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  “Like what?”

  “A tank maybe.”

  Kilgore’s mind races. Yes. There’s the first glimmer of an idea forming in his mind. He looks at Will. “Your defensive wall—it looked like an SUV, but can it look like something else?”

  Will nods. “Sure, but I see where you’re going, and it’s no use. I can set it up as an armored vehicle, but even if a Gray Eagle did come along, it’s just going to blast it to pieces.” He pushes out his lower lip. “All we’ll have done is lose my wall.”

  Kilgore smiles. “But your wall mod is a structure, right? So you don’t have to be right next to it. You can put it anywhere, deploy it remotely.”

  “Yes, up to a point. But I still don’t see—”

  “Because you can’t see what I can see,” Kilgore interrupts. “Listen, the barricade’s defensive wall is buried deep inside the cars. But the cars are just graphics: images linked to the wall, right? I can see beyond their surface. I can pinpoint a position, and I’m pretty certain I could deploy your wall inside the barricade.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I can do it,” Kilgore says. “I’m sure I can.”

  Will nods slowly. “The game will think someone is trying to breach the barricade.”

  “Sure. With an armored vehicle.” He gives Will a broad smile. “The game’s defense will go nuts. There’ll be Gray Eagles everywhere, and that’s not even the best part.” He pauses, enjoying the moment. “They won’t be able to destroy your wall straightaway because I’ll bury it deep in the barricade.”

  Will takes a step closer to Kilgore and punches him on the arm. “You did good, k—I mean Sarge. Let’s do it.” Will shifts his grip on his rifle and goes to work on his wrist pad. “I’ll set up the armored vehicle for you. I’ve got a Cougar MRAP configuration all ready to go.”

  Kilgore purses his lips. The Cougar is mine-resistant and ambush protected, but will it be up to the job? “OK. It’s not exactly a tank, but it should work.”

  Will looks up. “It’s the best I’ve got. Here, take it.”

  The mod transfer notification flashes onto Kilgore’s HUD, and he accepts it without hesitation. All thoughts of leaving Will and logging off have gone from his mind. He needs every brain cell he can muster and every ounce of concentration if he’s going to get this right. And he must get this right. This is the solution to the problem. He knows it. He can almost taste the victory on the tip of his tongue. He runs his eyes over the Cougar’s settings. They’re pretty good, but he tweaks a thing or two, switching around the armor shielding to maximize protection from an air strike rather than from an IED.

  “Are you ready?” Will asks, and he can hear the tension in his own voice. This moment has been a long time coming—he can’t wait much longer.

  “Yes. I’m just finishing up,” Kilgore says. He sets the wall to minimal size but maximum strength. It’s vital that it presents the smallest target area possible, and he needs it to hold up under heavy fire for as long as it can.

  Will turns and looks along the length of the barricade. “Where’s the best place? It all looks the same to me.”

  Kilgore saves the mod’s configuration and looks back to the wall of cars. He takes a couple of sidesteps. “I see it. There’s an old truck in there. Looks pretty solid. I should be able to drop it right inside.”

  Will nods. “Sounds good. But listen, my wall has got a pretty short range for remote deployment. You’re going to have to get close to the barricade, and with that HT juice running through it...” He looks at Kilgore. “Are you sure you want to do this? If you tell me how, I can do it myself.”

  Kilgore shakes his head. “No. You can’t do it. This isn’t like throwing a grenade. I need my HUD to fix the exact coordinates.”

  “If you loaned me your HUD, maybe—”

  Kilgore turns on him, cutting him off. “No way, man.” He raises his voice. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Will holds up his hand. “It’s only an idea. No need to flip out.”

  Kilgore shakes his head. “It’s not going to happen. No one can use this HUD like me—no one. And no one is going to take it from me.”

  “Fine, just get on with it, kid. We’re wasting time.”

