by A A Woods
I shove the thought away, directing my attention to the match.
I’ve faced so many things alone. Why should Hebi be any different?
Her Yokai materializes in front of me, a curvy Medusa figure with a head full of thick serpents, clawed fingers stretching as yellow eyes find mine. I feel the threads of code trying to twine around me, turn my Yokai to stone. But I brush them off with a flicker of thought. The mouth full of sharp teeth curls into a smile, as if to say worth a shot.
“Now, I want a fair fight,” Kitzima says, grinning down at us, her. One of her waxed ears is crooked today, as if to give the impression of innocence. But there’s no innocence in her eyes. They slice through me, dancing with irony. “The prize tonight is the last invitation to ProRec’s tournament. Winner take all. Any questions?”
My face twists into a snarl. Hebi laughs. Kitzima dances over to her screen, as giddy as a child. “Good luck.”
With that, she releases us.
This time I move first, tearing both katanas free and lunging forward as Hebi’s snakes strike where I had just been standing. I whip one blade toward her, but she leaps out of the way with a cackle. I spin, bring my sword down.
The crowd gasps and Hebi’s laugh chokes off.
On the floor of the Obaki Mat is the wriggling, truncated remains of a snake.
I lift my Yokai’s face, twisting it into a striped grin.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” I growl.
Hebi lunges, her snakes striking all at once. I leap, warping the air into a shield that she bounces off. Catapulting myself, feet springing off nothing, I flip to the other side of the mat, landing lightly. Hebi’s already there, one clawed hand coming down on my face as the other crackles with fire.
So you want to play that way? I think, panting as I dodge the flames and the snakes and her taloned hand.
Gathering spools of code in the side-space behind the mat, I concentrate them into a point. Hebi’s fire is strong—probably enhanced by some cheat code—but it rolls to either side of my defenses. I direct the arrow of power I’ve collected.
And release it.
It crashes into Hebi like a wall of ice and fire and stone. I’ve thrown the elements back at her. She falls into the bars of the cage, sagging against the virtual edge as her snakes reel from the hit, drooping like wet hair.
Above me, Kitzima scowls.
The crowd is gaining momentum, a few people chanting Tora! Tora! Tora! But they’re the foolish ones. I’m not like Damien. I don’t relish this hot limelight. Silently praying for them to shut up, I squint at my opponent.
I don’t want their support.
Kitzima’s mad enough already.
Hebi staggers to her feet, eyes blazing with fury. Her hands swing forward, slapping together, and an explosion of white light arcs from them. I fold the air into a shield, but the mat flickers once, making an almost imperceptible side-step, ignoring my command. From the corner of my avatar’s eye, I see Kitzima’s fingers dancing on a tiny handheld.
The energy passes right through my palms, up my arms, hitting me squarely in the chest.
I collapse, my body tight with spasms, every nerve firing at once. My hands tighten painfully around the grip of my sword, leaving imprints on my Yokai’s palms. But I can’t let go. My lungs scream for air; I don’t have enough control to breathe. Panic rages through me like wildfire as Hebi sneers, neither bothered nor shamed by the blatant cheating.
It takes everything I have, but I manage to force myself upright. Leaning against the holographic bars, my real body wracked with agony, I lift my gaze. Focus on Hebi.
“That all you got?” I mutter.
The crowd—which had moments ago been cheering for the Vixen—goes as silent as a graveyard.
“You’re not a very quick learner,” Hebi hisses through her Yokai, voice sibilant and low.
“But you’re such a good teacher.”
Everything hurts and my body screams in protest, but I force myself to concentrate. Code moves in a whirlpool around me. My hands stretch out. The air of the Obaki Mat sizzles, popping static, accreting power. Stealing hers. Hebi takes an involuntary step back. I am bold with her fear, dizzy with my own pain. But I wait, gathering like a hurricane.
Kitzima’s fingers twitch.
The Obaki Mat makes that shift.
But this time, I’m ready for it.
