anymore.” She whimpered and her shoulders shook, making Michael worry about her grip again. “I can’t.”
Some people are just weak, he thought, though he wasn’t stupid enough to say it.
Lifeblood was by far the most popular game in the VirtNet. Yeah, you could go off to some nasty battlefield in the Civil War or fight dragons with a magic sword, fly spaceships, explore the freaky love shacks. But that stuff got old quick. In the end, nothing was more fascinating than bare-bones, dirt-in-your-face, gritty, get-me-out-of-here real life. Nothing. And there were some, like Tanya, who obviously couldn’t handle it. Michael sure could. He’d risen up its ranks almost as quickly as legendary gamer Gunner Skale.
“Come on, Tanya,” he said. “How can it hurt to talk to me? And if you’re going to quit, why would you want to end your last game by killing yourself so violently?”
Her head snapped up and she looked at him with eyes so hard he shivered again.
“Kaine’s haunted me for the last time,” she said. “He can’t just trap me here and use me for an experiment—sic the KillSims on me. I’m gonna rip my Core out.”
Those last words changed everything. Michael watched in horror as Tanya tightened her grip on the pole with one hand, then reached up with the other and started digging into her own flesh.
Michael forgot the game, forgot the points. The situation had gone from annoying to actual life-and-death. In all his years of playing, he’d never seen someone code out their Core, destroying the barrier device within the Coffin that kept the virtual world and the real world separate in their mind.
“Stop that!” he yelled, one foot already on the railing. “Stop!”
He jumped down onto the catwalk on the outer edge of the bridge and froze. He was just a few feet from her now, and he wanted to avoid any quick movements that might cause her to panic. Holding his hands out, he took a small step toward her.
“Don’t do that,” Michael said as softly as he could in the biting wind.
Tanya kept digging into her right temple. She’d peeled back pieces of her skin; a stream of blood from the wound quickly covered her hands and the side of her face in red gore. A look of terrifying calmness had come over her, as if she had no concept of what she was doing to herself, though Michael knew well enough that she was busy hacking the code.
“Stop coding for one second!” Michael shouted. “Would you just talk about this before you rip your freaking Core out? You know what that means.”
“Why do you care so much?” she responded, so quietly that Michael had to read her lips to understand. But at least she’d stopped digging.
Michael just stared. Because she had stopped digging and was now reaching inside the torn mass of flesh with her thumb and forefinger. “You just want your Experience Points,” she said. Slowly, she pulled out a small metallic chip slick with blood.
“I’ll forfeit my points,” Michael said, trying to hide his fear and disgust. “I swear. You can’t mess around anymore, Tanya. Code that thing back in and come talk to me. It’s not too late.”
She held up the visual manifestation of the Core, gazed at it with fascination. “Don’t you see the irony in all this?” she asked. “If it weren’t for my coding skills, I probably wouldn’t even know who Kaine was. About his KillSims and his plans for me. But I’m good at it, and because of that . . . monster, I just programmed the Core right out of my own head.”
“Not your real head. It’s still just a simulation, Tanya. It’s not too late.” Michael couldn’t remember a time in his entire life when he’d felt that ill.
She looked at him so sharply that he took a step backward. “I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take . . . him anymore. He can’t use me if I’m dead. I’m done.”
She curled the Core onto her thumb, then flicked it toward Michael. It flew over his shoulder—he saw flashes of sunlight glint off it as it spun through the air, almost like it was winking at him, saying, Hey, buddy, you suck at suicide negotiations. It landed with a plink somewhere out in the traffic, where it would be crushed in seconds.
He couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. Someone so sophisticated at manipulating code that she could destroy her Core—the device that essentially protected players’ brains while they were in the Sleep. Without your Core, your brain wouldn’t be able to filter the stimulation of the VirtNet properly. If your Core died in the Sleep, you’d die in the Wake. He didn’t know anyone who’d seen this before. Two hours earlier he’d been eating stolen bleu chips at the Dan the Man Deli with his best friends. All he wanted now was to be back there, eating turkey on rye, enduring Bryson’s jokes about old ladies’ underwear and listening to Sarah tell him how awful his latest Sleep haircut was.
