Mystery in the Computer Game (2 page)

Benny stared at the ordinary brick building up ahead. “That? It sure doesn’t look like much.”

Indeed, there wasn’t a cave or a castle or a haunted house in sight. The small sign in front of the large brick building said
QUESTMASTER
in plain letters—nothing like the red-and-yellow flame letters on the
Ringmaster
game box.

“Don’t be too disappointed,” Mr. Alden said when he parked the car. “My friend John Romer said his nephew, Charles, designed the building for hard work and hard play, too. There’s a playing field in back, a basketball court, video games, pool tables, and the like. Some of the employees here even bring their dogs to work.”

“You mean we could have brought Watch?” Jessie asked.

Grandfather nodded. “Perhaps—though I’m not sure Watch is ready to sit in front of a computer just yet.”

“Just under the computer,” Benny said.

The children laughed at the thought of Watch going to a big office. Yet, just outside the QuestMaster building, the Aldens noticed several dogs playing in a fenced dog run. Next to that, they saw several people playing basketball outside.

Henry and Jessie looked at each other.

“Wouldn’t it be fun to work in a place where you could bring your dog and play basketball at lunch?” Jessie asked.

A tall young man with sandy hair, freckles, and blue eyes spotted the Aldens on the sidelines. He waved them over, then tossed the ball to Jessie. Soon all the Aldens, except for Grandfather, had joined the basketball game. Many of the players were wearing bright red
Ringmaster
shirts.

“This is fun,” Benny said to Henry a few minutes later. “Only that lady over there doesn’t pass the ball.”

Henry nodded. He, too, had noticed that the young woman with the ponytail grabbed the ball a lot and didn’t pass it much. She was a pretty good player, though, and made lots of baskets.

Finally the game was over.

“Hi, Aldens,” the young man said, holding out his hand to Mr. Alden, then to the children. “I’ve been expecting you. I’m Charles David Romer, but around here everybody calls me C.D. That was pretty good playing.”

The Aldens looked surprised. This young man was the founder of QuestMaster? Although he was in his midtwenties, he didn’t look much older than Henry.

“I’m the boss around here,” C.D. said when he realized the Aldens still didn’t quite know who he was.

“You don’t look bossy,” Benny blurted out.

This made the Aldens laugh and feel right at home.

Mr. Alden introduced the children by name.

“Hi,” C.D. said as he went around shaking each of the Aldens’ hands. “Here comes one of our new designers. This dynamo hoop star is Jane Driver. Jane just started work here last month. Jane, meet the Aldens. They’re going to be testing out some of the new
Ringmaster II
stuff we’ve been working on.”

The young woman didn’t seem interested in the Aldens. “I have to get back to work, C.D.,” she said before rushing indoors.

“Jane would spend all her time on game design if I let her. But I don’t let her,” C.D. said. “In a company like QuestMaster, we all share ideas. So we play a lot of group games to encourage everyone to work together. Jane’s not used to our way of working yet.”

“We are!” Benny announced. “We work together while we’re having fun. That’s how we got to be Ringmasters.”

C.D. gave Benny a high five. “Way to go, Benny! Uncle John was right to send you over to help us out,” C.D. told the Aldens as he led them inside the building to a small room.

He pulled out a box of red
Ringmaster
T-shirts and gave one to each of the children. “After you try these on, meet me in the design studio,” C.D. said to the children. “It’s down that hall and through the door. See you later, Mr. Alden. I’ll have the computer and your grandchildren all ready to go at five o’clock. Meet us at our loading dock.”

After their grandfather left, the children walked down the hall and opened a door. They were surprised to find themselves in a huge room.

“This room is almost as big as the school gym,” Jessie said. “I’ve never seen so many computers in one place, either. Plus two pool tables. What a funny place QuestMaster is. I can’t tell if it’s a place to work or a place to play.”

All along the walls, a dozen or so people were working in front of large-screen computers. All the screens showed the same thing—a mean-looking dragon about to pounce on Tracker, the little game dog from
Ringmaster I.

