The Revelation of Eden Pruitt, page 15
Asher would take on the identity of King George, who’d earned his seat at the table the same year The Cage debuted, and was known for raking in money like the supposed tyrant after which he was named. He had hot nights and cold nights, much more of the former than the latter. When he was hot, he was unbeatable. Last year, he’d been cold. Hence, the impressive pot of cryptocurrency Manny had taken to the bank. The two would gun for one another. They just needed to ensure the actual King George wasn’t in attendance. Jericho made a call to Harlan, who made a call to the FBI, which led to a tip-off. By tomorrow morning, someone on the king’s bankroll would send him a warning.
Lie low. Go dark. For a week, at least.
Halloween was tomorrow, which meant Asher would be good to go. He went to work creating a newly minted avatar for Eden with forged credentials.
“Who do you want to be?” he asked, his fingers poised over his laptop. They’d been at it for several hours now, and he had yet to say a single condescending thing.
Eden’s mind rewound to the previous Halloween in San Diego with Erik, before her world and her understanding of that world had been flipped on its head. Erik had gone as Einstein. She, Marie Curie—a scientist from France so famous she was enshrined at the Pantheon. Two of the greatest minds of their time, a Halloween power couple.
“Madame Curie,” she suggested.
Asher ran a search. The username was up for grabs. He went to work creating her identity—an up-and-comer with a clean track record and an upward trending score. Just high enough to legitimize her presence. King George would bet big, driving up the stakes. He would keep Manuel Van Cooper on his toes, whetting his appetite with signs of a potential cold streak. Madame Curie would work her way to Big Betty. By the time she arrived, the pot would be big enough to pay off the debt Van Cooper’s mother had wracked up in medical bills. He wouldn’t be able to walk away. But he wouldn’t win. Neither would King George. Victory would belong to the newcomer, putting Manuel Van Cooper at Eden Pruitt’s mercy.
They went over the plan.
Again and again.
Until a knock sounded on the door and a lady from the newsroom peeked inside. “Dayne wanted me to pass along a message. The location of the prisoners has been successfully leaked.”
“Excellent,” Lark said, clicking the end of her pen. “I’ll get in touch with Amir, make sure his ears are perked. We’ll want to know as soon as that leak hits the NSA’s radar.”
The lady left.
Nairobi stretched her arms tall toward the ceiling and yawned.
“It’s late,” Jericho said, checking his watch. “If we want to grab dinner, we’ll have to go now before the commissary closes.”
Their meeting was officially adjourned.
Eden stayed behind to go at Cleo’s pace. By the time they arrived, Francesca was already seated at a table with Nairobi and Jericho, slouched over her tray as she followed Eden and Cleo with her good eye.
Eden helped her friend get situated at a table on the opposite end of the commissary, then collected their food—meatloaf, corn, and mashed potatoes, all of which had been languishing beneath a warmer.
Cleo made a face as Eden handed her a tray and a can of generic soda. “Still no word from Mona?” Cleo asked, leaning close.
Eden checked the gadget in her pocket just to be sure, then shook her head and took a bite of her mashed potatoes.
Cleo cracked open her drink. “So weird,” she said. “It’s not like Mona to be gone all day. You’d think she would have returned our call by now.”
“What are you two whispering about?”
The sudden sound of Asher’s voice was so jarring, Eden nearly choked on her potatoes. She and Cleo broke apart.
He stood towering above them with no tray, just a large bag of Xtra Hot Takis and a bottle of Mountain Dew.
Cleo set her can on the table with a click. “About how horrible you are at poker.”
The giant actually smiled. “Mind if I sit?”
“It’s a free country,” Cleo said. “At least, it used to be.”
He parked his Mountain Dew, pulled out a chair, and tore open his bag of Takis. Across the commissary, Francesca glared with such intensity, Eden could feel it like a hot laser beam on the side of her face.
“What’s her deal?” Cleo asked, nodding at the girl with the glass eye.
