Warmth radiated through me, the walls vanished, and the world spun in a streak of colour. The furniture in my room turned to dust smeared across my vision, everything twisted, and my stomach wanted to twist with it.
Oh no.
I lost all feeling, and blackness took over, shoving away the colours and the light, spinning ever faster, twisting, spiralling, and then a sudden sinking sensation dropped through me, as though I were falling into a bottomless pit where nothing existed.
For several seconds I didn’t seem to exist either, then an ear-splitting alarm sounded in my ears. I jumped and slammed my head into something solid.
“Ow.”
I lifted my hand to rub the sore spot, but it also hit a flat surface a few centimetres in front of me.
Double ow.
I forced my eyes open.
Instead of finding myself on the bridge of a ship, in command of a loyal crew who adored me—or even a random corridor somewhere would have done nicely, like when I’d met Ayesha—I was in a freaking coffin.
The casket was not much bigger than me, with a weak yellow light glowing dully inside, and barely a few inches all around to spare. Every time I tried to shift, to bend an arm or leg, I banged into it.
My body shook, my heart raced, and my breath came in rapid bursts as I fought the urge to scream.
This box was my worst nightmare.
In front of my face was a narrow window looking out into blackness.
I wanted to go home.
I wanted to be sick.
To make matters worse, the health meter appeared in the top right of my vision. Very little of the green circle remained, and the number eight flashed in the middle.
My eyes almost popped from their sockets.
Eight percent health left?
The alarm screeched again, making me recoil, and a disembodied voice said, “Oxygen level critical.”
I was going to die.
Mum would be furious.
Fourteen
Darkness encroached on the outer edges of my vision, and I started shaking as my health meter dropped to seven percent. I could feel myself slipping away, getting weaker by the moment, the cold hands of oblivion clawing at my flesh.
“CodeX, on.” I remembered my conversation with Ayesha as though it were a thousand years ago. “CodeX on.”
Nothing. No words appeared in front of me.
“Please,” I murmured. “CodeX, exit. CodeX, send me home.”
No help.
No guide.
No way out of the game.
Six percent health remaining.
My vision continued to tunnel, narrower and narrower. My fingers and toes tingled from the lack of oxygen, and the sensation crept up my arms and legs. It was only a matter of seconds before I lost consciousness.
The game was malfunctioning.
It had to be.
A faraway horrible thought struck me. Is that why Grandma Alice never returned to Colorado?
My mind slowed to a crawl.
No.
Five percent health remaining.
I refused to go out like this.
In one final, sluggish, desperate attempt to escape my tiny prison, I moved my numb, cold feet and hands along the walls of the casket, searching for anything I—
My fingers touched a smooth handle with rounded edges.
I rolled my head to one side and peered down, but my vision blurred and sparkled, and I could not get a clear view. So, with nothing else for it, I prayed the blackness beyond the casket’s window wasn’t a worse fate than my sleepy tomb.
I tugged on the lever, and something released. A loud rush of air shot along the right side of the casket and blasted across my body, making my ears pop.
I took a deep breath, and a wave of instant relief flooded into my lungs.
Air.
Breathable air.
Thank the virtual gods.
I remained still for a few minutes, my chest rising and falling, my vision returning to normal, strength and consciousness coming back with every tug of oxygen. I was happy to be alive, happy my mother wouldn’t have to go through a second tragedy in her life.
Five percent health crept up to six, ten, fourteen, and then stuck at nineteen.
I’d take it.
I tried to get a grip and shook my head, clearing the grogginess.
This could not be a normal start to a CodeX game. Grandpa John had mentioned nothing in his video diary, and I was sure he would have if something so severe had happened to him.
After counting my lucky stars and waiting a sufficient amount of time for any permanent brain damage to present itself, I placed my hands on the underside of the casket and shoved with all my might.
The lid swung open like a heavy vault door, and I drifted out into blackness.
I tried to turn, to look back at the casket, but my arms and legs merely flailed about.
Weightless.
It should have felt amazing—like flying—but the sensation was one of the most disconcerting feelings I’d ever experienced. There was no gravity, so I had no way to tell which direction was up or down. Is my head the right way up? Are my feet pointing at the ceiling? Maybe neither. Maybe there was no ceiling, no floor, no wall—
My elbow bumped into something solid, and I recoiled at the sharp pain in my arm.
Take that back.
There was at least one wall.
The wooden casket I had escaped from swung into view, its faint yellow interior light glowing in the void, and it glided past me.
No, I drifted past it.
Or are we both moving?
I continued through the darkness.
Helpless.
Alone.
Reasoning I couldn’t be in outer space because I’d be very much dead, I wondered whether the game hadn’t loaded properly.
Is this a glitch?
Has it not rendered?
I shouldn’t feel pain, though. That’s not how video games work.
A blinding white light snapped on, sending a fresh wave of agony to stab at my retinas. I raised my hands in defence and squinted.
When my eyes adjusted, I found myself in a square room with wood-panelled walls and two doors facing one another, each around six feet wide and nine tall, constructed of steel and held together by rivets.
