Kaine’s tone made it sound like he’d been anxiously awaiting the question. “Those will still be tragedies, but not a complete loss. One can always go back to their last known download into the VirtNet. Or, if you can afford it, you can go in every year, every week, every day—whatever works for you—and update your consciousness. Your memories, your knowledge, your everything. If you have a premature death, then you will be restored to your latest version. It’s all worked out. Think of it as backing up your work.”

Michael opened his eyes, but there was nothing there. At some point they’d slid back into the darkness. He instinctively reached to touch his face, but he had no hands or arms. It was like he’d become a part of the Sleep itself.

“There’s more to show,” Kaine said, startling him. “The future is a place of pure wonder, Michael, and I want you by my side.”

Michael was stunned, feeling as broken apart as his virtual self was at the moment. Kaine scared him in so many ways. He didn’t know how to read the situation. He went the safest route and said nothing.

“But it will have to wait,” Kaine said after a long moment of silence. “Something is happening. Something terrible.”

“What?” Michael asked, surprised at the sudden shift in the conversation.

“They found us. I don’t know how, but they found us.”

CHAPTER 15

BLACK CLOAKS

1

The darkness turned to fog, then mist, swirling around Michael. He looked down at his arms and legs as his body reappeared, as if someone were pouring him into an invisible mold. The mist thinned out, and finally the inside of the tree house appeared, at first blurry, then slowly solidifying. He and Kaine sat in the same two chairs as before the vision had started.

“Who found us?” Michael asked immediately, unfazed by the odd transformation.

Kaine held a finger to his lips, searching the room with his eyes. Then he leaned closer to Michael so he could whisper. “There are more Tangents against me than for me now. I don’t know if the VNS programmed them or what—but you’ve met many of them. They have a terrible knack of knowing exactly where I am. And they’re nasty, Michael. Nasty.”

Michael immediately thought of the people in the woods, outside the barracks where Helga had set up her Alliance. “Were they—”

“Yes,” Kaine said curtly, still speaking softly. “The same. No one ever makes it easy, putting power before sense.” He was about to say something else, but a noise stopped him short.