by Dave Bakers
He tried out the same button combination that I had.
The same combination that my first opponent had given me.
Without which I surely would’ve bombed out of the competition.
Chung won the round, and then the next, and the next.
He won his own tree, and, just like I did, he went through to the quarter final.
I could feel my heart beating up in my throat, and the pain seemed to pulse against my wrist.
I couldn’t quite believe it.
25
AS STEVE AND HAROLD jointly announced me and Chung to have gone through to the quarter finals, among the other gamers clapping politely, I tried to catch sight of my opponent from the first round of the knockout.
I couldn’t see him anywhere.
When I turned my attention back to Steve and Harold, they were handing out medals to those who’d got this far, who’d managed to reach the Second Round.
I remembered that medal, I still had it back home, in my bedroom.
A silver gamepad on a velvety-purple cord.
The other gamers all took their medals politely—just as politely as they’d clapped—and then they shuffled on off, apparently back to their hotel rooms, maybe even looking forward to being able to enjoy the rest of Gamers Con.
I overheard a few of them mumble things about how Hardened Voyage had been a complete curveball, and not a fair one at that.
I supposed—on some level—I had to agree.
It wasn’t an authentic fighting game after all.
But, then again, this was Gamers Con. And we were supposed to be the best. So we had to cope with whatever it was they put before us.
No excuses.
When the others had gone, it left me alone with Chung and the two invigilators: Steve and Harold.
Already, Harold was gesturing for me to come on over, to hear the plan for Sunday . . . what would be the final day of the competition.
I held off for a moment, saw that my dad was clambering his way down the steps from the spectators’ platform, coming in my direction.
I saw that he was yawning his head off, and blinking away sleep.
That’s another thing that me and my parents have nothing in common—they’re morning people and I’ve always been a night owl, feeling most awake around ten o’clock, around about the time then.
But despite being a morning person, my dad still had enough energy this late at night to keep on clinging to his mobile, to occasionally tap something out on the chess app that he no doubt still had open there.
I wondered if he ever thought he might get just a little bored of staring at those black-and-white squares, at staring at the exact same pieces, hour upon hour.
I guess he had to sleep sometime.
He sidled up to me, gave me a light smile, then waited there, apparently wanting me to get through with whatever it was he wanted me to get through with so that he could shove on off to the hotel room and get his eight hours’ sleep.
Some people just don’t know they’re actually alive.
Anyway, I shuffled off to Harold and Steve, shot Chung a brief smile which he batted away with a sturdy, neutral expression—what I supposed was his trademarked expression.
I noticed his mum skulking about nearby, apparently as eager as my dad to get off as soon as possible.
Steve and Harold explained the next day’s organisation to us, telling us that we would start bright and early at around eight o’clock in the morning, with the other six gamers who had managed to make it through to the quarter finals.
When I asked for the names, I heard James and Kate among them.
Though I knew they were the competition, I couldn’t help but feel a slight warmth way down deep in my gut.
Once Steve and Harold had us sorted out, I decided to push the boat out, and actually attempt conversation with Chung.
Since he had just about turned away as soon as Steven and Harold had wrapped up their spiel, I physically had to reach out and take hold of his shirt in my good, right fist.
That got his attention.
He looked back over his shoulder, that same neutral expression on his face.
Seeing that his mother was glowering at me from where she was standing with her arms tightly folded across her chest, I decided I needed to act quickly.
“In that first round,” I said, “did someone tell you about that button sequence—your opponent, I mean?”
Chung just kept his expression firmly neutral, as if my voice was nothing more than a troublesome draught. Then he shook his head.
It was then that I realised I was still holding tight to his shirt—that I still had a hold of it in my right fist. I gave him some slack, not wanting it to seem, to the casual observer, that I was thinking of taking care of my competition tomorrow with physical violence . . . anyway, if I’d really wanted to deal him some damage then I would’ve done something way easier—like sat on him.
“Please,” I said, actually feeling my voice strain just a little, “someone told me too.”
Chung blinked several times over, then, finally, he relented, giving me a firm, unmistakable nod.
I decided that I was on a roll, so saw no reason to stop there. “Look, we both used to have a relationship with Alive Action Games, right?”
Again Chung nodded.
“And we both had to come through that Ignition Tournament because Alive Action revoked our passes.”
He just kept up his same stony glare.
“So . . . doesn’t some of this seem strange to you? Don’t you think that we should maybe be a touch suspicious about just what’s going on here?”
He didn’t react at all.
Not so much as the twitch of an eyelid.
But I knew I had to keep going.
“From what I heard”—I flapped my arm in Steve and Harold’s direction—“the others, the others who were with Alive Action, they managed to get through too, to the quarter finals. Doesn’t that seem like something of a coincidence to you?”
