Trapped in a Video Game: Book Three

by Dustin Brady

  Then the lights went out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Suits

  Pitch black. Hovering red eyes. Screeching, roaring and clanking coming from thousands of evil aliens, monsters and robots. If you know of a scarier situation, I’d love to hear it.

  An emergency strobe light flashed, illuminating the still image of tall, skinny robots grabbing my arms and legs and a drone buzzing closer to my face. I kicked my legs. The light flashed again. The drone now had a buzzsaw coming out of its belly. I screamed. The light flashed again. This time, the drone and its buzzsaw were inches from my nose. I squeezed my eyes closed and heard a BZZZZZZZZT!

  “NOT MY NOSE!”

  BZZZT

  It wasn’t my nose. Instead, my left arm dropped free from the grip of one of the robots. I dared to open my eyes, and the strobe light blinked again. Now, instead of the drone coming after me, it seemed to be going after the robot holding my right foot. Pretty soon my right foot fell to the ground. What was going on? The strobe light blinked again, showing the drone buzzing after the third robot. I heard a few scared-sounding beeps and boops; then the other two robots let go. The strobe light flashed again, and I saw all four robots running away. I sat on the ground for a few seconds to catch my breath and noticed that for the first time since this whole thing had started, the screaming computer noise was gone.

  “ATTENTION!” Mr. Gregory shouted into the darkness. “THE POWER IS OFF, SO YOU CAN NOW LEAVE THROUGH THE EXIT. TAKE COVER, TAKE YOUR TIME AND WORK TOGETHER.”

  I saw the exit sign way off in the distance. The strobe light flashed, lighting up a clear path through the room. I took a deep breath and started walking forward. Then the strobe light flashed again, revealing a tall, lanky robot that had just stepped out from behind one of the computer towers. I paused and waited. Another flash. The first robot was joined by another robot, and they were holding something. Another flash — the something seemed to be wiggling.

  “Eric?” I yelled. “ERIC!” No answer.

  One more flash. The robots were gone. I ran to where they’d been and waited for the strobe to flash again. But when it flashed — nothing. I looked down another aisle of computers. Flash. Nothing.

  “ERIC!” I yelled again. No answer.

  Maybe I was seeing things. Maybe Eric had made it out of the room already. I stumbled toward the glowing red exit sign, keeping watch for any robots or cockroaches or —

  “SCREEEEEEECH!”

  The strobe light lit up a praying mantis that had jumped right in my path. It stood on its back legs and screeched at me. Then the lights went off, and I heard a loud BOOF! The next strobe flash revealed my savior — a giant, walking robot with a girl inside.

  “Hurry!” Sam said. “I’ll cover you.”

  I ran the rest of the way to the exit and joined dozens of other kids walking out of the room. We made it safely thanks to Sam and several others who had hopped into robot suits to hold off the enemy horde. When I finally got out of the room, I had to stop and wait a second for my eyes to adjust to the light. Then I found Mark. “Oh good, you’re OK!” I said. “Have you seen Eric?”

  “Not yet.” He squinted in my direction. “Where is this place again?”

  “Bionosoft,” I said. “It’s the company that trapped all of you in video games.”

  “They trapped us? You mean they did it on purpose?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The whole thing is pretty complicated. Bionosoft really didn’t want to anybody to know about it, which is why we had to sneak past all these security guards…”

  My voice trailed off when I looked down the hall. The Bionosoft security guards that I remembered from earlier had been replaced by serious men in suits. These guys looked like they’d come straight from tryouts for the Secret Service. They even wore those earpieces with the spiral wires and everything. All of the suits were busy guiding kids into a long line.

  “Excuse me.” I tapped one of the men on the back. “Have you seen a kid named Eric Conrad? He’s about yay tall, very excitable. He’s wearing a red shirt and…”

  “I’m sorry, but you need to get in line with everyone else.”

  I sighed and looked back down the line. There were a LOT of kids. At that moment, Sam and Mr. Gregory emerged from the room. One of the suits talked to Mr. Gregory for a second, nodded and swiped a key card to close the door.