“If Kaine comes for you,” Tanya said, “tell him that I won in the end. Tell him how brave I was. He can trap people here and steal all the bodies he wants. But not mine.”
Michael was done talking. He couldn’t take one more word out of this girl’s blood-smeared mouth. As quickly as anything he’d ever done in his life, as any character in any game, he jumped toward the pole she clung to.
She screamed, momentarily frozen by his sudden action, but then she let go, actually pushed herself away from the bridge. Michael grabbed for the railing to his left with one hand and reached for her with the other but missed both. His feet hit something solid, then slipped. Arms flailing, he felt nothing but air, and he fell, almost in sync with her.
An incredible shriek escaped his mouth, something he would’ve been embarrassed about if his only companion wasn’t about to lose her life. With her Core coded out, her death would be real.
Michael and Tanya fell toward the harsh gray waters of the bay. Wind tore at their clothes, and Michael’s heart felt like it was creeping along the inside of his chest, up his throat. He screamed again. On some level he knew he would hit the water, feel the pain; then he’d be Lifted and wake up back home, safe and sound in his Coffin. But the VirtNet’s power was feigned reality, and right now the reality was terror.
Somehow Michael’s and Tanya’s Auras found each other on that long fall, chest to chest, like tandem skydivers. As the churning surface below rushed toward them, they wrapped their arms around each other, pulling closer together. Michael wanted to scream again but clamped his jaw shut when he saw the complete calmness on her face.
Her eyes bored into Michael’s, searched him, and found him, and he broke somewhere on the inside.
They hit the water as hard as he thought they would. Hard as concrete. Hard as death.
The moment of pain was short but intense. Everywhere, all at once, bursting and exploding through Michael’s every nerve. He didn’t even have time to make a sound before it ended; neither did Tanya, because he heard nothing but the distinct and horrific crash of hitting the water’s surface. And then it all dissipated and his mind went blank.
Michael was alive, back in the NerveBox—what most people called the Coffin—Lifted from the Sleep.
The same couldn’t be said for the girl. A wave of sadness, then disbelief, hit him. With his own eyes, he’d seen her change her code, rip the Core from her virtual flesh, then toss it away like nothing more than a crumb. When it ended for her, it ended for real, and being a part of it made Michael’s insides feel twisted up. He’d never witnessed anything like it.
He blinked a few times, waiting for the unlinking process to be complete. Never before had he been so relieved to be done with the VirtNet, done with a game, ready to get out of his box and breathe in the polluted air of the real world.
A blue light came on, revealing the door of the Coffin just a few inches from his face. The LiquiGels and AirPuffs had already receded, leaving the only part Michael truly hated, no matter how many times he did it—which was way more than he could count. Thin, icy strands of NerveWire pulled out of his neck and back and arms, slithering like snakes along his skin until they disappeared into their little hidey-holes, where they’d be disinfected and stored for his next game. His parents were amazed that he voluntarily let those things burrow into his body so often, and he couldn’t blame them. There was something downright creepy about it.
A loud click was followed by a mechanical clank and then a whooshing gust of air. The door of the Coffin began to rise, swinging up and away on its hinges like Dracula’s very own resting place. Michael almost laughed at the thought. Being a vicious bloodsucking vampire loved by the ladies was only one of a billion things a person could do inside the Sleep. Only one of a billion.
He stood up carefully—he always felt a little woozy after being Lifted, especially when he’d been gone for a few hours—naked and covered in sweat. Clothing ruined the sensory stimulation of the NerveBox.
Michael stepped over the lip of the box, thankful for the soft carpet under his toes—it made him feel grounded, back in reality. He grabbed the pair of boxers he’d left on the floor, put them on. He figured a decent person probably would’ve opted for some pants and a T-shirt as well, but he wasn’t feeling so decent at the moment. All he’d been asked to do by the Lifeblood game was talk a girl out of suicide for Experience Points, and not only had he failed, he’d helped drive her to do it for real. For real, for real.
