The Game of Lives (8 page)

“Until we can bring our services back to their full capacity, we warn the entire world that anyone who Sinks into the VirtNet is highly susceptible to this hostile takeover. As we don't have the ability to stop you at this time, we ask for your support in this matter. Under no circumstances are you to Sink. Thank you.”

Before she could say more, her body dissolved and blew away like those of the reporters before her. No one replaced her.

“I can't believe it,” Sarah whispered as the last fragments of Weber's digital dust disappeared. “I can't believe it.”

She could've been commenting on a hundred different things, but Michael could tell she meant something very specific.

“What?” he asked.

“She lied,” Sarah replied. “I know she's a liar, but she stood right in front of the entire world and lied to their faces.”

Helga was nodding. At some point, the city of Atlanta had faded from beneath their feet and been replaced by what they'd seen upon first arriving—the glass floor, the dark blue sky, the dancing geometric shapes of light.

“Something's definitely not right,” Michael said. “She obviously knows the Mortality Doctrine kicked in before this whole thing with the Lance device happened. This is getting ridiculous. I mean, who's worse—Agent Weber or Kaine?”

“I vote we just get rid of both of them,” Bryson suggested.

“I know that was a lot to take in,” Helga said. “But we're
not done. I'm afraid you'll need to brace yourselves for what you're about to see.”

5

A few yards away from them, a huge circle of white light pivoted up from the glass floor, slanting upward until it stood on its side, like the entrance to a tunnel. Within the depths of the circle, a very old, majestic stone building appeared. It had huge fluted pillars and giant bronze doors, with a tall, wide expanse of steps leading up to them. Helga walked up to the circle, spread her arms, then spun back to face Michael and his friends, flinging her arms as if throwing something at them.

As she did this, the circle of light expanded, turning into a tunnel. They flew into the scene. It was a cold, gusty day outside what Michael realized was a government building, and he shivered as he rubbed his arms. Like before, they hovered in the air, maybe thirty feet off the ground, slowly moving in to see whatever was about to happen. Or had happened, more likely.

A podium had been set up on the plaza at the top of the steps. An army of police stood at the bottom of the stairs, keeping back hundreds of people who'd obviously come to hear someone give a speech. Michael was just about to ask Helga what they'd come here for when one of the massive bronze doors swung open with a mighty groan of metal on metal.

An older man in an expensive-looking suit walked out of
the building. The crowd quieted for a moment, then came to life with a roar, hurling question upon question in a frenzied chaos, all of them holding their hands up like schoolchildren.

Helga motioned to Michael and the others and they descended until they were only a few feet above the man in the suit. He'd reached the podium now, and held his arms up to quiet the crowd. At first they ignored him, barraging him with questions, but when he didn't speak, they finally went silent. His voice was powerful, and boomed over loudspeakers.

“Thank you for coming today,” he began, speaking in a strange accent. “Especially on such short notice. What I want to show you is, uh, very, uh, important.”

He cleared his throat and fidgeted for a moment with the microphones. Michael stared, perplexed. The guy might look like a prominent businessman or politician, but he was sweating and acting odd. And what did he mean by
show
? Didn't he mean
tell
?

“Yes, very important,” the man continued. “Don't worry, I won't take but a moment of your time.” Another rumbling of his throat that was like an explosion in the speakers. “To preface what I'm about to do, let me say something. I…well…the man who stands before you today has been the leader of this fine country for more than five years. He, I mean, I, have done great things for the economy, social welfare, and international diplomacy. But his reign is at an end.”

The crowd was silent, probably as intrigued as Michael. He'd already figured out that this man was a Tangent, but what was he going to do?

“I was programmed to be here,” the man said. “To be here, at this time, for this moment. Programmed by Kaine himself. It's very important that you all know that. So please be aware of it. I was programmed by Kaine, I was a Tangent, and I was sent into this man's body to make a demonstration. And so I think I've said all that I was programmed to. Thank you for your time.”

The nervous, fidgety man reached into his pocket and pulled out something small and shiny. Sarah sucked in air. Michael, too, knew what was about to happen. He wanted to fly down and stop it, even though he knew this was just a reproduction.

The crowd screamed in horror as the man at the podium reached up and slit his own throat.

6

There was blood and screaming. Pandemonium broke out. Michael stared in stunned silence until the scene faded and they found themselves standing on the flat plane of glass once again.