“Look at that!” Henry said. He was thrilled to get a sneak peek at his favorite game.

C.D. spotted the Aldens across the studio. “Hey, everybody. It’s okay to leave your work on-screen,” he told all the designers. “Meet the Aldens. They’re here to help us test out our new game.”

C.D. led the children to the fanciest computer they had ever seen. “Come meet Morka, our dragon character,” he said. “Our designers are trying to decide what kind of dragon we want Morka to be. Right now we’ve made him a scary dragon. He’s after Tracker, one of our favorite characters.”

A real dog, not a computer dog, came out from under one of the nearby desks. He was scruffy, with rough gray fur. He wagged his tail and sniffed at the Aldens.

“He smells our dog, Watch, on our clothes,” Jessie told C.D.

“He’s the original Tracker,” C.D. explained, “and our QuestMaster mascot, too. I found him wandering near our old offices a couple of years ago. So I modeled our computer dog after him.”

“Our dog, Watch, is a good tracker,” Benny said. “He tracked us when we lived in the woods.”

C.D. scratched Tracker’s head before the dog went back to his nap spot under the desk. “Sometimes people find dogs, and sometimes dogs find people. Bring Watch in sometime. Anyway, how do you like the look of this dragon so far? Too scary?”

“No way!” Benny answered.

C.D. sat down in front of his computer again. He fiddled with some controls and did some amazing art tricks on-screen. “How about this?” he asked after he added a pair of pink wings to the dragon.

“Now he’s a nice dragon,” Soo Lee said.

C.D. offered each of the Aldens a turn at the computer. They turned Morka into a fish-faced dragon, then a cat-faced dragon, then back to a scary dragon again.

“Maybe Morka can be a dragon that changes all the time,” Violet suggested, “depending on what’s happening in the game.”

C.D. gave Violet a big smile. “Great idea! We’ll be trying a lot of new things on
Ringmaster III
after this game is sent out to the stores. Jane Driver came up with something no other game has—it’s top secret right now.”

The next thing everyone heard was a crash nearby.

“What on earth was that?” C.D. asked.

C.D. walked over to the next workstation. A tall, dark-haired man was picking up papers, photos, and computer disks that had fallen to the floor.

“Is everything okay, Ned?” C.D. asked. “That was quite a racket.”

The man’s face was angry-looking. “Talk about racket! I’ll tell you what’s a racket—a pack of kids running around an office.”

This didn’t much bother C.D. “Hold your horses, Ned. You know this place isn’t a library.”

“It’s not a playground, either,” Ned said. “A man can’t get a minute’s quiet here.”

C.D. chuckled. “Now, Ned. You know QuestMaster is part playground, part office. After all, what are we designing here? Games for kids. Now take a break, okay? You’ve been working too hard. Come meet the Aldens. According to their grandfather, they’ve got a reputation for solving problems and mysteries. Kids, meet one of our head designers, Ned Porter. He’s responsible for a lot of great ideas in
Ringmaster I
and
II.”

Ned Porter brushed right by the Aldens.

“Should we go home?” Jessie asked.

C.D. laughed. “No way! Ned’s been kind of grumpy lately. I wish I knew what was bothering him. Maybe he’s just been working too hard. Now let’s go back to my computer so you can try out
Ringmaster II.
That’s why I brought you here.”

When it was nearly five o’clock, the children had been exploring
Ringmaster II
for a few hours.

“So what do you think of our new game so far?” C.D. asked.

“Amazing,” Henry said. “There are a lot of new features and characters.”

C.D. beamed. “Glad you like it. Wait until next year when you get a look at
Ringmaster III.
We’re experimenting right now with that new feature Jane Driver came up with.”

The children held their breath. Maybe this time C.D. would let them in on the big secret.

“Sorry, guys,” C.D. told them. “I can’t tell you what it is. If Jane and I work out all the bugs,
Ringmaster III
is going to bring computer games to a whole new level, just you wait.”

Benny rocked back and forth on his sneakers. “I can’t wait.”

