by Dave Bakers
By the time one of the officials in their purple polo shirt offered me yet more pancakes, I couldn’t believe that I was actually thinking of turning them down.
Of telling them that I was full.
There was also the thing where I was constantly glancing up to the doorway to see who might come through next. Who might complete this five-some of kids who’d all worked, and been discarded by, Alive Action Games.
But nobody else did come.
We just went on waiting.
Finally, at the end of the breakfast, a familiar figure appeared.
Mr Yorbleson as I recognised him from the evening before.
Like yesterday, he wore a suit, but today he had a light-blue, silk handkerchief sticking out from the breast pocket. He had on the same smile as before, and his eyes just seemed to slink about the room kind of like a snake looking through a boxful of mice and trying to decide which one is most delicious.
Unfortunately, if we’re getting into mouse analogies, and specifically nutrition, the more well-endowed of us are going to get into trouble.
We all know what happens to the fat guy in a film where there’s a monster going about eating everybody.
I hoped that Mr Yorbleson wasn’t a cannibal.
Hope was all I had.
Mr Yorbleson sat to have some of his own breakfast.
Though I didn’t think to ask him whether or not he’d placed in the Ignition Tournament to merit this breakfast, it certainly crossed my mind.
If there’s one thing that always rubs me up the wrong way, it’s the people who like to claim the prizes after they’ve cheated . . . or, worse, without doing any of the work themselves.
Mr Yorbleson tucked one of the serviettes into the collar of his shirt as he busied himself eating a sixteenth of a pancake before setting his cutlery down on his plate, apparently finished.
A thought crossed my mind that the pancakes we’d just eaten might’ve been poison, and that Mr Yorbleson had sat down to eat with us merely as a way of gaining our confidence.
If it had been poison then I guess I—more than anybody else—would’ve been lying on my back, kicking my legs in the air, and choking . . . but I wasn’t . . . at least not yet.
When Mr Yorbleson swept the table with his glare, took us all in and saw that we’d each finished our breakfast, he clapped his hands together like we were in school or something, and then he rose to his feet, sticking that same smile on across his lips.
“Champions,” he said, “I do hope you’ve enjoyed your breakfast, you really have deserved it, and I would ask that you accept my best wishes for the rest of the convention—that you all have a very successful”—he kind of hissed those s’s—“Grand Tournament.”
And, with that, he clapped his hands once again, and then strode on out of the room, off to someplace he had to be, I imagined.
I wasn’t all that sad that he’d ducked out.
In fact, it felt like the atmosphere in the room had become a touch lighter already.
I glanced about the others, took them in, and was surprised to see quite a few of them—all of them except Chung—looking back at me.
It was that same, old familiar routine.
Since our parents were there, nobody wanted to speak at all.
It would just have been awkward.
I was about halfway to screeching the legs of my chair back when I heard footsteps behind me. When I turned, took in the person standing in the doorway, I could hardly believe my eyes.
It was the boy with blazing-red hair and pox-white skin.
The boy from Halls of Hallow.
9
IF IT HADN’T been for my dad tugging on the sleeve of my t-shirt, I probably still would’ve been down at the Winners’ Breakfast, and not up in my bedroom getting in some last-minute warm-up on my Sirocco 3000 before venturing down for the preliminary rounds.
I blazed through a few levels of first-person shooter They Came from Hell!! 2 and I played through some of the better-known scenarios: side-quests, of western third-person shooter Dust Devil.
I knew the patterns of these gaming competitions well.
How they often started off with shooting games in the mornings, moved onto more skill—rather than reaction—based games in the afternoons.
But, I suppose, I could’ve been wrong.
It wasn’t like I could do very much about it now.
I would hardly learn anything new.
This was all just an exercise to get my brain all limber and ready for competition.
It was only when I heard the shower going—Dad having another one . . . yeah, that’s another of his ‘charms’ . . . he prices personal-cleanliness just a little above breathing . . . and a little below chess—that I dared to dig down into the carrying case for my Sirocco 3000 and fish out Halls of Hallow.
I stared at the disk for a long time, all snug there in its place, and I thought long and hard about whether or not I really wanted to do this—if I really wanted to fire it up, maybe get a whole bunch of stuff on my mind, right before a competition.
In the end, I decided that I just had to know.
So I stuck it into the disk tray.
Unfortunately, though I’d obviously managed to get past that first cut scene, it appeared that I hadn’t saved after all.
I looked to that deep, dark-purple pool again.
The Cloaked Figure.
Those archways.
The shadows.
The sleek, black marble floors.
And I waited.
Waited for the boy to appear.
Was that what I was waiting for . . . really?
I breathed in deep, expecting to see him come along and intercept the Cloaked Figure at any moment, but, no, nothing happened at all.
