‘I guess so,’ said Ant, thinking about the table-tennis match when he’d beaten the county champion.
‘For me, it would be passing the interview to get on to my college course,’ said Lia. Lance reached over and gave her hand a squeeze.
‘The game unlocks all that emotional energy and turns it into this … incredible fighting ability,’ he explained.
‘Wow,’ said Ant. Who would have thought memories could be so powerful?
‘Oh, and I’ll tell you something else about level 21 onwards,’ Lance continued, barely stopping for breath. ‘If you’re really, really lucky you might find a limited-edition collector. They’re called “rareios”. They’re the best of the lot. Only a few have been released but I’ve never seen one myself. Apparently, if you’ve got one in your cache, you can take on this incredibly rare “Zen destroyer”, if it’s the matching flavour, of course. Destroy that one and you’ll zap up ten levels, so they say.’
‘Ten levels!’ marvelled Lia.
‘Yep.’ Lance shook his head in wonder. ‘I’ve never met anyone who’s actually found one and I know a lot of people in the gaming community. These rareios are so strong, they only appear to the very best players.’
By an incredible stroke of luck, Paula couldn’t play Ray-Chay for a few days because she and Evan had hired some workmen to change their en-suite and his mum never played Ray-Chay anywhere except the master bedroom. For the time being, Griff knew he was safe.
He told himself not to feel bad about what had happened. It had really been his mum’s fault. She had no business playing a game he and his mates were into. Plus, if she hadn’t made him cross, he never would have taken her rareio. Despite telling himself this over and over, he did feel bad.
Telling Boom and Lyle he’d captured a rareio, that was sweet. The looks on their faces were priceless.
‘How Griff? You’re only on level 17, same as us!’
‘I don’t believe it! A rareio? They’re rare as hen’s teeth!’
Griff merely cocked an eyebrow and tried to look cool. ‘Well, you’re either a top skill player or you’re not, guys. What can I say?’
‘Hey, I heard that this bloke who works in the games shop in the Parade took on a level 21 destroyer,’ said Lyle. ‘Two hundred thousand points he got! But even he hasn’t seen a rareio yet. You’ve done amazing, Griff, mate, I can hardly believe it!’
Griff described what the rareio looked like. Lyle and Boom hung on his every word, open-mouthed. Even though they might play the same game, one player couldn’t normally enter another’s cache so they weren’t able to see the rareio for themselves. It didn’t matter – Griff gave such a detailed description, they knew he was telling the truth.
‘Oh, and guess what?’ said Griff. ‘We don’t really see one another’s worlds, guys, when we play together. They’re all different. What kind of world are you in?’
It took a while for Boom to understand. ‘Monster truck superdrome,’ he said at last, with a shrug.
‘Hey, how come? My game’s on a battlefield.’ Lyle looked similarly confused.
‘And mine’s in an adventure play – I mean in space.’ Griff suddenly realised how embarrassing it would be to admit what his world was. ‘See, same enteos, but different worlds. We all play in worlds that mean something to us personally. The game uses our memories of our favourite-ever places. That’s why Ray-Chay is so brilliant. Monster truck superdrome … battlefield … space.’ He pointed at Boom, then Lyle, then at himself.
His friends looked puzzled.
‘I mean, I LOVE space,’ Griff went on quickly. ‘We all know that, right? I’m always going on about space and … planets and stuff.’
‘Are you?’ Boom’s face creased.
‘Course I am, duh!’ Griff punched Boom’s arm, though not too hard.
‘Oh yeah,’ said Lyle. He shook his head at Boom. ‘Course you are, Griff, mate. You’re the biggest fan of space I ever met.’
‘Anyway, I can’t believe you two dummies hadn’t worked it out for yourselves, about the different worlds. It’s lucky I’m here, isn’t it?’ Griff folded his arms and waited for his friends to agree with him. He didn’t have to wait long.
8
Caught by a Dolphin
Yet again, Ant tried getting into Ray-Chay. He’d got over his worries about the headset sucking on his memories. If Kody Crunch said it was safe, of course it was safe. He was sick of being the only one not playing and if it was as good in the higher levels as Lance said, it must surely be worth getting through the boring earlier levels. He also wanted to stop feeling like he was letting Lance down, because he could easily have given the suit to somebody else. Lance and Lia really wanted him to go to Ray-Chay in the Park with them. He wouldn’t have time to get to a very high level before the event but he’d be able to take part. At least he wouldn’t feel so out of it.
It didn’t take long for Ant to get used to the new way of moving and he got through the first three levels quickly. He liked the fact he could feel much more in the suit than he could when wearing his usual Kismet headset and gloves. He found a few racers and chasers and that was pretty good fun. Pradahl had finally appeared, but this turned out to be the main disappointment.
In Ray-Chay, she didn’t do anything except blow a bit of encouraging smoke. In Kismet Cosmos, Pradahl was feisty and quirky, always wandering off and getting into trouble. She was also fiercely loyal to Ant’s avatar, Tarn. He’d spent so long training her to be the greatest dragon in the cosmos and they worked together as
