He’d barely had the thought when another hit the Bubble next to the first one, flattening out like a pancake of tar. Its mouth appeared instantly. The teeth shone and scraped against the surface. Another one landed right after that.

Three of them.

Hold, Michael begged the Bubble. You better hold. He returned to his work.

It was odd, his current environment. Unlike most of the VirtNet, the Code Pool didn’t obey normal physics. It existed in different formats and different locations at once. When Michael immersed himself in it, everything else disappeared, and he saw only that core substance of the programming language in which he floated. But every time he turned his head to look back—he saw it all. The Bubble of protection, the leeching KillSims, Kaine’s battle behind that, raging like an alien war in space.

He resumed his deadly work, ending Tangent lives one by one. It made him feel better to know that he was also giving life back to those who’d had their bodies stolen. Or so he hoped. What a changed world it would be if he trusted Kaine completely.

A horrific screeching sound broke his concentration just as he was about to snap another Tangent life away. He couldn’t help but look, almost losing his grip on that tiny stick as he did so. Behind him, one of the KillSims had pierced the shield of the Bubble with a single tooth, letting that awful noise in as it twisted and tore at the invisible material. It was worse than nails on a chalkboard. Michael fought the urge to put his virtual hands to his virtual ears, turned back to his deed, and snapped another line of code. Yet another string of lights winked out.

Michael faced the KillSim again. It had torn a three-inch gash in the Bubble now, grinding away. One of its companions had formed some kind of spike out of its black mass, a dark pick that it used to hammer at the shield. A low thump sounded every time it hit. Soon it was accompanied by a crackle, like a large sheet of ice beginning to break.

Time was running out. There had to be almost a hundred rogue Tangents left in the list Kaine had sent. Michael went into overdrive, taking leaps in his coding that weren’t exactly safe or foolproof. He decided the time for careful treading was over. If that protective barrier burst, there’d be no way he could fight off those KillSims before they sucked the essence from his body back home—especially with his strength drained as it was. He’d be a vegetable in no time.