A tingle shoots through my body. I freeze. In fact, everyone in the game seems to freeze.
Then I notice that Asher is looking right at me. Like he cansee me.
I blink.That’s impossible. I’m in the audience.But Jena is staring at me, too. Their eyes are wide. That’s when I realize that the Sudden Death power-up is now officially in my account. I see it in my inventory at the bottom of my vision.
I did it. My hack worked.
But, somehow, successfully capturing the power-up has glitched me into the tournament.
A referee’s whistle echoes around us. The audience’s cheers turn into whispers of shock. I stay where I am, suddenly unsure ofwhat to do. Frantically, I type in another command, trying to go back to being part of the audience again. But it’s no use.
Everyone—the players, the announcers, the millions in the audience—can see me.
“Who the hell areyou?” Asher says to me.
I just stare back, numb.
A flash of red light engulfs the scene, and the omniscient voice echoes all around us. “Time-out,” it booms. “System glitch.”
Then, my screen goes dark. I’m kicked out of the game and back into my starting room, looking out at a virtual view of Tokyo. The doors in the room are gone now. The Sudden Death power-up is still glowing in my inventory.
But when I reach for it, it vanishes. They’ve deleted it from my directory.
I rip my glasses off. Then I sit back in my chair, looking wildly around our apartment. My eyes settle on Keira, seated across from me. She’s taken off her glasses, too, and is staring at me with the same shocked expression I’d seen on Jena’s face.
“Em,” Keira whispers. “What did you do?”
“I—” I stutter, then stop. Something about reaching into Jena’s account had erased my anonymity. I’ve been exposed. I stare down at the table. My heart thuds.
Keira leans forward. “I could see you in the game,” she says. “Em—Asherspoketo you. He could see you. They couldallsee you.” She throws her hands up in astonishment. “You glitched the game!”
She has absolutely no idea how much trouble I’ve just gotten myself into; she thinks this was an honest mistake. Below my rising panic lies an ocean of regret. I don’t know what Henka Games does when they catch a hacker, but they’ll ban me from the gamefor sure. I’ll go to court for this. “I’m sorry,” I reply in a daze. “Maybe they—they won’t make a big deal out of it...”
My voice trails off. Keira lets out a long breath and leans back in her chair. We don’t speak for a while. After being so immersed in Warcross, the silence in the apartment feels overwhelming.
“You’re smart, Em,” Keira finally says, her eyes meeting mine. “But I have a feeling you’re dead wrong on that one.”
And as if on cue, my phone rings.
5
We both jumpat the sound. When I peer at the phone, the caller ID says:Unknown Number.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Keira says to me, her eyes as wide as mine now. I just shake my head repeatedly at the phone. I don’t move from my spot until, after what seems like an eternity, it finally stops ringing.
Immediately, it rings again.Unknown Number.
The hairs rise on the back of my neck. I turn the phone’s sound off, then throw it onto the couch so I can’t see it. In the silence, I stay hunched in my chair and try not to meet Keira’s bewildered stare.
The caller had to be the police. Would they come to arrest me now if I didn’t pick up? Would Henka Games sue me? It occurs to me that I’ve just interrupted a game watched by half a billion people, a game that accepts millions in sponsor money. Would thegame studio itself put out a bounty on my head, for other hunters to track me down? In fact, they could be sending out a text alert right now, and all across the city, hunters would be swinging onto their motorcycles or hopping in cabs, eager to catch me. I press my shaking hands tightly together in my lap.
I could run. I had to. I’d grab the first train and make my way out of the city until everything dies down. But I grimace immediately at the impossible thought. If I ran, where would I go? How far could I get with only thirteen dollars? And if—no,when—they caught me, it would just make my crime worse. It might be safer for me to stay put right here.
Keira wanders over to the couch. “It’s still ringing, Em.”
“Then stop looking at it,” I shoot back, harsher than I’d meant to sound.
She throws her hands up. “Fine, whatever. Suit yourself.” Without another word, she turns away from me and heads for her mattress. I close my eyes, put my head in my hands, and lean against the table. The silence in the room is overwhelming, and even though I can’t hear my phone, I canfeelit, can somehow tell that it’s still ringing. At any moment, there’ll be a fist pounding on our door.
