My panic is cutting my breath short. I feel faint. The edges of my view are darkening, fading out, and I fight against it, the logical part of my mind telling me that if I collapse now, here, they’ll find me. And if they know I’ve seen all this, they won’t hesitate to do the exact same thing to me that they just did to Tremaine.
Jax looks bored—exasperated with that person who took up her time—she hadn’t even looked back at Tremaine’s body, which she’d left on the floor. How many has she killed this way?
The Blackcoats are murderers. Tremaine had warned me to stay away from them from the start—he’d only been here because he was looking out for me. And I’d gone ahead anyway. Now he’s dead. What if the Blackcoats are already out looking for me, having learned the connection between Tremaine and my work?
What have I done?
I can’t do this. I can’t stay here. I close my eyes and count, forcing myself to focus on the train of numbers in my head until they’re all I see. Hideo needs to know this. But what do I tell him? I don’t even understand everything I just saw. What is that robot that Zero had been commanding? And if he’s not here in person, where is he?
Get up, Emi.
I whisper the words over and over, until finally I unfreeze myself. I push my body off from the wall, rise from my crouch, and stumble back the way I came. Feverishly, I pull up my menus and set my maps for the hotel. I make my way far enough so that I’ve left the horrible room behind me and have reentered the soaring main lobby of the complex.
I swing my new board down toward the floor, ready to hop on it—but my hands are shaking so badly that I drop it with a clatter. I lunge in vain to catch it.
A click makes me whirl around. Jax is standing there, her pale skin stark against the black walls, her gun pointed directly at my head. Her gray eyes pierce through me.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she says.
17
I don’t dare answer. I just stay where I am and lift my hands over my head.
She waves her gun once at me. “Up.”
I do as she says. There are a few flecks of blood on her glove, Tremaine’s blood, and my eyes lock on to the sight. She’s going to kill me for being here, and there’s nowhere for me to hide. I’m going to die on the floor of this building, just like Tremaine did.
“Why the hell did you come here?” she snaps at me in a whisper.
“I was looking for Zero,” I say, not even believing my own bad excuse. My words come out haltingly, and I can hear the tremor in them. “I’m meeting Hideo tomorrow night. I—”
Jax observes me carefully. She knows I’m lying—but instead, she says, “You saw, didn’t you?”
I shake my head vigorously. “I heard.” Usually, I can lie better than this—but right now, the panic in my eyes gives me away. “It was too dark. All I got were voices down the hall.”
Jax sighs; she almost looks like she feels sorry for me, and I wonder if she recognizes the same look on my face from when she’d killed my assassin. “It’s impressive that I didn’t catch you on your way into the building. But here we are now.”
The echo of Tremaine’s killing shot still rings in my head, bursting over and over again, and my hands yearn to reach up and cover my ears.
Jax tightens her grip on her gun. This is it. My limbs are frozen in place.
“Walk.”
What? My feet feel rooted to the floor.
Jax seizes my arm and shoves me once. Her nails dig hard into my skin. “If they know you’re here, you’re dead,” she growls in my ear, shoving me forward. “Go.”
Her words register through my chaotic mind, and I manage to shoot her a confused glance as she starts pulling me along the shadowed wall of the main lobby. “Where are you taking me?” I whisper.
Jax leads me down another dark hall on the opposite end of the lobby. “Less talking, more walking,” she replies.
Whatever shred of silence I’d managed to hold on to now breaks, and my words come spilling out. “And then what? Will you take me out, too? A shot to the head, just like Tremaine? Where are you taking his body?”
She turns those pale gray eyes on me again. “So, you did see.”
I shake my head repeatedly, trying in vain to get Tremaine’s crumpled body out of my mind. “What are you all doing here?” I say over and over again. “What is that robot Zero was controlling? Where is he?”
Jax doesn’t answer me. We reach the end of the hall and a small side entrance that opens into the back of the building, where a few cars are parked.
Here, Jax suddenly shoves me up against the wall and presses a gloved hand over my mouth. She looks as cold as ever, but there’s tension in her eyes now, and she keeps glancing around to make sure we’re alone. “In a minute, I’m going to tell you to go outside and get in the car farthest to your left. It’ll take you back to the hotel. The guards out front are busy with Tremaine’s body. Keep your head down and don’t try to come back here. Do you understand me?”
I struggle out of her grip. “But you—”
She shoves me again hard and puts her gun right against my head. Ice-cold metal. I hear it click at my temple. “But I hit your stupid friend Tremaine with a grazing shot to his head. I’ll direct his car to a hospital. Don’t you dare visit him tonight, unless you want Taylor to find out that you somehow knew he’d be there the instant he arrived. Wait until tomorrow morning.”
None of this makes sense at all. “What? Taylor?” My whisper turns hoarse. “You shot Tremaine. Zero’s the head of—”
Jax lets out a quiet, surprised laugh and lowers her gun. “You think Taylor works for Zero, don’t you?”
A note of hesitation enters my voice. “She tried to warn me. Zero—”
Jax’s smile is cold. “Zero doesn’t run things. Taylor does. We follow her command.”
