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3
It took forty-three minutes.
The three of them sat with their backs against the wall and linked up to examine the
programming. Michael loved the process: closing his eyes and focusing his consciousness
back to the Con and accessing the crude elements of the VirtNet itself, the core code of
what he’d been seeing all around him. It took instinct and a lot of experience to work on
it with others, but he and his friends were really good at it. It was another reason they
got along so well.
Once they’d isolated the coding for the two bouncers, they broke in and downloaded a
few of the men’s personal les into their own systems, then Sank back fully into their
own VirtNet Auras. What they had planned was a huge blu—but blung seemed a
quicker option than trying to break through all the club’s rewalls, of which there had to
be many. When Michael opened his eyes again, he could feel the sweat trickling down
his simulated face. They had stepped well past the legal limits of manipulating code,
and they were about to get in deeper. With such little planning, he knew the risk of
getting caught was way too high for comfort.
Sarah jumped to her feet. “Let’s hurry before they notice we did anything.”
Michael and Bryson scrambled to follow her, and as they approached the behemoths
guarding the back door of the Black and Blue Club, Michael had a small but comforting
thought: The VNS had asked them to do this. Maybe they’d be given some leeway on
things that were “technically” against the law.
The bouncer on the left noticed them rst, and he looked at the three approaching
teenagers with pure amusement. He could tell they had their sights on him, and he
probably relished the prospect of denying another lame attempt at getting inside. He
cracked his knuckles and let out a low rumble of boorish laughter, nudging his partner.
“You do it,” Michael whispered to Sarah, suddenly losing his nerve. “It was your idea.”
“Amen,” Bryson added.
They stopped just a few feet in front of the bouncers. The one on the right had joined
his companion in staring them down.
“Let me guess,” the one on the left said. Michael realized that the two men were
practically twins. “You wanna oer us a lollipop so we’ll let you in to play? Maybe
some sugar bunnies?”
His partner chuckled, the sound like cracks of thunder. “Don’t waste our time, kids. Go
to the arcade and kill some aliens. Or go to that teenybopper club up the street. Just get
out of our faces.”
Michael couldn’t believe how nervous he was. They’d done millions of crazy stunts,
but now that so much was on the line, his knees were a little weak. Sarah, however,
seemed in her element.
“We stole your code,” she said, her voice so calm it scared Michael a little. “I’m
sending over proof now.” She closed her eyes for the briefest of moments as she sent the
few files they’d stolen, then gave the bouncers a nasty glare. The bluff was on.
The man on the left froze and his eyes shot wide; his partner reeled back, as if he’d