  Kilgore takes a breath. He knows Will called him kid on purpose, understands the older man is yanking his chain, but it doesn’t make it easier to bear. One of these days, someone is going to put a bullet in the back of Will’s head. Maybe I’ll do it myself, he thinks. But not yet. Right now, they have a problem to solve, and Kilgore is ready. He chooses a position inside the truck at the base of the barricade and fixes the coordinates, transferring them to the defensive wall mod. He checks everything is as it should be and takes a couple of small steps toward the barricade. His HUD shows the high tension writhing through the air just a few feet away. If he gets much closer, he’ll be fried, but at this distance, he’ll be deploying the wall at the very limit of its range. Will it work from here? He frowns, furrowing his brow. No. He has to be sure of his target. He’ll only get one crack at this. He takes a breath and inches forward. He can almost feel the crackle of electricity against his face. But it’s OK. He’s near enough. He concentrates on his HUD and checks the position and orientation of the wall. This is it. One thought is all it takes:

  Deploy.

  DEFENSIVE WALL DEPLOYED

  The old truck in the barricade flickers, and for a split second, Kilgore sees the armored Cougar nestling within it. He puffs out his cheeks and blows out a long breath then takes a few steps back. He turns to Will. “That’s it. It’s in.”

  “Did it go OK? I can’t see it. Could you get close enough to do it right?”

  Kilgore nods. “It’s as good as I could get it. I smacked it down right next to the main wall. The game isn’t showing it right now. I guess it doesn’t know how to render something it’s never seen before.”

  “I guess so,” Will says.

  Kilgore can see the doubt in Will’s eyes. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it won’t work after all. “We’ll know if it’s any good in a minute,” he says.

  Will doesn’t reply.

  “I said, we’ll know in a minute if—”

  But Will cuts him off. “I heard you, but you’re wrong.”

  “What?”

  Will doesn’t reply, he just turns away and breaks into a jog, heading back toward the main road. “Come on!”

  Kilgore follows, matching the older man’s speed easily. “What did I get wrong?”

  “When you said we’d have to wait a minute,” Will says. “We don’t. They’re on their way already.”

  They reach the corner, and Will ducks around it then leans his back against the wall. Kilgore stops by his side, and now he knows why Will ran. His HUD is alive with warnings:

  WARNING: THREAT DETECTED

  MULTIPLE AIRBORNE THREATS

  HOSTILE DRONES INBOUND

  Will edges around the corner so he can see the barricade, and Kilgore follows suit. He doesn’t have to wait long. The drones are coming in fast and high. Kilgore probably wouldn’t be able to see them with his naked eye, but his HUD is showing a formation of five—all of them Gray Eagles.

  Will must be seeing the same information because he whispers, “Yes! We did it.”

  Kilgore hears the excitement in Will’s voice, and he has to smile, although his instincts are telling him to turn and run. There’s a real chance the drones will spot them, and then they’ll be toast. He taps Will on the shoulder. “Listen, we should get the hell out of here.”

  Will takes no notice. “I can’t believe it,” he murmurs. “After all this time, and it was simple.” He looks at Kilgore. “We couldn’t have done it without your HUD. And that was some pretty smart thinking you came up with too.”

  Kilgore shrugs. “I like to solve puzzles, but that’s not the point. Those drones are going to pick us up in a second, and then they’ll target us. We won’t stand a chance. We don’t even have your defensive wall anymore.”


  “Relax, I got your back.”

  “Yeah? How exactly? Because let me tell you, hiding around the corner won’t fool those things.” He points up at the drones, now clearly visible: five sleek cylinders of death swooping down through the sky, homing in on their target with ruthless efficiency.

  Will glances up at the drones then gives Kilgore a stare. “Listen, don’t worry about it. I pay my debts, and that’s all you need to know.” He sees the fear ingrained in the tight lines on Kilgore’s face and lets his own expression soften. “Here’s the first down payment.” He taps at his wrist pad. “Use AIPR0N. Set the shield to level nine. You’ll be OK.”

  Kilgore focuses on the mod’s display panel. “How? I can’t see any options.”

  “You’ll figure it out, a smart guy like you.”

  AIPR0N, set shield mode, Kilgore thinks. Nothing happens. AIPR0N, list commands. Still nothing. Will suddenly stops pressing buttons and looks up to the sky. “Here they come.”

