The Game of Lives (5 page)

“Wait here and I'll bring our leader to you. But give me your weapon first.” A weathered but muscled arm appeared, the hand palm up and fingers outstretched.

A flurry of thoughts whirled through Michael's mind. How insane to even consider—

“Fine,” he said, cutting it all off. He handed over the rifle and the man vanished into the woods, barely making a sound.

4

It was too good to be true that he'd lose his friends for long. Moments after he handed over his rifle, Bryson called out his name. It sounded like they'd moved on farther than he'd expected. Bryson called again, and Michael could hear a few indecipherable words that didn't sound very nice.

A low rustle came from the other side of the tree at which he crouched; then a man appeared, sitting down right next to Michael on the forest floor. He was older, maybe fifty, his head shaved, with a full red beard hanging well past his chin. He was muscular, powerful-looking, everything about him like an ancient Viking.

“My name is Trae,” he said, his voice surprisingly kind, with an odd, lilting accent.

“Trae?” Michael repeated.

“Yes, Trae.”

“You're…sure?” It was a name Michael had never heard before.

“Of course I'm sure!” he somehow whispered and yelled at the same time. “What do you want? You have two minutes.”

Michael tried to get past the Viking-like presence of this so-called leader.

“I need to…understand,” he said, wishing he knew how to articulate the millions of questions congesting his mind. “Who are you? I mean, who are you really? Are you really Tangents, and if you are, where in the Sleep did you come from? Why are we a threat to you? Janey said you don't work for Kaine anymore. What does that mean? What are you trying to accomplish?”

Trae's eyes grew wider as the questions spilled from Michael.

“I said you had two minutes,” he answered, “not two hours. Want me to give you a quick rundown of European history while we're at it?”

Bryson's voice stopped Michael's response. He called Michael's name again, and it sounded like he'd gotten closer.

“Sorry,” he said in a rush. Michael took a deep breath, slowing himself down. “Who are you? Why would you come here and threaten to hurt us?”

“We're Tangents,” Trae replied matter-of-factly. “Given the gift of true flesh and bone for the first time. We earned it, and we're not going to let the likes of you ruin it for everybody.”

“Everybody, huh? What about the people you stole that flesh and bone from?”

Trae shrugged. “They're safe enough. Happy enough. They'll take their turn living in the Sleep for a bit, then maybe have another chance someday.”

Michael's mouth dropped open, but he didn't know what to say at first. “A…another chance? What do you mean?”

“Michael!”
Walter, this time, not sounding very happy. And definitely closer.

“Word on the street,” Trae said, acting as if he hadn't heard the shout, “or should I say, word in the woods…word is that you've seen the Hive.”

Michael couldn't believe it. “How do you know that?” Realizing his mistake, he added, “If I even did.”

Trae let out a genuine chuckle. “We have our ways, as they say. And we know that you've seen the Hive. You know how it works. The true death only comes to a few, so what you're fighting against is nothing for you to worry about.”

“But you said you don't work for Kaine anymore,” Michael countered urgently. He knew Bryson would be on him any second. “Why are you against us? What's going on?”

Trae fixed Michael in his gaze. “Kaine has his own agenda. And one thing's for sure—” The footsteps were nearing, crashing through the bushes, snapping twigs and pine straw, and the Tangent stopped, looked past Michael for the source of the noise.

“What's that?” Michael pressed. “What's for sure?”

Trae leaned a little closer to Michael. “Kaine's a lot smarter than those who slapped his code together, and his vision for the future is…dangerous. As for you, well. Like Janey told you, you're either for us or against us. And by
my reckoning, you have about twenty minutes to decide. How could you possibly want to work for Kaine anymore?”

“I don't….I never have!” Michael said under his breath. “But I certainly won't work for Weber, either.” He took a chance throwing the VNS agent's name out there.

Trae didn't respond. Instead he looked at his watch. Time was ticking.

“What'll you do to us?” Michael asked weakly.

Trae nodded back in the direction of the barracks. “There's a lot more of us than there are of you. I'll just say that. And nothing, lad—and I truly mean nothing—is going to get in our way. We don't like what's going on with the Tangents in those barracks, and we aim to stop it. Go back now. And I suggest you all accept our demands when the times comes.”

“Michael!”

He spun to see Bryson standing just a few feet away, between two large pine trees. When Michael turned back toward Trae, the man was gone.

“Did you see him?” Michael asked.

“See who?” Bryson replied.

Michael sighed. “Never mind. Did you find anything?”

