Weber reached for the door handle but paused. “There’ve been times when I’ve doubted my actions,” she said, her voice solemn. “It was a plan ten years in the making, programming you and other test Tangents, creating Kaine, laying the foundation—it took a lot of work. And when it all came together, and I saw the effects…on you, on others, on the world…I wanted to stop. That’s the honest truth. But like I said, we’d gone too far. If we stop now, the world will descend into chaos. I can’t let things get even worse. So we move on. It’s almost complete. Will be by tomorrow night, is my guess.”

She opened the door and stepped out, then leaned in to continue speaking to him. “I give you my word, Michael: when our task is done and we have control over the globe and its governments, things will be better. And safer. And then the VirtNet can truly take its place as the centerpiece of life for the human race. You’ll see.”

She stepped away before he could respond. The soldier next to him gave him a little nudge with his elbow.

“Come on, kid,” he said, his voice as rough as his weathered face. “Things aren’t so bad. You get to see all of this firsthand. The biggest revolution the world has ever known. Now, are you going to cooperate or do I need to cuff you?”

Michael was too stunned to speak. He just shook his head and lowered his gaze as humbly as he could. Then he got out of the car and followed Agent Weber.

3

They led him to a giant room filled with Coffins.

The place was so massive that he found it hard to believe he was in the real world and not in the VirtNet somewhere. It was as long as a football field. Iron-railed balconies lined both walls and stretched to the ceiling hundreds of feet over their heads. Faint lights shone somewhere up there, lost in what seemed like a mist or bank of clouds. Surely his vision was just blurry from the rush of information that had dazed him.

The floor in front of him, and each balcony—as far as he could see from where he stood—was full of Coffins. Hundreds of them, their soft lights blinking and glowing. They lined the walls, one after another, like the world’s largest crypt. And most of them appeared to be in operation. The air was cool and smelled of well-oiled machinery and the metallic tinge of electricity.