“I’ve never played this version before!”
“Nobody has,” I said. “It’s brand new. But if I’m going to stand a chance in there, you’re going to have to help me get inside.”
Wesley’s eyes got really wide. “What if I can’t move the controller? What if the game doesn’t work right? What if you run out of extra lives?”
“Do your best.” I tried to sound brave. “Don’t kill me.”
“Pete,” Callie said, “please, there has to be another way—”
“No choice.” Deep in my chest, my heart was doing its best to knock a hole right through my ribs. “We’re out of time.” I locked eyes with Callie. “Shoot me.”
That was when she pointed the digitizer at me, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger.
The first thing I discovered after Callie shot me with the gun was that being inside a video game is a lot less fun than being outside one.
Suddenly I was surrounded by big walls of words moving past me so fast that I couldn’t even read them. I tried matching the code words, but I felt really . . . different.
I tried to look at my watch to see how much time I had left before the Bug Man’s virus hit, but my arm wouldn’t bend that way, probably because it was made of about three pixels. My only chance was getting help from the outside, but Wesley wasn’t helping.
“Wesley!” I shouted. “Try hooking up a different joystick!”
But Wesley must have already figured that out, because from very far away I heard him shouting back that he was trying a better controller.
It didn’t make much of a difference. I had no idea how much time I had left, and I didn’t know where my dad was.
Meanwhile things were only getting worse.
The lines of code were closing in around me and tightening like a net. I knew it was only a matter of time before the Bug Man’s virus got loose and erased every piece of data in the CommandRoid, and the fact that I couldn’t even look at the president’s stopwatch was making it even more frustrating.
I realized something.
This was all my fault.
I had blamed Mom for taking the twenty bucks from my jar, and I had blamed the Bug Man and Wesley and anybody else I could think of, but the fact is that if I hadn’t been so determined to buy that stupid video game, then none of this would have happened.
The realization didn’t make me feel any better.
It was useless. I couldn’t stay on top of it.
Why had I ever thought I could do this?
Then, in the middle of the codes and digits, I heard a familiar voice.
[CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR]
My Eight-Bit Dad Returns
I don’t really know how to describe how it felt running into Dad face-to-face in the CommandRoid universe. At that point I didn’t really care how it happened; I was just glad that he was here.
“Pete, listen to me,” he said. “It’s going to be all right.”
“How can you say that?” I asked. “I thought you weren’t good at video games.”
“I’m better in the eight-bit universe,” he said, and waved me forward. “Come on.”
From somewhere outside the game I could hear Wesley screaming that the controller was broken, that he’d never be able to get me out of there, but it was too late to worry about that now. Dad and I had our work cut out for us.
I had never seen Dad function in a video game reality before, but he was pretty good at it. I mean, when it came to moving stacks of text around and linking up all the codes so that they were reconnected, he was great. On this level it was a lot more like the CommandRoid universe, all eight-bit, but considering that the fate of the world’s computer systems and information technology depended on it, it was pretty exciting.
All of a sudden I heard a sharp beeping noise.
It was coming from the stopwatch on my wrist.
We were out of time.
[CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE]
The Greatest Chapter in the Whole Book
That’s when I realized what was happening.
The Bug Man’s virus was breaking loose.
I can’t describe what happened next. Fortunately I don’t have to. I saved the best for last. In the digital version of this book, if you just hit the big red button under the screen, you’ll be able to see it all for yourself in full-color high definition with stereo surround sound.
If the screen doesn’t light up the first time, just hold the button down for ten seconds. If it still doesn’t light up, start back at the beginning of the chapter and try again. It might be a little buggy.
[CHAPTER FORTY-SIX]
Weapon Test
Uh, okay.
So until they get that fixed, this is what happened:
It was the most epic boss battle of all time.
If you play video games at all, you know that the most exciting part of every level is the boss battle, where you go head-to-head against whatever the big bad creature is on that particular level. In Brawl-A-thon, the Mega-MechReatures are the ultimate bosses, but at least you only have to fight one at a time.
Well, at this point the Bug Man’s virus released every single boss in Brawl-A-Thon SuperMax, all at once.
Except in this case it was a little different.
“Uh, Dad?” I looked over at my dad, who was still standing there with his arms full of text, trying to put the code words together. “What is that exactly?”
We both stopped what we were doing and stared at the other side of the screen. It was a big screen, but we could see very clearly what was happening.
“It’s them,” Dad said. For the first time, he looked really worried. “They programmed themselves into the virus.”
He was right. Standing there inside the game with us were Mrs. Wertley, the Bug Man, and Mr. Yappers. Except that they’d been transformed by this level of the Brawl-A-Thon universe into eight-bit versions of themselves.
