“Yes,” Bryson said as he took it away. “That’s what it is. And the thing still works, too. You can thank me later, but now we can keep up with what’s going on in the world without risking the use of our NetScreens.”
Michael liked the sound of that. He was beyond spooked now by Kaine and his minions, but they needed to get online. They needed to figure out what to do.
“Show us how it works,” Sarah said.
Bryson beamed like a proud father. “It’s not hard to use. The hard part is connecting to the Net using the old system. But dear old Dad isn’t just a collector. He’s also a friggin’ genius, and he’s got this puppy all hooked up. We can browse all we want and no one will know it’s us. This thing has no link to our identities.”
He pressed a button and the glass screen came to life, showing a background that looked much like a normal NetScreen. Except there weren’t any personal identifiers, just links to news sources and games.
“Let’s find out what’s going on in the world.”
Bryson tapped the device and they got what they wanted.
After an hour of scouring the NewsBops for any sign of Kaine’s Doctrinized Tangents wreaking havoc in the world, they had a laundry list of events that made them feel worse than ever. Things that were probably slipping under most people’s radars as coincidences or one-time occurrences, Michael knew were far more sinister. All three of them knew. If you took a step back and looked at everything, it was clear that Kaine was touching the world with his influence.
In Germany, a top official had switched political parties overnight, changing his stances on nearly all major issues. He stood in their parliament, ranting and raving about a legislative overhaul. But the story was buried, appearing as a sidebar on a comedy site. Everyone thought he’d just lost his mind.
In Japan, a Buddhist monk known worldwide for his humanitarian efforts had murdered more than thirty of his followers in their sleep with a knife from the monastery kitchen, slipping from room to room in the night. Just the day before, the monk had met with dignitaries from several countries, showing no signs of mental trouble, advocating for peace. But the meeting had taken place in the VirtNet, the monk surely in a Coffin.
A woman in Canada known for her charitable contributions to the community had been awakened from her time in the Sleep by a daughter who’d begun to worry about her. The mother scrambled out of the Coffin, raging mad. She killed all of her children, then her husband when he got home. All she would tell the police was that she’d been told to do it.
There were too many stories. And over and over neighbors and friends said the same things: “He was the nicest guy” and “She didn’t have a bad bone in her body.”
What really convinced Michael, though, were the nonviolent stories. What purpose, after all, could Kaine have in sending Tangents into human bodies only to have them do something horrible and get thrown in jail? Maybe those were evidence of the transfers not working.
He and his friends also found several reports on people changing their normal behavior or making rash decisions. Corporate executives moving huge numbers of funds or instigating massive layoffs or selling off subsidiaries. Government officials suddenly changing their ideologies enough to bring it to the attention of the NewsBops—though most weren’t as animated as the man in Germany. Actors walking off movie sets, sports figures resigning from teams, people left and right stepping down from jobs they’d held for years. There were so many stories that Michael almost—almost—didn’t flinch when they came across a report about one missing Jackson Porter, wanted for cyber-terrorism.
But Michael was able to push that to the side for now, focusing on the possible Tangent invasion. It was all too much, too close together. Michael had been a news junkie his whole life, and he’d never seen anything like this.
“They have to be Tangents,” he said for at least the tenth time as they read yet another example of some government type turning against his constituents. “This is crazy. How can people not notice a connection?”
“Think about it,” Bryson replied. He turned off the ancient device and slid it away in disgust, as if it were the cause of all the reports. “They don’t know what we know. You really think someone is going to just stand up and say, ‘I got it!’ ”—he snapped his fingers—“ ‘By George, I’ve got it! Computer programs are taking over the minds of all these people!’ ”
Michael rolled his eyes. “I know, but it just seems so crazy. Weird things like this happening all over the world at the same time.”