As I pushed for the main temple, I kept an eye on the pale sphinx against the deep purple sky. The smaller outbuildings and pagoda didn’t look defensible. I hadn’t seen any sewer access, or that would have been my automatic bolthole. I hated it down there, but not as much as losing my freedom.

  Patience wasn’t often a strength of mine. I’d scold myself later for poor planning. Running was primary.

  Jake was falling behind. The sphinx drifted across the face of the three moons, banked back our way on spread wings. Zayan looked serene as he hurtled toward us, his expression resembling a polar bear’s—just before they tore your face off with their big-ass teeth.

  Another shadow sliced across the moons. The long, sinuous body writhed, coiling patterns mid-air. Its scaled face had a long snout with curling whiskers glinting in the moonlight and bright round eyes. It roared as it flowed around Zayan, whose wings flapped rapidly to slow his dive at us.

  The dragon said something in Japanese, then repeated itself in Chinese, then Korean, and finally, in something my dumb brain could understand.

  “None shall trespass the skies of Kannon!”

  I glanced back at Jake, who stumbled up a step and was gawking at the dragon and the sphinx. His eyes might as well have been heart-shaped. He gasped words without enough breath to form them. I slowed up enough to hook an arm under his.

  “Temple—then talk,” I huffed, hauling him along the last of the steps and toward the front entrance of the temple.

  Zayan’s voice rumbled down, too low for me to make out the words. I staggered up the steps to the main platform, my endurance exhausted. Jake was close to passing out, leaning on me heavily. We’d run far, fast, and hard, and it caught up to us.

  I lowered Jake and dropped to my knees, crawling toward the sliding door to the temple. Some fuzzy thoughts about non-violence in Buddhism floated through my mind, and the rumors about churches and sanctuary. As I was reaching for the wood, it slid open, away from me.

  Purple robes filled my vision. I rolled onto my back and looked up.

  “You!” I gasped.

  She gave me a blank stare, then stepped around my splayed arm.

  Jake croaked one word. “Water.”

  The woman pointed to the side. I could hear water tumbling into a pool from that direction As dry as my mouth was, I had a bigger request.

  “Wait,” I gasped, rolling to a knee, “Help.”

  Not exactly the stirring plea I hoped for. Her gaze lifted to the sky, tracking the dance of sphinx and dragon. They weren’t fighting, but they were locked in verbal dispute.

  Over us, of course. Jake’s pulsing red body gave us away. Ok, mine too.

  “You beat the command that triggers the beacon.” I swallowed against my dry tongue. “How?”

  She shrugged and hummed, but her expression gave away a certain smug pleasure. I glanced at Jake.

  “What do you need? We have to get rid of it. I’ll do anything you ask.”

  Her brow arched, and she looked down at me, sprawled on the entrance floor. It smelled nice—rich wood steeped in scented oils and incense dust ground between the joints.

  “You two will work for me?”

  “Sure,” I said, not liking it. I was selling my freedom to gain freedom—math didn’t add up. “As long as you treat us like a real team and not fodder. We can die for those guys once and get our freedom back.”

  She rubbed a knuckle against her chin thoughtfully as she watched the debate in the sky. “Seiryu’s stubborn, but that cop, he’s slick with his words.”

  I squinted at the two, circling each other. It looked epic, the two flying circles over the pagoda. Eventually they would come to a conclusion, or they’d fight.

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  She crouched beside me and patted my shoulder, then waved at Jake. “Quick, get inside. I can teach you, but it won’t be instant.”

  Jake crawled up the stairs, and I pushed up to my feet, sliding into the door she’d left open. I turned to look at the wall. Candlelight flickered in numerous lanterns by the altar, revealing many statues, and the one of the eleven-headed god, Kannon. I only knew about any of it because this was on a very long list of places I wanted to go, and would never be able to afford to.

  I almost knocked over a wooden stand with incense sticks when I turned to appreciate the impressive display. Fumbling to catch it, I straightened it and patted the incense back in.

