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This chapter is currently in Complete Draft status. This means the chapter is finished, but I may do doing editing and polishing before declaring it final. It's open to comments, feedback, and change suggestions through our Discord in the #novelproject channel, or you can Tweet at me or Email me if you prefer. I welcome all feedback, even beyond "you misspelled this." (Note that I reserve right to disagree with suggestions, of course.)
He didn't really need this internship at the Funplex.
His golden ticket had been punched from the day of his birth -- a long-standing favor forged through family bonds, providing the boy a clear-cut upward path of mobility. His father had the same path, and his father before him. The family wasn't old money, not in the Rockefeller sense, but definitely held fast to a legacy system with an outstanding track record. It started and ended the same way, every single loop.
And all Jason Takeshi ever intended to be was another iteration of that loop.
But somewhere along the line it was decided that a part-time job would help him learn "work ethic," and so he got tangled up in the world of teenage summertime employment. At least they let him pick his own short-lived mini-career, let him decide what capitalist gulag he'd serve time in before being hurled directly into the capitalist gulag already fated for his adult life.
And so, Jason picked the Funplex.
There were more prestigious arcade positions, of course. He'd scanned the Help Wanted placements in his local newspaper on entering the fifteenth year of his life, and found plenty of Deco's Palace franchise locations keen on exploiting young labor. And truthfully, he was about ready to take one of those positions, not really wanting to drag the search out longer than a single afternoon... until he spotted the perfect position at a podunk mom 'n pop shop.
Here, he met Miss Francine. Here, he learned she'd let him basically do whatever the hell he wanted, as long as her games didn't break down in the process. If he kept these aging relics from collapsing into dust he could fill his hours with tinkering madly in her workshop, putting together hardware hacks and software patches to his heart's content.
No way Deco's Palace would let him waste time on the company dime like this. No way his destined role at Matsushida would, either. But the Funplex? Sure, kid, have fun. Do whatever you like. Be whoever you want to be...
It was on one of those blissfully quiet days of tinkering, two years prior to the current future year 199X, that he (much to his own surprise) met his first true friend.
At first, young Jason paid her no attention. He was busy gutting a Donkey Kong to install the highly unofficial "Donkey Kong 2" chip hack he'd found on GameOver BBS the night before. With a fistful of freshly-burned EEPROMs, he'd set himself up behind the bulky wooden box with a flashlight while everybody carried on gaming around him...
And while a matronly looking woman entered the Funplex, with her teenage daughter in tow.
The woman immediately asked to speak to the manager. Frederick was at home nursing an ankle injury, leaving Francine to intercept this customer herself.
"I just want to make sure this will be a fine, upstanding establishment for my daughter to enjoy during her summer hours," Mrs. Thompson explained.
For her part, Francine dealt with the woman's concerns with a comforting smile and perpetual reassurances. (If Jason was running the place he'd have lost patience minutes ago after the third attempt to re-phrase the idea of "Is this place safe?")
"You've nothing to worry about; the Funplex is an inviting and family-friendly sort of arcade," Francine re-stated, also using slightly different words to do so. "We don't allow fighting, we don't tolerate aggressive players, and safety is paramount. Unlike barcades or so-called 'family restaurant' arcades, we also don't allow alcohol."
"Yes, but... my concern is less one of physical safety and more... mmm, how to put this..." Mrs. Thompson tried, attempting again to figure out the nicest way to phrase it. "My concern is of moral safety."
"Moral safety...?"
Mrs. Thompson glanced around, to make sure she wasn't being overheard. Her daughter had wandered off to play some Skeeball, leaving her alone with the manager. (And with some boy repairing a game, but he was hired help, so he was beneath her notice.)
"To be blunt, Mrs. Francine... there was an... incident recently at our previously preferred arcade," she explained. "With another girl Iris's age. A very... inappropriate social interaction. We felt it best to remove her from that situation, for her own sake, but she's been so despondent since we banned her from going to the arcade. We felt it time to seek an alternative place for her to play, and someone from my book club suggested the Funplex would be a wholesome alternative..."
Mrs. Francine quirked a wrinkled eyebrow.
"Well, now. If another girl was bullying your daughter at this other arcade--"
"No, no. It was a... I'd really rather not go into details, but let's say... well, you know how teenagers can be. Particularly in this day and age, when the media keeps pushing them into untoward behaviors," she clarified. "It's not like how things were back in our day, yes? Back when men were men and girls were girls and everybody knew how things ought to be..."
Jason, for his part, pretended to twist a screwdriver again and again while keeping a curious ear open. Still slightly hidden behind the cabinet, but perfectly able to hear it all... and see Mrs. Francine's reaction.
Which was one of absolute calm. Somehow smiling and nodding along, while Jason could tell the nods were an autonomous response. Not actually agreeing in the slightest, but adopting the social camouflage of agreement.
"I understand completely," Mrs. Francine spoke, measuring every word carefully to speak only truth in the face of this customer's concerns. "I feel your daughter will do just fine at the Funplex, ma'am. I promise to watch over her and ensure her safety and happiness. I believe in helping children be who they are meant to be, finding their spirit and passion. As a spiritual person yourself, surely you agree...?"
Immediately, the new customer relaxed.
"Absolutely. I'm glad we can come to this agreement," Mrs. Thompson spoke, her smile widening. "Very well. I'll escort my daughter here a few times a week, to enjoy the games under your supervision while I attend to my own affairs. In time, if this arrangement works out, perhaps she can simply take the subway..."
"Agreed. We're just a block away from a stop, and the neighborhood is quite lovely."
With a firm handshake, the two parted ways, even if they hadn't actually come to an agreement on what any of those words meant in the long run.
Not dissimilar to Jason's job interview with Miss Francine a few weeks prior, honestly. (Although no "If you were a dinosaur, what dinosaur would you be" questioning.) He'd mentioned up front to Miss Francine that he had absolutely no interest in dating co-workers or getting distracted by customers, in hopes that he somehow could ply his aromantic asexuality into an employable factor. Most people got weirded out if he went into detail about why he was distinctly uninterested in any of that, but not Miss Francine. She'd told him to be who he was meant to be, and follow his spirit...
Chuckling to himself, he resumed working on his arcade upgrade in earnest.
Three minutes later and he was interrupted again.
"Hello! My name is Iris. What's yours?"
...the daughter. Had to be her. Jason only got a brief glimpse, as he only started paying attention to that whole twisted scenario after the ball got rolling. But most people at the Funplex knew to leave Jason alone, as he radiated strong "go away" vibes. Only newbies approached the Hardware Hermit...
He peeked out from behind the machine, at this... well, this candy-colored vision of sunshine and good cheer.
"Hey," he greeted. "You're the lesbian who just got recruited by Mrs. Francine, right?"
And immediately the girl turned the same shade of red as her hair.
"Wh-wh...?" she stammered. "I... I'm Iris. Iris Thompson. Umm. Hi. Hello! Pleased to meet you!"
"Oh, still in the closet. Okay, whatever," he decided. "I'm Jason Takeshi and I fix things. So if a game breaks, come find me, got it?"
"You bet!"
Deciding that would be the end of that, he returned to his mod. Screwing down the new printed circuit board, making sure all four bases were secured in place over the main motherboard...
...and then that redhead poked her way into the game, peeking closer.
"What're you doing, anyway?" she asked.
"...upgrading," Jason said, confused as to this new personal space violation. "I'll be done soon, if you were waiting around to play."
