Gamers Con: The First Zak Steepleman Novel

by Dave Bakers

  I heard a couple of mumbled remarks but couldn’t make out any of the distinct words.

  I knew that the gamers wanted to get on with the Second Round . . . and, perhaps even more important to them, they wanted to see if I was going to be able to continue.

  For them, if I was to drop out now, it would mean one less competitor for them.

  One less that they’d have to beat.

  I couldn’t blame them, I would’ve felt the same.

  That’s just how pro-gaming goes.

  I brought my left wrist around another rotation, experimenting with the pain.

  Again, it was almost too much to bear.

  But, when Harold opened his mouth to ask me the question I knew he was going to ask, I knew already how I was going to respond.

  “You think you can play?” Harold said.

  “Yeah,” I said, still gritting my teeth, “I’ll be fine.

  22

  AS IT TURNED OUT, I probably would’ve been fine if I hadn’t rushed all the way to the Second Round.

  Because the format of this particular stage was going to be a simple two-versus-two knockout.

  It was sorted alphabetically by first name, and since ‘Zak’ has a habit of ending up near the bottom of any self-respecting list—surprise, surprise—that was just what happened.

  Not that I minded, though.

  It meant that I could take some time to recover.

  Give myself a chance to get some sort of a grip on my pain.

  Within our group of players, there was a pair of knockout tournaments.

  Thirty-two players in all.

  Two trees with sixteen players each.

  The top two players—the winners of each tree—would go through to the quarter finals.

  The last eight of the Grand Tournament.

  This, I could already see, was going to be somewhat brutal.

  I couldn’t help glancing along the lists of names, looking for just where Chung Wen would feature in all of this and seeing that he was off in the other tree.

  We wouldn’t need to play one another to get into the quarter finals.

  For some reason, I took some sort of solace from that.

  And I wondered just what I was really afraid of with him.

  Because, if I really wanted a good shot of taking the trophy then, surely, I’d have to get my head around playing him at some point . . . then again, I guess that I should’ve been somewhat happy at being able to put it off till the last possible moment.

  The Second Round—it turned out—would feature a variety of fighting games.

  Like the First Round, it would be a blind competition, meaning that we would have no idea what game exactly we’d be playing before the title card popped up on the screen.

  The way it worked was that the players waiting to play had to sit on a whole bunch of sofas while; behind a black, velvet curtain, the games all took place.

  From where I sat, I could look up and see my dad sitting in the spectator seats, on the front row.

  He was, true to form, tapping away at his mobile on his chess app again.

  When he finally spotted me, he gave me a smile and a wave.

  Actually looking away from the screen of his mobile for a couple of seconds.

  The spectator seats were about three-quarters full in all, and there must’ve been a good hundred or so people watching us play.

  That was just a little nerve-wracking.

  The way the stage was arranged, the spectators could look down on either side of the black velvet curtain—so they could see both the players waiting, like I was, on the sofas, and then the other side where the players were duking it out on the screens there.

  I could hear the mashing of buttons from where I sat, and the occasional curse under somebody’s breath as they apparently got beaten.

  Harold stood on our side of the curtain, apparently making sure that none of the returning—victorious—players would chatter away at us, let us know just which fighting games were coming up.

  I guessed there was another invigilator on the other side of the curtain, equally ensuring fair play between the gamers.

  My first opponent was a forty-something man who was stick-thin . . . almost as thin as our invigilator Harold.

  I knew that he was my opponent, of course, because he was the only one who hadn’t shifted off to the other side of the curtain to play yet.

  And, as I mentioned, I was the last player of all to get the chance to play.

  My opponent wore a pair of those purple-tinted glasses that I remember some teacher, sometime, someplace, saying were for dyslexia . . . or had it been ADHD, something like that?

  . . . Or maybe he was just trying to be cool by wearing colour-tinted sunglasses inside.

  Whatever.

  Anyway, as I took up my seat on the sofa, on the other side of the curtain, the last to play for the first stage of the Second Round, I lifted up the gamepad and felt all the muscles of my left wrist tug tight.

  Pain seared its way up my arm.

  So intense that I was sure—just for a second—that I was going to faint from it.

  When I slipped my opponent a sidelong glance, I saw him notice my flinch at the pain in my wrist. But I couldn’t afford to let him get the mental advantage. Couldn’t let him think that I was weak . . . I wasn’t the best at fighting games, as it was, so I knew that I couldn’t allow him any other sort of advantage.

  If I lost against him then I would be going out of the competition.

  On my backside.

  I looked back over my shoulder to Steve—who it turned out was on this side of the curtain making sure we didn’t get up to any cheating—and I wondered what he might say to me asking for an icepack, maybe something to help with the large, red bulge that had sprung up on the outside of my left wrist.

  But, I guessed, I’d have to get it seen to later.

  After I’d finished up this game with my opponent.

  Whether or not I went through.

