My vision blurred, and I staggered backward. “Oh, come on,” I shouted. “Not now.”
But it was no good. The world spun around me in a streak of colour, and everything vanished.
Forty-Eight
I crumpled to my bedroom floor in Colorado, panting and staring at the ceiling.
The CodeX had booted me from the damn game. How is that fair?
When I wanted to get out, it trapped me. When I needed to stay and help, “Nope. Out you go, Sunshine.”
Stupid bloody thing.
A wave of despondency washed over me. I’d lost. I’d failed to bring Grandma Alice home. Speaking of which—
I opened my hand, but her locket was gone.
Brilliant.
As if sensing my self-pity, Milo waddled over, snuffled in my ear, and licked my face.
I lay there, too exhausted to resist. My whole body ached—every muscle torn and sore, cuts and bruises covering my arms and legs—and I wanted to sleep forever.
With effort, I sat up and glared at the CodeX.
The leather-bound tome turned from red to green, the new colour soaking through its cover, and the infinity symbol metamorphosed into a star shape with rounded points and a hole in the middle.
I scratched Milo behind the ears. “Good boy.” I then dragged myself to my feet.
Opening the CodeX’s front cover, I found the pages inside blank, ready to receive the thrilling tale of Leo Cooper’s space adventure.
Well, it could bloody wait.
“Dumb f—”
The front door opened, then closed.
I staggered into the sitting room to find Mum there.
“I spoke to your grandfather’s surgeon,” she said. “I’m off to Cleveland. I won’t interfere unless I’m asked. Moral support only.”
Of course. She’d gone down the hill to get a phone signal. That seemed a million years ago.
“I need to pack some things.” Mum went to step around me, but I held up a hand.
“I wanted to help.” A lump formed in my throat. “Grandma Alice, I mean. I hoped I’d be able to bring her home somehow.” I bowed my head. “I’m sorry, Mum.”
She took my hands. “Leo, it’s okay. She died a long time before you were born. I thought your grandfather was—”
“No.” I pulled back. “It’s not okay. I told myself she wasn’t dead, just missing like Grandpa John thinks, and that I needed to find her for selfless reasons.” I sighed. “But I wasn’t being noble at all. I wanted Grandma Alice here so you’d have a good reason to come home more often. And Dad, too. So we can be a family. All of us together.”
Tears formed in Mum’s eyes, and her shoulders sagged. “I’m the one who’s been selfish, Leo. Your father and I have been working so hard that I’ve disregarded how difficult this has been for you. A new country? New school? Leaving your friends behind?” She shook her head.
“I tried to tell you,” I said. “Loads of times.”
Mum wiped her tears away. “I know. I haven’t heard you-well, not properly. I didn’t listen.” She glanced at her phone, then looked back at me. “I don’t want you to keep secrets from us like your grandfather has. I don’t want us to become as distant.”
“Gotta keep some secrets,” I muttered.
Mum half-smiled and drew me into a tight hug. “Leonardo,” she whispered, “I promise that once I’ve taken care of your wayward grandfather, I’ll make time for you. Your dad will too.” She pulled back. “Yes?”
I gave her a feeble nod.
Mum released me, and her expression turned serious. “Now, let me go pack.” She marched to her bedroom.
I stood in a daze, knowing Grandpa John would be angry with me, but also believing I’d done the right thing by telling Mum.
I dropped into the nearest armchair with a heavy sigh, closed my eyes, and vowed to sleep for days. Starting, I yawned, now . . .
* * *
Two weeks later, after spending the interim time snoozing—or biting my nails and worrying about explaining my reckless CodeX adventure to Grandpa John—the day came when I opened the front door to find Mum pushing my grandfather toward the lodge in a wheelchair. Dad followed, carrying the old guy’s bags.
“I told you I can walk,” Grandpa John grumbled as my mother wheeled him into the sitting room.
I forced an awkward smile, prepared for Grandpa John to be furious with me. “How are you feeling?”
He eyed me. “They changed the oil, checked the spark plugs, inflated the tyres, and signed me off for another twenty years.”
I nodded. “That’s good to hear.”
Mum hugged Grandpa John and left for work, vowing to be home earlier than usual—which, to be fair, she had been recently.
I tensed under my grandfather’s glare as Dad dropped the bags into his bedroom and left for work too.
No sooner had the door closed than Grandpa John wheeled himself into the kitchen. “Get in here, boy.”
I eyed the front door, considering making a break for it—Leonardo Cooper, the Colorado fugitive—but sighed and, head bowed like a condemned man, traipsed in after him.
Grandpa John sat on the far side of the table and thrust a finger at the seat opposite.
Interrogation time.
I dawdled, made us hot drinks, then lowered myself into the chair, unable to put it off any longer.
“Explain.”
I’d run through this conversation a million times over, so I took a deep breath and did as he asked. I confessed to finding the crystal key in the clock, going into his room, and returning to the CodeX game world.
When I got to the part about the safeties being switched off and showed Grandpa John the remnants of my scratches and bruises, his eyes bulged from their sockets. I worried his recently-fixed heart might not bear the strain, but he pressed his lips together and let me continue.
And so, I did. It took over an hour to explain everything, including the part where the CodeX booted me out, then allowed me to return with the grav module.
