The Zephyr Conspiracy

by Israel Keats

  Copyright © 2017 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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  Images in this book used with the permission of: © Atelier Sommerland/Shutterstock.com (zephyr), © iStockphoto.com/Thoth_Adan (grunge background).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5. Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  The Cataloging-in-Publication Data for The Zephyr Conspiracy is on file at the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-5124-3985-4 (lib. bdg.)

  ISBN 978-1-5124-5361-4 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978-1-5124-4874-0 (EB pdf)

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-42234-25783-3/7/2017

  9781512467680 mobi

  9781512467697 ePub

  9781512467703 ePub

  To Jules Verne

  It is the year 2089. Virtual reality games are part of everyday life, and one company—L33T C0RP—is behind the most popular games. Though most people are familiar with L33T C0RP, few know much about what happens behind the scenes of the megacorporation.

  L33T C0RP has developed a new virtual reality game: Level Up. It contains more than one thousand unique virtual realities for gamers to play. But the company needs testers to smooth out glitches. Teenagers from around the country are chosen for this task and, suddenly, they find themselves in the middle of a video game. The company gives them a warning—win the game, or be trapped within it. Forever.

  Chapter 1

  The gamer appeared on a sky deck in a city of skyscrapers, the L33T C0RP logo glowing under her feet. Most of the buildings in this city were as tall as this one, and they had the decorative style of old buildings. There were carvings on the panels and designs worked into the columns. It looked both high tech and old-fashioned, like a city of the future if it existed in 1890.

  Steampunk, she thought. I like it already.

  She carefully moved to the edge of the deck and peered over. It was about a thousand feet to the ground. She could barely see the streets through the web of rails and walkways connecting the buildings.

  I wonder what kind of vehicle travels on those rails.

  In the distance she saw one building towering over the rest. Its tinted glass walls shone like jewels. At the peak of its highest tower was a tremendous clock that showed the time as two minutes before noon—or midnight—but neither was true. The sun was just rising across the skyline.

  “How do you like the game so far?” a voice behind her asked. She turned to see a man wearing a white suit and sunglasses.

  “It’s incredible. Like the past and the future merged together,” she said.

  “That’s the point,” he agreed. “I’m the Game Runner. What do you want to call yourself?”

  “I usually use Gadget,” she replied.

  “Is that because you like gadgets?”

  “Yep. I like to tinker—take things apart and see how they work.”

  “Then I think you’re going to like this game,” he said. “Unless you’re afraid of heights?”

  “Nope,” she said. “Just afraid of falling.”

  He nodded and chuckled at her joke, then waved his hand at her shirt. She looked down and saw her gamertag appear in scarlet stitches on a black vest that had shiny buttons. She hadn’t noticed her outfit until just now. She was also wearing red leggings, black boots, and a white tunic. A leather bag was slung across her shoulder, but when she patted it she could tell it was empty. A belt around her waist held a scabbard with a small curved sword.

  “I’m dressed like a sailor,” Gadget said, looking up. “I should be at sea, not in a city.”

  “You are a sailor,” he said, “but your sea is the sky.” He waved a hand with a flourish. The bow of a ship peeked through the clouds, and then the whole ship burst through the white fluff. It looked like a ship from two hundred years ago, but in place of sails it had an enormous football-shaped balloon.

  “That is the airship Zephyr,” the Game Runner explained. “It’s captained by the infamous pirate, Weston Fawkes Junior. It also happens to be where you live and work.”

  “So I’m a pirate in this game?”

  “A pirate in training,” he corrected. “You’re currently a deckhand. Your goal is to make your way up through the ranks. Well, that’s one goal. There are many ways to play this game. Do you want to become the captain of the Zephyr? Betray your crew to the Verne Aero-Navy? Sneak off with the loot? Those are all possibilities. It’s up to you.”

  “What’s Verne?” Gadget asked.

  “The city before you,” he explained. “It’s a rich world with hundreds of adventures and thousands of characters.”

  “It’s so big. I’ll never explore it all in one game.”

  “This game is meant to be re-played, again and again, and never be the same,” he said. “Not only can you play one story in many different ways, but you can also start out as several different characters with different goals. But you only get one story now, and you know what happens if you lose.”

  She nodded. “I stay here forever. At least I wouldn’t get bored, right?”

  “Unless you end up in prison,” he said. “Or get captured by a rival pirate crew. There are lots of possibilities. Including death. If you die in this game, you’re done. There’s no respawning.”

  She gulped. “Gotcha.” The game is re-playable, but only if I win the first time.

  “Also, this is a multiplayer game,” the Game Runner continued. “You’ll encounter both human players and non-player characters, or NPCs, that you may choose to work with.”

  Ugh. I hate working in groups, she thought, in games or in school. I end up doing all the work while the others take the credit. Her face must have shown her feelings.

  “You don’t seem excited about this.”

  “I guess I find machines easier to figure out than people.”