  Kilgore looks up. He can hear the drones now; their engines whine and thrum as they bank toward the barricade on their attack run. His HUD flashes a warning:

  HOSTILE DRONES HAVE ACQUIRED TARGET

  IMMINENT ATTACK: TAKE EVASIVE ACTION

  He reaches out to Will’s chest and grabs hold of his body armor. “How do I set my shield?” he yells.

  But Will’s only reaction is to let a faint smile play across his lips. He looks Kilgore in the eye and says nothing.

  I don’t believe this, Kilgore thinks. He’s testing me, seeing if I can cope under pressure. He takes a sharp breath and hisses, “Go to hell, Will.” He lets go of Will’s armor and steps back from him, retreating farther around the corner. But it won’t help. It’ll take a damned sight more than standing around the corner to keep him out of danger now. He can’t see the drones, but they’re out there and getting closer with every second. Kilgore’s heart hammers in his chest. The building will shelter him from the initial shrapnel and debris, but he’s not sure about the shock wave. And there are five of them. Five! But the number isn’t important—he has a shield. He’s just got to figure out how to use it. He needs to focus, to break it down into logical steps.

  A crackling roar splits the air. The first drone has launched its Hellfire missile.

  The attack has already begun.

  CHAPTER 7

  Catnip

  KILGORE CLOSES HIS EYES. There’s a place, deep within his mind, where it’s always calm and still. He goes there, sometimes, when it pisses him off too much to watch his dad stumbling around the house like a freaking zombie, or back at school, when the teachers had nothing better to do than to get on his back and spout their bullshit all day. But this is different. In the game, his mind is occupied but never still. Christ, that’s the whole point of playing, isn’t it—to keep his mind busy, to keep him from going crazy?

  The explosion from the first Hellfire missile is deafening. Kilgore opens his eyes just in time to see a shroud of smoke and flame billowing down the road, hurling chunks of metal and concrete through the air as if they were no more substantial than dry leaves. The shock wave hammers into him and slams his body back against the wall, pummeling the breath from his lungs. Somehow, Will remains standing at the corner, watching the spectacle. The explosion doesn’t even ruffle his hair. Kilgore shakes his head to clear it, but he’s dazed: his ears ringing, his eyes streaming, his throat burning with the acrid stench of smoke and dust. He feels like he’s been hit by a truck. He coughs to clear his throat, and even that sound seems to come from far away. “I can’t do it!” he yells. “You’ve got to tell me what to do!”

  Will glances back at him and shakes his head as if he’s mildly disappointed.

  Another cough wracks Kilgore’s throat, and he spits on the ground. He works his jaw and tilts his head from side to side as if that will bring his hearing back to normal. It doesn’t help. His ears buzz louder than ever, but even so, there’s no mistaking the distinctive whoosh of another missile launch. “Jesus Christ!” he hisses. Each Gray Eagle carries two Hellfires, so this is probably the first drone launching its second missile. The explosion will just about finish him off, and after that, there could easily be another eight explosions to get through. And there’s always the chance that one of the drones will spot him and Will. With five drones in the air, the game can easily divide the Gray Eagles between attacking the Cougar and hunting down the two men.

  Kilgore feels a howl of frustration building in his chest. He’s got to think. If he doesn’t get AIPR0N working right now, he has the life expectancy of a fly caught on a spider’s web. His only chance is to concentrate his mind, use his HUD, and somehow access the AIPR0N shield. He takes a breath and stares at a nondescript building across the road, focusing on a single brick. He tries to ignore the warnings and displays on his HUD. It helps if he looks through the HUD rather than directly at it. The brick is a dull, red-brown with a darker patch at one side. It’s chipped on one corner, and a web of fine cracks radiates from the damaged area. He studies that brick as though his life depends on it, but he lets a thought slide into his mind. It’s a natural thought, an instinct: just as much a part of him as his voice or the way he walks, Access AIPR0N.

  Immediately, the AIPR0N panel in his HUD lights up:

  THREAT DETECTED: INBOUND HELLFIRE

  RESPONSE?

