What a headache.
She’d gone through all that effort to master the other version of the VR—with the exception of eating. Admittedly, that had been a weak point for her, but she was pretty sure pronounced hunger was her new normal. Her stomach felt like an angry piece of beef jerky, desperate to be given food just so it could launch it back out into the world in protest for its poor treatment.
If this was the new normal, these new simulations would have her eating like a teenage boy.
Eventually.
And only if she survived whatever madness this doctor had going on.
“So are you in?” he asked, clearly impatient.
“In?” she repeated, trying to mentally pull herself back into the nonsensical conversation. “Can we talk a little bit more about how this involves a missile, and … why?”
The doctor glanced at the wall clock, clearly anxious. “The missile is our way out of here. The only way, to be exact.”
Sure. Okay. Why not? So the person who had coded this scenario was a fan of Dr. Strangelove. Had they gone all in? Were any of the mannequins sporting a cowboy hat she was supposed to wear on this ride with Dr. Beethoven?
Looking around, she half-expected to see one appear as she asked her next question. “And how is that going to work, exactly?”
“I removed the emergency parachute. The space remaining is big enough to fit both of us if we squish.”
So that was a “no” on the cowboy hat.
Oddly, she felt a little disappointed. “So you’re saying we get into the missile—”
“Well, I get the launch code from you first,” he interrupted, looking at her expectantly.
“From me?” Kali said, confused. “I don’t know any launch codes.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You do.”
Kali shook her head. “I don’t.”
“You have to,” the doctor said, looking unsure for the first time since she woke up.
Kali shrugged. “Sorry.”
He shook his head emphatically. “The angel said you would know the code. That’s your piece of the puzzle in all this. You have to know it.”
Great. Now there were angels in the mix. This just got better and better.
“I’m telling you, I got nothing,” Kali replied. “If you’re waiting for me to give you launch codes, you’re going to be waiting a long time.”
“No,” he said confidently. “If you don’t have the codes, then I’m just going to blow the missile up here and take as much of the building with me as I possibly can. You included.”
Hmm. That sounded much less productive than cramming into a parachute compartment and flying somewhere … although Kali still wasn’t sure how they wouldn’t die upon arrival at the new destination. Or … would they?
Did they die both ways? Was this guy just on a suicide mission, regardless? If so, he was on his own. Kali could find more useful ways to die.
But she needed a little more information to make an informed decision.
“What do you plan on blowing up with this missile?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Once we get it in the air, a plane will be sent to intercept and disarm it mid-flight. They will take possession of the missile and we will be transferred into their custody.”
Kali weighed the possibility that the man talking her was totally insane. Maybe it was the air. Maybe whatever was missing from it resulted in whatever mania she was looking at. Because a whole lot of things had to go exactly right for what he was saying to be remotely possible.
Still, his plan did sound more plausible than any new ideas she’d come up with. Which was none. It also solved the problem of getting her out of the city where anything could be killed with a push of a button.
“And if the missile isn’t disarmed or intercepted?” she asked. “What then?”
“We land in the ocean and die.”
It was almost odd to be talking to someone who was as comfortable with dying as she was. Was this guy another user, like her? Was he looping through scenarios, too? If so, how many times had he tried pulling this off before she came along?
“And who are these people we’re turning a missile over to?” she asked.
“The Royals,” he said, clearly annoyed by how slow she was being on the uptake.
“My apologies, but that term means nothing to me.”
Dr. Beethoven ran his hands through his wild hair in a frustrated gesture. “How can you be this far in the game and not know who the Royals are?”
The question was obviously rhetorical, so Kali let it hang in the air and stayed sitting on the still-cold table as the doctor started pacing.
“We have less than three hours before the offer closes,” he was muttering. “Travel time is forty minutes, at a minimum.” He fell silent but was clearly still having a mental conversation with himself, based on his hand gestures.
Kali took his moment of distraction to look around at the mannequins with renewed curiosity. Now that she knew the guy wanted to escape, all the clothes and equipment and gear made a little more sense. She might be little more than a walking skeleton, but that didn’t mean she wanted to bust moves in the hospital gown she was currently sporting.
Her eyes landed on the jacket she’d been wearing in scenarios right before she woke up on the island—if she had indeed woken up. She needed to keep the mental jury out on that one, but claiming that jacket was a no-brainer. Not only was it exactly her style, but she’d designed it to plug into the mainframe and give her instant information about her environments. It had saved her life more times than she’d died … and that was a lot.
Kali wanted it back, along with decent tactical clothes to wear underneath it. Black was fine.
Looking back at the doctor, she decided to attempt to diffuse what looked to be his imminent mental breakdown by reinitiating conversation.
“Kind of looks like you’ve been planning this for a while … and with some specificity—”
“Six months,” he said, still pacing. “To the day.”
“Six months, to the day,” she repeated, adding, “You’ve been busy.”
