This was a lie. I didn’t think anyone could get the code. I wasn’t even planning to try. But pretending to try would give me a good excuse to visit the store and show The Impossible Fortress to Mary. Maybe she’d know how to fix it. I still had fifteen days before the contest deadline.
Tyler seemed skeptical, so I turned on the macho bullshit. “But I’m going to need some time. I can’t just walk into the store and start grabbing her tits. It’s going to take a week or two. Most likely two.”
Clark stared at me in astonishment. He knew damn well that I’d never touched anyone’s tits, that I’d never even passed first base. “Seriously, Billy? You’d actually kiss her?”
“Kiss her, fondle her, I’ll bone her if I have to,” I said. “You guys plan the other details while I make nice with Miss Piggy.”
For the first time all evening, Tyler looked at me with respect and maybe even admiration. He clapped me on the shoulder. “You see! This is what I’m talking about. This is the kind of attitude that gets results!”
700 REM *** DRAW HERO SPRITE ***
710 POKE 52,48:POKE 56,48
720 FOR HE=0 TO 62:READ H
730 POKE 12888+HE,H
740 NEXT HE
750 POKE 2040,192:POKEV+21,1
760 POKE V+39,1
770 POKE V+0,HX
780 POKE V+1,HY
790 RETURN
THE INTERNET AS WE know it didn’t exist in 1987, but people willing to pay a thirty-nine-dollar membership fee and twelve bucks an hour could access CompuServe, which was the next best thing. If today’s Internet is like a vast galaxy with billions and billions of blogs, CompuServe was more like a small, private social club. There were limited topics of discussion and just a handful of games. Everything was controlled by CompuServe, and only CompuServe members could get inside.
There were no videos or graphics or sound. There wasn’t even color. Our 300-baud modems were barely capable of streaming ASCII characters, and the words filled our screens slowly, one c . . . h . . . a . . . r . . . a . . . c . . . t . . . e . . . r at a time. Every interaction was like waiting for a Polaroid to develop. After logging in to the site, I had to wait a full minute for the main menu to download: CompuServe Information Service
23:12 EST Friday 15-May-87
1. Newspapers
2. Finance
3. Entertainment
4. Communities
5. CompuServe User Information
6. Electronic Mail
Enter your selection number, or H for more information.
>__
I chose option 6, ELECTRONIC MAIL—an easy way to contact Mary without visiting the store and facing Zelinsky. The contest rules had come from a CompuServe user’s group, and Mary’s member ID number was printed at the top of the page. All electronic mail on CompuServe had a maximum limit of twelve lines, so I kept my message brief.
TO: 59453,1
FROM: 38584,8
1: HI ARE YOU MARY ZELINSKY?
2: MY NAME IS WILL MARVIN.
3: I WAS IN YOUR STORE THE OTHER DAY.
4: YOU TOLD ME ABOUT THE RUTGERS CONTEST.
5: ARE YOU GOING TO ENTER?
6: I WANT TO . . . BUT MY GAME SUCKS.
When I finished, I hit Enter, and CompuServe presented me with a submenu: OPTIONS
1. REVIEW WITH MINI-EDITOR
2. MODIFY
3. SEND
ENTER DIGIT FOR OPTIONS OR M FOR MENU, OR H FOR HELP.
>__
I chose option 3, SEND, and CompuServe promised the message would be delivered within four to twenty-four hours. Then I logged off fast before any more charges could be applied to my mother’s credit card. I hoped that by the time she received her Visa statement, she’d have forgotten that I was forbidden to use my 64 anyway.
I checked CompuServe again the next night, but there was still no reply. This didn’t surprise me. CompuServe was so expensive, most people (especially kids) could only afford to use it sporadically. Factor in the slow delivery time and you could understand why electronic mail conversations often stretched over weeks or even months. It was like casting a message in a bottle; there was no way of knowing when she’d receive it.
But when I got to school on Monday morning, I found that someone had pushed a 5? floppy disk through the vent of my locker. Affixed to the front of the disk was a small white label with my name on it. I skipped first period (Intro to History) and went to the school computer lab. Class was already in progress, and I ducked behind an empty terminal in the back row. The monitor was large enough to conceal my face from Ms. Grecco, the typing teacher, who paced across the front of the classroom, reciting letters for students to type: “A, A, A, A . . . S, S, S, S . . . D, D, D, D . . .”
I pushed the disk into the drive and opened the directory. There was just a single file titled PLAYME. So I loaded it into memory and typed RUN. The screen went black, then filled with text.
You are standing outside Zelinsky's Typewriters and Office Supplies in downtown Wetbridge. You are carrying a brass lantern and a floppy disk. On the ground is a hearing aid battery.
I realized it was a game, or at least a mini-game, modeled after text adventures like Zork. The player typed commands, and the game advanced the story using words instead of pictures. I tried typing: >GET BATTERY
And the game replied with:
You reach down and pick up the hearing aid battery (because you seem to have a thing for hearing aid batteries. It's weird.) Your score just went up by 50 points!
Encouraged, I leaned over the keyboard and kept playing.
>ENTER STORE
You enter the store. Sal Zelinsky is standing here, repairing a typewriter. To the north, a passage leads deeper into the store.
>WALK NORTH
Sal jumps up, blocking your way. "Can I help you?"
>ASK SAL ABOUT MARY
Sal squints at you and jiggles the plastic amplifier tucked inside his right ear. "I’m sorry, young man, I can't hear you. Can you repeat that?"
>ASK SAL ABOUT MARY
He shakes his head. "I′m sorry, I can't understand you. My hearing aid's not working right."
>GIVE BATTERY TO SAL
Sal cheerfully accepts your gift. (Your score just went up by 50 points!) He inserts the battery into his hearing aid. "Ah, much better!" he exclaims. "Now what were you saying?"
>ASK SAL ABOUT MARY
"She's in the back!" he says, and he steps out of your way. You realize that Sal Zelinsky is very nice once you get to know him. He only acts gruff to frighten potential shoplifters.
>GO NORTH
You walk to the back of the store and find Mary sitting at a computer. She is listening to Phil Collins's extraordinary solo album NO JACKET REQUIRED, yet seems unhappy. "Golly," she says wistfully. "I wish I had a good video game to play."
>INVENTORY
You are carrying a brass lantern and a floppy disk.
>GIVE DISK TO MARY
"Thank you," Mary says. She puts the disk into her computer and she is blown away by the sheer awesomeness of your game. The ceiling explodes into butterflies, the angels descend from heaven and sing hosannas, and you all live happily ever after.
THE END.
Your score is 100 out of 100, giving you a rank of Awesome.