Curiosity hummed through Michael, but her words made him pause. “So you won’t kill me?”

“There are worse things than death, Michael,” she said with a frown.

He stared at her, half wanting to beg her to let him go without saying another word. But his curiosity won out. “Okay. No repeating … Hit me.”

Her lower lip trembled slightly when she said it, as if the phrase shook her somewhere deep inside: “The Mortality Doctrine.”

9

The room sank into silence—complete and absolute—and Agent Weber stared at him.

What could those three words possibly mean that they could cost him his freedom? “Am I missing something?” he asked. “The Mortality Doctrine? What is that?”

Agent Weber leaned forward, her face somehow growing even more intense than before. “Hearing the words has committed you to joining us.”

Michael shrugged—it was the only thing he felt safe doing.

“But I need to hear you say it,” she said. “I need to hear your commitment. We need your skills in the VirtNet.”

That little boost of pride brought Michael back to himself a bit. “I want to know what it is.”

“That’s more like it.” She leaned back and the tension in the room seemed to lift. “The Mortality Doctrine. At this moment we know very little. It’s something hidden in the VirtNet—somewhere off the known grid. A file or program of some sort that could seriously damage not just the VirtNet, but the real world as well.”

“Sounds promising,” Michael muttered, immediately regretting it. Luckily, she let it pass. The truth was that he’d perked up at the notion of a secret part of the VirtNet. He wanted to know where it was.

“This … doctrine could devastate humanity and the world as we know it. Tell me, Michael, have you heard of the gamer who calls himself Kaine?”

The name made Michael’s heart lurch. The girl, Tanya. Her face came back to him, as well as her words. How Kaine was tormenting her. Michael gripped the sides of his chair because it suddenly felt like he was falling off the bridge all over again. How did all these things relate?

“I know of Kaine,” he said. “I saw a girl kill herself.… She mentioned him.…”

“Yes, we know,” Agent Weber acknowledged. “That’s a small part of the reason you’re here. You’re a witness to how bad things are getting. We’ve been able to tie Kaine to this Mortality Doctrine, and it’s all linked to cases like what you saw happen. People trapped in the VirtNet and driven to decoding their own Cores. It’s the worst cyber-terrorism we’ve ever come across.”

“Why am I here?” Michael asked in a dry croak, feeling an embarrassing lack of confidence. “How can I help?”

She was silent for a beat. “We’ve found people comatose inside their Coffins. CAT scans reveal brain damage—as if they were the victims of some sick experiment. They are complete vegetables.” She paused again. “We have evidence that Kaine’s involved. And somehow it’s all related to this Mortality Doctrine program hidden somewhere inside the VirtNet. We need to find both the man and the Mortality Doctrine. Will you help us?”

She asked it so simply, as if she was asking him to make a quick trip to the store for some milk and bread. Michael wanted to run. Actually, he wanted a lot of things just then—time travel would’ve been great, he thought—but more realistically, he wanted his room and his bed, his Coffin, escape to some brainless sports game, beginner level, Dan the Man Deli, bleu chips, hanging out with Bryson and Sarah, a movie, a book, his mom and dad back from traveling, and to never hear about this again.

But one word popped out of his mouth, and he didn’t know he meant it until he heard himself say it.

“Yes.”

CHAPTER 3

A DARK PLACE

1

Michael had barely closed his mouth when Agent Weber stood up so abruptly that her chair flipped backward.

Michael jumped, surprised at her reaction. “Was I supposed to say no?”

But she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at the door, her hand held to her ear as if she was listening to some kind of device planted there. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “You were followed.”

Michael got to his feet, shaken by how quickly this woman had gone from terrifying to terrified. “Followed? By who?” he asked.

“You don’t want to know, Michael. Come on.”

She didn’t wait for his response. Without another word she charged for the door. Michael went after her, and soon they were out in the hall, surrounded by several armed guards. This time without the ridiculous black masks.

“Get him back home,” Agent Weber directed, in charge again. “And make sure no one sees you do it.”

A man and a woman appeared, took Michael by the arm, and started leading him down the hallway.

“Wait!” he yelled, struggling to put together the sudden turn of events. “Wait! You barely told me anything!”

Heels clicking along the tile floor, Agent Weber approached him. “Tell your friends what I just told you. Bryson and Sarah. No one else. No one. Do you understand me? Tell anyone—even your parents—and we’ll erase them.”

That last bit shifted everything inside of him to anger. “Erase them?”

“I need the three of you to dig, Michael,” she said, ignoring him. “I suggest you start in the darkest, seediest places inside the VirtNet. Ask around, follow the rumors. I need you to find where Kaine’s hiding out—it’s the only way we can learn the complete truth behind the Mortality Doctrine and how he plans to use it. Do whatever it takes. You have the skills. We’ll have tracers on you and we’ll follow you in once you’ve discovered where he’s hiding it. Help us solve this problem and you’ll be set for life, whatever you want. We have others searching, too. Get there first and you’ll be rewarded.”

His mouth opened—to say what, he had no idea—but she’d already turned and was making her way back down the hall.

“Let’s go,” one of the guards said.

They pulled Michael along in the opposite direction.

2

They didn’t go back to the car. The guards—they didn’t say one word to Michael the entire time—escorted him down countless hallways until they came out of an old abandoned building next to a subway station, where they left him. People milled about, the sun shone down through a break in the clouds, and a candy wrapper floated through the air on the breeze. The world had gone along exactly as before, while his life had just changed forever.