Taylor leads the Blackcoats. I blink. That can’t be right—she’s far too quiet and uncertain for that. Her soft voice, her delicate shoulders, and thoughtful look . . . Hadn’t she deferred to Zero the first time I met them? Hadn’t she let him talk?
Let him talk. Like he worked for her.
“But,” I try to say, “Taylor doesn’t seem like . . .”
My voice trails off at Jax’s expression. She is dead serious, and in her eyes, I see an emotion I’ve never seen before on her face. Real fear. Fear of Taylor.
Jax, the girl who can eat a snack and then shoot someone in the head, who doesn’t bat an eye at the sight of blood . . . is terrified of Taylor.
Now I’m truly frightened.
Jax tears her gaze away and leans close. “Once you get back to the hotel,” she murmurs against my ear, “I’m going to send you an invite to the Dark World. You’re going to meet me in there, and then I can tell you more.”
“Why should I believe you?” I spit each word out, relying on my anger to keep my tears at bay.
“Because you’re still alive,” she replies, “and not bleeding out on the floor.”
There are so many things I want to say back to her. That I saw her standing on the balcony with Zero; that I don’t know why she’s sparing me right now, or why she’s going behind Taylor’s back on Tremaine. But this is no time to press her. All I can do is follow her instructions—even though nothing’s stopping her from hunting down my car the instant I get inside it.
Maybe this is her strategy for killing me tonight, too. She’ll talk me into getting into the car and then run it right off the road. Call it an accident.
Faint footsteps come from the other side of the main lobby. Jax turns her head sharply in their direction, then looks back at me. “You get one warning from me. If you ever come back here again, I’ll put a bullet in you before I can even think it through. Now, shut up and go.”
* * *
* * *
MY NUMB LEGS somehow carry me to the car. I sit in silent
shock as it starts up, then takes me back to the hotel. I want to scream at the car to bring me to Tremaine instead. I want to figure out wherever he’s been taken to. Tell him I’m sorry and beg him to forgive me.
He’s lying in a hospital somewhere, fighting for his life, because of me. If he dies, my hands will be dipped in his blood.
Jax’s last words to me ring in my head. Part of me expects my car windows to shatter from gunfire—that she’s set me up and is just waiting for me to turn my back.
But everything outside my window looks exactly as I’d left it; the cosplay parade is still in full swing, the streets still neon-colored. Some are cheering the final two top-player announcements as excitement for the closing ceremony builds to a fever pitch.
OLIVER ANDERSON of AUSTRALIA | CLOUD KNIGHTS
KARLA CASTILLO of COSTA RICA | STORMCHASERS
Others whistle as a group of their friends goes by in spot-on Phoenix Riders gear from one of our championship games.
For them, no time has passed at all. They haven’t just witnessed someone they know get shot, smelled the blood on the ground. They don’t feel like they’d just seen a slice of truth that changes everything about what they’re doing. As far as they’re concerned, the world is still intact. They’re not responsible for putting their friend in fatal danger.
When I arrive, the car door opens for me and I step out, as if everything were fine. The elevator dings like it’s supposed to. The bed in my hotel is still there, freshly made, and a plate of fruit—lychee, starfruit, pears—sits on my writing desk, wrapped in a clean film of plastic wrap. I stand for a moment in the shadows of my curtains, watching the colors and the outfits go by on the street below. Everyone is laughing and waving, blissfully unaware of the dark world around them.
I wash my hands in the sink. A few flecks of blood dot my clothes, and for an instant, I think they’re Tremaine’s until I see the gash in my sleeve. I must’ve cut myself in my rush. I strip off my clothes, step into the shower, and let the water scald me until my skin turns pink. Then I wrap myself in a robe and sit down on the bed, the sounds of festivities still ringing from the street.
I notice the earlier messages I’d tried to send to Tremaine, still unread and unanswered.
What tears couldn’t come earlier now emerge in a rush. I cry deep, choking sobs that echo in my chest, barely able to catch my breath before I let it out again. My hands clench at the bedsheets. Has it only been hours since I stood beside Hideo and told him about his brother? Has it been only a heartbeat since I watched Tremaine crumple to the floor?
I can still picture his silhouette against the rain, his faraway look, and that careless shrug. Right now, Tremaine’s out there in some hospital, lying on a gurney while they probably rush him into the emergency room. He’d gotten too close, and he’d taken the hit that should have been mine. Now I’m alone, lost in this battle between Hideo’s algorithm and the Blackcoats’ secrets. How will Roshan react when he finds out what has happened? Are the other Phoenix Riders going to be in danger, too, if I keep them involved?
Every locked door has a key. But maybe that’s not true at all. What key is there now? I no longer know which way to turn. I don’t know which way is right, or even which way is out.
The image of Tremaine on a gurney is abruptly replaced by old memories of hospital corridors, that familiar, awful smell of disinfectant seared permanently into my memories. For a moment, I’m eleven years old again, walking through the door of my father’s hospital room with an armful of peonies and a dinner tray. I’d put the flowers in a vase and sat cross-legged on the end of his bed as we ate our hospital food together. Dad’s once-thick, bright-blue hair was patchy and gray, falling out daily in chunks. His hospital gown crinkled against his gaunt shoulders in a weird way. He would spear each piece of soggy broccoli individually and pop it into his mouth, cut each piece of meatloaf carefully with his fork. But he avoided the little square of chocolate cake.
