49 pages • 1 hour read
Marie LuWarcross
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Emika Chen
Eighteen-year-old Emika lives in a tiny apartment with a roommate in New York City. With no family and significant debts, she works as a bounty hunter and exudes a street-savvy, toughened voice. The author reveals details to indirectly show Emika’s intellect and thoughtfulness, such as when she lists among her backpack contents a hard copy of a book, for use in waiting out suspects to catch: “Entertainment that won’t eat up my batteries is always worth bringing” (7). She dresses in torn and old clothing out of necessity and dyes her hair in a mix of colors. Her father, an artist, died when she was 11; Emika keeps a painting he made and an ornament from her childhood as her most cherished possessions.
Emika has a computer-like mind in the way she can see and assess problems: “I can take in a scene like a photographer might take in a landscape […] and take a mental snapshot to remember the whole thing” (7). Her father encouraged her to “learn to look at the whole of something, not just the parts” (33), and she uses this skill to show Hideo that she is capable of finding and stopping Zero. She is eager and curious when Hideo contacts her for a job, but wary as well, due to lessons she learned from past experiences: “The first time I’d set foot in the Dark World was during my first bounty hunt” (165). In that first trip to the virtual Dark World, she accidentally allowed others to see her identity and had to take pains to keep herself safe afterwards. She guardedly enters a romantic relationship with Hideo Tanaka; she is attracted to him but wary of his secrets.
Emika shows strength, courage, and resilience throughout each part of the real-time plot and the flashbacks. Devastated when her father dies, she pushes herself to learn computers and coding. In high school, she admits to the hacking crime she committed so that authorities do not blame Annie. To resolve her debt, Emika pursues potentially dangerous suspects as a bounty hunter. Despite her inexperience with Warcross, she trains diligently, dealing with exhaustion and Ren’s negativity. She feels guilt when her actions and secrets affect the other team players, but she perseveres and does not reveal her situation until she is sure it is right to do so. She does not display or indicate any guilty conscience for her role in inadvertently allowing Hideo’s control algorithm to upload to all NeuroLink users; in fact, despite her feeling of dread and worry that something went wrong, she boldly tells Zero that his plan failed. When she learns that she, in fact, prevented Zero from stopping Hideo, she wonders if Hideo essentially used her to do so, as that would explain why he did not stop the final game despite the evidence of illegal power-ups. She turns the blame rightfully and quickly back on Hideo: “You lied to me” (344).
Emika shows strong commitment to the ideals of freedom as she and Hideo argue over the morality of removing a criminal’s control over his or her actions; she considers his side briefly and wonders if he could be correct. Emika ultimately rejects his plan, though, and refuses to accept it or help him. Again showing boldness, she claims she will stop him. Though emotionally distraught at the demise of their romantic relationship, Emika sticks to her beliefs and sends Hideo away on his own.
Hideo Tanaka
Hideo is 21, the young inventor of the NeuroLink and Warcross. He is incredibly wealthy and has a house in Tokyo. He helps to support his parents, who became frail and distracted when Hideo’s brother Sasuke was mysteriously kidnapped at age nine. Hideo continues to feel responsible for the loss of Sasuke because they were at the park together when the crime occurred. Hideo is eager to hire bounty hunters to catch a hacker, Zero, who threatens the NeuroLink capabilities. He changes roles over the course of the story in his relationship with Emika; he is first an employer, then a flirt, then a passionate romantic interest. He also makes Emika his archetypal Ally when he hires her for the job; he causes her Ally status to deepen in importance when he shares family details with her that he never shares with anyone. At the story’s end, Hideo becomes an archetypal Shadow to Emika, as he keeps secrets from her throughout their relationship and employs the mind-control algorithm via NeuroLink, which goes against Emika’s strong values of freedom.
Keira
Keira is Emika’s roommate in the New York City neighborhood of Hunt’s Point in the Bronx. Keira is about Emika’s age, has no job, and shows signs of despair over unemployment and indebtedness. She gives up trying to find work and “spend[s] her days idling away in Warcross instead” (19). Keira confirms that Emika is visible to others when Emika hacks into the opening Warcross ceremony game, and she provides some Ally support as Emika discovers the headlines about her glitch. Kiera shows gratitude when Emika offers Keira her waitress job at a local diner before Emika goes to Tokyo.
Zero
Zero is the nickname Hideo gives to the person trying to steal NeuroLink information by hacking in and corrupting code. Hideo hires Emika and other bounty hunters to catch Zero. When Emika encounters Zero in the virtual landscape, he dresses in black body armor with his face completely shielded. She sees him in the Dark World, the illegal underlayer of Warcross. Zero is an archetypal Shadow because he threatens Emika, robs her of her Memories, and causes an explosion in the Phoenix Riders’ headquarters. He is also an archetypal Shapeshifter, because he wears a mask, hides his real identity, and has motives that Emika does not expect (he wants to stop Hideo’s mind-control algorithm). Emika discovers that Zero is Sasuke Tanaka in the next to last chapter.
Renoir Thomas
Ren is a DJ by profession and the second wildcard player chosen by the Phoenix Riders team. He serves as the Fighter for the team in three Warcross matches, but Hideo pulls him from the team after the house explosion. Emika discovers that Ren is working for Zero after the draft and follows him to the Dark World for a meeting with Zero. Later she places a “snare” on Ren that helps break his security shields, allowing Emika to see the name of a file suggesting Hideo’s assassination. The author depicts Ren as an archetypal Shadow who works against Emika, which is ironic as they serve on the same team for the Warcross competition.
Asher Wing, Roshan Ahmadi, Hamilton Jiménez
Ash is the Phoenix Riders captain who drafts Emika for the team at Wardraft. He uses a wheelchair, has an apartment outside Tokyo, and takes his leadership role seriously. When Emika plays rogue moves or does not listen to his instructions, he reprimands her. Roshan’s team job is Shield and he defends or protects Emika’s avatar several times in competition. He is quiet and kind, and his backstory includes a relationship with Tremaine, a player on the Demon Brigade. Hammie is the team’s Thief and is openly kind and accepting of Emika from the start. She offers help in training and later insists that Emika will continue to struggle unless she accepts help from her friends and teammates.
Tremaine Blackbourne
Tremaine is the Demon Brigade’s Architect, the same role that Emika performs for the Phoenix Riders. Tremaine, however, knows moves as each of the other roles and is well known for his experience playing each. He is set up as an archetypal Shadow from the beginning, as Emika’s teammates warn her about him and he insults her at the party after Wardraft. Later, however, Tremaine’s archetypal role shifts to Ally when he reveals himself as a fellow bounty hunter, offers the encrypted file with information on Zero to Emika, and joins her in planning how to deal with Hideo’s uploaded mind-control algorithm.
Emika’s Father
Emika’s father loved and cared for her very much and encouraged her creativity. He was an artist and designer; he accrued gambling debts before dying when Emika was 11. Emika’s memories of him are filled with fun times, outings, good food, and gifts like the painting he made of the two of them walking in what looks like “Central Park at twilight” (71). Emika recalls how he coached her to view an entire painting at once to change her perspective of it, and she uses this memory for a school assignment to find the mistake in a line of code. This success inspires her interest in computers and reawakens her spirit after her father’s death.
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