“Ha. Yeah.” She paused, looking him straight in the eye. “We’ll definitely come visit you. A lot. You two will like each other. And…what you’re doing for him…it’s…”

“Please,” Michael said, swatting the air with his hand. “Don’t even mention it, ever again. It’s not even a choice.”

She nodded, fresh tears springing forth. “Okay. Well, we’ll come see you really soon. Let us know where, okay?”

“For sure.”

Last but not least was Bryson. They hugged, doing the requisite pounding of the backs to make it macho.

“I love you, man,” Bryson whispered in his ear.

Michael barked out a laugh, but then Bryson squeezed him tighter. “No, I’m serious. I love you. You’re the best friend any person could ever ask for. The bravest, the craziest, the funniest, the best. You’re my best friend, always have been, always will be. And I’m going to visit your butt every single day.”

He pulled away and turned, went toward the door.

“Bryson!” Michael called.

Bryson just waved without looking, then walked through the door. It’d been abrupt, but Michael understood. It had been the perfect goodbye.

And so that was that.

Tears stinging his eyes, he went over to the open Coffin and lay down. He was fully clothed, figuring he’d spare anyone having to see him naked. The body wouldn’t be inside that long anyway.

He closed his eyes and let the NerveBox work its magic.

When those eyes opened up in an hour or so, Jackson Porter would see the real world once again. And Gabby would be right there waiting for him.

2

The process hurt.

It was like Squeezing through firewalls and having your brain sucked on by a KillSim at the same time. There was darkness, there was blinding light. Quiet mixed with ungodly sounds of metal screeching and nails scratching concrete. And through it all, the pain.

But like so many other things in Michael’s strange life, it finally ended.

He blinked his eyes as they focused. The pain faded so there was just an echo of it floating through his bones and joints and head. He hadn’t known what to expect. He’d wondered about it, thought about it every night for a month. Would he wake up in a pod at the Hive? Outside the Hive, floating in that darkness like he’d done several times before? At a Portal? In some kind of factory? He had no clue.

Worst of all, he hadn’t known with any certainty that he’d wake up at all. So in that sense, everything was hunky-dory. But to his surprise, he came to inside a Coffin not much different from the one in which he’d just left behind the body of Jackson Porter. A guy he’d been close to in ways most people would never experience.