A Game Called Chaos Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  1 Cousins in Chaos

  2 Royal Friends and Foes

  3 In Cahoots

  4 Kidnapped?

  5 The Spider

  6 Big Bad Bear

  7 Car Problems

  8 Crack Up

  9 Samantha’s Secret

  10 The Cave of Chaos

  11 Treasure and Treachery

  12 The Past Is the Future

  13 A Town Called Chaos

  14 The Ghost in the Mansion

  15 Double Cross

  16 The Final Blow

  1 Cousins in Chaos

  * * *

  “My cousin Chelsea is in trouble,” Phil Cohen said on a bright, sunny summer morning. He stood in the Hardys’ front yard, frowning and rubbing his chin with his thin fingers.

  Joe Hardy glanced at his older brother, Frank. They’d been friends with Phil a long time and knew him well. When Phil rubbed his chin, it didn’t just mean trouble, it meant big trouble, the kind that even brainy Phil couldn’t think his way out of.

  Joe bobbed his head toward the front door of the house. “Come on in, Phil,” he said. “We can talk about it over some breakfast.”

  Phil shook his head. “I don’t have much time,” he said. “I’m in the middle of a project, and I have to get back to work.” Phil had parlayed his skill with computers into a number of high-paying part-time jobs. Joe figured he must be working on a tight deadline.

  “Don’t keep us guessing, Phil,” Frank said. “We can’t help if we don’t know what the trouble is.”

  “Well,” Phil said, “Chelsea’s a project manager at Viking Software up in Jewel Ridge, Connecticut.”

  “Viking . . . That’s a new company, isn’t it?” Joe asked. “I think I read something about it in E-Gaming magazine. Didn’t they put out that Norseman’s Revenge shareware game?”

  “Yeah, they’ve released a couple of pretty good games. Nothing to really put them on the map yet, though,” Phil said. “But the project Chelsea’s working on could change all that. Have you ever heard of the Chaos series?”

  “Heard of it?” Joe said, smiling broadly. “Caverns of Chaos is just about my favorite computer game ever.”

  “I could hardly get any computer time to write my American history term paper,” Frank said. “Joe wouldn’t give up the computer.”

  “Hey, that’s all ancient history now,” Joe said with a laugh. “Besides, you got an A on that paper.” He turned back to Phil. “So, what’s the Chaos series got to do with your cousin?”

  “Well, her company is putting out the next game in the series. But she, well . . . she told me she’s lost the guy who’s writing the game.”

  “Steven Royal?” Joe asked.

  “Yeah, that’s his name,” Phil replied.

  “How do you lose a computer game designer?” Frank asked.

  “She’d have to fill you in on the details,” said Phil. “I figured something like this is more up your alley than mine. Can you guys help? She told me that if she doesn’t find Royal, her job is toast.”

  “No problema,” Joe said, clapping Phil on the shoulder. “We’ve found a few missing people in our lives. Where do we start looking?”

  • • •

  Two hours later Joe pulled the Hardys’ van off the highway and into the outskirts of Jewel Ridge, Connecticut. The town was a former factory town that had caught the high-tech rocket and was riding it to new wealth. As Joe followed Phil’s directions to his cousin’s office, the Hardys noted that many of the buildings they passed were either brand-new or newly renovated.

  “Looks like a nice place to live,” Joe said.

  “If you can afford it,” Frank noted. “Too bad Phil couldn’t come along.”

  “Well, when you’ve got to work, you’ve got to work,” Joe said. “He said he’d be available by phone if we need him. And maybe he can come up later this weekend.”

  It didn’t take long for the Hardys to find the offices of Viking Software. The company was located in a new building in a small industrial park on the edge of town. The site was beautiful, surrounded by a forest, and even had trees separating the sections of the parking lot. The developer of the building had obviously taken care to blend his work with the existing landscape.

