There’s only one reason why I’m at the courthouse today. It’s to hear Jax give her testimony.

Inside, the space is grand and quiet, filled with nothing but the tense buzz of low voices. I sit in silence at the front of the main chamber. It’s odd, being in such an orderly place after everything that has happened. There are the Supreme Court justices in their black robes, all fifteen of them, sitting in severe form at the front of the chamber. There are those in the audience, an unusual mix of ambassadors and representatives from almost every government in the world. Then, there’s me. A smattering of people from Henka Games. Most prominent among them is Divya Kapoor, the newly appointed CEO of the company. The board has wasted no time putting in new leadership.

I take my seat beside Tremaine. He is still in recovery from his injury, and his head is still wrapped in gauze—but his eyes are as sharp as ever as he nods at me. We don’t say a word to each other. There’s nothing to say that we don’t already know.

As we look on, a girl with short, pale hair is led out in handcuffs to a box at the front of the chamber. Her lips are rosy today instead of their usual dark color, and without a gun at her waist to fiddle with, she can only press her hands repeatedly against each other. She doesn’t look in our direction. Instead, her gaze flickers briefly to where Hideo sits with his lawyers near the front of the room.

I look at him, too. He may be in handcuffs today, but he’s still dressed in a flawless suit—and if we weren’t at the Supreme Court to listen to his criminal case, I would think he was still standing in his headquarters or lifting his glass to toast the entire world, his secrets buried behind his eyes.

But today, he sits quietly. Jax is about to testify against him and reveal everything that the Blackcoats knew about his algorithm that made them target him.

The thought forces me to tear my eyes away from him. I’ve fought all my life to fix things—but now that we’re finally here, now that justice is going to be handed down, I suddenly feel like I haven’t fixed anything at all. None of this feels right. Taylor, the one who had caused all of this to happen, is already dead. Jax, who has never known another life, will go to prison for the assassinations she was trained since childhood to carry out. Zero—the last remnant of Sasuke Tanaka, the boy who was stolen—has vanished. I’ve brought down the NeuroLink, the epicenter of modern society, the cornerstone of my entire youth.

And Hideo, the boy who became the most powerful man in the world for the sake of the brother that was taken from him, who had done all the wrong things for all the right reasons, is sitting here today, ready to face his fate.

The testimony starts. Jax speaks in a measured voice as questions for her start to add up, one after another after another.

Was Dana Taylor your adopted mother? How old were you when she adopted you?

What was your relationship with Sasuke Tanaka?

How often did he speak of Hideo Tanaka?

Even now, she stays calm. I guess after everything she’s been through, a trial is almost anticlimactic.

Finally, one of the justices asks her about Hideo.

What did Hideo intend to do with the NeuroLink?

Jax looks directly at him. He looks back at her. It’s as if, between them, there is some lingering ghost of Sasuke in the air, the same boy who had upended both of their lives. The words Jax had once shouted desperately at us during our escape in the institute now come back to me in full. I can’t tell what emotions go through her now, in this setting, if it’s hate or rage or regret.

“Hideo’s algorithm was never supposed to control the population,” Jax says. Her voice echoes from her place at the front of the chamber.

A murmur ripples through the crowd. I blink, exchanging a look with Tremaine to make sure I hadn’t misheard something. But he looks as bewildered as I feel.

“The Blackcoats were the ones who wanted to abuse the NeuroLink,” Jax goes on, “to turn it into a machine capable of harming people, of turning them against themselves or others. That was always the goal of the Blackcoats, and Taylor was driven to make sure we followed through with this. You already have heard what she did to me, and to Sasuke Tanaka.” She hesitates, then clears her throat. “Hideo Tanaka used the algorithm to search for his lost brother.”

I listen in a haze, hardly able to process what I’m hearing. Jax isn’t here to make sure Hideo is punished for failing to protect his brother. She’s here to protect Hideo with her testimony against the Blackcoats.

“And that was always his intent?” the justices are asking now.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Never, at any time, did he do anything with the algorithm against the general population with any intent of harm?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Then at what time, specifically, did the algorithm become a malicious tool?”

“When the Blackcoats stole it from Hideo and installed their hacks on his system.”

