Game Over, Pete Watson

by Joe Schreiber

  “Money?”

  “A lot of money.”

  “How much?”

  “A lot, okay?”

  “No,” Callie said. “It’s totally not okay. Because you’re supposed to be our father. Which means that you’re supposed to be good and decent—”

  “And not mean and greedy,” Wesley added. “And—”

  “We’re supposed to be able to trust you,” Callie finished for him. “Which we obviously can’t.” She turned to glare at him. “So I want to know, Father. How much money does it take to make a supposedly decent and trustworthy man decide that he’s going to put a virus in the CIA database and take over the world?”

  Mr. Midwood rolled his eyes. “First of all,” he said, “you’re being melodramatic. I’m not taking over the world. Who would want to be in charge of the world, anyway? It’s a headache—think of the maintenance fees.” He sighed. “Second, if you knew my plan, you’d understand how ingenious the whole thing was.” He turned to me. “I thought that you of all people would appreciate this, Pete.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s happening at GameCon.”

  “So?”

  “They’re unveiling a new game there at four o’clock.” Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out a video game box labeled PROTOTYPE—TOP SECRET. “Meet Brawl-A-Thon SuperMax.”

  “Whoa,” Wesley said, and caught himself. “I’ve never even heard of it.”

  “Nobody has,” Mr. Midwood said. “The game designers are doing a surprise premiere today.”

  “What’s so special about it?”

  “It’s going to be a multiplatform direct download,” Mr. Midwood said. “Which means that anybody with an Internet connection can install it directly into their gaming console. And for today only”—his eyes gleamed—“they’re offering it for free.”

  “Whoa!” Wesley said. “Let’s go home and download it!”

  “Hold on a second,” I said, and turned to Mr. Midwood. “Why do you care about all this?”

  “It’s revolutionary,” Mr. Midwood said. “Everybody who’s anybody is going to be watching: TV reporters, technology experts, media people . . . I’ve heard the president himself might even show up.” He grinned. “I couldn’t ask for a better opportunity.”

  “For what?” Wesley asked.

  And suddenly I got it.

  “You’re hijacking the game,” I said.

  “Bright boy.” Mr. Midwood was still grinning. “You’re absolutely right. The Bug Man put the virus in the CIA database, but that was just the beginning. I’ve used wormhole technology to link the database directly into the software architecture for Brawl-A-Thon SuperMax. Which means—”

  “You’ll be spreading the virus to every computer and gaming system in the country,” Callie said.

  “Not just the country,” Mr. Midwood said. “The entire world. When they go after that free promotional download for SuperMax, they’re going to be getting a lot more than they bargained for. I’ll have infected every computer from here to Tokyo. Unless they pay me.”

  “How much?” Callie said. “You never told us.”

  Mr. Midwood took a long time before he answered. “One killion dollars,” he said softly, savoring the words as they rolled off his tongue.

  “There’s no such thing as a killion,” I said.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Mr. Midwood told me. “The killion is a number so large that it would literally kill you, which is why most people haven’t heard of it. It was discovered by a man named Ian Frazier back in the eighties. Most mathematicians who have tried to count that high have started getting really sick and had to stop.”

  “Why would you want an amount of money so big that it would kill you?” I asked. “I mean, wouldn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?”

  “Not if you’ve got these.” Mr. Midwood reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the x-ray specs.

  “So that’s why you cared so much about those stupid things,” I said.

  “Wait.” Wesley stared at them. “Those look different.”

  “That’s because they’re killion-proof,” Mr. Midwood said. “They protect against extremely large numbers. So far they’ve only been tested up to a bajillion, but I’m sure they’ll work just fine.”

  “You’ll never get away with it,” Callie said.

  “We’ll find out, in exactly”—he grabbed my wrist and looked at the stopwatch the president had given me—“thirty-seven minutes. So drive.”

  Callie didn’t do anything for a second. Up ahead, the cops had pulled their cars to either side to let us through. Then she put the car into gear and drove jerkily between them.

  Behind us, the Bug Man followed in his van.

  He was grinning.

  [CHAPTER FORTY]

  My Big Chance

  We got to the convention center ten minutes later.

  “Remember,” Mr. Midwood told me, “before you try anything, you’re a wanted man. If you start running your mouth off to people, you’ll just end up behind bars.” Turning to his own kids, he added: “Kids, you don’t want anything bad to happen to Pete, do you?”

  “You’re the worst dad ever!” Wesley shouted.

  Mr. Midwood grunted. “Typical,” he said, and waved us out of the car. Right behind us, the Bug Man swung up to the curb in his van and jumped out.

  I looked at the crowds of people milling around outside. Earlier today, all I’d wanted was to come here and check out the new games. Now I wished I’d never heard of the place.

  “Come on, hurry up,” Mr. Midwood snapped. “I want you all to be there to see it when I bring the world to its knees. Stanley”—he turned to the Bug Man—“get the digitizer. Let’s go.”

  We got in line. It took a long time. I kept looking at the stopwatch, the minutes ticking down. We weren’t going to make it in time, and Mr. Midwood was getting irritated. He started pushing his way to the front until a fat security guard stopped him.

