“That was amazing,” I found myself saying, though there was no one there to hear me. I clenched my hands together to try to stop them from shaking. Amazing—and yet super terrifying at the same time. I still felt a little sick to my stomach.
“Amazing, huh?”
I looked up. A girl around my own age was standing a few feet away, seeming to have come out of nowhere. She had curly fluorescent-pink hair that tumbled down her back in waves, and wore a long black robe trimmed with glowing, multifaceted jewels.
She looked me up and down, her glossy lips lifted in a small smile. “I must say, you didn’t last very long,” she observed. Her voice was light and teasing.
“Dude, it’s my first day,” I shot back, a little defensive. But still! Did she really need to call me out like that? (Even if she wasn’t wrong.)
“Ah!” Her eyes were very large—like an anime character’s—and sparkled as if there was glitter mixed into the pupils. “You must be one of our visitors!” She bobbed her head in a quick bow. “I heard you were coming this week. Welcome to Dragonshire,” she said. “Just like real life, but a lot more… fun.”
I raised an eyebrow. Did I detect a note of sarcasm in her voice? Who was this girl, anyway? A beta tester, maybe? An employee’s kid?
“Thanks,” I said, scrambling to my feet and dusting myself off. “I’m, uh, Ian.”
“You can call me Ikumi,” she replied. “And you really shouldn’t steal from the merchants here. It never ends well.”
“I noticed,” I muttered, rubbing my head where the sword had crashed down on top of it. It didn’t hurt, exactly. But it still felt a little weird. A slight throb at my temples. Like my brain believed it should hurt, so it almost did.
Seriously, this game was way too real for comfort.
Ikumi reached into a canvas bag she had tied to her waist, pulling out a small vial of red liquid. “Here,” she said. “Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”
I took the vial, trying to ignore the whole “don’t take drinks from strangers” thing my mom had drilled into my head since I was a kid, and turned it over in my hands. Was it supposed to be some kind of in-game healing potion? Though, if so, how could it help a real-life hurt?
But then my brain only thought I was hurt, right? So if I drank this? It might believe I was better. Which would make me feel real-life better? I guess?
This game was super confusing.
I pulled off the stopper. “Looks like Gatorade.”
She nodded. “Originally the healing potions were made of fermented teas and mushrooms, but too many of the American beta testers complained. So they changed their recipe.”
I took a tentative sip of the potion. Thankfully, it did taste more like Gatorade than moldy tea. I tipped my head and chugged the rest of it. “Thanks,” I said, handing the vial back to Ikumi, who slipped it into her bag.
“The pleasure is mine,” she replied. “Anything for a fellow Mario fan.” She pointed to my T-shirt and smiled. “Super Mario Bros. 3 is my favorite of the originals.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised. “Most people would say part two.”
Ikumi wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Part two isn’t even a real Mario game! Did you know they released an entirely different Mario Two in Japan? But Americans thought it was too hard.” Her eyes danced in amusement. “So they skinned another Japanese game—Doki Doki Panic—with Mario characters to ship overseas for the gaijin.” She grinned at the Japanese word for foreigner, making me wonder if she was Japanese herself. It was impossible to tell by looking at her game character, and suddenly I was really curious to know what she looked like in real life.
“Hey!” I protested holding up my hands. “I’ve played the original Mario Two, just so you know. And I beat it, too.” In fact, my mom had built an emulator that ran all the old video games she used to play as a kid, and I’d spent hours—okay, maybe days—trying them all out.
“Really?” Ikumi asked, looking genuinely impressed. “Most people don’t play old games anymore. They want the newest, the flashiest, the best graphics.…”
“Not me,” I declared. “I can appreciate a new game.… Like this one, of course,” I added, looking around. I’d almost forgotten, for a moment, that I was still in a game. “But there’s something about those old games. They’re simple, but fun.”
“Yes,” she agreed, smiling at me. “Not like real life… but a lot more fun!” she quipped.
