A few minutes later I hit the wall on the far side. Scanning both ways, I quickly found a doorway. It was just that simple. It was a double-wide door, which made sense because it would have to be big enough to get the bigger crates through. Before leaving, I took a look back onto the monster space of the warehouse. It was a great place to hide a flume. There must have been a quarter of a mile between this wall and the wall with the gate. It was so loaded with stuff, I couldn’t imagine anybody going all the way to the far side to find anything. It was like the gate and the flume were hidden in plain sight, with no chance of actually being seen. I took a quick check of my bearings to remember which direction to go when I came back, then spun, and pushed open the wide doors to Quillan.
I found myself in a dark room with no windows. No big surprise. This warehouse had to have been underground in order for the flume tunnel to be behind the far wall. The question was, how far underground was I? And where was the music coming from? When my eyes adjusted, I saw that there were several vehicles in the room that looked like forklifts. These would be the lifts they used to move the crates in and out of the warehouse. (Whoever “they” were.) I ran my finger along the seat of one vehicle, leaving a line in the thick dust. These machines hadn’t been used in a long time. Either that, or Quillan was so covered in dust that people had to wear filters over their mouths. Unless they were robots of course. Or spiders.
Scanning the room again, I saw an open metal staircase along the side wall that zigzagged upward. I jogged around a couple of the forklifts, hit the stairs, and tentatively climbed. With each step the strange music grew louder. My anxiety grew right along with it. I’d been through this before, many times. I was leaving the secret, underground place that held a flume to step into the real world of a territory. All my speculation, all my preconceived notions, all my wonder as to what I would find, would soon be gone. It’s an exciting feeling . . . and terrifying. I’ll never get used to it. I climbed quite a few stairs. If I was headed for the surface, I figured I would have to climb at least as high as the ceiling of the warehouse I had just left. Finally, as my legs began to burn, I got to the top. There was nothing out of the ordinary to see, just a double door. This one was much smaller than the one leading into the warehouse. It was definitely a people door. Or a spider door for big spiders.
I had to get over that.
I pushed the door open and boldly walked through. The music was now very loud. I was getting close to the source. The doors opened up into a long corridor. Looking either way, I didn’t see a single person. Or robot. Or spider, I’m happy to report. I had made my way into Quillan without being noticed. It was time to find out what made this territory tick. I wasn’t sure which way to go because the music was coming from everywhere. There must have been speakers hidden in the walls. It looked as if there might be a door farther down to my right, so that’s the way I went. I walked about twenty yards and came upon a single door with a metallic doorknob. I felt sure that beyond these doors would lie the answers to some of my questions. Either that or it would bring me into a broom closet, and I’d have to keep looking. There was only one way to find out.
When I opened the door, I was instantly hit with a wave of music. Man, it was loud. I understood immediately how I was able to hear it so far down below in the warehouse. I can’t say that what I saw beyond that door was the last thing I expected to see. It wasn’t. It was lower down the list than that. In fact, it wasn’t even on the list. This was my first look at the real Quillan, and it made no sense.
I was standing on the edge of a giant, loud, exciting . . . arcade full of games.
Imagine the most elaborate, noisy high-tech video arcade you’ve ever been in, and then multiply that by about a hundred. This place was stupid-big. Hundreds of computer games lined the walls and formed aisles everywhere. I guess it’s dumb for me to say I’d never seen games like that before, being that I was on a new territory. But I never had. The overall setup wasn’t that much different from a Second Earth arcade, though. Some games were contained in big boxlike structures with colorful designs on the sides. Others were giant video screens that loomed over the gaming floor. I saw one game that looked to be a battle challenge, with the player shooting it out with the computer-generated image of an opponent on a giant screen in front of him. Another looked like a maze where the player stood on a platform, running in place while negotiating turns that he saw on his own big screen. It was all way more sophisticated than anything from Second Earth. All the games had some version of flashing colored lights to get the customers’ attention and entice them to play. The weird electronic music added a feeling of excitement and fantasy. The arcade was on three levels. I was on the bottom and could look up to see two more balconies full of games.
Sorry for sounding like a kid here, but this was the most awesome arcade I had ever seen. No, that I could ever imagine. If this existed on Second Earth, it would clean up. It was gaming nirvana.
Oddly though, it wasn’t very crowded. Most of the excitement and noise came from the games themselves, and the music. A quick guesstimate told me that there might have been about thirty people hanging around. That wasn’t a lot for such a huge arcade. On Second Earth this place would be packed. Only a few people were actually playing. Others watched. Once I got used to the environment, I could take a closer look at the people. I wandered through the games, observing the people. First, I’m happy to say that they weren’t spiders. Check that one off the list of scary possibilities. They looked every bit as human as I did, which meant they probably weren’t robots, either. Things were looking up. There looked to be a mix of different races, too. Some had dark skin with blond hair, others were fairly pale with darker hair. I saw heavyset people, and older guys, and . . . I guess there’s no need to keep describing the specifics. Bottom line was that the people of Quillan looked every bit as normal and diverse as the people of Second Earth.
