“Rel, you sounded serious…”

Rel stared at Harry over his cup of coffee, slightly overwhelmed with the task he would have in explaining everything to his friend. “So, my question is – you know what my job is – how much do you want to know, or would you rather just know what I need you to do?”

For the first time since Rel had known him, Harry seemed at a loss.

“How bad is it, Rel?”

“How long have you had your Wire?”

“Same as most people. About two years. Don’t tell me it’s a secret mind control, or slowly poisoning us all, or…”

Surprised, Rel managed a laugh. “When you start spouting those ideas, the reality seems almost benign.”

“What reality, Rel? Yes, I want to know.”

“You are less than twenty-four hours away from having a worthless hunk of metal in your head.”

Harry’s face screwed up in concentration, and Rel could see when his friend’s thoughts smoothed into coherence. “So, it’s another Crash?”

“Not exactly. It’s a forced stop. And it’s not a sure thing. If the people I’m working with can manage everything perfectly, there is a chance that the Bridge can remain functional. Plus, even if it doesn’t, the Wires will be fine. They just won’t have access to the Stream, so they will be brought down to basic functionality until someone reestablishes the Stream and a way to reconnect to it.”

“Not the best news,” Harry admitted. “But, yeah. I think better than mind control. So, what exactly are you wanting me to do?”

“Well, my IT friend, I have been completely cut off from electronic communication. The man who wants to demolish the Bridge – the same guy who could literally kill me through the wires intertwined in my neurons – he is monitoring every electronic message I send, looking for the girl I made the unfortunate decision to fall for. His best friend, and the girl who has betrayed him.”

“Wow…I want to meet her.”

Rel grinned. “You do. And you will, if I live through this. And the first step toward that is for you to get a message to Kirsten’s friend, my date from the other night.”

“Your date…ah, the NCB agent.” Harry nodded. “Sounds pretty simple. I’ll use my handheld just in case.”

“You IT people and your gadgets,” Rel grinned. “But seriously, thank you. First, I need you to tell her – Veronique Garrison, specifically – that I’m ready for the severance. That exact word, ‘severance.’ And I need you to give her my key.”

The air ceased motion for a second as Harry processed the words. “That is a lot of trust, Rel. Your key? I mean, a huge responsibility for me, obviously. But you’re really giving your key to a government agent. Root access to your kernel.”

“Right now, this Wire in my head is poised to wipe out my brain and take away my ability to think – or feed myself, or any other number of human natural functions. I’m much less worried about Vee than the guy who will want to destroy me if I can’t separate from the Bridge before he finds out I stole his girl.”

Harry paused a moment and nodded. “I’ll get this to her. Rel, be careful.”

“People keep telling me that.” Rel sighed as he stood to his feet. “You be careful, too. And thanks for the coffee.”

+++++++++++++++

“Damn it!” screeched Sophie.

“What is it?” Hazel wondered as she launched a multi-arrow volley against a tank trying to block in DayBender. “Remember, I can’t see your battle because we’re in separate places in the game.”

“Just lost sight of a band of Pros, and they were already on me when that stupid spectre showed up. I almost killed myself when I accidentally hit the spectre with my attack instead of a Pro.”

“Give yourself a break, Sophe,” Hazel insisted. “You’re in. That’s the important part. They restore all your stats inside.”

“Are you going into the Trifecta yet?”

“About to. Just linked back to the team to check in, and they are still alive, thank God. DayBender just headed back. I’m stupidly nervous.”

“Okay, my dear,” Sophie posited, and Hazel heard the resolve in her friend’s voice. “You’re on fire, and we will be fine. Let’s do this. I’m in.”

“Right behind you, sort of.”

Hazel entered the pub and spoke with the bartender, refilling her stats before stepping through the door into the Trifecta.

++++++++++++++

“Leo!” Pete linked to his comrade with an urgent alert. “I need you to pull up the Rendering and open Trip.”

A few seconds later, Leo’s icon woke. “Okay, Peter. Hold on.”

