Warcross

Emika is in the hospital. She does not recall the immediate aftereffects of the explosion, which authorities blame on a broken gas line. She watches footage of the rescue on television and sees other teams’ players rushing to help, including Tremaine. Hammie and Roshan come to visit. Hammie says the Emika helped to save her before falling unconscious. The blast destroyed Emika’s father’s last painting; Hammie brings her the tattered remains. Emika feels guilt for the explosion, but Hammie reminds her that she should allow the team to help with whatever secret conflict exists. The TV announcer says that Hideo is pulling Emika and Ren from Warcross play. Emika tells them she will reveal her situation to them that night.

Hammie and Roshan leave, and Hideo arrives. He is aloof and distant, and he insists that Emika stop pursuing Zero. Emika tells Hideo she does not want to quit, but he indicates that she should be satisfied with the full amount of payment as it was the “whole reason” she accepted the job. Emika is upset by his tone: “What the hell do you know about what I wanted?” (295). Emika tries to convince Hideo that Zero feels cornered because she is close to catching him, but Hideo kisses her and says he wants Emika to leave Tokyo: “I cannot, in good conscience, keep you on this job” (297). Hideo cancels dome events, so the remaining Warcross matches will take place without audiences. He tells Emika he will see her again at the completion of the competition.

Emika has trouble sleeping that night in the hospital. When she does sleep, she dreams of a time in third grade when she arrived home eager to share with her father the artwork she did on her school yearbook cover. Her father, however, is snappish and upset; Emika discovers a gambling debt on the computer of over three thousand dollars. Later, Emika’s father brought pizza and apologized for his behavior. Emika discovered then that her mother, who left the family but occasionally asked to see Emika’s father, sent a cell phone photo of her new engagement ring.

She wakes from the dream. Tremaine contacts her, claiming he was one of Hideo’s other bounty hunters. Hideo has dismissed all hunters; Tremaine gives Emika a piece of a deleted file he thinks she might use to continue protecting Hideo. Emika is hesitant at first to accept the file, but when she does, she sees it is another piece of the “proj_ice_HT1.0” file. Now that she has two deleted leftovers, she can splice them together, which supplies enough data to view the file. It is a Memory from Ren’s point of view. He meets Zero and they discuss the “rigged Artifacts” for the final championship round of Warcross. He plans to use these corrupted Artifacts to upload a virus to every NeuroLink viewing the match. Zero refers to the possibility of a “double assassination,” meaning both Hideo and Emika. Emika considers telling Hideo but decides to confide in her team and ask for their help instead.

Emika, after planning with her team how they will eliminate the danger of rigged Artifacts, goes back to the Dark World. She has one goal: to acquire illegal power-ups that she can use when she hacks into the final game. Power-ups are for sale or auction in a circus tent in the Dark World called the Emerald Emporium. She knows the password to get in and the complicated path through the dark to get to the power-up selling space. She bids on and buys a Team Freeze power-up as well as a power-up called Artifact King, which will win the game by claiming the opposing team’s Artifact when it is within sight. She steals from a wealthy buyer a power-up called Play God, which gives the user the ability to change “anything and everything in a Warcross level” (318). Security bots almost catch Emika in stealing this illegal power-up, but Roshan, Hammie, and Asher reveal themselves as undercover bots and help her escape. The team members escape as well.

The day of the final match arrives with tremendous hype from fans and media; crowd expectations exceed any previous Warcross match: “It feels as if the entire world has paused to tune in” (322). Emika is in a hotel room in Tokyo. Despite Hideo’s last message to her asking her to “stay away,” Emika plans to glitch herself into the final match. The setting for the level is an arena-like area enclosed by “sheer metal walls hundreds of feet high” (323). Within the walls are a lake and 10 unconnected bridges that lead to giant metal doors. Each player stands on a bridge alone. When the game begins, the doors raise and reveal 10 massive mecha robots, one for each player to climb inside and maneuver. All the team members run for his or her “mech” and climb in. Hammie reaches hers first. When Asher gets in his, Emika sees that his Artifact disappears; this means she will have to remove Shahira, the other captain, from her mech to use the Artifact King power-up. Emika successfully glitches into the game disguised as Brennar, her replacement, within his mech, “with complete control over his avatar” (328).

Emika and Asher have a secure com link, and Asher welcomes Emika back. The team passes their Artifact to Emika and she deactivates the waiting virus. Emika goes for Shahira but another opponent attacks her. She punches him away, then uses the Play God power-up to haul the bridges together and separate Asher’s and Shahira’s mechs, locked together in battle. Emika also brings Shahira’s mech to the bridge surface near her. The announcer reveals that this power-up’s use is a mystery, as no one has seen it since “the genesis of the tournament” (330). Now Hideo and security know that someone hacked the game; Emika has only a brief time to complete the mission. When Emika attempts to use her Artifact King power-up to grab Shahira’s artifact, she is momentarily frozen, and she realizes Zero glitched himself into the game in Shahira’s avatar. With help from Hammie, Asher, and Roshan, Emika manages to get Shahira’s artifact and deactivate it. A burst of static electricity jolts Emika, however, and she feels sudden worry. Zero reveals himself and tells Emika, “You’ve triggered it” (335). When Emika insists that she stopped Zero’s plan, Zero says he was trying to “stop Hideo.”

Asher messages Emika, thrilled with the win. Hideo messages next and Emika tells him her address. He arrives in person within the hour. Emika explains that Zero wanted to harm every NeuroLink user by uploading a virus, so she stopped him. Hideo finally tells Emika the truth: Hideo invented a way for the NeuroLink to control the brain of the user. It happens via the contact lenses, which leave a film for electrical charging on the surface of the eye; even when the user removes the lenses, the algorithm of the NeuroLink can always control the user. Hideo shows Emika a man in Los Angeles about to rob a store; the algorithm takes control of the man’s brain activity and changes his mind for him. He walks away without committing the crime.

When Emika argues that Hideo wants to become a dictator who removes all freedom of choice and “something that makes us fundamentally human” (342), Hideo insists that the NeuroLink will control only criminal behaviors; users “can do anything they want, as long as it’s not a crime” (342). Emika is briefly torn wondering if Hideo is right, especially because, as they are Linked, she can sense that his emotions are optimistic and earnest; he has a “burning ambition to do right” (345). She knows his brother Sasuke’s kidnapping motivates him, and that he wants her support. Emika decides Hideo is wrong and tells him she will prevent him from following through. He says he intends to continue “with her or without her” (346), and she responds that he will continue alone.

Emika meets up with her team on the outskirts of Tokyo in Asher’s apartment. Some members of other teams have gathered there as well, including Tremaine. She tells them everything from the time she first glitched herself into the opening ceremony game. When Emika hears that each player in the final match saw Zero, she realizes she can use her recorded Memory of the match to investigate his account. She discovers Zero’s actual identity: Sasuke Tanaka. Later, outside Asher’s apartment, Emika sees a message from Zero: “My offer to you still stands” (352). He returns her Memories. Tremaine joins her and explains that they can find another of Hideo’s bounty hunters from the Dark World for help: “We’re some of the only people in the world who both understand the inner workings of Warcross and also worked for Hideo at the same time” (353). Emika agrees that together they can “figure out a solution to this” (353), but when Tremaine asks whose plan they will stop—Zero’s or Hideo’s—Emika does not answer. The story ends in her moment of indecision; she knows she will move forward but is uncertain which direction to take.