  As she whisked by, she pointed at it, “Steal some of those. You’ll need them.”

  I dropped a handful into my inventory and followed her. The softly glowing nameplate over her head identified her: Akilah Moonshadow.

  “Start with your aspect screen,” she instructed, arms crossing, chin tilted down. There was a slight pause, and then, “I know your names, and finding you won’t be hard. So, you best stand by your promise.”

  “We should add terms, conditions, and length of service,” I suggested, since we were discussing it.

  Jake’s hand was up, hovering by the invisible place I knew his aspect screen was. I didn’t touch mine, having already figured out how to navigate it with my mind. Akilah frowned, then started tapping her chin again.

  “Okay. Until I reach level 20, you two are my thugs; you do what I say when I tell you to do it,” she stated, pointing at both of us.

  “I’m not killing PCs,” I said, and Jake, after a glance at me, nodded.

  “Okay,” she shrugged. “Any other terms?”

  “We share loot,” Jake said.

  Her face said no, right away.

  I held up a hand and added, “If it makes us stronger, it obviously makes your force stronger. A little money and any gear that suits us is fair.”

  “Well, since you put it that way,” she was still considering it. I could tell by how she stroked her chin. This woman had a tell brighter than the blue sun.

  “Alright. Now, look at the edge of the aspect screen. Really look at it,” she went right back into instruction, just like that, arms crossing again.

  The aspect screen’s gray edge wavered. A black, pixel-sized border surrounded it. The border had escaped my notice, blending in when I was focused on the center of it.

  “See it? Now peel it back.”

  Jake tapped the air, and she corrected him. “No, peel, pull it back. Imagine pulling it back to see what’s underneath.”

  I imagined. “It’s not flat,” I murmured, looking inside. The aspect screen was just a hollow interface, a surface image over the deep, black well within. This was the System. Or, at least the partition of it allotted to me.

  “Hey!” Jake said, frowning. I glanced at him, and he pointed at me. His expression was a mix of accusation and curiosity. “You didn’t tell me you knew how to use the aspect screen without touching it!”

  “Didn’t think it mattered,” I muttered, distracted by the code within.

  I saw my raw stats and the adjustments I could make. I couldn’t just tweak my stats. They seemed hard-coded, and my avatar would unravel if I tried to pick them apart or rearrange them. However, we could become very powerful, given time and resources.

  Beyond the aspect screen’s facing, the sprawling mess of branches tangled down into the dark. Alerts, alarms, triggers, and interactions wended their way like a mass of spiderwebbed code.

  “Ignore the noise. Look for external warnings.”

  Without realizing it, I’d closed my eyes. Her voice guided me down into the matted twist of symbols.

  “I found it,” I whispered, the code strings flowing around me.

  “Me too.” Jake’s voice was sharp in the quiet temple.

  “The System is a liar. Make sure you understand what you’re messing with before you do it.” Her voice warned.

  I concentrated, speaking out loud so I didn’t screw up. “Broadcast: Alert Protocols. Faction Hostility Tables: On. Broadcast: Criminal Activity: On. I’m turning those off.”

  “Wait, I can’t. Why can’t I just turn it off?” Jake moaned.

  I hit the same problem. I thought at it, mentally screamed at it, then lifted my hand to try to toggle it manually. Nothing worked.

  I could hear her grin when she said, “Because you have to break it. See Revocations Disabled? Find Diagnostic Mode, then Override Permissions. Find Emergency Override.”

  For a minute or so, the quiet stretched as we searched. Jake’s gasp rocked the silence. “Found it!”

  “Use it. That’s your back door.”

  I selected it. I got a warning, something about assuming responsibility, but I didn’t read it. The beacon had to come off, and I could hear footsteps at the temple door.

  I confirmed the action and hoped to both Kannon and Tan’fukshan I didn’t screw myself over.

  The beacon stopped flashing just as the temple door slid open.

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