Michael looked around and realized Bryson and Sarah were no longer beside him. With a jolt of panic, he spun in a circle searching for them, pointlessly calling out their names. He was on edge—they’d gotten in illegally, and it made him nervous—but his friends’ disappearing so fast felt wrong. Michael stopped, and someone pushed him from behind; an elbow struck him in the side of the neck. Over the deafeningly loud music, he heard a woman’s laugh.
Then he fell through the floor.
5
It wasn’t like a trapdoor. And the floor didn’t collapse. Instead, as everything around him continued on, his body became immaterial and transparent, and he sank as the dancing people around him seemed to rise toward the sky. Michael quickly looked down and saw his legs and torso slip through the shiny black tile like a ghost.
He instinctively closed his eyes when his head went through, and when he opened them again he’d emerged in a dimly lit room filled with formal furniture. Tufted couches, mahogany paneling, and ornately carved lamps surrounded him, and his feet landed softly on a lush Oriental rug. Bryson and Sarah were standing nearby, looking at Michael as if he was late for a party. But no one else was in the room.
“Um, what just happened?” Michael asked. Seeing his friends made him feel better, despite the fact that he’d sunk through the floor.
“Something pulled us in here is what happened,” Bryson answered. “Which means we probably didn’t get into the club quite as stealthily as we thought.”
“Hello?” Sarah called out. “Who brought us here?”
A door in the back swung open, spilling a fan of light across the floor. A woman walked in, and the only word Michael could think of to describe her was whoa. Not beautiful, not sexy, not old or young or anything else. He found it impossible to guess her age or even say if she was ugly or pretty. But her elegant black dress, her gray hair, her wise face, everything about her screamed authority.
Michael prayed that Bryson wouldn’t say something stupid.
“Have a seat,” the woman said as she walked toward them. “I have to say I’m impressed with your little trick outside, though the two idiots who fell for it have already been fired.” She sat down in a plush leather chair and crossed her legs. “I told you to take a seat.”
Michael realized that all three of them had been staring at her with their mouths slightly open. Embarrassed, he quickly made his way to the couch on her right and sat down just as Bryson and Sarah took the one on the left.
“I assume you know who I am,” she said. Michael couldn’t tell if the lady was angry or upset. He’d never heard such indifference in a voice before.
“Ronika,” Sarah replied in a reverent whisper.
“Yes, my name is Ronika.” She turned her cold gaze on each of them in turn, and Michael was mesmerized. “You’re sitting in this room for only one reason: I’m curious. Your age and background give me no clue as to why you might be here. Judging by the time you spent stumbling around upstairs, it wasn’t to dance.”
“How did you…” Michael stopped himself before asking the dumbest question of his life. Of course this lady knew how to find their information. Her hacking skills were probably ten times his own. You didn’t become a club owner—much less the owner of the Black and Blue—without talent and loads of money.
She merely raised her eyebrows at him, which was answer enough. She continued.
“I want to make this clear: the Black and Blue didn’t get its reputation in the VirtNet by chance. People who’ve tried what you did today have ended up in places ranging from hospitals to mental wards. Answer my questions. Be up-front and you’ll be fine. But be warned—I despise sarcasm.”
Michael exchanged a look with Sarah. She’d been the one to get them inside; he knew that now it was his turn. It seemed like Bryson always got off easy.
“Why are you here?” Ronika asked.
Michael cleared his throat and swore to himself that he wouldn’t let the lady see how badly she intimidated him. “We were told to come here because we’re looking for information.”
“Who sent you?”
“An old barber over in Shady Towne.”
“Cutter.”
“Yeah, he’s the one.” Michael almost made a joke about his bad breath but stopped himself.
Ronika paused for a second. “I think I already know the answer to this question, but what are you looking for?”
“We’re looking for Kaine. The gamer.” He assumed that would be enough, but he continued. “Cutter said something about ‘the Path.’ ”
Bryson suddenly stood up, his hands flying to his temples, his eyes squeezed tight. “Oh, crap. Oh, crap.”
Michael’s heart sank. This couldn’t be good.
“What?” Sarah asked.
Bryson dropped his arms and opened his eyes. He looked over at Ronika. “My Tracer just lit up. Kaine knows we’re here. He’s close.”
Ronika seemed completely unfazed.
“Well, of course he is,” she said.
CHAPTER 7
BLACK AND BLUE
1
They all looked at the woman, waiting for her explanation. Michael wanted to get up and run, but he knew they might never get another chance to learn anything if he did.
“He’s been here before,” she said. “I assure you my firewalls are solid. That man wouldn’t dare cross me, considering I saved… one of his most cherished… Tangents from Decay.”
Her odd pauses almost made Michael forget they were in danger. He knew that all Tangents eventually went through Decay—an artificial-intelligence program that complex and that lifelike, with such realistic intelligence, couldn’t last forever before its very existence began to contradict its instincts. The research showed that it always started with essential elements in the Tangent’s life disappearing for no reason—its artificial memory lost its ability to “fill in the blanks.” Then weird things started happening to its “physical” body. The manifestations supposedly varied from Tangent to Tangent. But once the signs got too bad, became obvious to players, the programmers would shut them down. Kill them.
