by A A Woods
I growl, leaning into the attack, ready to rip off his squat head.
He throws a look at my body, his features strangely blank.
“You don’t have to do this.” His voice is unyielding and crisp, betraying no hint of fear.
“Yes,” I growl. “I do.”
His eyes are sliding past my body to something behind me. He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “Have it your way. Andersen.”
My mind leaps back to see the whole warehouse, but it’s too late. A man in the corner—the first man I sent sailing—is lifting his stun gun. Pointing it at me.
And all my defenses are concentrated around the door.
I don’t hesitate. With one hand, I yank my IRIS cable free, shoving off the manager’s stand with the other. The gun fires, sending a crackling pulse over my head. My hair stands on end, my skin prickles, but I’m still conscious.
They’ll have to do better than that.
Disoriented and sightless, I shove to my feet. The leader shouts for Anderson to fire again. I can’t stay still long enough for him to train his sights, so I do something stupid. Something reckless.
Something Khali would do.
With my heart in my throat and my hands quivering like taut wires, I lean forward. Plant one foot on the railing.
And launch myself into the factory.
For a breathless moment, I’m airborne. My hair flies back and my arms fling wide and I’m a discus, a spear, a mindless projectile. The wind crowds out my fear and doubt even more than the fight, and I relish the infinite purity of flying. Of falling. Of being surrounded by a great, vacant, black expanse, like I’m a comet sailing through space.
The conveyer belt jams into my belly with a meaty thud,
Just like I knew I would.
The thing about spending endless hours down here is that I know every machine. Every curve of every belt and arm and limb. This place is a sanctuary as much as my room is.
I begin to climb, my fingers catching on the jagged edges of the gears, fumbling for a solid grip. Shouts rise below me and I hear padded boots thudding, but I don’t stop to consider them. I’m ducking into the conveyer belt and climbing over it, yanking my adrenaline-fueled body toward the dark roof. I feel the skin of my hand tear and my palms become slick with blood or sweat but I can’t stop.
I will not let my brother down.
The conveyer belt shudders as something heavy grabs hold of the other side. My breath comes out in a rush, a silent shriek. With the muscle-memory of all the pieces of this factory, the transient fragments of myself, I throw one hand up. For a heart-stopping instant, I think I’m lost. My fingers grapple in open air, the voices growing louder beneath me.
And then they wrap around the thick cable that holds the belt aloft.
Gritting my teeth against the pain in my hand, I pull myself up.
It’s excruciating.
My palm is a fire, blazing, stinging, but I sink into myself. Into the part of me that’s spent months on the Obaki Mat, swallowing punches and fighting through stab wounds. I’m a warrior. A fighter. I may be small and starved, but my mind is heroic.
I pull myself up one hand at a time, reaching for the ceiling. The two male voices are below me and the wires are shifting and they’re trying to climb. But I’m ahead, almost to the roof. To the tiny escape hatch only I know exists.
I reach a joint in the wires and trace the twisted, jagged tangle to a heavy node. My fingers curl around the emergency tab, the built-in failsafe.
I pull it.
There’s a thunderous, shuddering crash as their shouts are drowned by a waterfall of machinery. I swing from the loose tangle of cables as the conveyer belt settles and the men curse.
“Come back here you little shit!” one of them screams at me, his voice thick with anger and pain.
But I’m already climbing again, my limbs quivering with exertion. I wrap my fingers around a knot, a branch in the endless tree of wiring. The thin metal digs into my palm. I bite back a scream. And then I’m scrabbling for the escape hatch. Pulling it aside.
Lifting myself into the emptiness above.
Silence falls like snow, muffling the noises beneath me. I let the hatch slide shut and throw the lock.
No one’s following me through that door.
Exhaling a dusty breath, I collapse to my knees in the interstitial space between worlds.
When I first found the warehouse, I explored every corner of it to make sure there would be no surprises. So I know where this emergency exit leads. I’m standing in the emptiness that keeps the layers of the city separate, kneeling in the tiny slash between the old and the new. A home of rats and addicts and criminals.