“Now, Leo.”

“Is the game to somehow fix the Blueprint?” Leo wondered, though he didn’t hesitate to obey. “I’m in. What do you need?”

With his heart racing in his throat, Peter forced himself to think. “It is. First of all, I need you to get Chad on that agent. I think it may be time to reset him. It seems I underestimated Hazel.”

“Hazel? I thought she was playing in the Partie.”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you? But she’s using the Partie to stop the Deconstruction, not that I think she could. Still, I can’t take that risk.”

Leo blew out a breath. “Wow…what do you need me to do?”

“Send out a universal message. I am offering a reward to anyone who manages a killshot on anyone approaching the glitch in Trifecta. An unmatched package of armor and weapons and skills that will automatically increase anyone’s level by three. Include a map to the glitch.” Peter linked the information to Leo. “I need these players dead, yesterday.”

“Don’t you think some of the players will just enter the cave? That will create a lot of collateral damage.”

“So? The alternative is the Bridge stays functional.”

“Of course, you’re right. I’m on it. Message sent. Anything else?”

“Contact Ziyad and have him message me. And let me know when Chad says his job’s done.”

Beyond furious, Peter chased down Hazel, following her into the Trifecta pub. By the time he was in, she had passed through and was nowhere to be seen. Once he headed toward the glitch, though, he smiled. He could easily spot Hazel, standing vainly in the center of a huge crowd of attackers. Each attacker also had a mob of Pros, dancing around Hazel’s feet and eating slowly away at her power.

To her credit, she was standing strong. Fortunately for him, though, no one could stand against that many people.

“I’m not going to make it, Hazel,” Sophie insisted aloud, and Hazel had to agree.

“Me, neither, Sophe. This is insane – can’t be normal.”

“Do you think someone found out what we were doing?”

“I mean, if anyone could, I guess it would be Peter,” Hazel allowed. “How hard would it be for him to manage something like this?”

“Not hard,” Sophie agreed. “But if we fail, the whole world is going to crash in a big way.”

“No pressure,” Hazel mumbled.

An idea sprang to her mind, but it terrified her. The last time she had tried something like it, she had been banned for half a year.

“Sophie,” she began, and Sophie could hear the gravity in her best friend’s tone. “I’m going to send you a link to some code. It’s going to get you banned, but not before you can deploy the fix into the glitch.”

“And you’re going to get yourself banned, too?”

“Of course! I wouldn’t ask my best friend to do something I wouldn’t do. You got it?”

“Got it. Oh, Lord…” Sophie’s tone had grown breathless, and Hazel knew her friend had installed the code.

A minute later, Hazel herself had deployed the same code, and her volley of arrows unleashed on every attacker within range. For a good eight minutes of the fifteen-minute battle allotment, Hazel unleashed round after round of firepower and magic against the people who had set out against her.

Without warning, a lightning bolt rained down on Hazel, and she caught her breath as she prepared for the disappointment of failure. Instead, her health and mana filled to the brim, and she suddenly noticed Dibs where he had entered the private area. “What are you doing here?” Hazel demanded as she set loose another universal attack.

“First, DayBender left us, and both of us had to run. And secondly, I heard that message go out. Everyone in the game is going to be coming after you. How are you attacking like that?”

“Pills exploit. I’ll be banned after this.”

“Even though it’s a bunch of Wires your saving?”

“Because it’s a bunch of humans I’m saving. Peter is insane to think this is okay, and I’ll do my damnedest to stop him.”

She unleashed some magic-tipped arrows onto her attackers, and suddenly, they started shooting small bolts of lightning from themselves to their teammates, gradually killing each other off until no one was left. In under two minutes, Hazel had no more enemies standing.

Unfortunately, that fact just made her shock that much more palpable when Dibs spoke in her headphones.

“Shit!” he exclaimed, and Hazel glanced over to his position, dismayed at what she encountered there.

“DayBender, what are you doing?”