Chung pouted long and hard, just about the most extreme reaction he’d given me in the whole time I’d known him . . . which, granted, wasn’t all that long.
“Look,” I continued, “it seems to me that Gamers Con are doing everything they can—within reason—to keep us, the four of us who worked with Alive Action—”
And that was when Chung spoke for the first time.
Actually cutting me off.
“Five,” Chung said, “the other one, he also qualified for the quarter finals.”
I blinked a few times, just as taken aback that this was the first time he’d spoken as by the actual content of what he’d said.
It appeared that Chung wasn’t finished, either. “His name is Alan.”
“Oh?” I said, not really sure what else to say.
Chung nodded. “I heard his name”—he pointed off in the direction of Steve and Harold, the two of them still conferring with one another—“when they read out the list.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Chung said, with a shrug, and then added, “Weird kid, that guy, I mean, I know that everyone here at the Grand Tournament wants to win but that kid, wow, he was like a whole different level of intense . . . back at the Winners’ Breakfast I spoke with him and he wouldn’t give me more than one-word answers. Then, when I made a joke about something he gave me this scowl—like this really mean scowl like I’d just killed his cat or something.”
I stood back, still a little amazed at how much Chung had opened up, and how he was doing an impression of Alan, making his eyes all narrow, and holding his fingers as if they were claws or something.
I guess you can get people wrong so easily.
I knew that I’d got Chung wrong, for one.
I looked beyond him again, to his waiting mother. “I guess your mum’s waiting,” I said.
He gave another shrug, then slipped me a conspiratorial smile—kind of a secret grin. “Yeah,” he said, “she was a child champion hers
elf, and so she wants me to do the same—win the competition, I mean.” Another shrug later, he added, “I don’t even like video games all that much.”
Well, that got my eyeballs near enough leaving my sockets.
I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.
That there even existed someone who didn’t like video games all that much.
Oh, sure, there was my mum . . . but, I mean, she was my mum.
She was old.
But, I have to admit, that it didn’t change my opinion of Chung at all. In fact, I had warmed to him a great deal, and we swapped mobile numbers.
Before we parted ways, headed up to our respective hotel rooms—with our respective parents—I had to ask him something . . . urgently.
“Uh, Chung,” I said, just as he was turning back to his mum—I saw that he’d put back on that same mean expression of his and I guessed that it was some sort of a mechanism he used with his mum to show her that he was one-hundred-per-cent serious about the competition. “You, uh,” I continued, “didn’t see that kid, uh, Alan in a video game that Alive Action Games sent along a few days before the convention, did you?”
Chung looked at me long and hard, that serious expression of his making me feel a little uneasy—even though I knew the truth that he only used it in the presence of his mother. I wondered if he was going to answer at all, and his mother called out to him soon after.
But, right before he turned to go, to head up to his hotel room, he gave me a stiff nod.
That made four of us that’d seen that red-haired kid—Alan—in Halls of Hallow.
What did it mean?
26
BACK IN OUR HOTEL ROOM, I couldn’t sleep.
My dad, though, oh he was snoring away.
But, seriously, how could I sleep with all the stuff that’d gone on today.
The fact that I’d managed to get into the quarter finals of the Grand Tournament had almost got lost in the revelation first that Chung was a cool guy, and second that, just like me and James and Kate, he’d seen the red-haired kid, Alan, in Halls of Hallow.
And I felt the weight heavy on my shoulders because I was the only one who knew just the right tools to get to the bottom of the mystery . . . that was unless James, Kate and Chung had all figured out that they could snap off that panel from the back of the Sirocco and get themselves into their video games too.
But that might just be too much to share.
Especially since we would all be competing against one another from early tomorrow—Sunday—morning.
So I just lay there in the darkness knowing that it must be sometime around midnight—usually the time I go to sleep on a school night—and thinking that there was surely something I could do to push a little further along the trail to solving this mystery.
I leaned over, reached out to my bedside table, swept up my mobile, checked the time there and saw that it was half twelve.
I sighed out long and hard, thought about what I was doing.
Then, after turning over and checking that my dad was still sleeping—you know, not like, pretending to snore—I fired off a message to Chung, James and Kate
Guys, I know this is weird, but I’ve got to show you all something.
It’s important.
And with that done, I sat back and waited, eyeing my mobile screen, waiting to see if I would get any sort of response at all.
I wondered if those three were like me, if they were all night owls too, accustomed to staying up late practising their gaming skills.
After five minutes, and no messages, I was pretty sure that it’d been a mistake.
It would’ve been better just to forget it.
After all, if there really was some sort of a mystery going on surrounding those who’d been involved with Alive Action Games what did I really care?
I mean, it all seemed to be benefitting me so far, what with the Ignition Tournament, and then that weird guy giving me tips for how to smash right through Hardened Voyage.
