The lane before him quivered and rippled as if it had been turned into a river of gray oil. The Dumpsters to his right floated up into the air and spun in circles. Flashes and images of bodies kept appearing and disappearing all around him. The buildings that bordered the alley were askew, leaning in impossible directions, defying physics. The sky had turned a horrible purple color, bruised and splotchy with dark red clouds. Panicked, Michael squeezed his eyes shut and curled up into a ball on the pavement, begging for the episode to end.
And a few seconds later it did. The pain in his head just stopped. There was no lingering ache. It was just … gone, like it had never happened.
Relieved but wary, he opened his eyes to see that everything was back to normal. Still shaky, he climbed to his feet and looked up and down the alley. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
The only thing Michael could do was continue what he’d been doing moments before. Once again, he started down the alley toward home, this time with one scary thought in his mind: That KillSim had done something to him. Something terrible.
6
When Michael got home, he went straight to his room and flipped on his NetScreen. A thought had occurred to him on his walk back—even before he talked to his friends about what had just happened, he needed to find out what had become of Ronika in real life after the KillSim attack.
It took him almost two hours to put all the pieces together. And it wasn’t pretty.
Ronika was obviously not the woman’s real name. And being in her position, running a club like the Black and Blue inside the VirtNet, she would’ve done everything in her power to make sure people didn’t find out who she was in the Wake. But after digging through every last NewsBop, running dates and times, and comparing them to when he and his friends had been at the club, Michael was able to build a plausible story.
There was a woman in Connecticut named Wilhelma Harris whose job was to oversee the firewall security for a gaming software development firm Michael had never heard of in New York City. Her job description, and research on her lifestyle, both pointed to the fact that she was almost always in the Sleep and had few friends or family in the real world. This same woman had been found by police wandering the streets of her local downtown area—right after Michael had seen Ronika destroyed by a KillSim at her club—with what they described as a “dazed look,” and she grew hostile when they approached her. Then she fell into a coma, in which she’d remained ever since.
The police were asking for friends and family to come forward because her Coffin had short-circuited and there was absolutely zero trace of her existence in the VirtNet—it was as if she’d never once Sunk into the Sleep. They also said that her life readings weren’t doing well and that she might not live much longer.
And then the kicker: she had a dog, and the tag on its collar read RONIKA.
It had to be her.
Michael shut everything down and went to lie on his bed. Staring at the ceiling, he thought of what they’d seen happen to the club owner. Her skin and hair and clothes transforming into digital ashes, then blowing away and winking out of existence. She’d been erased by a KillSim. And Michael thought about what it had done to her actual body.
A coma. Life readings not doing so well. Might not live much longer.
And whatever had happened to her, the same process had at least been started on Michael. He could be partially damaged.
Remembering the intensity of the pain that tore through his head in the alley and the wild visions that had horrified him for those few moments, he decided to put off telling his friends about it. Tomorrow was a big day, and they had big plans. Maybe they could talk about it on the way.
It took a long time for Michael’s thoughts to settle down. Right before he fell asleep, he had the distant and foggy realization that Helga must’ve decided to stay with her sister for the night. She’d never come home.
CHAPTER 9
NONE SHALL PASS
1
Michael woke up ten minutes before his alarm went off. Though the now ever-present fear was at the back of his mind—anxiety about what awaited him in the Sleep—excitement filled his bones as well. Gaming had always been the love of his life, and here he was about to embark on a mission where the stakes couldn’t be any higher. This would truly be the game of games—something the great Gunner Skale might’ve envied. There was a part of him that wondered if one day he’d look back and think he was naive to be so excited. But that part was tiny and easy to shut down.
It was lonely in his apartment without his parents or Helga, and he wanted out of there. After a quick shower and two big bowls of cereal, he went back to his room to get in the Coffin. The early-morning light spilled in through the window, and in an almost somber moment of tribute, he gazed at the huge advertisement for Lifeblood Deep. He had to catch himself before he spoke out loud to the thing. He wanted it to know that he hadn’t given up, that the Deep was still his ultimate goal in life.
And finding Kaine and this Mortality Doctrine would surely punch his ticket there.
2
Michael Sank into the Sleep and met Bryson and Sarah at the Gaming Depot, a popular hub for frequent gamers. There were spots to hang out, eat, and use credits to upgrade everything from weapons to spaceships. Most important, it was a place where you could swap cheats and secrets and build alliances.
All three of them knew a ton of people there, so they met at a little-known Portal that was out of the way and behind a big display of trees and fountains. Sarah transferred over a simple disguise program for their walk to the Devils of Destruction entrance. They couldn’t let others find out they were up to something unusual—it would be weird if anyone saw them enter the game. No one their age played Devils. It had always been a grandpa game.