Since she had introduced herself, DayBender had never spoken in her earpiece, always opting for written text. Now Hazel understood why.

“You stole my Trifecta name,” Peter leveled at Hazel as he dispatched Dibs with a tongue of flame.

Hazel didn’t answer for a minute, her avatar hanging motionless a short distance from her goal.

DayBender.

Sophie had been right – Hazel shouldn’t have trusted him. It was too convenient.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Hazel laughed out loud, hysteria taking hold. Vee had been right, too – Hazel was too trusting.

Everything in her wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. Though she tried to tamp it down, her heart kicked into high gear, and her head swam.

What would happen if she played dumb? Her name was not Hazel in the Trifecta. What if Peter didn’t know for sure who had stolen Tryptech88? What if he was just mad because she stole his name?

“I underestimated you, didn’t I, Hazel?”

There goes that, Hazel huffed, her legs trembling, and Peter continued.

“You’re actually trying to stop me. You know it’s pointless, right? I would say I was shocked, that you’re actually not the coward I thought you were, but I guess you’re not really risking anything, are you? No Wire, no risk?”

Still, she said nothing. Part of her wanted to beg, to plead that he would just let her go. She would leave Trifecta and go win her tournament. Not that they could win now, though, because with Dibs and Pender209 dead, and with DayBender a farce, Hazel’s team was not really a team. It was just Hazel and Sophie.

“You aren’t at all concerned about that agent who follows you around?”

Hazel held her breath. Stay the hell away from Rel, she screamed internally.

“My plan is going to happen either way, but since you pissed me off, I think I’ll take out Mr. Martins before I set the rest in motion.”

Not if I free all those kids right now! Hazel raged silently. Of course he wanted to intimidate her into stepping back. Instead, he had multiplied the urgency of her task.

She took a few seconds and prepped the code. Based on her first interaction with the glitch, she programmed the code into the form of a sword. She had seen that she could pass the code through that way.

“Think about what you’re doing, Hazel,” Peter urged. “…who you are fighting here. You’re confused. It was that agent – he confused you. And Sophie. I can’t get to Sophie anymore somehow, but I have the information for your ‘Rel Martins’ right on the screen in front of me. And…I’m typing in the command.”

Though Hazel tried not to listen to Peter, she froze for a minute at the words. It wasn’t true. Surely, Peter wouldn’t actually kill someone in cold blood. Take a risk that people might die? Sure. But actually pull the trigger?”

“That’s it,” Peter asserted. “Martins is gone.”

Hazel shook her head. Until she had some other confirmation, she wouldn’t believe it. Wasn’t Peter the worst of liars? Muting her headset, Hazel spoke aloud in the room. “Sophie, did you deploy it?” Hazel was doing her best not to collapse. Between her terror for herself and her terror for Rel, most of her strength had fled…Martins is gone, echoed in her mind. She pushed down her fear, refusing to examine it until she was out of the game and away from Peter.

Sophie informed Hazel as she met her success. “Deploying…right…now! Done! Whoop!”

Unfortunately, Hazel couldn’t share her friend’s enthusiasm, though the intellectual recognition of a positive development settled itself in Hazel’s mind.

“I need you to step out now,” she instructed Sophie calmly. “We’re not going to win, and I need you to do some things.”

“Say something to me,” Peter was complaining. “Stop ignoring me!”

“I need you to go get a handheld,” Hazel continued her directions, “and try to send Rel a message. While you’re at it, find out if the other exploits worked, but Rel is priority.”

Unexpectedly, a flash of fire rained down on Hazel, and only her lightning reflexes helped her get her shield up to deflect most of the blow. Peter was attacking her.

“…and you don’t even show me respect enough to talk to me after you betrayed me.”

Hazel ignored Peter, inching closer to the glitch. Though he kept up his complaining, he also managed to continue his attacks, and Hazel found herself losing health quicker than she could afford. Apparently, she had to fight back.

