Gamer (Gamer Trilogy)

by Christopher Skliros

  ‘It wasn’t entirely all for nothing, however,’ Lily said. ‘I

  managed to gather how she made all of, this.’

  A sequence of mental images flashed through my mind, Grace choking Lily, Grace running so fast that there were two of her, Grace vibrating on the spot while casting an illusion of the building and then bringing it to life, Grace’s wand then conjuring an image of… me? Focusing more closely, I realised it was an image of me receiving a Citizens Award a couple of years back, an award I might not have deserved, but all the same, an entirely random memory. And then Grace disappeared into the image.

  I watched from Grace’s perspective as she created the illusion of the army and then burst into the clearing, having us surrounded. I listened to her thoughts as – she was playing Victor. I watched myself, clinging to Victor with fear, my face buried in his shoulder – and then watched as he shot Grace a lovesick expression. Grace winked back, thinking how easy Victor was to manipulate.

  Fast forward and then I was here but still there was more. I watched as Grace cast an image of B3ast and summoned him to her. He was battered and bruised but clearly, for some reason, thought he was still fighting. Grace did something to him and he slumped at the entrance of the building. His body was transported to one of the cells.

  Grace was unstoppable.

  ‘She uses her wand to make fake images and then somehow uses her extremespeed to make themreal,’ Lily said. ‘Like this building.’

  This mental communication thing was so exposing. It opened up a whole new arena of potential exploitation, the ability to drive people insane by manipulating them from the inside, maybe you could even take control of someone…

  But I thought about what this meant. Grace’s powers literally extended as far as her imagination – in which case we had no hope in making this out alive. And that was dangerous in itself – what happened when you died in Simulator when you were trapped?

  There was a dragging sound from the cell across from me.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Lily’s voice chided, ‘that’s just B3ast.’

  B3ast. I remember coming into Simulator thinking that he would be the biggest threat. I hadn’t seen or even heard from him up until now and I questioned whether or not I was flawed in my original ideas.

  Lily’s voice sounded in my mind again, ‘don’t

  underestimate him. He’s powerful.’

  This mental communication thing was also kind of convenient.

  Waiting for B3ast to completely wake up, I crossed my legs, trying to find a comfortable position. As I did so, my hair fell in front of my face – so gross.

  My mind briefly flashed to Kaltimore at Edge Designs – I would be lucky to make it out of here alive, let alone win the Omega.

  My heart rate instinctively increased at the mention of the award. I wondered if I had any chance at all…

  Another dragging sound echoed through the hall and then another and another and I realised that B3ast was trying to walk around with the weights attached to his legs.

  I wondered momentarily if B3ast could still use his powers to escape. On the one hand, Lily could still use her powers of, well, telepathy, down here but before, when Victor had arrived, he hadn’t been able to teleport away.

  Somehow, Grace had blocked his power and yet for some reason hadn’t blocked Lily’s.

  “Hello,” B3ast called out, “is there anybody there?”

  I thought it could be a significant advantage if he didn’t know we were here and if either of us managed to escape, it would be one less person we would have to set free. However, if he didn’t know we were here and he escaped… ‘I think we should tell himwe’re here,’Lily’svoice echoed in my mind.

  Okay.

  “B3ast,” I called out, “I’m here and so is Lily.”

  Another shuffle.

  “Who are you?” he called back.

  “I’m Stefanie,” my voice sounded so tired.

  “Oh…” he said.

  Silence. Awkward silence. For some reason or other I was clearly not the person he wanted to see but it didn’t bother me, he wasn’t exactly my first choice either.

  “How did you get here?” I asked. Even though I saw Grace conjure him, I wanted to know what he had been doing before that.

  “Grace brought me here,” was his only response.

  “We know that,” I heard Lily’s actual voice for the first time, “but what were you doing before that?”

  Silence.

  Lily’s laugh sounded in my head. ‘All you had to do was get

  himto think about it.’

  A series of images that Lily had taken from B3ast’s mind, flashed through my head.

  B3ast had been with Xander. They were walking through the forest but B3ast decided to attack Xander and slowed down walking for a moment. When Xander turned around, B3ast launched a hail of rocks at his face, then turned the ground beneath Xander into quicksand and solidified it back into dirt.

  Xander had somehow deflected the rocks but was now stuck, ankle-deep, in solid dirt. It was all he could do to stand upright. But then B3ast went rigid.

  Something Xander was doing had caused B3ast to freeze and there was a sudden rush of adrenaline from B3ast, as Xander’s voice sounded in his head.

  Before I could make out what it meant, Xander

  telekinetically launched a fallen glass tree branch at him. Just as it began to hit, B3ast disappeared – and reappeared on the marble steps of the building we were in now – facing Grace. He was sent down to the jail and only just woke up.

  Lily’s power was invaluable, thanks.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she responded.

  And then I thought of Xander. Xander, who had supposedly attacked me, incapacitated me and caused Victor to teleport into that damn meadow where Grace had cornered us. I had really liked Xander, I had considered

  “It wasn’t him,” Lily said aloud.

  “What?” I called out into the darkness.

