Darkness!
‘Hope?’
‘Yeah, I’m here. I’m fine! You?’
‘I’m okay, too,’ said Zyra. ‘I’m not tied up anymore.’
‘Me neither,’ said Hope. ‘What happened?’
‘I think we jumped.’
‘How?’
‘The Ultimate Gamer, I suppose.’
Ding! Ding! Ding!
The sound of a bell echoed through the darkness.
‘Correct!’ A voice boomed around them. ‘Time to play.’ It was not a voice Zyra or Hope had heard before. ‘Our first contestant today is a has-been gamer who used to play as a thief in the game environment known as the World. When not questing she would escape to the environment of Suburbia.’
A bright spotlight shone down on Zyra. She raised a hand to shield her eyes.
‘Zyra is sixteen years old, and has been for quite some time.’ The voice was loud, brash and overly enthusiastic to the point of irritating. ‘Her hobbies include knifing people, flinging her throwing stars and admiring how she looks when she twirls around in her red leather coat.’
‘What’s going on?’ Zyra shouted up into the light.
‘Our second contestant is a born non-gamer,’ said the voice, ignoring Zyra.
A bright spotlight illuminated Hope.
‘Hope is eighteen years old, making her technically older than her kindasorta mother, Zyra. Her hobbies include dissing cheat codes, thinking she knows better than everyone else and making snarky comments.’
‘Who are you?’ shouted Hope.
‘And at the controls ...’
A drum roll echoed around Zyra and Hope before another spotlight broke through the darkness. High above them, a figure floated in a pool of light. Dressed in multi-coloured robes and wearing a ridiculously large conical hat with a propeller on top, he spun around and bowed low.
‘Give it up for ... the Pinball Wizard!’
Applause thundered through the darkness as the Pinball Wizard blew kisses to his adoring, unseen fans.
‘What happened to the Ultimate Gamer?’ asked
Zyra, looking across at Hope.
‘Still playing,’ shouted the Pinball Wizard as he waved at them.
‘Today’s game 1s pinball,’ announced the disembodied voice.
Lights blazed and the darkness was extinguished. Squinting through the glare, Zyra and Hope took in their surroundings. They were inside a massive pinball machine, standing in the middle of the lower level, surrounded by lights and bells and colours. Behind them, two more levels rose up like a construction site, ramps going up and down, more lights and bells, all draped in a candy-striped circus tent. In front of them, an enormous plastic clown’s face, mouth open in an unnaturally wide grin, stared at them with vacant eyes. Lurid, psychedelic patterns covered every surface, with distorted paintings of jugglers, fire-eaters and circus freaks glaring out at them from posters plastered haphazardly around the game.
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ said Zyra.
‘Really?’ Hope glared at Zyra. ‘No kidding?’
‘Maybe we should jump now?’ suggested Zyra.
‘No way!’ said Hope. ‘We need the Ultimate
Gamer.’
‘Ready girls?’ cried the Pinball Wizard, as a wand appeared in his hand. ‘Time to play . . . Sudden Death Pinball!’
‘Sudden death?’ said Zyra and Hope together.
‘That’s right girls,’ said the Pinball Wizard. ‘If you get hit by a ball, you die. Suddenly.’
Loud, discordant carnival music blared aroundthem.
The Pinball Wizard waved his wand theatrically and pointed it at the clown face, which proceeded to spit out a large silver ball, aimed straight at them.
Zyra and Hope jumped in opposite directions, the ball rolling between them.
‘Well, that wasn’t too hard,’ said Hope.
‘Run!’ yelled Zyra.
The ball hit a rubber ring around one of the bells, making it clang, and bounce back towards Hope, accelerating. Coloured lights winked on and off around them, the music speeding up.
Hope dodged the ball and ran for the nearest ramp. Zyra took off for the opposite side. The ball hit another bell and bounced to the far end of the game, gaining speed.
The Pinball Wizard laughed and waved his wand,the clown face spitting out another three balls. One of the balls nestled itself into a depression in the floor, while the other two pursued Zyra and Hope up each ramp. The ball in the depression was then launched into the air, landing on the top level.
Zyra and Hope met on the second level and bolted for the centre ramp leading to the top. The two balls pursuing them collided, exploding in a shower of sparks. Reaching the top level, the girls only had one ball to avoid, which seemed easy enough. But as they scurried across the checkerboard pattern on the floor, the ball suddenly disappeared through a trapdoor.
Zyra and Hope froze, three of the black squares opening up in front of them. As they gazed around, trapdoors opened randomly across the floor.
‘Back to the ramp,’ yelled Zyra. Before she could move, the floor beneath her gave way. She landed hard on the second level. Seconds later Hope was sprawled a metre to her right. They scrambled to their feet.
The ball that had fallen down before was still ricocheting about the second level, flung from one bell to another. Zyra dashed for the closest down ramp and Hope followed.
They emerged onto the lower level in time to see a horde of balls gushing from the clown’s mouth. The Pinball Wizard’s laughter echoed from above.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Zyra.
Lights and bells went off around them. Zyra ran towards the back corner on the lower level, dodging balls as she went. Hope followed.
Nestled behind one of the ramps was a bell surrounded by a rubber ring. It was relatively out of the way, and unlikely to get many balls. Zyra drew one of her knives and got to work on the rubber.
‘Warn me if any balls head this way,’ she ordered
Hope.
‘There’s one now,’ called Hope, immediately.
The girls ran to one side. The ball hit the rubber ring, sounding the bell, and bounced off. Zyra quickly returned to cutting.
‘Almost got it.’
‘Another one,’ called Hope.
Again, they jumped back out of the way. The ball hit the rubber ring; the bell rang, the ball rolled off and the piece of rubber snapped, flicking across the pinball game to the front of the lower level. It came to rest a short distance from the plastic clown face.
‘Come on,’ called Zyra, dodging, jumping and sidestepping balls as she raced forward.
Reaching the strip of rubber, she picked it up, handing one side to Hope and keeping hold of the other.
‘Stretch it,’ she said. ‘It’s like a giant rubber band. We’ve got to use this to fling a ball up at the Pinhead Wizard.’
As another ball came shooting from the clown’s mouth, the girls stretched the strip of rubber. The ball hit the centre of it. The girls gave it some slack and then pulled with all their might, trying to angle it upwards.
The ball went sailing up into the air straight forthe Pinball Wizard. He ducked to one side, spinning a full 360 degrees.
A siren blared. The balls froze, the bells stoppedringing and the coloured lights winked out. A bright pink neon sign above the circus tent flashed.
TILT! TILT! TILT!
‘Cheaters!’ The Pinball Wizard’s voice screeched through the darkness.
The TILT sign blew up in a burst of colour, raining sparks and shards of glass down onto the levels below. Around Zyra and Hope the light globes started bursting one by one, the flashes lighting up the pinball game with a strobing effect.
Above the game, orange flames engulfed the Pinball Wizard as he spun through the air screaming. Eyes burning with rage, he pointed at the girls.
‘Cheaters!’ he screamed again. The flames grew, flaring out from him in all directions, as he swooped down towards Zyra and Hope.