With her exploit uncoupled, her attacks fell with greater effect, not spread among a large group but concentrated on one character. Peter and Hazel stood alone together at the foot of a dark hill, and she charged the next set of arrows with magic that would drain Peter until he died. Like Hazel, Peter had no help in the game, and he did not hold as much healing power as Hazel. She let the arrows fly, and a few seconds later, Peter’s power began to wane. He growled into the headset.

“Don’t do it, Hazel. It’s too late for Martins,” Peter insisted, his voice low, almost pleading. “But I can still save you from all this. Come back to me. When I deploy the failsafe, I will be the safest place in the world. I just finished watching mobs attack and destroy all the people you recruited to help. You’ve already failed. If you’re still out there trying to stop me, you’re putting yourself in danger.”

“Danger?” she wondered dazedly. Her terror for Rel rendered her shellshocked, and the question squeaked out. He’s lying about Rel…Rel will answer Sophie, and I can focus…Then Peter’s other words registered - a failsafe. Her stomach churned, nausea and butterflies battling for dominance. Where is Sophie? her mind demanded. Hazel needed to process the concept of a failsafe, of exactly what that would entail and what would result, but she couldn’t concentrate until she received confirmation from Sophie that Rel was okay. “What failsafe, Peter?”

“Things are going to be dicey for a while,” Pete continued, “and I can take care of you.”

“Okay, but first tell me about the failsafe.”

“It’s not the way I wanted to do things – the Crash was bad enough – but you’ve taken away my other options.”

Another Crash? “But if you stopped my team, you don’t need a failsafe,” Hazel coaxed. “Surely things won’t turn out so badly for you – everything you planned will happen. And I will come to you, Peter. There’s no one alive who could protect me better than you if that’s what you wanted to do.” Another Crash. Her father, hanging lifeless from coiled rebar, sliding down a mound of debris, slamming into the ground after gravity ripped him from Hazel’s arms, her hair snagged in metal spikes in the rubble.

It had been her fault. And it was her fault again. And Rel was her fault. Martins is gone, the words reverberated again, and Hazel tried to contradict them. Rel is fine. When the single phrase didn’t snuff out her horror, she began an internal mantra to manage her anxiety. He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine…She had to hold it together. She could change things this time.

“And I do want to protect you, Hazel, as long as I can trust you to put down your weak attempt to stop the Deconstruction. You can’t possibly understand how vital this is.”

“You’re right, Pete. Of course, you’re right. I can’t understand. I’m sure there are a million things you can see that are beyond me.” Like how you are justified in risking the lives of thousands of people.

“So, you’ll come to my apartment. You’ll have to quit the tournament – I’m sorry.”

“There are more important things than the tournament.” He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. She continued her internal mantra to keep herself upright.

If he suspected her, Peter did not let on. Unfortunately, Sophie’s voice broke in a moment later, and Hazel lost her battle with self-restraint.

“We can’t get an answer from Rel,” Sophie informed Hazel as she reentered the room. “…or from the other players.”

Hazel’s world stopped – every dust mote in the air, the rotation of the planet, the beating of her heart – all ceased.

Through a fog, Hazel processed the vision of Sophie where she dashed across the images, the rendering speeding around her as she passed through it. Before Sophie could reach her, Hazel’s legs gave way, and when the world started again a moment later, Hazel found herself collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Sophie wrapped her arms around her best friend. “Rel didn’t answer, Hazel. That isn’t a sure thing.”

“Peter said Rel is ‘gone.’ He said it’s ‘too late for Martins.’ Do you think Pete wouldn’t do it? Do you think he’s too good of a person, if he were angry?”

“Hazel, there is a big difference -”

Her chest heaving, Hazel turned to face her friend. “Between knowingly sinking hundreds of innocent people into comas, not knowing with confidence that they would live past the initial collapse? Between destroying the world economy, knowing that millions will die as a result? Or sending a line of code that would cause one man to cease breathing? How exactly is the last one the most heinous of those acts, so completely unthinkable?”

“Because he can justify the other ones.”

