Then Bryson shouted in a strangled voice, “Its eyes! Squeeze its freaking eyes!”
The pain in Michael’s head turned to something else. More like an achy buzz, as if bees swarmed between his ears. He couldn’t tell anymore if his eyes were open, couldn’t feel the creature’s paws pinning his arms and legs. The hard floor seemed to no longer press against his body from below. He was floating. Floating in a dark void where the only thing that existed in the great abyss of the KillSim was that deep ache. The buzz increased in volume until he heard almost nothing else. Ronika screamed one last time, as if from a great distance. Sarah was yelling something, but it reached Michael’s ears as gibberish.
His thoughts wandered. For some reason he pictured the advertisement outside his apartment for Lifeblood Deep, pictured his parents, who’d been gone on their stupid trip for ages, it seemed. He remembered being a little kid—baseball, ice cream, playgrounds.
Michael realized he was completely disoriented. Enveloped by darkness, he squeezed his eyes shut and focused, throwing all his mental effort into pooling every bit of his consciousness into one place. Bryson had told him what to do—something about its eyes. Sarah was nearby, maybe trying to help.
They’d figured something out.
He had to fight back.
This thing was going to kill him.
Michael gathered his energy and screamed, then jerked his arms away from the shadow paws that held them down. He pulled free and groped blindly above him, finding the head of the KillSim, searching with his fingers until he found the place where those yellow lights had glowed. Michael could feel that the creature was trying to pin him again, but he rolled to evade its grip. His hands found two warm orbs, almost hot. He instantly took hold, clamping his fingers into tight fists around what had to be the KillSim’s eyes.
With every last drop of strength left in his body, Michael squeezed as hard as he could. The eyes felt hard and smooth as glass but gave way like gel. As his sight cleared, he watched the eyes begin to ooze between his fingers. The creature let out an anguished shriek and thrashed against Michael, struggling to get loose.
Then its eyes burst.
7
It was as if two eggs had imploded in Michael’s hands. The instant it happened, he felt a charge of electricity scorch his palms and run through his arms and chest. He screamed at the pain coursing through his body and pushed until the KillSim fell off him and thumped on the floor. Light swarmed back into Michael’s vision, and nausea hit him like a punch to the gut.
The room seemed a different color, duller than before, and his head ached like nothing he’d ever experienced. His thoughts were still jumbled, his mind in a haze. The KillSim lay in a heap at his feet, its outline distinguishable once again. Everything about it seemed to have shrunk; lying there on the ground, it looked like nothing more than an eyeless black dog.
“If we’d just known that from the start,” Bryson said.
Michael snapped his gaze away from the creature and toward his friend. The movement sent a spike of pain through his entire skull.
Bryson and Sarah knelt next to Ronika, another dead KillSim only inches away. Two other creatures had been killed as well—one at the bottom of the stairs and one halfway up. Both of Michael’s friends were still breathing heavily, and a quick glance showed him that their hands were burned raw. He looked down at his own and saw the same thing. Only at the sight of them did the pain hit him.
Ronika. Why wasn’t she moving?
Michael took a step forward and was just about to ask them what had happened when a blue light flashed from Ronika’s forehead and stopped him short. A crackle filled the air, and as Michael stood there frozen he watched her body completely transform.
Blue lights sparkled along her brow, increasing in brightness and frequency until he could no longer see her skin. Then the lights started to grow and spread, moving into her hair and down across her eyebrows, into her eyes and along her nose, her cheeks. Bluish-green butterflies—sparks that looked like wings—replaced her features as the twinkling lights expanded. The wings flapped and sent out sound like a zap of electrical current.
As if she’d been infected with some horrific skin disease, Ronika’s entire head submitted to the transformation, and soon there was nothing but a round ball of fluttering blue and green planes of glowing light where her skin had once been. Gradually the ball moved down her neck and spread across her shoulders, along her chest, leaving the strange butterflies in its wake. Michael stood there, helpless, no idea what to do.
Sarah finally spoke, her voice sounding odd through the crackling electricity emanating from Ronika’s disappearing body. “We must’ve been too late. The thing sucked her digital life out. Just like she warned us.”
“That would’ve been you in another minute,” Bryson added, giving Michael a look that said they’d probably never get over just how close it had been.
Michael returned his attention to Ronika without answering. Half her body had been devoured, and the butterflies that covered her head started fluttering away, floating several inches into the air before they suddenly lit up in a bright flash and then disappeared entirely, leaving nothing behind. Soon her entire face was gone forever.
As mesmerizing as the display was, and as badly as Michael’s head hurt, it finally hit him that they couldn’t waste another second. He looked to his friends, and without a word they got to their feet and ran up the stairs two at a time.
They got out of the club before anyone could ask questions, found a Portal, and Lifted themselves back to the Wake. By the time Michael stepped out of the Coffin, his head felt like a nest of scorpions had hatched inside it.
CHAPTER 8
A VERY SHORT MAN
1
Miserable, Michael lay in bed. Helga was nicer than ever, bringing him hot tea and soup and bananas—it was all he could stomach—whenever he dinged the little bell she’d placed on his nightstand. His parents had to extend their trip yet again, so with only him and Helga there, the apartment was quiet. He kept the blinds closed and didn’t listen to music or watch any shows. The sign that something was really wrong with him, though, was that he barely even looked at his NetScreen.
His head just plain hurt. And along with that was nausea. Constant, unrelenting nausea. He felt like he was going to throw up at least once or twice an hour. Hence the strange menu requests for Helga. As he lay there in agony, there was plenty of time to think about what had happened in the basement of the Black and Blue Club.