As I watched, two men jumped out of the back of the van. They were dressed all in black with matching black baseball caps on their heads.
Uh-oh.
I glanced at my sister. “You don’t think…” I started to say. But her eyes were still glued to the window. To the two men who were now walking up to our front porch. At this point, I could better see their outfits. My eyes bulged as I caught the familiar Rocky the Robot logo on their chests.
“Do you think they know?” I whispered to my sister, my pulse skittering madly. “I mean, what we’re really doing?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “They could have just figured out we went off-grid, right? They might not know why.”
“I bet Josh told on us,” I muttered. “I knew we shouldn’t have let him tag along.”
“No way. Josh wouldn’t turn us in.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do, okay?”
DING-DONG!
The doorbell rang, nearly causing me to jump out of my skin. “What do we do?” I whispered.
Lilli’s gaze shot to the bedroom door. “I don’t know. Not answer the door, for one.”
“Yeah, but what if they bash it in? Or go in through a window?” Visions of every bad guy movie I’d ever seen flashed through my head. “We’re like sitting ducks in here.”
“They’re not going to do that. We’re not wanted criminals. We’re kids.”
“Kids trying to steal their most precious possession. Remember, Ikumi’s tech could be worth trillions.”
My sister motioned to my rig, still sitting on the bed in pieces. “Grab everything,” she said. “We’re getting out of here.”
I did as she said, heart pounding in my chest as I gathered up all my stuff and shoved it into the backpack. It was a tight fit, especially the helmet. But in the end I managed to get it all on my back just as the doorbell rang a second time.
Lilli ran to the bedroom door. “Come on,” she said. “Hurry.”
I followed her out to the hall, then froze as I heard the front door squeak open. At first I thought the Mech Ops guys had broken in already. Then I heard a familiar voice greet them. “Can I help you guys?”
“Oh no,” I whispered. “Dad’s home.”
Usually Dad was at work this time of day. But sometimes he did come home for lunch. Maybe Mom asked him to check on us and make sure we were getting rest and weren’t back to gaming.
“Sure. Come on in. I’ll go get them,” we heard Dad say.
Lilli’s eyes bulged. Oh no. We could hear footsteps as the men entered the house. Another moment and they’d be in the hall.
“We can’t let them take our rigs!” I cried.
Lilli bit her lower lip, her gaze darting around the hall before settling on the stairs. “Up here! Quick!” she cried.
We dashed upstairs just as the men came around the corner. Lilli pushed open the door to the game room and we slipped inside, panting for breath.
“Hide the rig,” my sister commanded, shrugging hers off her back and trying to shove it under the couch. But it was way too big to fit.
Dad appeared in the doorway.
“Um, hey, guys!” He gave us a weird look. “There’s some people here to see you? From that game company?”
“We’re not home!” I burst out.
Dad raised an eyebrow. “You are clearly home. What is this about?” His eyes went to our backpacks, half shoved under the couch. His eyebrows raised.
“Please, Dad,” Lilli begged. “Just send them away. We’ll explain later, I promise.”
But Dad didn’t move. “They said you’ve violated the terms and conditions of your beta test.” He frowned. “What have you guys been up to, anyway? Have you been hacking or something?”
Dad didn’t know a thing about computers, only what he’d seen in movies. But that didn’t mean we were going to be able to convince him to send the men off without giving them what they’d come for. And I had no idea how long they’d sit, patiently waiting downstairs, before they made a move.
“Look,” I said. “We’ll bring down the rigs. We just have to find all the pieces. There’s a sensor that fell off my helmet.” I lifted up a couch cushion as if I was searching for it. “Just give me a minute to find it, and we’ll be down.”
“Do you need help?” Dad asked.
“I’m helping him,” Lilli broke in, her fingers running over the carpet as if feeling for the missing sensor.
Dad reached into his pocket. “Do you want my flashlight?”
“No!” we both shouted in unison.
“I mean—no thank you,” I stammered. “Can you just go down and let them know we’ll be there in a second?”
He watched for a moment, and I could see the suspicion in his eyes. Then he sighed. “Sure. But don’t be long. I need to get back to work. I can’t entertain these guys all day.”
He headed out of the game room, closing the door behind him. Lilli shot to her feet, running to the door and locking it. Then she put a chair under the handle. Exactly what we’d done in-game to keep out the zombies.
These men might be worse than zombies.
“What, do you want to crawl through the air vents?” I asked half jokingly as I looked up at the vents in question. They were home-size, not industrial, and there was no way we’d fit.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Lilli replied, running to the balcony door. She yanked it open, and a fresh wind blew in from outside.
“You do realize we’re on the second floor,” I reminded her, a little uneasily.
“You do realize we have a zip line,” she shot back, stepping out onto the balcony.
“Um…” I glanced at her, then back at the door. “I thought you guys hadn’t finished that yet.”
“We haven’t. But I
