Chapter 2
The first day back at school was heralded by an annoyingly befitting rainy day, considering their grumpy moods and the fact that it was now April. Lynn had mixed feelings about how the day would go, since clips of their Boss Bash battle were still making the rounds. Lynn couldn’t tell if whoever kept sharing them was trying to do her a favor or give her high blood pressure.
Probably neither, but good luck convincing her brain of that.
It could just as well be Tsunami’s doing, Lynn supposed. They obviously had a vested interest in their game trending as much as possible. She just couldn’t get over seeing clips of herself pop up in every suggested and trending feed whenever she ventured onto the streams.
It turned out school was a mixed bag: she garnered way more attention than she’d ever wanted or was comfortable with, but at least it was mostly positive. As she and the guys walked from class to class, people tore their unfocused gazes away from their LINC interfaces to stare. The usual suspects booed them, but that was far outweighed by the high fives and “Cool moves, guys!” they got from fellow students they’d never talked to in their lives.
If someone had told her a year ago she’d one day be at the top of the school popularity totem pole, she would have laughed in their face, then asked if they needed to be checked into a mental hospital.
Yet here she was.
At least there were still the CRC groupies who flip-flopped between pretending she didn’t exist and acting like she was the scum of the earth.
You couldn’t have everything in life, could you?
The publicity was doing exactly what Mr. Krator no doubt wanted it to: make more TD Hunter players. The school was abuzz with talk of the game—apparently a lot of people had started playing over spring break after they’d seen Skadi’s Wolves destroy that boss. Lynn didn’t care, as long as people left her alone so she could win this freaking championship.
Lynn and the guys always stuck together at school to discourage anybody getting too “friendly,” whether fan or hater. Since they were all seniors they had most classes together, and they’d worked out a buddy system for the times their paths diverged. Kayla joined them when she could. It was a hundred times easier facing it all as a team, and it made Lynn understand why Elena always surrounded herself with so many fawning acolytes.
Speaking of useless wastes of space . . .
“Well, if it isn’t the mighty Boss Girl herself.”
The familiar, sneering voice made Lynn roll her eyes, and she would have kept walking, if Elena and three of her flunkies hadn’t been blocking the door out of the bathroom Lynn was in. She had diverted from her usual path to use the restroom, so the guys were already in class, though thankfully Kayla had held back to go with her.
“You’re boring, Elena. Go away,” Lynn said, refusing to even grace the bully with a glance as she tried to sidestep around the group.
Once upon a time, the mere sight of Elena would trigger Lynn’s fight or flight response, making her body tense and heart rate shoot upward. Lynn had grown since then, and learned that bullies only had as much power over you as you gave them. Her current calm was the result of long months unlearning the automatic fear responses years of bullying had carved into her. She still felt the unwanted anxiety sometimes—would it ever truly disappear?—but at least now she knew how to talk herself out of it.
She’d proven her own strength to herself, and that was something Elena could never take away.
Still, Elena wasn’t harmless. A viper’s bite was venomous, whether you had an antidote or not. Which was why Lynn watched Elena carefully out of the corner of her eye.
“You know, Elena,” Kayla said from behind Lynn, “your superior act would be a lot more convincing if your stream had been the one trending for the last . . .” Kayla mimed counting on her fingers, “seven days straight. Haven’t you just loved watching Lynn’s sub count skyrocket?”
Elena’s mouth contorted into a sneer.
“Did you hear something, ladies? I think that filthy, whoring traitor tried to speak, but she’s too dumb to—”
“Boor-ing,” Lynn interrupted loudly, eyes rolling hard enough to get stuck in the back of her head. “Elena, you’re as smart as a frog with amnesia. Move, or you’re gonna get hurt.”
“Are you threatening me?” Elena asked in a scandalized voice, and Lynn could tell by the way she blinked her eyes that she was activating something on her visual implants, probably her livestream.
Perfect, Lynn thought, smiling sweetly at Elena as one of Larry’s many aphorisms played through her head: The best ambush is the one your prey walks right into.
“Nope, just thought you might want to know there’s a spider crawling up your leg right now.” She glanced down and pointed casually.
Elena screamed like she was auditioning for a horror movie and flailed frantically, trying to jump away, shake her leg, and search for the supposed spider all at the same time. The girls standing with her screamed and backpedaled as well, giving Elena plenty of room to fall gracelessly onto the floor of the hall as she tripped over her own feet.
