The Rule of Thoughts (11 page)

“You go around the left. I’ll do the right.”

Michael shook his head. Hadn’t they learned their lesson by now?

But Sarah was already stepping around, positioning herself to charge.
Left
, Michael reminded himself as he reached out and took Sarah’s hand. After a solid squeeze, he let go and crouched down, blood pumping.

“Now!” Sarah yelled.

Michael ran for the tree with a burst of adrenaline. He’d only taken two steps when a blinding white light flashed and an invisible force knocked him backward, slamming him into a tree, where he collapsed to the ground.

Spots of color swam before his eyes. Grunting, he forced himself to his feet. His chance of spotting the stranger was slipping away. His back ached, his head spun, a spell of dizziness
enveloped him in a rush behind his ears. Shielding his eyes, he stumbled forward.

Gradually his vision cleared, though the forest tilted and swayed beneath his feet. He made it to the oak tree where the stranger had been hiding, ran his hand along its rough bark as he rounded the trunk, straining to see anything in the forest beyond. He caught a glimpse of a woman running in the distance, long hair trailing behind her as she dodged from tree to tree.

Michael turned away—there was no chance of catching her. She’d gotten too far already. The pain in his back lit up, lancing down his legs. Stumbling, he searched until he found Sarah lying on the ground. Not moving. There was blood on her head, but her chest was moving up and down. Just enough. They’d never found out what happened if she died in the outskirts—she’d probably be fine, but he didn’t want her to leave him, not even for a minute.

Michael collapsed to his knees. He wanted to scream in frustration, but he pressed it down.

That woman. Her voice. Her hair. Something about her.

He knew her. From somewhere, he knew her.

Sarah came to a few minutes later.

She groaned and shifted, then groaned some more. Michael was sitting on the ground right next to her, his back against a tree. He hadn’t known what to do other than wait it out. He figured she’d either die and disappear, and he’d follow her back to their Coffins, or she’d wake up eventually.

Finally, she propped herself up next to Michael. She rubbed her head and let out one last achy moan.

“You okay?” Michael asked.

“I’m sure there’ll be a big honkin’ bruise when we go back to the Wake, but I’ll be fine.” She shifted to look at him, still tenderly touching her sore spot. “So … what happened? You’ve got it all figured out, right?”

He scoffed. “Of course I do.” Which really meant that he didn’t. “I
did
see her running into the forest. I could barely walk, though, so I didn’t bother chasing her.”

“I think you mean you didn’t want to leave me alone,” Sarah said. She pointed toward the large oak where the flash had gone off. “So some lady follows us, spies on us, sets off fancy fireworks to cover herself as she runs away—why did she warn us? Doesn’t that seem a little weird to you?”

“I guess it means she didn’t want to hurt us. But …”

“What?”

The last piece of the puzzle had just clicked into place for Michael. “I recognized her voice. And then something about the way she moved when she ran away.”

“And?”

“I think it was Agent Weber from the VNS. But how in the world did she find us here?”

That was enough of a bombshell that Sarah simply suggested they climb up the ladder and get more comfortable in the tree house.

“So you’re sure it was her?” Sarah asked once she was sitting on an ugly, beat-up beanbag. Bryson had chosen the delightful seat ages ago during the coding phase.

Michael sat at the table, gaze fixed on the window, thinking.

“Pretty sure,” he answered. “Especially the voice. You gotta remember, the first time I met her was in
Lifeblood Deep
, but then she came to my apartment—Jackson Porter’s apartment—right after I woke up there, and she looked
basically the same. I guess it makes sense that she designed her Aura to look the same as in the Wake since she didn’t want me to know I was a Tangent.”

“Okay. I guess. So what does it mean that she found us here? That’s the big question.”

Michael shook his head in frustration. Someone’s appearing at their secret location raised way too many concerns. “I have no idea. What’s weirder is why she’d be all secretive and spy on us. Why would she have come to me at that apartment, then?”

“She’s probably trying to hide from Kaine, too.”

“Well, we needed to find her eventually anyway. Once we’re with Bryson again, we have to make sure the VNS knows what Kaine did to me. I keep thinking about that crazy lady on the train. What if … what if Kaine hasn’t just put other Tangents into humans, but is also controlling them somehow?”

