“I’m sorry,” I said simply. “This is all my fault.”
She averted her eyes. “It’s not like you could have known.…”
I turned away and walked over to the window again. I didn’t need her to tell me I shouldn’t blame myself for this, when there was no one else to blame.
Outside the world was still, peaceful almost. The rain had finally stopped. Night was starting to fall. Atreus’s words crept through my brain again. You have three days. Did he mean game days or real days?
Oh man, this was so messed up. We needed help. We needed an adult. Would Eugene realize at some point that we hadn’t come back? That Atreus had taken over? Surely he wouldn’t just leave us out here, right? Especially once he realized what Atreus had done.
But by then, would it be too late?
I looked over my shoulder at the TV, watching the star spin in an endless loop. Drawing in a breath, I walked over, reached out, and poked the screen twice. The star blinked and my menu updated with the new quest.
“You can’t be serious.”
I turned to see Lilli rising from the couch. Evidently, since we were in the same party, her quest log had updated, too.
I shrugged. “What else are we supposed to do?”
“Um, stay here? Wait for help?” She turned her palms out at me. “Like you said, they’re going to realize we’re gone sooner or later, and they’ll send a team in to find us. In fact, they’re probably already on their way now. If we go out there, we might get hurt… or worse. It’s better to stay here, where we know we’re safe.”
“You’re right,” I said. “You’re totally right. It’s just—”
I was interrupted by a sudden flashing red light coming from my game menu. I stared at it for a moment before finally realizing it was some kind of incoming call. Reaching out, I accepted it with shaky fingers.
Please be Uncle Jack. Eugene. Anyone…
“Ian! Is that you? You’ve got to help me!”
My eyes bulged as a video stream popped up like a hologram in front of me, hovering in the air. There was a small cage made out of what looked like bleached bones in some kind of dark room. A lone figure stood in the cage, grasping the bony bars with white-knuckled fingers, tears staining his dirt-streaked face.
“Derek?” I gasped. “Where are you? Are you okay?”
“Do I look okay?!” Derek cried, his voice cracking on the words. “I’ve been captured by a crazy dragon and put in a cage!”
Oh no. No, no, no!
“Derek, this isn’t funny!” Lilli protested.
“Do you hear me laughing?” He sounded furious, but I could see the fear in his eyes.
“What happened?” I asked.
Derek turned away, staring at the cage bars behind him. “I just wanted to ride him,” he admitted at last. “I know Eugene said not to, but I figured just for a second. So I played him one of my songs. The one that got him to come down the last time. And he did. And he seemed totally cool with me riding him. But then—something weird happened while we were in the air. It was like—he changed. All of a sudden. Without warning.”
My sister and I exchanged looks. Eugene. I knew it!
“I thought he was going to drop me. Instead, he flew me down into this huge volcano and threatened to burn me alive.” He turned back to us, waving his hand at the cage. “And now… I’m trapped. And… and… I need you to get me out of here. Now!”
“Why didn’t you call us sooner?” Lilli asked.
“I didn’t know I could! I kept going through my game options, trying to send a message for help. But they’re all messed up. I only just figured out I could call you.”
“Don’t worry, Derek,” I said. “We’ll come get you!”
His face paled. “Come get me? No! You don’t understand! This isn’t some quest. This is real life. You have to get Hiro! Or my dad! The dragon’s gone crazy! The whole game has!”
“It’s okay. Don’t freak out,” I told him, not knowing what else to say. I didn’t want to admit we were basically as trapped as he was. “Just… uh, hang tight for now. And, uh, don’t do anything to make Atreus mad.”
“Um, how am I supposed to do that?”
“Play him some songs,” Lilli suggested. “He likes those, right?”
Derek stole a reluctant glance at his harp, which sat in the corner of the cage. “Yeah. I guess,” he said. “Though, I don’t know that many songs. And I really have to pee. And I really, really don’t want to have to pee in here.” He stopped, cocking his head as if listening to something. His face shadowed with fear. “Oh no! I think he’s coming back!”