  Lily reverted to mental speech, clearly with the intent of keeping B3ast in the dark. Hah, pun. Lily’s mental eye-roll reached me. ‘ Well Victor had been in it with Grace the

  entire time. They plotted fromthe beginning to take you

  out. Fromwhat I understood fromGrace’s thoughts, Victor

  couldn’t kill you himself but took advantage of his affair with

  Grace to get you out of the picture. When he got cold feet,

  he made sure you were only made unconscious.’

  “Why?” was all I could manage to say.

  I heard Lily take in a big breath. ‘Because he was jealous of Xander and wanted you to hate him.’

  “What?! That’s crazy!” I yelled into the darkness. “But it worked, didn’t it.” Lily hadn’t asked it as a question

  but instead said it like a statement. I observed that her mental voice and actual voice were identical. I felt guilty. “Oh god, so now Xander thinks that next time I see him I’m going to try and kill him. Which means he’s going to-”

  Lily’s presence entered my mind again and calmed me down.

  ‘We’ll think about it when we get there, now let’s just try to

  find a way out of here.’

  “How is it,” I spoke aloud, “that Grace was able to block Victor’s power and assumedly is blocking B3ast’s power,” I figured if B3ast could use his powers, he would be long gone by now, “and yet cannot block yours?”

  Lily and B3ast answered my question in sync, “Because she doesn’t know what it is.”

  “Oh,” was my only response.

  I stood up again to start searching for some kind of escape. Any grates, gaps, windows, anything whatsoever. Likewise, Lily was doing the same.

  After several minutes of searching, I gave up.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  Lily’s voice echoed the same response.

  I sat on the floor of my cell, frustrated at everything. Victor had played me, Grace was a cow, Lily had been tortured, B3ast was incapac
itated and Xander was innocent after all.

  Nobody should have the right to be able to imprison me like this.

  Nobody in Simulator was even close in status to me. I was going to be a super-model. A super-model.

  Grace was a pathetic cheater and Victor and her deserved each other.

  B3ast was just as weak, a coward behind his own powers. I wouldn’t be too fussed if he died.

  Lily and Xander were the only two people who hadn’t managed to do anything wrong as of yet. Xander was slowly going crazy though, if I didn’t get to him soon enough – to tell him it was okay, that I knew it wasn’t him – he’d be too far gone on his power bend to recover.

  Being bullied by Victor, losing me, nearly dying fighting Grace, having B3ast in his grasp and then watching him disappear, Victor now going after him and anything else inbetween, it was a miracle that he still had any ounce of feeling left to him.

  But now this game was making me angry. I was being held against my own will, trapped by the wants of a little, albeit sadistic, girl and I knew that I was so much better than this.

  The anger only intensified and although it was irrational, I just wanted to lash out at everything and everyone around me.

  I started to feel hot, as if the anger was literally giving me a fever and even then, this just made me angrier.

  I wished Grace was dead.

  Suddenly my skin erupted in flames, I yelled out, but it was too late.

  The lights in the hallway were on and Grace appeared. I needed to put the fire out or do something to make myself unnoticed before she blocked my power.

  Seeing her, however, just intensified my anger and without even thinking, the red and yellow flames leaping around my body, became blue and then invisible.

  Invisible.

  Grace couldn’t see me.

  I crouched in anticipation, waiting for her to discover I was missing. As she saw Lily and then B3ast, she turned to face my cell. I crouched in one of the corners, just in case. But suddenly, without rationality, I just launched myself at her.

  My manacles and chain-ball had long since melted off and I was fearless. I decided that I’d rather risk death than stay here, waiting for Grace to decide when it was time.

  She didn’t even see me coming.

  I sliced clean through the cell bars and watched as she was swept off her feet. She crashed into B3ast’s cage and slumped to the ground. She didn’t move.

  Taking the opportunity, I took her wand out of her hand and focussed my rage specifically at it.

  I was met with a satisfying hissing sound and then watched as the narrow strip of wood turned to ash.

  That was that problem sorted.

  Before Simulator, I might’ve thought I was good looking but now I was hot in more ways than one. I heard Lily groan at my terrible joke.

  Realising I had limited time, I melted through the bars of Lily’s prison cell. Sensing my thoughts, she found me, grabbed my hand and also became engulfed in my invisibility. I already seemed to have an element of control over this flame – but I couldn’t keep it up forever, I could feel myself begin to weaken.

  “What about me?” B3ast called out as Lily and I began to run for the exit.

  I paused, briefly considering the dangers.

  If I set him free, he’d potentially become a bigger risk than Grace was. If I didn’t set him free, he’d be after me with a vengeance.

  Darting back quickly, I slashed through the bars of his prison, kicking Grace in the ribs while doing so and then returning to Lily to continue on our escape.

  My eyes met with B3ast’s and it went unspoken that he was in debt to me; he nodded a gesture of gratitude.

  “I’m going to try find my computer, so don’t wait up or anything…?” B3ast awkwardly trailed off.

  “Yeah,” I said in an undertone to Lily, “we weren’t going to anyway.”

  We raced up the marble staircase that seemed to be leading out of the underground prison but we realised something was wrong when the stairs continued to reach infinitely higher.

