Cold sweat prickles my spine.
“But that… that doesn’t make any sense.”
Jase shrugs.
“You’re telling me. What the hell is a pirate doing in the memory banks of your friend’s haphood?”
“No, you don’t understand. I know that encounter. It’s from the Game. High Seas facet.”
“She was in the Game?”
“No, she was on the ship. With me. That move the pirate made, that’s what I did to try and disable her.”
I run a hand over my face, mind racing.
“You’re saying this was the last thing she saw?”
He nods.
“Then that means she saw me as part of the Game… only she was in the real…”
It hits me like a lightning bolt. A second later, Jase stiffens in his chair, the same horrible revelation burning through his brain. He stares at me, eyes panicky.
“Holy fuck. Those hoods. They make you think you’re still in the Game.”
I let out a low whistle.
“Sure seems like it. But why?”
I start pacing the room, trying to put the pieces together. Jase gasps, then slides his glasses up once more and rubs his eyes. He sounds exhausted.
“Ash. I’m pretty sure I have the answer. I’m also pretty sure you won’t like it.” He glances over at me. “Conservatively, how many top-tier Gamers do you think there are? People who dedicate their lives to being the very best at Infinite Game?”
I mull it over.
“Conservatively, probably a couple hundred thousand or so. It takes a pretty significant time and resource investment, and you have to want it. Bad. Most endgame guilds are forty to eighty people, and there’s five thousand slots on the ladder. If you make it onto the ladder, you’re pretty damn good, considering the Game is worldwide. We have quite a few here in Ditchtown, since the gummies don’t leave us much else to do other than rot, and it’s either find something to do or riot. There are guilds all over the planet though.”
“And what is it you do in the Game, Ash?”
“We defeat encounters, and we fight each other. Whatever the devs think up to throw at us, we adapt and figure out ways to beat it. When we’re waiting for new encounters, we have PvP tournaments, regional first, then global. Both PvP and encounters are weighted fairly equally in terms of ladder standing.”
“And you’re doing all this at a one-to-one fidelity with human reactions and abilities, right? Using modern-equivalent weaponry within the Game, lo-tech and hi-tech? Coordinating in four-person squads, with the ability to link squads together for larger encounters? Every day, honing your skills in this make-believe world?”
“Well, yeah, you gotta practice if you want to be good.”
“Ash, do you think any other Gamers could do what you do as an operative for the grayhats? Maybe not at your level, but close enough?”
My stomach drops.
“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.”
I kick a shelf against the wall, sending a light rain of disassembled technology clattering to the floor. Jase winces, but stays silent. Smart kid.
“We’re all fucking soldiers. We’ve trained ourselves into a goddamned army.”
I kick the shelf again, harder. There’s no other outlet for the rage and fear pouring through me, thoughts of Mom and Brand ripping through my mind like Dead Zone tornadoes.
“Tell me I’m wrong, Jase. Please.”
Jase slowly shakes his head.
“You’re not wrong. And if you think you’re in the Game, you’ll do whatever you normally do to defeat the encounter, right? Push yourself to the edge and beyond, on the off chance that it just might work? Dive down a dragon’s throat?”
I want to puke. Brand never had a chance. Never even knew she could die, that there weren’t any respawns left. Jase shakes his head sorrowfully.
“Yeah. I’m also pretty sure I know who was controlling Brand. I recognized some of the coding fingerprints—they’re pure silkie.”
“Assholes. What the hell are they doing?”
I kneel down to start cleaning up the pieces of Jase’s tech from the floor, and it hits me. The answer’s obvious.
“Of course. The silkies want to hit the gummies just as bad as the gummies want to hit the silkies.”
I deposit a handful of circuit boards back on the shelf, most still intact. Not worried about the ones that aren’t.
“They still hate each other, tech zealots versus religious zealots. Only, both sides are bound by the treaty. They can’t move against each other openly, nothing obvious, nothing that leads to radiation like the way the Dubs ended.”
Jase looks at me, not yet understanding, and I scoop up another handful of microprocessors, like tiny silver spiders. A brief shudder runs through my spine.
“It’s war, Jase. They think they can start it up again, and what better way to do that than with an army no one knows exists? One already forged in countless hours of combat, trained in every possible weapon and scenario you could ever hope to encounter? One willing to take ridiculous risks because their minds are conditioned to believe death is just a minor setback?”
Jase’s mouth slowly opens, and I let the microprocessors fall through my fingers.
“Generals would kill for a force like that. They will kill for a force like that. And silkie versus gummie is just the start. The Game is worldwide—everyone plays it. Once the silkies take out the gummies, what’s to stop them from doing it to Han, or Industan, or, hell, whoever they want? Gamers live in those countries too, and silkie shipping boats go everywhere.”
I stumble over to a seat, mind reeling. The color leaches from Jase’s face.
“But that’s… someone would notice… people going missing…”
“Did I notice? When Brand went missing?” I punch my thigh, angry. “No, of course I didn’t. I thought she got caught up with something in the real, couldn’t make our scheduled raids. Why would I expect something like this? It sounds insane.”
My voice drops into leaden tones.
“Except it’s not insane. It’s fucking brilliant. No one is going to miss the absence of a Gamer except another Gamer, and even then the thought will be, ‘Oh, she’s just away from world for a bit.’ Until it gets too big to notice. Then the party favors pop off again, only this time everyone’s invited.”
“But how did this happen to her? To Brand? Why was she wearing the hood in the first place? They’re not even supposed to be out yet.”
I lean back against the wall, closing my eyes, trying not to think of my dead friend.
“I don’t know. I wish I did. Then maybe I’d have been able to save her.”
The room falls silent, the only sound Jase tapping his finger against the table. I hear his clothes rustle as he straightens up.
“Maybe we can find out. What’s her avatar code?” I rattle off a sixteen-digit number to him, almost as familiar as my own. Jase pulls on a pair of hapgloves. “Okay, one sec, this is going to be a bit fiddly.” His hands start twitching on the table surface like he’s having a seizure. A minute later, they fall still.
“…and we’re in.”
“Into what?”
“Her avatar account, root level.”
I open my eyes.
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“Yep. Not supposed to be easy to do either, but like most people’s, her security sucked. Also, I’m pretty good.”
“What? Brand was super careful about her accounts. She had them linked biometrically.”
“Biometrics isn’t foolproof. Vendors have to ensure a non-biometric backup in case your gear goes down and you need to recover your info. Weak point in the system. Ran a backtrace on all her socials, put that through a trends algorithm to pin down her place of residence and interests, and then it was just a matter of educated guessing. Really shouldn’t make your emergency password your first pet’s name if you’re a dog enthusiast on the ’Net.”