I laughed. Who was this girl, anyway? I didn’t know anyone my age who liked the older games. In fact, most people, like Derek, made fun of me for playing them, even going so far as to nickname me Eight-Bit Ian.
Not that I cared. I mean, not really…
But this girl… she wasn’t a dork. In fact, she seemed really cool. Though she might not really be my age, I suddenly realized with dismay. For all I knew she was an adult, playing a kid character. In fact, she might not even be a girl at all.…
I suddenly really wished I could take off my goggles to find out.
Since I couldn’t, I asked, “So, uh, you play this game often?”
“Oh yes,” she said, her smile fading at the edges. “All the time, actually.”
She didn’t sound too happy about it. In fact, if anything she looked a little sad. Maybe she was one of the programmers’ kids? I hadn’t considered the fact that if you worked here and had kids you’d have to drag them along. And while at first, that might be cool, I bet it got boring after a while, being stuck on a practically empty island all day while your parents worked. Even if it was an island with the best video game ever on it.
“I just got here today,” I told her. “My sister and cousin are here, too. But they’re not really into video games. My sister used to be, but not now. Anyway, we’re supposed to go out into the park tomorrow. You want to join our party?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You want me to play with you?”
“Why not? You’re probably really good.” I gave a small snort. “And, as you could probably tell from my troll fight? I’m pretty awful.”
She laughed. And for a moment, I really thought she was going to say yes. But in the end, she shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “But I can’t.”
“Oh. Okay,” I replied, disappointment washing over me before I could stop it. Of course she wouldn’t want to join us. She probably had way more important things to do than hang out with a bunch of noobs.
“Not that I don’t want to!” she corrected quickly, seeing my face. “It’s just… I’m not supposed to play with other guests.”
“What? Why not?”
She opened her mouth to speak. Then her eyes seemed to catch something behind me. A look of panic crossed her face.
“There you are!” interrupted a familiar voice.
I jumped a mile as a hand clamped down on my shoulder, turning me around. I felt a burning pulse at my temples as my goggles were ripped from my head and dropped into my hands. I almost fell over as everything snapped back to real-life mode.
“Urgh,” I gurgled, staggering on shaky legs. Everything suddenly looked too bright and too spinny—as if I’d just gotten off the teacup ride. Closing my eyes, I tried to reset myself.
But it was no use. I leaned over and threw up.
“Are you all right?”
I felt a warm hand at my back. I opened my eyes to find Uncle Jack peering at me with concern. I gave a weak nod, extremely embarrassed about the puking. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I couldn’t hack it here.
“Totally fine,” I chirped. “Just… a little dizzy.”
“That’s normal. Take a deep breath. You’ll be okay.”
I nodded, doing as he instructed. A moment later the dizziness began to fade and the landscape went back to nonspin mode. I let out a breath of relief.
It was then that I remembered Ikumi. Oh man, had she watched me puke my guts out? So embarrassing. I turned around so I could apologize for being so gross, but she wasn’t there. The alley
way was empty.
“Wait, where’d she go?” I asked.
Uncle Jack cocked his head. “Where did who go?”
“There was a girl.” I scrunched up my eyebrows. “With pink hair. She was standing right there!” How could she have gotten past us? Had she gone into one of the houses? But the doors had all been locked.…
Uncle Jack burst out laughing.
I frowned. “What?”
“First Atreus. Then a girl with pink hair.” His eyes danced with amusement. “I love your imagination, kid.”
“No! You don’t understand,” I protested, turning in a circle now. The girl had to be somewhere. “She wasn’t a game character. She was real. Like, maybe a beta tester or something?”
“There are no beta testers out today,” Uncle Jack said. “The last boat left this morning, and the new arrivals don’t come till next week.”
“Okay, maybe not a beta tester then,” I corrected. “Someone’s daughter? Do any of the employees have kids here?”
