Insignia

  Vik made a frustrated noise and waved his hand impatiently in the air, gesturing for them to get all the laughter out and over with. Then, when it died a bit, he finally said, “We done?”

  “Spicy Indian will never be done,” Tom vowed.

  “Yeah, well, right now, you do have bigger things going on.”

  Any desire to laugh drained away. Tom’s thoughts spiraled back to the last two days, a dark pit in his stomach.

  “Here’s what I want to know,” Vik went on. “Medusa. Tell us. She’s a girl. So, is she hot?”

  Tom was relieved, because talking about Medusa wasn’t nearly as awful as discussing Blackburn or his treason charges. “She wouldn’t let me see her,” he admitted.

  “Oh no, young Skywalker. The ugly is strong in that one.”

  Wyatt glared at him. “Or perhaps she has a classified identity? You know, the same way we do?”

  “Nah. Ugly. Face it, Tom,” Vik said, “no girl who fights like that can be hot, too. It would cause a huge imbalance in the cosmos that would unravel the space-time continuum and make the universe implode. And she won’t show you. That’s a red flag. Big, bright, waving red flag.”

  Tom shook off the thoughts of Medusa’s hypothetical ugliness, because really, he was an idiot even wondering about this right now when he had much more significant, life-changing issues plaguing him.

  “It doesn’t matter, anyway, Vik. I can’t see Medusa again. I got caught, and now Blackburn’s out to fry my brain in the census device.”

  Wyatt gasped. “He’s seen your memories?”

  Yuri looked over at him, openmouthed.

  Tom knew what they were worried about. “He hasn’t seen everything,” he said meaningfully, watching them. “But he knows I’m hiding something from him, and he won’t stop until he gets it.”

  “So just show him,” Vik said. “Whatever it is, buddy, it can’t be that bad.”

  Wyatt and Yuri were looking at each other, though, realization on their faces.

  “You don’t get it, Vik,” Tom said. Vik wasn’t clued in—he didn’t realize two of his friends were facing ten years in prison if Blackburn got that memory. “I have this under control. There’s a way I can get out of this: Marsh is having me face Medusa at the Capitol Summit. He wants me to proxy for Elliot. I beat her, he defends me to the Defense Committee. I lose, and I’m stuck either getting my brain fried or getting my neural processor removed.”

  Stunned silence followed this.

  “That’s a great deal,” Vik said.

  “That’s an awful deal,” Wyatt said, at the same time.

  “It’s great. He gets to fly Capitol Summit! I can’t believe you’re a plebe and Marsh is letting you do that,” Vik said, sounding envious. And out of breath, too, due to the being-crushed-by-a-pile-of-bodies thing.

  “It’s not great at all, Vik,” Wyatt said. “Tom can’t possibly beat Medusa. He doesn’t have enough training, and even if he did, no one with enough training has managed to beat her.”

  She sounded so dubious about it that Tom’s pride prickled. “Hey, I pick up sims quickly. Everyone says so. And I’ve faced Medusa in other battle sims. I swear, I always come close.”

  “Do it, then,” Vik said. “Stomp your online girlfriend. Stomp her good, Tom.”

  Tom’s head slumped back. “I’ll need to be lucky. She’s better than me. She’s faster, smarter, all-around deadlier.”

  “So cheat,” Vik said.

  “Cheat?” Yuri cried. “He does not need to cheat! He can triumph over Medusa as an honorable warrior.”

  Vik groaned and turned back to Tom, as though he’d decided Yuri was now an utterly hopeless case. “Doctor, you must cheat until you win. Winning is the noble thing to do.”

  “Vik, if I knew how to cheat, I’d be on it in a second. I don’t even know what military scenario we’re going to be fighting.”

  “I can program a virus for you,” Wyatt spoke up, sounding quite eager for the chance. “You can scramble her CPU midfight.”

  “The summit’s in two days.”

  Wyatt scoffed. “Have you ever met me? That’s more than enough time.”

  “To—Timothy, you are ignoring the obvious solution,” Yuri said, his massive weight shifting, crushing Tom farther into the grass. “Why not ask Medusa to lose on purpose?”

  Tom stared at him. “What?”

  “Ask Medusa to lose on purpose,” Yuri repeated.

