The Invisible Tower (2 page)

Yes, Kynder was a Dr Pepper head, too. A modest, pseudowealthy, semiretired geek, and his kids loved him.

“Hey, guys, done practicing?” Amazingly, this was what playing video games was called in the Kingfisher house.

“Yeah. Hotshot over here finally killed Caladirth.”

“No kidding? That's great, Arthur! You've been working on that since the day Qwon kissed you on the cheek, huh?”

This was how the last day of sixth grade would forever be known in the Kingfisher house, and Kay and Kynder had been ribbing Artie about it ever since. Artie had no idea how Kynder knew that Qwon—not the virtual battle-ax, but the schoolmate who it was named after—had kissed him, but he did.

“Nice going on that one too, Slick,” quipped Kay.

“Oh, shut up, both of you,” Artie moaned. He plunked down by the tomatoes and began weeding, wondering what would come next in that crazy game he loved so much.

Artie, Kay, and Kynder lived
in a yellow clapboard house on Castleman Street in Shadyside, Pennsylvania, about four miles east of downtown Pittsburgh. Both Kay and Artie had been calling their dad by his first name since they were around eight years old. That's when Artie learned he was adopted, and while Kynder was the only father he'd ever known, he stopped calling him Pop and started calling him Kynder. Within a few months Kay was doing it too. Kynder thought it was a funny quirk and liked it, so he never insisted on being called Pop, or Dad, or anything else.

Kay's mom had left them when Kay was three and Artie two, and Artie had lived with them since he was exactly one year and three days old. Kynder rarely spoke about Kay's mom, and never talked about why she left. Artie didn't even know her name, and Kay never bothered to share it with him. When it came to her mom, Kay never shared anything with Artie. Hey, all kids have secrets, right? Even sisters like Kay?

That night after dinner Artie logged onto Otherworld's game forums to share a little secret of his own. He started a new thread called “killed Caladirth w/o walkthrough” and waited. Within minutes there were over a dozen posts patting Artie on the back. He read all of them proudly. Artie thought that this was what it must feel like to be Kay.

Most of the posts were from registered members, but some were anonymous, and some of these were trolling. One of the trolls called Artie a wimp on account of him choosing to play the mage-warrior class. Apparently that guy had it in for mage-warriors. Artie could not have cared less. The heck with trolls.

Artie was about to log off and go to his room when the board live-updated with a post titled “Arthur's Easter Egg.” Curious, he double-clicked it. It read:

Arthur, you need to find your Easter egg tonight. Look in the most obvious place. —MrT

Everyone who's really played video games knows what an a joke, that's hidden in the
game, kind of like, well, an Easter egg. As hard as Easter eggs could be to find—usually you had to look them up on the internet to have any chance of uncovering them—they were there for everyone. How could it be that Arthur had his
own
Easter egg in
Otherworld
?

Also strange was that MrT's post was private—only Artie could read it.

Artie clicked the reply button on MrT's entry and simply wrote, “Huh?!” and clicked Post.

Within twenty seconds came the reply:

Arthur, it has begun. Find your egg. It is with Caladirth. You must do this. I have already said more than I should. Go to your egg, and to your destiny. —MrT

What the heck was this guy talking about? Artie had a
destiny
? In a
video game
? This was too weird to ignore.

Artie logged off and ran down to the game room. He turned on the TV and picked up the controller and unpaused the game. The soundtrack played over the stereo system as he moved Nitwit the Gray from one end of Caladirth's lair to the other, looking for something out of the ordinary. He didn't see anything. He sifted through the pile of treasure. It was a good haul, and it got him excited to continue playing, but nothing about it stood out.

“Look in the most obvious place,” the post had said. The most obvious place … the most obvious place…

The eggs!

Artie guided Nitwit to the dragon's three large, stone-black eggs. Nitwit picked one up—nothing strange—and put it back. He picked another one up and turned it over. On the bottom it said, “Break me.”

Artie shook his head and made Nitwit throw the egg to the floor. It exploded in a sparkling orange haze. There was no dead dragoling or gooey egg white—only dust.

