Rodomonte's Revenge (6 page)

“If you had been just a little slower,” Tom said, “I could use you now for a G.I. Joe doll.” He grinned.

“I don't know what you're teasing me about,” Brett said. “A whole inch isn't much better than a half.”

Before Tom could think of another joke, Rodomonte rose from his throne. He drew
back his robe, revealing a chest any professional wrestler would have been proud of.

“To kill a king,” he boomed, “you must destroy his heart.”

“Thanks for the suggestion.” Tom sprang to his feet, ran for cover behind a diamond, and blasted Rodomonte's chest with his laser. Though the pistols had shrunk, the laser bolts hadn't. The bolt hit Rodomonte hard enough to drive him back onto his throne.

“Good shooting, Tom!” Brett shouted. “It's over. We won!”

“Don't be so sure,” Tom said.

Rodomonte stood again. He'd been twelve feet tall before—twelve hundred by Brett's standards—and now he was thirteen. He roared in laughter and marched in football field strides toward Tom. When he reached him, he stamped his feet, as if he were trying to crush a cockroach. Tom bounced around like a pinball; not only were Rodomonte's feet ten times wider than he was tall, but the king could move them like a tap dancer. “Brett, help me.”

“I'll get him.” Brett sprinted away from Tom, getting position on Rodomonte, dodging
coins and jewels, the tiny bits of dust on the floor cutting his bare foot like gravel. Just as Brett crouched to fire, Tom jumped back and shot again. He hit the king in the heart. The bolt did nothing but spin Rodomonte around and add another foot to his height.

The king was facing Brett now, so he fired, hitting him again. As he grew to fifteen feet, Rodomonte grinned.

“To kill a king,” he repeated, “you must destroy his heart.”

“He's lying.” Tom fired again. The king shot up another foot.

“No,” Brett said, “it's some kind of riddle.” The king ran toward him. He tried diving to the side, but Rodomonte corralled him into a corner. The king kicked at him. Brett cowered, expecting the worst, but luckily the corner was tight and Rodomonte's foot was huge. His bones crunched, and toenails snapped like rifle shots as they smashed into the wall. Rodomonte howled and hopped across the room, holding his foot in both hands.

“Are you all right?” Tom called. He'd been putting a steady stream of laser bolts into
Rodomonte's back. The king was more than twenty feet tall.

“Yeah.” Brett tried to fire his laser, but Rodomonte's foot had pinned it against the wall, and a toe had bent the barrel. “But he destroyed my pistol.”

“Then it's up to me to finish him off.” Tom fired again. Rodomonte grew another foot. “Nothing is working. What do we do?”

“Let me think.” Brett scanned the room. He was still in shock over the amount of treasure. How could one person be so greedy? Of course, in a body that big there was a lot of room for greed.

And then it came to him. The answer to the riddle had to do with greed.

Rodomonte had said that to kill a king, they had to destroy his heart, but he wasn't talking about his physical heart, he was talking about what was most important to him. A greedy king's heart was in his treasure.

“Forget the king,” he shouted. “Destroy the treasure!”

“Got it.” Tom turned his laser on a coin. He fired at it until it was a molten lump. “Now what?”

“Keep firing. We have to destroy it all.”

“All of it? Do you have any idea how long that will take? You're wrong on this one, Brett.”

“I'm never wrong when it comes to video games.” Brett sprinted around as much of the room as possible, hacking at everything his tiny sword could reach. The game should have been ending, but it wasn't. Rodomonte's laughter boomed.

“To kill a king,” he said again, “you must destroy his heart.”

“We are destroying your heart,” Brett shouted. “Can't you see that?”

But it didn't work. Try as he might, hack as he could, it just didn't work. “I can't be wrong,” he cried. “How are we supposed to destroy all the treasure?”

Tom aimed at the throne, but before he could fire, he had to jump to avoid being stomped. He landed on his belly just as Rodomonte stomped again. Tom rolled fast to the side, but not fast enough. Rodomonte's heel obliterated his pistol.

“Tom, are you all right?”

“Yeah, but my gun will never be the same.”
He looked toward the throne, looked beyond the throne. “I was about to shoot—” The expression on his face changed suddenly. “Brett, I've figured it out. You
are
wrong.”

“How can I be? It has to be the treasure.”

“It is the treasure, but it's the
whole
treasure. To destroy the whole treasure, you have to break the mirror.”

“What?”

“Look at the mirror!”

Brett did. It reflected the room, reflected the treasure. The
whole
treasure.

“Keep him distracted.” Brett sprinted for the mirror, his sword out in front of him.

“How? I don't have any weapons.”

“Think of something.”

