Warcross

by Marie Lu

  When the world reappears again, we are both standing in a sterile, white space with white walls that stretch to infinity. I recognize it as one of the beginner worlds in Warcross: Paintbrush Level. If you reach out your hands and run them along the white walls, streaks of rainbow paint sweep across the surfaces. I curl my toes slightly and imagine walking—and with those double cues, my avatar moves forward. As we walk, I absently run a hand along one of the walls, watching as the colors streak behind my fingers.

  Hideo leads us to a corner of the world, where he finally stops. I relax my toes and stop, too. He looks at me. “This is the first world where we noticed something was off,” he says. He runs a hand along the wall, leaving trails of bright green and gold. Then, he digs his fingers against the surface and pushes.

  The wall opens, obeying his touch.

  Behind the wall is a world of dark lines and streaks of light, sequenced into detailed patterns. The code that runs this world. This is a glimpse of the API at work in the game. Hideo steps inside the wall, then gestures for me to join him. I hesitate only for a second before leaving the paint-smeared world of white walls and entering the dark mess of lines.

  In here, the lines of light cast a faint blue hue against our skin. A jolt of excitement runs through me at the sight, and I scan the columns, analyzing and absorbing as much as I can. Hideo walks a little, then pauses before a segment of code.

  My instincts kick in, and my eyes relax, taking in the whole display of code before me. Immediately, I see what the problem is. It’s subtle—easily overlooked by someone not experienced with analyzing the NeuroLink’s framework—but there it is, a section that looks mangled, the lines tangled in a way that doesn’t match the pattern around it, a section out of place with the rest of the organized chaos around us.

  Hideo nods approvingly when he realizes that I’ve noticed it. He steps closer to the tangled part. “Do you see what he did?”

  He’s not just showing me what had happened. He’s testing my skills. “It was rewired,” I answer automatically, my eyes darting across the code. “To report data.”

  Hideo nods, then reaches out to the mangled portion and taps it once. It flickers before snapping back into place, clean and orderly, the way it’s supposed to be. “We patched it up. I’m just showing you a memory of how it looked when we first found it. But the person left behind no trace of himself, and he’s gotten better at hiding his tracks since then. We’ve taken to calling him Zero, as that is the default in the access record. It’s the only marker he leaves behind.” He looks at me. “I’m impressed you caught it.”

  Does he think I’m Zero? I look sharply at him. Has he brought me all the way here, asked me his questions—Is this your first time in Japan? Do you have any idea what you did?—just to see if I’m the suspect he’s looking for?

  I scowl at him. “If you want to know whether or not I’m Zero, you could just ask me.”

  Hideo gives me a skeptical look. “And would you admit it?”

  “I would’ve appreciated your directness, instead of this roundabout game you’re playing with me.”

  Hideo’s stare seems capable of piercing straight through my soul. “You hacked into the opening ceremony game. Should I apologize for suspecting you?”

  I open my mouth, then close it. “Fair enough,” I admit. “But I didn’t do this.”

  He looks coolly away. “I know. I didn’t bring you here to force a confession.”

  I fume in silence.

  The world around us suddenly shifts. We’ve zoomed out of both the code and the Paintbrush Level. Now we’re standing on a hovering isle, surrounded by a hundred other floating isles, overlooking a beautiful lagoon. This was the world used in the opening ceremony that I’d hacked into.

  Hideo pulls the world as if he were spinning it under his fingers, and it rushes by beneath our feet. I swallow hard. The version that his account is hooked up to is obviously different from mine, giving him in-game abilities that I don’t have. It’s strange to be inside this game with its own creator and see him play with it as its god. Hideo finally stops us at one portion of the cliffs. He reaches out and pushes. Again, we enter a space of lines and light.

  This time, the tangled section is much harder to find. I let my focus turn fuzzy and my subconscious emerge, searching for the break in the pattern. It takes me a few minutes to get my head around it all, but finally, I catch the portion of the code that’s off. “Here,” I say, pointing. “Same story. Whoever this Zero person is, he set up this level to report stats to him about every single audience member watching the game.” The realization sends an ominous shiver through me. I look closer. “Wait—there’s more here. He almost disabled the level, didn’t he? This spot—he realized that the code was weak here.”