But then the dust settled, and there, cradled along the inside curve of a large piece of shell, was a note.

Nitwit picked it up and went into the Inspect Item mode.

Artie was overcome with nervousness.

The note read, “Arthur. In one week's time you will come to me at the IT. You are special, Arthur, and I have need of your service and power. I have been waiting so long for you. Your humble servant, M.”

Wait. He was special? And he had a servant? A
humble
one?

What?

Artie stood rooted to the rug for two minutes. He felt a little woozy. The controller slipped from his grip and when it hit the floor, Artie came to. He read the note again. What was going on? Artie was suddenly scared, like
Finkelstein
was bearing down on him with a baseball bat and no lunch money.

He shut down the system, ran to his room, and dived under the covers, where he concluded that, yes, he'd just had his leg pulled and it was just coincidence that his name was Arthur, and there was an Easter egg in
Otherworld
that was addressed to somebody also named Arthur. Yes, that's what it was. A coincidence.

Eventually Artie fell into an uneasy sleep.

Six days after Artie's Easter egg hunt, about which he had decided to never tell a soul, as Artie was reading the latest
X-Men
on his bed, the telephone rang. He didn't move to answer because he knew Kynder, who was in his room packing for their trip to the tournament in Cincinnati, would get it.

After a pause Artie heard a muffled but insistent “Who?” through the wall but didn't pay it much mind. Then he heard something in Kynder's voice he'd never heard before: fear. It was sudden and undeniable.

“My ex-wife? Oh my. It
is
you.” Artie sat bolt upright and dropped his comic book. A call from her was about as likely as a call from a giant saber-toothed tiger.

Artie crept to the wall and pressed his ear to it. Kynder said, “Why on earth are you calling me now? And why do you sound so far away? No one sounds far away anymore.”
Kynder's fear was gone. It had been replaced with anger. Artie felt proud of his dad.

“Really, I don't care. What do you want?”

Pause.

“What? How do you know about that? What do you mean?”

Pause.

Kynder sounded extra flabbergasted when he asked, “Why on earth not?”

Short pause.

“What do you mean, it's not safe? It's Ohio, not Afghanistan.”

Pause.

“What? Since when do you care about the children? Since when do you care about anyone but yourself?”

Artie remembered that there was an old corded phone with a busted ringer in the hall. He left his room and tiptoed to it and carefully picked up the receiver. A weak voice finished saying, “not safe for me—or you, either.”

For a moment Kynder said nothing. Then, very forcefully, he said, “Listen. You're loony. I'm hanging up now. For the last time,
good-bye
! Don't ever call here again!” And he hung up. Kynder had cut her off so abruptly that Artie was sure she'd call back. But she didn't. The phone didn't ring again at all.

Artie didn't know what to
say about the phone call. He wanted to tell Kay but he couldn't bring himself to. Kynder didn't mention it either.

So the Kingfishers left for Cincinnati early on Thursday morning, as if the phone call had never happened.

They pulled into a downtown Hilton at one o'clock and checked in. Then Kynder left Artie with the room service menu while he took Kay to register for the tournament, which was slated to get started at noon on Friday.

Artie ordered a hamburger with curly fries and a Coke and hooked up the Xbox to the room's TV. He looked in Kay's bag for her lucky controller—a shiny silver number that she'd adorned with faux jewels—but he couldn't find it. She must have had it with her. Room service came, and
he reclined in the lounger while eating and channel surfing.

When Kay and Kynder got back, Kay went over to the game console and said, “Thanks, Homey, for hooking this up.”

“No sweat, Kay.”

She picked up the standard-issue controller and turned it in her hand. “Where's my lucky controller, though?”

Kynder pilfered a fistful of Artie's fries.

Artie said, “Dunno. I thought you had it with you.”

“No. It's in my bag.”

“Uh, no, it isn't.”

“Uh, yes, it is—
oh no
!” Kay's eyes widened as she dug through her stuff. “Omigod, I can't believe it but, but… I think I left my controller at home!” She stood in front of the TV and started to pull her hair. “Seriously, Kynder, what am I going to do?”

