Wildcard

by Marie Lu

  I lean forward and find my voice. “Even though Sasuke is gone from this world,” I murmur softly, “he’s still alive in another.”

  Hideo doesn’t answer, but his lashes lower as his gaze turns toward me.

  “Zero is Taylor’s creation,” I go on. My voice sounds deafening. “He’s tethered to her in every sense of the word. Just as your algorithm controls those who wear the new NeuroLink lenses, Taylor controls Zero’s data. His mind. But Sasuke isn’t gone. I think he reached out to me through Zero because he’s trapped somewhere in that darkness, crying for help.”

  Hideo winces visibly. He still says nothing.

  I put a hand on his arm hesitantly. “Hideo, Taylor’s after your NeuroLink. Her people are behind every recent attack against it.”

  “Let them come.” Hideo’s words are a quiet and clear threat. He rises from the couch, turns away from me, and walks toward the window. There, he puts his hands in his pockets and stares out at the city on the water.

  My words fade away. After a while, I push myself off the couch and go to stand beside him at the windows.

  When I glance at him, I can see the tears on his cheeks, his red eyes.

  Finally, after a long moment, he turns his head slightly toward me, his gaze still directed outward at the city. “Does he remember anything?” he asks in a low voice.

  I can hear the real question he’s asking. Does he remember me? Does he remember our parents? “He knows who you are,” I reply softly. “But only in the way that a stranger might know you. I’m sorry, Hideo. I wish I could tell you something better than that.”

  Hideo continues to stare blankly out at the city. I find myself wondering what he’s thinking, if maybe he wishes he could use the NeuroLink to will away what happened in the past.

  “Jax told me that the only way to help Sasuke is if we use your algorithm to turn Zero against Taylor.”

  This breaks through his trance. Hideo looks sidelong at me. “You want me to link the algorithm to her.”

  “Exactly. If you open the algorithm and connect Taylor to it, you’ll be able to control Taylor and free Zero from her.”

  “What about Sasuke?” Hideo’s jaw tightens at his brother’s name.

  “Taylor has archives of Sasuke’s past mind. All the iterations of him. If we can combine those versions with who he is now, we can make his mind whole again.” I pause. “I know he can never be real . . . but you’ll be able to have him back in some sense.”

  “You’re asking me to give you access to my algorithm.”

  I hesitate. “Yes.”

  He’s still struggling to trust me, but with his guard down, I can once again see his beating heart behind the armor. All the thousands of possibilities of what could have happened to Sasuke are wiped from his gaze and replaced by clarity—a path forward. He has a chance to talk to his brother again, bring him back in some small way.

  For this, I know he’s willing to tear the world’s order to shreds. He’s willing to risk anything.

  Hideo looks back out at the water. A long beat passes before he finally says, “I’ll do it.”

  Without thinking, I take a step closer to him until we’re nearly touching. My hand comes up to rest on his arm. I don’t say anything. He stirs anyway, sensing my own mix of emotions—the wavering trust I’m putting in him, the pull I always feel when I’m near him. My fear of letting him in again. Beneath his shirt, his skin is warm. I can’t bring myself to move away.

  He turns to face me. “You’re risking your life, telling me this,” he says. “You could have returned to New York and left all of this behind. But you’re still here, Emika.”

  For a moment, I imagine myself back at the little bar with Hammie and the other Riders. I see Hammie leaning forward and fixing me with her steady gaze. Why are you doing this?

  Then I do something I never thought I would. I think back on the morning I’d crouched, thin and hollow and hopeless, in my foster-home bed and heard his story on the radio. I let the Memory form, crystallizing into a clear image, and then I send it to him, every last thing I saw and felt and heard that day. I let him see the broken side of me that had stirred at the knowledge of him, the pieces that somehow found each other again.

  I don’t know how much of it he can see and understand. It’s a jumble of thoughts and emotions, not a real recorded Memory. Suddenly, I’m afraid that he won’t get what I’m trying to say at all. That this vulnerable, naked moment might mean nothing to him.

