Where Futures End (22 page)

Reef shot out spells like crazy, pulling blindly from Breck's inventory. The alien was doing the same, but with fluid motions that suggested he faced dragon hordes every day. Olly had pulled out a crossbow. Aedric was nowhere to be seen.

Until he was at Reef's back, hissing, “The disc.” Reef passed it to him with one hand while dealing damage with the other. Aedric pocketed it, turned to go. Reef thought,
That's it, it's done, he won't know it's blank until it's too late.
But then Aedric stopped, jerked on Reef's arm so that a spell slammed into the concrete beams overhead and fizzled out. “You pick up the scepter,” Aedric said. Then he slipped away, the blank disc in his pocket. Reef's heart slid back out of his throat.

“Where's Aedric going?” Breck shouted, still fending off the Bristle Beast's attacks with Reef's sword.

“Just get the beast,” Reef shouted back. He was desperate now to have all this over so he could get his goggles back and get away before Aedric came looking for him. Aedric could be stopping even now, checking the disc, finding it blank—“Olls, help him.”

“No, I want to make the kill myself,” Breck cried.

Olly was busy with the dragons anyway. They dove at him with snapping jaws while he aimed with his crossbow. His armor was scorched and battered. Reef knew he should stay and help, but he ran to Breck instead. The drug had taken its full effect now. Reef took in too many things at once: the whip of wind from dragon wings, the vines that
furred every surface, the slippery feel of Bristle Beast blood under his shoes. The blood—he hated that most of all. The steam plant's smell of rust and old steam was like the metallic smell of it, and he had to fight off visions of black oil on white sheets.

He searched Breck's inventory for the strongest spell he had.

The Bristle Beast aimed a spiky paw at Breck, ready to knock away his sword. Reef sent a bolt of crackling blue magic at the cluster of eyes buried in the bristled face. The monster howled with pain. Breck drove the sword home. A fountain of purple blood spurted out and the beast dissipated. Reef's jerking vision took in the sight twice: The beast vanished, it flickered back into existence, it vanished again. In its place the silver scepter gleamed, clean and bright against the vanishing blood and banded with cold, clear sapphires. Reef stepped to retrieve it.

“Reef, wait—” Olly called.

And at the same time Breck said, “No, no. Your sword, your treasure.” He jumped forward and closed his hand around the treasure, and three things happened at once:

Olly shouted, “No!”

Reef realized that it hadn't been some effect of the drug that had made him see the Bristle Beast vanish twice.

And Breck jerked his head back as though Reef's goggles had given him a mighty zap.

“What happened, what's going on?” Reef asked him.

Breck clutched at the edges of the goggles. “Oh shit oh shit.”

“What
?
”
Reef cried.

“It's a leech,” Olly called. “Didn't you see the edit?”

“It's not a leech,” Breck said.

Reef ripped the goggles off Breck's head and shoved them down over his own eyes. He had just enough time to see his screen scrambled into a mess of random pixels before the display went dark.

“It was a virus,” Breck said. “Not a leech, a virus.”

Reef felt cold cement slam against his knees. Everything was dark. He pulled off his goggles to see he had fallen.

A virus
. A virus from the scepter had wiped his hard drive. Aedric must have planted it, hoping that it would wipe
Breck's
hard drive. But Breck hadn't stuck to the plan. Breck had grabbed the scepter while wearing Reef's goggles. And now everything stored on Reef's hard drive was gone.

“Why did you pick up the scepter?” Reef's voice was shrill. It didn't sound like his voice at all. “I was supposed to pick it up. It was supposed to go to your account.”

“Cadence told me I should let it go to
your
account,” Breck said. “She said you deserved it since it was your sword I was going to make the kill with.”

Cadence?
Since when did Cadence have any part in this?
Confusion pounded in Reef's head. “She said . . . When did she say that?”

“I told her about the dungeon we were all going to do together. I told her Aedric had set it up so I'd get the scepter on my account. But she said you should have it.”

