Gamers Con: The First Zak Steepleman Novel (9 page)

Did he qualify as the hero of
Halls of Hallow?

. . . Since I hadn’t managed to get past the first cut scene, I had no idea what the game was really about at all.

I blinked a few more times, tried to work out vaguely where I was.

But nothing.

Nothing at all.

I took some more steps forwards, guiding my way with a little help from the marble wall, and, soon enough, I realised that I could make out the silvery glow of the dark-purple pit.

The one which occupied the centre of the hall.

And then I
really
could take in my surroundings.

Could see the archways, and the swirling designs, and the black marble which seemed to lay over just about everything.

And, of course, I saw him . . . the Cloaked Figure.

I felt a prickling sensation in my chest, one of those fat-kid, sixth senses that tells you that danger is near: but usually a bully waiting around a corner, or a ball about to be kicked in your general direction or, worse, a doctor visiting the school and checking up on everybody’s weight and mumbling stuff about ‘BMI’ and ‘obesity.’

I wondered what I was meant to do.

The protocol for
getting out
of video games was fairly clear-cut.

It basically came down to either getting killed, or
winning
in some way.

Then there was also the
glitch
option . . . but that’s something which no self-respecting gamer would get caught considering.

So, not really having anywhere else to go, I stalked closer to the Cloaked Figure, feeling now a little like I was intruding on his—
her?
—privacy somewhat . . . or something like that.

It was only then, when I had just taken my first step out into the open, into the area where, if the Cloaked Figure turned around, I could be seen, that I realised that I was pretty much—move for move, step for step—mimicking just how I’d observed the ginger kid acting around the
Halls of Hallow
.

I wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Well, at least I knew that I’d seen the red-haired kid in the flesh, so I guess that was some sort of proof that he had managed to get out of the game safe and sound . . . eventually.

Yup, I’d be
fine
. . . never in all my adventuring into video games had I ever come into trouble in
real-life
when I finally left: dead or alive in the video game.

So why did I have any reason to worry now?

I crept closer to the Cloaked Figure, aware that my trainers were making a slapping sound on the marble floor where the sole was beginning to come away . . . I guess one cross-country run too many.

And that
slap-slap-slap-slap
sounded near deafening in the otherwise silent place.

As I drew nearer to the pool in the centre of the room, I looked down into that dark-purple glow. It
did
remind me of some of the pictures I’d seen in physics, and the ones that I’d done my best to wash away from my mind as soon as possible . . . till I’d picked up
Galaxy Gunkers
which is an open-space simulation game, and where galaxies are pretty much impossible to avoid.

I breathed in, wondering if I’d smell anything new.

But, nope, just that same old mouldy odour which clung to everything.

I wondered if it was the Cloaked Figure who stank so badly.

Guess I’d find out soon enough.

“Uh, hi?” I said, not really sure what to expect.

. . . Actually, maybe if I had something beyond a
gnat’s
memory, I would’ve recalled then how the meeting between the Cloaked Figure and the red-haired kid had gone . . . how the Cloaked Figure had ignored the red-haired kid for quite a long while before
finally
—and quite
enigmatically
—replying to him.

All the same, I tried again.

“Hello?”

The Cloaked Figure remained staring down into the dark-purple pool with its silvery flecks that looked kind of like stars. I wondered if he’d hypnotised himself or something.

I was only about five paces behind him, and thinking about reaching out to tap him on the shoulder—that always worked with Granddad when he didn’t hear me the first dozen times—the Cloaked Figure tilted his head gently in my direction and took me in.

Well, I’m pretty
sure
that he took me in.

I couldn’t see anything of his face.

Only the shadow which covered his entire head on account of the hood of his cloak.

For some reason I felt like I was doing something wrong.

It wasn’t anything about his expression—he didn’t
have
any expression—but it was more of a feeling, like a tightening in my gut, or a chilly sensation running through my blood, almost like I’d gone and stuck my wrists under the cold tap on a hot, summer’s day.

The Cloaked Figure’s words came like fingernails down a blackboard.

“You. Are. Not.
HIM
.”

I stared back into the darkness of his hood, not really sure how to respond to this. And then it struck me. Maybe I
am
a genius after all.

“Uh, do you mean the red-haired kid?” I said.

The Cloaked Figure made a sound at the back of his throat—
throat?
—but made no other reply.

I guessed that I was meant to take this as an affirmative response.

I looked about the hall again, as if I was half expecting that something might’ve changed.

But, no:

Dark-purple pool.

Silvery specks in it.

Loopy archways.

Swirling designs.

Cloaked Figure.

. . . Nothing had changed.

I turned my attention back to the Cloaked Figure. “I, uh, saw you
speaking
with the red-haired kid.”

The Cloaked Figure made no response, and I really had no way of telling if he was hearing what I was saying at all, or that by me
not
being the red-haired kid I’d made myself totally invisible in his-slash-her eyes.

But I kept on talking.

“I wondered what you wanted from him—he said that he’d
done
something, and then you said that he hadn’t brought
something
back.”

For a long few seconds, my words just reverberated about the hall, and I wondered if the Cloaked Figure had clammed up again.

I looked about me, then down, to the deep-purple pool, wondering if that might offer me a way out, if I might end up dying if I fell in there.

“It does not concern you,” the Cloaked Figure said, his voice husky now, almost imperceptible.

I was thinking about just what I was going to say when he raised his arm and an almost skeletal, bone-white finger emerged from the sleeve of his cloak. I was so surprised that I didn’t think to dodge his touch—to feel him jab me right in the chest.

If I’d felt cold before, now it was like somebody had just shot me full of ice.

Everything went pitch-black once more.

19

I FELT MYSELF SPINNING AROUND.

Really fast.

