He cleared his throat. “Now, before you panic—”
A woman in scrubs broke into the conversation, and into the room. “We lost another one.”
Wait.
Everyone in Ms. Takagi’s office quieted.
“Who?” Ms. Takagi asked.
“Not Ryo. Sylvania.”
Ms. Takagi pressed a fist into her stomach and her shoulders curved in. “No. Have you notified her parents?”
A chill ran up my neck. Her parents?
“No,” the CFO said. “Of course we haven’t.”
What was happening? Warmth burned my eyes, but my thoughts were frozen. I turned machine, recording everything without processing it.
“They need to know. We can’t be the only parents—”
The CFO touched her arm. “As soon as we alert the parents, they will call the police. Any investigation will be a distraction from getting our kids out. Our stock eval—”
My insides turned to ice.
“I don’t care about stocks,” Ms. Takagi said. “Any success in slowing the damage?”
He shook his head.
I rolled back against the machine and something crashed.
I fought my own mouth for words. “How many?”
Ms. Takagi lowered her chin. “Sylvania makes five.”
“FIVE?!”
“Of the twelve players selected, only seven are still alive.” Ms. Takagi’s voice held the weight of the world.
But it wasn’t her world. It was mine. I knew their faces. I’d smiled at them. I’d beaten them at video games. We were the final twelve, and five of us were gone.
Sylvania had taken my place. She was unlucky number thirteen, the one just close enough to miss it.
Maybe there was something wrong with me, because when I heard the news, I didn’t cry. Those tears that stung my eyelids didn’t fall. I was numb. It couldn’t … Video games didn’t kill people. Games were a safe place where I could be myself, and be excellent. They were killing people? That was as wrong as someone saying sunscreen causes skin cancer. Video games were there to protect me.
They were my friend. Sometimes my only friend.
And they betrayed me.
Now the tears fell. “How did they die?”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” the CFO answered.
“TELL ME. I want every bit of information you have. Don’t sugarcoat it, or dumb it down. I want the declassified truth or I’ll find it myself.”
Ms. Takagi stared at the screen. “They die of pain.”
The doctor stepped forward. “The coded pain becomes lethal due to the effects on the heart, blood pressure, and release of stress hormones.” She had to pause to breathe again. I still couldn’t. “We officially list the death as cardiopulmonary arrest, or medullary hyperstimulation.”
“So when they die in the game, they really…”
If I hadn’t called my parents, Sylvania never would have gotten in.
“None of this is your fault,” the doctor said.
She was wrong. Grig wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.
He could die. They all could.
“Why three days?”
Ms. Takagi blinked slowly. “That’s when we estimate the source code will fail completely.”
I shook my head. “Can you give them extra lives, like you did Ryo?”
She shook her head. “That was before the game launched. I’ve tried. We’re all trying. But I only gave extra lives to Ryo, and now the code is too fragile to change.”
I pressed my shaking hand against my stomach. “Can I see them?”
Ms. Takagi clicked on the keyboard and the screen switched to the launch rooms.
I’d thought the slick metal sphere in the center of the room had looked so cool before, but now the flickering lights seemed menacing, like lightning sparking through a cloud. Seven doctors in lab coats surrounded a few of the pods, but they ignored the five empty ones.
That was all I saw at first. The players who weren’t here. Then my focus shifted to those who could still survive.
Four boys and three girls.
“Pull them out,” I said.
“We can’t.”
My voice broke. “Why not?”
“They didn’t all die inside the game. After the first death, we pulled Jefferson out. And he…” Ms. Takagi turned slightly green.
My lungs tightened until they wouldn’t expand. “I don’t want to know.”
I’d never said those words before. Not once. But now it was the only thing running circles in my mind.
Grig’s blond hair curled against his scalp, wet with sweat. He looked pale and too thin, his eyelids sunken and his skin tinted yellow. I tried to match the faces in all the other beds with the people I’d met in the game: Dagney’s sharp eyebrows, dark hair, and large curves; Marcus’s pale freckled skin. It was hard to see anything of Ryo except for a shock of black hair; he was so covered in wires and tubes. His face was slick with sweat. His body shook like an addict in withdrawal.