As normal as this appeared, I did notice some things that struck me as odd. For one thing, there were no kids. You’d think the place would be a kid magnet. There were women and men, some old, some older. But no kids. I noticed the clothing they wore was kind of, I don’t know, boring. There wasn’t a whole lot of style going on. Not that I’m the best judge of that, but when you see a bunch of people together in the same place, you’d expect to see a big range of clothing styles. Not there. Everyone wore some kind of variation of pants and plain shirts. Some wore jackets. Some tucked their shirts in, others didn’t. There wasn’t much difference in style between the men and women, either. I didn’t see any dresses or skirts. I don’t mean to say they all wore the exact same thing. They didn’t. There was some variation in color, but the clothing all tended to edge toward the darker side, with muted shades of green and blue. There was lots of gray, too. But nothing bright or lively or patterned. And many of the pants were just plain black. Their shoes didn’t jump out at me either. They mostly appeared to be plain and black. I wasn’t sure what conclusion to draw from this, other than that the people of Quillan had absolutely no sense of style or fashion. I suppose there are worse things to say. They could have been mutant spider robots.
I wasn’t worried about being the youngest person there, but I was self-conscious about my clothes. The long-sleeved, bright red shirt with the diagonal black stripes was kind of radical for this dull crowd. But there was nothing I could do about it. I had to trust that whoever put the clothes at the flume knew what they were doing.
As I made my way through the arcade, there was something else that I started to realize. This was a bright and colorful place full of games. I’d been to plenty of arcades before, and I always felt that there was as much energy coming from the people as from the loud games. But here on Quillan, nobody seemed to be having any fun. Just the opposite. The people playing the games were focused. Seriously focused. There was no laughter, no screams of surprise or disappointment, no victory cries. These people were playing with serious intensity. They may have been running through an elect
ronic maze, or testing their reflexes, or dodging video bullets, but they were all doing it with such concentration that it didn’t seem to be any fun at all.
The same went for the people who were watching. They looked about as excited as they would be watching chess, which for me is about as thrilling as watching trees grow. There were only a few games actually being played, and each one had a small group of spectators who were watching with the same intensity as the players. There were no shouts of encouragement or taunting or advice being shouted out. I guess the best word to describe the whole atmosphere was “tense.”
There is one other thing I need to point out. Remember the silver bracelet I picked up at the flume and stuck in my back pocket? Several of the people had similar ones. They wore them on their left arms, just above the biceps. All the people playing the games had them, and some of the spectators. It added one more curious touch to the already bizarre scene.
“Yayyyyy!” came an excited scream from the other side of the arcade.
Finally! A sign of life! I jogged over to see the guy who was playing the 3-D shoot-out game. Apparently he had won. (The words YOU WIN! flashing in red on the giant screen were a dead giveaway. Duh.) Unlike the other zombielike players, this guy was over-the-moon thrilled. A woman hugged him as if he had just won the zillion-dollar lottery. I think they were crying. Others gathered around, clapping and smiling. They were totally psyched that this guy had won. What was up with this? It was a freakin’ video game! I remember breaking the record on a snowboard simulator at the theater on the bottom of the Ave at home. Remember that game? Is it still there? I’m embarrassed to say how many quarters it took me just to see my initials at the top spot. And I did it, finally. But I didn’t go all nuts like this. I was happy, but give me a break.
“What are you doing here?” came a voice from behind me.
I spun quickly to see a concerned-looking little bald guy staring at me. He wore a frown that crinkled his forehead. Was I not supposed to be there? Was this arcade off-limits to the general public? Maybe you had to be a member to get in, and I was definitely not a member. I had to play this very carefully.
“Uhh . . . ,” I said. “Are you talking to me?”
“Of course I’m talking to you!” the little guy whined. “What are you doing here?”
“Just hanging around,” I said casually. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the slickest comeback, but I had no idea where this guy was going.
“Just hanging around?” he parroted with surprise. “Challengers don’t just hang around. Are you here to train?”
Challengers? Train?
“Yes,” I said, though I had no idea what I was agreeing to. Obviously this guy thought I was somebody else. I figured it wasn’t a good idea to tell him otherwise. “Yeah, I’m training,” I bluffed. “Lots of training. Right here. Yessir.”
The guy lunged at me and grabbed both my arms. It happened so fast I had no time to react. He looked me square in the eye. He was shorter than I am, so he had to look up to do it. He wasn’t angry, he wasn’t scared. I know this may sound weird, but the look I saw in the guy’s eyes was . . . desperation.
“What’s your event?” he whispered, as if not wanting anybody else to hear. “How good are you? Honestly. I’ve never seen you before. What are your chances? Tell me, please. I won’t share it with a soul.”
