Finally, they made the decision that they needed to sleep.

“We’re each roughly about the same size as the steps,” Bryson pointed out when they stopped.

No one said anything as they lay down. Michael had never before felt so tired. Both his mind and body needed rest.

Yet, strangely, sleep didn’t come for Michael. Maybe it was the bruises, or maybe he was just on edge—too consumed with waiting for whatever was going to come next—but he couldn’t fall asleep. Instead, his mind wandered, and for some reason he thought of one thing and one thing only.

His parents.

He didn’t know where it had come from. He missed them, sure. And he was worried about them finding out about the whole Kaine affair.

But then something occurred to him. It was so jarring, so hard to believe, so disconcerting, that he sat up straight and had to struggle for air. Luckily, Bryson and Sarah were asleep. He couldn’t have handled questions from them—he wasn’t sure he had the answers.

Michael closed his eyes and concentrated, rubbing his temples. He had to just be shaken up, not thinking right. He took a deep breath and calmed himself, went through a very methodical line of thinking. He thought about each and every day of his recent life in reverse order, running through a mental list of what had happened.

One week. Two weeks. Three weeks. A month. Two months. Day by day, going back in time, trying to go through the checklist of his everyday existence. His memory was stronger than he would’ve guessed—there were lots of things, lots of events, that he could bring back. But there was one glaring, monumental detail that seemed impossible to recall. How could he have gotten so wrapped up in his life that it had gone unnoticed until now? So wrapped up in school and the VirtNet?

There was no mistaking the thing that bothered him so much.

Michael literally couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his parents.

CHAPTER 15

A DOOR IN THE DISTANCE

1

And Helga had never come back, either.

Michael didn’t know which bothered him more—that something terrible was going on with his parents and nanny or that he was so wrapped up in his entertainment that it had taken him this long to notice. He was equally horrified and ashamed.

He tried to think of what possibly could’ve happened. Maybe the VNS was involved somehow. Or Kaine and this Mortality Doctrine program. All the things that had so drastically changed his life over the past couple of weeks were, after all, related—though he didn’t know how to connect the dots.

But Michael couldn’t remember. As hard as he pressed his mind, he couldn’t recall the exact last time he’d been together with his parents. Everything he thought of—parties, meals, riding in the car—it always seemed overwhelmingly true that surely he had seen them since then. But there was nothing.

It was weird, and it terrified him. And haunting it all, Michael had to wonder if it had something to do with the KillSim. There was no doubt in his mind that the creature had done something to his brain.

He didn’t know what to do, what to think, but eventually he allowed himself to lie back on his designated stair and stretch out. The sheer exhaustion finally became too much and he fell asleep.

2

Bryson woke him with a gentle shake of his shoulders. Michael looked at his friend through bleary eyes.

“Sheesh, man,” Bryson said. “We’ve been awake for an hour. And you snore like a fat bear.”

Michael swung his legs around and sat up, yawned, rubbed his eyes. The black world of the staircase tilted for a second, then righted itself. Nothing had changed while they’d slept.

“Anybody else have weird dreams last night?” Sarah asked. “There was a guy in a bunny suit in mine. Don’t ask for more details.”

Michael hadn’t dreamed at all, but his upsetting discovery came back to him like a whammy. Why couldn’t he remember when he’d last seen his parents? Where were they? Why hadn’t Helga come home? How could he not have thought about his mom and dad being gone so long? He never talked to his parents much while they were away, but it was still weird. And he had no doubt that something was not right, in one form or another.

“Michael?” Sarah asked. “You okay?”

He looked at her and decided there was no way he’d tell anybody about this oddity. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just excited to walk down some more stairs. And starving so bad I’m thinking about eating one of Bryson’s legs.”

“Better shave them first,” Bryson responded, lifting a leg straight out in front of him as if to offer it. He put it back down, then said, “I had a weird dream. I’d never met Michael in it and was living a wonderfully happy life, with no one trying to kill me or damage my brain forever. It was sweet.”

“That does sound nice,” Sarah said.

Michael stood up and stretched. “Hardy har har. Let’s get down these stupid stairs.”

No one argued, and step by step they resumed their descent.

3

It was impossible to tell just how long it took before something changed. Michael tried counting the steps for a while, then seconds and minutes, just to keep his mind occupied with something other than his parents. His watch had stopped working at some point, and the clocks on their NetScreens kept doing weird things. The longer they descended, the crazier Michael felt. The monotony of it began building an anxiety that he had to work hard to push down. Occasional—and failed—attempts to hack into the seemingly impossible code only made things worse.

Then, finally, they found a door.

It was at the end of the stairs, where the space around them had narrowed until it formed a tunnel that dead-ended at an ordinary wooden door. The relief of seeing it overwhelmed Michael, and an irrational surge of giddiness made him suddenly erupt in giggles.

“Something funny?” Bryson asked, on the verge of a smile himself. “Better share it with the whole class.”

“No, nothing funny.” Michael was the first to the door, and he reached out for its round brass handle. “Just happy to be home.”

Bryson snickered at that, and Michael didn’t wait for more conversation. He twisted the handle and the door swung open easily. Then he stepped through to see what awaited them.

Two long rows of people stood, backs to the walls, stretching down a hallway. And despite the fact that they all had their eyes open, every one of them looked dead.