Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Level 1

  Level 2

  Level 3

  Level 4

  Level 5

  Level 6

  Level 7

  Level 8

  Level 9

  Level 10

  Level 11

  Level 12

  Bonus Level

  Also in this series

  Copyright

  “Are you sure we should be doing this?” whispered Max as we tiptoed into my mum’s workshop. The place was littered with all kinds of junk – broken electronics, piles of circuit boards and brightly coloured wires snaking all over the place. We had to take great care not to trip over Mum’s half-finished projects.

  “Yeah, of course,” I said, stepping over the remains of a toaster. “Why?”

  “It’s just that we’re talking really quietly and tiptoeing about,” he said. “Which doesn’t usually mean that we’re allowed to do something. Also, there’s a cardboard sign over there that says Don’t even think about it, Flo.”

  “There is not…” I said, before spotting the sign myself. It was propped up against a bulky metal device, with what looked like part of an eyepiece peeking out from behind it. I gave Max a reassuring laugh. “Oh, that’s just Mum’s sense of humour. You know what scientists are like. She’s always leaving daft signs around. Don’t leave the fridge door open, Flo or Don’t forget to wash your hands after going to the toilet, Flo. Honestly, you shouldn’t take her seriously.”

  Max frowned. “You don’t wash your hands?”

  “Of course I do,” I said, rolling my eyes. “But she wants me to do it every time. I’m not the blinking Queen, am I?”

  “Well … no…” admitted Max. “But…”

  “Exactly. Besides, have I ever led you astray?”

  “All the time,” he said, nodding vigorously. “Pretty much every day of my life.”

  “Every day?” I repeated doubtfully.

  “Fine, not every day,” he conceded. “You did go on holiday for a week last year, so…”

  “Ugh, you’re such an exaggerator. Let’s just take a look at this machine and then we can go,” I said, grabbing the sign and flinging it away. But behind it was another piece of card that read, I’m serious, Flo. Under no circumstances should you touch this device until I tell you it’s ready.

  “What a joker,” I said, flinging that one away too. There were another couple of signs after that, but I didn’t even bother reading those. “What have we got, then?”

  It was a metal box about the size of my head. Sticking out of the top was a pair of black goggles, with what looked like a chin rest underneath them. A cable at the back of the box was connected to my mum’s computer, which was currently powered down.

  “Looks like one of those machines opticians use,” I said. “The ones that blow air into your eyes to test if you can keep them open when it’s windy.”

  “That’s to test for glaucoma,” Max pointed out, pushing his specs up his nose.

  “This machine definitely doesn’t do that,” I said. “Hardly anyone I know has got one. Only that puffed-up poser Rhett Hodges.”

  Max nodded. “Great,” he said, without much enthusiasm. “Sounds good.”

  “You have no idea what it is, do you?” I said.

  “None whatsoever,” he admitted.

  I let out a groan. “You know Hodges, right? The older kid from school?”

  “Yeah,” sighed Max. “You never stop going on about him. He’s like the biggest game streamer in the country or something. And he always beats you at video games.”

  I could feel my face go bright red. “He does not always beat me!” I snapped.

  “Shhh!” said Max. “Your mum might hear us.”

  “Fine, but he doesn’t always beat me at video games,” I said. “Besides, he only ever plays Star Smasher. Well, used to play it anyway. He stopped streaming after I finally beat him. Though conveniently his stream cut out right before anyone could see it happen.”

  “Yeah, that was convenient…” said Max, letting the thought trail off.

  “Are you saying I’m making it up?” I put my hands on my hips.

  Max fell silent.

  “People thought he was great because he was able to buy amazing equipment with all the money he got from streaming,” I said. “If Mum would just let me start my own stream then maybe I’d be able to buy a DIS too.”

  Max scratched his chin. “A DIS?”

  “A Digital Imprint Scanner,” I said. “They’ve just come out and they’re amazing. Basically they scan your DNA and turn it into computer code.”

  Max continued to scratch his chin. “I see. What for, exactly?”

  Max didn’t really get computers and games the way I did. Sometimes things that seemed perfectly obvious to me, he just didn’t have a clue about. It was like talking to most grown-ups.

  “Imagine being able to see yourself in any video game ever made,” I said. “That’s what the device does. Some games come with editors that let you change how your avatar looks, so maybe after a few hours of changing gazillions of body parts, you finally end up with someone who kind of looks like you if you squint really hard. But this thing does all the work for you. For any game. Even ones that wouldn’t normally let you change your character. It’s amazing. But it’s also super expensive.”

  Max looked at the device sitting on the table. “Your mum bought you one?”

  I shook my head. “Mum’s a scientist for the government, remember,” I said. “She can’t afford to buy me one. But when I told her about it, she got pretty excited. She figured she could build one herself. The problem is she won’t let me use it until it’s ready.”

  “That’s probably sensible, isn’t it?” asked Max.

