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  “You like her, don’t you?” Asuka remarked after spinning under Ace’s arm. Since no answer came, she went on, “I hope you do, because I see the way she looks at you, Ace. She’s always trying to stay at the same game line as you, and she always spends way more of her stability when she’s trying to protect you from something...”

  Ace blushed, but still wouldn’t answer. The girl remained silent while Mary and Dante drew nearer as they danced. She resumed as soon as they were further away.

  “I’m not one to bug you, but I think you’d better talk to her. I don’t know whether you’re married, or even if you’re male or female, but my guess is you two should talk, even if it’s just so neither of you will be raising false hopes.”

  “I... I don’t know, Asuka.” Ace finally found a way to express himself. “You might be right.” Ace felt more and more like he was lost in the tangle of feelings surrounding him. Why did his heart constantly point at Letícia if everything would be all the easier with Mary? To which girl should he talk first? It was all supposed to have been so much simpler! If only he’d managed to talk to Letícia down at the gym, at least he’d have an idea of how she felt toward him, so he could know how to handle Mary. “Do you think she really likes me?”

  “Boy, do I? I’m sure she does!”

  Ace agreed silently, nodding. Just imagining that Mary liked him as well filled him with joy, but still he couldn’t turn his thoughts away from Letícia.

  The song’s end cut his thoughts short. Asuka took it as a cue to call up her friends. “Hey, guys! There’s something here I wanna show you. Come with me!”

  All the team members followed her. She took them to one of the corners of the hall that led to a wide balcony, bathed by the light of the moon and the stars.

  “It’s beautiful!” Kerah exclaimed. The open-eyed silence from the others revealed they all agreed.

  “You see?” Asuka replied. “Do I have great taste or what? I bet you’re thinking this locus is way cooler than you thought it would be.”

  They engaged again in an excited conversation. At a given moment, while Mary and Ace commented on a certain move they should get to work on, Kerah, having been informed of Asuka’s plan, remarked, “Well, guys, I’m gonna drop by the Premium area to check on something and I’ll be right back, OK? Dante, will you come with me?”

  “Who, me? Erm, no, thank you.” Kerah glared at him with a most piercing gaze. “Oh, I mean, of course! No problem, babe!”

  “Yeah, that reminds me, I’ve got to say hi to a friend I saw at the hall as well,” Asuka said.

  Before he could say anything, Ace realized he’d fallen in Asuka’s trap. They were alone with each other now, he and Mary, with her pinkish hair, under that ravishing sky, as the beautiful melodies from the ball echoed in the background. Mary was leaning against the parapet, gazing at the moon.

  Ace still wasn’t ready. I’ll get you for this, Asuka! He did want to talk to Mary, but he’d rather go through the whole conversation first in his mind, then choose a proper moment to be alone with her... And now that moment had been forcefully created. He didn’t know what to do.

  “It’s really one of the most beautiful loci I’ve ever seen,” Mary remarked. She turned around, facing Ace. “But still I think I’m more into the ones that have more action, you know?” She winked at him. “But please don’t tell Asuka!”

  Ace drew nearer. How stunning she looked! That atmosphere of seduction and adventure overwhelmed him. The girl went on.

  “There’s another kind of locus I’d like to visit. I wish I could make my own, in fact. There’s a lot of people out there making their own loci based on their dreams, you know? Have you ever thought about that, Ace? I wouldn’t need to tell you about a dream I had, I could simply make a locus in which you’d experience all I had gone through in the dream.” She noticed the expression on Ace face. It seemed he wanted to say something. “Ace? What’s going on?”

  Hypnotized by her beauty and her shapely low-necked white dress which further highlighted the colors of her hair, it took him a while to answer. How his thoughts betrayed him then! He wanted to say there was already somebody he liked in real life, he wanted to say that, despite being attracted to her, he was already in love with another girl, but the words wouldn’t come out. Mary, now red-haired, seemed to be invading his emotions and overwhelming his body. He caught himself wishing the real world would disappear, so he could just be with her, wandering through several loci together.

