Wildcard (Warcross #2)(70)

The web of nodes around us shakes—and then, right before my eyes, the colors change, the millions of nodes of blues and reds and greens shifting, one by one, into black. It sweeps across them in a tidal wave. It reaches Hideo and, in an instant, severs his control of the algorithm.

Zero’s helmet folds back up, shielding his face from view once again. Then the algorithm shifts into place with him.

I realize what has happened before anyone can say it.

Zero had no plans to destroy the algorithm. He has instead merged with it. I watch in horror as the new algorithm solidifies with Zero at the center of it.

His artificial mind had managed to evolve, to circumvent Taylor’s control, and he had been developing it independently all along behind her back.

Hideo tries to wrestle his control back—but it’s too late. He has been cut entirely from his creation.

One look at Jax’s face tells me that Zero’s plan had never been the same as Taylor’s. He had never intended for her to take control of the algorithm or even to potentially destroy it, and his goal had never been to stop only Hideo from using the NeuroLink to control people.

He had done this solely to take control of the NeuroLink and the algorithm. He knew. He’d guessed that if Hideo saw Taylor, he would kill her himself. It’s the whole reason why he let me reconnect with Hideo in the first place, why he concocted this plan for me to cozy up to Hideo and persuade him to show me his algorithm. It’s probably why no one ever caught me doing what I was doing, because Zero knew and wanted me to go through with all my plans.

And that means, I realize, that Zero had always wanted Taylor dead. She had tortured his mind so severely that she had molded him into the same monster she became.

In one move, Zero has gotten rid of the person who took his life, has forced Hideo to show the folly of his algorithm, and has taken control. In one move, he has gained the most powerful instrument in the world.

My shock is reflected in the faces of Hideo and Jax. What have we done?

The cube. The virus I have. This is still the only moment when I have a chance to break into Zero’s mind. I could hack him. I lunge forward, aiming to sync the cube into his account. It flashes a blinding blue-white.

But I’m too late.

Zero turns to look at me. “Thank you, Emika,” he says.

I don’t know what happens next, because everything goes black.





27



Sounds and sensations around me flicker in and out: Jax shouting at me, a din of voices I don’t recognize, and then the feeling of floating in midair. Maybe the shock is too much. Maybe Zero had uttered a command that killed me, and I just don’t know that I’m dead.

My dreams—they must be dreams, because they make no sense—are sharp and strange, switching abruptly from one scene to the next. There’s a small boy wearing a blue scarf, and I’m chasing after him, trying in vain to tell him to turn around. I’m a child again, holding Dad’s hand as we walk together through Central Park. Today he looks sophisticated, his hair smoothed into a slick shine and his jeans and black shirt switched out for a well-tailored blazer and trousers. We’ve gotten out of an afternoon concert at Carnegie Hall, and he’s in a bright mood, singing an off-key rendition of the concert piece as I twirl in a tulle dress. I want to lean into the familiarity of it, the loudness and the sheer joy.

He points out something in the distance, and I rise up on my toes to look at what it might be. There’s a dark spot in front of us, right on the park’s path, like a paint streak. When I stare at it longer, it starts to grow, expanding until it soaks the path and covers everything around us.

Dad pauses, afraid, his hand gripping mine tighter. When I look around me, the park is gone, and in its place is the Dark World, the towering nonsense skyscrapers reaching up into a black sky, the crooked dark streets and the neon red lights of exposed names hovering over us.

Wake up, Emika Chen.

An amused voice tugs me gradually out of the darkness.

When everything comes back into view, I’m in a dimly lit room with a white ceiling and floor. Tall glass windowpanes line every wall.

This is the room where I saw Jax shoot Tremaine.

We’re back at the Innovation Institute, only now I’m on the other side of the glass. It takes me a moment to realize that I’m strapped down tightly to a chair, and another moment to notice the figure standing several feet away from me.

Of course the voice had belonged to Zero. He’s shielded behind his armor, and when he glances casually over his shoulder at me, I see that his face is masked behind virtual steel and glass. His hands are tucked easily behind his back, his chin tilted in thoughtful curiosity. It’s such a Hideo-like gesture.

A note of fear cuts through my foggy mind. Hideo. Where is he? Is he here? Is he okay?

“What happened?” I say. My words still sound a little out of place, slower than my thoughts are coming to me.

“Stay still,” Zero says, his voice echoing in the space.

Nearby, a girl with short, silver-white hair has her back turned to me as she pulls containers of lenses off a shelf and places them on a counter.

Jax. The name floats up to the surface of my groggy mind. Jax, who had been working with me. I watch her, wanting to scream. What if she has been in on it all along? Has played me for a fool? Hadn’t she shot Tremaine without a second thought? What made me think that she could possibly be trustworthy?