And now me.
I let myself breathe, swallowing greedy gulps of rotting air. It tastes old and smells like sewer, but my heart slows. My breathing smooths. I’m safe, for the moment.
But Khali isn’t.
I clench my fists and press them against the damp, lumpy ground. They hurt, but I don’t care.
ProRec has Khali.
Will she be one of the bodies on display? One of the new lives promised to the rich and selfish? Will she be lost like Damien, crushed out of her body by a foreign, invading mind?
I can’t let that happen. Can’t let any of it happen. Khali and the competitors and all the Gamers living in silence down here in the dark, they’re all innocents in this game. Victims in this fight. ProRec has decided we’re disposable, that we’re somehow less valuable than those who would pay to steal our youth.
I lean into my knuckles, my mouth twisting into a vicious snarl.
It’s wrong and repulsive and toxic.
But what can I do?
The only thing left.
I purse my lips as a way forward illuminates in my mind like the ground before my PAP. The sensible part of me digs in her heels, casting about for another way. But I’m a Gamer. No one will listen to me, and even if they did, it would be too late.
I have to take action.
For Khali.
For Zhu.
For myself.
I shove to my feet, wincing against my cracked hands. I almost laugh at the pain.
Where I’m going, it’s about to get much worse.
Tora
Saturday, September 22nd, 2195
2:43 A.M. EST
Kitzima’s gaming ring is packed and boisterous and achingly familiar as I prowl around the edge. I feel the echo from last time, the instinct to hunt for Damien, to look for Khali. But they’re gone and I’m here and I’m shaking with terror.
The screens hum as a match rolls on in full force. Gamers shout obscenities and encouragement to their favorite competitors, but the buzz in my ears drowns out the noise. I tilt my father’s PAP up at my hip, using the edge of Zhu’s jacket to hide the recording device. Through the shattered lens I see a cavernous ceiling, smoky in the distance, hazy from the heat of bodies and the smog of excitement. Two Yokai avatars are tumbling on the mat, their corresponding Gamers flinching with every blow even as the crowd around them crushes against the virtual bars, jostling and zealous and drunk on the thrill of a close competition. It’s a wilderness of humanity’s most basic instincts, and I feel swallowed by it as I scan the room.
When my lens falls on Kitzima, I feel my gut clench in rage.
She’s leaning out over the match, her face a mask of complacent arrogance. She’s the queen of this underworld. Her reputation holds her there, so far above the ring that no one can touch her. But down here in the Tunnels, a Gamer without a name is nothing. Just another sad outcast.
Kitzima’s power lies in the things people say about her.
My power lies in the ability to threaten that.
“Plug him! Plug him!”
“She’s making an ice sword!”
“Use your wind tornado!”
I’ve never really been a part of this world. It didn’t bother me too much before, at least no more than everything else. But now, as I listen to the rab
id frothing of the throng, I feel the separation like a ringing void. This city is made of islands—Gamers, MemHeads, corporate stooges, small business owners, young, old, and everything in between. These shouting teenagers have built their lives on the same pathetic spit down here, all of them lonely together.
But me?
I was marooned, isolated, standing in the middle of a vast ocean where only the distant sounds of strangers could reach me. Until Khali showed up. She unearthed something inside me that’s been forgotten for so long. With all her brazen, wild, thoughtless beauty, the girl with a deadline taught me how to be infinite.
My heart writhes and I clench my fists, ruined palms aching at the pressure.
I won’t let them wipe Khali away.
The match is reaching its climax and I hear a thud. A crash. A snarling growl. The bell rings.
“I announce Kuriio the victor.” Kitzima’s voice is a purr but somehow it still carries. “Better luck next time, Inu.”
The crowd pulses, mutters, shifting and restless. They know the night’s not over and expectation hangs like a fog. Damien used to try and explain to me why Gamers risk so much to be down here. After all, I didn’t opt into this life. I was forced into it, commanded to hide because of a secret more valuable than a simple banded cable. I couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to live in such lonely squalor.