As the program swallows the power I’ve assembled, I allow that side-step to carry me with it. The cavern fills with a resonant gasp as every single Gamer in the ring draws in a sharp breath, inhaling as one. I see Kitzima leap to her feet. Hebi’s eyes go wide. The Vixens step forward, their faces identical masks of confusion.
I see all of it.
But they can’t see me, because I’m in that other place, standing behind the wall of code the same way I do on my network at home. I’m not on the mat anymore, like Hebi.
I’m in the mat.
A part of it.
I want to savor the feeling, relish this wonderful invisibility. For once I’m not the blind one here. But Kitzima has never been one for patience.
I need to act fast.
Hebi’s face is fearful as she glares at the space in front of her, stares at the emptiness where a Yokai just stood. I’m gone but the mat hasn’t declared a victor. So she knows I’m still there. Invisibility is nothing new down here, but Kitzima should have revealed me by now. I feel her trying, looking for my avatar, scraping through the code.
But she can’t find me. She opened the door and I stepped through and now I’m beyond her reach.
The irony is delicious.
With lazy steps, I edge up to Hebi. Her snakes whisper as they smell my approach.
“What the—?”
I cut her off with a sword between the ribs.
Breath leaves her body in a rush, a surge. The Yokai’s eyes go wide, still hunting for an enemy that is no longer there in any way she can understand. There’s a rattling sound and a repugnant hiss and then she’s sliding to the floor. Puddling at my feet.
With a victorious grin on my face, I tilt my Yokai’s head back, ready to reach for the key.
But it’s gone.
Kitzima’s voice breaks through the stunned silence of the crowd just as rough hands fall on my real body’s shoulders.
“This match is forfeit,” she calls as someone yanks out my cable, dragging me off the Gamer stand. “Tora is accused of blatant cheating and tampering with the Obaki Mat. Tonight’s games are over. We will deal with this issue in private.”
My brain scrambles as I fight to re-enter my body. The sudden unplugging combined with the phantom pain from the match leaves me spinning, swimming through my thoughts like mud, trapped between the virtual and the real.
Dimly, as if from a great distance, I’m aware of the crowd’s angry mutters, rising as I’m hauled backwards by strong hands, churning as I’m pulled up the steps of Kitzima’s dais. I kick out, but can’t find purchase, can’t get my feet under me. My knees hit metal. Someone grabs my cable and yanks me toward them, a girlish voice hissing in my ear.
“You’ve been a troublemaker in my ring for too long, Tora. No one beats my Vixens.”
I can’t think past the pain, can’t formulate a thought as she pulls my cable, tugging on all the tiny wires that twist into my head. My breath gathers in a shriek I can’t release, my mind too tangled to control the body it’s attached to.
Vixens shout, clearing the cavern, scattering the gathered Gamers, and the sound is a distant backdrop to my own pulsing horror. I wish I was one of them, wish I could find my bike and flee this nightmare. But Kitzima is holding me and I hear the metallic sound of a vehicle, my vehicle, landing on the dais and I know that there’s no escape.
“Now,” Kitzima’s warm breath plumes against my cheek, smelling of bubblegum. “Let’s see what secrets you’re hiding.”
Tora
Wednesday, September 19th, 2195
9:55 P.M. EST
The darkness of my world has never felt so oppressive.
Two Vixens drag me deeper into the bowels of the city. My feet stumble down stairs and over debris. My shins purple from bruises. In front of me, Kitzima hums the refrain of some pop tune that Anastasia Vasquez recently popularized on her channel by dancing to the song with her cat.
The repetitive beat somehow makes everything worse.
Echoing footsteps are my sole way to judge the scope of my surroundings. My feet scramble to gain purchase, the ground moving too fast for me to stay upright, but at least I know I’m being dragged into the Tunnels. At first, the sounds are cavernous, reaching up to the high ceiling of what was once Time’s Square. And then they come closer, bouncing off lower and lower roofs until I feel them in my chest. Claustrophobia claws up my throat in a raw flush as Kitzima whistles and the narrow walls swallow us like some giant underground monster.