“And can you name everyone in the Blackcoats who was directly responsible for this plan?” one of the justices asks.

Jax nods. And as Tremaine and I listen on in stunned silence, she starts to list names. Every single one.

Taylor.

The technicians at the Innovation Institute who had known about her projects.

The workers who had helped Taylor run her experiments, had taken Jax and Sasuke and stolen their lives from them.

The other Blackcoats scattered around the world—their other hackers, other mercenaries, every single person she had ever worked with under Taylor.

She lists them all out.

My mind whirls. I look toward Jax again. Even though Sasuke isn’t here, I can sense his presence in the room, as if the boy who had disappeared has finally, in Jax, found a voice for his story.

After a stunning decision today by the Supreme Court of Japan, Henka Games founder Hideo Tanaka has been acquitted of charges of grand conspiracy and capital murder. He was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter in the death of Dr. Dana Taylor, as well as illegally exploiting his creation, the NeuroLink, in his investigation into his brother’s disappearance. Local authorities today raided the Japan Innovation Institute of Technology, where several items of evidence mentioned in testimony appear to be missing, among them an armored suit described in detail by witnesses Emika Chen and Jackson Taylor. The suit has not been recovered.

—THE TOKYO DIGEST

34

Two weeks have passed since Hideo’s sentencing.

They felt like an eternity, now that the NeuroLink no longer functions. People wake up and log on to the Internet in the way they used to before Hideo’s glasses took over the world. There are no overlays when I want to get directions, no translations for people I can’t understand. There’s an absence in our lives that’s hard to describe. Still, people seem to see the world better now.

As the day starts to fade into twilight, I set out on my electric skateboard to find Asher, Roshan, and Hammie. Without the NeuroLink, I rely on old-fashioned techniques like hoodies and caps and dark glasses. There are a million journalists who want to track me down. If I were smart, I’d take an auto-car.

But I get on my board anyway and head into the city. I feel like I belong out here, facing the rushing wind, my balance honed from years of traveling alone on busy city streets. Around me rises Tokyo, the real Tokyo, trains traveling over bridges and skyscrapers towering into the clouds, temples nestled quietly between roaring neighborhoods. I smile as it all passes me by. My time in Tokyo might be coming to an end, but I don’t know where I want to go next. After a few overwhelming months, this place has started to feel like home.

I’m lucky enough not to be stopped by anyone as I reach a garden nestled deep in the middle of a quiet neighborhood in the Mejiro district. There are few people here, and no prying eyes. I hop off my board, swing it over my shoulder, and stare at the simple, elegant entrance against a plain white wall, all of it washed into pinks by the sunset. Then I step inside.

It’s a beautifully sculpted space, a large, koi-filled pond surrounded by carefully pruned trees and round rocks, arching bridges and trickling waterfalls. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, letting myself soak in the scent of pine and blossoms.

A voice drifts toward me. I open my eyes and look in its direction.

A small pagoda is at one end of the garden, and waiting beside its pillars are Roshan, Hammie, and Asher, sharing bottles of soda. They wave at me. My smile breaks into a grin, and I head over to them. My footsteps quicken until I reach them, when I stop with a jolting halt.

“Hey,” I say to Roshan.

He grins back at me. “Hey.”

And then my teammates crush me into a hug.

I lean heavily against them, not saying a word. After everything’s that’s happened since my life turned upside down, this is the best part of it all.

Minutes later, the four of us sit in a row along the stone ledge of the pagoda that overlooks the koi pond, our legs dangling above the water. The sun has set completely now, washing the sky’s orange and gold into softer shades of purple and pink.

“That’s it, then,” Asher speaks first, breaking the silence. He glances to where he has parked his chair several feet away. “No more Warcross tournaments. No more NeuroLink.”

He tries to say it in a liberating way, but then he falters and goes quiet. The rest of us do, too.

“What are you going to do now?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “I figure we’re all about to be flooded in movie deals and interviews and documentary requests.” He doesn’t sound all that excited about it.

Roshan leans back and runs a hand through his dark curls. “It’s back to London for me,” he says, his voice similarly dejected. “It’ll be good to see my fam again, get some quiet time with them, and then try to figure out what I want to do now.”