Sleepwalker || ONC 2023

Run

A/N: Sleepwalker is officially a Round 2 Qualifier for ONC2023! I can't believe it! Now, I just have the entire book to finish before the next deadline...I'm sure it'll be fine. Thank you for reading!
......
August 30, 2715
Dreamworld: Zone 1

"Good, you actually listened," Ace snarked as he scaled the rundown apartment building on the Ring's most outer level. Cho narrowed her gaze at his deflated tone, and Amber rolled her eyes.

"Barely," Diego replied, "If you hadn't shown up in the next five minutes, we would've left you."

"Then you would've died, and I would have passed you." Ace pretended to contemplate the idea. "That actually doesn't sound too bad. Maybe I should have told you to scout ahead."

Amber crossed her arms and leveled her stare on the android. The intimidating technique didn't seem to faze him though.

"If you don't like us so much, then why ask us to risk our lives working with you?" Diego clipped back.

Ace brushed passed them and continued marching towards the portal casting their faces in shadows. He didn't want them here, but the Professor seemed to think he needed them. Well, he couldn't exactly be blamed if they didn't want to come, now could he?

"If you don't want to come, then fine. I'm not going to drag you with me. But someone close to me thinks I need help taking down the Embassy, so I at least need someone to accompany me to the Pinnacle. You said you were in a few hours ago. If all it takes is a couple of zombie-bots to shake your commitment, then I don't need your flippant dead weight anyway."

That seemed to spur Diego into action, and the tanned boy strode up to Ace. "Please, I'd go into the Zones just to watch the Embassy wipe the floor with your arrogant backside. I'll even race ya across the Grid."

"Don't be an idiot, D," Phoenix piped up, cuffing his cousin on the back of the head before looking Ace up and down. "Dude, what happened to your jacket?"

Instead of discouraging and distracting his surrogate brother like Phoenix had hoped, Diego sent the android a grin that was all teeth and held out a hand. Both ignored the question directed to their gray-eyed companion.

"Come on, Ace. First one across the Grid gets to pick everyone's dreams for tomorrow night."

     "You mean later tonight, right? Just because it's not daylight yet doesn't mean the date's changed," he corrected. There was just something so satisfying to his system when Diego sneered down at him. Ace couldn't help but shift his weight into a more relaxed, controlled stance.

"Whatever. I'm going to have a lot of fun messing with your head 'tonight'," Diego retorted and fingered air quotes to the end of his sentence.

Cho cupped a hand over her eyes, and Amber groaned loudly. If their reactions were anything to go by, Ace didn't want to think about what kind of dreams Diego would make everyone endure if he won.

"Good thing I don't lose," he replied and took the offered hand, "But I'll make sure you have a wonderful experience."

"No, but seriously," Phoenix, ever the peacekeeper, repeated, "What happened to your jacket, man?"

Ace briefly glanced at the vaguely hand-shaped burns on his shoulders. Not even a day into his quest, and his clothes were already looking worse for wear. He shrugged.

"One of the Enforcers wanted to try ballroom dancing," he replied nonchalantly, "I took lead."

"Are you hurt?" Cho asked, eyeing the flaps of torn jacket around his shoulders and up one of his sleeves. For some reason, she thought he had once had a ballcap, but it must not have made it.