“Most likely.”
“How? Why?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.” He didn’t look at her, scanning the room instead. Something was up, and she could only wonder what.
She was setting her visor down when her gaze caught on the virtual reality suits hanging on the wall. As if possessed, she walked to them, stopping before the one that was hers. She reached up but stopped short of touching it. Cypher stepped up beside her.
“Can I?” she asked.
“It’s yours,” his raspy voice tickled her ear.
She didn’t need to be told twice. Her fingers fell on the Kevlar material, feeling hints of the wires and sensors within it, and tears sprang to her eyes. She pulled the suit down, hugged it to her chest, and looked at Cypher imploringly.
The space she so desperately needed was right here. In her game. A buzzing excitement shot through her, raising her spirits.
He grumbled. “Don’t let me stop you.”
Her lips spread into a grin. Vee rushed from the room to find a place to change.
* * *
Cypher watched her go.
In minutes, Vee had gone from weary to exuberant, and it wasn’t because of him.
Cypher looked around the room with envy. It hadn’t been him who’d installed or ordered the machines in his ship—he hadn’t thought about it. This wasn’t his gift, and that infuriated him.
No, it had been Nightheart.
Bastard.
His asshole boss was going to plague him continuously, he knew it. His asshole boss was killing him.
Cypher recalled Vee’s wide-eyed fascination, her breathlessness, her happiness in its purest form—and it was all because of Nightheart.
Not me.
His hands clenched into fists. Vee’s crazy candy scent filled his nose, and his body hardened. Pressing his closed fist to the wall, he stopped himself short from punching through the metal.
I can still give her vengeance. The heads of her enemies.
The thought settled him.
I can still give her victory.
That would be the best gift of all.
Cypher cooled his systems and stormed from the room, heading for his new bridge. Before he joined Vee in the fake worlds she thrived in, several fuckers needed to be rooted out and disposed of.
Hunting and killing was more fun to him, anyway.
18
Days coalesced together, and the storm calmed in Vee’s head. She established a new normal, feeling more like her old self again. She lost time in Terraform Zero, testing and backtracking, fighting new physical and non-physical opponents. There were heatwaves, droughts, and in one case, on Yria, the water planet with sentient life, some settlers mating with the primitive aliens.
Resulting in a whole new predicament she’d never encountered before.
On the other hand, Juntao, her prime mineral planet, now had two corporate factions vying for materials, each settled in separate locations planetside. She had to tackle the hardships of both at the same time as they experienced different seasons, different species, and entirely different geography. It was less about colonization, but she had to prepare for everything for the championship.
