by Brandon Mull
“We digress,” Victor said, taking a bite from a sparerib drenched in barbecue sauce. “The main event is being neglected.”
“Sorry,” Ziggy said. “Let’s take care of business. We’ll talk after.”
Both men plowed into their food, making the meat promptly disappear. They didn’t eat messily, but they didn’t waste much time, either. Skewers and bones were piled neatly. Nate wasn’t halfway through his fries before Victor and Ziggy were returning to the food counters.
“Those guys can eat,” Summer said.
“I feel bad for the owner,” Trevor said. “I have a feeling the Battiatos usually get more than they pay for at places like this.”
The brothers came back loaded up with Chinese food, including stir fry, pot stickers, egg rolls, and orange chicken. “Not much seafood,” Victor commented as they sat. “Too bad.”
“I saw some decent Italian,” Ziggy replied, switching plates with his brother.
“You don’t want the Italian in a joint like this,” Victor scolded.
“I’ll do meatballs and lasagna anywhere,” Ziggy replied.
They attacked their food vigorously. When the plates were empty, they stared at each other. “Feeling warmed up?” Victor asked.
“Chicken-fried steak?” Ziggy asked.
“You read my mind,” Victor responded.
Having finished all the fries he wanted, Nate got up to hunt for other food. By the time he returned, Ziggy and Victor were already back in their seats and efficiently devouring more grub with no sign of slowing. Ziggy rose so Nate could scoot in.
The Battiatos finished their sixth plates before Nate completed his meal. Their later plates were less similar as each man pursued his preferences. Nate had to push to finish his last sparerib. After the fries and a crowded meal plate, he was getting pretty full.
Ziggy patted him on the back. “You already feeling it?”
Nate nodded.
“You’re not sweating yet,” Ziggy said. “You’ve got to go until the food sweat hits. That’s how you know you did it right.”
“Who wants dessert?” Victor asked, rising.
“Me,” Pigeon said, scooting out of the booth.
“Know what you want?” Victor asked, placing a large hand on Pigeon’s shoulder.
Pigeon shrugged. “Not yet.”
Victor gave a nod. “When in doubt, follow the big guy. He’ll lead you to the good stuff.”
Nate went to find some dessert as well. In the end he settled on a slice of chocolate mousse pie and a lemon meringue tart. Victor and Ziggy returned to the table with abundant treats. Victor went heavy on sponge cake smothered in vanilla custard, while Ziggy had constructed a towering hot fudge sundae.
“Should we talk about why we’re here?” Nate asked, taking a bite of pie.
Victor held up a spoon. “All in due time. I prefer not to divide my attention.”
After Nate finished his desserts, he felt ready to burst. He probably should have left some of the lemon tart on the plate, but it had tasted too delicious to stop. Pigeon looked equally overfed, his posture awkward, a smudge of pudding at the corner of his mouth. Summer pointed out the pudding and he wiped it off.
Ziggy and Victor appeared satisfied. Both men had finished their plates first, then sat watching the kids in contented silence.
“Is everyone full?” Ziggy asked.
“I couldn’t eat another bite,” Trevor said.
“Thanks for lunch,” Summer added.
“Our pleasure,” Victor said.
“So, who took John?” Nate asked.
“We have the same question,” Victor replied.
“What do you know?” Pigeon asked.
“Our suspicions center on Arcadeland,” Ziggy said.
“The new arcade in Walnut Hills?” Trevor asked.
“Have you been there?” Victor wondered.
“Not yet,” Trevor said. “It only opened last month. It’s supposed to be awesome.”
“It’s certainly eye catching,” Victor said. “We’re not dealing with amateurs. Arcadeland was at the heart of John’s investigation. We haven’t figured out who owns it, but the arcade is almost certainly a magician’s lair.”
“Which means we can’t enter,” Ziggy added. “Not unless we want a fight. Anybody who has been magically altered would trip a number of alarms. And nobody wants to confront a magician in his lair, especially going in blind.”