Sugar might as well be poison, he’d told me when I asked him why he left it on his plate.
And all I could think about at the time was the space shuttle Challenger, which I’d just learned about in school that morning. The government likes the official story to be that the shuttle’s explosion killed the entire crew instantly—but the truth is that the cabin was intact after the Challenger’s rocket blew. They went sailing three more miles into the sky and then plummeted for two and a half minutes until they hit the Atlantic Ocean at full speed, fully conscious and aware the whole time. And in spite of staring directly into the face of death, they’d still pulled on their oxygen masks, had their seat belts clipped in.
We fight for survival with everything we’ve got, as if the oxygen mask and the seat belt and avoidance of a square of chocolate cake might be the thing that saves us. That’s the difference between the real and the virtual. Reality is where you can lose the ones you love. Reality is the place where you can feel the cracks in your heart.
When the world is murky, guide yourself with your own steady light.
My father’s old words are a low, steady undercurrent in my mind. I can see him smile wearily at me over our dinner trays, his fingers first tapping his temple, then his chest over his heart.
Hold steady, Emi. Keep going.
I sit in the darkness until my tears have dried and my breathing has turned even again. It’s two o’clock in the morning now. The parade outside has finally quieted, and people start heading home. I sit until I can think straight again. Tremaine had chosen this path. If I back out now, his sacrifices would have been for nothing.
I sit until a new message blinks in my view. It’s from an anonymous account, asking me to Link with this person in the Dark World. It’s Jax. Jax, who’s right in the middle of this murky nightmare, with nothing for me to trust about her except the fact that I should be dead by her hand right now.
Are you ready? she asks.
I look up at the hovering invitation through my blur of tears. Why are you doing this?
Who do you think gave Jesse info in the first place?
The anonymous contact who’d shown Jesse the institute badge. That had been Jax.
She’s been watching me after all, has known I was working with Tremaine, had noticed Jesse asking around in the Dark World about Sasuke’s symbol.
We don’t have all night, Emika.
I stare at the prompt, steadying myself. Then I reach up and accept it.
18
Two Days until the Warcross Closing Ceremony
The room around me vanishes into darkness. A moment later, I find myself standing in the middle of a nondescript, black street illuminated by highlights of blue and red neon; a small but steady trickle of encrypted passersby bustle back and forth behind me.
Next to me stands an anonymous girl with a face I don’t recognize. I don’t need to, though. When she rests her hand unconsciously on her belt and drums rhythmically against it, itching for a gun handle, I know right away that it’s Jax.
She doesn’t introduce herself. She just turns her face toward the closest corner and nods for me to follow her. I do without saying a word. As we walk, a giant STOP sign—painted yellow instead of red—appears at the intersection of two streets, and when Jax leads us to the other side of the road, another STOP sign appears. They keep popping up until the signs line both sides of the street, and the closer we walk, the more appear. The optical illusion is an eerie one, and the way it shifts makes me dizzy.
“Close your eyes,” Jax says when she sees my expression. “After Hideo’s algorithm triggered, the keepers of this place put this in as a deterrent to any past visitors who might now be compelled to rat it out. If you keep looking at it, it’ll make you violently ill—unless you know the new password. So close your eyes, then follow my instructions.”
Again, I do as she says. In the darkness, Jax calls out the number of steps for me to take and when to
turn. I fight the constant sensation that I might trip over something and force myself to keep moving.
Finally, we stop.
“You’re good now,” Jax says. I open my eyes.
“Ever heard of this place?” she asks, nodding at the block before us.
All I can do is shake my head and stare. Towering in front of us is an enormous, impossible building that looks like a giant glass dome reaching higher than the Empire State Building, taking up the entire block. Thin black bridges extend from the dome like toothpicks in a bubble, connecting it with giant, floating glass circles suspended in the air. The entire structure looks like a grand model of the sun and planets. Black metal lattices crisscross the glass, as if needed to hold it all up, and around its base are a series of spotlights shining against it, casting beams of crimson color into the air and onto the ground. Fountains as tall as waterfalls line the perimeter of the dome in a lavish display, a dozen times grander than any physical fountain could possibly be.
“It’s the Dark World’s Fair,” Jax continues, motioning me forward with her toward the huge, arched entrance, where a stream of people are entering and leaving the place. “It’s like the World’s Fairs in real life—except here, the exhibitions for sale are a bit more illegal.”
I crane my neck in awe as we walk underneath the towering dome. The first time I’d ever heard of World’s Fairs was in school, and I can still remember staring down at my laptop at an article about them. The Eiffel Tower was originally built for the Paris World’s Fair in 1889. So was the original Ferris wheel, invented for the Chicago World’s Fair back in 1893. Dad was a fan of researching these grand exhibitions because he found them incredibly romantic, each one a creator’s dreamscape. I remember sitting up at night, listening to him describe one famous World’s Fair after another.