I swallowed hard, gripping Lilli even tighter as he swooped in, finding a large, flat plane on the very summit of the mountain. He dove down, overshooting the landing and hitting the ground too hard, causing Lilli to lose her balance. Since I was holding on to her, I fell too, tumbling off Yano’s wing and crashing down onto the trash heap below. As I landed, my head smacked against a hunk of rusted metal sticking out from the ground, and for a moment I saw stars.
“Ow!” I cried, holding my head. It didn’t really hurt, but it felt super disorienting. And my vision was all blurry. That must have been the game’s way of replacing actual pain. It still felt awful, and I would have been totally debilitated if I had been in the middle of a fight.
“Are you okay, Ian?” Lilli asked, rubbing her own head.
“Yeah. I’m fine.” Thankfully, my vision was already starting to clear. At least the effects weren’t long-lasting.
Lilli stood and brushed herself off. “So is this it?” she asked, looking around. “Is this where we jump through the world?”
“I believe so,” Yano replied. “There’s no way to get up here unless you fly—and there’s no reason to even do that. There’s no quests, no treasure chests up here. It’s just supposed to look cool when you see it in the background as you play the rest of the level. Which means there’s a good chance the game developers didn’t pay too much attention to the details. That there are potential weak spots that weren’t rendered completely, since they would assume no one would be coming up here. We just have to search the area until we find one.”
The dragon started stomping his heavy metal feet against the trash pile, causing the whole mountain to shake. I watched uneasily as a car hanging precariously from a hook broke free and crashed down the mountain, causing a mini garbage avalanche in its wake.
“Walk lighter!” I warned. “Or the whole place is going to collapse!”
Yano huffed, looking offended. “I am as graceful as a gazelle, I’ll have you know. As light on my feet as a—”
A loud engine roar cut him off midboast. I looked up, trying to place the sudden sound. To my horror, my eyes caught a large airship hovering over us. It had a searchlight and was slowly combing the mountain as if looking for something… or someone.
“Quick! Duck!” I cried to my sister and Yano as I dove behind a nearby trash pile. Lilli joined me a moment later, panting for breath. But there was, I realized with dread, no place for Yano to hide. He was too big. Too obvious.
“Maybe they’ll think he’s just more trash,” Lilli suggested.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Yano! Stay still. Pretend you’re trash!”
The dragon turned to us, looking offended. “Pretend I’m trash? No one’s going to believe a beautiful, majestic creature like myself is—”
The spotlight stopped on him, the light flashing off his scales, so brightly that for a moment I was blinded. When I could see again, the airship’s hatch had slid open and giant metal spiders with parachutes attached to their backs were floating to the ground.
“I think it’s fair to say they’ve spotted us,” Lilli said with a groan.
I nodded grimly, pulling my sword from its sheath. “Gear up, Mech Heads,” I muttered. “It’s time to fight.”
I watched, frozen, as the spiders began to land. Their parachutes detached, floating away as their eight mechanical legs hit solid ground. They were big—as big as tanks—their eyes emitting glowing red laser beams that swept the ground in front of them as they crawled forward on spindly legs. The scratching of metal skittering across metal made my skin crawl. Like nails on a chalkboard, my mom would say.
Lilli pulled her crossbow from its holster on her back, nocking an arrow. Her face was tense, her mouth pressed tight as her eyes stayed focused on the encroaching spiders. I bit my lower lip, mind racing. What should we do? Stay here, play defense? Or charge them in a surprise attack?
“We need to help Yano,” Lilli whispered, nodding her head in the direction of the dragon, who was still standing out in the open. The spiders, clicking and clacking against the garbage-strewn ground, had surrounded him.
“He’s a giant robot dragon! You don’t think he can take care of himself?”
“I don’t know. He’s just standing there!”
I frowned. She was right. For some reason, our guide looked completely paralyzed. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t fighting, wasn’t even talking—which was very un-Yano-like.
As I watched, worried, he started to flicker. Like a candle just before it goes out.
“Yano?” I whispered as loudly as I dared. “Are you okay?”
But he didn’t answer. Instead, he disappeared completely. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. Blinked out of the game altogether.
Oh no. No, no, no!
“Yano!” I cried. But he was already gone.
“His system must’ve crashed,” Lilli said, frowning.
“Or the powers that be booted him from the game,” I added, worried. “After all, he’s not supposed to be here. They might have thought he was a virus or something.”
“That’s not good. Especially if they realize we’ve been with him this whole time.”
“No kidding. We need to find that hole in the world—fast.”
Lilli peeked around the trash pile. The spiders were getting closer. “How are we supposed to do that with them right there?”
“We can’t. We’ll need to get rid of them first.”
Lilli cringed. “How did I know you were going to say that?” She made a face. Let’s just say spiders were to her like heights were to me. Ever since that day in third grade when Derek had dumped a jar of them in her desk at school just to watch her scream when she opened it. He’d gotten detention. Lilli had gotten a lifelong phobia of eight-legged creatures.
“Come on, Lills,” I said with a small smile. “They’re just virtual. If they kill you, you’ll
