Wildcard (Warcross #2)(87)

They never seem to get any closer, though, no matter how fast I go. I break into a run, but my limbs feel like they’re dragging through molasses. The little warning in my mind continues relentlessly. This happened a long time ago, I gradually realize—the walk through the park, the sound of Dad’s laugh, the smell of roasted peanuts.

This isn’t now.

Too late, I start to remember what had happened to the others, the memories that had surrounded them the instant they were touched by Zero’s security bots and had their minds infiltrated. This isn’t real, and I’d fallen for the same trap. My breaths come in panicked gasps. Already, I can feel myself stalling, my thoughts having trouble grasping on to something. Somewhere in the distance is Hideo’s voice, calling for me.

To have come all this way and done all this—just to fail here at the end, when we were so close. To leave this puzzle unfinished, the door locked. My mind churns through other options, but a fog is starting to fill my head, and I can see myself slowing down. Along with it comes a strange sensation of . . . unfeeling.

Was this what Sasuke felt on the final day of his experiment? When he gave up his last breath and his mind, and felt what was human of him scatter to become nothing more than data?

Somewhere before me, a figure approaches. It’s Zero, hidden behind his armor, and he stops a foot away from me. He studies me for a moment.

You made it so much harder for yourself, he says.

So. Much. Harder. My mind struggles to process each word. Now I’ve become part of the algorithm, become one with Zero’s mind and the NeuroLink.

Become one with Zero’s mind.

Wait. A spark lights the fog creeping into me. I think of what he’s been doing to everyone in the world, and what he’d done to Asher, Hammie, and Roshan—he’d merged with the algorithm, with the NeuroLink, and that means that his mind has become one with all of that data. When he shuts down someone else’s mind, it’s because his mind has seeped in and taken control.

But information in the NeuroLink, Hideo had once told me, can go both ways.

During our fight, Zero purposely avoided touching Hideo. Almost as if he were afraid to. Maybe he doesn’t want to see what’s there—echoes of himself as a child, of their relationship and their happy memories, or of their parents and what has happened to them since his disappearance. He’s afraid of absorbing that, just as much as someone might be afraid to click on an attachment for fear of downloading a virus.

The puzzle clicks into place. Zero doesn’t know that I have the older iterations of Sasuke in my account. If his mind invades mine, then he’s also going to absorb those files into his data.

I don’t have much time—I’m fading quickly, as if I were slowly falling asleep. I have the faint sensation that, in real life, I’ve slumped to the ground of the panic room, the same thing I’m now doing before Zero in the virtual world. The floor feels cold and metallic beneath me. With the last bit of strength that I can muster, I bring up the files I’d stored away of Sasuke.

The files appear before me, this time not as a cube of data, but as a blue scarf.

Zero stiffens. He can now see everything and anything running through my mind—which means he can see the scarf, too. I manage a small smile. Too late, he’s realized what I’ve downloaded into him.

I take the scarf in my hands. My arms lift slowly before me, like I’m dancing through deep water, and as if in a dream, I reach out toward Zero. I drape the scarf around his neck. And as the last of me wanes, I can feel Sasuke’s data merging with Zero’s mind, becoming a part of it.

His shielded face is the last thing I see. Even though he has no expression, I can feel his anger through the NeuroLink.

Thief.

No, I reply as my final thought. I’m a bounty hunter.





32



Zero freezes, as if he were nothing more than a metallic shell. A strange gasp comes from him, and I realize for the first time that I’ve never heard him utter a breath before. In that gasp, I don’t hear the deep, amused, soulless voice I’m used to hearing from Zero.

I hear a child.

“Ni-chan?”

Brother? The translation appears in my view. Then Hideo’s beside me, kneeling down, and I struggle to turn my head so that I can look up at him. Hideo has his eyes locked on Zero.

He heard the gasp, too. A hint of recognition flickers in his eyes.

“Sasuke?” he says.

“You don’t look like Hideo.”

The voice is coming from a small boy, his dark eyes fixed on Hideo’s form crouched over the now lifeless robot. When had he appeared? Zero is nowhere to be seen now. A bright blue scarf is wrapped tightly around the boy’s neck, and as he takes a few steps forward, I see a colorful plastic egg clutched in his little hand.

It’s young Sasuke, the first iteration of him, the real him.

A shudder runs through Hideo at the sight. He doesn’t take his eyes off Sasuke as his brother moves hesitantly forward, his expression suspicious of this young man bent before him.

“Sasuke,” Hideo says. A tremor has entered his voice. “Hey. It’s me.”

Still, Sasuke tilts his head at him, doubtful. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s a figment of data, a ghost of a memory, and neither does Hideo. In this moment, he is here.

“You don’t look like him,” Sasuke says again, although he keeps moving closer. “My brother is only a little taller than me, and he was wearing a white jacket.”