Uncle Jack shrugged. “I don’t think so… It’d be kind of awful if they did. So much construction. No schools…”
“Yeah.” I stared at the spot where Ikumi had just stood. This didn’t make any sense. Unless…
A horrifying thought struck me. What if she’d never really been there at all? What if she was virtual, like the people in town and those on the beach? They’d looked real, too.…
But no. I shook my head. She was different. She didn’t blend into the game as they did. She didn’t fit into the world. The way she talked. She was definitely not a game character.
But then who was she?
“There he is!” a deep voice broke into my troubled thoughts. “Didn’t I tell you to stay in town?”
I whirled around to see Hiro, now standing behind me, back in his T-shirt and skinny jeans, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “I really meant to. But then I accidentally dropped this sword and the blacksmith thought I was trying to steal it. He started chasing me and—”
I broke off, realizing Hiro was laughing. “What?” I asked, a little offended.
“I’m just enjoying your reaction to my game,” he replied, plucking the glasses out of my hands and pocketing them. “You liked it then?”
“It was pretty amazing,” I agreed. “But a little crazy, too. Like, I couldn’t feel my goggles when I was inside, so I couldn’t take them off.”
Hiro nodded approvingly. “That’s good,” he said. “It means your brain is acclimating to the game environment. You must be a natural!”
I smiled weakly, trying to take that as a compliment. But I was still a little freaked out about the whole thing. Which was funny since I had just told Hiro, not thirty minutes ago, that I would never want to take the goggles off. Which I still didn’t. But the fact that I couldn’t…
Hiro caught my expression. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Your guide will be able to remove the goggles in case of an emergency. But I promise, you’ll be perfectly fine. We’ve tested the system extensively. Every possible danger has been taken into account.”
“Well, that’s good…” I said, trying to shove the unease down my throat. I was being ridiculous. Of course they’d tested it! They’d never get insurance to open if they hadn’t.
Uncle Jack clapped me on the back. “There’s no pressure, Ian,” he assured me. “If you’ve changed your mind about playing, that’s perfectly okay. You can just hang out in the hotel, watch Netflix, explore the beach—whatever you like. It’s all up to you.”
I followed his gaze up, until my eyes rested on the iron gates high on the hill. To the dragon chasing its tail. My heart stuttered in my chest. The town itself had been so real. What wonders were out there, in the real game?
And how could I possibly miss finding out?
Hiro turned to me, his dark eyes piercing my own. “So what do you say, Ian?” he asked in a solemn voice. “Do you still want to play my game?”
“Are you kidding?” I asked. “Atreus himself couldn’t keep me away.”
The next morning, we found ourselves standing outside the massive iron gates that led into the park, shivering a little in the crisp morning air. The hotel alarm had woken us bright and early, and the sun was barely peeking over the horizon. We crawled out of bed like zombies, sleepily slipping into our new SensSuits before heading over to the rendezvous point where our guide was meeting us to take us inside.
The SensSuit was cool but a little itchy, which made me squirm. Supposedly the suits had nanosensors woven into the fabric and had to be flush against our skin to work properly. Derek kept complaining about how ugly they were. And while he wasn’t wrong—it was kind of like a Spider-Man costume without the cool spider on the chest—it wasn’t as if we were entering a fashion show or something. Besides, Hiro had assured us, we wouldn’t be able to see them once we put on our goggles and took on our new roles.
Lilli yawned, looking around the clearing. “Where’s Lady Farah?” she asked. “She was supposed to be here ten minutes ago.”
We’d been introduced to our illustrious guide, Lady Farah, after dinner the night before through a short film. According to the video, Lady Farah was the first female knight in Dragonshire. She was beautiful, dashing, brave—
And also very late.
I stared down at the silent town below, wondering what it would look like if we had our goggles on. Was the troll back? “I’m sure she has a reason.…”
“It’s not like she could have gotten stuck in a Starbucks line,” Lilli pointed out.
“Who cares?” Derek butted in. “She’s not here. I’m going back to—”
“Hey, kids. Sorry I’m late.”
