Two Can Play (Entangled Ignite) (6 page)

“The gis represent respect, unity, and devotion.”

Ji Jin caught sight of her and smiled shyly, waving with a low hand.

“Ahhh,” Cassie said. “That boy wants to make sweet, sweet love to you. Too bad the K men aren’t Lifers.”

“Ji Jin and I are just friends, Cass.”

“The programmers aren’t Lifers?” Gage asked.

“Nope,” Cassie said. “They’re chained to the computers in the basement, living on E and PowerBars.”

“Why would you say such a thing?” Rena said, irritated that Cassie would be sarcastic in front of a Recruit, especially one with Gage’s tendency to mock.

“Because it’s true. They live down there and they work 24-7.”

“The barracks are convenient to the lab and they’re devoted to the job.”

“Don’t be naive. It’s all about the revenue stream. They don’t produce, they get deported. You can bank on that.”

“That’s an ugly thing to say.” How had Rena missed Cassie’s bitterness? What kind of a friend was she to have not noticed or tried to intervene?

“It’s obvious, Reenie. The charter school gets government funds, then NiGo gets the grads for tech slaves. Very, very smart.” She turned to Gage. “I’m in accounting, so I see all.” She rested two fingers in a vee beneath her eyes.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into her,” Rena said to Gage, trying to laugh off the nasty words. “Come meet Ji Jin. Cassie, you coming?”

“Nah. I’m a quart low. I’ll be on your Quest though.”

“Maybe skip the vodka? So you’ll be alert?”

Cassie waved her away and headed for Blood Electric.

“You’re worried about her drinking,” Gage said.

“I kept hoping she’d cut back.”

“Addicts don’t cut back,” Gage said, his firm tone surprising her. When she looked at him, he added, “My mother had a pain-pill habit. She was always tapering off. Until the next score.”

She knew he was right, but she wasn’t about to tell Gage about the liquor jones she herself had inherited from her birth mother, a hooker who called herself Brandi Wine. At least the bitch had had a sense of humor.

Before Rena left home, she’d pried the adoption papers out of Bingham’s locked desk and a sympathetic social worker tracked down her mother’s story—she’d croaked when Rena was five. Rena hadn’t wanted to meet her or anything, but it had left her feeling hollow.

Rena led Gage to where the K men were speaking frantic Korean while making lightning moves with the controllers, then greeted Ji Jin in Korean.

He looked up. “Rena! So happy to see you.” Ji Jin ducked his head in a quick bow. His name meant “precious wisdom” and it suited him. He had old-soul brown eyes and knowing ways, though he couldn’t be much older than Rena. “We will be having again our sessions after the launch?”

“When you can spare the time. I’d like you to meet my Recruit. Gage Stone.”

“I wish to you much luck,” he said to Gage.

Gage bowed slightly and said “nice to meet you” in Korean. Rena’s jaw dropped. Ji Jin’s smile widened at the use of his language.

“You speak Korean?” Rena asked Gage.

“I picked up some in tae kwon do.”

Another programmer spoke urgently to Ji Jin, so Rena waved him back to his work, saying they’d talk later. She and Gage watched the screen as a castle portcullis lowered with perfect sound effects and a scout band entered, their moves electric and vivid and so real.

“Amazing imagery,” Gage said.

“It’s a two-game-generation leap at least. Fully world-interactive and change-sustaining. At the top levels, players can build towns or mountains or lakes, design new ways to travel, create governments, whatever they want, and it will exist for all.”

“That means a giant server demand, doesn’t it?”

“Astronomical, but necessary. And the engineering is so elegant that it’s well worth the delays we’ve had. The K men are brilliant.”

The screen froze for a microsecond. One of the programmers sank into his chair with a cry. His neighbor patted his back.

“They’re exhausted with the release just three weeks away.”

“Chained to the lab, like Cassie said?”

She gave him a look. “We’re all pushing hard.”

“Makes sense,” he said, backing down. “Sounds like Ji Jin enjoys you.”

“He’s taught me a lot. I was able to debug some shaping code in the early levels. A small contribution, but it made me feel good.”

“Getting girls into programming is part of your Girl Power thing, right? Seems like you’d be a perfect candidate.”

“Nigel and Naomi know what we all need.”

“Yet you have this project.”