Lynn nearly missed the opportunity to make a swift exit, she was laughing so hard. But she and Kayla managed to slip out of the bathroom and down the hall before a purple-faced Elena made it back to her feet.
“You—You—” Elena spluttered, looking mad enough to commit murder.
“Bye, Elena,” Lynn called as she walked away. “I think it’s on your shoulder now, by the way.”
Another shriek, though smaller this time, followed them down the hall, and Lynn and Kayla laughed shamelessly.
“That was brilliant,” Kayla said once she’d gotten her breath back.
“Yeah, I guess.” Lynn shrugged, still grinning. “It’ll only work once, though.”
“So what? Maybe it’ll teach her to think twice before trying to instigate a fight.”
“No way we’d be that lucky.” Lynn sighed. They arrived at their classroom, and Lynn glimpsed her teammates inside. “Man, the guys are going to be so jealous they missed that. The look on Elena’s face . . . I’m sure she’s already deleted whatever footage she started recording.”
“Oh, don’t you worry, honey,” Kayla said, her tone turning downright evil. “I turned on my livestream the second Elena showed up. The whole world just saw her make an absolute fool of herself. I could win funniest stream clip of the year with this footage.” She broke off giggling, eyes unfocused, obviously rewatching the moment on her AR contacts.
A wicked grin spread across Lynn’s face. Maybe these last two months of school wouldn’t be so bad after all.
* * *
By lunchtime the entire school—and likely half the country—had seen the clip. People were grouped at tables across the cafeteria watching it together, pointing and laughing. Lynn had never seen a clip go so viral, so fast. Not even an hour had passed since Elena had confronted them, and there were already hundreds of remixes, stitches, memes, and more zinging around the mesh web.
Elena, unsurprisingly, was nowhere to be seen. Lynn almost felt sorry for the girl. She hadn’t set out to humiliate Elena in front of the world. She was just trying to get to class on time. Besides, if she’d had to physically push past Elena to get out of the bathroom, Elena probably would have gone running to the principal claiming Lynn had assaulted her. Kayla had done the smart thing to protect them both by livestreaming the interaction.
“Kayla, you are brilliant,” Dan said, still barely able to breathe for laughing, even though he’d seen the clip a dozen times already.
Kayla, sitting opposite Dan at their lunch table, smiled shyly, and Lynn hid a grin of her own at the sight.
“Thanks. I’m just glad I was there to back Lynn up.”
“Lynn,” Mack said, brow creased, “maybe you should start livestreaming all the time at school, just in case Elena tries something again.”
Lynn choked on a mouthful of milk and nearly sprayed it across the table. She swallowed it with difficulty, then aimed a threatening finger at Mack.
“Wash your filthy mouth out and never speak those words again, Maxwell Rios, or I will tell your mother we’re dating.”
Ronnie and Dan sniggered while Mack shrank back defensively, his warm-toned skin blanching whiter than Ronnie’s.
“Geez, Lynn, I was just tryin’a be helpful. She would kill me.”
“Exactly,” Lynn said, adding some Larry growl to the word.
“Mack’s right, though,” Edgar said around a fry he’d just popped into his mouth. “I think we need to deputize Kayla as your official bathroom wingwoman, just to be safe.”
Kayla giggled while Lynn groaned.
“Don’t go giving her ideas, Edgar.”
“No, I love it!” Kayla said, clapping her hands together. “I could be your official videographer! My stream is going to be hopping after today, I could totally do a Lynn walkalong vlog!”
“Kayla,” Lynn said, tamping down a spike of stupid anxiety, “I just got you back as a friend, don’t make me murder you now.”
Edgar shot Lynn a scandalized look.
“Lynn, don’t bite the hand that feeds us. If you touch a hair on Kayla’s head, Mrs. Swain will never make us bacon-wrapped steak bites again.”
“Yeah!” said the rest of the guys in near perfect unison.
Lynn waved a fork threateningly, encompassing everyone at the table.
“Just stop talking about vlogs and you can all keep your steak bites.”
Lynn focused on chewing and breathing deep, slow breaths. She really might resort to homicide if anyone else tried to intrude on her privacy more than she was already enduring. She knew Kayla meant well, though she wondered if her extreme enthusiasm came partly from a place of guilt. Either way, Kayla was fitting in well with their social group and the last thing Lynn wanted was more publicity and drama to mess that up.
“So,” Kayla said between bites, “Elena totally tried to cozy up to me in Calculus today and convince me to turn on you—before the bathroom incident, obviously.”
