Gamers Con: The First Zak Steepleman Novel (20 page)

That I was
headed
for the sun.

I felt my heart fluttering up in my throat—my chest tighten—and I told myself to calm down, that, really, this was just virtual reality and that if something
did
happen to me, I would find myself transported right back to the convention centre of Gamers Con . . . where James, Chung and Kate would all be waiting for me.

But our parents
wouldn’t
be there . . . not yet . . .

The brightness from the sun became too much to bear, and I was forced to clasp my eyes shut. But that only did so much. I still felt the boiling-hot sting at the backs of my eyelids. Could only see the bright redness which blasted my retinas.

I sunk my teeth into my lower lip hoping to take my mind off the pain—and what seemed to be my imminent collision with the sun.

And then, just like that, all the lights went out.

I felt myself tumbling.

Downwards.

Sideways.

Upwards?

I really had
no
idea.

47

THE DARKNESS was just as complete as the brightness had been before.

When the manky scent hit my nostrils, I knew that I didn’t need to see to know just where I had ended up, where I had been transported to.

Halls of Hallow

I felt myself drop what felt like another thousand metres or more, and then I came to an abrupt halt. Seemed to hover for what seemed like two or three seconds before landing with a
thump
on the familiar, sleek, black marble floor.

Back again.

I took a couple of moments.

Absorbed the coolness of the place.

Felt like it was soaking into my skin.

Calming me after everything that had come before.

The slight silvery glow entered the darkness of the hall.

Gave
something
for my eyes to work with.

It was then that, up ahead, I noticed the shape shifting through the shadows.

Another person.

In a matter of heartbeats, I was back on my feet, and rushing towards the shape instinctively.

And it was only when I lurched off my feet, felt myself toiling through the air and made contact, knocking us both to the ground, that I realised it was Alan.

Down there.

Below me.

I was lying on him.

Keeping him
pinned
to the marble floor.

For a long few seconds, I just listened to his heavy breathing.

Felt him struggle a couple of moments and then surrender.

In a frayed, husky voice, he said, “I . . . I
give up
.”

He sounded so thoroughly
pathetic
—so totally
beaten
—that I thought about taking my weight off him, letting him loose from me.

But then I reminded myself that he was the
competition
.

That if I wanted to find out what had happened to my dad—to
all
our parents—then it was up to
me
to strive on through this Final, and do whatever it took to win the trophy.

I had promised all of them that.

I let up my weight just a little so that Alan had enough room to take in a few breaths, so that he could at least
speak
.

Because now was the time for answers.

And I was determined to get them.

All
of them.

“What did you
do?
” I said, my voice sounding sharper than I’d anticipated . . . coming across in such a way that I wondered for a second just who might be the Bad Guy here.

I could feel Alan’s heart beating up against my skin as he replied.

“I . . . I . . .”

I wanted to reach out and shake him—tell him just what was at stake here, that they’d taken all our parents hostage, and that it was up to
me
to bring them back.

Could he not just put whatever this stupid thing he’d promised the
Cloaked Figure
to do to one side, just for a moment?

But then he seemed to snap back to attention, his words came quickly, as if they were tumbling out after having been kept inside for so long, and he said, “He took my parents—
both
of them. He forced me along into this,
made
me take part in this competition.”

I allowed him a couple of seconds to get his breath back and then I said, “
Why?
”

Though we were surrounded—
crushed
—by the gloom, I could make out that he was shaking his head, that he was claiming that he didn’t know.

I decided to get his mind back on track and said, “What did you
do?
”

I felt a shudder pass through him—knew that he was truly terrified.

But not of me.

I knew that he was terrified of the Cloaked Figure, the guy who was waiting in the hall just a few steps away from us, obviously still staring into that dark-purple pool of his.

When Alan spoke again, his tone was so quiet, almost silent, that I missed the first couple of words. But I caught just what he was trying to get across.

“. . . And when I got
into
the game, that was when . . . when they sent me the beta . . .
years ago
. . . for
Halls of Hallow
. . .”

I thought about the game—and how Alan was saying that it was several years old, that the action I’d seen play out on my TV screen back home had all happened
years
before.

Alan continued, “. . . They told me that they wanted me to give them my opinion on it . . . and, well, I . . . I didn’t think it would hurt to check out just what it was like to actually be
inside
the game, and that was when . . . when
he
. . . when
he
told me that I had to . . . I had to . . .”

“What?” I said. “
What
did he tell you to do?”

“He told me that I had to get him . . . get him . . .
online
.”

“ ‘Online?’ ” I said, feeling the worry lines burrowing themselves into my forehead. “What’re you
talking
about?”

But I knew just what he was talking about.

Of course I did.

Though I wasn’t a big online player—preferring to perfect my single-player skills for the
big
,
in-person
competitions . . . yeah,
that
and our internet
really
wasn’t up to much at all—I knew that there was an enormous
online
community.

That a ton of gamers never thought to do anything else with their Siroccos
except
play online.

I’d never really thought of the possibility, of what might happen if I booted up a game in online mode and then
went inside
. . .

“He . . . he . . . wanted me to bring him to . . . to the . . .”

But his words just seemed to fade away.

His focus left my eyes.

He looked over my shoulder.

When I glanced back I saw him.

The Cloaked Figure standing there.

Looming over the both of us.

And I felt the chill rattle me right down to the bones

48

I WAS DIMLY AWARE that I let Alan go, though I can’t quite remember when.

But he did manage to squirm free.

