Ant had a new idea. What if they wrote down everything they knew about Operation Wipeout and included details of Kody’s cache that you could only know if you’d been in there? What if they sent it to the local newspaper anonymously? If a journalist asked an awkward question at the press conference the next day, how would Kody react? If he blew his top with the whole world watching, wouldn’t people start getting suspicious?
The mansion was like a rabbit warren, but the décor was the same: selfies and bling. Even Kody Crunch’s mum might have found it a bit much. Pradahl padded after him for a while, but then her curiosity must have got the better of her. Ant glanced behind and she wasn’t there. He went to find her.
She’d strayed into what was obviously Kody’s lab. There were rows and rows of coloured chemicals in bottles and the most amazing equipment: glass cauldrons, curly pipes, and funnels the size of a French horn. Was this where Kody created new rareios? Were the ‘chemicals’ actually bits of code he mixed together, only he liked playing at being Doctor Frankenstein while he did it? Ant would like to have poked about for a bit longer but there was no time. He wanted to find the cache. He was sure nothing would wind Kody up as much as thinking some unknown player had been inside his command centre.
The low-lit purple corridor began to lead round and round with no rooms on either side, and Ant felt like a tiny silver ball being rolled around a maze in one of those games that come out of a cracker. The circle got tighter and tighter until right in the middle they came to an escalator. Ant and Pradahl travelled upwards to an enormous round room, with no windows but with a glass floor showing all the rooms below. The ceilings of those rooms must all be two-way mirrors. Maybe Kody was paranoid about intruders in his Ray-Chay world. Ant realised just how lucky they’d been not to have been spotted earlier.
He turned his attention to the rest of the room. Half the wall was made up of sliding panels, like black petals on a daisy. One had been pulled out. It held twenty-nine three-pin sockets coloured and shaped like the peppermint-flavour rareio. Nine of the avatar plugs were still in place, including that of Lady Cora. Twenty-nine — like the twenty-nine players who’d been frozen. In Kody’s world they had literally been plugged into that rareio! Ant shuddered. It seemed as though Kody only needed to remove these remaining nine plugs before he could begin Operation Wipeout again.
Ant went snooping around the large semicircular control desk with its lights and dials and switches. He counted ten large screens on the other half of the wall, probably the way Kody intended watching the players as he controlled them.
Before long, Ant felt he had seen as much as he needed to see. It was time to leave. He reached behind his head to switch off his Kismet headset.
‘Not so fast,’ came a voice.
21
The Stealth Ember
‘Did you really think I hadn’t spotted you earlier?’ chuckled Kody. He was pointing one lightning rod at Ant and another at Pradahl, who immediately grew out her wings and rose into the air, preparing to produce a fireball.
‘Pradahl, no!’ yelled Ant. She looked at Ant uncertainly and remained hovering.
‘I think it’s wise not to,’ said Kody. ‘That skin looks very young and new. It would only take one blast to finish her off completely. This new coat on her only confirms what I’d suspected: she’s a Kismet Cosmos dragon, right?’
Reluctantly, Ant nodded.
For a moment, it didn’t look like Kody would stop laughing. ‘That stupid old game?’ he said. ‘You must be the last player on Earth!’
‘But it is the earliest Crunch Hut game?’ said Ant. Why would Kody keep putting down his own game like this? It didn’t make sense.
‘Yes, well, it shouldn’t have been,’ Kody frowned. ‘I was hoping everyone had forgotten about it.’
Keeping one eye on Ant, he began drawing bars of a cage around Pradahl while she floated in the air. Pradahl gave one sideways zap, but Kody replied with a lightning bolt aimed just above her head.
‘Keep still, Pradahl,’ ordered Ant. He knew Kody was right. With her skin so young and tender, one blast would kill her outright. If only he could activate the stealth ember. Surely this was the ideal moment to use it?
‘So what do you think of this place?’ asked Kody, as he continued to cage in Pradahl.
‘Very impressive,’ said Ant.
‘I suppose you’ve guessed that right now in real life, my agents are searching the hotel for the player who’s managed to infiltrate my game for the second time?’
Ant hadn’t guessed, and it took a lot to keep his voice steady. He prayed that Rubie and Griff were doing a good job of misdirecting them. He didn’t want to be stopped from playing. He was sure that in the small lag after he switched off the headset, Kody would kill Pradahl.
‘Cheryl and Norm are searching for me?’ said Ant. ‘Well, good luck with that.’
Kody half smiled. ‘Well, Norm isn’t the sharpest tool in the box. You know what I could do with? A really smart kid like you to come and join my team. Someone young and quick. Someone who reminds me of me when I was your age.’
Ant could have said something insulting, but he didn’t. He listened as Kody carried on.
‘When I get Operation Wipeout working – because I am going to, one way or another – I will probably end up being the richest guy in the world. Come and work for me and you’ll be super-rich beyond your wildest dreams. In an annoying way, you impressed me in the Parkworld and you’ve impressed me here too. The beauty of it is, we wouldn’t even need to