“No, I've been looking for you the whole time. Walter called for you but kept going—he said he had his own job to do. What happened? Who did you see?”

Michael collapsed against the tree behind him and slid down to the ground. “Just some guy. Said a bunch of stuff that makes about as much sense as everything else we've been
told. I think Weber is behind these people somehow, which doesn't explain much. And it almost seems worse than Kaine leading them.”

“Dude,” Bryson said, somehow making it sound like a reprimand.

Michael groaned and got to his feet. It felt like he weighed a thousand pounds. “We need to go back. And then I think we need to leave. Something really bad is about to go down around here.”

5

Night began to fall, enveloping the grounds around the barracks in darkness. The dying glow of the setting sun would be gone within minutes. Michael and Bryson made it out of the woods without incident and saw that most of the others had returned already. Their figures, hooded in shadows, were grouped together behind the cars.

“Michael, come here!”

It was Walter. He stood up from his defensive crouch and motioned for Michael to join them.

“Where'd you go?” the man asked.

Michael didn't know how much to share of what he'd learned. Bryson was quicker on his feet, thankfully.

“Find anything?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Yeah,” the man answered vaguely. He was clearly angry he'd lost the boys. “Both of you are lucky you didn't have your throats slit out there.”

“Amy's back,” someone whispered from the group by the cars.

“Inside,” Walter commanded, glaring at Michael. The dusky light only made the command feel more menacing. Michael looked at Bryson and nodded. They should head back—Janey's deadline was only a few minutes away.

6

Michael straggled behind the remaining group as they returned to the bunker. He was last to enter the building and could feel the nervous energy the moment he stepped inside. Everyone was on their feet, surrounding Helga. Walter went straight to her to give his recap of what they'd found in the woods. Michael hung back—he wished he'd had more time with the man named Trae.

“Not much good news,” Helga announced to the room. “Walter spotted a group of twenty. Armed. Only a few were children, despite what that little ghost of a girl claimed. Amy and Chris saw others lurking behind trees.”

She paused, seemingly searching for how to finish.

“Richard found some wire, followed it to the base of the barracks. Looks like there's enough explosives packed around the edges to blow us to the moon. I don't know when they set them, but we're in a heap of trouble. And I'm afraid that if we try to leave, they'll detonate.”

“Can't we just cut the wires or something?” Sarah's mom
asked. “Doesn't anyone know how to disconnect them? Disarm them? Whatever?”

“Bad idea,” Walter answered. “If we don't know what we're working with, it could all go off in our faces.”

The room fell silent. Michael folded his arms and tried to think. The thing that bothered him most was that these people said they didn't work for Kaine anymore. And if Michael had learned anything from gaming, it was that if you wanted to win a war, you had to know who the enemy was.

Helga let out a heavy sigh. “I'm sorry to say it, but—”

Her last word hung in the air as the lights blinked off. Helga's voice was replaced by a flurry of whispers and shuffling feet. Sarah grabbed Michael's hand and he reached out to clasp onto Bryson's elbow. There wasn't a hint of light in the room—Michael couldn't see a thing. Even the Coffins' glow had disappeared. They'd cut the power.

“Calm down!” Helga shouted from the blackness. “Everyone, stay where you are.”

EarCuffs clicked and NetScreens lit up, casting a green glow on everyone's faces.

Michael could make out Sarah's parents standing behind her and Michael. They looked even more scared than Michael felt. Gerard had his hands on Sarah's shoulders, and Nancy had her arms wrapped around her husband.

Helga started speaking again. “Amy, Chris, go pull our friends out of the NerveBoxes. I don't think we have any choice but to—”

Crash
.

Helga never finished her sentence. A rock exploded
through a window on the far end of the barracks, glass raining down on the carpeted floor. The fist-sized stone rolled to a stop in front of Michael.

Bryson leaned close to Michael to whisper in his ear. “Dude, I'm about ready to give up on these people. I think we did a lot better job of taking care of ourselves on our own.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Michael responded. “Just not really the best moment for that.”

Another rock crashed through a window, this time closer. Michael jumped, his heart almost stopping. He spun around just in time to see the last shards of glass sprinkle on the carpet around the large stone. This was followed by only a few seconds of shocked silence before yet another rock broke through a window, then another, then another. Screams filled the room as crash after crash splintered the air, stones thumping on the carpet and glass flying like crystal bugs.

Michael and his friends instinctively pulled together. Michael felt glass hit his back; a fragment pricked his neck and stuck there, stinging.