“They want Lifers to learn lessons on their own and work to make the Life better.” She didn’t like his jabbing doubts. Worry skittered through her,
EverLife
spiders escaping her stomach to travel to her brain.

“Rena! I saved you a seat,” James called from an
EverLife
station.

Rena led the way there and motioned for James to slide to the next chair so Gage could sit. James frowned, but he handed Gage a headset and controller with a sigh. Rena sat and sank into the moment, checking out the focus of Lifers across the arena, all of them together with one thought, one mission. She couldn’t help smiling.

She felt Gage’s eyes on her and said without turning. “Yeah, Gage. I love this.” She felt his amused eyes on her, as she logged in and activated Astra, who carried simple weapons and wore modest armor—her weapons, powers, and potions hidden in her inventory so opponents had no clue as to her strength.

Gage, a Paladin, also Level Twelve, operated low-key, too. His leather boots and vest were scuffed, his hat ragged, as if he’d traveled far and endured hardship. Paladins were lone wolves, which matched Gage’s vibe. So why had he been so jabber-jaw during his shift? Something did not jibe.

She glanced at Gage’s profile. Clean lines, straight nose, square jaw. Solid. Like Gage was someone you could count on and not just on an
EverLife
Quest.

“What?” Gage said, catching her staring at him.

Her cheeks go hot. “I’m just wondering if you love it, too.”

His dark eyes, deep and hard to read, searched her face. “What’s not to love?” he said finally with a shrug.

Okay. A decent answer. She noticed the mission timer had reached zero, so she got busy keying in the code to get the Quest.
Defeat
the Demon Argot, ensconced in the Castle Dragonelle
appeared in the text box in elaborate script. They would need catapults and tall ladders, so she put out the request.

Soon the players had gathered in the town square to begin the mission. Cassie’s avatar, Andromeda, drove a cart of Electrique in wooden barrels into the scene, then tipped it over, spilling the barrels, knocking down two avatars.

Rena spotted Cassie at a nearby station, laughing, while her mates looked annoyed. “Not cool.” Baker spoke over voice chat. If Cassie had pissed off the laid-back Baker, she truly was blowing it. Somehow, Cassie had unraveled, losing her place among Lifers.
Cassie is a ghost here now.

Now Cassie had Andromeda freak-dancing against Gage’s avatar. EyesOnly ignored the move and went to collect and stack the barrels near the tavern. A classy response, and Rena and others soon joined in.

“You guys are a drag.” Andromeda transported off scene and Cassie left the station. Rena watched her, worried.

“Let’s roll,” Holly/HyperChick said over voice chat, drawing Rena back to her duty as quest leader. She focused in, sensing Lifers all around doing the same, intent, fired up to achieve any task they were given. There was so much power in their unity. So many hearts and minds aimed at a single purpose. What glory, what joy. Rena glanced at Gage to see if he was getting the same vibe, but he was studying her. Again. Sheesh.

The quest turned out to be a tough one. Twenty minutes of battle and a couple strategies and they’d barely chipped a turret.

“Any ideas?” Rena asked over voice chat.

After a long silence, Gage spoke. “I know code for concealing dynamite. We could put the explosives…in the barrels maybe…and catapult them over the wall.”

Deep silence now. New Lifers rarely dared to offer up a plan.

“Complicated,” one Lifer wrote in the text box.

“Give us more detail, EyesOnly,” Rena said out loud.

Gage demo-ed a build and explained the next steps. Lifers threw out queries—if this failed, they would all lose powers and they didn’t know Gage well enough to trust his skill—and Gage answered each one easily.

More silence.

“Shall we try it?” Rena asked finally.

Holly/HyperChick piped up. “If you say we go, Astra, we go.” More voices agreed and before long they were launching the assault.

It worked. In a half hour they’d captured the Dragonelle throne. Rena noticed Lifers all over the arena looking over, checking out the new guy. She felt stupidly proud, though she’d contributed nothing to his success. He had moves in
EverLife
, too. And he smelled so good, even sweating in battle.

“I’m betting it’s a damn good thing that worked,” Gage said to Rena once they’d left the station, turning to face her, standing close enough she could see flecks of caramel in the dark brown of his eyes. “Would I have been in trouble?”

“Oh yeah. Lifers hate to lose.”

“They only tried it because they trust you.” He looked her over in a way that showed respect. “You’re a leader here.”