"Oh, I'm lousy at Donkey Kong. I'm just curious what you're up to, that's all," the girl explained, having a seat on the floor next to him. "I figured I could keep you company while you work!"
"...uhh. Why, exactly?"
"Why...? I mean... why not?" Iris said, puzzled. "Don't you want to be friends?"
Briefly, Jason wondered if he'd accidentally wandered onto the set of Sesame Street instead of the Twin Pines Mall.
He'd never really bothered with "Friends" before. True, he'd joined a few after school clubs, mostly because that's what's expected of a grade-A student like himself -- scholastic achievement and ambition. (Even if in the end none of it mattered. Even if he was locked into the golden path regardless.) And he had "acquaintances," yes. But your classic "BFF"-type friend...? Nope.
So, he could've told her to go away. Tell her to leave him in peace, to tinker and tweak and tune, to play with hardware to his heart's content. She'd likely give him space if he insisted on it, being a polite churchgoing sort of girl...
But if the whole world was made up of Jasons, humanity would be doomed. They needed Irises to make the entire thing work.
"Yeah, okay, whatever," Jason said, resuming his screwdriving, and leaving absolutely none of those thoughts spoken aloud. "Here, hold the flashlight for me so I don't gotta do this one-handed. Having trouble threading this little bastard."
Two years later...
Two years later, in the distant future year 199X, and Jason's BFF had a new BFF.
It just sorta... happened. Someone wandered into Iris's orbit, and that brought her into Jason's orbit by default. The gravitational field had changed, with a third party in the mix... and while it was patently obvious to Jason exactly why that gravity existed, Iris remained supposedly oblivious. The new girl certainly remained oblivious.
At least he could appreciate the qualities this new Iris-Friend-Girl brought to the table. Kay Lang also valued a quiet life, just as Jason did. She also stayed open and honest about herself, just as Jason did...
But in the end, Kay and Iris were now the dream team, not Kay and Jason. The girls had been hanging around the Funplex together as a locked-in social pair for a solid month now. They spent time together working on Iris's arcade game ambitions, playing Guitar Legends, or just chatting and having fun. Usually while Jason worked in the back, trying to make their arcade game ambitions something other than a pipe dream.
He didn't mind, of course. Iris deserved this in her life, he felt -- it had been a long time coming. Jason and Iris had been friends long enough for him to recognize what Iris was truly looking for in life, and finally someone had come along that fit the bill in the form of Kay Lang. The best thing Jason could do was to get out of the way and let the inevitable magic happen.
Besides, Jason was used to working alone when it was time to really buckle down and get stuff done. Helped him focus on the project -- cobbling together a bunch of open source hardware and middleware and software, trying to make a video game from scratch. The more time Kay and Iris spent cozying up to each other, the more time Jason had free to do the heavy lifting--
And a tiny bit of paint splashed on his workbench, a few inches away from the circuit board he was assembling.
"Hey, hey!" he called out, looking up from his work. "Watch it. Sensitive electronics, dammit."
The girls gave him a sheepish look, each slightly spattered with paint. Not nearly as spattered as the empty wooden shell of their future arcade cabinet.
"Sorry!" Iris apologized. "Guess we got carried away..."
"Still say we should use vinyl decals for the cabinet sides," Jason complained, examining the wildly colorful arts and crafts project on display. "It's an arcade game, not a bespoke Jackson Pollock painting."
"A what...?"
"Nevermind. Point is -- can't we just design some simple, printable graphic design and slap that on the thing...? Something we can mass-produce easily."
But it was Kay who raised the ultimate objection.
"That's not rock," she spoke, wiping some blue paint off her hand and onto her work apron. "Rock music attitude means you go wild, follow your heart. It's not factory-stamped clean design work, it's got to be a riot of color and hue. Splatter everywhere, band stickers, any sort of iconography you can slap on the thing. Need to stay true to that spirit."
Iris stepped in, next. "Buuuut this is Jason's game too," she reminded her new friend. "So he should get a say in decorating it."
"...don't really give a crap how you decorate it," he mumbled in response. "Just trying to be pragmatic..."
"Come on, you're a part of this! You're more than just the code and hardware guy. You're the wizard who's going to breathe life into Rocktopia! You should get some say in how it looks."
"Which is why I'm restricting you to a 64-color palette for your sprites, yes. Genesis-style instead of SNES, so I'm not pulling my hair out trying to store a full 256-color image alongside all the digital audio we'll need."
"I don't just mean in terms of the bits and bytes, silly," Iris said, sticking her tongue out briefly at him. "I mean... this is your game as much as it's ours. We're all friends, and this is the game we're making as friends! Right?"
"Yeah, of course," he spoke, without giving it much thought.
...because he was just along for the ride, right? Enabling the inevitable victory of their dreams. And that was perfectly acceptable -- the world needed the dreams of people like Iris, people like Kay. Jason felt obliged to see them through. Perhaps out of a sort of moral obligation to ensure the world he actually craved could ever exist...
His part in this need not be any more than the bare minimum. Just contribute what needs contributing and get out of their way. Stick to the plan...
"Add more splashes of red," he suggested, to at least show he was participating. "Red means blood means edgy and gritty and it'll pull in the thirteen-year-olds."
Immediately, Kay flicked a swath of red across the side.
Which splattered a bit on Iris, and she splattered Kay back, and soon the girls were back to laughing and having fun. Good; that meant Jason could get back to work. A clever little strategy, really -- get them involved with each other again, so they'd leave him alone. Jason would've patted himself on the back if he wasn't holding a soldering iron at the moment...
Plus, refocusing them on each other helped with his other major project, one he'd titled "Project Get Iris Out Of The Damn Closet By Encouraging This Sort Of Thing." (A working title. He'd come up with something snappier later.) Not technically a project he'd started; clearly this was Miss Francine's goal from day one, providing Iris a safe place to be her true self. If he pushed these two together by stepping out of the way, that'd be a win.
Except... it didn't ultimately work. A few moments later, and a second interruption dropped.
"Hey, Jason, you doing anything for dinner tonight?"
Causing him to pause, red-hot poker millimeters away from securing a wire.
"Uh... dunno, stuff something edible into the microwave after getting home?" he said. "Why?"
Kay, increasingly paint-splattered, set her brush aside for now.
"'cause I'm having Iris over at my place for takeout tonight," she added.
"Good to hear. Hope you two have fun."
"And... you're invited, if you wanna invite yourself. I'm inviting you to invite yourself. You up for it? Beats eating alone, right?"
"Uh. You want me along for your date night? Why?"
"Family dinner, dude. Jeez," Kay quickly corrected. "My mom's gonna be there too. So. How about it?"
It still wasn't an answer. Why? Why would Kay want Jason along for this? Several factors not adding up, variables undefined. He was obliged to offer one last opportunity to shy away.
"You sure about this? You've no doubt heard the legend of Jason's family dinner experience with Iris, where I made fun of how they kneel before Santa Claus. I mean, I'm not really much of a successful social butterfly..."
"My mom's not her mom. You'll do fine," she declared, without concern. "We'll head over together after your work shift's done. Thanks, man."
And that was that. Somehow, Jason had been pulled into a social mixer.
They'd had social meals before, of course; the team regularly spent lunch breaks at Cheese The Day, a few doors down from the Funplex. This was the same thing, right? Even if it was... not quite the same thing. Even if this required invitations, explicit invitations, instead of just being a thing that happened because of proximity and arcade camaraderie. Passive socialization came easy to him.
But invitations to socialize outside of the context of the Funplex... and invitations from Kay rather than Iris...? It was curious, to say the least. And would hopefully not result in flaming disaster as it did with the Thompson family dinner.