  I turn away in embarassment. But when I glance back at him, his eyes are locked on me, taking me in as if I am all that matters. As if he understands everything I tried to share.

  It’s almost more than I can bear. I swallow hard and force myself to look away. My cheeks burn hot. “Hideo . . . I’m never going to agree with what you’re doing. I’ll never feel right about the deaths connected to your algorithm or your reasons justifying them. But that day, when you were just a boy being interviewed on the radio, hiding your broken heart, you reached a girl searching for something to hold on to. She found you, and you helped her pull herself up.”

  Hideo stares at me, his gaze searing me to my core. “I didn’t know,” he whispered.

  “You are forever a piece of my story. I couldn’t turn my back on you without turning my back on myself. I had to try.” My quiet words hang in the air. “I had to hold out my hand to you.”

  He’s so close now. I’m on dangerous ground—I never should have come here. But I stay still and don’t move away.

  “You’re afraid,” I murmur, noticing the emotions pulsing from him.

  “I’m terrified,” he whispers back. “Of what you’re capable of. Because you’re here, walking on a razor-thin line. I’ve been afraid ever since I met you, when you looked me straight in the eye and broke down my system in a matter of minutes. I spent hours afterward studying what you did. I remember everything you’ve ever said to me.” An ache enters his voice. “I’m afraid that every time I see you might be the last.”

  I think back to the piercing gaze he’d given me during our last meeting. Underneath that had been fear, all along. “You told me you never wanted to see me again,” I manage to say.

  His voice is low and raw. “Because every time I see you, it takes everything in me to turn away.”

  I realize that I’m leaning toward him now, yearning for something more. He must be able to sense it through our connection, and as if in answer, I feel the need coming from him, shadows of what he wishes he could do, fleeting thoughts of his hand at my waist, pulling me in. The space between us feels alive, sparking with a searing desire to close.

  He hesitates. With his heart exposed and vulnerable, I can now see the fear in his expression. “What do you want, Emika?” he whispers.

  I close my eyes, take a breath, and open them again. “I want to stay.”

  It is the last trembling rope holding him back. He closes the inches between us, takes my face in his hands, and leans down toward me. His lips touch mine.

  Any sense of control I’d felt now shatters. He’s warm, his body familiar, and I fall into him. There is none of the gentle hesitation of our first kiss—this is deeper, more intense—both of us are making up for lost time.

  My arms wrap around his neck. His hand pushes against the small of my back, pressing my body to his. My fingers run through his hair. He breaks our kiss only to touch his lips to my neck, and I exhale, shuddering at his warm breath against my skin. Glimpses and fantasies and sensations spark from his mind to mine, mine to his, leaving me tingling down to my toes.

  I vaguely register him lifting me effortlessly into his arms. He’s carrying me toward the bed.

  Don’t do this, I warn myself. You’re on thin ice. You need to keep a clear head.

  But when we fall against the bedsheets, all I focus on is the cut of his jaw in the shadows. I admire the slant of deep blu
e light against his skin as I fumble with the buttons of his shirt and tug his belt loose. His hands are yanking my shirt up over my head, sliding along my skin. The cool air in the room hits my bare chest, and I’m struck with a sudden instinct to cover myself in front of him. But he stares down at me, his eyes dark with desire. A shy smile touches his lips. The city’s glow outside catches on his long lashes.

  When I reach for him, he kisses me on the cheek, then trails his lips along my neck and my collar. His breathing is heavy and uneven, his hands warm and gentle. I tremble against him, and after a heartbeat I realize that he is shaking, too. I run a finger along the muscles of his chest down to his stomach, blushing at the way this simple touch makes him shiver. His mouth brushes against mine, asking me in a whisper what I want, and I tell him, and he gives it to me, and in this moment, I don’t think about anything else, not the Blackcoats, not Zero, not the dangers waiting for us. I just think about now. Just my body entwined with his. Just his sharp intake of breath, my name feverish on his lips, the cool sheets beneath us, the heat of him moving against me, my fingers clinging desperately to his back.