Mrs. Wertley had a giant mechanical praying mantis body with scorpion pincers and an electric stinging tail. The Bug Man had sprouted dozens of wiggling legs and was already scurrying across columns of code words in my direction. Mr. Yappers had become some kind of dog-shark MechReature with laser eyes and a long, extendable tongue. I figured the Bug Man had probably done the programming back before Mrs. Wertley double-crossed him, because he seemed more than happy to be helping her out here in the virtual world.
“Dad, what are we going to do?”
“If we shut it down now, we might still be able to stop the virus before it spreads through the entire game to all the computers and game systems in the world.”
“How?”
“Pete.” My dad looked at me. “Did I ever tell you that your name is an anagram?”
“For what?” I asked. “Teep?”
“Pete Watson,” Dad said. “Weapon test.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “That’s cool. But—”
Dad glanced down at the blocks of text scattered everywhere. “Words are our weapons,” he said. “Let’s put them to the test.”
I didn’t need any more encouragement than that. Together we started picking up all the code we could find and throwing it at the virus versions of Mrs. Wertley, the Bug Man, and Mr. Yappers. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I must have been getting used to moving as an eight-bit character.
At first, nothing happened.
Then everything got worse.
[CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN]
Boss Battle
It started when I clobbered Mrs. Wertley with a big slab of computer code. Instead of dying or exploding, her praying mantis body burst open and a dozen more versions of her came pouring out in every direction, replicating themselves around us on all sides. I realized with a shock that each one was carrying a copy of Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“We’re a virus, you idiot!” the Wertleys all said in one buzzing voice. It was like being lectured by a swarm of bees. Really smart bees,
or at least ones that thought they were smarter than me. “The more you fight us, the more we’re going to keep spreading through the software of the game!”
She was right. Dad was trying to go after Stanley the Bug Man, and the same thing happened to him. The Bug Man just became a dozen versions of himself, and they all started lining up blocks of text around us, trapping us inside. The way they were building the walls reminded me of wasps—or termites.
“That’s why it’s called SuperMax,” the eight-bit Wertleys buzzed. “We’re building a high-security prison around you. Once you’re trapped inside, you’ll never be able to disrupt the virus’s spread.”
“We can make you suffer,” the Bug Men droned.
I wanted to tell them that if they wanted to know about real suffering, they ought to take a look at the Bug Man’s heartbroken self, sitting on the curb outside the convention center next to an out-of-commission giant mechanical cockroach. “So you failed,” I said.
The Wertleys all turned to look at me angrily. “What makes you say that?” they droned.
“You said you were doing it for the money. I guess they never paid you the killion dollars after all, huh?”
It was probably the wrong thing to say, but it got a reaction. Suddenly the Wertleys and the Bug Men stopped building walls around us, and they all came angling straight at me like a swarm of hornets. Somewhere far away I heard Dad tangling with a giant cloud of Mr. Yapperses.
We were out of options. Bending my elbow in a way that I hadn’t been able to just a few seconds earlier, I glanced down at the president’s watch, and for the first time I realized that there was a little switch on the side.
I pushed it, and the face of the watch flipped open.
Inside was a tattered old piece of string along with a note that said:
Sanchez. This is the very first piece of string I ever owned. Use it to tie yourself to a better future. I’m “knot” kidding! Sincerely yours, the president.
Without thinking, I threw it at the swarm of Wertleys.
“You have to be kidding me,” the swarm said. “A piece of string?”
“I didn’t think it would work either,” I said, “but I had to try.”
But there must have been something about that string, because the second that it hit the swarm, it came to life, wrapping itself around them and tying them up in knots. The harder they fought, the more tangled up they got.
The next thing I knew, Dad and I were flying straight upward, blasting off the last screen and rocketing headlong into a brand-new environment like nothing I’d seen before in video games or the real world.
“What’s going on?” Dad shouted.
I looked around slowly, taking it all in.
“I think we just leveled up,” I said.
[CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT]
Sdrawkcab
This is how you know you’re in trouble: you look around and realize that you’re the only eight-bit characters left in existence.
Dad and I were standing in the middle of what looked like a huge factory. Everywhere we turned, giant machines with sprockets and conveyor belts were belching out versions of Mrs. Wertley, the Bug Man, and Mr. Yappers. Except they weren’t the chunky, old-school graphics we’d been dealing with on the last level. These versions were slick, 3-D, digitally rendered characters complete with shadows and muscles and facial expressions, and they looked totally ready to kick our butts.
“Got any more of that magic string?” Dad asked.
I shook my head. “Got any more inspiring anagrams?”
“Nope.”
“Then I guess this is it.”
“I guess so,” Dad said. “Hey, Pete?”
“Yeah?”
“I just want to say, you’re really good at this.” He gave me a brave smile. “Whatever happens, you fought hard.”
