Wildcard (Warcross)

by Marie Lu

  I give Hammie a withering look. “That’s different. Your parents are in love. And they weren’t fighting over the fact that your dad wants to control the world.”

  Hammie waves a flippant hand. “Details. I’m just saying. You think you’re not over Hideo? He’s mad about you. You heard Kenn say it. Even Zero knows. And now the girl he can’t get out of his head is going to show up right in front of him, without warning, in a stunning dress? You’re going to knock his socks off with a battering ram.”

  “Well, I’m glad one of us thinks so.” I pull on a new dress and adjust the straps. This one fits like a glove, with a plunging back and a full skirt ending perfectly at my feet. “I don’t think being unpredictable is a good thing with Hideo,” I say.

  “Everything about you has been unpredictable since the moment you hacked into his game.” Hammie steps back, admiring the dress’s clean lines. “If he doesn’t at least give you the time of day when he sees you like this, he really has no soul. Then you can kick his ass.”

  We pause at a knock on the door. Hammie calls out that we’re done, and it opens to reveal Roshan leaning against the doorway. He glances over at me with an approving look.

  “Car’s here,” he says.

  “Give us a sec,” Hammie replies. “While I do her hair and makeup.”

  The world is hanging by a thread, and yet here the Riders still are, acting like this is nothing more than getting me ready for a party. I feel an overwhelming rush of gratitude for them.

  “Hideo’s going to know you all helped me,” I say to Roshan.

  “You don’t need to worry about us right now,” Roshan replies. He meets my gaze with his steady one. “Just be careful.”

  I close my eyes as Hammie starts dusting glittering shadow on my eyelids. It’s just as well. Tremaine’s story about their past is still fresh in my mind, and looking at Roshan’s unsuspecting face sends an ache through my chest.

  Finally, I’m ready. As I head out of the house, I hear Hammie call out one last “Good luck!” in my direction. Then I’m getting into the car, and the door seals me in.

  I spend the entire ride with my hands clasped tightly in my lap, lost in the silken folds of my dress’s skirt. Beyond the window, high-rises blur by with little shrines squeezed between them, followed by garden walls and an expansive park. The sun is already setting, and more neon lights are starting to turn on. As we drive alongside a river that reflects the subways running on the opposite side of the banks, I can see the interior of the train cars packed with people, many of them decked out in their Warcross virtual outfits.

  Too anxious already, I force myself to look away, then concentrate on overlaying a randomly generated face on my own. My rainbow hair turns into sleek dark brown, and my eyes change to a pale hazel. When I see my reflection again in the car’s rearview mirrors, I look unrecognizable.

  I don’t need to tell him much tonight, I remind myself. Right now, I just need to convince the Blackcoats that I’m making progress in getting closer to Hideo. I need Hideo to agree to meet me again in private, so that I can talk to him safely.

  He’s mad about you. I try to repeat Hammie’s reassurances to myself. But it’s harder to believe without her beside me.

  The drive feels both like it took forever and no time at all. The Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art’s main entrance is entirely blocked off today, thick with security, but my car takes a turn into a smaller side entrance that brings us through the surrounding park grounds. We go up the winding path a brief distance before stopping on the side of the building. Here, it’s quieter, a few other black cars ahead of us. I hold my breath as we reach the front of the line. Here, the car comes to a full stop at the entrance, and its door slides open.

  “Have a wonderful evening,” the car says. “Congratulations again on your team’s win.”

  “Thank you,” I mutter at it before I exit, fanning out my dress.

  Everyone else inside the building is decked out in elaborate attire. Some of them are wearing half masks adorned with jewel-encrusted feathers, while others hold delicate, porcelain-colored fans across their faces. I stand there for a moment, feeling at once vulnerable and invisible. Thank goodness Hammie forced me to choose such an elegant dress. Anything less would have made me stand out in this crowd.

  The main entrance hall of the museum is a soaring corridor of glass and metal, enormous triangles cut through with a steel mesh of circles. The giant glass panels are actually screens, and as I walk, the NeuroLink simulates scenes on each panel from this year’s championship worlds. I recognize the rematch’s world of cloud plains and cliffs, then the ice world of my first official game. I pause for a moment in front of a panel showcasing the eerie underwater ruins that we’d played in the Riders’ third round. This was the world where Zero had broken into my account and made me his offer.

  All around me, groups of social elites cluster and laugh politely over conversations I can’t understand. I see women drenched in jewels, men in sharply tailored suits and tuxedos. Asher had said these people would be the upper crust of society, billionaires and philanthropists, the kind of people Hideo must constantly cross paths with.

  Then, finally, I reach the end of the hall, where I spot who I’ve been searching for.

  Every muscle in my body tenses at the same time. Hideo’s standing there with a small circle of his bodyguards, each of them dressed in matching black suits, and he’s deep in conversation with several other well-dressed people. Kenn. Mari is here, too, in a long-sleeved, silver dress with a sheer tulle train. There’s a young woman about my age who’s leaning into Hideo, laughing at something he’s just said. I try not to pay attention to how beautiful she is. A few others, women and businessmen alike, wait on the sidelines for their chance to talk to him.