  “Where’s your admission pass?” he said.

  Mr. Midwood flashed his ID badge. “Homeland Security,” he said. “We’re here on official business.”

  “All of you?” The security guard pointed at the Bug Man. “What about that guy in the jumpsuit?”

  “He’s an exterminator.”

  “And how about them?” He nodded at me and Wesley and Callie.

  “They’re my kids,” Mr. Midwood said.

  The security guard’s eyes narrowed. “All of ’em?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because the fat kid with braces and the girl kind of look alike, but that other one”—he glanced at me—“doesn’t look like you at all.”

  “He was adopted,” Mr. Midwood said. He was starting to sound impatient. “Now if it’s all the same to you—”

  “Sorry.” The security guard crossed his arms. “Nobody gets in without a pass.”

  Mr. Midwood turned to Stanley. “Can you fix this?” he muttered.

  “Oh yeah.” The Bug Man grinned and patted the pocket of his jumpsuit. “Trust me, I’ve got just the thing.”

  “Good, because we’re running out of time. I’m going to get in position by the main entrance.” He glanced at us. “Keep an eye on these little creeps, will you?”

  “You got it,” the Bug Man said, and Mr. Midwood ran toward the main entrance, leaving us there with Stanley.

  That’s when I saw my big chance.

  “Stanley,” I said. “You don’t really want to do this, do you?”

  The Bug Man turned to me, and his eyebrows went up in surprise. “What makes you say that?”

  “How much is my dad paying you?” Callie chimed in, and I could tell she was picking up on my plan. “I mean, if he’s getting a killion dollars for this, he’s got to be giving you at least half, right? What is half of a killion, anyway?”

  “That’s none of your business,” the Bug Man said.

  “But it’s a lot, right?” I asked. “I mean, it’s a pretty big risk for somebody lik
e you to take. He must be paying you really well.”

  “It’s a huge risk, Stanley,” Callie said. “If things don’t work out, you could go to prison for a long time for this.”

  The Bug Man was just looking at us now. I decided it was time to make my move.

  “You know,” I said, “you could probably walk away from all of this right now and you wouldn’t really be guilty of anything.”

  “Well,” Wesley cut in, “except for—”

  Callie kicked him. “Think about it, Stanley. What have you really done wrong so far?”

  The Bug Man seemed to think about it. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “All I did was buy that CommandRoid 85 system. Which you sold to me, fair and square, for twenty dollars.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “So why don’t you just let us go,” Callie said, “and deactivate the virus?”

  “You could be a hero,” I said, “instead of the bad guy. Think of that.”

  “Write a different ending to the story, Stanley,” Callie said. “An ending where one man can make a difference.”

  “There’s only one problem with that,” the Bug Man said, and I realized that he was smiling. “I’ve always hated heroes.”

  We stared at him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a strange new controller that I’d never seen before. He whipped around and pointed it at the giant cockroach on top of his van and said something like . . .

  [CHAPTER FORTY-ONE]

  Mask Confusion

  “Well,” Callie said, “it was worth a shot.”

  We all stared at the van, where something really bad was happening. Here’s what it’ll look like in the game version:

  “Um,” I said. “Is that a giant mechanical cockroach crawling off the top of the van?”

  “It’s coming this way!” shouted Wesley. He looked at me. “Pete, do something!”

  But the cockroach did something first—it charged at us. Callie, Wesley, and I jumped out of the way, and the Bug Man pushed another button on the controller. The cockroach went smashing through the outside of the convention center, leaving a giant smoking hole in the wall. Inside, we could hear people screaming and the sounds of expensive video games crashing and being broken.

  But Callie didn’t run. Mr. Midwood was back, and she walked right up to him.

  “Dad?” Callie stared at him. “How could you do this? Even for a killion dollars.”

  “I told you, I needed the money,” Mr. Midwood said. “How else am I supposed to pay for your college education?”

  Callie froze. Then she did something that I didn’t expect. She smiled. It was like through all the smoke and panic around her, a beam of sunlight shone down on her face.

  “My real dad would have known that I have a scholarship to Harvard,” she said. “A full ride. It’s not going to cost you a penny.”

  Mr. Midwood frowned. “So?”

  “So, that means you’re not my real dad.”

  Mr. Midwood scowled.

  “Oh really?” Callie reached out and grabbed her dad by the face and pulled. The mask came off in her hand to reveal . . .

  “Wait a second,” I said. “That’s stupid! The president would never do something like this.”

  I reached out and grabbed the president by the face and pulled. The mask came off to reveal . . .

  “That’s even stupider,” I said. “No dog could have come up with such an elaborate plan.”

  “Border collies are pretty smart, though,” Wesley said. “I once saw one doing calculus on TV. He had the chalk in his teeth and everything.”

  “Impossible,” Callie said. “There must be one more mask here.”

  She grabbed Mr. Yappers by the face and pulled. The mask came off to reveal . . .

  “But . . .” I couldn’t believe it. “Why?”

  “Oh, don’t look so shocked,” she said. “I already told you that my teacher’s pension barely covers my retirement. And I had years of study hall to plan all of this. And”—she smiled—“a killion dollars is a killion dollars. After I found out that your father was a spy, I knew exactly what I had to do.”

