If I could solve these problems, then I could control something. And if I could control something, I could forgive myself for the one problem that I could never have solved, the one person I could never have saved. Everyone has a different way of escaping the dark stillness of their mind. This, I learned, was mine.
I finished my dinner that night for the first time in months. The next day and the day after that and every day since, I channeled every bit of my energy into learning everything about code and Warcross and the NeuroLink that I could get my brains on.
As for Hideo Tanaka . . . from that day on, along with the rest of the world, I was obsessed. I watched him as if I were afraid to blink, incapable of looking away, like he might start another revolution at any moment.
4
My glasses are old and used, several generations behind, but they work fine. I put them on and the earphones fit snugly, sealing out the sound of outside traffic and footsteps from upstairs. Our humble apartment—and, with it, all my worries—is replaced by blackness and silence. I exhale, relieved to leave the real world behind for a while. My view soon fills with a neon-blue light, and I find myself standing on the top of a hill, looking down at the city lights of a virtual Tokyo that could pass for the real thing. The only reminder that I’m inside a simulation is a clear box hovering in the center of my vision.
Welcome back, [null]
Level 24 | N430
Those two lines then vanish. [null], of course, isn’t actually my name. In my hacked account, I’m able to wander around as an anonymous player. Other players crossing my path will see me as a randomly generated username.)
When I look behind me, I see my customized room decked out in variations of the Warcross logo. Normally, this room has two doors: play a round, or watch other people play. Today, though, there is a third door, above which some text hovers:
Warcross Opening Ceremony Game
Live
In real life, I tap my fingers against the tabletop. As I do, the glasses sense my finger movements, and a virtual keyboard slides out. I search for Keira in the player directory. I find her in no time, connect with her, and a few seconds later, she accepts my invite and appears at my side. Like me (and most other players), she’s designed her avatar to look like an idealized version of her real self, adorned with a few cool game items—a gleaming breastplate, a pair of horns—she’d bought.
“Let’s head in,” she says.
I move forward, then reach my hand out and open the third door. Light washes over me. I squint and my heart gives a familiar leap as the invisible roar of viewers drowns out everything. A soundtrack swells over my earphones. I find myself standing on one of what seems like a million floating islands, staring down into the most beautiful valley I’ve ever seen.
A wide expanse of lush plains turns into a crystal-blue lagoon, surrounded by towering cliffs and smooth, steep rocks, their tops covered with vegetation. Waterfalls thunder down their sides. When I look closer, I realize that the rocks are actually enormous sculptures, each of them carved to look like past tournament winners. Rays of sun dance through the valley, painting light on the plains even as the floating isles cast patches of shadows; flocks of white birds cry out in formation below us. The towers of a castle on the cliffs peek through the distant mist. Farther, to the horizon, majestic ocean ray–like creatures glide in the air. There, the sky is black, and lightning forks between the clouds. I shiver as if I could sense the electricity in the air.
Even the soundtrack chosen for this level is off-the-charts epic, full of orchestral strings and deep drums, sending my heart soaring.
Above it all, a grand voice echoes across the world. “Welcome to the Warcross Opening Ceremony Game.”
A soft ding sounds, and a transparent bubble pops up in the middle of my view:
Logged into Opening Ceremony!
+150 Pts. Daily Score: +150
Level 24 | N580
Then it fades away. My reward for watching the opening game is 150 points, which will go toward my leveling . . . except it won’t, since I’ve hacked this version of Warcross. Too bad. If I played like a normal person, I’d probably be at Level 90 or so by now. But I’m still at Level 24.
“They always do it up, don’t they?” Keira’s voice makes me blink. She has a look of wonder on her face.
I smile, then take a deep breath and spread my arms out. I leap off my floating isle. And I fly.
My stomach drops as my brain believes I’m actually thousands of feet in the air. I let out a whoop as I soar over the plain, the music egging me on. There are restrictions on the official competing players—some worlds allow players to fly around or swim underwater, while others must obey virtual gravity. But audience members are always free to wander around the landscape however they wish. We’re barred from altering it in any way or interfering with the players. The players won’t see us, either. They can only hear the roar of our cheers or boos, as well as the referee’s calls.
I fly straight through the floating isles like a ghost, angling up to go as high as I can until I can’t get any farther from land. Then I turn around and dive back down like a meteor. I finally stop on one of the floating isles, right as the cheers of the audience mix with the voices of the game analysts coming from my earphones, as if I were listening to them on a radio.
“It’s time for the annual Opening Ceremony Game!” one of them exclaims. “We’ve gathered here tonight to watch this all-star performance before the real tournament season begins. At the far end, we have Team Alpha, led by Asher Wing! At the near end, we have Team Beta, led by Penn Wachowski!”
The players finally appear, scattered at opposite ends of the mass of floating islands. I fly away from Keira and head over to see them more closely.
