Wildcard

by Marie Lu

  Vendors selling merchandise—hats and shirts, figurines and key chains—have pulled out their leftover wares from the first Final. Their faces look haggard and stressed as they run out of supply and try to bring in more. I glimpse a few figurines of myself among those being sold, my rainbow hair painted onto the toys in globs of gradient colors. It’s a surreal sight.

  Eight streaks of laser light suddenly zip past overhead at blistering speed, leaving rainbow-hued lines in the air and causing the crowds on the ground to let out surprised cheers. Drone racing, I think. Like street racing with cars, it’s strictly illegal; these participants must all still be on beta lenses. I’ve even hunted a few drone racers down in the Dark World before and released their info to police. Racers must be feeling pretty bold tonight, but with the cops preoccupied with security for the rematch and breaking up scuffles between rival fans, tonight’s their chance to show off.

  People I pass on the streets argue heatedly in favor of either team; entire groups of fans dressed as the teams are actually facing off on street corners, some of them shouting. A few yells come in my direction from clusters of Andromeda cosplayers.

  “Why are you dressed as the cheater?” one shouts.

  He’s almost immediately answered by calls from Phoenix Riders supporters. “Emika Chen for life!”

  I just keep my head lowered and focus on riding my board down the street. At least there are three other girls dressed up in some variation of Emika Chen, and no one seems interested in looking my way for long. Besides—if what Zero said is true, it means I’m now no longer a mark to all the hunters and assassins who had been trying to get to me. Maybe Jax is guarding me from somewhere, but I don’t see her.

  By the time I near Tokyo Dome’s amusement park, some of my nerves have faded, and I feel more like myself as I make a smooth turn onto the sidewalk.

  A message comes in from Hammie, asking me to accept. I do, and a private virtual image of her appears next to me, looking as real as reality. Her hair is in dozens of braids tonight, with gold and crimson woven into them, and her dark eyelids are coated with glitter. After two days with the Blackcoats, I’m so happy to see her that I almost try to hug her projection.

  “You look ready,” I say to her.

  Hammie rolls her eyes at me. “If one more person touches my hair, I’m gonna knock their head off.” She points toward the back of the dome. “It’s the tunnel they take us through,” she says, “except there won’t be any guards or fans. Watch for me.”

  A golden line appears in my view, guiding me along the path she wants me to take. I nod once, then steer myself in the right direction.

  Soon, I’ve made my way close enough to the dome’s sprawling entertainment complex to see the enormous team portraits of each of tonight’s players hovering over each lamppost. The surrounding complex itself—Tokyo Dome City—is teeming with people, just as it had been during the regular championship season. The amusement park’s rides are lit up in different colors, and through my lenses, I can see an entire carousel of landscape options for me to choose from. When I select a Fantasy option, the entire park transforms into a medieval-looking kingdom with the dome as an enormous castle before me. When I select a Space option, the park shifts yet again into a futuristic station on an alien planet with giant rings arching across the night sky.

  I hop off my ride and walk into the complex to join the masses. At least it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. People gather around rides and shops, their attention focused away from me. I slip through the throngs without a trace.

  Lines of people are gathered near the entrance, waiting to check into the stadium. The gold line veers sharply around them. I follow it until I’ve passed the main entrance gates, bustling with fans. Before long, the back gates come into view, heavily barricaded and swarming with guards. Rows of black cars wait in anticipation of the match’s end. Even though tonight’s game is just between the Phoenix Riders and the Andromedans, all the other teams are here to watch. Crowds of fans linger at the edges of the barricades, hoping to be one of the first to peek at the teams when they leave.

  “Here,” I murmur to Hammie in a message.

  “I see you,” she replies. “When I say go, climb over the left barricade closest to the gate.” Then she goes dark.

