Gamer Army Read online

  “I know it’s a secret,” Mom said quickly. “I thought you could help me with research, because I’m going to be hosting a lot more discussions about unplugging from the hypernet and reconnecting with our friends and family.” She wiped away a tear. “Your father and I love you so much, RoRo. More than anything. We’re going to make our family right again, Rogan. We’ll spend a lot more good time together. It will be wonderful.”

  Rogan thought that was the best idea he’d heard in a very long time, and he hugged his parents close.

  Then he laughed as Wiggles, his front paws up on his lap, happily licked Rogan’s face, his tail wagging enthusiastically. Rogan closed his eyes as he hugged his fuzzy friend. Even though a part of him would miss his apartment in Virtual City, and he figured he could play one of his grandpa’s antique video game systems on an old offline TV, he was more than ready for a break from gaming.

  At least for a while.

  On their last night in Chicago, before going home, Shay, Takashi, Beckett, Jackie, and Rogan joined X in a secure room deep within Scorpion headquarters. Locked in a big steel cage were five of the world’s last remaining laser vipers. The information Jackie had stolen from Atomic Frontiers had allowed a few changes to the robots, and apparently Scorpion had been working around the clock to incorporate them.

  “We’re wireless now,” Jackie said. “We won’t have to be physically connected to a cable and computer to be uploaded to our vipers.” She handed each of them a small black square with a plug for their implant software update ports. “With this transmitter plugged in, you’ll be able to transfer your mind to your viper from wherever you are. We can connect and disconnect with a thought.”

  Beckett frowned at the tiny device. “This little thing? How’s that possible?”

  Jackie sighed. “Do I need to remind you about how smart Culum was, how fast his mind—”

  “No!” they all said.

  Shaylyn didn’t take her eyes off the transmitter. “Are we sure we want this? We were almost killed.”

  “It’s your choice,” X said. “Nobody is going to trick you or trap you into these things ever again.”

  “Sophia Hahn.” Rogan looked hard at his friends. “And other Atomic Frontiers operatives are still out there. We’ve stopped them for now. But they may have other plans.”

  “They could try to turn Sun Station One into a weapon again,” Takashi said.

  “There may be another laser viper factory out there,” Jackie added.

  X nodded. “Scorpion is staying together. The world’s still shaken up, and it needs us to keep watch against guys like Culum.”

  Shaylyn jerked a thumb toward the five laser viper mods standing next to them. “And if Scorpion runs into another threat it can’t handle—”

  “Then it will be up to us,” Rogan said. “The Gamer Army.”

  In loving memory of Wiggles

  (2002–2017)

  Gamer Army is a lot different than my earlier books, but one thing that has not changed throughout all of my novels is my indebtedness to so many people in the process of writing them. As always, I owe gratitude to more people than I have space to list here. But in particular, special thanks:

  To the North English Knights: Craig Radnich, Derrick Thompson, and Kyle Garringer, former students from my English teaching days who became my teachers as the four of us charged off into the world of Halo and online gaming. Sorry, guys. I know I kind of dragged our fireteam down, but golly, that Xbox is my first video game system since the 1991 Super Nintendo. I appreciate your patience and your assistance when my Halo guy kept getting blown up.

  To Isaac Pfleegor, for allowing me to use his home’s superior internet connection for the aforementioned Halo day, for explaining a lot about computer and internet technology, and for going in with me on the Oculus Rift virtual reality system that changed the way I thought about video games and VR potential. Your assistance helped me give Gamer Army its most important revision, helping it move from a story about our button-pushing past to our digi-space future. Thank you.

  To Kristina Pfleegor, for putting up with Isaac and me as we conducted our important gaming research.

  To my brother Tyler, for being the best brother, and for spending hours and hours and hours … and hours, killing thousands of bits and bots on Zelda II to level up my character so he had a shot at the Great Palace. Hardest game ever, but we learned a lot about being gamers. Someday we’ll beat that game.

  To the wonderful people in the great Scholastic family, for introducing me to the initial idea for Gamer Army, and for your amazing support and talented professionalism, with special thanks to my friends at Scholastic Book Fairs and Scholastic Book Clubs for their enthusiasm about this story.

  To the personification of kindness and patience, my agent Ammi-Joan Paquette, for endless support through this book and all my others. Here’s lucky number seven, Joan!

  To the two talented editors with whom I worked most closely on Gamer Army, Cheryl Klein and Nick Thomas. Thank you for your brilliant insights and for your patience. There is more difference between the published edition of Gamer Army and its first version than there has been for any of my other books. That first version put the rough back in rough draft. Thank you so much for helping me transform those early ideas into the fun adventure the book eventually became.

  To my daughter Verity, who grew so much during the time I worked on this book. Thank you for understanding that I couldn’t always play, but instead had to write. A lot. And thanks for the many pieces of abstract artwork all about my office.

  Finally, and most importantly, I am grateful for the patience, support, and love of my wife and closest friend, Amanda, who always believed, and who makes this crazy writing Dream of mine possible. Amanda, you are my life.

  Trent Reedy is the author of Divided We Fall, Burning Nation, and The Last Full Measure, a trilogy about the second American Civil War. He has also written If You’re Reading This, Stealing Air, and Words in the Dust, which was the winner of the Christopher Medal and an Al Roker’s Book Club pick on the Today show. Trent and his family live near Spokane, Washington. Please visit his website at trentreedy.com.

  MIDDLE GRADE

  Words in the Dust

  Stealing Air

  YOUNG ADULT

  Divided We Fall (Divided We Fall #1)

  Burning Nation (Divided We Fall #2)

  The Last Full Measure (Divided We Fall #3)

  If You’re Reading This

  Copyright © 2018 by Trent Reedy

  All rights reserved. Published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and the LANTERN LOGO are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Reedy, Trent, author.

  Title: Gamer army / Trent Reedy.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., 2018. | Summary: Even though he is only twelve, Rogan Weber is an obsessed gamer, whose motto, ego sum maximus, declares his confidence in his own abilities, and whose parents are also deeply involved in ultra high tech (a little too deeply sometimes); naturally he is thrilled to receive an invitation to join a tech giant’s virtual reality TV gaming contest—but as the games become more and more intense and dangerous, he and his fellow gamers realize that something sinister is behind this particular game.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018016854| ISBN 9781338045291 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 1338045296 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781338045307 (pbk. : alk. paper)
| ISBN 133804530X (pbk. : alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Virtual reality—Juvenile fiction. | Video games—Juvenile fiction. | Video gamers—Juvenile fiction. | Video games industry—Juvenile fiction. | Secrecy—Juvenile fiction. | Conspiracies—Juvenile fiction. | Parent and child—Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Virtual reality—Fiction. | Video games—Fiction. | Video games industry—Fiction. | Secrets—Fiction. | Conspiracies—Fiction. | Parent and child—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.R25423 Gam 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018016854

  First edition, December 2018

  Jacket art © 2018 by Steve Stone

  Jacket design by Christopher Stengel

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-04531-4

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.