The Fever Code (The Maze Runner 0.6)(97)

He stood up carefully—he always felt a little woozy after being Lifted, especially when he’d been gone for a few hours—naked and covered in sweat. Clothing ruined the sensory stimulation of the NerveBox.

Michael stepped over the lip of the box, thankful for the soft carpet under his toes—it made him feel grounded, back in reality. He grabbed the pair of boxers he’d left on the floor, put them on. He figured a decent person probably would’ve opted for some pants and a T-shirt as well, but he wasn’t feeling so decent at the moment. All he’d been asked to do by the Lifeblood game was talk a girl out of suicide for Experience Points, and not only had he failed, he’d helped drive her to do it for real. For real, for real.

Tanya—wherever her body might be—was dead. She’d ripped out her Core before dying, a feat of programming, protected by passwords, that she only could’ve done to herself. Faking a Core removal wasn’t possible in the VirtNet. It was too dangerous. Otherwise, you’d never know if someone was faking, and people would do it left and right for kicks or to get reactions. No, she’d changed her code, removed the safety barrier in her mind that separated the virtual and the real, and fried the actual implant back home, and she’d done it with purpose. Tanya, the pretty girl with the sad eyes and the delusions that she was being haunted. Dead.

Michael knew it’d be in the NewsBops soon. They’d report that he had been with her, and the VNS—VirtNet Security—would probably come and talk to him about it. They definitely would.

Dead. She was dead. As lifeless as the sagging mattress on his bed.

It all hit him then. Hit him like a fastball to the face.

Michael barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up everything in his stomach. And then he collapsed to the floor and pulled himself into a ball. No tears came—he wasn’t the crying sort—but he stayed there for a long time.