Tom gave a start. She knew his name? How did she know his name?
A fierce smile crossed the lips of Medusa’s avatar. “I was in your system already, so I looked at your personnel file.”
“See, that’s not fair. You made me swear to stay out of your system, so I don’t get to check for yours.”
“I know. It’s so unfair for you.”
It was. He felt almost like she knew so much about him, but he knew nothing of her. If he just had her name, it would make a huge difference. “Come on, you could tell me your name.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t, Medusa, I’m gonna have to guess. You may not like my guesses.”
“Every single word can basically be used as a name in China. It would be virtually impossible for you to guess, so feel free.”
“Fine.” He holstered his gun. “Is your name ‘Rong’?”
She stopped short. “What?”
“‘Rong.’ Is it ‘Rong’?”
“Why ‘Rong’?”
“I met a ‘Rong’ once. It was the name that popped into my head. Obviously, I guessed wrong.”
She stood there a minute. “That was a terrible pun.”
Tom laughed. “Yeah, I know. This is what I mean by ‘you don’t want me guessing.’”
“I think we need a gun battle now.”
“Oh, yes,” Tom murmured.
They began circling each other in the swirling dust, and Tom found himself remembering Capitol Summit vividly. Remembered her face, her burned skin, and what he’d done—the way he’d thrown that at her to win. He was a scumbag. He knew it.
“So before I kill you,” Medusa said, “I’m going to give you a chance to explain why you were so persistent in trying to contact me. Then I’m going to explain to you why you are never going to do that again.”
Tom didn’t like the sound of that. “Do it, then. You go first, then I’ll go.”
She nodded. “After you faced treason charges for being in contact with me, someone on your side leaked back to my side that we’d been meeting. My military found out I was communicating with an American. I was questioned, too.”
Tom grew rigid. “How did they find out?”
She brushed off the question dismissively. “I’m sure someone on our side paid off a senator on your side.”
Tom felt a flash of irritation. He should’ve guessed. His dad was right—congressmen should just pledge their allegiance to their bank accounts and cut the lip service to country.
Suddenly, he grew cold. “What did they do to you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said harshly. “It’s over. The military’s started monitoring me. Everything I do, everywhere I go, every time I hook in. So you see now why your repeated visits into our system are making my life difficult.”
“Yeah.” Tom felt numb. “I see.”
“And there’s more.” She drew closer to him, a dark silhouette against the setting sun. “I laced our server with data-mining programs that let me know whenever there are digital communications about me. I discovered a communiqué between members of my military and executives at LM Lymer Fleet. Apparently, LM Lymer Fleet has them keeping a close eye on me. There was no explanation about why, but it makes me suspect they’ve noticed that there’s something unusual about me.”
The hot Arizona day felt like it had grown cold around him. LM Lymer Fleet was the maker of the Russo-Chinese neural processors, and basically their version of Obsidian Corp. In fact, before he defected, Joseph Vengerov even headed the company. If they had a particular interest in Medusa, it couldn’t be for any good reason.
“You think they’re on to you?” Tom said quietly. “What you can do?”
“It’s possible.”
“What will happen to you if they learn what we can do?”
“Nothing good, Mordred. They’ll try to find out how we can do it. They’ll want to isolate whatever it was about us that’s different and use it in other Combatants—and they’ll do whatever they have to do to accomplish that. That’s why I’m trying to lie low. Whenever you try to contact me, you put me at risk.” She drew closer. “You said you had a question. Ask me now. Then no more gnomes and no more visits. There’s too much danger right now.”
Tom pulled his hat off his head and mopped at his sweaty forehead. His reason for endangering her now sounded stupid, self-serving. He felt like a scumbag even saying it. “I wanted to ask you how you got into space without a sponsor.”
“That’s it?”
He tried to tell whether he was imagining it, or whether she really sounded hurt. “And I missed you,” he added. He realized it was true as he said it. “I did. I miss fighting you and . . . I know what I did at Capitol Summit sucked, but I want to—”
“To shoot me?” She drew her gun. Her dark silhouette blocked the sun from his eyes.
Tom realized she wasn’t comfortable with anything too personal. Not anymore. He had to take the out she was offering. “Yeah. That’s great, too.”
Tom wished there was some way he could erase the past and return things to the way they’d been. That was the thing about real life. Video games could be reset. There were second chances. There was no way to walk through the same scenario in a different manner when it came to Medusa.
“To answer your question,” Medusa said, fingers hovering centimeters from her holstered gun, “I don’t have a sponsor for a reason that’s very obvious.”
“Because of your . . .” Tom faltered.
“My good looks?” She bared her teeth. “I chose the call sign Medusa. No one forced it on me.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“I never told you that.”
“I know you,” Tom said. “I’ve seen you in action. You’d never let someone stick that name on you or have that power over you. Every weak point becomes another weapon for you. That’s why being low and underhanded was the only way to beat you in a fight.”
She slowed a moment, and he sensed that he might’ve said something she liked. Her tone grew softer. “There’s no secret to circumventing the Coalition, Mordred. The companies all chip in for me because I win territory for them. ‘Medusa’ will go public one day—but she’ll be some other girl with some other face, and when she does, Harbinger Incorporated will be her sponsor, not mine. I’ll be invisible.”
Tom stopped. So that was it. That was the end. The realization was like a fist socking him in the stomach, driving the air from him. His last hope, the last shred he’d been clinging to, and now it was gone.
He was never going to be a CamCo. The realization made him laugh.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing,” he said lightly, jerking back into motion. “I’m an idiot. That’s all. I think I’ve destroyed all my chances here.”
It was her turn to smile and shake her head. “You said that last time, too. I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“No, but I know you. You’re too stubborn to lose. You always come back.”