The Eye of Minds by James Dashner Read Free Book Online

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 off his access was definitely 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 firsthand 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 different 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 office? Tell them that your neighbor Michael says he’s back in. Tell them I’ll find 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 and his friends, Michael thought, and he was glad for the reminder of the lengths they’d need to go.
    We can do this
, he told himself. Over and over.

CHAPTER 5
THE OLD MAN
1
    “While you guys were wigging out,” Bryson said, “I was putting a Tracer on Kaine’s Aura. We’ll know next time he gets close.”
    Michael was sitting with him and Sarah in a tree house on the outskirts of the outskirts of
Lifeblood
, a place they’d coded—or
built
—in secret. It was in a small forest that Michael was pretty sure even the programmers of the game didn’t know about.
    “Did you upload the Tracer to us yet?” Sarah asked him. She was so good at keeping them focused.
    “Yeah.”
    “Good. And I think if we use my Hide-and-Seek program and Michael’s Cloak-and-Dagger, we should be able to avoid that snake for a while.”
    “Or at least stay two steps ahead of him,” Michael added. He and Sarah had worked together to create the two masking programs, which had come in handy more than once.
    They went silent for a moment, closing their eyes and concentrating to access the raw data of the world around them. Michael pulled up screens and connected with his