  Not only did he not get video games, Max didn’t get my mum. “No,” I said firmly. “You don’t understand. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Mum is a genius. But the problem is she never finishes anything. Look around you. She starts building all these cool things, but she never completes them. She just keeps tinkering with them until she has a new idea, then switches to that. I’ll be waiting forever for her to finish this.”

  Max didn’t look convinced. “I don’t know, Flo, I think you should probably hold off…”

  Ignoring him, I switched on Mum’s computer, which was lightning-fast. She’d fitted it with loads of upgrades – tons of memory, a cutting-edge graphics card and a solid-state hard drive. It was great for playing games on.

  It only took a few seconds to fire up. When it did, instead of the usual login screen, I was presented with a text prompt:

  “Flo-scan?” I said, smiling. “She named it after me. Cool!” I pressed the Y key and watched as a bunch of ones and zeros scrolled up the screen. After a few moments, a green light flickered on the front of the device that was connected to the computer, accompanied by a strange whirring noise. On screen, the numbers disappeared, replaced by another prompt:

  “Right, here goes,” I said. Pressing my chin against the plastic, I looked right into the eyepiece and…

  Nothing.

  “Why’s it not doing anything?” I asked.

  “That’s odd. It’s like it’s not finished,” said Max sarcastically.

  I raised my head and looked at the screen again.

  “It looks pretty cool, though,” said Max, clearly trying to make me feel better. He placed his own chin on the rest. “I’m sure it’ll be great when it’s ready.”

  “Maybe you need to do something else,” I muttered to myself, looking down at the keyboard. I pushed the Enter key.

  I stared at the monitor. “Is that it?”

  I turned to Max.

  Or rather, I turned to where Max had been.

  He was no longer there.

  “Max?” I said, looking around. But there was no sign of him. “Very funny. Knock it off! Seriously. Where are you?”

  I had a sinking feeling. Max wasn’t the type of person to play practical jokes. In fact, Max hated pranks of all kinds. He told me as much every time I pulled one on him. Which, to be fair, was quite often.

  I looked curiously at the device.

  Mum had told me it wasn’t ready. But had she meant it wasn’t ready like when she hadn’t finished cooking my dinner, or did she mean it wasn’t ready like when she hadn’t finished ironing my school clothes. Because food poisoning isn’t fun, but I could happily live with creases in my uniform.

  There was only one way to find out. I looked into the eyepiece and pressed the Enter key.

  I was on the Moon. Or at the very least I was on a moon. The ground was grey and hard and there were craters everywhere. Instead of a roof or even a sky, above me was just the blackness of outer space, dotted with countless shimmering stars.

  Max was here too. At least, it looked like him. He had on the same blue jeans and green hoodie but they looked fuzzier somehow. In fact, nothing about him was as sharp as before. I looked down at my arms and those didn’t seem right either. My red dress was flat and rigid, as if it was made from cardboard instead of cloth.

  “Flo!” Max cried. “What’s going on? Where are we?”

  Before I could even respond, a laser bolt struck Max in the chest, and he vanished.

  “Max!” I screamed into the empty space where he had been standing.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  His sudden reappearance almost caused me to stumble backwards into a large crater

  “Wait… Max… You’re alive?” I asked, steadying myself.

  “Well, yeah,” he said, looking at me like I’d just stated the most obvious thing in the world.

  “But you were shot. With a laser. You disappeared.”

  “Shot?” he repeated. “A laser? Disappeared?”

  “Yes!”

  “That doesn’t sound very likely,” he said, before another laser struck him in the head, obliterating him for a second time. Moments later, he reappeared in the exact same spot.

  “See!” I said. “It just happened again.”

  “Right, yeah, I noticed it that time!” he replied. “But where’s it coming from?”

  “Probably that tank over there,” I said, pointing into the distance over his shoulder. “Or maybe it came from one of those other tanks behind that tank that are shooting lasers at all the other tanks. But, safe to say, it’s from a tank.”

  “Flo?”

  “Yes, Max?”

  “Why are we on a moon with lots of tanks shooting lasers at each other?”

  Good question. This was all so familiar. I’d seen it somewhere before. And then I remembered. “Max, this is going to sound crazy, but…”

  Another laser blast disintegrated him.

  “Sorry,” he said after reappearing. “What were you saying?”

  “I think we’re inside a video game,” I said, trying to contain my excitement.

  Max paused for a second. “You’re right,” he agreed. “That does sound crazy.”

  “But it’s true!” I argued. “This is the opening level of Star Smasher! Those are Space Tanks. And there are real people controlling them, trying to blow each other up.”

  “Why?” asked Max.

  “Why what?”

  “Why are they trying to blow each other up?” asked Max.

  “Because … because … that’s the game,” I said. “Part of it anyway.”

  Max just shook his head. “I really don’t understand the appeal of these types of games,” he said. “I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense for them to talk through their problems, instead of—” He broke off as he was blasted by another laser.

  “Getting fed up of that,” he said after respawning.

  “If it’s any consolation, I think it’s just stray blasts,” I said. “I don’t think anyone’s actually aiming at you.”

