to speak. I’ll pull you out right after. If you get stuck in the game, you could be affected by the same glitch. There’s a chance you could feel pain. And if you do, there’s a chance that you could die.”
I swallowed. I’d faced worse odds every day of my life. “I want to help. I’ll be safe.”
She looked down at her hands. “But…”
I filled in those dots. “I have muscular dystrophy.”
“That only means I want to protect you more.”
I leaned back. They thought when I was younger I was only a carrier of the gene, but once I became symptomatic, everyone started treating me with kid gloves. When I was twelve, the muscles in my shoulders weakened until I could no longer raise my hands over my head. I used leg braces for a while, but then when my muscles wasted to the point where I couldn’t walk for more than ten minutes, I found my freedom in a wheelchair my mom had painted bright yellow.
I swear to Galaga, sometimes that’s the only thing people ever see of me.
“I want to help,” I said more softly.
Neither of us had much to say for the rest of the drive.
* * *
I’d been to Stonebright Studios before.
It was different coming here with the owner of the company and the head of security. At the entrance the focus was on Ms. Takagi, so I could check out the tech on desks, but as we moved deeper into the belly of the building, the lab coat people stopped watching Ms. Takagi, and their attention switched to the black girl in a wheelchair following behind her.
Meaning me.
Meaning everyone needed to turn their attention back to their own papers, thankyouverymuch.
I’d stepped inside the firewall now. And everyone I saw was doing everything possible to keep the players safe.
But they were also doing everything they could to keep this secret. The front desk had private security manning the doors, phone check-in, and full body scanners in front of the entrance.
The mood was somber. Urgent. Screens showed the game play of the world, places I’d stepped a virtual foot in and so many societies and side quests I hadn’t taken. I’d located Grig and read the code around him, but I hadn’t searched any of the other players. There were two with the Kneult, two with the Savak, and …
Where were the rest of the players?
Ms. Takagi cleared her throat.
I lowered my gaze to the ground and slipped behind her into her office. The ceiling of her office was impossibly high, with one wall made of glass and the city beyond it. At the center, a steel-framed chair glowed—her own personal gaming pod. There were massive monitors on the other three walls, two showing views of the game, the other four split to show different camera angles of her building.
And I thought I was paranoid.
“Here is where you’ll plug in. This is where I plugged in to play a Historian,” she said. “The restroom is through here, and there’s plenty of food in the mini-fridge.”
She touched the screen and the camera on her own office enlarged to full screen.
I touched the diodes and the visors. The tech in this room was a thing of beauty.
A white man knocked on the open door. I remembered him. Preston something. It’d be hard to forget someone so meticulous, from the sharp part in his hair, to his tailored suit and his trimmed nails. He was the CFO of Stonebright and he intimidated the crap out of me.
He cleared his throat. “Now, before you panic—”
A woman in scrubs broke into the conversation, and into the room. “We lost another one.”
Wait.
Everyone in Ms. Takagi’s office quieted.
“Who?” Ms. Takagi asked.
“Not Ryo. Sylvania.”
Ms. Takagi pressed a fist into her stomach and her shoulders curved in. “No. Have you notified her parents?”
A chill ran up my neck. Her parents?
“No,” the CFO said. “Of course we haven’t.”
What was happening? Warmth burned my eyes, but my thoughts were frozen. I turned machine, recording everything without processing it.
“They need to know. We can’t be the only parents—”
The CFO touched her arm. “As soon as we alert the parents, they will call the police. Any investigation will be a distraction from getting our kids out. Our stock eval—”
My insides turned to ice.
“I don’t care about stocks,” Ms. Takagi said. “Any success in slowing the damage?”
He shook his head.
I rolled back against the machine and something crashed.