Wildcard, Page 29

  What am I going to do now? Go back to New York? How will I settle back into a normal life? I picture myself applying to college now, filling out an application for a job, working in an office. It’s a strange, surreal thing to imagine.

  “Warcross wasn’t who any of us are,” I say, mostly to myself.

  “No,” Roshan agrees. There’s a long pause. “It’s just something we made.”

  And he’s right, of course. It would’ve been nothing without them—us—making it matter. Without us, it really was just a game.

  “It won’t change this,” Roshan replies, gesturing at the three of us. “You all know that, right? We’re linked forever now.”

  He lifts up his glass bottle in a toast. Hammie joins him, and then Asher. I lift mine, too.

  “To good friends.”

  “To pulling each other up.”

  “To sticking together, no matter the apocalypse.”

  “To our team.”

  We clink. The sound rings out across the garden, then fades into the sky.

  * * *

  * * *

  WHEN I GET back to my hotel at night, there’s a written message waiting for me on my nightstand. I stare at it for a second before picking it up and holding it up to the light. It’s a phone number left by the hotel concierge, plus a message asking me to call.

  I check my phone again. In the quiet of the garden and the company of my teammates, I hadn’t been looking at it at all. Now I realize that I’ve missed a few calls from the same number. I dial it, then walk over to my window and hold it up to my ear.

  A woman’s voice comes on the other end. “Miss Chen?” she says.

  “Who’s asking?” I reply.

  “I’m Divya Kapoor, the new CEO of Henka Games.”

  I stand up a little straighter. It’s the woman I’d seen at the Supreme Court. “Yes?”

  There’s a brief, embarrassed pause on the other end. “Miss Chen, on behalf of Henka Games, I would like to apologize to you for everything that has happened. As you know, Hideo’s actions were not revealed to everyone in the studio, and I am as shocked as the rest of the world over the allegations. It is because of your help that we have avoided sheer catastrophe. We owe you a great deal.”

  I listen to her quietly. It wasn’t so long ago that I’d walked into Henka Games feeling like a complete outcast. “You called me just to say that Henka Games is sorry?” I say, then immediately wince. I hadn’t meant my words to come out so accusatory. Some things never change, I guess.

  “There is something else,” Divya adds. She hesitates again before going on. “We are in the process of dismantling all that’s wrong with the NeuroLink. But we also want to find a way to rebuild it.”

  To rebuild it.

  “There are too many things that rely on the NeuroLink,” she continues. “Taking it down entirely is not only an option that the global economy cannot bear—it is also impossible. This is not a technology that is just going to disappear, not even after what had happened. Someone else will make it.”

  I swallow as I listen to her describe the various things attached to the system. In Tokyo alone, thousands of businesses revolving around the NeuroLink have shuttered. Companies that create and sell virtual goods. Educational services. Universities. That’s not even including all the businesses that relied on the Warcross games themselves, which are completely gone without the NeuroLink. But that’s not even the heart of what Divya is saying.

  Once technology has been made, it cannot be unmade. What Hideo had built is going to keep existing. Someone else will invent new virtual and augmented reality that can do the same things as the original NeuroLink. Maybe even go beyond it. Someone else will fill the hole that the NeuroLink left.

  The question is who. And what they will do with it.

  “We need to rebuild the system, but as you know, we cannot rebuild it to be the same as it always was. It will be done under the supervision of governments and the people, out in the open. It will be done honestly.”

  “And what does this have to do with me?” I ask.

  Divya takes a deep breath. “I’m calling to see if you might be interested in helping us put together a team. We want to target its flaws, cut out the bad, and make something better from it. And you . . . well, you’re the reason we found those flaws in the first place.”

  Rebuild the NeuroLink. Rebuild Warcross.

  My entire goal had been to stop Hideo, and that meant stopping the NeuroLink. I’d had my life transformed and turned upside down because of Warcross, and I’d just said my good-byes to my teammates, had braced myself to head back to America without any idea of what I would do next.

  But my second thought . . .

  Just because the system was flawed doesn’t mean it isn’t worth existing. Like anything else, it’s a tool that depends on those who use it. It has changed millions of lives for the better. And maybe now, with the right minds behind it and the awareness that comes with experience, we can make the NeuroLink into a better version of itself.

  Every problem has a solution. But after every solution, there’s a new problem to tackle, some new challenge to take on. You don’t stop after you solve one thing. You keep going, you find a new way and a new path, try to do better and create better. Tearing something down isn’t the end; doing something great, or better, something right, is. Or maybe there isn’t such a thing as an end goal at all. You accomplish something, and then you shift, ready to accomplish the next. You keep solving one problem after another until you change the world.

  Up until now, my life’s goals have been limited to stopping what’s wrong. Now I’m being handed the chance to participate in another side of fixing things: the chance to create something.

