Nova Project #1 (23 page)

He jumps to his feet. The thing is coming again, right for him. He dodges swiping arms, a thrashing tail. Sweat is already pouring down his face, stinging his eyes. There's no way to get near it. It's twice as tall as he is. Weak points in its feet? He ducks, runs, misjudges. The tail catches him and sends him flying, the knife soaring from his grasp. He hears it, skittering, as he crashes to the floor just outside the gates. He sees the knife balanced on the bank of the river, blade hovering over the water, trembling with every vibration from the boss's pounding steps.

Reaching. Stretching. Praying. His hand closes around the handle. He is panting, shaking. He has no idea how to kill the fucking thing.

“I can't get anywhere near it!” he yells to the others, all busy evading the boss's flailing, angry limbs. “Any ideas?”

“Set the snake on it?” Nick yells back.

“Feed the apple to it?” Grace suggests.

“I don't think it's hungry! Leah, how much time do we have?”

“I can't tell! Minutes!”

Even Zack doesn't matter now. If Miguel is going to die, he's taking this beast down with him. He's stopped too long to think, and pain explodes down his spine. He falls forward, hits the wall, reaches around, and pulls back a hand slick with
blood. It only grazed him, but that's enough.

“Grace! Take this and give me the snake!” Leah yells. Miguel can only watch from the floor. She can't throw the hourglass. The boss gets in the way, roaring, and Nick ducks around to wave at its face. Idiot. But the distraction works. Leah and Grace make the switch, though Miguel has no clue what Leah's plan is.

“Nick! Toss me the apple!”

It sails through the air, and she catches it one handed. If he makes it out of this alive, he should tell her how impressive that was.

But it's not as impressive as she's about to be.

Always making connections.

The snake begins to writhe, as alive as it was when it killed Josh. The boss isn't hungry, the serpent is. Its silvery mouth opens, wide enough to swallow the golden fruit whole. Its fangs catch the light and sink into a different kind of flesh.

And it starts to grow. Surprised, Leah drops it to the floor, the silver flashing against the stone. The snake begins to wriggle, undulating as it stretches longer and longer. It's at least a dozen feet by the time it stops, as thick as Miguel's thigh, but it's not done yet. As they watch, it splits into two, then four, then six long, shining ropes. Its head disappears, but it can still move, and the ropes fly through the air and wrap around the boss's arms, legs, tail, and finally around the demon's throat,
pulling it to the ground with a crash like an earthquake. Leah covers her ears, the vibrations etched in pain on her face.

“You're bleeding!” Nick says, running to Miguel. Miguel pushes himself up to sitting, standing. “Are you okay?”

Miguel forces a smile. “I'm fine.”

More than fine. He grins at the boss. In its restraints, the demon struggles and screams. The silver ropes cut into its flesh, and the faintest hint of light oozes out with dark, viscous blood. Miguel turns the knife over in his palm.

Maybe.

Maybe.

He approaches slowly. He's getting this right or not at all.

A chimera, like him. Like he wants to be. Like everyone. A fusion of machine and flesh. He climbs onto its chest. Raises the blade. Slices. The monster howls a last, echoing howl.

Green light shines up through the wound.

Find a demon. Cut its heart out. Miguel reaches inside and pulls, the tip of his biomech finger reading the edges of the embossed Chimera symbol.

He blinks. Smiles.

“Status update,” he says hoarsely. “We win.”

D
éjà vu. He wakes in a too bright room to the sound of low voices. This time, though, he knows exactly what happened. He remembers winning. He remembers the doctors coming for him, as Blake had promised, and the trip—not to the Cube's medical wing but to one of their hospitals.

He's finished now. It's over.

“We don't understand why it had to be done again,” says his mother. His father makes a noise of agreement, support. Funny how even with just their voices, he knows that about them.

He knows the third voice, too. “There was a . . . problem . . . with the original biomech. A malfunction. It saw your son through the competition, but we wished to replace it before it caused any issues. He is fine now.”

He'll never tell them the truth.

“Okay. We'll be back when he wakes up.” Miguel hears the door close. Footsteps near the bed. He turns to Dr. Spencer.
She's still pretty, and she did his surgery, but those are the only good things he can say about her.

“Am I really okay now?” he asks, staring past her at the wall. Not green. Thank heaven for small mercies. She'd done his first operation, too. If there's something wrong with this one . . .

“Yes,” she says finally. Guilt colors her eyes. They both know what he was asking. They both know the accusation he's not hurling across the room, and the fact that she knows it is proof enough.

“I'm sorry,” she says, stilted and choked, “that you had to go through this. I was under orders.”

“You don't have a mind of your own? You could have chosen.”

“And someone else would have done it. This way I was sure you were in good hands. You survived, both times. Hearts are the hardest thing for us to do. They are everything. Only brains could be worse, but we can't do that yet.” She sounds like she thinks that's a good thing. He tends to agree.

She touches his leg, a farewell, and disappears. He doubts he'll ever see her again.

