Project Alpha

by D. J. MacHale

  “No, you’ve all got skills. But you’re too…cautious. I want people who aren’t afraid to follow me when common sense says it’s better to play it safe. I don’t see that with you guys. You’re just too…”

  “Smart?” Dash asked. “Is that the word you’re looking for?”

  Anna shot him a scornful look.

  “No, the word I was going for was…scared.”

  She got up and headed for the door.

  “Remember what I said” were her parting words. “To make this team, you gotta stand out and be special. Step it up, people, or go home.”

  The others waited until she was out of earshot before speaking.

  “She’s right, you know,” Siena said. “She is a lock for the crew. The rest of us better find a way to get along with her. Good night.”

  She got up and left.

  Ravi stood and said, “Way too much drama going on here. I’m going to conference with my folks. Then I’m going to meditate with Niko and figure out how we can turn Anna into less of a tool.”

  Niko joined him and said, “What? No we’re not.”

  “It was a joke. Jeez.”

  The two took off.

  “I’m not scared,” Piper said, then winked and smiled. “Except maybe of Anna.”

  She sped out of the room leaving Dash, Gabriel, and Carly.

  “I’m with Piper,” Gabriel said. “Imagine being on a ship for a year with her? Yikes.”

  “Seriously,” Carly added. “She’s not exactly a people person.”

  Dash shrugged and said, “Yeah, well, let’s hope we get the chance to worry about that. Good night, guys.”

  As he got up, Carly gave Gabriel a shove and motioned with her eyes toward Dash.

  Gabriel nodded. “Hey, Dash, you got a minute?”

  Dash sat back down. “Sure, what’s up?”

  “I think they’re going to name the crew soon,” Gabriel said. “I mean, how much more can they learn about us?”

  “True,” Dash said. “Hard to believe it’s almost over.”

  “Or about to begin,” Carly said.

  She looked at Gabriel and once again implored him with her eyes to talk to Dash.

  “What’s going on?” Dash asked with a curious chuckle.

  “We…discovered something the other day,” Gabriel said. “You know those blackouts every night? They’re not real. They’ve got monster generators that make more than enough power for this camp, but every night they shut them down and tell us we’ve been blacked out.”

  “But they keep one running,” Carly said. “So they’ve still got power. We’ve seen the control room and watched them power down.”

  “Why do you think they’re doing that?” Dash asked.

  “Exactly!” Gabriel blurted out, a bit too loud. “How can we trust them to shoot us into space if they’re not being totally honest with us?”

  Dash frowned and dropped his head to concentrate.

  “Do the other guys know?” he asked.

  “No, just us,” Gabriel replied. “And now you.”

  “What do you think we should do?” Carly asked.

  Dash’s mind spun, trying to calculate the possibilities.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Not yet, anyway. Maybe there’s a good reason they’re not telling us. Hopefully one of us will be on the crew and then we can ask about it. If none of us are chosen, we’ll let the others know and they can deal.”

  “It’s not cool that they’re keeping secrets from us,” Carly said.

  “I have a feeling there’s a whole lot of stuff they’re not telling us,” Dash said.

  “You do?” Carly asked, wide-eyed.

  “Absolutely. This whole project has been top secret. Heck, nobody in the world knew they had the technology to send people into deep space until they announced the competition. Once the crew is chosen, that’s when we should start asking questions.”

  Gabriel and Carly both nodded in agreement.

  “So why did you tell me?” Dash asked.

  Carly said, “Because we thought you’d know the right thing to do.”

  “There you are!” STEAM announced as he scurried into the room.

  The three kids stiffened up as if they’d been caught doing something wrong.

  “Bedtime,” STEAM announced. “You need rest. Huge day tomorrow! Yes sir!”

  “What’s tomorrow?” Gabriel asked.

  “Final challenge. A big one! Very exciting, yes sir!”

  “Wait, final challenge?” Dash asked. “Does that mean—?”

