Eagle Strike

walls, avoiding any traps that might be lying in wait. Ahead of him he could see the second chamber—the rain-drenched pit with its pillars rising from the depths below and ending at floor level. He passed through the door and stopped on a narrow ledge; the tops of the pillars—barely bigger than soup plates—offered him a path of stepping stones across the void. Alex remembered the flying creature that had attacked him. He looked up. Yes, there it was, almost lost in the gloom: a nylon wire running from the opposite side to the door above his head. He thrust upwards with the burning arrow, holding the flame against the wire.
    It worked. The wire caught fire and then snapped. Cray had built a robotic version of the creature that had attacked him in the game. Alex knew that it would have swooped down when he was halfway across, rushing into him and knocking him off his perch, causing him to plunge into whatever lay below. Now he watched with quiet satisfaction as the creature tumbled down from the ceiling and dangled in front of him, a jumble of metal and feathers that was more like a dead parrot than a mythical monster.
    The way ahead was clear but the rain was still falling, splashing down from some hidden sprinkler system. The stepping stones would be slippery. Alex knew that his avatar would have been unable to remove its shoes for better grip. He quickly slipped off his trainers, tied them together and hung them round his neck. His socks went into his pocket. Then he jumped. The trick, he knew, was to do this quickly: not to stop, not to look down. He took a breath, then started. The rain blinded him. The tops of the pillars were only just big enough to contain his bare feet. On the very last one he lost his balance. But he didn‟t have to use his feet—he could move in a way that his avatar couldn‟t. He threw himself forward, stretching out his hands and allowing his own momentum to carry him towards safety. His chest hit the ground and he clung on, dragging his legs over the edge of the pit. He had made it to the other side.
    A corridor ran off to the left, the walls close together and decorated with hideous Aztec faces.
    Alex remembered how his avatar had run through here, dodging between a hail of wooden spears. He glanced down and saw that there was what looked like a smoking stream in the floor.
    Acid! What now?
    He needed another weapon and he had an idea how to get one. He took out his socks, rolled them into a ball and threw them down the corridor. As he had hoped, the movement was enough to activate the sensors that controlled the hidden guns. Short wooden spears spat out of the lips of the Aztec gods at fantastic speed, striking the opposite walls. One of the spears broke in half.

    Alex picked it up and felt the needle-sharp point. It was exactly what he wanted. He tucked it into the belt of his trousers. He still had the crossbow; now he had a bolt that might fit it too.
    The computer game had been programmed so that there was only one way forward. Alex had been able to dodge both the spears and the acid river easily enough when he was playing Feathered Serpent. But he knew he would be unable to do the same in this grotesque three-dimensional version. He would only have to take one false step and he would be finished. He could imagine splashing into the acid and then panicking. He would be driven straight into the path of the spears as he tried to reach the next zone. No. There had to be another way.
    Alex forced himself to concentrate. Ignore the rules! He turned the three words over and over in his mind. Moving along the corridor wasn‟t an option. But how about up? He put on his shoes, then took a tentative step. The spears nearest the entrance had already been fired. He was safe so long as he didn‟t move too far down the corridor. He grabbed hold of the wall and, balancing the crossbow over his shoulder, began to climb. The Aztec heads made perfect footholds, and only when he was at the very top did he begin to make his way along, high above the floor and away from danger. One step at a time, he edged forward. He came to a camera mounted in the ceiling and, with a smile, wrenched out the wire. There was a lot of it and he decided to keep that too.
    He reached the end of the corridor and climbed down into the fourth zone, the jungle. He was surprised to discover that the vegetation pressing in on him from all sides was real. He had expected plastic and paper. He could feel the heat in