The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
This is my longest (and possibly best) story/spoof yet. Sorry about length, but I wanted to fit everything in casually, not hurriedly. Please read it all, and comments at the end :D
Fuzzy
-----------
Gerrid was pacing the floor. Time Warp was sitting on a large, plastic chair, swinging his feet, hypnotically back and forth. Eliminator was sitting at a large, plywood desk. It was made with cheap board, and a hollow noise was being made every time he rapped his fingers off it. Afrojoe stood up.
“It would seem we have a problem”
The other 3 looked, a mix of bemusement and worry across their faces. Maybe they should go back to fiddling. Or maybe not.
“The artifacts have…erm…”
The 3 looked slightly less bemused, and slightly more worried. Just like the time Knick Knack’s uncles sentence was being called, after he had missed the hearing.
“Disappeared”
Silence. Then a squeaker.
“Sorry..heh..”
The silence continued. The smell went from through its life cycle within a minute. The room was back to its original state.
“All of them..every one? Even the Xbox?”
AJ nodded.
“God…they must be desperate.”
Silence ensued for a while longer.
“Well, what do we do?”
The 4 contemplated. gerrid thought he could play with tin foil and a small electric current to get them back. Time Warp considered maybe broadcasting a public announcement over the Internet. Eliminator was wondering if he could possibly travel the world to get them back. This was, of course, the era of online gaming. *4* spoke.
“We could try and search the world for them?”
The other 3 shook their heads.
“Well, gerrid, how’s the tin foil theory going to work?”
“Well, you see, if you….”
“I was joking”
“Oh..”
Further silence, whilst everyone reconsidered. Time Warp’s idea was to be ignored, for no particular reason. Then AJ had somewhat of a brainwave, a rare occurrence for a person with IQ 60. The doctors called him ‘mentally underdeveloped’. His ‘friends’ called him stupid. His parents called him…’special’
“We could, like, go, like, multiplayer, like. Healthy, like”
This idea, however, was too basic, too simple. It had to be built upon. And who better than the resident care taker of the office building. They think he was called RM18, after the war and all, and his real name had been lost with an arm, shares to Microsoft and a few love letters from his deceased wife when he had been evicted from his flat with violent force. Mostly worthless, really.
“Eh, why not go online, and try and bring the artifacty-things out from..eh..in?”
The other four sat (and stood) and pondered, most holding a single finger to their chin to look intelligent. Only Eliminator was actually succeeding, and even he struggled. gerrid spoke
“I could have said that – I just didn’t want to”
Silence again. A quiet bunch they were. RM18 talked some more, breaking the clear (if not clean) air.
“So what dya think?”
Everyone nodded their heads. gerrid thought his tin foil idea would work when people understood that Russians could see through polystyrene. But he nodded anyway. Time Warp started to swing his legs again, nodding in agreement with everything (that, or it was a nasty by product of his leg swinging). Eliminator decided to get to work, and started searching the web for the terms ‘in+and+out+of+the+web’ and ‘jump+in+just+like+those+kinder+egg+card+things’. Afrojoe smiled. Not a nice, normal grin, but a big wide smile. Like that of a mental patient. Only more so. RM18 looked hopeful, and AJ spoke for the group.
“Good idea..yup…we’ll be doing that..uh-huh..yup…erm…so how do we do it exactly?”
(It may be a good time to point out now what the artifacts actually are. The 5 artifacts were created at the end of the 20th and start of the 21st century, on small, perfectly formed. One innovative. One slim and versatile. One with a swirl, a sign of a downward spiral (weakest of the artifacts) and one hell of a brick. They were the final artifacts to be created before the demise of ‘The Project’. Pong to Xbox was simply a project. And the artifacts are the key to restore the project, now 30 years later.)
RM18 was just about to explain. Then he remembered that he had no idea who the hell these people were. So before explaining..
“Erm..just out of interest…who are you all?”
AJ stood out, and announced himself as the leader. RM18 held back a laugh. AJ was a gamer, who wanted his only source of education to come back.
Time Warp told RM18 about his life. He used to jump in and out of time through his console. Everyone laughed when he told people, and his ‘gift’ had yet to be proven.
Eliminator was famed, and given his name, because of his job. He worked on the Quake 3 servers, happily killing folk, until the Government hired him because of his skills. He discovered the project through seeing a computer monitor, with details, in the Govt. place he worked. Dept. 304 as it happened. He had his own desk and everything. But he left after his revelation, and told folk about the project. And about the artifacts.
The gerrid was a bit in the middle. He was a part-time shop assistant, and a freelance photographer. And a rebel in his spare time. Any opportunity for a jaunt around the world with a bunch of gamers was worth a bit more than spare time, and therefore, gave up his shop assistant job, along with its huge wage. Yes, huge. Really. Well. No.
RM18 weakly smiled. They all registered highly on the weirdometer. But nonetheless, when RM18’s was a young whipper-schnapper, he played and nayed and oooooooo suits you sir on his Dreamcast and, in his folk’s own words, ‘Lord knows what else’. And also, anything must be better than this dead end job.
“Since I like, erm, gave you the idea can I…come with you”
The others muttered. The 5 artifacts – 4 people = 1 artifact without a finder. The 4 took a couple of minutes to suss out this immense question.
“Meh, why not. Come save the gaming world with us”
RM18 smiled.
“Mexcellent” was heard. “Mexcellent indeed..”
-----------
The plane was busy. Almost every seat in the 2 columns of 5 was full. RM18, Time Warp, Eliminator and AJ were also parallel to each other. Why the hell they were on a plane to infiltrate the artifacts was beyond them. But apparently some guy in New York had various things, including the right equipment, and symptoms of the bubonic plague.
The plane left off, and it was happily flying, minding its own 30,000 foot high business, when Time Warp spoke, the first of the 5 to speak on the whole flight. He was sitting at the window.
“Would you look at that?”
gerrid and RM18 turned. The other 2 continued to listen to the film playing, and the radio through the headphones. AJ found the static quite an intellectual listening experience. Both replied with something like..
“Look at what?”
The outside was interesting for a while, but their was only so many clouds shaped like famous people’s torso. Both gerrid and RM18 expected Time Warp to have seen a famous cloud. They were wrong.
“There a man wingwalking..how cool”
At first, the gerrid and RM18 didn’t think about what he said. Then it dawned on them…the project was Government secret thingy. Can’t tell a soul they said. Can’t leave the country, they said…oh god. RM18 spoke quietly
“Erm…maybe we should hide you guys…like..now?”
Time Warp, RM18 and gerrid all moved. Fast. Eliminator, on seeing the others, lay down where the others were sitting. AJ wouldn’t be suspected. He was so away-with-the-fairies, and weirdly innocent, how could he do wrong?
Somehow, 5 minutes later, the wingwalker managed to get into the plane. Obviously he hadn’t planned how he was going to get the 5 rebels out, but considering he’d got this far, there was no turning back, and he’d think of something on the spot. The wonders of initiative. Or at least, stacks of it.
