Game Over - By James Patterson Page 0,3
about to get even eerier.
I looked closer and now could see that a black bag rested near each player’s feet. I zoomed in my alien-enhanced vision on one of the screens. They were all playing what appeared to be Crown of Thorns IV, doing battle with video game–sized versions of the thugs onstage.
“Maybe they’re beta testing Crown of Thorns V,” I speculated. I was pretty certain I’d never seen the levels they were playing, and the graphics were even better than what I’d seen out on the showroom floor.
“Maybe,” said Dana, “but what’s the deal with the creepy mannequins onstage?”
“Haven’t figured out that part yet,” I confessed.
It all became clear in a moment when every game display in the theater flickered. Now the players were fighting an on-screen police officer or soldier. Then, after a few minutes, a bright red icon flashed:
CHANGE WEAPONS CHANGE WEAPONS CHANGE WEAPONS
In almost perfect synchrony, the kids took weapons from the black bags at their feet. Then, we all held our breath as we watched the armed teenagers charge boldly down the aisles to the stage.
“What the—?” Willy began, as Dana let out a startled cry. But the sounds of gunfire below drowned out any possibility that she’d blown our cover.
In seconds, the good guys had been reduced to smoking, stinking puddles of melted plastic and wire. But if that weren’t disturbing enough, I noticed something else: the monsters onstage had been left completely untouched.
The players looked around, almost as if they were in a daze, and a few even slumped to the floor. But some of the more alert ones started circling one another, and I could tell we were seconds away from an all-out brawl.
“I don’t think those were regular guns,” Willy commented.
“Whatever,” said Dana, shaking her head. “That is just sick.”
“It’s even sicker than you think,” I agreed, as I ran some quick math. There were hundreds of millions of GC games and consoles in the world. If the company was able to just flick a switch and turn every player into an armed killer…
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, just as the screens flashed another message:
GAME OVER GAME OVER GAME OVER
The brainwashed players collapsed to the floor.
Chapter 5
AS THE FIVE of us casually strolled out the front door of the Game Consortium—acting like we hadn’t just witnessed a dress rehearsal for a massacre—I turned around and looked up at the hulking, looming, skyscraping GC Tower. I couldn’t help imagining the eyes of the demonic duo and their subhenchmen following my every move.
“I gotta admit, those games were amazing,” Willy was saying. “It was like I was playing inside a dream. The way you controlled your avatar almost just by thinking—”
“My personal theory,” interrupted Joe, “is that they’re using the games to destroy society by making people so hungry they can’t think straight. I mean, is it me, or are you guys about to pass out from malnutrition? Quick, let’s get some tempura!”
I raised an eyebrow at him. No level of danger or seriousness ever stops Joe from obsessing about food. The boy must have a forty-gallon stomach.
“I want miso,” Emma chimed in. Even she, our most seriously peace-freaky friend, had gotten scarily sucked into the GC’s first-person shooter games.
“Guys,” I told Joe and Emma soberly. “You didn’t see what the rest of us saw in that room. We’ve got two aliens a couple of steps away from wiping out the entire human species by means of a sinister plot to turn video-game players of the world into nonvirtual killing machines.”
Dana’s face was still ashen. “He’s serious, you two. It was bad. Let me tell you.”
“First things first,” I said. “It’s getting dark, and we have to go find ourselves a secure place to spend the night. Then we’ll grab some grub and get these two caught up.”
I walked over to a nearby glass-and-chrome bus shelter and scanned the route map. The GC building is located in the Nishi-Shinjuku district of Tokyo. It’s a gleaming, bustling, ultradense corporate neighborhood with fancy retail and restaurants around the edges. We needed someplace a little quieter, a little less crowded, a little less likely to be frequented by Number 7 and Number 8’s minions.
“Keihin,” I said, spotting a sprawling, industrial-looking area on the map down along Tokyo Harbor. It seemed like the kind of place that would have plenty of good spots to hide, and not too many people—or aliens.
“Get on,” I said, quickly materializing Pasmo fare cards and handing them out as a