Fortunately, they did not open the festivities by begging the Invisible Skybeard to praise their various boxed noodles.
The Lang home stood in stark contrast to the Thompson home. Where Jason felt like everything at the Thompson home was a curious museum piece (look but don't touch) the Lang hideout was a slightly grungy and messy pile of absolutely lived-in low-income delights. Repeatedly Ms. Lang would find some discarded article of clothing or an open copy of TV Guide or a stray plastic wrapper and apologize for the mess, and each time Jason would be the one trying to make nice-nice and socially accepting. A weird turn for the boy used to being a walking social grenade.
Honestly, it was all so homey and wholesome that he almost felt like he fit in with this bunch. He certainly got along better with Kay's mom than Iris's.
Mostly because like Jason, Ms. Lang was loud. And very personal.
"So the guy comes in with, no joke, a TV antenna through his neck," she continued, waving around her chopsticks as the tale continued. "We rush him in, work on extracting it carefully so he doesn't just bleed out all over the floor, and I ask him -- how the hell did that happen? Turns out he was trying to catch some Mexican wrestling on a UHF station two counties over, and went up to the roof to try and grab the signal, ladder went out, wham! Man meets antenna! No Chavo Guerrero for him that night, I tell yah..."
"Huh. Fifty-seven channels and nothing on except some dude's spleen," Jason added, to compound dark humor with dark humor.
And she laughed along with it, like this was the best joke in the world, reveling in the tale of stupidity and hubris. Even Kay chuckled a little, in her reserved way.
While Iris turned... slightly pale.
"Is... is he okay?" she asked, concerned.
"Who, Chavo?" Kay's mom asked, confused. "I don't know, I think he retained his title...?"
"The antenna guy!"
"Oh, he was fine in the end," Ms. Lang said casually, between mouthfuls of sauce and noodle. "Now, you want to hear about someone who really got the short end of the stick, and I mean a literal stick and his literal rear end..."
In a weird echo of Jason's past family dinner experiences, Iris was again the one left uncomfortable by the ramblings of another. And... as before, Jason had no idea how to comfort Iris.
Fortunately Kay did, by steering her mother's wild tales in other directions, or just squeezing Iris's hand under the table. While Jason sat there, not sure how to fit himself into this situation except to further encourage the loud-and-personal.
"My dad once nailed his hand to a board trying to assemble an IKEA desk for me," Jason declared, to partake in the body horror adventure. "Which is kind of remarkable when you remember that stuff normally uses safe little wooden pegs. He thought he knew better and decided to use nails instead. Whoops."
"Yeah, that's a whoops," Ms. Lang agreed. "Tetanus shot?"
"You know it."
"Honestly, misadventure is one of the lesser causes of E.R. visits. They're just the most memorable. You sit through a few dozen heroin overdoses and eventually they blur together, but the guy impaled on a TV antenna, that sticks with you--"
"Jason. Mom. Please."
Finally objecting, Kay put her chopstocks down firmly enough to make them click them on the table. Which wasn't all that firm, considering, but more firm a gesture than she'd offered at any other time in the proceedings.
"Not good table talk, okay?" Kay spoke, softly commanding. "Topic switch, please."
"Ah, @!#?@!, sorry," the woman mumbled into her noodles, taking another mouthful. "Mmmhh. Right. Game. How's your game going? Been at it a month now?"
"S'good."
"Good? Just good? Kay, honey, it's hard to get more than two words out of you about it. Iris, how's the game going?" she tried, switching subjects.
"It's, ahh... it's good," Iris replied, still a little unsettled. "It's really good. ...wait, that's only two words. ...it's really, really good? I'm doing lots of art. It's really good."
With a sigh, Ms. Lang turned to Jason to save the conversation. A rare situation, indeed.
"Okay, how's it really going?" she asked.
Jason, ever-open and honest, was ready to answer immediately.
"Honestly I'd agree that it's going really well," he spoke, using correct grammar. "Art's coming along nicely, just need to re-design a few things that went over the memory budget. I somehow crammed it all into a few megs, but I need more room for Kay's music. If I really crunch on this thing we'll have an early version up and playable next week. Dunno if it'd really be your thing, it's not like, cribbage or baccarat or anything old people enjoy..."
"Kid, I'm young enough to know what a video game is, thanks," the woman said, with a light chuckle. "And computer games, too. I play a mean solitaire. --speaking of computers, how much do I owe you for the thing you gave Kay?"
"What, the SoundBlaster? Nothing. I had spares."
"I insist," Ms. Lang said, reaching for her purse. "I know computer parts are expensive, and I want only the best for my Kay."
"Seriously, free, nothing, nada," Jason pushed. "It was just sitting around collecting dust after I got my new laptop. I don't need--"
"--important to pay your debts, I feel--"
"--they're not even that much--"
"Mom."
And Kay had progressed from clicking down chopsticks to placing her hand flat on the table just loudly enough to be audible. Hardly a tantrum, but for her normal level of restraint, it certainly represented a notch up.
Ms. Lang's hand retreated from her purse, in response.
"...just offering, no harm meant," she noted, quietly.
"I know. And it's cool. Just... it's cool. We're all cool here," Kay declared. "Stop worrying about money. ...Iris, want to head back to my room and preview some tracks I'm working on for the game? Maybe tweak and tune a bit?"
Iris, still slightly dazed, took a brief moment to realize the plan. "What? Oh! Yes. Yes, certainly. Ah, thank you so much for the lovely mean, Ms. Lang..."
The woman waved it off, with a smile. "Nice to meet ya, Iris. You girls have fun, okay?"
And so the girls proceeded to have fun.
Leaving Jason behind with their adult host of the evening. Who raised an eyebrow, when he didn't even begin to start to consider moving to join them.
"Not interested in the music?" she asked, curious.
"Ehhh, at this point I just need the finished songs," Jason replied, rolling the lack of invitation off his shoulders. "I'm good. I'm fine."
"Not interested in hanging out with your friends, then?"
That rolled off his shoulders with a bit more effort.
"They need this more," Jason decided. "And I need to get back home, back to work. I can help you tidy up first, though."
"Okay. Okay, if that's what you want," Ms. Lang agreed, hesitantly. Moving to gather up the empty cardboard boxes, made soft and waxy from the food previously contained within. "You need subway fare, or...?"
"Kay worries about your money problems, y'know," Jason stated, open and honest. "So she doesn't want you compensating me for stuff like that. I don't need it, you do. Let's be adults and not pretend otherwise."
The woman sighed, opening the mostly-full plastic trash bin, to dump the remnants. "Yeah... yeah, I know," she said. "Just doesn't feel right. I work hard to make sure she has the things she needs and wants, like that nice computer. I'm happy to do so..."
"And I'm happy to donate second-hand parts and subway fare. Doing my part for her, just like you."
"Mmhmm. Good point," Ms. Lang agreed, with less hesitation. "You're wise for a teenager, huh?"
Jason puffed his chest out in mock-pride "That's me, a regular wiseguy," he stated. "And a good Samaritan who doesn't need anyone or anything."
The door slammed shut behind him, resonating through the drywall and glass of his family condo.
But no reason to worry about the noise, even at this late hour. Father off grinding his salaryman lifestyle, mother out networking socially. Not that Jason had their schedules memorized -- he simply knew the odds. They were not in favor of encountering another living, breathing human tonight.