The hologram vanished as the call disconnected.
I sank down onto the couch, my heart racing in my chest. Visions of Derek’s frightened face danced through my head. Along with that horrible cage of bones. With an out-of-control AI dragon robot right next door…
“Well, I guess that settles that,” I said, giving my sister a look.
“Oh no.” Lilli shook her head, getting my meaning. “You can’t be serious.”
“Come on, Lills. I know Derek can be a jerk. But we can’t let him get eaten by a dragon.”
“He’s not going to get eaten by a dragon!” Lilli cried, slamming a fist against the wall. “This is only a game! It’s not real!”
I locked her in a stare. “The pain in your arm felt pretty real, right?” I asked quietly.
Her face went stark white. “Yeah, but…” She trailed off, looking miserable. I couldn’t blame her.
“Look, I don’t like this any more than you do,” I said. “But I don’t know what else to do. Remember what Hiro said. The entire place is wired to a mainframe computer. Everything is controlled by that computer. And that means now everything is controlled by Atreus. The gates, the monsters, our SensSuits and goggles. That’s some pretty real-life power.” I held out my hands. “So, yeah. It’s not real. But does that really matter anymore?”
Lilli’s whole body seemed to crumble, the fight going out of her. “So what do we do? Do you really think we can rescue him?”
I shook my head. “No way. We’re, like, level two. We’d never beat Atreus in an actual fight.”
“So what then? Where do we start? We barely know how to play.”
I scrubbed my face with my hands. I wanted to argue, but at the same time, I knew she wasn’t wrong. We had three days and only two people—not even a complete party and no guide to speak of. This was literally impossible.
Unless…
A sudden thought struck me. I stood up. “Wait,” I said. “I have an idea. Maybe.”
“What is it?”
Drawing in a breath, I accessed my menu and scrolled through the options. Finally, I found the one I was looking for. The FIND PLAYER option. Thankfully, it was not blurred out.
“Find Ikumi,” I commanded the game.
“Ikumi? Who’s Ikumi?” Lilli broke in.
“This girl. I met her yesterday while you were at lunch. I think she might be a beta tester. Or one of the employees’ kids. She said she’s been playing Dragon Ops since the very beginning, so she’s probably really good.”
“You think she can help us?”
“I hope so. Cause she’s the only hack we’ve got.”
My menu blinked and a map appeared, floating in front of me. In the center was a large X marking Ikumi’s location, which appeared to be in a village called Ghost Hollow.
“Yes!” I cried, excitement rising inside of me. “Found her!”
“And she doesn’t look that far away, either,” Lilli noted, peering at the map. “At least I don’t think so.…” She tapped her chin with her finger. “Can you call her? Like Derek called us?”
“It doesn’t look like it,” I mused, going through the options. “I’m guessing you have to be in the same party—or at least on each other’s friends list.…”
“But you really think she could help us?”
“She’s the only one, at this point, who possibly c
ould.”
“Well then.” Lilli grabbed her bag and walked to the door. “Let’s get ourselves to Ghost Hollow.”
We stepped out onto on the front porch of the game maker’s cottage. It was full-on night now, with thick clouds covering the moon, making it so dark I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me.
My ears, however, were working fine, perfectly picking up every rustle in the nearby bushes, every squeak and growl, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. We weren’t alone out here. Not by a long shot. And if we walked out blind? We were totally going to end up some monster’s midnight snack.
“Maybe we should go back inside and look for flashlights,” I suggested uneasily.
But Lilli shook her head. “I already looked. There were none.”
“Well, we can’t just walk out in the dark. Anything could be out there.”
“Too bad we can’t up the brightness settings like we do in the regular game,” Lilli joked. “The ultimate dark-level hack.”
“Wait, are you sure we can’t?” I accessed my menu and went through the options again. Maybe there was something I missed.…
A moment later, I let out a cheer. “Ooh!” I cried. “I’ve got it!”