Edgar snorted, though Ronnie glared suspiciously at the frizzy-haired girl.
Lynn just raised her eyebrows.
“Let me guess, it didn’t go quite the way Elena had hoped?”
“Oh, I told her she could take her slimy, weaselly self and go stick her head in a toilet,” Kayla said brightly.
Ronnie looked mollified and went back to watching whatever gaming or political stream he was focused on as he ate. He’d been uncharacteristically subdued ever since rejoining their team. Lynn wouldn’t lie, she enjoyed his silence immensely. But it also worried her. Had he actually found a modicum of maturity? Or was there something else the matter?
Shaking her head, Lynn grinned at Kayla as she stabbed at the uninspiring grilled chicken on her plate.
“Wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall for that conversation.”
“I thought her head might actually explode, she was so outraged. But that’s not all. After class two of the other girls she bullies into following her around pinged me and asked me for advice on how to get out from under her thumb.” Kayla shrugged and shot a look at Lynn. “I told them what you told me: just ignore her and leave. I even invited them to come eat at our table. I, um, hope that’s okay.”
Lynn wasn’t thrilled at the idea, but she didn’t say so.
“That’s great, Kayla. You did the right thing. I’m proud of you.” Lynn hadn’t planned the words, they just felt like the right thing to say. And apparently, they were, because Kayla swallowed, and her eyes got suspiciously shiny.
“Th-that means a lot, Lynn. Thank you.”
The guys poked at their food awkwardly and Lynn rolled her eyes. Boys. They had the emotional range of a teaspoon.
“Ya done good, girl,” Edgar offered, proving Lynn wrong at least a little bit. “Bullies only have the power you give ’em.” He shrugged. “They’re mostly cowards. And apparently also afraid of spiders.”
Everyone snorted at that and Lynn resisted the urge to watch a replay of Elena’s epic fail just one more time.
“Thanks Edgar, you’re a sweetie,” Kayla said, beaming.
Edgar grinned at the compliment and Lynn felt a weird flash of annoyance. But she was distracted from the thought by Ronnie’s abrupt declaration.
“I knew it!”
“What’s it this time?” Dan asked, leaning forward eagerly. “Did you find that unlimited ammo code for Missile Command 3000 I told you about?”
“No.” Ronnie snorted. “Nobody plays that anymore. Besides, this is way more important. Reports confirm China has been rationing energy in its largest cities for weeks now. They pretend like everything is fine, but there are widespread blackouts for the poorer sections because the ruling party is shunting all the energy to the business sectors and rich neighborhoods.”
Dan leaned back and popped a chip into his mouth.
“Yeah, so what?”
“They’ve had terrible infrastructure for years now,” Mack piped up. “Ever since the pandemics in the ’20s caused that worldwide recession and their construction market crashed because they were building all this giant stuff that nobody could pay for.”
There was a moment of silence at their table as everyone stared at Mack.
“Oh, come on,” Dan finally said. “What do you know about Chinese infrastructure?”
“Riko and I talk about it sometimes,” Mack said with a shrug. “You know China is aggressive and expansionist, so it’s a pretty common topic in Japan.”
“Oh, so a Japanese love-bot told you some wiki facts about China, big deal,” Dan said. “Now you’re an expert, huh?”
“Shut up, guys, this is serious,” Ronnie said. “This proves that China and the US, or China and somebody are conducting cyber warfare in secret, attacking each other’s grids.”
“Ooor,” Mack said, “maybe they just have old equipment and a massive labor shortage because of those idiotic population control policies they had for decades.”
“Seriously?” Ronnie said. “When did you get a PhD in global politics? Or is that more wiki knowledge from your bot girlfriend.”
“Oh, shut up!” Mack snapped. “She’s not a bot, and it’s not my fault you never pay attention in history class. Plus, grid failures are happening all over the world right now. It’s a global energy crisis, not a US-China thing.”
Lynn tuned out her friends as they continued bickering. The mention of energy grids had reminded her of something: she hadn’t seen any workmen out behind the school fiddling with its grid equipment that day, she’d checked. They’d been out there nearly every Monday for months. The only thing Lynn could figure was that the increased energy usage every Monday when school resumed tripped whatever error in the system they’d been trying to isolate and fix since the total failure last fall.
But there were no techs today, and no random flickering lights up and down the halls.
