Wildcard (Warcross #2)(81)
Beside me, Hammie almost seems to relax at the sight. I feel it, too—it’s like we’re here, instead of inside Zero’s mind, walking in an illusion. But Hideo’s eyes are narrowed, and he exchanges a quick glance of warning with me.
Roshan frowns at the scene. “This isn’t right,” he says.
Only after he says it do I realize what’s bothering me, too. The scene isn’t quite accurate—some of the storefronts aren’t supposed to be here, while others are in the wrong order along the street. It’s as if Zero—or Sasuke—couldn’t remember it correctly.
But what stands out the most is that no one walking around is saying anything at all. All we hear is the shuffling of feet, the rush of cars, and the blare of advertisements. There must be thousands of people here, and no one is saying a word.
I swallow hard. Hideo holds out his arm, telling us to stay close. “We must be nearly there. I remember this,” he says, his gaze fixed on the advertisements. “Our mother and father took Sasuke and me here tonight so that we could shop for new boots. That trailer.” He nods at a giant screen curving around a two-story coffee shop that now shows a promotion for a new movie. “I was eight when that film came out. Sasuke was six.”
Hideo’s right. These aren’t just the inner workings of Zero’s artificial mind anymore. We’re inside a distorted memory in Zero’s mind, I realize, a twisted fragment of what had once been Sasuke’s.
Roshan steps beside me as we stare at the people looking back at us with their sightless faces. Their heads tilt toward us as they draw near. “Security bots,” he whispers.
Just like the ones we’d faced earlier—except these are disguised as regular shoppers.
Hideo starts carefully moving us forward. “Don’t let any of them touch you.”
“Do you know where we’re supposed to go?” I ask.
“Yes.” He nods toward a department store right next to the coffee shop, where a store worker is handing out coupons to entice potential customers. As we move carefully through the crowd, I see a couple walking hand in hand with two small boys, both of whom have their necks craned up at the movie trailer playing on the screen above them.
My heart twists as I recognize them. It’s Hideo and Sasuke.
We pass them, but I can’t see their faces. When I look forward again, they’re back to walking ahead of us, as if everything had just reset. It’s a perpetual, repeating memory.
Hammie bumps into me from behind. I glance back to see her casting suspicious looks at the people walking around her. “Someone just lunged at me,” she whispers, quickening her stride. “Zero’s on the hunt.”
After what happened to Asher, Zero must know the rest of us are in here somewhere. I hold a hand out at Hammie and look her straight in the eye. “Did they touch you?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she mutters back, even though she’s rubbing at her elbow. “She just brushed my sleeve a little, that’s all.”
My heart seizes. “She brushed your sleeve?” I say—but Hammie looks away from me and focuses on something in the crowd ahead of us. Her eyes widen.
“Hey. Hey!” Hammie calls out into the crowd, startling us all, and then suddenly starts pushing her way through the throngs.
“Hammie!” Roshan calls out. But she’s already off, heading away from the department store at a slant.
“That’s my mom,” she says breathlessly, looking over her shoulder at us with a shocked expression. “That’s my mom! Right there!” She turns back to point at a woman wearing an air force uniform, with dark skin and dark curls like her own. “What is she doing in here? How does Zero know what she looks like?”
I burst into a run. Hideo does, too—even though we both know it’s too late. It’s impossible to move as fast as Hammie without accidentally bumping into anyone. More passing people look at us—another person leans sharply in toward Roshan, forcing him to barely duck out of the way in time.
Hammie! I want to shout, but I’m too afraid of drawing more attention.
We finally catch up to her. But she’s just standing in the middle of the street now, her stare vacant and unseeing, her posture ramrod straight, her expression completely blank. Above us, the enormous advertisement vanishes, replaced by something that can only be one of Hammie’s memories.
It’s of two girls, their curly hair hidden behind silk caps. The younger of the two is in bed, laughing uproariously as their father tries in vain to adjust her cap. The older one—Hammie, it looks like—is quieter, sitting at a small, square table across from someone who must be their mother. They’re both concentrating on a chess game. I watch as the mom moves her pieces each within the span of seconds, while Hammie scowls and shifts in frustration as she struggles with her own moves.
“Why do you have to go again tomorrow?” Hammie finally mutters as she loses her rook to her mom’s bishop.
“Yeah,” her younger sister shouts in a singsong voice from the bed as she purposely pulls her cap askew again, making her dad give an affectionate sigh. “Why d’you have to go?”
“Stop repeating me, Brooke, I swear,” Hammie snaps at her sister, who just giggles in return.
“I’m not gone for long.” Their mother leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. Her air force uniform is decorated with several medals. When Hammie finally decides on a good spot to put her queen, her mother nods in approval. “It’s just for a few weeks. You girls can even come to the base and see me off, if you want to.”