  Just me.

  Him.

  And the gentle lapping of the ocean outside, ink under a midnight sky, separating us from the glittering city that awaits us.

  23

  One Day until the Warcross Closing Ceremony

  I don’t stir until the first rays of dawn enter the room, casting a weak palette of light against the tangled sheets. For a moment, I can’t remember where I am—an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed. The space next to me is empty. The room is rocking ever so slightly. A boat?

  Slowly, the memories from the night before come back to me.

  I frown, gathering the blankets around my chest and pulling myself up into a sitting position. Did Hideo leave? I look around the room until my eyes finally settle on a sliding glass door left ajar, beyond which the silhouette of a man stands bathed in gold, leaning against the ship’s railing and looking out at the city.

  I let myself watch him for a moment. Then I reach for my clothes, pull them on, and slip out of his bed.

  The air outside is still cool, smelling of salt and sea, and my skin prickles as I stop to lean against the open door. Two steaming mugs sit on a small table beside where Hideo’s standing. Morning dew lingers on the doors’ glass. I run an idle finger along it, noting the feel of the moisture, and remind myself that I’m in the real world now, not in a virtual one.

  Hideo looks to his side so that I can see the profile of his face. “You’re up early,” he says.

  “You knew I’d be,” I reply, nodding at the two mugs of coffee. “Or you wouldn’t have poured me that.”

  He glances briefly at me, a small smile on his lips, and takes a sip of his own coffee. He looks pale this morning, dark circles still under his eyes, but other than that, I wouldn’t be able to tell what he’s going through. Every vulnerability that he had exposed to me the night before has been neatly stored away again, and for a moment I’m afraid he’s gone back to not trusting me again. Thinking this was all a huge mistake.

  Then I meet his gaze, and in it, I see something open. No, he hasn’t retreated entirely. The real Hideo I’ve been searching for is here.

  When I still linger by the door, he nods for me to come join him, handing me my mug of coffee as I reach him. “Taylor expects you here,” he says quietly, his eyes going out to the stirring city.

  I nod. My mind returns briefly to Zero. They might be watching us right now from some unknown place on shore. “They want me close to you,” I reply as I put my mug back down on the table.

  Hideo’s eyes flicker, and I know he’s thinking about his brother. Whatever it is, though, he doesn’t say it out loud. Instead, he reaches for me and pulls me to him. His hands are warm from the coffee mug. I suck in my breath as he turns me around so that my back is against the balcony, and his arms are pressed against the ledge on either side of me, pinning me in.

  “This is what they expect to see, isn’t it?” he murmurs, his face tilted toward my ear.

  “Yes.” My skin tingles at his closeness, and all I can think of is what happened last night. He’s right, of course, and if the Blackcoats are watching, it’ll help my case for them to see me with Hideo. Again, I find myself thinking of my dream of shattered glass, where Zero was watching us from the other side of the bedroom. It’s enough to make me glance to my side, half expecting him to be here on the yacht.

  But it’s just us.

  Hideo gives me a half smile, leans close, and presses his lips against my neck. “Kiss me, then,” he murmurs, and pulls me toward him.

  I close my eyes at his touch, shivering, and turn my face toward his. I kiss him slowly, savoring the moment. If only things could stay this simple between us.

  Finally, I force myself to push away. “We won’t have much time to act during the closing ceremony tomorrow,” I murmur to him. “We’ll need to do it right as your beta lenses update.”

  He watches me carefully from the corner of his eye. The fire in his gaze is dark, a seething hate. “Good,” he says. There is a note in his voice that unsettles me. “I’ll be ready for Taylor. I want to see her face.”