  A few minutes later, a riotous commotion suddenly starts at the barricades closest to the back gate. Asher appears, with Hammie and Roshan flanking him on each side, their professional grins on and their hands waving in the air. Behind them come Jackie Nguyen and Brennar Lyons, the replacements for Ren and me. Hammie’s already dressed in Phoenix Rider scarlet, the outfit hugging her curves, and her familiar little smirk is prominent on her face. Asher’s sitting in a new black-and-gold designer wheelchair, and Roshan looks sleek with his head of dark curls carefully combed and his outfit spotless.

  The fans burst into shouts and screams; a wave of flashing lights engulfs the team. People rush the barriers closest to them, forcing all the security to hurry to contain them.

  I smile at their surprise appearance. Perfect. Over the crowds, Hammie sends me a quick message. “Go.”

  As security struggles with the concentration of fans on one side, I swing myself quietly over the other and dart in toward the gate. A few others try to follow me—which is when Hammie raises the alarm, pointing exaggeratedly at the few fans now trying to come over the barrier. A couple of guards rush to intercept them, and I disappear into the dark recesses of the entryway.

  All I can see here are the dim blue outlines of silhouettes. The corridor brings a wave of nostalgia, and I think back to being led out into the arena by a team of bodyguards, my heart pounding in anticipation of the Wardraft. That wasn’t so long ago, but it feels like an eternity.

  “Ash,” I message him as I make my way down the familiar halls. “Can you make sure the security cams in the Phoenix Riders’ waiting room are off?” Before every game, the Riders wait in an elegant suite overlooking the expansive arena.

  “Already done. Careful of the hall leading to our room, though. They installed some new cams there, and we couldn’t gain access to any outside our suite.”

  I shrink further underneath my hoodie. “Got it.”

  “Meet us afterward.” He sends me an address. “We’ll talk then.”

  Finally, I reach the Riders’ empty waiting room and slide the door shut behind me. The silence in here is punctuated by the muffled noise coming from down below, where fifty thousand fans are cheering as the latest track from BTS thunders from the speakers. I stand before the window, feeling for a second like I’ve gone back in time to when I was still a player. The stadium is completely packed, with more people streaming in to their seats with each passing second. An announcer is recapping the original Final game as footage plays in the enormous 3-D holograms.

  A glowing light is already flashing over the suite’s door, calling for the players to head down to the center of the arena. Analysts sitting in the top rows broadcast their debates, predicting which team has the best chance of winning.

  My attention turns to the private glass box on the other side of the arena. In there, I can see several figures moving around that I identify as Hideo, Mari, and Kenn.

  On the ground level, the first members of Team Andromeda have started emerging into the center of the arena. The crowd’s screams rise a deafening octave.

  “Good luck,” I murmur to my team as they start appearing, too. My gaze lingers awhile longer on their sleek outfits. Even after everything, the energy in this space fills every inch of me, and I want nothing more than to be down there with them, soaking in the world’s applause and wondering what new, fantastical realm I’d be dropped into next. I want to be excited again with my whole heart, before everything became so complicated.

  I shake my head, take a seat, and pull up a grid of the entire dome’s security cams.

  There’s more surveillance in t
his dome than I’ve seen anywhere else—at least two or three cams in each room. It seems they’ve added layers of security since the breach that nearly killed Hideo. When Jax nearly killed Hideo, I remind myself as a shiver runs through me.

  The announcer finishes introducing each of the players. The lights in the stadium dim, leaving only the teams illuminated, and in the center of the arena, a hologram appears to show the world that everyone will be immersed in. It’s somewhere high in the sky, shrouded by clouds in every direction, and piercing through the cloudbank are hundreds of narrow mountain peaks with towers on top, each connected to the others around it with narrow rope bridges.

  “Welcome to the Sky Kingdom,” a familiar, omniscient voice rings out across the stadium. The audience lets out a deafening roar of approval.

  I look away from the arena and scroll quietly through the various security cams until I reach the ones that are inside Hideo’s private box. The shields on the cams are tight, and I can already tell I won’t be able to alter any of their footage. If security notices me in here and realizes that I’m not one of the Phoenix Riders, they’re going to start asking questions.