  Joe and Frank drove their van into the lot, found a space, and got out. The building itself was ultra-modern, the exterior all steel and mirrored glass, in which the beauty of the natural landscape was reflected. The brothers walked down a short path to the building. A sign in the lobby directed them to the offices of Viking Software, which commanded the entire second floor.

  “Hi. We’re Frank and Joe Hardy,” Frank announced as they approached the reception desk. “Chelsea Sirkin’s expecting us.”

  The receptionist, seated behind a modular gray desk, checked her appointment book. The tag on her lapel said her name was Jeanne. “Yes,” she confirmed, smiling brightly. “Ms. Sirkin said to send you right back. She’s the third office on your left, near the far wall.”

  “Thanks, Jeanne,” Joe said, returning her smile.

  Chelsea Sirkin met the Hardys halfway between the reception desk and her office. Frank and Joe figured the receptionist must have buzzed her when they came in. Chelsea was a short, thin young woman about twenty years old, with frizzy blond hair and round glasses.

  “Hi,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m so glad you could come. We’re almost frantic about this whole thing. Dave Henderson, my boss, is pacing his office like a caged tiger.”

  “We’ll do what we can,” Frank said. “But first, you’d better fill us in on everything.”

  “Okay,” Chelsea said. “Let’s go into my office. Would either of you like a soda?”

  “Sure,” Joe said.

  “Whatever you’ve got,” added Frank.

  Chelsea stopped at the staff lunchroom and grabbed three colas out of the fridge. “You might want to take some chairs,” she said. “I don’t have any extras in my office.”

  She held the drinks while the brothers each hauled a chair down the hall to Chelsea’s office.

  As he entered the office, Joe decided he’d seldom seen such a mess in his life. Papers lay scattered about everywhere, overflowing from Chelsea’s desk to the floor. Some looked like memos, others had designs for video game characters on them. Posters from movies and video games decorated the walls. A tower of books almost high enough to tumble over lay on a single shelf attached to one wall. The opposite wall was made entirely of glass and looked out over the parking lot.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Chelsea said sheepishly, “but, as I said, things have been pretty crazy around here.”

  “Phil said you ‘lost’ your game designer?” Frank said.

  Chelsea rubbed her chin in a way that reminded the Hardys of Phil. “I think so,” she said. “But I’m not really sure. Steven Royal has always been eccentric—we knew that even before we hired him. He’s been designing A Town Called Chaos, which will be the fourth game in the Chaos series.”

  “I thought there was just one game,” Frank said.

  “You need to get out more often,” Joe said, grinning at his older brother. “He did School of Chaos after the first one. It was an even bigger hit—I just didn’t hog as much computer time with it. There was a third one, too, but I never bought it.”

  “Yes,” Chelsea said, “Forest of Chaos didn’t do as well. I think that’s part of the reason Royal left his old publishers. But his new game is fabulous. We’re lucky to have him aboard. That is, we would be, if we could find him.”

  “Have you contacted the police?” Joe asked.

  “We’ve talked to them, yes,” Chelsea said, “but Royal . . . well, he’s got a reputation
as an eccentric. His car is gone and the police are pretty sure Steven’s just taking an unannounced vacation.”

  “What makes you think he isn’t?” Frank asked.

  “Our production deadline on the game is two weeks away,” Chelsea said, “and he hasn’t delivered a final version to us. Without it, the game won’t get into stores in time for its release date.”

  “I thought you said it was a great game,” Joe said. “How do you know that if you don’t have a final copy?”

  “We’ve got a demo version of the first level that we’ve been giving away on the Internet,” Chelsea said. “Plus, Royal showed me the whole game when I visited him at his condo last week. He said he just needed to put in the final touches. It is an amazing game—it has everything, from the usual rolling boulders to a giant ape. Kids are going to love it, and adults, too.

  “A Town Called Chaos will prove that Royal’s work is state-of-the-art in computer gaming. He said so himself when I saw him. He was real hyped about it. But since then”—she turned her hands palm up—“nothing. He doesn’t answer calls or knocks on his door. No one has seen him—and the police don’t believe he’s really missing.” Her eyes misted up a bit, and her lower lip was trembling as she finished.