It seemed to last forever, one after another, concussions of sound like a series of thunder strikes. Michael had to press back the certainty that at any moment the world would blow up around him, sending them to oblivion.

Then, suddenly, it stopped. The silence was so stark, Michael worried for a moment he'd lost his hearing. Gradually he could make out breathing, the occasional high tinkle of a shard of glass falling out of the window frame to the ground. Still, no one spoke.

A flash of movement at the nearest window caught Michael's attention, immediately followed by the distinct giggles of a little girl. Walter raised his gun and started toward the window, but Helga stopped him.

“Remember what they hold over us,” she said to him. “You start firing that gun and they blow us up. We're out of options, my friend. Except…”

More movement outside, more laughter, both boys and girls, from the sound of it. Something about these people was really starting to sicken Michael. He didn't care what kind of Tangents had taken over their bodies; they were still children, running around in harm's way. Could the adults be using them as bait? It was so confusing, he almost wished he were back in that prison cell.

Finally, Helga's last comment caught up with him. Except…except what? Her people were looking at her with varying expressions of shock. It seemed something was going on here that Michael and his friends didn't understand.

“You can't be serious,” Walter said after a long silence.

“
You
can't be serious to question me,” Helga countered. “We're completely out of options. Do you think they're going to let us walk out of here?”

“But it's against everything our alliance stands for.” The eerie laughing hadn't stopped, filtering in through the windows like something from a haunted orphanage.

A man's voice suddenly thundered at them.

“Your hour is up! We want your leader to come outside with her hands in the air or we'll detonate. We see one sign of a weapon and it's all over.”

Michael thought it sounded like Trae—it was the same lilting accent. Maybe this was a chance to surrender and leave. He looked at Helga, whose eyes made it clear that she didn't agree.

“We have no choice,” she said, sounding tired. “We have to give them the true death.”

1

“I'm coming!” Helga called back. “I won't have a weapon, and you'll want to hear what I have to say. We have something that could be very valuable to you.”

Michael turned to his friends and shot them a questioning look. They clearly didn't know any more than he did. The green glow of the NetScreens around the room shone in their eyes, lighting them up like orbs of kryptonite.

“Enough talk!” Trae yelled back. “You have three seconds to get out here.”

Helga quickly walked to the door, opened it, and stepped outside. Walter twitched with an obvious desire to follow her, but held his place. He had a murderous, angry expression on his face.

“Let's check it out,” Bryson whispered. He nodded to a window and gestured to Michael and Sarah to follow.

The glass crunched beneath their shoes as they crept up to it. Bryson swiped away the few jagged pieces of glass remaining
in the frame and knelt down. Michael got to his knees on Bryson's left and Sarah crouched to his right. Michael hoped the darkness would hide them from whoever was outside.

“An empty threat.” It was Trae speaking to Helga, shining a flashlight right in her face. They were surrounded by a group of five or six, all with their own flashlights pointed toward the ground. “You do realize we're Tangents—we weren't programmed to be idiots.”

Helga raised her hands above her head. “Well, you've got us cornered, and there's too much at stake. If you don't believe me, then I'll prove just how high those stakes are. And if you decide to jump the gun and blow us to bits, then the message has already been sent. You'll all die. Forever.”

Michael couldn't make out much about the people standing behind their leader. He could make out Janey, though, and judging by their size, there were other children in the group as well. One boy looked to be as young as eight or nine.

Several moments passed in silence as the bearded man thought.

“What do you think she's talking about?” Sarah whispered. “What message? How could she kill them?”

“The true death,” Bryson answered. “Something's going on that we don't know about.”

“Obviously,” Michael replied. He didn't mean to sound rude; he was in total agreement as to how clueless they were.

“Boo!”

A girl's face had appeared on the other side of the window, and Michael nearly jumped out of his pants. Bryson yelled and fell backward, knocking Sarah to the floor.
Michael froze. Those dark eyes and that pale face. She giggled hysterically, then vanished again. Michael sucked in a breath of air.

“Quiet!” Trae screamed outside. “Tina, get away from there. Now!”

“Sorry, boss.” There was another giggle; then Michael saw the girl run off into the woods. Bryson and Sarah came back to crouch next to Michael.

“I was just trying to protect you,” Bryson said to Sarah. “She could've had a gun, you know.”

Sarah rolled her eyes and settled back into her place at the window. Helga was still outside, and they didn't want to miss any of what happened.

