I rose woodenly to my feet, my heart racing. I didn’t want to believe him, but somehow it all made sense. Camelot’s Honor was the same company who’d trapped us in Dragon Ops last spring. They’d be the only ones who even knew Ikumi existed to begin with. Had Admiral Appleby really just been trying to keep her safe?
“But wait!” Lilli protested. “We saw a video of Ikumi. She was asking for our help.”
“Did you? Or did you only think you did?” Josh asked. “Remember, videos are easy to fake. Especially if they come from a trusted source.” He gave us a meaningful look.
I frowned, my mind whirling. Did he mean…? But that was crazy! Impossible.
“Yano?” my sister whispered, clearly coming to the same conclusion. “You’re saying Yano is working for Camelot’s Honor?”
I felt like I was going to be sick. My mind flashing back to every encounter we’d had with the AI dragon. How he’d tracked us down through Ikumi’s in-game account, shown us the video, told us we were the only ones who could help. And, of course! He needed someone to get him into the game—which we did by winning the beta test. And he needed someone no one would suspect—even Ikumi herself.
All this time I’d been freaking out about Atreus. When the real threat came from an entirely different AI dragon who had played us like fools. Yano had been so concerned about rescuing Ikumi, and we never thought to ask ourselves why. After all, AIs don’t have friends. They don’t have feelings.
But they did have programming. Evidently someone had reprogrammed him to track down Ikumi—by any means necessary. And we had fallen for it, hook, line, and joystick.
I closed my eyes. “Why didn’t anyone tell us this before now?”
“Are you kidding? Grandpa’s guys thought you were working for the enemy. You were hanging out with that AI, doing everything it said. That’s why they went after you in real life, trying to stop you. It wasn’t until I went to Grandpa and told him you guys cared about this girl and were just trying to help that he realized what must really be going on.”
I couldn’t believe it. All this time, we thought they were the bad guys. When it was actually the three of us working for the enemy.
“So what now?” I asked fearfully. “Where is Yano? Does he have Ikumi already?”
“Yes. After you broke through the gate, Yano crashed the game. That’s why you disconnected. Once he had you out of the way, he swooped in and convinced Ikumi to come with him. That he’d take her to you. My guess is he planned to take her from the game entirely. But your little DoS attack locked them in, just as it kept everyone else out.”
“So they’re still in the game?”
“At least for now.”
Hope rose inside me. “So we still have a chance,” I exclaimed. “We can still save her.”
“Maybe. If we act fast. It won’t be easy. But we can try.”
“We?” Lilli asked, turning to Josh, raising an eyebrow. He blushed.
“If you’ll have me,” he said, looking directly at me.
A small part of me still wanted to say no. But I managed to push it away. Ikumi needed us. Now was not the time to refuse help from anyone. Not even from my archenemy.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
Team assembled, we headed off to find Yano and Ikumi. First stop? Admiral Appleby’s virtual fortress again, where Josh could access advanced game controls that could pinpoint Yano and Ikumi’s whereabouts. At first I worried it would take too long to get there, especially since Josh didn’t have wings and Atreus was still MIA. But Josh assured us that wouldn’t be a problem.
“I have my home base set there,” he explained. “I’ve had it there for years, mostly so I can visit Mr. Donkey Kong easily. I can go ahead and warp there now, then use my summon spell to bring the rest of you over. From there, we can portal anywhere we need to go in the game.”
“Why didn’t you do that last time?” I asked, surprised. “It took Yano and me forever to get there.”
Josh shrugged sheepishly. “Sorry. I guess I just wanted a little extra alone time with your sister.”
I raised my eyebrows. Beside me, Lilli had turned beet red. Josh gave an embarrassed grin, then disappeared, presumably warping back home. Once alone, I turned to my sister.
“Don’t even start!” she warned.
“Aw, come on. You said we could talk about anything…” I grinned.
Before she could answer, everything seemed to go black. For a moment I thought we’d been booted from the game again. But then I popped back up, this time inside Admiral Appleby’s fortress. No longer skinned with Dragon World or a fancy rain forest, it now looked like a regular old soccer field. Which, in a way, was even stranger than the more exotic settings we’d seen. At the very least more realistic.
Josh walked up to me, dribbling the ball. I looked around, not seeing anyone else. For a moment, I got scared. Was this some kind of trap to separate me from the others? Heart pounding, I struggled to my feet.
“Where’s Lilli?” I demanded.
“Relax, Rivera,” Josh said, kicking the ball to me. “She’ll be here soon. I can only use my summon spell once every sixty seconds.”
Oh. Right. That made sense. I