And not that Jason routinely slammed doors. He wasn't some feisty hooligan teenager, despite mainstream media routinely calling his generation angsty slackers addicted to violent video games. In fact, he almost jumped in surprise at the sound of the door behind him, echoing throughout the spacious apartment.
A curious thing. He wasn't angry. Wasn't upset. Everything was going extremely well -- the project going well, and his project going well. Tonight would produce good results on both fronts. All he had to do to achieve victory was... nothing. Get out of the way and let things unfold. Yes, nothing was working very well indeed.
The unfortunate side effect was leaving him with nothing in return.
Oh, he had work to do. And that's what he did, in the long dark of the night, in the empty home. He went straight to his room, booted his laptop, and began grinding the task list for Rocktopia. Still more to do before the playable was ready, just like he told Ms. Lang. Still more to do...
Tapping the space bar. Indenting blocks. Linking in sprites and music tracker notation. Not really writing any actual code.
Not particularly filling, this flavor of nothing. Taking one of his previous game demos and fleshing it out? Work, to be sure, but not very challenging work. Not the level of tinkering and problem-solving he usually sought out, in the long dark of nights like these. Honestly? He could probably code the game in his sleep.
Maybe he should sleep. Burn the useless time away. Get a few steps farther towards the golden path by wasting the wasteful hours.
But if the answer was sleep, well, why not sleep away the daylight too? Why not optimize your time by replacing every last moment of non-engagement with unconsciousness? Why be alive at all? No. That was a dangerous road to go down. He needed some sort of activity, or at the very least... distraction.
And the world's most perfect distraction was the Internet.
One day, everyone would be drowning in Internet. Everyone. Right now the global information superhighway largely connected schools and governments and research institutions, but AOL had already started making the jump, beginning the nightmare of Eternal September. And the newcomers found Jason already there, ready to say hello. In his own grumpy sort of way, but a hello nonetheless.
Saying hello to someone might be nice tonight.
After letting the modem screech its way into connectivity, he fired up his IRC client to see who was awake at this unholy hour on his usual arcade hardware enthusiasts channel.
<brandx> i swear shes on the phone like three hours a day with her friends
<420CRUSADR> ur girlfriend is confusing
<brandx> they don't even talk about anything, it's like they're just talking to talk, ties up the phone line so i can't dial in
<420CRUSADR> girls amirite never udnerstand them
<sleeveace> They're not an invasive species, dipwad, they're human beings
<sleeveace> Maybe treat them as such and you'll get somewhere
<brandx> you've got it easy jason, you hate girls and sex
<sleeveace> I don't hate anyone. except maybe the Keebler Elves, @!#?@! those guys, damn cookies always look so good on TV but taste like cardboard
<brandx> whatever, ur only gf is your left sock
<420CRUSADR> LMFAO
<sleeveace> okay nevermind clearly IRC is also a waste of my time tonight you two have fun being the shining exemplar of buttheadedness I'm out
<brandx> whoa whoa hold up
<brandx> you said your friend wanted arcade info, right
<brandx> glowing blue joystick game good music
<sleeveace> Correct.
<brandx> this butthead came through for you, then, i found out more
<sleeveace> Details please?
<brandx> okay so
<brandx> you did not hear this from me
<brandx> had to talk to a seriously shady mfer to get this for you
<brandx> don't know about the music but my contact had the name of the game for me
<brandx> it's polybius. your friend's mystery game is polybius.
...which made Jason sit back from his keys a bit. Just a bit. A few inches.
He tapped out his response immediately.
<sleeveace> bull@!#?@!
<brandx> swear to god it's true, all the details match
<sleeveace> Except Polybius isn't real. You read too much Goosebumps. Some idiot in Portland had an epilepsy attack in an arcade and everybody claimed it was the CIA oooooh spooky scary stories to tell in the dark mommy I wet my pants wah
<brandx> look there's a reason I called this guy a seriously shady mfer
<brandx> conspiracy theorist, works with some hacker gang that's been around since the early 80s
<brandx> phreaking and making viruses and spreading the anarchist cookbook and @!#?@! like that
<brandx> he swears up and down polybius is real and had a glowing blue joystick
<sleeveace> okay, let's say you aren't completely up your own ass
<sleeveace> if that's true, how exactly did the magical CIA brainwipe arcade game end up at a semi-racist tourist trap in south carolina
<brandx> hell if i know
<brandx> you want more you ask him yourself, i'm not talking to that whacko again. sent you his email
<brandx> anyway wanna play doom over ip? bored now
<sleeveace> can't, coding work to do.
<420CRUSADR> workaholic LMFAO
A couple quick keystrokes to shut that down, and Jason decided maybe being alone tonight would be advisable. Because the mere existence of other humans only served to annoy him, it seemed.
Night transitioned to day. If it hadn't, something would've been very wrong with the laws of physics.
After peeling himself out of bed, Jason went through the routine -- clean up, get dressed, say hello to parents who returned at some point in the night, pack up the laptop, hop train to Funplex. Absolutely nothing noteworthy in the process. Same steps he'd taken countless days prior, and would take for days yet to come while his internship was still rolling on. Letting it all blur together into nothing special helped the time go faster.
He'd have one hour of peace and quiet before Iris arrived from uptown. More than enough to continue banging away on the game code, in the isolation of his arcade workshop.
Except on pushing past the Employee's Only door, he found a pink bubblegum wad of sunshine waiting for him.
"Mooooorning!" Iris declared, despite the obvious fact that it was morning and Jason was completely aware of how morning things in fact were. "I brought cookies."
"Whrrr?" Jason replied, his brain shifting from Blur Mode to Active Mode with the grace of an elephant on a trampoline.
"Cookies. I brought cookies," she repeated, lifting up a basket lined with a red-and-white checkered cloth for him to observe. (Jason proceeded to observe the cookies.) "I figured you could use a treat, since you've been working so hard lately!"
"I... am not one to say no to cookies," he said, sliding his laptop onto his work bench as Iris took a seat nearby. "I can't think of a good reason to say no to cookies, at any rate..."
"Great! Then we'll share them, and when Kay gets here, she can have her share. Everybody gets cookies!"
"When did you find time to bake?" he had to ask, even as his hand automatically reached for a sugary treat. "Last I saw you were sneaking some fun times with Kay. --reviewing her music, I mean. Did you stay up all night or something?"
Leaving Iris a bit... fidgety. Curious.
"I, ah... I didn't make these," she admitted. "My mom did. For the church bake sale. And I figured, well... she wouldn't miss a few, right?"
"You stole your mom's cookies?"
"Borrowed! I borrowed my mom's cookies. I can make some extra after dinner tonight...!"
"Iris, I'm a misanthrope who rarely bothers keeping others happy, and even I would think twice stealing from your nightmare of a mother," Jason stated, between chewing bites of deliciousness. "You, uh, maybe wanna put these back so she doesn't eviscerate you? ...wait, no, I'm eating one already. Damn. I could regurgitate it, if that helps--"
"Jason! ...Jason. It's fine," Iris decided. Firmly, too. A quiet firmness, as she was never the sort to blurt things out in firm manner, but firm nonetheless. "It's just cookies. ...and, well. Maybe it felt good to take them. A little."
"Good Lord-I-don't-believe-in, Iris is becoming a criminal mastermind. What's next, running with scissors? Petting strange dogs, no matter where they've been?"
"I... I just wanted to do something nice for my friends. That's all," she protested. "And like I said, you've been working so hard to make our dreams come true! You deserve some kindness in return."
"Hell of a risk just for the likes of me. ...don't know if I can say I'd do the same."
