In her rise to hacker infamy, she’d been lovingly dubbed “Shewolf” by some cabin-based upstarts in Colorado for the fact that she was never seen working with anyone else. That claim evaporated when she started taking on bigger jobs with Yuusuke, but Jo still had a soft spot for her first and favoritemoniker.
It was more efficient to be alone; people had the propensity to annoy her. Barring one summer where her mother had forcefully enrolled her into a ranching camp during a futile campaign to “get Jo out of the house more,” she’d never really boasted a wide circle of friends. She believed in quality over quantity on that front. Plus, the more friends she had, the more people she’d be sticking her neck out for. Yuusuke did a good-enough job of keeping her hands full most of thetime.
“I’m fairly certain there’s some sort of mistake here.” Actually, she was fairly certain there wereseveralmistakes. “There’s no way I would’ve signed up to be a member ofanything.”
“No mistakes here.” He was so frustratinglysure.
“Okay,” she drew out the word like he was drawing out her patience. “Then there’s at least the issue of kidnapping?” Jo really wished it was the first time she’d been spirited away somewhere against her will, but it wasn’t. At least having past experience was helping keep her marginally calm. That time had worked out fine; she just had to figure out what they wanted and then be on herway.
“Kidnapping? The Society doesn’tkidnappeople.”
“Whatever you want to call it then.” She sighed heavily. “I’ve never heard of this. . .society. But I’m sure we can work out something with your boss. So, if you could just take me tohim—”
“Boss? You mean Snow?” Wayne laughed. “So, first lesson for you right there, doll. You never want to willingly meet with Snow. That man lost his humor somewhere in the ballpark of a thousand yearsago.”
Jo opened her mouth to speak again, but something about the look on her face must have inspired Wayne to continue. Not that he hadn’t already given off the impression of being a man who loved to listen to himselftalk.
“I know it’s all downright confusing. Takako was the same way when she first came. Come along and you’ll pick it up as yougo.”
He was ushering her down the hall again. And this time, Jo didn’t put up afight.
It was clean; warm-toned wood floors met flush against whitewashed walls in almost too-perfect lines. Something about the shine on the walls where the light hit them made it seem like they would be especially smooth—damp, even—to the touch. Every ten to fifteen feet, give or take, was a doorway, and every doorway had aname.
She’d missed the name on the first doorway, directly across from where she’d emerged into the hallway. But diagonally across from there, where Wayne had come from, was a door that bore his name in blocky, gold-rimmed steel. Across the hall, “Samson” was wrought in copper wiring and welded directly to the door. The next one on the left read “Nico,” a blue jay perched on the scripted ‘o,’ painted with such a careful hand that Jo almost did a double-take to make sure it wasn’t about to fly away. The final doorway on the right had an ornate placard in wood with what Jo had to presume was a name, “Eslar.”
Six doors in total, counting herown.
They descended a long flight of stairs that fanned out into a central atrium entirely overlaid with marble. Heavy crimson drapes in what looked like velvet, framed tall windows that gave Jo the first concerning glimpse of the outside world. She stopped mid-step,staring.
“Is that real?” Outside was a rolling green field, a lake in the distance, mountains in a far haze. It looked like postcards she remembered seeing in history textbooks of California before the great earthquake of 2011 and the WWIII bombings that followed not longafter.
“Reality is what we make it.” Wayne stood at the bottom of the stairs, one hand in his pocket, the other flipping a coin. “So, who’s tosay?”
“I’m looking for answers, notphilosophy.”
“Trying to provide them, dollface.” He caught the coin mid-flip, went to pocket it, and then stopped. The brown-haired man looked at the token and then back to her, no subtle amount of mischief in the expression. “How’s about we make abet?”
“Abet?”
“I flip my coin. Heads, you have to follow me around and listen nicely, no questions till the end of our tour. Tails, you get my nickel and I’ll answer anything youwant.”
“So. . . I can ask my questions now, or later?” This man was the worst gambler she’d evermet.
Wayne thought about it for a moment, and then laughed. “Sounds right. What do yousay?”
“Fine, deal.” What did she have tolose?
Wayne flipped the coin and caught it so quickly that Jo barely had time to register the slap of his right palm over the back of his left. He peeled away his fingers dramatically. She squinted at the strange-looking currency, trying to placeit.
“Oh, bad luck this time, guess I get to keep my nickel and you just need to listen aspell.”
Jo walked down the stairs to confirm that the coin was, indeed,heads.
“Next up, the briefingroom!”
They turned right and started down a long hallway. Unlike the atrium that was filled with light, this hall was shrouded in shadow. Low-lit sconces on the walls were held by ornately carved, golden hands. The marble floor of the atrium had been covered with a runner made of the same material as the curtains. It was as if she was in some high-class, old-worldtheater.
The “mansion” as Wayne called it, was large, but whoever built it couldn’t decide what aesthetic they wanted it tobe.