  “You’ll be fine. With the NPCs, at least. Just figure out what they want and give it to them.”

  “How do I know if someone is real or an NPC?”

  “That’s for you to figure out,” he said. “But you know, real people aren’t much different to deal with.”

  A long rope ladder dropped down from the airship. A scruffy young man appeared above the rear of the ship and waved a sword.

  “It’s time for you to get started,” the Game Runner said as he slowly faded away.

  Chapter 2

  “Climb aboard, milady!” shouted the teenaged boy at the railing.

  Milady? Pretty fancy way to say it’s time to scrub the deck, she thought. Then she reminded herself that this was a steampunk game, a world filled with “gentlemen pirates.” She grabbed the rope ladder and started to climb. The ladder swayed and buckled in the wind. My joke about falling already isn’t funny anymore.

  Gadget kept climbing, feeling her body swing back and forth. She finally reached the top, and the boy helped her over the rail. He looked slightly older than she was, with a few wispy whiskers on his unshaven face. He was wearing a sailing outfit that was similar to hers, though he also wore a sophisticated navy blue coat that had big brass buttons. She saw his na
me embroidered on his coat: TerribleT. But he didn’t look that terrible.

  I’ll call you Terry, she thought.

  “Come on,” he said. “There’s a meeting on the main deck.”

  She followed Terry across the rear deck. At the end it dropped off to a lower deck. About twenty pirates were gathered there. For pirates, they were surprisingly well dressed in long coats with high collars and lots of shiny buttons. Some wore high-waisted pants and vests, and on top of their heads others wore goggles or top hats.

  Can I trust any of them? she wondered. Can I even get along with them? I’ve never been great at compromising.

  A short man climbed up on a barrel. “Hello, gentlemen and ladies!” he cried in a high voice, sounding overly formal.

  “Hello, Captain Fawkes!” The pirates waved their top hats and hands in the air as they cheered.

  Doesn’t seem very scary, as far as pirate captains go, she thought. He was too short and too polite.

  “Are there any treasure hunters among us?” asked the captain as the noise died down.

  The group whooped again, louder than before.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, so listen up.” The captain unrolled a map and held it up for all to see. It was a sprawling city with an ocean on one side and mountains on the other. Gadget tried to get a better look, but there were too many people jostling in front of her.

  “This map belonged to my father,” he said. “As you know, the Aero-Navy caught him several years ago . . .”

  The pirates booed. His dad must be Weston Fawkes Senior, thought Gadget.

  “The Aero-Navy stole this map from him,” the pirate captain told the crew. “Fortunately, I have a friend on the inside, and he stole it back. Take a look. Right here’s the city of Verne. You can see there are X marks all over it. My father told me that he scattered different treasures around the city in eight safes.”

  The pirates fell to a hush.

  “Here’s where you come in. We want to explore all these spots before the Aero-Navy finds out the map is missing. Some have treasure and some don’t. All we know is that they were points of interest for my dearly departed father.”

  The group of pirates were nodding and whispering to one another.

  “You may work in teams,” the captain added. “Half of anything you find is mine and the other half is yours to divvy up. If you want to plunder another team’s loot or betray your own comrades, well, that’s what pirates do.” The pirates cheered and laughed.

  He waved at the group to quiet down. “One last thing: anyone who doesn’t find treasure will be a minion for life!” The captain hopped off the barrel, signaling he was finished. The pirates quickly huddled up in small groups to plot and scheme.

  Gadget now found a roll of paper in her bag. The magic of the game, she thought. We all get a copy of the map. She unrolled it and studied it. There were dozens of X marks strewn across the city. Some have treasure but most are probably dead ends, she figured. Which do I try first?

  Somebody nudged her elbow. She turned and saw Terry. “Looking for a partner?” he asked.

  “Um—” He seems all right, and I don’t know if I can do this alone. “Sure. But it has to be just us. Nobody else.”

  He frowned. “Two is a small group if it comes to fighting. Maybe we should join a team.”

  “We’re a couple of deckhands. I’m hoping they’ll forget we even exist.”

  “Hm. Maybe you’re right,” he said, nodding.

  Together they looked at the map in Gadget’s hands. “Let’s go here,” she said, pointing at the X mark that was the farthest away.

  “It looks like it’s up in the mountains,” Terry said.

  “Exactly. The others will try for the easier spots first, so we can try the harder ones without running into rival teams.”

  “That makes sense,” he said. “But how do we get there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He snapped his fingers. “I saw a broken cloud-skimmer down in the hold. If we fix it we can sail over to that cliff.”

  “Let’s do it.” I don’t know what a cloud-skimmer is, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out when I see it. I don’t want him thinking I’m a n00b and don’t know what I’m doing.

  While the other pirates were still getting into groups, Terry led Gadget through a trap door in the main deck. They crept down a ladder without anyone noticing and crawled through the darkness between barrels and crates. Only a few narrow slashes of light shone through the cracks in the boards over their heads.