I try to throw myself backward, but cruel hands hold me, nails digging into my arms. I relent. Even if I could escape, how far would I get without being able to see?
Suddenly, we stop moving. There’s the metallic scrape of an IRIS cable being slid into a port and the hum of a door opening. A wash of warm air hits my face, nauseatingly spiced with food and cheap perfume and hair dye.
I’m dragged inside and shoved into a chair. I try to pop up, fight back, but someone slaps me hard across the face, leaving a trail of fiery fingerprints on my cheek.
“Tut tut, little Tora,” Kitzima says in a sing-song voice. Scratchy ropes pull tight around my wrists, cutting off circulation. “Didn’t think you’d get away that easy, did you?”
I curl my lip in a snarl as one of the Vixens removes my Fuzz Specs and another pilfers my pocket, taking out the handheld PAP with Khali’s virts still on it. I swallow the involuntary plea with a growl, cursing my idiocy.
Why didn’t I leave it at home?
Why didn’t I think to move the money somewhere safe?
Sharp nails comb through my hair and curl around my neck. A tiny hand draws my head forward and I can smell Kitzima, the acrid stink of her hair dye barely masked by vanilla-cinnamon perfume.
“I’ll give you one chance,” she says in an almost loving voice, playing with my IRIS cable in a gross violation of personal privacy. I suppress a shudder as she tugs lightly on the tip. “Tell me how you won.”
“Why don’t I show you on the mat?” I sneer.
“Look who’s getting too big for their britches.” Kitzima leans closer. “You think just because you outwitted one of my Vixens you can challenge me?”
“If you’re brave enough.”
I say it loud, letting my voice carry. A titter rustles around the invisible space, the Vixens muttering. For an instant, I have hope. Maybe she’ll release me, accept the challenge. Maybe I can come out of this yet.
Kitzima’s laugh fills the air. “I don’t play with cheaters,” she says and my hope crumples. “It would be a waste of my valuable time to even think of it.”
“So what are you going to do with me?”
Kitzima releases my cable. I hear the thud of heavy boots.
“Oh, I’m not going to do anything. But Javier here is going to see what you’re made of.”
What’s left of my courage dies like a blown candle. Javier, Kitzima’s own personal Bander, is a giant in the ring, a whispered name among the Gamers. Recruited to the Vixens after he was fired from ProRec’s low-story labs for ‘disorderly conduct’, his hacking skills are as legendary as his brutality. He’s the reason the Vixens are so rarely challenged and even more rarely defeated. He’s the balustrade support to Kitzima’s ferocity, the weight behind her punch.
If anyone in the Tunnels can figure out the truth about my IRIS cable, it’s Javier.
I struggle against the ropes, leaving welted rings around my wrists. “Don’t touch me.”
Kitzima only laughs. “You seem to like a little rough and tumble,” she taunts as someone finds the root of my cable at the base of my skull and follows it down. “Maybe you’ll even enjoy it.”
I open my mouth, but before the words can form, Javier plugs me in.
And all I can do is scream.
Usually, when a diagnostic is run, it’s done with enough shields and firewalls to coat the United States. The brain is a delicate organ and extensive measures are taken to ensure its protection. Topside, when people go to their wireologist, they are given a light anesthetic and doze off while some technician cleans out minor viruses or repairs faulty programming.
But Javier has stripped away those firewalls, leaving me vulnerable to the raking claws of the diagnostic as it forces me open, drives into my head, pummels my brain. It’s like taking a shower in fragments of glass, like standing outside in an ice storm. My eyes roll and my voice goes hoarse and I thrash against my bonds.
It doesn’t do me any good.
After an eternity of seconds, he unplugs me. I sag against the chair, hanging from the ropes, breathing heavily as my chin droops against my collarbone.
“Her cable.” Javier’s voice filters through the agony, a malignant baritone. “The hardware hasn’t been altered.”
The distant part of my mind that managed to hold on against the diagnostic’s attack registers the words and has the strength to feel horrified. I scramble for a way to twist the truth, find a way to explain.
But it’s too late.
They know my secret.
