Several minutes of walking sees me out of Northspire, leaving its anti-Hajj graffiti-scarred walls behind, and into Highrise, where the tourist crowds are a fraction of their normal size, no doubt scared away by the ongoing riots. I make a small detour past Sarah’s, but her CLOSED sign is up and blinking steadily—no Gaming today. Probably a good idea. I send a message wishing her well, even though I know it’s just a hollow gesture, and continue through Glassbridge into the Brown. Knock on Johnny’s rusted metal shutters.
“It’s Ash,” I call out wearily. “Open up.”
The shutters jerk upward, and I duck through, straight into a crushing embrace from Slend, her thick arms wrapping around me like steel bars.
“Scared us. No time for soloing.”
I lean into her, feeling the pressure on my mind ease the slightest amount. Another pair of arms wraps around us both.
“Don’t ever do that again, Ash,” Wind says, her voice catching the tiniest bit. “Not after a day like yesterday. Promise you won’t leave us like that again.”
Another bit of pressure crumbles away, and suddenly it’s like a dam bursting. It’s all too much, even for Ashura the Terrible, entirely too much weight for one person to bear. Brand dead, Kiro missing, Ham frightened and lost, the world crashing into ruins once again. Tears roll from my eyes into Slend’s thin shirt, Wind’s cloth-shrouded head. I cling to the two of them like life preservers.
“I… I didn’t… I didn’t warn him. We fought, and then everything started happening so fast… I forgot. I forgot and now he’s gone.”
“Who’s gone? What’re you talking about, Ash?”
Jase hovers nearby awkwardly, twisting his hands together. The words tumble from my mouth.
“Kiro. He had a package for one of those haphoods in his room. It looked like he hadn’t been there for a couple days. He’s…”
“Shhh, shhh.” Wind rubs my back. “It’ll be okay. We’ll find him.”
I keep talking, keep forcing the pain out.
“It’s not just him. Ham… Hamlin. He’s in trouble too, and I wasn’t there when he needed me. I don’t know if I can save him.”
“Hamlin?” Slend sounds confused. Of course. I never told them. To protect them. To protect me.
“Hammer,” I reply tiredly. “I’ve been dating Hammer for the last two years. We’re pretty serious. We didn’t want to tell anyone because… well, you’ve seen what’s happened before, what the boardshits have done. I’m sorry. I should have trusted you.”
Wind leans back and looks at me for a long, silent moment, arching an eyebrow above stress-bruised sockets.
“Hammer, huh?” she says at last. “Well, he’s probably the only person with a chance of keeping up with you. What’s he like? You know, when he’s not trying to kill us. Is he as good in bed as he is at the Game?”
“Wind!” In spite of myself, I blush.
“C’mon, Ash, it’s an honest question. You can’t just mention you’re dating the best dev in the Game and expect it to slide by. We wanna know more, right, Slend?”
“No. Prefer imagination. Never disappointed.”
Slend’s deadpan rumble makes me hiccup, and the shaking sobs in my chest slowly transform to laughter. I wrap my arms around them tighter,
“You two, I swear, you’re the worst.” I let go of the embrace and take a step back. “It’s… complicated. Between me and Hammer. He’s stuck in some sort of immersion pod, totally paralyzed in the real. He actually lives in the Game. Before I lost contact with him, he mentioned something about trying to stop his dad, some high-level VP at WGSK. I’m pretty sure that means Ham’s dad is our target.”
Jase frowns, tapping his fingers.
“I don’t think you’re entirely correct, Ash.”
“About what?”
“About Hammer’s dad being your target. From what we were able to decipher from that hood you captured, it seems like they’re controlling the wearers in real time. The hoods can revert to a basic set of preprogrammed instructions if they lose connection, essentially playing out whatever the scenario was on autopilot, but they’re designed to have someone in charge. I don’t think a single person could handle that amount of info. They have to have a team—maybe a lot of teams—somewhere in there.”
“Either way, Ham thinks his dad is in charge, so if we capture him, we should be able to convince him to shut it all down whether he is or not. As an EVP, he can snap his fingers and get shit done.”
Johnny clears his throat.
“I don’t think it’s going to play out that way. Doesn’t sound like a silkie op. Not… corporate enough.”
“Any suggestions?” I ask him. He shakes his head.
“Then we’ll proceed under the assumption that Ham’s dad is the prime target for now, and improvise when we need to. No other choice.”
Slend cracks her knuckles.
“Breach?”
“Yeah, that’s the tricky part. I have no idea how we’re going to get in there without Sawyer’s backing. Anyone got any ideas?”
“Orbital strike?”
“That’s what Sawyer had planned, but it’s gonna be tough without an orbital, Wind.”
“Then we’re fucked. Too much security, too many chokepoints for a frontal assault. Even we’re not that good.”
“Fucked.” Slend grunts her agreement.
I sigh.
“Fucked indeed. Not to mention, we still have to get there in the first place. This place is on the other side of the continent. Not like we can hop into a shuttle and bounce right… over…”
The audacity of the plan hits me like a headshot. Maybe there is a way. I tap open a connection, hoping she answers.
<<Yeah?>>
<<Ryeen. I need a favor.>>
<<Say the word.>>
<<It’s a big favor. It’ll burn both our names. Like, scorched-earth burn.>>
<<Was getting tired of this one anyway. What are you looking to do?>>
<<You mentioned a couple days ago you could get some rich clients to send an orbital hopper if they thought it was going to be an encounter in the real. Offer still on the table?>>
<<Of course. Why the concern?>>
<<Need to steal the hopper.>>
<<Bold. I like it. What for?>>
<<Better you don’t know. I’ll tell you if you want, though.>>
<<It’s fine. You always did right by me, Ash. When do you want it?>>
<<One sec.>>
I turn my attention back to the room.
“Jase, any chance you can lay your hands on some high-altitude suits? Preferably by today?”
He sucks on his lower lip.
“I can try, but I’m not sure my contacts deal in that kind of stuff, Ash. They’re more on the digital side of things than the real.”
“I’ll talk to some people,” Johnny interrupts, putting his hand on Jase’s shoulder. “Got some old friends, old favors. Seems as good a time as any to cash ’em in. Might not be much left to use ’em on if I don’t.”
“Thanks, Johnny. What time do you think we’ll have them?”
“Seventeen hundred by the latest.”
<<Ryeen, can they get the hopper here at eighteen hundred local time?>>
<<Eighteen… six o’clock? For you, in the real, these people would walk naked through a Dead Zone. Yeah, it’ll be there.>>
<<Thanks, Ryeen. Be safe.>>
<<You too. These johns have teeth. I’ll send you the details in a sec.>>
I look at Wind and Slend.
“Okay, we have a way in.”
“If it involves high-altitude suits, I’m sure it’s entirely safe and sane,” Wind responds.
“You’ll love it. We’re going to disguise ourselves as sex slaves for depraved billionaires, knock out or otherwise disable an unknown number of guards, most likely armed and dangerous, hijack an orbital hopper, reprogram the nav system into going terminal at the WGSK facility, bail out on initial descent while we’re almost one hundred kilometers above the planet, then charge through the smoldering crater of a front door the impact will create for us, whereupon we’ll assault an entire Big Three compound filled with highly trained security forces shooting to kill who outnumber us at least ten to one. After all that, we’ll overpower a WGSK executive vice president and somehow force him to undermine his corporation by shutting everything down.”