If there was a sixth death, it would be his.
“What can I do?”
Ms. Takagi pried her gaze away from her son. “I know my stubborn son. I had a character tell him not to drink the seer water until he was further along, because I was worried he’d quit, but he needs it now. They all do. You will not be hooked into the pain signals. I will not allow another young person to risk their life for this game. Tell him to drink, and then log out immediately.”
Grig’s lips twitched.
She tapped my arm. “We need you to come back.” She leveled her gaze. “I need you to save my son. But do not risk your own life to do it.”
I bit my lip and then I nodded. “Strap me in.”
16
RYO
The peddler carts circled the middle of an open field. They were a lively bunch, children playing with a mechanical spinner, fiddles humming, food and drink at the ready. Supper was some sort of rabbit. My stomach rumbled. It’d been a long time since the vulture.
Perhaps that was what gave me this headache.
We emerged from the trees. “We are here to trade,” Dagney announced.
The peddlers stood and the camp came alive at her words. Children were tucked away and a fiddler began to play soft looping music as a few cart fronts opened.
Fresh clothing. Was there anything more beautiful?
Dagney followed me. “Grig, can you walk around the carts? I’m looking for healing, armor, weapons, and any gossip.”
“Right.”
I touched a silk shirt, and Dagney led me away toward a few weapons while Grigfen took the other way around. Pumpkin floated after us.
The peddler woman smiled warmly as we approached. She sold weapons: swords, daggers, arrows. Dagney went straight for a battle-axe.
“This looks … fine,” she said, her jaw held tight, as though she were trying to hide how bright her eyes lit when she saw it.
I snorted.
Dagney grabbed a bronze sword. “Be nice, or I won’t get you anything.” She tested the balance, her eyebrows furrowed.
“I like that sword.” I opened my palm so she’d hand it to me.
“Thanks.” The point of her lip turned up. “Find one for yourself.”
But I’d thought … it didn’t matter. Hmm. Which sword?
Ooh, jeweled handle. Beautiful.
“No,” Dagney said, taking the jeweled handle out of my hand. She grabbed a warrior’s sword instead. It was finely made, but … plain.
Dagney studied the wagons. “Let’s get you some armor.”
“I support this mission completely. I will not abide the itching of this foul cloak any longer.”
“Don’t mock my father’s cloak.” The crease between her eyebrows deepened. “Your charisma could really help us get a good deal here. So try to be charming.”
I scoffed. “You think I have to try.”
“Hello!” Dagney said in her prettiest voice. A group of children flocked
around us, tugging at my cloak, reaching for my coins.
I touched the Whirligig. “Play mode.” I grinned at the children. “If you hide, Pumpkin here will try to find you. And by Pumpkin, of course, I mean this floating thing and not my adorable companion.”
Dagney scowled, but the color on her cheeks reddened slightly. I loved her blush. Most of her other expressions read as if she hated me, but her flushed cheeks were a tell she didn’t mind my teasing.
I spread my hands. “I am Prince Ryo, lord of three mountains, heir to the Throne of Honor. I come to you, in this my most desperate hour, asking for your assistance.”
The peddlers bowed in subservience. “Your Majesty, you honor us.”
“I hate you so much right now.” The upturned corner of Dagney’s lips told a different story.
“Show us your finest armor,” I said. “For I battle our enemy, the Savak queen. And I need protection from our kingdom’s finest crafters.”
The peddler pulled the edge of his wagon front. This wagon seemed different from the others in the circle. Wider somehow, and on springs closed tight for traveling. The thing wasn’t stuck as much as it was wedged unopened. Perhaps I could help with that.
“Allow me,” I said.
The golden gloves would not come off my fingers. Grig had suggested this was because I was a Royal class, and my duty to our party was to open doors others could not.
