Warcross (Warcross #1)(48)

“I just figured that you’d instructed the Phoenix Riders to draft me first.”

“I didn’t tell anyone to make you the number one pick. Asher Wing did that on his own. You’re quite the commodity.”

So, Hideo hadn’t been involved in that, after all. “Well,” I say, “the Wardraft was interesting in more ways than one. Look what I found.” I bring up my screenshot from the Wardraft and hover it between us. It rotates slowly, giving us a full view of the dome. The unmistakable shadow of the figure’s silhouette is perched prominently in the dome’s tangle of metal. Over his head is the word [null]. “On the day of the Wardraft, I saw someone watching from the Tokyo Dome’s rafters.”

This catches Hideo’s interest. He studies the screenshot, his eyes narrowing on the dark silhouette perched in the dome’s maze of beams. “How do you know it’s a he?”

“Oh, I know better than that. It’s Ren.”

Hideo’s stare darts from the screenshot over to me. “Renoir Thomas?”

I nod. “DJ Ren. A marker in the screenshot’s code pointed to him. Since then, I’ve hooked up all of the official players to my Warcross profile.” I pull up everyone’s accounts. “I may need to go through some of their Memories, see who else might be involved.”

Hideo’s gaze goes to the digital map I’ve created that shows where each of the Warcross players currently are. Most are in their dorms. A group of Andromedans are out in the city, while Asher has left the Riders’ dorm. Ren is still sitting in his room.

“You’re more dangerous than I thought,” Hideo muses, admiring my handiwork.

I offer him a smile. “I promise I’ll be nice to you.”

This time, I manage to coax a laugh from him. “Should I be even more concerned?” he says to me.

I let his question linger, and bring up Ren’s email. “I’ve been running a hack on Ren’s info,” I reply, pulling the email forward to hover between us as a dark, encrypted cube of data. “Found this yesterday, although I can’t seem to unlock it.”

Hideo scans the file once. Like me, his eyes go immediately to the red marker on the edge of the cube. “This was sent from the Dark World,” he says.

I nod. “And wrapped in a shield I don’t recognize.”

Hideo brings his hands slightly apart, then rotates the cube once. “I do,” he mutters. He expands his hands again. The cube grows larger, and as it does, he pulls one side of it so that I can see its surface in detail. I narrow my eyes at it. The surface is coated with an elaborate, winding series of endlessly repeating patterns.

“It’s called a fractal shield,” he explains. “A new variation on onion shields we’ve seen lately, except that the fractal shield’s layers loop endlessly, multiplying each time you burrow through a top layer. The more you try to break it open, the more secure it becomes. Your hacks will run in place forever without getting anywhere.”

No wonder I couldn’t break my way through it. “I’ve never seen this before.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. This is mutated from security we developed inside Henka Games.”

I lean forward, my gaze running over the surface of the cube. “Can you break it?”

Hideo puts his hands against two surfaces of the cube. When he removes his hands, a copy of the top of the fractal shield floats above the cube. “An infinite shield requires an infinite key,” he says. “Something that multiplies at the same rate and type as the shield itself.”

“Every locked door has a key,” I murmur.

At my words, Hideo meets my gaze. He smiles.

He types several commands that are invisible to me, then runs it through a Henka Games program. A key forms in his hands, blacked out and ever-shifting, its own surface coated with the same endless patterns. I look on as he takes the key and presses it back against the cube.

The surface of the cube suddenly stills. The infinitely repeating fractals that cover it vanish. Then, in a flash, the cube disappears—replaced by a message.

It only says one thing.

1300PD

My gaze hitches on it at the same time Hideo’s does.

“Pirate’s Den,” we say in unison.

To a normal person, 1300PD would be meaningless. But to me, it’s a scheduled event. The 1300 is 1:00 p.m., written according to a twenty-four-hour clock—and PD stands for “Pirate’s Den,” an abbreviation I know well. It’s a notorious gathering place in the Dark World.

The event is tagged for March twentieth.

“Well,” I say. “Guess I know where I’m going this week.”

Hideo considers the message for a moment longer before giving me a questioning look. “You’re headed in alone?”

“You crack the fractal shields.” I lean back on my bed and cross my arms. “It’s my job to walk with the criminals, Mr. Tanaka.”

At that, he smiles a little. “Hideo, please.”

I tilt my head at him. “You insist on calling me Miss Chen in public. It’s only fair.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “I try not to give the tabloids more gossip than they can handle. They’re particularly aggressive at this time of year.”

“Oh? And what gossip is that? That we’re on a first-name basis? Scandalous. It seems like the tabloids are already making up their own gossip about me, anyway.”