Her cheeks went hot at the praise. “They’ll trust you, too, Gage, once they know you better.” First, Rena had to trust him, and she wasn’t there—not even close.

The explosive barrels were a good start, it seemed, based on the Lifers who talked to Gage as he moved through the arena on his own. Rena had stopped to talk to friends, but her eyes kept being drawn to wherever he stood in the Lounge. Girls were hitting on him right and left.

She walked up just as one walked away. Gage looked dazed. “So many sex points offers, so little time?” she joked, feeling a peculiar jealousy. She was his Mentor, not his girlfriend. Jeez.

“She heard me talking up Girl Power yesterday.” He nodded at the girl who’d turned back to wiggle her fingers at him. Gage returned the gesture. Rena rolled her eyes.

“That’s what you were doing all weekend on shift? Talking up Girl Power? Milo said you talked a lot, dragged Lifers off task.”

“I’m a friendly guy.” The caramel flecks in his eyes dissolved into the brown. He was hiding from her.

“Less talk, more work, okay?”

“Got it. Head down, do my job.” He gave her a jokey salute. What was the deal? The guy was smart, skilled at
EverLife
, a possible equipment tech, and he’d be a great Dome fighter, but he’d called players thumb-bangers, had made that crack about the K men being slaves, and didn’t trust Nigel and Naomi nearly enough. Now this Mr. Friendly bit. The guy was…slippery and she didn’t like it—or the way he made her feel when she got close to him.

Rena checked her watch. “Damn. It’s time for Group.”

“Group?”

“Yeah. In the Dome. We hash out arguments or hurt feelings and crap. It’s supposed to ease the tension of living and working together.”

“Not your thing?”

“Not really.” She sighed. “Maya says it’s like yoga—the postures you hate are the ones you need most.”

“Who’s Maya?”

“She was a shrink in the Dead World, but here she advises Nigel and Naomi and looks after all of us.”

“You have a psychiatrist on staff? That’s impressive.”

“We have a clinic, too, for health checks and whatnot.”

“It’s here? On the property?”

“Couple miles away. NiGo took over one of the Doc in a Box clinics. We go there for physicals and blood tests.”

“Testing for drugs, right?”

“And overall health. Why? Are drugs a problem for you?” She stopped and faced him, ready to pin him down.

“Am I a junkie or a drunk? No, Rena.” He laughed. “Just nailing down the rules.”

“The only rules we have are for safety and sanity. The Life is about goals and guidelines and suggested behaviors, not rules and regs. We’re figuring out the best way to live, leaning on Nigel and Naomi’s wisdom and advice. It’s not boot camp or boarding school.”

“I know that.”

“The Lounge is drug-free because we want it to be healthy and safe for everyone. Some Lifers are in recovery. As far as liquor goes, Lifers can drink in the Lounge in their free time, but no booze in Quarters.”

“Sounds reasonable.” He shrugged.

“Group is for Lifers with Quarters, so if you want to skip it, you can.”

“I’d like to check it out. See if I hate it, too. How long does it take?”

“It varies. First we bubble in a form about our moods over the last week, our appetite, did we sleep okay, if we had dark thoughts, and our energy levels. Then it’s the discussion. If it goes smoothly, we’re done in an hour.”

“I’m just asking questions, Rena. I don’t mean to piss you off.” He gave her a smile clearly meant to charm her jackboots off.

She resisted, moving forward.

The silence stretched. “So, what did you do before you found the Life?” he asked.

“Minimum-wage jobs. Nothing for too long.” The jobs were mindless or pointless. Toward the end, alcohol got her fired. “Then Maya recruited me.”

The black night of her twenty-first birthday, Rena talked a mope from the store she’d been fired from into taking her to the Lounge, since she was broke. Inside, she celebrated being legal with a V-Trique, then another and another and so on.

Afterward, back in the car, the guy wanted a blow job and she was in no mood. It was her birthday, dammit. He tried to force her, so she bloodied his nose and left him crying like a baby behind the wheel.

Lunging into the summer night, she’d felt as empty and dark as the warehouses in the industrial park nearby. Why was she dragging her ass through every damn day for nothing and no one? She wanted out. Now.

The eighteen-wheeler whipping toward her on the dark street would make it easy. She closed her eyes, ready to step out, like Lara off a cliff. She’d be no more than a fly on the grill to the driver high in his cab, and it would all be over, no more looking for something or someone or a way to think or be.