  When Hideo doesn’t reply immediately, I glance away from the code to see him studying me. “What?” I say.

  “How did you find that?” he asks.

  “Find what? The mangled code?” I shrug. “I just . . . noticed it.”

  “I don’t think you understand.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “It took my best engineers a week to do what you just did.”

  “Then maybe you need better engineers.”

  I can’t seem to control my retorts around Hideo. His chilly demeanor must be rubbing off on me. But he just faces me with a thoughtful look. “And how would you fix this?”

  My attention goes to the compromised code. “My father taught me how to take in everything at once,” I murmur as I sweep a hand across the text. “You don’t have to break down every detail. You just need to see the overall pattern to catch the weakness in it.” I reach out to grab the code, pull forward an enormous block of it, and swipe it away. Then I replace it with a single, efficient line. The rest clicks into place around it.

  “There,” I say, resting my hands on my hips. “That’s better.”

  When I look back at him, he’s analyzing my change without saying a word. Maybe I’ve passed his test.

  “Decent,” he says after a moment.

  Decent. Decent? My scowl deepens. “Why would someone be interested in collecting this data and messing with the games?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “You’re worried he’s going to sabotage the games again.”

  “I’m worried he’s doing something far worse than that. I refuse to halt the games just to bow to a hacker’s threat—but the safety of our audience isn’t something I want to compromise.” Hideo looks to his side. The world rushes away again, and suddenly we are sitting back in his office. I startle at the sudden shift. These contact lenses are going to take some getting used to. “With your current celebrity status, I thought it best if we hid you in plain sight, put you on one of the teams. It will allow you to be physically closer to the other players.”

  “Why do you want me close?”

  “The nature of the attacks makes me suspect that Zero is one of them.”

  One of the professional players. Their names rush through my mind. “And what will I and the other hunters be competing for? What’s your bounty prize?”

  “Each of you will see the prize amount as a pending number in your bank accounts.” Hideo leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. He gives me a pointed look. “If you decide you want to turn this down, that this is more than you want to deal with, I’ll have you on a private flight back to New York. You can just treat this as a holiday before returning to your life. I’ll pay you a sum for participating, regardless, for catching a major security flaw in the game. Take your time to think it over.”

  A sum for participating. It’s as if Hideo were offering me pity money, an easy out if I don’t feel up to the challenge of his bounty. I imagine getting on a flight back to New York, returning to my old life while some other hunter catches Zero. A tingle runs through me at the chance to crack this problem, possibly the biggest puzzle I’ve ever been given the chance to solve. I’m going to win this time.

  “I’ve already
thought it over,” I say. “I’m in.”

  Hideo nods. “Instructions for the Wardraft will come your way shortly, as well as an invite to an opening game party. Meanwhile, make a list of anything you think you’ll need from me. Access codes, accounts, and so on.” He stands up. “Hold out your hand.”

  I eye him warily, then put my hand forward. He takes it, turning it over so that my palm faces up.

  He holds his own hand an inch above my palm, until a black rectangle resembling a credit card appears against my skin. Then he presses a finger lightly to my palm and signs his name against it. The feel of his skin moving against mine makes my breath catch. The virtual credit card flashes blue for a moment, authorizing his signature, and then disappears.

  “This is for you to buy whatever you need during your stay,” he says. “No limit, no questions asked. Just use your palm whenever you need to make a purchase, and the charge will go directly to this. Cancel it by signing your own name against your palm.” His eyes lock on mine. “And keep this discreet. I’d rather not broadcast our hunt to the public.”

  What I wouldn’t have given, during my most difficult weeks, for a card like this. I take my hand back, the feeling of his signature still burning against my palm. “Of course.”

