Warcross (Warcross #1)(95)

It’s all done. I clench the Artifact like my life depends on it. That’s it. Is that it? A choked laugh breaks out of me, and all the energy rushes out of my chest. Asher’s voice has come on through my earpiece, and he’s shouting something ecstatically, but I can’t understand what he’s saying. I can’t concentrate on anything except the fact that the game is over.

Then, something strange happens.

A jolt of electricity sparks through me. Like a static shock. I jump. A unified gasp ripples through the audience, too, as if everyone had felt it at the exact same time. Numbers and data flicker over each of the players, in and out, then gone.

What was that? I stand there, blinking for an instant, unsure of what just happened. A feeling of dread hits me.

In front of me, Shahira’s avatar vanishes, replaced by Zero, his dark armor and opaque helmet black under the stormy sky. He stares at me. “You triggered it,” he says. His voice is low, furious.

“Triggered what? You’re done!” I shout at him. “And so is your plan.”

Something about my words seems to surprise Zero. “You don’t know.”

Don’t know? Know what?

He straightens. “My plan,” he says, “was to stop Hideo.”





30



What?

I shake my head, not understanding. But before I can reply, Zero vanishes as the Silver Circle world around us freezes and fades into black. When I blink again, I’m back in my hotel room, and the games are done. I sit for a moment, startled by the silence. It’s all over so suddenly. I’d done it—and even though I still haven’t figured out who Zero is, I know that I’ve stopped his plans, whatever they happened to be.

You don’t know. My plan was to stop Hideo.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? What don’t I know? Something tugs at the back of my mind, a nagging little worry.

As if on cue, a message pops up in my view. It’s Asher. I accept it, and his familiar face appears as if he’s in the room with me, his expression elated. “Emi!” he exclaims. “You did it! We won!”

I manage a smile at him and mutter something back, but Zero’s words run through my head.

Where are you?

It’s a message from Hideo.

“I’ll call you back, Ash,” I say, then end the call and type back to Hideo in a fog. If I can just see him in person, he’ll be able to explain away what Zero had said. I’ll tell him all about it, and he’ll know what Zero was referring to.

Barely a half hour later, my door opens, and I look up to see Hideo walk into my room, flanked by his bodyguards. He shakes his head once at them, and they stop immediately in unison, obeying so quickly that it is as if they were programmed to do it. Then they turn and go outside, leaving us alone. I haven’t seen Hideo in several days, not in person, and my heart leaps immediately in response to his presence. I hop to my feet. He can explain what’s going on.

Hideo stops a foot away from me and gives me a strange, solemn frown. “I told you to leave.”

Something in his gaze makes me pause. Zero’s words come back to me, suspended in the air between us. “Zero was in the game,” I say. “He’d rigged the Artifacts with a virus. He said something to me before he disappeared, that he was here to stop your plans.” I frown. “I don’t understand what he means.”

Hideo stays silent.

“I mean,” I go on, now afraid to stop talking, “I thought his plans were to trigger a destruction of the NeuroLink, maybe hurt everyone connected to it, but I didn’t know why he wanted that.” I stare at Hideo, suddenly dreading his answer. “Do you know?”

Hideo bows his head. His brows are furrowed, and everything about his posture screams of his reluctance to reply.

Zero can’t be right, can he? What do I not know?

“What is he talking about?” I say, my voice soft now.

Hideo finally looks at me again. It is a haunted expression, the boy of curiosity and playfulness hidden now beneath a veil. It’s the same seriousness I always see on his face, but this is the first time I feel a sense of foreboding from it, like it’s more than just the expression of a quiet creator. After a while, he sighs and runs his hand through his hair. A familiar screen appears between us.

Link with Hideo?

“Let me show you,” he says.

I hesitate. Then I tap to accept the invite.

A trickle of Hideo’s emotions opens to me as our Link establishes. He’s wary, weighed down by something. But he’s optimistic, too. Optimistic about what?

“We are always searching for a way to improve our lives with machines,” Hideo says. “With data. For a while now, I’ve been working on developing the perfect artificial intelligence, an algorithm that, when implemented through the NeuroLink, can fix our flaws better than any human police force.”

I frown at him. “‘Fix our flaws’? What are you talking about?”

Hideo brings up a new screen between us with a subtle wave of his hand. It looks like an oval of colors, greens and blues, yellows and purples, all constantly shifting. “You’re looking inside the mind of a NeuroLink user,” he explains. Then he swipes again. The oval is replaced with another one, with its own shifting colors. “And another user.” He swipes yet again. “And another.”