Game Over, page 18
Once again, I was blushing, but this time it wasn’t with light embarrassment; it was with real, genuine shame.
“I’m really sorry, Aaron. About what I said on the bridge, and how I—I wasn’t thinking—”
“I know, and I appreciate the apology. But there’s another apology you might want to make—to yourself. Cuz, I mean, in your defense, I’ve been covering how I’m really feeling—acting all happy-go-lucky when I’m actually pretty nervous about how this is gonna turn out. It’s something I’ve done my whole life, and maybe I could work on being more honest. But I’m not the only one who’s covering up how they’re feeling. Or should I say … the only ones.”
He looked at me meaningfully and then looked over my shoulder. I turned around and saw Gus, polishing the sword his uniform had come with and glowering at Mr. Knighthill’s back.
I turned back to Aaron.
“Sammi’s not the only one here who can help with the relationship counseling,” Aaron said. And there was Aaron’s wicked grin again, though this time it came with a hint of something new—something wry and hard-earned. I was just opening my mouth to say something when Aaron stepped back and blurted, “Oh, you’re done? Finally! This game is so weird. Come on, Sammi, let’s go!”
He squeezed my shoulder, winked, and then turned to follow Sammi out the door.
And then it was just me and Gus, and a sea of dancing nobility.
“This is all so Normal.” Jason sighed.
And Jason.
“Jason,” I said, “could you please leave us alone? For like one picosecond?”
“Are you kidding?” Jason asked. “I’ve been awake for twenty-two hours, and I burned through the last of my energy drinks at, like, five p.m. Wake me up if you and your NPC boyfriend do something useful. I’m taking a nap.”
“What did he say?” Gus asked.
“He’s … actually leaving us alone,” I said, stunned. “I think he was trying to be … nice?”
“Is he not normally?”
I considered this. “Hard to say.”
“Well, you can tell me about it later. For now, Lady Tilden …” Gus extended a hand. “Shall we dance?”
And yeah, maybe I needed to release some stress after an insane day, especially since the day wasn’t really after yet; it was still very much during. Maybe I wanted to spite Jason—or to thank him for his small act of kindness. Maybe Gus just looked good in his officer’s uniform. Actually, that last one wasn’t a maybe.
Whatever the reason, I said:
“Officer Iwatani, I would love to dance.”
We stepped onto the floor. I’d done this a thousand times before—the flickering candles, the murmuring gentry, the violins—and the familiarity brought me comfort. But Gus, the one unfamiliar element, managed to surprise me twice over: first with how unembarrassed he made me feel, and second with how much of a natural he was proving to be.
“I can see how this could be fun,” he said as we spun smoothly across the floor.
“Where did you learn to waltz?” I asked.
“Dance Pants Evolution. Remember? They released that ballroom dancing expansion pack last year. We went for our—”
“Our fourth date,” I said, smiling as the memory came flooding back. “Oh my gosh, I’d totally forgotten. I had so much fun.”
“Me too.” Gus grinned. “Learning to waltz? Hardest thing I’d ever done in HIVE.”
“Right,” I said. “So it was your favorite kind of game.”
We fell silent for a moment.
I thought about Aaron, and the new honesty in his smile.
“I feel like there’s something you’re not saying …” Gus began.
“My mom gave me these boots,” I said.
Stunned, Gus came to a halt in the middle of the dance floor. Then a countess twirled into him and we started up again.
“You never talk about your mom,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “And I love that you never force me to. Except for last night, but that’s not—the point is, she gave me these. Well, she gave me the boots I wear in real life, which is why I got these boots in the game. She handed them down to me, and they fit me perfectly. I mean, I have to lace them really tight, but I don’t mind. Anyway, she told me one of her favorite things was how we both liked to imagine worlds in our heads. It’s just that her worlds were in VR, and mine were in the books I read. She said that’s what the boots were for—they made her feel like she was ready to explore a new world every day. And she gave them to me so I could always feel the same way.”