The passengers cried out when he came into full view. How the hell was he here? And why the heck could we see him, wasn’t this a special ops thing?
Apparently not.
“Er..a need to find 5 guys…yup….anyone seen them?”
Every female looked at every male. Every male looked at the air stewardess who had a ‘special operation’ as she called it. She looked at AJ. AJ looked dazed.
Someone could be heard calling out.
“What do they look like?”
The wingwalker pondered.
“Let’s see…yup…im just checking…D’OH!”
He had left the e-fits and his finger detector at home, in the cupboard under the stairs (along with the psycho who thought he could do magic. Heh … heh … heh)
“I’ll be back!”
He jumped off the plane and released his parachute. Away he floated, into the fluffy white clouds.
Time Warp, gerrid and RM18 came out of wherever they had found. Eliminator stood up. AJ continued to look dazed.
“That was far too close. We should have known he would come”
All 4 looked at RM18.
“And we would know how, genius?”
Nothing more was said for the rest of the flight. Except the occasional stomach rumble. And other ruffling noises. But apart from those, and th tapping of feet on the floor, and the crying baby, nothing was mentioned, except everyone muttering about the wingwalker, but apart from that, nothing was said.
As you may imagine, it was rather noisy until touchdown.
-----------
The airport was rather busy. It was New York, and around 11:00am in the morning. All 5 of the intrepid ‘heroes’ were tired. Sleeping was the easy option. Saving the gaming world could wait. They’d waited 30 years, why not wait a few more hours.
-----
10 Hours Later
-----
They woke up. 3 mounds of change and a novelty New York cap had been left in front of them. They really had to change clothes..and wash….and stop drooling. There was time, however, or at least, there could have had time if the mysterious wingwalker hadn’t appeared.
“Sleepy bye”
They looked up.
“We just slept”
“You’re gonna sleep some more”
All 5 were quiet for a second.
“Meh” was heard, as each one had a strong sleeping potion of sorts injected into them. They woke up somewhere different.
-----------
A dark room was around them. Suddenly, though, a purple glow could be seen to the far left. Then a silver one. Then a green one. And a swirly sky one too. Finally, a blue glow appeared,
“Can….can it be?”
Someone walked in, but avoided the glows, so couldn’t be seen.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?”
It would appear they were what the 5 thought they were.
“The artifacts, the remnants of a project ended 3 decades ago. And I hear you search of them..to release them and restart the project. Why is this?”
The 5 didn’t want to restart any project. They wanted a new a new start. A new time. Just to find out and recreate the artifacts to begin the process again, forever. AJ spoke.
“We wanna play……”
He couldn’t resist it.
“Like. Pure healthy like”
The figure came into view RM18 gasped. The others gasped also, even not knowing who he was.
“M..M…M”
“Yes, RM18, I am creator of the cheesy gaming nation’
“Microchips?”
Microchips, working alongside RM18, had stayed with the Government. Now a lot older, and slightly spiteful since his steady supply of spoofs on a chat forum had become slightly tired through the bringing down of gaming, nodded his head.
“T’is me, RM18, t’is me”
“We’ve established that”
“Oh…well…good….anyway, the artifacts are Government project property, and you cannot have them!”
The 5 looked at each other, each, in turn, lost hope by the ton.
“And also, there’s the minor matter of me having to kill you. Kill you all…unless you get rid of the underworld gaming scene, where Pong is desperately and lovingly at the same time being created, and where Tetris clones are rare (the inverse of Earth)
The 5, once again, looked at each other. Was the cause worth death? Of course not! But it didn’t stop their courage from shining through like polished glass with the rest of the glass being dirty and covered in mud. Or something.
“We’d never do that. You’d have to kill us all it seems!”
gerrid piped up.
“Ill destroy the underworld!”
AJ slapped him
“Only joking, gawd, you’d think I was serious, no I’m not serious, nope, not at all, nope, can’t say I am. Not at all”
He was nervous. The others stared him into place.
“Your bravery is admirable, but now you must die. Sorry and all that!”
Microchips left the room, and sealed the door. Pipes came out of the ceiling, and let a deadly gas slowly fill the room. All swore like nothing before, and in sheer anxiety, tried to pull the door open, only making the vents pump more gas in.
The room was almost full, and the artifacts would never be theirs, when a final hope could b heard. It was the psycho under the stairs.
“Alohamora”
The door opened. It was, apparently, a magic spell.
RM18 groaned. As much as being saved was all good and well, this boy had a reputation for being the soppiest film star ever. And working with Rupert Grint. Is he completely stupid?
AJ picked up the purple glowing thing. gerrid got the blue glowy artifact, Time Warp got the silver glower, RM18 managed to get the swirly glow leaving Eliminator with the green glow artifact. They had the artifacts. Now they needed to get inside them.
They escaped the house they were imprisoned in, in central New York. Microchips had left, and surprisingly, and conveniently, there were not guards of any sort. The psycho child was told to go home. Before he unlocked any of his ‘own kind’.
-----------
Mid New York was busy. Very busy. They hailed a cab over. 3 ignored them They were English. And wanted .. ‘change’. Another looked insane, so they put their hands down for a while, and the 5th finally let them in.
“Where to?”
AJ handed over the address. It was on a ripped piece of paper quickly taken on a leaflet for Manchester Tours. gerrid had a great time.
“No problemo”
It was a long time since the 5 had heard that phrase. Thankfully, they probably wouldn’t hear it again. Damn Simpson’s. Damn…damn Simpson’s.
They cab ride was somewhat uneventful. That was, until they reached their destination. A grotty apartment in a tall block. A really grotty apartment. In a *really* tall block. Really.
They walked in. Went to the floor the piece of paper mentioned. Floor 13 indeed. Not a great omen. The lift looked somewhat dodgy, so they took the stairs
-----
13 floors later
-----
The paper read Door 15.
The door number read Door 15.
“This is it.”
Each as holding an artifact. Eliminator knocked on the door. A strange man appeared. Not the sort who asks you for change and recommends buses, the sort who says you’re a model, and he’ll play with you ‘if you like’
“The artifacts!”
He was a master of observation. No, really.
“We need to use your equipment. We need to get inside them”
The man pondered.
“If you can guess my name, I’ll let you in..”
“It’s Knick Knack, isn’t it?”
The man hung his head in shame.
“So you read the internet post?”
gerrid nodded. AJ squinted his eyes. RM18 nodded also.
“Well, you’d better come in. As you may have guessed, I’m called Knick Knack. Nice to meet and all”
Yet, there was no time for pleasantries. The room they walked into had 4 seats, and a small monitor next to each one. Also, a table with various leads was laid at each seat. Plus, a small station, for the smallest artifact.
“Sit down, with the artifact, at a terminal. One to each”
All of them sat down, with their artifacts still glowing.
