“You in the army?” Dom asked. He was a real talker. It was like he was allergic to silence.
“Royal Engineers.”
Casey moved over to an old zombie shooting game called House of the Dead and picked up one of its plastic light guns. She wished she had some coins so she could have a quick blast.
“Been out in Iraq? Afghanistan?”
“A little.”
“See much action? Shoot anyone?”
“I’m on bomb disposal,” her dad explained. “I try to save people, not kill them.” He never liked talking about his job.
Dom whistled, impressed. “I wouldn’t fancy that. All the money in the world wouldn’t be enough to make me risk getting blown up.”
Her dad stared sharply at Dom and then glanced at Casey as if to say, Please don’t talk about me getting blown up in front of my daughter.
Dom shut his mouth, realizing he’d spoken out of turn.
“So, are you a gamer?” he asked, changing the subject. “You don’t look like one.”
“Soldiers have always had a soft spot for games,” her dad told him as he checked out a Street Fighter II cabinet. “Some of the earliest board games started off as military training tools. Generals used to play chess to teach themselves how to think strategically. It was like a battlefield simulator.”
Dom grunted and took another slurp of his tea. “Seen anything you like?”
Casey looked over at her dad. He’d moved into a dark corner of the arcade, near a couple of snooker tables. A dusty cabinet sat in the shadows, long-forgotten. The case was painted blue and red and decorated with flying saucers and giant fuzzy monsters straddling a rocky lunar landscape.
“This,” said her dad, patting the machine like it was an old friend. “This is the one I want.”
“That piece of junk?” Dom chuckled. “It’s virtually prehistoric. I’ve got loads of better machines in here. That one doesn’t even power up any more.”
Casey’s dad wasn’t listening. He placed his hands on the machine’s dead controls. They were covered in a thick layer of dust. Casey joined him and took a closer look. Dom was right. It was prehistoric.
She inspected the cabinet’s casing, searching for a name. It was printed in big yellow letters in a blocky, futuristic font: SPACE INVADERS.
* * *
“I played that game to death when I was younger,” Casey’s dad had chuckled to himself as they drove the hire van home. The cabinet was strapped in the back. It had taken them half an hour to load it. It weighed a ton.
“I thought we were buying something exciting,” Casey complained. “Something like that zombie game I saw. Or even just something that actually works…”
“I’ll fix it,” he promised. “It just needs some TLC. And it is exciting. It’s Space Invaders. The original arcade classic! You versus a bunch of aliens in a battle to save the world. It doesn’t get more exciting than that.”
Casey sank back into her seat as the van moved slowly through the weekend traffic. Mum was going to flip out.
When they got back home, the Space Invaders machine went straight into the garage. It slotted neatly against the wall in a space between her dad’s tool racks. It was as if he’d been planning for its arrival for some time.
“I can’t believe you went without me,” Pete complained when he saw the cabinet. “How come Casey gets to go looking for arcade games while I’m shopping for school uniform?”
“Because Casey didn’t lose her blazer on the bus,” his sister reminded him.
“You didn’t miss much,” their dad said, tousling Pete’s hair. “The guy we bought it from smelled of stale kebabs and he never stopped talking. You’re here in time for the fun part.”
He bent down and unscrewed the cabinet’s faceplate, exposing its electrical innards. While he was busy, Pete stuck his tongue out at Casey behind his back.
Seeing him poring over the machine’s circuit board with a screwdriver and pliers gave Casey a funny feeling. She imagined this was what he must look like when he was crouched over an improvised explosive device out in Afghanistan.
“Everyone thinks bomb disposal must be tense,” he’d told her once. “But the truth is, when I’m doing it, I’m really calm. It’s like being in a bubble. You’re totally in the zone. You forget about everything else until it’s just you and the device. It’s only afterwards, when the bomb is defused and it’s all over, that you get a bit scared.”
Casey knew her dad did an important job, but sometimes she wished he worked in an office like her friends’ dads did.