  And so, teeth clenched tight, I turned my attention to the screen, and the first challenge.

  23

  AN ONSCREEN MESSAGE gave us some quick instructions.

  That there would be three stages.

  Three different games.

  The player who won the most stages would go through.

  I gripped the gamepad tighter with my right hand because I was slightly afraid that if I pressed a little too hard with my left I might drop it out of pain.

  I had to concentrate now.

  Had to stay one-hundred-per-cent focussed.

  I knew my opponent would be.

  The first game which popped up on the screen was Hearts of Fire 6.

  I couldn’t help but smile to myself when I saw it.

  Though I’ve never been one for beat ’em ups, it was far and away the fighting game that I’d played most of in my bedroom back home.

  In fact, I even had a high score in Gamers Gold: the gaming magazine I subscribe to.

  It would’ve been nice to have had a choice of character before being thrown into the thick of things, but, all things considered, I was fairly happy with the level-playing field the organisers had struck.

  I was Carol—this massively muscular, weight-lifting woman with a ridiculously tight bodysuit. Among her special abilities, she had these knuckledusters which could take down a character twice her size with ease.

  My opponent got given Flooreem: a yoga-instructor-type, bald guy who looked like he must’ve been seventy or so . . . but that was just a show, because, as I well knew from completing the single-player mode many times over, he could pull a surprise when you least expected it . . . one of those death-grip karate chops of his to the back of the neck which could easily drain half your health.

  I kept my left wrist as still as possible.

  Only moving my thumb on the directional stick.

  Guiding Carol about the three-dimensional platform which was set in the middle of a jungle.

  We did
battle on a rope bridge which had a nasty habit of swinging side to side, showing off the distant ravine far below.

  Tapping away with my right fingers so that I would dodge all of Flooreem’s blows.

  Right when I got Flooreem where I needed him, I pummelled him mercilessly.

  Another two rounds later, and I’d won Hearts of Fire 6.

  I only needed to win the next stage to beat my opponent.

  When I glanced at my opponent, to see how he had reacted to my victory, I saw that he was stone-faced, just as stone-faced as he’d been right from the start.

  Maybe he knew something I didn’t because when the next game flashed up on screen, Mounted Warriors, he appeared to know just what he was doing.

  Mounted Warriors is a fantasy-style beat ’em up, and the main hook is that all the characters—all the fighters—are mounted on various fantasy creatures.

  Lucky me, I got a dragon, while my opponent got a unicorn.

  But that wasn’t enough for him not to grind me into the dirt.

  It was over before I even knew what was happening, and we were tied going into the final stage of our matchup.

  I looked back over my shoulder to Steve, maybe half thinking of staging an appeal.

  I got the sense that something wasn’t right here.

  That maybe my opponent cheated in some way . . . gone about beating me with a less-than-fair method.

  The way my opponent had just dominated the entirety of Mounted Warriors seemed off to me . . . but before I had another second to think, the next game was flashing up on screen.

  What might, perhaps, be the last game I got to play in the Grand Tournament.

  At Gamers Con.

  Would I be going out of the Second Round just like I had the year before?

  Only one way to see.

  For the last game, something happened that almost never does.

  It was a game I’d never played before.

  Hardened Voyage.

  It caught me completely by surprise.

  Of course I’d heard of it . . . but, for some reason, as sometimes happens, I’d never actually got around to picking up a copy and having a bash at it.

  I studied my opponent briefly, tried to work out whether or not he was glad at this choice of game, and then I looked back to Steve.

  Then I flushed all other thoughts from my mind—the pain in my wrist—and told myself to just focus and do the best I possibly could.

  The game wasn’t really a beat ’em up per se, it was more of a role-playing game . . . or, at least, that was what I’d understood from the stuff that I’d read . . . but the stage that had been handpicked for me and my opponent to do battle was certainly familiar to a fighting game.

  We were positioned on the top of an airship—floating through puffy clouds.

  We were wearing sort of nineteenth-century outfits, and I realised that it was maybe a steampunk-themed game.

  I appeared to have a sword—my opponent a whip, and I got the feeling that this fight was going to be over before I started.

  How wrong I was.

  My opponent skipped around me, dealing damage all over the place, and I could only sit back and do my best to block before—inevitably—getting myself knocked out.

  I breathed in deep, tried to put the fiery sensation pounding through my left wrist out of my mind once more.

  I knew that there was no room for error.

  I had to win the next round, else I would be heading out of the Grand Tournament.

  And coming here—to Gamers Con—would’ve just been one great, big waste of time.

  For some reason, as the stage was resetting for what might very well have been my final stab at a game in the tournament, I glanced upwards, to Dad.

  I saw that he sensed something was up.

  He stood, leaned over the railing of the spectators’ platform and his expression was all screwed up, his eyes not much more than slits, as he peered on out from beneath the lenses of his glasses.

  He’d brought me here so that I could show him what I could do.

