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flume tunnel to be behind the far wall. The question was, how far underground was I? And where was the music coming from? When my eyes adjusted, I saw that there were several vehicles in the room that looked like forklifts. These would be the lifts they used to move the crates inand out of the warehouse. (Whoever “they” were.) I ran my finger along the seat of one vehicle, leaving a line in the thick dust. These machines hadn’t been used in a long time. Either that, or Quillan was so covered in dust that people had to wear filters over their mouths. Unless they were robots of course. Or spiders.
    Scanning the room again, I saw an open metal staircase along the side wall that zigzagged upward. I jogged around a couple of the forklifts, hit the stairs, and tentatively climbed. With each step the strange music grew louder. My anxiety grew right along with it. I’d been through this before, many times. I was leaving the secret, underground place that held a flume to step into the real world of a territory. All my speculation, all my preconceived notions, all my wonder as to what I would find, would soon be gone. It’s an exciting feeling . . . and terrifying. I’ll never get used to it. I climbed quite a few stairs. If I was headed for the surface, I figured I would have to climb at least as high as the ceiling of the warehouse I had just left. Finally, as my legs began to burn, I got to the top. There was nothing out of the ordinary to see, just a double door. This one was much smaller than the one leading into the warehouse. It was definitely a people door. Or a spider door for big spiders.
    I had to get over that.
    I pushed the door open and boldly walked through. The music was now very loud. I was getting close to the source. The doors opened up into a long corridor. Looking either way, I didn’t see a single person. Or robot. Or spider, I’m happy to report. I had made my way into Quillan without being noticed. It was time to find out what made this territory tick. I wasn’t sure which way to go because the music was coming from everywhere. There must have been speakers hidden in the walls. It looked as if there might be a door fartherdown to my right, so that’s the way I went. I walked about twenty yards and came upon a single door with a metallic doorknob. I felt sure that beyond these doors would lie the answers to some of my questions. Either that or it would bring me into a broom closet, and I’d have to keep looking. There was only one way to find out.
    When I opened the door, I was instantly hit with a wave of music. Man, it was loud. I understood immediately how I was able to hear it so far down below in the warehouse. I can’t say that what I saw beyond that door was the last thing I expected to see. It wasn’t. It was lower down the list than that. In fact, it wasn’t even on the list. This was my first look at the real Quillan, and it made no sense.
    I was standing on the edge of a giant, loud, exciting . . . arcade full of games.
    Imagine the most elaborate, noisy high-tech video arcade you’ve ever been in, and then multiply that by about a hundred. This place was stupid-big. Hundreds of computer games lined the walls and formed aisles everywhere. I guess it’s dumb for me to say I’d never seen games like that before, being that I was on a new territory. But I never had. The overall setup wasn’t that much different from a Second Earth arcade, though. Some games were contained in big boxlike structures with colorful designs on the sides. Others were giant video screens that loomed over the gaming floor. I saw one game that looked to be a battle challenge, with the player shooting it out with the computer-generated image of an opponent on a giant screen in front of him. Another looked like a maze where the player stood on a platform, running in place while negotiating turns that he saw on his own big screen. It was all