It took their dad twenty minutes to find the problem. “Ah, here it is,” he said, looking up at them. “The power supply to the monitor needs to be reattached. Pass me the tools, Pete.”
Pete, glad to be helping him, brought the heavy toolbox over. He knelt down beside his dad and peered into the machine.
“Do you want to do something cool?” their dad asked.
“Sure.”
“Take that can and spray it inside.”
Pete took a spray can from the toolbox. When he squeezed it, a blast of compressed air flew over the circuit board, dislodging decades of dust that swirled around the garage and made him cough.
“Ugh, gross,” he complained.
Their dad plugged in a soldering iron and slowly reattached the loose wires onto the circuit board. It was fiddly work.
“OK,” he said finally, closing the cabinet back up. “We’re ready to go. Who wants to do the honours?”
“Me!” shouted Pete, racing to beat Casey to it.
“Hey, no fair,” she complained. “You did the aerosol.” She knew she sounded like a kid but it was fun winding her brother up.
Pete didn’t listen. He ran over to the power socket and plugged the machine in. When he flicked the switch, the screen lit up and it ran a system check. A few lines of boot-up code scrolled over the monitor as it started up.
“It’s only got three colours!” Pete said, unimpressed.
“It doesn’t even have that,” their dad laughed. “The monitor is black and white. There’s a strip of cellophane over the screen to make it look like it’s got colours.”
The words INSERT CCOIN flashed up.
“Hey, they spelled it wrong,” Casey said.
“Wait a second,” their dad said, his lips twitching into a smile. As they watched, a flying saucer moved across the top of the screen and dropped a missile on the extra C in CCOIN, obliterating it.
“That is so cool,” Casey whispered. “Can I play it? Have you got any coins?”
“You don’t need coins,” he told her with a chuckle. “I’ve set it to free play.”
“Free play?” Pete liked the sound of that. “What do I have to do?” He jumped in front of Casey and grabbed the controls.
“Hold on. I want to show you something first,” their dad said. The screen switched to a high score table. “There,” he said pointing to the top position. The initials read, MCH. Michael Charles Henderson. The score was 17,150.
“That’s you?” Pete asked, incredulous. “You’re number one?”
“Yep!” Their dad blew on his fingernails and pretended to buff them on the sleeve of his fleece.
“When was the last time you played this machine?” Casey asked him.
“A long time ago…”
“And you’re still at the top of the scoreboard?”
“What can I say? I was good.”
Casey looked at her dad as if seeing him for the first time. She was impressed. “I want to know how to play like that,” she said. “Teach me…”
10
DON’T TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER
The West Point shopping centre was in chaos. Screams echoed around the atrium as shoppers stampeded left and right, terrified by the mysterious transparent dome over the building and some unseen threat on the upper floors. Casey pushed through them, stepping over abandoned shopping bags and shards of broken glass. She looked around, trying to find her teammates and her
brother. There was no sign of them.
“Pete!” she yelled. “Where are you?”
Her voice was swallowed up by the deafening hubbub. A woman pushed past, almost knocking Casey off her feet as she dragged two scared kids towards hoped-for safety in a nearby music store. Inside, Casey could see other shoppers crouched behind the racks of vinyl records. Everyone seemed terrified but she wasn’t sure what of.
As she passed a stand selling cookies, a hand reached out from behind it and grabbed her wrist.
“Get down,” Brain warned, pulling her to join him in a crouch. Fish was hunkered down beside him. Casey felt a wave of relief, glad not to be on her own.
“What’s happening? Where are the others?”
Brain pointed to the balcony above. Several shadows were moving along it behind the glass railing. Casey’s breath caught in her throat as she saw two squads of five Red Eyes moving slowly but determinedly across the balcony. Their heavy boots thudded across the marble floor like beating drums. Most of them carried plasma rifles, although one held a flickering energy sword. Its blade crackled and shimmered.
“It must be a publicity stunt,” Fish whispered. But he didn’t sound convinced.
