Warcross

  The shifting light in my bedroom starts to reflect from the pool outside my balcony, and the glow startles me back into reality. I’m here for a job, not to spy on Hideo’s private training sessions.

  I exit from my account and remind myself to focus my thoughts on Ren instead. In the back of my mind, though, Hideo’s conversation with me plays on repeat. And when I finally leave my bedroom to join my teammates in our training for the day, it’s the memory of his dark eyes that lingers, the mystery behind his bloodied knuckles and furious gaze.

  15

  Three days pass in a blur of training activity. The Phoenix Riders run drills of every possible combination. I’m paired with Hammie, then with Ren, then with Asher and Roshan. I’m paired with two of them. I’m paired against them. Our environments change from jungle to city to towering cliffs. We practice in levels from past championships and everything in between.

  Asher trains us with an intensity I haven’t seen before. I struggle to keep up. Every new world I play is a world everyone else has already played, every new maneuver a familiar one to the rest of my team. Just when I think I’m getting the hang of something, Asher will halve the time required of us to do certain missions or perform certain moves. Just when I start getting used to a world, Asher moves us on to the next one.

  I end my days exhausted, slumped against the couches with my teammates, my mind crowded with new information as Asher reviews with us what the next day will be. My dreams are filled with our drills.

  While Hideo had made sure I would end up on a team, he can’t help the Phoenix Riders win. If we lose, my teammates will disband for the season, and it’ll be that much harder to follow Ren around. Hideo is counting on me to fulfill this end of the bargain. If I don’t, I might end up forfeiting the bounty to some other hunter who can stay in the Championships.

  “You’re new to this.” Roshan tries to reassure me one night as we pile against one another on the couches. Wikki is making his rounds to each of us, handing us plates of piping-hot dinner. “It should take you time to wrap your head around everything.”

  On my other side, Hammie digs a fork into her food. “One of these days, Roshan, your bleeding heart is going to bleed all over us.” Her eyes flicker to me before she brings her loaded fork to her lips. “We can’t afford for her to go easy on herself.”

  “She shouldn’t have been in the draft,” Ren interjects.

  Hammie scowls at him. “Easy, wild card.”

  “I’m just saying.” Ren holds up his knife and fork in defense. “I didn’t DJ international events on my first try. It’s not healthy.” He looks at me. “Don’t force her into situations she’s not ready for. You might kill her.”

  I look away from him, but not before his words send my sixth sense tingling. Does he suspect me? Is he watching?

  Roshan nods in reluctant agreement at Ren. “We can’t afford for her to burn out. There is such a thing. But you already know that, Hams.”

  “That was only because I was a Titan that year, and Oliver was a pitiful captain compared to Ash.”

  “I appreciate the flattery,” Asher says as he pops a fry into his mouth, then looks at me. “You’ve been missing your cues in training, Emi.”

  “She hasn’t slept through the night all week,” Roshan interjects. “I can see it on her face.”

  “I’m fine,” I mutter, trying to rub away the dark circles under my eyes. I need to get away. If my teammates start poking around too much, they’ll find it’s more than just our exercises causing my sleepless nights.

  Asher clears his throat from where he’s seated, and the others settle down. He nods at us all. “No training tomorrow. Sleep in, eat a late breakfast. We’ll start up again the day after that.”

  I give Roshan a gentle nudge of gratitude, while Hammie shoots Asher a sullen look. I’m reminded of the relentless way she played speed chess in her Memory. “You know who isn’t taking tomorrow off?” she says. “The Demon Brigade.”

  “You know what’s useless to me? A mentally exhausted Architect. Emika’s been making mistakes all day.” Asher nods at where Ren is eating quietly beside him. “Ren has a call with his recording studio tomorrow, anyway. Day off will do us good.”

  I watch Ren in silence as we finish dinner and drift off to our rooms. I’ve been analyzing him each day, looking for an additional sign, some further clue. Each night I comb through his data with the new key Hideo had given me. Nothing. He’s heading into the Dark World tomorrow, and I still have no answers as to why. And for all I know, he’s watching me, too.