  Hideo offers me his hand. His expression has turned serious again. “I look forward to our next meeting, then,” he says, with absolutely no indication in his tone that this is true. My eyes flicker again to his bruised knuckles before I shake his hand.

  The last moments are a blur. Hideo returns to his meeting room without looking back at me. I’m escorted down to the lobby of the studio, where I sign some more papers before heading out to where my car is waiting. As I settle inside, I let out a long breath that I didn’t realize I was holding. My heart is still hammering in my chest, my hands shaky from our encounter. Not until we’ve left the studio behind do I reach into my pocket, grab my phone, and log in to my bank account. This morning, I had thirteen dollars. What sort of money is Hideo tempting me with?

  Finally, the account page loads on my screen. I stare at it in stunned silence.

  Pending deposit: $10,000,000.00 USD

  9

  I have to load the screen a few more times before I can trust the number there. Sure enough, it doesn’t change. Ten million.

  A ten-million-dollar bounty.

  Hideo’s insane.

  The highest bounty I’ve ever seen is five hundred thousand dollars. This number is off the charts. There must be more to this job than Hideo is letting on—it can’t possibly be as simple as catching a hacker who’s just trying to mess up the games, even if the games are the world championships.

  What if it’s a more dangerous job than I think it is?

  I shake my head. Warcross is Hideo’s life’s work. His main passion. I think back to the glint of intensity that I saw in Hideo’s eyes when he showed me the contact lenses. I do have a specific set of skills that appeals to him—I hunt criminals, I hack, I’m a Warcross fan who is very familiar with the game’s inner workings. Maybe it’s been really hard for him to find hunters suitable for this job.

  My thoughts return to our meeting. The perfect Hideo I’d pieced together from years of documentaries and articles doesn’t seem like the one I’d just met—condescending, unsmiling, cold, the reality of a mythical figure I’d built up in my head. He doesn’t mean to be intimidating, Kenn had insisted. But Hideo’s walls are nevertheless there, making his politeness seem insulting and his intentions vague. Maybe it’s all part of being so disgustingly wealthy that he doesn’t need to open himself up to anyone.

  Or maybe he just doesn’t like me very much. I bristle at the thought. Fine. I don’t like him all that much, either.

  Besides, I don’t need to like a client in order to work for him. I certainly don’t like the police who I’ve worked for. All I have to do is my job, keep him updated on my progress, and catch Zero before anyone else does. All I have to do is get the bounty.

  Ten million dollars. I think of Dad, sitting up late at night after he thought I’d gone to bed, resting his head wearily in his hands, staring at a never-ending stack of overdue bills. I think of him staring blearily at a glowing screen, placing yet another bet with money he didn’t have, hoping that this time, this time, he’d win it big.

  Ten million dollars. I could win it big. I’d never have to worry about debt again. I could be safe for life. If I win this bounty, everything changes. Forever.

  A message dings in my view as we pull up to my hotel. It’s from Kenn.

  Miss Chen! I don’t know what you said to him in there, but . . . well done.

  Well done? For what?

  You should know that Hideo has never hired someone that quickly. Ever.

  Really? I thought I annoyed him.

  Everyone thinks that. Don’t mind him. Look for a gift at your front door. Hideo had it sent for you the instant you left his office.

  After that meeting, it’s hard to believe what Kenn is saying.

  Thanks.

  Welcome to the team.

  By the time Jiro drops me off and I make my way up to my suite, the gift—a beautiful box made of black suede—is already sitting on my desk. Next to it is a glossy envelope emblazoned with a gold stamp of the Warcross logo. I stare at it for a long moment, then bend down and open the box.

  It’s a brand-new, limited-edition electric skateboard, sleek and light, painted in elegant black and white. I test the weight of it in my hands, disbelieving, and then toss it down and hop on it. It responds to me like a dream.

  Hideo’s bodyguards must have told him about my old, beat-up skateboard. This board is easily worth fifteen thousand dollars. I’d eyed it in catalogues before, fantasized about how it might ride.

  I read the card included in the box.

  For you. See you at the Wardraft.

  H.T.