“No time to waste. Place your head back, and tap the white button on the monitors”
“Erm..what white butt…?”
The white buttons bounced around the screens.
“Why are they going so fast?’
Knick Knack just gestured them to touch it. All of them succeeded.
“So you are true gamers? That was lightning fast. Only true reflexes of a gamer could tap those.”
All looked smug. That was, until a bolt of the colours of console they held hit through their spine, and transported themselves into the artifacts. The small silver artifact just whirred, and had a really low resolution, and virtually no light. Damn technology of the time. But Time Warp still found himself, well warped into the console.
-----------
AJ was inside the purple artifact. Huge signs, like neon, flashed round him. It was the Gamecube, the final part of the project. The space he walked in was a black void, with the occasional line or two of various colours floating beneath him. Or above. His feet made no sound, he was walking on nothing. A familiar voice could be heard…
“It’s a-me, Mar-i-o!”
AJ turned round.
“Woah – you’re like – Nintendo’s main man…or at least, your creator is..”
Mario went from happy to angry in a matter of picoseconds
“You-a-mentioned his-a name! He made-a-me clean all of Isle-a-Delfino!”
AJ pondered.
“But we, er, controlled you..?”
Mario looked even angrier
“No you a did not1 Don’t-a lie! Feel my pain! That is, if you want to unlock this Game-y-Cube thing-a”
The black void dropped, as did AJ, landing on a huge coloured block. There was a platform course ahead of him, and weird Mario music playing.
“Get to the end, you-a-fool!” Mario shouted, and fizzed out, like the third neon sign. From the left.
AJ jumped. He was now on a platform that moved, and flipped, in a steady rhythm. He thought back to the days of gaming, of the project.
:Triple jump and I go far!”
He launched himself across that section with ease, with 3 jump and a clever back flip. He landed on a cube, turning every direction possible. AJ then succeeded with a wall jump after the cube, and crossed some shapes which turned, melted, faded out and did other, various motion-law defying tricks. A huge yellow shine was ahead.
“So close!”
He crossed some stars which turned, and jumped over some cuboids with little divots and bits that stuck out.
The shine was…erm…shining.
AJ jumped for it. The platform was there…
“SHINE!”
AJ instinctively watched Lakitu swerve in on him with the camera, and held the shine in a pose never attempted before. Then, the shine hit the ground.
“Wwhat?”
It mutated in various ways. Dog, book, giraffe, Libyan flag and then..
The purple switch. A glowing sign of hope, and the key to unlocking the first, and possibly hardest, console.
AJ butt-stomped it. It depressed somewhat, and AJ sat upright, in his chair, the artifact next to him spawning in shops across the globe. The revolution had began.
-----------
gerrid was cautious. He’d visited the first place, or to be specific, lived in it (reality and all). The second place was a bit dingy, and slightly pixilated, and he’d never ventured into the third place.
It seemed all right. Colours flashed, and shapes spun round. A heavy fog, grey in colour, had formed in patches, along with glowing red 3D things. Then a small creature appeared. It was a man, made up of several orange layers. gerrid spoke.
“The third place, huh?”
The figure nodded, its body moving rhythmically to a music gerrid couldn’t hear.
“I need to find the release switch..where is it?”
The figure was still moving. It lifted its arms, and clapped.
A whole vector universe unveiled itself to gerrid. Palaces, rivers and simple lines and shapes appeared. As did a sign.
“-AREA 1 .. LOG IN-“
gerrid was amazed. Then the music began – he remembered it well. Buggy Running Beats.
“Do I not get a gun?”
It was Rez. He had to prepare, and the figure handed over a gun. It then disappeared.
The first wave of enemies made its way towards gerrid. He linked his shots, and took out 8 at once. A massive score counter appeared. He continued to take out every enemy until layer 6, where he missed a few from a monstrous barrage. The final 4 layers were harder. In layer 7, the enemies fought back, with a vengeance, and successfully downgraded gerrid to level 1 from level 3. In the eighth and ninth layer, they let off s little. But only to help in the final layer.
A huge sphere, made up of tiles and various electrical pulses appeared. The score meter went into overdrive, as did the..er..overdrives.
The outer crust of tiles shattered once, then again. The final circles of tiles appeared, it was almost the end.
He shot wildly. The tiles he missed flew at him, and just as he wiped the enemy’s energy bar to 0, a green flyer hit him. He downgraded to level 0.
The cross of the enemy that was left floated around for a while. The ends then each turned in clockwise, and formed a circle. From inside, swirls of black and blue mixed together. The button landed on ground. gerrid shot at it, and down it went. Light hovered around its seals, then gerrid suddenly jumped up from his ‘sleep’ at the unit. The infamous PS2 started to find its way back to the homes of those who previous enjoyed their wonders. The artifact was opened, released. Only 3 more to go until gaming was restored. Of course..
There HAD to be a minor hiccup.
-----------
RM18 found himself inside, of course, the Dreamcast. The console may have flopped, but the games on it had left inspiration in the minds of all those who played it. RM18 was no exception. The Dreamcast found memories of itself in RM18’s mind, and recreated them, instead of the black void that the other 2 had currently experienced.
There was fields full of flowers, then a city, then a race track. It ended on the fields, and a story of a killed father.
“Heh… Shemue”
The fields disappeared again. He was back in the slightly rotted-away city. And standing in front of a wall with chalk markings. There was a grid, consisting of 16 spaces, and 9 of the spaces were filled. 3 with a star, 3 with an arrows pointing up, left or right, 2 with a cross, and a circle with star inside. A piece of chalk lay at the side.
RM18 began.
“The arrows must lead to the star in circle. You must pass through the sta…I remember this!”
He worked on the puzzle, play stars on areas to pass through, and more arrows to make up the direction. Once all 16 of the spaces were filled, the 9 things he filled in faded away.
“Wrong? What the hel…?”
He tried again. A few arrows were twisted the wrong way, on further inspection, and one didn’t pass through the star. The 16 spaces were once again filled.
The lines all merged into a swirl, which then came out of the wall. RM18 yelled.
“WOO Yeah!”
People turned round. RM18 was quiet, and pulled out the huge swirl. It landed on the ground, and next to it, a swirl shape hole appeared. The swirl fit perfectly, and RM18 woke up violently, back in 2032, in New York. The Dreamcast once again did its magic on the world, as people who had longed for years for its return welcome it into their homes. It was then that Time Warp emerged from his artifact, discovering it was the legendary GBA. He shouted at The Eliminator.
“Wake up and get out!”
RM18, gerrid and AJ looked at him. gerrid spoke.
“What’s wrong with you! It’s the final artifact, now that you’ve unlocked yours”
Time Warp was shuddering
“Microchips…in the artifact..said he’d get Eliminator..got to save him..”
-----------
The Eliminator was in the black, just like 2 others had been with the other artifacts. It was the Xbox. A rather vast space, but filled with money. Looks good, but to the touch, it displayed a face of Bill Gates, screaming, ‘coming to get ya’
He left it well alone.