He is alone. Very alone. Alone in the way a person can only be when they're not entirely sure where they are, exactly, or where they are in relation to the people who define them. His parents are somewhere in the building still, but he doesn't know where or when they'll be back.
Nick, Leah, even Anna: he has no idea.

His lenses are on the table beside him, folded neatly. He considers sending a message just so he can check the geoloc tag, but then he remembers, again, that he won. His feed is going to be insanity.

What's expected of him now? Interviews where he talks about how glad he was for the opportunity to play? Interacting with all the people who decided to root for his team once it was clear they were going to win?

Nothing, he hopes. He wants to do nothing. Expecting him to keep his mouth shut, not tell the world about Blake, is already asking too much. Oh, he will keep the secret because it's his, too, and he's good at those, but he still fills with rage.

Josh. Racing to the end. Feeling sure, so sure, that he, too, was going to die, and not by his own choice. It's not the same thing at all, though Blake had made it sound like it was, the last time Miguel lay in a bed in a room like this.

The new heart pulses in his chest. Once again, déjà vu all over the place, he pulls aside the gown covering it, watches the function lights beat through his skin.

Can he trust it? Blake? Dr. Spencer?

Does he have a choice?

No.

Say, for a minute, that he believes this one is the one he was
supposed to have all along. No virus, no ticking time bomb. For the first time in his life he isn't sick. It's the second time he's
thought
he wasn't. If this lasts . . .

He can do whatever he wants. If he'd gotten it when he hit Twenty-five, all he would've wanted to do was get back into the game. Be the first to finish the hundredth level. Play the way he had always wanted to play: no weakness, no fear.

Now he doesn't ever want to set foot inside a ChimeraCube again. Even this hospital room is suddenly too much, the walls closing in.

A deep, careful breath. Okay. He doesn't have to.

This game will teach you who you are.

Someone who wants a different life. Maybe the offer of traveling from his parents is still open, a real world to see instead of one housed inside a gray box.

He is alive. That's who he is, all he needs to know.

His new biomech beats in his chest, fruit fallen from a poisoned tree, but he doesn't care. Blake owed him.

[Self: Miguel Anderson]
Leah Khan
Hey.

[Leah Khan] Hey.

[Self: Miguel Anderson] You okay?

[Leah Khan] Sure. We won, can you believe it? Why did you need another heart?

[Self: Miguel Anderson] The first one had a software bug, no big deal. Where are you?

[Leah Khan] Hiding at home. There's an insane number of reporters outside my place.

[Self: Miguel Anderson] Damn.

[Leah Khan] Can I see you?

[Self: Miguel Anderson] Stay where you are for now. Don't get accosted by the cameras. I'll let you know when I'm getting out.

[Leah Khan] Okay.

In fact he's getting out . . . right now. Over. Done. As Blake so helpfully reminded him, on a day that feels like years ago, everyone here is on his payroll. Miguel doesn't trust anyone in a white coat, the
C
on the lapel.

The trick to getting into or out of anywhere is to pretend like you're supposed to be doing exactly what you're doing. He dresses in the clothes he arrived in, still stained with the sweat of the final level. Gross, but good enough. He walks swiftly out of his room, down the hallway, guessing—wrongly, twice—at the location of the nearest tile. No arrows have appeared to guide him out because he's not supposed to leave.

Stay here. Let Chimera take care of you.

Ha.

But he is alive.

Past the apple tree in the atrium, cameras gather outside.

A few seconds of running, past the reporters and down the street. There has to be a hoverboard station somewhere. He calls
up a map, turns left at the corner, sees one a block ahead. They are chasing him, but he's faster, legs toned and skills honed by years of the game. They are players, too, of course, but they aren't him. He stays far enough ahead to pretend he doesn't hear their shouted questions about how it feels, how his upgrade went, what he'll do now, what his next Chimera ambition is.

Everyone runs faster when they're being chased.

A row of silver disks glints in the sun. He pushes past the people in his way, sometimes hitting flesh, sometimes metal. It's been forever since he had to enter his code, but muscle memory takes over. He hops on the board, sending it soaring into the air.

Nothing hurts.

Okay, that's a lie. The new scar does, but he's been
here
enough to know it is the scar, not the biomech inside. The cityscape shrinks beneath him, defined by its landmarks, defined by the gray cubes outlined in shades of neon scattered across it. He half expects one of them to explode, a monster to rise from its wreckage.

He shakes his head into the rushing wind. This is what's real. He may be in midair, but this is a solid, tangible world that the Gamerunners can't manipulate for their own amusement or whatever the point of their game is.

He laughs. By the time his house comes into view, he's convinced himself that Blake got the worse end of their deal.
Sure, Blake won the bet he had or whatever, but Miguel got the thing he always wanted.

At too high a cost, but that can't be changed now.

More reporters are gathered outside his house, a dark smudge on the sidewalk. He skims over their heads, jumps off the board at the front door, and touches his finger to the lock with all the satisfaction of hitting a save point.

