Anthony Horowitz - Eagle Strike

“Feathered Serpent.”

“Is it a shoot-„em-up?” a woman asked.

“Well, yes. It is a stealth game,” Cray admitted.

“So it involves shooting?”

“Yes.”

The woman smiled, but not humorously. She was in her forties, with grey hair and a severe, schoolteacher face. “It"s well known that you have a dislike of violence,” she said. “So how can you justify selling children violent games?”

A ripple of unease ran through the audience. The woman might be a journalist, but somehow it seemed wrong to question Cray in this manner. Not when you were drinking his champagne and eating his food.

Cray, however, didn"t seem offended. “That"s a good question,” he replied in his soft, lilting voice. “And I"ll tell you, when we began with the Gameslayer, we did develop a game where the hero had to collect different-coloured flowers from a garden and then arrange them in vases. It had bunnies and egg sandwiches too. But do you know what? Our research team discovered that modern teenagers didn"t want to play it. Can you imagine? They told me we wouldn"t sell a single copy!”

Everyone broke into laughter. Now it was the female journalist who was looking uncomfortable.

Cray held up a hand again. “Actually, you"ve made a fair point,” he went on. “It"s true—I hate violence. Real violence … war. But, you know, modern kids do have a lot of aggression in them.

That"s the truth of it. I suppose it"s human nature. And I"ve come to think that it"s better for them to get rid of that aggression playing harmless computer games, like mine, than out on the street.”

“Your games still encourage violence!” the woman insisted.

Damian Cray frowned. “I think I"ve answered your question. So maybe you should stop questioning my answer,” he said.

This was greeted by more applause, and Cray waited until it had died down. “But now, enough talk,” he said. “I want you to see Gameslayer for yourself, and the best way to see it is to play it.

I wonder if we have any teenagers in the audience, although now I come to think of it, I don"t remember inviting any…”

“There"s one here!” someone shouted, and Alex felt himself pushed forward. Suddenly everyone was looking at him and Cray himself was peering down from the stage.

“No…” Alex started to protest.

But the audience was already clapping, urging him on. A corridor opened up in front of him.

Alex stumbled forward and before he knew it he was climbing up onto the stage. The room seemed to tilt. A spotlight spun round, dazzling him. And there it was.

He was standing on the stage with Damian Cray.

FEATHERED SERPENT

« ^ »

t was the last thing Alex could have expected.

He was face to face with the man who—if he was right—had ordered the death of Sabina"s father. But was he right? For the first time, he was able to examine Cray at close quarters. It was a strangely unsettling experience.

Cray had one of the most famous faces in the world. Alex had seen it on CD covers, on posters, in newspapers and magazines, on television … even on the back of cereal packets. And yet the face in front of him now was somehow disappointing. It was less real than all the images he had seen.

Cray was surprisingly young-looking, considering he was already in his fifties, but there was a taut, shiny quality to his skin that whispered of plastic surgery. And surely the neat, jet-black hair had to be dyed. Even the bright green eyes seemed somehow lifeless. Cray was a very small man. Alex found himself thinking of a doll in a toyshop. That was what Cray reminded him of.

His superstardom and his millions of pounds had turned him into a plastic replica of himself.

And yet…

Cray had welcomed him onto the stage and was beaming at him as if he were an old friend. He was a singer. And, as he had made clear, he opposed violence. He wanted to save the world, not destroy it. MI6 had gathered files on him and found nothing. Alex was here because of a voice, a few words spoken at the end of a phone. He was beginning to wish he had never come.

It seemed that the two of them had been standing there for ages, up on the stage with hundreds of people waiting to see the demonstration. In fact, only a few seconds had passed. Then Cray held out a hand. “What"s your name?” he asked.

“Alex Rider.”

“Well, it"s great to meet you, Alex Rider. I"m Damian Cray.” They shook hands. Alex couldn"t help thinking that there were millions of people all around the world who would give anything to be where he was now.

“How old are you, Alex?” Cray asked.

“Fourteen.”

“I"m very grateful to you for coming. Thanks for agreeing to help.” The words were being amplified around the dome. Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw that his own image had joined Cray"s on the giant screen. “We"re very lucky that we do indeed have a teenager,” Cray went on, addressing the audience. “So let"s see how … Alex … gets on with the first level of Gameslayer One: Feathered Serpent.”

As Cray spoke, three technicians came onto the stage, bringing with them a television monitor, a games console, a table and a chair. Alex realized that he was going to be asked to play the game in front of the audience—with his progress beamed up onto the plasma screen.

“Feathered Serpent is based on the Aztec civilization,” Cray explained to the audience. “The Aztecs arrived in Mexico in 1195, but some claim that they had in fact come from another planet. It is on that planet that Alex is about to find himself. His mission is to find the four missing suns. But first he must enter the temple of Tlaloc, fight his way through five chambers and then throw himself into the pool of sacred flame. This will take him to the next level.” A fourth technician had come onto the stage, carrying a webcam. He stopped in front of Alex and quickly scanned him, pressed a button on the side of the camera and left. Cray waited until he had gone.

“You may have been wondering about the little black-suited figure that you saw on the screen,” he said, once again taking the audience into his confidence. “His name is Omni, and he will be the hero of all the Gameslayer games. You may think him a little dull and unimaginative. But Omni is every boy and every girl in Britain. He is every child in the world … and now I will show you why!”

The screen went blank, then burst into a digital whirl of colour. There was a deafening fanfare—

not trumpets but some electronic equivalent—and the gates of a temple with a huge Aztec face cut into the wood appeared. Alex could tell at once that the graphic detail of the Gameslayer was better than anything he had ever seen, but a moment later the audience gasped with surprise and Alex perfectly understood why. A boy had walked onto the screen and was standing in front of the gates, awaiting his command. The boy was Omni. But he had changed. He was now wearing exactly the same clothes as Alex. He looked like Alex. More than that, he was Alex right down to the brown eyes and the hanging strands of fair hair.

Applause exploded around the room. Alex could see journalists scribbling in their notebooks or talking quickly into mobile phones, hoping to be the first with this incredible scoop. The food and the champagne had been forgotten. Cray"s technology had created an avatar, an electronic double of him, making it possible for any player not just to play the game but to become part of it. Alex knew then that the Gameslayer would sell all over the world. Cray would make millions.

And twenty per cent of that would go to charity, he reminded himself.

Could this man really be his enemy?

Cray waited until everyone was quiet, and then he turned to Alex. “It"s time to play,” he said.