Tanya—wherever her body might be—was dead. She’d ripped out her Core before dying, a feat of programming, protected by passwords, that she only could’ve done to herself. Faking a Core removal wasn’t possible in the VirtNet. It was too dangerous. Otherwise, you’d never know if someone was faking, and people would do it left and right for kicks or to get reactions. No, she’d changed her code, removed the safety barrier in her mind that separated the virtual and the real, and fried the actual implant back home, and she’d done it with purpose. Tanya, the pretty girl with the sad eyes and the delusions that she was being haunted. Dead.
Michael knew it’d be in the NewsBops soon. They’d report that he had been with her, and the VNS—VirtNet Security—would probably come and talk to him about it. They definitely would.
Dead. She was dead. As lifeless as the sagging mattress on his bed.
It all hit him then. Hit him like a fastball to the face. Michael barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up everything in his stomach. And then he collapsed to the floor and pulled himself into a ball. No tears came—he wasn’t the crying sort—but he stayed there for a long time.
Michael knew that most people, when they felt as if the earth itself decided it just didn’t like them anymore, when they felt like they were at the bottom of a dark pit, went to their mom or dad. Maybe a brother, maybe a sister. Those with none of the above might find themselves knocking at the door of an aunt, a grandpa, a third cousin twice removed.
But not Michael. He went to Bryson and Sarah, the two best friends a person could ever ask for. They knew him like no one else, and they didn’t care what he said or did or wore or ate. And he returned the favor whenever they needed him. But there was something very strange about their friendship.
Michael had never met them.
Not literally, anyway. Not yet. They were VirtNet friends through and through, though. He’d gotten to know them first in the beginning levels of Lifeblood, and they’d grown closer and closer the higher up they went. The three of them had joined forces almost from the day they met to move up in the Game of all Games. They were the Terrible Trio, the Trifecta to Dissect-ya, the Burn-and-Pillage-y Trilogy. Their nicknames didn’t make them many friends—they’d been branded cocky by some, idiots by others—but they had fun, so they didn’t care.
The bathroom floor was hard, and Michael couldn’t lie there forever, so he pulled himself together and headed straight for his favorite place on earth to sit.
The Chair.
It was just a normal piece of furniture, but it was the most comfortable thing he’d ever sat on, like sinking into a man-made cloud. He had some thinking to do, and he needed to arrange a meeting with his best friends. He plopped down and looked out the window at the sad gray exterior of the apartment complex across the street. It looked like a dreary rainstorm frozen solid.
The only thing marring the bleakness was a huge sign advertising Lifeblood Deep—bloodred letters on a black plaque, nothing else. As if the game designers were fully aware that the words alone were all they needed. Everyone knew them, and everyone wanted in on the action, wanted to earn the right to go there someday. Michael was like every other player—just one of the herd.
He thought of Gunner Skale, the greatest player in Lifeblood the VirtNet had ever known. But the man had disappeared off the grid recently—rumor had it he’d been swallowed by the Deep itself, lost in the game he’d loved so much. Skale was a legend, and gamer after gamer had gone searching for him in the darkest corners of the Sleep—fruitlessly, as it turned out. At least, so far. Michael wanted nothing more than to reach that kind of level, to become the world’s new Gunner Skale. He just had to do it before the new guy on the scene. This . . . Kaine.
Michael squeezed his EarCuff—the small piece of metal attached to his earlobe—and his NetScreen and keyboard flashed on before him, hovering in midair. The Bulletin showed him that Bryson was already online and that Sarah had said she’d be back in a few.
Michael’s fingers began to dance across the shining red keys.
Mikethespike: Hey, Bryson, quit gawkin’ at the Gorgozon nests and talk to me. I saw some serious business today.
His friend’s response was almost instant; Bryson spent even more time than Michael online or in the Coffin—and typed like a secretary filled with three cups of coffee.
Brystones: Serious, huh? A Lifeblood cop bust you at the Dunes again? Remember, they only come by every 13 minutes!
Mikethespike: I told you what I was doing. Had to stop that chick from jumping off the bridge. Didn’t go so hot.
