“Listen to me!” he said, looking straight at his friends and Sarah’s parents. “You don’t have a clue what it’s like to be a Tangent. We might be a bunch of code to you guys, but I can’t accept that. There’s more to us. I know it. I’m a person, I have a mind, I can think for myself, and I don’t care what anyone else says. I mean, I could just as easily be programmed as Helga. At some point you have to go with your heart! My parents were real, as far as I’m concerned, until Kaine wiped them out. And Helga…she’s like a grandma to me. This is Helga. I know it.”

“Grandma?” Helga asked. “Really?”

“Sorry. Best aunt ever.”

Sarah walked up to stand right in front of Michael, and she stared at him for several seconds. “You’re sure?”

He nodded firmly. “I’m positive.” He looked over at Bryson. “Sure as heckfire.”

Bryson shrugged. “I guess we just have to trust you,” he said reluctantly.

“You don’t need to worry about us being like Kaine,” Helga interjected. “There’s a difference. A huge difference.”

It was Gerard’s turn to speak. “Yeah?” he pressed. “So enlighten us. What’s this huge difference?”

Michael trusted Helga, but he was definitely interested.

“The difference,” Helga said, “is that we’re here to stop what Kaine’s doing. The difference is that we triggered the Mortality Doctrine only because it was a last resort. And the biggest difference…” She paused for a moment. “The biggest difference is that we plan to give these bodies back. Hopefully very soon. I highly doubt Kaine plans to do the same.”

“Give them back?” Bryson asked. “How?”

Helga sat down in her chair. “It’s time I tell you about the Hive.”

2

The Hive. The words jarred Michael, and his group quieted. He looked at Sarah and Bryson and nodded to the chairs. “Can we listen to what she has to say, guys?” he asked. The group didn’t answer, but everyone sat down, ready to hear her out.

“The Hive,” she repeated, once everyone was settled. “Kaine created it—for what ultimate purpose we’re not completely sure—and he protects it and maintains it, and we’ve figured out how to get there. To break in, I should say. The Hive is the key to everything, the key to restoring things to the way they were, before”—Helga gestured to herself sadly—“all this.”

“But what is the Hive?” Sarah insisted. “We’ve never heard of it.”

“Ah, yes,” Helga said quietly, “of course. The Hive is where intelligence is stored. Intelligences, actually. Plural.”

“You mean, like the brain of the VirtNet?” Bryson asked.