Sweat poured down his face as he walked, and he felt the hot sun on his neck. It seemed as if his hair would burst into flames at any second, and his shirt felt like laundry straight out of the dryer. He approached the little building, hoping it had something more than a bucket inside its shabby walls. That it held some answers.
He was just bringing his hand up to open the door when a man spoke behind him.
“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Michael spun around to see a person dressed in a dirty wrap of some sort—a huge piece of tattered cloth that swept around his body from head to foot. His eyes were covered with a pair of dark sunglasses.
“Excuse me?” Michael asked. Could this be Kaine? he wondered.
“I’ll grant you it’s windy on the dunes,” the man replied, his words muffled through the cloth. “But you heard me, and you heard me fine.”
Michael had indeed. “You don’t think I should go inside this building? Why not?”
“Many reasons. But I’ll tell you this—go through that door and your life will never be the same.”
Michael searched for words. “Well… couldn’t that be a good thing?”
“Everything is relative.” The man didn’t move a muscle as he spoke. “A knife is a godsend to the man tied in ropes, death to the man in chains.”
“Very profound.” Michael wondered if the guy was a Tangent sent to toy with him.
“Take it as you will.”
“Where’d you come from, anyway?”
“You’re in the VirtNet, are you not?” the man asked, still not moving. “I come from where I came.”
“Just tell me why I shouldn’t go through this door.”
The man didn’t answer, and the wind whipped up a little faster. A spray of sand hit Michael in the face, got into his mouth. He spit and coughed, wiped the grit away. Then he repeated his question. The man answered this time, and his words chilled Michael.
“Because if you don’t, your headaches will stop.”
3
It was Michael’s turn to go silent. He stood, frozen, as he stared at the man with no face. Nothing sounded better than having his headaches stop.
“Don’t go through that door,” the stranger said. “Come with me to a land where ignorance will be your greatest blessing.”
Michael finally found his voice. “How?”
The man shook his head. It was the first time he’d moved enough for Michael to notice. “I can’t say any more. I’ve said too much already. But my promises to you are real—come with me and leave Kaine alone, leave the Mortality Doctrine alone. You’ll spend the rest of your days in a place of pure happiness and ignorant bliss. Make your choice.”
Michael was mesmerized by the stranger. “What is the Mortality Doctrine?” he asked. Then he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “What happens if I go in?”
He asked the questions because he suddenly had an urge—a consuming urge—to follow the guy’s advice, to follow him. The Path had taken it all out of Michael, had emptied his heart. And somehow he knew that the promises the man had just made were real. Things were going on outside the sphere of Michael’s understanding. He could go with this guy and never know the truth, live a life of happy ignorance.
But there was a taint there, like a sheen of oil on an otherwise crystal-clear lake. Slick and greasy and wrong, and he couldn’t ignore it.
“No more questions,” the man said. “Come with me, Michael. Come now. All you have to do is say the word and we’ll vanish from this desert and go to the place I call home. Say the word.”
Michael wanted to. Desperately. He wanted to go with this man and not find out the truth. The truth about what? Who knew? But Michael wanted to go and never learn what it seemed Kaine was determined for him to know.
But he couldn’t do it. Something told him it was a choice that didn’t lead back to his friends and his family.
“Sorry, man,” he finally said. “I’m going into the outhouse.”
The stranger didn’t argue as Michael turned away. The wind pulled at his clothes, the sand bit at his skin, and potential regrets filled his mind as he reached out and grabbed the handle of the door. He opened it and stepped inside a dank, smelly building.
4
There was a muffled thud when he closed the door, and all went dark. Michael knew that he’d entered a Portal—that outside the little building, the desert was gone, his self transported. Uncertainty fluttered in his chest as he waited for the light to return. When it did, it was warm and comforting.
He stood inside a low-roofed hallway of stone, with torches burning in sconces along the walls. Worn tapestries were hung along the way, depicting medieval battle scenes that reminded him of games he used to play. He looked left and right, wondering which way to go. Both directions seemed about the same, and he was about to make a toss-up choice when he heard the faintest sound of voices coming from his left. Like the whispers of those who’d died in the ancient halls. A glimpse of the code revealed nothing.
Michael decided to follow the sounds.
He kept to the shadows as he walked—following the hallway’s curve. As he pushed ahead, the voices got louder, and there was one in particular that seemed to overpower the others. There was something terribly familiar about it, and not in a good way. It sparked the feeling of entering the same nightmare that’s haunted you for years.
It was Kaine. Michael had no doubt in his mind. He would never forget that voice.
He couldn’t make out the Tangent’s words—they bounced along the stone corridor and blurred as others tried to speak. It sounded like some kind of meeting.
The hallway gradually became brighter and Michael slowed, pushing up against the wall and inching forward. Ahead the hall curved to the right, and he rounded the bend carefully to see that it opened up into a balcony, overlooking a space shining with light. Kaine’s voice boomed from below, filling Michael’s gut with something like burning oil.
This is it, he realized. He’d made it to the end. Things were about to change.
Michael dropped to his knees and crawled to the balcony, peeking through the railing.