Maybe they’d overhauled the entire system during spring break? Or maybe . . . this was their first day back at school since they’d destroyed that massive Alpha Boss to the north. But that was just a coincidence, right?
Lynn glared at her half-eaten chicken, thoroughly annoyed by her overactive imagination.
Whether it was a coincidence or not, it got her thinking about St. Sebastian’s and Lindale Mall, blackouts and conspiracy theories—and she didn’t like where her brain was taking her. There had been no catastrophic failures at her mom’s hospital since last summer when both the main grid and the backup power failed. But she’d heard her mom grumble a time or two about how the things at the hospital still weren’t back to normal since that incident. There were electrical crews constantly getting in the way and periodic glitches that kicked in the backup system, which managed to reset at least half the computers and medical devices throughout the hospital.
It sounded too much like what had been going on at her school, at least until today, and Lynn really, really didn’t like what her brain concluded from that.
She finished her lunch in silence, her earlier elation at Elena’s humiliation forgotten as her brain focused on something that seemed much more important than high school drama.
The only silver lining was that she could easily do a bit of solo scouting to see if her suspicions had any merit without having to mention her theory to anyone. And, thankfully, it tied perfectly into figuring out how to get her team to Level 40 by June.
It was raining hard enough that the team had decided to get a head start on homework that evening and work on drills instead of hunting, so Lynn was free to scratch that itch. She sent a message to her mom that she would be extra late getting home, though Matilda wouldn’t get it for hours yet, since she was sleeping. Then Lynn refocused on her friends and tried not to dwell on the uneasy feeling in her stomach.
* * *
“I am one-hundred-percent certain that this excursion is unwise.”
“Just don’t say ‘I have a bad feeling about this,’” Lynn subvocalized to Hugo. “Then we’d really be screwed.”
“I am an AI, I do not have feelings.”
“Exactly. I think we’re good.”
“No, we are not good. It is extremely late and this area would be difficult for emergency services to reach should we need to call them.”
“Come on, Hugo. There’s a hospital a few blocks south. Can’t they just fly over here with their helicopter?”
“That is beside the point, young lady—”
“Oh-ho, young lady? What happened to Miss Lynn?”
“I have determined that it is in your best interest to understand the seriousness of the situation, and since you usually ignore me, I am now employing stronger terms of address to ensure your attention.”
“Only an AI would think ‘young lady’ was a ‘stronger’ form of address,” Lynn muttered, hands shoved into the pockets of her rain jacket as she walked down the shadowed gravel road. It wasn’t raining quite as hard as the weather app had predicted, but it was still cold and miserable. The rain wasn’t a threat to her equipment, of course. Everything from LINCs to earbuds to AR interfaces were necessarily impervious to moisture, since most people never took them off these days. But even with mild rain, the risk of slipping and injury always made her paranoid. They’d had enough minor bruises and sprains over the months that she didn’t regret sending the guys home, especially since it was nice to do some scouting on her own every now and then.
The bright lights of downtown Cedar Rapids lit the sky behind her to the south, while the duller lights of the rest of the city created a halo of dimly glowing horizon around her. She was walking through the central rail hub of the city, one she’d discovered had a sizable abandoned lot beside it according to a quick search of EarthMaps. The air smelled of mud, trash, and chemicals, and she had to weave her way around muddy puddles interspersed along the road.
It was the perfect place for a boss TDM to set up camp if it wanted to . . . she didn’t know, maybe siphon off electricity from the surrounding grid? It was a stupid, crazy thought. Absolutely bonkers. Nobody was siphoning off anything, TD Hunter was just an ultra-realistic game and the algorithm obviously had enough geographical data to place TDMs exactly where they needed to be to maintain that realism.
That was it.
“Okay, that’s the lot up ahead,” Lynn subvocalized, stopping at a fork in the gravel road paralleling the electric rail. She noticed straggling clusters of soggy and disintegrating tents, tarps, boxes, and various other trash along the outside of the lot’s chain link fence. An abandoned homeless encampment. She wondered where all the residents had gone. Not that it would have stopped her, but she was grateful she wouldn’t have an audience for what she was going to do next.
A memory surfaced from last summer: her mom talking about homeless people dropping dead with no explanation. The hospital had checked for viruses, and finding none had passed it off as some new drug cocktail making the rounds. It had angered Matilda because once the possibility of a new virus mutation had been eliminated—everyone was still jumpy from what had happened in the 2020s—the hospital administration hadn’t cared a whit about the victims. It wasn’t Matlida’s wheelhouse, what with being an ER nurse, but Lynn knew from her mom’s comments over the years that being married to a cop had made her much more aware of how much hospitals and local police could work together to help improve their communities, if they chose to. Urban decay affected every city these days, with panhandlers and homeless people wherever you looked. Her mom had told her once that drug cartels often used the homeless as guinea pigs to test out new products before they sold them to their rich repeat clients.
