The Drau. The blood. The girl from the other team . . .

With a wince, I gingerly poke at the side of my abdomen. No pain. No wound. And the T-shirt that’s wadded in my hand isn’t drenched in blood. I’ve respawned fully healed. I made it through another mission.

For a second, I just lie there, breathing and feeling grateful. Then I try to figure out where I am. Not home. Not the lobby.

I’m at the bottom of a massive oval amphitheater, tiers of seats rising all around me. They climb beyond the reach of the light and disappear into darkness. Every seat is occupied by a shadowy figure, forms and faces obscured.

I’ve been called to face the Committee. Good. If anyone can help me find Jackson, it’s them.

I push to my feet, dragging my T-shirt over my head, not really into facing the Committee in my sports tank.

My thoughts scurry around like cockroaches at the flick of a light, zipping from the Drau to the Committee to the sensations that washed over me right before the jump. The pain, the rage—Jackson’s emotions reaching across time and space to crawl inside my brain, making me a powerless witness to his torment.

I remember Jackson screaming. Get out of my head.

“They have Jackson,” I say, not even sure the Committee’s listening. “The Drau. They’re hurting him.” Killing him. What if they’ve already succeeded?

Fear for him slices me open and leaves me raw. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold it together.

When no one answers me I turn a full circle, searching for help, but the audience is dark and wraithlike. I feel like they’re not seeing me at all. As I complete my turn, a raised platform appears directly in front of me, hovering in midair. It’s empty.

“Show yourselves,” I say, then add, “Please.” It won’t hurt my cause to be polite. That whole catch-more-flies-with-honey thing.

The light dims, then brightens, revealing three figures sitting on the floating shelf, as shadowy and undefined as those who fill the amphitheater.

Last time I was here, they appeared to me as a trio of B-movie caricatures: a Cleopatra look-alike, a brawny guy modeled on a combo of Odin and Thor, a cowled grim reaper. Truth is, they look nothing like that. They manifested in the form I expected to see. I don’t know what they really look like. When I asked, they said they look human. Which doesn’t really tell me a whole lot of anything.

I have a name for the Drau and an idea of their home world from what Jackson told me in the cave. But I have no concept where my alien ancestors originated. I don’t have a name for them or the planet they came from. The only knowledge of them I have is a combo of speculation and what they chose to show me last time I was here, when they implanted scenes in my mind like a video.

Devastation and ruin.

A world destroyed.

The heat of the flames seared me as they showed me their memories of my ancestors herded into pens. Cries rang in my ears as they were killed and cut into manageable-sized portions. Food for the Drau.

I’m a secondhand witness to the horrific destruction of an entire species, but clueless as to who—and what—they truly were before the Drau came. The Committee aren’t exactly forthcoming, and I don’t know if that’s by intent or accident.

But I do know they’re the ones holding the controllers and manipulating the consoles in this game.

And they’re the ones who can help me find Jackson.

“They have him,” I say. “I don’t know where they’re holding him, but I know he’s in trouble. I need your help. I need weapons, a team. I need you to drop me wherever he is. I need—” I break off, certain my presentation’s hurting my case rather than helping it.

“What is it you need, Miki Jones?” Their words tunnel deep, twitching my muscles, scraping my bones. They speak in one voice, if I can call it that. It’s more an experience of sound that arouses every sense, amplifies touch and sight and taste until my entire body’s a conduit for the thoughts they choose to share. It’s similar to the way they communicate with team leaders in the game, but stronger, bigger.

The first time I was here, the experience was too intense. They’ve remembered to tone it down this time and I’m grateful.

“I’m babbling. Okay. I’ll try again.” I take a breath, slow things down. I hesitate, searching for the right words.

They misunderstand my hesitancy and say, “You may speak.” The sound is metallic and a little bitter on my tongue, prickling my fingertips, dancing like fireflies across my field of vision. So weird.

“Jackson . . . is he still alive?”

Silence. How many seconds? Three? Four? An agonizing eternity.

Terror slicks my palms. My chest feels like a truck’s pressing down on it. They’re trying to find a gentle way of telling me he’s gone, dead, killed by the Drau—

“He is alive.”

I sag in relief. I can’t speak, can barely breathe. I take a few seconds just to get myself together before asking in a rush, “So where is he? How do we find him? How do we get to him? Give me a team, or I’ll go alone if you think that’s best.”

I wait, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, feeling like my skin’s too tight.

“He is here.”

I freeze. “What?” I look around, my head whipping side to side. “Where?”

“Here.”

But he isn’t. Not that I can see.

“Wait . . . he’s here?” Hope bubbles like a shaken bottle of pop. “You already saved him from the Drau?”