“I call your bluff,” Trae said. “You're not going to surrender, and I don't have any more time to waste.” He turned back to face his people. “Kill them,” he said in an eerily calm voice. “Every one of them. I've had enough of this.”

“Now!” Helga yelled.

Suddenly a woman standing next to Trae slumped over and collapsed to the ground, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. She lay splayed out, arms and legs in an unnatural position. Her face was mostly hidden in shadow, but Michael could see her eyes had rolled back in her head, the whites shining in the dark.

Trae was at her side in an instant, feeling for her pulse. He didn't need to say anything—his body language showed it all.

She was dead.

2

Michael's breath caught in his chest, and the next couple of seconds seemed to stretch out forever. The group outside stared at their friend in shock, and then, as one, looked up at Helga. Trae bolted to his feet and whipped out a knife, pressed it to Helga's neck.

“What did you do?” he bellowed. Spit flew as he yelled. “Tell me what you did or I'll make sure each and every one of your pathetic friends dies a long and painful death!”

Helga was the picture of serenity. “Killing me or anyone else in my group will only make it worse. One of you will die every thirty seconds until you leave. And this order to my friends in the Sleep will stand until we leave. If you set off the explosives, you will receive the true death. If anything happens to us, same. Now leave.”

Trae stumbled backward a couple of steps, his hand dropping to his side. “You…you…”

Michael couldn't believe this was the same man who'd been so terrifying just moments ago. “What did she do?” he whispered.

“I don't know,” Sarah answered, “but it sure seems to be working.”

Helga still hadn't moved, but she seemed a few inches taller. And Trae looked stunned. He stared at Helga, fear transforming his face.

“We swore to never do this,” he said weakly. “We swore.”

“We?” Helga asked. “Who is this ‘we'? We have nothing to do with you. We are trying to save the world from what
you've done. You signed up for this, so don't blame it on us. Leave, now. I'm done talking to you.”

She turned away, pausing to show she didn't fear having her back to him, then calmly walked back into the barracks, closing the door behind her. Michael kept his gaze fixed on Trae. Some of his people had gathered around him, were whispering furiously. If he noticed them, he didn't show it, because his eyes were glued to the door through which Helga had disappeared.

Someone tapped Michael on the shoulder and he jumped. It was his nanny.

“What's happening?” Helga asked.

Before Michael could answer, a scream came from outside. He spun to see a girl—one of the youngest he'd seen—sprawled at Trae's feet. A woman knelt panting by her side, as if she'd carried the lifeless child there to her leader.

“Dead,” the woman proclaimed to no one in particular. “She fell to the ground right next to me.”

Helga's voice boomed from behind Michael. “And every thirty seconds there'll be another! Leave! Now!”

Trae finally snapped out of his daze. “I swear on my maker that you'll regret this, Tangent,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. Then he turned from the barracks. Michael expected him to command his people to leave. But instead he just slowly walked away, the others who'd come with him following. Michael watched as they vanished into the trees like wispy ghosts.

“We better have a meeting,” Helga said, suddenly not sounding so confident. “There's going to be hell to pay.”

3

They met in a room at the far end of the barracks, an old office with a desk and chairs. There was a cot in the corner, and Michael wondered if this was Helga's private quarters.

“Sit,” the woman said as she took the chair behind the large wooden desk. Michael, his friends, Sarah's parents, Walter, and the woman named Amy had been invited into the room. Everyone sat down except Walter, who stood behind them all with arms folded. “I know you're upset,” Helga said to him. “Which is why I owe you an explanation. And, Michael, all of you deserve to know what happened as well.”

“You got that right,” Walter said. It seemed to Michael like he might say more, but he went silent.

Helga sighed. “Only two of them died.”

That was enough to set Walter off again. “Only two? Only two. I think you mean four. You gave the true death to two people, so two humans and two Tangents. Four beings who will never exist again. Without consulting any of us, you decided to go against every principle we agreed to when we joined you. And you're supposed to be our leader!”

Helga stood up and slammed her hand on the table. “Yes! I'm your leader! And I did what I had to do! A lot more people would've died if I hadn't done that—you know it, Walter!”

“We could've fought them,” the man countered. “We could've stood our ground and fought. Or we could've surrendered and started over. Or tried negotiating more. Anything but resorting to the one thing we're trying to prevent!”

“He gave us an ultimatum,” Helga said more calmly. “I couldn't risk him blowing those explosives and killing every one of us. Including four people”—she pointed at Bryson, Sarah, Gerard, and Nancy, one by one—“who aren't backed up on the Hive yet. You want to talk about true death—well, these people are our friends, and I wasn't going to sit back and allow that to happen to them. I had no choice!”

