Wildcard (Warcross #2)(91)

What was your relationship with Sasuke Tanaka?

How often did he speak of Hideo Tanaka?

Even now, she stays calm. I guess after everything she’s been through, a trial is almost anticlimactic.

Finally, one of the justices asks her about Hideo.

What did Hideo intend to do with the NeuroLink?

Jax looks directly at him. He looks back at her. It’s as if, between them, there is some lingering ghost of Sasuke in the air, the same boy who had upended both of their lives. The words Jax had once shouted desperately at us during our escape in the institute now come back to me in full. I can’t tell what emotions go through her now, in this setting, if it’s hate or rage or regret.

“Hideo’s algorithm was never supposed to control the population,” Jax says. Her voice echoes from her place at the front of the chamber.

A murmur ripples through the crowd. I blink, exchanging a look with Tremaine to make sure I hadn’t misheard something. But he looks as bewildered as I feel.

“The Blackcoats were the ones who wanted to abuse the NeuroLink,” Jax goes on, “to turn it into a machine capable of harming people, of turning them against themselves or others. That was always the goal of the Blackcoats, and Taylor was driven to make sure we followed through with this. You already have heard what she did to me, and to Sasuke Tanaka.” She hesitates, then clears her throat. “Hideo Tanaka used the algorithm to search for his lost brother.”

I listen in a haze, hardly able to process what I’m hearing. Jax isn’t here to make sure Hideo is punished for failing to protect his brother. She’s here to protect Hideo with her testimony against the Blackcoats.

“And that was always his intent?” the justices are asking now.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Never, at any time, did he do anything with the algorithm against the general population with any intent of harm?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Then at what time, specifically, did the algorithm become a malicious tool?”

“When the Blackcoats stole it from Hideo and installed their hacks on his system.”

“And can you name everyone in the Blackcoats who was directly responsible for this plan?” one of the justices asks.

Jax nods. And as Tremaine and I listen on in stunned silence, she starts to list names. Every single one.

Taylor.

The technicians at the Innovation Institute who had known about her projects.

The workers who had helped Taylor run her experiments, had taken Jax and Sasuke and stolen their lives from them.

The other Blackcoats scattered around the world—their other hackers, other mercenaries, every single person she had ever worked with under Taylor.

She lists them all out.

My mind whirls. I look toward Jax again. Even though Sasuke isn’t here, I can sense his presence in the room, as if the boy who had disappeared has finally, in Jax, found a voice for his story.




After a stunning decision today by the Supreme Court of Japan, Henka Games founder Hideo Tanaka has been acquitted of charges of grand conspiracy and capital murder. He was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter in the death of Dr. Dana Taylor, as well as illegally exploiting his creation, the NeuroLink, in his investigation into his brother’s disappearance. Local authorities today raided the Japan Innovation Institute of Technology, where several items of evidence mentioned in testimony appear to be missing, among them an armored suit described in detail by witnesses Emika Chen and Jackson Taylor. The suit has not been recovered.

—THE TOKYO DIGEST





34



Two weeks have passed since Hideo’s sentencing.

They felt like an eternity, now that the NeuroLink no longer functions. People wake up and log on to the Internet in the way they used to before Hideo’s glasses took over the world. There are no overlays when I want to get directions, no translations for people I can’t understand. There’s an absence in our lives that’s hard to describe. Still, people seem to see the world better now.

As the day starts to fade into twilight, I set out on my electric skateboard to find Asher, Roshan, and Hammie. Without the NeuroLink, I rely on old-fashioned techniques like hoodies and caps and dark glasses. There are a million journalists who want to track me down. If I were smart, I’d take an auto-car.

But I get on my board anyway and head into the city. I feel like I belong out here, facing the rushing wind, my balance honed from years of traveling alone on busy city streets. Around me rises Tokyo, the real Tokyo, trains traveling over bridges and skyscrapers towering into the clouds, temples nestled quietly between roaring neighborhoods. I smile as it all passes me by. My time in Tokyo might be coming to an end, but I don’t know where I want to go next. After a few overwhelming months, this place has started to feel like home.

I’m lucky enough not to be stopped by anyone as I reach a garden nestled deep in the middle of a quiet neighborhood in the Mejiro district. There are few people here, and no prying eyes. I hop off my board, swing it over my shoulder, and stare at the simple, elegant entrance against a plain white wall, all of it washed into pinks by the sunset. Then I step inside.

It’s a beautifully sculpted space, a large, koi-filled pond surrounded by carefully pruned trees and round rocks, arching bridges and trickling waterfalls. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, letting myself soak in the scent of pine and blossoms.