Eagle Strike

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.
    Alex sat down in front of the computer screen that the technicians had set up. He took hold of the controller and pressed with his left thumb. In front of him and on the giant plasma screen, his other self walked to the right. He stopped and turned himself the other way. The controller was incredibly sensitive. Alex almost felt like an Aztec god, in total control of his mortal self.
    “Don‟t worry if you get killed on your first go,” Cray said. “The console is faster than anything on the market and it may take you a while to get used to it. But we‟re all on your side, Alex.
    So—let‟s play Feathered Serpent! Let‟s see how far you can go!”
    The temple gates opened.
    Alex pressed down and on the screen his avatar walked forward and into a game environment that was alien and bizarre and brilliantly realized. The temple was a fusion of primitive art and science fiction, with towering columns, flaming beacons, complex hieroglyphics and crouching Aztec statues. But the floor was silver, not stone. Strange metal stairways and corridors twisted around the temple area. Electric light flickered behind heavily barred windows. Closed-circuit cameras followed his every move.
    “You have to start by finding two weapons in the first chamber,” Cray advised, leaning over Alex‟s shoulder. “You may need them later.”

    The first chamber was huge, with organ music throbbing and stained-glass windows showing cornfields, crop circles and hovering spaceships. Alex found the first weapon easily enough.
    There was a sword hanging high up on a wall. But he soon realized there were traps everywhere.
    Part of the wall crumbled as he climbed it and reaching out for the sword activated a missile which shot out of nowhere, aiming for the avatar. The missile was a double boomerang with razor-blade edges, rotating at lightning speed. Alex knew that if he was hit, he would be cut in half.
    He stabbed down with his thumbs and his miniature self crouched. The boomerang spun past.
    But as it went, one of its blades caught the avatar on the arm. The audience gasped. A tiny flow of blood had appeared on the miniature figure‟s sleeve and its face—Alex‟s face—had distorted, showing pain. The experience was so realistic that Alex almost felt a need to check his own, real arm. He had to remind himself