Lynn looked down at her feet, clad in sturdy high-performance, shock-absorbing boots. At least she didn’t have to worry about stepping on any old needles.
She could just imagine the look on her mom’s face if Matilda could see where she had ventured. Which was why she never told her mom the sorts of places Skadi’s Wolves went while hunting TDMs. This was nothing. She was pretty sure they’d interrupted a drug tradeoff once in the industrial district. Nothing had happened because her team had been so focused on fighting the waves of TDMs they’d encountered along the derelict warehouses, the druggies probably thought they were crazy or high with all their leaping and rolling and shouting at each other about Rakshar and Spithragani. The rough-looking men had huddled, then made a quick exit and Lynn had only really thought about who they were or what they’d been doing after the fact.
Lynn pulled her hands out of her pockets and the nippy spring air got to work on her exposed fingers. She flexed them, trying to decide if she should bother rooting through her backpack for her athletic gloves that had kept her fingers warm and safe from frostbite through a winter of hunting. She decided against it and instead slid her twin batons from their stretchy sheaths. The long thin pockets were sewn down along her thighs, built into the high-performance athletic pants TD Hunter had outfitted them with when they’d qualified as a Hunter Strike Team last year. She rotated her wrists and mimed a few basic strikes, warming up her body.
“Hugo, on my mark, drop me into combat mode equipped with Bastion and Wrath, plus full armor and stealth. Hopefully, I won’t have to fight too many of the buggers to get a look at what’s in that lot.”
There was a pause and Lynn wondered if AIs ever sighed.
“If you are absolutely set on this unwise course of action, I recommend at least waiting until your entire team can be here to support you.”
Lynn shook her head. It was going to be tricky enough explaining how—and why—she’d found this boss without dragging the guys all the way out on this wild goose chase. If she found a boss, of course. Maybe her theory was wrong.
“On my mark—”
“I am officially lodging my protest—”
“Three, two, one, mark!”
Monsters materialized around her, glowing dimly in the night. They might have had impressive reflexes for a game, but Lynn was already moving, slashing and bashing until she’d cleared a twenty-foot circle around her. They were mostly Charlie Class, though there was an inconvenient number of Vargs, Stalkers, and Yaguar, solitary patrol-type TDMs that were more active at night. Most of the monsters didn’t stand a chance against Wrath, though, even if they were able to target her past the stealth bonus of her trusty shield, Bastion.
She focused on her work until she had cleared a large enough space to step back and evaluate her surroundings without getting pounced by TDMs.
When she finally did look around, she felt an uneasy sense of triumph.
“Dang.”
“I hope that means you intend to immediately retreat and abandon this foolish errand.”
“You know, if you weren’t an AI, I might mistake you for a pansy. I get that your job is to keep people safe while they’re playing TD Hunter, but you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette.”
“As long as that egg is not you then I am perfectly fine with the arrangement,” Hugo said, his tone just this side of huffy.
“Well, I’ve seen what I need to see, so you’re getting your wish. Let’s get out of here.”
“With pleasure!”
The glowing ranks of TDMs in the far reaches of Lynn’s AR vision faded as the real world reestablished itself. The ominous clicks, roars, screeches, and moans of the TDMs were replaced by the distant hum of airbus engines and the quiet chirp of a cricket nearby braving the chill.
The red dots that had just disappeared from her overhead still glowed in her mind, though, taunting her.
Well, she’d been right. Here was another boss TDM, a made-up monster in a game, hanging around an area that was having very real and very inexplicable electric grid problems.
Coincidence?
It . . . it had to be. Grid problems weren’t that uncommon. She heard about them in all sorts of places around the country and around the globe. What she’d witnessed at Lindale Mall and her school could be anecdotal. Correlation wasn’t causation and all that. Maybe blackouts had gotten more frequent in the last year, or maybe that was just a skewed perspective. She didn’t know enough to make that judgment.
What she did know, though, was that Skadi’s Wolves needed lots of experience in a short amount of time. So there was no reason not to organize another boss hunt and pound this one into the dirt. What she discovered after that, well . . . she’d have to wait and see.
