It’s been three years since we buried Lucas.

Well, that’s a misnomer, actually. You have to have a body to bury someone. The state didn’t even give us that. Just a guy in a suit and sunglasses who showed up at his dad’s door with a zipped plastic bag full of the worldly possessions that were on him when…

Let’s just say poor young men convicted of killing the sons of rich men don’t get humane euthanasia, no matter how legitimate the circumstances of that “murder” happen to be.

Now, all that’s left of Lucas is an old pair of jeans, a faded Metallica T-shirt, a few bucks in change and his favorite leather jacket. The jacket is even more battered now, considering I’ve hardly taken it off for the better part of three years. That and the memories.

The booth I’m standing in is chock full of them. So many, I haven’t been able to bring myself to use it since the last time we ported into 99 Dungeons together. I haven’t played the game at all since, even if it is the closest I’m ever going to get to seeing him again. It just feels wrong, even for the sake of nostalgia.

After all, when Marcel’s parents got their revenge, 99 Dungeons was a huge part of it. It was Lucas’ favorite game. Me, him and his brother, Chris, probably spent a good ten-thousand hours combined in these booths from the time the game launched. Crawling dungeons, collecting artifacts, all for the big picture goal of freeing the destroyed kingdom from the Rook Mage and his demonic pawns.

When we first started playing, the game only had a small if obsessed following. Most of us had been playing since the beta launch, but the commercial success multiplied the population of Al’Goryth overnight. The trial was a big part of that. Now, the game feels like nothing more than a joke, and Lucas’ death was the punchline.

The door opens and a familiar face pops in. It’s one I know better than my own, even if I haven’t actually seen him in months. “Hey, Chris.” My voice sounds raspy and weak, but he doesn’t look any more comfortable about the meeting than I feel.

“Hey,” he mutters, letting the door fall shut. He looks over at the four empty pods in the room that resemble coffins far too much for comfort. I can relate to the haunted expression in his blue eyes. Those were my sentiments when I first came back here. “Those weirdos you found on the Net aren’t here yet?”

I roll my eyes. “Considering the whole point of all this, I’d say we’re the weirdos. And no, not yet, but they’ll be here.” I sound more confident than I am. The truth is, I spent every last penny I’ve scraped together over the past few months on hiring these guys I’ve never even met to get me and Chris where we need to go.

It’s not that you need a party of four to play the game. The three of us got plenty far without a fourth. The fact that the goal here isn’t to beat the game at all, but rather break it, makes our mission infinitely more complicated.

“I still don’t know about this,” he mutters, running a hand over his recently shaved head. Lucas always kept his long, and I’m glad to see that Chris hasn’t given up his desire to differentiate himself from his twin as much as possible. It’s already hard enough to look at him and see Lucas in so many ways. I’m a coward, but it’s part of the reason we drifted apart after the execution, and I hate myself for it. I hate myself for a lot of things these days. “What if they turn us in?”

It’s a valid concern, but it’s not like it’s one that never occurred to me. “One’s an illegal vendor and the other’s a hacker. Trust me, they’re not interested in getting Eerebus’ attention any more than we are.”

Chris grunts, which is his version of a full sentence. He sits down on the end of one of the pods and I can see the judgment in his eyes as he looks me over and sees me wearing his brother’s jacket. He doesn’t say the words, but he doesn’t need to. I can hear them loud enough.

“You need to let it go, Maize.”

“What?” I ask defensively, daring him to say it.

“Nothing,” he mutters. “It’s just been a long time.”

Guilt tightens up my chest and makes it harder to breathe. “Yeah. Sorry. Work’s been a bitch.”

“Yeah, how is Gemini treating you?”

“You don’t have to say it like that.”

“What? I’m just asking a question.”

I think of calling him on his crap, but it’s not worth it and I’m already distracted by how late the guys I hired are. “Gemini is fine. I don’t like their politics any more than you do, but they’re good to their developers. Better than the Patrollers, I’m sure.”

He narrows his eyes. “You think I became a cop because I like the way things are? I joined so I’d actually have some power against pieces of shit like the Endrys.”

“Please,” I scoff. “Like that badge in your pocket would make any difference if Kade Endry decided he wanted you dead. Your boss would offer you up like Christmas dinner on a silver platter.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chris growls. “And for the record, I’m not the enemy here. I’m not the one who got Lucas killed.”

