The Serpents of Arakesh (10 page)

‘Choose a desk, relax and make yourselves comfortable.' Q smiled at us.

Early morning sunshine streamed in through the open windows. The computer room seemed a totally different place — sunny, friendly and familiar. The door was open and a little breeze ruffled the papers on Q's desk.

Tiger Lily appeared in the doorway and paused, haughtily surveying the room with her golden eyes. Then she padded over to my desk and leapt lightly onto my lap. She curled up, tucked her nose into the crook of her paw, and went straight to sleep.

‘Are you all ready? Excellent. Then let's begin.

‘First of all, I think we need to introduce ourselves properly … perhaps say a word or two about who we are, and so on. You will know what is most important to you, and that's what I'd like you to share.

‘Perhaps I should lead the way. My name is Quentin Quested, and my friends call me Q. That includes all of
you.' Q beamed at us. ‘I am fifty-five years old, and have one daughter named Hannah. I live here at Quested Court with a group of special helpers with whom I work so closely they are almost like a family: Shaw, who takes care of my physical safety …'

‘
Bodyguard!
' Richard mouthed across to me.

‘And of course Hannah's nanny, and Withers, whom you may not have met, who takes care of my finances. And Usherwood, who deals with the marketing side of the business.' Q paused. ‘On a more personal note, Hannah is my life … and Karazan is my world: a world in many ways more real to me than the one we inhabit. Now, who would like to be next?'

Jamie jumped up. ‘I will! My name's James Mortimer Fitzpatrick, my friends call me Jamie and I'm eleven. My hobbies are juggling and magic — I did circus arts and a magician course last holidays. I'm an only child. I want to invent computer games and be rich and famous like Q.'

‘A commendable ambition, Jamie.' Q smiled. ‘Who's next?'

Genevieve stood up, blushing. ‘I'm Gen, and I'm thirteen,' she said in a soft voice. ‘I've loved fantasy and fairy tales ever since I can remember. I have two little sisters and I make up stories for them. Mum and Dad gave us a computer for Christmas last year, and
Quest to Karazan
. It was the best present ever. And I still can't believe I'm here.' She sat down again quickly.

‘Thank you, Gen.'

Richard pushed back his chair. ‘Well, you all know I'm Richard,' he said sheepishly. ‘I like sport, especially rugby, and computer games. I have two pet mice, and a brother called Thomas. And I hate school.' He grinned round at us, and sat back down.

I looked down at my desk, hoping I wouldn't be next. ‘Kenta?'

Kenta rose reluctantly. ‘My name is Kenta Nakamura,
and I am twelve years old,' she said rapidly. ‘I live with my mother and father above our greengrocer shop. My father bought our computer second hand, to assist with the business. My godfather sent me
Quest of the Dark Citadel
for my birthday. It is the only one I have played, but I love it.' She gave Q a shy smile. ‘Is that enough?'

‘Yes, Kenta, that's perfect. And Adam.'

I stood up, knocking my chair over with a clatter. I picked it up again, blushing like a beetroot and feeling like a complete idiot. ‘I'm Adam,' I mumbled. ‘I don't know the first thing about computers — or about anything much, really.' There was a stifled snigger from Jamie. ‘I can't believe I got through to the final five. I'm worried there's been some kind of a mix-up.' Quickly, I sat back down again.

‘You can rest assured, Adam,' said Q gravely, ‘no mistake has been made.'

‘Now, you must be wondering what we will be doing over the next few days. In order for you to understand it better, I'll need to fill you in on some of the background to the development of the Karazan game world.

‘Firstly: who can tell me the names of all the games, in the correct order?'

Four hands went up, Jamie's fingers clicking. I stared down at my desk. I hoped this wasn't going to be like school.

‘Kenta?'

‘
Quest to Karazan, Quest of the Dark Citadel, Dungeon Quest
, and
Quest for the Golden Goblet
.'

Jamie's hand was flapping again. Without waiting to be asked, he blurted, ‘You forgot
Quest to the Desert of the Dead
— it comes after
Dungeon Quest
.'

‘Wonderful! Well done, both of you.

‘Now, when
Quest to Karazan
was first developed, the technology was much simpler. I doubt any of you realise
quite how basic computer games were then — funny, blocky graphics, written captions instead of proper speech, and, above all,
slow
.'

