Trapped in a Video Game (Book 5)

by Dustin Brady

  “You can’t! Please.”

  “Listen. This is the hardest lesson you’ll ever learn. But once you learn it, it’ll change your life. You’ll become a warrior.” When I didn’t move, Max changed tactics. “Look at him, Jesse. He’s in pain. Drink and all that pain goes away. He wants you to do it.”

  I couldn’t look at Eric anymore. “The pain will go away instantly?”

  “The moment the first drop hits your tongue. I promise.”

  I breathed a deep sigh, then started walking toward the desk.

  “That’s it,” Max said. “This is the moment you become a warrior.”

  I picked up the cup and looked down like I was trying to decide whether or not to drink it. My hand was even shaking, which was a nice touch.

  “That’s it,” Max smiled. “Just one sip and it’ll be over.”

  I lifted the cup to my mouth. Then, right at the last second, I flipped it and threw it at the computer.

  I’d moved too fast for Max to stop me. The soda splashed all over the keyboard, and then the computer popped, fizzed, and hissed. I held my breath and looked at Max. He stared with his mouth open. Then his head started jerking. “Wha-wha-what did yooooooooooou do?”

  “I just saved the world!” I yelled.

  “You aren’t going to ge-ge-get away with . . . ” Max froze.

  I held my breath. What now? Had I destroyed the Reubenverse or just frozen it? I crept up to Max. He looked like a statue. I stared at him for a moment, then tapped his face.

  “Pffffff!” Max wheezed, his mouth turning up into a grin.

  I jumped back.

  Max’s wheeze turned into an all-out belly laugh that lasted an uncomfortably long time. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That was just really funny!” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “So, to be clear, your big plan was spilling soda on my keyboard? And you thought, what, I’d explode or something? Here, let me try it again.” Max started twitching his head with his eyes crossed. “Blub, blub, blub! I’m melting because some kid spilled pop on my computer! Hahaha!” Max slapped the Hindenburg on the back. The Hindenburg did not move, so it was unclear if he found this whole thing as funny as Max did.

  I was dumbfounded. “I thought—isn’t that the computer that controls everything?”

  “You still don’t get it, huh?” Max asked. “There is no master computer! That thing is whatever I say it is.” Max pointed at the computer, and it turned into a banana. “You know why? I’m the computer!”

  I felt sick and depressed. “What’s next?” I mumbled.

  “Oh, right! Well, I do have a prize for Ultimate Warriors.” Max gestured to the treasure chest. “But I’m sorry to say that you failed the test and therefore are not Ultimate Warriors. So now I’ll let the Hindenburg zap you two into a Black Box. Eric’s going to writhe in pain for eternity, and you won’t even be able to offer comfort because any time you touch him, he’ll crumble like a granola bar.” Max pretended to wipe a tear off his cheek. When he lifted his arm, he revealed that his armpit stain had spread down his shirt. He patted my head again, and I noticed that he smelled like body odor. “I want you to know that this isn’t personal, and it’s not happening because you’re a bad kid. It’s because you broke the rules of my world, and that means you’re a bug. The Hindenburg’s got to get rid of bugs. That’s his job. You understand that, right?”

  “Whatever,” I said. “Put us in the Black Box. I don’t care. But you’ve got to stop your Rapture thing. You can see the system’s overheating, right?”

  That snapped Max out of his cocky, condescending mood. “Nothing’s overheating! It’s fine!”

  “It’s not fine. Even you’re sweating!”

  Max turned red. “Everything is under control! Everything is under MY control!” He started pointing all over the room, causing trees to shoot up through the carpet, his desk to twist into a pretzel, and a waterfall to pour out of the left wall.

  “Max . . . ” I tried.

  “IT’S ‘SUPREME ULTIMATE WARRIOR!’” Max bellowed as he pointed to Eric, causing Eric’s right hand to fall off.

  Eric just stared at his missing hand in shock, too spent to even scream. Max strolled over to the hand, then casually kicked it. “Glitch,” he said to the Hindenburg.

  The Hindenburg immediately blasted the hand. It disappeared in a puff of smoke. All that was left was a burnt blue circle.