  The memory of the lines of the guilt-ridden outside the police stations come back to me, all those suicides by criminals compelled by the algorithm. The suicides of some who weren’t criminals at all.

  “And what happens if we succeed?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you get your brother back, even an echo of him . . . what then? What happens to the algorithm? Will you keep it going?”

  He’s silent. Everything he’s ever done has been to find the person responsible for taking his brother from him and to prevent the same thing from ever happening again to anyone else. Now he knows who did it. He’ll be confronting her in a day.

  “You always said that the algorithm is meant to be unbiased,” I say. “But that’s never going to be true, is it? Not when it’s controlled by a human. I uncovered everything I could about Sasuke because I cared about what had happened to him. Because I care about you. But the bigger reason I did it was to give you a reason to stop using your algorithm.”

  I don’t add that I’d overheard what he’d said to Mari and Kenn, or that I know he’s been using the algorithm to try to hunt down Sasuke’s kidnapper. But I don’t need to. Hideo knows what I’m talking about.

  “Please, Hideo,” I add softly to him. “This is your chance to do what’s right. End the algorithm.”

  For the first time since he told me about his plans, I can see him wrestling with the choices he’s made. But he doesn’t reply. He straightens and moves to stand at my side, where he rests his elbows against the railing. Out across the ocean, Tokyo’s skyline is rimmed in light.

  I do the same—turn myself toward the city and study the day as it grows brighter. Hideo doesn’t answer me, not directly, but his eyes are heavy. He looks away from the light and toward the shadows that still stretch across the docks, casting the streets in blue and gray.

  What will I do, if we succeed and Hideo continues ahead with the algorithm? What if I’ve been wrong about him all along?

  The thought stirs in me, dark and troubling. In my files, I quietly bring up the cube that Zero had given me. It rotates before me in midair, invisible to Hideo.

  If Hideo doesn’t change his mind, I know what I need to do. And this time, there will be no forgiving. No second chances.

  If he won’t give up the algorithm willingly, then I’ll have to take it from him.

  24

  The Day of the Warcross Closing Ceremony

  Late afternoon on the day of the closing ceremony is muted with clouds. Even though I have my lenses on, I know that underneath the bright hues of the official teams coloring the sky, Tokyo is covered in shades of gray, turning steadily darker.

  How appropria
te. The timer in my vision tells me that I have one hour until the beta lenses patch.

  A black auto-car picks me up at my hotel in Omotesando, and once I’m inside, it steers itself in the direction of the Tokyo Dome. Outside my window, the city’s celebrations have taken on the heat of a fever, and everyone is cheering at our line of black cars cutting through the city. As if today were another typical Warcross tournament day.

  I turn away from their eager faces and stare down at my hands in my lap. What will this city be like after everything goes down?

  A message from Zero cuts through my thoughts.

  When the closing ceremony starts, you’ll be in the center of the arena with the other all-star players. Hideo will greet each of you in turn.

  Zero has the inside workings of the tournament today down to every fine detail. I imagine his virtual self, hacking into the Henka Games schedules and downloading everything. Then I picture Sasuke, the real Zero, curled in a ball in a corner of that mind. If he’s there at all. And even if he is, how much of all this is he aware of? Would he know what’s about to happen?

  I send a reply.

  When will I see you and Taylor?

  When Hideo finishes greeting you, the new Warcross world for the closing ceremony will open. Hideo will personally announce it to the audience. For a moment, you, the other players, and Hideo will all be inside this world at the same time. That’s the moment right before the beta lenses get patched, and the moment you will be able to hack into his mind.

  Zero pauses.

  Be prepared. We’ll see you on the floor of the arena.

  I will.

  Our conversation ends. I bring up the cube in my hand again, letting Zero’s hack hover in my palms. I know Hideo will seize the chance to trap Taylor in the algorithm, hopefully freeing his brother. But the algorithm itself . . . I think back to the image of Hideo’s uncertain face as he stood with me on the deck of his yacht.