“If he thinks that he is the most important man in the world, and if he thinks that I am indispensable to him, he would do what he needs to make sure I am with him. He owes it to the world.”

Blinking, Sophie paused the exchange. She didn’t necessarily believe Hazel was right, but the line of thinking was at least credible with Peter Donovan. “Just wait a little while before you give up hope,” Sophie begged.

“At this point, Sophie, it’s not about hope. It’s about the fact that Peter Donovan has a failsafe to destroy the Bridge.”

Closing her eyes, Hazel pulled her thoughts into focus. Everything in her wanted to run far, far away and hide. Cry her eyes out until she couldn’t cry anymore, and then lie down and never move again.

“I have to go to Peter,” Hazel moaned. “When he realizes that you guys stopped the sabotage of the satellites, he’s going to unleash something so much worse than his original plan.”

“The failsafe.”

“The failsafe, which is so much worse than the Crash because so many more people have a Wire than had a Pin. If he does it, it could kill hundreds of millions.” It was not in Hazel’s nature to try to intervene, but she couldn’t let Peter do it. She should have seen earlier – she should have stopped the whole situation before it started. She should never have given Peter the idea for fixing what had broken all those years before.

Refocusing on the Rendering, Hazel recognized Peter’s avatar, grown impatient with Hazel’s silence and unleashing attack after attack on her. Most likely, he thought she had already left for his apartment, and he was finding some sick pleasure in kicking her out of her precious game.

Hazel shouldn’t have done it. If she had just left as he believed, he would never have suspected her confliction, but for the first time that she could remember, Hazel wasn’t hurt or scared or a coward. Hazel was furious.

With a quick adjustment to her mega, she took aim. Every object within view of Peter erupted in lightning, shooting jagged flashes of brilliance in a dagger across the span to Peter’s avatar. The crimson figure glowed like the sun for a moment before erupting in a ball of light.

“Dad, Vee, someone come in here.” Sophie yelled through the comm.

“There’s no time,” Hazel huffed, pushing Sophie to arm’s length “I have to go – now.”

“Just wait, Hazel. Talk to them. Maybe they have some ideas.”

“Ideas take time. I’m going to stop the failsafe, and I have to get to his apartment to do that.”

“Let the professionals do it!” Sophie grabbed her friend’s hand, but Hazel was stronger and pulled away.

“I love you, Sophie, but I have to go. I can stop him; I can distract him. Send Vee and her people there after me, and maybe they can actually fix it. There are millions of people like my dad out there – like me. I can’t leave them to the same fate.”

Before Sophie could protest again, Hazel had fled the room. Vee rushed in a minute later as Sophie was running out to find her.

“She’s gone to Peter’s!” Sophie wailed. “Somebody has to stop her.”

“Dear God. Why would she do that?”

“He told her he has a failsafe, and she seems to think that it will be like the Crash.”

Vee blew out a breath. “With so many more people Wired – that would be devastating. Why would he do that?”

“Because he’s an egotistical ass!” leveled Sophie. “What other justification do we need to look for at this point? I’m sure all his reasons seem very good to him, and he’s so smart and charming, I’m sure he can convince a whole lot of other people that he’s right. But Hazel was actually the right one. His message can’t possibly justify his method in this. No matter how hard he tried. He thinks he’s smarter and better than everyone else, and that he can’t possibly communicate to all of us idiots the validity of his rationale. So, it’s irrelevant why. We just need to save Hazel and stop this failsafe, if it exists.”

“Let’s go,” Vee agreed.

As they rushed into the lobby, Tomás made his way out of his office. “Where are you going?” he worried. “The last satellite hasn’t been fixed. Where’s Hazel?”

“Hazel has gone to Peter,” Vee explained.

Tomás stared at the ladies. “Why would she do that? Was she lying to us?”

“No, Dad. He has a failsafe. It’s another Crash – a force stop. She’s gone to distract him until Vee can get there to stop it.”

“Not like I know how to do that outside of arresting Peter,” Vee asserted. “…and if he’s any good – which he is – he’s probably set it up to automatically deploy.”

