The Rule of Thoughts (12 page)

It took three hours, but they found him, in the eleventh place they looked—a game called
Curious Ways to Die
, one of those games where you could lose your life in ridiculous situations and have a good laugh at the same time. It was a sick world.

Bryson was having a snack with two girls Michael had never met before, animatedly discussing their next adventure—something about a battery-operated toaster and natural hot springs—at a little outdoor café in the game’s gathering spot. Michael and Sarah knew better than to just appear next to him. There was a limit to the rules you could break without getting caught, or at least being noticed, and entering via a Portal was one of the most basic, strictly enforced laws.

They hacked their way into the feed for the closest Portal, and a few seconds later they were in the game. If only it had been so easy when they’d needed to get into
Devils of Destruction
, Michael thought. He also tried not to think of the other laws they’d just broken.

Because of their new identities, he and Sarah had altered their Auras. It would’ve been really stupid to go through all that trouble just to have an old friend—or nemesis—simply recognize them by their Auras and blow their covers. When they found their way to the café where they’d seen Bryson and sat down at the table right next to him and his friends, he didn’t even glance their way.

Michael switched his Aura to the old version with a quick
flurry of programming, just long enough for Bryson to notice him out of the corner of his eye. He did an old-fashioned double take, and then Michael immediately flipped back to his new look. Even Bryson, usually cool under pressure, couldn’t hide his shock.

“Um …” He was momentarily at a loss for words with his new friends. His eyes flicked back over to where Michael and Sarah were sitting. “Sorry, I, uh, I think I see a couple of my cousins. Oh yeah, my cousins. There they are, sitting right next to us. Whaddya know.”

The two girls looked over at Michael’s table, and he gave a little wave with a halfhearted smile.

“But we were almost ready!” one of the girls complained, in a whiny voice that matched her boppy looks perfectly.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Bryson answered, all soothing tones. “I promise. You ladies run along and have a good time electrocuting yourselves. Hate to miss it.”

They both kissed him on the cheek, and as soon as they were gone, Bryson practically leaped over to Michael and Sarah’s table. His face showed a crazy mixture of confusion and pure elation.

“You …” Once again at a loss for words. “You’re … both of you … I hadn’t heard … What are you guys doing here?” And then he laughed, which made Michael remember why this guy was one of his closest friends.

“It’s good to see you,” Sarah said, smiling herself.

Bryson looked like he might explode, either from happiness or from wanting to say a thousand things at once. “I’ve been worried sick about you guys. Not a single word from
you, Michael—not since the Path. And, Sarah, where have you been the last few days? Are you guys trying to make me die of stress before I hit twenty or something? Think of all the women in my future, devastated.”

“Aren’t you going to ask us about our ingenious disguises?” Michael replied.

Bryson snorted. “Don’t need to. I’m not an idiot. I’m trying to hide just as much as you guys.”

“But your Aura …,” Sarah started to say, but stopped when Bryson held up a hand, an enormous smirk on his face.

“Give me some credit,” he said. “Look a little deeper into my code. I’m programmed so that only
you two
can see my old Aura. Everyone else sees an entirely different guy. Boom. Amazing, I know.”

Michael took a closer look, and sure enough, his friend had pulled it off.

“Wow,” Michael said. “You truly are amazing. The most amazing man I’ve ever seen.” In truth, he
was
really impressed.

Sarah brought them all back to reality. “So what have you been hiding from? Did something happen? Or are you just being careful?”

Any sign of joy on Bryson’s face slowly faded. “I was kind of screwed up for a few days. It took that long for me to get back to myself after freaking out on the Path. I don’t know why I did that. Everything just hit me at once.”

He paused, and Michael thought it best to wait for him to say more. Or maybe Michael just wanted more time before
he had to explain what he’d discovered about himself. Bryson might not be as accepting as Sarah had been.