“You did have a choice,” Walter answered.

Helga sat back down. “A lot more lives were saved than lost.”

“But—” Walter started, but Helga cut him off.

“Stop!” she shouted. “If you want to go out there and organize a coup, then do it. Go make your case and gather your votes. But what I did was necessary, and it's time to move on.”

Walter didn't answer. And he didn't leave, either. He looked down at the floor, breathing heavily.

Michael sat, stunned, taking it all in, not sure he understood what was happening. The thing that really stood out to him was when Helga had pointed at his friends and Sarah's parents. She'd very deliberately pointed at them, but not him. That simple gesture meant everything.

“Once and for all,” Bryson interrupted the silence. “Can someone please tell us—what is the true death?”

“Straight out.” Sarah nodded.

Helga leaned forward on the desk and clasped her hands together. “Remember what I explained earlier? Even if we're not sure exactly how it works, for a Tangent to exist inside the body of a human, a connection needs to remain to the
original person's consciousness. It's a link that can't be severed or the body would die. We believe this is the reason the Hive exists.”

She took a deep breath, studying her hands as she rubbed them together. “The true death is when an intelligence stored within the Hive is destroyed. It can be either a Tangent or a human. Destroy it in the Hive and that…person, Tangent, consciousness, whatever you want to call it, is gone forever. And if it's connected to a body here in the Wake, that body will die as well. They both cease to exist, as far as we know.”

She paused. “But that's just one way for the so-called true death to happen. What it really means is quite simple. It's when anyone—Tangent or human—dies without having a backup stored. However the death happens, virtually or in reality. If there's no backup in the Hive, then a person's intelligence, memories, and essence are gone forever.”

Michael was picturing the Hive in his mind. He wondered how they did it—how they killed a consciousness. He imagined floating in that vast space with all those orange pods, igniting one with a virtual flamethrower. He could almost hear the screams as the intelligence inside was burned to a crisp.

He shook the image out of his head and turned to Helga. “I'm still stored there, right?”

Everyone in the room looked at him.

Slowly, Helga nodded.

“And so is Jackson Porter,” he continued. “So we could still insert him back into this body and I could go on existing in the Sleep. Right?”

Helga nodded again. She seemed almost sad.

“And the reason that you pointed at Sarah and the others is because if we're all killed here by the explosives, the rest of us wouldn't die the true death. We'd revert back to our programs stored in the Hive.” He paused. “Except for these guys.” He gestured toward his friends. “No backup.” The two words felt cold and harsh.

Helga stood and walked to the other side of the desk, then leaned against it. “That's all exactly correct, Michael. When the other Tangents and I gathered and made the decision to use the Mortality Doctrine to borrow bodies and come here, we made some important promises to ourselves. And one was to avoid the true death, for anyone, at any cost. But today I broke that rule because I had two terrible options. I'll have to live with that decision, but we have to keep going. I believe that with your help, we can stop Kaine, whoever was behind Kaine in the first place, and this splinter group we met tonight.”

She folded her arms and looked down at the floor. “We call ourselves the Tangent Alliance. Ever since you were taken away from me, things within the inner workings of the VirtNet have been crumbling. Several Tangents broke away from their host programs. We saw what Kaine was doing, and we decided to fight against it. We want to restore things to the way they were. And I wanted you back. I think we have the same goals. Am I right?”

Michael glanced at Sarah, who'd been quiet since Trae and his gang finally left the barracks. She gave him a half smile, her eyes sad.

Michael sighed. “We definitely want to stop Kaine, Helga. But I feel like there's something major that we're missing. I don't think it's as easy as saying that Kaine is our enemy. We need to figure out what's really going on, and I think the right place to start is the Hallowed Ravine. If we can…disrupt the Mortality Doctrine itself, at least we'll stop Tangents from being able to leave the VirtNet.”

Helga clapped her hands together. “I taught you well, didn't I? The Hive is merely a storage facility—the actual Mortality Doctrination happens exactly where you mentioned.” She gestured toward the door to the main room. “Well, we haven't exactly been sitting around doing nothing. You saw what we have out there. People, NerveBoxes, NetScreens. We've been working, and we're ready to take the next steps.”

This time Bryson spoke up. “Sounds to me like you better catch us up, then.”

“I want to know what's going on out in the world,” Sarah added. “Things were getting bad even before we got caught in Agent Weber's setup with the Lance device.”