The tree house was nearby, looking as strong and firm as ever. An endless forest stretched in every direction, the sounds of insects and frogs and birds filling the air, though a little more muted than normal. The colors were a little weaker also; maybe the trees weren’t as tall, the smells not so vibrant. But all in all, the code was much healthier than anything he’d seen so far in the Sleep.

He’d built this place with Bryson and Sarah, on the outskirts of Lifeblood, hidden from all but the most discerning coders. Seeing the tree house, its ladder leading up to the trapdoor, made his heart shatter. The pain of Sarah’s death came crashing back, and he lay down on the forest floor, curling up into a ball. He missed her. He missed her so much. His head still pounded from the work it had taken to restore this place, not to mention the effort of traveling there through a sea of decomposing code, but the trauma in his heart was much worse.

How could Agent Scott have done that? Taken his best friend away from him?

He’d never known a pain like this. He’d taken Sarah for granted. She’d just always been there, and he’d assumed she always would be. It was hard to face the fact that someone like Agent Weber was still alive, yet his best friend was gone.

And then there was Kaine. He didn’t understand Kaine any more than he understood Weber. He could only hope that the Tangent would show up.

It felt as if he weighed a thousand pounds, but Michael finally pulled himself to his feet and climbed up to his tree house. To Sarah’s tree house.

4

Time passed.

Michael sat in the corner, in the beanbag that constituted Bryson’s most important contribution to the furniture arrangement. As they’d so often said, it was vomit-colored. Unfortunately for Michael, it reminded him a lot of the code in which he’d been floating before.

Sarah had carved her name in the wall across from him, and he sat staring at it listlessly. His aching heart had morphed into a dull numbness, and he lay completely still, looking at the letters of her name one by one. It didn’t seem possible that she was gone. If only she’d been a Tangent like him, and Kaine had never entered the picture, they could’ve gamed and lived life to its fullest for what felt like forever, until the Decay took their minds and they drifted into forgetful bliss.

More time passed.

And then, finally, there were footsteps—the sound of leaves crunching beneath his tree house. He sat up with a jolt, his feet thumping on the wooden floor. His gaze shot to the trapdoor.

“Michael,” a man’s voice said from below.