  At least Asher was right about this setting—if Hideo sees me here, he’s not going to want to cause a scene. There have been enough disruptions during this year’s championships, and too many elite folks are here. But if he doesn’t want me to cause a scene, he’ll have to agree to talk to me.

  As I watch him politely field the girl’s questions, I gradually start to dissolve the anonymous virtual face I’ve overlaid over my own, erasing it so that only Hideo will be able to see behind it. Then I step forward until there’s no one before me except him and the girl.

  He glances in my direction. Then he freezes. His distant expression vanishes, and for an instant, all I can see beneath it is a look of shock.

  Beside him, the girl touching his arm looks in my direction and gives me a confused scowl. To her, I still look like some stranger, someone she doesn’t know, and she lets out a nervous laugh. “Who’s this, Hideo?” she says.

  One of the bodyguards must sense Hideo’s sudden change in demeanor, too, because I see his hand fly to his gun. I instinctively brace myself. I’ve made a mistake, I’ve misjudged this event—Hideo’s going to let his guard take me down, he doesn’t care about making a scene here, no matter how many powerful people are at this party.

  But then Hideo holds up a warning hand at the guard. He meets the man’s eyes and shakes his head once. “Excuse me,” he says to the girl at his side, then takes a few steps toward me. He gives me a polite bow of his head, and I return the gesture.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you,” he says. He takes my hand and presses it once to his lips. Behind him, the girl he’d been with sucks in her breath and exchanges a quick look with a friend. The conversation around us turns quiet.

  His mind must be spinning right now. He must be wondering how I got in here, whether the Phoenix Riders are in on whatever my plans are.

  On the surface, though, I just smile back and play along, as if everything were fine. “Well, is that my fault, or yours?”

  He turns briefly to his other guests, all of whom are staring at us with obvious interest. “My apologies,” he says. His eyes go to his
bodyguards. “Stay here. I won’t be long.” Without waiting to hear their responses, he turns to me and places one hand at the small of my back. I try to ignore the sensation, that the only thing separating us is the silky fabric of this dress.

  His expression is tired, and I wonder if he’s learned anything new about the bug in the algorithm since I eavesdropped on his conversation. He doesn’t seem like he trusts me, but for some reason, he still nods and steers us through the hall until it branches into the museum’s interior, where one corridor leads out into a vast courtyard.

  There’s a slight chill in the night air, and the grounds are sparsely populated with only a few people here and there. Trees line the sides of a towering structure that curves up to the evening sky. Other art installations look like they’re dedicated specifically to Warcross. One series of 3-D sculptures forms the Warcross logo from certain angles, and from other angles looks like an Artifact, or a popular virtual item, or the outfit of an official player. Another piece of art is a stylized interpretation of the various worlds used in this year’s championships, a series of white polygons in a row, representing the ice columns from the White World I’d played in or modern art ruins of a city encased behind a giant glass cube tinted an underwater green color. Yet another looks like a real-life ode to Warcross’s virtual-reality realms: dozens of giant, round lights installed in the ground, so that each shoots a colored beam up toward the sky. Orchestral music plays softly, changing whenever we step onto one of the light columns, matching each color to a different musical cue. As we walk through them, we cast shadows haloed in the color of that column of light.

  The mood would feel almost peaceful, if it weren’t for the reason we’re out here.

  Now Hideo leads us close to the light installation. Blue and yellow beams cast their colors against his skin.

  “Where are we going?” I say.

  Hideo’s gaze turns dark. “I’m escorting you out,” he says in a low voice.

  I’m not surprised by his words, but they still hit me hard. He doesn’t speculate about the fact that I’d clearly gotten help from the Riders or that I might be here to hurt him. He just looks at me like I’m nothing more than some distant associate that he’d already forgotten. I can feel my cheeks warming, my heartbeat beginning to race. It’s stupid of me to still be bothered by him, but I can’t force the sting down. It makes me think that maybe I’d always read him wrong.

  Unless he’s afraid of me being here. Maybe he’s afraid that I’ve been sent here after him. And he’d be right.

  “Please,” I respond before I can think through my words. “Just hear me out. I’m not here to argue with you. Neither of us has the time for that.”

  “What are you doing here, Emika?” Hideo says with a sigh. He glances briefly toward the bright museum hall, the impatience obvious in his glare.

  I swallow hard, and then take a step onto one of the light columns. Yellow light illuminates everything around me, and the music shifts to an active orchestral piece. Hideo follows me. “I’ve found something you need to know,” I say, my words shielded from any prying ears by the music. From a distance, it looks like we’re just two people enjoying the art installation.

  I hold my breath, ready for Hideo to call for his guards. He doesn’t. He studies my expression, as if searching for what I might say next. “Tell me,” he says.

  I take another step onto a different light column. This time, I’m bathed in blue, and the music shifts to a deeper track. The words sit at the tip of my tongue. Your brother is Zero. The same hacker we’d been tracking throughout the championships.

  Once he knows, there’s no turning back.

  “I’ll show you instead,” I reply.

