Collision Course [+ Additional Levels]

Level Seven - Gone Missing

He paused again. Then he opened the door. Jumpman watched as he poked his head through. He waited for Pacman to say something, but he saw him frown, and walk into the bedroom. "QBert?" Jumpman heard him say.

Pacman walked back out, a stricken look on his face. "He's not here."

Jumpman blinked, straightening on the couch. "What did you say?"

"QBert's not here," Pacman repeated.

He frowned and pulled on his red cap, flipping his phone shut with a clap and stuffing it into his pocket as he stood up. He walked to the door. "What do you mean, he's not—" He stopped short at the doorway, staring into the empty room.

Pacman tossed the sheets to the end of the bed. "He's just not here," he said. He went down on his knees to look under the bed. He straightened. "Nothing," he announced.

Jumpman scanned the room, searching for any clues to where QBert could have gone. "If he had left the room, I would have heard him," he stated, alarmed.

"Why, are you a light sleeper too?"

"Um... No, I am not," he said knowingly. He saw his friend's eyebrow arch at him, face deadpan. "But I've been up for a couple hours now," he reasoned.

Pacman shrugged, and went up to look in the closet.

Jumpman walked around the room. Then his eyes landed on the window. "Hey." He walked up to it.

Pacman turned his head around and watched him move past, arching his eyebrows. "What?"

His friend looked through the window. "QBert never leaves his window open." Jumpman put his arm through the gap. "And none of the windows have screens," he added.

"QBert doesn't like the windows open?"

Jumpman shrugged. "It's this quirky pet peeve of his. He hasn't yet explained why."

"Then why would QBert go out through the window?"

He looked at him. "He wouldn't." Then he turned, and swung his leg over the window sill.

"What are you doing?" Pac asked, a little alarmed.

"I'm gonna find him. QBert would never do something like this. This isn't like him," Jumpman replied, ducking his head under to the other side. "And maybe I can retrace his steps this way."

He swung his other leg over the sill, and landed on the other side. Pac stuck his head through the window. "That's barely three feet from the ground," he observed, surprised.

"Yeah. None of the windows are really all that high."

Pacman climbed out of the window, and jumped to the ground beside him.

Jumpman walked forward. To his left was a backyard; running beneath him and stretching to his right was a long driveway leading to the road; in front of them was a forest. He lived in what was commonly referred to as the "booneys." Less people to ask questions that way. Jumpman turned in a circle. "Now. If I were QBert"—he turned to Pac—"where would I go?" he asked.

"Not... through the window?"

Jumpman squinted at him, and Pac shrugged unhelpfully, but Jumpman got his point, and he tried to find a way to go about their method differently. If their friend was acting abnormally, they had to set their expectations accordingly. "So... let's just try to set ourselves in QBert's shoes here. If he were... feeling on the adventurous side, or like a renegade, what would he be doing?"

"Doesn't he have a bike?"

They simultaneously looked down the driveway. Jumpman's truck was there, and so was QBert's motorcycle. It gleamed in the sunlight; their friend had owned it since even before they'd met him.