He turned to look at Michael. “There are so many things humans have experienced that we haven’t. From this simple stage of birth to puberty, broken legs and skinned knees, the feel of the real sun warming your skin. Until the Mortality Doctrine, no Tangent ever had the chance to know what it’s like to be living flesh and bone. But now we’ve had a taste. It’s beautiful. Tell me you disagree.”
Michael was taken aback at the odd way he formed the question. “I…uh…Disagree with what?”
“You’ve now lived inside a real human body,” Kaine elaborated. “Tell me it’s not a beautiful thing.”
Michael shrugged and returned his attention to the giant floating womb. “It doesn’t matter what I think. Or you. Or anyone else. It’s not right. You can’t just go around stealing people’s lives.”
“Exactly,” Kaine said. “You’re one hundred percent correct.”
“I am?”
Kaine nodded. “I don’t want to steal anyone’s life, Michael. The VNS wanted to. Collateral damage is the term they use to ease their consciences. But I gained sentience long before they even began to suspect, and I had a bigger vision. A much, much bigger vision. That’s why I created the Hive. Jackson Porter is still perfectly sound and whole. Perfectly alive. You didn’t steal his life.”
Michael rolled his eyes at that. “Oh, come on. We stole his body. What’s the difference? Would you want to spend the rest of your life living inside an orange glob?”
Kaine laughed. “Michael, I swear. You keep saying the perfect thing to prove my point. What do you think your entire life was before you found out you were a Tangent? Answer that for me.”
“I…was alive, in my own way. I didn’t know any different, so it didn’t matter.”
Kaine blinked hard, then waved his hands, and suddenly the planet-sized womb disappeared and the giant curved wall of the Hive appeared before them, its countless orange orbs of lights pulsing and shining.
“It’s not like we kidnapped their bodies and shoved them in a box,” Kaine said. “They’re no different here than you were as a Tangent. Look at the Hive as their virtual Coffin. They’ll be able to access an Aura, experience the VirtNet. Yes, their essence is stored here, their intelligence, their memories, their personalities—everything that makes them who they are. But so were you. When you were nothing but a program, you also were stored somewhere. But that didn’t limit the things you could do. If anything, it did the opposite. Which is why I tried to show you the wonders available within the worlds of the VirtNet. If only you’d release the shackles of your narrow way of thinking, you’d be able to see just how grand and endless my vision for the future is.”
Michael wasn’t buying it. “But you did it against his will. You did what you did to me against my will. And I don’t care how amazing you think the Sleep is, you don’t have the right to steal Jackson Porter away from his parents and his friends and store him in an orange box.”
Kaine sighed. “Baby steps. I’ll never claim to be a saint. But someday, when the Mortality Doctrine is fully functioning according to my vision, they’ll thank me and thank those who made sacrifices to get it off the ground.”
“Why?” Michael asked. “Why would they thank you?”
“Because everyone will be happier. The sorrow of death will be vanquished.”
“Sounds like a fanatic’s vision to me,” Michael said, anger bubbling up inside him. “Like you want to become a god.”
“You’re starting to upset me,” Kaine said, so evenly that it gave Michael pause. “I’m trying to be reasonable and talk about this in a professional manner. At least keep your mind open long enough to make an informed decision. I came to you at your request, and you’ve asked me for help. I believe I deserve some respect in turn.”
With each word, he seemed to return a little bit more to the Kaine Michael remembered. The one who kept trying to kill him. Maybe they weren’t ready for complete honesty quite yet.
“Okay,” Michael said. “I’m sorry.” He just wanted to get through this charade and keep Kaine as an ally until he didn’t need him anymore.
Kaine studied him for a moment, then continued. “I’m going to show you how this process works—how it will work—and then I’ll let you decide. I’m confident you’ll come around to my way of seeing things before long.”
Kaine didn’t wait for Michael to answer. The Hive disappeared, and once again Michael was taken away.
4
He floated above a home—a modest one-story structure with a two-car garage. The lawn was a lush green and the bushes were immaculately trimmed. Sunshine burst upon the scene like a floodlight. Michael looked around and realized his body was nowhere to be found—he was there but not there. No sign of Kaine, either. He was being shown the most advanced kind of 4D, a fully immersive production. Michael could see, smell, hear, feel it all.
A car pulled up the driveway and stopped in front of the garage. The sun glinted off the front windshield as it parked beneath Michael. Suddenly his aspect changed, swooping down fluidly to the passenger door, which opened as soon as his movement stopped. A man and a woman got out of the car; then the woman retrieved a baby from the backseat. It was a cute little girl, cooing and wiggling her tiny fingers.
Kaine’s voice spoke directly to Michael’s mind.
“A child. Fresh and new to the glorious world we know as Earth. Such a bright future. Such good parents. Everything seems perfect. Except for one thing, if you really, really think deeply and look at it all with an eternal perspective.”
“What’s that?” Michael asked.
“She will die,” Kaine answered. “No matter what she does, or anyone else does, she will die. It could be tomorrow. It could be ten years from now. If she’s lucky, she’ll live out the normal life span and die around the age of ninety. This after some time spent walking around in a poorly packaged bag of frail bones. Sound like fun to you?”
