The Rule of Thoughts (16 page)

So when Bryson came shuffling down the street at nine-thirty-four
on the morning of the third day, hands in his pockets, head down, glancing around every few steps, Michael jumped off the bench. He had to stop himself from shouting with joy and running at his friend like a crazy person.

“What are—” Sarah started to say, but then she saw him. “Holy crap. He actually made it.”

“Go to the bridge,” Michael whispered, though no one else was close by. They’d found a nearby park with a narrow river, the water rushing along just enough to mask their conversations if they stood on the bridge that crossed it. “I’ll get his attention and have him follow me there to meet you.”

“Okay.” Sarah stood up and jogged away, disappearing around the corner.

As Bryson approached the front door of Stoneground, Michael casually walked across the street at an angle, heading to a spot ahead of his friend. When Bryson saw him, he didn’t flinch or change his gait, just kept walking. Michael did the same, not looking back again.
Who knows
, he thought.
Someone could be watching us. Better safe than sorry
.

Despite the circumstances, Michael was excited for their long-awaited reunion in the real world. He picked up his pace, heading directly for the park.

Sarah was waiting just where they’d planned. She stood leaning over the railing of the wooden bridge, looking down at
the water rushing by. The bridge had once been painted red, but all that remained now were flecks of old paint clinging to the dull-colored wood for dear life.

Michael reached her and plopped his forearms on the railing next to hers.

“It’s about time he showed up,” he whispered.

“About time,” she echoed with a smile.

“Quite the romantic spot you picked out here.”

Michael turned to see Bryson for the first time, up close and personal, in the real world. He’d aged since the picture had been taken, thinned out even a little more. His blond hair was on the shaggy side, and he had at least three days’ worth of stubble on his face. But his blue eyes were bright, and it only took an instant for him to transform in Michael’s mind to the Bryson he’d always known.

“Glad you figured out our amazingly brilliant clue,” Michael said.

Bryson shrugged. “I won’t mention all the money I spent dogging it to the wrong spots before I finally found it. Oops. Guess I just did.”

“I think it’s high time we had a group hug,” Sarah said.

The three of them wrapped arms around shoulders and squeezed. They pulled apart and just stared at each other, an awkward moment that Michael knew wouldn’t last long. Though they all looked a little different—a
lot
, in his case—they were the same smart-aleck, know-it-all, best-hackers-in-the-Sleep, teenage troublemakers they’d always been.

Bryson broke the silence. “So what’ve you guys been doing since … our little journey through the magical worlds
of the mighty VirtNet? Wasn’t Kaine so nice to sponsor that?”

“Lying low,” Sarah answered. “Sick about my parents. Waiting on you.”

“We didn’t want to do anything until we were all together again,” Michael added. “And Sarah’s pretty insistent we don’t Sink. You know how she is once she makes up her mind.…”

“I don’t blame her,” Bryson said. “I thought
we
were good, guys. Until we met this Kaine snake.”

Sarah folded her arms and leaned back against the railing. “So what’ve
you
been doing?”

“Me?” Bryson replied. “I’ve been hiding my family, sending them all over the place. I told them everything, and I don’t care who finds out. It was the only way I could talk them into getting away.”

Sarah shifted her gaze and stood up straighter.

“Sorry,” Bryson murmured. “Dumb thing to say when your …” He didn’t need to finish.

“It’s okay,” Sarah said, breathing in sharply and visibly shaking herself a bit. “All the more reason to get working. Kaine made it sound like they’re still alive. We’ll find them.”

“Amen,” Bryson whispered.

Michael thought of their narrow escape from the KillSims. “How did you do it, anyway?” he asked Bryson.

“Do what?”

Sarah sucked in a gasp. “Whoa! Write this down, Michael! Bryson’s being humble! There’s a first for everything.”

Michael smiled, but Bryson looked genuinely confused.

“What’re you guys talking about?” he asked.

“Oh, come on,” Michael said. “You want us to get on our knees and bow down, praise you for saving us?”

“Saving you? You mean from Kaine? Our picnic with the KillSims in the Land of Purple?” Then he laughed, and not the contagious kind that made you feel good. For some reason it creeped Michael out.

Now it was Bryson’s turn to see the look of confusion on his friends’ faces.

“What? You’re serious?” he asked.

Michael rubbed his temples and closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again. “Why do I feel like I just got sucked into another dimension? What’s going on?”

Sarah took charge. “Bryson, we saw you messing with the program. We know you pulled us out of there somehow. I don’t know
how
—I could barely even see the code—but whatever you did—”

Bryson cut her off. “Guys. Guys. It wasn’t me. Yeah, I was trying like a madman, but I didn’t crack anything. I just assumed you heard the same thing I did.”

