Game Alive: A Science Fiction Adventure Novel (8 page)

Des was also in the office, standing off to one side and fidgeting nervously with his hands. He looked up when Jake came in, and his eyes were wide as saucers. Principal Edward picked his way through the crowd in his office, moving around the desk to sit down in the padded leather chair behind it.

“Boys,” he said, leaning forward and folding his hands together on the desk. His piercing eyes moved back and forth between Jake and Des as he spoke in a serious tone. He lifted one hand to indicate the man in the suit. “This is Detective Tromble. Your friend Kari is in trouble.”

“What?” Des blurted out, but Jake kept quiet. His knotted stomach felt like it had been let loose and was falling straight through the floor.

“Mr. and Mrs. Myers know that Kari is a close friend of you both,” said Detective Tromble, turning toward Jake and Des. “We’re all hoping you boys can help us find out what’s happening to her.”

“Happening to her?” echoed Des, shaking his head. “What’s happening to her? We just saw her yesterday!”

“And where did you see her?” the detective asked quickly.

“In VR,” offered Jake. “It was after school.”

“Which program?” Tromble tapped at his notebook screen with one finger.

“My program,” said Jake. “Xaloria.”

Tromble paused, his finger hovering over the touch screen. He raised one thick eyebrow at Jake.

“I made a VR game,” Jake explained. “It’s called Xaloria. It’s just an RPG. We all play it together, and Kari was with us yesterday.”

“Yesterday? Was she alright?” Mr. Myers asked desperately. “Did she tell you what was wrong with her?”

Jake stared at Kari’s dad, completely confused. “She was fine,” he said. “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

Without warning, Mrs. Myers sobbed loudly and covered her face with both hands. Mr. Myers put his arms consolingly about his wife, shooting an accusatory glance at the boys that only confused Jake more.

“Kari is in some kind of coma,” Detective Tromble explained. “She’s alive, and she doesn’t seem to be in any danger medically, but the doctors can’t wake her up. You said you designed this VR program yourself?”

Jake saw where this was going, and felt start to rise in his gut. “It’s just a game,” he protested.

“Yeah,” Des jumped in. “We’ve all played it, and Jake and I are fine.”

“It’s alright,” said Detective Tromble, patting Jake’s shoulder kindly to put him at ease. “We just need to get some facts, okay? Now, you say you saw Kari in this game of yours yesterday?”

“Yeah,” said Jake. He looked at Des, baffled.

“She was already at Lord Ryden’s castle when I logged in,” said Des. “I did my homework first when I got home from school, so it was probably after four. Maybe four-thirty by the time I got there.”

“You were both there when I got back from riding,” Jake said.

“I don’t see how this is possible,” said Mr. Myers lifting his head but still holding his wife close against his chest. She continued sobbing, the sound muffled somewhat by her husband’s encircling arms. “We found Kari in our VR room two days ago. She wasn’t moving. She wouldn’t wake up. We took her to the hospital. She couldn’t have been in your game yesterday.”

Jake shook his head in disbelief, tears welling up in his eyes. “Can we see her? Me and Des?”

Mr. Myers opened his mouth to speak, but shot a wearied glance toward the detective.

Detective Tromble nodded absently. “Boys, I think it’s best if we hold off on any visitations for the time being.” Des put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. Jake blinked the tears from his eyes and glanced at Des who also had tears streaming down his face. The room seemed to shrink. It couldn’t be true.

Jake knew Mr. and Mrs. Myers would have told him everything already. But it was news to Jake, and it had him reeling. Kari hadn’t been at school yesterday because she was in the hospital, in a coma! But then how could she have met them in Xaloria?

“How long did you play this game yesterday?” the detective asked, breaking into Jake’s increasingly panicked train of thought.

“Uhm,” said Jake. “Until time for bed. Around ten o’clock.”

“And Kari was with you the entire time?”

“Yeah. She was still logged in when I left, even,” Jake told the detective. “I left it running for her because she wanted to go sell some loot before she left. Hey, you know what? I left it running the day before, too.”

“That’s right,” chimed in Des. “We split up after the giant ants, and when we didn’t meet up with her again we weren’t sure if she’d logged off or not so Jake left the game running just in case.”