Jason tapped his fingers on his workbench. He could pop open his laptop and dive right into work. He could've done that from the beginning, say 'Can't talk, busy coding' before getting busy with coding and not talking. Instead, he simply... tapped. With loose thoughts rattling about in his mind.
"Why do you do stuff like this?" he asked her, instead. "Not cat burglary, I mean... going all the way and then some to make friends. Why draw people in like this?"
Iris looked back with puzzlement, a cookie halfway to her mouth, in pause. "Because... because it's nice?" she said. "I don't think I understand the question...?"
"It's hard work, isn't it? I can't even begin to imagine myself putting in that level of effort on stuff like this. Of course, I'm an antisocial misanthrope who thinks humanity will inevitably destroy itself, so hey, that might be a reason why it feels like a colossal waste of time..."
The brief look of horror on Iris's face at his words was enough to make Jason wish he'd invented time travel, just to take them back.
He damn well knew Iris felt otherwise -- that people were innately good, kind-hearted, and when they do fail to be either of those things they were always redeemable. And here he'd stomped right on her ideals because he wanted to make a point. Crass and cruel.
No doubt it'd hurt their relationship, right? Push her away. Only natural.
And instead, he found himself being hugged.
"Mrmgph?" Jason replied, in response.
"I know. I know it's hard for you, sometimes," Iris insisted, while carrying on with the hug. "Hard for you to see better in people. But... that's why I'm here. Why I'm willing to do that work you find so difficult! To help reach you, and so you can reach others in return. I'm here to help!"
"Mprghh..."
"Oh, sorry."
After releasing him, she leaned against an opposite table, giving him breathing room while staying face-to-face.
"I remember when I first arrived at the Funplex, and you were so confused why I'd even want to talk to you," Iris spoke, with a bright smile. "If you haven't figured it out yet... that's okay. I'll do the work as long as it takes for you to understand."
He started to correct her. And stopped. Keeping himself from being pulled deeper into that orbit.
Because Jason understood quite well. Understood her empathy, and her desire to impart that empathy on others. He just wasn't sure he could ever share in it, couldn't understand the why on the same level Iris did. And to admit to that would... well, it'd hurt her. Or at least confuse her.
It confused him, honestly. Because as much as he'd rather avoid all this mess, these emotional and social spiderwebs Iris wove around herself... the kind of webs everyone around Jason wove, honestly... he was stuck, wasn't he? Despite his best efforts.
And... maybe he wanted to make the best of it. Maybe that was the part he didn't understand. Didn't want to understand.
Too many damn questions. Evade and re-engage.
"You got the art done for the sprites for Madame Mayor of Rocktopia yet?" Jason said, shifting topics like a hard throw from first gear to third gear.
"Ah...? Y-Yes. Yes, they're all done," Iris spoke, not making the transition quite so easily. She reached for her backpack, casually dropped on a nearby chair, to fish out the spiral notebook filled with designs. "Apologies it took so long, I... I was waiting on inspiration, I suppose."
Holding out his hand, Jason waited for her to drop the book into his waiting grasp. Flipped past sprite sheets for the Smooth Jazz Aliens and the Scavenger Cities and other game elements... all the way to the back of the book, where the most recent sketches lie in wait.
Nothing too surprising in the art. Typical chunky, cartoony Iris sprite people. Something familiar in the hair, short but with dangling bangs, but...
Flip back and forth. One page to the previous. Drawing connections.
"It's her, isn't it?" he asked. "You made Kay the Mayor."
"W-Well, she's a rock-and-roller, right? It stands to reason. It's very... reasonable to use her as the model for the character."
"Except... there's way more sprites here than we need," he said, holding up the book. Poses for the Mayor's idle stance and guitar playing, sure, and fighting off aliens with sonic attacks... but also poses of Madame Mayor drinking coffee, or dancing, or just standing around looking cool. Above and beyond the game's limited resource allocations.
Iris stood her ground. "I got inspired, so I drew some extra. That's all," she stated. "Maybe we could have a few extra idle poses? And--"
And that's when he flipped to the very last page.
A full sheet, three hundred pixels wide, of Kay smiling warmly in front of a wreath of flowers and a background of hearts.
"...and... and maybe a victory screen when you win the game?" Iris suggested, her firm stance weakening ever-so-slightly.
With a sigh, Jason flicked the book closed, spiral pages folding back on themselves and the heavy cardboard cover snapping it all shut.
Technically speaking, he didn't have to say a thing. The plan was to get out of the way and allow these two to crash into each other's arms through the sheer inevitable force of destiny, right? Just like the inevitable force of career destiny that awaited him...
But even after countless hours spent together, after all the obvious signs and tells... the momentum was stalling. And maybe stepping out of the way wasn't getting the job done.
Maybe by this point, a subtle nudge was needed.
"You have to tell her how you feel, Iris," he warned, about as subtle as he could manage.
"I... I don't know what you--"
"Look, I've been watching on the sidelines for weeks now while you dance around this, and doing my part to nudge things along," Jason explained, trying to make it sound more sympathetic than forceful. "But me getting out of your way clearly isn't enough. We're running out of summer. You're running out of time. You've gotta tell her."
Now, it was Iris's turn to take a shot at point-counterpoint.
"I thought you didn't want to get involved in complex emotional stuff," she stated. "That it's not the kind of hard work you enjoy."
"Don't throw this back on me. This is all about you and Kay," Jason defended. "This about you and your feelings, not mine. It's time you told her you loved her."
"I'm... I'm not--!"
"Yes, you are. You can't squeak one past me and you know it. I don't care how deep in the closet your mother has buried you, eventually you gotta dig your way out from under the pile of socks and old shoeboxes and get outta there. If not for Kay's sake, than for your own. And as patient as I've been, I'm kinda sick of watching you suffer through it all. You. Have. To. Tell her."
Two attempts to deflect, to deny. Iris could just keep on denying, throw up the flat refusals. But it wouldn't stop Jason. For someone who claimed to lack of a core of empathy, he could be dogged in his efforts to dig at empathetic truths...
Meaning... all Iris could do was sag against the table she leaned on, for support. And at least offer some truth.
"There's nothing to tell," she half-whispered. "Because nothing can happen."
"Don't give me that. You just have to--"
"I don't have to do anything. I can't do anything," she continued. "It's not going to happen because... because it's not possible. I'm not... I can't... it's just not possible, Jason. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Dammit, Iris, you--"
The tiniest sound of metal, as the latch of the door clicked open. And like that, the private conversation of two became the more public conversation of three.
Dropping her bag lazily by the door, she walked on up to the pair, shaking her head.
"Hey, hey, sorry I'm late, subway delays," Kay declared. "Let's get to work. I've got like seven floppies of music to offload here and I don't wanna slow us down any more. Okay? ...okay? Uh. Iris, Jason?"
Iris was the one to shift gears first, slamming from third back to first and coming up smiling.
"Of course! I can't wait to hear the new drafts," she declared. "If they're anything like what I heard last night, I bet they'll be great. Won't this be fun, Jason?"
As dense as he could be about social cues, he damn well knew the briefly panicked look on her face: don't crack the masquerade, it insisted.
Doing nothing didn't get the job done. A nudge didn't get the job done. And blowing the whistle right in front of Kay would be the nuclear option -- something certain not to get the job done...
So his side project would have to wait for another day, another strategy he hadn't thought of yet, while he resumed the actual project in front of them.
"Right. Game stuff. Let's hear it," he agreed.
Days of work, days of productivity. Lunches and snacks and home-baked desserts. Good times, good friends.