C.D. smiled at the Aldens. “One thing you don’t have to wait for is that computer I promised you. Follow me. Your grandfather is probably waiting at our loading dock now.”

“This looks like a computer store,” Jessie said when C.D. led the children to a storage room packed with computers.

“These are practically brand-new,” C.D. explained. “We replaced them because all the artwork we’ve been doing on
Ringmaster II
soaks up a lot more power.” He walked up and down the room. “Now, where’s the one I set aside for you?”

With the Aldens trailing behind, C.D. turned down another aisle. When he did, he nearly bumped into Jane Driver.

“Whoa, Jane!” C.D. said. “What are you doing in here?”

Jane looked flustered when the Aldens crowded around her. “The sound card on my new computer isn’t working. I was going to remove the one from my old machine.”

C.D. looked puzzled. “Sorry, Jane. You really can’t do that. Just ask Ned to help you figure out how to use the new card. I want all these computers I’m donating to the high school to go out fully equipped. Your old one is going to the Aldens. They’ll need the sound card for testing out parts of
Ringmaster II.”

Jane’s face grew red. “But ...”

C.D. grew a bit impatient. “Look, Jane, please go find Andy Porter now. I need him to carry the monitor out to Mr. Alden’s car, and that’s that.”

Jane seemed frozen in place.

“The sound card should stay in this machine,” C.D. repeated. “Now please find Andy for us.”

A long time seemed to pass before Jane moved. When she finally left, she pushed the swinging doors so hard they swung back and forth several times before coming to a stop.

When the Aldens arrived at the loading dock, Grandfather was already there. He opened his car trunk so C.D. and Henry could put the computer and keyboard inside.

Jessie found the Aldens’ old picnic blanket and wrapped it around the equipment. “That’ll keep everything from bumping around back here,” she told Grandfather. “We can put the monitor on the other side so it doesn’t slip and slide.”

C.D. checked his watch. “Where is that monitor, anyway? Andy Porter should have been here by now. I hope Jane gave him my message. Why don’t you kids run back to the storage area and look around for Andy. Maybe he needs some help.”

“Don’t you mean
Ned
Porter?” asked Benny.

“Andy is Ned’s son. They’re both computer whizzes, and they both work here,” said C.D.

The Aldens headed inside. As they got closer to the computer storage room, they overheard two people arguing.

“Dad! You can’t let that happen. It’s not fair,” one person said.

“Stay out of it,” a second person answered. “I’ll take care of things.”

Jessie signaled to Henry to turn around. The children tiptoed out, wondering what the argument was about.

“Any luck?” C.D. asked when the Aldens reappeared without Andy. “Oh, there he is, right behind you.”

The children whirled around. Standing behind them was a teenage boy about Henry’s age. Andy looked very much like his father, dark-haired, tall, and serious. On a hand truck in front of him was a large computer monitor box.

“Thanks for getting our monitor,” Henry told Andy. “I’m Henry. These are my sisters, Jessie and Violet, my brother, Benny, and our cousin, Soo Lee.”

Andy smiled shyly. Without a word, he rolled the hand truck and the monitor down the ramp where C.D. and Mr. Alden were standing.

“What took so long, Andy?” C.D. asked.

The boy didn’t answer right away. “I ... uh ... couldn’t find an empty box right away. Sorry.”

C.D. smiled at the boy. “Meet Mr. Alden.”

“Glad to meet you, young man,” Mr. Alden said. “Charles has told me what a valuable worker you are. I’m sure my grandchildren can learn a lot from you.”

The Aldens couldn’t tell if Andy thought this was a compliment or not. He seemed confused at being surrounded by so many strangers. “Is it true that your grandchildren are good at solving mysteries?” he asked quietly. “My father told me C.D. said they were.”

“They have solved more than a few,” Grandfather said, “but I think they’ve moved on to figuring out computer games.”

C.D. grinned at Grandfather in reply and helped Andy load the computer box into the trunk. “Andy works part-time keeping track of our equipment,” C.D. began. “But he gets as much done as many of my full-time workers. Plus he’s an ace on computers, to boot.”