by Dave Bakers
Or anybody who stepped into his domain.
I trod onwards, listening for anything.
But there was no sound.
Only that ripping, manky stench.
This was the first time that I’d headed on into a game with someone to watch the TV.
When I’d propelled myself into Halls of Hallow, I’d left Steve sitting on the edge of the bed. He said that he’d be sure to note anything strange . . . anything that might give us the answers we were looking for.
And he also agreed to bring me out of the game if the real-world timing was getting too tight. I didn’t want to miss the next round of the tournament, after all.
I carried onwards, and soon emerged in one of the archways to the hall.
There I saw him.
The Cloaked Figure.
I held my breath.
Felt it tingle about the insides of my lungs.
The blood spurted about my veins.
But this time I just had to know what was going on here.
Anything else would be a dismal failure.
As I drew closer, found that familiar silvery light setting the Cloaked Figure in a silhouette, I noticed that my palms were sweaty.
I realised that I was afraid.
That, although I knew I’d be transported right back to the hotel room, I was afraid of how it might happen.
Then I thought a little more of what Harold had said—that thing about the three strikes, and that if I made another mistake then I would be kicked out of the tournament.
For some reason, this being the third time I’d entered the game, I wondered if I was maybe about to strike out somehow.
But I put that out of my mind.
Told myself that I had Steve—the closest thing to an expert on the game—standing by ready to tug me out if anything went wrong.
I was far safer than I’d been at any other point in my experiments of entering video games.
So why was I shaking all over?
I put that thought out of my mind, concentrated everything I had on the Cloaked Figure before me. Still with his back to me. And then, drawing in a deep breath, I said, “Uh, hi?”
The Cloaked Figure, just like all the other times before didn’t respond.
I skirted closer, afraid that he might do that expanding and chilling thing. “I’ve come again,” I said, and then looked off into the darkness, as if I might be staring out of the screen, looking directly at Steve. “I wondered if you were ready to tell me . . . to tell me what it was you told that other boy . . . what you told Alan.”
It was odd.
I noticed the echo for the first time.
Alan’s name reverberated all around.
I held my breath as if I might’ve been able to suck the sound back into my chest.
The Cloaked Figure kept his back to me.
Staring down into that dark-purple pool.
Apparently unperturbed by my words.
I waited for impossibly long seconds, sure that hours—if not days—had passed by.
Then I remembered Steve sitting at the foot of the bed ready to haul me out if that happened, and I found a little more confidence.
“Alan?” I said, “Can you tell me what I saw?”
And then I pointed off into the darkness.
In the direction which I imagined the TV screen to be.
The Cloaked Figure didn’t respond for another couple of moments, and then, just like that, he turned to me. His face still steeped in shadow, and his body still shrouded in the cloak.
I wondered if he was going to prod me in the chest again.
With that icy touch of his.
But he made no move towards me.
I thought I could hear—very faintly—a gargling sound at the base of his throat.
And then he spoke.
“Alan,” the Cloaked Figure said, “was supposed to bring me the trophy.”
I spoke out loud before thinking. “ ‘The trophy?’ ”
“Hmm.”
The sound appeared to come from the back of his throat, seemed booming almost, to echo all about the hall . . . and yet, I was sure that there was something vaguely familiar about it, like I’d heard that tone of voice before.
Well, I had, the last few times I’d visited the game.
. . . But, no, I was almost certain that I’d heard it outside Halls of Hallow, out in the real-world . . . for the life of me, I couldn’t place it, though . . .
I held still.
Not sure whether I should move a muscle.
Worried that the Cloaked Figure could send me spinning through darkness with the simple touch of his bony finger to any part of my body.
Then a thought struck me.
A crazy thought.
And, like most crazy thoughts, I have a habit of blurting them out right away.
As if the thought is so quaveringly insane that it simply won’t allow itself not to go noticed.
“I . . . I could bring the trophy to you.”
“Hmm?”
That sound again. I didn’t know what to make of it. Was the figure just biding his time, readying to throw me back, wanting to surprise me, to catch me off guard, for whatever reason?
. . . But then he spoke again.
“Yes,” the Cloaked Figure said, “Maybe . . . maybe you could.”
I felt my heart flutter up to my throat.
Felt like my temples were on fire.
My left wrist gave a tiny little spasm of pain.
And I knew that I had to listen to it.
To sense danger when it was thrown into my face.
I looked up, into the darkness, hoping to catch Steve’s eye—to send him some signal, for him to get me out . . . and right now!
But no matter how hard I peered into the darkness, trying to penetrate the TV screen, I remained right where I was.
The Cloaked Figure before me.
He remained still for a long while and then—with me hardly able to believe it—I watched him bring his bony hands out from the sleeves of his cloak, reach up to his hood, and bring it down—down to his shoulders where he let it rest.
I saw who it was.