Lynn thought back to what her overhead had shown her. Those multi-layered rings in the abandoned lot had looked smaller than the ones that had been around the Alpha Boss Gyges. The distant sparkling mist in her AR sight that had marked the location of the unknown boss had seemed smaller than Gyges, too. That plus the fact that she’d been able get this close and be fighting mostly Charlie Class monsters boded well. If she had to guess, this TDM seemed like a Bravo Class boss, a much more reasonable target that Skadi’s Wolves could tackle with a handful of other teams.
Probably. Maybe.
Was she willing to bet on it?
What if not enough teams could make it on short notice and they ended up hurting their rankings instead of defeating the boss?
On the other hand, what if Skadi’s Wolves played it slow and cautious? Would they still make Level 40 by mid June?
Making decisions like this had been so much easier in virtual as Larry Coughlin, safely removed from reality. Now there was infinitely more at stake. Infinitely more she could lose. How was she supposed to tell the difference between unhealthy, risk-averse fear and healthy caution that helped her make wise judgments?
And how much of her reluctance came from that uneasy feeling in her gut.
Was she jumping at shadows?
Lynn stood for a long moment in the dark rail yard, considering her options and wavering between fear and determination. Hugo, thankfully, didn’t pester her. Finally, she shook her head and turned to trek back toward the lights of downtown where she could hop on the nearest airbus and get home out of the rain.
She was overthinking everything. She needed to focus on two things and two things only: getting to Level 40 and graduating high school. Even if there was . . . something going on, she was just a teenager. A global energy grid war—if Ronnie’s theories were to be believed—was way above her pay grade, as Larry would say. Also, not real, because China made way too much money off the US to want to wreck it economically. That was just common sense. The whole conspiracy theory was ludicrous.
Just ludicrous.
* * *
The next evening, Lynn got a formal invite on her WarMonger account to participate in a special cross-promotional effort with Tsunami. It offered player “Larry Coughlin” generous compensation to spend an hour or so fighting through various match scenarios in the special TDM-WarMonger crossover mode they’d recently launched. They would record bits and pieces for their advertising campaign, including her voice reading a selection of scripted lines.
That was it. Nice and easy.
Lynn sent them back a counter-offer demanding a long list of special weaponry and armor they would add to her inventory in lieu of payment. Not only was that a believable thing for the “real” Larry Coughlin to do, but she knew for a fact she could make twice as much selling the items in auction than Tsunami had offered to pay her.
She grinned at the thought of Mr. Krator’s reaction when he heard of her counter-offer.
Within an hour she’d gotten a response accepting her terms and suggesting several days and times to pick from to do the recordings. At that point Lynn started to feel the nerves. What was she even doing? This whole Larry Coughlin character was a lie. Did she really want to lean into it? Exploit it for her own gain? Okay, so she’d already been doing that for years. But back then she’d been desperate. She’d had no other options. It had been a defense mechanism to survive in virtual gaming. But now . . . now she could choose to never touch WarMonger again, and still have a bright future in gaming.
TD Hunter had given her that freedom.
And yet, she didn’t want to abandon Larry Coughlin. He was her, even if the skin, the affectations, were a disguise. Plus she’d worked her tail off for that success and reputation.
Was it right to keep deceiving her friends, though? How could she tell them now? If they didn’t instantly vote her off the team, it would still cause so much tension they’d probably lose the championship.
She couldn’t ask her mom for advice, either, or Mr. Thomas. They already knew about Larry Coughlin, but they didn’t get gaming—or her complex relationship with it. Honesty was preferable in any normal situation, but the whole Lynn-Larry mess was far from normal.
In the end, Lynn gritted her teeth, chose a time, and responded to the message. Once the deed was done, she felt a sort of hollow sorrow. Where was her dad when she needed him? He would have known what to do. Rainy day gaming on the couch had been a treasured ritual, smack talking her dad while they competed in all sorts of old racing and street-fighting games—games her father had played as a boy on simulators of consoles that were old even in her grandparents’ time. Whether she was dropping banana peels to wipe him out on a track or using punch combos he’d taught her to dominate him in the ring, gaming with him had always been about rising to the challenge, fearlessly fighting with all her heart.
The thought made her chest ache in a way she hadn’t felt in years, so she threw herself into homework and shoved the feeling back down under lock and key where it belonged.
* * *
Wednesday the rain finally abated, and they got back to putting serious hunting hours in every day, practicing various tactics and squad formations using bait and their new weapon functions.