To roll his way out from underneath.

To hurl himself up onto his feet once more.

And to rush on, past the Cloaked Figure, out into the hall.

As I lay there, on the marble floor, the Cloaked Figure bearing down on me, I knew that he wasn’t about to
just
let me slip past.

When he spoke, I noticed something different about his tone, something somewhat
reedier
about his tone of voice—nothing of the
booming
quality which Harold’s voice had contained . . . when he’d drawn his hood down for me to see who it was before.

“Mr Steepleman,” the Cloaked Figure said, “I have to say that I’m
most
impressed you’ve managed to come this far in the competition—that you’ve managed to
reach
this point. Though I’ve heard stories of your great prowess, I have to say that I really didn’t
fully
buy into it wholly—didn’t
truly
believe until right now.”

Even before he brought his hood down to his shoulders, I knew just who I was dealing with, who was currently inhabiting the Cloaked Figure.

Mr Yorbleson.

The one in charge of the Grand Tournament.

“Yes,” he continued, “it really has been an interesting experiment—what with bringing you all through these trials . . . and I have to say that it does somewhat
irk
me now for what I must do.”

“What?” I said, afraid to make any sudden movement, “What’re you going to do?”

“Send you back,” he said, his voice cool, and hard.

Apparently unbreakable.

I shook my head. “No,” I said, “I’ve come to bring our parents back, that’s my duty.”

“Your parents,” Mr Yorbleson said, with a flash of teeth, “they’ll be staying here from now on, and you shall do whatever I say if you want them to live.”

I felt a pang in my gut.

I knew it was fear.

But, more than that, it was the itching feeling to do
something
.

To
change
how this was playing out.

I needed to buy time, though, since I was playing along with Mr Yorbleson’s rules—this was his own environment here, after all.

“Don’t I get a
chance?
” I said. “No chance
at all
to save them?”

Mr Yorbleson gave a shake of his head.

“What about Alan, where’s
he
gone?”

“He has
earned
his chance,” Mr Yorbleson said. “However, you and the others
have not
.”

“What do I have to do? What was the
deal
you made with him?”

Mr Yorbleson smiled widely again. “I took Alan’s parents, and, in exchange, he brought me four of you—four others willing to do whatever I would say, to give me more
power
in the real world.”

“I . . . I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Mr Yorbleson moved closer to me.

I expected his frozen touch at any second—
dreaded
it.

But he held off for now.

“Alan didn’t get a chance to tell you the
full
story, to explain to you just
where
I came from—how I was
able
to trap your parents, to reel them in here.”

“No,” I said, surprising even myself that I managed to keep the tone of my voice hard—
unshaking
. “He didn’t.”

“You see,” Mr Yorbleson said, “you two—you and
Alan
—thought you were so clever, being able to
hop into
whatever video game you wanted to . . . and yet, you never entertained the possibility of somebody from the game coming out—escaping into real life.”

Right then was when it all clicked into place.

I understood.

For the first time.

And I said it out loud.

“You’re . . . you’re a
video game
character?”

“Yes,” Mr Yorbleson said. “Wasn’t that
obvious
to you?”

I shook my head, watching him for any sign that he might be about to reach out and make contact with me—brush those fingertips of ice against my skin.

He still held off, apparently enjoying keeping me like this, almost torturing me like a coiled snake with a cornered mouse.

Just waiting for the moment to sink in its venomous fangs.

“Alan, he was responsible for bringing me into the real world—into
your
world . . . though he did not realise that himself . . . not until it was too late, not until I had managed to get myself involved with Alive Action Games, and to make
threats
of my own, to
inhabit
the games they worked on there, and turn the whole establishment to my bidding.”

I shook my head, struggling to believe what he was saying. “But, Gamers Con, how . . . how did you manage to . . . to get involved with the Grand Tournament?”

“It took many years,” Mr Yorbleson said, flashing his eyebrows. “Many years of me being at Alive Action, of me
inhabiting
my true self—my
real world
body . . . but I really did what
any
organiser of the Grand Tournament does, I made friends with the right people, got myself
elected
and this . . .
this year
. . . well, it seemed the perfect time for me to make the deal with Alan, and to have him bring me
four more
of you to use for my own purposes—it was fair.”

I felt my chest tighten even further. I couldn’t quite believe what I was
hearing
. And yet I knew that there could be no other explanation.

It all fit.

Mr Yorbleson shrugged. “When the time was right, I decided to shut down Alive Action Games, and to ensure the
five
of you made it through the rounds.” A snakelike smile flickered across his lips. “To put to bed any thought that this might be
rigged
—and so as to have enough time to watch you all . . . to find out who your parents were, and to bring them in.”

I felt my breath cold.

My heart rapping hard against my tonsils.

“The internet,” Mr Yorbleson continued, “is
really
a great thing . . . capturing
your
father was the easiest of them all—what with that chess app of his, I simply
lured
him down to play a game with me . . . and he agreed.” He threw his hand upwards. “The others, too, much less than
challenging
. . . they all came to my call.”

That was when I felt my blood running hot.

And I knew that I had to take a stand.

Now
.

“Where. Are.
They?
” I said.

Mr Yorbleson smiled even wider—if that was even possible. “Oh, Zak, I’m afraid that you are
several years
away from being able to rightly receive an answer to
that
question . . . there are lots of things that you and your friends must
do
for me first . . . out there, in the
real
world.”

I held still for a long while, just like that mouse giving itself up to the fangs of the snake.