‘However … two years later came
Quest of the Dark Citadel
. It was vastly superior in almost every way. Increased animation and music capabilities, 256 colour VGA, digitised speech and sound on the CD-Rom version … at the risk of becoming too technical, a quantum leap forward in terms of technology. All these advances were taking place pretty much across the board.'

Q took his glasses off and polished them. ‘But
Citadel
pioneered a far more important innovation, unique to the Quest series, and one which has remained absolutely secret until this moment.

‘Before I continue, I need to remind you all of the confidentiality clause in the agreement you and your parents signed when you arrived. Nothing that is said in the course of the next two days is to go beyond these four walls. If anyone has any difficulty with that, I ask you to leave now.'

He paused again and looked round the room, locking eyes with each of us in turn. No one moved or made a sound. But my mind was buzzing. Was Q really going to tell
us,
a bunch of kids, about a top-secret innovation? Why? And when he did, would we even begin to understand it?

‘I called this invention a randomiser,' Q continued softly. ‘Effectively, it uses virtual intelligence and a cutting-edge technique called spontaneous evolution to enable the fantasy world of Karazan to evolve on its own, without any further input from me.'

Huh? As I'd expected, Q had completely lost me, and by the blank looks on the other kids' faces, they weren't any better off. But suddenly a familiar little voice piped up from the door.

‘Q, you have to use
proper
words. Explain so
I
can understand. Can I come and sit on your lap? And has anyone seen Tiger Lily?'

We broke for pancakes and hot chocolate, and afterwards, Q tried again. This time he had Hannah on his lap, and seemed a lot more relaxed. Tiger Lily had trotted away across the lawn: her beauty sleep over, she was off to catch herself some lunch.

‘When I wrote
Quest of the Dark Citadel
,' Q explained, frowning in his effort to keep it simple, ‘I built something new into the programme. It was the ability for Karazan to change and develop all on its own, just like societies and civilisations do in real life.'

‘This is what I called the ‘randomiser', and it's what makes my games different each time you play them, with an infinite number of variables and …'

‘
Q!
'

‘Sorry,' said Q. ‘This is harder than I thought. Stop me if I get carried away, Chatterbot.'

‘You betcha.'

‘Well, the most important effect of the randomiser only became apparent when I started work on
Goblet
two years ago. And it was this.' He paused, took a sip of water from the glass on his desk, and continued. ‘Karazan had grown into an independent world, parallel to our own. A world with its own physical structure, its own geography, its own politics and population and laws and … and universe.'

Q stopped there, and looked round at us.

‘Try again, Q,' Hannah suggested.

Q sighed. ‘This is going to sound so bizarre, I hesitate to say it. In the simplest possible terms, Karazan has become real. It exists, in exactly the same way as our own
world. And I have found a way to travel there.

‘That is what you are here to do.'

We stared at Q. No one said anything for what seemed a very long time.

Gen's hand went up. ‘I'm sorry, Q; I don't mean to be rude, or sound as if I doubt what you've just said. I just want to make sure I understand it properly. You said Karazan is
real
? You can actually
go
there — really, not just in your imagination, or on the computer? And that
we
are going to go?'

There was a nervous giggle from Jamie's direction, but I didn't look round. My eyes, like everyone else's, were fixed on Q.

‘Yes,' said Q simply.

Suddenly everyone was talking at once. Q held up his hand, and the babble of voices trailed off into a reluctant silence. ‘One at a time, please,' said Q. ‘Of course you all have questions, and I'll do my best to answer them. Now, Kenta.'

Kenta stood up. ‘I have read about something called
‘virtual reality'. Is it an extension of that?'

‘No, it's far, far more than that. It is … one could quite accurately call it …
absolute
reality. Jamie?'

Jamie's face was pinker than usual. ‘Do you mean you want to shrink us down and put us into the computer?'

Richard made a muffled snorting sound, but Q answered with extreme seriousness. ‘No, Jamie, not at all. The world of Karazan doesn't exist inside the computer. It exists in exactly the same way as our own world does, but as far as I can explain it, in a different dimension.'

Richard's hand went up. ‘Have you been? What's it like?'