“I'll try.” Tom sneered up into Rodomonte's face. “Hey, you computer-generated pituitary case, I heard your father was a VCR and your mother was a Game Boy.” Rodomonte ignored him as he watched Brett. Tom leaped onto the giant's ankle and sank his teeth into the skin. Rodomonte howled and danced in a circle. He kicked Tom off, sending him crashing into a wall. But Tom had bought Brett time.

Brett was ten feet from the throne when
Rodomonte began chasing him, covering in one stride what it took Brett a hundred to cover. Brett saw him in the mirror, closing in fast, his feet growing larger and larger. Suddenly everything around him was in shadow, and he looked up to see a foot descending like an elephant sky diver. Brett screamed, then ducked between two rubies, waiting to be squashed into a very tiny pancake. The sole of Rodomonte's shoe draped over him like a canopy. The rubies groaned but held. When the foot went up again, Brett scampered out, straight for the mirror. He had just five more strides to go, maybe two inches.

Rodomonte roared and stomped again. The foot came down fast and hard, but Brett was too close now, too close to dodge. If he could just run straight another half inch, if he could just stretch his sword out a little farther …

The foot came down on his head like a thirty-ton slab of concrete. It knocked him off his feet, slamming him forward, driving his sword into the mirror. At the instant Brett felt his ribs crunch to dust the mirror came tumbling down. His head felt as if it were in a vise, and a blinding white flash seared his
eyes. The throne room rose in the air and shattered just as the mirror did. Brett's back, his body, his arms and legs ruptured under the unbelievable pressure. Then the whole world went black.

Brett's back ached. His whole body ached. He felt as if after Rodomonte had squashed him, he'd piled all the treasure on him, too. But when he opened his eyes, he saw that there wasn't any treasure. There wasn't any throne room. He was lying on a white padded floor, the white padded floor of the game room.

“Never again. Never, ever again.”

He looked up. Tom was leaning against the wall as if someone had mounted him there. He looked as if he'd just finished running a
marathon. “If I ever play another video game, it will be too soon.”

Brett rolled onto his back. “Me, too. Have you ever played chess?”

“Chess is a game where you sit in chairs and move pieces on a board, right? Nothing moves on its own, nothing tries to bite you, suck you dry, or stomp you into the ground, right?”

“Right.”

“I think,” Tom said, “I'll learn to play chess.”

Through the viewing window Brett saw Willie slumped in his chair beside the computer; he must have run the same marathon Tom had. Willie grinned, struggled up from the chair, and said something Brett couldn't hear. Brett motioned toward the door. Willie opened it.

“You made it,” he said.

“Yeah, we made it.”

“The computer is asking if you want to play again.”

Tom grunted. “Give me an ax, and I'll show that computer what I want.” He opened and closed his pistol hand, without the pistol, as if
he were surprised it was still there. “How long did the game take?”

Willie checked his watch. “Nine hours.”

“Nine hours?” Brett asked. “It's two in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“Your mom is going to kill you, Brett,” Tom said.

Brett rose, groaning, to his feet. If a mountain had fallen on him, he couldn't have felt worse. “Don't worry about my mom. After Rodomonte's Revenge I can handle anything.” He stumbled to the door. “Let's go home.”

“I'll drive you,” Willie said.

The night was clear and icy cold. The ground frost sparkled under the streetlights like a million fallen stars. The moon was so bright Willie hardly needed to use his headlights. For a second it darkened, and when Brett looked up, he thought he saw a buzz-bug flit across its surface.

He rubbed his eyes. The buzz-bug was gone, and the moon was just the moon again: a big, friendly face smiling down.

He looked at the moon again. A tiny spot on it was there and gone. He thought he heard a
hum, but it could have been a truck in the distance.

Brett shook his head. No, he thought, it couldn't be. He went into his house. Buzz-bugs weren't real. It must have just been in his head.…

VIDEO GAME VICTORY

Take tips from the game guide. Even though it may seem stuffy, you can pick up great moves and clues if you take the time to read the manual. After all, who knows more about the secrets of the game than the video whizzes who created it?

Practice a game again and again to familiarize yourself with the different patterns that occur. Soon you will recognize them faster, and your reaction time will be quicker.

Don't take crazy chances. It's better in most cases not to lose lives trying for those hard-to-hit items or near-impossible moves. Let some of them go, and you might live long enough to get your high score—or make it to the end of the game.

Take time out when you're tired. You know when you've had enough. You start making stupid mistakes and your reflexes are way off. Get away from the game for a while. Try playing basketball or another sport or hobby. You'll be thinking more clearly when you play the game again.

Never give up. Losing can be frustrating, but keep going. Remember to look for patterns. Try new methods or moves. Each game is different. Stay with it until you learn how it works.