Between hunting, physical training, and squeezing in the bare minimum of homework, Lynn was back to go, go, go from before dawn to long after dusk. She was glad she and her mom had taken time during spring break to do puzzles together and go out for steaks and ice cream. She barely saw Matilda the rest of the week beyond a wave and a “Hi, Mom, bye, Mom” when she grabbed protein bars to go and raced off to school each morning.
She’d told the guys about wanting to organize another boss hunt and they’d all agreed it was a good idea. Only Edgar had given her a hard look when she casually mentioned she’d already found a boss to destroy. Her other three teammates seemed to take the extra legwork for granted.
To her delight, the far-flung teams of Skadi’s Horde jumped on her invite for another boss battle like wolves on a pile of meat. Only about half could make it on short notice, though, which Lynn hoped would be enough. The Lone Gunmen, Monster Control Bureau, Voodoo Girls, Light Brigade, and other familiar faces sent their delighted RSVP, and the “Boss Bash 2.0” was scheduled for the third Saturday in April, rain or shine.
As the days progressed, Lynn picked the brains of the other team captains for how to apply the “bait and destroy” tactics Skadi’s Wolves were developing to a large-scale boss battle. Quorra, captain of Voodoo Girls, had a lot of good outside-the-box ideas. Lynn made a mental note to see what the guys thought of making Voodoo Girls their player alternates in case one of them became sick or injured right before the national championship. Picking alternates was a task Lynn had been dragging her feet on, but the success of the first Boss Bash had given her the internal confidence to tackle it.
Derek, AKA DeathShot—or YodaMaster as she’d long known him in WarMonger—was also very helpful as a sounding board for hunting tactics. Derek’s insights were so on point, in fact, that Lynn wondered how long he’d really been playing TD Hunter. His current team, Light Brigade, had only been on the books a few months, but he seemed awfully well informed on TD Hunter tactics for only having played a little while.
It was none of her business, of course, any more than her Larry Coughlin persona was his. Considering how many times she’d fought with, and against, YodaMaster in WarMonger, interacting with Derek was a tad nerve-racking. But he never acted suspicious, just affable and helpful—as Canadian as a Canadian could be. It made her laugh to herself considering how many times she’d witnessed him cow upstart noobs and pretentious Wall Street types in WarMonger. He could be as deadpan and scary as Larry Coughlin when he wanted to be. She never would have guessed what a chill person he was in the real.
It got her wondering what Derek did for a living. He must have had a flexible job to do so much travel. When she casually probed him for a bit of personal background, he politely brushed her off with a comment about private contracting—though he failed to mention what kind of private contracting. She wondered if he was former military, and if he now worked as a real mercenary for one of those “global force solutions” military contractors. He seemed too nice for that, but maybe his affability was as much a mask as Larry Coughlin’s constant threats.
She tried not to wonder too much about it, though, because she respected his privacy. He was a good gamer, and a reliable team player. That was all she needed to know. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d ever be interacting with him beyond occasional TD Hunter or WarMonger gaming.
* * *
“You know, chum, it’s a good thing Lynn isn’t half as ruthless in real life as she pretends to be as Larry Coughlin, or she’d have us all figured out by now.”
Steve Riker raised both eyebrows at his friend and fellow Alpha Tester, Derek Peterson, who had joined him for a bite of lunch at Tsunami’s headquarters in Texas. Their cafeteria was top-notch. Real food cooked by actual people, none of that SNAC machine shit. Derek passed through headquarters every now and then between whatever mission CIDER sent him on, and Steve always enjoyed a chance to shoot the shit with the easygoing Canuck.
“That’s a pretty bold assumption. I would warn you not to underestimate her, but I figure you’ve been trounced by Larry enough times to know that by now.”
They shared a laugh, but once it faded, Derek’s expression turned serious again.
“I mean it, Steve. She’s a nice young lady. Half the time I’m talking to her, I can’t believe she’s really that old snake.”
“That’s because she’s putting on a front,” Steve said with a shrug. “Lynn is just as much a mask as Larry sometimes. Don’t we all put on masks to fit in? The kid’s been through the wringer. And she’s young. Hell, I’m sure you and me were just as crazy and clueless when we were her age.”
A tiny smile curved one side of Derek’s mouth.
“You, maybe. I was a right proper little soldier, eh?