  I bet Terry is a real player, she thought. I wonder how long he’s been here.

  Terry stopped in a corner and pointed to a contraption that looked like a bronze and leather wheelless motorcycle with folded wings on each side. Gadget pulled it out and found a button. When she pushed the button, the wings unfolded. They looked like bat wings made of black fabric stretched across a metal skeleton. On the rear side was something that looked like a propeller, which was fastened with wing nuts she could remove by hand.

  “I can take this off to get at the motor,” she said. “But I won’t be able to see a thing.”

  “Let me find a light.” Terry disappeared and returned with a lantern.

  Behind the propeller was a panel. She opened it and saw a complex series of gears and a rubber belt that had come undone. Fortunately the belt wasn’t broken, but it wasn’t clear how it fit around the posts that turned the gears.

  Of course not. It’s a puzzle, she realized. But there were little arrows on the posts showing which way they should turn, and she knew she’d have to feed the belt over or under the posts so the gears would move in the right direction. She tried it a couple of different ways before the belt seemed tight enough to work but not so tight it would snap.

  At last she slammed the panel shut. “Let’s give it a try,” she said. They hauled the machine out of the hold. It would have been heavy for one person to carry but was easy with two.

  The deck was now empty.

  “Everybody else took off,” Terry said.

  “How did they leave?”

  “They used the sky-skiffs,” he said, pointing at an empty rack. “Smaller airships, powered by mini gasbags.” That must be what the airship’s balloon is called—a gasbag, thought Gadget. “There are four sky-skiffs, so there must be four teams.”

  “Got it,” she said. She unfolded the wings on their machine. “What’s this called again?”

  “A cloud-skimmer,” he said. She turned it on and it came to life with a purr.

  Terry cheered with a loud whoop. “You fixed it!”

  “Get on,” she said. “We have treasure to find.”

  Chapter 3

  The cloud-skimmer was meant for one person, but they were still able to fit on the seat together, as if they were riding a motorcycle. Gadget sat in front, pulling on the two handlebars to steer, and Terry was behind her. They cruised across the sky, weaving between spires and towers, veering left and right to avoid colliding with bigger aircraft. As they hit the outskirts of Verne, the air was more open.

  The X on the map was between two mountain peaks. Gadget saw the peaks now and headed for them. As she got closer she saw a large, run-down Victorian-style mansion. But it was big even for a mansion—about twenty stories high.

  “It must be there!” she shouted and leaned forward to descend. It occurred to her that she had no idea how to brake. The cloud-skimmer gained speed as she approached. They were about to crash into the building.

  “Stop!” Terry screamed behind her.

  “I don’t know how!” She looked desperately for controls.

  “Use your feet!”

  For most of their trip, she had let her feet dangle off the sides of the vehicle. She now saw footrests and stretched her legs, finding the pedals and pushing them moments before the cloud-skimmer smashed into the front of the building. A parachute puffed out behind them and they slowed, striking the side of the building but bouncing back unharmed. The machine spun as they dro
pped and hit the ground with a bump.

  “Maybe I’ll drive from now on,” Terry said.

  Gadget rolled her eyes. “Now that I know where the brakes are, I’ll be fine.”

  They got off the cloud-skimmer and looked up at the big mansion. It must have been white at some time but was now muddy and gray. Shingles had been blown off the steep roof, probably long ago. There were cobwebs in the windows. A tower rose high on one side and leaned to the left. It looked like it would collapse the next time there was a hard wind.

  A sign was staked in the lawn. The paint had faded but she could still read it:

  WELCOME TO THE BENBOW INN

  “Better find out what’s in there before it falls down,” she said.

  “Try not to breathe on it,” Terry joked, but he followed her to the entrance.

  The boards creaked as they walked up the sagging porch and pushed open the front door.

  “Baggage?” a wooden bellhop asked when they entered. It looked like a life-sized wooden toy that walked and talked. It was at least seven feet tall and wide enough to block the door. Its red hat looked tiny on its enormous head.

  “Where’s your baggage?” the bellhop asked again.

  “We don’t have any,” Gadget said.

  “You must have baggage,” the bellhop said. “There is always baggage.”

  “It’s coming on a sky-cab,” Terry added quickly. The bellhop grunted and stood aside.

  “Good thinking,” she whispered as they passed it. “I thought we’d have to battle that robot.”

  “It’s called an automaton,” Terry corrected her.

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I don’t know. That’s just what it’s called here.”

  “Got it. Aw-tah-mah-ton,” she repeated.

  The inside of the hotel was as shabby as the outside. There were water stains and bald spots on the carpet, cracks in the plaster, and practically an inch of dust on the floor.

  No footprints in the dust, Gadget noted. That means we’re the first ones here in a long time. If we find treasure and get out before any of the other teams find it, we’ll win. Or at least we won’t lose.