“We can still meet online, can’t we?” Medusa said, peering at him. “Once you’re out of the Spire, it’s not treason anymore if we meet.”

Tom stepped back from her, feeling cold, thinking of how he’d end up if he lost the neural processor, lost the better Tom who’d been born in the Spire. What kind of person he’d be if he was that kid following Neil around again. That ugly, stupid kid who was worthless.

He’d rather tear off his arms than show her that guy.

“It wouldn’t be a good idea,” Tom said.

“I see.” There was something flat in her voice. “So once you’re gone from the military, you can’t be bothered. I get it.”

Tom’s head wasn’t in the right place for this stuff. “What? Where did you even get that?”

“Maybe this was a bad idea all around.” And then she fizzled out of the program, leaving Tom alone in his stupid stockings in Renaissance England.

TOM YANKED OUT his neural wire and sat up. His friends were all settled on nearby chairs in the dark common room, watching for his reaction.

Vik spoke first. “No go?”

“No go,” Tom confirmed.

Wyatt was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, and she seemed to be bouncing in her seat a bit. “Virus, then?”

Tom nodded resignedly. “Virus.”

“I’ve already got most of it ready for you.” She sounded oddly cheerful about that as she set about hacking into the Spire’s defenses, erecting them again.

“Great,” Tom said faintly.

Sure, he hadn’t actually had a chance to ask Medusa about taking a fall for him, but he felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest, knowing she was angry at him now, knowing it couldn’t happen. If he’d groveled like some pathetic wimp and then been laughed at, it would’ve killed him. She never would’ve respected him after he asked her for something like that.

“The Android was wrong, then,” Vik murmured. “Sorry, buddy. Guess Medusa isn’t that into you. Hey”—his hand thumped Tom’s shoulder—“all the more reason to stomp her.”

“Sure. Stomp her.” Except for the part where she always beat him.

Wyatt nodded in the darkness, typing in the finishing touches before the Spire’s defenses snapped back on to full. “The one I’ve started programming is called an adware virus.”

“Adware virus?” Tom echoed.

“It works by basically taking up more and more CPU until it’s too slow to really do much of anything. It’ll trigger the moment you send it to Medusa, so I’ll set it to delete itself from your CPU at the same time so it doesn’t slow you down, too. You unload it once, early in the fight, and then beat her before she can recover from it. You probably won’t have access to a keyboard, so I’m going to try a trick Blackburn showed me and set it up to respond to a thought interface.”

“Is that the only way?” Tom asked her. “Vik and I tried net-sending with a thought interface during Programming once, but I couldn’t concentrate on just one thing at a time.”

Vik nodded. “His programming questions were always like, ‘Vik, how do steak boobs function?’”

Tom elbowed him. Hard. Vik sniggered.

Yuri had been very quiet this whole time. Now he raised his head. “Steak boobs?”

“No, Yuri,” Wyatt cried. “No steak boobs. And, Tom, I’m giving you one phrase for this. You can focus your brain for the time it takes to think out one phrase, can’t you?”

Tom shrugged. “All right, hit me.”

“When the time comes to send out the virus, I want you to think this: ‘tiny spicy Vikram.’”

Vik’s smile dropped away. Despite the seriousness of his situation, Tom started laughing.

“Wait, no,” Vik said. “I don’t like this phrase.”

“Don’t think it too early,” she warned Tom. “You have to have Medusa’s ship in your sights. Focus on her, and think ‘tiny spicy Vikram’ over and over until the virus deploys.”

“That’s it?” Tom said. “What about firewalls?”

“You’re both going to be on the same server for the summit, so that shouldn’t be an issue. And once the virus deploys, trust me, she’s not going to be flying anywhere for a while.”

“Vikram is not tiny,” Vik declared belatedly. “I’m taller than both of you.”

Wyatt ignored him. “I think plan B is going to work.”

Then Yuri spoke up. “Or perhaps we should try plan C.” He was sitting farthest from Tom, leaning his chin in a hand, large shoulders slouched.

Tom wasn’t sure what Yuri had in mind, but Wyatt guessed. She sprang to her feet. “No, Yuri! Your plan sucks.”

“I have not said my plan.”

“I’ve guessed it, and I know it sucks.”

“I will not let Thomas take the fall for me,” Yuri told her.

Vik gave a sudden start. He stared at Yuri for a long moment, then pointed at him, looking wildly between Wyatt and Tom. “Did you guys hear that? He said ‘Thomas.’”

Wyatt bit her lip and looked at Tom.

Vik noticed. “All right.” He dropped his voice. “Why aren’t you two gasping in shock? What am I missing?”

Tom turned on Yuri instead. “I owe you. I am not going to give you away.”

“You don’t have to, Tom. I will reveal myself. I’ll confess.”

“He said ‘Tom’ now! I know you guys heard that,” Vik insisted.

“If Blackburn finds out you’re unscrambled, he’ll think you’re the leak, Yuri,” Wyatt pointed out.

“Unscrambled?” Vik echoed.

“But you will be safe,” Yuri replied.

“You won’t just be compromising yourself,” Tom pointed out, ignoring Vik, who looked ready to tear his hair out. “Wyatt made your firewall. She’ll get thrown in prison for ten years, too, for committing treason. I’ll go to prison for aiding and abetting her. We’ll all lose our neural processors.”

“Yuri, you’ve had your processor too long,” Wyatt said, horrified. “You’ll never survive it if they take it out.”

“So let’s not risk it,” Tom said, looking between them. “You’re keeping quiet, Yuri.”

Vik was rubbing his head. “Wait … wait … Let me get this straight. Yuri’s not scrambled anymore? And you guys both knew?”

“He’s not,” Wyatt said, drawing to her full height. “So what? How is this a problem?”

“How is this a problem?” Vik echoed. “Do you live in the real world with the rest of us? This is a huge problem, Wyatt!”

Yuri found his feet. “I am not a spy, Vikram.”

“It doesn’t matter, Yuri!” Vik said. “Don’t you people get that? How is this going to look? The military is a hierarchy. You can’t dismantle their security because you think your boyfriend’s trustworthy. It’s not your call.”

“But you’re okay with dropping the Spire’s defenses because you think your friend is trustworthy?” Wyatt pointed out.