  Max walked to me. “My world,” he said coldly. “Everything I say is true. Everything.”

  Max stared at me like he needed to hear confirmation that I believed him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the burnt circle on the ground. I’d seen something like that before, hadn’t I?

  That’s when I remembered. Beans.

  That realization clicked everything into place for me. Suddenly, I saw Max for who he really was.

  And that gave me an idea.

  Chapter 22

  The Glitch

  “Could I look inside the treasure chest?” I blurted out.

  The request took Max by surprise. “The what?”

  “The treasure chest. I know we didn’t win the challenge, but I really want to see what’s inside before we go.”

  An evil grin spread across Max’s face. “I’d love to show you.” He pointed at the chest, and it creaked open.

  I walked over and peeked inside. “It’s empty.”

  Max chuckled. “People will come all this way for some treasure that’s not even there! Isn’t it funny?”

  “It’s what I expected.”

  Max waved me off. “No, it’s not.”

  “Sure, it is! You had to have known certain people would start rising up against you, so you came up with this challenge to find them first. What warrior could resist a face-to-face meeting with the enemy? Then you made your challenge so impossible that it would kill anyone who tried it. This was never about the treasure. It was always a trap to kill your strongest competition before they could challenge your throne.”

  Max cocked an eyebrow, amused that I had figured it out. “It also let me have a little fun along the way.”

  “There’s only one problem,” I said. “That’s not something an Ultimate Warrior would do.”

  Max shrugged. “That’s your opinion.”

  “No, it’s yours. Remember what you said? ‘The Ultimate Warrior never backs down from a challenge.’”

  “Whatever. Black Box time.”

  “But wait a second!” I was gaining steam. “You said you were not only an Ultimate Warrior. You claimed to be the Supreme Ultimate Warrior. So what’s going on? Both things can’t be true. That’s called a . . . ”

  “Glitch!” Max interrupted and pointed at me. “He’s a glitch!”

  The Hindenburg stared at me with its blaster outstretched, unsure of what to do.

  I smiled. “Remember Beans?”

  “I said he’s a glitch!” Max repeated to the Hindenburg.

  “Beans was Eric’s name for your courage challenge kitten. Beans broke the rules, didn’t he? He clawed through the wall to save us.” I pointed to the burnt blue circle where Eric’s hand had been. “Beans got blasted by a Hindenburg because he did something he wasn’t programmed to do.”

  By now, Max was redder than I’d ever seen him. He pointed at me, but the Hindenburg jumped between us. A ripple of energy bounced off the Hindenburg and caused Max to stumble backward.

  “Once the Hindenburg showed up, you got the error report, just like you’d requested,” I continued.

  “STOP TALKING!”

  “So you checked it out and panicked. Where did these two kids come from, and how could they have already beaten half your challenges?”

  Max pointed at the ceiling, which crumbled over my head. The Hindenburg held up its fist, and a blue shield protected me from the rubble.

  “In your panic, you sta
rted The Reuben Rapture early. That’s why our watches still showed time left. You didn’t have enough endurance to stick to the plan.”

  Max pointed at the floor, which disappeared under my feet. The Hindenburg grabbed me before I could fall.

  “YOU!” Max pointed at the Hindenburg. “YOU’RE FIRED!”

  “You can’t fire Hindenburgs,” I said. “They protect the rules and get rid of bugs. What if a bug started trying to delete a Hindenburg?”

  Max was furious. He pressed a few buttons on his watch. “I’ll figure this out.” His face started to get pixel-y. Suddenly, the Hindenburg grabbed Max’s neck, and he turned back to normal.

  “You claimed to be the Supreme Ultimate Warrior, then you told us what that means,” I said. “A warrior is someone who’s strong and courageous. Someone who endures to the end. Someone who’s wise. This is your world, and those are your words. They must

  be true. But they’re not. How could they be? Today

  you proved that you’re no stronger than a kitten. You’re not courageous enough to face a fair challenge.

  You’re not willing to endure to the end. And you know what? It probably wasn’t wise to let us stick around.”

