Mara’s earliest memory was her mother, Kaitlynn, waking her up. The folds of deep, forgettable slumber dripped off of her wiry muscles like water in a Pixelstorm, and she felt her adrenaline pumping through her veins.

“Who’s my target?” Mara asked.

“A group of Virals who call themselves the Resurgents,” Kaitlynn. “Objective: terminate.”

Mara shrugged on her vest. She slid a knife into a sheath on her thigh. “Priority focus?”

“They’ve kidnapped a Keystroke by the name of Evan Essence,” Kaitlynn responded. She passed over a small rectangular tablet, showing files on the five other Virals. Mara studied their faces and the scene of the cursor crash in the Unknowns, imprinting every single detail to instant memory. “Bring Evan alive, but as for the Resurgents…kill them all.”

Mara strapped a satchel to her side, mentally running through its technological contents. Although electricity was rare for the common citizen of the Inner Circuits, anybody connected to the CPU had unfiltered access to everything. She had everything she needed. “The usual. Get in, get out, don’t make a scene.”

Kaitlynn nodded. “Go.” Her voice grew cold. “Don’t return empty-handed. Don’t fail me again.”

---

The sun had long since set over the thick forest. Seth and a weak Athena weaved in and out among the trees, conversing intimately in hushed tones. Jess and Evan followed suit, then Cooper, and Gavin brought up the rear, waving his massive nunchucks around menacingly.

“…and that is how Athena brought me into the Resurgents,” Cooper finished.

About time he finished, Evan thought grumpily. In his mind, he envisioned what would’ve happened if Shift had gotten to him. Or if the Firewall hadn’t set him up against the Board. And now he was running with the Virals? He sighed. Where could he go to really find a safe place?

“You okay?” Jess asked, sensing his dejection.

Evan glanced back at Cooper. He didn’t seem to be paying attention. “No, I’m not. The Board wants me dead, the Firewalls and CPU want me as a pawn in a chess game, and so do you guys. I don’t really belong here.”

Evan expected tough love, but was surprised by her cheery response. “Of course you don’t. None of us do. We weren’t made to live inside the Monitor. We were born in the outside world.”

Evan scoffed. “Do you really believe those myths? They’re ancient legends.”

“They’re not myths!” Jess retorted. “They’re real. Ever wonder why the Monitor is one large rectangle? Why we can’t go beyond? There’s a temple way up north with a secret door. We suspect it’s the way out of here and–”

“Jess,” Seth called back, “until his loyalties are decided, the less he knows, the better.”

Jess’s shoulders dropped. “Okay.”

Evan felt so bad for her he had to switch the subject. “So how did you join the Virals?”

“Resurgents,” she corrected. “And my sister and I both were street urchins until Seth found us. Convinced us we could actually break out of the Monitor. Everything was fine until she caught PolyMorphic…” Her voice trailed off. “She was never the same after that.”

“What was her name?” Evan asked.

“Mara.”