“Heard?” Michael repeated. “Heard what?”

Bryson laughed again. “Wow, that is so awesome that you two thought I’d saved the day. I should’ve kept my mouth shut and taken all the credit.”

“What?”
Sarah insisted. “What did you hear?”

“A voice.” Bryson’s face had smoothed into something more serious. “Right before we were whisked away, back to the Wake. I heard a voice, clear as a bell.”

“What did it say?” Michael asked.

Bryson grinned.
“ ‘You have friends among the Tangents.’ ”

By that night, Michael had two roommates, not just one. Bryson had stashed a couple of bags with clothes and such, and after retrieving them, they’d all headed to the apartment with a million things to talk about. Michael thought a lot about Bryson’s revelation as the day wore on, wondering about these mysterious Tangents that had freed them from the KillSims. He was curious, fascinated. And worried that somehow Kaine had just tricked them again.

“Check this out,” Bryson said as they finished their dinner, a gourmet selection of hot dogs and hamburgers. He rummaged through one of his bags and pulled out a rectangular device. One side was glass; the other was metal. He placed it on the table and it landed with a sliding hiss. “This, my friends, is called a NetTab.”

“What?” Sarah asked doubtfully, dragging out the word. “People haven’t used those things in years.”

“Well,” Bryson replied. “My dad is what you might call a collector. You see, Sarah, he collects things.”

She just rolled her eyes at her friend’s lame wit.

Michael picked up the device gingerly, as if it might fall to dust like some ancient Egyptian scroll. It seemed just as archaic.

“Is that really what this is?” he asked. “I’ve never even seen one, they’re so old.”

“Yes,”
Bryson said as he took it away. “That’s what it is. And the thing still works, too. You can thank me later, but now we can keep up with what’s going on in the world without risking the use of our NetScreens.”

Michael liked the sound of that. He was beyond spooked now by Kaine and his minions, but they needed to get online. They needed to figure out what to do.

“Show us how it works,” Sarah said.

Bryson beamed like a proud father. “It’s not hard to use. The hard part is connecting to the Net using the old system. But dear old Dad isn’t just a collector. He’s also a friggin’ genius, and he’s got this puppy all hooked up. We can browse all we want and no one will know it’s us. This thing has no link to our identities.”

He pressed a button and the glass screen came to life, showing a background that looked much like a normal NetScreen. Except there weren’t any personal identifiers, just links to news sources and games.

“Let’s find out what’s going on in the world.”

Bryson tapped the device and they got what they wanted.

After an hour of scouring the NewsBops for any sign of Kaine’s Doctrinized Tangents wreaking havoc in the world, they had a laundry list of events that made them feel worse than ever. Things that were probably slipping under most people’s radars as coincidences or one-time occurrences, Michael knew were far more sinister. All three of them knew. If you took a step back and looked at everything, it was clear that Kaine was touching the world with his influence.

In Germany, a top official had switched political parties overnight, changing his stances on nearly all major issues. He stood in their parliament, ranting and raving about a legislative overhaul. But the story was buried, appearing as a sidebar on a comedy site. Everyone thought he’d just lost his mind.

In Japan, a Buddhist monk known worldwide for his humanitarian efforts had murdered more than thirty of his followers in their sleep with a knife from the monastery kitchen, slipping from room to room in the night. Just the day before, the monk had met with dignitaries from several countries, showing no signs of mental trouble, advocating for peace. But the meeting had taken place in the VirtNet, the monk surely in a Coffin.

A woman in Canada known for her charitable contributions to the community had been awakened from her time in the Sleep by a daughter who’d begun to worry about her. The mother scrambled out of the Coffin, raging mad. She killed all of her children, then her husband when he got
home. All she would tell the police was that she’d been told to do it.

There were too many stories. And over and over neighbors and friends said the same things: “He was the nicest guy” and “She didn’t have a bad bone in her body.”

What really convinced Michael, though, were the nonviolent stories. What purpose, after all, could Kaine have in sending Tangents into human bodies only to have them do something horrible and get thrown in jail? Maybe those were evidence of the transfers
not
working.

He and his friends also found several reports on people changing their normal behavior or making rash decisions. Corporate executives moving huge numbers of funds or instigating massive layoffs or selling off subsidiaries. Government officials suddenly changing their ideologies enough to bring it to the attention of the NewsBops—though most weren’t as animated as the man in Germany. Actors walking off movie sets, sports figures resigning from teams, people left and right stepping down from jobs they’d held for years. There were so many stories that Michael almost—
almost
—didn’t flinch when they came across a report about one missing Jackson Porter, wanted for cyber-terrorism.