Wildcard

  “No wonder I never had a chance against you at Mario Kart,” Hammie adds. “You know I used to bet on drone racing? Maybe I’ve put my money on you before without even knowing it.”

  Asher massages his temples. “Would anyone else like to share their illegal activities with their Captain?” he says.

  Hammie ignores him and nods at Jesse. “You owed Tremaine a debt?”

  Jesse cracks a subtle smile. “Well, now Tremaine tells me he’s calling in his debt to me for this one’s sake.” They tilt their head at me. “Emika Chen, isn’t it? Yeah, I know you. You’re the bounty hunter who first reported me to the police a couple of years ago, for drone racing.”

  I flush. So, this is one of the people I’d tracked down in the Dark World during my past hunts. Now I remember this specific target from several years back, when I’d broken into a drone racing name directory. I’d won a thousand-dollar bounty for that. “Sorry,” I reply.

  Jesse shrugs. “Don’t say stuff you don’t mean. It’s fine. Because of Tremaine’s request, I’ll call the beef between us settled. Lucky you.”

  Roshan makes an irritated sound. “Way to make this situation even more uncomfortable, Blackbourne,” he mutters at Tremaine. “But that’s always been your specialty.”

  Tremaine holds his hands up. “You think you can do better, you go ahead.”

  I shift awkwardly in my seat, but under the table, I touch Roshan’s hand once. “I’m okay,” I reply before I turn back to Jesse. “Tremaine tells us you have some info we could use.”

  Jesse nods, then waves a hand in front of them and brings up the symbol from Sasuke Tanaka’s sleeve. “You want to know where this is from, right?” It hovers over the table before us. “But, first,” they say, “you’re going to tell me why you need this info.”

  I hesitate. Being at the mercy of a former mark isn’t exactly ideal. Beside me, Tremaine offers a helpless look.

  “Fine,” I reply, nodding once at Jesse. “Then we’re even.”

  Jesse folds their arms. “After you.”

  Asher pushes himself out of his chair and onto the sofa, then turns his full attention onto me. “All right, spill. Are you okay? What really happened to you out there?”

  I take a deep breath. “I’m okay. Mostly. I got into some trouble.”

  “How bad?”

  “An assassin saved my life from some other assassins.”

  There’s a heavy pause from everyone. “O-kay,” Asher replies warily. “What, like the Yakuza or something?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Hammie says with a snort, even as she instinctively drops her voice. “The Yakuza has too much political cred. They’re not gonna be so crass as to run around shooting people in the middle of the street.”

  “No, not the mafia or anything,” I say, shaking my head. “At least, not a mafia I knew existed.” I meet my friends’ concerned gazes. A part of me still wants to turn inward, to keep what I know from them. But it won’t make them any safer to keep them out of the loop—I’d learned that the hard way when Zero first attacked our dorms.

  So instead, I tell them everything that’s happened since the last time we saw each other. I explain in a low voice about the assassination lottery and the hunters who came after me. About Jax. About Zero, and Taylor. About the Blackcoats. Finally, I tell them about what I’d overheard between Hideo, Kenn, and Mari.

  An ominous silence falls on the room. Roshan’s face looks drained of color, while Asher runs a hand through his hair and stares out toward the door.

  “Damn,” Hammie finally whispers as she tosses a loose braid behind her shoulder. In the dim light, her eyes are wide and liquid-dark, full of all the same uncertainty churning inside me. “Innocent suicides. This is unraveling fast.”

  “The Blackcoats are actively working to stop Hideo’s algorithm,” I add. “They seem like vigilantes, although I don’t know enough about them to agree.”

  “And Zero hasn’t said anything about his past to you?” Roshan asks.

  I shake my head. “He refuses to answer any questions I’ve asked him. But I was able to gain access to one of his old memories. I shouldn’t have been able to get it so easily.” My attention goes to Jesse, who has been listening quietly the entire time. This must be news to the newcomer, but if it’s stunned them, they don’t show it.

