Tom took up playing poker with Walton Covner and some of the older trainees. He still was an efficient killer in simulations. He’d gotten used to the fake fingers, but he didn’t play VR games. He picked up the gloves sometimes, out of habit, but he never put them on. They made his chest feel hollow.

He wasn’t unhappy. As soon as it grew completely clear to him there was no way he was going to be able to change Blackburn’s mind, no way he was gong to be able to get into Obsidian Corp.’s systems—as soon as he realized there was no hope—he was finally able to accept a cold, hard truth about life: the world rewarded sociopaths like Vengerov and destroyed good people like Yuri.

Tom finally understood why his father saw humanity as worthless. It was hard to see much fundamental value in anything when the bad guys always won.

Maybe this was simply what it was like to grow up.

TOM WAS FINISHING up the silent lunch with Wyatt when Heather approached their table. He felt her hand skim along his shoulder. “Hey, Tom! We’re battling today in Applied Scrimmages.” There was a note of excitement in her voice.

He glanced back at her. “Huh. Great.”

“I’m excited—aren’t you?”

“Sure.”

It was strange how something in the last few months had ignited Heather’s interest in him. She was constantly catching his eye and smiling at him in this inviting way that would’ve floored him once. Or she’d randomly reach out and straighten his collar or tousle his hair, or stuff like that. He wasn’t sure what to think of it, so he didn’t bother most of the time.

“You’ll come fight me one-on-one later, won’t you?” Heather said with a wink.

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Why not.”

“Wonderful.” She tickled his neck with her fingertips, to his great confusion, and swayed away from the table. She hadn’t said a word to Wyatt, not even one of those fake sympathetic ones she did early on. Her IP address had been changed in preparation for proxying Elliot at Capitol Summit this year. A victory there or even a close loss would assure her an official end to her disgrace and a true shot at front man of CamCo next year. That seemed to be all Heather wanted—a chance at riding high above all the others. Tom didn’t particularly care. At least she left Wyatt alone now.

“Well, I’ve gotta go to Scrimmages,” Tom told Wyatt. He thrust himself to his feet. “Later.”

He didn’t wait to see whether she’d acknowledge it. He knew she wouldn’t.