I recognised it as the same décor from Ayesha’s demonstration of the Horizon Eighteen spaceship. I made a swimming motion in the air, trying to get to the nearest wall. The casket continued floating, turning . . .
Much to my surprise and relief, my efforts paid off, and I grabbed hold of a ceiling beam.
I breathed heavily, holding on tight.
“This is insane.”
Below and to the right of me was a door. I thought I could make it, so I moved along the wall like a rock climber, making sure I had at least one solid handhold before I continued on. My legs floated beneath me, useless appendages banging into the ceiling and making me swear.
I made it to the doorframe and edged my way down.
Toward the top was a handle attached to a slider around a foot square, like a large viewing window on a jail cell. I pulled it across and peered through.
It took almost a full minute for my tiny excuse of a brain to process what I was looking at. The more I saw, the more I understood, the more my blood ran cold.
Beyond was nothing but the vastness of outer space.
Somewhere behind the ship must have been a sun or a bright light source, because everything before me was lit up in horrifying detail.
Gone was the entire fleet of Antarian spacecraft, or to be more precise, all that remained was their splintered wreckage. Billions of pieces of ships, some as big as buildings, others like grains of sand, drifted, hitting each other and flying off in random directions.
I gaped. “What the hell happened?”
A loud bang made me raise my fists.
I let out a nervous breath as I realised the casket had hit the wall behind me
.
Gathering my senses, I focused on the door opposite and pushed off too hard. I shot across the room and slammed into it, almost breaking my wrists, then ricocheted off another wall, bouncing like a ping-pong ball in a dryer.
I flew back to the door and gripped the frame above it, wincing at the pain in my wrists and my now-battered and bruised arms and legs.
I slid the plate aside and peered through.
Beyond was a wide hallway with the same wood-panelled walls, but it was crammed with cabinets chock-full of antiques and curios—everything from candlesticks, coins, and ornaments to fossils, rocks, and a mummified hand.
Opposite, thick curtains drifted apart, revealing a window with another vista across the spaceship graveyard.
I studied the corridor. Its structure seemed undamaged, and I couldn’t very well stay in the airlock room for the rest of my life.
The health meter in the corner of my vision stuck resolutely on nineteen percent. Taking a deep breath, I examined the door but could not find a handle or lock.
“Hey.” I banged my fist on the metal. “Anyone there?” I turned my ear to the glass.
No answer.
I threw my hand up in frustration, and to my utter astonishment, the door hissed open.
Okay. Does it work by gestures, or was that a coincidence?
Either way, I wasn’t staying put, so I glided through, gripping the frame on the other side.
The hallway curved, obscuring my view of the other end, and I guessed the fact I was still breathing meant there couldn’t be any gaping holes in the ship’s hull or open doors leading to outer space.
Iron brackets held the cabinets to the floor, and I examined the floating contents of the next one.
Drifting above the top shelf were spearheads, knives with ivory handles, golden figurines of hooded people, several medallions of various shapes and sizes, and an octagonal watch with a royal-blue face, four silver hands, and foreign symbols around its outer edge.
I pulled back with a frown, and my gaze moved to the other cabinets. There must have been thousands of objects, and the whole place looked like a crazy, over-packed museum.
Focused on the window again, I calculated that if I glided over to the frame, near the ceiling, then pushed off toward the top of the curve, I could grab the beam opposite the next window—watching out for the cabinets—peer around the corner, and gauge my next move from there.
My tongue poked out as I concentrated, and I launched myself, not so forcefully this time, gliding across the hallway with my hands outstretched like Superman, aiming for the top of the window.
I was doing it.
Now I really was flying, and it was incredible.
Someone flew down the corridor, heading to the same window—a girl, perhaps a year younger than me, fifteen. She had white hair tied back, her body stretched in a graceful pose. Her arms and legs were robotic, their interior mechanisms visible behind toughened glass. She wore a long hooded dark grey coat with split sleeves over a navy shirt, black trousers with sections cut away, and ankle boots.
If she was an alien, she wasn’t what I’d expected.
The cyborg girl also wore a blue crystal around her neck, like the one embedded into the CodeX, along with a vambrace—a wide metal cuff—on her right arm, set with more glowing crystals. Bolts of energy crackled over their surfaces.
The girl reached the beam first, turned, and sprang toward me, her expression twisted with rage.
I held up my hands, but it was no use. She roared and slammed into me, sending us both flying, and we crashed into the nearest cabinet.
“What are you doing?” I shouted, cringing with pain and trying to push her off me.
Helpless to do anything about it, my health meter dropped to seventeen percent.
The cyborg girl somersaulted over me in one deft move, and the next second, she had me in a choke-hold, her arm squeezing my neck on both sides.
I tried to cry out, but no air escaped my lips. Once again my world turned grey, and my vision tunnelled.
Sixteen percent health remaining, fifteen . . .
The world started greying around the edges.
“Skylar, stop it.”
Another girl, my age and looking all human—as far as I could tell—sailed toward us, and her long coat fluttered behind her like a cape. She had dark, pixie-cropped hair and wore round sunglasses with a blue crystal embedded into one arm.
