Read Dead Man's Resolution for Free Online Page B

made non-committal noises while she continued to count backwards.
    “Three...two...one....”
    She steered her friend to the right side of the track as the sky crackled and changed to an ominous one full of bruised purple clouds seething with electricity. For a brief moment, she thought she saw a black owl flying through the clouds, but then it was gone. She hadn't programmed that into the exploit. Gabby shook her head, deciding it was just her imagination.
    “Get ready on my cue.” Gabby rested her hand on Zaela’s arm so she could indicate when they would have to move.
    When Administrator Bracket’s face appeared in the sky amid the threatening clouds, a confused sound came from her right.
    Zaela raised an eyebrow. “I was sure you were behind this.”
    Gabby shrugged. “Just wait.”
    The face in the sky, which was actually only appearing on their personal eye-screens, just like their digital skins and most of the coverings for the landscape, barked out a command, as Administrator Bracket was prone to do.
    “Attention LifeGamers! We’re adding a special bonus round to this game. We are upping the difficulty, so stay sharp!”
    Gabby rolled her eyes. Even though this was a segment she’d spliced from a bonus round a few years ago, hearing it reminded her how lame Bracket was.
    He was an old military guy that had grown up on the forward bases near the Southlands and they used an old version of LifeGame, so he read the scripts like he was berating a private. The key was that Bracket made the hack seem official, so everyone paid attention.
    Obstacles popped up all over the track like bubbles. Hazy questions floated over each obstacle. The two girls neared a candy-striped pole suspended at the height of their ankles.
    WHY WAS LIFEGAME™ INTRODUCED?
    The floating words solidified as they neared, and as they jumped over the pole, the words kept pace.
    "That's so Mario! I studied that last week!" Zaela squealed.
    Of course, Gabby knew that. She'd told Zaela to study it, feigning that she'd heard it would be a pop-quiz, having already planned out the hack.
    "Because the Greater States of America was losing its competitive edge," answered Zaela.
    The question disappeared into green sparkles indicating a correct answer.
    WHAT ARE THE THREE RULES OF LIFEGAME™?
    "Another easy one!" Zaela hopped when she clapped, bringing a smile to Gabby's face.
    "The first rule is what can be gamed can be improved. The second rule is that everything can be a game and the last rule is to never look backwards because the past is a game that's already been decided."
    Gabby smiled and veered to the right so she could answer her own questions. She'd programmed hers to be much harder than Zaela's. Cheat sniffers could tease out patterns in the data and Gabby had to be careful.
    A fractal-recombination cube appeared in front of her demanding a solution. Gabby knew the answer, since she'd programmed it, but purposely got the answer wrong, letting the cube explode into red sparkles.
    Answering the question wrong served a double purpose. Those fractal cubes were advanced encryption problems that hackers had to frequently utilize. By answering it incorrectly, she'd keep her profile from ever looking like a hacker.
    The next few questions were easier and Gabby dutifully answered them, smiling at the green sparkles exploding around her. The Evil Dolls, however, were a different situation.
    Across the track, the gaggle of six girls were trying to leap horrid walls the color of cat puke that were at least half their height. While the walls only existed on their eye-screens, the ubiquitous sensor networks would know if a foot went through one. A failed jump meant a harder question and Gabby had given them near impossible ones.
    There were so many red sparkles above the Evil Dolls it looked like an immersive of a dust storm on Mars. Zaela was rapidly catching up. By the end of class, she'd be well into the clear.
    Gabby was feeling like she'd just scored a