by Dustin Brady
Trapped in a Video Game: The Final Boss copyright © 2019 Dustin Brady. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.
Andrews McMeel Publishing
a division of Andrews McMeel Universal
1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106
www.andrewsmcmeel.com
ISBN 978-1-5248-5223-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018932210
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Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Jesse Brady for the cover and
interior illustrations. You can check out more of
Jesse’s sweet artwork at jessebradyart.com.
Other Books by Dustin Brady
Trapped in a Video Game: Return to Doom Island
Trapped in a Video Game: Robots Revolt
Trapped in a Video Game: The Invisible Invasion
Trapped in a Video Game
Superhero for a Day: The Magic Magic Eight Ball
Who Stole Mr. T?: Leila and Nugget Mystery #1
The Case with No Clues: Leila and Nugget Mystery #2
Bark at the Park: Leila and Nugget Mystery #3
Contents
Preface
10 Minutes to Save the World
Welcome to the Reubenverse
Jurassic World
Ultimate Warrior Challenge
Palace of the Dark King
Planet Ninjas and Sneaky Snakes
Perma-Death
Wave 301
Error Report
Beans
Hypocortezoid Gas
System Overload
Devil’s Food
Combo
Glue Gun Crafting
The Potato Sack Hop
Trust Nothing
Trust No One
Pizza Boy
Emergency Exit
Supreme Ultimate Warrior
The Glitch
Countdown
Hulkamania
Game Over
About the Author
More to Explore
PREFACE
In Case You Missed It
This is the final book in the Trapped in a Video Game series. Do not read this one first. That would be like skipping to the last chapter of a story, and science* tells us that skipping to the final chapter has the same effect on your health as eating 12 Twinkies a day. If you decide to ignore science and shovel all these glorious Twinkies into your mouth anyway, then please read ONLY the following paragraph. It has a special summary of the series just for your Twinkie-sized attention span.
Trapped in a Video Game is a series about a boy named Jesse Rigsby who studies ants. Big ants, small ants, red ants, black ants (not biting ants, though. Those are too scary). Nothing exciting happens in the whole series. Jesse does not turn into Ant-Man or even Ant-Boy. He is just a boring kid who likes ants. People who enjoy the series either love ants way too much or believe the rumor that hidden clues sprinkled throughout the books lead to an underground treasure trove of Twinkies.
Oops. What rumor? Forget we said anything. You definitely don’t need to go back and carefully read every sentence of the first four books for clues. That would be silly. And delicious.
OK, are all of the book-skippers gone? Good. Just between us, there is no Twinkie treasure. That was just a ploy to get people to go back and read the rest of the series. If you have read the first four books and just need a refresher, here’s what really happened:
In the first Trapped in a Video Game, Jesse Rigsby gets trapped inside of a video game. (Honestly, the book’s title should have been your first clue that the ant story was fake.) In the game, Jesse meets up with his friend Eric Conrad and immediately attracts the attention of a super-powered alien known as the Hindenburg. The Hindenburg has been charged with destroying glitches in the game, and it believes with all its little alien heart that the two friends are glitches that have to go. Jesse and Eric finally escape, but only because another kid from their class, Mark Whitman, chooses to take their place.
In Trapped in a Video Game: The Invisible Invasion, Jesse and Eric mount a rescue mission by sneaking into the video game company Bionosoft through
Go Wild, a mobile game kind of like Pokémon Go. After surviving attacks by a Bigfoot, a velociraptor, and Bionosoft president Jevvry Delfino, Jesse, Eric, and former Bionosoft employee Mr. Gregory pull Mark out of a computer prison called the “Black Box.” Unfortunately, the rescue breaks Bionosoft’s system, which releases everything else from their computers into the real world.
