The Game of Lives Read Online Free PDF Page B

vibrated through his bones and filled his body. He wanted to get closer, to see what those shapes could be. He worked his arms and legs through space. In places like this in the Net, he’d always been able to maneuver from one location to another as if he were swimming, but no amount of flapping his arms or kicking his legs would move him more than what he’d already mastered—spinning in place. He stopped, intently studying the structure in front of him. There was a flash of movement, and suddenly his nose was almost touching the orange glow. He’d moved instantly—somehow he’d done it with his mind.
    He looked back toward the vast purple sky, then sent out a quick thought and the world bent as he was catapulted miles away from the thrumming orange light. He turned back, shot to the next place his eyes met. For a moment the exhilaration of this instantaneous travel, this moving with his mind, made him forget the reason he was there. He focused more intently, concentrating on where he wanted to be, and with a snap, once again he was floating just outside the massive, never-ending wall of brilliant orange pods.
    He thought himself closer, now in complete control. His body moved slowly forward until a pod was just a few inchesfrom his face. Those same shadows he’d noticed before, starker now, slithered behind the filmy surface. He leaned in, following the forms, but the moment he caught one with his gaze it would move away, slipping just out of sight.
    He wondered what it was like on the other side of the wall.
    The thought barely formed before he shifted once again, this time blinded for an instant by a moment of complete darkness. Then he was exactly where he wanted to be—on the other side of the wall. And things were different there.
    From this vantage Michael saw that the Hive was actually an enormous sphere, and that he was now on the
inside
of it. Surrounded by countless pods, almost like a honeycomb, glowing, pulsing, humming.
    From within the sphere, the individual pods were flat on this side. They almost looked like one of those old computers he’d heard about with a glassy screen called a monitor. The moment he thought it, he was there, nose to the surface of the “glass,” gazing in. Printed digitally on it was a name.
    EDGAR THOMAS FINCH
    He reached out and touched the letters—the entire screen flashed red, once, and then the name reappeared. He did it again and the same thing happened. Silently he concentrated on sending a command to the screen to reveal more information, but nothing happened. There was just the name, the orange light of its pod broken up only by those shifty shadows swimming in the murkiness behind it.
    He quickly moved from unit to unit. Each pod had a name, none of them familiar.
    That was when he realized he wanted to see it for himself. He had to see it.
    Jackson Porter
, he thought.
Take me to the pod of Jackson Porter
.
    4
    His ears popped with the sudden movement and the Hive instantaneously shifted around him. With of a blur of orange, his mind tilted, his stomach pitched. Then all became still and there it was, just a few feet in front of him, the letters spelling out a name that made his chest tight.
    JACKSON BLAYNE PORTER
    Michael drifted closer, reached out, and lightly touched the surface of the screen that revealed the name. The name of the person from whom he’d taken everything. The screen flashed red just like the one before it, then went back to normal. It was probably some kind of signal showing that he didn’t have authority to access information on whatever lay inside that pod.
    What
did
lie inside the pod? Michael didn’t understand just how real the Hive might be. Was it a literal place? Or something more symbolic? He moved himself to the right of the screen and leaned in as close to the bright orange surfaceas he dared. Shadows shifted inside, swirling, growing, and shrinking. Michael stared, mesmerized—it felt as if he was on the cusp of understanding