  Jesse whistles once. “You got yourself into one mess of a situation, girl.”

  “I’m hoping you’ll be able to tell me something that can get me out of it,” I reply. “That’s all I know. Your turn.”

  Jesse straightens, swipes two fingers casually in an upward gesture, and displays a screenshot of the symbol on Sasuke’s sleeve.

  “I was asking around about it down under because I thought it might be some obscure illegal racing group logo,” Jesse says. “You know, maybe just some shirt that was merchandise for a Dark World team we hadn’t heard of.”

  Jesse pauses to spin the symbol in midair. “But then, someone anonymous responded. They showed me a work badge with this same symbol on it. I don’t know how they got their hands on it, but I forwarded that badge to Tremaine.”

  Now Jesse pulls up a virtual image of the work badge. It’s a plain white card, with a name and a sixteen-digit code printed on it. Sure enough, right beside that is the symbol I’d seen on Sasuke’s sleeve. It’s a logo.

  “I did some digging, then went out to see for myself where that badge came from,” Tremaine goes on. “Ready?”

  “Ready,” I say.

  Tremaine loads another screenshot. The new image shows the exact same symbol, except this time it looks like it’s printed as a small sign next to a door in some sort of nondescript hallway.

  “I unearthed these from private servers.” Tremaine brings up a second image. This time, the symbol is tiny and subtle on a pair of sliding white doors.

  “Where is this?” I ask Tremaine, my eyes darting from the symbols to him.

  He takes the original screenshot, spreads his arms wide, and brings his hands together. The screenshot zooms out until it looks like a hallway, then a network of hallways inside an enormous complex. I frown as he keeps going, until the entire campus has zoomed out, and we are now looking at a large sign made of stone in front of a campus’s gates.

  I stare at the title engraved on the complex’s entrance. JAPAN INNOVATION INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. “It’s a company?”

  “Yes. A biotech company. My guess is that the symbol you found belongs to some project being done at this institute.”

  I slump back in my seat. “You’re saying that when I saw the glimpse of young Sasuke in a room, wearing that symbol on his sleeve—he was here? How did he even find himself in a place like this?”

  “That’s not even the surprising part,” Tremaine replies. He brings up a third screenshot. It shows a young Japanese woman standing with her small team of colleagues, all of them wearing matching white lab coats and posing in front of the institute.

  My eyes lock on to the woman’s face at the same time Tremaine points to her.

  “Before she quit twelve years ago, she used to work at the Innovation Institute,” Tremaine says. “That’s neuroscientist Dr. Mina Tanaka. Hideo and Sasuke’s mother.”

  13

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “No,” I snap. “Back up. That doesn’t make any sense!”

  Tremaine’s face doesn’t change. “I know. I thought maybe you had an explanation for it.”

  Jesse must have made a mistake. Tremaine too. Because if any of it’s true, it means that the mother of Hideo and Sasuke also used to work at the company that apparently held Sasuke captive. The memory of meeting her flashes back to me—her small figure, now delicate from grief, her large glasses and her warm smile. The way Hideo had hugged her protectively.

  “It doesn’t add up,” I insist. “Are you saying that Hideo’s mother had something to do with Sa
suke vanishing like that? She was permanently traumatized by his disappearance—she and Hideo’s dad searched madly for Sasuke. She was so distraught, she could no longer work. What happened destroyed her mind. She forgets things constantly now. I saw her with my own eyes. I met her. Hideo showed me his Memory of it.”

  Tremaine leans forward and raps his fingers against the table. “Maybe she didn’t know,” he replies. “And Hideo probably knew nothing about it—he was so little at the time. Memories aren’t always accurate. I mean, is there any public information about why she quit working for the company? Was it because of the trauma of losing her son? Or was it because of something that had happened at the company?”

  More questions are piling onto the ones I already have. I sigh and rub my hands across my face. If Sasuke was a part of this institute, how did he get there?

  “Hey.”