  “Yes,” STEAM said. “The crew will be selected tomorrow night.”

  Commander Phillips and STEAM faced all eight candidates, who stood at one end of the giant tent.

  “You have all proven yourselves worthy,” Phillips announced. “Unfortunately, only four can fly.”

  “So this is our last test,” Siena said.

  “It is,” Phillips replied. “You are all still in the running, so don’t even think about giving it less than your best. This last challenge could change everything.”

  Dash saw movement on the catwalk above.

  A young blond man with a golden retriever stood looking down on the group.

  “Who’s that?” Dash asked.

  Phillips glanced up.

  “One of my team,” he answered dismissively. “I haven’t been the only one observing you.”

  “So what’s this challenge?” Anna asked impatiently.

  “It’s very simple,” Phillips replied. “Your goal is to make it from here to the far side of the tent.”

  “That’s it?” Gabriel asked. “It’s just a race?”

  “It is,” Phillips said. “With one small wrinkle.”

  Phillips raised his hand and the tent went pitch-dark.

  “Ooh, a race in the dark,” Anna said sarcastically. “Spooky.”

  Slowly, the lights began to rise again, revealing that the space had completely transformed.

  “No way,” Niko said with a gasp.

  “This is impossible,” Siena said, wide-eyed.

  The space had become an elaborate steampunk world with massive brass boilers, miles of pipes snaking up the walls and across the ceiling, and conveyor belts that moved on multiple levels, transporting machine parts throughout the dark, industrial-looking environment. A steady hissing sound filled the air as the riveted joints let out occasional blasts of steam. The floor had become a massive, living checkerboard with images of two-foot square brass plates that moved randomly about.

  “This is the Meta Prime Event,” Phillips announced.

  “I feel like I’m dreaming,” Dash said in awe.

  “You’re not imagining this,” Phillips said. “But it isn’t real. The entire Meta Prime arena is computer-generated, like the Raptogon.”

  A small machine part jumped off a conveyor belt, landed on a brass floor square, then bounced off to land on another square. It rode that square to the far side of the floor and jumped off, disappearing into the maze of machinery.

  “What the heck was that?” Gabriel asked.

  “A robot,” Phillips replied. “That’s what this virtual machine manufactures. There are robots scattered throughout the factory who are programmed to protect it from intruders.”

  “And we’re the intruders?” Dash asked.

  “Exactly,” Phillips replied. “Now you can see how challenging it will be to make your way through. Beneath those brass floor plate images is nothing. Or the illusion of nothing. If a plate slides out from under you, it’s as if you fall off and die.”

  “Wait, what?” Anna exclaimed.

  “You don’t actually die,” Phillips said quickly. “Think of it as a video game.”

  He walked into the hologram and stepped onto one of the brass plates. A moment later, it flew out from under him, but Phillips didn’t fall. It looked as though he was standing in midair.

  “It’s a projection,” he explained. “When you lose, you go back to the beginning and start over ag
ain. If one of the robots hunts you down and tags you with its laser, you die and start over. If you fall into the abyss, you die and start over. If you get swallowed by the machine—”

  “You die and start over,” Gabriel said. “This is impossible.”

  “It will take some ingenuity to make your way through,” Phillips said.

  “And if we lose, we might not get picked for the crew,” Ravi said.

  “Yeah,” Niko added. “We die and don’t start over.”

  Phillips shrugged. “Use your heads. We’re looking to see who is clever enough to avoid the dangers and find their way through to the other side. Questions?”

  “Yes,” Dash said. “What’s this weird fake factory got to do with a mission to outer space?”

  “Good question,” Phillips said. “The answer will wait until—”

  “Until we’re on the crew,” Carly said.

  Phillips nodded. “Any other questions?”

  “When do we start?” Anna asked.

  “Right now!” Phillips announced.

  Anna instantly took off running into the “factory.” She leapt onto a brass floor plate, then another, trying to hopscotch across. When she jumped onto a fourth, the plate shot out from under her to reveal the bottomless abyss.