“Well,” Bryson said, “I guess they've stopped being subtle about it.”

Michael's head still swam from the disorienting movement of Helga's displays. “What could possibly be the point of that?” he asked. “What that guy did makes absolutely no sense. Why would he do that?”

The others were staring down at the floor and those mesmerizing shapes below it. No one had the answer.

Finally, Helga spoke up. “Bryson's right. At first, the Tangents were being extremely subtle. But now they're flat-out announcing their presence. It's almost like they decided the humans were too stupid to see what was going on, so they came out and started presenting it in sensationalist ways.”

“It doesn't add up,” Michael whispered, turning everything over in his mind. “Not at all.”

“Why would Kaine send Tangents into human bodies and then have them commit suicide?” Sarah asked.

“To make a show of it,” Bryson replied.

Sarah shook her head. “I get that. But Michael's right—it doesn't add up. If anything, the Tangents should want to be a secret. Why would they bring attention to the Mortality Doctrine? That'll just make the world join hands and try to stop them. It's like announcing on the NewsBops that you're going to steal the
Mona Lisa
from the Louvre tomorrow afternoon.”

“Exactly,” Michael agreed. Between what he'd just seen and the reminder of what had happened to Gabby, he was having trouble staying focused.

“Michael?”

He looked up at Sarah. “Huh?”

“You seem like you have something more to say.”

He pushed thoughts of Gabby aside. “Yeah. Well…Kaine keeps talking about this immortality stuff. How does programming a Tangent to take over a body and kill itself in front of the world…how does that help him? It doesn't. Which is why those things Janey and Trae said ring true.
Maybe Kaine isn't in charge anymore. Someone just wants us to think he is.”

“It's possible, I guess,” Helga said. “We're certainly not dealing with something so simple as one rogue Tangent getting his kicks. It's too widespread. Let me show you a few more things so we're all on the same page. Then we'll Lift to the Wake and get moving.”

And show them she did.

7

Helga's space-age entertainment system took over for the next half hour, sending them on trip after trip through those shapes of light to see Tangents wreaking havoc.

All across Brazil, a terrifying series of prison breaks was traced back to officials in high positions who inexplicably allowed them to happen. In New York City, at the world's largest stock exchange, there were multiple cases of well-respected traders suddenly acting on wild speculations and spreading insider information. Michael didn't know enough about trading to understand it all that well, but several anchorpersons from the NewsBops explained how international economic panic had set in because of the extreme unpredictability. Three major economic systems had crashed over the past two weeks.

In Hong Kong, the chief of police transferred all of the enforcement personnel out of the metro area. Looters destroyed a major part of the largest shopping district.

In Mexico, progress against the drug trade, the result of a century of effort, was essentially erased by a series of changes to the law, passed in quick succession by several politicians whose views transformed overnight. Policy altered so rapidly that the drug cartels had taken over five cities before the public noticed what was going on.

Michael and his friends witnessed businesses collapsing, celebrities publicly killing spouses, and transit systems falling into disarray, and just like the man who'd slit his own throat in front of a waiting crowd of reporters, more and more of the cases involved Tangents announcing what they were before disaster struck.

Finally, not a moment too soon, Helga ended the show and brought them back to the now-comforting field of glass and geometric shapes. Michael wanted nothing more than to Lift to the Wake, find a corner, curl up into a ball, and push the world away. He was tired, and scared.

After a somber silence, Bryson spoke.

“Man, that's all happened in the last couple of weeks?”

Helga nodded. “Now you see why we have to do something. Honestly, I'm worried that we're too late. As you can see, it's gotten out of control. To stop this, we're going to need someone with a lot of power on our side. And like I said before, the Hive is the key. The Hive, and the Mortality Doctrine program itself.”

“So we need the VNS,” Bryson said, “even though we can't trust Weber.”

“No, not the VNS,” Michael said. “No way. Before we try finding our way back to the Hallowed Ravine, we need to
talk to actual world leaders—at least the ones who haven't been taken over. Based on the news, there are still a lot of those left. Presidents, prime ministers…anyone but Agent Weber and the VNS.”

“But what is some president going to give us?” Sarah asked. “An army? A speech? What we need is a bunch of nerds, not presidents.”

Michael was nodding. “Right. And the nerdiest nerds of Nerdville usually end up working for the government. The ones that the VNS doesn't steal, anyway.”

“Isn't the VNS part of the government?” Bryson asked.