“Anyone here?’
A figure could be seen seen rushing quietly, and the blackness turned into the first world of Halo.
Microchips stood there..
“You were doing so well. 4 artifacts unlocked, gaming to be returned to the world and mindless idiots with little better to do than to make a cat stop time would have made a swift comeback to reality.”
Eliminator shrugged his shoulders.
“And then, your little friend Time Warp physically abuses Yoshi. And guess who is in charge of animal welfare in the GBA artifact. 3 guesses.”
Eliminator pondered.
“Hitler?”
Microchips shook his head.
“Stalin?”
Another shake..
One final go.
“You?”
A large sign, flashing correct, came down onto the world. Eliminator safely assumed he was in charge of animal welfare. Damn”
Microchips continued.
“And now, I must kill you, and destroy the release crystal”
It stood high upon a mountain, a plateau high up. Microchips began to run, and Eliminator swiftly followed. He armed his weapon and tried to shoot Microchips. Microchips shouted.
“Time Stop!”
The world froze, as did the bullets. Both continued running.
“Release the hounds!”
Eliminator stared.
“What?”
Microchips stuttered…
“Erm…Time Unlock”
Eliminator had a smug grin. Fancy pants time stopper can’t even say right phrase. Microchips was embarrassed. To a certain extent.
The running continued, and the crystal was still a distance large away. Rounds were fired, bullets dodged, aliens hit, blood splattered. The usual. That was, until, the game stopped. Microchips was puzzled. As was Eliminator.
“Damn Xbox, crashing on me.”
The crystal reappeared, dotting round the area. It was fading in and out, but not smoothly, more frame by frame. Eliminator was amazed.
“It’s the RootBox”
Microchips still looked puzzled.
“The system upon which the Xbox is built upon. The very first Boxe’s had these, but it was found unnecessarily big, and replaced”. The actual casing, however, remained huge. Despite public demand.
The gun still lay in Eliminator’s hand.
“Heh, gotta live up to my name”
Microchip’s face fell from ha-ha-you’re-buggered-now to oh-god-im-buggered-now. It was entertaining to say the least.
“BYE BYE!”
The shot was fired. A camera swooped down on it, and the whole process was slowed down. The ripples of sound in the air could be seen. The movement could be pinpointed to any point. Microchip’s face was paralyzed in fear.
“Damn”
The shot hit. In the head. Microchips fell to the floor. Nothing was said.
The crystal continued to dot around. Eliminator aimed his gun. Shoot the crystal, push the button, restore gaming.
He aimed, and fired. A shot came out, The crystal continued to dot, but weirdly, the bullet followed the crystal. Then, finally,
It hit.
The whole Root Box area filled with lines. Green lines indeed, and they slowly formed a huge ‘X’, with a massive green button in the middle. It glowed.
The Eliminator slammed down on it.
And found himself back in the New York apartment, on the chair. Xboxes returned to all those who owned them, the majority going back to Americans. All was good in the world. And as soon as all 5 could walk (going into a games console as an artifact wasn’t easy) they left. Knick Knack really wasn’t the safest guy to be in a room with.
-----------
AJ, gerrid, Time Warp, Eliminator and RM18 were all back at Foreman’s house. It was one of gerrid’s best mates. Seemed nice enough. Eliminator had to ask, however..
“What the HELL did you do to Yoshi?”
Silence followed. Time Warp went red.
“Erm..well..he would suck in the apples, and wouldn’t get the coins, and demanded fruit and Mario and Peach and I just couldn’t cope!”
Further silence.
Then.
“So what did you do to him?” gerrid asked. Just one more question.
“Beat him violently. Surprised they had animal welfare in the artifact however. Enough talk, now, we need more play.”
All nodded. RM18 pulled out Samba de Amigo and 4 sets of maracas. And the fun they had waited 30 years for began again.
The End (for now)
-----------
Cast
AfroJoe
Gerrid
The Eliminator
Time Warp
RM18
Microchips
Knick Knack
Foreman (just sneaked you in at the end :D)
Just wanted to make the point this story is completely fictional, in its plot AND in the way I describe the characters. AJ is not dumb. Microchips is not evil. Time Warp is not a dinosaur-abuser, etc etc.
This story was posted on ukchatforums.com and is © Paul Holmes 2002
And finally, thanks for making it through all the story (that’s if you did, otherwise, go back :D)
-----------
Fuzzy
-----------
Gerrid was pacing the floor. Time Warp was sitting on a large, plastic chair, swinging his feet, hypnotically back and forth. Eliminator was sitting at a large, plywood desk. It was made with cheap board, and a hollow noise was being made every time he rapped his fingers off it. Afrojoe stood up.
“It would seem we have a problem”
The other 3 looked, a mix of bemusement and worry across their faces. Maybe they should go back to fiddling. Or maybe not.
“The artifacts have…erm…”
The 3 looked slightly less bemused, and slightly more worried. Just like the time Knick Knack’s uncles sentence was being called, after he had missed the hearing.
“Disappeared”
Silence. Then a squeaker.
“Sorry..heh..”
The silence continued. The smell went from through its life cycle within a minute. The room was back to its original state.
“All of them..every one? Even the Xbox?”
AJ nodded.
“God…they must be desperate.”
Silence ensued for a while longer.
“Well, what do we do?”
The 4 contemplated. gerrid thought he could play with tin foil and a small electric current to get them back. Time Warp considered maybe broadcasting a public announcement over the Internet. Eliminator was wondering if he could possibly travel the world to get them back. This was, of course, the era of online gaming. *4* spoke.
“We could try and search the world for them?”
The other 3 shook their heads.
“Well, gerrid, how’s the tin foil theory going to work?”
“Well, you see, if you….”
“I was joking”
“Oh..”
Further silence, whilst everyone reconsidered. Time Warp’s idea was to be ignored, for no particular reason. Then AJ had somewhat of a brainwave, a rare occurrence for a person with IQ 60. The doctors called him ‘mentally underdeveloped’. His ‘friends’ called him stupid. His parents called him…’special’
“We could, like, go, like, multiplayer, like. Healthy, like”
This idea, however, was too basic, too simple. It had to be built upon. And who better than the resident care taker of the office building. They think he was called RM18, after the war and all, and his real name had been lost with an arm, shares to Microsoft and a few love letters from his deceased wife when he had been evicted from his flat with violent force. Mostly worthless, really.
“Eh, why not go online, and try and bring the artifacty-things out from..eh..in?”
The other four sat (and stood) and pondered, most holding a single finger to their chin to look intelligent. Only Eliminator was actually succeeding, and even he struggled. gerrid spoke
“I could have said that – I just didn’t want to”
Silence again. A quiet bunch they were. RM18 talked some more, breaking the clear (if not clean) air.
“So what dya think?”
