Description
Gaming fanatic Jay receives a strange phone call on a school trip to Titanium Tower. The voice on the other end calls himself Z. And he has trapped Jay’s classmates in the elevator at the very top of the skyscraper.
Jay finds himself with no choice but to try and solve Z’s deadly riddles. Not only that, he has the worst person possible helping him: Hudson Hamm, the school’s star athlete and resident tough guy. Soon Jay and Hudson are on a high-stakes scavenger hunt around the city.
Can they team up to beat Z at his own game? If not, their classmates and family members will pay with their lives.
Review
Jay has never known his Dad, and his tech-genius Mum has just broken her back and is in hospital. If only Jay had cleaned up the mess that he left by the pool!
On a school excursion Jay is split up from his group, and left alone with the class bully, Hudson, while they wait for the next lift. But when the lift with his class in it suddenly stops, Jay and Hudson are contacted by Z.
Z turns out to be artificial intelligence, and he sends them on a journey to complete a series of near impossible tasks - or else something bad will happen. Z seems to be in control of the city, and the boys are left at his mercy, attempting to do what he says - or even maybe beat him?
The boys discover that world-famous tech billionaire Maynard Brash unwittingly created this monster, and that he is also being held captive. Z needs Maynard to complete one more task to give Z and his followers the ability to control the world, and to get him to do that he needs Jay as bait. Surely Maynard would do anything to save his son - that’s right, his son - Jay. Can they stop this evil genius before it is too late?
This is a terrific action-packed adventure with two twelve-year-old enemies, until they are forced to work together to save the world.
With themes of artificial intelligence, teamwork, gaining empathy by understanding other people’s life situations, and facing and overcoming evil, this is a great read for those in upper primary and lower secondary.