His words hit me like a punch in the gut, even if they’re pretty much all the little voice in the back of my head ever says.

“Shit,” he breathes, rubbing his forehead. The lines around his eyes make him look older than his twenty-four years, but they started appearing long before he took the job with the Patrollers. “That’s not what I meant, Maizey. I’m just tired. I’ve been working doubles all week and my brain is cooked.”

“It’s fine,” I say stiffly. Maybe he didn’t mean it. No, I’m sure he didn’t. Despite everything that happened, neither Chris nor his dad ever put the blame on me for Lucas’ death. I’ve done that enough for the three of them.

Growing up, Lucas and Chris’ house was like my second home, and I enjoyed spending time there a hell of a lot more than the first one. My dad was a mean drunk and my mom spent most of hers even drunker to cope. Mr. Trepp was always kind enough to leave an extra place at the table, and even though Chris was never crazy about having a girl tag along, Lucas and I were inseparable. That never changed, not even when things got more complicated in our high school and college years. Then, it all got cut short.

“Anyway,” I say, clearing my throat. “I’m glad you’re here. When I got your last message, I wasn’t sure you would come.”

“I wasn’t either,” he says, frowning at me. “I still think this is a terrible idea. Truth be told, I came hoping I could talk you out of it.”

I purse my lips, fold my arms and wait for him to realize that’s not happening.

“I know, I know,” he says, waving me off. “But I have to at least give it a shot. Sometimes I think you spend so much time in that lab, screwing around with shit on the fringes of what’s possible, that you’ve lost touch with reality. This one.”

“I know exactly what’s possible,” I say firmly.

“Then think about what you’re doing,” Chris pleads. “If Erebus finds out we’re in the game, do you have any idea what they’ll do to us? Because I don’t.”

“They can’t do anything. Neither of us broke the law,” I remind him. “Besides, cheating in a game is against the rules, not illegal. And finally, they’re not going to find out. I paid a pretty penny to make sure our tracks are covered, and these player accounts can’t be traced back to our originals in any way, shape or form.”

“We’re porting in at the same station,” he reminds me.

“There’s a reason for that,” I assure him. “But if anything, that’ll just throw them off our trail even more. Trust me, once we get in the game, Erebus isn’t going to be our biggest problem.” I hesitate. “Have you had any time to practice?”

“Between what, the two hours of sleep I get a night and prowling the streets for zinth dealers?”

“Fair enough.” I sigh. “Let’s just hope memory serves. We won’t be starting from square one. My guy says he can start us all at Level 50, but that still leaves plenty of dungeons to get you reacquainted with the game.”

“Great,” he says, his voice dripping with a lack of enthusiasm. “Can’t wait.”

Chris always acted like he was too cool for games, even though he played just as much as the rest of us. Some things never change.

The door opens and we both look up. I’m expecting a sleazy-looking guy in a trenchcoat or something, not the athletic dude who looks like he just came from the gym. Behind him is a petite brunette in an oversized hoodie and jeans who looks like she just came off a college campus.

Chris seems just as surprised as I am and stands up from the edge of the pod. “Sorry, this booth is occupied.”

“No shit,” the big jock says, shrugging out of his jacket. He looks between me and Chris before settling on me. “You Raider99?”

“Yeah. That’s me. My real name’s Maizey—”

“Nope,” he says, holding up his hand. “Doesn’t matter, don’t wanna know. Far as this mission’s concerned, you’re Ace, he’s Foxtrot, I’m Whiskey, and she’s Psi,” he says, gesturing to the smaller woman beside him. So far, all she’s done is look boredly around the room. Clearly, there are a million places she’d rather be.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Codenames are probably a good idea anyway.”

“Why do I have to be Foxtrot?” Chris protests.

Whiskey sizes up my childhood friend and arches an eyebrow. “He trustworthy?” he asks me.

“Definitely,” I say without hesitation. “That’s Lucas’ brother.”

“Fine. Mr. Fancy Pants can be Romeo,” Whiskey says with a wry smile. Chris doesn’t seem much happier about that, but I think he’s afraid he’ll get a worse call sign if he objects again.