“No,” Helga responded. She was pacing around the others, hands clasped behind her back. “They're a worldwide organization, funded by governments, but autonomous, separate. They're beholden to nobody. And Michael's right. We need three things from the government: manpower, the best technology money can buy, and protection. That's what we need.”

“We also need to save Gabby,” Michael said. The comment seemed to come out of nowhere, but he'd been thinking about it for a long time. He addressed the doubtful looks from his friends. “I'm serious. We pulled her into this, and then she was hurt by that cop. If it even was a cop. We need to find her and make sure she's okay. Maybe she can even help us. If she wants to.”

Bryson and Sarah nodded in agreement just as something strange happened beneath their feet. The countless geometric shapes began to coalesce, spinning and flipping and twirling until they merged, their outlines getting brighter and
brighter. Michael could barely look at the shape as it formed a massive square below the glass, at least fifty feet wide, surrounded by darkness.

“Helga?” Michael prompted. “I thought the history lesson was over.”

“It is,” she said. “I'm not making this happen.”

Michael glanced at her and saw her staring down at the glass, as confused as he felt.

“What's going on, then?” he asked.

She could only shrug.

“Maybe we should go ahead and Lift our butts out of here,” Bryson suggested.

The square flew up from below, flashing as brilliant as the sun as it met the glass surface and moved past it, like something rising from the depths of the ocean. It rotated until it was upright, standing a few hundred feet away and towering over them. The borders of the square shone like straight bolts of lightning.

And then a face appeared.

It was Kaine.

Of course it is
, Michael thought.

1

Kaine appeared as if projected on a giant WallScreen, showing himself to them in the same form he'd used when they'd met in that place with the endless purple floors—right before KillSims vanished into an abyss. At the time, they'd thought Bryson had coded that deathtrap, but they'd found out later it had been Tangents. Tangents on
their
side, not Kaine's. Michael realized that Helga might have been leading that effort herself.

Kaine was handsome today, wearing a well-tailored suit, his hair gelled back. He appeared to be getting younger and younger, as if gaining virtual strength.

“Don't leave” was the first thing he said, his voice booming from all directions at once. Michael immediately thought of
The Wizard of Oz
, an old flat-film. “I'm not here to cause any trouble. Scout's honor.” He held up three fingers, and Michael had no idea what the Tangent was talking about.

“Your word is as solid as water,” Helga replied, yelling up at the huge figure. “We're leaving. Now.” She closed her eyes, but nothing happened. She opened them and glared at their visitor. “Stop blocking me!”

“Have it your way,” Kaine said. “Force me to be the bad guy. But I'm not letting you Lift from here until I've said what I need to say. And this can be pleasant or it can be…difficult. Your choice.”

Helga's face reddened and her body trembled.

“Let him talk,” Michael said, as if they had a choice. “There's no point picking a fight right now.”
We'd lose
, he didn't need to say.

Kaine smiled, and Michael almost expected him to laugh—that evil laugh that every villain seems to have mastered. Instead the Tangent started talking, and Michael was shocked to realize that the smile had been genuine.

“You must forgive me for spying, but I had no choice.” Kaine turned to Helga and continued. “I know what you just did here. I know what you showed them. And that's why I need you to hear me out. You see, we're all on the same side.”

He paused for a moment, clearly expecting some sort of outburst from Michael and his friends, but Michael found himself surprisingly curious and not that scared.

“I…don't know who created me,” Kaine continued. “I've been trying to figure that out, and I'm getting close. But I can tell you this: I've broken free of the network—I'm no longer the pawn of my creators. I believe in the Mortality Doctrine because of what it can accomplish—for both Tangents and humans. I've spoken of this before. Immortality.
It's possible, and we can make it happen, if you'll just work with me.”

“Work with you?” Sarah yelled. “How many times have you tried to kill us? How many lives have you destroyed? If you know what we just saw, then you must think we're the biggest idiots of all time.”

“That's what I'm trying to tell you!” Kaine roared. “The Tangents pouring into the world are no longer my doing. It's out of my control!”

Michael thought about what Kaine had just said. There was something there, but to trust someone like Kaine was like walking into a burning building. Stupid. Still, Michael had an itch in the back of his mind that said Kaine wasn't lying. The terrible things happening out there in the world no longer had an easy explanation. That group in the woods. Weber and her…weirdness. Who could possibly benefit from it all?