“She said . . .” The euphoria of the drug had passed and
now there was only the feeling of lead settling into Reef's veins, into his bones.

“Reef?” Olly said.

Reef pulled off Breck's goggles and flung them away. His own goggles lay dark and empty on the floor. “Everything on my hard drive's gone. Wiped.”

He caught a movement in the corner of his vision—the alien pulling off his own goggles, his face a blank mask. Reef waited for him to say something, but he only turned and walked away, headed for the doors at the end of the warehouse.

“We have to get out of here,” Reef groaned. “Before Aedric comes back.”

“Aedric?” Breck rocked on his feet, confused, nervous.

“He set us all up,” Reef said. “It didn't work the way he planned, but he set us up. Your visa's gone.”

Reef's feet pounded an uneven rhythm on the pavement. He found himself at Cadence's apartment building, and then thumping up the stairs, his heart thumping to match. Her door was unlocked, but she was gone. No one in the apartment. Just as he left the building he saw Aedric coming around the corner. Reef ran even while his muscles trembled in protest.

Back to his container. She wasn't there. Something was piled on the bed.

He flicked on the light. The something was a mound of gray bricks of resin. On top of the pile lay a note. Reef snatched it up and then backed away again, as though afraid
the bricks would come to life under his fingers. Cadence had scrawled,
Sell it—Croy doesn't need it anymore.

Reef leaned against the wall, trying to understand what it meant, trying to resist the itch in his bones at the sight of the drug. The night in the light-up lounge came back to him. He had asked her if she was close to getting the visas, and she had given him a strange answer:
You know why the aliens stopped wearing those red bracelets? Everyone wanted something from them.
What had she meant? That she was sorry she wanted something from Reef—money, visas? Or that she was sorry Reef wanted something from her?
But I didn't want anything from her,
Reef thought.
Not even the money in the end. I only wanted to be with her.

And now she was gone and had left all of this resin behind for him. Why? To make up for the virus that had wiped his hard drive? But she hadn't known that Aedric had planted a virus in the silver scepter, a virus meant for Breck. She hadn't known it would wipe Reef's hard drive.

Had she?

He looked at the bricks piled on his bed.
Sell it.

He pulled on his goggles and coaxed them to life. His system latched on to a wireless connection and spent a minute setting itself up from scratch. He opened the chat channel and tried hailing Cadence, but she wouldn't answer.

He pulled them off again.

She'd known about the virus. She had wanted it to wipe his hard drive.
Why? Why would she want to do that to him? Because she didn't want another husband. She'd only wanted the visas.

He didn't think, just loaded his pockets with as many bricks as he could and left his container. Aedric would be looking for him, thinking he still had Breck's visa. He had to leave. He didn't know where to go.

He headed to the lounge she'd taken him to. If she was waiting for him somewhere, that would be the place. But that was stupid—why would she be waiting for him? She was probably all the way to Canada by now.

He wasn't the only one on the street, even late as it was. A knife flicked open behind him, a familiar sound that nevertheless sent a fresh surge of adrenaline through his veins. He turned just in time to avoid a swipe from the blade of a pale-faced junkie. Reef tore a brick of resin from his pocket, flung it as far as he could, and ran in the other direction.

He was breathless and shaking with exhaustion by the time he reached the gray-painted door next to the noodle place. He pounded on the door. No answer. He leaned his back against it, tried to catch his breath. Then the dark unsettled him and he crossed over to the other side of the street. The neon sign over the Roosevelt Hotel was like a beacon.

A ping from his goggles told him someone was hailing him on the chat channel. It was Cadence.

Her voice came through, but not her face: “I'm sorry.”

Reef bit back his anger. “My entire hard drive is wiped.”

“I wish Aedric weren't so good at doing things like that. I only wanted to get rid of the visa. I knew you would have it.”

Reef pressed his fingers against his temples. Anger
boiled in his stomach, no matter how hard he fought against it.

“Do you remember that night at the lounge?” Cadence asked quietly.

