“That’s different. We did it for ten minutes, and no one is going to find out about it. This? Is permanent. Do you seriously think Blackburn’s going to miss Yuri’s new software forever?” He turned to Yuri. “I know you’re not a spy. I know you, man, but you’re delusional if you think Blackburn won’t figure it out!”

Wyatt raised her forearm keyboard. “At least you won’t remember.”

Vik’s eyes shot wide open. Tom leaped forward and batted her arm down. “Don’t.” And as soon as he reached her, Yuri seized him in a headlock and clasped him against his broad chest.

“Thomas, do not,” he warned him.

Tom yanked at the massive arm. “I’m not gonna touch her, Yuri! But she can’t use a virus on Vik. No one’s brain is getting fried today, okay?” Yuri’s grip eased up, and Tom jerked out of his arms. He looked around at all them, heaving for breath. “Okay?”

Wyatt stared down Vik, and Yuri loomed over Tom, ready to leap in if anything escalated.

“Vik, if Yuri goes down, Wyatt and I go down, too,” Tom said. “I get that you’re committed to this military stuff, but this has to be our secret. Do you want to send all three of us to prison? You want to risk Yuri’s life?”

Vik groaned. “Tom, I don’t even want to be in this position!”

“I know. I know. None of us do. But life’s about ugly choices, right? You either stay quiet and be complicit with us, or you take us all down and live with it. Which one will it be?”

Vik spun away from them, gripping his hair.

“Well, Vik?” Tom pressed, watching his back anxiously.

“Fine, but on one condition,” Vik said, whirling back around, “I’m going to think of a manly version of ‘evil wench’ and you have to answer to it.”

“Deal,” Tom agreed, secretly relieved. He knew this was Vik’s way of saying he wouldn’t turn on them. He addressed Yuri next. “And you get how important it is to keep your mouth shut now? For me, for Wyatt? You understand?”

“Yes,” Yuri said, a troubled line between his eyebrows. “I’ll stay quiet.”

“Good. So this is what happens from here: Wyatt, you program a virus. Yuri, you try not to do anything stupid like tell the truth. Vik, you keep thinking about a manly equivalent of ‘evil wench.’”

“I’ve got ideas,” Vik grumbled.

“And I just have to answer to it. Oh, and show Marsh and the Defense Committee that I’m the guy who can take down the greatest warrior in the world.”

Put that way, it almost sounded easy.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

NIGEL HARRISON WASN’T stupid. On the day of the Capitol Summit, he figured out the moment Tom and Elliot joined him in the private car that he wasn’t the one who’d be fighting Medusa.

“Oh. Great.” His delicate face twisted with disgust. “I guess this means I’m the token proxy here.”

“Tom is here if you can’t take Medusa, Nigel,” Elliot said. “He’s very good for a plebe.”

“He’s still a plebe,” Nigel railed. “He’s in first-year tactics. He is going to hook into an actual ship in space and face off against another actual ship in space—and he’s going to do it for the first time at Capitol Summit? How does this make sense to you, Elliot?”

When Nigel put it that way, it suddenly didn’t make much sense to Tom, either. He felt a strange, dropping sensation. Marsh and Elliot had told him that, yes, he’d be flying actual ships in space. But they’d said it wasn’t a real battle, it was more like a game. Tom had been sure he could win a game.

It only hit him now that this game was real. A real ship. A real game.

“Tom’s downloaded everything he needs to know about navigation,” Elliot told Nigel, “and General Marsh let him hook into one of the ships in orbit to practice. He picked it up right away. Tom’s a natural.”

“Is Marsh going senile, Raines? How’d you talk him into it?” Nigel shouted.

“I didn’t,” Tom snapped. “This was his idea, not mine.”

“We’re supposed to support each other, Nigel,” Elliot reminded him.

“I’m supposed to be okay with getting thrown out for a plebe?” Nigel cried. “I’d understand an upper since we’ve got some training with the ships. I’d get it if Marsh picked a middle even—since they’ve done ride alongs with CamCo and have seen battles up close. But he’s a plebe. A plebe! It boggles my mind!”

“I don’t like that attitude, Nigel.”

“And I don’t like people who talk like they’re day camp counselors,” Nigel sneered.

“Now you’re just being petty …”

Tom let the two argue it out, his nerves sparking like live wires. Although Elliot was disappointed he had to have a proxy, he seemed pleased to hear it was one of his own plebes who’d be doing the bulk of the fighting. He’d even watched Tom try out navigating one of the ships, and it really was a lot like Applied Sims. He told him he’d done a great job afterward. But Elliot was like that. He probably would’ve encouraged him even if he’d accidentally crashed the ship into the moon. But now Tom was thinking about Nigel’s words. He’d been so eager for this chance to vindicate himself, he hadn’t really considered whether he was ready. He’d flown that test ship around the moon for maybe twenty minutes with Elliot and General Marsh watching. Not in a battle. Not in any sort of high-stress situation. His stomach began to ache.

“What kind of game will this be?” Tom asked, trying to calm his nerves.

“A pathetic farce,” Nigel answered bitterly.

Elliot ignored him. “It changes year to year, Tom. The Capitol Summit exhibition isn’t a real battle. It’s more of an excuse to entertain the members of the Coalition and give the public a show. Odds are, you and Medusa will be competing with one small goal in mind. Winner is the one who completes it first, and the winning country gets the prestige.”

Tom stared at him. “So if I lose, I damage our country’s world prestige.”

“Right,” Nigel said nastily. “No pressure, though.”

“No.” Elliot leaned toward him, clasped his shoulder with an encouraging hand. “Don’t think of it that way, Tom. No one expects our side to win this year.”

“Oh. That’s real reassuring,” Tom said.

“Well, I meant it to be. If you, or if you”—Elliot nodded to Nigel, too, remembering to include him; Nigel rolled his eyes, seeing it for the perfunctory gesture it was—“end up taking down Medusa, it’ll be a great surprise for everyone. We all know Medusa’s something better than the rest of us. The Coalition knows it, too. So don’t let the pressure get to you. It’s not the end of the world if you lose.”

Elliot didn’t know the details, then. For Tom, it was the end of the world.

If he lost this, he lost everything. His place at the Spire, his neural processor, his friends, his future. Everything.

Near the Capitol Building, Elliot slid out of their private car and switched to a limousine, prepared for his public entrance and his photo op with politicians, Nobridis execs, and the fawning media.