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boring life. He never wanted to cross paths with Kaine again.
    Firmly believing that, Michael was finally able to fall asleep.
2
    The next morning, a dull and dreary Sunday to match Michael’s mood, Helga made him eat cornflakes for breakfast, claiming she had a headache. He wanted to tell her she had no idea what a headache was. To tell her every little detail of the fun time he’d had with Kaine the day before, ask her if she thought maybe that kind of experience sounded a little worse than a few hours of brooms, dusters, and laundry baskets.
    But he liked Helga too much, and he was ashamed for even thinking it.
    So instead he told her how sorry he was and ate three bowls of the cereal she’d set on the counter. Then he took a very long and very hot shower. Afterward, he felt a little better; the memory of his encounter with the cyber-terrorist started to fade, almost as if it’d all been a nasty nightmare.
    The rest of the day was spent trying to forget it all. He jogged a few miles, took a long nap, ate a perfect lunch: sandwiches, chips, and pickles. He finally settled down in the Chair to have his inevitable conversation with Bryson and Sarah about the Kaine extravaganza. When the EarCuff flashed its screen in front of him, there were already messages from both of his friends on the Bulletin.
    It looked like they were all in agreement. Games were games, but dealing with some psychotic man who was terrorizing people and couldn’t be handled by an organization as powerful as the VNS—well, Michael thought, that was a different story. His friends agreed that it’d been a nice offer, but… no thanks. Kaine was too dangerous, and he made the threats from the VNS seem cute. The programming feat he’d done to trap them was unimaginable.
    When the question arose of whether Michael should let the VNS know about his and his friends’ decision, he figured
not
. He didn’t want to talk to those people. Hopefully they’d been bluffing. Maybe they really had offered the challenge to a slew of gamers, betting that some of them would continue. Michael didn’t plan to find out—he was a little scared to go back into the Sleep but figured Kaine would leave them alone as long as they didn’t start snooping. As long as they heeded his warning.
    Michael and his friends ended their conversation by saying they’d hang out later in
Lifeblood
, go gaming, leave the whole affair behind.
    But things didn’t quite go as planned when Michael hooked into the Coffin later that afternoon. Instead of Sinking into the VirtNet, all he saw were big block letters:
ACCESS DENIED BY VNS
3
    They’d cut him off.
    Michael got out of his Coffin and ran to the Chair, tried his EarCuff. It didn’t work. He ran to the couch in front of the WallScreen and clicked the TV controls. Nothing. He could hear Helga walking around the apartment, huffing and puffing, trying to make calls. But cell service had been disconnected, too. Michael went back to his Chair and attempted to hack his way into the NetScreen for an hour, to no avail.
    Cut off. Completely.
    All he could do was go to his bed, lie there, and stare at the ceiling, feeling sicker by the minute. How in the world had he gotten into such a mess? In a matter of a day or two, his life had been hijacked by the VNS and threatened by a madman. He missed the days when school and an occasional stomachache were the only things he had to complain about.
    But anyone who’d known him for more than five minutes could have guessed where his thoughts headed next. Yes, he’d been shown a vision worse than anything he’d ever laid real or virtual eyes upon, and he’d been promised it would be his future if he did what the VNS wanted. He had no doubt that the VirtNet could be programmed that way for him. Kaine was exactly right: when you had the power to make someone see and experience
anything
, there were definitely things worse than death. And that bottomless trench had been dug in front of Michael.
    Then