Reef turned to glance at the dark building. He remembered his hands warm against her back.

“You said there's probably some bar in Beijing just like the one in Seattle?” Cadence went on.

Reef closed his eyes against the blank display of his goggles. “Why did you do it?”

There was a moment of silence before she answered. “I bet there's a place up here in Canada that's just like Seattle, except it's men and not women that there aren't enough of.” Shasta's tiny voice sounded in the background. She was saying something about snow.

“Why did you do it?” Reef asked again, barely getting the words out through his parched throat. “You didn't want me to have that visa? Why?”

“I'm tired of being saved, Reef. I just wanted to get free.”

“Free of me?” Reef's heart felt made of paper.

“Free of all of you.”

She cut off the channel.

Reef sank down onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel. He searched for his Alt program and then remembered it wasn't there anymore. He downloaded it. There was nothing else to do. The bricks bulged in his pockets and his jaw trembled while he thought about them.

Alt finished downloading. Reef halfheartedly logged on while he wondered where Olly had gone after they'd split
up. He couldn't remember saying good-bye. He tried him on the chat channel: “Olly?” No answer.

Alt's cityscape flickered to life around him, copper and crystal dulled by the smoggy mist. A holographic man in a leather vest stood near the corner of the hotel. “You going to tell me about the Fated Blade?” Reef grunted.

The man bobbed his head as he had the last time Reef had seen him. But an unfamiliar, digitized voice came out: “One hour, seven minutes, twenty-seven seconds.”

Reef got to his feet. “What did you say?”

“One hour, seven minutes, twenty-two seconds.”

The back of Reef's neck went hot with panic. Breck's words went through his head:
It's not a real quest. Just the Chinese mocking us.

Reef raked his hands through his hair, looked down the street as though he'd find someone there who could help him.
You know the game is riddled with leeches? All waiting for their creator to say the word . . .

Down goes all of our infrastructure.

He opened the chat channel and hailed Olly again.

“Reef—”

“Listen, something bad's coming, something really bad. Get out of the sprawl. Head for Canada. Our infrastructure's going down—maybe in the confusion you'll be able to get across.”

There was a crackle that might have been Olly hitting the mic while tightening his goggles. “You sure this isn't one of your big conspiracy theories?”

“Just trust me. Get out.”

“All right, I'm at the metro anyway. Wouldn't mind seeing Canada, even if it's just through the border fence.” There was a pause and then Olly said, “You coming too?”

Reef slid his hands into his pockets, curled his fingers around the edges of the bricks there. “Just get out.”

Reef ended the call. He racked his brains for the username the alien had used to chat with him at the steam plant.

“One hour, six minutes, forty-one seconds.”

The alien answered his hail.

“All that crap you told me about the Fated Blade,” Reef said. “Your people are going to help China attack us, aren't they? You're going to shut down the sprawl so we'll stop coming into your world.”

It took a long moment for the translation program to come back with the alien's answer: “We're not helping the Chinese.”

“Bullshit. I just heard the countdown. In an hour all those leeches they planted are going to activate and overwhelm our infrastructure. And then what? Nuclear attack too?”

“I don't know anything about that.”

“The Fated Blade. The stupid impossible quest. It's not a quest at all. It's a countdown to a digital attack from Great China.”

“I don't know anything about the quest. Or the countdown. Your wars have nothing to do with me. What I told you is true: Your people have become too dependent on my world.”

Reef was hardly listening. “You're tired of us coming into your world and funneling out your money. You don't need us anymore now that you've got the solar energy you want. So you're going to wipe Seattle off the map—”

“You do not understand. This is not about your war. The connection between our two worlds is harming both worlds in ways you do not yet know about. Ways which we have only recently discovered.”

Reef's breath went cold in his lungs. “What're you talking about?”

“You have joined your world to ours willingly. And we do not want to harm you. But it must end.”

Reef balled his fist against his forehead, struggling to understand what was going on. It didn't make sense. The alien was only going in circles. “You want to destroy us, same as China does.”