  “Em,” Hammie calls to me as I head to my door. I turn around to see her hurrying toward me, a package tucked under her arm. She holds it out to me. “Wear this around your head when you sleep. It knocks me out pretty fast.”

  I squeeze the soft fabric. “Thanks,” I say.

  She shrugs once. “I don’t mean to keep pushing you.” She shoves her hands into her pockets. “You can tell me, you know, if you’re having trouble with something. I’ll train one-on-one with you.”

  I can see her chess mind sorting through the pieces of my words, not quite believing my excuses, looking a dozen steps ahead for what I might do next. She senses something’s bothering me. “I know,” I reply, giving her a smile. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “It’s a plan.” She smiles back and I feel a twinge of guilt. I’ve never been a part of a group like this—a tight-knit group of friends that do everything together. We could be closer, if I let her in.

  Instead, I just bid her good night. She does the same, but I can see the doubt in her eyes as she turns away and heads to her own room. I watch her go before sliding my door shut behind me.

  That night, as I’m taking a late swim in my balcony’s pool in an attempt to clear my head, I get a message from Hideo.

  You’re frustrated.

  I pause in my laps, blink warm water out of my eyes, and tap on Hideo’s hovering text in my vision before I can think it through.

  My chat request is sent, and a moment later, Hideo accepts it, appearing at the edge of the pool as a virtual image. He’s in a room dimly lit by warm light, pulling his tie loose. Without it, he looks more his age, impossibly young and less authoritative. To my annoyance, my heart tugs sharply at the sight of him. His knuckles don’t look bruised tonight. I guess he hasn’t been boxing in the past few days.

  I lift my arms out of the water and fold them on top of the pool’s tiled edge. Droplets of water on my tattooed skin catch the moonlight. “How can you tell?” I reply.

  “I haven’t heard from you in days.”

  I’m in no mood to share my training insecurities with him. “What if I’m just saving up info for the next time I report to you?” I say instead. “I haven’t even gone into the Dark World yet.”

  Hideo turns away for a moment as he puts away his cuff links. “And is that why I haven’t heard from you?” he says over his shoulder.

  “Is this your way of telling me I should be making faster progress?”

  He looks back at me, his expression partly hidden in shadows. “It’s my way of asking if I can help you out.”

  “I thought I was the one helping you out.”

  He pauses again, but in the dim light, his head turns slightly toward me to reveal the hint of a smile on his lips. His eyes hold mine for a moment. I’m glad for the darkness that hides my reddening cheeks. “I know you’re exhausted,” he finally says.

  I look away and brush beads of water from my arm. “No pity needed.”

  “None given. I wouldn’t have put you there if you couldn’t handle it.”

  Always with his knowing attitude. “If you want to help me out,” I say as I sink back into the water, “you could always offer some moral support.”

  “Moral support.” He turns to face me, his smile turning playful. “And what kind of moral support would you like?”

  “I don’t know. Some encouraging words?”

  Hideo raises an eyebrow at me in amusement. “Very well.�
�� He takes a step closer to me. “I’m checking in because I miss hearing from you,” he says. “Does that help?”

  I pause with my mouth open, my momentary bravado disappearing. Before I can reply, he bids me good night and disconnects our chat. Hideo’s image vanishes, replaced with empty air, but not before I get one last glimpse at his face, his eyes still on me.

  • • • • •

  THAT NIGHT, I dream that Hideo and I are back at Sound Museum Vision, except we’re not in the middle of the dance floor. Instead, we’re upstairs, tucked in some dark corner of the balcony overlooking the space, and he has me pushed against the wall. He’s kissing me hard.

  I startle awake from the dream, flustered and irritated with myself.

  His words are still ringing in my thoughts when the day comes for Ren to go into the Dark World. As the others get ready to grab lunch, I lock my door and log in to Warcross.

  Instead of heading into the usual game, I bring up a hovering keyboard and type in a series of extra commands, my fingers tapping against the floor. The room flickers, and suddenly it goes dark, leaving me suspended in complete blackness.

