the location very carefully. It’s the grate fourteen paces west of the 485th league marker.”
“Okay.” He looked at his two companions and was pleased to see them both nodding. Someone, at least, seemed to know where they were going.
“I’d go find it myself, you see, except these old bones wouldn’t take that very well.”
She shook her head with a laugh. “And I’d wait, but the same old bones tell me there’s a storm coming. Where there’s a storm, there’s water, and any chance of finding my ring will be gone.”
“Of course.” Zaara picked the piece of paper up and smiled. “We’ll be back with your ring, ma’am.”
“He seems to be making friendships,” DuBois remarked.
“Hmm?” Amber looked up from her ledgers.
“Justin.” The doctor gestured at the screens. “He’s bonding with the characters in the game. He wants to keep them from getting hurt.”
“It isn’t surprising. Did you know a study was done with robots that looked nothing close to human, and the human test subjects still refused to destroy them? They didn’t want to ‘hurt’ them.” She smiled. “Humans will pack-bond with anything.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t seem convinced. “Sure, he could have simply wandered around, pushed people into lakes, or swung his sword every which way, and I tend to think many people might do that—sudden freedom from social judgment, after all, and no consequences. But Zaara was right—he could also have holed up in a tavern and refused to interact.”
“I was worried he would when we sent his parents’ message through,” she admitted, looked at her research, and sighed. She was getting nowhere fast so might as well take a proper break. “I thought if he knew there was a real chance of dying, he might simply stop trying and we’d have to back him into a corner.”
“That wouldn’t have been pleasant for anyone,” DuBois said. He nodded at her work. “I’m sorry to have taken you from that. You did sigh almost continuously, though. I thought perhaps you could use a distraction.”
“Thank you.” She was always surprised when he did something human, although she had begun to think he was the type to observe carefully and interact more fully once he knew people. He now picked up everyone else’s favorite snacks at the grocery store too, and if he was listening to jazz—which Nick couldn’t stand—he always turned it off before the man was due to arrive for the day.
“Is there a problem?” the doctor asked.
“Well…” Amber gestured for him to approach her desk. With all the new equipment, she had moved from the center of the big room to one of the corners. She pointed at the screen. “I can find nothing that tells me who this benefactor is, and the timing is—”
“What timing?”
“When this all leaked to the press?” She raised her eyebrows and pulled her phone out of her pocket to show him. “Look—forty-eight missed calls. My old roommate’s getting calls and my classmates are getting calls. I emailed the people at your lab and they told me they’ve had to unplug their phones.”
“Ah, yes.” He nodded his head seriously. “This is why I don’t have a phone.”
“What if someone needs to reach you?”
He shrugged. “My lab knows where I am. And the truth would come out sometime, wouldn’t it? The press is always looking for something. The only thing that surprises me is that more details haven’t emerged yet. They aren’t very good at looking, are they?”
Amber could only laugh at that. DuBois was a man whose career had almost been ended by these same forces, and he was offended on a personal level that the people who tried to destroy them weren’t better at their jobs.
“Well, why don’t you see if you can resolve this puzzle.” She pulled the chair out for him. “Justin’s sleeping, after all, and—”
“And?” DuBois looked at her with a small frown. “What’s—”
“Here’s all the info.” She tapped the screen. “Read it and let it sink in.”
She took a careful step and sank to the floor before she slunk around the maze of desks and cords. While not exactly a ninja, she could move quietly when she needed to and the hums and beeps of the machinery covered her movement.
DuBois muttered to himself as she eased out from behind a desk, took a look at the server wall, and shook her head.
Stealth.
And speed.
And don’t destroy the servers. She stood as quietly as she could, took two long, quiet steps, and put the intruder she’d seen in a headlock. The camera tumbled