Everyone nodded their heads. gerrid thought his tin foil idea would work when people understood that Russians could see through polystyrene. But he nodded anyway. Time Warp started to swing his legs again, nodding in agreement with everything (that, or it was a nasty by product of his leg swinging). Eliminator decided to get to work, and started searching the web for the terms ‘in+and+out+of+the+web’ and ‘jump+in+just+like+those+kinder+egg+card+things’. Afrojoe smiled. Not a nice, normal grin, but a big wide smile. Like that of a mental patient. Only more so. RM18 looked hopeful, and AJ spoke for the group.
“Good idea..yup…we’ll be doing that..uh-huh..yup…erm…so how do we do it exactly?”
(It may be a good time to point out now what the artifacts actually are. The 5 artifacts were created at the end of the 20th and start of the 21st century, on small, perfectly formed. One innovative. One slim and versatile. One with a swirl, a sign of a downward spiral (weakest of the artifacts) and one hell of a brick. They were the final artifacts to be created before the demise of ‘The Project’. Pong to Xbox was simply a project. And the artifacts are the key to restore the project, now 30 years later.)
RM18 was just about to explain. Then he remembered that he had no idea who the hell these people were. So before explaining..
“Erm..just out of interest…who are you all?”
AJ stood out, and announced himself as the leader. RM18 held back a laugh. AJ was a gamer, who wanted his only source of education to come back.
Time Warp told RM18 about his life. He used to jump in and out of time through his console. Everyone laughed when he told people, and his ‘gift’ had yet to be proven.
Eliminator was famed, and given his name, because of his job. He worked on the Quake 3 servers, happily killing folk, until the Government hired him because of his skills. He discovered the project through seeing a computer monitor, with details, in the Govt. place he worked. Dept. 304 as it happened. He had his own desk and everything. But he left after his revelation, and told folk about the project. And about the artifacts.
The gerrid was a bit in the middle. He was a part-time shop assistant, and a freelance photographer. And a rebel in his spare time. Any opportunity for a jaunt around the world with a bunch of gamers was worth a bit more than spare time, and therefore, gave up his shop assistant job, along with its huge wage. Yes, huge. Really. Well. No.
RM18 weakly smiled. They all registered highly on the weirdometer. But nonetheless, when RM18’s was a young whipper-schnapper, he played and nayed and oooooooo suits you sir on his Dreamcast and, in his folk’s own words, ‘Lord knows what else’. And also, anything must be better than this dead end job.
“Since I like, erm, gave you the idea can I…come with you”
The others muttered. The 5 artifacts – 4 people = 1 artifact without a finder. The 4 took a couple of minutes to suss out this immense question.
“Meh, why not. Come save the gaming world with us”
RM18 smiled.
“Mexcellent” was heard. “Mexcellent indeed..”
-----------
The plane was busy. Almost every seat in the 2 columns of 5 was full. RM18, Time Warp, Eliminator and AJ were also parallel to each other. Why the hell they were on a plane to infiltrate the artifacts was beyond them. But apparently some guy in New York had various things, including the right equipment, and symptoms of the bubonic plague.
The plane left off, and it was happily flying, minding its own 30,000 foot high business, when Time Warp spoke, the first of the 5 to speak on the whole flight. He was sitting at the window.
“Would you look at that?”
gerrid and RM18 turned. The other 2 continued to listen to the film playing, and the radio through the headphones. AJ found the static quite an intellectual listening experience. Both replied with something like..
“Look at what?”
The outside was interesting for a while, but their was only so many clouds shaped like famous people’s torso. Both gerrid and RM18 expected Time Warp to have seen a famous cloud. They were wrong.
“There a man wingwalking..how cool”
At first, the gerrid and RM18 didn’t think about what he said. Then it dawned on them…the project was Government secret thingy. Can’t tell a soul they said. Can’t leave the country, they said…oh god. RM18 spoke quietly
“Erm…maybe we should hide you guys…like..now?”
Time Warp, RM18 and gerrid all moved. Fast. Eliminator, on seeing the others, lay down where the others were sitting. AJ wouldn’t be suspected. He was so away-with-the-fairies, and weirdly innocent, how could he do wrong?
Somehow, 5 minutes later, the wingwalker managed to get into the plane. Obviously he hadn’t planned how he was going to get the 5 rebels out, but considering he’d got this far, there was no turning back, and he’d think of something on the spot. The wonders of initiative. Or at least, stacks of it.
The passengers cried out when he came into full view. How the hell was he here? And why the heck could we see him, wasn’t this a special ops thing?
Apparently not.
“Er..a need to find 5 guys…yup….anyone seen them?”
Every female looked at every male. Every male looked at the air stewardess who had a ‘special operation’ as she called it. She looked at AJ. AJ looked dazed.
Someone could be heard calling out.
“What do they look like?”
The wingwalker pondered.
“Let’s see…yup…im just checking…D’OH!”
He had left the e-fits and his finger detector at home, in the cupboard under the stairs (along with the psycho who thought he could do magic. Heh … heh … heh)
“I’ll be back!”
He jumped off the plane and released his parachute. Away he floated, into the fluffy white clouds.
Time Warp, gerrid and RM18 came out of wherever they had found. Eliminator stood up. AJ continued to look dazed.
“That was far too close. We should have known he would come”
All 4 looked at RM18.
“And we would know how, genius?”
Nothing more was said for the rest of the flight. Except the occasional stomach rumble. And other ruffling noises. But apart from those, and th tapping of feet on the floor, and the crying baby, nothing was mentioned, except everyone muttering about the wingwalker, but apart from that, nothing was said.
As you may imagine, it was rather noisy until touchdown.
-----------
The airport was rather busy. It was New York, and around 11:00am in the morning. All 5 of the intrepid ‘heroes’ were tired. Sleeping was the easy option. Saving the gaming world could wait. They’d waited 30 years, why not wait a few more hours.
-----
10 Hours Later
-----
They woke up. 3 mounds of change and a novelty New York cap had been left in front of them. They really had to change clothes..and wash….and stop drooling. There was time, however, or at least, there could have had time if the mysterious wingwalker hadn’t appeared.
“Sleepy bye”
They looked up.
“We just slept”
“You’re gonna sleep some more”
All 5 were quiet for a second.
“Meh” was heard, as each one had a strong sleeping potion of sorts injected into them. They woke up somewhere different.
-----------
A dark room was around them. Suddenly, though, a purple glow could be seen to the far left. Then a silver one. Then a green one. And a swirly sky one too. Finally, a blue glow appeared,
“Can….can it be?”
Someone walked in, but avoided the glows, so couldn’t be seen.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?”
It would appear they were what the 5 thought they were.
“The artifacts, the remnants of a project ended 3 decades ago. And I hear you search of them..to release them and restart the project. Why is this?”
The 5 didn’t want to restart any project. They wanted a new a new start. A new time. Just to find out and recreate the artifacts to begin the process again, forever. AJ spoke.
