As he got his bearings, Michael admired the simplicity of the layout. Every official member country of the UE had its own antechamber off the central auditorium. Within the Sleep, each country had a Portal directly outside these antechambers. This was a plush room filled with leather couches. It was fully staffed and stocked with food and beverages. Glass doors led from this room onto a balcony that overlooked the central space below. Michael took it all in as they arrived with Guntis, who immediately introduced them to the prime minister and her chief of staff—the man taken by the Tangent Levi.

“Levi had her ear all week,” Guntis was telling Helga in his thick accent. Michael, Bryson, and Walter hovered around Guntis and Helga as they spoke. They had inched into a corner of the big room, and Michael was trying his best to adjust to the surreal experience. “She might seem a little intimidating, but she’s not the type to put power before reason. If she thinks it will help her cause or her country, she’ll listen to anyone. And she listened.”

“So how’s this going to happen?” Helga asked.

Guntis gestured toward the doors that led out to the chamber proper. “The prime minister is an executive member of the UE, so she has a good amount of time to speak. Levi convinced her to make Kaine and the Tangent invasion her highest priority. She’s going to make a pitch for money and resources, hopefully get you whatever you need to begin the pushback.”

As Guntis spoke, the people mingling around them had begun to move toward the seats. Guntis gestured to them to follow, and Michael and the group joined the mass of people moving toward the doors. From what Michael could tell, it looked like attendance was about half virtual and half physical—at least for those filling the chairs in the balcony. Michael walked in a daze. He knew that to those actually in attendance at the summit, he appeared as a shimmery projection—people probably even thought he was unimportant because he’d only been invited virtually.

“What did we get ourselves into?” Bryson whispered to him. Before Michael could answer, Helga ushered them to a few empty seats in the back row of the section reserved for virtual visitors. They sat as close to the aisle as they could.

“Something’s wrong,” Michael said. Maybe he’d just grown accustomed to things never working out the way they were supposed to. But he couldn’t shake the nervous feeling in his chest. He searched the room for anything that seemed out of the ordinary, but he realized that he wouldn’t know if something wasn’t as it should be.

“What’s the deal?” Bryson whispered to him.

Michael slumped in his seat.

“Something’s wrong,” he repeated.

CHAPTER 11

CHAOS CAPTURED

1