“Why are you contacting me? Why are you showing your face?”
“Relax, Emika. I found something that you might be interested in.” Before I can ask him what it is, he reaches up and makes a swiping motion with his hand. A file materializes between us, hovering in the air like a glowing blue cube.
“You have the other piece of this file,” he says.
I frown at the glowing cube for a second before I realize that I’m looking at another piece ofproj_ice_HT1.0.The same file that I grabbed from Ren before Hideo’s attempted assassination. “How do I know you’re not just trying to give me a virus?”
He actually looks offended at my question. “You don’t think I could find a subtler way of doing that? I’m trying to help you, you idiot.”
I scowl, my teeth clenching. “Why? We’re supposed to be rivals.”
He smiles again, touches two fingers casually to his brow, and salutes me. “Not if Hideo already dropped both of us from the job. I’ve received a compensation payment already, so there’s not much incentive for me to stay on this hunt. I have bigger hired jobs to concentrate on right now.” He tilts his head at me. “But I betyou’restill keen on protecting Hideo, aren’t you?”
I blush, annoyed.
He nods at the hovering file. “Thought I might as well pass along what I’ve collected. A gift from one hunter to another. That way, if you find Zero, you’ll know who’s responsible for your win.”
I shake my head, still unwilling to touch the file. “I don’t trust you.”
“And I don’t like you either. But we don’t have time for that right now, do we?”
We eye each other for another beat before I finally reach out and accept the file. For a moment, I expect something in my view to go horribly wrong, like I’ve just downloaded a virus. But nothing happens. The file seems clean.
Maybe he’s being genuine, after all.
I look back at Tremaine. “You helped Roshan get Ash out of our building.”
At that, his expression wavers. I wonder if his change of heart had anything to do with that moment—if he, as another hunter, also understands what had really happened.
Tremaine shrugs and turns away. “Just tell Roshan I stopped by,” he mutters. Before I can say anything else to him, he vanishes, leaving me alone again in the room, staring numbly at the spot where his virtual form had just been.
How is this possible? I think back to the opening ceremony party, when I’d confronted him and Max Martin, when he’d sneered at me. His data had looked perfectly normal, disguised to be indistinguishable from an average player’s—I hadn’t even seen any shields installed to protect his info. He had probably set up an entire, elaborate system of false info to throw off anyone who tried to get to him. He’d likely been studying me, too. He’d been right in front of me, and I’d missed him entirely.You tricky bastard,I think.
I squint at the file, trying to make sense of it. It’s clearly garbled, just like the piece that I have.
My eyes dart back to the contents in my box.
My Christmas ornament and Dad’s painting had been destroyed, but just because they were destroyed doesn’t mean some traces of them, however small and broken, weren’t left behind. And if there are enough pieces, you can see what the original object was supposed to be.
I bring up a main menu and tap my fingers rapidly against my thighs. A scrolling list appears. I sift through it backward until I finally reach the day of our first Warcross tournament.
Then I pause.
proj_ice_HT1.0.
I tap on it. Sure enough, an error message pops up, telling me that the file no longer exists. But this time, I run a hack that forces the file to open, regardless. The hospital room around me disappears, and I am immersed in a field of mangled ghost code.
It is all nonsense, partially corrupted—just like the file Tremaine had sent. I pull up what he sent me, and then I run both files together, splicing them into one. Suddenly, there is just enough info for the file to open.
It is a Memory.
I am standing in someone else’s recorded Memory, inside a massive, dimly lit space. A train station? Wherever it is, it’s a real, physical location. Cobwebs adorn the air between archways, while thin shafts of light slice through the darkness to dot the floor below. People are gathered here in a loose circle, but they remain silent, their faces hidden in shadows. Others appear as virtual figures, as if they’d logged in from distant places to be here.
“The track’s done,” someone says. I startle, realizing that the words are coming from the person I’m watching this through. It’s Ren’s voice.This is one of Ren’s Memories.
One of the figures in the darkness nods so slightly that I barely notice it. “Hooked up?” he says. His words come out as a whisper, but from the way the tunnel’s archways curve at the ceiling, I can hear his words as clearly as if he stood right beside me.
My point of view—Ren—nods. “It’ll play the instant the championship final’s world loads.”
