Stolen Lies (Fates of the Bound 2)

Lila wasn’t sure when it happened, but Dixon’s arm grew heavy around her shoulders, and she began to doze. She tried to fight it, but she hadn’t had much sleep in over a week, and Dixon’s slow breathing cut through her resolve.

A click woke her up.

The click of a gun.

Lila’s eyes snapped open. One hand went to her Colt. She’d drawn it and aimed before she even realized it was Tristan.

Holding his palm.

“Jumpy, aren’t we?” He scrolled through the device. “Could you point that somewhere else?”

Dixon rubbed at his eyes and gently pushed her tranq gun away from his brother’s neck.

“What are you doing?” Lila slid her Colt back in its holster.

“What do you think? I couldn’t resist taking a picture. You were both so cute with the drool and the—”

Dixon wiped his mouth. Finding nothing, he cuffed his brother on the chin.

Tristan hopped back, startled.

The brothers smiled at one another.

“Frank and I combed Natalie’s place,” Tristan said, putting his palm away. “We didn’t find anything new.”

“It was worth a try.”

“Toxic says thanks for sending Natalie’s decryption codes for the palms. She also wanted me to tell you about some game she found on them. She put it on a spare and ran it, just to see what it would do.” Tristan pulled out the device from his pocket and tapped on the screen, handing it over at last. “She said the code was really weird.”

Lila studied the screen, recognizing the alien game at a glance. “Yeah, I saw it. It likely carries a virus. She should be more care—”

“It’s a spare palm off our network. She knows what she’s doing.”

“Fine. Did she play it?”

“She tried, but she said it plays like a broken demo. The aliens fall to the center of the screen, but then they get stuck and the screen flickers. It frustrated her, so she looked into the code.”

Lila started the game up again. “Did Toxic tell you anything besides the code is really weird?”

“She said it’s trying to communicate with something.”

“Of course it’s trying to communicate with something. It’s sending your passwords and accounts to a server halfway across the globe.”

Tristan scratched his chin. “Why would Natalie have that on her palm, then? She’s smarter than that.”

Lila’s lips twitched. She had to admit, it was strange. She woke up her laptop, pulled up the palm data from her files, then ran her snoop programs on the game. When a light flashed red on her screen, she wasn’t surprised. “Yep. Virus.”

Dixon held up his notepad. How do you keep viruses off WolfNet?

Lila and Tristan shared a confused look over Dixon’s sudden interest.

“My security programs look for the sending code,” Lila said, directing her words to both men now. “If we spot the program trying to send or receive anything but scores or game-related files, we don’t allow the download. Reputable game-making families have adopted a standard format for that code. A similar and much more complicated format applies for MMOs and MOBAs.”

“Moe-who?”

“Online games where players fight each other or NPCs.”

“NP-whats?”