“I will send some of my techs with you. But, Sophie, surely you don’t need to go.”

Sophie leveled a look at her father. “I’m not going to sit here and do nothing.”

When Vee glanced at the panic on the face of Tomás, her mind whirled with thought. “Sophie,” she began.

“No, I’m going.”

“Yes, but I think you might be able to help another way,” Vee offered. “Did Hazel ever tell you about the Queue car accident where she met Rel?”

“Yeah, lower east side. Across from the bookstore.”

Vee smiled. I see why they are friends. “Rel and I think that the server there is the most important server.”

“Maybe the one giving access to the North American satellite?” Sophie queried.

“Or the one controlling this failsafe. Either way, it’s important. I think we need to shut it down somehow. You know where it is. Take some of your dad’s techs and go see if you can get it powered off or disconnected.”

Everything within Sophie wanted to protest, but when she peered at the hopeful expression on her father’s face, she relented. He had been through so much – she wouldn’t put him through more. “I’ll do it,” she agreed, and her heart swelled when Tomás reached a grateful hand to clasp Vee’s. “But, Vee…you have to save my girl.”

“Your girl, Rel’s girl…believe me. I am going to do everything I can. If I get there in time, I will save her or die trying.”

“Hopefully not that,” Sophie allowed softly. “My dad needs you…you know, to help him in his case.” Vee and Tomás both shot sour looks at Sophie, and the younger woman flashed a knowing smile. “Let’s go. Quit wasting time.”

Like she had lit a fire, action began to spread. Several techs made their way into the lobby, and Tomás split them between Vee and Sophie. The whole crew, minus Tomás who would monitor and offer aid from his extremely connected office, crowded into the elevators and hustled to a couple of waiting cars.

Scrolling through her recent messages, Vee landed on the one ostensibly from Rel. Rel, are you still there? Is your Wire disconnected?

For several seconds, no response, and Vee began to worry. This typing on a keypad is stupidly slow. Do you know how I use the voice comm on here?

Relief washed over Vee, and she voice-linked to Rel’s handheld. A moment later, she heard his enthusiastic greeting. “So much better!” he gushed. “It looks like my Wire is disconnected, though there is something weird going on with my Neurex. Connected but not connected? I don’t know. I think it’s safe to come back to Dragnet.”

“You need to get to Peter’s, Rel.”

For several seconds, silence pulsed through the connection. “Why Peter’s? Where is Hazel?”

It was Vee’s turn for silence. Finally, she gave Rel the news. “Peter told Hazel he has a failsafe, something that will create another Crash. And since that would kill millions more than last time, Hazel has decided that she has to interfere…”

Rel couldn’t move as his vision went blank. “Peter told her the worst possible truth, and then she went to him,” Rel managed. “You realize what that means.”

“He won’t hurt her, Rel. Not at first. I think she has time.”

“It means that he’s not letting her out unless his plan is successful. It means that if she manages to stop him and doesn’t kill him – which she is not capable of doing – he will probably kill her.”

Concerned, Vee chewed her lip. “If you rush in there, guns blazing, Peter will use her against you.”

During the conversation, Rel had made it out of his apartment, down the stairs, and into a Queue car. “I’ll be careful,” he hummed, forcing his voice lower in an attempt to rein himself in. “Just get there as soon as you can.” He was almost thirty minutes closer to Donovan’s than Vee was.

“Right behind you,” she promised.

+++++++++++++++

Sophie stood with a group of five techs, staring in confusion at a giant server farm.

“What do you think, Enzo?” she prompted.

“We can run a quick diagnostic. If this is the failsafe, and with Peter Donovan in charge, it might be set to deploy if we tamper with it.”

“Get on it,” she ordered, offering him a subtle smile as their eyes met. “You are the best, Enzo. If anyone can do this, you can.”

“I know what I can do,” he nodded as he pulled out a small case with a computer inside, “so I’ll let you know if that’s true in a few minutes.”