“I’m gonna go,” Olly said. “Let me know if you want to run an instance sometime. Free of charge, okay?” He turned and let the door slam shut behind him.
Reef took his goggles down from their hook, frustration and shame welling inside him. A message from Cadence flashed on the lens piece. She had wanted to meet at a nearby park but was gone now. His frustration grew. He sent a message back: This is crazy. Isn’t there some time when Aedric won’t notice you’re gone?
A few minutes later her reply came: Tonight. There’s a quest he’s been wanting to do that doesn’t show up until after nine. I’ll remind him.
Around nine thirty, Reef showed up at a building across the street from the Roosevelt Hotel, where he and Olly had met the sphinx. He pulled out his tin. It was full, the thin gray sticks packed in tightly together. Reef knew his stomach wouldn’t stop wrenching and lurching until he gave in. He took out a stick, glared at it before biting down. He was up to a twice-daily dose now and he couldn’t go back.
He knocked on the door of the building. There was no sign, no window front. Cadence had told him only about a gray-painted door next to a noodle place. The door opened, and someone squinted at him before leading him down a hallway to a lounge lit by thousands of tiny bulbs embedded in a map of Great China that wrapped around the room. The provinces were outlined in a thin, glowing line, including the constantly shifting European holding and an uncertain chunk carved out of Africa.
Cadence smiled at him from a couch, an open, easy smile he’d never seen on her. Reef felt several pairs of eyes on him as he walked over. He’d never seen so many girls all in one place, in tank tops and Tshirts instead of bulky jackets. He let his metal bracelet slide down over his hand so everyone could see it, so the guys glaring at him would know Cadence was his wife now.
“You didn’t bring your goggles,” Cadence said. She’d shed her usual oversized jacket and looked almost bare in a thin T-shirt and jeans.
“No, I didn’t.” He’d had some inflated idea about her seeing him without his goggles and taking him more seriously, so he’d left them with Olly. But Cadence’s own slim pair was around her neck.
He sat next to her, anxious to find out how his body would fit alongside hers. He’d only ever touched her hand, her shoulder through her jacket. Now her arm was pressed alongside his. Reef’s fingers itched at the sight of her T-shirt half tucked into the waistband of her jeans.
“What’s with the map?” As he said it, several more lights blinked on among networks of wires trailing over the wall.
“Do you like it? Took ages for everyone to rig up. It’s for the Troll-Kicker Leech: a light comes on every time the leech spreads to another hard drive. The leeches are forming a whole network—”
“A botnet,” Reef said.
She smiled again. “It’s supposed to come alive tonight and do its thing, if the command can get through to it. Not sure what it’ll do, though—do you have any idea?”
“Probably launch a DDoS attack. Distributed Denial of Service. Basically, overwhelm a network and make things go haywire. Everything’s connected to the network these days—power grid, emergency services. Everything.” He was working hard not to grimace at the bitter remnants of resin in his mouth. If he kissed her, would she taste it? Could she smell it already? He tried to be subtle about fishing a mint out of his pocket. “One of these days we’ll even send a bomb to finish off the job.”
She turned her face to look at the wall behind her. The tiny lights made her skin glow like some digital character. “It’s a bit morbid, isn’t it?”
Reef shrugged. “China’s doing the same thing to us.” The mint made his mouth cold. “There’s probably some bar in Beijing where people are studying a light-up map of Mega America right now.”
“And drinking illegally imported American beer.” She held up a bottle someone had left on the table and showed him the Chinese label.
Reef let out a laugh. The sound of it floated to his ears through a drug-induced fog. The whole room seemed to be retreating, shrinking back from him as though he were lifting away. He felt lights blinking on inside of him the same as on the map, dark places coming to life.
He took Cadence’s hand and pulled her up from the couch with him. She let Reef put his arm around her waist, but the slow, electronic pulse of the music didn’t lend itself to dancing. Reef stood stiffly, unsure of how to close the gap between them. He fingered the hem of her shirt where it was untucked and then he couldn’t help but pull her closer. The music throbbed in his head, in his stomach. He brushed his cheek against her hair. “Cadence . . .”
He caught her looking toward a corner of the room and followed her gaze to find Aedric’s alien friend watching them.