Brystones: Why? She nosedive?
Mikethespike: Don’t think I should talk about it here. We need to meet up in the Sleep.
Brystones: Dude, it must’ve been bad. We were just there a few hours ago—can we meet 2morrow?
Mikethespike: Just meet me back at the deli. One hour. Get Sarah there, too. I gotta go shower. I smell like armpits.
Brystones: Glad we’re not meeting in real life, then. Not too fond of the B.O.
Mikethespike: Speaking of that—we need to just do it. Meet for real. You don’t live THAT far away.
Brystones: But the Wake is so boring. What’s the point?
Mikethespike: Because that’s what humans do. They meet each other and shake real hands.
Brystones: I’d rather give you a hug on Mars.
Mikethespike: NO HUGS. See you in an hour. Get Sarah!
Brystones: Will do. Go scrub your nasty pits.
Mikethespike: I said I SMELL like them, not . . . Never mind. Later.
Brystones: Out.
Michael squeezed his EarCuff and watched the NetScreen and keyboard dissolve like a stiff wind had blown through. Then, after one last glance at the Lifeblood Deep ad—its red-on-black letters like a taunt, names like Gunner Skale and Kaine floating through his head—he headed for the shower.
The VirtNet was a funny thing. It was so real that sometimes Michael wished it wasn’t as high-tech. Like when he was hot and sweaty or when he tripped and stubbed a toe or when a girl smacked him in the face. The Coffin made him feel every last bit of it—the only other option was to adjust for less sensory input, but then why bother playing if you didn’t go all the way?
The same realism that created the pain and discomfort in the Sleep sometimes had a positive side, though. The food. Especially when you’re good enough at coding to take what you want when you’re a little short on cash. Eyes closed to access the raw data, manipulate a few lines of programming, and voilà—a free feast.
Michael sat with Bryson and Sarah at their usual table outside of Dan the Man’s Deli, attacking a huge plate of the Groucho Nachos, while back in the real world the Coffin was feeding them pure, healthy nutrients intravenously. A person couldn’t rely solely on the Coffin’s nutrition function, of course—it wasn’t something meant to sustain human life for months at a time—but it sure was nice during the long sessions. And the best part was that you only got fat in the Sleep if you programmed yourself that way, no matter how much you ate.
Despite the delicious food, their conversation quickly took a depressing turn.
“I read it on the NewsBops as soon as Bryson told me,” Sarah said. Her appearance in the VirtNet was understated—a pretty face, long brown hair, tan skin, almost no makeup. “There’s been a few Core recodings in the last week or so. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. Rumor is that this guy Kaine is somehow trapping people inside the Sleep, not letting them wake up. So some of them kill themselves. Can you believe it? A cyber-terrorist.”
Bryson was nodding. He looked like a damaged football player—big, thick, and everything just a little off-kilter. He always said he was so freaking hot in the real world that he needed an escape from the ladies while hanging in the VirtNet. “Heebie-jeebies?” he repeated. “Our good friend here saw a girl dig into her own skull and pull her Core out, toss it, then jump off a bridge. I guess heebie-jeebies is a start.”
“Fine—I guess I need a stronger word,” she replied. “The point is something’s happening, and a gamer’s being blamed for it. Who ever heard of people hacking into their own systems to commit suicide? VirtNet Security has never had this problem before.”
“Unless VNS has been hiding it,” Bryson added.
“Who would do what she did?” Michael murmured, more to himself than to the others. He knew his stuff, and suicides within the Sleep had always been rare. Real suicides, anyway. “Some people like the rush of offing themselves in the Sleep without the real consequences—but I’ve never seen this before. The skill and knowledge to pull it off . . . I don’t even think I could do it. Now several in a week?”
“And what about this gamer—Kaine?” Bryson asked. “I’ve heard he’s big-time, but how could someone possibly trap others inside the Sleep? It has to be all talk.”