Shoppers stared in shock as the soldiers approached. In their bulky, jet-black armour, the aliens dwarfed the humans around them. A couple of people held up their phones to take pictures and video for their Instagram feeds, apparently oblivious to the danger. The Red Eyes halted at a seating area. It was little more than one or two iron benches and some long-leafed ferns in raised beds. A couple of teenage girls in leggings and bomber jackets crouched beside the bushes, too scared to move.
The aliens aimed their guns and glared at them from behind their black, impenetrable helmets. A man in a baseball cap turned his phone sideways and started to video them, pinching at the screen with his fingers to get a good close-up.
“Icht refan nu,” a Red Eye ordered, jerking its strange weapon at the crowd.
“What’s he saying?” asked a mum holding a toddler in her arms protectively. No one knew what they were supposed to do. The teenagers by the potted plants stared helplessly, wishing they weren’t so close. The only person to move was an elderly man. He pushed through the frozen crowd, tapping a walking stick in front of him. He looked about ninety with a fine trim of silver hair around a bald head.
“Who are you?” he demanded. The Red Eyes stared back at him, their eyes glowing in their helmets. “What do you want from us?”
The toddler started to cry. The Red Eyes turned as one and stared at it.
“For goodness’ sake, keep your brat quiet,” hissed a man dressed like a bank manager.
“He’s terrified,” the mum replied, jiggling the little boy on her hip. He was properly bawling now.
The elderly man took another step towards the Red Eyes until he was standing in the middle of the seating area. He balanced himself and then, slightly shakily, lifted up his walking stick and thrust it at the aliens.
“You’re scaring these people,” he said firmly. “Stop it.”
The Red Eyes lowered their guns and, for a silly moment, Casey thought this wizened granddad had shamed them into changing their minds. Then the Red Eye carrying the energy sword stepped forwards, brushing past the potted ferns. He towered over the little old man. The other shoppers, sensing danger, started to back away.
“You don’t scare me,” the old man said, standing his ground. “I fought against the Nazis.” He jabbed his walking stick into the alien’s armoured chest. The wood clanged quietly against the metal.
In the blink of an eye, the Red Eye grabbed the old man by the throat and lifted him high into the air. His spindly legs dangled uselessly beneath him. There was a flurry of movement and Casey saw the energy sword flash. She closed her eyes, unable to watch. A moment later, she heard screams ring out and the thunder of panicked feet as the remaining shoppers fled. Then there was the terrible sound of plasma rifles firing.
This wasn’t a publicity stunt.
It was real.
“I’m calling the police,” Fish whispered, pulling out his phone.
“The police can’t help us,” Casey said, remembering the scene in the car park. “This is an invasion.”
Fish’s hands were shaking so much that it took him three goes to dial 999. When he finally managed it, nothing happened.
“No signal…”
“They must be blocking it,” Casey said, checking her own phone’s reception. It showed no bars. “There’s a force field around the building. I saw it outside.”
Brain looked over his shoulder at the main doors. “Can we get past it?”
Casey shook her head.
Fish flinched as more plasma fire erupted somewhere upstairs.
“It’s just a game,” he whispered under his breath. “It can’t be real. It’s just a game.”
Casey ran her hands through her blue-streaked hair. They needed to find Cheeze and Elite. Most of all she had to find Pete. But she felt paralysed.
Further along the ground floor, a lift pinged open and a squad of Red Eyes stepped out. They raised their rifles and opened fire above the heads of the crowd that had gathered by the main entrance, causing a sudden stampede into the car park.
“We should move,” Brain said, cautiously poking his head around the cookie stand. His voice was firm and certain, and Casey was happy for him to be in charge. He was the oldest and smartest, after all. “If we can’t get outside, we need to find somewhere safe to hide. C’mon.”
He broke cover and darted across the marbled floors towards the escalators. Casey and Fish followed. When they reached the moving metal staircase, they crouched low on it, staying out of sight as it carried them upwards.
