“Of the twelve players selected, only seven are still alive.” Ms. Takagi’s voice held the weight of the world.
But it wasn’t her world. It was mine. I knew their faces. I’d smiled at them. I’d beaten them at video games. We were the final twelve, and five of us were gone.
Sylvania had taken my place. She was unlucky number thirteen, the one just close enough to miss it.
Maybe there was something wrong with me, because when I heard the news, I didn’t cry. Those tears that stung my eyelids didn’t fall. I was numb. It couldn’t … Video games didn’t kill people. Games were a safe place where I could be myself, and be excellent. They were killing people? That was as wrong as someone saying sunscreen causes skin cancer. Video games were there to protect me.
They were my friend. Sometimes my only friend.
And they betrayed me.
Now the tears fell. “How did they die?”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” the CFO answered.
“TELL ME. I want every bit of information you have. Don’t sugarcoat it, or dumb it down. I want the declassified truth or I’ll find it myself.”
Ms. Takagi stared at the screen. “They die of pain.”
The doctor stepped forward. “The coded pain becomes lethal due to the effects on the heart, blood pressure, and release of stress hormones.” She had to pause to breathe again. I still couldn’t. “We officially list the death as cardiopulmonary arrest, or medullary hyperstimulation.”
“So when they die in the game, they really…”
If I hadn’t called my parents, Sylvania never would have gotten in.
“None of this is your fault,” the doctor said.
She was wrong. Grig wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.
He could die. They all could.
“Why three days?”
Ms. Takagi blinked slowly. “That’s when we estimate the source code will fail completely.”
I shook my head. “Can you give them extra lives, like you did Ryo?”
She shook her head. “That was before the game launched. I’ve tried. We’re all trying. But I only gave extra lives to Ryo, and now the code is too fragile to change.”
I pressed my shaking hand against my stomach. “Can I see them?”
Ms. Takagi clicked on the keyboard and the screen switched to the launch rooms.
I’d thought the slick metal sphere in the center of the room had looked so cool before, but now the flickering lights seemed menacing, like lightning sparking through a cloud. Seven doctors in lab coats surrounded a few of the pods, but they ignored the five empty ones.
That was all I saw at first. The players who weren’t here. Then my focus shifted to those who could still survive.
Four boys and three girls.
“Pull them out,” I said.
“We can’t.”
My voice broke. “Why not?”
“They didn’t all die inside the game. After the first death, we pulled Jefferson out. And he…” Ms. Takagi turned slightly green.
My lungs tightened until they wouldn’t expand. “I don’t want to know.”
I’d never said those words before. Not once. But now it was the only thing running circles in my mind.
Grig’s blond hair curled against his scalp, wet with sweat. He looked pale and too thin, his eyelids sunken and his skin tinted yellow. I tried to match the faces in all the other beds with the people I’d met in the game: Dagney’s sharp eyebrows, dark hair, and large curves; Marcus’s pale freckled skin. It was hard to see anything of Ryo except for a shock of black hair; he was so covered in wires and tubes. His face was slick with sweat. His body shook like an addict in withdrawal.
If there was a sixth death, it would be his.
“What can I do?”
Ms. Takagi pried her gaze away from her son. “I know my stubborn son. I had a character tell him not to drink the seer water until he was further along, because I was worried he’d quit, but he needs it now. They all do. You will not be hooked into the pain signals. I will not allow another young person to risk their life for this game. Tell him to drink, and then log out immediately.”
Grig’s lips twitched.
She tapped my arm. “We need you to come back.” She leveled her gaze. “I need you to save my son. But do not risk your own life to do it.”
I bit my lip and then I nodded. “Strap me in.”
16
RYO
The peddler carts circled the middle of an open field. They were a lively bunch, children playing with a mechanical spinner, fiddles humming, food and drink at the ready. Supper