She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. But it would make sense, right? At least for a beta test like this one. A chance to prove you’re a real fan. Someone truly worthy to play their game.”
“Right,” I said. “That makes total sense.”
“It could end up being nothing,” Starr added. “But if it’s there, it’ll give you a huge weapons cache right off the bat. Which would give you a big advantage over the other team. Maybe even enough to eke out a win. In any case, it’s worth the few seconds it’ll take you to look for it.”
My heart pumped with excitement. This was exactly the kind of thing we needed to set ourselves apart from the other, more experienced players.
“Thank you,” I said to Starr. “We really appreciate this.”
“No problem!” Starr declared. “Anything for the Dragon Slayerz!”
I exchanged a guilty smile with my sister. Wow. She even knew our guild name. Which made me wonder, what else did the Dark Carnival know about us?
Or… Atreus, for that matter. Maybe Starr knew what was going on with Atreus?
I opened my mouth to ask, but at that moment the door in front of us began to creak open. The woman from the podium stepped out. She scanned the crowd, then her eyes dropped to us. She smiled approvingly, and I felt weirdly as if we’d passed some kind of test by skipping the tourist attractions and heading straight to the game.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
We looked at one another. Lilli grinned. Starr gave two thumbs-up. Excitement welled inside of me.
“Absolutely,” I said. “Game on!”
“Okay, space cadets! Are you locked and loaded? We’re just waiting on one more recruit and then we’re clear for launch!”
A mustached man in a silver jumpsuit—our mission commander—walked over to each of us, checking our game rigs in turn. Each setup contained a large headset that could have doubled as a space helmet, a backpack with the battery pack and game console inserted inside, and two gloves, one for each hand, that would work as game controllers.
It was a totally different setup than we’d had in Dragon Ops, where we put on goggles and walked around the park in real life. Since this was only virtual reality, all we had to do was sit in a chair and turn on the game. Which meant even couch potatoes like me could rock it.
At least I hoped so.
Since we’d already been waiting at the gates when the woman first came out, we’d ended up first in line for our test. And bonus, Starr had gotten to join our team, too—Team Red. We’d been ushered into a small room with computer monitors at first, where we designed our characters and picked our starting armor. Unlike Dragon Ops, you didn’t pick a character class—like warrior or mage. It was the armor that gave you your abilities. Some of it was really cool, too. Like an amazing lion’s head helmet that I spent half my allotted starting cash on. I’d be broke but awesome-looking.
Next we’d been fitted for our gear and brought in here, which looked like the inside of a spaceship with tons of blinking lights and monitors spitting out numbers. Lilli sat on one side of me, Starr on the other. I glanced over at Starr. She gave me an enthusiastic thumbs-up, looking excited.
Meanwhile, I was just short of petrified, wondering what I had gotten myself into. Three months of being offline, and now I was jumping back in with both feet. Fully immersing myself in VR. What would it be like to be back in a game?
And what if Atreus found me there? He couldn’t hurt me in real life. But in the game…
Don’t think about it, I scolded myself. Think of Ikumi. She needs you. You have to be brave for her.
The door opened with a loud groan. My jaw dropped as the last person I expected to see stepped into the room. Josh’s eyes locked on me, then Lilli, his mouth curled into a smirk.
Oh no. No, no, no!
“Fashionably late again, are we, Josh?” the mission commander tsked, giving him a disapproving look. But Josh only grinned.
“Fashionable, definitely. Late? Actually, it looks like I’m right on time.” He crossed the room and sat down in the empty chair beside my sister. “Hey, Speedy,” he said, poking her in the arm. “What’s up?”
Lilli raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Wow! Josh!” she greeted him. “I did not expect to see you here!”
“Yeah. I thought you weren’t competing,” I broke in. “I thought you said this was only for nerds.”
Josh grabbed his helmet. “It is, and I’m not,” he replied easily. “But when Grandpa says jump, we all must ask ourselves how high.” He smirked. “Evidently he saw you in line and thought it would be nice for me to play with some kids my own age.”
“But not your own maturity level?” I muttered under my breath. I could feel Lilli give me a sharp look before turning back to Josh.
“Grandpa?” she asked curiously.
Josh’s cheeks colored a little. “Oh yeah. He owns this place. And my parents are off saving the rain forest somewhere in South America. So I’m stuck here for the month.”
“Awesome!” Lilli declared, flashing him a big smile. “I mean, not that you’re stuck. But lucky for us. We can use all the help we can get. You ever play this game?”
“Unfortunately.” Josh made a face. Then he grinned at my sister. “Don’t worry, Speedy. I’ll get you up to speed.”
Lilli giggled. I rolled my eyes, willing myself to stay silent so Josh didn’t decide to get us kicked off the competition. Still, I couldn’t believe it. Of all the rotten luck. This was going to be hard enough without having to deal with Josh on top of it all.
“Don’t let him shake you,” Starr whispered, leaning close so only I could hear. “We got this—with or without His Royal Jerkness. Just ignore him; let him do his thing. He’ll only manage