  That I was truly exceptional at what I did.

  Now it was my chance to prove him right.

  To repay all those times that he’d either forked out money to help me along the way, or given up his time—like now—to indulge me, bring me down to Gamers Con, and other conventions like it, other tournaments.

  This, the Grand Tournament, was the big one.

  And I could prove so much to him if only I could win.

  I gripped the gamepad tighter still, now not caring at all about the pain. I latched onto the gameplay mechanics, somehow managing to stay out of the way of my opponent’s beatings—to keep myself from the edge of the platform, the airship, where he could quite easily knock me to my death.

  And, right when I least expected it, I got my chance.

  My opponent took one step too far, and I swept in, swiping my sword, and sent him barrelling right over the edge of the airship.

  Down through the clouds.

  And out of sight.

  . . . Gone forever . . . or so it seemed.

  I blinked myself back, got myself ready for the final round of our fight.

  Slipped my opponent a sidelong glance.

  Saw that he wore a faint smile on his lips.

  Was he smiling because he knew that I’d got lucky?

  That I had no practice at this game?

  . . . And that I wouldn’t get so lucky a second time?

  There was only one way to see.

  The next foray was by far the hardest-fought, the two of us going toe-to-toe with our avatars, neither of us coming within so much as a step from the edge of the airship.

  We dealt each other a ton of damage, up till the point that both of us were sitting right on the brink.

  I knew that just a lash from his whip, or a thrust from my sword, would be all that it would take to finish off our melee, and to send one or the other of us through to the next round.

  And that was when a very strange thing happened.

  My opponent, he suddenly, and without explanation, mumbled out of the corner of his mouth, “Left. Right. Down. Press A . . . then hit me.”

  For a couple of seconds I was sure that I hadn’t heard anything at all.

  And then I noticed his character strafe to the side, then back, just far enough.

  I didn’t waste time—didn’t think about what he’d said.

  With a thrust from my sword, I sent my opponent tumbling right over the edge, freefalling through the clouds, and down to the distant ground below.

  That was it.

  I’d won.

  I was through to the next round.

  24

  THE FEELING WAS STRANGE.

  Normally, when I win, I feel this kind of squeezing feeling in my gut.

  Then this great, bubbling sensation that seems to pass through my blood.

  It gives me some new level of energy I never imagined I had.

  Now, though, all I felt was empty.

  Empty and cold.

  Because I knew what had happened—what had taken place in our game.

  It had caught me totally off guard.

  My opponent had had me sewn up.

  One-hundred-per-cent.

  No question about it.

  He could have easily finished me off at any time.

  But he chose not to.

  He chose to let me win.

  He gave me that move.

  I hardly had a chance to think before my opponent was extending his hand, and I was taking it off him, and shaking it.

  And then, just like that, he was beating a retreat, heading away from here.

  Slipping out of the arena.

  Still sitting on the sofa, the gamepad in my hands, the pain in my wrist now reduced to a dull throb, I looked back to Steve, the invigilator for Round Two.

  I didn’t need to say anything.

  After all, Steve was a gamer, just like me.

  Both of us knew w
hat had gone on here.

  But, instead of saying anything, he just flashed his eyebrows, and then scrawled something down on his clipboard.

  I felt totally puzzled as I headed on back to the waiting area—off to await my position in the last eight of Round Two.

  * * *

  It was a strange atmosphere—just like at all video-game competitions.

  Though everybody waiting to play their next matchup was sitting about in close proximity, nobody at all was speaking.

  It was odd to feel alone with the pounding pain in my wrist. All I could really do was stare at the bright-red welt forming there, and try to will it to go away.

  A couple of times, I looked back up to my dad, now sitting back in his seat, tapping away at his mobile, wrapped up in his chess match again.

  I couldn’t blame him.

  It wasn’t exactly a thrilling spectator sport if you didn’t know what was going on.

  I got through the next two rounds with three-zero victories.

  I held my own in the first two games, and then used the tip which my first opponent had slipped me when Hardened Voyage rolled around.

  So then it was off to the final.

  I faced off with another thirteen-year-old kid, where I did just the same.

  No sweat.

  Not at all.

  In fact, I finished them all off in such record time—booked my place in the quarter finals so fast—that I was able to go around the back of the curtain and watch the final stages of the matchup between Chung Wen and another competitor.

  Almost on instinct, I spun around, gazed on up to the spectators, and picked out Chung’s mum sitting there.

  Unlike my dad, she was sitting on the very edge of her seat, hands clasped in her lap, staring intently at her son, watching how well he was doing.

  When I turned my attention back to the screen, I saw that they’d just started into Hardened Voyage . . . and, surprisingly, that Chung seemed to be having just the same trouble getting to grips with it as I had.

  That was to say that he kept on taking minor blows from the other competitor, who was gradually chipping away at his damage meter.

  And then Chung did something which near enough took my breath away.