The Rule of Thoughts, Page 4

  The next car wasn’t for passengers; it was some kind of storage area. There were two emergency exits, with first-aid equipment, fire extinguishers, and blankets bundled and tied down on metal shelves that lined one of the walls. The woman had stopped in the middle of the car, her back to Michael, her head hanging as if she were staring at the floor. For some reason the sight reminded him of a zombie game he used to love, Undead and Unfed. He half expected her to turn around and shuffle toward him, a raving, hungry monster, her face covered with blood and gore. But she didn’t move at all. Goose bumps prickled the back of Michael’s neck.

  He cleared his throat, refusing to admit that he was scared of an old woman.

  “Who are you?” he asked, glad his voice was steady when it came out.

  She didn’t answer. Or move. She remained frozen, her back to Michael.

  “Why were you watching me? And what do you mean by—”

  He stopped speaking as she raised an arm, slowly, once again showing three fingers, stiff and trembling. She stopped only when her arm was all the way up, like a child wanting to ask a question in class.

  Michael stared at her back, her three fingers raised in the air. He searched for words.

  “What does the number three have to do with me? Who are you?” His voice might not have been so steady this time.

  The woman slowly turned, her movements sluggish. It was as if she’d used every last ounce of energy she had trying to get away from Michael. Her head still hung low until her body fully faced him; then she looked up to meet his eyes, arm still high overhead.

  “Just tell me what’s going on,” Michael said, frustrated at the game of charades.

  “Three,” she whispered. He wouldn’t have been able to make out the word if he hadn’t read her lips. “I’m one of you. Three.”

  “Three what?” he pleaded. “Were you a Tangent, too? Can we sit down and talk about this? Please.”

  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.

  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, y
es. 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.

  Sarah’s mom was obviously getting worried. “Maybe you should come back later,” she said, trying to sound polite.

  “I’m sorry,” Michael blurted out. “I’m sorry—I’m just nervous. Sarah is one of my best friends in the Sleep—I mean, in the VirtNet, and we’ve never met in the Wake before. I wanted to surprise her with a visit, and instead I knocked on your door and made you think I was a stalker. I’m sorry. Could you just tell her that Michael’s here? Mike the Spike? Please?” He smiled awkwardly.

  The woman had taken a step back, her eyes wide. It seemed a bad sign at first, but then her face lit up with a smile, this time more genuine.

  “Please?” Michael repeated, trying to show all the humility he possessed. I can be good at this human thing, he thought, making his own smile brighter.

  “Come in,” Sarah’s mom said as she swung the door open wide. “We’ve heard more about you than you could possibly know, young man. Our daughter has wanted to meet you in person for years, but we didn’t expect such a … surprise.” Another warm smile. “My name is Nancy.”

  Michael almost wished he had a hat—he felt like he’d take it off and wring it in his hands as he timidly stepped inside, like something out of an old black-and-white. He settled for nodding and keeping his eyes low. He didn’t want to screw up this one chance.

  Nancy closed the door behind him, then stepped to the other side of the hallway, which stretched toward the kitchen. Michael was pretty sure he’d heard her engage the lock—or maybe it was an automatic mechanism.

  “Gerard, you can come out now!” Nancy yelled. “It’s just a friend of Sarah’s!”

  A side door along the hallway swung open, creaking on its hinges. A man stepped out, a burly, bald, gruff-looking guy holding a small gun with white-knuckled fingers, pointing it directly at Michael.

  “Let’s go have a seat, then,” the man said.

  Michael sat in the middle of Sarah’s family’s couch, reminding himself over and over that he was not in a game, that the option of rushing the man—tackling him, perhaps, wrestling the gun away—was not actually an option. It was a truly terrible idea. The situation was so bizarre it felt like he was in the VirtNet. But in this case, a gunshot to the chest meant death, not an irritating do-over. He concentrated on just sitting still and making no sudden movements. And smiling.

  Sarah’s parents—were they really her parents?—sat across from him in separate chairs, her father resting the gun on his knee so that its barrel still pointed at Michael. At Michael’s face, actually: he could see the perfectly round black hole, a dark passageway to certain death. His chest felt tight as he took a breath of air.

  The sweet smile that had graced Sarah’s mother’s face had once again vanished.

  “Did I … uh … do something wrong?” he asked. “Where is Sarah?” Speaking helped; it made him feel braver.

  “Sarah will be home soon,” Nancy replied. “Don’t you worry yourself over that.”

  “Just tell us who you are.” Gerard was awfully calm for someone with a gun. “We have to be extra careful these days, you see.”

  Extra careful? Michael took a deep breath. “I’m exactly who I said I am. My name is Michael. If I could have just five minutes with Sarah, I could prove it easily. We’ve never met in the Wake before, so she won’t recognize me at first. But we’ve been best friends for years. Us and another guy named Bryson.”

  The two exchanged a glance, then looked back at Michael.

  “Sounds suspicious,” Gerard said. “We’ve had others like you come around.” His hand gripped the gun, then relaxed.

  Michael wondered why they were so distrustful. Had Kaine’s people been by? He held up his hands. “I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Neither of them responded.