Tromble nodded as if unsurprised. “You said Kari was already there when you arrived,” he repeated to Des and Jake. “You also say she was still in the game when you left.”

“That’s right,” Jake said. Des nodded in agreement.

“And you thought she was at her own home the entire time because that’s where she usually accesses the game from,” the detective went on. “Correct?”

“Right,” Jake said again.

Tromble nodded as if everything added up, but Jake couldn’t see how. “So you never actually saw Kari yesterday. You saw a representation of her in the VR program.”

Jake started to answer but broke off as what the detective had said sank in. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess that’s true. But how could she have gotten there, if she’s in the hospital?”

Tromble shook his head. “Was there anything out of the ordinary about your game yesterday? Not just with Kari, but anything at all?”

Jake started to say that everything had been normal, but realized that wasn’t true. “Well,” he admitted, “there was some kind of glitch in the program.”

“What do you mean?” Detective Tromble’s eyes fixed on Jake. “What kind of glitch?”

“Well, there were some changes in the program – things I didn’t do,” Jake explained slowly. “Something was overriding one of the AI settings, and some landscape features had changed.” In addition to the mountain, Jake and the others had discovered a newly formed river and a thickly tangled forest where there had been open field before. Everywhere they had gone, the NPCs had been terrified by the strange events in their world. Des and Kari had ribbed Jake about it all night long, assuming he’d made the changes himself by accident.

Detective Tromble was frowning, and he turned from Jake to gaze out the window with a thoughtful expression. He glanced down at the digital notebook and flicked a fingertip across the screen a couple times.

“Tell me Jake, is this game of yours connected to the open Net?”

“No,” Jake answered at once. “It’s totally private. Nobody’s got access besides me, Des, and Kari.”

“You’re certain of that?”

“Absolutely,” said Jake firmly. “Just me, Des, and Kari.”

The detective nodded and closed his notebook down, clearing his throat as he did. “Thank you for your help, boys,” he said. “If you think of anything else, please let Principal Edward know so he can make sure I hear about it. Tom, can you have someone make my personal number available on their digital classrooms?”

“Of course,” said Mr. Edward.

There were no more questions after that, so Detective Tromble and the other police man left. Mr. Myers guided his weeping wife out of the office as well, and that left Jake and Des alone with Mr. Edward. The principal ran his hand back through his graying hair again, looking more worried than either boy had ever seen him.

“Okay, boys,” he said after a long, uncomfortable silence. Edward got up and came around his desk to lead Jake and Des out to the administration lobby. Jake’s mom sat beside Des’s mother, talking quietly. They both wore puzzled expressions. Jake’s mom stood as he, Des, and the principal approached. She pulled Jake in for a tight hug.

“Is everything alright?” she whispered.

“No,” he answered her just as quietly. “I don’t know what to do.”

Principal Edward quickly filled the two mothers in about Kari and the detective’s interview in his office. Then he turned to Jake’s mother.

“Mrs. Lowell, the detective asked if there was anyone else with access to your VR network. Jake said no, but I wanted to make sure. Sometimes parents know about things their kids might not.”

“No,” she replied quickly, surprised. “As far as I know, Jake’s the only one who uses it at all. Isn’t that right?” She looked at Jake.

“That’s right,” he said. “Me, Des, and Kari.”

“Thank you,” said the principal. He looked sympathetically down at Jake and Des before he went on. “Well, you may want to take the boys home. I’m not sure they’ll be feeling up to going back to class today.”

“Yes, of course.”

Jake followed his mother outside to the waiting transport. Des gave a small wave before he got into his mom’s vehicle, and Jake waved back. Jake stared out the window as his mother told the car to take them home. He watched the bland scenery pass in silence for several minutes before his mother turned to him.

“Why did the detective ask if anyone else had access to our VR feed?” Her eyes searched Jake’s, trying to understand. “You know more than I do about how all that works. Explain it to me.”

Jake’s brow furrowed as he tried to find the words to describe the virtual system so his mother could understand. It wasn’t easy, distracted as he was over Kari. How could she have been in the game if she was in a coma? Had the program
copied
her, created an NPC version of her when the real Kari failed to come back to the game with him and Des? But that didn’t make sense, and it still would mean he wasn’t in control of Xaloria.

