Hall continued moving, shoving her aside. ‘I need to be me. The ordinary me. The real me.’
‘I need you,’ Mummy screamed, throwing herself at the box, grasping hold of it, hanging on. ‘I am nothing without you!’
But all Hall wanted was to return home. With a final effort of will, the box, with Hall inside it and Mummy clinging to its exterior, entered the shimmer.
Everything from this bizarre and twisted world melted away, as Hall passed through the doorway.
His surroundings lurched and jumped and hiccuped.
Hall was back in the VR experience, blue above, green below, blocky geometric shapes floating around him.
He ripped off the helmet and threw it across the room.
‘Yo, Hall-dude, what the heck’s the matter with you?’ Max raced towards him from across the shop. ‘This stuff is expensive.’
Hall ignored Max. He was back in PlayTime. Back in his own world.
‘Sorry, Max.’ He started to laugh uncontrollably as he peeled off the data gloves. He put them carefully onto the trestle table. Then he picked up the helmet and held it out to Max. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah, well, if it’s damaged … you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.’
Hall laughed again. ‘Sure. That’d be great.’
Max snatched up the helmet and peered into it. ‘Hey. There aren’t any loose wires in here, are there? This didn’t like, fry your brain or something. ’Cause if it did, it’s not my fault. I just rent the equipment. You can’t sue me for brain damage, you know.’
‘I’m fine,’ Hall assured him. ‘I’ve gotta go.’
Hall raced for the door. He stopped at the sound of the laser-fire in the doorway and turned back.
‘Hey, Max,’ he called. ‘How long was I in there?’
‘What do you mean, dude?’ asked Max. ‘You’d barely gotten two minutes into the simulation.’
Two minutes? Time must move differently in that other world.
‘Yes!’ Hall punched the air and ran out.
He was, of course, gasping and wheezing by the time he had run all the way home. But he didn’t care.
He booted up his computer.
There were five messages waiting.
PING!
Another arrived.
Hall smiled, then hit the keyboard …
PING!
PING!
Linked, thought Hall. We seemed to be linked.
He wondered if this was because of the world they had visited. The OTHER WORLDS site did say people felt a connection to it. If he and Bian shared a connection to that world, perhaps the bond extended to each other in this world. He hoped so.
PING!
Hall pushed back his chair and stared in horror at his room. Ten minutes to clean up.
He raced around like a tornado, piling books and magazines onto the shelves, throwing old clothes into the closet, and hiding the plush toys that were on the bed.
Then he found a fresh T-shirt and pulled it on, just at the doorbell rang.
‘There’s someone here to see you, Hallsie,’ his mum called from downstairs.
He cringed. He hated that pet name. Thankfully his mum was the only one who used it.
‘Just tell her to come up,’ he shouted down.
He really didn’t want to meet Bian in real life for the first time, with his mum hanging around.
Bian appeared at the top of the stairs. Wearing a baggy black T-shirt over strategically torn jeans and expensive looking high-top sneakers, she looked at him from under her wave of black hair and grinned.
‘Hallsie?’
Hall’s face fell.
‘Relax,’ said Bian, ‘I think it’s kinda cute. Sort of.’
Hall showed her into his room, surreptitiously kicking away a pair of old socks he’d missed earlier.
‘So I guess that OTHER WORLDS website was real,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should tell them our story?’
‘I guess.’ Hall shrugged.
They stood around awkwardly for a few moments.
‘How long –?’ started Hall, just as Bian said ‘Are you –’
They both giggle nervously.
‘You first,’ they both said together, then giggled again.
‘Um,’ said Bian. ‘Are you okay? How did you get out? I thought you’d be trapped.’
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ said Hall. ‘And I got out because I realised that staying had to be a genuine choice … not one you were tricked into. I’ll explain over lunch. We always have pizza on Saturdays. Yeah?’
‘Sure. Now, what were you gonna ask?’
‘Oh. I just wanted to know how long you were in there,’ said Hall. ‘I know it seemed like ages … but it was less than a minute here, in our world for me.’
‘Same here,’ said Bian.
‘But you disappeared a few days ago.’
‘What? No.’ Bian laughed. ‘My dad confiscated my computer ’cause I forgot to change the cat litter. He’s way strict. I only got it back this morning.’
‘I wonder …’ said Hall.
‘What?’
PING!
They raced over to the computer. There was a message.
Max couldn’t find anything wrong with the VR helmet. He sighed and put it down onto the trestle table.
A wisp of thick black smoke seeped out from under the helmet, accompanied by the fizz and sizzle of shorted wiring.
Crinkling his brow, Max backed away from it. It felt wrong. Dangerous. Angry.
The wispy blackness curled around the helmet. It crumbled and fell apart.
Max yelped and stumbled backwards, as the darkness coiled towards him. Panicking, he grabbed a games console off a shelf and threw it.
As it passed through the darkness, it fell apart, shorted wires, burnt circuits and melted plastic scattering to the floor.
Max fell over trying to back away.
The smoke dispersed just before it got to him.
Books by George Ivanoff
You Choose 1: The Treasure of Dead Man’s Cove
You Choose 2: Mayhem at Magic School
You Choose 3: Maze of Doom
You Choose 4: The Haunting of Spook House
You Choose 5: Night of the Creepy Carnival
You Choose 6: Alien Invaders from Beyond the Stars
You Choose 7: Super Sports Spectacular
You Choose 8: Trapped in the Games Grid
You Choose 9: Extreme Machine Challenge
You Choose 10: In the Realm of Dragons
You Choose 11: Creepy Crawly Chaos
You Choose 12: City of Robots
You Choose AFL: Footy Fever
Royal Flying Doctor Service 1: Remote Rescue
Royal Flying Doctor Service 2: Emergency Echo
Royal Flying Doctor Service 3: Medical Mission
Royal Flying Doctor Service 4: Fast Flight
Meet … The Flying Doctors
(Illustrated by Ben Wood)
OTHER WORLDS 1: Perfect World
OTHER WORLDS 2: Beast World
OTHER WORLDS 3: Game World
OTHER WORLDS 4: Dark World
A Random House book
Published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.penguin.com.au
First published by Random House Australia in 2018
Copyright © George Ivanoff 2018
Illustration copyright © James Hart 2018
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Penguin Random House Australia.
Addresses for the Penguin Random House group of companies can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com/offices.
ISBN 9780143786245
Cover and internal illustrations by James Hart
Cover design by Tony Palmer © Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Internal design and typesetting by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Cover and internal images: pixels Essl/Shutterstock.com; portal phyZick/Shutterstock.com; series title type Epifantsev/Shutterstock.com; circuits ivn3da/Shutterstock.com
Penguin Random House Australia uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
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