A million new followers every day for a week: all the people who like him because he won. He can't even look at his feed anymore, let alone post any updates. He can't think of a single thing he could say that would be interesting or funny to that many people.

A healthy percentage of them are girls, but there's only one he wants to talk to, and she's not answering his messages. He doesn't get it, she'd said she needed to speak to him. Now nothing. Maybe she'd only liked him because he was the only option while they were shut in the Cube.

His parents have finally gone back to work after hanging around for days, a mix of proud, concerned, and trying to act like everything is totally normal. He won't pretend it hasn't been kind of nice, but he's glad to have the house to himself.

He still hasn't been outside since the trip home, which had taken some explaining to his parents, but he's fine, so they're fine. Getting used to being back here is hard enough.
No demons lurk behind the door to the living room, there is nothing to collect, the knives in the kitchen drawer are all ordinary, a matching set.

His dreams have Chimera's detail, the sharpness that makes the rest of the world look fuzzy.

Maybe going outside would be a good idea. He waits for his parents to go to bed and steps out into the night, passing the few lingering, half-asleep reporters who are way too dedicated to their jobs. The neighborhood hasn't changed, and that feels surprising even though it shouldn't. He wasn't gone for that long in the grand scheme of things, but everything is different, and his life stretches ahead of him, as long as anyone's.

Maybe one day the Cube glowing bloodred that he can see several blocks away will hold some appeal again, but for now he's happy that no monsters are lurking in the buildings he walks past, nothing sinister is hiding around the corner.

“You are coming to a crossroads,” says a voice in his head. He smiles and crosses the street, not going anywhere in particular, just walking, shrouded by the safe darkness.

He left his lenses at home. He is disconnected, and it feels amazing. He has always liked to walk, and now he can be as fearless as Grace. Beneath his skin, function lights flicker and pulse, just visible at the surface when he takes his shirt off. If he can trust Blake on this one thing, the biomech is safe, will keep him alive as long as the rest of his body holds up in the
poisoned atmosphere and broken earth.

He wonders what Blake won from the other Gamerunner. The bet must've been a good one.

Or maybe not. They're rich, crazy geniuses, they have to be. Maybe they'll play with people's lives out of boredom.

He doesn't care either way.

The next day he consents to an interview just to get the reporters to leave. He points at a reporter at random and invites her into the living room, even offering her a cup of his mom's synthmint tea. She shakes her head, makes herself comfortable.

“So, Miguel, are you ready to talk about the competition?” she asks. There's a strange hunger in her camera eyes, but maybe that's normal for these people. It doesn't matter what she looks like, he's the one being watched, the video streamed online. Some of his millions of new followers will be watching, others will scroll through and find it later. Another thing to be added to his Presence. Teenage boy, Chimera champion, hates the lab-grown olives his dad buys in jars, loves his mother's photographs.

He's been quiet for too long. “Uh, I guess so,” he answers. “I don't really know what to say.”

“Are you surprised that you won?” She leans forward.

He coughs. “Yes, of course. I didn't follow the other teams as much as I probably should have, I was too busy concentrating on my own game, but I know I was up against some good players.”

“You were,” she says. “It was . . . interesting . . . to watch.”

He narrows his eyebrows, doesn't know what to say to that.

“What was the most difficult part?”

There's a right answer and a true answer. They aren't the same thing. “Obviously that sea creature caused me some problems,” he replies, “but of course I have to say that losing Josh was the most difficult.” But not for the reason everyone watching must think. His death had solved a problem for Miguel in the end, one he didn't know he'd have.

It was the choice, one he made knowing exactly what would happen. Josh made the choice, too, but only because Miguel told him to.

Blake and his obsession over choices.

Blake. He winces, the reporter puts her hand on his knee. He moves away. “Are you all right?” she asks.

“Yes. Just . . . remembering.”

“Of course,” she says sympathetically. He's tired of this now. She asks him a few more questions: what playing in the new Chimera had been like, how he'd gotten along with the team members he hadn't known before he started, whether he was well taken care of in the Cube while he wasn't playing. He answers, a forced smile on his face, and hopes this will soon be over. Why did he decide to do this again? Oh, yeah, because it might make them leave him alone.

“Well,” she says finally, “it seems Chimera's surprises aren't yet
fully revealed. We have just received word that the Gamerunners have another announcement for us. Will you be watching?”

They're probably going to tell the rest of the world when they get to play version 2.0. “I'll watch,” he says to appease her, and manages to get her out of his house a few minutes later.

He won't watch. He doesn't even sit at his computer and look at anything, let alone his feed.

He's lying on his bed when someone knocks on the door. It's too early for his parents to be home, the sky is still on fire outside, and his mom will be shooting it, his dad doing . . . whatever it is, exactly, that his dad does in the lab all day, trying to make bananas taste like the memory of bananas. And he thought he'd gotten rid of the cameras. When he'd last looked out the window, they were gone.

“Coming,” he mutters, opening the door. A smile spreads instantly across his face.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” Leah looks past him into the house. Yeah, the cameras are gone, but he doesn't want to stand here with the door open either.