He swept through the files of the Hive, finding connections to over a dozen Tangents and latching on to all of them. Working one by one was no longer an option. Scrapes and cracks and screeching continued behind him, like a glacier coming apart all at once. That Bubble was about to burst like a lightbulb under a boot. Feverishly, Michael gathered data, pooled it, swept it, manipulated, massaged it. He layered the codes, counting on pure instinct to keep everything in order, working too fast for his mind to make sense of it all.

Before long he held a bundle of fragile sticks in his hand as if he were about to draw straws. Each one represented a life—no matter how programmed or artificial, it was a life. How could he say any different? He’d been one of them. But they were different, he told himself as the KillSims pounded his thin membrane of protection. They’d been created to do harm. Created to wreak havoc on the real world.

But hadn’t he been created to do the same? In a way? He was the First, after all.

Michael!

The booming sound of Kaine’s voice came from everywhere at once. Michael tore himself from his thoughts and doubts, looked down at the bundle of sticks in his hand. The artificial lives, the threads to their intelligence and being, their lifelines.

He grabbed the two ends with both fists and snapped them all into two pieces. The air lit up with the explosions behind him. He turned to face it and watched fiery clouds of red and orange erupt across the empty space beyond the Hive. Then, as if opened to another dimension, they disappeared, lightning fast, darkness settling on the world once again.

So many dead.

So many saved.

He had to remember that. Kaine said that the original inhabitants of those bodies would automatically get reinserted into the VirtNet, resume their lives. What a wake-up that would be.

There were more. He hadn’t gotten all of them. But Kaine and the Tangents on his side outnumbered those who’d come to attack, and it was plain to see that the tide of the battle had turned drastically in Kaine’s favor. Michael had done enough.

The KillSims kept coming. The one had opened its dark maw over a foot wide, and even as Michael looked at it, a sharp blade of darkness came swiping at his head. He ducked, letting it skim over him. Just.

The creature with the black spike hadn’t stopped hammering; cracks spiderwebbed away from its point of attack, thick and white and expanding. Michael pushed himself as far away as he could, but the Code Pool resisted. It was as if it didn’t want him sinking into its goop of code unless he was willing to work it. The dark blade swiped at him again, sliced some threads on his shirt.