Jason skimmed through it all, only semi-involved. Trying to buckle down and focus on coding for the game, focus on integrating the outpouring of art and music assets, the fruits of labor coming from his two friends. Pull it all together, integrate the elements, make the game they'd put so much hope into really soar...
It was easy to do, honestly. Far easier to work on the project than tangle and de-tangle the other thoughts in his head. As long as there were subroutines to debug and systems to engineer, as long as data needed to be compressed and sequenced to fit in the tiny ROM chips, that's all Jason had to concern himself with.
If one were to stare at a clock on the wall during this process, no doubt the hands would start spinning and sunlight from a distant window would quickly sweep across the plaster, left-to-right, left-to-right as time poured down the drain. A cute little montage to glide through, effortless and easy...
Kay and Iris busied themselves with themselves, Jason busied himself with game code. And all was well.
Somewhere in the middle of that butter-smooth flow, however, he decided to step outside the pattern a bit to take care of other business. Which made time crash to a halt, as he finally had to engage his brain rather than let it tumble gently downhill.
Because he finally got a reply to the email he'd sent out, without honestly expecting any sort of reply to be coming after so many days of stony silence.
SUBJ: Meeting
NAME: <unknown sender>
DATE: Thu Jul 14 10:34:09 199X
brandx says you're interested in a game from south of the border. 1:13pm, J street station, look for the red ghost.
...which was certainly vague and ominous.
He quickly tried to trace the sender, of course. Hard to make any moves on the Internet without leaving some kind of trail -- and sending an email was less like a sealed envelope and more like a postcard written in crayon when it comes to privacy and security. But near as he could tell... the email wasn't sent, technically. Someone slipped into the POP3 server and just wrote the data for an email directly into its database. Impressive, if slightly terrifying...
Could just ignore it. Not get involved. Stay smooth, ride the wave of code to the end. Let Kay's little mystery and the weirdness around it fade away. If anything, this glowing-blue-joystick, Mulder-and-Scully business was a distraction to their game project and his personal project with pushing Kay and Iris closer together. It'd be better to ignore it and pretend he never saw that...
Ignore it and fail to help a friend.
Instead, he closed down his laptop and rose from his workbench.
"Taking an early lunch," Jason declared. "Gonna go get noodles or something."
The girls looked up from Iris's strewn sheets of graph paper, confused.
"It's Thursday. We always go to Cheese the Day on Thursdays," Iris said. "Matt keeps the booth open for us..."
"Yeah, well, I want hot noods today. --yes, I know how that sounds," he spoke, while jamming his laptop into a bookbag. "Whatever, save a slice for me, I'll have it later this afternoon. And see if you can get the tubas down to scale, okay? ROM's running out of ROM."
Concession to social food requirements, assignment of task, nice and distracting. Good. He slipped out the door easily enough with that tactic.
No point telling them where he was really going -- no point getting Kay's hopes up, if this didn't turn out to be much of anything. And no point getting Kay's hopes up, if this turned out to be what he feared it probably was.
Spies were both clever bastards and emotionally detached. Jason decided he'd make a pretty good spy, if the golden ticket in his future somehow evaporated.
Making his way to J street station, an underground stop on the city's up-and-down-and-all-around subway routes, that was easy. But he took the extra time to transfer back-and-forth from line to line, just to make sure he wasn't followed. Probably overkill considering the crackpot conspiracy theories involved, like 'the Space Shuttle causes earthquakes' or 'the world is flat and surrounded by an ice wall' levels of ridiculousness that don't merit being dragged off to a secret CIA prison, but... whatever. He had time and extra fare, and better safe than sorry.
Thirteen-thirteen o'clock by military time, or 1:13 by sane and normal people time. And no sign of a 'red ghost' or whatever the email talked about. So he had a seat on a bench and waited, figuring he'd give it maybe fifteen minutes before folding and heading back.
After spending seven minutes memorizing every little flaw of the tiled floor in front of him he got bored and decided to leave.
"Thought you wanted to talk."
Instinctively, Jason glanced behind him -- and on catching a glimpse of a red hoodie, drawn up and over the man's head, decided to fix his eyes squarely forward instead. And slowly sit back down, without taking in any further physical details on the mystery man.
"'Red ghost,' huh," he mumbled.
"Close enough," the ghost said. "Call me Blinky."
"Seriously? Pac-Man joke?"
"Tradition. There've been several Blinkys going all the way back to the eighties in my circle. Arcade jokes make for good code names. But I'm not here to talk about the Ghost Monsters, I'm here because you've been asking questions about a Polybius instance."
With a sigh, Jason sank back into espionage mode... but with at least a modicum of healthy skepticism.
"Any reason you couldn't have just emailed me about this, Mr. Blinky, instead of a sneaky public meeting?" Jason asked. "It's a bit dramatic, isn't it?"
"Tell me, did you change trains a few times before arriving here?"
"Yes, but I had time to kill and figured--"
"--better safe than sorry," Blinky finished for him. "Same here. Maybe they're on to me, maybe they're not. Maybe there's no 'they,' it's actually nothing, and I'm just crazy. But I'd rather not take any chances, just like you. If I'm crazy, at least I'm a safe crazy person."
(Well. Jason couldn't fault the logic in that.)
"Okay, so two things," Jason spoke. "One, is Polybius actually a thing? Two, what do you know about the one that used to be installed at South of the Border?"
"Two things from you first. One, why do you want to know?" the hacker asked. "And two, what will you do if I tell you?"
He tried to play it casual, tried to make it sound like it was nothing. Keep things light and doubtful. No way this "Ghost Monster" weirdo was gonna throw his carefully detached cool.
"Friend of mine played the game, once upon a time," Jason explained, with no further detail than that. "And if you tell me... I dunno. Probably nothing. Just confirm for her that she didn't dream the whole thing."
"So if I tell you where the game is, you won't seek it out?"
"I've got no interest in turning my brains to yogurt, no," Jason spoke truthfully.
A tiny slip of paper slid into place next to him.
"Nostalgia Commodities warehouse, near the docks," the hacker spoke. "They bought out the machines from South of the Border a few years ago, stashed everything there. Assuming the men in black haven't swooped in to grab it yet. When you're done memorizing that address... I want you to eat that paper."
"...seriously?"
"Of course not. Just burn it or tear it up or something," the hacker grumbled. "But trust me when I say you don't want to seek it out. Ghost Monsters trade in information, but we know better than to go near anything involving Polybius. It's bad @!#?@!ing news."
"Let me guess -- secret CIA mind control experiment gone awry," Jason joked.
"Of course not. It was a secret CIA mind control experiment gone completely as planned. But the games leaking into the wild, that was not according to plan. And according to my sources, they've been shadowing and hunting for it ever since."
"Uh-huh," Jason mumbled, jamming the slip of paper into the pocket of his jacket. "Well, this has been very educational. Thank you for your time, Mr. Blinky. I'll eat your paper for dinner and call it a day--"
"I sincerely hope you do, for the sake of your friend. I can't imagine you'd be a good friend at all if you let them anywhere near that haunted mess of a game. I hope you realize the level of responsibility you hold here."
"I'm not... look, I'm not..."
"Not what?"
Not her friend?
Not a part of that circle, not really. Just pulled into the absolute gravity of Iris's social orbit by default. Not part of the new power duo. Not responsible...
Except... he was. That little slip of paper, his promise to help Kay understand the mystery of her past, that was a weight in his pocket. As much as he tried not to be involved, he was involved, yes? He was the hinge on which everything rotated. The coder enabling the dream, the investigator discovering truths, the crust that holds the pizza together. The belabored metaphor his own mind hated making simply because of how true and absurd it was, in equal amounts...