And even though I knew that I had an impending competition, I couldn’t help but allow the flicker of that idea to cross my mind, that crazy thought that maybe—just maybe—I might have some time to step into the game, to reach round the back of the console, brush my fingertips along the infrared strips and step right inside the game.
It was then that I heard the shower click off and my dad making that loud sigh of his as he stepped out and grabbed a towel. I quickly switched off the Sirocco 3000 and flipped the disk back into its case. I replaced it in the side pocket of the carrying case as if it was something that would get me into a world of parental trouble.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a long while, just trying to stop my thoughts from fizzing about my skull so wildly, to stop myself from thinking about that kid, and that I’d seen him, moments before I’d left for Gamers Con, in Halls of Hallow.
. . . But, try as I might, I simply couldn’t help myself.
The boy had told the Cloaked Figure that he had done something.
And the Cloaked Figure had scolded the boy, told him that he hadn’t brought him something.
What could that be?
I had no idea at all.
What finally shook me on out of my daze was Dad’s mobile buzzing.
When I went over to check the screen, I saw that it was Mum calling.
So I picked up.
“Hi Mum,” I said.
“Zak? How’re you getting on there?”
“Fine,” I said, and then explained to her all about what had happened—about the Ignition Tournament, and how I’d managed to win an All-Access Pass.
I think she understood most of it, but who’s to say for sure?
“That’s nice,” she said, as I finished up my potted explanation, and then, “is your father there at all?”
It was right then that Dad stepped out of the bathroom, one of those plush, white hotel room towels wrapped about his waist. He looked kind of like a mole peeping its head out from underground without his glasses, and his skin had gone all red from the hot steam.
I handed Dad the phone and then lay back on the bed staring up at the ceiling, hands folded behind my head, trying to relax.
I knew from experience th
at trembling—any kind of trembling—can mean certain death at a video-game competition.
And I had no intention of going out early.
I was determined to prove to everyone that I was the best.
. . . Or something like that.
I listened to Dad speaking to Mum for a few minutes, but soon lost the thread of whatever it was they were talking about because the subject matter was so boring.
When I overheard Mum asking Dad to pass his mobile to me so that I could speak with my aunt, I quickly scrabbled up onto the edge of my bed, onto my feet, and then made motions at my watchless wrist.
Dad caught the gist, and he swiftly hung up on Mum, telling her that everything would be just fine, but that we were running a little late and had to get out the door.
When Dad set his mobile down on the bedside table, he set about drying himself, then said, “Why didn’t you want to speak to your aunt?”
I gave a shrug. “I dunno, awkward?”
Dad shrugged back with a smile, continuing to dry himself.
10
JUST LIKE THINGS always are on the first day of a fresh convention, the atmosphere was pretty manic. There was a lot of running around, a lot of kids—and adults—rushing back and forth trying to be in the right place at the right time.
I have never really understood that.
Why people get stressed.
I mean, at Gamers Con, it’s just about the easiest place ever to get about.
Take where I was going for example.
I was heading for the First Round of the Grand Tournament.
There were signs up all over the place—just about every fifteen paces or so there was one of those screens with the appropriate letter beside it.
All me and Dad had to do was navigate through the manic crowds, keeping our eyes fixed on the letters that hung from the ceiling.
As it turned out, the letter assigned for information on the First Round was X.
. . . So—guess what?—we followed the X . . .
The signups were just as boring as signups should be, which was to say, just about the same as the day before at the Ignition Tournament.
There were regulations, like having to hand in our mobiles before commencing play.
No biggie.
In the crowd, I spotted my breakfast companions, all of them apparently with their eyes also fixed on the prize.
And it would be up to me to stop them.
I remembered something about underestimating your enemy, and it being an extremely dangerous thing to do, and I thought there might just be something to that.
I’d been just a shade arrogant the day before, what with my thinking that those other kids were just totally useless.
Guess that I was going to find out just how capable they were pretty quickly.
But if we’d all been involved with Alive Action Games, and if their policy for only recruiting the very best in young, beta-testing talent was true, then I guessed that I might be best off keeping an eye on all of them . . . or, maybe, both eyes.
Like had happened at the Ignition Tournament the day before, we were all sorted into specific groups, this time ranging from A to Z.
I ended up right in the middle of M.
And I saw, with a touch of apprehension, that the black kid was in my group.
The purple-shirted invigilator in charge of Group M handed out all the information we would need, the times for each of our fixtures, and the places we needed to head, and then left us alone.
When I checked over my name, I was a little annoyed to see that I wouldn’t be playing till three o’clock in the afternoon.
Though I hate the expression, I knew that I was ‘in the zone,’ that I was raring to get going with things, to brush off all the crap that had gone on before.
I wanted to start into the Grand Tournament, do my best to go as far as I could.