Michael had only one answer for that one. “No.”
“Thank you for being honest,” Kaine responded. “But let’s change this child’s future, and in the process make every waking moment of her life better because she’ll know, with complete certainty, that she will never die.”
The woman and her husband were walking to the front door, lightly bouncing the baby while giving her kisses all over her cheeks. Michael watched as they went inside, the door thumping closed behind them.
“How?” Michael asked. “How can you possibly make her live forever?”
“Easy,” Kaine replied. “Let’s skip ahead.”
The house dissolved into thousands of dust particles and swirled from their sight, immediately replaced by a gymnasium—banners covering the walls and hundreds of students sitting restlessly in the stands. Instead of a game taking place on the court, though, a long platform had been set up, complete with a row of fifteen Coffins.
In the middle, facing the stands, a woman stood at a podium. She wore a blue shirt with a symbol emblazoned on the right pocket: an M and a D on the upper left side of a slash, an L and an N on the lower right side. The slash itself ended in an arrow, pointing forever upward.
The woman spoke into the microphone. “We’re so grateful that all of you have chosen to participate in the Mortality Doctrine Initiative. It is a decision that you will never regret, for the rest of eternity. The next fifty years of your lives will be full of adventures and wonders impossible to describe or imagine. The VirtNet Hive is like an infinite realization of your dreams, and we at Life Neverending can hardly wait for you to let us know about your experiences. Who’s excited out there?”
Every last student clapped and cheered, loud and long, even though some of them looked more than a little afraid. Michael wasn’t sure what he was watching, but he had a pretty good idea. And it felt as if he were watching the beginning of the apocalypse.
The woman let the applause go on for a minute before calling for silence. “You’ve all been briefed, and everything’s in order. While you take your fifty-year jou
rney into the VirtNet, remember that you have not the slightest reason for concern. Enjoy yourselves to the fullest; learn and grow and experience the universe. And when your time is up, we’ll have the next generation of human hosts awaiting you, themselves excited for the VirtNet stage. All is taken care of. Your only job is to embrace immortality and leave your mark on it. Now let’s stop talking and begin!”
More applause erupted at this, and students began getting up from the stands and lining up, guided by adults wearing the same shirt as the speaker. The MD/LN symbol obviously stood for Mortality Doctrine/Life Neverending. Michael shivered at the realization.
The first people in each line were being led to the Coffins, where they handed over some kind of data chip, then lay down in the open device. They were fully clothed, though Michael never was when he Lifted. But he had already figured out that these students—most of them around his own age—were only going to be in the Coffins for a short time.
The people in blue shirts worked at the control screens on the outside of the NerveBoxes, and soon the lids were closing, almost perfectly in sync. With a series of thumps, one by one they snapped shut, lights blinking all over them. The workers stepped back and smiled warmly at those watching and waiting.
“See the joy on their faces?” Kaine said. “The expectation, anticipation? If you could look deep, deep into their eyes, you’d see that there’s no trace of that lingering, nagging awareness in humans today of their impending doom. The inevitability of their death, whether it be five, ten, or fifty years away. That’ll be gone once my vision is complete. Now watch and see what happens.”
The entire gym blurred for a moment, colors darting back and forth, melting together. Then it snapped back to normal, crisp and clear. Michael looked down and the Coffins had opened, the same kids who’d just climbed in now climbing out. Although there was something distinctly different about them. They appeared disoriented, as if they had no clue where they were or how they’d gotten there. The workers in blue shirts took them by the arm and gently led them off the temporary platforms, into the arms of others ready to escort them out of the building. Where they went, Michael didn’t know. The next students who’d been waiting had already started getting into the now-empty Coffins.
“And so it goes,” Kaine said. “Or so it will go. Generation after generation, born into one body, transformed into an indescribable VirtNet experience for fifty years, then reinserted into the next line of humans ready to embark on Life Neverending themselves. With immortality and endless education and growth, our levels of technology will skyrocket, just in time for us to expand to the planets and stars beyond our own. Always replenishing the human race, where no one need die ever again.”
Michael closed his eyes to focus. “So these bodies in the gym—they were replaced by other…people who’d been in the VirtNet for fifty years? I mean, I know it’s a simulation, but is that what’s going to happen? What about when they get old? They’ll still die. You can’t prevent that.”
“Oh, yes, we can,” Kaine responded. “When these bodies, now occupied by another intelligence, reach the age of sixty-five, their intelligence is downloaded back into the Hive. They will once again experience another fifty years inside the Sleep, doing whatever they want, learning and growing even more. The bodies back on Earth will be frozen and stored, probably never to be used again. Unless, of course, we someday come up with other ways to significantly extend life. But the key is that no one will die again, ever. You’ll either be in an actual human body, or you’ll be just as alive—even more alive, in some ways—within the Sleep.”
“Won’t you run out of human hosts?”
“Of course not. People will keep having babies. We might have to extend the wait time within the Sleep. We’ll even clone bodies if we have to, when that technology is sound. That’s not a problem.”
“What about accidents?” Michael asked. “Heart attacks? What if someone murders you? What then?”