  Kilgore swallows his excitement. If he jinxes it and loses control of AIPR0N now, he’ll never get it back in time. A Hellfire missile is already hurtling through the air. He takes it one step at a time and gently. He’s got it now. He sees how it works. He mustn’t force it. It’s not like solving a math problem, but more like when you hear an old song and suddenly you realize you know all the words. Shield, he thinks, and no sooner has the thought crossed his mind than AIPR0N responds. He doesn’t even have to look at the display; he understands what the mod is asking him:

  SHIELD LEVEL?

  Nine.

  AIPR0N SHIELD ACTIVATED: LEVEL NINE

  Kilgore smiles. And while the explosion erupts around the corner and the shrapnel rages down the road, he doesn’t feel a thing. “This is incredible,” he whispers. “Just freaking incredible!” He walks over to stand beside Will, and when Kilgore looks around the corner, his jaw goes slack.

  The whole barricade is in flames, but the bulk of the damage is concentrated on the area where he placed Will’s defensive wall mod. A writhing column of black smoke blossoms upward into the sky while all along the barricade, hot gobbets of molten metal dribble down the crushed cars and fall, sizzling to the ground. The remaining drones are circling overhead, assessing the damage. Perhaps somewhere, within the game’s AI, a small subroutine is trying to figure out why the armored vehicle hasn’t already been obliterated. After two Hellfire strikes, the vehicle should be no more than a few shreds of scrap metal sitting on a patch of scorched earth.

  Will acknowledges Kilgore with a nod then goes back to watching the flames. “I see you switched your shield on.”

  “Huh! No thanks to you, man.”

  Will lets out a dry laugh. “I knew you’d figure it out—bright fella like you.” He looks at Kilgore. “Only took you a few seconds. That’s not bad, not bad at all.”

  Compared to who? Kilgore wonders. Have other players been drawn in by the promise of rich rewards? He could ask, but what would be the point? He’s met plenty of assholes like Will. They never own up to their mistakes, and they see nothing wrong with stepping on other people. Will probably reckons himself a maverick: a brave soul who stops at nothing when it comes to achieving his goals. What a jerk. Still, he’s met his match this time. Kilgore watches Will from the corner of his eye, taking in the look of savage glee on the man’s face. The flickering light from the flames glints in Will’s eyes as he watches the inferno engulf the barricade. And Kilgore makes himself a promise: Whatever happens, I won’t be a pawn in your freaking game plan. Better to log out and start again than be taken for a sucker.

  “Look,” Will says. “Th
ey’re coming round for another pass.” He chuckles under his breath. “I knew it would work. That Cougar is like catnip to those bastards.”

  Kilgore keeps a straight face. He’s in no mood for Will’s wisecracks. “We’ve got to step back,” he says. “The drones are lower this time. They’ll target us for sure.”

  Will shakes his head. “Give me some credit. Do you think I’d stand here and wait to get blown away?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you’ve got a death wish or something, but I’m at least going to get out of their line of sight.”

  Will suddenly grabs him by the arm, holds him tight. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Kilgore squares up to him. “Get your hands off me,” he growls.

  “Calm down,” Will says, but at least he lets go of Kilgore’s arm. “We don’t need to go anywhere. The drones can’t target us. They can’t even see us.”

  “What? You think we’re invisible? Well, I’ve got news, man, I can see you sure enough.”

  Will sighs as if he’s talking to a troublesome child. “The drones are part of the game. You, on the other hand—well, I hate to break this to you, but you’re a real boy, Pinocchio.”

  Kilgore forms his fingers into a fist. One more patronizing word from Will’s lips, and he’s going to shut his smug mouth for him.

  But Will has the sense to soften his tone. “Think about it. The drones don’t see in the same way we do. They’re part of the game, and as far as the game is concerned, we just dropped off the map.”

  “How?”

  “Christ, I don’t know how AIPR0N works. I just paid for the damned thing.” He pauses and looks away for a moment, remembering. “And believe you me, I paid plenty.”

  Kilgore chews at the inside of his cheek. There’s no denying that the drones have left them alone so far, and Will’s explanation is the only one on offer. He has no choice but to take his word for it. For now.