Page 47 of Wyatt
“Damn right you are,” said Ulani. “You’ll be charged as adults for this.” The girls sobbed as they were taken away. Before they disappeared, Wyatt ran toward the car.
“When will they launch the game?” he asked the girls.
“T-tomorrow,” she sniffed. “They’re going to make a big production of it tomorrow at the convention.”
“What time?” She stared at him and then at the other girls.
“It doesn’t matter now,” said her friend. “We’re not getting any money, we’re going to be charged with something, and our parents are going to go fucking ballistic.”
“Ten.Ten a.m.”
They watched as the cars pulled away with the girls inside. Wyatt stared at Ulani, silently speaking what they needed to do. Ulani nodded, dialing the number on her phone.
“Ezra? We need to speak with Bethany.”
“What now?” she asked, staring at the people in the conference room. “I haven’t done anything wrong. Not since, well, not lately. I’ve been at home with Dad.”
“I know,” said Ulani, nodding at the girl. “But you forgot to tell us something, didn’t you?”
“I-I don’t know what you mean.”
“Fuck me. What now, Bethany?” asked her father.
“Tell us everything, Bethany. You’re in so deep right now, I don’t know if we can help you at all, but if you cooperate, we’ll try.”
She was silent for a long time, staring down at her fingers twisting together on her lap. She looked up at her father, and the disappointment and pain in his face made her cry.
“He said we’d all be rich. We would make millions of dollars.”
“Who said that?” asked Ezra.
“Joey, the guy who developed the game with Sam and Haley.”
“Back up. Last names?” asked Wyatt.
“I don’t know their last names. Sam approached us at the beach first and said we could make a lot of money. We thought it was drugs or prostitution at first and walked away. Then he said it wasn’t any big deal.”
“Not a big deal?” yelled Ezra. Ulani looked at him, shaking her head, and he quieted. “Fine.”
“We were told not to do anything to the guys except get them to their car, or if the girls lived alone, get them to their apartments. Some of us were my age, others were like twenty or something. Once they were in a car or an apartment, we just stabbed the needle into their muscle. A shoulder, thigh, something like that.”
“Do you realize how much damage you could have caused someone?” asked Kelsey. “I’m a nurse. If you’d hit a nerve or a vein, you could have killed these men.”
Bethany swallowed, looking down again.
“Go on,” said Ulani.
“Once they were out, the guys came and got them.”
“How?” She stared at Wyatt. “These men are big. How did they get them?”
“They used a wheelchair. They would get them in the chair, tell anyone who was looking that they were sick, and take them to their place. Once there, they kept them drugged. They asked them questions about what happens during a high-speed chase or in a dogfight. They even brought in used simulators. Everything was recorded into a computer system that was able to transfer that to a gaming mode.”
“All this so that they could create a fucking game?” growled Ethan.
“Not just a game. The most realistic game ever produced. They already had a buyer for the game. Millions of dollars, apparently, and then they’d make tons of money on top of that.”
“Un-fucking-believable,” said Noa.