I recognised him right away, of course.
But I still didn’t believe it.
That wispy beard on his chin.
The hollowed-out cheeks.
The spindly frame.
. . . And I should’ve known all along from the booming voice . . .
36
“HAROLD!” I blurted out as I returned to my bedroom. “It’s Harold!”
I looked to Steve, sitting there on my bed.
He looked a little taken aback. He blinked himself out of his daze then said, “Sorry—I’ve seen it before, done it myself before . . . that whole transportation thing, I mean . . . but it’s been a while, and after a while you start to doubt just what you’ve seen . . . what you really saw.”
I glared at him, hardly able to believe that he was overstepping my panic, that he was apparently unmoved by what I was telling him. “The Cloaked Figure,” I said. “It’s Harold!”
Steve sat still.
I thought he might be in shock.
That he might be about to keel over on his side in a faint.
But he stayed still.
Swallowed hard.
Then shook his head.
“Sure,” he said, “it might well be . . . at Alive Action we were always shuffling one another’s likenesses into games—a bit of an in-joke, if you know what that is.”
I breathed in deep. “Yes,” I said, “I do know what that is.”
Steve glanced at his wristwatch, rose up off the bed, then said, “Come on, we need to get going. The Final starts in fifteen minutes.”
Steve was halfway to the door before I realised that he was taking this all in his stride, as if it really meant nothing at all.
“He wants the trophy,” I said.
Steve rested his hand on the latch of the door. “Ah, does he?”
I
nodded back at him.
He shrugged, said, “Makes sense,” then pressed down.
“Is that it?” I said, “I mean, there’s nothing else at all?”
Steve looked blank. “We need to get moving.”
I felt a tingle through my gut—that fizzle through my blood.
And then it struck me.
“You,” I said, “you planned all this, didn’t you?”
Steve pressed his lips together.
I knew that I’d hit the nail on the head.
He tried to press hard down on the latch, but I was too quick for him, I grabbed a hold of his forearm.
Though he surely could’ve resisted me, he didn’t.
And I could tell that his heart wasn’t in this . . . whatever it was that he’d done here . . .
“Look,” Steve said, staring down at the carpet, “we—all of us—the invigilators, we all worked for Alive Action Games beforehand.”
I breathed in deeply, but stopped short of releasing my grip from Steve’s forearm. “In the Second Round—that guy with the tinted glasses, the one who gave . . .”
Steve nodded solemnly. “Yes, we had plants all through the tournament—their job was to make sure you all got through.”
“The glitches?”
Again, he nodded. “Remotely activated.”
“But why?” I said.
He shook his head, and I could see that he was close to tears.
If he was close to tears then just how did he think I felt?!
“I . . .” Steve began, and then looked to the door, “I could get into a lot of trouble for telling you about this, for having told you this much.” He looked back to me, and I felt my heart dip in my chest, against all odds feeling a shred of sympathy for the guy though I couldn’t quite comprehend why. “All the invigilators, we were given orders, to head to each gamer’s hotel room, to lead them into playing the game—to meeting with that . . . the Cloaked Figure, to speaking with him . . . and that he would ask all of them to bring back the trophy.”
That was when the realisation dawned on me.
Presuming that none of the others had managed to back their invigilator into a corner then I surely would be the only one who had the whole picture . . . who realised that this had all been planned . . . well, except for Alan, who was surely in this all along.
I still had no idea why though . . . why we had to bring the trophy to this Cloaked Figure, and why it mattered so much to Gamers Con . . . to Mr Yorbleson because, surely, he was the one who was behind all this.
That was when it struck me.
Just what I had to do.
I slipped my mobile out of my pocket.
I had an unread message . . . but I breezed right past it.
There were more important things than a message—surely from Mum—right at the moment.
I had to warn the others.
“What . . .” Steve started, “What’re you doing?”
I just glanced up at him, over the top of my mobile. “I don’t care anymore,” I said, “Chuck me out of the tournament . . . I’m not playing this game.”
Steve took a step towards me, made a half-hearted attempt to twist out of my grip.
But I held on firm.
And he didn’t try to stop me again.
I tried to call them all.
Got no response.
Only voicemails.
Steve shook his head. “It’s no good, Zak—they’re already down there, they’ve handed in their mobiles before the Final . . .”
I shot him a fiery look. “Shut up.”
I kept on calling.
Kept on hearing the burbling dial tones.
And I knew that Steve was talking sense, that, really, there was nothing that I’d be able to do now.
I let loose a sigh, fixed Steve with a penetrating glance. “You’re really telling me everything you know?”
I watched him swallow hard and, just for a second, I was certain that he was going to burst into tears, that I was going to have to console a blubbering fully-grown man.
Thankfully, though, he held off.
“That’s everything I know,” he said. “I just wanted a job, something to tide me over, I didn’t think I’d be taking part in this, taking part in . . . in cheating.”