Sarah’s face paled a bit. “Or maybe he’s just programming the Tangents to do what he wants before he … 
does
the Mortality Doctrine thing to them.”

Michael’s mind went back to the train incident and the warning he’d been given. Three days. Three days had already passed and they’d still eluded captured. The next time Kaine found them … Well, Michael didn’t want to think about it.

“What are you pondering over there?” Sarah asked.

Michael sighed, trying to breathe out all the turmoil boiling in his chest. “I’m just thinking about your parents again. They could be anywhere—how will we find them? Not to mention mine. At some point I need to go back into
Lifeblood Deep
and look for them and Helga—even though
Kaine claims they’re dead, deprogrammed, whatever. And … I’m just second-guessing bringing Bryson into this. Second-guessing everything.”

Sarah stood up and came over to him. “Bryson’s in it whether he wants to be or not. We need to find him before Kaine does. As for our parents … look, we know Kaine’s behind it all. Going forward is the best thing we can do for them.” The pain in her eyes showed she was trying to talk herself into believing that, too.

Michael looked up at her. “Then let’s get Bryson.”

Sarah nodded. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

Sarah sat down across from Michael at the table and they both closed their eyes as if they were initiating some ancient ritual. And then they dove into the code.

There were hundreds of ways they could’ve conducted their search for Bryson, and it felt like they had considered them all in the day or two before Sinking. They’d discussed everything from posting a message on the Boards to wandering the mall, hoping they might bump into him. Seeking him out in the Wake, like Michael had done with Sarah, had even been tossed in as a possibility. But based on everything they knew and the dangers they’d encountered so far—and knowing that Kaine could be watching every nook and cranny of the VirtNet—they decided to go about it a different way: by doing what they did best.

Hacking.

No matter how bad things got, there was one thing in the universe as certain as the sun rising in the east and people kicking the bucket when they got old: Bryson would keep gaming. He loved it, lived for it. And since Michael and Sarah knew all of his favorite games, they knew where to look. And how to do it without anyone ever knowing. They’d never had much reason to truly cheat at a game before—it kind of defeated the purpose. Winning by cheating was as fun as not playing at all.

But now things were different, and luckily they knew the programming of Bryson’s favorite games as well as he did. Because they all had the same favorites.

Lifeblood
was the obvious first choice, though just the thought of it made Michael’s heart hurt. Too many memories.

“I miss this place,” Sarah said when they started. “I haven’t played since the Path.”

Michael didn’t respond; he was officially in the dumps.

Running in the program’s background, the two of them jumped from location to location within
Lifeblood
, seeing it all in code, searching for the imprint of Bryson. They were breaking about fifty-three strict rules and regulations, not to mention VirtNet etiquette, but it was a good test of whether their new identities would protect them. As Michael scanned the most likely places their friend would be, he thought that so far, so good. Except for that minor—
major
—bump of Agent Weber finding them. But they’d know if and when Kaine did the same.

San Francisco. Paris. Shanghai. Tokyo. New Africa. The
Antarctic Waste. Old Vegas. Duluth. All the hot spots. No sign at all. Not even a trace of Bryson having visited the regular places recently.

Sarah squeezed Michael’s hand, all the signal he needed, and soon they were sitting in the tree house again, swirling code forming back into trees and sky.

“If he’s not in
Lifeblood
, you know what that means,” Michael said.

“Yep.”

“He’s hiding. He knows something’s up.”

“Exactly,” Sarah agreed. “But there’s no way he’s staying out of the Sleep. We just need to look in his … shadier locations.”

Michael almost laughed, remembering a slew of escapades. The kicker was an image of Bryson, naked as the day he was born, being chased by seven mermaids that were so angry they had sprouted legs. He’d never admitted exactly what he’d done.

“So where to, then?” Michael asked, glad to see Sarah had a hint of a smile on her face. He didn’t have a rational reason to think it, but her parents’ getting kidnapped didn’t seem as bad as his finding out that technically he’d never had any to begin with.

“How about
The Lair of the Spider Queen
?” she suggested.

Michael rolled his eyes. The Spider Queen had always been a target for Bryson. And he had yet to get so much as a kiss, though not for lack of trying.

“As good a place as any,” Michael said.

They closed their eyes and dove back in.