“We wanna play……”
He couldn’t resist it.
“Like. Pure healthy like”
The figure came into view RM18 gasped. The others gasped also, even not knowing who he was.
“M..M…M”
“Yes, RM18, I am creator of the cheesy gaming nation’
“Microchips?”
Microchips, working alongside RM18, had stayed with the Government. Now a lot older, and slightly spiteful since his steady supply of spoofs on a chat forum had become slightly tired through the bringing down of gaming, nodded his head.
“T’is me, RM18, t’is me”
“We’ve established that”
“Oh…well…good….anyway, the artifacts are Government project property, and you cannot have them!”
The 5 looked at each other, each, in turn, lost hope by the ton.
“And also, there’s the minor matter of me having to kill you. Kill you all…unless you get rid of the underworld gaming scene, where Pong is desperately and lovingly at the same time being created, and where Tetris clones are rare (the inverse of Earth)
The 5, once again, looked at each other. Was the cause worth death? Of course not! But it didn’t stop their courage from shining through like polished glass with the rest of the glass being dirty and covered in mud. Or something.
“We’d never do that. You’d have to kill us all it seems!”
gerrid piped up.
“Ill destroy the underworld!”
AJ slapped him
“Only joking, gawd, you’d think I was serious, no I’m not serious, nope, not at all, nope, can’t say I am. Not at all”
He was nervous. The others stared him into place.
“Your bravery is admirable, but now you must die. Sorry and all that!”
Microchips left the room, and sealed the door. Pipes came out of the ceiling, and let a deadly gas slowly fill the room. All swore like nothing before, and in sheer anxiety, tried to pull the door open, only making the vents pump more gas in.
The room was almost full, and the artifacts would never be theirs, when a final hope could b heard. It was the psycho under the stairs.
“Alohamora”
The door opened. It was, apparently, a magic spell.
RM18 groaned. As much as being saved was all good and well, this boy had a reputation for being the soppiest film star ever. And working with Rupert Grint. Is he completely stupid?
AJ picked up the purple glowing thing. gerrid got the blue glowy artifact, Time Warp got the silver glower, RM18 managed to get the swirly glow leaving Eliminator with the green glow artifact. They had the artifacts. Now they needed to get inside them.
They escaped the house they were imprisoned in, in central New York. Microchips had left, and surprisingly, and conveniently, there were not guards of any sort. The psycho child was told to go home. Before he unlocked any of his ‘own kind’.
-----------
Mid New York was busy. Very busy. They hailed a cab over. 3 ignored them They were English. And wanted .. ‘change’. Another looked insane, so they put their hands down for a while, and the 5th finally let them in.
“Where to?”
AJ handed over the address. It was on a ripped piece of paper quickly taken on a leaflet for Manchester Tours. gerrid had a great time.
“No problemo”
It was a long time since the 5 had heard that phrase. Thankfully, they probably wouldn’t hear it again. Damn Simpson’s. Damn…damn Simpson’s.
They cab ride was somewhat uneventful. That was, until they reached their destination. A grotty apartment in a tall block. A really grotty apartment. In a *really* tall block. Really.
They walked in. Went to the floor the piece of paper mentioned. Floor 13 indeed. Not a great omen. The lift looked somewhat dodgy, so they took the stairs
-----
13 floors later
-----
The paper read Door 15.
The door number read Door 15.
“This is it.”
Each as holding an artifact. Eliminator knocked on the door. A strange man appeared. Not the sort who asks you for change and recommends buses, the sort who says you’re a model, and he’ll play with you ‘if you like’
“The artifacts!”
He was a master of observation. No, really.
“We need to use your equipment. We need to get inside them”
The man pondered.
“If you can guess my name, I’ll let you in..”
“It’s Knick Knack, isn’t it?”
The man hung his head in shame.
“So you read the internet post?”
gerrid nodded. AJ squinted his eyes. RM18 nodded also.
“Well, you’d better come in. As you may have guessed, I’m called Knick Knack. Nice to meet and all”
Yet, there was no time for pleasantries. The room they walked into had 4 seats, and a small monitor next to each one. Also, a table with various leads was laid at each seat. Plus, a small station, for the smallest artifact.
“Sit down, with the artifact, at a terminal. One to each”
All of them sat down, with their artifacts still glowing.
“No time to waste. Place your head back, and tap the white button on the monitors”
“Erm..what white butt…?”
The white buttons bounced around the screens.
“Why are they going so fast?’
Knick Knack just gestured them to touch it. All of them succeeded.
“So you are true gamers? That was lightning fast. Only true reflexes of a gamer could tap those.”
All looked smug. That was, until a bolt of the colours of console they held hit through their spine, and transported themselves into the artifacts. The small silver artifact just whirred, and had a really low resolution, and virtually no light. Damn technology of the time. But Time Warp still found himself, well warped into the console.
-----------
AJ was inside the purple artifact. Huge signs, like neon, flashed round him. It was the Gamecube, the final part of the project. The space he walked in was a black void, with the occasional line or two of various colours floating beneath him. Or above. His feet made no sound, he was walking on nothing. A familiar voice could be heard…
“It’s a-me, Mar-i-o!”
AJ turned round.
“Woah – you’re like – Nintendo’s main man…or at least, your creator is..”
Mario went from happy to angry in a matter of picoseconds
“You-a-mentioned his-a name! He made-a-me clean all of Isle-a-Delfino!”
AJ pondered.
“But we, er, controlled you..?”
Mario looked even angrier
“No you a did not1 Don’t-a lie! Feel my pain! That is, if you want to unlock this Game-y-Cube thing-a”
The black void dropped, as did AJ, landing on a huge coloured block. There was a platform course ahead of him, and weird Mario music playing.
“Get to the end, you-a-fool!” Mario shouted, and fizzed out, like the third neon sign. From the left.
AJ jumped. He was now on a platform that moved, and flipped, in a steady rhythm. He thought back to the days of gaming, of the project.
:Triple jump and I go far!”
He launched himself across that section with ease, with 3 jump and a clever back flip. He landed on a cube, turning every direction possible. AJ then succeeded with a wall jump after the cube, and crossed some shapes which turned, melted, faded out and did other, various motion-law defying tricks. A huge yellow shine was ahead.
“So close!”
He crossed some stars which turned, and jumped over some cuboids with little divots and bits that stuck out.
The shine was…erm…shining.
AJ jumped for it. The platform was there…
“SHINE!”
AJ instinctively watched Lakitu swerve in on him with the camera, and held the shine in a pose never attempted before. Then, the shine hit the ground.
“Wwhat?”
It mutated in various ways. Dog, book, giraffe, Libyan flag and then..
The purple switch. A glowing sign of hope, and the key to unlocking the first, and possibly hardest, console.
AJ butt-stomped it. It depressed somewhat, and AJ sat upright, in his chair, the artifact next to him spawning in shops across the globe. The revolution had began.