  “No, it’s no consolation at all,” said Max. “And how come none are hitting you?”

  I shrugged.

  Max folded his arms in annoyance. “How is any of this even possible?” he asked.

  “It must have been Mum’s machine,” I said. “And you can wipe that ‘I told you so’ look off your face. How was I meant to know this would happen? It’s Mum’s fault really. She could have at least left a warning that her machine wasn’t ready yet.”

  “SHE LEFT YOU LOADS!” yelled Max. “YOU THREW THEM ALL AWAY!”

  “That doesn’t sound like me,” I said.

  Max just rolled his eyes and sighed. “Now what do we do?” he asked. “I’d rather not stand about and get blown up all day, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “We need to get one of those tanks,” I said.

  “How are we going to do that?” asked Max.

  I looked around the barren moon surface. I’d seen this landscape countless times while playing the game, but now actually being in the game, it was like discovering everything for the first time. It was incredible – as if we were on a real moon. Unfortunately, like a real moon, there wasn’t much of anything, let alone something that could help us steal a tank. Except for… I put two fingers in my mouth and made a piercing whistle.

  All the tanks in the distance stopped dead in their tracks.

  Players of Star Smasher were used to lots of different sounds, including (but not limited to):

  They weren’t used to someone whistling to get their attention. Every gun turret turned towards us.

  “Um… Flo, what you doing?” asked Max nervously, as I started waving at the tanks. “They’re going to blow us to the moon. I mean … ANOTHER moon!”

  I shook my head. “No, they’re not,” I said. “Trust me. There’s only one thing more fun to do in a video game tank than blow stuff up.”

  One of the tanks broke away from the others and began trundling towards us.

  “You can’t mean…?” said Max.

  “Yep.”

  “Look, I’ll admit I’m not an expert in video games like you are, Flo,” said Max, as the tank sped up. “But … how does us getting squashed by a tank help matters?”

  “Just wait,” I told him, grabbing him by the arm. The tank was approaching at full speed now. It would crush us in seconds. My heart was pounding.

  “Flo?” said Max. “Flo, we have to go. Flo!”

  “Three…” I said.

  “Flo, come on!”

  “Two…”

  “FLO!”

  “One…”

  As the tank was about to strike us I took a single step backwards, still gripping Max’s arm, and the two of us tumbled into the crater behind. We hit the ground just in time to watch as the tank flew overhead, its front dipping in mid-air, causing it to flip over and smash down into the crater beside us.

  It lay motionless on its back for a few seconds, just metres away. Then suddenly its tracks started spinning again, as if this had any chance of helping. After about half a minute, they went still.

  “A little help here?” came a boy’s voice from inside the tank.

  “You tried to run us over!” I said.

  “Um … no I didn’t,” said the boy. “I was … seeing if you wanted a lift.”

  “Yeah, right,” muttered Max.

  “Come on,” pleaded the boy. “Look, just tell me the command to flip the tank. I’m new at this.”

  “You promise you won’t try to run us over or blow us up any more?” I asked.

  “Promise!” said the boy.

  “All right,” I said. “Press ALT-F4.”

  “Ha ha, suckers!” cried the boy.

  There was a flicker, then the words “rudeboy90210 has logged off” appeared in large green letters, floating above the tank, before quickly fading away.

  “Right, that’s him gone,” I said. “Now we have a tank.”

  “Yeah, but an upside-down one,” Max pointed out. “How are we going to get it the right way up?”

  “Easy,” I said.

  While I couldn’t press X, not having a controller and all, I’d played enough video games to know that while pressing X might make any number of things happen – from opening a door to petting a dog – usually your character just reached out and touched something. So that’s exactly what I did. I pressed a hand lightly against the side of the tank, then watched as it flipped itself upright.

  “Woah!” said Max.

  I jumped on top of the tank, pulled open the hatch and climbed inside. There wasn’t much room inside the cockpit, a situation that wasn’t helped by Max clambering in next to me moments later. Thankfully the controls weren’t as complicated as a real tank’s. A little controller, like the ones for an Xbox or PlayStation, dangled from a cord. Seconds later, Max and I were rolling out of the crater and towards the action.

  “Why are we heading towards the other tanks?” asked a panicked Max. “Shouldn’t we try to find a way out of the game?”

  “I don’t see a door out of here,” I said. “Do you?”

  “Um … no.”

  “In my experience, there’s only one way a video game ends,” I said. “And that’s by completing it.”

  “In my experience they usually end with me dying over and over,” said Max.

  “We could try that if you think it’ll help?” I said, grinning.

  Max sighed. “No, let’s go with your idea.”

  “Take that,” I said, before blasting a tank into orbit. I turned towards another and let off a volley of lasers at it. “Oh, don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about you.”

  “Flo,” said Max. “We’ve been blowing up tanks for ages now. How exactly do you win this game, then? Is this it?”

  “This?” I said, pulling off a sharp handbrake turn, causing two tanks to smash into each other. “Oh no. This is just an opening mission. Star Smasher is an open-world MMORPG.”

 

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