  The Hindenburg held Max by the throat and stared at him through my whole speech.

  “Do you want to see a warrior?” I pointed to Eric with a shaky finger. “There’s a warrior.”

  The Hindenburg tightened its grip.

  “You’re no warrior, Max. You’re a fake. You’re a liar. And that makes you a glitch.”

  After I finished, I held my breath and watched the Hindenburg carefully. The alien stared down Max for five more seconds, then set him on the ground.

  “Thank you.” Max dusted himself off. “I’ll be sure to . . . ”

  He stopped talking when he looked up to see the Hindenburg waving.

  Bye-bye.

  BLAST!

  Just like that, Max was gone. But the Hindenburg wasn’t done. After it finished blasting Max, it turned to Eric and waved.

  “Wait!” I yelled.

  BLAST!

  I heard the blast but didn’t see it. That’s because a blinding white light rolled into the room just before the shot.

  “ERIC!” I screamed, covering my eyes. I squinted and peeked between my fingers to find my friend. Instead, I saw the Hindenburg waving at me. He lifted his blaster, but the light swallowed him before he could shoot.

  Then, the light swallowed me too.

  WHOOSH!

  Chapter 23

  Countdown

  “WHO’S THAT?!”

  I opened my eyes to see a gun poking in my face.

  “Stand down!” someone else yelled. “It’s a kid!”

  I tried to look around, but the room was too dark to see much. All I could make out were the outlines of 20 or 30 gun-toting muscle men.

  Another voice spoke up. “The temperature has stabilized! Bring back the power!” I recognized that voice! It was Mr. Gregory!

  Lights clicked on all over the room, revealing that I’d beamed back into the computer tower room of Max’s real-life San Francisco office. The room was filled with men in FBI vests. One of them escorted me to Mr. Gregory. “Excuse me, do you know who this is?”

  “Not now, this is very . . . ” Mr. Gregory glanced at me, then his eyes got wide. “Jesse?!”

  “Where’s Eric?” I asked.

  “I don’t . . . where did you . . . how could . . . ” Mr. Gregory had a million questions, and his brain couldn’t figure out which one to ask. Finally, he finished a sentence. “Did you do this?” he asked, pointing to a computer screen.

  I took a closer look. The screen displayed a number that was quickly going down.

  1,643,221. 994,576. 521,877.

  “What’s that?”

  “The Reubenverse population!” Mr. Gregory said.

  “Did—did we shut it down?”

  “You tell me!”

  I scrunched up my face and repeated my question. “Where’s Eric?”

  “We’ll get to zero soon,” Mr. Gregory said. “I imagine he’ll be here any second.”

  133,592. 99,555. 77,628.

  I started to panic. “No, he was doing bad in there! Really, really bad! We have to go back and save him!” Before anyone could stop me, I ran to the big Reubenverse door and threw it open. There was no more swirling light—just a plain office wall.

  One of the FBI guys put his hand on my shoulder. “Come on. We have to get you checked out.”

  “I’ll go when Eric gets here!” I spun away and ran back to the tower.

  23,003. 15,909. 11,777.

  “You said he was in bad shape. What does that mean?” Mr. Gregory asked softly.

  “He’d turned black and white, and his skin was getting all these cracks, and he kept breaking, and his hand—his hand . . . ” I stopped talking and stared at the countdown so Mr. Gregory wouldn’t see me cry.

  Mr. Gregory put his hand on my back. “It’s OK. It’s gonna be OK.”

  I tried to believe him. Mr. Gregory knew a lot. He wouldn’t tell me that Eric was going to be OK if he wasn’t, right? But he hadn’t been there—hadn’t heard Eric’s chest crack. A chest should never crack. When I replayed that sound in my mind, my head started hurting, my breathing got funny, and it became harder to hold the tears in. I stared at the countdown clock to keep my mind on track.

  6,421. 4,453. 2,976.

