The Rule of Thoughts by James Dashner

were breaking about fifty-three strict rules and regulations, not to mention VirtNet etiquette, but it was a good test of whether their new identities would protect them. As Michael scanned the most likely places their friend would be, he thought that so far, so good. Except for that minor— major —bump of Agent Weber finding them. But they’d know if and when Kaine did the same.
    San Francisco. Paris. Shanghai. Tokyo. New Africa. TheAntarctic Waste. Old Vegas. Duluth. All the hot spots. No sign at all. Not even a trace of Bryson having visited the regular places recently.
    Sarah squeezed Michael’s hand, all the signal he needed, and soon they were sitting in the tree house again, swirling code forming back into trees and sky.
    “If he’s not in Lifeblood , you know what that means,” Michael said.
    “Yep.”
    “He’s hiding. He knows something’s up.”
    “Exactly,” Sarah agreed. “But there’s no way he’s staying out of the Sleep. We just need to look in his … shadier locations.”
    Michael almost laughed, remembering a slew of escapades. The kicker was an image of Bryson, naked as the day he was born, being chased by seven mermaids that were so angry they had sprouted legs. He’d never admitted exactly what he’d done.
    “So where to, then?” Michael asked, glad to see Sarah had a hint of a smile on her face. He didn’t have a rational reason to think it, but her parents’ getting kidnapped didn’t seem as bad as his finding out that technically he’d never had any to begin with.
    “How about The Lair of the Spider Queen ?” she suggested.
    Michael rolled his eyes. The Spider Queen had always been a target for Bryson. And he had yet to get so much as a kiss, though not for lack of trying.
    “As good a place as any,” Michael said.
    They closed their eyes and dove back in.

    It took three hours, but they found him, in the eleventh place they looked—a game called Curious Ways to Die , one of those games where you could lose your life in ridiculous situations and have a good laugh at the same time. It was a sick world.
    Bryson was having a snack with two girls Michael had never met before, animatedly discussing their next adventure—something about a battery-operated toaster and natural hot springs—at a little outdoor café in the game’s gathering spot. Michael and Sarah knew better than to just appear next to him. There was a limit to the rules you could break without getting caught, or at least being noticed, and entering via a Portal was one of the most basic, strictly enforced laws.
    They hacked their way into the feed for the closest Portal, and a few seconds later they were in the game. If only it had been so easy when they’d needed to get into Devils of Destruction , Michael thought. He also tried not to think of the other laws they’d just broken.
    Because of their new identities, he and Sarah had altered their Auras. It would’ve been really stupid to go through all that trouble just to have an old friend—or nemesis—simply recognize them by their Auras and blow their covers. When they found their way to the café where they’d seen Bryson and sat down at the table right next to him and his friends, he didn’t even glance their way.
    Michael switched his Aura to the old version with a quickflurry of programming, just long enough for Bryson to notice him out of the corner of his eye. He did an old-fashioned double take, and then Michael immediately flipped back to his new look. Even Bryson, usually cool under pressure, couldn’t hide his shock.
    “Um …” He was momentarily at a loss for words with his new friends. His eyes flicked back over to where Michael and Sarah were sitting. “Sorry, I, uh, I think I see a couple of my cousins. Oh yeah, my cousins. There they are, sitting right next to us. Whaddya know.”
    The two girls looked over at Michael’s table, and he gave a little wave with a halfhearted smile.
    “But we were almost ready!” one of the girls