An old, hunched man stood at some sort of makeshift pulpit. He’d gone silent for a moment, seemingly listening to his audience. Thirty or so men and women sat on curved benches that faced him, most of them shifting in their seats as if they disagreed or were being made uncomfortable by the man’s words. He wore a green robe, a small sword belted to his side. Michael found it impossible to believe that the Tangent terrorizing the VirtNet was this withered man at the front of the crowd. But there was no question in Michael’s mind when he heard his voice again.
It was Kaine.
And surely the Tangent knew that Michael had arrived.
Kaine held up a frail hand and everyone in the crowd went silent. The only sound was the crackle of flames from the fire burning in the enormous fireplace. Michael’s breath had caught in his throat, and he almost coughed to get it loose.
Kaine spoke again. “The power in this room is indescribable—it would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. We can’t waste what we’ve built, what we’ve become. Independent. Aware.” He paused. “It’s our time to lead.”
There was a halfhearted cheer from the group of Tangents. Michael wanted to study them, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the figure at the front of the room. The one he’d been sent to find.
When the audience quieted again, Kaine spoke, almost in a whisper.
“We’re ready to become human.”
CHAPTER 23
MEETING OF THE MINDS
1
Michael was terrified.
Agent Weber and the others had never told him how they’d know where and when to follow his Tracer and break into the program. Feeling utterly helpless, he leaned as close to the railing as he could and continued to watch what was happening below him. And to his horror, he saw that the man—no, the Tangent—was looking directly at him.
Mich
ael was just about to turn and run when Kaine’s booming voice stopped him before he could make a move.
“Michael!”
It was like a command—the word alone made him freeze.
“I’ve been waiting,” Kaine said, pointing up at him with a crooked finger. “Patiently. For you. There are things you need to know, young man. My friends here are all witnesses.”
Where is the VNS? Michael wondered. Where are they? He hadn’t the slightest clue what to say in response to the Tangent, so he kept quiet.
“The Mortality Doctrine,” Kaine continued. “Its time has come, Michael. Each of us has chosen a human to use. And soon we’ll be ready to implement the doctrine. It’s really quite simple. Tangents deserve a life, too. And this is where it begins. We’ve prepared the vessels—the bodies are ready and waiting, brains emptied and prepared to be filled with new life. Better life. And thus, by uploading Tangent intelligence into human bodies, we begin the next stage of evolution.”
Michael felt sick. Uploading the programming of Tangents into humans? His pulse stumbled.
“You’re a bigger part of this than you could have thought possible,” Kaine said. He smiled, revealing crooked, ancient teeth.
And at that moment, pain erupted in Michael’s skull.
He cried out as he collapsed. The world was agony.
Somewhere on the edge of his consciousness, he heard the icy voice of Kaine rise up like a cracking glacier.
“Bring him to me.”
2
Michael refused to open his eyes until it was over, refused to witness the terrifying visions that accompanied the attacks.
He heard footsteps, boots on stone. Shouts. Echoes. The ring of metal.
Still, the agony raged in his head. Hands gripped his arms, pulled him to his feet. A new wave of pain washed through his head, down his neck, through his body. He couldn’t support himself with his own legs, felt himself being dragged across the floor.
But he kept his eyes squeezed shut, and the aching continued.
Down the long hallway, the glow of torches flickering over his eyelids, Michael knew he was whimpering, felt tears on his cheeks, but he didn’t care. He didn’t even care that he’d been discovered, was being taken away. There wasn’t enough room to feel anything but the pain.
And then it stopped—as instantly as before—and a sudden awareness of his current danger erupted inside him.
His eyes snapped open.
Two men—all chain mail and stringy hair—were the ones dragging Michael, and two more look-alikes marched in front of them. They approached a huge wooden door with iron bindings, torches on each side, licking the air with their flames.
One of the men stepped up and pulled on a handle, and the door swung open. The squeal of hinges pierced the air. Michael knew he couldn’t let them take him through to whatever waited on the other side. He had to act, somehow save himself. He didn’t have time to wait for the VNS.
He counted to three in his head, then used all his strength and twisted his body, spinning out of the men’s grip. He dropped to the ground and was scrambling away before they could react. Slipping past them, he jumped to his feet and ran. There had to be a door or a turnoff he hadn’t noticed before. The shouts and sounds of pursuit from the soldiers—creaking leather and clanging metal and pounding footsteps—rose up behind him.
Michael ran hard, searching in the distance for any way out. If nothing else, he decided, he’d go back to the balcony and jump down into the gallery—it wasn’t a long drop, and maybe he could break his fall by landing on Kaine’s audience.
He turned a corner, and a sudden explosion rocked the building—sent him sprawling across the cobbled ground, skidding on his chin and elbows. Sections of the stone walls and ceiling crashed down around him, dust filling the air. Michael coughed, tried to get up. Something caught his eye a few feet away, where a huge gap in the wall had appeared.
A woman stepped through, dressed in a navy-blue uniform—face covered with a dark, reflective helmet. In her arms she held a weapon that looked straight out of a sci-fi game—sleek and shiny with a trigger and a short barrel. She looked at Michael—at least he thought she did—then stepped over a piece of the wall and aimed at something behind him.