The avatar rule for official, professional Warcross players is that their virtual selves must look like their real selves, without any of the crazy customizations typical users can have, and that each team’s members must wear the same color. Team Alpha’s color is blue. There’s Jena, all blond hair and lanky limbs in her blue, fitted Warcross armor, its dragon scale texture tailored to match the level. She’s one of the younger players—only eighteen, same as me—and is from Ireland. As I watch her, she tosses her hair over her shoulders and places her hands on her hips. Her silver armguards gleam in the sun, as do the identical knives strapped to her thighs. The audience screams their approval.
Standing on a floating island nearby is Max. Max, the son of millionaires, is a Harvard grad. His Warcross position is a Fighter, for sheer brawn and power, with the goal of taking others down instead of hunting for the Artifact. At twenty-eight, he’s the oldest player in this year’s tournaments. His shoulder armor is enormous and hulking, so shiny that it reflects the sky and contrasts sharply against his dark skin.
Then there’s Asher, the team’s captain, who is the farthest from where I’m floating. Originally known only as the younger brother of Daniel Batu Wing, an actor and stuntman, Asher’s now famous in his own right because of Warcross. He has thick brown hair so light that it’s almost blond, and his eyes are a playful blue, the same color as the virtual lagoon below him. His deep sapphire armor is finished with steel shoulder plates and leather straps along his arms and waist.
He grins cheekily, crosses his arms against his chest, and calls out a challenge to the other team at the opposite end of the game world, which makes the audience go wild. When I toggle my view to show the audience in the Tokyo Dome, they are shrieking his name and waving glowing batons frantically. MARRY ME, ASHER!!! scream the fan posters. Asher says something through his secure line, words only his teammates can hear. Over his head floats a shimmering blue gem. This is his team’s Artifact.
The game announcer has started the official pregame ritual, reading off something about good sportsmanship and honorable gameplay. As she goes on, my attention shifts to Team Beta. They’re decked out in red armor, of course—the annual opening game always color-codes the teams red versus blue. Pe
nn, the Beta captain, has a sparkling red Artifact hovering over his head. He and Asher smirk at each other, and the shouts from the audience go up an octave.
Over my earphones, the announcer finishes her speech with a now-standard reminder of what the objective is, for the benefit of any new audience members who are watching. “Remember, teams, you have only one goal—take your enemy team’s Artifact before they can take yours!”
The players each raise their right fist. They hit them twice against their chests, the standard response to acknowledging the rules. There is a brief pause, as if everything in the level had suddenly frozen.
“Game!” the announcer shouts. The crowd chants along: “Set! Fight!”
The world trembles from the roar of the invisible audience, and the clouds in the sky start to move rapidly. The storm that blackens the horizon is sweeping toward us at a frightening pace, its lightning forking closer with each passing second. As with every Warcross world, the game gets harder the longer it goes on.
At the same time, brightly colored marbles appear, hovering over many of the isles. These items are power-ups—temporary bursts of super speed, wings to help you fly for short periods, shields of defense that can stop an enemy attack, and so on. There are dozens of different power-ups that can potentially appear in a game, and new ones are added all the time. Low-level power-ups (like something that helps you jump a little higher) are plentiful. I see three hovering over isles close to me right now. But high-level power-ups (like the ability to fly for the entire game) are very rare and hard to reach. Some power-ups are so valuable that a team might send one of their players after them for the entire game.
Power-ups can be worth a lot of money in the Warcross community. In regular games, unused power-ups that you collect can be stored in your player inventory. You can then sell or trade them to other players. Valuable power-ups can sell for thousands of notes.
Warcross is so well programmed that I’ve never tried to steal a power-up—but I recently found a security bug that might let me grab an item from a user’s account right as she’s about to use it.
I find myself looking around us now, wondering how much I could get if I nabbed some of these items for resale. But none of the ones I can see are valuable enough. Fifty notes here, another thirty there. Not worth risking a hack of the biggest opening game ever. Definitely not worth risking another strike on my record.
“Asher is making the first move of the game!” an analyst’s voice echoes in my ears. “He’s giving Jena some instructions. A power-up grab.”
Sure enough, Asher has spotted something before anyone else has. He looks first at Jena, then makes an arm gesture toward a distant marble hovering over a rock jutting high out of the far end of the lagoon. She doesn’t hesitate. Immediately she hops off her floating isle and onto another one, making her way toward the rock. Behind her, the isle she was originally standing on now crumbles into pieces.
“Something’s caught Asher’s eye!” another analyst chimes in. “It takes a lot for him to send away one of his teammates.”
At the same time, Asher and his Fighter, Max, lunge forward. The other team is already on the hunt, hurtling toward them. Every time a player leaps from one isle to another, the isle left behind crumbles away. They must all choose their steps wisely. Asher and Max move as one, their attention focused on Penn. They’re going to attack him on both sides.
I crane my neck in the direction where the distant object is hovering, in an attempt to see what power-up had caught Asher’s eye. My world zooms in. The power-up is a marbled sphere, so red it looks like it was dipped in blood.