The guy was weirding me out. He definitely had me mistaken for somebody else. Stranger still, he was asking me questions that he desperately wanted answers to. No, it was like he needed the answers. I debated about making something up to calm him, but that felt wrong. He wanted answers so badly that I didn’t want to say something that might upset him even more. I was absolutely, totally frozen.
“Daddy!” came a shout from across the arcade. It was a little kid’s voice. Both the bald guy and I looked to see a little girl running through the arcade with a huge smile. I was glad for the distraction. The little blond girl sprinted past some games with her arms wide open. She ran up to the guy who had just won the game and flung herself into his arms. The guy hugged her as if he hadn’t seen her in years. The woman who had been so happy for him joined in. I’m guessing she was the mommy. The three of them stood there for a long moment, hugging one another tightly while the spectators applauded. I figured the guy must have won something big. At least it had to be bigger than simply getting top score. But nobody official-looking came up with his winnings, or even to shake his hand. There didn’t seem to be any prize at all. I watched as the family walked off, followed by the others, who all shared happy knowing looks.
“Thank goodness,” the bald little guy said. I thought I saw a tear in his eye.
I took a chance and asked, “So what’s the big deal about beating that game?”
The bald guy snapped me a look as if I had just asked the most idiotic question in the history of idiotic questions. He still held on to my arms, which, to be honest, was making me nervous. The guy had a hell of a grip. I didn’t know if that was because he was strong, or driven by insanity. He looked at me in wonder, as if trying to find the right words to answer such a stupid question. He looked to my left arm and asked, “Where’s your loop?”
“My what?” he asked.
“Your loop!” he said, looking at my upper arm. “Do you know how much trouble you can get in for taking that off?” His face lit up as if he’d just gotten a brilliant idea. He asked, “Is that why you’re here? Did you learn something?”
He kept asking questions and I kept not having answers. He let go of my arm and held his own arm out toward me. He had one of those silver bands above his biceps. “Tell me what you know,” he demanded. “Please.”
I realized that this silver band must have been the “loop” he was talking about. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the one that had been at the flume. The guy’s eyes went wide. He quickly grabbed the loop and looked around as if he feared being seen.
“Are you insane?” he seethed. “Don’t flash that around.”
Before I knew what was happening, he grabbed the loop, then took my hand and shoved it through.
“Hey,” I protested, and tried to pull away. It was too late. He shoved the round bracelet all the way up to my biceps. Instantly I felt it tighten around my arm, as if it were alive. I tried to pull it back down, but it wouldn’t move. It rested just above my biceps and clung there.
“Why did you do that?” I shouted.
“I helped you, now you help me” was his answer. “What are your chances? Be honest. It doesn’t matter to you if I know, does it?”
“Chances for what?” I asked while trying to pull the loop down my arm. It wouldn’t move. The harder I pulled, the tighter it squeezed. It felt like there were a thousand tiny needles inside, keeping it in place. I was frightened, and more than a little creeped out. What was this diabolical loop? How could it know that I was trying to pull it off so it knew to cling tighter? And why didn’t it want to get pulled off in the first place? Could it think like the robot-quig-spiders back at the gate? Things were happening a little too fast.
“Get it off!” I shouted to the bald guy.
His answer? He laughed. “I just did you a favor!” he said. “If you were seen without that loop, you’d never see another challenge.”
Before I could ask what the hell he meant by that, I felt the loop tighten on my arm again—on its own. Remember the groove I described that was etched in the circle? It was glowing bright purple. A thin, bright light circled the band that was squeezing the heck out of my arm.
“What’s with that?” I asked nervously.
“What do you mean?” he asked dismissively. “That’s what happens when a loop activates.”
“Activates?” I shouted. “I don’t want anything on me ‘activating’!”
“I don’t understand,” the guy said genuinely. “You’re a challenger. All challengers wear the loop.”
“What do you mean, I’m ‘a challenger’?” I snapped. “What makes you say that?” I had
decided to give up being coy. I needed answers. The pulsing, glowing, grabbing ring on my arm was making that all too obvious.
“Aren’t you wearing the uniform of a challenger?” the guy asked, looking every bit as bewildered as I felt.
Uh-oh. It was the shirt. It seemed this red shirt with the black diagonal stripes was only worn by challengers. Whoever they were. I could only hope that challengers were cool people whom everyone loved and nobody ever gave a hard time to.
Yeah, right.
Before I could ask the guy anything else, I heard a tortured scream come from across the noisy room. A quick look told me that unlike the guy who was playing the shoot-out game, the player who was running through the 3-D maze wasn’t having as much luck. GAME OVER flashed in big blue letters on his screen. The player had fallen to his knees. He truly looked beaten. His head hung and he was breathing hard. No doubt he had given the game his all, only to lose. I wondered if the reaction of a loser was going to be as dramatic as that of a winner.
The Quillan Games Page 4