“A brightness setting?”
“Even better,” I declared. “Night vision.”
In fact there were all sorts of weird goggle settings to choose from in the menu—infrared, sunglasses (I guess for really bright days?), and night vision. These game makers had really thought of everything.
Well, except for the whole “What if a rogue AI dragon takes over the game?” thing.
I reached out and clicked the goggles icon. In an instant the dark world came alive with a glowing green tint. Suddenly, I could see everything. Trees, bushes, paths…
And eyes. Hundreds of glowing yellow eyes.
“Um…” I stammered, biting my lower lip. “Lilli?”
But my sister was still fiddling with her menu. “What’s it under again?”
The yellow eyes blinked in sync. Super creepy. “It’s in the options section,” I said. “You might want to hurry.…”
“There!” she cried triumphantly. Then she screeched. “Holy golden glowing orbs of nightmares! What are those?”
“No idea. But I’m going to take a wild guess and say they’re not friendly.”
“Think we can sneak past them then?” Lilli asked. “’Cause I’m guessing we don’t stand a chance, fighting them all at once.” She squinted, her eyes scanning the forest. “There does seem to be some sort of path.…”
“Awesome,” I said sarcastically. “A sneak quest.”
As much as I loved video games, I’d always hated the sneak quests. I didn’t have the patience for them. I’d get bored halfway through and then just give up and start hacking and slashing my way to the other side.
I was a master at the hack-and-slash.
But that wasn’t going to work here. There were way too many of them, whatever they were. Maybe I could have taken out a few, but then the rest of the pack would hear the dying cries of their friends and activate.
And the mighty warrior would be reduced to a tasty chew toy.
So… sneak it was.
I drew in a breath. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this before I lose my nerve.” Stepping off the porch, I began to tiptoe, as quietly as I could. After taking a few steps, I glanced back at my sister, who was a few feet behind. She shook her head.
“What?” I whispered. “I’m sneaking!”
Look at your noise meter, she mouthed.
I glanced at my menu. Sure enough, a small indicator in the upper left hand corner was blinking red. I sighed and slowed my pace even more.
“Take your time,” Lilli whispered as she came up behind me. “Look before you step. Then repeat.” She met my eyes with her own. You can do this, she mouthed. Though I wasn’t sure if she truly believed it.
But what choice did I have? I did as she suggested, placing one foot down, then another, taking my time to make sure I didn’t step on anything or trip over anything. And sure enough, my noise meter soon dropped back down to “hidden” level. My sister shot me a thumbs-up.
We continued this way through the forest, down the winding path, tiptoeing past countless pairs of eyes that, upon closer examination, turned out to belong to packs of draconites—baby dragons the size of small dogs, nestled in cozy ground nests while their mothers hunted for food. Unlike their gentle cousins, dragonbites, draconites were known to be vicious little hunters. Though they were really cute…
I stopped to get a better look at one of them in a nearby nest. The draconite inside had a small, chubby body with short wings and a pug-shaped snout. It was so super adorable, I almost waved Lilli over to check him out. Then Mr. Adorable raised his head and yawned, showing off a double set of razor-sharp teeth.
I gulped and kept moving, hurrying to catch up with my sister. The sooner we got out of here—
“ARGH!”
Distracted by the draconite, I’d totally forgotten to pay attention to my footing and managed to hook my foot under a tangled root. When I tried to lift it again, I tripped, flying forward and hitting the ground hard, my palms skidding painfully over sharp rocks.
“Ow!”
A dozen pairs of eyes snapped in my direction.
Oh no.
No, no, NO!
“Run!” Lilli shouted. “Get up and run!”
Scrambling to my feet, I ran after my sister, fast as my legs could carry me. Behind us, I could hear the draconites roaring, taking flight. It didn’t take long for them to fall into formation and chase after us—like a swarm of giant, deadly dragon bees.