Steve balled up a napkin and threw it at his friend. Derek caught it out of the air and made a show of carefully smoothing it out, then wiping his mouth with it. Steve shook his head.
“She’s a tough one. She’ll be fine,” Steve said, getting back to his steak and potatoes.
“Will she?” Derek said quietly.
Steve stopped with a bite of meat dripping red juices halfway to his mouth. Then he slowly put it back down.
“We don’t have a choice, Derek.”
Derek looked away out one of the windows that overlooked the Austin landscape.
“We volunteered for this, Steve. We knew the risks. These kids? None of them have a clue.”
“We. Don’t. Have. A. Choice,” Steve repeated slowly.
Derek looked back at him, expression unchanged.
“I know. But I’m glad she’s not my daughter.”
Steve’s gut twisted with guilt, but he didn’t let it show on his face.
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“Because I wouldn’t give a shit about OPSEC,” Derek responded even more softly. “I’d ship her off to a desert island until this was all over, somewhere without a shred of infrastructure where she couldn’t accidentally wander through an invisible alien entity that could instantly stop her heart and fry her brain.”
Steve stared at his friend. Then he realized he was gripping his fork so tightly it had bent. He relaxed his hold, methodically straightened it as best he could, and put it down. His appetite was gone.
“That’d be nice,” Steve said quietly, “but there might not be any civilization for her to come back to. That’s the entire point, chum. Do you really think, if you read her in, she’d pick that island over staying exactly where she is right now?”
Derek snorted, though his expression remained grave.
“Exactly,” Steve said. “We can’t—” His voice caught, and he coughed to clear it before continuing. “We can’t play favorites. Everyone in the world is facing the same risks, and the sooner we figure these spooks out—where they’re coming from and how to stop them—the sooner everyone will be safe again. That’s why we need Lynn exactly where she is. She’s already running missions, for Pete’s sake, and you lucky bastards get to witness it firsthand. Yeah, maybe we can’t tell her what’s really going on, but that’s what you’re there for.”
That finally prompted a ghost of a smile.
“They need to put you in the field on some of these boss fights,” Derek said, eyeing his friend. “That waist is starting to look a bit padded, eh?”
Steve straightened and patted his stomach with a look of mock affront.
“Bull. You’re just jealous of my abs.”
“The ones you drew on, you mean?”
“Don’t you dis my artistic skills, Canuck. I’ll have you know I got an A+ in my high school art class.”
“Yeah? I thought you American types ate your crayons, not drew with them.”
“No, no, that’s just the Jarheads. Us SPECOP guys pack ’em in with our C4 so we can blow you up with style.”
“Cowboys.”
“And proud of it! There’s a reason people still watch John Wayne movies!”
The Alpha Tester snorted and pushed back from the table, leaving his fish and rice half eaten.
“I should get going. We’ve got a lot of scouting and prep to finish before Boss Bash 2.0. We need to get on location and scan this boss Lynn found, make sure it’s safe enough for all these kids to tackle.”
“Don’t let her hear you calling her a kid,” Steve said, eyeing his own steak. It would be a tragedy to waste such a perfectly delicious cut of meat. But he simply had no more stomach for it, not after what Derek had said.
“Turnabout is fair play, my friend. If she can pretend to be older than both of us, she can take some of her own medicine.”
“Well, maybe you can help her tap into her inner Larry while you’re at it,” Steve said. “I hate seeing what this whole TD Hunter PR stunt is doing to her. I know that’s the whole point of the game and the only way we can recruit enough players, but . . . it would drive anyone insane.”
“Being Larry when she games isn’t her struggle, Steve. It’s carrying those qualities over to the rest of her life. I know how tough it is to keep secrets from the people you love. I think the lies are holding her back. One of these days she’s going to have to come clean so she can integrate the two and fully employ all her skills in one united whole.”
“Whoo-wee! I can’t wait to see that day!” Steve said with a grin. “Jaws are gonna drop. Some people might even need surgery to have them reattached. I almost did.”
Derek snorted and held out a hand. Steve gripped it firmly and gave his friend a serious nod.
“Take care, Canuck. These things can kill you too.”
“I’ll be fine, Cowboy. It’s you I’m worried about, you and your blood pressure. Don’t forget to hit the gym.” He winked and walked away, whistling amiably.
“Cheeky bastard,” Steve muttered, eyes falling again on his food. With a sigh, he picked up his plate and headed for the composter. He had a lot to do, and every day ticked them closer and closer to the apocalypse. Time to get back to work.