The tables around them had just grown quiet, and the name seemed to echo throughout the room. People stared at Bryson, and Michael understood why. Kaine was becoming infamous, and the name made people pale. Over the last few months, he’d been infiltrating everything from games to private meeting rooms, terrorizing his victims with visions and physically attacking them. Michael hadn’t heard the part about trapping people until Tanya, but the very name Kaine haunted the virtual world, as if he lingered just out of sight no matter where you went. Bryson was all fake bravado.
Michael shrugged off the other customers in the café and focused on his friends. “She kept saying it was Kaine’s fault. That she was trapped by him and couldn’t take it anymore. Something about stealing bodies? And things called KillSims. I’m telling you, even before she started on that Core, I could see it in her eyes that she was dead serious. She definitely ran across him somewhere.”
“We don’t even know much about the guy behind Kaine yet,” Sarah offered. “I’ve read every story on him, and that’s all there are—stories. No one has any scoop on the gamer himself. No pics, no audio or video, nothing. It’s like he’s not real.”
“It’s the VirtNet,” Bryson countered. “Things don’t have to be real to be real. That’s the whole point.”
“No.” Sarah shook her head. “He’s a gamer. A person. Lying in a Coffin. With all that publicity we should know more about him. The media should be all over this guy. The VNS should be able to track him, at least.”
Michael felt like they were getting nowhere. “Hey, back to me, guys. I’m supposed to be traumatized, and you’re supposed to be making me feel better. So far, you suck at it.”
A look of genuine concern crossed Bryson’s face. “No doubt, dude. Sorry, but glad it was you, not me. I know that whole suicide negotiation thing is part of the Lifeblood experience stuff, but who could’ve known yours would be a real one? I probably wouldn’t sleep for a week after seeing something like that.”
“Still sucking,” Michael replied with a halfhearted laugh. In truth, he was better now just being with his friends, but something inside him felt like it was trying to gnaw its way out. Something dark with big teeth that didn’t want him to ignore it.
Sarah leaned over and squeezed his arm. “Neither of us has a clue what it must’ve been like,” she said softly. “And we’d be idiots to pretend. But I’m sorry it happened.”
Michael just blushed and looked at the floor. Thankfully, Bryson brought them back to reality.
“I gotta use the bathroom,” he announced, standing up. A person even did stuff like that inside the Sleep, while your real body took care of business back in the Coffin. Everything was meant to feel real. Everything.
“Charming,” Sarah said through a sigh as she released Michael’s arm and sat back in her chair. “Simply charming.”
They talked for another hour or so, ending with their usual promise to meet in the real world soon. Bryson told them if they didn’t do it by the end of the month, he’d start cutting off a finger every day until it happened. Michael’s, not his own. That got a much-needed laugh.
The three of them said their goodbyes at a Portal, and Michael Lifted back to the Wake, going through the usual routine inside the Coffin until he could get out. As he walked over to the Chair, his gaze naturally landed on the big ad for Lifeblood Deep outside his window, followed by the usual few seconds of coveting and figurative drooling. He almost sat down but changed his mind, knowing he’d never get up, exhausted and sore head to toe. And he hated falling asleep in the Chair—he always woke up with cricks in places humans weren’t meant to have cricks.
He sighed and, trying not to think of the girl named Tanya who’d killed herself right before his eyes, somehow made it over to his bed. Then he collapsed into a long night of dreamless sleep.
Getting himself out of bed the next morning was like breaking out of a cocoon. It took twenty minutes for the smart side of his brain to convince the stupid side that taking a sick day at school wasn’t a good idea. He’d already been out seven times this semester. One or two more and they’d start cracking down.
He’d only gotten more sore in the night from his plummet into the bay with Tanya, and that strange feeling still turned in his stomach. Somehow, though, Michael made it to the breakfast table, where his nanny, Helga, had just placed a plate of eggs and bacon. A nanny, his amazing VirtNet setup, a nice apartment—he had a lot to thank his wealthy parents for. They traveled a lot, and at the moment he couldn’t remember when they’d left or when they were getting back. But they made it up to him with the many things they gave him. Between school, the VirtNet, and Helga, he hardly had time to miss them.
“Good morning, Michael,” Helga said with her slight but still noticeable German accent. “I trust you slept well, yes?”
