4

His access was reinstated immediately. He knew from his message board that Bryson and Sarah had gone through the same thing and that they’d taken it just as seriously as he had. School on Monday was the most agonizing thing Michael had ever sat through, but by that evening he’d reconnected with his friends and they decided to begin their investigation the next afternoon.

They were determined to be more careful and less open this time. They’d use their coding and hacking skills like never before. There was a reason the VNS had chosen him and his friends, Michael thought, and he was glad for the reminder of the lengths they’d need to go.

We can do this, he told himself. Over and over.

CHAPTER 5

THE OLD MAN

1

“While you guys were wigging out,” Bryson said, “I was putting a Tracer on Kaine’s Aura. We’ll know next time he gets close.”

Michael was sitting with him and Sarah in a tree house on the outskirts of the outskirts of Lifeblood, a place they’d coded—or built—in secret. It was in a small forest that Michael was pretty sure even the programmers of the game didn’t know about.

“Did you upload the Tracer to us yet?” Sarah asked him. She was so good at keeping them focused.

“Yeah.”

“Good. And I think if we use my Hide-and-Seek program and Michael’s Cloak-and-Dagger, we should be able to avoid that snake for a while.”

“Or at least stay two steps ahead of him,” Michael added. He and Sarah had worked together to create the two masking programs, which had come in handy more than once.

They went silent for a moment, closing their eyes and concentrating to access the raw data of the world around them. Michael pulled up screens and connected with his friends; then they shared codes and installed programs and made sure everything was linked and good to go. No one needed to say that they should’ve been smarter the first time around, but at the time it had almost seemed like a harmless game. Which, Michael told himself, had been really stupid.

When finished coding, he opened his eyes and rubbed them—they were always a little bleary after linking to the code. He got onto his knees and looked out the window that faced the side of the forest leading back into the main sections of Lifeblood. It was foggy this far out, since the programming was weaker, but Michael liked it. The tree house they’d constructed through their own programming tricks was warm and well hidden, so it felt cozy and safe. Just add some knitted socks and a stocking cap and he’d be an official grandma, he thought with an embarrassed grin. But there was still a part of him that feared the things they were about to get into. A huge part.

“So?” Bryson began. His question was obvious.

“The old-timers,” Sarah answered. “That’s where we start.”

Michael snapped out of his funk and let his adventurous side take over again. “Definitely,” he said as he turned and sat back down. “Those geezers outside the Old Towne shopping district will know something, if anybody does. Throw ’em a few credits to Casino and we won’t be able to shut them up.”

Sarah was nodding, but her eyes were focused on the same window Michael had been gazing through. She never looked at you when she was deep in thought. “I’m trying to remember the barber’s name. He must be a thousand years old.”

“I know that dinosaur,” Bryson said. “We used him when we needed to get the passwords for the Pluto mission. You’d think the guy would buy a breath-mint program. I had to keep sucking air through my mouth, he smelled so bad.”

Michael laughed. “If you had every gamer in town knocking on your door for advice, you wouldn’t do anything to make it easier on them, either. His name’s Cutter, by the way.”

“That’s where we go,” Sarah said. “We’ll just plug our noses.”

2

Old Towne was the most visited place in the VirtNet, the New York City of the simulated world. And the shopping district within it was always packed with people. At first Michael worried about being so much in the open, but once he was there, he realized it would be even easier to blend in and be lost by a searching eye. Especially with their Hider programs doubled up and working at full capacity.

Two malls, each with thousands of stores, arcades, restaurants, upload huts, entertainment bars, and anything else you could think of, bordered a huge plaza that stretched for miles. Along it were amazing fountains and air dancers and roller coasters, and Michael had always been just as much of a sucker for it all as anyone else. The whole place was designed for two things: to provide good times and to drain people’s life savings. Things often cost as much in the Sleep as they did in the Wake; the possibilities were just more vast. Especially if you could code.

Sarah had to yank Bryson away—by the ear—about five times before they made it to the long, narrow alleyway they were looking for. It branched off from the broad plaza and led to a section called Shady Towne, where less mainstream affairs like digital-tattoo parlors and pawnshops lined a cobblestone road that made Michael feel like he’d traveled hundreds of years into the past. He even saw a horse trot by.

“His place is right up here,” Sarah said, pointing.

No one had said much since exiting the plaza, and Michael knew exactly why. There were a lot fewer people, which meant if someone was looking, Michael and his friends would be easier to spot. Michael put his faith in Bryson’s Tracer, trusting that they’d know if Kaine slipped past their Hider programs and got close again. Then they could find a Portal and Lift to the Wake before being dumped into that black abyss.

Cutter’s place was aptly named the Old Man’s Barbershop. It didn’t take a genius to know that in a simulated world a person didn’t need haircuts, but that wasn’t how most people rolled. The more lifelike, the better. And eighty percent of those in the Sleep had themselves programmed to grow hair. If you were skilled at coding and really wanted a ponytail, you could just access the code and quickly program it.

“What do we do?” Bryson asked when they stopped a few feet from the front door. “Just barge in there and start throwing questions at the dude?”

Michael shrugged. “I bet he gambles every chance he gets. We’ll program him a buy-in for the next poker tournament, and just like I said, he won’t shut up till we walk away.”

“And whose head is he shaving?”