Rodomonte's Revenge by Gary Paulsen

C HAPTER 1
    â€œIf life were a video game,” Brett Wilder asked, “do you know how easy we’d have it?”
    â€œWe’d cruise,” Tom Houston said. “Nothing could be better.”
    Brett and Tom were standing in line in the Downtown Mall outside the locked security gate of a new virtual reality arcade. Neither liked standing in line, even if they were at the head of it, but Rodomonte’s Revenge promised to be something different from anything they had ever played before. Brett thought it would be worth the wait.
    He poked his fingers through the grating,separating the links for a better view. He had long, agile fingers, fingers that danced above game controls like moths around a streetlight. Brett craned his neck to get a better look.
    â€œSee anything?” Tom was built like his dad, a professional utility infielder: wide shoulders, with strong, quick arms and legs. He won video games by daring, not agility. He and Brett were best friends, or were during the winter, when Tom wasn’t playing baseball.
    â€œIt’s too dark in there. It might help if I knew what to look for.”
    â€œI told you. A big, empty room.”
    â€œThat doesn’t sound like a video game to me.”
    â€œIt isn’t, really.”
    Brett turned from the gate. “Then what are we doing here?”
    â€œI’ve heard that Rodomonte’s Revenge goes way beyond video games. It’s supposed to make them look like checkers.”
    Brett turned back to the gate. “I hope you’re right.”
    The arcade lit up. A tall, thin man withblack hair and skin the color of olive oil bustled in. He sat at a computer beside a window that opened onto a large white room. He pushed a few keys on the keyboard, then studied the monitor.
    â€œWhen do you open?” Tom called.
    The man didn’t look up. “As soon as you let me finish initiating the system.”
    Tom let him go back to work. Brett looked away from the computer and studied both Tom and the kids in the line stretching back behind them. Tom was rich—his dad made eight hundred thousand dollars a year—he wasn’t afraid of anything, and he hardly had a friend in the world. Baseball teams bounced his dad between them like a Ping-Pong ball, so Tom never lived anywhere long enough to make many friends. Brett had met him at an arcade two days after he’d moved to town, three months before. It had been during a heated video game tournament. They decided they’d better be friends because they would be spending a lot of time together. No one else in town came close to offering either of them competition.
    The man rose from the computer and walked to the gate. He wore a name tag that read “Willie.” “Are you two ready to play?”
    Tom nodded and handed the man a twenty-dollar bill to pay for the game. “We’re ready.”
    â€œThen let’s get to it.”
    Willie opened the gate, then led them toward the empty room. His big hands swung from his shoulders like bowling balls on strings. He opened the door to the room and motioned for them to enter.
    Inside, the padded walls and floor reminded Brett of the wrestling mats he got his face mashed into in gym; unlike Tom, he wasn’t much good at sports. Two sets of gloves, boots, and helmets with visors lay on the floor. They all were made of white plastic, with silver metal lines covering their surfaces like spiderwebs.
    â€œWelcome to the world of Rodomonte’s Revenge,” Willie said.
    Tom shrugged. “It doesn’t look so tough.”
    â€œYou just don’t know where to look.” Willie picked up a helmet. “With this on, everythingchanges. This room becomes a vast plain with swollen rivers of fire. If you live long enough, you reach a mountain range where the winds are so strong they can blow you off a thousand-foot cliff.”
    â€œWe’ll live long enough,” Tom said. “What comes after