Asher shoved his hand into the bag. “Seriously?”
Cleo rolled her eyes. “Look. We get it. We shut down your emergency alert system and led the military to your doorstep, but you don’t see Jericho and Lark looking at us like they might sneak into our suite in the middle of the night and suffocate us with our pillows.”
“Jericho and Lark never lived in DC. And Fran is prickly by nature. She takes awhile to warm up to anyone, let alone two people responsible for the deaths of almost everyone she knows.”
His words made Eden want to burrow into the ground and never come out again. She swirled her mashed potatoes with her fork, her appetite obliterated.
Asher leaned back in his chair, lifting the front legs off the ground. “I’d like to know where you learned to play poker like that,” he said to Eden.
Color rose in her cheeks.
Cleo swallowed a bite of meatloaf and scoffed. “I know this might be a mind blowing concept, but just because you’re some sort of cyber wunderkind doesn’t make you superior at everything.”
“That’s an interesting theory.” He popped a Taki into his mouth and studied Eden as he chewed. Interesting, perhaps. But he obviously didn’t subscribe to it.
She suspected her face was turning an incriminating shade of tomato. She cleared her throat. “My dad’s always been obsessed with the World Series of Poker. I started playing with him when I was four.”
“Right. Your dad.” He brought his chair down. “The guy in the CIA. You know, funny thing. I looked him up on our lunch break and there’s no record of him being in the CIA.”
Eden’s underarms broke into a sweat.
“Haven’t you ever heard of witness protection?” Cleo intertwined her fingers above her tray, her tone and expression as combative as Asher’s had ever been. “A person so intricately wrapped up with Karik Volkova’s downfall has a giant target on his back. Any decent father is going to ensure his family doesn’t live the rest of their lives in constant danger.”
Asher ate a few more Takis looking mostly unconvinced.
“What about you?” Eden blurted, desperate to distract him.
“What about me?”
“Why are you so good at poker?”
“I’m obviously not good at poker.”
“Okay, then. Why are you such a cyber genius? According to Cleo, you created the Amber Highway at sixteen. How does that happen?”
He shrugged. “Boredom. A lifetime of neglect. The strong and persistent desire to stick it to my old man.”
“Is he a government official or something?”
Asher chuckled like Eden had just told a funny joke. “He hates anything he can’t control. I always made a point to be one of those things. Then I created the Amber Highway, which can’t be controlled by anyone. Not even me.”
Cleo scooped a bite of corn. “Why the daddy issues, Ash?”
He lowered his eyebrows. So far, Eden had only ever heard Francesca call him Ash, and they’d known each other for years. “There are so many whys, where do I even start?”
“With the main one.”
“He killed my mother.”
Cleo and Eden’s attention collided. Asher’s father killed his mother? This was Cassian’s story. Cassian. The mere thought of his name pierced her like a sword. She needed to get him out. She would do whatever it would take.
“How?” Cleo asked.
Eden coughed. “Cleo!”
She held up her palms. “What?”
Asher rested the bag of Takis in his lap and twisted open the Mountain Dew. “Didn’t your mom ever teach you manners?”
“Powerful women don’t typically get to where they are by prioritizing politeness.”
Asher tipped his Mountain Dew in concession. Or maybe approval.
Eden wasn’t sure she agreed. Dr. Beverly Randall-Ransom had been perfectly polite and accommodating when she welcomed Eden into her home.
“How’d you become part of the Resistance?” Eden asked, eager to move along. She didn’t want to dwell on Asher’s daddy issues. Not when they were so similar to Cassian’s.
He took a long, lazy drink, his eyes trained on hers, as if deciding whether to answer.
“Did they recruit you or something?” she pressed. Eden had to imagine the creator of the Amber Highway would be a hot commodity to such a ragtag rebellion.
“I like to say we found one another. Our purposes aligned.”
“You knew about the Monarch?”