  I hold my breath. I visit the Dark World often enough, but no matter how many times I go, I’ll never get used to the suffocating black that descends over my eyes before I can enter.

  Finally, horizontal red lines appear in my vision, lines that—when I zoom in—turn into code. It fills my vision, page after page, until it finally hits the bottom and gives me a blinking cursor. I type in a few more commands, and a new ream of code fills my view.

  Then, suddenly, the dark red code vanishes, and I’m standing in the middle of a gritty city’s streets, my typical [null] name hanging over my head. Other darkened figures bustle past, none of them paying any attention to me. I stand underneath a series of endless, glowing neon signs running along the buildings overhead. They illuminate me in different colors.

  I smile. I’m past the shields that protect the surface level of Warcross and have dived into the sprawling, encrypted, anonymous underground world of virtual reality that has sprung up right under the Warcross platform. It’s a second home, this place where everyone speaks my language, and where those who might otherwise be powerless in real life can now be incredibly powerful.

  Most people who frequent the Dark World don’t even bother with a name for it. If you’re here, you’re “down under,” and anyone who knows what they’re doing should know that you’re not talking about Australia. The world I walk through now makes no logical sense, at least not in the usual way. Narrow, dilapidated buildings stand right in the middle of the street, while some doors leading into buildings hang upside down, as if impossible to get into. The main street intersects with other streets in midair that lead from windowsill to windowsill, connecting the impossible. Like one giant Escher painting. When I look skyward, a series of dark trains run parallel to one another, disappearing into both horizons. They look weird, stretched out, as if distorted through some sort of circus mirror. Water drips nearby, running into the gutters and pooling in potholes.

  I glance up at the neon signs. If you look closely at them, you’ll notice that they aren’t really signs at all, but lists of names highlighted in neon. If you’re stupid enough to visit the Dark World without knowing how to protect your identity, then in no time, you’ll see your real name and your personal info—Social Security numbers, home addresses, private phone numbers—listed up there on those signs. That’s what the names are: a running list of all the users who dared to come down here unprepared, broadcast to the rest of the Dark World and leaving them at the mercy of those who walked these streets.

  That’s where I’d been listed, the first time I went down here.

  I pass a sign for the main street. Silk Road, it says. Underneath the lists are rows of shops with their own neon signs. Some of them sell illegal goods—drugs, mostly. Others have a little red lantern hanging outside their door, offering virtual sex. Still others have a video icon over their doors, signaling live virtual voyeurism. I look away and hurry on. I may be hidden behind a black suit and a randomized face, but just because I frequent this world doesn’t mean I’m ever comfortable with it.

  Now I bring up a search, then tap Pirate’s Den when the result scrolls by. The world blurs around me, and an instant later, I’m standing at a part of the street where the buildings give way to a pier. A pirate ship looms along the shore, lit up with strings of lanterns that dangle in intervals to the top of its masts, the lights reflecting against the water in a sheet of glitter.

  The Pirate’s Den is one of the more popular hangouts down here. The ship’s bow displays an ornate wooden carving in the semblance of a backward copyright symbol. Information wants to be free, I mouth the Den’s slogan silently. A scarlet banner hangs over the gangplank leading up to its main deck, where a steady stream of anonymous avatars are now walking.

  Today, the banner advertises betting on a Warcross game happening inside. These are matches with haphazard rules run by gangsters, the matches where I find and catch the gamblers who get in trouble with the law. Darkcross games, everyone jokingly calls them. I can only imagine how many indebted Warcross gamblers are going to come out of this one.

  Ren’s probably here for this, I add to myself as I head up the gangplank.

  On board the ship, the speakers are playing an electronic track pirated from an unreleased Frankie Dena album. A glass cylinder looms in the center of the deck, upon which a list of names and numbers constantly updates and loops. The names on this list are famous ones—prime ministers, presidents, pop stars—and beside each name is an amount of notes offered. The assassination lottery. People pitch in money to whichever person they’d like to see killed. Whenever one of these pots rises high enough, some assassin in the Dark World is bound to be motivated to assassinate that person and win the pot.

