“And there’s more.” She drew closer to him, a dark silhouette against the setting sun. “I laced our server with data-mining programs that let me know whenever there are digital communications about me. I discovered a communiqué between members of my military and executives at LM Lymer Fleet. Apparently, LM Lymer Fleet has them keeping a close eye on me. There was no explanation about why, but it makes me suspect they’ve noticed that there’s something unusual about me.”

The hot Arizona day felt like it had grown cold around him. LM Lymer Fleet was the maker of the Russo-Chinese neural processors, and basically their version of Obsidian Corp. In fact, before he defected, Joseph Vengerov even headed the company. If they had a particular interest in Medusa, it couldn’t be for any good reason.

“You think they’re on to you?” Tom said quietly. “What you can do?”

“It’s possible.”

“What will happen to you if they learn what we can do?”

“Nothing good, Mordred. They’ll try to find out how we can do it. They’ll want to isolate whatever it was about us that’s different and use it in other Combatants—and they’ll do whatever they have to do to accomplish that. That’s why I’m trying to lie low. Whenever you try to contact me, you put me at risk.” She drew closer. “You said you had a question. Ask me now. Then no more gnomes and no more visits. There’s too much danger right now.”

Tom pulled his hat off his head and mopped at his sweaty forehead. His reason for endangering her now sounded stupid, self-serving. He felt like a scumbag even saying it. “I wanted to ask you how you got into space without a sponsor.”

“That’s it?”

He tried to tell whether he was imagining it, or whether she really sounded hurt. “And I missed you,” he added. He realized it was true as he said it. “I did. I miss fighting you and . . . I know what I did at Capitol Summit sucked, but I want to—”

“To shoot me?” She drew her gun. Her dark silhouette blocked the sun from his eyes.

Tom realized she wasn’t comfortable with anything too personal. Not anymore. He had to take the out she was offering. “Yeah. That’s great, too.”

Tom wished there was some way he could erase the past and return things to the way they’d been. That was the thing about real life. Video games could be reset. There were second chances. There was no way to walk through the same scenario in a different manner when it came to Medusa.

“To answer your question,” Medusa said, fingers hovering centimeters from her holstered gun, “I don’t have a sponsor for a reason that’s very obvious.”

“Because of your . . .” Tom faltered.