“Oh, yeah.” His expression darkened. “His whole corrupt empire. I’m very eager to tear it down.”
Cleo lifted her soda. “To aligned purposes.”
“To Oswin Brahm’s demise.” He tapped his bottle against her can. “May it be as agonizing as he deserves.”
That night, in the privacy of their suite, Eden continued to study the ins and outs of the game. She learned and memorized strategy from the very best poker players throughout history. She learned and memorized everything she could about their target—Manuel Van Cooper. All of it was a welcome distraction from the dagger in her heart that was Cassian’s absence. But when her head hit the pillow of her too-soft king-sized bed, he stood front and center in her dreams. Like Asher in a chair, there was no space he didn’t occupy.
The next morning—on Halloween Day—Eden and Cleo still hadn’t heard a peep from Mona. Cleo tried reaching out a few more times, but not even Twig responded to their pings. They could do nothing but assume he’d delivered the message. Mona had found a way to send that message to Cleo’s mom, and now—hopefully—that message was en route to Eden’s parents.
After breakfast, they headed to the boardroom and there met a conference table full of somber faces.
Eden’s heart plummeted. “What’s wrong?”
Even as she asked it, she knew. Amir must have figured out the truth. He must have sent a warning and now everyone here knew, too. It’s what she’d been bracing for, her existence in Alexandria marked with pins and needles. The Monarch knew who Eden was. The government had to know who Eden was. Amir worked for that government. Which meant it was only a matter of time until the Resistance discovered who Eden was. They must have finally figured it out.
She took a step back, her muscles tensing. She would not be poisoned. She would not be shoved into a refrigerator where she would lose her autonomy.
“The community in Minneapolis is gone,” Francesca said, without even a hint of animosity in her tone.
The tension in Eden’s body leaked away. So did the blood in her face. “What do you mean, it’s gone?”
“They’re not there,” Lark replied, her arms aquiver with repressed fury.
“Dayne sent another one of his correspondents earlier this morning,” Asher said. “When the correspondent arrived, the place was completely cleaned out.”
Cleo sank into the nearest chair.
Jericho scratched his goatee. “There wasn’t a trace of life anywhere.”
Eden’s heart thumped. She’d sent Barrett and Violet there. She thought it would be a safe place to take refuge until the National Guard moved out of the city. But if that off-the-grid community was gone, then where were Barrett and Violet?
“What about Chicago?” Cleo asked.
“What about Chicago?” Francesca replied.
Beside her, Asher peered suspiciously.
“If the community in Minneapolis is gone, maybe other communities like it are gone, too.”
“Dayne sent correspondents to Minneapolis because Minneapolis went silent,” Asher said. “He has no reason to check on Chicago.”
Eden and Cleo exchanged an uneasy glance. Chicago had also gone silent.
“This has to be related to the toxin,” Jericho said. “The National Guard sweeps in. The city goes on lockdown. Suddenly, the community there is gone?”
Eden tried to wrap her mind around it. An entire community like this one. AWOL. “What do we think happened to them?”
“The Great Winnowing,” Lark spat, her voice a simmer.
“So that means … they’re all dead?”
Lark didn’t answer.
Nobody did.
Never had the absence of words spoken such volumes.
25
The world was silent. Not just quiet, but a complete absence of sound as Eden stood on an empty street corner, staring at herself in the reflection of a storefront window. Or rather, staring at her avatar, Madame Curie—the younger version, with her honey brown hair pulled into a frizzy updo. She wore a black pioneer dress—full-length and high-collared with buttons and bell sleeves. Beneath, a pair of Victorian lace-up boots.
She reached inside the front pocket of her frock and wrapped her hand around three golden coins, each one embedded with a unique code. With a deep breath, she took a step toward the door, where a holographic coin floated above the handle. She removed its twin and slotted it into place.
The street disappeared.
So did the door.