“You have no idea,” the guy said with a slump before his eyes turned full business on her. “And I didn’t choose you. The Royal did. Bringing you is the toll required to get in the door. You are my offering to prove I’m serious.”
Suddenly the talk of days named after flowers sounded a little more ominous.
Being an offering didn’t sound like it would turn out too well for her. Especially when her current lifeline to consciousness was an IV connected to a drip bag.
The doctor gestured out toward the mannequins, finally acknowledging them. “I made every tool you successfully used in more than twenty different simulations. I 4-D printed prototypes right out of your matrix and engineered them for the real world.”
That was kind of amazing, if true, but it still didn’t spell good news for Kali.
“Anything you can fit on your body while still fitting into the missile compartment is yours to keep if you come with me.” He walked over to his desk and picked up some fingerless gloves that were similar to a project she had given up on long ago. Had he gotten them to work? “Take your pick!”
The toys were obvious ploys to give her a false sense of empowerment that she could handle whatever was on the flipside of his missile.
And, if Kali was being honest, the tactic was kind of working.
Her eyes involuntarily glanced back at the rust-colored jacket with the hood she’d come to feel naked without. How would life not be better if she was wearing that?
If her fate was tied to this guy no matter what, why not accept the upgrade? How could that be a trap? And how would she ever know, unless she walked into it?
Some mistakes really did need to be made at least once. It was time to find out if this was one of them.
She glanced over at the still half-full IV bag, willing it to drip faster. Wha
tever was in it was doing her good, but she didn’t feel solid enough to stand up yet. She was pretty much only good for talking at the moment, so might as well go with the flow.
“I sense that you’re stressed about time, but I feel like we have a lot of unshared vocabulary,” she ventured, hoping the words landed diplomatically. “Do you mind if we rewind and start over a bit?”
He stole a worried look at his watch, shaking his head. “You weren’t supposed to be knocked out for so long. Fifteen minutes is average. Thirty minutes—tops. You passed out for almost two-and-a-half hours and you’re drinking that serum as quickly as I print it!”
Printed serum? Fascinating. She’d have to ask about that later. But for now, she’d settle on learning about big-picture items.
“Yeah,” she drawled. “I’ll try to do better next time I’m shocked into unconsciousness. That said, we just met and you’re asking me to trust you. Some might say you’re asking for a whole lot of trust by asking me to climb aboard a missile so you can defect to a group of people you call the Royals.”
Kali waited for the craziness of what she just said to register on the doctor’s face. Because it was crazy. All of it. If what he was saying was true, he’d spent the last six months of his life planning to load her onto a missile and launch it.
If he was human, on any level, he had to know how crazy that would sound to her. He would have to know that she needed a little more information about that before giving him an answer.
“I’m still charging up here,” she said, holding up the hand with the needle in it. “So how about we talk for a few minutes? Start at the beginning and bring me up to date a bit. Like, for example, where are we?”
For a moment, it looked like the manic pacing might make a reappearance. But then the man took a breath.
“5-Tek,” he said. “We call it Summit City, but everyone in the world calls it 5-Tek.”
A five-pointed city called 5-Tek? A little on the nose, but it was good to have a name. “And who are you?”
“Dr. Arin Yalin. I develop new technology for the private sector that occasionally trickles down to the corporate markets over time.”
This is good. Keep him talking.
“Is that what everyone does here?”
He grew still, no longer meeting her eyes. “We make invisible weapons. Curses, really. That’s why we won’t be shot out of the air after the missile launches. We’ll be cloaked to everyone but the Royals. They’re the only ones with technology superior to The Fours.”
Kali forgot how to breathe for a moment, his last two words resurrecting memories of what felt like a past life. “Did you say The Fours?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding and looking a little relieved. “I thought you might remember who they were.”
As if she could forget the nightmare that kept coming … the boys’ club she’d never joined that felt like it owned her anyway. The Fours were the one and only reason she’d spent the last however long in these scenarios, trying to find a way to beat them in the real world.
So far, no dice.
She was pretty sure she could best almost anyone they sent after her at this point, but she still didn’t know how to reset her life. She didn’t know how to get home.
The VR world might be an illusion, but it was built on The Fours’ real-world assets. When a combatant found her in VR, it was because she revealed herself to a real-world detector. A camera. A microphone. A drone. They were all searching for her, all the time. Hence, her penchant for hoods. Keeping her head covered and her chin down was essential to staying alive and keeping everyone she’d left behind safe.
The Fours were the reason her life was no longer her own.
So, yes. She knew who they were.
“Oh, I remember,” she said, as her heart rate monitor beeped, betraying her reaction to the new subject.
The doctor drew closer, looking a little saner now that they had some common ground. “You know who The Fours are, but not the Royals?”
Kali shook her head. “Never heard of them.”
Dr. Yalin smiled. “They are The Fours’ antithesis. The only opposition capable of keeping them in check.”