“Sudden Death!” an analyst exclaims, right as I gasp.
A rare power-up, indeed. Sudden Death can render a player of your choice frozen for the rest of the game, useless to his or her teammates. I’ve never seen this power-up in play during a regular Warcross match, and only a handful of times in an official tournament game.
It must be worth at least five thousand—maybe fifteen thousand dollars.
Max, for all his size, is faster than Asher. He reaches Penn first, then lunges for the red Artifact over his head. Penn ducks out of the way in time. The isle they’re both standing on starts to crack, unable to support them both for long, and Penn makes a leap for the next closest isle. But Max’s hand closes around his arm before he can do it—Max lets out a roar and flings Penn backward. Penn goes flying. He manages to seize the edge of an isle before he plummets to the lagoon below. There he dangles, momentarily helpless and dazed. The audience roars as Penn’s life bar drops from Max’s blow.
Penn Wachowski | Team Beta
Life: -35%
Now Asher joins the action. He leaps off his own isle as it crumbles, landing in a perfect crouch on the isle Penn is clinging to. The isle shudders from the impact. He leans down, seizes Penn by his neck before he has recovered from his last hit, and pummels him into the isle’s dirt, cracking the ground. A burst of blue light radiates out from Asher in a ring at his attack.
Penn Wachowski | Team Beta
Life: -92% | WARNING
The invisible audience screams, while an analyst shouts, “Penn’s going to go down! If he doesn’t protect his team’s Artifact, Asher is going to end this game early—”
Penn frees one hand and unleashes a Lightning power-up on Asher before he can make a fatal blow. A blinding flash of light engulfs Asher for an instant. He throws his hands up in vain, but too late—the power-up has blinded him for five solid seconds. His own life bar drops by 20 percent. Penn lunges for Asher’s Artifact. At the last instant, Max saves their Artifact by grabbing it first, so that it now hovers over his head.
The crowd lets out a roar of cheers and boos. I follow suit. But my attention keeps going back to the Sudden Death power-up.
Don’t do it.
“Sharp effort from Beta! Penn’s been working on his defense!” an analyst shouts over the noise. As he speaks, the storm’s clouds finally reach us, and the sun disappears overhead. “We lost track of Kento for a while, but it looks like he’s now hunting after Jena. Both are going for the Sudden Death power-up!”
Wind blasts us. It makes the floating isles wobble in the air. Fat drops of rain start to fall, making each isle slippery and harder to stand on.
I turn my attention to Jena and Kento, who look like two small, bright figures fast approaching the power-up hovering over the rock. Then I swoop down from the isles and fly in their direction. Soon, I am hovering near the bloodred Sudden Death, watching as Jena and Kento dash for it.
I focus on the power-up. In theory, if Jena or Kento get their hands on Sudden Death, I might be able to hack into their player accounts. I might be able to steal Sudden Death right out of their account. And then I could sell it.
Fifteen thousand dollars.
In spite of myself, my head spins with excitement. Could this work? Hacking into a regular Warcross game has never been done—but an official championship tournament game? Unheard of. I don’t even know if I can access their accounts the same way I can in regular Warcross. My hack might not work at all.
If they catch me and I’m arrested, I’ll be charged as an adult.
Breaking the law had only quickened my father’s death. It certainly hadn’t made my life any easier.
I stay where I am, torn, my throat dry.
What if I do successfully steal it? It’s just a power-up in a game; I’m not hurting anyone. I’ve never tested this Warcross hack in an arena like this—but what if it works? I could resell it for thousands. I could get that money immediately and give it to Mr. Alsole, pay off my debts. It could save me. And I’d never do it again.
The temptation nips at me, and I wonder if this is how my father felt every time he’d logged online to place just one more bet.
Just one bet. Just this once.
Jena reaches the power-up first. She only has time to swipe it off the top of the cliff before Kento tackles her.
If I don’t make a decision now, it’ll be
too late.
Instinctively, I move. My fingers tap madly against my tabletop. I bring up a player directory, then hunt for Jena’s profile. As I go, Jena kicks Kento off her and then dives in a perfect arc down toward the lagoon. A deafening thunderclap sounds out overhead.
Jena’s name finally pops up. I have only a few seconds to act. Don’t do it. But I’m already moving. A complete inventory of her virtual belongings appears. I scroll until I see the brand-new Sudden Death item in her account, shiny and scarlet.
The only weakness I’ve ever found in Warcross’s security is a tiny glitch when a user is about to use an item. When the item passes from an account into the game and is used, there’s a split second when it is vulnerable.
My fingers tremble. Before me, Jena reaches for her new Sudden Death power-up. In her inventory, I see it flash a quick gold. Now’s my only chance. I suck in my breath, wait—don’t do it—and then type a single command just as Jena’s item leaves her hand.
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 can see 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 of what 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 are you?” 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.”