The absence of noise, too. The unnatural silence was replaced by the frantic beat of techno music and the deep throbbing of a bass. Eden was standing on the edge of a dance floor. A strobe light flashed upon a gyrating mass of avatars ranging from strange to frightening, their movements frozen in blinking snippets of light. Nearby, a giant tigress of a woman, complete with a tiger’s tail, twerked on the bar to whistles and catcalls.
It was a Halloween party unbound by physics and nature. None of it was real. And yet, it felt real, which made the bizarreness even more bizarre—this living, breathing virtual reality that pulsed with manic energy.
“Welcome to Club Mirage,” someone shouted, a figure standing beside her. Neither male nor female. Not even human, but a mythical creature with talons and feathers. “And happy Halloween!”
Here she was, standing inside the biggest nightclub in the metaverse on one of the biggest nights of the year, second only to New Year’s Eve. It was fully immersive and fully legal, except for one small thing. Club Mirage had a parasite. That parasite was The Cage. Only gamblers with a high enough ranking knew how to get there. Thanks to Asher, Madame Curie was in the know.
Eden skirted around the sweating, shimmying mass toward the back doors. She let herself out into an empty courtyard. The night air felt cool. The music thumped through the walls as she walked toward a garden maze, all the way to a neglected bench in a forgotten corner overgrown by weeds. She sat in the center of the bench, and there—to her left, ingrained in the wood—was the outline of an amber lotus leaf. Eden traced it with her pointer finger and another holographic coin appeared, floating in the air like a tiny, circular ghost. Just like before, she pulled its match from her pocket, slotted it into place, and the music went away.
The garden, too.
She was still sitting on the bench, but the bench was on a stage in a silent theater, spotlighted beneath a bright glow that turned everything beyond the light’s reach into black nothingness. There were no props, other than the bench she sat on and a freestanding door several feet away, inside the spotlight’s halo. Standing in front of it was another avatar. This one seven feet tall, whose silver skin was patterned with scales. It stood with its hands clasped, staring into the middle distance like it couldn’t see Eden nearby.
Only when she stood did the towering creature notice her, its eyes as silver as its skin.
She cleared her throat. “I’m here to play.”
Her voice echoed like it would inside a cavernous, empty hall.
The creature beckoned her closer.
When she came, red laser beams shot out from its silver eyes—its retinas a scanner, collecting her virtual ID. According to Asher, her true identity didn’t matter. She could be a ninety-five-year-old peeping Tom for all anyone cared. She could have ten more avatars waiting in the wings for a variety of illicit purposes. What mattered was Madame Currie’s track record—her ability to play and pay up when she lost. Thanks to Asher, that was solid.
The red lasers blinked green.
Her virtual ID had been approved.
The creature opened the door with its large, scaly hand and a brand-new world opened before her. A scene straight from the Bellagio. A world with its own distinct noises. The chiming of slot machines. The chatter of spinning roulettes. The rolling of dice. The shuffling of cards. The clinking of chips. The twittering hum of multiple conversations unfolding at once, interrupted by the sporadic shouts of celebration and ire.
Eden walked past blackjack tables manned with dealers—more androgynous than Francesca—dressed as fancy vampires in black tuxedos. According to Asher, these were not humans. They were avatar bots, owned and operated by The Cage. She kept walking until she reached the special wing where the high rollers played. There, all the way in the back, on a raised dais, closed in by golden stanchions and red velvet rope, was the Mecca of all gambling tables—Big Betty.
The dealer stood at the table distributing cards to two participants.
Captain Jack Sparrow and King George. The latter sat in a regal robe and crown, stacking and restacking his chips, letting them fall through his fingers with a staccato click-click-click. Tonight, he was planning to lose more than he would win, thanks to the deep pockets of Harlan Wallace. Word needed to spread. The Royal Brute of Great Britain was cold. If Manuel Van Cooper wasn’t already planning on visiting Big Betty, they hoped the rumors would entice him.
As if sensing her stare, King George made eye contact.
