The Fever Code (37 page)

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.