  “What we had to do,” the Bug Man corrected. “Right, partner?”

  “Yeesh,” Wesley said. “Really?”

  “Oh no.” I got a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  [CHAPTER FORTY-TWO]

  Mrs. Wertley and the Bug Man, Sitting in a Tree?

  “We planned the whole thing together,” the Bug Man said. He was still moving the cockroach around inside the convention center with a big grin plastered across his face. “Which is why we’re splitting the killion fifty-fifty as soon as this is over.”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “What about this morning by my house, when I was stuck in the back of your van, and you”—I glanced at Mrs. Wertley—“came over and started hitting it with your copy of Warriner’s? You acted like you didn’t even know him. Unless . . .” I stopped. “You knew I was there. You must’ve seen me get in there.”

  “Bright boy, Pete,” Mrs. Wertley said.

  “You were sending him a message. Slamming your book against the van. Telling him if he knew what was inside there, he’d be more careful about what he said. Telling him to . . .” I paused and stared at her. “Watch his words.”

  “Which he still hasn’t learned to do,” Mrs. Wertley said with a nasty, narrow grin. “Which is why I’m going to be keeping the full killion for myself.” Her gaze darted over to the Bug Man. “Sorry, Stanley. Nothing personal.”

  For a second the Bug Man just glared at her, his lip curled back from his face in a nasty snarl. Then he smiled.

  “I think you’re forgetting something,” he said, the grin spreading as he jerked the controller back in our direction again. “See, I always thought you might try to pull something like this. Which is why I’ve still got the giant mechanical cockroach.”

  From inside the convention center, the thing turned and started slamming its way back out toward us, knocking over what was left of the outside wall. Its shadow fell across us, and I could look up and see the layers of clockwork and machinery grinding away inside its undercarriage as it lunged closer.

  “Wrong again, Stanley,” Mrs. Wertley said calmly. “You see, I overrode that program too.” Shaking her head, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a controller of her own. “And I’ve taken the liberty of unplugging your bug.”

  All at once the cockroach stopped moving. It stiffened for a second, then fell over with a deafening clang that rang out like . . . well, like a giant broken mechanical cockroach. Its legs twitched once and fell still.

  The Bug Man stared at it. He opened his mouth and shut it again. His shoulders sagged, and he seemed to shrink a little inside his jumpsuit. Taking a couple of steps backwards, he kind of stumbled and then sat down on the curb, dropped the controller, and lowered his face into his hands. I wouldn’t say that I actually felt sorry for him, but at least now I understood why he’d kept helping her, what he’d thought he was going to get out of it. Plus, it was a pretty cool cockroach.

  Mrs. Wertley didn’t even appear to notice. She was grinning up at the convention center and the hole that the Bug Man’s cockroach had made in it.

  “What about all this?” I asked her.

  “This was just a bonus round,” she said. “And you know about bonus rounds, don’t you, Pete?”

  I just stared at her. “How could you do this to my dad and I?”

  “My dad and me,” she corrected. “And it’s a lot easier than you might think.”

  I checked the watch that the president had given me.

  “Only seventeen minutes,” I muttered under my breath. “We have to save my dad!”

  “And the world,” Callie said.

  “Right,” I said. “That too.”

  “How?” Wesley asked.

  I turned back to Mrs. Wertley. There was only one thing left to do. It was a desperate plan, but right now I wa
s a desperate man.

  “Mrs. Wertley? I left my copy of Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition in the van. May I go and get it, please?”

  Mrs. Wertley’s whole expression changed. The corner of her mouth started to twitch. Her left eyelid started going up and down. It was like there was a war going on inside her face, and nobody was winning.

  “Warriner’s?” she said. “Y-You left . . . your copy . . . of Warriner’s . . . in the van?”

  “That’s right.” I knew I’d said the one thing that she couldn’t resist. “I’ll just be a second.”

  “Dude,” Wesley whispered, “what are you doing?”

  “Trust me,” I said, without breaking eye contact with Mrs. Wertley. “May I go and get it?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Wertley nodded. “Go get it. But hurry back.”

  “Guys, follow me.” We ran around to the back of the Bug Man’s van, and I pulled out the only thing that I knew for sure could save us now. Two things, actually.

  One of them I gave to Wesley:

  The other I handed to Callie.

  She just looked at it for a second, then said: “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Shoot me.”

  [CHAPTER FORTY-THREE]

  A Hero Will Shrink

  “Pete, no.” For the first time, Callie looked scared—really scared. But not for herself. For me. “The virus is going to be loose inside the system. You’ll be in terrible danger.”

  “Dude,” Wesley said, “Callie’s right! You’ll be a grease spot!”

  “That’s why I need you to protect me from the outside,” I said, nodding at the CommandRoid that I’d just given him. “Wesley, you’re the best gamer that I know.” This wasn’t exactly true—I was actually way better at most of the games we’d played, except for Mr. Thumb Goes to Market—but Wesley needed a boost in confidence, so now was no time for total honesty. “Take this system and hook it up to the big screen where they’re premiering Brawl-A-Thon SuperMax.”