"Not going to let anything happen to her," Jason decided. "So calm the hell down. Thanks for your time, and tell the... 'Ghost Monsters'? Is that seriously the name of your legendary old school hacker cabal?"
"You'd be surprised what you can get away with when people laugh at your name," the hacker spoke, while rising from the bench behind Jason's. "We've always been and always will be. New faces, new plays, but the same name. Might do well to learn the value of that. ...think we're done now. Don't tell anyone I was here."
"Considering I have no idea who you are, I don't exactly have anything to tell in the first place," Jason grumbled, turning to look towards his conspirator. "Who are..."
And talking to thin air, the red hoodie vanishing away into the crowd of subway commuters.
The paper still felt so very, very heavy in his pocket, even after the strange interaction started to fade.
Action or inaction. Either was a choice -- he had a responsibility to Kay. Even letting that slide and saying nothing was making a decision, wasn't it? Just like the decision to stay out of the way of Kay and Iris to get them together, a decision which wasn't exactly panning out as he'd hoped. Every move and non-move just dug him in deeper, as either a mystery revealer or a secret-keeper, but without a victory condition...
And to think, all he originally wanted was to tinker away for the summer before walking down his golden path. Pity that wasn't an option anymore.
Two train swaps on the way back to the Funplex, and he'd almost completely put the incident out of his mind. As well as the noodles, meaning when he finally got back, he was hungry as hell and wishing he'd just taken a quiet lunch as he'd claimed.
The door slammed shut behind him, resonating through the drywall and glass of his family condo.
No reason to worry about the noise, even at this late hour. Mother and father missing in action. Nobody there to hear him slam anything, or ask why he was slamming things. Nobody at all.
Because this time, the slam wasn't accidental. It was the traditional door slam of frustration. He'd read about those in a book once and thought maybe he'd try one out tonight.
All throughout the subway ride home, the tangle of moves and counter-moves stuck in his head had twisted back around onto itself. It had become a glorious mess, impossible to ignore. He couldn't just shove it all aside to go poke the Internet, like poking a bear with a stick -- distraction wasn't going to solve anything, and this was a problem that demanded solution.
No mom, no dad. His Internet friends were jerks. Iris couldn't solve this problem because if she could, there wouldn't be a problem in the first place. That narrowed the list of options for social help down to...
Well. One he didn't particularly want to draw on. But maybe it was time for bolder moves. And if the whole thing blew up in his face, at least that would be a kind of solution -- detonate the entire thing from orbit and it'll no longer be your problem to solve.
Still, he hesitated a good fifteen minutes before making the call. It's too late at night, it's too much to ask, she wouldn't care, she shouldn't care, any number of other delaying excuses came to mind before he forced himself to grab the damn phone and poke in the seven digits needed to make this happen.
It took two and a half rings before someone picked up. For those first two rings, he was worried he'd woken them up from slumber and engendered ill will with the matron of the household.
"Hello, Lang residence," Kay's tinny voice spoke over the miles of copper wiring.
"Hey," Jason spoke. "I was thinking of going out to catch a computer graphics film festival downtown at the Reliant. Midnight showing. Wanna come with? I mean, I know it's late and the place is a dive and you barely know me and I'm seriously not expecting a yes--"
"Sure, okay."
"--and you said okay. Okay? You're sure?" he repeated back, uncertain if he heard that right.
"Sure. I'm bored. Might be fun."
"Is... is your mom cool with this? Because I'm on pretty cool terms with her so far and I don't wanna Jason that up. ...you know what let's pretend I never asked and just--"
"Hey mom! Jason wants to go to a movie tonight with me. Okay?"
(He winced at the volume of the shout, hoping the neighboring apartments to the Lang household somehow slept through that.)
"Sounds fine, hon!" the esteemed Ms. Lang called back, distantly.
"Yeah, she's cool with it," Kay confirmed, back to a normal speaking tone. "You wanna meet me there or we meet up somewhere and go together?"
"You... you know the Reliant? Seriously?" Jason asked. "We're talking the same Reliant, right? Five blocks from the Funplex, condemned twice for health code violations, do not eat the Junior Mints if you value your life?"
"Yeah, I know the place. I'll meet you outside the Funplex, sound good? See yah."
Click.
...well, okay. Easier than Jason figured it'd be. He gently set the cordless receiver down on the base for recharging, trying not to dig too hard into whether the ease of this scenario meant everything was going well, or he was walking right into the nuke-from-orbit endgame he'd been predicting.
Of course, no sense pondering that too hard. Just accept the momentum pushing him forward. Pushing him to grab his backpack, pushing him out the door, and into the dark of the city to return to the Twin Pines Mall.
All the social graces that Jason lacked, Kay more than made up for. She was the one to smoothly greet him at the Twin Pines subway stop, the one to initiate and carry on smalltalk. The one to ask questions as they settled into the ratty old theater seats with an armload of popcorn and enough soda to keep them awake through the whole showing.
"I mean, okay, they're cheesy... just repurposed 3-D renders made into new-age nonsense. But I still love these damn things," Jason explained, squeezing / squelching his way into the seat. "I saw The Mind's Eye four years ago and Beyond the Mind's Eye two years ago, and have been waiting for Gate to the Mind's Eye ever since it was announced..."
"And Thomas Dolby's doing the music, seriously?" Kay continued to prompt, to keep him talking.
"Seriously. Jan Hammer did the last one -- you know, the Miami Vice guy? But most of the footage is from, like, laserdisc games and corporate commercials and stuff..."
She kept him talking right up to the lights going down. To the point where he actually felt comfortable offering up computer graphics trivia, in whisper form, throughout the showing.
One hour later, and Jason was actually smiling. A rare thing indeed. And completely forgetting why he wanted to go out with Kay in the first place, as they departed the theater, to chat on the sidewalk while ushers tried in vain to sanitize the place for the next showing.
"Goddamn but I love this city at night," Jason mused, unprompted. "It's... not exactly quiet but quieter than it is by day. You can actually get things done without all that noise. And in the summer? It's just a tad warm, not too warm, simply perfect..."
Kay nodded in agreement, leaning against the brick wall of the Reliant. "Damn right," she agreed.
"It's why I prefer the workshop at the Funplex to the Funplex itself, too. Less noise. More focus. Just the right atmosphere. You get it, yeah? You've been hanging around back there nearly ever day..."
"So that's why you called me out here tonight?" Kay asked, cracking the ice ever-so-slightly. "Bit of nostalgia for the quiet of the workshop?"
...the same workshop where Kay and Iris painted their cabinet, where Jason coded the game. Where he tried to nudge Iris out of her denial and failed.
Bringing it all crashing back. The decision to make decisions.
"N... not exactly," Jason admitted. "Okay. So. ...I've got two things I'm pondering telling you. Two very, very important things. ...and I'm honestly not sure I can go through with it, so I figured a little CG-fest might give me the confidence. --see, I know they're really goofy and weird looking but I think that in the future CG is going to be a critical component of nearly every movie and TV show, maybe even replacing traditional cartoons, and--"
"And you've got things you wanted to tell me," Kay reminded, to get him back on track.
"...right. Things. Okay. Okay," he said, closing his eyes, focusing. "Both of these may be mistakes, but... screw it. Saying nothing isn't working. I gotta say something. ...it's about Iris."
"Iris?" Kay asked, momentarily puzzled. "What about her?"