  Looking to Lily, I realised she had noticed the same thing.

  “Did you see any doors that led out of this staircase back there?” I asked her.

  “No,” she sounded anxious, “none.”

  With no other choice we continued our ascent.

  Suddenly there was a screech behind us.

  “MY WAAANDD! I’M GOING TO GET YOU ALL!”

  A gust of wind suddenly blew up the staircase and what sounded like rocks bashing against metal echoed past us.

  “HOW DARE YOU! B3AST, YOU ARE NO MATCH FOR ME!”

  There were more yells, Grace still screeching curses. She was obviously awake and B3ast hadn’t managed to get far enough away. We didn’t have much time.

  With a renewed sense of urgency, Lily and I bolted to the top of what felt like a never-ending staircase. We finally reached it. Silence.

  We were standing in a circular-stone room, lit with flaming torches that were perched in metal brackets inlaid in the wall. There was an opening through which daylight streamed.

  I went over to what I thought was a door.

  I whimpered, “Impossible.”

  Lily had processed my thoughts before she even came over to look herself.

  Our eyes met, both relaying fear to one another. It was a window, so high above the ground that to jump would be suicide.

  Lily, without a second thought, climbed up onto the ledge.

  “LILY NO!” I yelled out. She was going to kill herself. Her only response was to reach out her hand to me. To take it would be spelling out my death.

  A shriek of triumph sounded behind me. Grace had arrived and was evidently satisfied.

  Death or Grace, death or Grace.

  I took Lily’s hand and climbed up onto the window ledge.

  A look of pure delight crossed over Grace’s face as she realised we were going to willingly kill ourselves.

  I looked to Lily.

  “Trust me,” was all she said.

  She jumped, I followed.

  16

  TECH * * *

  INTERVIEWER: “So you shut off the Simulator, with the intention of sending the entire operation underground. You wanted the children to die.”

  I saw what the reporter was doing. They needed a villain, someone to blame, someone to point out to the world as the scapegoat. I wouldn’t have it.

  I was painfully aware of Xander’s piercing gaze. MYSELF: “If you’re going to make assumptions,” I began with a tone of harshness, “and tell me statements rather than ask me questions – I might as well let you write out this interview yourself, questions and answers. I suggest you rephrase those statements, so that they at least attempt to demonstrate the little credibility that you hold right now.”

  The interviewer flushed, reshuffled her notes, coughed and then flashed a typical bright smile.

  “Why is it, that you could justify pulling the plug on your project, even if it meant sacrificing the lives of six children? – three of which are not here today, potentially because of this decision.”

  It was my turn to squirm and I repositioned myself in my seat.

  “Well… I-“

  INTERVIEWER: “Why don’t you just continue on from where you left off,” the interviewer continued – and as if intentionally seeking vengeance for my remarks on her credibility –“and attempt to justify your apathetic brutality.” The reporter smiled at the camera, “Don’t leave your seats, ladies and gentlemen, because if you think things have been exciting up until now – you’re about to be blown away.”

  The camera lens adjusted its focus and the room became enveloped in an expectant silence…

  * * * As soon as I had pulled the plug, I began to plan for every possible scenario – the most prominent being them not coming out.

  I had 1, 2 and 3 all working at the computers, trying to rebuild the timer file that B3ast deleted, as well as correct the other editions he made.

  I figu
red that if I could fix the programming errors, then there was no reason they couldn’t get out. However now I’d shot myself in the foot by pulling the plug without thinking I had to fix the damage before Simulator ran out of time – 3 hours of time, in fact.

  I knew this code inside and out – I’d spent more years of my life writing it than not but B3ast had done so much damage in so little time.

  Interestingly enough, I hadn’t designed the features that allowed him to hack the system in the first place. Playing back the times during which he accessed the code, he had connected through some wireless connection named B3AST – not something that I designed.

  Somehow, somebody had gotten to my code and now that I thought about it, it became clear that someone was out to get me from the very start. Before these kids even went inside.

  Obviously the biggest suspects were the other members of the crew – but they were monitored 24/7 and didn’t even have enough sense of individuality to minimise a window without asking for permission.

  And so it had to be somebody else; somebody who had access to MY code and was editing it so that I could fail. Having already sifted through hundreds of hours of video footage, nothing out of the ordinary had occurred near any of the stations through which the code was accessible. Even more frustrating was the fact that the log times of the changes had been hidden and were actually unrecoverable.

  The more I thought about it, the angrier I became – there was no logical explanation for any of this.

  Unless…

  Someone that had been there throughout both trials. Somebody who had a profound knowledge of computer systems. Somebody who could escape camera detection and in fact, internallylog changes. But no, it couldn’t be… It wasn’t someone on the crew – in fact, the culprit was even a person. But how

  “Boss! We've got it. We managed to build back a temporary substitute for our access point into the game. We can start to edit-“

  “Shut up and show me that,” I snapped, sweeping past 1 who had been so excited just a second ago.

  And what I saw confirmed my suspicions.

  “Do you see that?” I asked the members of the team who were present.

  Their eyes filled with amazement and horror at the same time.

  “B-boss,” 2 began, “it’s not u-us… We swear!”