-----------
gerrid was cautious. He’d visited the first place, or to be specific, lived in it (reality and all). The second place was a bit dingy, and slightly pixilated, and he’d never ventured into the third place.
It seemed all right. Colours flashed, and shapes spun round. A heavy fog, grey in colour, had formed in patches, along with glowing red 3D things. Then a small creature appeared. It was a man, made up of several orange layers. gerrid spoke.
“The third place, huh?”
The figure nodded, its body moving rhythmically to a music gerrid couldn’t hear.
“I need to find the release switch..where is it?”
The figure was still moving. It lifted its arms, and clapped.
A whole vector universe unveiled itself to gerrid. Palaces, rivers and simple lines and shapes appeared. As did a sign.
“-AREA 1 .. LOG IN-“
gerrid was amazed. Then the music began – he remembered it well. Buggy Running Beats.
“Do I not get a gun?”
It was Rez. He had to prepare, and the figure handed over a gun. It then disappeared.
The first wave of enemies made its way towards gerrid. He linked his shots, and took out 8 at once. A massive score counter appeared. He continued to take out every enemy until layer 6, where he missed a few from a monstrous barrage. The final 4 layers were harder. In layer 7, the enemies fought back, with a vengeance, and successfully downgraded gerrid to level 1 from level 3. In the eighth and ninth layer, they let off s little. But only to help in the final layer.
A huge sphere, made up of tiles and various electrical pulses appeared. The score meter went into overdrive, as did the..er..overdrives.
The outer crust of tiles shattered once, then again. The final circles of tiles appeared, it was almost the end.
He shot wildly. The tiles he missed flew at him, and just as he wiped the enemy’s energy bar to 0, a green flyer hit him. He downgraded to level 0.
The cross of the enemy that was left floated around for a while. The ends then each turned in clockwise, and formed a circle. From inside, swirls of black and blue mixed together. The button landed on ground. gerrid shot at it, and down it went. Light hovered around its seals, then gerrid suddenly jumped up from his ‘sleep’ at the unit. The infamous PS2 started to find its way back to the homes of those who previous enjoyed their wonders. The artifact was opened, released. Only 3 more to go until gaming was restored. Of course..
There HAD to be a minor hiccup.
-----------
RM18 found himself inside, of course, the Dreamcast. The console may have flopped, but the games on it had left inspiration in the minds of all those who played it. RM18 was no exception. The Dreamcast found memories of itself in RM18’s mind, and recreated them, instead of the black void that the other 2 had currently experienced.
There was fields full of flowers, then a city, then a race track. It ended on the fields, and a story of a killed father.
“Heh… Shemue”
The fields disappeared again. He was back in the slightly rotted-away city. And standing in front of a wall with chalk markings. There was a grid, consisting of 16 spaces, and 9 of the spaces were filled. 3 with a star, 3 with an arrows pointing up, left or right, 2 with a cross, and a circle with star inside. A piece of chalk lay at the side.
RM18 began.
“The arrows must lead to the star in circle. You must pass through the sta…I remember this!”
He worked on the puzzle, play stars on areas to pass through, and more arrows to make up the direction. Once all 16 of the spaces were filled, the 9 things he filled in faded away.
“Wrong? What the hel…?”
He tried again. A few arrows were twisted the wrong way, on further inspection, and one didn’t pass through the star. The 16 spaces were once again filled.
The lines all merged into a swirl, which then came out of the wall. RM18 yelled.
“WOO Yeah!”
People turned round. RM18 was quiet, and pulled out the huge swirl. It landed on the ground, and next to it, a swirl shape hole appeared. The swirl fit perfectly, and RM18 woke up violently, back in 2032, in New York. The Dreamcast once again did its magic on the world, as people who had longed for years for its return welcome it into their homes. It was then that Time Warp emerged from his artifact, discovering it was the legendary GBA. He shouted at The Eliminator.
“Wake up and get out!”
RM18, gerrid and AJ looked at him. gerrid spoke.
“What’s wrong with you! It’s the final artifact, now that you’ve unlocked yours”
Time Warp was shuddering
“Microchips…in the artifact..said he’d get Eliminator..got to save him..”
-----------
The Eliminator was in the black, just like 2 others had been with the other artifacts. It was the Xbox. A rather vast space, but filled with money. Looks good, but to the touch, it displayed a face of Bill Gates, screaming, ‘coming to get ya’
He left it well alone.
“Anyone here?’
A figure could be seen seen rushing quietly, and the blackness turned into the first world of Halo.
Microchips stood there..
“You were doing so well. 4 artifacts unlocked, gaming to be returned to the world and mindless idiots with little better to do than to make a cat stop time would have made a swift comeback to reality.”
Eliminator shrugged his shoulders.
“And then, your little friend Time Warp physically abuses Yoshi. And guess who is in charge of animal welfare in the GBA artifact. 3 guesses.”
Eliminator pondered.
“Hitler?”
Microchips shook his head.
“Stalin?”
Another shake..
One final go.
“You?”
A large sign, flashing correct, came down onto the world. Eliminator safely assumed he was in charge of animal welfare. Damn”
Microchips continued.
“And now, I must kill you, and destroy the release crystal”
It stood high upon a mountain, a plateau high up. Microchips began to run, and Eliminator swiftly followed. He armed his weapon and tried to shoot Microchips. Microchips shouted.
“Time Stop!”
The world froze, as did the bullets. Both continued running.
“Release the hounds!”
Eliminator stared.
“What?”
Microchips stuttered…
“Erm…Time Unlock”
Eliminator had a smug grin. Fancy pants time stopper can’t even say right phrase. Microchips was embarrassed. To a certain extent.
The running continued, and the crystal was still a distance large away. Rounds were fired, bullets dodged, aliens hit, blood splattered. The usual. That was, until, the game stopped. Microchips was puzzled. As was Eliminator.
“Damn Xbox, crashing on me.”
The crystal reappeared, dotting round the area. It was fading in and out, but not smoothly, more frame by frame. Eliminator was amazed.
“It’s the RootBox”
Microchips still looked puzzled.
“The system upon which the Xbox is built upon. The very first Boxe’s had these, but it was found unnecessarily big, and replaced”. The actual casing, however, remained huge. Despite public demand.
The gun still lay in Eliminator’s hand.
“Heh, gotta live up to my name”
Microchip’s face fell from ha-ha-you’re-buggered-now to oh-god-im-buggered-now. It was entertaining to say the least.
“BYE BYE!”
The shot was fired. A camera swooped down on it, and the whole process was slowed down. The ripples of sound in the air could be seen. The movement could be pinpointed to any point. Microchip’s face was paralyzed in fear.
“Damn”
The shot hit. In the head. Microchips fell to the floor. Nothing was said.
The crystal continued to dot around. Eliminator aimed his gun. Shoot the crystal, push the button, restore gaming.