“A few ground rules before we start,” Whiskey continues, folding his broad arms over his chest. I’m still struggling to come to terms with the fact that this guy does anything for a hobby other than pumping iron. “When we get in the game, you follow our lead. We hit the northeast dungeons first, then move across to the northwest, then north.”

“That makes no sense,” Chris cries. “We’ve played this game for years. Going clockwise would save us days of ingame time, and half the dungeons should be taken care of already, shouldn’t they?”

Whiskey yawns, holding out his hand. Psi places four chips in his palm and he holds them up pointedly. “Loading four chips with a clean sweep of the first fifty dungeons in perfect sequence is the surest way to flag the game’s cheat monitors.”

“He’s right,” I admit. “Our odds are better if we hit them sporadically.”

“In a full party, it won’t take that long. Not with the goodies these babies are packed with,” Whiskey says, passing out chips to me and Chris. “But you two need to forget the idea of being experienced players. When we go in there, you’re just backup. Me and Psi have been doing this a long time, and this is the first job we’ve taken with such a unique request, so you need to decide whether you’re gonna approach this as a playthrough or a mission.”

I can tell Chris is already having second, third, fourth and fifth thoughts, but if anything, I’m relieved that Whiskey is taking this seriously. “You’re in charge,” I promise. “Right, Chris?”

He doesn’t respond right away. Finally, he mumbles something that sounds like agreement under his breath.

“Do you have the other chip?” I ask hopefully.

Whiskey frowns in confusion. “Chip?”

“You know…for what we talked about?” I say pointedly.

Recognition softens his expression a little. “Oh, right. No, that’s not a chip. It’s loaded in the game as an artifact for safekeeping. Depending on who gets through character creation first, either me or Psi will grab it and join up with you,” he explains. “Once we find the target, we have to get him loaded into it through the game’s magic system.”

“What?” Chris scoffs. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Siphoning a massive chunk of code out of the game would be a huge red flag, if it was even possible,” says Whiskey. “We need to go about this as subtly as possible.”

“And that means what, exactly?” I ask, growing nervous. Whiskey was necessarily vague over the messenger system, but he never mentioned this.

“When we reach the hundredth dungeon and find the uh, remnants of your friend, we have to get him to possess an artifact,” says Whiskey. “From there, we can take him to a more secure location off the game’s radar while Psi ports out to download the data from the booth.”

Chris looks over at the silent woman, frowning. “And she knows how to do that?”

“She does,” Psi answers. Her voice is as high as I expected, but there’s an edge in it that sounds like a sneer. “Just worry about keeping yourselves alive. Once the event starts, every party in the game is going to be gunning for those Catacombs, not to mention anyone else who’s dumb enough to try.”

My stomach is full of butterflies. It’s been three months since Etrekus Interactive announced the event that would quite literally put a target on its most infamous NPC’s head. While Mr. Endry is no longer the CEO of the company, it’s no secret that the Wild Hunt event is his brainchild.

When they first raised the idea of keeping someone in a vegetative state “alive” by porting their consciousness into a virtual reality, everyone thought it would be used to comfort grieving loved ones of victims taken too soon by accident or illness. It wasn’t long before the cries for extended penalties for death row inmates whose crimes were considered too severe for even capital punishment to atone for became all the rage. Lucas was far from the first, but I don’t think any virtual prisoner has become as infamous as he is. He’s also the first to be “resurrected” after a physical execution, using only his data stored from neural scans to recreate a mockery of what he used to be.

It’s all my fault, too. That’s why I can’t just let this go, even if I know it isn’t going to bring him back. Even if this is a suicide mission for my career and good standing in society, if I get found out.

Lucas was an innocent. A noble man turned into the representation of a monster, first by the media during his trial for murdering an inhuman scumbag, and after his death, by the very game he loved playing so much. I know the monster he’s become is a far cry from my best friend, but in true Lucas fashion, his will is strong enough that he’s remained undefeated by any player in the game’s history. One last “screw you” to Marcel and his evil family. The Endrys couldn’t let him have the last laugh when the NPC they created as an effigy turned their son’s killer into an undefeated urban legend, so they started this damned event to wipe him out of the game for good.

At three-o’clock five days from now, on the fourth anniversary of Marcel’s death, the hunt for the Beast Lord begins with the goal of wiping out the last remnants of Lucas’ existence. I will do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen, and my only regret is knowing I have to lie to his brother about the true nature of my plan once we find him.