“Thanks, but this whole thing is my fault. If I hadn’t sold your CommandRoid to the Bug Man—”
“That doesn’t matter now.” Dad held up his hand and rested it on my shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”
Maybe it was hearing him say that, or the fact that he put his hand on my shoulder, but all of a sudden I had an idea. My mind went back to Wesley’s basement, when I’d been trying to play Brawl-A-Thon 3000 XL.
“Hey, Dad,” I said. “Remember Superman: The Movie?”
He blinked at me. “What’s that got to do with . . . ?”
“Hang on,” I said. “From here, things are going to get really weird.”
Which was kind of the understatement of the year, I know, but when the swarms of Wertleys and Yappers and Bug Men attacked us, I knew what I had to do.
“Sdrawkcab klat,” I said.
Dad’s brow scrunched up in confusion. “What?”
“Sdrawkcab,” I said. “Sdrawkcab klat.”
Then he understood. I’d been hoping that with his mind for anagrams, it wouldn’t take long to figure out what I was really telling him.
“Ho,” he said, and smiled. “Sdrawkcab. Ti teg I.”
“Gnikrow s’ti kniht uoy od?” I asked.
“Ti ekil skool.” He nodded. “Flesruoy rof ees!”
In front of us the swarms of attackers had already started reacting to what we were doing, jerking away from us as if we’d suddenly gone radioactive.
“What is this?” the Wertleys screamed. “What are you saying? Those aren’t proper words!” Their voices rose to a whole new level of sheer panic. “They aren’t in Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition!”
Dad pointed. “Ti thgif ot woh wonk t’nseod ehs!”
“Gniog peek,” I said to my dad. “Kool!”
Talking backwards was having exactly the effect that I’d hoped it would. Everywhere we looked, time was turning itself in the opposite direction—like a movie running in reverse. The swarms were being pulled back into the machines that had spawned them, like bugs being sucked into a vacuum. The Yapperses and Bug Men got tangled together in a huge cloud as they disappeared.
The last thing I saw was the swarm of Wertleys fighting to hold on to the grammar books they’d brought with them, and then they were gone too.
Dad let out a sigh of relief. “Krow dlouw taht wonk uoy did woh?”
“Emag oediv a morf ti denrael I.” I grinned.
Around us the screen was changing again, and I saw the word rising up, ten times bigger than ourselves:
!SNOITALUTARGNOC
It reversed itself in space, but I already knew what it said:
CONGRATULATIONS!
Everywhere I looked, the architecture of the game was being restored around us, walls of words reorganizing themselves into neat rows. Dad stood there with his arm around my shoulder, and we watched the database being reassembled, solidifying into a new landscape of perfectly organized code.
And then—blackness.
[CHAPTER FORTY-NINE]
I Said I Was Sorry, Okay?
When I opened my eyes, Dad and I were sitting in the middle of the City Convention Center, surrounded by people, cops, security guards, and reporters. Everybody was shouting questions at us, and I had no idea how to answer any of them. For a second I just wanted to put up my hands and shout, “Gnihtyreve nialpxe nac I! Kcab dnats tsuj, ydobyreve!”
But that would’ve been weird.
Then, through the crowd, I saw a figure coming toward us.
Except, you know what? Callie doesn’t really look like that. It’s time I got rid of that picture anyway. It’s embarrassing. I guess if I had to show you what she looks like, the artwork would probably be more realistic:
It still doesn’t really look like her. I’ll have to keep practicing.
“I’m all right,” I said.
“So . . .” Callie glanced up at the big display screen, which had gone solid blue, like the monitor does when you shut the system down to reboot it. “Did you beat the game?”
I glanced at my dad and smiled. “Something like that,” I said.
“I’m glad.”
“M
e too.”
There was a long, funny moment where we just kind of looked at each other, and then Wesley ran over, pushing his way through the crowd. He still had the old CommandRoid controller in his hand.
“Dude!” he shouted. “That was so awesome! We saw the whole thing down here!”
“Really?” I glanced up at the screen. “Yeah, I guess you would have.” Then, turning to face the crowds of people around us, I asked, “Where are Mrs. Wertley and the Bug Man?”
“The Secret Service has Stanley in custody. As far as Mrs. Wertley goes, they haven’t caught her yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”
“Wow,” I said. “So much for a killion dollars, I guess.”
“Pete Watson?” a voice said from behind me. “We’d like a word with you.”
I turned around and felt my throat go dry all of a sudden. Two men in dark suits were standing there, staring right at me. In between them was a middle-aged Asian guy in jeans and a T-shirt.
“I’m Shigeru Miyamoto,” he said. He pointed up at the big screen. “That was my new game you just destroyed.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But—”
Game Over, Pete Watson Page 9