He grunted, and she smiled. That’s why he loved Helga. She didn’t get all huffy or offended when all you wanted to do was grunt like an animal waking from hibernation. It was no skin off her back.
And her food was delicious. Almost as good as in the VirtNet. Michael finished every morsel of breakfast, then headed out the door to catch the train.
The streets were bustling—suits and skirts and coffee cups as far as the eye could see. There were so many people that Michael could almost swear they were doubling like reproducing cells right before his eyes. Everyone had the usual blank, bored look that Michael knew well. Like him, they’d suffer and slog through their dreary jobs or school until they could get back home and enter the VirtNet once again.
Michael entered the flow, dodging commuters left and right, and made his way down the avenue, then turned right at his usual shortcut—a one-way alley full of trash cans and piles of garbage. He couldn’t understand why the discarded trash never seemed to actually make it into the big metal containers. But on a morning like this, sharing the street with empty chip bags and discarded banana peels beat the heck out of the marching masses.
He was halfway to the other side of the alley when the screech of tires stopped him in his tracks. The surge of an engine reverberated up the street from behind and Michael spun around. The instant he saw the oncoming car—its paint gray and dull, like a dying storm—he knew. He knew that this car had something to do with him and that it wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
He turned and ran, recognizing on some level that whoever was after him had planned to trap him in that alley. The end seemed miles away now; he’d never make it. The sound of the car grew louder as it gained on him, and despite all the strange and crazy things he’d experienced in the Sleep, terror exploded in Michael’s chest. Real terror. And he thought, What a way to end—squashed like a bug in a trash-riddled alley.
He didn’t dare glance behind him, but he could feel the approach of the vehicle. It was close, and he had no chance of outrunning it. He gave up on trying to flee and dove behind the next garbage pile. The car screeched to a halt as he rolled and jumped back to his feet, ready to sprint in the other direction. The rear door of the sedan popped open and out stepped a sharply dressed man with a black ski mask pulled over his head, eyes fixed on Michael through slits in the fabric. Michael froze, just for an instant, but it was long enough. The man tackled him, slamming his body to the ground.
Michael opened his mouth to scream, but a cold hand clamped over his face, silencing him. Panic cut through his body like a hot sword, and adrenaline flooded his system as he twisted and shoved his attacker. But the man was too strong and flipped Michael over onto his stomach, pinning his arms behind him.
“Stop fighting,” the stranger said. “No one’s gonna hurt you, but we don’t have time to mess around. I need you to get in the car.”
Michael’s face was pressed against the cement. “Oh really? I’ll be perfectly safe? I was just thinking that.”
“Shut your smart-aleck mouth, kid. We just can’t let anybody know who we are. Now get in the car.”
The man got to his feet, dragging Michael up with him.
“Your butt,” the stranger said, pausing for effect. “In the car.”
Michael made one last pathetic attempt to break free, but it was useless. The man’s grip was iron-strong. Michael had no choice but to do what he was told. The fight drained out of him, and he let the man guide him to the backseat of the car, where he squeezed in next to another masked man. The door slammed shut and the car lurched forward, the screech of the tires echoing up the walls of the concrete canyon.
As the car tore out of the alley and onto the main road, Michael’s mind spun—who were these people, and where were they taking him? Another wave of panic washed over him, and he acted. He slammed his elbow into the crotch of the guy to his left, then lunged for the door as the man doubled over in agony, cursing things that would’ve made even Bryson blush. Michael’s fingers had just curled around the door handle when the original thug yanked him backward, his arm encircling Michael’s neck. The man squeezed until Michael was gasping for air.
“Stop it, boy,” he said far too calmly. For some reason those were the last words Michael wanted to hear. Anger surged in his chest, and he struggled to break free from the grip.
“Stop it!” the stranger screamed this time. “Stop acting like a child and calm yourself. We’re not going to hurt you.”
“You’re actually hurting me right now,” Michael coughed out.
The man loosened his grip. “Behave, and that’s the worst of it. Do we have a deal, kid?”
“Fine,” Michael grunted, because what else could he do? Ask for time to think about it?
