I feel like such a badass cruising down the main drag in my ballin’ Mustang blaring Styx’s Blue Collar Man and singing along with it even louder. It was kind of an ironic song for a rich asshole driving a priceless vintage hot rod with forbidden tech under the hood, but god do I make it sound good. Or at least, good enough that the mics in my Telaphone have yet to trigger an automatic ad for autotune NeurOS DLC.
This is it, huh? I’m not infiltrating the arcade undercover--I’m being beckoned--courted, even--by the leaders of this, eh, organization. I cruise into the nearest parking lot to my destination, almost missing the turn amidst the maze of one-ways and the blur of holographic advertisements for every vice to ever be born from the darkness in man. As I pull through the gate, a lifesize projection of the ‘default’ Tela in the booth scans my license plate and automatically transfers 500 Telecredits from my account. I lock up, glance around to make sure no Red Flag assholes or random thugs were waiting to jump me, and briskly walk around the corner–
There she is. Flipper McCoys, ancient nirvana of gaming. Opened in the 1980s when Ocean View was known as the name of a local theme park recently torn down as part of a softcore porno gone wrong and not the name of a twisted Telecom district in the Southus region. The original location was drowned in the 2030s in the Flood--which, contrary to textbook teachings, happened when Telecom evacuated and drowned a mile and a half of all coastal area to wipe out Foxxcom ports in retaliation for a trade dispute, not when a really big dam broke. A new location was built further inland, though, and the games are all still priceless originals.
I was worried the memories would make this too painful but I’m immediately at home among the big neon signs inside, all original, dancing beneath the gigantic Telescreens (new animated billboards plastering this entire row of shops, soon to spread to the rest of the damn district I’m sure) advertising the totally hackin new Teleworld immersion setups available inside for only 500 Telecreds an hour. And that’s not sarcasm, they actually are really fuckin hackin. Through the glass wall in the front I can already spot at least twenty games worth as much as every organ in my body sold in the Kowloon District COMBINED! I hope I’m not drooling too much.
Sensing my presence the doors separate automatically, forming a Pac-Man shape as multiple pieces of Flexiglass contort to morph from a single flat pane into a majestic entrance door. Separate Ways by Journey thumps over their bassy surround sound system, competing only with the blaring Eurobeat and KPop from the latest DDR and Pump it Up releases. I’m getting fucking chills! Everyone from businessmen and punks and gorgeous sea-fresh women in bikinis and fucking shitty-ass rhythm game players are all hovering around in an endless mass of excitement and of peaceful chaos, coexisting in peace for even just a moment, united in battle as a professional ART fighting-gamer slides into the bench next to a reformed former Red Flag peon to take down hordes of astral demons in Enoch Crisis Shootdown 2. It’s so beautiful I’m tearing up a little bit--no, wait, maybe that’s from the body odor of the guy next to me trying desperately to win a voucher for a Hyper-Rare maid outfit for his Tela.
“Heyyy, Charlie-boy!” a familiar voice calls out in a deep Georgian accent. Oh, fucking hell. I spin around to see that shitty Doctor Who wannabe cuntface from the grocery store, whose name I never did get before because he threw me across the fucking store so hard I was knocked out for ten minutes and came to covered head to toe in blood and cow juice. I’d really hoped I wasn’t actually going to have to see him again, but here he is, in the same stupid getup, skipping towards me gleefully with a psychotic grin on his fucked up face like a schoolgirl unexpectedly running into her bestie in front of Ulta in the mall. “I, uh, I never expected to run into you here, but I guess that you’re the BLK who’s name was still plastered all over the leaderboards on the, eh, Dig Dug machine?”
“Hah, yeah, actually,” I reply, blushing slightly in spite of myself and foolishly letting my guard down a bit. Getting recognized as the best at something at an arcade is the only sensation in life that comes close to beating out orgasm. “I guess I am. God, I’m not even nearly good enough to keep up with that shit now, I can’t believe those are still up--”
“Yeahhhh, I couldn’t believe they were, either. So I beat them all by a hundred thousand or so. I was going to just, eh, phone your office to tell you, but this is even better!”
My heart sinks. There’s no way this asshole is actually better than me at Dig Dug. I shove his twink ass out of the way and race around the corner to where I remembered it being--sure enough. PLO, taking up every spot on the leaderboard now, with over 400k per entry. This may be the most traumatic thing to happen to me all week, now.
“PLO?”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” he chuckles with an insufferable self-satisfied snort laugh at the end. “Professor Lawrence Obliterate the Third.”
“That is literally the dumbest name I’ve ever heard,” I reply, staring him down.
“I know. It’s really embarrassing knowing everyone who comes through here will see it plastered on the high score boards of all the games, but I suppose that is the cross I have to, eheh, bear.”
Oh no. I glance to Pole Position: PLO PLO PLO PLO PLO… Mappy: PLO PLO PLO PLO PLO… DDR Solo 2000: PLO PLO PLO PLO PLO…
“I used to have the high scores on these,” I mumble incredulously.
“You also used to be a great detective and a sex symbol. A lot can change in five years, Blake. Now, if you must excuse me, I was just leaving. Having finished finally eradicating every trace of Blake from these leaderboards, I now have a very important meeting--”
I grab him firmly by the arm as he turns to run. Thankfully my wrists are both back to fully working order. “What a coincidence that this arcade is the meeting place of a certain terrorist organization this evening then, isn’t it?” I growl, pulling him closer to me. “One that is set to commence in about half an hour, no less, right when you happen to be leaving for this important little meeting of yours. What do you know about LDS?”
“Charles, not everyone from Georgia is Mormon,” he replies, “and if I was here for John Smith teatime, I wouldn’t be leaving the place right when it’s about to begin, would I, Detective?”
Damn it. A valid point. I let go of his wrist and try desperately to recenter as he storms out. These scores were the last thing I had going for me. Well, aside from being independently wealthy beyond even my own wildest dreams. But still–this was a low blow. But I’m on a mission, damn it, and I am not going to be swayed! I turn and wander into the new section of the arcade, trying not to think about the fact I’ll probably never be able to beat that Dig Dug score and trying not to let myself cry pathetically at that horrific revelation.