Gamers Con: The First Zak Steepleman Novel

by Dave Bakers

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.

  I looked about, looked for some official to ask.

  One of those people in the dark-purple polo shirts.

  But there was nobody about.

  I looked to Dad, eyes wide, panicked out of my mind.

  He looked just as stumped by the sign as I was.

  . . . And then I remembered the All-Access Pass which hung around my neck.

  The pass which meant just what it said . . . All-Access . . .

  I took a look at the sign before me, glanced about, and then I shifted on past it.

  I thought that I could hear my dad saying something—him calling out to me—but there wasn’t time.

  When I caught sight of a clock up on the wall, I saw that it was already eight twenty.

  I was already twenty minutes late.

  I rushed onwards, tripping over a couple of the bases of the poles which carried the flexible tape to mark out the queue.

  I’m pretty sure that I ducked under the tape a few times too.

  I only had eyes for the opening out ahead.

  The opening which, I knew, led to the concourse where the rest of my group would be meeting up for the Second Round.

  Finally, I reached the gap, peered through it, saw the group of people—gamers—streaming off following after a purple-shirt.

  They were down a level.

  I needed to head along a downward-sloping ramp to reach them.

  I ploughed onwards, not caring about where I was putting my feet now.

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  Just a little.

  Because I knew that I was going to catch them up.

  And maybe that was my mistake—thinking that I’d done it—perhaps that was the reason why I’d stopped thinking about where I was putting my feet and I felt my toes smash into something solid, felt myself hurtling through the air, tumbling over and over, seemingly without stopping.

  And landing on the hard—hard—floor with a sickening thump.

  21

  I THINK, for a couple of moments at least, I might’ve blacked out.

  When I found myself on the ground, just about every single one of my big bones cried out in pain.

  I held my eyes shut.

  I could hear voices all around me.

  People calling for help.

  Stuff like that.

  And then there was a voice.

  A solitary voice . . . familiar.

  Those strange, echoing, almost booming tones.

  “Zak?”

  Finally, I opened my eyes, blinked away as much of the pain as I could manage . . . and really didn’t make all that good a job of it . . . still, I found myself, bleary-eyed, staring up at the invigilator from the Ignition Tournament . . . my brain flooded like a car engine for a couple of moments, it just wouldn’t turn over . . . what was his name?

  And then it struck me, right as I tried—and failed—to respond to him.

  Harold.

  I took in his features, his spindly body, the way his throat stuck out. And that wispy, weird sort of beard-thing that he had going on his chin.

  And, of course, his dark-purple polo shirt.

  He was crouched over me, a hand supporting him against the hard, well-polished floor. “Zak?” he said again.

  I blinked again and the image before me came just a little clearer.

  I noticed that there were others surrounding him—the other gamers.

  And, for some reason, my brain saw fit to pick out one of the faces in particular.

  The face of the Chinese kid—Chung Wen.

  Chung stood among them, a smudge smaller than the guys in their twenties and thirties.

  He wore a neutral expression. His sleek, black hair was parted to one side. And I wondered—dizzily—if his mother had styled it that way.

  “Zak? Can you hear me?” Harold said, his eyes wide, and mouth remaining latched open in shock even though he had nothing else to say.

  I reached about me. Felt the solid grou
nd with my elbows down at my side.

  Gently, taking extreme care, I attempted to prop myself up.

  Pain flushed right through me.

  It started at my bones and pounded its way up to the surface of my skin where it seemed to be trying to needle its way out.

  I gritted my teeth, told myself not to pay attention to it.

  Harold held out his hand for me to grab.

  I took it off him.

  Together, we hauled my bulk back up onto my feet.

  I stood there for a couple of moments, swaying a little.

  Harold acted fast, seized hold of my forearm so that I wouldn’t topple right the way over.

  Now that I was standing up, I seemed to get at least some sort of control over my senses.

  Or, at least, I found that I was able to somehow zone in on just where the pain was at its worst—at its most intense.

  My left wrist.

  That was where it really ached.

  I also noticed a dull throb at my knee, but that was all.

  As if he’d anticipated my thoughts, Harold said, still gripping tight to my forearm, “You fell on your wrist—as you went over.”

  Not wanting to make any sudden movements because it sent a bone-shattering pain right through me, forced me to grind my teeth, I gradually brought my left arm upwards.

  Brought my left wrist out in front of me.

  It was bright red.

  I breathed in deeply, still aware of all the other gamers staring at me.

  Only now beginning to feel the first flushes of embarrassment.

  With my other hand, I touched the wrist tenderly.

  Pain flurried up to my temples.

  Harold looked to me with a wide-eyed stare. “Can you move it at all?”

  I gritted my teeth, stared at my left wrist as if I might be able to will it not to hurt any more, then I tried to turn my hand.

  The pain was excruciating.

  But I forced myself to get it all the way around.

  Only when I tasted blood in my mouth did I realise that I’d been chomping down so hard from the pain that I’d cut open the inside of my cheek.

  When I breathed in the papery, plastic smell of the convention centre, it seemed almost like it might cut open the insides of my nostrils.