“No!” she screamed, making him flinch. “You … fin … ish!”
He was silent for a few seconds. But he knew she was right. “Okay. I will. I promise.”
“Find … Hallowed … Ravine,” she said between more choked coughing. “I …”
“Stop talking, Sarah.” Michael’s heart ached. He wanted her back home and safe. “Let it go. I swear I’ll hurry through the rest of this and be done. Remember our deal. A day in the sun. A day in the Wake. Everything’s gonna be just fine.”
“De … deal.” Michael thought that was it. That she’d gone. But then she spoke again. “Michael.” She said it clearly and completely, and he felt a rushing in his chest, something that squeezed and burned.
Then her last breath sighed out of her, her chest falling for the final time. A few seconds later she disappeared, her physical body waking up in the real world. Leaving Michael deep within the VirtNet, in a place almost no one knew about, in the middle of a Path that seemingly had no end to its length—or to its horrors.
And he was alone.
He was completely alone.
CHAPTER 20
A BODY OF SILVER
1
Michael tried not to think for the next few hours. He had no time to be sad or wallow in self-pity. He’d promised Sarah he would make it the rest of the way, and that was all he allowed himself to focus on. It helped to know she wasn’t really dead, although whenever the memory of her last moments crept back into his thoughts, waves of pain washed through him.
Which was why he had to push it all away. Turn it off.
There was another long tunnel, cut through in several places by rivers of lava. Michael jumped over them as carefully as possible. He approached a nasty spot where magma sporadically shot down from a crack in the ceiling. He waited, guessed, relied on his instincts. Barely missed getting burned when he sprinted past. Shortly after, an entire side of the tunnel collapsed just as he passed by, and a gushing river of molten rock, sparking with fire and heat, came streaming after him. He ran, ran hard, the edge of the hellish river right at his feet. But eventually it began to cool and he was able to slow down.
There were longer tunnels and bigger caves. Lava everywhere. The heat rising to impossible temperatures, then rising again. Michael’s body, dripping with sweat. His throat more parched than ever before—like a desert, a moonscape. He would’ve drunk water from the filthiest stream, from a swamp, from a sewage plant. He lusted after it, but there was none to be found, and gradually his strength was sapped, hunger aching inside him.
But he kept going and going and going, heading where the code—the Path—sent him.
Mind tuned only to the programming.
2
Hours passed. And not a one where Michael didn’t spend every minute thinking the next would be his last. That he’d collapse and not be able to move ever again until he shriveled up from the heat and died, went back to the Wake, to his Coffin.
He was heading down another endless tunnel when his head hit a low-hanging rock. He yelped and ducked, then crouched on the ground, twisting around as best he could to gauge his surroundings. The pain had brought him back to his senses. And he was shocked to see that the black stone passageway had narrowed. It had shrunk so much that only two people at most could squeeze along its path. The light had died significantly, too, though Michael could still see well enough.
Farther ahead, it looked as if he might have to start crawling.
Panic and an overwhelming surge of claustrophobia struck him hard. Questions besieged his exhausted brain—had he done something wrong? Missed a turnoff? A doorway? A Portal? Michael curled into a ball, hugging his legs against his chest, and rocked back and forth, eyes closed, willing himself to calmness.
Gradually the attack passed. He stretched out and, despite the rocky surface, fell asleep.
3
When he woke, body aching and stiff, Michael looked down the narrowing tunnel and knew he had to keep going in that direction. At every part of the journey through the volcanic mountain, he’d scoured the code for other ways to move on, and so far there’d only ever been one. The Path had been clearly designed as a one-way ticket. And he couldn’t give up now.
Hunger racked his insides, weakened him. But even that didn’t compare to the thirst that made his throat feel like something baking in a desert sun.
Water. He would kill any person standing between him and a single cup of it.
Groaning, he pulled himself to his hands and knees and crawled along the rough floor of the tunnel, only looking up to scan the path ahead. And the tunnel through which he crept was getting narrower.
Somehow he kept moving.
Eventually the ceiling of the tunnel touched his back, and he had to crouch lower. Soon he had to drop to his stomach, pulling himself with his arms as he pushed off the ground with his feet, like a soldier crawling under a web of barbed wire at boot camp. The walls pressed in as well, and before long he had a hard time angling his arms out enough to get any leverage.
And then he got stuck.
4
He’d been claustrophobic before, but now the fear was a monstrous thing that lit his brain on fire. He thrashed, screamed at the top of his lungs. But he’d wedged himself into the passage so tightly that he couldn’t move forward or backward. The echoes of his shouts came bouncing back at him, and the black rock seemed to be closing in, crushing the breath from his lungs. He tried to close his eyes and analyze the code, but his mind wouldn’t focus and he had to give up.
Michael kicked and squirmed, clawed at the ground with his fingernails.
He slipped a couple of inches forward. Doubling his efforts, pushing with his toes and pulling with his fingers, flexing and unflexing muscles, he lurched forward again. And again. A foot, then two, then three.
