Warcross (Warcross #1)(98)

Hideo leans close enough for our lips to touch. The part of me that is made of raw instinct stirs, wanting desperately to close that distance between us. His eyes are so dark now, almost black, his expression haunted. Every problem has a solution, doesn’t it? I want to prove to you the sense in my plans. His brows furrow. I can show you the good in this, if you’ll let me. Please.

And through the Link, I can sense his earnestness, his burning ambition to do right, his desire to prove it to me. When I search his gaze, I recognize that curious, passionate, intelligent man I’d first seen in his office, showing me his newest creation. This is the same person. How can this be the same person? His expression remains uncertain, unsure.

Don’t leave, Emika, he says.

I swallow hard. When I respond, I respond with my real voice. It is calm now, even cold. “I can’t support you in this.”

I can almost feel his heart crack, stabbed right where he had risked opening it up to me, where he had let me see the beating wound inside. He had confided in me, thinking that perhaps I would be the one person who would side with him. Why wouldn’t I, he must have thought—I understood his loss, and he had understood mine. We’d understood each other . . . or so we thought. He looks suddenly alone, vulnerable even in his determination.

“Emika,” he says, in one last attempt to convince me.

I take a deep breath, then sever the Link between us. The subtle stream of his emotions cuts off abruptly. “I’m going to stop you, Hideo.”

His eyes turn distant, those familiar walls going up until he’s looking at me in the same way he had during our first meeting. He leans away from me. He studies my face, as if taking it in for the last time. “I don’t want to be your enemy,” he says quietly. “But I’m going to do this, with or without you.”

I can feel my own heart breaking, but I stand firm. He does not give, and neither do I, so we continue to stand on opposite sides of a ravine. “Then you’re going to have to do it alone.”





31



The streets of Tokyo are still emptier than I’ve ever seen them. I tear down the road on my board, my hair streaming out behind me, the wind making my eyes water.

How complicated everything has become. Not long ago, I had been gliding through the crowded center of New York City, wanting nothing more than to make enough money to keep myself off the streets. Hideo had been a magazine cover then—a glimpse in a news article, a photo in a televised broadcast, a headline in a tabloid. Now he is someone I am struggling to understand, someone with a thousand different versions of himself that I am trying to piece together.

All around me, the only screaming headlines seem to be accusations that the final championship results were unfair, that the game was compromised by illegal power-ups. Fans are calling for a redo of the match. Conspiracy theories have already sprung up all over fan communities, claiming that some employee had planted the power-ups as a joke, or that Henka Games had wanted to raise their ratings, or that the players had somehow stumbled upon secrets hidden in the final world. If the truth were thrown in there, no one would be able to tell the difference.

Everyone else goes about their business without even realizing the subtle, significant shift in the NeuroLink that can now control their lives. And is anything different, really? Haven’t we all been plugged in for years now, completely addicted to this world beyond reality? Are we this willing to give up? I force myself to look away as I pass a police car. Can Hideo come after me now, by simply telling the police to arrest me? Would he do that to me? When will his patience run out? When will he turn on me completely?

I have to find a way to stop him first. Before he stops me.

I have my old cracked phone out, my hack allowing me to track down the other Phoenix Riders without being subjected to the new NeuroLink algorithm. They have holed up in an apartment that I can only assume belongs to Asher, on the outskirts of the city.

An incoming message appears on my phone. It’s from some encrypted, unknown source. Hideo, most likely. I force myself to ignore it, blinking moisture from my eyes as I push my board to its highest speeds along an empty stretch of highway.

As the sun starts to set, washing the city in shades of gold, I pull to a stop at a quiet intersection on the outskirts of Tokyo, where the city gives way to hills and sparse streets. I find myself staring at a gated, three-story townhome, simply decorated in dark and white wood.

Asher greets me at the door. He ushers me quickly inside, then leads me to his living room, where Hammie and Roshan have already gathered. They stand up at the sight of me. Hammie hugs me. A second later, I glimpse others on the couch, too, from some of the other teams. Ziggy Frost. Abeni Lea, from the Cloud Knights. Tremaine is here, as well, sitting noticeably apart from Roshan—but the two are turned toward each other, as if they were talking a moment ago. The tension between them that I’d always felt seems lessened now, if not completely gone.

“What do we do from here?” Hammie asks as we all settle. She’s greeted by a long silence.

I sit down, too. “I run a hacked version of Warcross,” I reply. “I don’t think I’m affected in the same way. Maybe I can figure out a way for you guys to have it, too.”

I tell them about what happened from the beginning, of Hideo hiring me after my first glitch, of my frequent meetings with him, of then realizing what had really happened when Zero appeared in the final game. I talk until the streetlamps are lit, and Asher has to turn on the living room’s lights.