Good Game (The System, #1) (88)

Parker shoves away from the table when the next image pops up. It’s a side by side of Parker Covington and EnglishCoffee. Similarities circled, dates jotted down, Sydney’s name underlined.

I know what’s next before Jackson clicks the button.

Aleksander Knight and NightBlade32. Each of my tattoos are circled with lines linking them up, Stevie’s and Parker’s names underlined.

Jackson pauses, mouse hovering over the arrow to the next image. He waits a full minute before tapping the trackpad.

The image pops up, and I lose control of my emotions. Hysteria spills out of me in a round of uncontrollable laughter.

It’s a blurry photo of Jackson in his Jeep entering the underground lot next to an image of Shield3d. The license plate is circled, but there’s several question marks next to it. And I know why. The car is registered to me. I bought it for Jackson with the money from my first sponsored stream, a thank you.

There is no link to Jackson Lau.

He’s the only person not incriminated in all this. The green enigma. Our Shield.

“What is this, Stevie? Where did it come from?”

We stare at her across the island. Her forehead is lined with worry as she nibbles on her lower lip.

“You haven’t watched the video,” she tells us. “It’ll explain.”

Jackson hits the arrow again, a video file loading. Parker sits back down as Jackson clicks play.

Static plays at first, the screen black until a digital 2-D composition of one of our masks pops up. It’s orange, and the audio wave sits where a mouth would be. As the audio starts, the wave moves with it.

“Hello, Stevie and The System.” The voice has been distorted. What movie-type shit is this?

“I hope you enjoyed my little slideshow. A detective novel, if you will. The discovery of Aleksander Knight and Parker Covington. The whole world has been wondering who you are, and here is the proof, clear as day. Undeniable. I commend you for a good game, but it’s over, a KO.” I grit my teeth. “Who will be the highest bidder? Will it be you? Or maybe, it’s too late. Maybe little Stevie took this into her own hands.” My eyes shoot to Stevie, but she just shakes her head. “I’ll give you one shot. An extra HP point, you might say. Bring your highest bid to Warehouse 43 on Saturday at 7 p.m. You must all show up for the bid to be valid. That includes Shield, whom I do have to commend for escaping my radar. No funny business, no other people. Failure to comply will result in a failsafe, automatically sending the file to one of my media sources. May the best player win.”

The image glitches out, and the video goes dark.

We just stare at it, the black screen screaming at us.

Jackson stands up and throws his stool to the ground. Stevie flinches, ducking behind the island.

“Saturday is tomorrow,” Jackson growls.

“Yes, well, Saturday generally follows Friday,” Parker drawls, but his voice is devoid of all humor.

Jackson turns to him, a murderous intent in his eyes. It’s hard for Jackson to snap, his tolerance for bullshit higher than the average person’s. But when he does blow? There’s no stopping him until he comes down. I put my arm up to pause him, giving him a look. Our emotions are on the fritz, we need to take a step back.

Parker pulls out his phone and brings it to his ear.

“Who are you calling?” I nod at him.

“Sydney.”

Right. Shit. She’s going to be pissed we didn’t call her the minute we found Stevie in the apartment. But we need her, she’ll know what to do. Because right now, whatever we decide won’t be the right decision.

I understand everything that just happened, but my brain just won’t process it. It doesn’t seem real, like a deep fake or some shit.

I’m in denial. Deep, deep, deep denial.

It’s not possible. Ten years. I’ve been Blade for ten years. And some person just appears out of thin air, having solved a puzzle I’d purposely lost the pieces to?

I was careful. We were all careful. We had a plan for everything, knew what our safety measures were. This should never have happened.

But it did. Because while I spent years perfecting the code of my life, making sure the system was flawless, I didn’t account for my own backdoor. That I would create a glitch, one that opened me up to vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities that would let someone crack the code.

The glitch could have been anyone, anything; it just happened to be Stevie in this scenario.

It would be so easy to blame her, to let her take the fall for our emotions, but that would be wrong. We all let down our guards, we got comfortable. I have no regrets when it comes to Stevie. None at all.

But I have no idea what any of this means. If we can’t stop the information from leaking, what does that mean for The System? What happens to us?

I walk over and sink to the floor next to Stevie, letting my armor shatter as I lean into her. She’s stiff at first, but then she relaxes against me, the tension leaving her body.

“Who am I if I’m not Blade?”

“Aleksander Knight.” She says it so simply.

“Aleksander Knight is nothing.”

The fears that I’ve pushed down since I was a kid bubble their way up, the insecurities that I masked, literally, cracking through. Becoming NightBlade32 made me feel special. Everyone wants to know Blade, fuck Blade, be Blade. And I am Blade. I’m the source of their jealousy, their envy, and it feels fantastic to have a throne among the other gods of Olympus.