  “Mr. Gregory!” I yelled.

  He bounded over to me with a smile on his face. “Great news!” he said. “Everybody made it out! It’s a miracle!”

  A wave of relief swept over me. “That’s great! I was so worried about Eric!”

  Mr. Gregory stopped and scrunched up his face. “You know, I actually don’t remember seeing him.”

  “But you just said…”

  “Everyone who was inside a computer made it out. But I could never track you or Eric because you were never in one of the computers.”

  I got panicky again. “So Eric could still be locked in there?”

  Mr. Gregory put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s OK, Jesse,” he said. “There are a lot of kids here. I’m sure Eric is somewhere in the crowd. Why don’t we find him right…”

  “Excuse me.” One of the suits appeared behind Mr. Gregory. “Are you Dr. Alistair Gregory?”

  “I am.”

  “You’re needed this way.”

  “Yes, just as soon as…”

  “Now, please. It’s a matter of national security.”

  “Can you just have someone help this young man find his friend?”

  “Of course.” With that, two suits escorted Mr. Gregory to the elevator. They did not send anyone to help me.

  So then it was up to me to find Eric. Fine. I got out of line. “Eric!” I yelled. “ERIC!”

  Mark joined me. “ERIC!”

  We jogged in and out of the line, shouting Eric’s name. We got through the whole hallway without seeing anyone who looked even remotely like Eric. Before I could check the elevator, one of the suits put his hand on my chest. “You need to get back in line,” he said.

  “My friend is missing!” I said. “He’s still in there! We’ve got to get him!”

  “Everyone is accounted for. Get back in line,” the man said.

  “You don’t understand,” I replied. “He’s not in the system!”

  “YOU don’t understand,” Mr. Suit said. “If you don’t obey, you’ll be arrested for treason against the United States of America.”

  Treason against the United States?! What was this?

  “But…”

  The man held a walkie-talkie up to his mouth and cocked his eyebrow, daring me to make a move. Mark grabbed my arm. “Come on,” he said. “Maybe we missed him.”

  “We didn’t miss him,” I whispered as we walked to the back of the line. “He’s in there. I saw him.”

  “You saw him?!”

  I nodded. “I mean, I’m pretty sure it was him.” I closed my eyes for a second while I walked to replay the scene in my mind and immediately clunked foreheads with another kid. “I’m so sorry!” I said.

  I looked up to see Sam rubbing her head. “I’m fine,” she said. “Everything OK with you?”

  “Our friend is still in there,” I said.

  Sam’s eyes got big. “But they said everyone got out! If I would have known…”

  “I’ve got to get back in there!” I said.

  “But how?” Mark asked. “There’s only one guy with a key card, and he’s for sure not letting anyone back in there.”

  Sam smiled and lowered her voice. “I think I have a way,” she said. Then she pulled a Super Grenade from her pocket.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Level One

  Mark and I lost our minds when we saw the grenade.

  “Relax,” Sam said. She then whispered her plan. I had to admit; it was pretty good.

  “But if you help me get in there, they could arrest you for treason,” I said.

  “What can they do to me? I’m not American.�
�

  “Well, they’ll probably deport you back to England and throw you in jail and…”

  She gave me a disgusted look. “I’m not from Britain, you ning-nong. I’m Australian.”

  “Oh, right,” I said, my face turning red. “Of course, I just…”

  She shook her head and walked away.

  “Wait,” I turned to Mark. “She’s not doing it, is she?”

  Sam opened one of the doors down the hall, looked inside, then moved onto the next one.

  “I think she’s doing it,” Mark said.

  I panicked a little. “I’m not ready yet!”

  Sam opened another door and looked around.

  “If she’s in, I’m in,” Mark said.

  “You can’t!” I whisper-yelled. “You’ve been missing for months! You’ve got to go home!”