In Trapped in a Video Game: Robots Revolt, robots from one of Bionosoft’s games start causing major damage in the real world after escaping their computers. In addition to transforming sewers, factories, and amusement parks around town into deadly levels from their game, they also kidnap Eric. Jesse teams up with Mark and an Australian girl named Sam to save Eric before the robots blast him into outer space. After rescuing Eric, Jesse finds out that Mr. Gregory has been replaced by a robot impostor intent on hiding the real reason for Bionosoft’s “Trapped in a Video Game” project.
In Trapped in a Video Game: Return to Doom Island, Jesse and Eric team up with Mr. Gregory’s son, Charlie, to hunt for the truth. Unfortunately, their search alerts the robot and nearly gets them killed. They escape into the old 8-bit video game Doom Island, which eventually spits them into the office of billionaire Max Reuben. At the office, they learn that Max has been using Bionosoft and Mr. Gregory to finish the Reubenverse, a massive virtual universe ruled by Max. When the Reubenverse is complete, Max will suck every human on Earth into it through an event called “The Reuben Rapture.” By using super-spy tactics, Jesse and Eric destroy both Max’s company and his evil robot, but not before Max escapes into the Reubenverse and starts the countdown to Rapture.
*“Science,” in this case, means “the author’s opinion.”
chapter 1
10 Minutes to Save
the World
Ten minutes is not a lot of time.
Let’s say I order you to do something fun in the next 10 minutes. Your life depends on it. Time starts now. What do you do? You can’t finish a TV show in 10 minutes. You certainly can’t watch a movie. Ten minutes isn’t enough time to go to the neighborhood swimming pool, round up all your Nerf guns, or convince a friend to play Go Fish. (Also, Go Fish is not fun.)
Maybe you decide to watch something on YouTube. Cool. YouTube only has five billion videos. Choose wisely—your life depends on it. Uh, how about this one where a guy eats a ghost pepper? OK, you click on it. A 30-second ad plays. Then the guy starts rambling about his Instagram account. You begin sweating because you’re not even close to having fun yet. You click ahead—oh no! Too far! He’s already screaming! You try going back to the spot where he puts the pepper in his mouth, but time’s already up. You’re dead.
My point is if 10 minutes is not even enough time to do something fun, it’s CERTAINLY not enough time to save the world.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Mr. Gregory was asking us to do. A billionaire named Max Reuben had built a video game universe and was about to use Mr. Gregory’s technolog
y to suck every human on Earth inside. That includes my baby cousin Olivia who can’t even hold up her own head yet, my Aunt Dianne who HATES video games, and my 88-year-old neighbor Mrs. Gardino who leaves her house exactly once a week to go to church. Max actually stole the name for his event from church. He was calling it “The Reuben Rapture.” It was going to be bad. And according to the calm Siri-sounding lady counting down as I teleported back to Mr. Gregory, it was going to happen real soon.
“Ten minutes to Rapture.”
I finally landed in Mr. Gregory’s lab on the 56th floor of Max’s office building. “What happened?” I asked as I rubbed my head.
“HE STARTED THE COUNTDOWN AND LOCKED ME OUT, AND I DON’T KNOW HOW TO STOP IT!” Mr. Gregory shouted as he typed like a maniac on one of his five keyboards.
“Huh? Who? How?”
At that moment, Eric appeared on the ground. “What happened?”
“AHHH! I DON’T HAVE TIME TO EXPLAIN AGAIN!”
I tried to get more information. “Mr. Gregory, are you saying that Max found a way to start the Rapture on his own?”
“THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I’M SAYING!”
“How do we stop it?”
Mr. Gregory took a second to breathe, then turned to face us. “From the inside.”
My heart started pounding.
“I control all the computers in this building. I’m sure of it. The only way Max could have started the countdown was from inside the Reubenverse.”
“So we have to find him in there?” Eric asked.
“And destroy his computer,” Mr. Gregory finished.
“Nine minutes to Rapture,” Siri Lady reminded us.
Now I started to panic. “How are we supposed to do that in nine minutes?!”
