The technicians at the Innovation Institute who had known about her projects.
The workers who had helped Taylor run her experiments, had taken Jax and Sasuke and stolen their lives from them.
The other Blackcoats scattered around the world—their other hackers, other mercenaries, every single person she had ever worked with under Taylor.
She lists them all out.
My mind whirls. I look toward Jax again. Even though Sasuke isn’t here, I can sense his presence in the room, as if the boy who had disappeared has finally, in Jax, found a voice for his story.
After a stunning decision today by the Supreme Court of Japan, Henka Games founder Hideo Tanaka has been acquitted of charges of grand conspiracy and capital murder. He was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter in the death of Dr. Dana Taylor, as well as illegally exploiting his creation, the NeuroLink, in his investigation into his brother’s disappearance. Local authorities today raided the Japan Innovation Institute of Technology, where several items of evidence mentioned in testimony appear to be missing, among them an armored suit described in detail by witnesses Emika Chen and Jackson Taylor. The suit has not been recovered.
—THE TOKYO DIGEST
34
Two weeks have passed since Hideo’s sentencing.
They felt like an eternity, now that the NeuroLink no longer functions. People wake up and log on to the Internet in the way they used to before Hideo’s glasses took over the world. There are no overlays when I want to get directions, no translations for people I can’t understand. There’s an absence in our lives that’s hard to describe. Still, people seem to see the world better now.
As the day starts to fade into twilight, I set out on my electric skateboard to find Asher, Roshan, and Hammie. Without the NeuroLink, I rely on old-fashioned techniques like hoodies and caps and dark glasses. There are a million journalists who want to track me down. If I were smart, I’d take an auto-car.
But I get on my board anyway and head into the city. I feel like I belong out here, facing the rushing wind, my balance honed from years of traveling alone on busy city streets. Around me rises Tokyo, the real Tokyo, trains traveling over bridges and skyscrapers towering into the clouds, temples nestled quietly between roaring neighborhoods. I smile as it all passes me by. My time in Tokyo might be coming to an end, but I don’t know where I want to go next. After a few overwhelming months, this place has started to feel like home.
I’m lucky enough not to be stopped by anyone as I reach a garden nestled deep in the middle of a quiet neighborhood in the Mejiro district. There are few people here, and no prying eyes. I hop off my board, swing it over my shoulder, and stare at the simple, elegant entrance against a plain white wall, all of it washed into pinks by the sunset. Then I step inside.
It’s a beautifully sculpted space, a large, koi-filled pond surrounded by carefully pruned trees and round rocks, arching bridges and trickling waterfalls. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, letting myself soak in the scent of pine and blossoms.
A voice drifts toward me. I open my eyes and look in its direction.
A small pagoda is at one end of the garden, and waiting beside its pillars are Roshan, Hammie, and Asher, sharing bottles of soda. They wave at me. My smile breaks into a grin, and I head over to them. My footsteps quicken until I reach them, when I stop with a jolting halt.
“Hey,” I say to Roshan.
He grins back at me. “Hey.”
And then my teammates crush me into a hug.
I lean heavily against them, not saying a word. After everything’s that’s happened since my life turned upside down, this is the best part of it all.
Minutes later, the four of us sit in a row along the stone ledge of the pagoda that overlooks the koi pond, our legs dangling above the water. The sun has set completely now, washing the sky’s orange and gold into softer shades of purple and pink.
“That’s it, then,” Asher speaks first, breaking the silence. He glances to where he has parked his chair several feet away. “No more Warcross tournaments. No more NeuroLink.”
He tries to say it in a liberating way, but then he falters and goes quiet. The rest of us do, too.
“What are you going to do now?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “I figure we’re all about to be flooded in movie deals and interviews and documentary requests.” He doesn’t sound all that excited about it.
Roshan leans back and runs a hand through his dark curls. “It’s back to London for me,” he says, his voice similarly dejected. “It’ll be good to see my fam again, get some quiet time with them, and then try to figure out what I want to do now.”
“But Tremaine’s joining you, I hear,” Hammie adds, nudging him hard enough to throw him off balance.
A small smile grows at the edges of Roshan’s lips. He tries to hide it by looking out at the pond. “Nothing’s final yet,” he says, but all Hammie does is grin harder and poke him in the ribs. He grunts once. We laugh.
Hammie leans over to study the koi swimming by beneath us. “Houston for me,” she says. “And back to life before Warcross.”
Asher nudges her once. “And?” he adds.
She shoots him a bashful wink. “And frequent visits to LA. No reason.”
He smiles at that.
Life before Warcross. I picture the little apartment I’d lived in with Kiera in New York, the daily struggle. Most bounty hunters will be out of a job now, too—no need to hunt down people gambling illegally on Warcross or entering the Dark World. There will always be criminals, but they’ll return to operating in the regular Internet. And in real life.
What am I going to do now? Go back to New York? How will I settle back into a normal life? I picture myself applying to college now, filling out an application for a job, working in an office. It’s a strange, surreal thing to imagine.
“Warcross wasn’t who any of us are,” I say, mostly to myself.
“No,” Roshan agrees. There’s a long pause. “It’s just something we made.”
And he’s right, of course. It would’ve been nothing without them—us—making it matter. Without us, it really was just a game.
“It won’t change this,” Roshan replies, gesturing at the three of us. “You all know that, right? We’re linked forever now.”
He lifts up his glass bottle in a toast. Hammie joins him, and then Asher. I lift mine, too.
“To good friends.”
“To pulling each other up.”
“To sticking together, no matter the apocalypse.”
“To our team.”
We clink. The sound rings out across the garden, then fades into the sky.
* * *
* * *
WHEN I GET back to my hotel at night, there’s a written message waiting for me on my nightstand. I stare at it for a second before picking it up and holding it up to the light. It’s a phone number left by the hotel concierge, plus a message asking me to call.
I check my phone again. In the quiet of the garden and the company of my teammates, I hadn’t been looking at it at all. Now I realize that I’ve missed a few calls from the same number. I dial it, then walk over to my window and hold it up to my ear.
A woman’s voice comes on the other end. “Miss Chen?” she says.
“Who’s asking?” I reply.
“I’m Divya Kapoor, the new CEO of Henka Games.”
I stand up a little straighter. It’s the woman I’d seen at the Supreme Court. “Yes?”
There’s a brief, embarrassed pause on the other end. “Miss Chen, on behalf of Henka Games, I would like to apologize to you for everything that has happened. As you know, Hideo’s actions were not revealed to everyone in the studio, and I am as shocked as the rest of the world over the allegations. It is because of your help that we have avoided sheer catastrophe. We owe you a great deal.”