But Damien did.
He used to tell me to imagine if I’d lived my entire life eating only beets and broccoli. And then suddenly, someone gives you ice cream. However, to have the ice cream, you have to leave your family and friends and embrace a different path. A shunned path. Obviously, most people would choose to keep what they already have. But the ones who really love ice cream understand that you can’t give it up. Once you’ve tasted something that delicious, you’d do anything to have it again.
It’s why people jump out of airplanes and ride waves that could crush bone and body alike.
Some things are too sweet to surrender.
I never thought I’d understand how Gaming could be something joyous. To me, it had always been a tool, a means to an end. But, as I stand in this crowd, the hissing anticipation swirling around me like an intoxicating gas, I wonder if I’m finally beginning to get it.
Kitzima’s voice rises, high and childlike. “The Obaki mat is now open to challengers. Who would like to play?”
I take a breath, unplug myself, and step forward. “I challenge you, Kitzima, to a cage match.”
There’s a collective intake of breath. I feel the burn of a thousand eyes. But I can’t look, can’t pull the PAP out of my pocket. I stand in the darkness, chin held high, Fuzz Specs forgotten. For the first time since I showed up in this ancient square, I’m not hiding.
I imagine Kitzima’s smile unfurling, barbed and spiteful.
“I thought I made myself clear, Tora. You’re no longer welcome here.”
I turn away from her, facing the crowd. Raise my hands. “How long has it been since we’ve seen the Purple Fox fight?” I shout, trying to channel Zhu. My brother would conduct this crowd. They would be instruments and he would be a musician and they would sing whatever tune he told them to.
Maybe some of that power is buried in me.
“I don’t know about you,” I continue with my arms thrown wide, “But I wonder if she still can. She stands up there, lording over us like she’s different. Like she’s better. But is she?” I spin back to where I know Kitzima is glowering, heating up like a radiator. “Maybe it’s time to find out.”
“You want to fight me, Tora?”
I throw my shoulders back and face her, drawing deep from the well of myself. “Yes.”
There’s a shift and a click and I know she’s standing. I picture her, arms folded, mouth twisted in a smirk. Eyes raging.
“For what?” she asks.
“If I win, I get your invite to the Project Recollection tournament.”
The crowd ripples like I’ve just plunged my hand into it. I can hear the Vixens moving in, tightening around me. There’s a reverberating silence where Kitzima’s response should be.
Come on, you cheating asshole. Don’t be a coward tonight.
“Very well,” Kitzima says and I hear the smile in her voice. “But if I win, I take your IRIS cable.”
My heart stops. The crowd murmurs in confusion, wondering why Kitzima would want another Gamer’s cable. But I know. I know all too well. Because she’s the only one down here who’s seen my secret, the only person besides Zhu who knows that there’s something different about the wiring in my head. Built-in, two-way compatibility. Smooth and functional and risk-free. My door to the world. My ultimate weapon.
She wants to cut me off, once and for all.
The noise of the crowd intensifies as I hesitate to answer, my lips pursed.
If I accept, if I lose my cable, what will I be? How will I save Khali, find Zhu, without the use of my IRIS?
How will I see?
I could lose everything.
But if I don’t fight, then I’ve already lost.
The Gamers are chattering around me like curious birds, but it all falls into the backdrop. I’m standing in my sea of darkness, alone with an impossible choice.
A choice I’ve already made.
“I accept,” I say, and the words ring through the square like a judge’s condemnation, like a death sentence carried in two tiny, resonant words.
Tora
Saturday, September 22nd, 2195
2:58 A.M. EST
I plug in with trembling, raw fingers, wondering what form Kitzima will take. I’ve heard rumors about her Yokai of course, but embellishing matches is a common pastime in the Tunnels and I suspect Kitzima’s been behind some of the more fanciful gossip. I brace myself anyway as my Yokai condenses in the ring. I open its eyes, see through its tiger-striped body.