  “Nothing! Everything’s fine,” he lied. “This is a really pretty locus…” He tried to change the subject, focusing back on the moon.

  “Yes! I think we can enjoy ourselves even better now that we’re alone, don’t you think?” The sideways look she cast was almost palpable. He tried to steer the conversation in some other direction.

  “Yeah, it’s quieter, isn’t it? We can enjoy the music better without Dante babbling here all the time...”

  “Speaking of that, by the way, we still haven’t danced together!” She drew nearer, before he could react, and put Ace’s hands on her waist and slipped her arms over his shoulder, drawing their bodies together. “Let’s make the most of this slow music, shall we?” she whispered in his ear.

  Ace allowed himself to be carried away. All thoughts against Mary were just melting away to the rhythm of the music. Feeling her body while they slowly waltzed from side to side, he couldn’t bring himself to care about whoever Mary was in the real world, or to care about the future, for that matter. All he wanted was to enjoy that moment in her arms.

  “Pedro!”

  Ace was startled, being drawn from Mary’s arms. He looked around, trying to understand what was going on. The locus and the girl seemed to shake and lose focus.

  “Pedro! Wake up, Pedro!”

  Ace still couldn’t understand. Where was that voice coming from? Everything was trembling all around him. His movements were lagging, like on a connection error in an online game. All he could see was Mary gesturing for him to look at his Neurolink.

  33%. 25%. 17%. The usually blue light was now glowing red and blinking as his stability fell. Mary made a farewell gesture to him. She knew Ace had to log out. She sighed when he vanished. They were having such a fun night...

  “Pedro!” It was Rodrigo who was calling him, poking him in his bed. “Look at Marcelo, Pedro! He’s snoring all weird!”

  The adrenaline running in Pedro’s blood forced him to immediately take in all the information from the real world. A worried Rodrigo was calling him because Marcelo seemed to be choking and snoring loudly, still lying down in his bed. His breathing was quick and short.

  Pedro leaped out of the bed, ignoring the pounding headache that floored him, and started calling his brother’s name and shaking him. What was going on? Two days ago, it’d been Rodrigo who had trouble breathing, now Marcelo was having a crisis?

  Much to Pedro’s relief, the snoring stopped as soon as he woke his brother up, and his breathing seemed to improve, though he still struggled noticeably. The first thing Pedro did when he realized his brothers were well was to discreetly remove the Neurolink from his wrist and push it under his bed. He’d return it to its proper hiding place later.

  He was happy he’d done so, because, as expected, his parents soon entered the room. Pedro and Rodrigo explained to Antônio what had happened while Marta hugged Marcelo and spoke to him like a baby, asking if he was all right at every second.

  The scare kept the family awake for a while longer before they finally fell asleep, now with Marcelo’s and Rodrigo’s mattresses squashed by the side of their parents’ bed.

  Before he went back to bed, alone in his room, Pedro stood there in the dark with his forehead against the wall, as he criticized himself. Stupid! Don’t you see this is a warning that you’re abusing the Neuralnet? How could he have let himself get carried away like that, to the point of wishing he could leave the real world behind? Thank God Rodrigo woke me up to log me out...

 
A few days later, results from Rodrigo’s tests were in. At the hospital, Marta hadn’t even had to ask for an evaluation of his twin brother: the doctor himself suggested they should run a few new tests on both of them. They still hadn’t diagnosed what was going on with the boys, but they suspected genetics was the cause, and for that reason they should both be experiencing the same symptoms sooner or later.

  Pedro was agitated as he heard the doctor’s words. They were to initiate preventive treatment to keep them from suffering new crises. The elder brother shrank into his chair when he heard that all family members should stay alert full time, because new crises could break out at any moment, and they’d need immediate medical care.