“Is this why you need us?” Trevor asked.
Victor gave a nod. “We need information. Eyes on the inside. The arcade isn’t safe, but during the normal hours of operation it shouldn’t pose serious danger to the average customer, especially if you keep your guard up.”
“We need to learn what’s going on,” Ziggy said. “We’re not even sure what kind of racket they’re running. Ideally we’d like to identify the owner.”
“Would I trip the magical alarms?” Nate wondered. “Magic aged me prematurely.”
“Only if you were still an old man,” Victor replied. “Now that you have been restored to your original state, you should read the same as any ordinary kid.”
“What about Lindy?” Pigeon asked. “Do you know about her?”
“We know her story,” Victor acknowledged. “She is definitely in an altered state and would surely trip magical warning signals. Whoever founded this arcade is not one of the good guys. Letting the mystery magician learn Lindy’s secret could be dangerous for her.”
“Dangerous for all of us,” Nate clarified. “If she somehow got her memory back, Belinda would become a major threat. I saw a possible future where she was taking over the town, and that was just the first step of a bigger plan.”
“You have to keep Lindy away from Arcadeland,” Ziggy agreed. “I expect that Stott understands this.”
“He wouldn’t even let Lindy come here today,” Pigeon said.
Victor nodded as if this were expected. “You four need to help reinforce his efforts to keep her out of Walnut Hills.”
“Can we bring magical candy into the arcade?” Nate asked.
“You can and you should,” Victor said. “I don’t expect this venture to be overly dangerous, but if things go wrong, it could get messy fast. You need to be ready to make an escape. Having edible enhancers shouldn’t trigger any alarms. In fact, you should even be able to use them without setting off alarms, since you’ll have been invited into the lair.”
“Invited?” Summer asked.
“The invitation is implied with a public area,” Ziggy said. “Same with the retail portion of the Sweet Tooth Ice Cream and Candy Shoppe. The magician gives up some control over the environment upon granting public access.”
“What are we looking for?” Pigeon wondered.
“We have some cheap digital cameras for you,” Victor said. “Take pictures like you’re horsing around, but try to get the employees in the background. Look for unusual games. Talk to any kids who seem like regulars. Keep your ears open. Take note of anything fishy.”
Ziggy pulled out a fat wad of bills and began peeling off twenties. “Play lots of games. We’ll start you out with five hundred dollars. We have plenty more if you need it.”
Nate noticed Trevor gazing at the cash with wide eyes. “All for video games?”
“Whatever games you wish,” Victor said. “Sample a wide variety. Keep an eye out for any oddities.”
“I might enjoy this mission,” Nate said, glancing from Victor to Ziggy.
“Don’t get too excited,” Ziggy said. “Something crooked is going on at Arcadeland. If you have some fun along the way, no problem, but don’t forget the place is a trap. Keep in mind what Belinda White did with her candy shop. Don’t eat anything, and if a game seems to have strange effects, be an observer, not a participant.”
“We’ll be right outside,” Victor promised. “John would have our heads if anything happened to you kids.”
“Deadly lair or not, we’ll be there right away if you need us,” Ziggy
assured them. “You in?”
Nate and his friends exchanged small nods. Nate held out his hand for the money. “We’re in.”
Chapter Four
Arcadeland
Half a block from Arcadeland, on the opposite side of the street, Summer and Pigeon ducked into an alley. Both of them looked up. The buildings on either side rose three stories tall.
“No fire escapes,” Pigeon said.
“We’ll have to use Moon Rocks,” Summer answered, leading them farther down the alley. She looked back toward the street. Almost two hours had passed since they had left Schwendiman’s All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. The sun was not directly overhead, so most of the alley was in shadow. Anyone in the cars driving by on Canal Street would have only a brief glimpse into the alleyway.
“Acceptable risk?” Pigeon asked.
“Nobody was nearby on the sidewalk,” Summer said. “If we hurry we should be fine.”
