Warcross (Warcross #1)(46)

I rest a hand on my hip and look at Hammie. “How did you always know what I’d do next?”

She taps her temple once. “Don’t let me talk you into playing chess,” she quips, repeating Asher’s warning he’d given me when I’d first met her.

“Hammie can structure out your moves a dozen steps ahead,” Asher explains. “Like any master chess player. She can sort your potential paths in her head and, judging by your body language, figure out what you’re the most likely to do, all while she’s on the move. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I didn’t know you’d throw yourself at me during those final moments, though,” Hammie adds. “That’s the fun of playing a wild card, isn’t it? You never know what kind of player you’ll get.”

A dozen steps ahead. She had probably guessed my moves from the instant we began, maybe the moment I started running toward the streetlight. I sigh. “Well? What other classic weaknesses do I have?”

Asher holds up two fingers now. “You didn’t listen to my instructions.”

“I got the Morph power-up.”

“Your instructions were to retrieve the Morph power-up for me,” Roshan interrupts me. “Your team captain. The exercise didn’t end when you grabbed the power-up first. It ends when you hand it over to me. This isn’t a solo game, Emika, and you can’t play as if you alone want to win.” As he says this, Hammie walks over to Asher and tosses the power-up to him. He catches it without looking.

“Nicely done,” Asher says.

She beams. “Thanks, Captain.”

I’m glad I’m inside Warcross, so that the others can’t tell that my cheeks are turning red from embarrassment. Hackers and bounty hunters aren’t exactly known for being great team players. I don’t do well with instructions. But I swallow these thoughts and nod at Roshan. “Sorry,” I say.

He shakes his head. “Don’t sweat it, love. Thieves aren’t supposed to have daggers in their possession—Fighters are. But this is how Tremaine can act during a game, and you just successfully fought him off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone react that quickly to a surprise attack. A brilliant first exercise, really, especially from a wild card.”

“Yeah.” Hammie nods at me, too. “Not bad. You put up a hell of a fight, Emi. You’re just going to have to fight a little bit harder to beat me.” She winks. “Don’t worry—you’re still better than Roshan was when he was a wild card.”

Roshan gives her an exasperated look that makes her laugh. And in spite of myself, I smile, too.

“Next!” Asher says. “Roshan and Ren. Get up there.” The power-ups reset, and this time the Morph power-up is inside one of the buildings. I look on as the others move away. My attention stays focused on Ren. The progress bar in the bottom of my vision has finished and my program is now running on my other teammates, but with the pitiful number of Ren’s encrypted files I’ve managed to grab, I might as well not have run my hack on him at all.

? ? ? ? ?

THE SUN HAS already begun to set by the time we finish training. The instant I head back to my room and close my door, I bring up all of my downloaded info on the players and display it on my wall. A long list of data appears—birth date, home address, phone number, credit card information, calendar. I scroll through it, searching.

Hammie’s info appears first, detailing some of the plane tickets she’d recently purchased and hotels she’d booked. I catch a glimpse of bits of Memories she’s stored away. In one, she’s laughing with people who look like her mom and sister as they try to pose for a good shot in front of the Grand Canyon. In another, she’s at a chess tournament, staring down at the board. It’s speed chess—each player’s taking a fraction of a second to make a move. I pause in spite of myself, awed as her fingers fly across the board. I’m barely able to track her moves, let alone keep up with why she’s making them. In sixty seconds flat, she checkmates her opponent’s king. A roar comes from the audience, and her opponent shakes her hand grudgingly.

In her final Memory, she’s looking on behind a barricade as a man in uniform walks to a waiting helicopter. Nothing unusual; lots of people record Memories of greeting loved ones or sending them off. The man glances over his shoulder at her and waves. She waves back, recording in his direction long after the helicopter has taken off.

I switch to Asher. There’s nothing incriminating or interesting in any of his data either, other than a few texts about flight arrival and departure times. His most recent Memory, aside from the draft and the party, is of him at the airport’s private jet strip, waiting beside an older boy in sunglasses who I recognize immediately as his brother Daniel. Bodyguards stand near them both, but Daniel carries bags labeled with Asher’s name instead of letting the handlers do it. The brothers don’t utter a word to each other. And when the time comes for Daniel to finally hand over Asher’s bags to an attendant, Asher heads for the jet’s stairs without saying good-bye.

I try to shrug off the familiar note of guilt I always feel when combing through others’ private data. It’s your job, I remind myself. No room for feeling bad. Still, I delete the Memories of both Hammie and Asher from my records so that I can’t watch them again.

A few of Roshan’s messages are to his parents, one is to his sister, and one is a delivery receipt for some sort of gift. There are no recorded Memories, but to my surprise, the gift receipt tells me that it was sent from Tremaine, with a single line written on the card. Did you get my letter? T. I search the rest of his data, but there’s no indication of the letter in question, or that Roshan has responded to Tremaine’s gift yet. Nothing terribly suspicious, but I flag the data anyway for future reference.