  I look through my hands at Hammie, who’s squinting at the photo of Hideo’s mother with her colleagues. She holds a finger up at the list of tiny names running across the photo’s bottom. “Dana Taylor, PhD. Isn’t this your Dana Taylor, Em? The one who works for Zero?”

  I search the photo until my gaze rests on a familiar face. “That’s her,” I blurt out. She looks much younger here, and her hair isn’t streaked with gray, but her thoughtful look is the same.

  Taylor used to work with Hideo’s mother—with Sasuke’s mother. What did that mean, then, for how Sasuke became Zero? What do the Blackcoats have to do with the company where Mina Tanaka used to work?

  In his corner, Tremaine folds his arms against the table and furrows his brow. There’s fear in his eyes, an unusual sight. “This feels all wrong,” he mutters to himself.

  “Are you going to tell Hideo?” Asher asks in the silence that follows.

  I stare grimly at the symbol still rotating slowly before us. I’ve met Zero, I’ve heard him speak—and now this is more confirmation that what had happened to Sasuke was real. “The Blackcoats expect me to make contact with Hideo soon, anyway,” I finally say. “He deserves to know.”

  Asher snaps his fingers. “Hideo invited a few of us to a formal party at an art hall,” he says. “It’s supposed to be both a congratulations for our win and an apology for all the chaos around this year’s championships. If you go, you could have a conversation with him that’s somewhat private and probably in a setting where he wouldn’t want to do something extreme.”

  A private meeting. A formal banquet. “When’s the meeting? Where?”

  “Tomorrow night, at the Museum of Contemporary Art.”

  “But how do I get in? Hideo’s guaranteed to have me on some sort of watch list, and his guards will be on alert for me.”

  “Not if you’re in the Phoenix Riders’ car. Even if it’s you instead of us, it’ll clear you through the entrance gates. Once you’re in, though, you’re on your own.”

  The thought of seeing Hideo in person tomorrow night sends a surge of fear and anticipation through me. It’s risky, but it should work. “Okay,” I say with a nod. “Let’s do it.”

  Jesse grimaces at me. “If you’re as smart as Tremaine says, you’ll get out of this right now. You’re wedging yourself in a tight spot, between two very powerful forces.” They hold both hands up as they slide out from the sofa. “I’m washing my hands of this either way. You never heard it from me.” They point at Tremaine. “And we’re even from here.” Without another word, they swing a backpack over their shoulders and step out of the karaoke room. A momentary blast of noise—cheers, singing, laughter—comes from outside. Then the door slides shut again, sealing us back in our muted silence.

  Tremaine shifts uncomfortably. His eyes dart to Roshan for a second before he looks back at me. “Look, Em,” he says. “Jesse’s got a point. These waters are getting pretty murky. Are you sure you want to keep digging?”

  The only sound comes from the party still pounding from all around us. “You’re saying I should step away from this. Leave the Blackcoats behind. Forget about the algorithm.”

  “I’m saying that something tells me Sasuke’s story is a whole lot uglier than we could ever imagine,” Tremaine replies. “I don’t know how it all connects, but I can feel it. Can’t you? It’s like that instinct on a bounty hunt when you just know things are about to get worse. Hell, you’ve already been targeted—and shot at.”

  “Jax is the one who saved me from those hunters,” I reply, even though the memory settles over me like a dark cloud.

  “And what’s going to happen if she finds out what you’re really after? The Blackcoats don’t sound like the forgiving type.”

  “You’re on this hunt, too,” I say. “And you’re the one who went digging.”

  “No one’s after me.” He shrugs. “It’s safer for me to poke around.”

  When I first accepted Hideo’s bounty job, the biggest risk I thought I was taking was getting my identity stolen, or maybe having to face off against a hacker inside Warcross. Now, somehow, I’ve become tangled in a web of secrets and lies, and the wrong step in any direction could cost me my life.

  “It’s too late to back away from this.” I lean back against the sofa and stare at the glass door. “The only way out is through.”