Pigeon glanced up. “Several windows.”
Summer indicated a vertical path up the wall. “We’ll be hard to see from a window if we stay along this line. People would practically have to lean out to get a view of us.”
“We do need a good vantage point,” Pigeon conceded.
Summer popped a Moon Rock into her mouth, feeling the familiar lightening of her frame. Pigeon did likewise. Summer jumped toward one side of the alley, soaring gently, then kicked off the side of a building, gaining altitude as she crossed to the far side. She kicked off the wall again, gliding higher.
Glancing down, she saw Pigeon staring up at her. She was already high, but she reminded herself that with the Moon Rock, to fall would be no big deal. Two more sharp kicks and she reached the top of one of the buildings.
Summer eased her light body over the edge to stand on the roof, then watched as Pigeon tried to follow her. He was kicking off the walls too straight-on, gaining only a little height every time he crossed from one side to the other. She almost called out some advice, then realized it would probably only embarrass him without improving his technique.
After springing back and forth more than fifteen times, Pigeon reached the top of the building. “Should I spit it out?” he asked.
“No point in wasting it,” Summer said. “Just be careful not to float off the roof and cause a scene.”
“Right.”
They gingerly moved to the part of the roof overlooking Canal Street and Arcadeland. The arcade was much larger than Summer had expected. Neon fireworks burst in jerky patterns beside the flashy sign. Not only was the main building huge, but two miniature golf courses wrapped around it. There were batting cages on the near side and a twisty go-kart track on the far side. A tall chain-link fence enclosed the entire complex.
“Looks fun,” Pigeon said.
Summer noticed that Pigeon was raising his head higher than necessary as he surveyed Arcadeland, making himself too visible from the street. “Stay low,” she cautioned.
“Right.”
Summer spotted Nate and Trevor on the far side of the street, trying to look casual as they scanned the rooftops. She lifted her head a little and waved. Nate saw her and gave a small salute. He and Trevor mounted their bikes, then rode over to the Arcadeland parking lot. She watched them deposit their bikes at the large bike rack before disappearing inside the building.
Pigeon shifted beside her. “I keep trying to tell myself they got the dangerous job, not the fun one.”
“Are you believing it?”
“Not really.”
“Me neither,” Summer sighed. “But at least we had an excuse to climb a building. Nate was right that we’d be crazy to all go in together. This way, if something goes wrong, they can’t catch us all at once.”
“Think anything will happen?”
“Probably not. But better safe than sorry.”
Summer studied Arcadeland. It seemed popular. There were cars in the parking lot and plenty of bikes at the bike rack. Two of the batting cages were in use, and several groups roamed the miniature golf courses, putting on artificial turf surrounded by miniature monuments. She saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Sphinx, Big Ben, Mount Rushmore, and others that she recognized but couldn’t name.
Summer leaned toward Pigeon. “What’s the name of that building in Russia with the colorful, onion-shaped domes?”
“In the West we call it St. Basil’s Cathedral,” he replied. “There’s a rumor that the architect who designed it was blinded by Ivan the Terrible to prevent him from duplicating his efforts elsewhere.”
“How do you know all this stuff?”
He shrugged. “I just like to read about history.”
As the minutes dragged by, Summer felt her patience wearing thin. People made their way around the miniature golf courses. A trickle of customers entered and exited the front doors.
Summer tried to spot the Battiato brothers. Supposedly they were close by, but she hadn’t seen them since leaving the buffet. She studied the parked vehicles in the area and scanned up and down the sidewalks, but she detected no sign of the beefy twins.
“What the . . . ?” Pigeon suddenly blurted.
“What?” Summer asked, glancing at him to see where he was looking.
“Do you see those two kids across the way?”
“Which kids?”
“The two near the batting cages, just outside the Arcadeland fence.”
“A boy and a girl.”
“Right.”
“What about them?”