‘No. So far, no one has. For reasons I don't fully understand, adults don't seem able to make the transition between the two worlds — at least, not yet. I've been working on a modification to the programme to overcome this, but so far, I have been unsuccessful. Believe me, if I could travel there myself, I would. Kenta?'

‘How did you discover it? And how can you be sure it will work?'

Q rubbed the shiny dome of his head sheepishly. ‘I discovered it by accident,' he admitted. ‘I was working on a Virtual Reality Enhancer, or VRE — a keyboard toggle to trigger a cybernetic real-time interface between the game and the player. Testing it out, I experienced a bizarre effect, which I knew instantly could have only one interpretation.

‘Have any of you ever seen a strobe light? Strobes use the triggered discharge of an energy-storage capacitor through a special flashtube filled with xenon gas at low pressure to produce a very short burst of high intensity white light.'

Hannah gave him a warning frown.

Q continued hastily, ‘If you move while the light is flashing, it gives a jerky, almost time-warp effect, close to the one I experienced. In one flash of the light I was in
our world, and in the next, I was in Karazan. I alternated between the two dimensions for approximately thirty seconds.'

What Q was saying reminded me of something. Bright, flashing lights … The plasma globe. Not wanting to sound like a fool, I stammered out, ‘The last test we did. Was that …'

Q smiled at me. His eyes were very warm. ‘Ah, Adam,' he said, ‘I wondered whether you might pick up on that. The plasma globe was the definitive test. The globe was connected to a computer running the Virtual Reality Enhancer, and the purpose of the test was to gauge your individual conductivity potential. You all scored highly and you, Adam, spectacularly so. If there were any doubts remaining in my mind, that test dispelled them. Any one of you could pass from our world to Karazan as easily as walking through an open door.'

His words were followed by another short silence. There was one final question that needed to be asked — and answered. To me, it was so huge, so obvious, it seemed to fill the room. Yet everyone was quiet. So at last, reluctantly, I put up my hand.

‘It sounds way, way weird, but if you say it's possible, then I guess we have to believe it. I just wondered … how can you be sure that once we're in Karazan, we can come back again? I mean … what if it only works in one direction? What if we get stuck there?'

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Jamie hopped up like a jack-in-the-box. He began talking over Q, who had started to answer my question. His voice was much louder than normal, and slightly squeaky. ‘That's
my
question, too. How would we get back again? And what if we couldn't? It sounds dangerous to me.'

He sat back down. There was an awkward pause. No one dared look at Q.

‘The points you have raised are very important, Jamie — as is yours, Adam,' he said at last. ‘I've battled with the question of whether it's right to send five children into a situation where there are so many unknowns. I still don't know the answer. But one thing is clear: you must decide whether or not you wish to go. And I will accept your decision without reservation.'

‘Well, I think the whole thing's cool,' pipes up Richard. ‘I bet we could get back OK. I really want to go — it sounds like the most awesome adventure! And it's the whole point of being here, after all.'

Q gave him a grateful smile.

Hesitantly, Kenta spoke. ‘I am not sure I understand
why
you wish us to go.'

‘Kenta, you have identified the issue at the heart of this entire enterprise. If you are involved — which all of you are, even should you choose not to go — you have a right to know everything.'

Hannah's eyelids had been drooping for a while, and now she was fast asleep on Q's lap, her head resting snugly in the crook of his arm. He looked down at her tenderly, and gently settled her into a more comfortable position. He smiled at us, and sighed.

‘I am asking you to go to Karazan for a purpose. On a quest, if you like. All of you who have played the games know there are five magical potions in Karazan. There is the Potion of Invisibility, the Potion of Beauty and Eternal Youth, the Potion of Power and Invincibility, the Potion of Insight … and the Potion of Healing.

‘I am asking you to find a phial of the Potion of Healing, and bring it back to me. I'm afraid I have no idea whether it actually exists, or whether it would have the same properties in our world as it does in Karazan. But I'm asking you to try — with all my heart.'

No one spoke. We waited, watching Q, seeing his eyes
fill with tears and a look of unbearable sorrow settle over his face like a shroud.

‘I am asking you for Hannah,' he said softly. ‘Without it, she will die.'