  “Look, can I please just talk to Sarah? You can aim that thing at my face the whole time. Search me—I don’t have any guns strapped to my chest or knives in my shoes. Promise. I’m just a friend of your daughter’s. That’s it.”

  “We’ll see about all that, now, won’t we?” Gerard responded. But at least he sat back, settling himself in. As he repositioned himself in his chair, he moved the gun so it no longer pointed at Michael.

  Nancy sighed and smoothed the wrinkles out of her pants. “Very well. We’ll see what Sarah has to say when she comes home. But we’re done taking chances after …” Her voice drifted off and she lowered her eyes to the floor.

  Kaine, Michael thought, sure of it now. Kaine’s done something to them. Or Sarah was traumatized after burning to death on the Path. No wonder they had doubts.

  “I need some distraction,” Gerard grumbled. He clicked a button on a nearby remote and a HoloProj lit up the far wall. There was a man on the projection, pointing at a big map and talking about the weather.

  It was looking to be a lovely evening outside.

  “Oh, please,” Gerard mumbled.

  Michael sighed. It was about the tenth time the man had complained under his breath in the last hour. Evidently his favorite thing to do in life was to watch the NewsBops and disagree with every word. The confusing part was that he seemed to do it even when opposing viewpoints were being debated. To him, both sides were wrong. Distrust filled the man top to bottom.

  A beep came from down the hallway, followed by the squeal of hinges, then a door slamming shut. Michael stood up before he even realized what he was doing.

  “Sit down!” Gerard yelled at him.

  Nancy was a little more civil. “Please. We have to be careful. If you are who you say you are, then we’ll all know soon, won’t we?”

  Michael nodded at her, slowly taking a seat as he did so. Footsteps were already heading toward them. It made something flutter in his stomach; at the same time, his chest felt tight. Sarah. He was about to see Sarah.

  She walked into the room, her hand just dropping from her EarCuff as she switched off her NetScreen. Michael’s breath caught because she was everything he’d expected and yet nothing he’d expected. She mostly resembled her Aura in the Sleep but was different enough that it was like discovering her all over again.

  She was really tall, for one thing—maybe she had a complex about it and she’d compensated in the VirtNet by being shorter. She had blond hair just past her ears. She was cute but not beautiful. Except for her eyes. Her eyes were beautiful, as cheesy as the thought made him feel. They were green like her Aura’s, but impossibly brighter, almost unnaturally so. She had just opened her mouth to say something to her parents, but she stopped before a word came out, those kryptonite eyes fixed on him. A stranger sitting in a chair, probably looking slack-jawed and stupid. And her dad with a gun.

  Sarah. He couldn’t believe it was Sarah.

  “Oh,” she said. “Um, hi. Uh …” She looked at her mom, eyebrows raised.

  Nancy stood. “Hey, sweetie. This young man says he’s a friend of yours.”

  Sarah stared at Michael, the confusion obvious on her face. “Okay. Do I know you from …” She stopped, and a curious expression came over her.

  Does she know somehow? Michael wondered. There was a lot of explaining to do, but maybe this would go smoothly. He dreaded every second of it.

  “Is he your friend?” Gerard asked, fingering the gun. “After all the ruckus of late, I’m not taking any chances.”

  Sarah stayed quiet, and Michael rushed to fill the silence.

  “It’s me, Sarah. It—it’s Michael,” he stammered. “I know it’s crazy that I just showed up like this, but I can explain everything. I h
ad to see you. I was worried that if I tried to give you a heads-up it’d all fall apart on me before it could happen. Stupid, I know. But I’m here and I just need to talk to you. In … private?” He could barely ask—he knew her parents would never go for it.

  Gerard confirmed his suspicion. “Anything you want to say to my daughter can be said to us.”

  Sarah finally found her voice, rock-steady. “Mom, Dad, this will be easy. There’s no way anybody could fake being Michael. If this guy is telling the truth, I’ll know in three minutes, tops. But we really need to be alone.”

  Michael almost blushed at that, though it was true. Everything they had to talk about would freak her parents out. And she was probably dying to know what had happened after she’d been virtually killed by the lava.

  Gerard and Nancy exchanged looks, understandably wary. “I’m almost eighteen,” Sarah said. “If you can’t trust me by now, then you never will. If he’s my friend, I want to be alone to talk. If he’s not, what can he do in three minutes?” She gave him a once-over that seemed to say, Look at him; the kid couldn’t hurt a fly.

  Gerard stood up and moved next to Michael, leaned toward him until it seemed certain he’d topple into Michael’s lap. He wore a musky cologne.

  “Stand,” he commanded.

  Michael did as he was told, and then, using his free hand, Gerard patted him down like a seasoned cop.

  “Dad,” Sarah groaned.

  Gerard finished up and took a step back. “All right, then. We’ll be in the kitchen. One peep from my daughter and I’ll be back in here faster than you can blink.” He sniffed, then took his wife by the hand. He stopped right before he left the room and looked back. He seemed to be stifling a smile when he added, “And … nice to meet you.”

  Michael released a big breath. The man was softening.

  Sarah quickly walked forward until she was only inches away from Michael.

  “Okay,” she said. “Convince me.”