  “Ahhh!” she screamed, expecting to fall.

  She stood seemingly in midair and had to stomp on the floor to prove it was still there.

  “This is crazy!” she exclaimed.

  A moment later, an alarm sounded and she was hit with a dozen red laser lights.

  “That means you died,” Phillips called out.

  Anna huffed and jogged back to the others across the projection.

  “Yeah, I figured that,” she said, snarky.

  “You can see how tricky this is,” Phillips said. “This challenge isn’t about speed or agility; it’s about using your head. Good luck.”

  With that, Phillips strode to the door and left.

  Everyone stared at the impossible factory, each wondering how they could possibly defeat the hologram checkerboard puzzle.

  “I’m just gonna go!” Niko exclaimed, and jumped onto a brass square.

  He made it to one, then the next, then the third. He made it halfway to the first large boiler and jumped onto a fixed “girder” that spanned the floor.

  “I got this!” he yelled.

  A moment later, a small robot that was a cross between E.T. and a toaster oven zipped along the girder he was standing on, stopped two feet from him, and hit him with a green laser beam. The alarm sounded and Niko was bathed in the red lasers.

  The robot retreated along the beam.

  “Oh man,” Niko said, jogging back to the group. “This is tough.”

  “It can’t be impossible,” Dash said. “Or it wouldn’t be one of the challenges.”

  Gabriel stepped away from the group and stared at the incredible contraption, squinting in concentration. He watched the timing of the floor tiles closely, as well as the movement of the robots that zipped through intermittently.

  “There must be a pattern,” Siena said.

  Dash took a shot. He jumped from floor plate to floor plate, trying to keep away from the wide-open center and stay closer to the machines that ringed the checkerboard. He made it to one of the conveyor belts and crouched down behind it to hide from the guard robots. But one of the little guards appeared on the conveyor directly over his head, hopped down, and zapped him. Alarm. Lasers. Done.

  “Wow” was all Dash could say as he jogged back to the start.

  One by one, they tried different routes, but each time they either had a brass plate zip out from under them or were shot by robots.

  Piper rolled her chair onto one of the plates but instantly lost when the plate slid out from under her.

  “This isn’t fair,” Piper said. “No way I can get across.”

  “No way I’m giving up!” Ravi said with determination.

  Seconds later, he got zapped. Again.

  Dash was about to give it another shot when he spied Gabriel standing alone, still squinting at the complicated hologram. Dash walked up to him and said, “Aren’t you going to try?”

  “I’ve been looking for a pattern,” Gabriel said with a frown. “Every time I think I’ve got it, it changes. The robots are a wild card. They react based on what we do, so it’s different every time.”

  Carly joined them and said, “Maybe that’s the challenge. They want to see how we deal with a contest that’s unwinnable.”

  Dash’s mind raced; an idea was forming. “Or maybe we just have to figure out new rules.”

  “What does that mean?” Carly asked.

  “This isn’t a real machine,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s generated by a computer. So what we really have to beat is the computer.”

  Anna was down on her belly, crawling from floor plate to floor plate, hoping that she wouldn’t be spotted by one of the annoying little robots. She rolled onto a plate…and came face to face with one of the little monsters. Zap. Alarm. Done.

  She stood up and headed back to the start when she spotted Dash, Carly, and Gabriel talking. She changed course and walked to them.

  “You’re not gonna get anywhere just standing there,” she said.

  Gabriel threw up his hands in frustration and said, “We’re not gonna get anywhere no matter what we do. There’s no way to win this thing. You’re all just spinning your wheels. I am outta here.”

  He stormed off, headed for the door.

  “Gabriel, wait,” Carly said, and ran after him. “You can’t give up.”

  Gabriel kept going and blasted out the door with Carly right behind him.

  Anna said, “Guess the pressure finally got to them. Too bad. I wanted Gabriel on my crew.”

  “Guess you have to pick somebody else,” Dash said.