For a moment, there was nothing but violins.
“Kara, that’s … that’s beautiful,” Gus said.
“That was two weeks before she left,” I said, and the music ended.
“Come on,” Gus said as the NPCs began to switch partners and prepare for the next song. “Let’s get out of here.”
Still holding hands, we left the ballroom and made our way through the winding halls of the manor to reach the grand entrance. It was night outside, and the stars twinkled in a sky that had never been dampened by skyscrapers or streetlights.
“Why tell me that now?” Gus asked. “About your mom?”
“Because I’m trying to figure out why I really don’t like HIVE,” I said.
“So you admit—” Gus began, but he fell quiet upon my look.
“See, as much as I hate to admit it, my mom was right,” I said. “HIVE and books do the same thing—they show us new worlds, and other lives. But I guess sometimes it’s hard not to feel like you, and our friends, and … and everyone have all decided this is better than life.”
Gus nodded as we passed a line of waiting carriages.
“Yeah, but, Kara—look at Aaron. He gets to—”
“I know,” I said hurriedly. “It’s not better for him. It’s just … different.”
Gus gave me a curious look. “Well, sure. But he’s not the only one. Sammi gets to explore a world where she’s not so stressed all the time, and I get a world where I’m …”
“Where you’re what?” I pressed. “Why do you always want to do everything at the highest difficulty setting? Is real life that boring?”
And I knew this next question wasn’t cool, but I’d had a long day and couldn’t stop myself:
“Am I that boring?”
“No!” Gus said, so loudly that a horse behind us huffed. “I’m boring,” he continued, dropping his voice. “I’m not as smart as you or as cool as Sammi; I don’t have Aaron’s irrepressible spirit. I’m just … Gus. Next to you guys, I feel like a loser. So I guess at least I enjoy it when it’s not my fault—when I’m doing something that anyone would lose at. At least then the only thing that matters is I’m trying my hardest. It makes me feel, if not as good as any of you, then at least a little better than I am.”
By now we’d reached the edge of the manor grounds, and I stopped and turned to face him as realization dawned on me.
“You’re the Anti-Jason,” I said.
“What?”
“Jason believes he’s the only real person in the universe, and that everyone else is fake and therefore expendable. Well, except Eric Alanick. And I guess me and my mom?”
“What are you—”
I understood the urge to ask follow-up questions, but I kept going:
“Meanwhile, you see everyone and everything else as real and exciting—which is wonderful, Gus, it really is—but you’re so lost in the game that you see yourself as expendable. And you’re not. So you’re just making things hard for no reason. And that’s not better than Jason’s problem. It’s just the same problem, but backward.”
“Kara …” Gus said, his voice wavering.
“Sorry,” I said. “Maybe that sounded harsh, but—”
“No. Kara. Look.” Gus pointed over my shoulder, and I turned to see what he had seen.
A single Drone floated, lost and incongruous, through the dark and torchlit grounds.
“Where did that come from?” I asked as a trickle of dread slid slowly down my back.
“That side of the manor, over there.” Gus pointed again at the shadows of the manor’s east wing. “Do you know what’s back there?”
“That’s where the servants’ entrance is.”
“Do players ever generate there when they start the game?” Gus asked. His eyes were still on the Drone, which had reached the hedgerows that ringed the grounds and begun to slide along them.
“No,” I said. “It’s much more of an upstairs than a downstairs kind of game. People don’t really interact with the servants much … at … all …”
I trailed off as we both realized the same thing.
“The Bug!”
I don’t even remember which of us said it; I just remember that as soon as it happened, we were off at a run, me with my evening gown pulled up around my boots, Gus with a hand at his waist to stop his sword from rattling in its scabbard. We reached the servants’ entrance at the side of the manor and found that its door had been left open. Quickly but carefully, we descended a dark staircase, arriving at an underground corridor where only one out of every two or three candlesticks had been lit. Light flickered inconstantly as we moved forward, and from above our heads came the sound of stomping feet and muffled music—someone had called for a jig.
