.5 To Have and To Code by Debora Geary Read Free Book Online Page A

fast, and powered by way too much adrenaline.  The shield popped into place just in time to rebound a lightning bolt that would have missed and a flying dagger that would have come way too close for comfort.
    Damn. 
    He tapped into the root code for the bush—maybe he could make the darned thing grow thorns.  Halfway through a grow spell, instinct had him looking up.
    And nearly screaming like a girl.
    The blasted bush was growing, all right.  Long, snaking tendrils—the kind that wrapped up minion avatars and ate them for breakfast.
    Crap.  The coiled-spring feeling moved from his mouse hand to his chest.  Fight or flight time.  He needed bigger guns, and he was pretty sure he knew who had them.  A couple of slingshot lines of code, and he landed just inside the door of one of The Wizard’s spell stashes.  Realm’s number-one player, but it was a minor cache and a poorly guarded one, spotted ten minutes before all heck had broken loose.
    He grabbed what he needed—and hoped like hell that The Wizard was fourteen years old and headed to morning classes.  Raiding the top-ranked player in Realm was likely to get the poor schmuck of an avatar he’d borrowed in some serious trouble.
    For right now, however, it gave him what he needed.  Big game mojo.  He sucked in a loin-girding  breath of air, grabbed a fireball spell, and hit activate.  Time to clear the bushes.
    A blast of light—and then an error.  Spell requires magic.
    Spells were freaking magic.  Daniel yanked up the code for the spell, trying to spot the problem.  Line 42—some kind of weird dead-variable call.  Maybe the spell cache hadn’t been so unguarded after all.  Fingers flying, he did surgery on the spell code, pulling out the dead lines and hooking together the rest. 
    And tossed it over the bush just as the first guys with sharp swords breached his shielding spell.
    When the smoke cleared, the troops were backing up.  Fast. 
    Victory pounded behind Daniel’s eyes.  Hot damn.  He had weapons. 
    Or he would have, once he did some repairs.  Until then, he needed to make scarce.  Smart gamers didn’t fight with half-cracked tools, and he was a very smart gamer.  And a guy running on pretty much no sleep.
    Scooting down a convenient rabbit hole, he ditched the avatar and silenced his code.  Daniel Walker, over and out.  He watched, amused, as the dizzying attack melted into friendly and slightly confused chatting.  The players on this level had mad skills, insane weaponry—and the organizational skills of two-year-olds.  Raid leaders they were not.
    But even if you considered escaping down a rabbit hole a decent gaming tactic, at best he’d held them to a draw.  And that was fairly embarrassing.
    Even on no sleep.
    Daniel scrubbed his eyes and peered at the clock in the corner of his screen.  Damn.  Nine o’clock in the morning and he hadn’t actually made it to bed yet. 
    He leaned back in his chair and groaned.  Shit, he hadn’t iced his ribs nearly long enough either.  Poison had the meanest elbows in the hood, even when he was on your side.  And it had taken three hours of ball-stealing to convince the new kid that a little teamwork went a long way.
    He pushed back from the desk. An all-night gaming session wasn’t his usual gig after a night with Skate and crew.  Especially one where he was on the wrong end of daggers and lightning bolts.  Those spells he swiped were going under the microscope—but first, he needed a nap.  Or at least some fried eggs and an ice pack.
    He pulled up onto his feet, wincing.  This was the kind of crap that happened when he wished for a little more excitement in his life.
    -o0o-
    “He what ?”  Nell tossed a box of donuts on the desk, trying to hear over her brother’s furious typing.
    Jamie grabbed a donut without looking.  “Some jerk hijacked one of Govin’s avatars, shielded himself against a lightning strike, and stole some of your spells.”
    The first two