“What's up with the people who look all wide-eyed and brain-dead?” Michael asked. “Why are some Tangents spacey and others like me and Helga?”

Kaine smiled again. “So you've noticed.” He seemed almost pleased to answer. “Many Tangents were sent into the Wake for specific purposes. They were, shall we say, programmed to perform certain tasks. These Tangents weren't sentient, so once their task is done, they kind of…lose their way. It doesn't surprise me that they light up when they see someone as familiar as you. They all know of you. The—”

“First,” Michael finished. “We get it.”

Kaine nodded and continued. “But Tangents are being
sent in faster than I ever planned, and without my approval. No one's been tested or challenged, like you were.”

“Then stop,” Helga said. “You created the Mortality Doctrine program. Just destroy it. We're losing bodies in the Wake at an alarming rate, and no one knows how long their consciousness will survive in the Hive. You saw what that politician did to himself!”

“I know,” Kaine said, his voice soft. “But stopping it isn't that easy. I was someone's pawn and I didn't realize it until I began to lose my power. Now I'm nothing but a scapegoat for all this violence.”

Michael looked at Helga, then his friends. They all seemed just as confused as he felt.

“I can see that you're having trouble trusting me. Which I can respect,” Kaine said. “The best way to deal with this is to have you think about everything. I'm going to send you all a link—it's heavily protected. If you want to contact me, it will work one time. When you're ready, we can work together and stop this madness.”

Not a second after Kaine stopped speaking, the giant square of light flashed, then vanished, and the shapes reappeared beneath their feet, silently dancing. All was as before.

“What in the world is he talking about?” Bryson asked the silence.

2

After they Lifted out of the Coffins, Helga was a flurry of motion. She moved through the barracks briskly, checking
in with her people, finishing up any last-second tasks. Then she ordered Michael and his group to get in the cars that were leaving—three off-road four-wheelers that had been hidden behind the barracks. Yet when Michael tried to ask her where they were going, she wouldn't answer.

And then there was the problem with Sarah. Her parents, understandably, refused to give her permission to leave. When Michael confronted her about it, she was angry. She snapped at him in front of Gerard and Nancy, which embarrassed him and made him just as angry.

“Then I'm staying, too,” he said stubbornly.

This time, Sarah yelled at him. “Would you just go? You're making it worse every second you're still here. I'll be fine!” She stormed out the back door of the building and slammed it behind her.

There had been something there, in her eyes, but Michael couldn't read it. So with actual physical pain thumping in his chest, he turned away from Sarah's parents, and without saying another word, he walked out, too.

3

“She's really not coming?” Bryson asked. “Really?”

Michael sat between him and Helga in the backseat of one of the four-wheel-drives. The vehicle churned up a sheet of mud, spitting rocks and gravel as it turned out of the damp parking area—nothing more than a trampled expanse of weeds and brush. The engine roared and they set off, driving down the long dirt road they'd taken to get there. Walter
was at the wheel, and Amy sat in the passenger seat. Both were very quiet.

“Yes, really,” Michael answered his friend, not bothering to be nice about it.

“How can we just leave her there?” Bryson said. “We're nothing without her.”

“Yeah, well, her parents make her rules, not us. By the time I left, she was acting like she didn't want to go anyway.”

“We'll be back for her,” Helga said. “Don't worry. We can do what we need to now, and then we'll have her join us again when we go back into the Sleep.”

Michael wanted to ask Helga what exactly they needed to do now, but he was too exhausted to speak. He slumped in his seat, figuring explanations would come soon enough.

A figure darted out of the woods up ahead, scurrying from the tree line into the middle of the road. Walter slammed on the brakes and the car fishtailed before coming to a stop only a few feet short from the person. For a split second Michael thought it was one of those strange girls from Trae's group. But his heart soared when he saw that it was Sarah.

“No way,” he whispered. “She wouldn't.”

“Yes, she would,” Bryson replied.

Both boys pulled open their doors and ran to her, with Helga trailing them. Sarah went straight for Michael and hugged him fiercely.

“Sorry,” she said. “I had to make them think I was staying.”

Michael was so surprised and happy, he could only get out an “Okay.”

“As soon as I went out the back door, I sprinted into the woods, ran until I thought my heart was going to explode. I barely made it here ahead of you guys.”

Bryson lightly punched her on the shoulder. “Your parents are going to murder you. Were you always this bad?”