  Joe put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. We believe you, Chelsea,” he said in a comforting voice.

  “It’s not just my job,” she said, regaining her composure, “it’s the future of our whole company. We put most of our start-up money into signing Royal. If this game doesn’t come out on time, we won’t have enough cash from our other projects to stay afloat. Dave won’t even have the chance to fire me because he’ll be out of a job, too.”

  “I think we can help,” Frank said. “We’re good at tracking things down. Do you think Royal would have gone back to his previous publisher?”

  “Wondersoft?” Chelsea asked. “I don’t think so. He has a contract with us, and like I said, he wasn’t happy with the way their head guy, Ron Rosenberg, promoted Forest of Chaos.”

  “That’s one angle to check out, anyway,” Frank said.

  “Is there anything else we should know?” Joe asked.

  “Yes,” Chelsea said. “I meant to mention it earlier.” She rummaged around her desk for a moment and came up with a piece of paper. “Yesterday, this e-mail appeared in the mailboxes of everyone at the company. We’re pretty sure it’s from Royal even though it came from a fake e-mail address.” She handed the paper to Frank.

  My past is the key to the future. You must seek the Town Called Chaos to win the game. The King is waiting. Pawns make the first move.

  Frank handed the note to Joe.

  After a moment Joe said, “The reference to ‘King’ is probably a word play on Royal’s own name.”

  “Which would make the rest of us the pawns,” Frank said. He frowned. “Looks like he wants your company to solve his riddles to find the prototype video game.”

  “That’s what we came up with, too. Royal loves puzzles and riddles—the Chaos series is full of them. Dave is convinced that Royal is using this as a ploy to get more money. But we’re tapped out. It’s going to be a struggle just to survive until money from Town starts coming in—assuming the game comes out at all. If we had the money, Dave would have hired a professional private investigator to track Royal down.”

  Joe crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Good thing we Hardys work for soda and burgers.”

  “For relatives of friends, anyway,” Frank added, smiling. “You know, the reference to Royal’s past could be to his former publisher, Rosenberg.”

  “So is that our first stop?” Joe asked.

  “No,” Frank said. “I want to check out Royal’s condo first. There might be clues there, or at least something that’ll give us a lead on how to approach Rosenberg. Chelsea, I need two things: first, a picture of Royal, so we know who we’re looking for.”

  Chelsea nodded, reached over to a shelf, and pulled off a book. The cover read Strategy Guide to Caverns of Chaos. On the back was a photograph of a smiling man and woman. The man appeared to be of medium height and build and had a full beard and long brown hair. The woman was thin and athletic looking and had black hair and green eyes. The man was smiling and the woman looked like a real-life version of Katherine Chaos, the game’s heroine. The character Chaos was depicted on the front of the book, dodging flying bats.

  “Royal’s the man in the picture,” Chelsea said.

  Frank nodded. “Okay, the second thing we need is directions to Royal’s place.”

  “I can do better than that,” Chelsea said. “I’ll take you there myself.”

  “Don’t you have work to do?” Joe asked.

  Chelsea shrugged sadly. “As Dave said at our staff meeting this morning, if we don’t find Royal soon, we’re done.”

  • • •

  Fifteen minutes later the trio pulled into the parking lot beside Royal’s building, which was built along a river. Joe and Frank could see that the place had once been a factory, but extensive renovations had transformed it into a high-priced condo complex. It was three stories high and Chelsea told them it had four units on each floor. As they drew nearer they could see that the rear of the building had private docks on the riverfront.

  Though cleaned up, the building’s exterior still sported some features from its factory days, including decorative molding and wrought iron fire escapes that snaked down each side of the building. The grounds around the complex were beautifully maintained, every tree and blade of grass in its proper place. The afternoon sun reflecting off the nearby river painted the building in gold and silver light.

  Joe whistled softly. “I bet this place sets Royal back a pretty penny every month.” Frank nodded in agreement.