When I got to boarding the Leviathan, meeting the admiral, and who she turned out to be, the words threatened to stick in my throat, but I got there.
Tears flowed down my grandfather’s cheeks. “Do you know what this means?” He looked up at me. “I was right. I knew Alice was in there.” He paused. “Where is she?” He noticed my expression, and his face fell again.
I did the only thing I could. I told him, with a heavy heart, everything Grandma Alice had said to me, and how she’d refused to return to our real world.
Grandpa John shook his head. “No. No, she can’t do that.”
“I tried everything.” The cold feeling in the pit of my stomach grew. “She wouldn’t come back. Wouldn’t explain why. Rejected every argument. She made out she had something important to do. Something more important than us.”
Grandpa John set his jaw. “And what’s that?”
“I don’t know, but she wanted me to go on a mission to recover a Class One artifact from the Ancampi world.”
“Get the CodeX.”
“Grandpa John, I—”
“Get it,” he said. “Now.”
I hesitated, then headed off to my bedroom. When I returned, I slid the CodeX over to him.
Grandpa John rested his hands on top, staring at the new diamond symbol, his brow furrowed. “You did well, Leo.” He looked up at me. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
“Why do you have all those games?” I said. “How have you had time to play them?”
“The first few times I went into the CodeX, I failed,” Grandpa John said. “Sometimes within just a few minutes.”
I nodded, remembering the stasis coffin.
“I’m no good at games,” Grandpa John continued. “So I bought a few to practise between writing in the CodeX. They helped a little, and as the downtime increased, I—”
“Downtime increased?” I repeated. “Why?”
Grandpa John shrugged. “The CodeX refuses to let me back
in sometimes, despite writing down what happened. The gaps keep getting bigger. I assumed it thought I needed to practise, so that’s why I bought more and more games.” He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Leo; I used you. The CodeX hasn’t let me in for months. I was curious to see if you could help, and you did.”
“Why not Mum and Dad?” I said. “Why didn’t you give them the CodeX and the crystal key? Why keep it a secret?”
“I don’t like keeping it from your parents,” Grandpa John murmured. “The CodeX is more complex than you know, but now is not the time for the truth. Not yet.”
“Why me, though?” I persisted.
“You’re a kid. Naturally good at games.”
I snorted. “I’m rubbish at them. I don’t even have a console.”
Grandpa cocked a bushy caterpillar brow at me. “The CodeX sees something in you, or it wouldn’t let you in at all.”
“You left the video diary out deliberately, didn’t you?” I folded my arms. “You wanted me to find out what happened. You could’ve just told me about Grandma Alice, you know?”
Grandpa John didn’t respond, and I had a feeling there might be more behind his actions.
“I’m glad you weren’t seriously hurt,” he said finally. “I would never have forgiven myself if—”
“But I failed,” I interrupted, not understanding why he wasn’t angrier.
“You found her, Leo.” Grandpa John shook his head. “I couldn’t do that in forty years of trying. The CodeX kept us apart.” His expression softened. “You were incredible. What you went through, what you risked, what you achieved. There’s something special about you. . .” He straightened up. “Now.” Grandpa John slid the CodeX back to me, pulled a pen from his inside jacket pocket, and handed it over. “Write what happened.” He balled his fists. “Once you’re finished, I’m going in myself. It should let me back in now.”
“You’re not well,” I said.
He fixed me with a hard stare. “I’m bringing her home, Leo. Whether she likes it or not.” He bared his teeth. “I’ll drag her out if I have to.”
I tried to imagine everything he’d been through. Forty years . . .
Grandpa John had a right to go back into the CodeX game, to see his wife and get answers, and I needed to do all I could to make that happen for him.
I thought of my new friends—Eve, Mason, Skylar, and Kelvin. Even though I’d only known them a short while, I missed them. A lot. Grandma Alice too. I wanted to understand her real reasons for staying, and there was so much to see and learn about the Bluestone universe.
“I’ll go back in with you,” I said.
Grandpa John shook his head.
“We’re family.” Thinking of how my friends would help my grandfather and me to reach Alice again, I stood, determined. “This will take a while.”
Grandpa John raised a bushy eyebrow at me. “Where are you going?”
“To get comfortable.”
In the sitting room, I dropped into a chair by the fire, Milo snoring at my feet like a defective, fluffy trombone, and closed my eyes.
I pictured my friends—Eve, Mason, Skylar, and Kelvin—and the Last Horizon. As soon as I was finished helping Grandpa John, we’d go on adventures.
I opened my eyes, and my face fell.
Wait . . .
Milo.
She knew.
I sat bolt upright.
Grandma Alice had said, “Your mother, father, and Milo are your family.”
How did she know about Milo?
Then realisation sank in.
She comes here. Grandma Alice visits. And if she knows Milo, she’s been to the lodge within the last few weeks.
Wow.
But why hasn’t she shown herself?
Wanting answers, a flood of renewed determination flowed through me. I turned to the CodeX’s first page and began to write.
I thought I’d be at least twenty years old before I met an alien. So you can imagine my surprise when two days after my sixteenth birthday, not only had I seen several, but my first physical encounter started with a cyborg attempting to tear my head off and throw me out of an airlock . . .
BOOK TWO AND BEYOND
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BOOK TWO
in the Game Space series:
STAR QUEST
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GAME SPACE - Full Novel Page 27