And I already knew that Chung had got the same tips—and I guessed that it was a reasonable jump of logic to think that James and Kate had got those tips too . . . after all, they’d managed to make it through to the quarter finals.
I’d just about given up on the others, turned on my side and started to think about chess—as a method to send me off to sleep—when I heard a couple of vibrations of my phone.
There were messages there from James, and from Kate.
Right as I was reading through Kate’s message, another came in, this time from Chung.
All of them wanted to meet right away.
Kate said that we should meet in her room since she was alone there—her dad had taken another room.
Room 719 . . . seventh floor.
There was just one thing that I had to ask, though I was certain what the answer would be. All the same, I sent off one final message to Kate:
You brought along your Sirocco, right?
I got the reply a fraction of a second later:
Of course.
27
GETTING OUT OF MY ROOM without waking Dad wasn’t hard.
Did I mention that he’s a sound sleeper?
Once I’d managed to get myself out into the hallway, key card in hand, I took the stairs—figuring that maybe I could use the exercise—and headed on up to Kate’s room.
One knock later and I was surprised to find that James and Chung were already there.
Both of them were grinning away, neither looked like they’d been to sleep yet.
Kate was wearing a pyjama top and baggy bottoms. I noticed that on her pyjama top she had a design of Godzilla—or something like Godzilla—and it was crushing a seaside town, kicking ice-cream vans out the way, and munching on some tourists.
It had rivers of blood running between its teeth, and down its chin.
I wondered what sorts of things Kate considered relaxing, you know, actually conducive to sleep . . .
She gave a slight yawn as she let me in.
Her hotel room was a carbon copy of my own.
I noticed her own Sirocco sitting up on the desk beside the TV, all plugged in and ready to go.
Only when Chung and James turned to me, both of them grinning, and Kate shut the door behind me, rolling her shoulders and grinning also, did I worry that maybe it was only my own games console which had the ability to travel into the game, or that I’d simply made it all up in my mind in the first place.
Maybe my imagination was more active than I’d imagined.
Only one way to find out and now I’d come too far to disappoint all of these guys.
They had got themselves up out of their bed to hear this ‘important’ thing I had to say.
I showed the disk I’d brought along with me:
Halls of Hallow.
I sprang the disk loose from its case and handed it to Kate, who duly stuck the disk into the tray of her Sirocco 3000.
I looked about them, saw that James had furrowed his brow. “Hey,” he said, “I’ve seen this already—did you really need to bring me here to see this?”
I shook my head. “It’s not that, not just seeing the game again.”
I felt like I should hold my breath for the next part, or tell them all to hold onto something . . . but, instead, I settled on just getting it out into the open.
Getting myself shot of the ridiculous notion so that they could get their laughter out of the way.
“I’m going to show you,” I said, “how to actually step into Halls of Hallow.”
28
“UH, WHAT?” James said.
I guess he was speaking for everybody in the room.
Next he flashed a smile. “Is this a joke?”
I looked to Kate and Chung.
Neither of them were smiling.
I was sort of half hoping that one of them might chirp up, might tell James that I was telling the truth . . . but, no.
It was going to have to be the hard way.
“Look,” I said, getting up, shifting on over to the Sirocco 3000.
I shot Kate a glance when I got there, asking her with my eyes whether or not I could risk damaging her pride and joy.
She gave me a nod.
I wondered if—maybe—she was just a touch worried about what this nutcase who she’d asked to her hotel room in the middle of the night was about to do.
I looked down the back of the Sirocco, glanced across all the wires snaking out from it, and then I saw the panel. The infrared panel there, still snug beneath its snap-off plastic casing. I snuck my fingernails down beneath the panel and, with a slight snap, it came away and pinged off down into the snaking cables behind the desk.
I swallowed hard, looked up to the TV screen, saw that the same cut scene was playing out for Halls of Hallow, which meant that it was very dark there.
I looked to the others, then said, “Okay, who’s first?”
* * *
I have to admit that there was a moment when I was absolutely certain that it wasn’t going to work at all, and that I was going to look like that nutcase.
But, it did.
I watched as—one by one—they disappeared into thin air.
For me, it was an odd experience since I’d never actually witnessed the effect from a third-person perspective before.
It was simple—elegant, even.
One second they were there.
The next they weren’t.
It was my turn last of all, and it felt sort of surreal to be standing alone in Kate’s hotel room with nobody there with me.
I breathed in deeply, glanced up at the TV screen—still darkness—and then I brushed my fingertips up against the infrared panel.
* * *
That manky smell seemed to smother just about everything.
And it was pitch-black.
Now, though, instead of being totally silent, I could hear all three of them: Chung, Kate and James all whispering away.
I wondered why they didn’t just speak in normal voices, and then I guessed that—most likely—it was the atmosphere that prompted them to lower their tone so much.