  Instead of imagining the worst, I tried to picture the movie version of this story. The room would be filled with silent tension, and the camera would focus on an FBI agent mouthing silent prayers. We’d wait and wait until the countdown got all the way down to 1. Just when all hope would seem to be lost, we’d hear a voice from the back of the room. “Miss me?” We’d all spin around at once to see Eric waving. Then everyone would cheer, happy music would play, and the camera would slowly pull back as we’d mob Eric.

  I kept that happy image in my mind while the

  real-life countdown ticked lower and lower. It got all the way down to movie range.

  5. 3. 1.

  That last number lingered on the screen for a while. Then 0.

  Eric never showed.

  Chapter 24

  Hulkamania

  “Sounds like your friend was a real hero,” an FBI agent said as we walked out of Max’s headquarters that evening.

  “Is,” I corrected. “He is a hero. He’s coming back.”

  The agent looked uncomfortable. “We checked all the servers. I’m sorry, but nobody else is in there.”

  “We’ll see,” I replied.

  I would repeat that phrase a lot over the next several weeks . . . When a military nurse squeezed my hand while wheeling me inside a brain-scanning machine. “I’m sorry about your loss.”

  “We’ll see.”

  . . . When an NSA agent looked up from his notes during one of our interviews. “Your buddy made a great sacrifice.”

  “We’ll see.”

  . . . When a government psychiatrist started his spiel. “Losing a best friend . . . ”

  “We’ll see.”

  The worst part came when people stopped feeling like they had to say something. They’d just look at me with sad eyes, taking away my opportunity to tell them that Eric would be OK. No matter how much time passed, I kept holding on to hope that Eric would return. He had to. Mr. Gregory said he would.

  I’d tried again and again to talk to Mr. Gregory after my return, but I never got a chance. So many people blamed him for the Reubenverse disaster that the FBI had to put his whole family into hiding. I spread the message to all who would listen that this wasn’t Mr. Gregory’s fault—that he’d actually tried to stop Max. But almost everyone had a friend or family member who’d gotten sucked into the Reubenverse during Max’s Rapture, and they had to h
old someone responsible for their loved one’s brief stay on Planet Peeved Porcupines. Sure, no one had died, but this was traumatic stuff. Since Max Reuben never returned, Mr. Gregory became the natural target for outrage.

  But after a month or two, the outrage moved on to other issues, the government agents with fake smiles stopped showing up at my door, and newspeople quit calling for interviews. Things slowly returned to normal. The new normal. Without my best friend.

  I tried to keep Eric’s memory alive by talking about our adventures. Unfortunately, very few people could sit through an Eric story. Any time I tried bringing up our adventures with my mom, for example, she’d nod and follow along until I’d get to a sentence like, “The knifebots sliced at my face, but I rolled away.” Then she’d get all panicky, and I’d finally mumble, “Never mind.”

  When school started back up, I began hanging out with Mark Whitman. Mark didn’t talk a lot, but at least he understood what I’d been through. He’d patiently answer my questions about the Black Box even though I could tell he didn’t like talking about it. I also started video-chatting with Sam from Australia. Although I remembered Sam being tough from our adventure together, she turned out to be an excellent listener. She let me talk and talk, and then she would pretend that the video quality was bad when I started tearing up so I wouldn’t have to admit that I was crying.

  Some days, I found it harder to maintain hope than others. Maybe the hardest day was the late-September Saturday when I picked up my stuff from Eric’s house. I’d been over to Eric’s house several times that summer when I’d remembered something I’d left in his basement. Each time I’d stop by, I could see that my presence was reopening a wound for Mrs. Conrad. Finally, I suggested a cleanup day when I could collect all my stuff at once.

  That was a bigger job than I’d thought. The government agencies had long ago removed everything video game related, but I’d underestimated the mountain of junk Eric and I had accumulated. There was the bag of paper towel tubes, pinwheels, and yarn we’d collected in hopes of building the world’s biggest marble track. There was the board game tub with pieces from all the games hopelessly mixed together. And then there was the closet filled with toy layers that archaeologists could use to date eras in the life of a child. There was the Mickey Mouse era, then the Bob the Builder era, then the Hot Wheels era, then the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles era. For much of the day, I quietly picked through the junk with Eric’s parents.