Ant looked up at Pradahl, who was now completely caged. She huffed out a miserable wisp of smoke.
‘Say yes and I’ll call off Cheryl and Norm,’ Kody continued, in his weaselly advert voice. ‘Say yes and you can have your pet dragon back. Come on, Tarn. It’s really not that bad being a bad guy. You get to have loads of stuff!’ He gestured round at the command centre.
Ant could have cried. He wanted to say ‘no’ but what would happen then? All he could do was keep Kody talking.
‘I just wish Ray-Chay was more like Kismet Cosmos,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘I don’t care if nobody else plays any more. It’s the best game I’ve ever come across.’
Kody’s face fell. ‘You have got to be kidding me,’ he said. ‘Kismet Cosmos was the old days. I always hated it. There are so many flaws in that terrible game. It’s because I didn’t actually work on it. For a smart kid, you have shocking taste.’
‘You’re wrong, Kismet is amazing,’ Ant protested. It suddenly felt like he was having an argument with a mate in the school playground over whose game was best. ‘To start with, the items in Kismet are so much stronger than anything in Ray-Chay. It’s much more exciting to play.’
Out in the real world, Ant could hear banging. Someone was knocking on the door of the cleaner’s cupboard. He would have to hurry up.
He’d just learned that Kody hadn’t coded Kismet Cosmos himself. Would he even know what a stealth ember was?
‘Press her shining scale now,’ said Ant. ‘You’ll see how great the items are. There’s a glowing rock in there, if you activate it, it’ll give Pradahl super-strength to break the bars of that pathetic cage.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Kody was getting riled. ‘These bars are impregnable. If you think your piddly rock can help her get out, I pity you!’
‘Prove it then,’ said Ant.
‘Okay I will!’ said Kody.
He reached with the end of the lightning rod and pressed Pradahl’s shining scale. Up came her inventory. It was easy to see the item Ant meant. It was the least colourful of the lot.
‘That thing? I’ll show you…’ said Kody and he activated the stealth ember.
Pradahl’s skin began to crackle with black fuzz. Kody stepped back.
‘What’s that?’ he shouted, but there wasn’t time to say much else because the bars of the cage were melting onto the floor. Anything the melting bars touched melted too. In moments, there were gaping holes in the floor.
Kody watched in horror as the effect spread around the downstairs rooms, decimating his selfies and bling. Pradahl flew around the room, and the black fuzz dropped in heaps on the desk and splattered up the screens. Everything it touched melted. Ant’s last view of Kody was of him plunging through one of these holes in the floor and disappearing down a tunnel, down, down into the melting heart of his Ray-Chay world.
Swooping past, Pradahl just rescued Ant before he did the same. The stealth ember’s effect on Pradahl had now worn off. Ant decided to get out of the game at once.
Back in the cupboard, Rubie was shaking his arm. A loud, shrieking alarm was going off in the building. ‘Didn’t you hear me knocking on the door?’ she asked. ‘Get out of your suit quickly, that’s the fire alarm.’
‘Is there time?’ asked Ant. ‘If there’s a fire we should just run out.’
‘There’s no fire,’ Rubie assured him. ‘It’s Griff’s way of getting Kody and the others out of the building. Everyone’s being evacuated. Come on, it’ll look strange if we’re still in here.’
Ant changed quickly while Rubie took off her apron. She peered outside before signalling to Ant to follow her out. The cleaning trolley was still by the door, piled high with towels. Ant and Rubie joined Griff by the fire escape at the end of the corridor and the three of them went down the stairs. Once outside, they hid behind a bush and watched everyone else gathering on the front lawn.
‘Look, there they are!’ said Griff.
Kody, Cheryl and Norm were arguing on the far side of the lawn. Kody was pointing up at the first floor then burying his head in his hands and walking in circles.
‘What on earth happened in Ray-Chay?’ asked Rubie.
Ant told them about how he’d got Kody to activate the stealth ember and the three of them had to hold their hands over their mouths to stop themselves laughing out loud. Then Griff filled Ant in on how he’d kept Cheryl and Norm away from the cupboard for as long as he could, unlocking all the empty bedrooms for them. The whole story was hilarious.
‘Do you think Ray-Chay’s destroyed?’ asked Griff.
‘I don’t know,’ said Ant. ‘The stealth ember won’t have done it much good.’
‘But Pradahl’s okay?’ asked Rubie.
‘Yes,’ said Ant with a relieved smile.
Griff’s dad emerged from the front entrance and waved his hands, asking for the guests’ attention. ‘It looks like it’s a false alarm, folks. We apologise but we’re sure you understand, there’s nothing more important than the safety of our guests. Please will you wait here for about twenty minutes while we conduct a thorough search?’
Kody went rushing up to Griff’s dad, ranting and raving like a spoilt child. They watched Griff’s dad shake his head firmly before disappearing back into the hotel.
‘It’ll do him good for someone to say no to him for once,’ sniggered Griff and yet again Ant noticed how much his friend had changed. ‘Anyway, my dad won’t mind that the fire alarm went off. They have to have practices from time to time. I’ll own up and say I bumped into it by accident.’
‘That press conference tomorrow is going to be really interesting,’ said Rubie.
Ant
