‘It’s a bit of a coincidence, though,’ said Lyle. ‘The people frozen in real life are exactly the same ones frozen in the game after the rareio jumped into them. Like your mum, Griff.’
‘No, no, not Mum.’ Griff kept looking from Boom and Lyle to the park then back again. Ant saw his eyes fill with tears. ‘Even if all this does have something to do with the rareio, well, I didn’t know it was going to happen, did I?’
‘Nobody’s saying that,’ Boom said. ‘It’s still your fault the rareio turned into that evil thing. You saw it, Griff. It was terrifying!’
‘Both of you, keep your voices down,’ Lyle hissed, ‘or we’ll have a lynch mob after us.’
‘After him, more like.’ Boom pointed at Griff.
‘Shurrup!’ shouted Griff, his expression miserable.
The three boys carried on snapping at each other. Ant felt an arm around his shoulder. It was Lia, steering him out of the path of another ambulance. Although he would have liked to hang about and listen in to the argument, he let himself be led away, still cradling his backpack. The mainly grey-suited crowd were walking along so quietly, it was really eerie.
‘Come on,’ Lia whispered in his ear. ‘I’ve texted Dad to let him know we’re okay. Let’s go back to our flat. We can turn on the news and find out what’s going on.’
12
Investigators
The next few days were weird.
Kody Crunch made a short film which was soon all over the internet. The whole world was following what was happening in Westford Abbey. In the film, for once, Kody wasn’t lounging on his yacht or parachuting into view. He was sitting in a leather armchair in a sombre-looking room. He didn’t once flash his smile, or his finger pistols. It was strange to see him with his large, white teeth tucked away in his mouth and his hands folded in his lap, though he still wore his sunglasses, as if he could not do without them.
‘From the bottom of my heart, I want to say sorry for what’s happened to Ray-Chay,’ said Kody. ‘That’s why I’ve sent my experts over to the U.K. to investigate exactly what’s gone wrong. If there’s anything I can do, anything at all, then I shall do it, I give you my word. My heart goes out to those brave players, lying there in hospital, and to their families and friends. I am receiving hourly updates. Thank you and bless you all.’ Just before the screen faded, he reached beneath his sunglasses to wipe away a tear.
Even though the frozen gamers were in hospital, the gates of Jubilee Park remained padlocked, with signs warning the public to keep out. All the Ray-Chay worlds in the country were shut down except for the Westford Abbey Parkworld and only the Crunch Hut investigators were allowed in to play. Although the police were out and about, they seemed content to trust Kody’s investigators, who were working in the park around the clock, playing the game and trying to find out what had gone wrong.
The doctors at the hospital had never seen anything like it. It was like no coma they’d seen before. In all the tests, the gamers seemed fit and healthy, but they were stuck in these strange frozen positions, even when put to lie down in bed. They all wore identical expressions of surprise, with their eyes and mouths wide open. They didn’t communicate in any way, not even a blink. It was as though time was standing still.
The whole gaming community was horrified. Ant found out all he could from Lance, who learned a lot from people who came into the games shop. Witnesses who’d seen the rareio said it had only leaped into high-level players. Each time, it had grown bigger and stronger. There was lots of coverage of the story in the media and it didn’t take long for Boom to blab about how Griff had stolen the rareio from his mother’s cache. Gaming experts speculated that the theft had corrupted the rareio, making it extremely unstable and dangerous. Somehow, the corrupted rareio had stunned the high-level players, sucking up their gaming power and freezing them in the same moment.
There was simply no waking them. Removing their headsets and suits did no good. Experts suspected that part of the rareio’s corrupted code had somehow crossed the interface between human and machine and infected the players’ brains. Even though they weren’t playing, they were still linked to the rareio. If this were true, destroying the rareio might be the only way to break that link and wake them up.
The trouble was, even though the Crunch Hut investigators were exceptional players, the rareio was too strong even for them. From time to time, they would give interviews to journalists, detailing the long, drawn-out battle. The rareio was fighting back ferociously. It was trying to leap into the investigators, but so far they had been quick enough to dodge it, while trying to launch their own attacks. It was a stalemate.
Ant always stopped outside the park gates on his way to and from school. Sometimes he caught sight of the investigators at work. From what he could see, they didn’t seem to be battling that hard. Most of the time, they were just standing around, which seemed peculiar.
If only, Ant thought. If only I could get into Ray-Chay with the real Pradahl.
Ant couldn’t help wondering if more could be done. The investigators didn’t seem strong enough to defeat the rareio. Even though he wasn’t an expert at Ray-Chay, he believed in the strength of his Kismet Cosmos dragon. If anyone could take on the rareio, it was Pradahl. She had loads of special moves, and phenomenal items in her inventory which he’d been saving up. Because Kismet Cosmos and Ray-Chay were both Crunch Hut games, it was possible they’d