Then I saw a light up ahead that wasn’t inconstant at all.
“Look,” I said, but Gus had already spotted the same thing. We both picked up our pace, and soon we stood in front of the entrance to a dark room. It was the servants’ kitchen, a cluttered chamber lined with counters and dominated by a massive central table. Every surface was dusted in flour and laden with trays of party food, stretching backward into a shroud of darkness. The foreground of the kitchen, though, was clearly lit—not by candles or by oil lamps but by a hovering, glowing, golden Bug.
“You go find Sammi and Aaron,” I said. “I’ll stay here and make sure no one else comes by.”
“Okay. Be safe.” Gus kissed me quickly before running toward the door.
“And Gus!” I yelled, just in time for him to turn back.
“Yeah?” he asked, one foot on the staircase.
“You’re a winner to me,” I said.
It was hard to tell by candlelight, but his smile looked bittersweet. And then he was gone, leaving me alone.
“Wow,” a voice whispered in my ear. “That was so gross.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nice to have you back, Jason.”
“My name’s not Jason, nerd.”
No.
No.
“What’s the matter?” Markus Fawkes asked, stepping out of the darkness at the back of the kitchen. He spoke through a mouthful of mutton leg. “Didn’t expect to see me here? I’ll admit it’s not my usual type of game. Good food, though.”
He took one more bite of mutton and then dropped it to the floor. It was a long way to drop. At some point since I’d last seen him, Markus had redone his avatar to be even bigger than before, and he must have won a lot of points doing something, because he was laden with body armor that even Mind Your Manors hadn’t been able to find a genteel substitution for. As he closed the distance between us, Markus unleashed a sneer filled with more genuine malice than I’d seen in any mole, Drone, or mobster today. For a moment, I considered grabbing the Bug and making a quick exit, but I couldn’t leave my friends here, alone in a game they didn’t know how to win with a bully who appeared to have become fully unhinged.
I had to stall.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“I’ve been waiting here for hours,” Markus said. “After you got away last time, I thought, Well, where might she go now? Then I remembered—you were yakking about this game when I saw you this morning. And I figured, if she liked it, it would be exactly the kind of boring hoity-toity spot that would be easy to hide out in while the bits hit the cooling fan. You know you probably saved my life today? I only saw one other player here all day, and he was only here because he was looking for some kind of amazing Bug.”
I looked around. “Is he—”
“Here? No. I wasn’t going to let him have it, was I? I like to win. So I thanked him for his information and said he could go. He didn’t want to go, but … I won.”
The sick pride with which he said this last part was how I knew: the Drone in the garden. Markus had done that. In a game marked by its complete lack of violence or danger, Markus had done something to end a player’s game for good.
And now he was right in front of me.
“Then I had some time on my hands, so I went and found the Bug,” he said. “But I didn’t want to leave the game before you arrived. I couldn’t let you win. So I waited, and I waited—and thank goodness I did. I was just about to give up before you arrived. It’s a lesson in perseverance, really. I’m aspirational.”
“Inspirational,” I said automatically.
Markus’s sneer grew bigger.
He pounced.
I’d seen it coming just in time, and as I threw myself toward the kitchen counter, he missed me by a fraction of an inch. But for someone so megasized, Markus was surprisingly limber, and he was already rounding back on me. I reached behind me, scrabbling for something to defend myself with. My hand closed on something round and heavy, and without seeing what it was, I swung, which was how I wound up braining Markus Fawkes with a rolling pin. Markus stumbled to the side, almost running straight into the Bug, but at the last second he regained his balance. This was sort of a lose-lose development, for now he was stalking toward me again, my back was to the counter, and any of the playfulness in Markus’s eyes had been replaced by real, red-hot fury.
Then an apple bounced off his head.
“You see that?” Aaron said from the doorway. “And to think Coach Strey won’t put me on the starting lineup.”