The good news, gold went with everything.
I gripped the stuck edge of the wagon with my witch-made gloves and pulled.
The wagon spread open, wide as a ballroom, full of silks and armor and boots.
Dagney held up a purple silk tunic with gold embroidery. “Take this one.”
Good choice. I complied, but not before she threw a worn red belt at me.
I sniffed. This seemed … dare I say it, used. “Is there something in gold?”
“This is cheaper and it’s plus ten accuracy.”
How would a belt affect accuracy? She handed me a yellow-and-black-diamond crisscrossed cape, a black leather breastplate, and a helmet that looked like the skull of a bison.
Honestly. “Have you seen clothes before?”
She sighed. “I know it doesn’t match, but this is the highest stats assembly.”
Grig came from around the other end and burst out laughing. He held a glass jar of hibisi blossoms. “Were you dressed by the rock troll from Witcher 3?”
Whatever that was.
“Style counts,” I said. I returned everything except the purple tunic and scanned the wagon. An ermine fur-lined gold silk cape. A pristine jerkin, fresh violet pants, gold greaves, and a white helmet with a purple peacock feather.
Hello.
Dagney touched the material. “Royal purple. You might be right. The outfit upped your charisma stats.”
I turned to the peddler. “Before I dress, I’d like to bathe. Would that be possible?”
The peddler clapped his hands. “We have a Mechani cleaning system!”
“That would be wonderful.” I followed the peddler around the back of the wagon and listened patiently to his instructions. When he left me alone, I hung my new clothes over the fold-out screen they wheeled flat. A bucket of rainwater attached to a hose and a spring of whirling gears. I undressed and wound the handle five times as instructed, until the water ran up the tube and through a spout, falling over my shoulders in a continuous downpour. A small store of ghostlight warmed the water. They were nearly out; perhaps Grigfen could sell them more.
Sell. I was becoming as pragmatic as Lady Dagney. These were my people, and they had a need. It was my duty to fulfill it.
The water was colder than I preferred, and I may have dumped in nearly all the contents of the little soap bottles so the bath was more slime than water, but it was a strongly pleasant scented slime, and for a moment the entire world was safe, and not intent on killing me.
What a novel experience.
“What news?” I could hear Dagney talking to the peddler on the other side of the screen.
“What will you trade me for it?”
She paused. I peered through the crease in the screen. But I couldn’t see her, so she couldn’t see me, which was good considering what I wore.
“Will this ring do?”
“Heartily. I’ve heard rumors of war, my lady. Falidin has been razed by fire, the royal family killed in the night; no survivors remained to tell the tale. Rumors speak of a Savak weapon. Some call it a beast. Some say mechanical. In the night you hear a whir of wings, and then when you wake, whole households have been killed. I saw a ship razed in the harbor with mine own eyes, but never saw the creature that slipped in and killed it. The Savak army has taken the Lacice harbor, and the throne of Talmour. There is hope, though. I hear the Kneult have offered great resistance. A brilliant general has arisen from their ranks, and they face the Savak queen now. We’re heading inland, toward the mountains. May the Undergod keep us safe.”
But the general who faced the Savak wasn’t from the Kneult, as this man believed. It was General Franciv and my parents, I’d bet my life on it.
The council was with the Kneult.
The water slowed to a dripping. Someone had hung a thick white cloth over the wood separator. It gathered shadows as I wiped away any dirt or blood the water did not cleanse.
Still I took my time getting dressed, running my fingers across the embroidery of my tunic, the shining jeweled buttons of the jerkin, and the supple leather boots. I reattached my sword to the new belt, and the gold handle matched perfectly. I’d missed the trappings of the court. I’d missed the civilization of a pressed collar.
The impact was immediate. I stepped outside, and the peddler families saw me differently. Even the children bowed.
But they were bowing to their own clothes. I was the same man in that itchy wool cloak.
“Oh, get up,” Dagney said. “He’s not a god.”
