Everyone crowded the spaceships and robots, their excited voices rising into the air. It took me a moment to realize what was getting them so worked up. Turned out each spaceship had a ladder or staircase. So you could actually go into them and check them out. Even Rocky the Robot had a door in his chest, leading into his cybernetic body. How cool was that?
Excited, I started over to the robot, wanting to get in line. But Lilli ran after me, grabbing my arm and pulling me back. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Uh, checking out the awesome?” I said, as if that wasn’t obvious. “Look. Everyone’s doing it.”
“Everyone is not here to save Ikumi,” Lilli scolded. “Maybe a little focus, please?”
“Right.” I reluctantly walked away from the line, not able to help feeling a little disappointed. I mean, when was I ever going to get another chance like this? Still, I knew she was right. We were here on a very serious mission, and we couldn’t allow ourselves to be distracted. This wasn’t Disney World. This was the vile compound of an evil mastermind who may or may not have kidnapped my friend and her father.
In other words, no robots for me.
We crossed the courtyard, weaving through the throngs of excited gamers. At the end, we found Starr waiting by herself outside a locked set of double doors where a sign read BETA TEST ENTRANCE. She was writing in a small notebook on her lap.
“No spaceships for you, either?” I joked as we approached.
She looked up. “Not exactly wheelchair accessible, are they?” she said with a smirk as she pointed to the ladders.
Ugh. I hadn’t thought of that. I glanced back at the ships. Sure enough, not one of them had a ramp or an elevator or anything.
“That’s so uncool,” Lilli declared. “And probably illegal, right?”
Starr waved her off. “Whatever,” she said. “These spaceships don’t interest me, anyway. I only care about the real ones in the game.”
It was an odd thing to say, but it made sense in a way. While these spaceships and robots were technically real—as in, they had real walls and doors and paint—at the end of the day, they were still only models. Metal shells that couldn’t fly or do anything interesting beyond looking cool.
In the game, however, it would be a different story.
“Anyway, I wanted to be first in line,” Starr added. “There’s a lot of people here. I do not want to miss my chance to try out.”
“Yeah, us too,” I said, giving Lilli an appreciative glance. Good thinking, skipping the touristy stuff. Now we were second and third in line after Starr.
Starr slipped her notebook into a pocket hanging off the side of her wheelchair. “So,” she said, looking up at us, “why are you two really here?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, something uncomfortable churning in my gut. “We’re here like everyone else. To try the demo. Become beta testers.”
“Sure.” Starr pursed her lips. “But you guys are Fields of Fantasy players. Most people who play Fields of Fantasy like fantasy games, not sci-fi games.”
“People can like both!” I protested.
“Yes,” she said, giving me a pointed look. “But do you?”
A nervous feeling spun down my spine. She was suspicious. And if she was suspicious, wouldn’t the Mech Ops people be suspicious, too?
“Actually, I do,” Lilli broke in, saving me from answering. “Ian’s just here as my backup. I’m the sci-fi superfan.”
Starr raised an eyebrow. “Are you?” she asked. “Star Wars or Star Trek?”
Lilli’s face turned red. Uh-oh. While my sister had a lot of fine qualities, let’s just say sci-fi fandom was not one of them. “Um, Wars? That’s the one with the lightsabers, right?”
“Favorite captain?”
Lilli’s blush deepened. “Captain… Crunch?”
“Favorite Doctor?”
“My pediatrician, Doctor Lillian, is pretty nice…”
D’oh.
“Look,” I blurted. “No offense, but we didn’t come here to prove our geek cred. We came to get on this beta. And that’s what we’re going to do.” I placed my hands on my hips for emphasis, hoping it made me look tough.
Starr smiled as if amused. “Fair,” she said. “And I’m going to help you do it.”
I dropped my hands, surprised. “You are?”
“Sure,” she said. “As long as you agree to be on my channel someday.”
“You want us on your channel?”
“We can’t talk about Dragon Ops stuff,” Lilli broke in. “I mean, even if we were the ones who played Dragon Ops. Which I’m not saying we are,” she added quickly, shooting me a glance.
Starr held up her hands. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,” she assured us. “I just want to prove I know you.” She looked at us pointedly. “So do we have a deal?”
“Absolutely,” I said. Why not? We needed all the help we could get. And going on my favorite online celebrity’s channel? That was just icing on the cake.
“Great.” She grabbed her notebook and flipped a few pages. “I have some inside info. This may turn out to be nothing, but I figure it’s worth a shot. Anything to get an edge, right?”
“Totally,” I declared, excitement rising inside of me. “What is it?”
“Well, according to one of my Old School Saturday fans who is a huge Mech Ops geek from way back when, in the original eight-bit scroller version of the game, they placed a chest at the very beginning in a secret room at the back of the starting area. To get to it, you had to start the game by pushing the joystick backward, which, of course, no one would ever think to do in a scroller game. You’d just move forward, like you’re supposed to. And you’d miss the chest altogether.”
“Cool,” I said. I always loved Easter eggs placed in really old video games. They were much rarer than they were today. And also, because there was no internet back then, they stayed secret longer.
“But this isn’t side-scrolling,” Lilli reminded her. “Do you think they still