Kynder sat on the foot of one of the beds. He put his hands on his knees and said, “Kay, let's try to stay calm. Maybe we can get someone to FedEx it, or maybe we can get you another controller and have it blessed or something before the tournament starts.”

Kay plopped down next to Kynder. “No way. I can't win with some vanilla out-of-the-box thing.”

Artie suddenly remembered something. “Kay, you know Erik? He used to live here. We could call him to see if there's a good place to get a custom controller.”

“Erik? Ugh.” Kay sighed. Erik sat behind Kay in art class, where his favorite pastime was pelting her with eraser nubs he'd yanked off number two pencils. In other words, he liked her. “Okay. I guess so.”

Kynder stood up and clapped his hands. “Great. Why don't you give him a call, Arthur?” He stole another fistful of Artie's fries.

Artie got out Kynder's cell phone and dialed Erik. Kynder pointed at Artie's hamburger and said, “You know, Arthur, you really shouldn't eat that. Do you know what they feed those cows?”

Artie did and honestly didn't care. He was twelve.

Erik picked up, and Artie had a quick conversation with him near the window. He hung up and said, “Well, Erik said he'd go over to our house and get the controller if you want—”

Kay interrupted. “I don't think so. I don't want Erik Erikssen poking around my room. Like, at all.”

“Right. But he also said that there's a crazy store we should check out—some place called the Invisible Tower. It's like a comics-slash-gaming-slash-D-and-D shop run by a really strange old dude. They sell custom controllers—Erik has two from the store himself. I've seen them. They're pretty sweet.”

Kynder, now fixated on Artie's meal, held up the Coke. “Arthur, you know how I feel about soda pop! You know I
think you drink more than you should, right?”

“
Dad!
” Kay yelled. Kay reserved the use of that word for only the direst of circumstances.

Kynder put down the soda. “Oh, right. Okay. Arthur, since you've already ‘eaten,' why don't you find out where this Invincible Tower place—”

“
Invisible
Tower, Kynder,” Artie corrected.

“Whatever it's called, find out where it is and take a cab to check it out. Kay—why don't you and I go get some lunch? You'll feel better.”

Kay reluctantly agreed and shuffled off to the bathroom. Artie looked up the place on their laptop. “It's only six blocks away, Kynder.”

“Fine. Here's some money. Only spend it on cabs and the controller, if there's a good one.”

“Got it.”

“Bring me the receipt. And try not to be gone for more than an hour.”

“Right.”

“I mean it.”

“Okay, okay.”

As Artie passed the bathroom, he could hear his sister sniffling. He resolved to help her however he could.

The doorman flagged a cab and Artie climbed in. The
young driver was huge and wore reflective aviator sunglasses
and he would have been menacing-looking if he hadn't also had a baby face that was smiling the whole time.

After a short ride they pulled up to the store. As Artie paid, the driver lowered his sunglasses and gave him a pronounced—and slightly creepy—wink in the mirror.

Artie hopped out of the cab and hurried away, but when he saw the Invisible Tower for the first time, he immediately forgot about the weird cab driver.

It was located on the ground floor of a squat, hundred-year-old red-brick building with gray granite lintels and stonework lettering in an arch below the roof line that read “Vine Street Cable Railway.” There were plenty of tall plateglass windows lining the sidewalk, and displayed in them were the contents of every twelve-year-old's dreams.

There were action figures, masks, books, posters, costumes, games, swords and axes and arrows. There were Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man; there were Halo warriors, rogue-looking special ops members, not-to-be-messed-with lady commandos; there were Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Mummy;
Star Wars
,
Lord of the Rings
,
Avatar
; all manner of Tolkienesque wizards, elves, trolls, orcs, fairies, and sprites; robots, Transformers, droids; dragons, snakes, hydras; screaming manga heroes on motorcycles and doeeyed anime girls in private-school miniskirts; generic monsters and godly titans of every kind and at every stage of decay or anger or
sorrow. The logos in the windows
included Marvel, Dark Horse, Wizards of the Coast, DC, D&D, Transformers, Sony, Xbox, and Lucasfilm.