  But nothing’s stopping me from zooming in on the surveillance cams in Hideo’s box, to follow the feeds that the security guard manning the cameras can see. I find his profile, then make my way in.

  Footage from every security cam in the dome fills the space around me. I rotate through them until I find the ones in Hideo’s box, and then zoom in on the most central one.

  Suddenly, it’s as if I’m hovering on their ceiling, watching them like a ghost.

  And I find myself listening in on a conversation that makes me recoil in horror.

  11

  Kenn’s arms are crossed tightly, and he has a frown on his face as he addresses Hideo. “But there’s no proof of that,” he argues.

  Mari lets out an exasperated sigh. “Kenn, we’re not here to rush out a subpar product.” Her Japanese translates rapidly into English in my view. “We need to check if this is caused by the algorithm.”

  I suck in my breath sharply. So Hideo hadn’t kept it all to himself; Mari and Kenn are aware of the algorithm. Not only that—they sound like they were actively involved in putting it into effect.

  But what is Mari talking about? What does she think the algorithm is doing?

  “Suicides can be caused by anything,” Kenn says with a wave of his hand. “Have you become just like those stuck-up legislators? They think they can prevent progress by banning new technology in their cities—”

  “They’re not always wrong to do it,” Mari replies. “This is serious. If this is our mistake, we need to fix it immediately.”

  Suicides? I think of the police tape fencing off that block in Kabukichō. They must be talking about the criminals who have been killing themselves around the world. The ones Hideo mentioned in our last argument. Convicted sex traffickers committing suicide, he’d said. But that had sounded like something the algorithm was always supposed to allow.

  “Just wait a few months,” Kenn says. “Everything will smooth out.”

  My gaze goes to Hideo, who hasn’t said a word yet. He looks composed as he leans back in his seat and regards each of his colleagues. A closer look at his face, though, tells me he’s in a dark mood.

  “The entire purpose of the algorithm is to protect people, make them safer,” Mari insists. “It’s not supposed to be responsible for users taking their lives.”

  “This is crazy!” Kenn puts his hands up with a laugh. “There’s no evidence. You’re really trying to suggest that the algorithm is making regular people—people who are innocent—kill themselves?”

  My blood chills at his words. I steady myself against my chair. The algorithm may be causing the deaths of innocent people now.

  “Look at these numbers!” Mari waves a hand, bringing up a graph to hover before the three of them. I stare at it in horror. The graph’s curve looks exponential, sweeping ominously up. “The number of suicides worldwide started trending up the day after the algorithm’s deployment. These aren’t all people with criminal backgrounds.”

  “You’re reaching,” Kenn says with a dismissive shrug. “Why in the world would innocent suicides be connected to us? I’m sure if any of those are related to the algorithm, it’s because those folks were guilty of something.” Kenn says this with a careless shrug.

  It’s the same easy gesture he’d once used when I was first introduced to him and the team—except this time he’s not reassuring me about Hideo’s distant politeness. Now he’s shrugging off dire consequences of the algorithm.

  I stare at Kenn’s face, remembering the way his eyes would twinkle with good cheer every time I spoke to him. Is this the same man who used to text me, worrying about Hideo’s well-being or harping on his stubbornness? Who had once asked me to keep an eye on Hideo?

  I hold that warm smile in my memory while I take in the man before me. He’s lit by top-down light from the ceiling, casting that same face in ominous shadows. I can’t make out his expression.

  Mari brings up another chart. “Past studies have shown a connection between purpose being removed from people’s lives and a higher risk of death. If people have nothing to strive for, if their motivations are tampered with, suicides rise.” She leans forward to meet Kenn’s gaze. “It’s possible. We have to investigate.”

  “Oh, come on. The algorithm isn’t taking away people’s drive for life,” Kenn complains. “Just the drive to commit crimes.”