Ronika’s voice pulled him back to the present.
“… wouldn’t be around this long if I hadn’t cleaned out its coding and basically rebirthed Kaine’s prized Tangent. That’s not easy to do without erasing its memory, not to mention that the whole thing is illegal. Kaine owes me. He supposedly spent years developing that specific program. I didn’t know then what I do now about him, but I will say, I probably still would have done it. It’s always good to have friends—and enemies—in your debt.”
“He doesn’t seem the type to care if he betrays an old friend,” Michael pointed out. “Also, he’s been trapping people inside the Sleep. He’s ruthless, and I don’t think we should stick around to see what he does.”
Ronika eyed Michael carefully. “Then you are most welcome to leave.”
“She won’t help us anyway if they’re friends,” Bryson said.
“Friends?” Ronika repeated, saying the word as if the concept was foreign. “He paid me a ridiculous amount of money. I’m no friend of any gamer. Only an associate. All I’m saying is that what I did for him involved a rare talent of mine, and he wouldn’t dare risk jeopardizing its availability in case he needs it in the future.”
Michael didn’t feel much safer, but they had to start prying. Sarah seemed to have the same idea.
“Look,” she said. “We don’t have that kind of money. Is there a way we can earn information from you?”
A small wry grin appeared on Ronika’s face. “There are a lot of things more valuable than money. The fact that you’re sitting here tells me a lot about you. All I want in return for the answers to your questions is one simple favor.”
That seemed way too good to be true. Michael had been gaming for long enough to know there were a million terrible things she could ask them to do.
“What favor?” he asked hesitantly.
The smile hadn’t left her face. “
Oh, I couldn’t say now. I will tell you when I need it.”
Michael had no clue how the woman could say such innocent things and make them sound so menacing. And yet at the same time he found himself liking her.
“Deal,” Bryson said, not bothering to consult with his friends first. But Michael had no heart to complain; they didn’t really have much choice but to accept.
“And you two?” Ronika said, looking at Sarah, then Michael.
They both nodded.
“But we have to hurry,” Bryson said. “My Tracer is thumping and I wanna get out of here.”
Michael didn’t need to weigh the options.
“Fine,” Ronika said, seemingly satisfied with their arrangement. “Ask your questions.”
2
Michael had gotten his friends into this mess, so he conducted the interview, despite his instinct to run. They couldn’t come this far and get nothing. He decided to just be quick and to the point. And even though they’d come specifically to ask about the Path, he was going to find out as much as he could.
“Kaine,” he began. “Have you heard of something linked to him—something secret, hidden deep inside the VirtNet?”
“Yes.”
Michael held back his excitement. “Any details?”
Ronika remained straight-faced. “Almost nothing. But I think there’s definitely something major happening.” Her calm was maddening to Michael—he couldn’t tell if she knew more than she was letting on.
“Cutter said something about a path.”
She nodded. “Yes. The Path. With a capital P. How that man finds out about these things, I have no idea.”
“What is the Path?” Sarah asked.
Ronika didn’t hesitate, which gave Michael confidence she was telling the truth. “It’s the only way to get to the Hallowed Ravine, a place hidden deep within the Sleep—just like Kaine and the Path itself. Again, that’s a capital H and a capital R. The word is, that’s where Kaine’s doing his business. It’s nearly impossible to get to—and they say it has several layers of infallible security measures surrounding it. As you seem to know, however, there’s always a way through. Always.”
“The Path,” Michael repeated.
Ronika nodded. “The Path.”
Michael noticed that Bryson’s knee was bouncing up and down.
“Closer?” Michael asked him.
“He’s practically right outside this room, man.” Bryson looked at the ceiling, his eyes lit with worry. “We need to go.”
“You’ll be fine,” Ronika said. But for the first time since they’d arrived, Michael sensed the slightest doubt in her voice. “I can only tell you where to start. I’ve never been on the Path, and I have no interest in doing so.”
Michael leaned forward, so excited to finally have some hard information. “Okay, where do we go?”
“Have you ever played Devils of Destruction?”
Michael shook his head. Devils of Destruction was a lame war game that only old people played. “Never wanted to.”
“Because that game sucks,” Bryson threw in. “No wonder it starts there—no one would ever notice it. You’d have to be desperate and bored to play that game.”
Ronika’s expression seemed to have become a little more tense. She was nervous, and they could hear it in her voice. “There’s a trench somewhere in the hot zone of the battlefield that has a weak spot in the code. If you can hack your way through that weak spot, there’s a Portal to the Path. That’s all I know.” She stood up. “Now our business is done, and please don’t forget your debt. I will collect at some point.”
“What’s wrong?” Michael asked her, standing up himself.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe I was a little overconfident about our safety.”
Even as she said it, Michael heard one of the worst sounds he’d heard in his life.
3
It was unearthly, something between a high-pitched screech and a howl. A scream that was impossibly grating, discordant and harsh. He clamped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. All he wanted was for it to stop.
