Chapter 14

She looped around another wall and saw two more chasms, each about twenty feet long, with a stretch of solid ground in between. She could see to the other end but didn’t see Fites.

She pushed the button on her walkie-talkie. “Hey, where are you?”

Nothing. Not even a crackle.

Did he fall? Or did he already make it across to the next corridor? She started hopping across the platforms over the next chasm, then the one after that. She reached the end of the corridor and turned the corner. There was still no sign of Fites.

She glanced back. The platforms were small and far apart, and the ones above the second chasm were moving.

I did all that and didn’t even think about how hard it was, she thought proudly. I was just thinking about catching up with Fites.

She looked ahead again. The corridor widened into two paths again, with levers on both paths, and there was a closed gate at the far end. She couldn’t do this alone.

“Fites, are you there?” she tried again. If you died you’d be respawned by now. No . . . that would be your third life. Game over.

She started down the path on the right. A blade fell behind her, barely missing her heels. She jumped forward. Another blade fell, and another. She started running at full speed, hearing the thwak thwak of blades falling behind her. Halfway down the corridor she jumped and grabbed the lever, but the gate didn’t open.

Both levers have to be pulled at the same time, she figured. She ran past the rest of the blades and stood in front of the gate, feeling very alone.

And then, for no reason, the gate opened.

Is the game over? What do I do now?

She paused a moment, waiting to see if anything would come out, but nothing did. Moving through the gate, she found herself in a small room with no paths or doors or levers. She reached out to touch one of the walls and it vanished. She turned and the other walls started to flicker out, one by one, until she was standing in a big flat nothingness.

“Hello?” she called out. “Is the game over?” She started to walk and bumped into something. There was a wall there. She just couldn’t see it.

The walls reappeared all at once. Is this some kind of glitch?

A kiosk appeared. That usually meant enemies, but none came. She tapped the keyboard anyway and woke up the screen.

COMFORT A FRIEND THROUGH A COMPUTER MONITOR

It didn’t rhyme. The others had rhymed. This wasn’t making any sense, but an answer came to her.

She typed:

CONSOLE

A hand rested on her shoulder. She wheeled around, grabbing her beam sword.

It was Fites.

“Pretty good pun, huh?” he asked with a grin.

“What’s going on?” She felt fury rising up inside of her, all the worse because he was laughing at her, and mostly because she was so confused. “What did you do, Fites?”

“I hacked the game!” he said, unable to hold in his laughter. “I hacked the game.”