The old square is a sea of faces, all of them tilting toward me like moons orbiting this strange new spectacle, gaping at the Kitzima’s challenger. On the dais, Vixens watch with stony expressions. Javier’s with them, his muscled arms crossed and bulging.
Across from me, Kitzima herself strolls up to the stand, swinging her cable and humming as if she did this every day. She grins at me, rolling the tip of her IRIS expertly over her fingers.
“And I was worried today would be boring,” she says, flashing sharp teeth.
I don’t respond. I’m not sure I can. My Yokai bends its knees and bounces, ready for the fight, but Kitzima is languid as she slides her cable in. Relaxed and haughty. There’s a swirl in front of me as the Obaki Mat responds. As digital bars spring up around us.
The mist condenses, the air solidifying.
And then a fox sits in front of me, fluffy and violet and grinning with sharp, needle-like teeth. The Kitzima-fox cocks her head and the ears topple to one side and she almost looks like something you could cuddle up with on an apartment sofa.
Until it mauls you.
I know more than most that danger can come in small packages. So I keep my eyes trained on her, flexing my own Yokai’s claws. I feel the weight of the two katana and the swish of the crimson robe. In the back of my mind, I watch the code of the Obaki Mat spool out and wrap around us like a blanket.
We both know this won’t be a fair fight.
I need to be ready for anything.
“Javier, my love,” Kitzima calls, tossing purple curls as her Yokai licks its paw. “Will you announce please? I promise, this won’t take long.”
I swallow a growl as the enormous man steps forward. His folded arms tighten and his face pinches.
“Challengers ready?”
“Kitzima signing on.”
“Tora signing on.”
The hollow remains of Times Square are thick with silence. You could hear an IRIS cable sliding into its port. Gamers press against the edges of the mat, peering through the flickering bars, and the air is so still I wonder if they’re all holding their breath.
I wait on th
e edge of the precipice, hanging off a cliff. But I’ve already jumped.
I just haven’t started falling yet.
Javier’s voice rumbles, filling the Tunnels. “Challengers… good luck.”
The holds drop and the match begins with a flash of purple light.
I dive to the side as the tiny fox leaps forward, the lasers from her eyes tracing molten lines on the digital floor. She snaps at my ankle and I leap, twist, barely avoiding another burning sweep. My katanas sing as I whip them out, sharp enough to cut through molecules of air, but Kitzima moves like a ribbon in the wind. She’s there and then gone, leaving scorch marks and laughter in her wake.
The crowd begins to gather momentum. It’s releasing noise like pent-up steam, but I’m only distantly aware of the shifting, wavering current of their support. I am computerized motion. Digitized force. My pulse is the beat to which I choreograph this dance. Leap. Twist. Dodge. Kitzima is fast but I’m matching her steps. Her claws catch my sleeve, but my hilt collides with the soft fur of her belly. She goes flying, righting herself mid-air and shoving off the bars of our cage. Back at me.
Her tail swishes and I feel a storm of fire gather and launch, but my hand flicks up, dousing it with a surge of water. Kitzima’s fox blows out a gust of breath and she’s bubbled by air before the wave hits. It crashes over her and she explodes out, lasers slashing. I feel one burn against my shoulder, but I’m twisting away and she’s chasing after me and I’m swiping with my sword.
In the ring we are matched, but I know it won’t last long. Despite the danger of keeping half my mind out of the game, I watch the code. Perched like a spider in the scripted web of the Obaki Mat, I wait for betrayal.
Which is why I catch the cheat code before it hits.
As Kitzima leaps and swivels, I feel the vibration swooping toward me on near-silent wings. A wall of crackling electricity wicks off of Kitzima’s fur, heading toward me, and I throw my hands up, not to stop it but to gather it. The crowd gasps as the cheat-code hits, but its designed to strengthen Kitzima’s attack and stop my defense. It leaves me open, vulnerable, and free to collect the power she just threw my way.