“W-w—what do we do?” stammered Amy.
“Oh man,” said a familiar voice. “You guys are so going to get eaten.”
Suddenly, as if by magic, Noah appeared between us and the charging dinosaur. He reached into the wooden box and pulled out a stick of dynamite. Noah removed a clear cap off one end of the stick and brought it toward the other end, and then I realized that it wasn’t dynamite at all. With a quick motion, he scraped them against each other, like striking a match. The road flare ignited with a hissing, sparking red light.
“Check it out,” Noah said as he turned to face the charging beast.
The T. rex slid to a stop in front of the flare. Its giant head stretched forward and tracked the bright light as Noah moved it from right to left, and then left to right. Then Noah tossed the flare through the open gym doors. The dinosaur took off after it, twisting the metal doorjamb as it squeezed through the entryway. We watched as it disappeared into the dark gym.
“Aw, man,” Sam said. “We should’ve guessed that one.”
“I put a hint in the clue and everything,” Noah said.
“The same way Dr. Grant tried to distract the T. rex in Jurassic Park,” Amy added.
“Except it worked when I did it,” said Noah.
“Dude,” I said, turning to my best friend. “That was awesome!” I extended a fist toward him.
Noah reached out and our fists simply passed through each other.
Amy giggled.
Noah sighed. “Yeah, I never could get that to actually work in here.”
“So… that’s it?” asked Sam. She peered into the dark gym. “The T. rex isn’t coming back?”
“No, this is where his program ends,” replied Noah. “And he’ll completely reset in a minute or so. I was thinking about making him play basketball when he’s in the gym. But I ran out of time.”
“That would’ve been funny,” Amy said. “With those little arms.”
“I know, right?” asked Noah. “I spent way too much time on him already, though.”
“I can tell,” I said. “Amazing detail.”
“Thanks,” Noah said. His avatar gave a polite bow.
Sam, Amy, and I just had the honor of being the first to test Noah’s new virtual reality program. That’s right—my best bud was a brilliant programmer. And for the past several months, he had been using every bit of his free time to create a virtual Swift Academy. Of course, he didn’t have time to reproduce every classroom, but what he did create looked impressively accurate, right down to the smallest detail.
Noah even did a great job on our four avatars. Each of our characters looked lifelike—it seemed as if we were actually in the school’s first-floor hallway when, in actuality, we were each in our own homes.
Noah created a system where we could put our phones in a special visor. Then we could connect to the program through Wi-Fi or our cell service. The program itself was on the school servers so we could log on and view the virtual world through our phones no matter where we were. Add a special controller for each hand and we could move our hands and pick up virtual items in his virtual school.
“You guys did great until the end there,” Noah said.
“So you were spying on us,” said Amy. “I knew it.”
“Of course,” Noah said. “I had to see how you would react.”
“How did you do it?” Sam asked.
“The easiest way I could think of,” Noah replied. His avatar’s left hand reached over and touched his right hand, which probably meant that Noah was pushing a button on the controller in real life. Then Noah disappeared.
“Cool,” said Amy.
“I can make my character invisible and intangible,” Noah’s disembodied voice explained. “But I can still pick stuff up.” A road flare rose from the wooden box and seemed to float around by itself.
“Good way to cheat at hide-and-seek,” Sam said. “What button makes you invisible?”
“Sorry,” Noah said as he reappeared. “Only the creator has that power.”
Sam’s avatar shook her head. “Figures.”
Amy’s avatar looked to the left. “I have to go,” she said. “My mother’s calling me for dinner.”
“I’d better be going too,” Sam added. “Thanks for letting us try your program.”
“Yes, thank you,” Amy agreed. “It’s really cool.”
“I’m glad you liked it,” Noah replied. His program wasn’t sophisticated enough to relay facial expressions, but I could tell from the sound of his voice that he was grinning from ear to ear.
I raised my hand and my avatar gave them a wave. “See you tomorrow.”
The girls waved back before their avatars faded to nothing.
“So you’re going to turn it in to Mr. Varma tomorrow?” I asked Noah.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Then I’m going to open-source it for everyone.”
“Really?” I asked. “So anyone can change any part of it?”
“Just about,” he replied. “They’ll be able to customize their avatars, add characters, change the different environments, create side missions…”
“Wow,” I said. “Do you have any idea what you’ll be unleashing?”
Noah’s avatar nodded. “I can’t wait to see what people come up with. But don’t worry. We’ll still have the basement to ourselves. That’s unchangeable.”
“Cool,” I said.
When Noah created the game, he had our four avatars spawn in the basement. And only the four of us had access to that part of the school. We even used the access code we already had memorized thanks to a previous… mishap involving drones and the FBI.
See? Things get weird in the real Swift Academy, not just the virtual one.
“And…” Noah said, his avatar raising both hands. “Now I’ll finally be able to pull my weight with our two projects.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll put you to work tomorrow,” I said. “But first I have a question.… Will the T. rex chase you if you remain completely still, like in the movies?”
Noah’s avatar raised his hands in an exaggerated shrug. “I guess you’ll have to try and see.”
“Let’s do it!” I said, and I moved my avatar down the hall. Noah and I ran up the stairs to give the T. rex another try.
Continue Reading…
The Virtual Vandal
Victor Appleton
Read all the books in the
TOM SWIFT INVENTORS’
ACADEMY series!
The Drone Pursuit
The Sonic Breach
Restricted Access
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALADDIN
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First Aladdin paperback edition October 2019
Text copyright © 2019 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Cover illustration copyright © 2019 by Kevin Keele
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Interior designed by Mike Rosamilia
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Appleton, Victor, author.
Title: Restricted access / by Victor Appleton.
Description: First Aladdin hardcover/paperback edition. | New York : Aladdin, 2019. | Series: Tom Swift inventors’ academy ; [3] | Summary: “Something seems amiss when an overnight lock-in at Swift Enterprises turns into a quarantine lockdown, and Tom and his friends must find the real reason behind it all”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018053485 (print) | LCCN 2018057524 (eBook) | ISBN 9781534436381 (eBook) | ISBN 9781534436367 (pbk) | ISBN 9781534436374 (hc)
Subjects: | CYAC: Inventors—Fiction. | Robbers and outlaws—Fiction. | Reporters and reporting—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Science fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.A652 (eBook) | LCC PZ7.A652 Rg 2019 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018053485
Restricted Access Page 9