A half hour later, he had stripped down and was standing above the open Coffin. He’d eaten so much that his stomach stuck out in a satisfying bulge. He rubbed it for good luck, then stepped into the pod, lowering himself until he lay flat on his back. He took several deep breaths to ease his nerves, more scared than he wanted to admit.

Bryson and Helga, along with her Tangent Alliance, were searching the streets for him at that very moment. He was sure of it. He was also sure that they were frantic and angry. He felt bad—he shouldn’t have left them like that—but he needed to do this alone. He’d ask their forgiveness once he got back.

If he got back.

No, when he got back.

Nah. If. No point being dishonest.

He finished off the programming he’d already started on the outside console. Then he reached up to his ear and clicked on his NetScreen. He sent the message he’d typed earlier, encrypting it with five layers of hidden codes, to the onetime connection link provided by the Tangent himself. If he was out there, he’d get the message. Michael pressed the final button, then closed his eyes, waiting for the mechanisms to take over his body and Sink him into the Sleep.

LiquiGels.

AirPuffs.

NerveWires.

As they started engaging, he saw the words of the message he’d sent, almost as if they’d been printed on the back of his eyelids.

Kaine,

Meet me at the attached coordinates.

I have something to tell you.

CHAPTER 13

A CANCER OF CODE

1

The Sleep had become a scary place.

Because the Coffin he used was owned by the hotel and ran on public systems, he had to follow their regulations during his Sink. He arrived at a Portal in a giant commerce square. In better times it would have seen thousands of daily patrons, shopping and gaming and virtual eating. There would have been street performers and Tangents programmed to do all kinds of services—everything from sweeping up data dust created by coding glitches to acting as the homeless, begging for coin. It was all designed to make the square feel like a real city.

Now it couldn’t feel further from that.

Whatever Weber had set them up to do with the Lance, it had wreaked havoc on the world the VNS was meant to protect. The utter lack of security caused by their breach had obviously allowed any two-bit hacker to come in and destroy whatever he or she wanted. Why destruction appealed to people, Michael had no idea, but it definitely did—the commerce square was a shambles.