“Why…why are you pointing that at me?” He nodded at the gun.

“Oh. Sorry.” Stevens—Kaine?—lowered the weapon. “It’s just that I’ve never gotten to do that in a real person’s body before. Kind of crazy, isn’t it?” He looked at the gun again as if it were a precious object, eyes wide. “I’m not Kaine, by the way. He sent the four of us to save you, just like you asked. We were in the queue of the Mortality Doctrine program, ready to go. It just took a quick adjustment to send us here instead.”

Michael stood, feeling the world spin around him. The events of the last couple minutes had roiled him, but he had no time to think about it. Weber was in the Sleep, wreaking her havoc. He had to stop her.

“You need to pull the plug on all these people,” he said, gathering his thoughts. He started walking toward Weber’s Coffin. “Don’t kill them! Just…just initiate an emergency Lift, then pull the plugs. Maybe ask Kaine to send you some more help before you do. Whatever you think you need. Just…take care of it. Please. We have to stop whatever it is all these people are doing.”

He reached the steps leading up to Weber, then turned back to the others. The three men and woman were looking at him, a little perplexed, probably trying to figure out why this teenage boy was barking commands at them.

“Ask Kaine first if you need to,” Michael said, throwing all the authority he could into his voice. “He and I are working together now. Why do you think he sent you here?”

Stevens nodded. “We’ll get some more backup, find weapons, start Lifting people. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take care of Weber.”

5

He opened her Coffin without Lifting her, using the emergency release for the door. His thoughts were still leaping ahead of him, racing a million miles an hour.

She lay there—NerveWires inserted into her skin, LiquiGels covering parts of her body, an IV inserted in the crook of one arm—looking for all the world as if she were taking a nap. Her chest rose and fell with steady breaths.

“What are you doing in there?” he said softly. “Where have you gone?”

He looked at her neck. Wouldn’t that be the easiest way to end this problem? Kill her while she couldn’t resist? Cut the head off the dragon and hope the underlings realized she’d gone too far?

But no. He couldn’t risk that. He needed to find out what she was doing and where she was doing it. Who knew what kind of damage she’d already inflicted. He had to find her in the Sleep, understand what she was doing, and fix it. That was his job now. He had to fix it. Fix everything.