***
After we finish eating, Imugi returns with a dozen soldiers. They all have a Vex headset propped on the forehead. Imugi gestures, and one of his goons reactivates our wrist cuffs. We’re sucked backward onto our beds, wrists ringing loudly as they connect with the railings.
“Jack them in,” Imugi says. “Time for the auction.”
A huge man comes toward me, Vex set in hand. Relief slides through me at the sight of it. We’re going into Vex. Our plan has a chance. I lie very still as he approaches. The headset is lowered over my eyes, and I’m sucked into the blue vortex.
Vex materializes around me. There’s no sign of Imugi, but the twelve Leaguers appear in a loose ring around me, Taro, Hank, and Billy. I do a double take at the sight of my companions; I see my shock mirrored in their faces and look down at myself.
My Ghost avatar is in a classic lab getup—plain white pants and white coat. And they’ve stuck a pair of glasses on me, which probably enhances my brilliant-nerd image. My hair hangs in a neat braid down my back, like I’m twelve years old. On the right breast of my coat, the words Your Insignia Here are embroidered. It would have been more accurate if it said Your Corrupt Government Here or Your Tyrannical Dictatorship Here. But I suppose even the Anti-American League has to be politically correct sometimes.
Hank’s red hair has been dyed bright orange. Her nails are fluorescent pink. There’s ten pounds of dark makeup around her eyes and on her mouth. She’s got on ripped jeans and a tight black shirt. A spiked collar cinches around her neck. Except for the dramatic makeup, she looks nothing like Hank. But she does look like a stereotypical punk hacker.
Billy’s hair has been darkened from sandy blond to jet black. He’s dressed in an immaculate black suit with a gray tie and black sunglasses. To those attending the auction, he’ll look like a tailored high-class black-market criminal.
Taro is the only one of us who bears some semblance to his real-world self, right down to his nine fingers. They’ve got him in military fatigues and black combat boots.
The mathematician. The hacker. The criminal. The merc.
Here we are, a gift pack for world domination.
The four of us sit in straight-backed metal chairs on a revolving black dais. Emblazoned into the ceiling above us is the Anti-American League symbol. Metallic cuffs gleam on our wrists, just like they do in the real-world. I give my arms an experimental tug. The cuffs weld my wrists to the chair. I exchange a look with Taro, who sits on my right. His dark eyes reflect my own despair back at me.
The cuffs. The one thing we didn’t consider in our brief planning session. It seems obvious, now. A rookie oversight.
As long as we have them on, there’s no escape for us.
16: Auction
I rein back on the emotion threatening to unhinge me; hysteria is the last thing I need right now.
Don’t give up, I tell myself. Just because we’re cuffed doesn’t mean there won’t be a chance to escape.
A Leaguer approaches us, one of the few women I’ve seen among them. Her dark hair is cropped as short as the men’s. Her SmartPlastic mask is perfectly smooth and reveals no emotion. She stands in front of us, hands loose by her sides, waiting for the dais to make one full circuit. It’s clear she wants each of us to see her.
“The cuffs you’re wearing are just like the ones you wear in the real-world,” she says. “If you misbehave, you will be disciplined.”
She holds up her hand, displaying a ring on her middle finger. Her thumb twists the ring. My avatar vibrates as blue currents leap out of the cuffs.
I don’t feel a thing. We can’t feel anything in Vex, not unless we’re on Touch. The cuffs may keep us restrained in the chairs, but they can’t hurt us.
And then electricity rips up my wrists and ankles.
How can this be happening?
I writhe in the chair, screams tearing from my throat. Taro breathes heavily and jerks like a bound animal. Hank, on my left, sobs. I can’t see Billy, but I hear his howls.
Blue tendrils of electricity crawl up and down my avatar. Vex crackles around me, disintegrating. Chunks of black appear as the auction room falls away.