That word cut through the air. I felt its sting up against my cheeks as hardy and unrelenting as a stiff, freezing-cold winter’s wind.
I knew that he was telling me the truth, speaking frankly, and as a gamer.
Because, if there’s anything worse to a gamer than cheating then I haven’t heard of it.
“Come on,” Steve said, indicating the door. “We’d better go.”
I glanced back over my shoulder, looked to the Sirocco, and I thought about how it’d been sitting in my bedroom not a couple of days before, and how everything had been so much simpler.
There hadn’t been all these people to deal with.
As we headed on, along the corridor, I thought about bursting into a run, sprinting off. But I felt deflated, like, really, there was no point in doing it.
Surely the others were already beyond my help.
Maybe the only way I could get to them—speak to them about what was really going on was to pretend like I’d made peace with this whole thing . . . lull Steve into a false sense of security.
We’d have to see how it would go.
When we got in the lift, I remembered the text message. And, wanting to do something—anything—that’d take my mind off what was to come, off what was happening to me and the others, I read it.
It was from Dad.
And it read:
Hey Zak,
Guess what, that guy I was playing chess with is here—at Gamers Con!
Decided to go for a real-life match at the letter A, that’s where you’re playing, isn’t it? If so should work out fine, we’ll play in the spectator seats.
See you soon,
Dad xx
I went cold all over as yet another realisation dawned over me.
Over just what was going on.
I stared up—at Steve—the words almost seethed out through my teeth as I said, “Our parents—you’re taking our parents!”
37
I DIDN’T LISTEN to any of the sounds of protest which Steve made as I rumbled along the corridor. I tried to work it out—tried to see how it had happened . . . but I couldn’t see anything at all that made sense to me, any point where Gamers Con would’ve managed to get to my dad, or what they might be planning to do with him.
As I closed in on the oversized letter A, I shoved my way through the crowds, all of them converging in on the spectator seats for the Final.
I looked among them—tried to spot Dad.
Then I tapped away at my mobile, tried to call him again.
No response.
Just like the others, the dial tone just chirruped away in my ear then died with the bong of the voicemail kicking in.
I glanced back over my shoulder, saw that Steve was still following along behind me, and that he had turned a shade of pale as we’d been going along.
If anything had happened to my dad—whatever could happen to my dad—then I would certainly give him something to be pale about.
I glanced around, feeling the All-Access Pass bob against my chest, and I tried to get a look at the faces, to check them over, see if my dad was among them.
And then, not finding Dad, I looked for the other parents.
For Chung’s mother, or Kate and James’s fathers.
No sign of them at all.
I scanned the crowd another time, sure that I might’ve missed them.
But, no.
I eyed the entrance up ahead, and that was when Steve caught up to me.
He mopped his sweating brow with his purple shirt sleeve, and together we ventured on in—into the Final.
* * *
We had to go through a black, floaty curtain, and into an enclosed space which the spectators could look down on.<
br />
In the middle of the enclosure there was one of those plastic shells—one of those gaming booths like the ones we’d used for the Ignition Tournament.
I was thinking that it’d make less of a spectacle for the spectators, but that was when I noticed the giant plasma screen that had been erected up on one of the sides, and which, I guessed, would show the screen as we played within the shell.
The shell, I supposed, was another of those measures of Mr Yorbleson’s to guard against ‘cheating.’
Everything was so calm here.
I saw them right away.
The others.
Kate. James. Chung.
Alan.
All the other four safe and sound.
When James caught my eye, he looked uneasy.
But he managed to raise the sliver of a smile.
As I stalked closer to him, I felt Steve tug back on the sleeve of my t-shirt.
I tried to pull away from him, but this time his grip was stronger than I could resist, and so I allowed him to bend into me, to whisper in my ear. “Don’t be so obvious,” he said. “If you really want to help them then you’ve got to be a little more subtle—otherwise they’ll throw you right out.”
He was right because, just then, I saw Alan with Harold standing at his shoulder—his invigilator, and I knew that any false move here and Harold would have no trouble whatsoever in kicking me out of the competition—out of the tournament.
And if I just blurted out what little I knew to the others would I have any sort of reassurance that they’d even take in what I’d said, or maybe they’d just think that I’d lost the plot . . . that I’d taken one journey too many into my Sirocco.
No, I couldn’t allow that to happen.
Not if I wanted to save them.
So I breathed deep—calmed myself down.
Tried to let the facts come to my brain.
Now, I could count on the others having had the same experience as me, having that Cloaked Figure—Harold—tell them he wanted them to bring him the trophy, but what I couldn’t count on was the fact that they’d realised that Gamers Con had their parents . . . that they’d snatched them away.
And if I was to blurt that out it might cause a stir, but I was sure that Mr Yorbleson would find a way to brush over it.