I could feel the blood surging its way up into my skull.

Threatening to burst right out.

At one point I opened my mouth to scream . . . but nothing happened.

It was as if the Cloaked Figure’s touch had deflated my lungs, as if they were nothing more than a pair of cheap party balloons.

For a long while I felt myself falling, and falling, down into empty space.

Only when I opened my eyes.

Blinked a couple of times.

Did I see that I had returned to the hotel room.

That I was sitting on the edge of the bed, game controller in my hands, palms sweating like nothing else.

It was a fraction of a second later when I heard the familiar
bleep-beep
of the card being slid into the hotel room door, and I looked up to see Dad wandering in.

His eyes looked sharp, and his movements were quick as if he was stressed about something.

“Zak?” he said. “Everything okay?”

I breathed in, still felt a trace of the intense
coolness
in the centre of my chest where the Cloaked Figure had touched me.

“You’ve gone all white,” he said.

I blinked a few more times. “. . . Yeah?” I said, my words sounding sort of muffled now, completely different from that hollow echo of the halls I’d just returned from.

Dad took another few steps into the hotel room, glanced to the TV screen before I had a chance to even
think
about flipping off my Sirocco.

I looked to the screen too, saw that it was just fading out to black—just as it had done before when the cut scene had finished up.

The Cloaked Figure was just about visible in the gradually fading halls.

Dad looked back at me. “You, uh, playing something scary, huh?”

I blinked a few times, got myself together and then managed to give him a hardy smile. “Yeah, just trying to take my mind off the competition.”

“Well,” Dad said, looking to his wristwatch, “you’re already running ten minutes late.”

That same chill descended over me, set my teeth chattering. “What?”

“Yeah,” Dad said, “I came here to see where you’d got to—I was waiting down there for you to appear then I thought maybe you’d come up here, nodded off or something.” He looked about the hotel room as if he’d find some evidence that I’d just lost track of time, and then he nodded at the screen. “Immersive game, was it?”

I leaped forwards, smashed my fist down on the Power button of my Sirocco.

The TV screen flashed waves of static for a couple of seconds, and the speakers fired out white noise. Then, a couple of moments later, some automatic switch in the TV stopped the white noise.

Muted the sound.

I glanced about me, wondering if there was anything that I was supposed to bring along with me. Then I spotted the All-Access Pass, lying there on my bedside table, and I swiped it up, lassoed the cord around my neck.

Together, me and Dad headed out of the room at a steady jog.

* * *

It was just as we’d stepped into the lift that I felt something rumbling away in my pocket.

My mind reminded me that I still had my mobile in there.

I dipped my hand inside and pulled it out.

Saw that Mum was calling.

It was strange, for some reason I thought to glance up at Dad just as I brought the phone up to my ear, and answered.

He was acting funny, which meant that, for the first time in seemingly the whole of the convention, he wasn’t tapping away at some move on the chess app on his mobile.

He was actually
looking
at me, sort of studying me as I answered the phone.

“Mum?” I said, feeling the forces of the lift slinking downwards, heading for the ground floor of the conference centre.

“Hi, Zak,” she said, her tone sounding a little muffled, almost as if she was trying not to be overheard on the other end.

For just the fleetingest of moments, I wondered if—maybe—she was in some sort of a hostage-taking situation, and whether she might be choosing to call me as her only phone call.

Calling the police—or at least Dad—might’ve been a better option.

“How’re you getting on?” she said.

“Uh,” I said, eyeing the neon-green numbers that counted us down the floors, and which was now approaching zero, “now’s not a great time—I’m about to start into the Second Round of the Grand Tournament. And they make us hand in our mobiles before play.”

“Oh,” she said, “I thought you already won?”

I shook my head as the lift came to a halt and the doors shifted back before me to reveal the sprawling masses of people still reaming through the conference centre.

There were more people than I’d thought who’d come along to spectate on the Second Round of the Grand Tournament—that sent a slight quiver through my gut, made me feel just a little uneasy about things.

But I tried to shuck the feeling.

“Can I, uh . . .” I said, eyeing the signs, trying to get my bearings, and not to think about the fifteen minutes-plus that I was running late.

I hoped that I wasn’t going to get punished for it.

Not docked points or kicked out of the competition all together . . . and all that because I couldn’t keep my curiosity to myself—I simply
had to
get my hands dirty with that video game, just
had to
confront that Cloaked Figure.

I kicked on through the crowds, only remembering that Mum was on the other line when I heard her breathing heavily. “Can I call you
later?
” I said.

Mum paused for a long while as I eyed the letters up above, remembering where we’d been told to meet up for the eight o’clock session.

I could feel Dad right on the backs of my heels and I was aware that if I slowed down—even a
tiny bit
—he might drag his toes all the way down the backs of my legs.

Finally, Mum answered, “Sure,” she said. “I should be up till about ten, like always.”

I nodded to myself, again forgetting that technology—and mobile phone infrastructure—hadn’t
quite
yet
reached the point where video calls were the norm.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do my best.”

“Love you,” she said.

I dropped my tone of voice, partially because of the public setting—the people flooding all around me—and partially because I saw that we’d arrived, got to just where I needed to be.

“Love you too,” I said, right as I saw the great, big sign which stood in front of the cordoned-off section to where I needed to be.

The sign which read:

No Entry

20

MY GRIP WEAKENED so much that I almost let my mobile slip right through my fingers . . . and from what I’d seen of other people dropping their mobiles, I knew that wouldn’t be the best thing for it.

Something at the back of my brain snapped at me to cling on, and I did.

But only just.

I felt hot from all the running . . . okay,
jogging
. . . that me and Dad had just done, but I felt strangely cold inside, as if somebody had transfused my blood with liquid nitrogen.