The new girl grabbed Skylar the cyborg and tried to loosen her grip on my arm. “Stop.”
“Mason’s dead because of him,” Skylar screamed.
“You’re wrong,” the other girl shouted back.
“Get off, Eve.” Skylar shoved her away, and Eve flew backward, tumbling like a leaf on the breeze.
Skylar opened the door behind us, spun me to face the airlock, planted her feet between my shoulders, and launched me forward.
I flew across the room and slammed into the opposite wall. “Argh.” My health dropped to fourteen percent, the greyed edges of my vision increasing.
I turned back in time to see the other door closing, sealing me inside again.
“No.” I pushed off, sailed back, and grabbed the doorframe, peering through the window. “What are you doing?”
Eve returned with a determined look on her face, wrestling with Skylar to try and stop her, but the younger girl was far too strong. She shoved Eve away, and the crystals in her vambrace glowed, sending blue, green, and purple smoke twisting into the air.
The smoke passed through the door, and I covered my mouth, fearful of breathing it in, but it drifted past, hit the opposite door, and next came the sound of wrenching metal.
Skylar screwed up her face as pulses of energy rippled along the smoke.
“What are you doing?” I trembled as the metal door flexed. “CodeX, on. CodeX, exit. CodeX, bloody stop this game.”
Skylar huffed, the smoke dissipated, and the wrenching sound stopped.
She reached down by the door. I moved to one side and watched her in the reflection from the opposite hallway window. She removed a wall panel, revealing two red levers.
“What are they?” I couldn’t quite see, but, as a general rule, from sixteen years of life experience, big red levers meant nothing good.
“Emergency override for the airlock door,” Skylar said, her voice coming from an overhead speaker.
I glanced over my shoulder. “That one?” I said in a shrill voice. “The one that leads to outer space?”
“Skylar, don’t.” Eve took her companion’s arm. “You can’t do this.”
“I can.” Skylar grabbed one lever. “This is for killing my brother.” She spat at me.
I tensed and threw up my hands. “CodeX, help.”
The blue crystal on the side of Eve’s glasses crackled with energy and she grabbed Skylar’s wrist. “Wait. He’s got a CodeX.” She stared at me for several seconds, scanning slowly up and down, pausing here and there, and I could not read her expression behind the sunglasses.
Skylar broke free of her grasp. “He’s talking crap.” She went to grab the lever again, but Eve stopped her for a second time.
Eve stared at my forehead and waved a hand at me. “He does have a CodeX implant.”
“He does not,” Skylar snapped.
Eve removed her sunglasses, revealing deep emerald-green eyes, and offered the glasses to Skylar. “Look for yourself.”
Skylar snatched the sunglasses from Eve, but instead of putting them on her face, she held them up, peering through one of the lenses.
After a moment, her jaw dropped.
“Well?” Eve said. “Do you see?”
Fifteen
I’d held my breath for so long, waiting for the judge and executioner, AKA Cyborg Skylar, to come to a verdict, that my lungs were about to burst through my ribcage.
Was the robotic-limbed lunatic going to flush me into outer space or not?
My health had crept back up to seventeen percent and my vision had
returned to normal, but there it remained.
“Well?” Eve repeated, breaking the silence between the three of us and asking the all-important question. “You’ve seen he has an implant in his head, right?”
She was talking about the CodeX, but an implant? In my head? Is that how these people see it?
I couldn’t help but shudder at the thought of something crammed into my skull, but it still made better sense than carrying a book with me. I was glad I hadn’t chosen that option when Ayesha had suggested it, because the leather-bound tome would be floating around the airlock right about now.
Why doesn’t the dumb thing work, though? The CodeX was a guide, supposed to help me through the game, but it malfunctioned when I needed it most.
I touched a bruise on my arm.
If this is a game, why does it hurt so much?
My keen, finely tuned instincts told me something had gone wrong.
Horribly wrong.
And it meant my life was in danger.
Well, duh.
Skylar hesitated for several more seconds, then handed the sunglasses back to Eve and nodded.
I let out a breath. Eve smiled at me as she slipped the sunglasses back on, clearly also relieved I wasn’t about to be murdered, but I couldn’t return the smile because I had a thousand questions.
Plus, I was still in a freakin’ airlock, with outer space and certain death mere feet away.
However, now was not the time to ask silly questions or say anything rash. I didn’t think it would take much to piss Skylar off again. I liked my head attached to my neck and my organs not frozen like a bag of ice cubes, floating around space with all the junk.
Eve raised her arm as if to open the door, but Skylar stopped her.
My stomach tensed.
Now what’s her problem?
Skylar fixed me with a stern expression. “Who are you?”
I fought not to show any outward emotion, remembering Ayesha’s threat of dire consequences if I revealed to these people that their universe was nothing but a game. Given my current situation, I didn’t think it wise to push my luck.
I lifted my chin. “I am Captain Leonardo Cooper.”
GAME SPACE - Full Novel Page 7