The first floor was a mess. The familiar shopfronts – Boots, Home Bargains, H&M – had been shot to pieces by the Red Eyes. Fragments of broken glass and abandoned shopping bags lay scattered across the floor tiles. Scared shoppers cowered inside the shops. Casey could see the old man lying crumpled on the floor near the balcony railings. He wasn’t moving. She didn’t want to look too closely.
Over at the sandbagged entrance to the tournament zone, a squad of Red Eyes was pursuing a group of gamers. Casey recognized the team. They’d been in the match that played right before the Ghost Reapers took the stage. Casey had been impressed by their skill, but now they were running in terror from the aliens, freaked out by their favourite video game coming to life in front of them.
Four of the team ran into Home Bargains with the Red Eyes close behind. For some reason, the aliens didn’t seem to want to shoot at them. The other gamer from their clan, an Asian kid with a pair of headphones around his neck, split sideways along the shopfront. A lone Red Eye abandoned the rest of the squad and chased him down, catching him by the scruff of his shirt and slamming him face first into the window.
Casey, too far away to help, held her breath. The Red Eye pulled a strange device like a metal loop from its belt, ripped off the gamer’s headphones and began to attach the device around his neck. But before the loop could be locked in place, a security guard charged across the balcony and rugby-tackled the Red Eye, knocking the invader to one side. They smashed through the window of Home Bargains together. The Red Eye, its armour scuffed and battered from the impact, dropped its plasma rifle. The guard grabbed it and pointed it at the downed alien while the gamer stumbled away to safety, his busted headphones abandoned on the ground.
“Don’t move or I’ll shoot,” the security guard warned.
The Red Eye got back on its feet and pulled itself up to its full height. The guard stared, his jaw dropping open. “Stay back,” he warned again, trying not to let his voice betray his fear. “I mean it. Don’t take another step.”
The Red Eye moved forward menacingly.
The guard let out a yell that was part scream and part battle cry as he pulled the trigger on the plasma rifle. He shut his eyes as he waited for the THWUMP! of the weapon to kick in.
But no
thing happened.
The yell died on his lips and he opened his eyes, confused. He pulled the trigger again. And again. He stared down at the gun, his hands fumbling over the weapon as he tried to work out how to use it. When he looked up again, the Red Eye was towering right over him. Its black armour now had a deep, grey scratch running across the chest plate.
The alien soldier ripped the plasma rifle from the guard’s hands and then looked down at the scratch. Its eyes burned a little redder. With a swipe of its black-gloved fist, it knocked the guard off his feet. The man crumpled to the floor on a bed of broken glass, unconscious. Casey averted her eyes.
“Hey, over here!”
Behind them, a shop manager was waving at Casey from the entrance to a Tesco store. She beckoned Brain and Fish to follow and then dashed across the balcony towards the familiar red and blue logo. The security shutters were already lowering and the gamers had to duck under them to get inside before they clanged shut. Casey didn’t think the shutters would do much to stop a blast of plasma fire, but it was better than nothing.
As Casey, Fish and Brain caught their breath, a familiar voice cried out behind them.
“Guys!” It was Cheeze. “Are you OK?” he asked, rolling up beside his teammates with Elite in tow.
“Only just,” Fish muttered.
“Is Pete with you?” Casey asked Cheeze, her eyes darting around the store.
The boy shook his head. There was another blast of plasma fire outside.
“Those things are everywhere,” a shopper said, peering through the shutters.
“What on earth are they?” asked a terrified checkout assistant.
“They’re not from Earth at all,” Casey said without thinking. Then she wished she hadn’t spoken, as the adults stared at her questioningly. She didn’t want to be the one to explain everything.
“It’s like an invasion,” said a middle-aged lady, still clutching a basket of ready meals as if she half-expected to finish her shopping.
“But why are they here?” wondered another. “Why aren’t they outside Ten Downing Street saying, ‘Take me to your leader’?”
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