Markus snarled and spun to face this new challenger—just in time to get a face full of bird. By the time Markus had swatted Laddu back in Sammi’s direction, Gus had rushed into the kitchen, removing his sword from its scabbard. But Markus was already rearing up, and Gus wasn’t going to have enough time to—
“No!” I yelled, but I needn’t have worried. Instead of taking the time to brandish his sword, Gus brought the blunt end of the hilt straight up and into Markus’s nose. There was a distinct cracking sound, and Markus roared in pain, clutching his face and falling backward to the ground.
Now Gus tossed the sword into the air, caught it by the hilt, and brandished it down at Markus’s breast. To be honest, it was all exceptionally dashing.
“Don’t even think about getting up,” Gus said, “unless you want to become a Drone.”
Markus’s hands moved away from his face. A river of red was beginning to gush down from his nose, dripping over a mask of pure contempt.
Then, as he looked up at the four of us clustering around him, something shifted. His bloody snarl melted into a smirk.
“Okay,” he said. “I won’t get up.”
Instead, he shot his giant arm out—and grabbed the Bug.
“No!” I cried, but it was too late.
“I win.” Markus grinned as the glow enveloped him. Time slowed as we waited for the voice to speak the dreaded words:
“Congratulations! You have successfully debugged HIVE. To save the head of the HIVE, please reboot.”
Wait.
What?
And then the manor exploded around us.
It wasn’t the type of explosion you normally think of, full of sawdust and fire. It was the explosion of a jack-in-the-box that had just been released, or a seedpod cracking open in a time-lapse video. The walls of the kitchen dropped away and the ceiling opened up, revealing the shining wood and marble surfaces of the corridors outside and above us. Then those surfaces folded, twisting and refracting like they’d been cranked through a kaleidoscope. Soon the walls were made of polished flooring, and the floor was made of the roof; a moment later, it shifted again, and entire wings of the manor flashed by, creaking with the strain of a thousand tons of timber, as the architecture of the entire game collapsed on itself and then recombined. A hedgerow became a wall. A corridor was made of doors. And just when I thought I’d finally snapped, had pulled a Jason, and had some massive break from reality—it ended.
We stood at the intersection of three candlelit corridors, each made of a patchwork of disparate surfaces. Down the hallway to our right, open-faced suits of armor stomped back and forth, empty inside but as vigilant as any royal knight. Down the hallway to our left, giant axes swung slowly back and forth from the ceiling like so many lethal pendulums.
And from up the hallway immediately facing us came a living wall of all-encompassing darkness, oozing slowly toward us, getting closer and closer with every second.
“What’s going on?!” Markus cried. “Where are we?!”
“Welcome to the labyrinth,” said the voice of the Bug. “You are now playing on difficulty level ninety-nine. To escape the labyrinth and save the head of the HIVE, please reboot.”
“Reboot how?” Gus asked, but the voice did not respond.
“Save the head of the HIVE,” Sammi was muttering. “Save the head of … the HIVE?”
“There must be something at the end of this maze,” I said. “We just have to find our way there.”
“Did you hear what they said, though?” Sammi asked. “Difficulty level ninety-nine. That sounds bad.”
“Please,” I said, with a forced cheer that I hoped didn’t sound too forced. “You’re Sammi Khanna. Labyrinths hear about you and they say, ‘That sounds bad.’ ”
“Labyrinths don’t talk.”
“This one just did,” Aaron said.
“Enough!” Markus had struggled to his feet and was now backing away from us. “You’re all freaks, or … or cheating. I don’t know how you are, but—”
“Markus, be careful,” Sammi said. Markus was heading straight toward the wall of shadowy darkness, which was heading straight toward him in turn.
“Of what?” Markus scoffed. “I’m not afraid of the dark. You’re all such losers. I’m going to—”
And then his right foot went into the darkness.
Markus froze midsentence. He tried to pull his foot back out again, but it was stuck, as if the shadows were made of some solid substance.