We turned to see a short, grungy man with an unkempt beard and thick glasses huffing and puffing as he walked up the hill to join us. He was wearing ripped blue jeans and a T-shirt that read COOL STORY, BRO, NEEDS MORE DRAGONS rather than a SensSuit like the rest of us. A bunch of game goggles hung from cords around his neck and he held a tablet in his hands.
“Are you Lady Farah?” Lilli asked, narrowing her eyes. “’Cause, no offense, in the video you looked a lot more…”
“Ladylike?” Derek suggested.
“Maybe he transforms into a lady once you put on the goggles,” I whispered.
But our guide shook his head. “Sorry. Farah couldn’t make it. She had some bad barbeque last night and has been puking her guts out ever since. I’m Eugene. I’ll be filling in.”
We exchanged glances. “Poor Farah,” my sister exclaimed, probably remembering her own seasickness the day before.
“Poor Farah?” Eugene sputtered. “Poor Farah gets to spend all day in bed binge-watching The Bachelor. Meanwhile I’ve got to abandon my entire day’s work to take you twerps on a tour.” He scowled. “Do you have any idea how much I have on my plate today? The park opens in three months. I’ve got fires to put out all over the place.”
“So wait,” I interjected. “You’re not a guide?”
“A guide?” He let out a large belch, then puffed out his chest. “I’m a programmer, kid. A keyboard cowboy. Half of the stuff you’ll see out here today? My creations.” He rolled his eyes. “So no. I’m not a guide.”
“But you’re going to guide us…” Lilli concluded, giving him a doubtful once-over.
“Believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do,” he said. “But hey! At least you won’t be subjected to all that LARP garbage the real guides make you do.”
My heart sank. One of the coolest things I’d read about Dragon Ops was how the guides really got into their roles, never breaking character no matter what you asked them, except in a serious emergency. They called it LARPing, which stood for Live Action Role Playing. I’d been really looking forward to it.
I’d even come up with a cool backstory the night before, when they sat us down at the computer terminals so we could create our game characters and assign them skill points. I was going to play a new
version of Lord Wildhammer, the warrior I played in the regular game. Lord Wildhammer had been an orphan, abandoned on a doorstep in Dragonshire as a baby. Until one day a mysterious old man with wizened blue eyes and a long gray beard plucked him off the streets and told him he was no ordinary boy. That he was the chosen one. The one who would save everyone from the evil dragon Atreus and—
“Sounds good to me,” Derek chimed in predictably. “Can we get this over with?”
“Absolutely,” Eugene replied. “Let’s lock and load.”
He walked over to each of us, handing us our goggles and instructing us to put them on. Once we did, he locked them into place. My heart skittered as I felt the now-familiar pulse of heat at my temples, followed by the single beep at my ears as the sensors calibrated with my brain waves.
This was it. There was no turning back now.
I raised my head, peering out from my goggles. The massive Dragon Ops gates were still there, of course. Still as large and looming as before. But now the golden Latin words seemed to shimmer with fire, and the dragon etching had transformed into an actual dragon, swimming through the sky, chasing its tail. As I watched, it turned its head to look at me, giving me a playful wink. Wow.
Suddenly I didn’t care about the guide getting sick. The lack of role playing. I was about to see Dragon Ops with my own eyes. Finally!
Eugene walked over to the entrance, opening a small mechanical panel and submitting to a retina scan to verify his identity. Once confirmed, the gates began to creak open and music swelled in my ears. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It was the Dragon Ops theme song!
“All right, kids.” Eugene beckoned us over, a smug smile on his face. “Let’s rock and roll.”
I hadn’t known exactly what to expect when I stepped through the Dragon Ops gates. I mean, I knew it was going to be awesome. Probably larger-than-life. Oversaturated color, maybe—like an Instagram filter gone wild.
What I hadn’t expected was how… familiar… it would all look.
“Wait a second,” I said, my jaw dropping in amazement. “Is this the Edelweiss Forest?”
Dragon Ops Page 4