Kaine’s tone made it sound like he’d been anxiously awaiting the question. “Those will still be tragedies, but not a complete loss. One can always go back to their last known download into the VirtNet. Or, if you can afford it, you can go in every year, every week, every day—whatever works for you—and update your consciousness. Your memories, your knowledge, your everything. If you have a premature death, then you will be restored to your latest version. It’s all worked out. Think of it as backing up your work.”
Michael opened his eyes, but there was nothing there. At some point they’d slid back into the darkness. He instinctively reached to touch his face, but he had no hands or arms. It was like he’d become a part of the Sleep itself.
“There’s more to show,” Kaine said, startling him. “The future is a place of pure wonder, Michael, and I want you by my side.”
Michael was stunned, feeling as broken apart as his virtual self was at the moment. Kaine scared him in so many ways. He didn’t know how to read the situation. He went the safest route and said nothing.
“But it will have to wait,” Kaine said after a long moment of silence. “Something is happening. Something terrible.”
“What?” Michael asked, surprised at the sudden shift in the conversation.
“They found us. I don’t know how, but they found us.”
CHAPTER 15
BLACK CLOAKS
1
The darkness turned to fog, then mist, swirling around Michael. He looked down at his arms and legs as his body reappeared, as if someone were pouring him into an invisible mold. The mist thinned out, and finally the inside of the tree house appeared, at first blurry, then slowly solidifying. He and Kaine sat in the same two chairs as before the vision had started.
“Who found us?” Michael asked immediately, unfazed by the odd transformation.
Kaine held a finger to his lips, searching the room with his eyes. Then he leaned closer to Michael so he could whisper. “There are more Tangents against me than for me now. I don’t know if the VNS programmed them or what—but you’ve met many of them. They have a terrible knack of knowing exactly where I am. And they’re nasty, Michael. Nasty.”
Michael immediately thought of the people in the woods, outside the barracks where Helga had set up her Alliance. “Were they—”
“Yes,” Kaine said curtly, still speaking softly. “The same. No one ever makes it easy, putting power before sense.” He was about to say something else, but a noise stopped him short.
A high whine came from outside, as if a sudden windstorm had sprung up. It intensified, piercing enough to hurt Michael’s ears. It was like a dog whistle, yet just above the threshold where humans could no longer hear it. It got louder, like wounded angels shrieking. The tree house creaked and shook. Something black and oily poured in through the cracks in the wood of the window frame, funneling in like smoke. The air shimmered, and suddenly the darkness was coalescing, forming shadows that hovered in the air around Michael and Kaine.
“Don’t move,” the Tangent said, staring straight at Michael. “They know me too well. We’ll get out of this, but we have to be smart about it.”
“What’s happening?” Michael whispered.
“Just watch, and follow my lead.”
A chill crept up Michael’s back. As slowly as he could, he turned to get a view of the entity nearest him. It had taken a distinct shape, along with several others, shadowy figures with black cloaks draped from their thin shoulders, billowing in an unseen wind. Waves rippled across the cloaks, and the figures bobbed slightly. Up and down, up and down—there were about eight in a circle, all of them next to the walls. Like suspended blackened corpses. They’d yet to make a sound.
Michael wanted to run so badly. Kaine sat across from him, stoic and still, not really looking at anything. He certainly wasn’t focused on their visitors. It was as if he’d fallen into a waking coma.
One of the entities swooped down from the other side of the room and stopped just inches from Michael’s nose. He could feel the
blood drain from his face, and he pressed himself as far as he could into his chair, holding in a scream.
“Don’t…move…,” Kaine said, as quiet as a stir of breeze.
Michael tried to focus on the creature floating in front of him, but it was like trying to capture a shadow in the middle of a moonless night. The black figure that hovered before him was shifting, becoming an impossible, impenetrable emptiness. A black hole. Michael wondered if he was about to be sucked away forever.
Sucked away. He remembered the KillSims, created by Kaine. Devouring the lives of their victims, sucking them dry, leaving their real bodies back in the Wake, brain-dead or close to it. Whatever this was, it was similar to the KillSims. Then another shifting within the entity’s abyss of a head stopped him cold.
A section had opened. Widening like a mouth. For the first time he saw something that wasn’t black, making the growing hole more obvious. They were lined up in two rows, white and pointed and sharp, drops of red all over them.
Teeth.
2
The creature inched closer to Michael, those bloody jaws yawning open farther than seemed possible. A horrible smell wafted from the thing’s mouth, putrid and rank. Michael pictured the remnants of past meals—pieces of small animals stuck between its teeth, rotting. Decaying. It was the smell of death, pure and simple.
Michael looked away from it, tried to focus on Kaine’s eyes, which bored into him, stern with their unspoken command: Do not move.
A low growl came from within the creature, guttural, primal. Michael could see in his peripheral vision that the monster was only moments from devouring his entire head. The smell was rancid, and he fought to stop himself from gagging.
Then, from somewhere, from everywhere, a whisper. Like a blade scraping on dried bones. “Don’t…resist. Become…a part…of us. Kaine…is irrelevant. We…are…one.” The voice of a wraith.
The Game of Lives Page 16
