glued plastic vampire teeth on.
Those were pretty rad.
What had kicked me out of the game?
The scrambler should have hidden my whereabouts, but the securities team at Stonebright wasn’t like my online school’s private server, and I really wasn’t trained for this.
But I’d set up a warning system to guard for the team at Stonebright, and none of my sirens had gone off. Not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. If it was a good thing, I was a hacking genius and no one knew what I was doing. Bad thing, they’d already found me and I’d have no warning.
It was the Schrödinger’s cat of good/bad things.
Someone knocked on my door.
“Not now, Mom! I’m in the middle of something.” I was pretty sure I could check for—
“Zoe?!” It was my sister.
She rapped on the door again and I lost all my civility. “I swear on a stack of comics, if you bang on the door one more time I’m…” I rolled my wheelchair to unlock my fortress of solitude and slushies with the clear intent to break my big sister’s pretty white teeth.
Except.
Oh no.
It wasn’t just Abigail at the door.
Nao Freaking Takagi stood next to her.
I blinked.
There was a good chance my parents might find out about the overages on my data plan.
I gripped my power chair controller and rolled my chair backward. Nao Freaking Takagi folded her arms. Strands of hair slipped from her loose braid and her elegant blouse wrinkled at the waist, but compared to my stained pajama pants and tank top, she seemed way too fancy for my suburban bedroom.
“Bluebird of Death, I presume.”
OH MY GALAGA, NAO FREAKING TAKAGI KNOWS MY NAME.
Breathe, Bluebird. Now was not the time to ask for a selfie.
“May I come in?” Nao F. Takagi asked.
A tiny part of me realized I’d yet to move or speak, and that was what the cool kids call social ineptitude, so I twitched a nod and rolled out of her way. “Hello, Ms. Takagi. May I ask what this visit is … okay, no there’s no way you’re going to buy that. If you’re here in my house then you know who I am, and what I’ve done, so I’m going to stop talking now, or now adjacent, and aw dang, is that the head of security?”
Yup. Totally that was the massive muscle-having suit-wearing head of Stonebright’s security. In my hallway.
Silver lining: not the feds.
Nao F. Takagi entered the fortress of solitude and slushies and plucked the diode I’d made with my soldering iron from my sloppy desk. I wiped my nose with my thumb as she opened my laptop. It popped to life right on the feed of Grig’s face.
And that was not embarrassing at all.
Nao F. Takagi smiled. “I’d thought it was a shame when your parents refused to sign the release form and pulled you from the game, but now I’m grateful.”
“You’re not mad? I broke into your game.”
“Why would I be mad? You’ve only done what I’ve been trying to do. The source code glitch blocked all my back doors. Except one. Because your character was coded into the game, you’re the only one who has been able to break in. And now I need your help.”
I pulled my pajama pants to the side in a curtsy. Not too shabby for a self-taught sixteen-year-old.
“Zoe?” Mom interrupted from the doorway. She wore her work clothes, freshly glossed lips, and an expression that could melt a hard drive. “Why is there a bearded white man in my front room?” She paused when she saw I wasn’t alone. She offered Ms. Takagi a hand and a warm fake smile. “Hello. I’m Zoe’s mother, and who might you be?”
Mom didn’t seem to notice the cover of Wired magazine stapled to the wall with Ms. Takagi’s mirror image on it.
“I’m Nao Takagi.” Ms. Takagi met warm smile for warm smile. “We spoke quite forcefully on the phone a week ago.”
Mom lost the game of Fake Smile Chicken. “Oh. You’re from that game?”
“Yes, the one your daughter is still so very interested in.” Ms. Takagi turned the laptop until the screen faced my mother. Oh no. “I’m here to offer your daughter an internship at my company, as clemency for a series of crimes she’s committed against us, including—”
An internship? “There’s no need to give a laundry list of—”
“Theft, breaking digital copyright protections, securities fraud, and lying on an entrance form.”
I clenched my eyes closed. “Technically that’s not illegal.”
Ms. Takagi raised a polished