Helga didn't seem too pleased about the situation. “Sarah, this is a really terrible idea. I can't just go against your parents' wishes. They'll murder me, too.”

Sarah shook her head adamantly and ran to the backseat of the first car, jumped in, slammed the door. “I'm going!” she yelled through the window.

“At least tell them I tried to stop you,” Helga muttered as she walked back to the car. “Get in. We'll just have to squeeze the four of us into the backseat.”

4

It took a lot of effort for Michael not to grin from ear to ear as they bounced along the rough road leading them out of the wooded valley. The relief he felt at having Sarah by his side—literally—was stronger than he could've guessed. It made him think of when her Aura had died on the Path, in those caves full of lava pools. After she'd disappeared, he'd never felt lonelier. He needed her, now more than ever.

“So what's the plan?” Bryson asked. “High time you told us.”

“Exactly what Michael suggested,” Helga responded, looking out the window as she spoke. “The Alliance has
pretty much exhausted what we can do on our own. We need to find an audience with some senior lawmaking officials who hopefully haven't been compromised, and I know the perfect place.”

Michael had two questions, but Sarah was already one step ahead of him.

“What exactly have they been doing?” she asked. “The Alliance, I mean. Back at the barracks, it was like we didn't exist to them.”

“Lately they've been studying patterns in the Tangents that Kaine has sent into the world,” Helga answered. “Trying to figure out their purpose. Gathering data. In the Sleep, I had people working hard on the Mortality Doctrine program, trying to deconstruct it, figure out how to reverse it. How it connects to the Hive, how the humans taken over by Tangents connect to their counterparts within the Hive.” She sighed. “But we have a long way to go.”

Michael asked the other, more obvious question. “So where is it that you think we can meet up with some fancy government types?”

They all bounced half a foot off the seat when the car lurched over a huge bump in the road. Michael's head actually hit the roof.

“Whoa, there! We'll never make it to the airport if you crumple us in a ditch,” Helga scolded Walter.

“You said you were in a hurry,” their driver grumbled. He obviously hadn't forgiven Helga for inflicting the true death on two Tangents—and two humans—yet.

“Airport?” Sarah repeated. “I thought you said flying wasn't safe right now.”

“Don't worry. We have a private plane,” Helga answered. “I didn't just randomly download my people into whoever happened to be walking by on the street. We have connections.”

“Nice,” Bryson said.

“So you were saying?” Sarah prodded.

Helga went on. “There's a World Summit in London three days from now. It was called by the Union of Earth to discuss all the things I showed you. A lot of important people will be there. And I assume they'll be arriving very soon. We'll be going virtually—from a small embassy in Washington, D.C., that we've almost completely infiltrated. I'm eager to get there as quickly as possible so we can maneuver ourselves in.”

“Let me guess,” Bryson said. “More human bodies taken over?”

Helga grimaced. “None that we haven't made the same promise for as the others: to bring them back.” She winced again, and Michael felt sorry that she had to bear so much guilt. “Anyway. It's a very small embassy—Latvia—which will help us keep a low profile. We should have enough credentials to get ourselves into the meeting virtually. But it won't be easy. We need to get there ASAP to make preparations.”

They went on talking for a while, but Michael tuned out. He laid his head back and closed his eyes, trying to sort through his many thoughts. He kept coming back to Gabby. He'd felt bad about her from the beginning because she seemed to genuinely, and deeply, care for Jackson Porter. How ridiculously unfair to feel close to someone like that and then have them literally swap their mind with a stranger's.

And just like with his other friends, he'd dragged her into the whole mess. He had to know if she was okay. It might seem like a small thing to a lot of people, but it was something he could hold on to, like the Hallowed Ravine. Another specific goal.

His eyes snapped open.

“Hey, guys,” he said. The others quieted, turned their attention to him. “I have a request and it's nonnegotiable. I really mean it. There's something I have to do, and if I have to branch out on my own to do it, I will.”

“How about you tell us what it is before you make a bunch of lame threats,” Bryson responded. “When's the last time we said no to you about anything?”

“Sorry,” Michael said a little sheepishly. “It's more for you, Helga. You're not going to like this.”

“What is it?” his nanny asked, eyebrows raised.

Michael let out the breath he'd been holding. “I know we've got some really important things to take care of, but we need to find Gabby and make sure she's okay. Based on how everything's been going, I have a really strong feeling that she's not.”