Her voice was a little louder when she replied. “You have three days.”

“Three days until what?”

“To change your mind.”

Before Michael could ask her about Kaine, she confirmed his suspicion.

“Kaine is no longer the servant of his programmer. Things have changed from the original plans. He needs your help. You need his. And … he doesn’t like it when people disobey.” For the first time, her expression shifted. She smiled. Passengers had arrived at both entrances to the storage car, were gaping through the windows.

Michael stayed silent.

The smile vanished. The woman’s eyes seemed to glaze over as she finally lowered her arm. Then she turned again, stopping when she was looking straight at the emergency exit door on the side of the car. The train jerked, reminding Michael just how fast the thing was traveling. Surely the woman didn’t mean to—

In a flash she was at the door, reaching for the bright red handle. She yanked it down and an ear-popping explosion of sound filled the car as the door flew open, banging against the side of the train, just as an alarm started to clang. Michael fell to the floor, gasping at the rush of air blasting in. Streaks of color raced by—the greens and browns of a forest—and the wind ripped at the woman’s clothes as she held on to the frame of the opening.

Then she took a step, disappearing from view in an instant.

Michael stared out into the blur, waiting, but there was nothing. Not even a scream.

Chapter 5: The Kitchen Mess

Alarms filled the air and the train’s brakes screeched as it slowed, then finally came to a full stop. Michael was clutching a metal shelf. He still held tightly long after the train was no longer moving. And he was trembling, his blood racing.

Maybe he was still getting used to being a human. Everything was different. Starker. More real. More frightening. He felt it all, in a way that he never had in his old life. Or did it just seem that way in the heat of the moment?

Authorities came, helped him up, questioned him. For a few minutes he thought he would be accused of some crime, but the VidFeeds clearly showed he’d had nothing to do with the woman jumping. They asked him why she had raised her arm, what she’d said to him, why Michael had been with her. But he just kept saying he didn’t know, that he’d followed her out of curiosity, which was true. He cooperated until finally they let him go back to his seat. The situation seemed simple enough to them: the lady was crazy.

Michael was still trembling as he sat. There was just too much to think about.

Kaine, no longer a servant to his programmer. He needed help—Michael needed him. Three days. Being reprimanded for disobeying, as if he were the Tangent’s child. And the woman—was she really like Michael? A former Tangent? Seeing a person take her own life—the incident reminded him far too much of when he’d taken the plunge from the Golden Gate Bridge with a girl named Tanya. Another lifetime ago.

Scared, he wrapped his arms around himself and leaned his head back against the window. Soon the train began moving again and gradually picked up speed until they were racing along the tracks.

Michael felt much better by the time he arrived in Sarah’s city. He was so overwhelmed by all that had happened that he’d forced himself to focus on only one thing: locating his friend. He would find her, convince her of the truth about him, then ask her what he should do. She’d know. Sarah was smart. Somehow, she’d know.

Before he could find Sarah, though, he had to get himself situated. It took a few hours. Cab ride to a hotel; check-in with cash credits and a false name; food; last-minute scan of his new Net identity and then comparison of the data he’d stolen from Lifeblood to the maps of the area. All the while, he debated: should he contact Sarah, let her know he was coming? He kept going back and forth. On the one hand, it might lessen the shock, prepare her a bit. But on the other, he was terrified that for some crazy reason she’d tell him not to come. Or think he was some crackpot and disconnect. Or worse, block him.

He kept coming back to the same decision: he’d take his chances and confront her. He wanted to look into her eyes when he told her—even with his stranger’s eyes, which she’d never seen before. He was sure it was the one way to convince her. She’d be thrown off guard by how he looked, but that was normal for first meetings outside the Sleep. People usually created Auras in the Sleep that looked different from their actual selves, no matter what they claimed. But as soon as he recited everything they’d gone through on the Path and with Kaine, she’d know it was him. And in person she wouldn’t be able to block him.

And so it was that he found himself on Sarah’s front porch, afternoon fading to evening, the air crisp and cool. She lived in a suburb outside the city proper. Her family obviously had money—not only did they own a house, it was a big one. With a porch. As a city kid, Michael had always thought porches were things you’d only find in a VirtNet fantasy world. But what did he know?

He knocked on the door, his pulse quickening with each rap of his knuckles.

A few seconds went by, and they seemed to take an eternity. Then he heard footsteps. The lockpad started to beep and his heart leaped. He was tempted to turn and make a run for it, catapult himself down the stairs and hightail it around the corner of the house before anyone saw him. But the moment passed. The lock disengaged and the door opened.

A woman stood there, maybe fifty years old, blond hair, her plain but pretty face just starting to wrinkle with age. She smiled, almost disguising the question—the borderline concern—in her eyes as to why a complete stranger stood on her front porch.

“Hi,” Michael said, a little too quickly. “Um, my name is Michael.” Then, for some inexplicable reason, his mind went totally blank and he couldn’t think of what to say next. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

“Okay,” the woman finally said hesitantly. “Michael. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Yes, um, yes,” he stammered. “I’m here to see Sarah. Is she your daughter?” He cringed—what a stupid thing to say. The answer was pretty obvious.

“Sarah’s my daughter, yes. Does she know you? What’s this about?” Michael wasn’t sure when it had happened exactly, but the smile had vanished from her face.

His heart thumped. He’d always used a mostly lifelike version of himself inside the Sleep, and Sarah knew that. And now he looked totally different. Still, it wasn’t so unusual to use a completely altered Aura. At worst, she would think he had lied about his appearance. He’d be able to convince her of who he was with words, and quickly.