Game of Fear (Montgomery Justice #3)(28)

“Thank you, ma’am,” Gabe said, stepping over the threshold after Deb.

“Watch that ma’am crap,” Mylo’s mom snapped. “I’m not much older than you, kiddo.”

“O-k-a-y,” Gabe drawled. “Consider it retracted.”

Mylo had already started down the stairs to the basement. Deb and Gabe quickly followed.

“Sorry about my mom. She’s a little weird sometimes. You can’t pick your parents.”

An image flashed in Gabe’s mind of his father hugging Whitney at the bus terminal and the edge resurfaced. Amen, brother. He turned to Mylo. “You’re a teenager. It’s your job to feel like that.”

His gaze was focused on an eighty-inch television that took up almost an entire wall, but a moment later, the screen went red with giant letters that read Game over.

Mylo glared at the screen. “I wish the others would get here. I can’t do this alone.” He looked up at Deb. “Is Ashley over her big exam phase? We missed her this weekend.”

Deb stepped forward. “No. She visited me last night, but she didn’t make it back to the dorms. I’ve been trying to find her. I hoped you could help.”

“She’s, like, missing? For real?” Mylo asked. “No way. We can’t get past Level 88 again without Ashley.”

“Level 88?” Gabe asked.

Mylo looked at Gabe like he was stupid. “Level 88? On Point of Entry. Duh. That’s the magic level half the country is trying to get to. Hardly anyone makes it that far. It’s wicked complicated. You have to break into banks and people’s private computers. I hear on the next version, they’re adding foreign governments, spy stuff, terrorist camps. This voice comes on the computer or TV and gives you a timed problem.”

“A voice comes on?” Deb asked.

“Yeah, like a big all-knowing avatar. It’s pretty cool. I can’t believe we did it.”

Gabe picked up a remote from the coffee table, toying with it. “This voice gives you a test on Level 88, but you said you couldn’t get past it again. When did you make that level?”

“Friday, maybe?” Mylo said. “Early in the evening. We’d been really close last weekend on Justin’s machine, but we had to wait for Ashley to get out of school to finish up. We’re only on Level 80 on my setup. Justin, the douche bag, was supposed to be here today and another friend, Britney, said she’d be here a half hour ago. She used to go to high school with us and play the game a lot, but she moved to Toledo. Two hours later there, and her folks have a strict game curfew. It’s a pain. She’s in town for this week with her folks. She hit Level 88 with her new group, too. She’s almost as smart as Ashley.”

“So, you reached this high level on Justin’s machine. What about Ashley’s? I heard you guys snuck into the computer lab. Did you do it there, too?”

Mylo shrugged. “We got caught by Ashley’s advisor and a couple of guards so we used Ashley’s machine in her room instead. Her computer was superfast and she was one level away. We made it. Hit a record score.” Mylo grinned, almost preening with pride. “We got the free upgrade of levels and everything. Ashley rocks at coming up with the passwords to break into the systems. I don’t know how we’ll break into the congressman’s computer on the next level without her. How cool is it that the game has its own set of dirty politicians?”

Gabe sat on one of the four leather gaming chairs against the wall. “Tell me about Point of Entry. You said there are other teams across the country trying to do the same thing. Is it highly competitive?”

“Oh, yeah,” Mylo enthused. “When our team knocked the Destroyers off the top of the leaderboard, they were so pissed. Sent us a ton of messages threatening us . . . especially Ashley.”

“You keep the messages?” Gabe asked.

“You think they could be for real?” Mylo’s eye twitched.

“Just show them to me.”

Mylo logged in to the system. He accessed the message area and scrolled up. He scrolled down, then up again. He frowned. “They’re gone. The team’s gone.”

“What about their scores?” Gabe asked.

He punched a few more buttons and the leaderboard came up.

“You’re the Eradicators?” Gabe asked, studying the screen. Sure enough, they’d blown away the high score.

“Yeah. Justin came up with that one ’cause we were wiping everyone off the boards. The Destroyers’ scores are gone, too. Like they never existed. Weird.”

“You know any of the real names of the other team members?” Deb asked.

“Yeah. I e-mailed with one guy. He asked me who broke the level.” Mylo grinned sheepishly. “I told him I was the muscle of the team. I do the shooting, but that we had the smartest girl in the country—probably in the world—on our team. He asked about the rest of us and I told him Justin is almost as good as Ashley.”

Gabe’s instincts went haywire. He didn’t need his mom’s Spidey sense to know things had just hit the fan. “When did you start e-mailing with this guy, Mylo?”

The teen faltered. “I don’t know, a couple weeks ago, maybe?” He switched screens and quickly checked his e-mail. “There’s nothing here, but I had at least a dozen e-mails from him. That’s . . . kind of freaky.”