“Excuse me?” Kitzima snaps. “But she has tape—?”
“It’s just for show. This is an original IRIS cable from the Kinder generation. No Yuri Gamen wiring to speak of.”
“Then how does she plug into the Mat? How does she play?”
“I’m not sure.”
A tiny hand grabs my chin and sharp nails dig into the line of my jaw, yanking my head upright.
“Tell me how you do it,” Kitzima snarls.
I force my quivering lips into a mocking smile.
“Magic,” I whisper.
Kitzima’s nails dig in deeper. I feel one pierce skin.
“I can bury you, Tora.”
For once, she doesn’t sound mocking or childish or small. In her voice, I can hear the Kitzima who has risen to lord over this district’s Gaming ring in less than three years. Power rolls off her, over me, and I understand why she rules.
But she doesn’t rule me.
I turn my head against the steely grip of her hand, and spit. “You can try.”
Kitzima releases me with a shove. My head hits the chair, adding to the cacophony of pain.
“It seems that Tora does not believe in the spirit of fair competition,” she says, her voice light again, playful even as an undercurrent of rage marks her for what she is. “And we all know the sentence for cheating, don’t we ladies?”
A single word is taken up like a battle cry.
“Exile!”
“I didn’t cheat!” My protests are so small, so pathetic, but I can’t stop them from tumbling out of me. “There’s no rule against using an unaltered cable.”
“Tora, Tora, Tora,” Kitzima tuts, condescending, parental. Infuriating. “It seems like honor is something only a real Gamer would understand. And you’re not one of us, are you?”
Traitorous tears prickle in my useless eyes. Frustration wells inside them, inside me. She’s right, but the words are more painful than I can express. I’m not a Gamer, but I don’t belong topside either.
Where else can I go?
“You should be grateful,” she continues. “After all, I could have ripped out your fancy cable.”
“All I want is a key, Kitzima,” I say, hating myself as my voice drops low. Pleading. “I just want to enter the tournament.”
The Vixens cackle and Kitzima laughs and I feel microscopic.
One hand braces on my shoulder. She leans in, her hair brushing my chest, catching in the zipper of my brother’s jacket. “Then you better find another way, because you’re no longer welcome here. Come back to my Gaming ring and
you’ll wish we’d killed you the first time.”
The ropes fall away and Kitzima’s breath disappears. I rise unsteadily, swaying on my feet in the middle of a vast expanse of nothing.
“I want my things back.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Kitzima says with joyful spite. “Think of it as compensation for embarrassing me at tonight’s match.”
My throat works convulsively. How will I get home without my bike? How will I see without my PAP?
How will I pay rent?
“So now what?” I spit the words, glaring in a random direction. “What am I supposed to do?”
“What we all do,” Kitzima says. “Get by.”
Those same hands grab at my arms and I yank myself free with an animal snarl. I can’t accept their help, however necessary it might be. The idea of them guiding me through the Tunnels makes me want to gag.
It takes everything I have to hold my head high.
“Fuck you,” I whisper.
Kitzima laughs. “I’m not totally without mercy,”
Someone shoves two items into my hands. I fumble, almost dropping them.
One is my Fuzz Specs.
The other is a long metal rod.
“That way everyone will know what you are. Who knows? Maybe some kind soul will take pity and help a cripple get home.”
I never thought I could hate anything as much as I hate Project Recollection, but Kitzima has proved me wrong. My mind scrolls through options, scrambling for something to say, something to do, some way to fight back. But I can feel the Vixens around me, Javier somewhere in their midst. The room is unfamiliar, the doors invisible and lost.
I jam my Fuzz Specs on my face and grasp the rod like it’s my Yokai’s katana.
“Ladies,” Kitzima says, “please show our cheating friend the way out.” Her voice is distant, as if she’s already walking away. “And make sure she doesn’t find her way back.”
“This isn’t over,” I shout, but even to my own ears the words sound hollow, cliché, helpless.
“Tora, my dear,” she trills back, almost gone. “Maybe one day you’ll learn when to quit.”