  “We might have a bug on our hands that triggers the same reaction,” Mari snaps. She looks to her side. “Hideo, please.”

  Hideo’s expression is a tired one, the dark shadows under his eyes only accentuated by the room’s lighting. After a pause, he finally speaks up. “We’ll investigate,” he says. “Immediately.”

  Mari smiles in satisfaction at his words, while Kenn starts to argue. Hideo holds up a hand, cutting him off. “I can’t tolerate a potential flaw in the algorithm,” he says, shooting Kenn a disapproving look. His gaze swivels to Mari. “But the algorithm will stay running. We’re not going to pause it.”

  “Hideo—” Mari starts.

  “The algorithm stays running,” Hideo snaps. His steely reply stills both Mari and Kenn. “Until we have evidence proving Mari’s theory. That’s final.”

  I want to scream at him. What are you doing, Hideo?

  Kenn’s the first to break the silence. “Norway was on the phone asking what you’d like in exchange for loosening certain restrictions on the algorithm. And the Emirates wants a different set of guidelines for what’s considered illegal there. So, what—now are you going to tell them we’re investigating this rumor?”

  “I’m not doing this for favors,” Hideo replies.

  I freeze. Hideo’s scheduling meetings with various leaders around the world. The public doesn’t seem to know about the algorithm—or perhaps they are willed not to know—but these presidents and diplomats sure seem to. Morality shifts over country lines. Everyone’s going to want something different from Hideo.

  “And you realize the Americans landed on the tarmac this morning, don’t you?” Kenn finishes, glowering at Hideo.

  “The Americans can wait.”

  “You tell that to their president.”

  “He’s a fool,” Hideo replies coolly, cutting him short. “He will do exactly what I tell him to do.”

  There’s a breath of hesitation from both Mari and Kenn. Hideo hadn’t even raised his voice with those words—but the power in them is clear. If he wanted to, he could control the US president with a single command from the algorithm. He could give orders to every head of state of every developed nation, of every country in the world. Anyone who has used the NeuroLink.

  Anyone—including Kenn. Including Mari. Are they also using beta lenses? They must be; Kenn would probably be more worried about the suicid
es if he were at risk of being affected. But if Hideo had chosen to give them the privilege of wearing only the beta lenses, then he’s already picking favorites.

  Down in the stadium, an enormous cheer explodes from the audience. Shahira, the Andromedan Captain, has just sent Hammie spinning out of control below the clouds, forcing her to spill a rare, precious power-up she’d nabbed. The analysts are talking rapidly, their voices echoing around the stadium.

  I look away from the game.

  The algorithm is supposed to be neutral. Free from human imperfection, more efficient and thorough than current law enforcement. But that’s always been Hideo’s ridiculous pipe dream. It’s barely been a couple of weeks since he triggered the algorithm, and already, the inefficiencies and tangled webs of human behavior are complicating and corrupting it. What if he does agree to certain favors for certain countries? Special guidelines? Exclusive permissions for wealthy people or political figures? Would he ever go down that path?

  Is it even possible for him not to?

  “I’ll talk to the Americans,” Mari says. “I’ll take them on a tour of the headquarters and show them some of our new work. They’re distracted easily enough, especially if only for a few days.”

  “A few days.” Kenn snorts. “Enough of a delay to set off all kinds of chain reactions.”

  Hideo gives his friend a penetrating look. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

  “I’m not in a hurry,” Kenn says defensively. “I’m trying to help you run a business on time. By all means—knock yourself out investigating these unfounded rumors.”

  “We’re not here to run a system that’s dysfunctional. If Mari finds something substantial, we’re going to halt the algorithm.”

  Kenn shakes his head and sighs in exasperation at Hideo. “This is about Emika, isn’t it?”

  I blink. Me? What do I have to do with this?

  Hideo seems to have the same reaction, because he lifts an eyebrow at his friend and frowns. “How so?”