  After looking in the room for a second, Sam nodded, removed the glowing ball from her pocket, pressed a button and tossed it inside. She calmly walked back toward us, smiling and counting down with her fingers. Three fingers. Two fingers. One finger. She pointed back at the room.

  BOOM!

  The door blew off its hinges, and the building shook. All the suits drew their guns and ran toward the room. As the one with the key card ran past us, Sam casually reached over and grabbed it from his belt. “Easy peasy,” she said.

  While we walked to the computer room, I tried to talk Sam and Mark out of joining me. “This isn’t safe!” I hissed to Sam.

  “I know!” she wiggled her eyebrows. “Isn’t it thrilling?”

  I turned to Mark. “You can’t come. I — I forbid it.”

  “You forbid it?” Mark asked with a smile.

  “Yes. Forbid.”

  Both Mark and Sam laughed as Sam swiped the key card. I tried to hold them back, but they both pushed into the room, and the door shut behind us. Inside the room, all the laughing stopped. In the dark, surrounded by screeching, howling and roaring, the danger suddenly felt real. The first time the strobe light flashed, I caught my breath. Without anyone to hold them back, the video game characters had torn the place apart. Sam’s robot lay on the ground in front of us in pieces. Behind that, broken computer towers littered the floor. Many of them had been dragged into a pile, forming an impressive mountain. Most of the creatures left in the room were fighting each other on the mountain, trying to win some bizarre game of “King of the Hill.” None of them seemed interested in us.

  Sam picked up a blaster from the ground, and we slowly edged away from the door, hugging the wall behind us. After a few steps, the strobe light flashed again, and we all screamed. A buzzing thing had dropped right in front of our faces. Sam started blasting wildly.

  “Stop!” I yelled. Sam blasted some more. “STOP! I know that thing!” It was the drone from earlier.

  “I do too,” she said. “It’s from the game I was playing!” She blasted some more.

  “I don’t think it’s bad. It helped me earlier,” I said.

  “Yeah, fine,” she said while searching for the drone. “That’s what it’s supposed to do.”

  “Then why are you shooting at it?!”

  “Because it’s the most annoying thing in the world, that’s why!” She saw something move.

  BLAST-BLAST

  “It follows you around everywhere beeping and whistling its stupid songs and getting in your way.”

  BLAST-BLAST-BLAST

  “I’ve spent the last week trying to blow it up in my game, and if I have to deal with it in real life too, I think I might lose it!”

  BLAST-BLAST-

  “HEY!” I said as I pushed her blaster down. “We’re going to need help if we want to find Eric, right? Why don’t we see if it can help us?”

  Silence. The strobe light flashed again, showing Sam glaring angrily like maybe she wanted to turn her blaster on me.

  “That’s it,” I said. Then I called out to the drone. “Hey buddy, we’re not going to hurt you. Can you come out?” Nothing happened. “Buddy? Come on. It’s OK little guy.” Silence.

  Finally, Sam mumbled, “Its name is R.O.G.E.R.”

  “Roger?”

  “Remote Onboarding Guide to Everything Robot,” she grumbled.

  “Roger? Can you help us?”

  A light clicked on behind Sam and slowly peeked up over her shoulder. The drone was looking at me with its camera eye.

  “That’s it, buddy. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  The drone made a cautious whistle, then peeked out a little more. When it got high enough to see the blaster in Sam’s hands, however, it made a noise that sounded just like a scream and ducked back behind her.

  “It’s OK,” I said as I slowly took the blaster from Sam and laid it on the ground. “See? Friends.”

  Roger peeked over again.

  bleepity-bleep?

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s OK.”

  The drone flew out of hiding and perched proudly on Mark’s shoulder. Mark laughed. Sam rolled her eyes.

  “That’s it!” I said. “We’re looking for our friend Eric. Have you seen him? He’s about this tall, he’s wearing a red shirt and he kind of waddles when he runs.”

  The drone stared at me motionless.

  “Does it understand English?” I asked Sam.

  She shrugged. “It definitely doesn’t understand, ‘go away.’”