  At my long pause, Divya clears her throat. “Well,” she says, her voice still reverent and apologetic, “I’ll give you some time to think it over. Should you be interested, don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly. We’re ready to hit the ground running with you. And if you’re not, we understand, too. You’ve done more than anyone ever should.”

  We exchange a brief farewell. Then she hangs up, and I’m left standing in my room, my phone clutched at my side as I stare out at the nightscape beyond my window.

  My phone buzzes again. I look down at the incoming call.

  Then I put it on speaker, and a familiar voice fills the air. Once, it was a voice that filled me with terror. Now . . .

  “Well,” Zero says. “What are you going to say?”

  I smile a little. “You were listening in on all of that?”

  “I am everywhere online at the same time,” he replies. “It’s not hard for me to hear a phone conversation.”

  “I know. You’re just going to have to learn some boundaries.”

  “You’re still glad I heard it,” he says. “I can tell in your voice.”

  He sounds almost like he used to—but there is something human in his words now. The part of him made intact by Sasuke’s mind.

  After the institute was raided by police, and Hideo and I were taken from the panic room, after Zero’s suit went missing and all the news broke, rumors began to circulate online that an armored figure occasionally appeared in people’s accounts. That someone was leaving cryptic markers wherever he went, signatures with a zero in them. That Jax, when given access to a phone or computer, chats with someone who doesn’t exist.

  There’s nothing to substantiate any of it, of course. Most think it could just be the work of online pranksters and fledgling hackers.

  But I know. As data, as information breathing between wires and electricity, Zero—Sasuke—lives on.

  “Stop analyzing me,” I reply.

  “I’m not.” He pauses. “You know you have my support, if you choose to join her.”

  “I may need it.”

  “Well?” This is the Sasuke part of his mind, br
ight and curious and kind. “What are you going to tell her, then?”

  I start to smile. It widens until it turns into a grin. When I open my mouth to respond, my answer is unwavering.

  “I’m in.”

  35

  The front entrance of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters is crowded with people this morning, just as it has been for weeks. As my car pulls up, people turn and start to gather around, their cameras and attention now pointed at me. I look out at the sea of faces. They’re all still here because today is the day that Hideo will be moved from this place to start serving out his time.

  Everyone is gathered here, hoping to hear some news. There’s been no official announcement yet about his sentence.

  Microphones are thrust in my direction as the car door opens, and shouts fill the air. I keep my head down as bodyguards push back the throngs to let me pass. I don’t look up again until we’ve reached the inside of the building. There, I bow my head briefly to an officer and follow him up the elevators.

  Someone greets me as I get off. “Chen-san,” she says, bowing low to me in greeting. I return the gesture. “Please, follow me. We’ve been expecting you.”

  She takes me down a hall to an interrogation room with a long glass window. Along the outside wall stand half a dozen police officers, their faces turned sternly forward. It’s as if they’re guarding someone who is the most dangerous criminal in the world. Maybe they’re right—through the window, I can see a familiar figure sitting alone at the table, waiting. It’s Hideo.

  They bow their heads at the sight of me, then open the door to let me in. When I step inside, he looks up and gives me a small smile that sends a rush of warmth through me.

  I hadn’t realized I missed him so much.

  The room is small and plain. One wall has the glass window I’d seen from the outside, while its opposite wall is an enormous black screen that extends from ceiling to floor. In the center of the room is a single table with two chairs. Hideo is seated in one of those chairs now.

  “Hey,” I say as I take the seat across from him.

  “Hey,” he replies.

  Everything about this moment should remind me of when I’d faced him at Henka Games as a small-time bounty hunter, anxious and awkward. Hideo looks as polished as ever; I’m opposite him, wondering what he’s thinking.

  This time, though, a set of silver handcuffs binds Hideo’s hands together. His side is still healing, and underneath his fitted shirt, I can see the telltale sign of bandages wrapped around his waist. I’m no longer dressed in my torn jeans and black hoodie—but in a sharp, tailored suit of my own. Hammie had helped me pull my hair up into a high bun. It’s the looking-glass version of our first meeting.

  There are also other differences that matter. He looks tired, but his eyes are alert, his expression more open than I’ve ever seen it.

  We search the other’s gaze. He notices the change in my appearance, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he says, “I didn’t think you’d come to see me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  He smiles a little, amused and shy. “I thought you were already headed back to the States.”

  There’s something broken in his words that makes me sad. I think of the way he’d turned his face up to me in the panic room, what he’d murmured to me when he thought he was uttering his dying words. I think of his arms around his little brother, his words through his tears. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.

  Now, after everything we’ve gone through, he’s hesitant to believe that we could ever find our way back to our beginning again. He is ready for his punishment.

  I clear my throat and say, “Are you going home today?”

  He nods. Hideo may technically have a prison term, but there’s no way the police can keep someone of his status in a regular penitentiary, with all of the attention and disruption he would bring. Like other prominent people of the world, he’s going to be serving out his sentence under house arrest, with a small army of police around his property and the government keeping a close watch on what he does.

