hole in the wall. The three best friends have to overcome their fears to keep moving on. At one point, Bryson's Aura is killed by strange, animated corpses that attack whenever anybody makes noise. Along the way, they meet Gunner Skale, a legendary gamer who mysteriously disappeared from the VirtNet, who leads them to realizing that Kaine is actually a rogue Tangent, or an AI in the VirtNet. After escaping from Skale, as he attempted to kill them, Michael and Sarah continue on The Path, but Sarah's Aura is also killed when she is burned by lava. Eventually, Michael reaches a crossroads, where he is given the choice of either leaving the Path or entering the Hallowed Ravine. When he chooses the Hallowed Ravine, a silver machine destroys his Core, so that if his Aura were to die, he would die in real life. After reaching the Hallowed Ravine and discovering a group of Tangents controlled by Kaine, the VNS sends agents to his location to attack. However, in the ensuing battle, with the KillSims attacking, a large number of VNS agents die. Kaine manages to force Michael into a room, from which Michael escapes, allowed by Kaine to do so. He is attacked by KillSims, but he uses his hacking ability to delete, rather than manipulate, things, for the first time. Michael suffers another headache and begs Kaine to save him. Michael then wakes up in a Coffin, or a coffin-like enclosure from which the VirtNet is accessed, but realizes that his body and his surroundings are different. He finds that Kaine left him a message that explained how Michael was a Tangent, and that he was the first successful subject of The Mortality Doctrine, which implants Tangent intelligence into human bodies. Michael is also told that since he is now human, his headaches were actually caused by Decay, a condition that results from the deterioration of a Tangent's code. Michael then realizes that he had resided in the game Lifeblood Deep during his time as a Tangent, and when he had entered his Coffin, he had entered the game used by human beings, Lifeblood. He opens the door and meets Agent Weber, the VNS agent who contracted him to stop Kaine, who informs him that Bryson and Sarah are real. He is also told to attempt to impersonate the human whose body he is in. Development While developing