“I guess that’s good,” I said reluctantly. “I still hate leaving her up here.”
“She’s a computer program,” Yano reminded me. “We don’t really have the same sense of time as you do. She’ll be fine hanging out here until the game officially launches. And then she’ll have more rescuers than she knows what to do with.” He laughed. “Well, not really, since that’s what she’s programmed to know.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said. “And anyway, we’ve got a real rescue to make. Come on.”
I climbed on the dragon’s back, still feeling a little bad about NPC Ikumi. She was standing there by herself, looking so upset. But I forced myself to shake my head and remember my real mission. The real Ikumi. She was waiting for us. And she did have a sense of time and place. Two years she’d been stuck in a video game. And now she was trapped all over again. The sooner we got to her, the better.
Starr climbed on behind me, looking a little nervous. “Does this thing have seat belts?” she asked, searching the dragon’s sides.
“Not exactly—” I started to say. But Yano interrupted.
“I can make some,” he said. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, two matching metal safety belts appeared on his back.
“What?” I cried, unable to believe it. “You couldn’t have done that last time?”
“I could have. You just never asked.”
After we clicked into our belts, Yano sprang off the ground with his hind legs. Starr yelped, gripping me tighter as we launched into the air full force. Soon we were high in the sky, the only sound Yano’s wings flapping in the wind. I waited for that familiar sick feeling to roll through my stomach, but for some reason I felt okay. Maybe I was finally getting used to this. Or maybe it was just the seat belts.
“This is amazing!” Starr cried from behind me. “Dragon riding! Woo-hoo!”
“You want me to have him do a barrel roll?” I teased.
Starr gripped me tighter. “Not if you want to live till your next birthday,” she said with a nervous laugh. Then she poked me in the back. “Now. You were going to tell me your real mission, remember? So get talking.”
“Oh right.” Geez—where to even begin?
After a few false starts, I finally managed to get the story out. About Ikumi and her whole brain emulation procedure to keep her mind alive after her body had died. About her father keeping her digital copy in the game and then letting her out at our request. About their sudden disappearance and about the distress signal Yano had brought to us, proving she’d been kidnapped and was once again trapped in a video game against her will. Though this time by real bad guys and not her dad.
“So now we just have to find her in the game and break her out,” I explained. “Before Admiral Appleby can do… well, whatever it is he plans to do to her.”
I couldn’t see Starr’s face since she was behind me. But when she spoke, her voice sounded troubled. “That’s an insane story,” she said after a moment. “I mean, I knew Admiral Appleby was a little eccentric—a little weird. But actually evil? That just doesn’t feel right.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, surprised.
“I don’t know. It’s just—for one thing, he treats his employees really well. Not like those other tech companies who make them work, like, twenty-four seven. He gives them a great living wage and full health benefits, too. Even the part-timers and the custodial crew,” Starr explained. “I researched all this when trying to find out more for the beta test. Everyone who’s ever worked for him has nothing but nice things to say. And then there’s his charity work, of course. You must know about that.”
I groaned. Charity work? Our evil mastermind was starting to sound like a saint. “What charity work?” I asked.
“Well, for one thing, he founded this special gaming league for people with disabilities,” Starr explained. “You know, like the Special Olympics, but with video games instead of sports? That’s how I found out about him and Mech Ops to begin with. Admiral Appleby likes to say games are a great equalizer. We may not be able to run in real life. But we can fly in his games.” I could hear the pride in her voice.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s pretty amazing, actually.”
“Exactly,” Yano suddenly broke in, surprising me. I hadn’t realized he was listening. “Sounds really amazing. Nice, kind, giving. Which, of course, is the perfect cover for an evil mastermind, isn’t it? Allows him to throw you off track, make you not suspect what he’s truly up to. A girl like Ikumi is worth billions—maybe even trillions. But, hey, throw a few bucks toward charity, and everyone will look the other way.”
“Right.” I guessed that made sense. Though it was kind of disappointing. Couldn’t anyone just be a good human for the sake of being a good human these days? Why did people all have to be so terrible? “Well, whatever. Good guy, bad guy. We need to find Ikumi. Then we can figure the rest out.”
“Now you’re talking!” Yano agreed. “And just in time, too. Hang on to your helmets! We’re about to enter the wormhole.”
Uh, what?
“Wormhole?” I repeated, suddenly a little nervous. “What’s a wormhole?” I prayed it didn’t involve actual worms. I’d seen enough of those back in Dragon Ops, thank you very much, when we fought Wyrm, this giant earth dragon with a lot of squirmy wormy babies.
“A wormhole is like a tube that connects two different parts of the game,” the dragon explained. “It’s a way to fast travel, really.”
Oh. Of course. I felt like an idiot. Big games like Mech Ops always had a way to fast travel. Otherwise you’d end up spending your entire time traveling from one area to another.
“Cool,” I said.
“I found it while I was waiting for you lot to come back,”