  “Royal lives on the second floor,” Chelsea said. “We can go up because there’s no doorman during the day. But how are we going to get in?”

  Joe ran a hand through his blond hair and smiled roguishly. “We’re pretty clever about that,” he said.

  The three of them went through the lobby and climbed a stairway that curved gracefully up to the second floor. The stairs emptied out onto a long narrow hallway. There was a door at each corner of the hall.

  “Royal’s condo is the one on the far left,” Chelsea said, indicating one of the doors on the riverfront side. “He’s got an amazing view of the river.”

  As the trio approached the door, Joe stopped abruptly and put a finger to his lips, hushing the others. “It sounds as if someone’s inside,” he whispered.

  “Maybe he’s come back!” Chelsea said. “I didn’t see his car in the lot, but . . .” She approached the door and knocked tentatively. “Mr. Royal? Steven? It’s me, Chelsea Sirkin.” The sounds stopped; no one came to the door.

  Frank’s eyes narrowed. Something didn’t seem right. “Let Joe and me handle this,” he said to Chelsea. He put a hand on the doorknob and turned it; the door wasn’t locked.

  Frank gently pushed the door open and poked his head inside. Joe peered over his brother’s shoulder to get a look, too.

  “Chelsea,” Joe said, “is Royal a bad housekeeper?”

  “Well,” Chelsea started, “he’s not the neatest person . . .”

  “A really bad housekeeper?” continued Joe.

  Chelsea stepped forward to see what Joe meant. A small gasp escaped her lips as she peeked inside.

  The doorway opened directly into the living room of the condo. It was a huge room with a high ceiling and a row of sliding-glass doors that led onto a balcony that overlooked the river. Royal apparently used the room as a workplace, too; a computer sat atop an old desk near the far wall. The whole place looked as though a hurricane had hit it.

  Papers lay scattered all over the floor. The drawers of the desk had been pulled out, emptied, and left open. Pictures hung crooked on the walls, as if someone had searched behind them. The cushions had been removed from the overstuffed sectional couch and left on the rug. Looking toward the adjoining dining
-room/kitchen area, Joe could see that someone had searched the pantry, too.

  “Chelsea, did the police search the condo when you called them?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “They said they’d checked and had seen no sign of foul play.”

  “Then my guess is that whoever we heard in this room a minute ago ransacked the place,” Frank said. He bent down and examined the lock on the outside door. “Looks like it’s been picked by someone who doesn’t really know what he’s doing. Plenty of fresh scratches around the lock hole.”

  A subtle movement on the far end of the balcony caught Joe’s attention. One of the sliding doors had been left slightly ajar. “Look,” Joe cried, pointing to a figure on the balcony. “There he is!”

  2 Royal Friends and Foes

  * * *

  The Hardys sprang into action, bolting across the room and pushing open the sliding door. When the man on the balcony turned and saw them, he jumped over the railing.

  “He must have made it onto the fire escape,” Joe said. “I’ll follow. You try to stop him out front.”

  “Right!” Frank replied. He darted back through the apartment, almost knocking Chelsea over as he headed for the front door.

  Joe was right—there was a fire escape about six feet below the balcony. By the time he leaped onto it, the culprit had reached the ground and was beginning to run toward the parking lot.

  There was no way Frank would reach the guy in time if he had a car nearby. Joe had only one thing to do. Climbing over the railing of the fire escape, he tried to pick a soft-looking spot on the manicured lawn below. Then he jumped.

  The ground didn’t turn out to be as soft as he’d hoped, and Joe had the wind knocked out of him. He hadn’t broken anything, though. “Hey!” he called after the man he was chasing. The man looked back and stumbled a bit, but continued running.

  Joe scrambled to his feet and resumed the chase. The man was angling for the far corner of the parking lot now, and Joe knew that would give Frank and him a chance. As Joe hit the asphalt parking lot, he spotted Frank coming out of the front door. The culprit hadn’t seen Frank because he was making a beeline for the lone car parked on the far side of the lot.