Michael had never seen him before.
“Sure got yourself into a lot of trouble, Michael,” the man said. He didn’t say it kindly, but he wasn’t hostile, either. Just matter-of-fact.
“Who are you?” Michael asked.
“The name’s not important.”
Michael expected more, but the man went silent. He stared at Michael with his icy gaze.
“So …” Michael searched for words. “Just how bad was it? The police won’t tell us anything. We thought we were in the Sleep. Did … did we kill any people?” He’d been avoiding that thought, holding on to hope that everyone had gotten out okay. But they were certainly being treated like they’d at least tried to kill.
“People?” the man scoffed. “You did a lot worse than kill people. You killed the VNS.”
“Wha … what’re you talking about?” Michael’s chest hitched and he struggled to make sense of the man’s words.
The stranger gave a sad smile. “Only, killed is a strong word. Crippled is more appropriate. Severely. For a long time. Whatever that device you planted was … it was a beast, my young friend. It set off a chain reaction throughout all of their systems, like a physical virus, destroying everything as it traveled from station to station. Completely put them off the grid. How you knew where their mainframe was hidden, I’ll never know. And honestly, I don’t care. That’s not why I’m here.”
Michael stayed as still and silent as granite. As smart as he was, his mind couldn’t compute what he was hearing.
The man stepped closer to the bars and leaned in close. “Listen to me, boy. I came to see you because the world is changing. Changing under everyone’s noses. And you’re a part of it, whether you want to be or not. There’s no telling how long you’ll be in here, but I suspect the time will come, sooner or later, when … circumstances may set you free. And I want you to remember my face. Remember it well.”
“I …” Michael tried desperately to think of something logical to say or ask. “Do you work for Kaine? Agent Weber? Does this have anything to do with the Mortality Doctrine? Who are you?”
“Friend?” the stranger said in a contemplative tone. “Or foe? That will be determined in the weeks ahead.”
Michael had no response to that.
The man continued. “I’m going to leave you now. You’ll have plenty of time to think before things come to a head. I hope you’ve learned a valuable lesson from what happened at that building. About the nature of the VirtNet. About the nature of reality.”
“What do you mean?”
“When mankind can create a world that is so like our own,” the stranger said, “then how can we possibly ever know what’s real and what’s not real again? I could Lift you right now, pull you out of a NerveBox, and then you’d say, ‘Ah! I’m back in the real world!’ And then I could Lift you again, and you’d be surprised, but feel for certain that this time you’re in the … what do you kids call it?… the Wake.” The man brought his hands up and gripped the bars until his knuckles turned white. “I could Lift you a hundred times. A thousand. How, Michael, could you ever know again that you are truly, truly in the real world? For that matter, who’s to say there even is a real world?”
Michael was so bewildered that his knees went weak, almost making him crumple right onto the floor. And not because it was nonsense. But because it was the single most frightening thing he’d ever heard.
“Think on that,” the man said, stepping back from the bars. “Think about whether someone is evil because they want to bring immortality to humankind. Think on all these things and more. You’ll have the time.” He turned to go.
“Wait!” Michael yelled. “Just … tell me who you are.”
“I can’t tell you now, Michael. It would be … emotionally difficult for you. But I wanted you to see my face. Someday, someday soon, it will be important. Until then.” He gave a brief nod, then walked away, not looking back.
“Wait!” Michael yelled again, but the only answer was the echo of his own voice.
Michael sat on the cot, so dazed by the man’s visit that he felt separated from his body, his consciousness floating in some ethereal world that made no sense. The air buzzed with something malicious, a feeling that he could only compare to those horrible moments when he’d Lifted out of the Sleep into another person’s body.
And then he heard the tap-tap-tapping of high heels.
He couldn’t believe it. How did she dare show her face?
He looked up just as she walked into sight on the other side of the bars.
“Really?” he asked. “You came to visit me? Be thankful I’m locked in here.”
Agent Weber stopped. Her face was completely unreadable.
“Michael,” she said. “There are things you don’t understand. Especially about me. Also about why things have come to pass the way they have.”
Michael’s heart beat rapidly, and his chest rose and fell with heavy breaths. He couldn’t even speak.
“Everything said in here is recorded,” she continued. “I have to be careful. But just know that what you think about me is not true. You and I are on the same side. I’m not … who I used to be, for one thing.” Her eyes flared a little when she said that, as if she wanted him to get a secret message. “And the role of the VNS is much more complicated than you think.”
She leaned very close and whispered so softly that he could barely hear. “The VNS created Kaine, Michael. But now he’s gone rogue. And he deliberately led you to that building in Lifeblood Deep so that you’d go there in the real world. I didn’t switch you. I swear it on my life. No one at VNS can be trusted anymore. And Kaine wanted all evidence of his connection to them destroyed.” She took a step back, as if, with only a few sentences, she hadn’t just spun the world like a top.
Michael stood still, trembling with anger. And he stared harder into her eyes. Oh man, how he missed his friends. He could do this, he could handle this moment—right there and then—if only Bryson were sitting on the cot, making jokes. If Sarah were by his side, holding his hand.
“One more thing before I go,” Weber said. “And this is very important.” She paused, looking left and right, then back at Michael. “You can never destroy a human intelligence. Nor a programmed intelligence. Do you understand me? They’re stored. All of them. Both human and Tangent. The Decay may scramble them a bit, but they still exist. They can be put back together. This is going to …” She seemed to search her mind for the right way to say something. “I think it will make all the difference in the struggle ahead. If things are ever going to be made right.”