From there, his instincts took over. He found things he hadn’t dreamed of finding within the code. Access points to the Hive. A running history of the Mortality Doctrine program and how it did what it did to Michael’s Tangent self. He even found a piece of himself in there, something he couldn’t quite understand. It was almost as if he’d found his own DNA gene sequence.

He was a building block. He was beginning to see how he served as a foundation for the Doctrine and all that it had accomplished.

He took as much of the information as he could until he finally felt ready.

It was clear to Michael now that what would follow would be horrible, but it had to be done.

It was the only way.

Michael turned around and faced the Bubble. Weber’s black destroyer program had now completely encased it. With a few quick manipulations of the code, he dissolved the shield of protection and let the tarlike substance come at him and his pod.

It struck him all at once, and the stinging pain from before overwhelmed him. He resisted the urge to suck in a breath from shock, the world around him shifting between visuals and raw code, flickering like a bad WallScreen signal. Michael forced his mind to calm and made his surroundings solidify in the pool of code, the substance in which he needed to work. And work he did.

Michael floated a few feet from Jackson Porter’s pod and let Weber’s program devour him until it had nearly merged with his own code. He had to let it in to have access to what he wanted. The pain was excruciating, the intensity heightening. He ignored it, not caring how battered his body back in the real world might be—all he needed was to stay alive.

Darkness dimmed his vision, so he brightened the code. He dug into it like he’d done with Jackson’s pod, but this time he was much more focused. He knew exactly what he was looking for: a pathway to Weber. That was the last piece of the puzzle.

Weber. He needed her.

The darkness ate at him, but it was confused by his programming because it was so different from the pods themselves. Michael knew it wouldn’t take long for it to adapt, though. Like a pool of smart nanobots, it learned and changed as it worked. It was only a matter of time before it sucked the life from his Aura, leaving him as brain-dead as any KillSim would.

The true death.

Pain ignited his skin and sank into his muscles. His vision was blurry—almost black—and his own tears stung.

He pushed on.

Darkness closing in…Pain…

There.