the opposite walls. One of the spears broke in half.
Alex picked it up and felt the needle-sharp point. It was exactly what he wanted. He tucked it into the belt of his trousers. He still had the crossbow; now he had a bolt that might fit it too.
The computer game had been programmed so that there was only one way forward. Alex had been able to dodge both the spears and the acid river easily enough when he was playing Feathered Serpent. But he knew he would be unable to do the same in this grotesque three-dimensional version. He would only have to take one false step and he would be finished. He could imagine splashing into the acid and then panicking. He would be driven straight into the path of the spears as he tried to reach the next zone. No. There had to be another way.
Alex forced himself to concentrate. Ignore the rules! He turned the three words over and over in his mind. Moving along the corridor wasn't an option. But how about up? He put on his shoes, then took a tentative step. The spears nearest the entrance had already been fired. He was safe so long as he didn't move too far down the corridor. He grabbed hold of the wall and, balancing the crossbow over his shoulder, began to climb. The Aztec heads made perfect footholds, and only when he was at the very top did he begin to make his way along, high above the floor and away from danger. One step at a time, he edged forward. He came to a camera mounted in the ceiling and, with a smile, wrenched out the wire. There was a lot of it and he decided to keep that too.
He reached the end of the corridor and climbed down into the fourth zone, the jungle. He was surprised to discover that the vegetation pressing in on him from all sides was real. He had expected plastic and paper. He could feel the heat in the air and the ground underfoot was soft and wet. What traps were waiting for him here? He remembered the robotic snakes that had barely managed to get close when he played the game, and searched warily for the tracks that would propel something similar his way.
There were no tracks. Alex took another step forward and stopped, paralysed by the horror of what he saw.
There was a snake, and, like the leaves and the creepers, it was real. It was as thick as a man's waist and at least five metres long, lying motionless in a patch of long grass. Its eyes were two black diamonds. For a brief second, Alex hoped it might be dead. But then its tongue flickered out and the whole body heaved, and he knew that he was facing a living thing—one that was beyond nightmares.
The snake had been encased in a fantastic body suit. Alex had no idea how long it could have survived wrapped up like this. As terrifying as the creature was, he still felt a spark of pity for it, seeing what had been done. The suit was made out of wire that had been twisted round and round the full length of the animal, with vicious spikes and razors welded on from the neck all the way to the tail. Looking past the tail, Alex could see dozens of lines cut into the soft ground.
Whatever the snake touched, it sliced. It couldn't help itself. And it was slithering towards him.
He couldn't have moved if he had wanted to, but something told him that keeping still was the only chance he had. The snake had to be some sort of boa constrictor, part of the Boidae family.
A useless piece of information he had picked up in biology class suddenly came back to him.
The snake ate mainly birds and monkeys, finding its victims by smell, then coiling round and suffocating them. But Alex knew that if the snake attacked him, this wouldn't be how he would die. The razors and spikes would cut him to pieces.
And it was getting closer. Wave after wave of glinting silver rippled behind it as it dragged the razors along. Now it was just a metre away. Moving very slowly, Alex lowered the crossbow from his shoulder. He pulled the wire back to load it, then reached into the waistband of his trousers. The broken spear was still there. Trying not to give the snake any reason to attack him, Alex fixed the length of wood into the stock. He was lucky. The spear was exactly the right length.
He wasn't meant to have a weapon in this zone. That hadn't been part of the program. But despite everything Cray had thrown at him he still had the crossbow and now it was loaded.
Alex cried out. He couldn't help himself. The snake had suddenly jerked forward, dragging itself over his trainer. The razors cut into the soft material, only millimetres away from his foot. He instinctively kicked out. At once the snake reared back. Alex saw black flames ignite in its eyes.
Its tongue flickered. It was about to launch itself at him. He brought the crossbow round and fired. There was nothing else he could do. The bolt entered the snake's mouth and continued out of the back of its head. Alex leapt back, avoiding the deadly convulsions of the creature's body.
The snake thrashed and twisted, cutting the grass and the nearby bushes to shreds. Then it lay still.
Alex knew that he had killed it, and he wasn't sorry. What had been done to the snake was revolting. He was glad he had put it out of its misery.
There was one more zone left—the mirror maze. Alex knew that there would be Aztec gods waiting for him. Probably guards in fancy dress. Even if he got past them, he would only find himself facing the pool of fire. But he'd had enough. To hell with Damian Cray. He looked up.
He had disabled one of the security cameras and there weren't any others in view. He had found a blind spot in this insane playground. That suited him perfectly.
It was time to find his own way out.
THE TRUTH ABOUT ALEX
« ^ »
here are no gods crueller or more ferocious than those of the Aztecs. That was the reason why Damian Cray had chosen them to inhabit his computer game.
He had summoned three of them to patrol the mirror maze, the fifth and last zone in the huge arena he had built beneath the compound. Tlaloc, the god of rain, was half human, half alligator, with jagged teeth, claw-like hands and a thick scaly tail that dragged behind him. Xipe Totec, the lord of spring, had torn out his own eyes. They were still dangling in front of his gruesome, pain-distorted face. And Xolotl, bringer of fire, walked on feet that had been smashed and wrenched round to face backwards. Flames leapt out of his hands, reflected a hundred times in the mirrors and adding to the twisting clouds of smoke.
Of course, there was nothing supernatural about the three creatures waiting for Alex to appear.
Beneath the grotesque masks, the plastic skin and make-up, they were nothing more than criminals, recently released from Bijlmer, the largest prison in the Netherlands. They now worked as guards for Cray Software Technology, but they had special duties too. This was one of them. The three men were armed with curved swords, javelins, steel claws and flame-throwers.
They were looking forward to using them.
It was the one dressed as Xolotl who saw Alex first.
The camera in zone three had gone down, so there had been no way of knowing if Alex was on his way or if the snake had finished him. But suddenly there was a movement. The guard saw a figure lurch round a corner, naked to the waist. The boy was making no attempt to hide, and the guard saw why.
Alex Rider was soaked in blood. His entire chest was bright red. His mouth was opening and closing, but no sound came out. Then the guard saw the wooden spear sticking out of his chest.
The boy had obviously tried to run down the corridor but hadn't quite made it. One of the spears had found its target.
Alex saw the guard and stopped. He dropped to his knees. One hand pointed limply at the spear, then fell. He looked upwards and tried to speak. More blood trickled out of his mouth. His eyes closed and he pitched to one side. He didn't move again.
The guard relaxed. The boy's death meant nothing to him. He reached into the pocket of his chain-mail shirt and took out a radio transmitter.
“It's over,” he said, speaking in Dutch. “The boy's been killed by a spear.” Neon strips flickered on throughout the game zone. In the harsh white light the different zones seemed cruder, more like fairground attractions. The guards, too, looked ridiculous in their fancy dress. The dangling eyes were painted ping-pong balls. The alligator body was nothing more than a rubber suit. The backward-facing feet could have come out of a joke shop. The three of them formed a circle around Alex.
“He's still breathing,” one of them said.
“Not for much longer.” The second guard glanced at the point of the spear, covered in rapidly congealing blood.
“What shall we do with him?”