  Anna scoffed. “Yeah, well, it won’t be you.”

  “Darn,” Dash said.

  Anna backed away from him and jogged to the hologram.

  Siena, Ravi, and Niko continued making vain attempts to hopscotch across and dodge the robots, but died each time. The little robots seemed to take joy in gunning them down. Some would spin happily afterward, or let out a bright mechanical twerp. It only added to everyone’s frustration.

  “This is stupid!” Ravi yelled out in anger. “I hate those little creeps.”

  Piper sat on the edge of the game, looking sour.

  “Do me a favor?” Dash said as he walked up to her.

  “Sure, what?”

  “Give me a ride to the other side?”

  Piper gave him a curious look.

  “I’m serious,” Dash said.

  “You realize that won’t work,” Piper said. “I tried.”

  “Maybe you should try again.”

  Piper shrugged and said, “Sure, why not. I’m not doing anything else.”

  Dash walked to the edge of the hologram and motioned for Piper to join him. She rolled the chair over and stopped on the very edge of the illusion.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  “Not yet,” Dash said.

  He watched as Niko was chased down by a robot. Ravi ran behind the little machine, hoping not to be seen. It didn’t work. The robot spun and shot Ravi, then spun back and nailed Niko. Double fail. Both howled with exasperation as the robot squealed with delight.

  “Did Gabriel and Carly give up?” Piper asked.

  “Sort of.”

  “How can you sort of give up?”

  “We didn’t like the rules of this game, so we decided to change them.”

  Dash’s Mobile Tech Band sprang to life. Carly’s image appeared on the small screen.

  “Ready?” Carly asked.

  “Almost,” Dash said.

  He stepped onto the back of Piper’s chair.

  “Okay,” Dash said to Carly. “Anytime.”

  “What are you guys doing?” Piper asked, totally confused.

  Carly said, “You’re good to go in three�
�two…one…”

  Suddenly, the lights went out and the tent was thrown into pitch darkness.

  “What the heck?” Anna called out from somewhere.

  Dash held out his Mobile Tech Band and triggered the flashlight mechanism. A beam of light shot from his wrist, which he focused on the floor in front of them.

  “Step on it,” Dash commanded.

  Piper laughed and jammed the wheelchair into gear. They took off with a lurch and sped across the floor of the arena. The hologram of the machine was gone. All that lay ahead was an empty floor…and the finish line.

  “What’s going on?” Niko yelled.

  Dash and Piper zoomed by Ravi, who stood there in shock.

  “No!” Anna yelled. “No way!”

  She took off running after them, but it was too late. Piper opened the throttle and the two sped across the empty floor, easily pulling away from Anna.

  “Yaaaaa!” Piper screamed with sheer exhilaration.

  “Wooooo!” Dash yelled.

  When they reached the far wall, he jumped out and touched it as Piper spun the wheelchair in a mini victory lap.

  “No way, this doesn’t count!” Anna yelled as she ran up. “You can’t win because the power failed.”

  Niko, Ravi, and Siena ran up, breathless.

  “What the heck happened?” Ravi asked.

  “They got lucky is what happened,” Anna said. “That’s not a victory.”

  “Nothing went wrong with the hologram,” Dash said. “We took it out of the equation.”

  “Uh…what?” Niko asked, confused.

  The lights suddenly came back on to reveal the vast empty tent. The hologram was no more.

  Standing in front of them were Commander Phillips and STEAM.

  “I want a do-over,” Anna said.

  “Why’s that?” Phillips asked.

  Anna was so angry her head seemed ready to explode. “Because they didn’t beat the machine.”

  “Well, actually they did,” Phillips said. “Just not the way that I expected.”

  The door from the hangar opened and a soldier wearing desert-camouflage fatigues stepped in. He was followed close behind by Carly and Gabriel. The soldier strode right to Phillips and gave him a quick salute.

  “That could have been a disaster, Commander,” he said.

  “Understood,” Phillips said. “Leave them with me.”