05

To rescue our people, we needed to locate the battery. More to the point, we needed a mole with access to information about the cabal’s operation that could help us narrow down our search. I had one promising idea to explore on that front.

I signed into my account in SD4 to see if I could track down the Keeper of the Moonlight Prism. She wasn’t active in SD4 anymore, having migrated over to SD5. But she’d left me a set of frantic and sad messages, assuming I was among the missing. Just in case I was still alive, though, she’d left me her email address to contact her outside the game, with instructions to use the code phrase “wild scion” to get her attention.

I created a brand-new email account and sent her a message with “wild scion” in the subject line:

Hey there! Wanted you to know that I’m alive. Hoping you can keep that fact confidential. Would love to catch up with you if you could be persuaded. I’m going to leave a session open in SD4 so just ping me if you have time for a chat.

She initiated a chat conversation with me almost immediately.

“Are you absolutely fucking kidding me?” she said. “I am so so here to catch up. I cannot BELIEVE you’re alive! How did you survive?”

“That’s a very long story,” I replied, “which boils down to: I was out of state when it happened.”

“Ohhhh, fuck,” she said. “And now you can’t get back in.”

“Weeellll, let’s just say the borders are more porous than they look.”

“Seriously?”

“I will happily explain everything the next time I see you. But how are you holding up? What’s going on in your world?”

“You mean, what’s going on in my chalet? Because that’s the extent of my world now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—I was about to start a fucking North American tour to promote the new album. And then suddenly the whole Church went into lockdown, and then the relocation happened, and we were thrilled that we survived, of course, but—I haven’t left my chalet in six fucking months. My career is over, it’s just not important to Lonso anymore. But he won’t let me out of here, either, because he still likes having me as his fucking trophy girlfriend. I’m just property to him now. It’s super fucked up. I’m under house arrest and I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Where’s Lonso right now?”

“In Sacramento. He’s mostly in Sacramento now. He’s the Secretary of Defense.”

“Of course he is.”

“Isobel—I can guess you didn’t just get in touch for social reasons. Maybe we can help each other.”

My mind began racing, trying to figure out how to cultivate this opportunity.

Maddy, however, was way ahead of me. She nudged me until I put myself on mute.

“We should break her out,” she told me.

“Uhhh … can we talk about that idea?”

“Sure, but that’s what she wants, you can tell, and if we get her out, you will definitely have her loyalty.”

Fair point. And this was the Keeper of the Moonlight Prism we were talking about, a regular fixture in the top five on the leaderboard. She was probably a few short weeks of training away from understanding simple power morphemes. We could probably recruit her for more than just intelligence.

Plus, fuck Lonso Drake in the eye socket.

I toggled back into the conversation with Jordon and said, “That sounds promising.”

---

Her chalet was devoid of internal spying technology. Among Jordon’s many interests as an engineer pop star, she understood personal security at a deep level, both on the internet and in meatspace. She knew all about all the common methods that domestic abusers used to spy on their partners, for instance. She’d scoured her chalet top to bottom until she was satisfied that no hidden cameras or microphones or sensors were planted anywhere in the building. Made sense—Lonso himself deigned to visit her there, and there was zero chance he would allow surreptitious surveillance of his own activities with her. But she was convinced they could monitor heat signatures in the building from outside if they were sufficiently motivated, to make sure she was alone when she was supposed to be.

Physically speaking, though, she was locked in, and there were ministers of Gorvod posted outside her front door around the clock. The windows were sealed shut; theoretically she could smash one to get out, if she wanted to risk ministers on patrol hearing it and rushing to investigate. She wasn’t allowed down to the cafeteria to socialize with the rabble; instead her food was delivered three times a day. Those were the only moments the door was open, and they reinforced her guard during those moments, as though nervous she would bum rush the door and try to dash off into the courtyard.

Maddy wanted to go retrieve her on her own.

“No reason for both of us to be exposed,” she said. “And you don’t know how to take someone with you during a teleport. It’s next-level difficult and we don’t have time to teach you.”

“If you get ambushed somehow, you’ll need backup,” I insisted. “And Jordon will trust you a lot faster if I’m there to vouch for you.”

“No way. You need to vouch for me in detail well before I go there. I mean, when would we get ambushed? I’m disoriented for just a few seconds after a teleport. You’re still taking thirty seconds to get your bearings back. I could be there and back in thirty seconds. You come with me and you’re just slowing me down and adding a target for them to aim at.”

“Okay but look, I can’t just sit here for thirty seconds while you go completely out of pocket. I can’t handle thirty stretching to forty or longer and I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Are you worried about me, Isobel?” She seemed genuinely surprised.

“Yes, I’m fucking worried about you!”

She allowed herself a small grin, but took my concern seriously. We scavenged through gear and kit in the gym until we turned up a little quadcopter drone that had a GoPro camera we could use. We stripped the elastic band from a headlamp flashlight, and mounted the GoPro where the flashlight had been. The camera would live stream back to the gym via an app on her phone. Finally, we got a signal from the live stream routed up to the projector. I was not a maker or a builder, so 90 percent of this effort was Maddy doing the work and the other 10 percent was me fussing and lending moral support.

We let Jordon know: be ready at midnight. Don’t pack a bag; leave everything behind. Wear super-practical clothes that you might have to live in for days. Have an empty stomach if you can.

At 11:45 p.m., Maddy started psyching herself up to go.

She wanted to wear an all-black uniform to help her disappear, but instead, I insisted she wear my glittersteel hoodie.

“Little gaudy, don’t you think?” she said.

“It’s like Kevlar but you can dance in it,” I replied. “Stops bullets and Tasers without restricting your movement.”

She slipped it on without hesitation. It looked good on her. Of course it looked good on her, god, she was effortless about it.

At the exact stroke of midnight, she squeezed my hand and said, “I’ll be right back.”

She began delivering the sequence and suddenly she was gone.

I immediately turned my attention to the projector screen, which was maddeningly dark for several long seconds until signal was reacquired. Jordon loomed large in the image. Maddy already had Jordon’s hands in hers. She began the return teleport sequence.

Nothing happened.

Jordon waited expectantly, saying nothing.

Maddy tried the sequence again from the top, but I’d heard her deliver it the first time; she hadn’t gotten it wrong. It didn’t work the second time either.

“What’s happening?” Jordon asked.

“I don’t know,” Maddy said.

Then suddenly, Maddy said, “CAN YOU BELIEVE THEY’RE JAMMING THE SEQUENCE”