I was just wondering what to do, whether I should go back up to the room with Dad, maybe have a lie down till game time, when I caught the sight of the black kid coming towards me.
For some reason, I got myself kind of fixed onto his dreadlocks, and those multi-coloured beads hanging from each strand.
Like I was a five-year-old at his first day of school, I glanced back over my shoulder to Dad, as if he might be able to protect me from an incoming potential friend.
But Dad, of course, was already fixed back on his mobile, working out his next chess move.
When I looked back to the black kid, he was standing right in front of me.
He stood so close that our noses almost touched.
And he was grinning from ear to ear.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I said, not sounding so enthusiastic.
I checked over his shoulder and saw that his dad was deep in conversation with another adult—a gamer, I think, rather than a parent of a gamer.
“You, uh,” he said, “wrapped up with Alive Action too, huh?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, and then, thinking that it was appropriate, I added, “My name’s Zak Steepleman.”
“I’m James,” he said, “James Gonnerall.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Back there’s my dad.” He nodded over my shoulder. “And I guess that must be your dad.”
I couldn’t help but smile back in reply. I kind of liked his tone. He was making fun of both of us, for us both being like a pair of pathetic little school boys . . . which I guess, on reflection, was just what we were.
“You, uh,” James said, “wanna run off for a while?”
“Huh?”
“Come on,” James said, motioning with his head in the direction he was already heading off in.
For some reason, I followed after him.
I only looked back to Dad right when we were rounding the corner and heading out of his line of sight. I dug into my pocket and thought about sending him a text. And then, seeing that he was still just as engrossed in his chess game as he had been this entire weekend, I decided that it was probably better not to rock his concentration.
He could call me when he broke out of his daze.
11
“I GUESS this isn’t your first time here, then?” James said, turning side-on so as not to bump into the constant stream of people passing along the corridor.
I shook my head. “Nah, I’ve been coming here for five years—this is only my third time in the Grand Tournament, though.”
James looked at me with wide eyes. “Really? I mean, how old are you?”
“Thirteen.”
James smirked. “I’m fourteen and this is only my first time in the Grand Tournament.” He paused, turned side-on again to miss a pair of toddlers barrelling past at knee-level. “What are you, some kinda prodigy?”
I smiled back. “Nah, first year I got knocked out in the First Round, second year I got through to the Second, then headed off.”
“Still,” James said, “that’s better than I did those two years.” He turned his attention out to the space in front of him, to the corridor that he was walking. “Didn’t even enter, did I?”
We walked on for a good while.
I noticed, quite a few times, James glancing back over his shoulder as if he was afraid that his dad might’ve been following after us—ready to catch him and haul him back.
Maybe it was because I was just so certain that my dad would be wrapped up in his chess match till kingdom come that I didn’t have such worries, but James seemed just a touch paranoid to me.
James seemed to catch onto my observation, though I didn’t say anything out loud. “Yeah,” he said, “it drives me crazy—coming with him . . . I mean, it’s embarrassing all the questions he goes about asking, messing with the gamers, with the developers, I mean, and like how he keeps asking everyone how much they make, if they’ve got a house, what they studied at university, you know, stuff like that.”
“Yeah,” I said, not really knowing what he was talking about at all.
“He doesn’t believe th
at it’s a career yet, that’s the thing, but whatever, right?”
“Yeah.”
We reached a railing which looked out over the floor of the conference centre, where people were streaming back and forth, moving about from one place to another. Together we stood at the railing, the two of us holding onto it.
James stared off into the distance for a long while, squeezing the railing so tight that I watched his knuckles go white from the effort.
It reminded me a little of intermediate gamers when they’ve either reached the limits of their abilities right in the middle of an intense matchup, or that they’re concentrating so hard that they’re about to lose their entire sense of themselves.
Though James had been nothing but kind to me so far, I couldn’t help but put that one away for later on.
After all, it could happen that we’d end up facing off later on in the competition.
Even early on considering that we were both in Group M.
When James turned to me, he wasn’t smiling anymore. There was a little steel in his eyes, and it was almost like he was looking right through me. “You, uh, get that package in the post too—from Alive Action?”
“What?” I said, not thinking for a moment.
And then I remembered.
Thought of Halls of Hallow and then nodded.
“Some weird crap, huh?” James said, looking back over the railing, out across the crowd.
I shrugged.
“What was the point of it?” James said. “What I mean is, if they were shutting down, why’d they bother to send us anything along at all? If they couldn’t so much as give us a phone call to let us know that they weren’t spotting us for those All-Access Passes, couldn’t they have at least, you know, sent a note along with that crappy game?”
“Yeah,” I said, staring off over the heads of the people in the crowd.
Though I wanted to add something more, I didn’t want James to think that I was a weirdo right off the bat.
. . . Maybe I wanted to give him some time to work that one out for himself.