  While those harsh words reached Pedro’s and his mother’s ears, the little brothers were calmly playing by their side, unaware of what was going on. As much as the doctor tried to sound as reassuring as he could, his words were melting in thin air, and all Marta managed to register in her mind was that her sons had some serious disease. She managed to say that it didn’t matter how much those tests would cost. She and her husband would find a way to pay for them. Pedro shuddered as he recalled the conversation his parents had had a few months ago. The family’s financial situation had yet to improve.

  Despite being under all that stress, Pedro didn’t halt his Flag Race training, and it was under that same pressure that he faced the finals in school. He’d have only 80%stability whenever he came inline. If that was the case, he figured, then his mind was probably not in the best shape to take those exams either, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

  Time and again, while in his practice sessions, he’d stand still for a few seconds, trying to check if there wasn’t anybody calling him in real life, and he’d always check on his brothers one extra time before getting inline. He’d do the same every time he returned from the virtual world.

  His family as a whole started getting their hopes up, expecting that maybe the boys now would be fine, since no crisis was observed in the days that followed. Maybe the medication they’re on is already curing the disease, Marta prayed.

  Pedro relied on his friends’ help to cope with that situation. Daniel asked every day how Marcelo and Rodrigo were, and even Luiz, sullen as always, made an effort to tell him everything would be fine and that the most important part was that they were already under treatment.

  But it was Letícia who was most supportive of Pedro. The girl, noticing his sadness and concern, left Amanda aside and started spending more time with him. As usual, Pedro didn’t feel much of a need for words to express himself to her. Letícia seemed to feel his frustration and fear. She’d soothe him with her eyes and always seemed to have the best comment handy to cheer him up.

  Despite all that support, however, there was nobody with whom Pedro felt he could open up completely. How could he explain the way he felt? How could he explain that his concern for his brothers could be hurting his grades even further, which were already dropping due to the drowsiness he felt during classes? How could he explain the tension growing in him from being attracted to both Letícia and Mary at the same time? How could he explain the fear that overwhelmed him whenever he thought of his parents’ financial situation, which grew worse every passing day?

  And on top of that, the first match in the Flag Race championship was drawing near. Ace’s whole team was feeling anxious. The game’s server was way more hectic than usual. Amateur games were taking place all over the world and bets were being made everywhere.

  “OK, guys,” Kerah said to everyone, as they sat around the table, “our time is drawing near. Remember all that we have practiced and everything will turn out all right!”

  “You’ll see how awesome it is,” Dante remarked. “It’s way more exciting than casual matches. You see those big screens? Our game is going to be on all of them and everybody here in the server will get to watch and bet on us!”

  Or against us... Ace reasoned, but soon dispersed that thought.

  “We’re gonna have so much fun!” Asuka cried out, in her usual excitement.

  She’s right, Ace agreed. He had been under so much pressure that he’d forgotten why he was there. It was supposed to be fun, right? He decided the game would be a perfect opportunity to set his worries aside and allow himself to get excited about something. He smiled.

  Bobby let out a long, rumbling, metallic roar. He looked now like someone wearing an eerie, ancient armored diving suit, with a power drill where his left hand should be. Ace had no idea where he drew the inspiration for the creatures he turned into, but he was thankful they had him on his team.

  “You’re right, Bobby. Our faces are already on the main scoreboard,” Mary said, glancing at Ace with an enticing look. “Shall we?”

  They all got up and followed Dante, who was opening the door that led to the court. Ace was surprised as he looked around. The court still looked the same and had the same shape, but most of the usual white background was instead replaced by the large screens through which hundreds of users were watching the match. Each of those screens showed the inside of one of the rooms in the server. They could hear the audience’s uproar, which excited them further.

  On a large set of central screens above the court, they saw their faces on the blue team, and their opponents’ on the red team.

  “On your marks, players!” The play-by-play announcer could be heard above all other noises. “My dear friends, today we’ll watch the clash between Gaea’s Furies, in red, against Dante’s Chaos, in blue!”