Mr. Gregory rummaged through a toolbox on the floor while he answered. “Time moves slower in video games, remember? Nine minutes out here is nine days in there.” He pulled out two watches and plugged them into his tower.
“No, but like, where is he? What does his computer look like? How do we destroy it?”
“I don’t know any of those answers.”
“WHAT?!”
Mr. Gregory unplugged the watches and handed them to us. “These are synced to the countdown. They cannot . . . ” his voice cracked. He closed his eyes and tried again. “They cannot reach zero. Please.”
Eric strapped on his watch and looked up at Mr. Gregory. “You’re coming with us, right?”
Mr. Gregory sighed. “There’s one more thing you need to know. Max’s network is nowhere near ready to handle this. The closer the countdown gets to zero, the hotter it’s going to get in there. If the Rapture actually happens, there’s a good chance that the system will overheat and everyone inside will cook. If I . . . ”
“Eight minutes to Rapture,” Siri Lady interrupted.
“. . . If I stay back, I can at least buy you a little extra time by shutting down power to other parts of the building with that breaker box.” Mr. Gregory pointed to a large metal box in the corner of the room.
I looked at Eric uneasily.
“Listen, you two don’t have to do this. Even if you do find Max, there’s probably nothing you can do. But . . . ” Mr. Gregory covered his face and shook his head. “There’s no time for anyone else to help. There’s just no time.”
I wanted to step up and reassure Mr. Gregory that everything would be OK because Eric and I were
just the heroes for the job. I opened my mouth to say something brave, but all that came out was,
“Uhhhhhh.”
“WE’RE IN!” Eric said, marching toward the Reubenverse double doors.
I followed after Eric. “One sec! What about . . . ”
Eric held up his arm with the countdown watch. “We don’t have one second!” With that, he threw open the doors, crouched down, and jumped into the swirling red light.
I looked back at Mr. Gregory, who seemed to be on the verge of barfing. “I’m sorry” was all he could say.
I crouched in front of the door like Eric had done and took two quick breaths. “Do you at least know which planet this door leads to?” I asked over my shoulder.
“It’s totally random.”
With that terrific news, I closed my eyes and dove. The last thing I heard before tumbling into the Reubenverse was Siri Lady.
“Seven minutes to Rapture.”
chapter 2
Welcome to the Reubenverse
“Welcome to the Reubenverse,” Siri Lady chirped.
I opened my eyes to see that I was free-falling 5,000 feet above a desert landscape. I reached back, hoping to find a rip cord or jet pack or squirrel suit or something. Nothing. Uh, not good. I flapped my arms, hoping that maybe this was Planet Fly Like a Bird. It was not. Then, I noticed Eric below me. He was falling too, but his fall looked like it was on purpose. He rocketed toward the ground in a Superman pose.
“ERIC! WHAT’S THE PLAN?!”
He didn’t hear me.
“ERIC!” I tried again. “WHAT . . . AHHH!”
Eric smashed into a pile of rocks. Turns out he didn’t have a plan.
“NONONONO!” I clawed at the air like a cartoon character. Have you ever had a dream where you’re falling off a huge cliff? You always wake up before you hit the ground because your body gets too scared to let you finish the dream. Let me tell you: Your body is smart. The end of the dream is the worst. I closed my eyes right before I hit the ground, felt a quick, sharp pain, then heard Siri Lady speak again.
“Welcome to the Reubenverse.”
I reopened my eyes to see that I was back to tumbling 5,000 feet above the ground. Eric was just below me. “SLOW DOWN!” I yelled. Eric spread his arms and legs so I could catch up.
“THIS IS SO COOL!” he said. “DOESN’T IT FEEL LIKE WE’RE FLYING?!”
“NO! IT FEELS LIKE WE’RE FALLING!”
Eric flapped his arms. “IF YOU DO THIS, IT FEELS LIKE YOU’RE FLYING!”