This was not good. This was not good at all.
I pushed myself to run faster, sweat dripping down my back. How far would they chase us? In the regular game, each monster was assigned to a specific zone. Which meant if you could get to the end of that zone, they would retreat to their starting point and leave you alone.
But here? After Atreus’s takeover? For all I knew they were free to chase us to the end of the island.
“Ow!” Sharp pain shot up my leg. Looking down, I saw one of the draconites had latched on to my shin, his double set of teeth digging into my flesh. I shook my leg hard, finally managing to dislodge him, then kept running before another one could grab me. But the hot white heat pulsing through my body wasn’t making it easy.
It’s not real, I tried to remind myself. Your brain is tricking you.
But the pain only intensified. So much for mind over matter.
“Look!” Lilli cried suddenly. “Over there!”
My gaze alighted on a small door cut into the side of a cliff. Hope surged through me. If we could just get inside…
We changed direction, booking it to the door. The draconites followed close behind, snarling and chomping their teeth. When we reached it, Lilli wrapped her hands around the handle and pulled.
The door didn’t budge.
“Let me try!” I cried, grabbing the handle and throwing all my weight in the opposite direction, hoping to yank it open. But it was stuck fast. Meanwhile, the forest had gone quiet.
Heart plummeting, I slowly turned around. The draconites had surrounded us and were watching with eager eyes. I looked up, wondering if we could possibly climb the cliff in front of us, but it was too steep—too smooth. No handholds to help us. And since draconites could fly, it probably wasn’t the escape we needed, anyhow.
With shaky hands, I reached for my sword. What else could I do? But I had little hope of successfully hacking and slashing my way through this horde. There were too many of them, and they were too small and too fast. It would be all too easy for them to dodge my clumsy, heavy strikes, then dive in for the kill.
They inched forward, gnashing their teeth. The wound in my leg pulsed angrily, reminding me of how sharp those teeth were. Would they all attack at once? At least then it would be over quickly. But what would happen next
? Atreus had said no do-overs.
Did that mean if we died in the game, we’d die in real life?
“Yes! I got it!”
I whirled around, surprised to hear the excitement in my sister’s voice. To my amazement, she’d somehow gotten the door open, revealing a dimly lit passageway beyond.
“How did you—?” I started to ask, then realized it didn’t matter. The door was open. We had our escape. I took a step toward it.
The second I made my move, the draconites roared in unison, dive-bombing us at top speed. I lunged through the door, narrowly missing being raked by a set of sharp claws. My sister followed, trying to yank the door shut behind her. But one of the draconites had managed to get stuck, half in, half out, making it impossible to seal. She struggled, trying to knock it away with her free hand while avoiding its teeth and claws.
Suddenly, I knew what I had to do. I raised my sword, slashing down on the draconite’s head, slicing it from its body. The head fell to the ground with a heavy thump, and my sister slammed the door shut and locked it again. From outside, I could hear the frustrated roaring of the other draconites, banging into the door over and over. Thankfully, the lock held.
We were safe. At least for the moment.
I looked around, taking in our new surroundings. We had entered a low-ceilinged cavern with rough stone walls. A narrow tunnel led downward, lined with flickering torches every few feet. I strained to listen for any sounds of new monsters on approach, but heard nothing.
I dropped to the ground, my heart still racing. “That was close,” I managed to say, looking down at my leg. The burning pain had reduced to a slow throb, which was good. But it did confirm what I’d been secretly wondering—Atreus had messed with my SensSuit, too.
“Too close,” Lilli agreed. She leaned against the wall, panting heavily.
“Once again thanks to Eight-Bit Ian,” I said bitterly, looking at my palms, which were still bruised and cut from slamming against the ground. “I am seriously the worst gamer ever.”
Lilli nudged me with her elbow. “Come on. I could have fallen just as easily.”
“But you didn’t. And you got the door open somehow and totally saved us. How did you even do that, by the way? Some kind of spell?”
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