When they started walking, Michael finally got up his nerve and told them about the meeting with the suited dwarf and the massive headache he’d had immediately afterward. As the story came pouring out, relief filled him. He’d almost decided to just keep it to himself—at least the part about the strange visions. But these were his best friends, and that just didn’t seem right, especially with what he was asking them to do.
He finished by telling them he felt fine now and he hoped it was over.
“You lying sack,” Bryson said. “I can tell you believe that about as much as you’d believe Sarah and I are married back in the Wake.”
“Which we aren’t” was Sarah’s response. “Just want to make sure that’s clear.”
Michael shrugged as they passed a group of men dressed in full armor. “Just trying to stay positive.”
“Well,” Sarah chided, “if it happens again, you better not wait until the next day to tell us or I’ll make you hurt somewhere else to take your mind off the noggin.” She smiled and touched his arm gently. “You have to trust us, Michael.”
All he could do was nod.
Bryson was shaking his head. “I can’t believe that stuff about Ronika. Seriously. Are you sure it’s her?”
“Positive,” Michael replied. “That KillSim barely got started on me and look what happened. According to Ronika, the whole point of those creatures is to erase your mind, remember? Not just your Aura but your mind in real life.”
Bryson stopped and looked at them. “And yet we’re jumping right back into the fire. What if KillSims are just the start of it?”
Sarah and Michael shrugged at the same time. Bryson followed, but he continued shaking his head as if he knew they were making the wrong decision, but he’d do it to appease his friends.
“You want to turn back?” Michael asked him, then tried to make light of it. “Just say the word, brother. I’ll buy you a pacifier and you can go home.”
Bryson didn’t miss a beat. “Nah, I’ll just borrow one of yours.”
And that was when they turned a corner and saw the sign for Devils of Destruction.
3
Michael loved how the VirtNet was a visual soup of archaic imagery mixed with the most advanced technology humans had ever known. This section of the Gaming Depot resembled an old boardwalk by the ocean, where arcades and restaurants and old-looking social clubs lined a walkway of wooden planks. Most of the shops here were actual games, though—a faux entrance to an entirely different world.
The sign for Devils of Destruction was huge and bordered with burning lightbulbs that flickered and sizzled. The letters were written in dark green—which Michael assumed was a reference to Greenland—with a red glow behind the word Devils. On the right side of the sign, there was a picture of a heavily clothed, helmet-wearing soldier, a machine gun pointed to the sky in one hand and a severed head, dripping with blood, hanging from his other fist. It seemed a little over-the-top.
They stopped right under the marquee, their necks craned to get a better look.
“Greenland,” Bryson said. “I’m almost seventeen years old and I’ve never played a game set there before. Must be one happenin’ place.”
Sarah turned to face her friends. “Most of it’s covered in snow and ice, big glaciers. We’re going to freeze our butts off.”
“Or something worse,” Bryson muttered. Then he flashed a playful grin like he’d just told the funniest joke of his life.
“Then keep ’em warm,” Sarah said with an eye roll.
He pointed to the front door, a rickety piece of wood that looked like it hadn’t been painted in ages. More specifically, a door that had been programmed to look like it had been neglected. It was all part of the atmosphere. “Well, we’ve studied the maps and we’ve made our plan. Let’s go for it.”
“When you die it makes you go back to the beginning,” Sarah said. “So if it happens to one of us, the other two need to die on purpose. We can’t get separated if we’re going to all get through.”
Michael didn’t necessarily agree with that. “I don’t know. As long as we figure out where the Portal to the Path is, that’s all that matters—we can’t waste a chance if we’re deep inside the battle zone. We just won’t actually go through the Portal until we’re all back together. If someone dies, the others wait for them.”
“Yeah,” Bryson said with a mock look of arrogance. “I’ll be sure to hold off until you guys catch up. Now come on.” Without waiting for a response, he walked to the door, opened it, and stepped inside.
4
It was an old-fashioned lobby with red carpet and lightbulb-bordered posters for other games covering the walls, the lights flashing around each in a clockwise loop. A concession stand stood in the middle, and the smell of popcorn filled the air. Michael noticed a teenage girl with black hair and bright red eyeliner at the register, smacking her gum like she hoped to pulverize it to nothing.
To the right was the ticket counter, behind which stood a woman, arms folded across her ample bosom, scowling at the newcomers. Everything about her was ample, actually. Large shoulders, thick neck, huge head. She wore no makeup, and her graying hair was stringy and unstyled. A real looker, Michael thought.
“Um, I’m scared,” Bryson whispered. “Could one of you buy the tickets, please? I think that lady slaughtered half my village when I was a baby.”