Olympus: It's Not Just a Game

Chapter 31

Wheeler took the helmet in trembling hands.  "Go ahead," Mr. Avery urged.  "It won't bite you."  It wasn't fear, though, that made him hesitate.  He had wanted this moment for so long, and now it was here!

            The Averys' basement was getting rather crowded.  Jacob and Noah and Nancy each dangled in their cybersuit, surrounded by cables and computer equipment.  The whole downstairs den had been transformed into an arcade of sorts, and it spilled across the basement into Mr. Avery's workspace.  He had patched his own equipment into the cybersuits, and spent the whole night poring through the old printouts and diagrams from the Morrison's attic, muttering to himself and typing away on his computer.  And then, to Wheeler's amazement, he had disassembled the cybersuit in Karl's basement, brought it over to his house, and reassembled it around the boy's wheelchair.

            "Noah, do you still have that horse?" Mr. Avery called out.

            Noah's gleaming cyberhelmet nodded.  Inside that helmet, of course, the scene was very different.  He stood with Jacob and Karl in the camp of the Spartan army.  They were surrounded by tents, weapons, banners, and brawny warriors.  Spartans marched, rather than rode, into battle, but they had a few horses to carry loads—and one of these, snorting and stamping, was curvetting in tight circles around Noah.  "Hurry up, Dad!" he shouted.

            Mr. Avery turned back to Wheeler.  "Go ahead, son," he repeated.  "It sounds like Noah's got a stallion on a short leash over there.  They're all waiting on you."  Wheeler lifted the helmet over his head.

            Mr. Avery turned to the green and white screen of an old data monitor.  A tangle of wires connected it to the cybersuit and Mr. Avery's own computers.  As Wheeler latched the helmet under his chin a stream of characters poured down the screen.  Mr. Avery's finger hovered over the break button.  He watched, hawk-like, and then pounced; striking the break key, his fingers then flickered over the keyboard.  Wheeler found himself in the void of infinite night, and watched the swirling colors come together into the city of Olympus.   He heard the voice thunder, "Olympus, where the gods dwell with men!"  But before the voice could tell him that all must begin at the bottom, Mr. Avery emitted a satisfied grunt and hit the "enter" key.  Suddenly Wheeler's scenery changed.  Instead of hovering a thousand feet above the majestic city, a crowded army camp swam into view.  He barely had time to see the snorting, furious stallion in front of him before something indescribable happened.

            Noah was watching it, and he tried to describe it to his father, later.  "First, something shimmered right in front of me.  I guess it must have been Wheeler but the outlines were too blurred to tell.  Then the horse started shimmering too, and they kind of ran together.  It was like when a TV show breaks up and then clears out again.  It wasn't blurry, exactly, it just moved so fast you couldn't see what was what.  And then, there he was!  I just didn't expect him to be so—big!"

            And big he was.  Whatever software surgery Mr. Avery had performed, the top half of Wheeler had to be much larger than life to fit on the body of a Spartan war-horse.  Wheeler, as a centaur, was enormous.  His head was a good eight feet above the ground, built with the proportions of a giant.  Noah suddenly realized, looking at his bare chest and shoulders, what massive muscles it took to push a wheelchair everywhere.  Wheeler's upper arms were as thick as young trees, and the muscles on his back and shoulders bunched and rippled as he moved.

            Jacob whistled, "Wow, I'm glad you're on our side," he exclaimed.

            Karl was shocked, and a pang of something like jealousy went through his heart.  He had prided himself on his own Olympic physique.  Who was this kid Wheeler and how did he rate?  Karl recognized the face from the mall; he had always felt mild pity and contempt for that crippled kid at the arcade.  But that crippled kid was a force to be reckoned with now.  Wheeler spoke, and his voice was deeper, lowered an octave by the sheer size of his chest and larynx.  "There's no time to lose, guys," he stated.  "Which way is Athens?"  Noah pointed down the road they had been following.  "Any idea how long a march it is from here," Wheeler asked.