"Take the hardcore gamers. The characters are way more real in the world of hardcore gamers who have played the game for hundreds of hours. They have the movie in their heads, they've built it on their own. These guys are always very disappointed in the movies." - Uwe Boll.

One.

Mark took one look at Chuck's copy of "HI-REZ Gamers, September, Issue #175" over the desk of the videogame store, and immediately knew there was going to be trouble.

Of course, these days, seeing the name "Ace Lightning" in any context always meant trouble, but this… This was big trouble. The I-can-already-feel-the-minions-breathing-down-my-neck-and-life-as-we-know-it-coming-undone -again level trouble. This was the kind of trouble which made Mark rethink ever playing a videogame again in his entire life.

Well, okay, so maybe that was a little melodramatic, but not very.

'Man, this totally blows!'

…And by the sounds of it, Chuck had also realised the seriousness of the situation. Or so Mark thought. He turned back to the counter.

'Yeah, that's just what I was thinking… They've got to be joking, Chuck.'

'No kidding dude,' Chuck sounded disgruntled, but no more so than the guy behind the counter, who had been waiting for Chuck to make his mind up and buy something for going on twenty minutes now. 'I could've sworn I only paid three-dollars ninety-five for this same magazine last month! Now it's five dollars and fifty? Talk about a total rip off!'

The shop assistant gave Chuck a "yes shop assistants do have death glares, thanks for asking" glower, but Chuck was either ignoring him or was totally unaware of it, seeming already engrossed in the adverts on the back of his "rip-off" magazine.

Mark rolled his eyes. 'That's not what I meant, Chuck,' he continued to stare uneasily at a copy of the same magazine still on the shelf. Or more specifically, he was staring at the main preview title filling most of the front cover.

The words "Ace Lightning: The Seventh Dimension to Be Unleashed Online This Fall!" pretty much dominated the front page. Besides that was a picture of the aforementioned superhero, stood in a typical dramatic pose that Mark was finding it harder and harder to associate with the window smashing, house-wrecking, gnome misidentifying Ace Lightning he had come to know over the last two years. 'I mean, that is what I think it is, isn't it? Ace Lightning and the Seventh Dimension?'

'God, I hope so,' the counter guy said. 'We need something to pick up the stocks in this place.'

'Yeah well, a guy doesn't have to look far to see what's driving away the custom, dude, not with these prices,' Chuck muttered.

The counter guy pulled his death-glare again. 'Uh. Sure, kid. Look, are you actually going to pay that ridiculous price and get out of my store, or are you going to stand there complaining about it for the rest of the day? Because, you know, we have a customer complaints box designed for that.'

'Where?' Chuck scowled, 'I don't see any customer complaints box.'

The assistant paused for a second, then ducked behind the desk and rooted around for a while. He eventually pulled out a lidless shoebox, scribbled "complants" on the front with a biro and dumped it on the counter in front of Chuck's face. 'Here. See? Complain in that.'

Chuck gave the box a dirty look. 'C'mon, dude, that's not even how you spell "complaints".'

'It's my store, dude. I'll spell "complaints" however I want to. Now either pay up or shut up, I have other customers to serve.'

Mark sighed, realising that Chuck was still oblivious to the significance of something called "Ace Lightning and the Seventh Dimension". Either that or he was still blissfully avoiding the seriousness of the situation in the only way Chuck Mugel knew how: by stirring up the part of his genetics which had been raised by a lawyer.

Sooner or later, Mark thought, he was going to ask Mrs Mugel for advice on dealing with superhero-related house damages. He's pretty sure there's a law suite in there somewhere. Not that they could ever take Fear out legally but...

...Okay, maybe he'd had too much sun this morning. Sometimes Mark really envied his best friend's ability to do that –to near scream his head off in a panic while facing Googler or Lord Fear or Anvil in the carnival by day, and then spend half the night playing "Carnival of Doom" without even stopping to consider that just a few hours ago, he had been facing the Carnival of Doom for real and barely coming out of it unscathed. Mark had hardly been able to touch a videogame since that night…

'No, seriously, man, if this book is over five dollars why does the ad out front still say "RRP $3:50? This is blatant false advertising.'

'The Recommended Retail Price isn't the goddamn law, either buy the book or leave!'

He'd been lucky enough to not have to think about anything to do with the Game for the last two weekends, since Ace and Sparx had been off exploring nearby cities in Kilobyte and Lord Fear's absence (Ace called it "Scouting Out potential territory". Sparx called it "sightseeing") and there wasn't much point in Mark trailing along behind them telling them to be careful, because wherever they went, there was bound to be trouble anyway, regardless of whether or not he was present. Besides, he still had two weeks of school left before the end of term. So as far as things in Conestoga Hills went, it had been pretty peaceful for the last fortnight.

He should've realised this was just the calm before the storm.

'…In fact, you know, I will be using that box,' Chuck's voice came back to him after a second and Mark realised he'd been phasing out Chuck's rant against public oppression. 'Even if you did just… throw it on the desk this very minute. I am so using it. Not just for the prices, but for the customer service you're supposed to have here.'

'Oh, by all means, be my guest,' the assistant drawled. 'Who knows, file enough of them and you might start a revolution.'

'Uh, no, that'll be fine, thanks,' Mark took the opportunity presented by Chuck closing his mouth for a second in surprise to grab him by the arm and pull him in the direction of the door. 'The magazine will be fine, come on, Chuck, we have to go.'

'But, dude, we have to stand up for our—'

'Now, Chuck, seriously,' Mark lowered his voice. They had bigger things to worry about.

. . . . . . . .

'Chuck, can you please take this seriously? You realise what that magazine is saying, right?'