For what had to be a full minute, the sound tore through his body. Then it ended.
Michael opened his eyes and tentatively lowered his hands. Sarah and Bryson were both pale, as if they might throw up. Even Ronika was no longer the picture of calmness she’d been earlier.
“What was that?” Bryson breathed.
“It’s not Kaine your Tracer picked up,” Ronika answered. “He sent… something else.”
A low rumbling noise started, which somehow seemed to come from everywhere at once, shaking the room around them, then passing into a long moment of silence. All four of them were frozen in place. Michael was embarrassed to admit it, but he was waiting for Ronika to tell them what to do.
The screech exploded through the air again, piercing and raw. Michael fell back on the couch, clamping his hands back over his ears. The noise cut off sooner than before, and he scrambled to his feet, no longer willing to rely on their host.
“Come on,” he said, pointing at the door Ronika had come through earlier. “Let’s get out of—”
Another eruption of the awful scream sliced off his words, but Bryson and Sarah got the point. They started moving toward the exit, but a sound like a breaking tree branch sent Michael stumbling. He turned to look just as a shadowy hand twice the size of a human’s crashed through the wall, sending huge pieces of wood flying through the air. Michael ducked to avoid the debris before he got a good look. The huge fingers lit up with a flash of yellowish light from within.
Michael hit the rug on his knees, arms curled over his head to protect himself. He heard the click-click-click of what had to be nails or claws scratching the wood on the other side of the wall, a few huffs of monstrous breath.
Ronika jumped into action. “Quick, follow me!”
Michael didn’t waste a second. Ronika started running toward the door, but something thumped against it from the other side, then thumped again. The door trembled in its frame. Ronika changed direction and suddenly fell to the floor in the corner of the room. Michael reached down to help her before he realized she was swinging a hidden panel away from the wall. She crawled into a long compartment, and he got down on his hands and knees and followed her into the darkness. Bryson and Sarah squeezed through the small opening behind him, pushing him against Ronika.
“Close it up,” she whispered. “Hurry.”
Bryson did as she said, pulling the hidden door back into position.
There was just enough room inside for them to shift until they sat, backs against the wall, four in a line. Michael’s head brushed the ceiling. Before any of them had a chance to speak, Ronika closed her eyes tightly and a screen appeared in the air, hovering above her lap before floating over to the wall in front of them. The screen showed the room from which they’d just escaped.
As Michael watched, something exploded out of the hole the strange hand had torn through the wall. A dark, wolfish shape with blurred features leaped past splintered wood and landed on the tile floor, yellow eyes gleaming in its gray head. Three more shadowy creatures jumped through the wall after it, and they each ran to a different corner of the room. The edges of the room were dim, and Michael watched with growing horror as the creatures seemed to vanish into the shadows, melding with the darkness until there was nothing but those two pinpoints of bright yellow light in each corner.
Since they didn’t have a Portal to Lift themselves back to the Wake, Michael had no idea what to do. What were those things out there? He’d never seen anything like them in the Sleep before. And why were they just waiting?
Ronika turned to face Michael and his friends, and they waited for her to speak. She’d said that Kaine had sent “something else” to the Black and Blue, so Michael hoped she knew what it was.
“Well?” Bryson finally said in a low whisper.
Ronika gave him a sharp look; then she answered the obvious but unspoken question.
4
Michael had never heard of a KillSim before Tanya had used the term what now seemed like eons ago—but he knew enough that those two words together sent goose bumps across his arms. “What are they?”
“Kaine’s creation—stories have been surfacing recently.” Ronika looked at the screen. There was still no movement in the room, only dark shadows and yellow eyes. “They’re a version of antimatter for the VirtNet. Antiprogramming would be a more apt description. If they can bite you and latch on, they’ll literally suck the virtual life into some digital abyss that’s God knows where. You’d Lift back into your Coffin in the Wake and be ruined, have to start all over. It could even damage your brain in the real world, which might be what happened to some of those people you mentioned earlier.”
More chills for Michael. He flinched when a low growl came from the other side of the secret door, but there was no movement on the screen. The noise wasn’t like that of any kind of animal in the natural world. There was something staticky and digital about it. Michael braced himself, wondering if that awful screech would come next, but it didn’t happen.
“Why aren’t they attacking us?” Sarah whispered. “They have to know we came in here.”
“I’m not complaining,” Bryson murmured.
Ronika spoke so quietly that Michael had to lean in to hear her. “My guess is Kaine wanted to trap us. And now we’re cornered better than he even imagined. Maybe he’s coming himself, trying to break through my firewalls.”
“How do we fight those things off?” Bryson asked. “Do you know anything about them?”
The last word had barely come out of his mouth when the ear-piercing howl tore through the air again.
As soon as it stopped, Ronika answered. “I have no idea,” she said, her voice empty of any sense of hope.
The only thing left was for Michael to take charge. “Listen, Ronika, they’re obviously here for us. But we can’t sit here all day—we’re just waiting for Kaine to stroll right in, and he’ll find us eventually. You stay while we make a break for the door.”
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