The man seemed to relax at that. “Good. Now sit back and shut up,” he directed. “Wait, no, first apologize to my friend—that was totally uncalled for.”
Michael looked over at the guy to his left and shrugged. “Sorry. Hope you can still have babies.”
The man didn’t respond, but his glare through the ski mask was fierce. Humbled by the man’s anger, Michael looked away. The adrenaline had faded, his strength was exhausted, and he was being driven through the city by four men in black masks.
Things didn’t look so bright.
The rest of the ride went by in complete silence. Michael’s heart, however, continued to thump away like a heavy-metal drumbeat. He thought he’d known fear before. He’d been thrown into countless horrific situations in the VirtNet that had felt perfectly real. But this was real. And the fear was beyond anything he’d experienced. He wondered if he would drop dead of cardiac arrest at the ripe old age of sixteen.
As if in mockery, every glance outside seemed to land on those red-on-black Lifeblood Deep posters. Even though the tiny optimistic side of his brain kept trying to tell him that somehow he’d get out of this alive, he knew that being kidnapped by masked men usually didn’t end well. The signs only reminded him that his dream of reaching the Deep probably wouldn’t happen after all.
Finally, they reached the outskirts of the city and turned into the huge parking lot of the stadium where the Falcons played. It was completely empty, and the driver pulled to the very front row, where he stopped and set the emergency brake, the massive structure looming above them. A sign in the front of the parking space read RESERVED. VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED.
A beep sounded from somewhere in the car, followed by a crack from outside, then the whir of machinery. Immediately afterward the vehicle started to sink into the ground, and Michael’s heart leaped. As they descended, the brightness of day quickly melted into fluorescent interior lighting.
Finally, the car came to rest with a soft bump, and Michael looked around to see that they were in a huge underground garage with at least a dozen cars parked along one wall. The driver released the emergency brake and pulled into an empty spot, then cut the engine.
“We’re here,” the driver announced. Rather needlessly, Michael thought.
They offered Michael two options: they could drag him by the feet, facedown, for a close-up view of the cement, or he could walk with them under his own power without trying anything. He chose the second option. As they marched next to him, his heart kept trying to break through his rib cage with its relentless pounding.
The four men escorted him through a door, down a hallway, then through another door into a large conference room. At least, he assumed that was what it was, based on the long cherrywood table, plush leather chairs, and lit bar in the corner. He was surprised to see only one person waiting for them: a woman. She was tall with long black hair and wide-set, exotic-looking eyes—somehow she was gorgeous and terrifying at the same time.
“Leave him with me,” she said. Four words, softly spoken, but the men practically dove out the door, closing it behind them, as if they feared her beyond anything else.
Those striking eyes focused on Michael’s face. “My name is Diane Weber, but you’ll refer to me as Agent Weber. Please, have a seat.” She gestured toward the chair closest to Michael, and it took every ounce of his willpower to hesitate before he sat. He forced himself to count to five, staring at her, trying not to look away. Then he did as she asked.
She came over and sat next to him, then crossed her long, pretty legs. “Sorry for the roughhousing to get you here. What we’re about to discuss is extremely urgent and confidential, and I didn’t want to waste any time . . . asking.”
“I’m missing school. Asking would’ve worked just fine.” Somehow she’d put him at ease, which made him angry. It was clear that she was manipulative, that she used her beauty to melt men’s hearts. “What could you possibly want me for, anyway?”
Her smile revealed perfect teeth. “You’re a gamer, Michael. With serious coding skills.”
“Is that a question?”
“No, it’s a statement. I’m telling you why you’re here because you asked. I know more about you than you do. Understand?”
Michael coughed—had all his hacking finally caught up to him? “I’m here because I’m a gamer?” he asked, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Because I like to dink around in the Sleep and code a little? What’d I do, knock you out of first place somewhere? Steal from your virtual restaurant?”
“You’re here because we need you.”
The words brought with them a sudden shot of bravery. “Look, I don’t think my mom would approve of me dating an older woman. Have you tried the love shacks? I’m sure a good-lookin’ gal like yourself could find—”