  “We’re all taking the same way out.” I turn to see Roshan looking straight at me. “You’re not a lone wolf, Em. If they’re going to come for you, they’d better save themselves some time and come for us, too. You’re a Phoenix Rider. We’re a team for a reason.”

  Right now, I wish we weren’t. I wish I were still a lone wolf, and that the only life on the line in all of this is mine. But those words don’t make it past my lips. Maybe it’s because I don’t believe them, and that if I’m going to be staring down this barrel, I’d rather have a fighting chance with others by my side. Even so, all I can do is give Roshan a weak smile. I lean my shoulder into his.

  “For better or worse,” I reply.

  Tremaine’s lips tighten, but he doesn’t look surprised. “Well, I’m not a Rider. So I guess this is when I leave.” He gets up without looking at the others and heads out the door.

  * * *

  * * *

  BY THE TIME I step out into the back alley of the complex, a steady rain has started to fall, leaving the streets slick and shiny. Bright lights pour from the entrance directly across from me, a building filled with pink claw machines dispensing Warcross merchandise. Parties thud from its higher floors, but otherwise, the alley—blocked off on both ends by security—is almost peaceful.

  Tremaine’s out here, his back against the wall, waiting out the rain under the canopy. He barely turns his head at the sight of me before going back to staring at the entrance across from us. In the neon light, his pale white skin looks blue.

  “Off to report to the Blackcoats?” he says. “You’re on so many teams, I can’t even keep track anymore.”

  I don’t comment on the edge in his voice. There’s a brief silence between us before I speak again. “I wanted to thank you for finding what you did,” I say.

  “It’s what hunters do.”

  I shake my head. “You didn’t have to. It’s dangerous enough as it is, with just one of us on this.”

  “You’ve got enough problems. Don’t worry about me.” He holds his hands together and blows warm air between them. “I didn’t do it for you, anyway.”

  “Then why? It’s not like you’re getting paid for this job.”

  His gaze sweeps along the street. “Roshan’s worried about you,” he finally says. “He’s been afraid of how deep in you’re getting, and it sounds like his suspicions were right. So I promised him I’d watch your back.”

  My teammate’s concern is a balm on the stress of the past few days. It’s all I can do to not turn around right now and return to them, instead of heading back into the arms of the Blackcoats. “You helped me because of Roshan?”

  “He says you have
a tendency to be a loner about everything. You won’t ask for help, even if you need it.” He holds his hands up when he sees me about to interrupt. “Hey, no judgment from me. I’m a hunter, too; I get it.” He smiles a little. “Besides. We also get into this sort of stuff for the thrill of it, don’t we? I don’t think I’ll ever get a shot at this big of a conspiracy again.”

  I find myself smiling back. “It sounds to me like you’re still fond of Roshan. Even after you left the Riders.”

  Tremaine shrugs, trying not to look concerned. “Nah. I saw him with Kento. It’s fine.”

  We wait in silence, both of us staring at the steady stream of rain.

  After a while, he glances at me. “Did he ever tell you why we don’t talk anymore?”

  I hesitate. “He told me you left the Phoenix Riders because you wanted to be on a winning team, and that was what triggered the breakup between you two.”

  Tremaine laughs. When he looks back up at me and sees the confused frown on my face, he ruffles his hair. “Typical Roshan,” he mutters, almost to himself. “That’s just his way of telling you he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Tremaine leans his head back against the wall and focuses on the spot where water is gushing down from the canopy. “Do you know anything about Roshan’s family?”

  I shake my head. “It’s not something he’s ever brought up.”

  Tremaine nods, as if he expected this, too. “His mum is a prominent member of Britain’s parliament. Roshan’s father owns one of the world’s largest shipping companies. His brother married some kind of duchess, and his sister is a surgeon. His cousin’s related to royalty. As for Roshan—he’s the youngest, so everyone dotes on him the most.”

  Of all the things I would’ve expected from Roshan, being the son of a prominent family wasn’t one of them. “He doesn’t act like it at all. He doesn’t even talk like it. He’s a champion gamer . . .”