I grabbed Eric. “HOW ABOUT WE FIGURE OUT A WAY TO SURVIVE SO WE DON’T HAVE TO KEEP DOING THIS!”
Eric rolled his eyes and pointed left.
I looked over. The land ended in a cliff, and a wild ocean beat into the rocks below. “ARE YOU SERIOUS?! YOU CAN’T SURVIVE . . . ”
SMASH!
“Welcome to the Reubenverse.”
Of course it’s impossible to survive a 5,000-foot ocean dive. But you know what’s even more impossible? Surviving a 5,000-foot cactus face-plant. I sighed, linked arms with Eric, and steered toward the ocean. When we were 50 feet above the water, I let go and angled my body into a dive.
SPLASH!
It worked! I couldn’t believe it! I’d splashed instead of smashed! I cut through the water probably 50 feet down, then started swimming upward. While I swam, I looked for Eric. There! He’d landed 20 feet away, and he was swimming up too. Before I could get too excited, though, I noticed a shadow appear behind Eric. A big shadow. Like a whale-size shadow. Suddenly, the shadow came into focus, and I screamed.
“BLUUUB!” (That’s an underwater scream.)
The prehistoric-looking creature opened its mouth, revealing approximately 200,000 teeth. Before I could “blub” a warning to Eric, the monster swallowed him whole. Then it opened its mouth again and . . .
“Welcome to the Reubenverse.”
“THAT WAS WORSE THAN HITTING THE GROUND!” I yelled to Eric as we fell again.
“MAYBE IF WE SWIM FASTER!” Eric suggested.
We tried swimming faster. It did not end well.
“Welcome to the Reubenverse.”
“MAYBE IF YOU DISTRACT IT WHILE I SWIM TO THE SURFACE AND FIND A BOAT!”
Perhaps you can guess how that went.
“Welcome to the Reubenverse.”
“WE COULD TRY MAKING FRIENDS WITH IT!”
; “Welcome to the Reubenverse.”
After getting eaten by the dinosaur whale-shark four times in a row, we were both a little over the whole Reubenverse thing. The fifth time, we just fell silently and let ourselves get eaten without fighting it. Maybe this was going to be our fate—getting eaten over and over by a dinosaur, waiting for the world to join us in the worst video game ever made.
“WHAT IF WE BANANA?” Eric asked.
I shrugged. Banana-ing was what the teenagers did when they jumped off the waterfall near our house. (Actually, it wasn’t a waterfall. It was a drainage pipe that dumped stormwater into a creek, but whatever.) As soon as they’d hit the water, they’d bend their body into a banana shape so they wouldn’t dive down too far since the creek was so shallow. It worked for a while, and then of course some kid got hurt. The city put up a big fence around the pipe and a sign that read “NO JUMPING!” with a stick person cracked in half, which is the kind of sign city hall has lying around when your town has a lot of teenagers. Banana-ing doesn’t really work in real life, but then again, neither does skydiving into the ocean.
As soon as I hit the water, I bent my body into a banana shape and fell only 10 feet underwater instead of 50. I righted myself and swam for the surface like crazy. After just a few strokes, I made it! I cheered when I popped my head above water and instantly realized how pointless this all was. What were we supposed to do now? Climb the cliff? Eric’s head popped up a few feet away.
“We made it!” he shouted right before he got sucked underwater by the giant dinosaur again. I cringed and waited for the same fate, but something different grabbed me. Instead of getting sucked underwater, I suddenly swooped into the air. I looked up to see that I’d been snatched by a pterodactyl. “Woo-hoo!” I cheered, marking the first time in history that any creature has been excited about getting snatched by a flying death dinosaur. I looked up just in time to see Eric appear below the clouds. “Over there!” I pointed as if the pterodactyl could understand me.
The pterodactyl did not understand me, but it looked up anyway, and when it saw Eric, it squawked. We zoomed up to Eric, then the pterodactyl swooped under him and caught him.