  I looked around for something to help me communicate with the drone, then I gasped when I saw Eric’s scepter lying on the ground. “This,” I said, picking it up. “Have you seen the kid who belongs to this.”

  Roger stared at the scepter for a few seconds, then did a long, approving whistle.

  beep-bop!

  It started flying across the room, lighting a path with its flashlight and whistling a happy tune. I turned and gave a thumbs up. Sam shook her head. “This is such a bad idea,” she said.

  Roger led us along the edge of the room, being careful to stay away from the melee in the middle. We walked and walked until the exit sign turned into a speck and the noise from King of the Hill grew faint. The strobe lights kept flashing, illuminating row upon row of black computer towers, making it feel like we were walking among tombstones. “Again, this feels like such a bad idea,” Sam said.

  “Yeah,” Mark said. “How will we get back? I don’t want to…”

  Mark’s voice trailed off. Roger had stopped. We all gathered around as Roger pointed his flashlight at the thing we’d come for.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Looks like a hole,” Mark said.

  “Yeah. A big hole. But what is it?”

  Without pausing, Sam climbed into the hole. She turned around. “Level One,” she said. “You coming?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Super Bot World

  “What do you mean Level One?” I shouted to Sam.

  “Come down here, and I’ll show you.”

  Mark was already crawling over the lip of the hole, so I joined him. The hole opened up into a gently sloping tunnel that we could easily walk down. Roger lit our way as we walked further into the tunnel.

  “Stay close,” Sam said.

  Just then, something started rumbling behind us. Mark and I caught up to Sam as the rumbling got louder. Suddenly —

  CRASH!

  The tunnel caved in behind us.

  “What was that?!” I yelped.

  “Stand over there,” Sam said. Mark and I quickly obeyed.

  Three short robots with snapping claws emerged from the dust of the cave-in and started lunging toward us. Sam ran right at them.

  “Sam! No!” I called after her.

  Just before one of the robots could claw her, she jumped onto its head.

  POP!

  It disappeared. She used the momentum from that jump to hop onto the next robot — POP! — and the next. POP! Roger did a victory whistle as Sam walked back to us.

  “Save it,” Sam muttered to Roger as she continued down the tunnel.

  Mark and I stared at her speec
hless. “Do you want to let us know what’s going on yet?” I finally asked.

  “Super Bot World 3,” she said.

  I looked at Mark. He shrugged.

  “Um, what’s Super Bot World 3?” I asked.

  “The bots, the tunnel, the cave-in. This buzzard.” Sam pointed at Roger. “Everything’s from Super Bot World 3. You’ve played Super Bot World 3, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve played no Super Bod Worlds,” Mark said.

  “Super Bod World?” Sam squinted at him.

  “Oh wait, are you saying ‘bot’? Like ‘robot’?” I asked.

  Sam looked at each of us to see if we were joking. “Yeah,” she finally said. “Super Bot,” she made sure to emphasize the t, “World 3. It’s only the biggest game in the world.”

  “Never heard of it,” Mark said.

  “Well, at least it’s the biggest game in Australia. I’ve been trapped inside of it for the last week.”

  Sam stopped at a metal cube lying on the ground and pressed a glowing red button on top of the cube. It transformed inside out around her hand, giving her a giant, metal fist.

  “So you’re saying as soon as these robots got out of their game, they started building it again in the real world?” I asked.

  “Looks like it. This is an exact replica of the first level.”

  “But why?”

  Sam held up her finger for us to wait, and the ground started rumbling. After a second, a crazed robot with gears for eyes popped out of the dirt in front of us. Sam bopped the robot on the head like a whack-a-mole. “They’re bots.” She continued walking as if nothing had happened. “Bots do what they’re programmed to do. If they’re supposed to build complicated levels and kidnap the princess, they’ll do it no matter where they are.”

  “Time out,” I said. “What do you mean…”

  Sam reached around me and punched a robot that had just popped out of the wall on my left.

  “…What do you mean ‘kidnap the princess?’”