“Well, I barely saw it, but when they came out from behind that building next to Arcadeland, they were like ten feet off the ground. They glided to a landing on the pavement.”
“Like they had Moon Rocks?”
“Or something.”
Summer studied them as best she could. The girl had longish brown hair and tan skin. The boy had messy blond hair. They were looking around as if to make sure they were unobserved. Summer was about to comment that they were acting suspicious when the two kids jumped over the Arcadeland fence with a single smooth leap. The side of the batting cages would have shielded them from onlookers inside Arcadeland. But Summer saw the furtive act perfectly.
“Arcadeland must be handing out magic candy,” Summer guessed.
“What do we do?” Pigeon asked.
“Those two probably know a lot about what’s going on here.”
“Do we go down there?”
Summer frowned. “We need information if we’re going to help John. We shouldn’t risk letting them get away without finding out more about them.”
Pigeon gave a nod. “Then we better hurry.”
*****
Nate paused beside Trevor after entering Arcadeland. He had never been inside such a vast arcade before. Beyond the tiled lobby he could see traditional standing video games, driving games, shooting games, plus diverse games where a player could win tickets.
“This place is big,” Trevor murmured.
“Let’s check it out,” Nate said.
For the first few minutes, Nate and Trevor roamed the aisles of games, surveying the different ways to spend tokens. Some of the shooting games looked really cool. One let two players hunt dinosaurs together. Another offered the chance to roam a zombie-infested mansion armed with machine guns. A third turned the player into the gunner atop an armored vehicle that prowled around a battlefield.
Trevor seemed extra interested in the racing games. You could ride a motorcycle that you turned by rocking it from side to side. A long row of car racing games used steering wheels to put the player in the driver’s seat. Most featured exotic courses. Some of them were apparently set in the future. One unusual racing game allowed the player to pedal a bike that powered a one-man airship.
Nate didn’t spend a lot of time on the traditional video games. There were some slick fighting games, and a few classic games like Gauntlet, Donkey Kong, and Pac-Man. But he could play games like that at home.
Most of the arcade was devoted to games tha
t allowed the player to win tickets. Nate found Skee-Ball, basketball, and Whac-A-Mole. Some of the games seemed like pure chance, where you spun a big prize wheel or pressed a button to drop a ball onto a spinning platform riddled with holes.
On one side of the arcade they found a coin-operated shooting gallery depicting a scene from the Old West, with lots of little targets spaced around the area. They paused to watch people shooting. One target made the mannequin at the piano start playing. Another made the spittoon rattle. A third made an owl flap its wings and spin its head around.
“Let’s get some tokens,” Trevor suggested.
Nate led the way to a token machine. He inserted a twenty, and coins came clinking out like he’d won a jackpot. “Is this enough for now?” Nate asked.
“Do one more for me,” Trevor said. “They want us to be thorough—that’ll take some money.”
Nate fed the machine a second twenty and let Trevor collect the tokens. While Trevor scooped them out, Nate scanned the room. There were people around, but the arcade wasn’t packed. He supposed it probably got more crowded in the evenings and on weekends.
“Where do you want to start?” Trevor asked.
“Too many choices—it’s hard to pick.”
“Do you want to win tickets?”
“I don’t know,” Nate said. “Let’s see what prizes they have.”
They wandered over to the redemption counter, where various items were on display alongside the quantity of tickets required to claim them. The prizes ranged from cheap little army men and gummy bracelets for 5 tickets up to sound systems and guitars for 15,000.
“This is such a rip-off,” Trevor said. “The cheap things are junk, and you could buy the cool stuff for so much less than it would cost to earn all those tickets.”
“Earning the tickets is supposed to be fun,” Nate said. “I think they have the prizes as sort of a bonus.”
Trevor folded his arms and leaned against the glass counter. “I don’t know. If I put in all the effort to win 10,000 tickets, I’d want something better than a neon clock.”
“You could get two mini foosball tables,” Nate pointed out.