A blue light appeared ahead of him, like a plane of sky. He swore it hadn’t been there before—was it a way out? There was no breeze or sound of life, no clouds. Just pure blue, an inexplicable hole of color.
He screamed again, willing himself to throw everything he had at reaching that spot. It was a Portal. It had to be a Portal.
Grunting, twisting, digging his fingers into the dusty rock. Inch by inch, he was able to move. The bright blue got closer. Within several feet. Within a couple of inches.
By the time he reached it, Michael felt as if he’d almost lost his mind. There wasn’t a single coherent thought left, just a desperate desire to get to that wall of blue, no matter what awaited him.
He threw his arms out, reaching through the Portal, saw them disappear as if they’d been dipped in liquid. Then something grabbed his hands from the other side and pulled him the rest of the way. His body flew forward and out of the volcano forever.
5
Michael crashed to a metal floor, his cheek resting against its hard, cool surface. A blinding white light filled the new space, bathing him in its brilliance. With a loud groan, he pushed himself off his stomach and flopped onto his back, squinting to make out where he was. Pure white surrounded him, nothing else. No. To his right, there was a blurry shadow cutting through the light, a human shape.
“Where am I?” Michael croaked, cringing at the sound of his own voice.
The voice that answered was mechanical, robotic. Deep and electric. “You’re at a crossroads, Michael. You’ve reached the point of no return.”
Michael blinked, tried to make his eyes focus. The thing talking to him wasn’t human at all—despite its appearance. There was a head, shoulders, two arms and two legs. But the thing was made completely of silvery metal. No seams or rivets broke up the smooth surface of its exterior. Its face had no eyes, nose, or mouth. Just a shiny green visor that was completely blank. The robot stood still, facing Michael.
Michael glanced around the rest of the room, but it was empty aside from the blinding white light. He was in an empty room with a robot.
Still, only one thing occupied Michael’s mind. “Do you have any water?” He
got his legs up under him and sat facing his strange companion.
“Yes,” the thing answered in its mechanized voice. “Your body will now be replenished.”
A disk separated from the floor in front of Michael and sank into the depths below. He watched, staring as the disk reappeared with a plate of food and a large cup resting on its surface and stopped right at chest level.
“Eat,” the robot commanded, still not moving. “You have five minutes until the stakes are raised.”
6
Michael was thirsty and hungry to the point of death—so much so that he didn’t really care that the robot had just made a vague threat. All he could think about was the food in front of him. A slab of steak and green beans and carrots. A big piece of bread. A cup of water.
Michael attacked it. First, he gulped down half the water, enjoying a rush of pure ecstasy as it wet his throat. Then he picked up the steak with two fingers and took a huge bite. He ate a few carrots and green beans while still chewing the meat. Back to the steak. To the veggies. Another sip of water. Meat and veggies. Stuffing himself.
Never, he thought, had something tasted so wonderful.
When he’d devoured every last morsel and drained the cup dry, Michael wiped his mouth on his sleeve and looked up at the flat green face of the robot.
“I’m done. Thank you.” Although his stomach was having a little trouble with the sudden feast.
The silver creature took a few steps backward until it came to rest in the back corner of the room. At the same time, the disk that had held Michael’s meal lowered to the floor and disappeared. Michael returned his attention to the robot.
It spoke again. “You are at the point of no return. The crossroads. Until now, your death would have ended your quest for what lies at the end of the Path, but not your true life. Your companions are now back at their homes, alive and safe.”
“Um …,” Michael started to say. “I’m glad they’re safe. I’m planning on joining them really soon.”
The robot continued as if it hadn’t heard him. “You will no longer have the comfort of knowing your death is not the ultimate end. The rest of your journey, including the Hallowed Ravine, should you enter its sacred realm, will be completed with true life hanging in the balance.”
Michael felt a stitch in his gut. What was this thing talking about?
“Commence operation,” the robot said. Two words that made Michael jump to his feet, suddenly full of energy but with nowhere to go.
A buzzy thrum filled the room, followed by the sounds of machinery. Michael looked up in horror to see metal arms descending from the white ceiling, their ends capped with various instruments. Hinged silver claws came at him first. He tried to run, but the things were too fast. Two claws latched on to his arms, clasping closed and yanking him up into the air. Two more grabbed his legs, pulling them apart so that he was upright but spread-eagled. He struggled against the grips but they were solid—immovable.
Other arms swarmed in. One put a band around Michael’s neck and another around his forehead, forcing his head forward and still. A band slipped around his chest, squeezed tightly until it almost hurt. In a matter of seconds, Michael had been pulled into the air and immobilized.
“What are you doing to me?” he yelled. “What’s going on?”
The robot didn’t answer, didn’t move. Michael quickly closed his eyes to examine the programming, but it looked like a foreign language in a blur of constant movement, completely inaccessible. There was a hum and a sound like gears shifting to his right, close to his ear, but he couldn’t turn his head to see what was happening. He could sense something just inches away, could barely see an object at the edge of his peripheral vision. Then the worst noise of all started, like a spinning drill, shrill and whirring more rapidly as it sped up.