“And then I heard from Sarah about what happened to her with the lava,” Bryson continued. “And we didn’t hear from you.” He glanced at Michael. “It seemed like you just … 
poof!
disappeared. We couldn’t find you anywhere. When Sarah went silent, I’d had enough. I went to stay at my uncle’s place, a cabin in the boonies. I’ve been using my cousin’s Coffin, mostly hiding in the Sleep ever since, hoping you guys would find me. I know something must be going on, and I know you’re about to talk my ear off about it. So you might as well get to it.”

He gave a limp smile that disappeared quickly.

So much for the cheery mood
, Michael thought.

“Well,” Sarah said, “one thing’s for sure. We’re definitely about to talk your ear off.” She looked over at Michael. “Maybe you should start?”

He didn’t want to, but he knew better than to disobey Sarah.

Michael lost track of time as he told the story. He started with Sarah’s death in the lava caves. He just stared at a spot on the wooden table and let it all come out, every detail. Even about meeting Gunner Skale, the legendary gamer. Bryson flinched in disbelief at that part, but not when Michael told him about being a Tangent, being fake, his whole
life a sham. And Michael would never forget that. He would never forget that Bryson didn’t flinch.

“Your whole life’s not a sham,” Bryson said, scoffing, as if the idea were utterly ridiculous. “You’re sitting right in front of us. You’re the same goofy Michael I’ve always known. Who’s to say we’re not all computer programs, layers upon layers upon layers? Or in a dream? Maybe I’m an ugly old hag in Iceland daydreaming while she drools into her oatmeal.”

Michael cracked a smile. Miraculously, and not for the first time, Bryson had made him feel better.

“I’m just sayin’,” Bryson went on. “I don’t give a crap if you’re a Tangent or a really smart llama. You’re my friend and that’s all that matters.”

“That’s what I told him,” Sarah offered. “But he’s stubborn.” She took Michael’s hand under the table and squeezed it.

Bryson leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, like he’d just closed a huge business deal. “I do feel sorry for that Jackson Porter kid. That’s gotta suck, to have your brain vacuumed out and replaced with someone else’s. But it’s not your fault. All we can do is try to stop it from happening again. But first things first. We need to find out more about Kaine, about this Doctrine thing, and try to end it. Right?”

“Right,” Michael answered. He liked that. Focus on the future. That was all he could do. Not for the first time since starting his story, he wondered if he should mention Jackson’s girlfriend, Gabriela. But for some reason he just couldn’t bring it up.

“So here’s the big question,” Bryson said. “What do we do
next? The Trifecta to Dissect-ya has reunited in all its glory. We’ve got a wild and crazy computer program bent on taking over people’s minds. Oh, and on killing us if we don’t help him.”

“Which,” Sarah added, “is not an option.”

Bryson nodded. “Not an option.”

“I was so focused on finding you guys,” Michael said, “I’m not really sure what to do next. I guess I assumed we’d go to the VNS, but it’s kind of weird that Agent Weber was at the tree house. Why did she run away?”

Sarah let go of Michael’s hand, then leaned forward on her elbows. “Maybe that’s all the more reason why we should go to her. I mean, she did warn us before the flash thingy. It was like she just didn’t want to be discovered.”

“And aren’t they the good guys?” Bryson asked. “They wanted you—
us
—to find Kaine in the first place.”

It was Michael’s turn to scoff at something his friend had said. “Yeah, and look how good that turned out.”

“Well, you got a body, didn’t you?”

Michael couldn’t tell if he was being serious or making a really bad joke. He didn’t know how to respond. Before his silence could become awkward, though, there was a rattling sound. He looked down to see that the table was trembling. Slightly at first, and then more strongly. The table legs screeched on the pavement below.

Sarah and Bryson had the same look on their faces—wide-eyed, staring at the table as if it had been possessed by a demon. Michael had scooted his chair back and was ready to push himself up and run if he had to. Had Bryson signed up for death by earthquake?

