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Finally his leg slipped free from the vise of the two doors and they sla in and rubbed his calf and ankle, watching froain The alarroans of transit resulanced up as the cars disappeared into the tunnel In the very last one stood Douglas, staring back at hi the still-chaotic scene playing out behind hiry
Chapter 3: A Hitch in the Gut
Michael winced and clutched his leg, breaking his gaze with Douglas as he slipped away The screeching sounds faded into echoes as the train finally vanished into the darkness of the tunnel There was a scuffle of footsteps and then the two officials were lifting hi and thanked the, they let hiain Neither of the or that a couple of stone-cold-expressionlessto yank him back onto the train Which was a relief to Michael He didn’t want to draw any more attention to hi It hurt, but it wasn’t broken He finally limped out of the station and onto the city sidewalks
He stopped to take it all in There were people everywhere, cars everywhere And the world was full of sound Horns and engines, talking and shouting and laughing A hovering cop car zoohtly,a sea of blurred las and Kinto; it would take some time for him to adjust
He found a bench and sat down, and not just because his leg ached The ind of events since he’d read the letters from Gabriela and Jackson Porter’s dad had spared Michael froht’ve provided answers, but Michael had no doubts about his decision to run--he needed to stay as far away froent?
Elbows on knees, he dropped his head into his hands and took a deep breath The reality was, to find Bryson and Sarah--to find his nexthe didn’t have
Money
He desperately needed hed It was funny how his old "fake" life reseo Duure out a way to fill his coffers with electronic cash Then he realized the bigger problem: he didn’t have any coffers The kid known as Michael didn’t exist in this world
But Jackson Porter did And according to the note the Porters had left, they knew he’d need money while they were in Puerto Rico
Michael felt another pang of guilt, then reminded himself that Kaine had done this to the boy, not Michael He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force hiht But he couldn’t Because he now existed in the real world, a family would never be the same Maybe he could pretend, make the Porters believe their son was alive, just off to see the world They’d be sad--not to mention Gabriela--but not utterly devastated
He was safe for the short term, anyway, and would just take what money he needed When the fa … Well, one day at a tiht then he needed a better place to sit--a little darker, so he could see a NetScreen more clearly--and some time on the VirtNet He found a relatively clean corner tucked away in an alley with just enough passing traffic to keep the hooligans away, and he sat down on the hard pavereen screen that belonged to Jackson Porter flashed to life in front of hi skills had been as fake as his life in the Sleep? What if the code was somehow different out in the Wake? The real Wake
Scarcely able to handle the thought, he got to work, and soon realized his fears were unfounded
He swiped and typed, allowing hisfurther and further into Jackson’s and his fa the Net for codes and files he’d used or heard about before--password unlockers, false-identity creators, secret sites about the ins and outs of bank cybersecurity It wasn’t long before he’d created an entirely new hu--new to the virtual world, anyway He called this new human Michael Peterson
Kaine knew his first name, but it was common; there had to be thousands of Michaels out there Hundreds of thousands He couldn’t bring himself to use a completely different name--it was all he had left from the life that had been taken Plus, Kaine probably expected hi in thefunds,all the trails appear as if their sweet boy, Jackson, had actually taken cash credit withdrawals, practically untraceable
Things were running more smoothly, inning to feel good about hiht blue slashed across the NetScreen It only lasted half a second, but his sto to break into his systehter Followed by another
Michael’s hands fleeen the screen and the keyboard, his instincts taking over He built nal--Jackson Porter’s digital signal, rather--and coded sorath of the pushback coding that whoever it was had massive skills
There was no question in Michael’s er The two dull-faced men who’d come to take him away must’ve reported back up the chain of coue, and Kaine wouldn’t be happy
Michael kept working, feverishly He had to get a few n off Wrap up the new identity so he could access him later, tie off any loose ends so Kaine wouldn’t be able to find him when he did so He had to finalize the accounts, secure the money, make sure he could access it from somewhere else, respond to the Porters so they’d know their son was safe