“Maybe he was meant to be a surprise?” Lilli suggested. “After all, they can’t give away all the coolness in the brochure.”
“Sure,” Starr said, though she looked as if she didn’t believe us. “What are you guys doing up here, anyway? You flew by all the quest givers. Not to mention the armory,” she added, giving Lilli’s dress a skeptical look. My sister blushed.
“Whoops?” she tried.
Starr rolled her eyes. “Cute. But don’t play dumb with me. I know you’re up to something. After all, you guys aren’t just random beta testers. You’re the Dragon Slayerz. No way do I buy you accidentally flew up to a random trash mountain on some mysterious cyborg dragon that isn’t even supposed to be in the beta. Clearly you’re on some kind of secret mission. And I want to know what it is.”
I sighed, glancing at Lilli. Of course Starr wasn’t going to believe we flew up here to this random place by accident. But what could we say? Could we explain our real mission? Could we trust her to keep it quiet? What if she was secretly working for Mech Ops? Or maybe she hoped to score a job or something with them, and selling us out would be her ticket in. She could run right back to Admiral Appleby and tell him everything.
“We’re just here to play,” I tried. But Starr shook her head.
“If you were just here to play, you’d be down there playing. Capturing cyber-rats, sneaking through the zombie forest, collecting power-ups. You even blew past the first boss—and he’s incredible! This metallic yellow robot bumblebee-type thing that shoots poison darts.” She put her hands on her hips. “So spill. What are you doing up here? For real?”
“Our uncle sent us,” Lilli declared suddenly, surprising me. “Our Uncle Jack. He’s a game designer. He’s worked on Dragon Ops and some other stuff. But he’s always wanted to work on Mech Ops. So he thought if he could send us in for an insider’s look into the game, we could share what we found with him. So he can seem super smart when he goes in for an interview.”
“Exactly!” I agreed. Wow, my sister was kind of a genius. “Like, we can find some of the game issues, the weak spots. Then he can walk in with a plan to fix them.”
Starr looked a little disappointed. I could tell she’d been hoping for some way-cooler secret mission from the kids who survived Dragon Ops. But she did seem to be buying the idea, so that was good.
“And that’s why you’re up here?” she asked, looking around. “You’re looking for glitches?”
“For holes,” I said, figuring the more honest we were, the better. “We’re trying to find a way to jump through the world. A secret passage into some of the unfinished levels.”
Starr’s eyes shone brightly at this idea. “Cool,” she declared. “I’m in.”
I stared at Starr for a moment, not sure I’d heard her right. “Y-you’re what?” I stammered.
“I’m in.” Her grin widened. “Let’s jump through the world together.”
“Are you sure?” Lilli asked, stepping forward. “Remember, this violates all sorts of terms and conditions. If they find out what we’re doing, they may delete our accounts. Take our VR rigs away.”
Starr waved a hand. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself. Also?” She pointed to the dead spider. “You may need my help, no offense. After all, I did all the early quests and boss fights. I’m already level twenty. How about you?”
“You did them already?” I stared at her in shock. “We only got our rigs this afternoon.”
“Oh.” Starr shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I logged on the second I got home. And, uh, I read a few online guides ahead of time to get the lay of the land.”
I glanced over at my sister. That was some dedication!
Then a more troubling thought hit me. How did she find us up here, anyway? And why was she looking for us to begin with? We were just kids; she was basically a grown-up. It was one thing to be partnered up in the beta when we had no choice. But surely she had someone else she’d rather play with now. Someone who, like she mentioned, was actually playing the game the right way. It was odd, to be sure. And I wondered if we could trust her. She knew a lot about us—but we knew very little about her, besides what she did on her channel.
At the same time, we needed all the help we could get. Especially from someone who was higher level and had researched the game extensively like Starr claimed she had. We were fighting blind and had no idea what was in store for us deeper in the game. Someone like Starr could help. Especially now that Yano had crashed out. Who knew when he’d be able to get back inside.
“Fine,” I said, making a decision. “You can come.”
Starr’s face broke out into a grin. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
We split up, searching the trash mountain for weak spots. At first it felt thrilling—like a secret mission. I kept looking over my shoulder for some game sentry to bust us. But after a while, I began to get discouraged. Everything felt so real. So solid. Was Yano wrong about this? Maybe the game designers had finished this section after all, even though it was remote. Maybe some quest took you up here.
I was just about to give up when I heard Starr’s cry from somewhere nearby. “Um, we’ve got a small problem,” she said. “And when I say small, I mean… well, pretty gigantic.”
Before I could answer, I heard a rumbling above. I looked up, my jaw dropping in dismay as I watched three large airships approach. The same kinds of airships that dropped off the robot spiders earlier were now returning for a respawn. I dropped the soggy piece of cardboard