The entire café shook, cups rattling on saucers, utensils falling off tables and scattering across the floor. Dishes broke and shattered, shards of porcelain mixing with the forks and spoons. People were shouting and dashing this way and that, not sure where to go. Michael and his friends stayed put, alternating fearful looks at each other.

The table suddenly bounced, jumping two feet in the air and slamming back down with a loud bang. Sarah screamed and Michael yelped. The table bounced again. Michael finally got out of his chair, swaying with the movement of the world around him. He stumbled over to Sarah and helped her up, clasping her hand tightly; then Bryson was with them. They all linked arms to help with balance. The trembling had increased to all-out shaking, tables hopping, people falling over each other. Windows shattered nearby and sprayed glass on the ground. Panicked screams came from everywhere.

“Let’s get out of here!” Bryson yelled. “I know a back way out. Follow my lead!”

Michael closed his eyes, ready to manipulate the surrounding code. They’d used a Portal to come in, but there was no time for that now, laws or no laws.

A boom like a thousand claps of thunder rocked the air, and Michael opened his eyes to see the pavement crack at his feet. A fierce wind tore at his clothes and hair—its whoosh picked up all sound and seemed to rip it away, drowning out everything else. He turned to look at the café building, but it was no longer there, and his breath and beating heart seemed to stop at the same moment when he saw what had replaced it.

A huge beam of racing purple light had erupted from the ground, a brilliant shaft of pulsing energy several feet wide. Michael threw up his arms to shield his eyes it was so bright, following its length toward the sky like a beacon to the heavens. Tendrils of electricity danced along its edges, crackling and snapping over the roar of the rushing pillar of energy.

“What,” Bryson said, pausing between words. “Is. That.”

Michael had no idea, and his feet felt like they were glued to the floor. He couldn’t move no matter how hard he tried.

The wind.

It was getting stronger and stronger, ripping at Michael, pulling his body, now forcing him
toward
the shaft of light, not away from it. It was like they were on a spaceship and a seal on the door had broken: everything was being sucked into a vacuum. A chair flew past him, flipping over and over until it slammed into the side of the beam, where it stuck as if it had been welded there, sliding toward the sky.

Then the floodgates opened. Forks, knives, spoons, broken glass, another chair flew by. A table catapulted past as if thrown by an invisible hand, spinning like a disc until it hit the pillar, then raced upward with all the other debris. Michael and his friends gripped each other tightly, fighting the wind, but they were sliding toward the otherworldly shaft of brilliance.

“I can’t focus!” Sarah yelled. Michael looked at his friend and couldn’t believe what he saw. Her eyes were closed—she was still trying to break out with code.

All three of them lost their balance at the same time, their feet slipping. Michael landed hard; a spike of pain shot through his tailbone. He was sliding feetfirst across the
pavement, as if being dragged by ropes tied to his ankles. The beam of light, raging and pulsing and sparkling with electricity, rushed skyward, pulling him like a massive magnet as things flew at it from all directions, obscuring its bright surface.

Heavier objects than Michael had already flown away, and lighter ones still bounced along the ground. It was as if the purple shaft was picking and choosing what it wanted. He scrambled, trying to get any sort of traction he could to stop the slide, but nothing worked. Sarah’s arm slipped out of his, then Bryson’s. They scrambled, clawing at the pavement. Then it all happened at once.

The force ripped their bodies off of the ground completely. Michael, facedown, saw the world drop away beneath him; then he twisted to look in the direction he was headed. Toward the monstrous shaft of raging power. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bryson and Sarah windmilling their arms and kicking their legs as they flew toward the shaft as well. Soon there was nothing but purple light filling his vision, a roar of rushing sound, pinpricks of electricity across his skin.

He spun, then slammed into the side of the pillar, arms and legs spread wide, his hair, his elbows, his knuckles, his back, his legs—all held tight to its almost rubbery surface. He’d expected fierce heat, but instead it was cool and tingly with power.