46746746875875 %2810%29

Then someone has taken his access away, and there was no chance he could live with
that.
More important, Agent Weber’s words now haunted him more vividly. She’d
threatened him and his family, and cutting o his access was denitely only the
beginning of worse to come. Michael had to get things square. Maybe he’d been too
quick to give up.
He got out of bed and decided to stop feeling sorry for himself. He knew the VNS
would give him another chance—he’d seen rsthand what they were dealing with. And
if they’d come to him for help, they needed it desperately. The horrors of the Kaine
vision had faded a bit; Michael’s calmer, more rational side had begun to think that this
was no dierent from any other VirtNet experience. None of it was real, and as long as
he was careful, he could do this. In all his years of dinking around in the VirtNet, he’d
never met anyone better than he was at coding or hacking, or who’d gotten closer to
Lifeblood Deep so quickly. Kaine was good, but he was just another gamer after all.
Michael was ready for the challenge, and kind of ashamed that he’d cowered in the
first place. How could he ignore threats against his family?
Mrs. Perkins next door just about had a heart attack when Michael pounded on her
door. She opened it up with wide eyes and half of her face covered in some kind of
greasy cream, her hand on her chest.
“Why, Michael,” she said, her eyes rolling in relief. “Goodness gracious heaven and
earth. What’s wrong? You almost—”
“Gave you a heart attack, I know. Listen, I need you to do me a favor.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Well, I’d expect a little more politeness if that’s the
case.”
Michael loved Mrs. Perkins. Really, he did. She smelled like baby powder and
mentholated gel, and she was the nicest lady on the planet. But right then it was all he
could do not to push the woman out of the way to get to her phone.
Forcing himself to be calm, he said, “I’m really sorry. It’s urgent.”
“Apology accepted, dear. What can I do for you?”
For some reason, a smile broke out on his face. “Will you call the local VNS oce?
Tell them that your neighbor Michael says he’s back in. Tell them I’ll nd what they’re
looking for.”
4
His access was reinstated immediately. He knew from his message board that Bryson
and Sarah had gone through the same thing and that they’d taken it just as seriously as
he had. School on Monday was the most agonizing thing Michael had ever sat through,
but by that evening he’d reconnected with his friends and they decided to begin their
investigation the next afternoon.
They were determined to be more careful and less open this time. They’d use their
coding and hacking skills like never before. There was a reason the VNS had chosen him