The claim made her think of Jack, but she quickly pushed the thought away from her mind. It was important not to show the machine existing relationships. It would only use them against her.
This scenario clearly wanted her to meet some group called The Royals. And since it was either that or blowing up in a lab, there wasn’t much point fighting it.
It was time to start playing along.
Chapter 18
Jack
Jack’s high honor of playing adviser to the prince quickly soured into an exercise in frustration. Claire was off with Malachi, doing who knew what, while Arthur made the rounds in the main space—kissing hands and sharing drinks. No doubt pleading his case.
And Jack was stuck twelve steps above it all. Benched.
He couldn’t wander about the room, like Tiki. A pimpernel couldn’t get away with that any more than a general could.
That was all Jack could think about until a young man, probably around seventeen, approached the platform. It was the smooth gait of the challenger’s walk that caught his eye—as if each step was practiced choreography.
There were different kinds of body control. Most were familiar with the training that made the body explosive and athletic, but very few understood the more cat-like discipline that rendered a person silent and fluid.
This teen—young as he was—had clearly trained himself in the latter. No nerves. No tension.
Stillness.
“Your Grace,” he said, taking a knee and holding out a single deck of cards in one hand. “My challenge today is a simple one.”
Not likely, Jack thought, forgetting Arthur for a moment and leaning forward.
“Proceed,” Prince Abed said, and the boy rose.
Jack noticed the mirrors shifting above them, drawing focus to where the challenger stood and reflecting it out to the rest of the room in different mirrors.
Close-up magic. Jack’s favorite.
Arthur and Claire pushed to the side of awareness for the moment, Jack gave his visual focus to the practiced confidence of the teen.
“To ensure I have no accomplice, would His Majesty see fit to join me on the platform?” he said.
Prince Abed tipped his head in agreement and rose, descending the six steps to where his challenger stood with a small portable table and the deck of cards.
“My challenge for His Majesty is easy—”
Jack took note of how closely all the mirrors were zoomed in on the action. The teen was confident or he was editing sleight of hand out of the more public picture. Jack focused on the teen, not a mirror, as the magician fanned the cards out on the table, face-down.
“—using your left hand, slide one card out of the deck, without looking at it.” When the prince did so, the magician quickly added, “Now slide one more card with your right hand.”
The prince chose a second card, leaving two cards face-down in front of him on the table.
“Are you happy with your choices?” the magician asked. “Would you like to swap either of those cards out for another one?”
Prince Abed shook his head. “I’ll stick with what I have.”
“Excellent,” the magician said. “What if I told you that I knew you would choose those cards. Would you believe me?”
“You would have to prove it,” Prince Abed said with a cocky grin.
“I’ll let you prove it,” the teen said, clasping his hands behind his back and nodding toward Abed’s selections. “Would you please turn over the cards you chose? It’s okay if we all see them.”
When Abed flipped over his cards, mirrors around the room showed a three of diamonds and the nine of spades. The magician nodded as if that was all according to plan.
“Now I haven’t touched those cards since you chose them, correct?” the teen asked. “You’re the only one that’s ha
ndled them. Would you agree?”
Prince Abed nodded. “Yes. You have not touched them since I chose them.”
With a fair amount of showmanship, the teen picked up the card on the far-end of the fanned out deck and flipped it over.
It was blank. No value. No suit. Just plain white card.
“I was so sure you’d pick those two cards,” he said before picking up another card and hooking it under the bottom card to reverse the fanning of the deck to face-up. All the cards were blank white, “that they are the only printed cards I placed in the deck.”
Prince Abed’s eyes went wide with wonder.
Jack smiled, impressed that such a strong challenge had come from someone so young. The guy had a bright future ahead of him.
The challenger stepped away from the table. “If Your Majesty can tell me how I knew you’d pick those two cards, I will consider my challenge answered.”
One look at the prince’s unblinking stare and Jack knew he had no idea. It would be a miracle if he did. The boy was twelve.
Jack was not.
He tried not to take it personally when the prince’s first look for help was aimed at Tiki. But when Abed found her crossways in her seat, pretending to do the backstroke while humming to herself, he looked right past the general and made eye contact with Jack.
A look was all it took. He didn’t even send the prince a signal before the prince’s chin came up confidently.
“I trust my pimpernel to speak for me on this matter.”
Jack rose to his feet. “It would be my honor.” He started down the stairs, holding the attention of the prince. “Would you stay and continue to assist, Your Grace?”
When the prince nodded, Jack acknowledged the fellow magician.
“I would also appreciate your assistance, just so you can judge for yourself that your challenge is answered.”
The teen dipped his chin. “My pleasure.”
Jack made it down the stairs and joined the two boys at the table. “Mind if we use your cards to ensure that all things are equal?”
When the teen nodded again, Jack looked between the two, quickly choreographing his response in his mind before pushing the three and the nine to the side and picking up the deck of blank cards.
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