"Well... have you seen her art yet for Madame Mayor?"
"It looks like me, yes. She showed me the drafts. I mean, makes sense, yeah?" Kay suggested, with a light shrug. "I'm the only musician she knows, of course she'd model the character after me. I even did some guitar poses so she could get the right stance down in her pixel art book..."
"Did you see her... 'victory screen,' too?" he asked, treading closer to the line.
"Her what?"
"Just... next time she shows you her art book, turn to the next to the last page," Jason suggested. "'cause it's a full spread of you in a heart with flowers and stuff."
"I... okay? I mean, the game is kinda cutesy, so that's--"
"Oh for crying out loud I'm not talking about game theming!" he blurted out, amazed that Kay wasn't cluing in. "I'm saying she's in love with you."
Inwardly, he braced for the explosion, the detonation at the heart of their friendship trinity that would ruin everything. Just like how he nearly destroyed things when he mouthed off at the Thompson family dinner.
Instead, he just got more confusion.
"That's... no, no, you're not... look, Iris isn't. She's not like me," Kay tried to reason. "She's just very... affectionate. Friendly. But can't be gay, I mean, how could she be? Look at her family, it's not possible for--"
"Iris is so deep in the closest she may as well be in the goddamn magical land of Narnia," Jason bit back. "I was hoping you two could figure that out on your own if I got out of the way, but you see why I had to bring it up, right? It wasn't bringing itself up, and probably never would. ...maybe I'm an insensitive jerk, but I don't know any other way to make this happen than to just say it out loud. Sorry."
He expected more protest. Instead... he got Kay standing there, soaking it in. Clearly turning the thoughts over in her head.
The girl knew how to listen. She knew when to turn off her mouth, process, and only speak up when she had something thoughtful to say. So Jason stayed quiet, let her sort this out. And when she did speak moments later... it wasn't quite what he was hoping for.
"I... can't do anything about it," Kay decided. "If she does somehow feel that way... I can't make her do anything about it."
"Of course you can!" he blurted. "Just confront her about it! Don't let her run and hide like she usually does. She'll listen to you--"
"Or it'll bury her deeper. Jason... you don't know what it's like, living this way. --no, I take it back, you bury your ace status to avoid trouble. But when you do love... when it's a love that everyone around you frowns on, especially your own family... you gotta be cautious. Every step measured and careful, so you don't blow it. If I push, I could damn well push her away."
"And if you don't push, she'll be stuck. I tried, believe me!"
"I believe you. But... but I gotta play this careful. I can hear the frustration in your voice, don't think I haven't noticed," Kay pointed out. "And thank you for telling me. But it's not right, forcing it. Just... let what happens happen. Okay?"
Inactivity. Passivity. Back to plan one.
Jason swallowed it down. Maybe it wasn't his place to solve the problem -- maybe he was beating himself up over something beyond his scope. Why? Why do all that extra hard social work, anyway...?
"I just... I care, okay? I care about Iris. And I care about you," Jason admitted. "I'm real bad at this stuff but I think I actually care about you both. I barely know you -- and hell, I suggested you run away on day one rather than deal with me -- but I care. ...okay. If this is how it's gotta be... okay. I can let go. I just hope this works out, 'cause I have a doubt."
"Hey, nothing's certain. That's life. ...what's the second thing?"
"Hmmm?"
"You said you had two things to tell me," Kay reminded him, bringing it back around. "What's the second thing?"
Jason felt for the slip of paper in his pocket. Still there.
He could push here, just as he pushed on the Iris situation. He could give up the goods and lead Kay into the weirdness surrounding that urban legend.
Or... he could take a page from Kay's playbook, and be cool. Trust in destiny. He pulled his hand from his pocket, letting go of the paper.
"Nothing much," he decided to say. "Basically what I said just now, that I care about you. It's hard for me to talk about this crap. That's all."
Goddamn but Kay could give a reassuring smile. No giant fake grin, no plastic consumer-friendly supermodel flash of the teeth. Just a warm and friendly little thing, to put people at ease. Even gentler than Iris's smiles, the ones that lured Jason in so long ago...
"It's cool, it's cool. I get it," Kay spoke softly. "Honestly? I was figuring that's why you wanted to meet up tonight. Build the friendship, yeah? It's why I agreed so quickly, I could tell you wanted someone to talk to. And I'm glad you're reaching out, Jason."
"Yeah... yeah, that's it. That's pretty much it. Nailed it," he agreed, because it was easier.
"C'mon. We can talk more on the way back," Kay suggested. "Nice as it is to spend time with you, s'getting late and I don't wanna worry my mom."
"Doesn't seem to me like your mom worries about much of anything..."
"Yeah, well, don't wanna worry my mom in theory," she corrected.
Jason turned to go, taking in a good lungful of the still night air. Letting his nerves unwind, after the confrontation had run its course. And stepped away, ready to head home and finally get a good night's sleep.
His companion moved to follow, after dealing with a brief distraction. Bending down to scoop up something that fell from his pocket.
A ragged slip of paper, reading "Nostalgia Commodities Warehouse 6, Dockside, 1st floor, glowing blue joystick."
She was about to call out to him, say he'd dropped something, but Jason was already walking at a brisk pace. So she shrugged, jammed it into her own pockets for now, and promptly forgot about it. The night was just too lovely to let anything more worry her.
Slept soundly. No insomnia, no distractions, nothing to burden his brain. Everything out in the open, or at least as in-the-open as possible given the circumstances. Jason finally felt like he'd done what needed doing, and even if the immediate result wasn't sunshine and roses for his best friend, maybe now there'd be the possibility of sunshine and roses in the near future.
Not ideal. Not perfect. But as good as this world could realistically get.
When he slipped through the morning routine and ride to the Funplex, sliding his way through all the usual and familiar steps, it wasn't out of a dreary sense of boredom -- now he was genuinely looking forward to the day ahead. Finishing up code on the game, integrating the last pieces, making this arcade dream happen. Doing his part, integrated into the trinity of Iris, Kay, and Jason nice and proper...
He got to the Funplex bright and early, intent on finishing up the beta build before the girls even arrived. Give 'em a nice little surprise, something to lift the mood.
His assembly compiler was just wrapping up this task when they entered his workshop.
"Good news," he declared, turning on his work stool to face the pair. "As of today, we have a fully playable... uh..."
The concerned looks he got in return were concerning.
Did they compare notes? Did they realize he'd been pushing both of them towards each other? Did he nuke everything from orbit by being his usual socially clumsy self? Was this grand finale to his work actually the end of the entire friendship?
"I can explain," he pre-emptively spoke.
"So you already know?" Iris asked.
"...uhhh. I mean, I know a lot of things but maybe you could tell me what I already know so I know why I already know it?"
In response... Iris pushed open the door of the workshop a crack, waving for Jason and Kay to come peek.
Curious, he pulled himself away from the gloriously finished arcade code, to bear witness...
...to a man in a maroon business suit, sharply tailored, chatting away happily with a very serious-looking Miss Francine. Couldn't be more than thirty, a full-on eighties style nouveaux-rich yuppie...
"Uhh. Who's that dude, exactly...?" Jason asked quietly.
"I only overhead a little before we came to find you," Iris whispered back. "His name is Deco Nami. He owns Deco's Palace, and... and I think he's here to buy out the Funplex."
(Copyright 2022 Stefan Gagne and Fiction Factory Games. This is a work of fiction. All references to trademarked classic arcade game titles are used under nominative fair use and should not be considered an endorsement by their publishers or creators.)