  Tom stared at him. The concept seemed perfectly rational and yet, it simply made no sense to him. “Why would she ever agree to that?”

  “Isn’t this obvious? She cares for you. If she knows you are to face a treason charge, she may consider losing. This is not a real battle. This is a show battle. No countries will be harmed by losing.”

  “But I can’t do that,” Tom said, aghast.

  “You’d rather scramble her CPU?” Vik pointed out. “Tom, I hate to say it, but you should probably listen to the Android here. Go for emotional blackmail.”

  “But my virus—” Wyatt said.

  “He can use a virus if it fails, okay?” Vik said. “You’re bloodthirsty with those things, aren’t you, Evil Wench?”

  “At least I don’t have tiny, delicate hands.”

  “What? What about my hands? Where is this coming from?”

  Tom tuned out their argument. Emotional blackmail. On Medusa. He frowned up into the stormy black night.

  It wouldn’t work. Medusa was a competitor. It didn’t matter if they’d become friends, or even kissed once. Even the thought of asking her to do it made him feel like a chump. She’d never go for it.

  After all, he wouldn’t.

  THAT NIGHT, TOM, Vik, and Yuri woke at 0200. They met Wyatt in the shadowed common room. She’d already disabled the Spire’s transmission tracking program.

  She waved for Tom to hook into one of the neural access ports in the wall. “You have ten minutes, Tom. I don’t think we should risk disabling the Spire’s firewall any longer than that.”

  “It’ll be quick,” Tom assured her.

  “Good luck, Doctor.” Vik handed Tom a neural wire.

  “Thanks, Doctor. See you guys in a few minutes.” Tom hooked himself in.

  Numbness and darkness enveloped him as he transitioned from real Tom to an internet avatar. He dropped a message onto the community message board, and the timing was perfect—mere minutes later, he received a private message confirmation from Medusa with a new URL.

  Tom resolved into their private, password-protected program. He glanced around the ornate chamber she’d chosen for the simulation—a setting the program informed him was Hatfield Palace in Renaissance England. Medusa flared to life across from him as a slim redhead with dark eyes and a cool, superior smile, her floor-length dress twirling when she spun in a circle.

  “Nice,” Tom said, looking her up and down. “Who are you supposed to be?”

  “Princess Elizabeth Tudor.” She moved toward him. “We can joust or plot to overthrow Queen Mary. Or we could switch characters and fight the Irish, Scottish, and French . . . or fight as the Irish, Scottish, or French against the English. There’s even a battle with the Spanish Armada later. It’s a flexible program. With lots of beheadings.”

  “Who am I?” He glanced down at his body. He had tight stockings on. He frowned and stretched his virtual legs experimentally. Stockings didn’t seem manly to him.

  The information algorithm from the program informed him he was playing Robert Dudley, the man Queen Elizabeth I of England loved the entirety of her life. It was a good sign, he supposed. He’d noticed Medusa sometimes picked programs and scenarios pointedly.

  Still, he felt twitchy and uneasy when Medusa sauntered up to him, dark eyes twinkling into his beneath her lion’s mane of red hair. “I thought the worst when you stopped showing up.”

  Tom’s stomach churned. “The worst happened,” he admitted. “One of the officers at the Spire found out about me meeting with you.”

  Her face
froze. “Oh.”

  “They think I’m the leak now.”

  She turned away from him. “What’s going to happen to you?”

  “Well, I’m either going to end up, um”—he fumbled for a way to explain the census device without revealing the truth, and settled for—“‘questioned’ about you until I lose my mind, or I’m going to be out of the Spire. Forever.”

  “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

  “Hey, it was my bad idea, okay?” And this was his moment. His moment to reveal that he’d be the one facing her in the Capitol, his moment to tell her she was the one who could save him by taking a fall for him.

  So why couldn’t he talk?

  All Tom could think about was how humiliating it would be when he begged her to lose for him. And how pathetic it would be when she laughed in his face, because who did that? People didn’t do stuff like that. Not in real life. He didn’t know what world Yuri lived in, but Tom’s insides clenched up at the very idea of begging Medusa to please help him when he knew she’d just think less of him. She’d think he was pathetic—needing help like this. Ask her to lose for him? He might as well ask her to donate some vital organs, too. She wouldn’t do it.

  “We can still meet online, can’t we?” Medusa said, peering at him. “Once you’re out of the Spire, it’s not treason anymore if we meet.”

  Tom stepped back from her, feeling cold, thinking of how he’d end up if he lost the neural processor, lost the better Tom who’d been born in the Spire. What kind of person he’d be if he was that kid following Neil around again. That ugly, stupid kid who was worthless.

  He’d rather tear off his arms than show her that guy.

  “It wouldn’t be a good idea,” Tom said.

  “I see.” There was something flat in her voice. “So once you’re gone from the military, you can’t be bothered. I get it.”

  Tom’s head wasn’t in the right place for this stuff. “What? Where did you even get that?”

  “Maybe this was a bad idea all around.” And then she fizzled out of the program, leaving Tom alone in his stupid stockings in Renaissance England.

  TOM YANKED OUT his neural wire and sat up. His friends were all settled on nearby chairs in the dark common room, watching for his reaction.

  Vik spoke first. “No go?”

  “No go,” Tom confirmed.

  Wyatt was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, and she seemed to be bouncing in her seat a bit. “Virus, then?”

  Tom nodded resignedly. “Virus.”

  “I’ve already got most of it ready for you.” She sounded oddly cheerful about that as she set about hacking into the Spire’s defenses, erecting them again.

  “Great,” Tom said faintly.

  Sure, he hadn’t actually had a chance to ask Medusa about taking a fall for him, but he felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest, knowing she was angry at him now, knowing it couldn’t happen. If he’d groveled like some pathetic wimp and then been laughed at, it would’ve killed him. She never would’ve respected him after he asked her for something like that.

  “The Android was wrong, then,” Vik murmured. “Sorry, buddy. Guess Medusa isn’t that into you. Hey”—his hand thumped Tom’s shoulder—“all the more reason to stomp her.”

  “Sure. Stomp her.” Except for the part where she always beat him.

  Wyatt nodded in the darkness, typing in the finishing touches before the Spire’s defenses snapped back on to full. “The one I’ve started programming is called an adware virus.”

  “Adware virus?” Tom echoed.

  “It works by basically taking up more and more CPU until it’s too slow to really do much of anything. It’ll trigger the moment you send it to Medusa—so I’ll set it to delete itself from your CPU at the same time so it doesn’t slow you down, too. You unload it once, early in the fight, and then beat her before she can recover from it. You probably won’t have access to a keyboard, so I’m going to try a trick Blackburn showed me and set it up to respond to a thought interface.”

  “Is that the only way?” Tom asked her. “Vik and I tried net-sending with a thought interface during Programming once, but I couldn’t concentrate on just one thing at a time.”

  Vik nodded. “His programming questions were always like, ‘Vik, how do steak boobs function?’”

  Tom elbowed him. Hard. Vik sniggered.

  Yuri had been very quiet this whole time. Now he raised his head. “Steak boobs?”

  “No, Yuri,” Wyatt cried. “No steak boobs. And, Tom, I’m giving you one phrase for this. You can focus your brain for the time it takes to think out one phrase, can’t you?”

  Tom shrugged. “All right, hit me.”

  “When the time comes to send out the virus, I want you to think this: ‘tiny spicy Vikram.’”

  Vik’s smile dropped away. Despite the seriousness of his situation, Tom started laughing.

  “Wait, no,” Vik said. “I don’t like this phrase.”

  “Don’t think it too early,” she warned Tom. “You have to have Medusa’s ship in your sights. Focus on her, and think ‘tiny spicy Vikram’ over and over until the virus deploys.”

  “That’s it?” Tom said. “What about firewalls?”

  “You’re both going to be on the same server for the summit, so that shouldn’t be an issue. And once the virus deploys, trust me, she’s not going to be flying anywhere for a while.”

  “Vikram is not tiny,” Vik declared belatedly. “I’m taller than both of you.”

  Wyatt ignored him. “I think plan B is going to work.”

  Then Yuri spoke up. “Or perhaps we should try plan C.” He was sitting farthest from Tom, leaning his chin in a hand, large shoulders slouched.

  Tom wasn’t sure what Yuri had in mind, but Wyatt guessed. She sprang to her feet. “No, Yuri! Your plan sucks.”

  “I have not said my plan.”

  “I’ve guessed it, and I know it sucks.”

  “I will not let Thomas take the fall for me,” Yuri told her.

  Vik gave a sudden start. He stared at Yuri for a long moment, then pointed at him, looking wildly between Wyatt and Tom. “Did you guys hear that? He said ‘Thomas.’”

  Wyatt bit her lip and looked at Tom.

  Vik noticed. “All right.” He dropped his voice. “Why aren’t you two gasping in shock? What am I missing?”

  Tom turned on Yuri instead. “I owe you. I am not going to give you away.”

  “You don’t have to, Tom. I will reveal myself. I’ll confess.”

  “He said ‘Tom’ now! I know you guys heard that,” Vik insisted.

  “If Blackburn finds out you’re unscrambled, he’ll think you’re the leak, Yuri,” Wyatt pointed out.

  “Unscrambled?” Vik echoed.

  “But you will be safe,” Yuri replied.

  “You won’t just be compromising yourself,” Tom pointed out, ignoring Vik, who looked ready to tear his hair out. “Wyatt made your firewall. She’ll get thrown in prison for ten years, too, for committing treason. I’ll go to prison for aiding and abetting her. We’ll all lose our neural processors.”

  “Yuri, you’ve had your processor too long,” Wyatt said, horrified. “You’ll never survive it if they take it out.”

  “So let’s not risk it,” Tom said, looking between them. “You’re keeping quiet, Yuri.”

  Vik was rubbing his head. “Wait . . . wait . . . Let me get this straight. Yuri’s not scrambled anymore? And you guys both knew?”

  “He’s not,” Wyatt said, drawing to her full height. “So what? How is this a problem?”

  “How is this a problem?” Vik echoed. “Do you live in the real world with the rest of us? This is a huge problem, Wyatt!”

  Yuri found his feet. “I am not a spy, Vikram.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Yuri!” Vik said. “Don’t you people get that? How is this going to look? The military is a hierarchy. You can’t dismantle their security because you think your boyfriend’s trustworthy. It’s no
t your call.”

  “But you’re okay with dropping the Spire’s defenses because you think your friend is trustworthy?” Wyatt pointed out.

  “That’s different. We did it for ten minutes, and no one is going to find out about it. This? Is permanent. Do you seriously think Blackburn’s going to miss Yuri’s new software forever?” He turned to Yuri. “I know you’re not a spy. I know you, man, but you’re delusional if you think Blackburn won’t figure it out!”

  Wyatt raised her forearm keyboard. “At least you won’t remember.”

  Vik’s eyes shot wide open. Tom leaped forward and batted her arm down. “Don’t.” And as soon as he reached her, Yuri seized him in a headlock and clasped him against his broad chest.

  “Thomas, do not,” he warned him.

  Tom yanked at the massive arm. “I’m not gonna touch her, Yuri—but she can’t use a virus on Vik. No one’s brain is getting fried today, okay?” Yuri’s grip eased up, and Tom jerked out of his arms. He looked around at all them, heaving for breath. “Okay?”

  Wyatt stared down Vik, and Yuri loomed over Tom, ready to leap in if anything escalated.

  “Vik, if Yuri goes down, Wyatt and I go down, too,” Tom said. “I get that you’re committed to this military stuff, but this has to be our secret. Do you want to send all three of us to prison? You want to risk Yuri’s life?”

  Vik groaned. “Tom, I don’t even want to be in this position!”

  “I know. I know. None of us do. But life’s about ugly choices, right? You either stay quiet and be complicit with us, or you take us all down and live with it. Which one will it be?”

  Vik spun away from them, gripping his hair.

  “Well, Vik?” Tom pressed, watching his back anxiously.

  “Fine, but on one condition,” Vik said, whirling back around, “I’m going to think of a manly version of ‘evil wench’ and you have to answer to it.”

  “Deal,” Tom agreed, secretly relieved. He knew this was Vik’s way of saying he wouldn’t turn on them. He addressed Yuri next. “And you get how important it is to keep your mouth shut now? For me, for Wyatt? You understand?”

  “Yes,” Yuri said, a troubled line between his eyebrows. “I’ll stay quiet.”