“When you log in to the VR feed from a different physical location,” he said slowly, choosing his words with care, “the system records what each person is doing and displays it as part of the program. Sort of like a TV vid, but rather than recording what the actors did weeks ago and then showing it on your wall, this records what you’re doing right now and shows it in real-time on your friend’s vid. It’s still just a recording though. Those people aren’t actually in the VR room with you.”

His mother nodded in understanding, but she already had that faraway look in her eyes that she got when Jake tried to explain something complicated.

It didn’t help that Jake couldn’t understand it himself. Kari had been there. It was the real Kari, not some computerized clone of her. But if she really was in a coma, then she couldn’t have been in Xaloria. It wasn’t like they’d have a VR set-up in her hospital room.

“I get it,” his mother was saying. “So if someone could access our feed, they could have made it look like Kari was there even if she wasn’t.”

Jake blinked in surprise. His mother had made a very good point, and it was one he hadn’t thought of himself. “You’re right,” he said. Someone else
could
project Kari’s image…but only if that someone else had access to Xaloria in the first place! Jake groaned.

The car pulled into their driveway. Jake and his mom climbed out and headed inside. To his surprise, his mother followed him to his room. He stopped just inside the door, looking back at her in puzzlement.

“Jake,” she said reluctantly with a pained expression. “This might not be the best time for it, but there’s something I have to tell you.”

Jake felt his body tense up, and he thought back to his mother’s “special dinner.” He had forgotten all about it, worried about Kari instead. Now he knew that more bad news was coming.

“Honey,” his mother continued, attempting a smile that was not as bright as she meant for it to be. “Gerald has asked me to marry him. I’ve said yes.”

Jake’s head spun. He retreated across the room, sinking down heavily on his bed without even looking behind him first. “You said yes?” he asked, as breathless as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. “Why?”

“What do you mean,
why?
” his mother snapped. She scowled at him in irritation. “Because I love him, that’s why. Jake, I love Gerald and I want us to be a family.”

Jake scowled right back at her. “Nobody ever asked me if I want us to be a family,” he said sharply, barely stopping himself from yelling. “Did you even think about that, Mom? Did you even think about asking what I want?”

His mother’s face flushed, and he could see her making an effort to keep her voice calm. “I know you and Gerald haven’t always gotten along,” she told him firmly. “But I know you two will work your differences out in time. I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t think it was the best thing for all of us.”

Jake was trembling all over. His eyes blurred, and he wasn’t sure if it was from tears or anger. All at once, his fragile self control shattered.

“You mean the best thing for
you!
” he shouted. “You and Gerald! Neither one of you could care less about what’s best for me!” Jumping off the bed, Jake pushed past his mother and ran into the hall. He fled to the familiar safety of the VR room, slamming the door and locking it behind him.

He could hear his mother’s rushing footsteps, then they stopped just on the other side of the door. She tried to open it. Jake held his breath, stifling tears of fury as he silently prayed that she’d just go away and leave him alone. He was still shaking all over. He should have seen this coming. Why couldn’t his mother understand? Why wouldn’t she just go away? At last, after several long minutes had passed, he heard her footsteps receding and then the door to her bedroom clicked.

Jake sagged against the door, pounding it once with his fist. Why did it have to be now, on top of everything else? Couldn’t she have waited until later? Who cared about Gerald when Kari was in the hospital? Jake’s mother seemed to think Gerald’s feelings were more important than that, more important than Kari, more important than anything Jake might be worried about. It was all about Gerald, and Jake didn’t get a vote.

He breathed heavily, squeezing his eyes shut. Jake’s mind whirled with thoughts of Kari, his mother, Gerald, all of them swirling around together in confusion. He wished he could go back somehow, back before yesterday or maybe even earlier. Back to when he, Kari and Des had been happily exploring Xaloria and he was in control.

He knew he couldn’t escape the facts. Real life wasn’t VR, and he couldn’t fiddle with the settings. Jake opened his eyes, wiping tears away with the back of his hand. There wasn’t anything he could do about his mom and Gerald – that much was painfully obvious – but maybe there was something he could do for Kari.