'Sure I realise, dude,' Chuck said, posting the plastic wrapper from the magazine into a trash can as they passed and observing the free software disc that came with it. They were approaching Chuck's old workplace (Mark was not going to call it Fortress of Solitude. He just wasn't), though the Computer Shack had been closed and boarded up for a couple of months now. Not much good with its owner stuck in the sixth dimension, after all. 'I'm just not gonna get worked up about it until I have all the facts. This magazine's pretty much eighty percent rumour and gossip, you know. Most of the writers aren't even official testers so much as... as glorified games critics. If anything serious were going on I'd probably hear it on the Ace Lightning Forums or from Jessie long before it got to this book.'

'Well if it's such a bad magazine, why do you buy it?' Mark frowned.

'Because it's cheap, duh,' Chuck said, as if that was completely obvious, 'or at least it was, until this month. And they have good editorial columns. Nice to keep up with who's doing what in this business, you know. My uncle Ronny's working for hem down in Testing, which is really cool. They usually stop hiring people for that job after they turn twenty-one and lose their reflexes.'

'That's great, Chuck,' Mark couldn't quite keep the sigh out of his voice (though if anyone had ever asked he would've sworn he tried to). 'But I don't get it. Ace Lightning is bringing out a whole new game...'

'Not exactly a NEW game, dude – it might just be an online conversion or an expansion pack. Big difference.'

'An online conversion pack, then. And they felt the need to do this after the original game has already been out for about four years. Why, exactly?'

Chuck shrugged. 'To help pick up the sales? S'far as I know, Unity Inc. Hasn't been doing so good since Ace fell out of the top ten charts. When all else fails go with what you know works.'

'Unity Inc?'

'Yeah, you know. They're the guys who made Ace Lightning and the Carnival of Doom. Or produced it, or whatever, the animation was actually done by some company in Japan... I think they must've been one-hit wonders because they've only brought out a few games since then, and most of them kinda suck. I don't think you have much to worry about, dude,' Chuck thumped him on the back. 'I mean, it's probably just adding a standard online component to the game so you cam play two player mode online, and that's if this is even true.'

'Yeah, well, all the same, I have—'

'A bad feeling?' Chuck grinned in Mark's direction. 'C'mon, man, you always have a bad feeling about anything to do with Ace Lightning. If it were up to you, "bad feelings" would be coming outta the toaster.'

Mark smiled in spite of himself. 'With Ace around? They just might. He's already broken two of ours. Just… call it a sixth sense,' he added, a little sarcastically. 'Sometimes I wonder how you can still play videogames at all.'

'Meh. It's about finding a balance, I guess,' Chuck shrugged, flicking through the magazine until he found the right preview pages. 'I mean take this month, for example. I've been chased by pigface, bopped on the head by a carnival mallet, terrorised by a zombie—'

'I think that zombie was doing more bad folk singing than he was terrorising, Chuck…'

'—Shot at by Staffhead, had my glasses stolen by flying hand puppets and almost gotten impaled by Sparx because she thought I was a minion. I mean, seriously, Mark do I look like a minion, to you?'

'Well, it was pretty dark at the time…'

'Not that dark! Sheesh… Anyway, when you get down to it, man, life's always throwing you curve balls, and the game is still just a game even if it has the same characters you know in real life now. You can get TV shows about perfectly normal things that happen to perfectly normal people every day too, right? But I betcha money that your mom still watches the "Ivy Terrace" soap opera.'

Mark frowned. 'My life's not like Ivy Terrace, Chuck. If it were there'd be more romantic encounters, bank robberies, and mafia bosses calling at my house. If I had to compare our lives to anything, it would probably be "Mission Impossible".'

Chuck sniggered. 'Man, exaggerating much?'

'Who was hanging from the Ferris Wheel by a string of fairy lights last Friday, Chuck?'

'…Point.'

Mark took the liberty of removing the magazine from Chuck's hand and giving the preview a once over. He made to take hold of the edge of the paper and rip it down, removing the sheets he thought were important, but Chuck wasn't too keen on the idea. 'Hey! Man, I paid five dollars for that!'

'Okay, fine,' Mark sighed, rolling the magazine up instead. 'But we still have to show this to Ace, okay? Just in case.'

Chuck shuffled uncomfortably. 'Man, you really think he wants to be reminded of this kinda stuff right now?'

'No,' Mark admitted. Ace didn't want to be reminded of anything to do with videogames. Particularly himself. There were reasons that he'd been spending so long outside of Conestoga Hills, and Mark wasn't dense enough to think it was entirely because he was scoping for Lord Fear. It had more to do with avoiding anyone associated with Ace Lightning and the Carnival of Doom. About Ace working out exactly how mortals dealt with things in this place they called home, where people only lived once and never came back.

But how could Ace call earth home? Mark thought. When he had to hide from everyone? There was simply nowhere else for him to go.

'...But then neither did I. and you still bought that magazine.'

'…Okay, sure. But if you're so worried about this, then just don't buy the game,' Chuck took his magazine back, stuffing it into his bag thoughtlessly. 'This whole Ace-characters-coming-to-life thing is keyed into your copy, right? So as long as nothing touches that, everything should work out okay...And it's just an online application. What's the worst that could... Oh. Damn, dude, check it out.'

Mark checked it out, following the line of Chuck's gaze to the sky. Then immediately wished he hadn't. The air was crackling over their heads, and now that he was listening, he could hear the sound of buzzing and whirring which definitely had nothing to do with the lunchtime traffic.

In fact, it sounded exactly like the sound the Doom Cycle created.

So much for a peaceful fortnight.