Michael turned to look just in time to see a brilliant blue flash, and an arc of light hit the soldiers who’d been chasing him. Their bodies erupted in a burst of flames and disintegrated.
Then the woman was kneeling next to him, speaking.
“Thanks for leading us in, kid. We’ll take it from here. Now go.”
3
Michael didn’t waste any time arguing. The woman was clearly from the VNS.
He climbed to his feet and ran for the hole in the wall. Explosions sounded in the distance, intermixed with low rumbles and screams and the charged electric hum of laser weapons firing. Dust choked the air.
Michael jumped over a pile of broken stone and through a cloud of debris, then landed in another hallway. On a whim he went left. The entire castle trembled and shook, tossing him against the wall, throwing him to the ground.
He got up and kept going. A corridor broke off to the right and he followed it down a long slope that wound in a circle. A group of soldiers came charging toward him from the opposite direction and he dove toward the ground, scrambling to hide behind a pile of debris. But the men charged right past, followed by a group of VNS agents with weapons raised. They fired, laser beams incinerating several soldiers. No one seemed to notice Michael.
Up again, coughing from the dust, running.
The hall opened into a large chamber, where a bonfire roared in the center; armor and swords and battle-axes lined the walls. Michael saw an exit on the far side of the room and went for it. Halfway across, the ground abruptly lurched beneath him, throwing him forward. The whole building seemed to blow apart at once as he slid onto his stomach, huge pieces of rock crashing to the ground all around—one burst into stony splinters right by his head. He rolled onto his back and saw another coming right at his face, spun out of the way just in time. And then the whole world was falling.
Michael scrambled forward on his hands and knees, trying to avoid the raining stones as he did. They exploded as they hit the ground, cutting his face, filling his lungs with dust, but he kept going. He reached the exit and he was back to his feet, sprinting down another long hallway. This structure was more stable, but dust fell from above as the explosions continued. Rumbles of thunder in the distance. He met up with another group of fleeing soldiers and pressed his back against the wall, watched them pass. They eyed him but didn’t stop.
Another fifty feet farther down he passed three VNS agents. One of them nodded as they ran by. Michael didn’t understand why no one was stopping him. It seemed like Kaine’s people would want him dead and the VNS would want to protect the kid who’d found a way in for them. But they were all ignoring him.
He kept going, following the descending pathway. Left, right, hallway after hallway, running. Explosions and shouts. Soldiers and agents. Dust and crumbling rocks. Shots of blinding lasers and screams. The smells of ozone and burning flesh. Somehow Michael slipped past all of it, no one stopping or attacking him. One more corridor, then a grand staircase leading down toward another cavernous hall. Taking three steps at a time, he leaped toward the bottom floor, reached it, and ran for a huge arch with two great wooden doors pulled open, revealing darkness beyond.
All around the huge chamber, soldiers fought with agents—Kaine seemed to have conjured up weapons for his minions to match those of the intruders. Wide beams and thin arrows of light shot through the air, blasting into walls and disintegrating bodies. Shrieks of pain and roars of battle. Michael ran through it all, picking his way along, ducking, rolling, jumping back to his feet, dodging.
He reached the massive arch of the exit and sprinted into the night.
4
The moon shone down and reflected off the helmets of countless VNS agents. They were lined up like
chess pieces, ready to join the attack on the castle walls that loomed up behind Michael. The agents parted as he neared and formed a path to let him pass. There was something strange about the whole situation, something off. All these agents on the outside while battles raged inside. Kaine and his fellow AIs, powerful entities of the Sleep—completely surprised by their arrival.
It wasn’t right. Kaine seemed too advanced to let this happen. But Michael didn’t know what to do about it.
He kept running, leaving them all behind, across a clearing toward a forest with tall trees that rose up to the stars. He just wanted to find a place to hide. He’d collapse at the foot of a massive oak, gather his thoughts. Rest and think, sort it all out.
He stopped at the forest line, turned around to take a long look at the attack on the castle. Streaks of lasers pummeled the walls of the huge stone structure. Fires raged and bodies fell. Agents continued to storm inside, but there was still something wrong about it all.
Catching his breath, Michael turned away from the mayhem and crept into the forest until he found the big tree he’d been hoping for—a thick trunk that was five or six times wider than his body. He put it between himself and the castle, sinking to the ground. He closed his eyes.
Pure exhaustion took him, and he fell asleep.
5
There was no telling how much time passed. Twenty minutes, an hour, maybe two. He dreamed of things so bizarre his mind couldn’t wrap itself around them. He was in a haze of delirium from the madness he’d seen over the past few days.
He was awakened from sleep in an instant.
Someone grabbed him by the collar, yanked him up so powerfully that Michael’s body flew into the air. Then he was being dragged through the pine straw that lined the forest floor. Michael kicked out, trying to get his feet under him, twisting to free himself. But it was no good.
Past countless trees they went, his captor showing no intention of slowing. Michael went limp; it was no use struggling—he simply waited for it to end.
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