Leo’s instincts—the same ones that made him a champion—kicked in. He scanned the environment. A bent paperclip served as a bridge. A drop of dried energy drink was a sticky amber lake. And there, in the corner, a fallen thumbtack. Point up.
“Really. Just don’t report me again. The spider thing sucked.”
Three dots appeared. Then: “Really?”
“What the hell?” Leo whispered.
The first thing he noticed was the cold. The second was the smell of dust and static electricity. The third—far worse—was the sound of his own mouse clicking by itself. He turned. From his shrunken perspective, the mouse was a beige sports car, its scroll wheel a monstrous tread. And perched on the left button, grinning with needle-teeth, was a pixelated gremlin wearing a referee’s jersey.
“Round one,” the gremlin announced. “Predator: common house spider. Spawns in ten seconds.”
