“Whoa!” Lilli cried. “Yano got an upgrade!”
“Nice of you to notice,” he said, preening a little as he waddled out of the shipping container. “I thought it would be appropriate for our mission.” He raised an eyebrow as he took in Lilli’s dress. “Unlike that ensemble, for example…”
“Don’t start,” Lilli groaned.
“Were you in there the whole time?” I asked, unbelievingly.
“Yes. I spawned in a few minutes before you, using the log-in information you gave me. Then I hid in the crate when I saw the giant robot guy coming. I didn’t know if he’d… appreciate… my presence.”
“Smart,” I said.
“Of course it was. I am a superior artificially intelligent creature, after all. Which means pretty much everything I do is smart. Like the fact that I chose this new look for the adventure. No one’s going to bat an eye at some random, yet incredibly handsome, cyborg robot dragon flying around the place.”
I wasn’t positive that was true. In my research I hadn’t read anything about dragons—cyborg or otherwise—being part of the game. But we’d have to take our chances. He was the only one who could guide us to Ikumi.
“So where do we go?” Lilli asked. “You said you pinpointed Ikumi’s location. How do we get there from here?”
“First, you must invite me to your party,” Yano directed. He flapped his wings, sending two matching shimmers of silver down his side. “Then I can share my map with you.”
Right. I blinked my eyes to bring up my game menu. I found Yano in my proximity and invited him and my sister into a new group.
“The Dragon Slayerz?” Yano asked as he read the name of the group I’d picked. “Should I be concerned? Being one of dragonkind, that is?”
“Of course not!” I said with a laugh. “That was our name back in Dragon Ops, remember?”
“We’d never slay you, Yano,” Lilli added with a grin. “You’re far too handsome.”
Yano grinned proudly. “Goes without saying, I suppose. Though please don’t let that stop you from saying it.” He flipped his third head. “Now, about our girl. From my research I believe she’s being held in the Alpha Trinity sector of this game.”
Lilli frowned. “Which is… where, exactly?”
“About as far from here as possible,” Yano admitted. “Far beyond the part of the game that’s open for the demo.”
Right. “So how do we get there?” I asked.
“From what I can tell, this game is set up in layers. Think of it like a cake. So instead of a world that sprawls out like Dragon Ops, this one is more vertical. Once you make your way through one level, you are sent down to the next. Right now, we’re near the top. Ikumi is near the bottom.”
“So how do we get down levels?” Lilli asked. “Especially if this is the only one that’s open.”
“That,” Yano replied, “is what we need to figure out. If we could play through the game, we might be able to find a locked door. I could hack that door and—”
“There’s no time for that,” I argued. “That would take forever. Ikumi can’t wait.”
Yano cocked his three heads. “You have a better idea?”
I thought for a moment. We needed to go down. We needed to…
“I got it!” I cried. “We need to fall through the world.”
“What?” Lilli asked.
“You know. Like Rocky the Robot was warning us not to do. We search this world for an unfinished spot in the game—where the ground hasn’t been fully rendered yet. We’ll jump through and land in the level below.”
“You really think that’s going to work? What if there is no level below? What if the level below is super hard and we die instantly from mobs we aren’t at a high enough level to fight?”
“Then we resurrect in the graveyards.”
“What if there are no graveyards yet? We could be stuck as ghosts.”
“Then we’ll rescue Ikumi as ghosts,” Yano broke in, sounding impatient. “Look, we can argue all day, but we’re just wasting time. We don’t know how long it will take for the Mech Ops people to realize what we’re after. And when they do, they’ll kick us out of the game—permanently. So if you want to find our friend, we’re going to have to act fast and fearless.”
“Besides, it’s not like we’re in any real danger,” I added. “It’s not like Dragon Ops. It’s just a game.”
But even as I said the words, doubt began to worm through me. Dragon Ops had been “just a game,” too—until it wasn’t. And while our bodies were safe and sound at home this time, what made me think this game couldn’t mess with our heads just as easily as Dragon Ops? As we’d learned there, if your brain truly believed you were dead, it could literally stop your real-life heart from beating. And we had no idea what was down there in the unfinished levels waiting for us.
And then there was the Atreus thing. Not that I wanted to bring that up.
“Okay, fine,” Lilli said, putting on a brave face. “Let’s do this.”
“Finally!” Yano gave out a loud cheer. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are clear for launch!”
The good news? After reviewing the game maps, Yano found a location he believed to be nonrendered and fall-downable. The bad news? It was on the top of a super-high mountain at the very other end of the level. Not exactly easy access.
I stared at the map in dismay. “Wow. This place is huge.” At least there was time compression in the game. But still! I thought back to wandering through Dragon Ops with all its quests and trash mobs and bosses in the way. Would this game be the same? Would it take hours—even days—to reach the mountain at the very other end