“What are you doing?” Michael shouted again.
Then a pain exploded in the side of his head. He screamed as something dug into his flesh, tearing his skin open. His lungs emptied of air and he sucked in a breath, then screamed all over again.
The pain was overwhelming. Suddenly the robot was standing in front of Michael again, that green shield just a few inches from his face.
“Your Core has been destroyed,” it said. “True death now awaits if you fail.”
CHAPTER 21
TWO DOORS
1
The claws that had so fiercely held Michael’s body in place let go abruptly. He fell to the floor in a heap as the metal arms retracted into the ceiling with the whir of machinery and steel against steel. In seconds it was over. The room grew silent, and he was once again alone with the silver monster.
His head ached. His hand had naturally gone up to touch the wound, and when he brought it away to look, it was covered in blood. His insides felt like someone had gone in with a sharp blade and scraped them clean. His Core had been removed.
“How did you do that?” he asked the robot. Only Michael should be able to remove his Core. There were passwords for this exact reason. “How did you know my coding?”
“There can only be one chance now. Death awaits you.” The robot’s cold voice made Michael’s skin crawl. “Kaine has ways of accessing your code that no one else knows.”
“You tell Kaine that I’m going to kill him,” Michael replied, the rage a rising tide in his chest. “I’m going to find him and root out every last digit of his code. I’m going to drain every bit of his fake intelligence into a toilet, and then I’m gonna flush it into oblivion. Tell him I said that.”
“No need for such a command,” the silver menace answered. “Kaine hears all.”
2
The words had barely come out when the brightness of the room intensified, burning everything white. Michael squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fists against them. There was a steady hum that transformed into a buzz, then a high-pitched trilling ring.
It vibrated inside Michael’s skull, and the wound in his temple throbbed with pain. He sensed a fresh trickle of blood seeping into his hair.
The light and the sound grew to an unbearable strength, like tangible walls pressing in on all sides, crushing him. A scream formed in his lungs, a desperate plea for someone to save him—it surged up his throat and exploded out of his mouth, only to be lost in the storm of noise that had filled the room.
Then everything went dark and silent. The sound of his breath filled his ears. Sweat covered his skin. Instinct told him to stay still, to keep his eyes closed, to pray that whatever waited for him next would just go away and leave him be. Having his Core removed—coded out by monstrously illegal means—had terrified him more than he thought possible.
He didn’t want to die. Up until the robot, he’d been scared, but at least he’d known that death meant going back to the Wake to get out of his Coffin and collapse in bed. His only lasting injuries would have been psychological—something a good shrink could fix in a few sessions of therapy. He could deal with the VNS when he had to.
But now it was all for real. Without the Core—without that safety barrier and its link to the Coffin—his brain would stop functioning back home when he died. It was part of the system, as much a part of their makeup as a beating heart. Otherwise the infrastructure of the VirtNet would never work like it did—it wouldn’t be so lifelike. The Core barrier was vital to the programming.
And his was gone.
He did not want to look. If he’d had a blanket, he would’ve pulled it up over his head and whimpered like a baby.
He lay there for several minutes before he sensed a blinking red light. Slowly, he opened his eyes and saw that there was a red neon sign hanging above a simple wooden door, bathing the door in the light of its bloody letters.
The sign read HALLOWED RAVINE.
3
He almost jumped to his feet, but caution won out. He’d been on his side, curled almost into a ball, but he carefully stretched out his legs and moved to lie flat on his back. He scanned the area, looking for anything that might
be in the mood to hurt him. But all was dark except another neon sign that hung above a similar door opposite the first one.
This sign was in green letters, also flashing, and read, EXIT THE PATH.
Michael sat up, pulled his legs in, and hugged them. Those two signs and the doors below them were the only things he could see, anywhere. There were no discernible walls or ceiling, and even the floor seemed like part of an empty space, as if he was floating.
Hallowed Ravine.
Exit the Path.
Two choices. He stood up, kept looking back and forth between his options. After everything he’d been through, here he was—perhaps on the threshold of the place he’d been looking for. Commanded to go to. A chance to complete a mission to stop something the VNS believed threatened the entire world. Michael was tagged, and if he went through that door to the Hallowed Ravine and found Kaine, VNS agents could break in and save him.
Something didn’t feel right—hadn’t felt right for a while. He knew that he hadn’t been given the whole story. The Path wasn’t like a firewall. He had the overwhelming feeling that he was doing exactly what Kaine wanted him to do, that it had nothing to do with the VNS, and that opening the door of the Ravine would only be the final step into … what? He had no idea.
Plus, his life was on the line now.
Bryson was back home. Sarah was back home. Michael’s family …
His family. His mom and dad. Helga. He’d forgotten. What had happened to them? How could he possibly go on when he didn’t know what was at stake?
But something hardened inside him. How could he turn away now? His family had been threatened. His best friends. And he’d made a promise to Sarah. Not to mention a commitment to stop a Tangent that was out of control.
He was being presented with a final choice. And he chose his only option.
The Mortality Doctrine 01: The Eye of Minds Page 20