  Then I bring up an image of Zero without his armor, his face exposed and unmistakable. The image hovers between us.

  It’s as if I’d struck Hideo straight in the chest. He doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t blink. The color drains from his face. In the blue light, his skin takes on an ominous glow from below, and his eyes look like black marbles. His lips tighten. His hands move slightly, and when I look down at them, he’s balled both into fists so tightly that his scarred knuckles have turned white.

  His stare never leaves Sasuke’s face, one that looks so similar to his own. He scrutinizes everything—the way his eyes turn sideways, the thoughtful tilt of his head, the hardness of his smile. Maybe he’s making a mental list of all the ways the two of them are alike, or maybe he’s matching up these features with what he remembers of Sasuke as a child, as if he’d drawn a new image in his head with these two pictures combined.

  Then his eyes shutter. Whatever he thinks of the photo disappears behind a cloud of disbelief. He turns to me. “This has to be fake. You’re lying to me.”

  “I’ve never been more truthful.” I keep my words steady and the image unwavering.

  He straightens and takes a step away from me, so that half of him is in a red column of light. “This photo isn’t real. That isn’t him.”

  “It’s real. I swear it on my life.”

  The anger on his face is growing every second, a wall bricking in the part of him that had believed me. Still, I stay where I am, digging my nails into the palms of my hands. “I’ve met your brother.” Then I join him on the red light as I continue, slower and more forcefully this time. “I don’t know everything about him yet, and I can’t tell you everything here. But I saw him with my own eyes—I’ve spoken with him directly. Zero is your brother.”

  “You’re baiting me.”

  There in his voice. I hear it, the tiniest hint of doubt, a delay long enough to tell me that I may be getting through to him.

  “I’m not.” I shake my head. “Didn’t you originally hire me to hunt for people you’re searching for? This is what I do.”

  “Except you don’t work for me anymore.” He narrows his eyes at me. There’s fire in his gaze, but beyond that, I can see fear. “There’s nothing holding us together that would make you do this, unless you want something from me. So what is it, Emika? What do you really want?”

  He’s reading me better than I thought, assuming that because of what he’d done to me, I’m doing the same to him. I’d told him once that I was coming for him, and he hasn’t forgotten it.

  “I’m not hunting you,” I say. “I’m trying to tell you the truth.”

  “Who are you working for?” He draws closer now, his eyes focused on me with that familiar, searing intensity. “Is it Zero? Did someone put you up to this?”

  He’s leaping ahead now, guessing too much. For a moment, I think I’ve gone back in time to when I’d first met him, when I had to stare him down to prove my worth.

  “It’s not safe to tell you more here,” I reply. My voice does not falter under his scrutiny, and I don’t look away. “I need to talk to you in private. Just the two of us. I can’t give you anything more than that.”

  Hideo’s face looks completely closed off. I wonder if he’s replaying in his mind every detail from the day that Sasuke went missing, every excruciating moment he lived through afterward. Or maybe he’s trying to break this scenario down, puzzling over whether I’m setting a trap for him or not.

  “I’m not the one who broke our trust,” I go on, more softly now. “I always told you the truth. I worked faithfully for you. And you lied to me.”

  “You know exactly why I had to do it.”

  My anger now flares at his stubbornness. “Why’d you lead me on, then?” I snap, growing angrier with each word. “You could’ve just stayed away or hired someone else. You could’ve left me alone instead of pulling me in.”

  “Believe me, I regret nothing more,” Hideo snaps back.

  His answer startles me, and I forget the retort I already had prepared. He doesn’t look like he was ready to say it, either, and he turns away from me, looking back toward the museum hall. Peals of laughter come fro
m inside. The sounds echo down to us.

  I try one more time. “Do you care enough about your brother to believe that maybe, just maybe, I’m telling you the truth?” I finally reply. “Do you still love Sasuke or not?”

  I’ve never said his brother’s name out loud before. It’s this that finally seems to crack through his shield. He winces at my words. For a moment, all I can see is Hideo as a small boy, his terror as he realized his brother was no longer in the park. He’s spent so many years building up his defenses, and now here I am, ripping right through them with a simple question. Forcing Sasuke back into the present.

  For a while, I think he might refuse me again. I’ve miscalculated everything in my plans against him and the Blackcoats—I’ve sorely overestimated how well I could control this situation. This is too big a hurdle for me to cross.

  Then Hideo turns back to me. He leans down slightly, so that our two silhouettes nearly touch.

  “Tomorrow,” he says in a low voice. “Midnight.”

  16

  By the time I get back to the hotel, a masquerade parade has broken out in the neighboring district, and cosplayers have spilled over from Harajuku’s Takeshita Street onto the sidewalks of Omotesando. People dressed in their most elaborate getups—both real and virtual—are walking around while crowds gather along the shop entrances to gawk and admire. The streets themselves are lit up in virtual neon colors, fading gradually from one team’s hues to the next, and each time they shift, a burst of cheers comes from the fans. A closer look tells me that most of the cosplayers are dressed in some variation of the teams’ outfits from this year’s championships.