  One second, he’s interrogating me. The next, he’s sending gifts. My eyes go from the note to the envelope next to the box. Just a couple of days ago, I’d been standing in front of my apartment, looking in despair at a bright yellow eviction notice. Now I reach out for the envelope, tear it open, and pull out a thick, heavy black note with gold print.

  Miss Emika Chen

  is officially invited to participate

  in the Wardraft as a Wild Card

  on March 3rd

  • • • • •

  I’VE WATCHED THE Wardraft every single year. It always takes place in the Tokyo Dome a week after the all-star opening ceremony, with a packed stadium of fifty thousand screaming fans and all eyes trained on the wild-card players sitting in the stadium’s front rows, circling the central arena. One by one, the sixteen official Warcross teams choose their top picks from the wild cards.

  Warcross fans know most of the wild cards by heart, because the wild cards tend to be some of the highest-scoring players in the game, those who are constantly on the leaderboards and have millions of followers. Last year, the number one draft pick was Ana Carolina Santos, representing Brazil. The year before that, Poland’s Penn Wachowski, who now plays for Team Stormchasers, was picked first. And the year before that, it was South Korea’s Ki-woon “Kento” Park, who currently is on Team Andromeda.

  But I’m used to watching this madness unfold from home, with my glasses on. This time, I’m going to be sitting in the front row of the Tokyo Dome.

  My hands shake now as the car pulls into the streets near the dome. My eyes stay transfixed on the scenery outside. If Times Square had seemed crazy about Warcross, it’s nothing compared to Tokyo. Through my contact lenses, the entire main intersection of Shibuya is alight with hovering screens, rotating through each wild card’s photo and showing clips from past drafts. Thousands of screaming fans cluster in the streets below. The car drives through a special, blocked-off section where a squadron of police guides us through. As we pass by, people on the sidewalks wave at each of our cars, their faces lit with excitement. They can’t see through our tinted window
s, but they know that this is the only route taken to escort the players to the dome.

  Overhead, my photo appears, covering the entire side of a skyscraper. It’s an old picture of me as a high school sophomore, the last year I spent in school before I was expelled. I look grave in it, my hair pin-straight and at least a dozen different bright colors, my skin so pale it looks ashen. Headlines about me are sprinkled everywhere.

  BREAKING NEWS:

  Emika Chen Nominated for Wardraft

  From Penniless Glitch to Wild-Card Star!

  Details in This Week’s Issue

  HENKA GAMES STOCK JUMPS WITH EMIKA CHEN ADDITION

  Seeing my face cover eighty stories is enough to make me nauseous. I force myself to look away from the madness outside and instead press my trembling hands together firmly in my lap.

  Think of the ten million, I repeat to myself. I glance outside again to see another billboard rotate onto a photo of DJ Ren, who’s wearing his giant headphones and hunched over his DJ equipment. Suddenly, it occurs to me that the other two bounty hunters, whoever they are, will probably be watching me at the Wardraft. Investigating me. Are they wild cards, too?

  By the time we pull into the roped-off section of the Tokyo Dome’s side entrance, I’ve almost calmed the butterflies wreaking havoc in my stomach. In a blur, I look on as men in suits open my door, help me out of the car, and usher me down a red carpet that leads into the cool, dark recesses of the stadium’s rear. Think badass thoughts, I tell myself. My guides lead me into a narrow corridor with a ceiling that gradually slopes higher and higher. The sound of fifty thousand screams grows near. Then, as I enter the main space, the roar turns deafening.

  The stadium is bathed in dim blue light. Dozens of colored spotlights sweep back and forth across the space. The aisles are jam-packed with viewers, waving homemade posters of their favorite wild-card players, all gathered here to see us in the flesh. With my contacts on, I can see enormous holographic screens lining the edge of the central arena. On each of these screens, footage plays of the wild cards in action during some of their most popular in-game moves. The players look like they are lunging right out of the screen as giant, three-dimensional figures, and each time they make a good move, the crowd screams at the top of their lungs.