I gave her a silly grin. “You’ve not seen me play cards.”
“You’re ridiculous.” But she smiled. I’d learned to read her smile by now. Her words and her expression didn’t always match, but she saw me the same way, no matter what clothes I wore.
She didn’t see the crown. She saw me.
She raised an expressive eyebrow and her green eyes sparkled in the afternoon sun, and I wanted to giggle and be sick all at the same time.
Oh light. I was in trouble. I liked her. But how did you talk to a girl who you actually liked? And where did you put your hands? Like in general I had forgotten how a normal person held their hands. On your hip? No, that looked ridiculous. I’d fold my arms. That was fine. That was very natural.
Her nose crinkled. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. Excuse me. I’m going to see a man about a horse.”
“Good idea.”
She was following me. Why was she following me?
“Grigfen!” Dagney shouted.
I glanced back. The afternoon sun lit the ghostlight Grig had made for the Whirligig to pick up, much to the children’s delight. His eyes widened when he saw my expression. He joined us.
Dagney had procured a notebook from the traders and scribbled a list. “The peddlers could use more ghostlight for their mechanicals. Conjure them some, would you? And help Ryo inspect the horses.”
She placed the end of her pencil against her bottom lip. It was like she was trying to wound me with her adorableness.
Grig tapped my shoulder. “Are you going to be sick?”
“No, I’m fine. Why does everyone think there is something wrong with me? I’m completely normal.” Why was my heart beating so quickly? “I’m going to go look at some shields for a moment, excuse me.”
Why was I overreacting?
I’d been told this world was an arpeegee, whatever that was. I’d seen a split in the sky, I’d died five times, and not one thing had made me flat-out panic like this.
She was only a girl. Not a monster. Breathe, Ryo, breathe.
&n
bsp; So I liked a girl. That was not the end of the world. I was fine.
“Your Majesty,” a peddler with moon-rimmed glasses said. “There is of course the matter of payment.”
“Of course.” I inspected the swords and drew a few breaths. “Lady Tomlinson will handle our trading. Including that jeweled sword, if you please.”
The peddler’s eyes lit with greed. But if he thought a girl quartermaster would mean a higher profit, then I’d looked forward to seeing Dagney trade him silly.
I tilted my head to the side. “May I ask about the ring the lady traded for information?”
“Heard that, did you?”
“I’d rather she not lose her property as she is in my aid.”
“That’s right gentlemanly.” The peddler held out the ring.
I inspected it. It wasn’t anything fancy, a simple band of silver with a small black stone. “Never mind about the jeweled sword. I’ll take the plain one and this ring instead.”
The peddler gave a nod.
Static shook the sky, and the Historian stepped out of charged air. She was the only Historian I’d seen since before we’d entered the catacombs. She wore a mask again, even though I knew Dagney had already added the one she’d lost to her bottomless bag.
“Bluebird!” Grigfen dropped the reins in his hands and ran toward her.
I pocketed the ring.
The Historian removed her mask. This time she had a face. Big brown eyes, warm dark skin, and hair the color of a spring rose.
“Hi, Grig,” she said.
I reached for my hilt. I’d never heard a Historian speak.
“Are you all right?” Grig asked. “Where is your player indicator?”
“I’m outside the game. My parents wouldn’t sign the permission slip.”
“You’re outside the game?” Dagney asked.
This Bluebird person rubbed at her arms. Her neck corded. Something was wrong. I could read the pain on this stranger’s face from ten feet away. I stepped forward.
Dagney’s concerned eyes met mine. Stop looking at me, woman.
“How’d you get in?” Dagney asked. “I thought the game was locked.”
“Ms. Takagi helped me.”
“Can you send her a message?” Dagney asked, but she didn’t wait for a response. “What on earth were you thinking? Why weren’t there more fail safes?! HOW DID YOU LET THIS HAPPEN?” Her cheeks flushed red and her fists clenched. “That’s it, end message, press send.”
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