And I realize that these aren’t Zero’s words at all. They’re Taylor’s—I can recognize them solely by the taunting questions. These are things she must have once said to Sasuke, threatening his family to keep him from running away.
Hideo stares back at Zero with a clenched jaw. “You’re not going to hurt anyone,” he snarls. “Because you’re not real.”
Somehow, Hideo’s not going blank like everyone else had—he’s still here, alert and conscious. He slams Zero down against the floor, striking him in the face.
Zero vanishes, reappears again. I sprint for him, only to realize that he can just disappear again and again. How can I reach him and break through his armor to install Sasuke’s data into him? It’s impossible. I glance desperately over at Hideo as several of Zero’s bots reach him. A scream bubbles in my throat.
To my surprise, though, they go around him. They don’t touch him at all. It’s as if they’re leaving Hideo for Zero to deal with himself.
But in my confusion I let one bot get too close to me. I don’t react fast enough. His hand shoots out and seizes my wrist.
I gasp. His grip feels so cold, like he’s made out of ice. Behind me comes Hideo’s shout. “Emika!”
I twist around, my teeth clenched, and kick out at his black helmet. My boot smashes straight through the glass. He immediately vaporizes.
I hold my wrist tightly. The ice of his touch lingers, burning straight through me and into my mind, and the edges of my vision blur a bit. I shake my head. The world around me shifts again as I run.
I blink. Where am I? The city had looked like emptied Tokyo, but suddenly I see a layout of intersecting streets that I recognize as New York. I’m passing through Times Square now, except it’s not Times Square at all—none of its lights are lit, and no pedestrians crowd its streets. Right beside it is a glimpse of Central Park.
That doesn’t make sense at all, I think to myself, as I race toward Zero. Sasuke has probably never been to New York before. The layout of it makes no sense either, as Central Park isn’t anywhere near Times Square.
This ismyhome—mymemories.
I realize with a sickening lurch that Zero’s security bots have infiltrated my mind, as surely as he’d done with each of my teammates—that ice-cold grip on my wrist had been him seeping into my mind.
I look wildly around for Hideo, ready to call out for him, but the entire world around me has now transformed into New York City. In Central Park, I see a figure walking.Hideo. Zero.I start running toward it.
When I get closer, I stumble to a halt. The figure walking through the park isn’t Hideo or Zero at all. It’s my father.
“Dad,” I whisper. He’s here, and I’m home.
I start running toward his figure. It’s him, everything abouthim screams it—his suit perfectly tailored and his hair sleek and elegant from an afternoon concert at Carnegie Hall. He’s walking with a young girl in a tulle dress, singing her a concert piece. Even from here, I can hear notes of his humming, off-key and full of life, followed by the accompanying singing of the girl. I can almost smell the bag of sweet roasted peanuts he hands to her, feel the breeze swirling the leaves around them.
Where had I been earlier? Some unfinished illusion of a city. But this? This is obviously real, and here.
There’s a warning going off somewhere in me, trying to tell me that this isn’t quite right. But I shrug it off as I make my way closer to my dad and myself. It’s fall, so of course the leaves are drifting down, and my dad is still alive, so of course he’s walking hand in hand with me through the park. The sound of his bright laughter is so familiar that I feel an intense burst of joy. My steps quicken.
They never seem to get any closer, though, no matter how fast I go. I break into a run, but my limbs feel like they’re dragging through molasses. The little warning in my mind continues relentlessly.This happened a long time ago,I gradually realize—the walk through the park, the sound of Dad’s laugh, the smell of roasted peanuts.
This isn’t now.
Too late, I start to remember what had happened to the others, the memories that had surrounded them the instant they were touched by Zero’s security bots and had their minds infiltrated. This isn’t real, and I’d fallen for the same trap. My breaths come in panicked gasps. Already, I can feel myself stalling, my thoughts having trouble grasping on to something. Somewhere in the distance is Hideo’s voice, calling for me.
To have come all this way and done all this—just to fail hereat the end, when we were so close. To leave this puzzle unfinished, the door locked. My mind churns through other options, but a fog is starting to fill my head, and I can see myself slowing down. Along with it comes a strange sensation of... unfeeling.
Was this what Sasuke felt on the final day of his experiment? When he gave up his last breath and his mind, and felt what was human of him scatter to become nothing more than data?
Somewhere before me, a figure approaches. It’s Zero, hidden behind his armor, and he stops a foot away from me. He studies me for a moment.
You made it so much harder for yourself,he says.
So. Much. Harder.My mind struggles to process each word. Now I’ve become part of the algorithm, become one with Zero’s mind and the NeuroLink.
Become one with Zero’s mind.
Wait. A spark lights the fog creeping into me. I think of what he’s been doing to everyone in the world, and what he’d done to Asher, Hammie, and Roshan—he’d merged with the algorithm, with the NeuroLink, and that means that his mind has become one with all of that data. When he shuts down someone else’s mind, it’s becausehismind has seeped in and taken control.
But information in the NeuroLink, Hideo had once told me, can go both ways.