  Hideo shakes his head, and for a moment he looks idly toward the glass window, lost in thought. I don’t need to say anything to know that he’s thinking about his brother. “We were never well matched, were we? There’s no version of our story that wouldn’t have been doomed from the start.”

  “If I were to do this all again, Hideo, I’d still have to hunt you down.”

  “I know.”

  I’m quiet for a second. “It doesn’t mean I don’t still have feelings for you.”

  He turns to study me, and all I can think about is what the world would be like if Taylor had never taken an interest in his brother. If my father had never died young and I hadn’t been so desperate for money. How did this chain of events end with me sitting here across from Hideo, our positions of power flipped, the question of what if hanging in the air?

  “I’m sorry, Emika,” he says. “Truly.” And the pinch in his eyes, the wince he tries to hide, tells me he’s being sincere.

  I take a deep breath. “Ms. Kapoor called me. The new CEO of Henka Games. They’re going to rebuild the NeuroLink and have invited me on board. I’ve accepted her offer.”

  At first, I can’t tell how Hideo feels about this news. Surprised? Resigned? Maybe he always guessed that the NeuroLink couldn’t die completely, that someone else would eventually take the reins. I don’t know how he feels about that someone turning out to be me.

  But he just looks at me now. “She’s smart to tap you for it. You know as much about it as anyone who has ever worked on developing the system.”

  “I’ve been tasked with putting together a team to help rebuild the NeuroLink.”

  “Have you picked this team yet?”

  “I didn’t come here today just to see you.”

  Silence. He lifts a skeptical eyebrow at me.

  I nod without a word.

  “Emika, I’ve been sentenced for what I did. You were hunting me yourself.”

  “It doesn’t mean I don’t think you still made something remarkable.” I lean forward against the table, then glance toward the black screen that sits flush against the entire side of the wall. “Play the footage.”

  As Hideo looks over at it, the screen turns on.

  It is a sequence of videos, news and memories from years past.

  There’s a snippet from a documentary about an old woman trapped in an unresponsive body who was able to use the NeuroLink to communicate with her family. There’s an interview where a journalist travels to a war-torn border, where young refugees are using the glasses to continue their school lessons or talk with separated relatives. There is the inside of a children’s hospital that Hideo had once visited, where kids could travel down corridors that looked like fantastical worlds instead of white halls, where their rooms were filled with magical creatures that made them laugh. Alzheimer’s patients able to rely on the NeuroLink’s recordings of their memories. People trapped in a burning building who could use the NeuroLink’s grid to find their way out. The videos are endless.

  Hideo watches them without a word. Maybe there will always be a weight on his shoulders, the guilt of what he’d done wrong, the loss of his brother. But he doesn’t look away from the videos, and when they finish, he doesn’t speak.

  “Hideo,” I say gently, “you changed the world forever when you created the NeuroLink. And even though no one is perfect, it doesn’t mean we don’t listen. Become better. There are a million good things left to do, and they can be done responsibly, with thought and respect, without taking away from what’s wonderful about the world.”

  He looks at me. “I don’t know if I still deserve a part in all of this,” he says.

  I shake my head. “It doesn’t mean you won’t be closely watched. Or carefully guarded. You won't be able to work directly on anything, or write co
de, or be an official part of the company. There are going to be a lot of rules. I can promise you that.” I meet his eyes. “But you know the NeuroLink more intimately than anyone does. Before it was the world’s, it was yours. So I still believe there’s value in your advice, that we can benefit from your knowledge and your help.”

  The spark in Hideo’s eyes now is the one I recognize from his early interviews. It’s the creator’s gleam, that magical thing that keeps you awake at night, wide-eyed with potential and promise.

  “You once said that you were tired of the horror in the world,” I say. “Well, so am I. We can still find a way to fight it, the right way. We can find a way to do this together.”

  Hideo doesn’t say anything for a long time. Then, he smiles. It’s not his secret smile or a suspicious one. Instead, it’s everything I could have hoped for. Genuine, honest, full of warmth, like the little boy he’d once been, sitting by lamplight in his father’s repair shop and piecing together something that would change everything forever. It’s the smile I used to have when my father waved me over and showed me how he stitched delicate pieces of lace, one by one, onto the train of a dress. The same smile from when I stayed hunched over my laptop in the foster home, feeling in control of my life for the very first time.

  Maybe we can find a way to move forward, on the same page. We can find a way to be together.

  I lean forward into this looking-glass version of our very first meeting. My steady gaze meets his.

  “So, I have a job offer for you,” I say to him. “Would you like to hear more?”

  Emika Chen has accepted the role of CEO for Henka Games. She has pledged the majority of her fortune to a trust dedicated to funding the creations of young women from difficult circumstances. . . . Chen was seen holding hands with Hideo Tanaka as they left a local restaurant early last week, fueling speculation on their relationship.

  —TOKYO LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE