Gun shifts. It’s a subtle movement, one most people wouldn’t notice. But I know him too well. That movement reveals how uncomfortable he is.
Everyone tried to warn me about him. God, I am the stupidest girl on the planet.
“What’s the name of your company?” My voice is shrill.
The door to our locker room is thrown open. Men in black Global uniforms swarm in, rushing toward us.
Standing in their midst, like a flower in the middle of a black vortex, is Claudine Winn. She’s dressed in a smart pastel pink business suit. Her makeup is perfect, her teeth a gleaming white.
What’s she doing here? I wonder stupidly.
42
First Date
The next few seconds pass in slow motion. Gun’s giant hand snakes forward and encircles mine. A black leather whip appears in his other hand. He flicks his wrist. The whip flies toward me, wrapping tightly about my vinyl-clad waist.
As soon as the tip touches me, Gun and I are sucked into the blue vortex of Vex. I glimpse the outraged face of Claudine before the blue blots her out.
We spin through cyberspace, Gun and I.
“Hold on, Short Stuff,” he says. “I’m taking us someplace we can talk.”
I nod to show him I understand, wrapping both hands around the taut whip that connects us.
“Site: Relaxation Room,” he says. “Authentication code X11Z217J.”
The blue vortex of Vex fades away. I find myself standing in an elegant living room. The floors are marble tiles. A fire burns in a marble hearth. Black leather wingback chairs sit in front of the fire.
“What’s going on?” I wriggle free of the whip. “What happened back there?”
I collapse into one of the wingbacks, pressing my hands to my temples. “How did Claudine find us? Daruuk is going to kill me!” I bury my face in my hands. “If she knows I’m in Vex, why doesn’t she yank me out? What’s with the cybermercs?”
I drop my hands and stare at the fire, mind racing. If Claudine knows I’m here, she must know how I got here. And if she knows about Daruuk’s modem, she’ll shut us down. All our weeks and weeks of hard work will be for nothing.
Daruuk isn’t going to just kill me. He’s going to torture me slowly first.
I groan again. What about Billy? Does Claudine know he’s here, too? Is he fending off cybermercs at this very moment?
That’s when I notice Gun’s silence. He sits beside me in the other wingback, tense lines around his face and eyes as he studies me. The whip hangs in a coil from one hand.
“Gun?”
Seconds tick by as he continues to study me. I frown, feeling uncomfortable under his scrutiny.
“Gun?”
“You didn’t know she was coming,” he says at last.
“Claudine? Of course I didn’t know she was coming. How could I?” My eyes narrow. “Did you think this was a set up?”
His silence is my answer.
Indignation rises in me. “Do you know what I did to get into Vex? To see you? I planted a Highjacker in Mr. Winn’s communication tower. Do you know what would’ve happened if I’d been caught? They probably would’ve chucked me out in the snow in nothing but my underwear. And they still might do that. Why would I risk everything just to hand you over to Claudine? Why does Claudine want you, anyway? Who are you?”
My voice rises steadily. By the time I’m done, I’m on my feet yelling in his face. He looks up at me, face expressionless. I don’t know if I’m more hurt or angry.
“Ever since the League auction, I’ve known you had your secrets,” I say. “I knew there were things I didn’t know about you. My friends all told me to be careful, but I defended you. I defended you! Because we’re friends. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“I’m sorry.” His expressions spasms, emotion leaking across the planes of his face. “When you arrived in the Cube, I thought it might be a trap.”
“But you came anyway?”
“Of course.” A brief smile flickers across his mouth. “My Short Stuff was waiting for me. I had to see you, no matter the risk.”
My Short Stuff. Some of my anger fizzles out. When our eyes meet, I know he’s telling the truth. About that, at least.
“I’m sorry, Sulan.” He reaches a hand in my direction.
I step out of his reach. “I want to know what’s going on. Now. Who do you work for and why are they investigating Global?”
Gun sighs. “Why don’t you sit back down?” He gestures to the elegant wingback. “This is my private site. We’ll be safe here for a little while. So long as Claudine doesn’t yank you out of Vex in the real-world. I can’t protect you from that.”
It’s true. Claudine can yank me out of Vex anytime she wants. Well, Claudine can’t yank anything, but she can have someone else do the yanking. So this couldn’t be about me. She clearly knows what I’m up to. If she didn’t want me in Vex, I wouldn’t be here.
Gun is right. Our homes must be under surveillance. What other things could Claudine and Mr. Winn know?
“Sulan, will you please sit?”
I lower myself back into the chair, vinyl leotard creaking. “What’s going on?” I ask, my voice soft. “Tell me everything, Gun. Please.”
“When I befriended you in the Cube, I knew Claudine would have me checked out. She hacked my Virtual Identity. Or at least, she thought she hacked my VI. I set up an Infinity Mirror to hide my true VI.”
I nod. This, at least, coincides with some of what Claudine told me.
“Claudine’s tech guy was fooled,” Gun continues. “My record came up clean. Claudine was satisfied. When I exposed myself at the League auction, she realized her mistake. She was there, you know. She was the Grecian urn. Ever since that day, she’s been trying to track me down. She wants to know who I am. You’re only here tonight because Claudine wants to find me. She’s using you.”
Things are starting to make sense. “She interrogated me for over an hour after she caught us together at the anarchist rally.”
He nods. “There’s something happening that’s more important than either of us. Lives are at stake. Thousands of lives. Global is at the heart of it. I need your help, Sulan.”
“How—”
A bolt of lightning stabs down through the middle of the room, exploding as it strikes the floor. I’m blinded by the light.
My chair is thrown through the air. I roll across the marble floor. Debris rains down. I blink, wiping grit from my face, and peer through the smoke and fire.
The room is in ruins. Gun’s wingback is in pieces. Shattered marble floor reveals the glowing blue of Vex underneath.
“Gun!” I shout. “Gun!”
“Sulan!”
I hear the sound of shifting debris. I push through the dust and smoke and spot Gun. He’s buried up to his neck in a pile of rubble. I skid to his side, heaving aside chunks of marble.
“I thought we’d have at least another twenty minutes before she figured out how to hack her way into this site,” Gun says. “She’ll be here any second now.”
He doesn’t have to tell me who she is. I know. Claudine.
“What if she pulls me out of Vex?” I say.
“I don’t think she will. She wants to catch me. You’re the only thing keeping me here.”
“Then go.” I make a broad gesture. “Protect yourself. Log off.”
In the back of my mind, I wonder if I’m a complete idiot. Why do I want to protect Gun? I don’t even know who he really is. Even so, I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to him.
Gun gives me a fierce look. “I came here to have a conversation with you. I’m not leaving until we’re through. She is not going to come between us anymore than she already has.”
With that, he heaves his massive shoulders. One arm emerges from the pile of rubble. The whip is grasped in his fingers.
Another bolt of lightning lances into the room. I’m thrown to the ground. When I open my eyes, I see Global cybermercs scaling down b
lack cables into Gun’s site. Claudine, adorned with a pair of giant, pink feathered wings, glides down.
“Come with me.” Gun holds out of the whip. “Please.”
I hesitate a heartbeat before reaching out, my hand closing around the black leather. As soon as I touch the whip, blue Vex swirls down around us.
“Site: First Date. Authentication code JX2K09RT.”
We’re sucked away. I look at Gun through the formless blue. His eyes are bright as they gaze back at me.
The blue of Vex dissipates, and I find myself on a cloud. It floats among a sea of stars.
We stand in silence, me in my ridiculous vinyl leotard and triple E breasts. The whip hangs between me and Gun, each of us grasping an end. I have a sinking feeling these may be my last moments with him.
I’m afraid, I realize. A big part of me doesn’t want to know the truth. It will forever alter our friendship. This knowledge sits on my shoulders like lead.
“What do you call this?” I finger the whip.
“Selina.” Gun flicks his wrist. The whip coils back around his hand. “Named after a pre-’Fault superhero.”
“You read too many old books …” My voice trails off, raspy with emotion. “God, I just want us to be Baldy and Short Stuff again.” I want everything back, all our nights together sparring and competing in the Cube.
But I can’t have it back. My old life is gone forever.
Gun laughs. It’s a pained, harsh laugh. “I built this site for you,” he says. “I knew how trapped you felt. I wanted you to feel free, even if only for a while. I wanted to ask you out, but you were adamant about not wanting a relationship. I saw the way you looked at the guys in the Cube who hit on you. I couldn’t stand the thought of you ever looking at me that way. So I contented myself with being your friend.”
He looks at me, a silent question in his eyes. I stare back, unable to find words. Part of me always knew he was interested in more than friendship.
I think of Taro and how his lips felt against mine. I suddenly wish he were here with me. I could use his solid, unwavering strength. His friendship. Everything with him is real. Taro is real. His oddities, his intricacies, his kindness and integrity. Real. All of it.
Gun? I don’t know who he is. My cherished friend is a made-up Vex avatar.
“Gun, I—” I break off and shake my head. “We can’t be together. I don’t even know who you really are.”
He nods. I see the pain my words cause him. I don’t apologize.
The cloud boils, oozing through the sky. Cities pass beneath us, bundles of geometric lights.
“You’re with him, aren’t you?” Gun asks abruptly.
He doesn’t have to clarify who him is. “There’s something between us,” I say.
“Is he good to you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all that matters.” His face goes blank. I sense the wall he builds between us.
I take a few steps back from him in silent acknowledgment of that wall. “The truth, please,” I say. “All of it.”
His mouth tightens. “I propose a trade. You answer one question for me, and I’ll tell you who I am.”
I hesitate, then realize this is the most I’ll get. “Okay,” I agree. “I answer one question, and you tell me who you are and who you work for. No more Axcents, no more lies.”
“Agreed.” His voice is clipped, businesslike. It makes me ache with loss, but I’m careful not to let the hurt show.
“I don’t know how much you get to see of the world outside the Dome,” Gun says. “I have a feeling the Winns are selective about the information they share, so I brought this.” He pulls a holograph tube from a pocket and presses one end.
A holograph of Imugi’s face is projected into the air. His white SmartPlastic mask with the blue sea serpent floats on a backdrop of black.
“America,” Imugi purrs. “I bring you despair.”
The voice sends a spear of fear through me. Even though the real Imugi is gone, the synthetic voice of the avatar on the screen shares a frightening likeness.
“Behold Project Renascentia,” says Imugi.
In the holograph, the mask fades away, replaced with footage of gas canisters being dropped on a refugee camp. I can see it’s a small camp, home to no more than forty or fifty people. The gas boils out in a whitish-brown haze, rolling through the tents and lean-tos.
The camera switches to time lapse. The sun rises and sets, showing the people as they emerge from their shelter and go through their day.
Then the sickness sets in. Coughs wrack their bodies, often resulting in blood-spattered handkerchiefs. More are stricken with fever and lie down in their shelters. Chests heave as people struggle to breathe. The victims clutch at their chests, their bloody coughs worsening.
In less than forty-eight hours, the entire camp is dead.
Gun stares at me soberly through the hologram. “There have been over a dozen attacks like this on isolated refugee camps. The League is testing a modified version of the pneumonic plague and killing everyone in the process. Global has been vocal about creating a vaccine to combat the plague.”
“They have?” Kerry never once mentioned this to us.
Gun nods. “Claudine and Mr. Winn spend quite a bit of time on the Vex media circuit. They say their scientists are close to finding a cure. My company has studied some of the bodies. We’ve found traces of a failed vaccine in the victims. This is my question to you: do you know anything about their vaccine program?”
I shake my head. Why would the Winns keep this from us? With all our media work, wouldn’t they want us to speak about this?
Gun clicks the holograph tube again. The video of the camp disappears, replaced with a map. It’s a map of the United States marked with red stars. I immediately recognize it.
“This is the scope of Project Renascentia,” Gun says. “These are all the places that have been attacked—Sulan?”
The pictures I saw on Maxwell’s tablet tumble through my brain, coupled with a snatch of conversation I overhead between Dad and Aston.
… still seeing inflammation in the test cells, but she sent my most recent vaccine with the modified F1 antigen, Dad said.
She.
She.
She.
There is only one she, and Maxwell works for her. Maxwell goes out and runs errands for her. Maxwell has data on death rates and pictures of the murdered people.
Suddenly, everything is perfectly clear. The pieces of the puzzle all snap into place. I can’t believe it took me this long to patch it all together.
Claudine Winn is a League agent.
“You know something,” Gun says. “Tell me.”
Even though I don’t completely trust him, he fought with me against the League before. I know I can trust him on this.
“Claudine,” I whisper. “She—she’s a League agent. She’s part of Project Renascentia.”
I quickly relate all the information I pieced together over the past few weeks. The muscles in Gun’s jaw and neck tense as I speak.
“I don’t know anything about the vaccine, or the work that’s being done on it,” I say as I finish, shaking my head.
Gun looks ready to grind rocks with his teeth. When he looks at me, I see anger in his eyes—anger, and something else. Could it be fear?
“Sulan,” he says, “you’re in danger. You have to get out of the Dome.”
There’s no getting out of the Dome. Doesn’t he know that? As I open my mouth to reply, something stirs in the periphery of my vision. I turn—and come face-to-face once again with a Global cybermerc.
“Dammit,” Gun snarls. “Not again.”
43
Son
The merc is adorned with a pair of black wings. The Axcent allows him to glide through the air and land on the cloud beside us. As soon as his feet touch the cloud, he lunges forward. One hand closes around Gun’s whip.
Gun snarls, his hand grabbing the whip. His other hand blurs in an arc as he
aims a punch at the merc’s jaw. Before his fist connects, the merc gives one ferocious beat of his wings. A cloud of fine blue powder puffs outward from his feathers.
“Dream Dust!” I scream, diving across the cloud to avoid being hit by the stuff.
The Dream Dust eliminates any lingering doubts I may have had about Claudine. It’s no coincidence she has a Black Tech supposedly designed by the League.
Gun jerks away, trying to avoid the Dream Dust. As he does, the merc yanks Selina from his belt and leaps off the cloud, hovering in the air out of reach.
Gun staggers back, but he’s not fast enough. The blue powder rolls over him. Blue bits shower down on my foot and ankle, but the rest of my body is untouched. I can only hope my physical reaction won’t be as severe as last time.
I jump to my feet. Gun angles himself so that he stands by my side. It’s the way we always stood together when going into a match in the Cube. Despite all the murkiness clouding our friendship, we’re still fighting partners.
More and more mercs drop through the star-filled sky, all of them outfitted with black wings.
“You have any other sites where we can hide?” I whisper to Gun.
He grunts, but doesn’t reply.
“You certainly didn’t make things easy.” The familiar voice of Claudine Winn floats in the starlight around us. She glides through her dark-winged mercs. Her pale pink wings match her pink business suit. She lands lightly on the cloud beside us. The rest of the mercs fan out around the cloud.
“Good work, Miss Hom,” she says. “My cybermercs have spent weeks trying to track down this young man. And here you help us catch him in a single night. I will overlook the fact that you violated Global protocol to do so.”
I hate her, I hate her, I hate her. I clench my fists, weighing the pros and cons of punching her.
“And you.” Claudine turns to Gun. “We can do this two ways. You can let me see your true VI, or my cybermercs will force the truth from you. Your choice.”
The cybermercs brandish Decoders. They’re two-foot smooth, black batons, the ends capped with small metal spikes. The spikes shoot code into any avatar they touch. The code is meant to strip all Vex Axcents and reveal the true, Naked avatar beneath. It’s tech generally used by law enforcement.
Sulan Box Set (Episodes 1-4) Page 47