  Everybody gave an incredulous, indignant glare at Dante. Bobby let out a metallic roar. Dante shrugged.

  “Hey, we needed a name to register, so I made one up! It sounds pretty sweet, doesn’t it?” Ace, Mary and Asuka laughed, while an indignant Kerah face-palmed.

  “On your marks!” the announcer went on. “The race will start in three, two, one... Go!”

  Ace started sliding as fast as he could to the center of the court at the same speed at which Dante advanced with his light-footed steps. The remainder of the team came right behind. Asuka, to the cry of “Ice power!”, was already molding plenty of sharp safeguards on their course.

  As they approached the center of the court, the two opposing teams could already catch a glimpse of each other. Kerah started shooting at a huge tree man who advanced in broad steps. Pieces of him were falling off, but his speed remained unabated. Dante unsheathed his sword and dueled with a large werewolf who attacked him with his mighty claws. Bobby violently tackled a black bear, which was thrown back several yards.

  Just as they had practiced, Ace and Mary were distancing themselves from the group, heading toward the opposing team’s left flag. They advanced a few yards before a fox-headed woman started chasing them, hovering at a high speed right behind on a flying carpet.

  Mary turned to her and raised her hands, casting an energy wave that sent her whirling several yards back. Gracefully, however, she recovered and started chasing them again. Her eyes shone while she chanted a strange spell.

  “Damn, a Molder!” Mary complained to Ace, as she noticed the changes around them.

  The game line was disappearing and being gradually replaced by a beach. It was such a powerful effect that Ace could swear he’d been transported to another locus entirely. Spreading on all sides, the beach seemed endless. A vast sea ahead made a chore out of reaching the flag, which now stood on a tiny island. Not even the screens could be seen above the beach. The only thing that reminded them they were still in the game was looking back and seeing the remainder of the court.

  Ace started tripping on the sand as it made his wheels lock up. Before he came crashing down, though, Mary made him levitate, still pushing him forward toward the flag. As soon as he could, Ace turned his roller blades into water skis. With all her might, Mary gave him a final push forward, before she turned around to face her opponent. Ace should have enough speed to get to the flag. Protecting him was all she had to do now.

  With swift gestures, sh
e made several explosions toss up the sand high in the air, in her opponent’s path. Though wounded, the fox-woman still advanced amidst the sand cloud, falling over Mary with an well-timed kick.

  Focusing on his goal, Ace was estimating when would be the exact moment to capture the flag. The push Mary had given him allowed him to quickly cover the distance to the tiny island. With all that practice under his belt, it wasn’t hard then to jump over it and grab the banner while still in mid-air, before falling back on the surface of the water. Before he started sinking, he added small engines to his skis, which propelled him still as he turned around to go back to the court.

  While still near the island, Ace could see Mary’s duel with the fox. The opponent had condensed a large amount of sand from the beach into the shape of a gigantic snake, which she controlled while standing on top of its head, leading it to attack Mary repeatedly.

  “You can’t hold out for long! You’ll be disintegrated!” the adversary yelled.

  The girl sheltered herself with force fields, causing the serpent to dissolve, which then reformed itself before attacking once more.

  “Mary! I’m coming!” Ace cried out through his Neurolink.

  “Ace! So good you’re coming back! I can stop fooling around then!”

  Fooling around? She seemed overwhelmed. He insisted, “Don’t you need help?”

  “Yeah, right! You take care of the flag while I take care of her!”

  Just as Ace was about to reach the sand, Mary executed her plan. She waited until the sand serpent attacked her again to create an inverted force field. Instead of creating a sphere around herself, she made a large sphere that engulfed the serpent and its controller. Her efforts made her green hair glow intensely and billow in the air. Tightly clenching her fist, Mary made the force field shrink, trapping the fox-woman inside a ball of sand. She kept her concentration until the opponent had been disintegrated.