  It happens rarely, of course. But the Pirate’s Den has existed in one form or another almost as long as the internet’s been around, and every decade or so, there’s an assassination that actually goes through. In fact, Ronald Tiller, a universally hated diplomat acquitted of a rape charge, had died several years ago in a mysterious car explosion. I’d seen his name at the top of the assassination lottery list a week before it happened.

  I glance up to a balcony that overlooks the cylinder of names. There are a couple of avatars sitting there, watching. One of them is leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, observing the list silently. Potential assassins, waiting for the right amounts of money. I shiver and look away.

  On the other walls are lists of statistics about each official Warcross team. The stats on the Phoenix Riders and Demon Brigade take up one entire wall. Beneath it runs a scrolling list of betting odds against the two teams. The favor is overwhelmingly on the Demon Brigade’s side.

  Groups of unnamed avatars cluster here and there, deep in their own conversations. Many of them are hulking in appearance, even monstrous—bulging arms and long claws, black pools in the place of eyes. Some Dark World folks really like to look the part. I search for Ren. He could be any of these avatars, disguised just like we are.

  I check the time. Almost one. I crane my neck, scanning the crowd as I tap out commands, searching for any sign of Ren’s signature in here. Nothing.

  Then—

  The gold dot reappears on my map. As I make my way through the crowd, I suddenly see an alert telling me that Ren is in the room. Sure enough, when I check his data, I see the WC0 marker pop up in his info. My heart starts to beat faster. He’s the silhouette I’d seen in the arena. What—or who—is he here for?

  I glance around as the crowd quiets, an expectant hush in the air.

  Suddenly, the assassination list on the glass cylinder temporarily disappears. It’s replaced with the following:

  OBSIDIAN KINGS vs WHITE SHARKS

  The Dark World has its own set of famous teams, too—except these players stay anonymous and play very, very dirty. Regular Warcross teams are sponsored by
wealthy patrons; Dark World teams are owned by gangsters. When you win, you win money for the gang that owns you. When you lose, the audience casts bets for you to go onto the assassination lottery. Lose enough times, and you just might see yourself listed at the top of the lottery. And then even your own sponsor might be the one to assassinate you.

  Everyone who is looking at the cylinder now sees a JOIN button hovering in the center of their vision. I press it. A field pops up to ask me how many notes I want to bet. I look around the room, staring at the numbers that hover over each of the other gamblers: N1,000. N5,000. N10,000. I even see a few who have cast bets of well over N100,000.

  I cast a bet of N100. No need to stand out here.

  The world around us changes, and suddenly we are no longer standing on the deck of the Pirate’s Den, but on top of a skyscraper, illuminated by a bloodred sky. Neon-white players pop up in the world, glowing alongside power-ups. The view of the Pirate’s Den minimizes to a smaller screen in the corner of my vision, one that will appear over the center of my view whenever I glance down at it. Now I use it, searching for Ren’s gold dot.

  There he is, standing just a few feet away from me. Over his head is a light green number of notes: 100. I raise an eyebrow. Not a very high bidder, either. That’s strange. Usually, when I track someone down under, the gambler tends to blow eye-popping numbers of notes.

  But Ren is risking his reputation as a professional player just to gamble a handful of notes here in an illegal game. Doesn’t add up. He’s not here for the game. He’s dallying around, probably just keeping a low profile while he waits. I’m willing to bet he’s here to make contact with someone.

  The announcer comes on, introduces the ten players, and then starts the match. Unlike regular games, this game has two numbers displayed at the bottom of my view. Each number is the total notes bet on each team. I can hear the roar of the audience as the players dart into motion. Two opposing players reach each other and both swing their arms back to attack. As they do, one of them suddenly glitches out of sight. He glitches back in behind the other player, and before the second player can react, the first one kicks him off the building’s roof. The crowd cheers. I just stay quiet, watching. In a real game, a move like that would have been banned immediately. But here, with no official Henka Games employees overseeing it, anything goes.