He aimed, and fired. A shot came out, The crystal continued to dot, but weirdly, the bullet followed the crystal. Then, finally,
It hit.
The whole Root Box area filled with lines. Green lines indeed, and they slowly formed a huge ‘X’, with a massive green button in the middle. It glowed.
The Eliminator slammed down on it.
And found himself back in the New York apartment, on the chair. Xboxes returned to all those who owned them, the majority going back to Americans. All was good in the world. And as soon as all 5 could walk (going into a games console as an artifact wasn’t easy) they left. Knick Knack really wasn’t the safest guy to be in a room with.
-----------
AJ, gerrid, Time Warp, Eliminator and RM18 were all back at Foreman’s house. It was one of gerrid’s best mates. Seemed nice enough. Eliminator had to ask, however..
“What the HELL did you do to Yoshi?”
Silence followed. Time Warp went red.
“Erm..well..he would suck in the apples, and wouldn’t get the coins, and demanded fruit and Mario and Peach and I just couldn’t cope!”
Further silence.
Then.
“So what did you do to him?” gerrid asked. Just one more question.
“Beat him violently. Surprised they had animal welfare in the artifact however. Enough talk, now, we need more play.”
All nodded. RM18 pulled out Samba de Amigo and 4 sets of maracas. And the fun they had waited 30 years for began again.
The End (for now)
-----------
Cast
AfroJoe
Gerrid
The Eliminator
Time Warp
RM18
Microchips
Knick Knack
Foreman (just sneaked you in at the end :D)
Just wanted to make the point this story is completely fictional, in its plot AND in the way I describe the characters. AJ is not dumb. Microchips is not evil. Time Warp is not a dinosaur-abuser, etc etc.
This story was posted on ukchatforums.com and is © Paul Holmes 2002
And finally, thanks for making it through all the story (that’s if you did, otherwise, go back :D)
-----------
Page:
Thank you very much!(in a sarcastic way) I would have left the fifth artifact the Xbox where I found it, why did that have to ome back.
Anyway... that was good but a bit confusing, I killed Microchips (erm, YEAH!). Thanks (I'm being sincere).
I'll be posting my own spoof sometime next week on FOG chat and it's a spoof of "The Terminator" called 'The Eliminator' which has a cast of spamming n00bs and some staffies, oh and Mystique and Rosalind.
Anyway... that was good but a bit confusing, I killed Microchips (erm, YEAH!). Thanks (I'm being sincere).
I'll be posting my own spoof sometime next week on FOG chat and it's a spoof of "The Terminator" called 'The Eliminator' which has a cast of spamming n00bs and some staffies, oh and Mystique and Rosalind.
Microchips is Evil!
I knew it!
Those blood stained letters he had been sending me were telling me something..........
;)
I knew it!
Those blood stained letters he had been sending me were telling me something..........
;)
You have a dangerous amount of free time availible. Still, you used it well, good post.
All 4 looked at RM18.
“And we would know how, genius?”
Favourite line. Though in context, not as much.
------
Brain meltingly long, but enjoyable.
:D
“And we would know how, genius?”
Favourite line. Though in context, not as much.
------
Brain meltingly long, but enjoyable.
:D
*cough*
that was... different..... pretty good, but rather confusing at the beginning then that Animal Welfare bit... WTF!?
Still, good post
Still, good post
This is my longest (and possibly best) story/spoof yet. Sorry about length, but I wanted to fit everything in casually, not hurriedly. Please read it all, and comments at the end :D
Fuzzy
-----------
Gerrid was pacing the floor. Time Warp was sitting on a large, plastic chair, swinging his feet, hypnotically back and forth. Eliminator was sitting at a large, plywood desk. It was made with cheap board, and a hollow noise was being made every time he rapped his fingers off it. Afrojoe stood up.
“It would seem we have a problem”
The other 3 looked, a mix of bemusement and worry across their faces. Maybe they should go back to fiddling. Or maybe not.
“The artifacts have…erm…”
The 3 looked slightly less bemused, and slightly more worried. Just like the time Knick Knack’s uncles sentence was being called, after he had missed the hearing.
“Disappeared”
Silence. Then a squeaker.
“Sorry..heh..”
The silence continued. The smell went from through its life cycle within a minute. The room was back to its original state.
“All of them..every one? Even the Xbox?”
AJ nodded.
“God…they must be desperate.”
Silence ensued for a while longer.
“Well, what do we do?”
The 4 contemplated. gerrid thought he could play with tin foil and a small electric current to get them back. Time Warp considered maybe broadcasting a public announcement over the Internet. Eliminator was wondering if he could possibly travel the world to get them back. This was, of course, the era of online gaming. *4* spoke.
“We could try and search the world for them?”
The other 3 shook their heads.
“Well, gerrid, how’s the tin foil theory going to work?”
“Well, you see, if you….”
“I was joking”
“Oh..”
Further silence, whilst everyone reconsidered. Time Warp’s idea was to be ignored, for no particular reason. Then AJ had somewhat of a brainwave, a rare occurrence for a person with IQ 60. The doctors called him ‘mentally underdeveloped’. His ‘friends’ called him stupid. His parents called him…’special’
“We could, like, go, like, multiplayer, like. Healthy, like”
This idea, however, was too basic, too simple. It had to be built upon. And who better than the resident care taker of the office building. They think he was called RM18, after the war and all, and his real name had been lost with an arm, shares to Microsoft and a few love letters from his deceased wife when he had been evicted from his flat with violent force. Mostly worthless, really.
“Eh, why not go online, and try and bring the artifacty-things out from..eh..in?”
The other four sat (and stood) and pondered, most holding a single finger to their chin to look intelligent. Only Eliminator was actually succeeding, and even he struggled. gerrid spoke
“I could have said that – I just didn’t want to”
Silence again. A quiet bunch they were. RM18 talked some more, breaking the clear (if not clean) air.
“So what dya think?”
Everyone nodded their heads. gerrid thought his tin foil idea would work when people understood that Russians could see through polystyrene. But he nodded anyway. Time Warp started to swing his legs again, nodding in agreement with everything (that, or it was a nasty by product of his leg swinging). Eliminator decided to get to work, and started searching the web for the terms ‘in+and+out+of+the+web’ and ‘jump+in+just+like+those+kinder+egg+card+things’. Afrojoe smiled. Not a nice, normal grin, but a big wide smile. Like that of a mental patient. Only more so. RM18 looked hopeful, and AJ spoke for the group.
“Good idea..yup…we’ll be doing that..uh-huh..yup…erm…so how do we do it exactly?”
(It may be a good time to point out now what the artifacts actually are. The 5 artifacts were created at the end of the 20th and start of the 21st century, on small, perfectly formed. One innovative. One slim and versatile. One with a swirl, a sign of a downward spiral (weakest of the artifacts) and one hell of a brick. They were the final artifacts to be created before the demise of ‘The Project’. Pong to Xbox was simply a project. And the artifacts are the key to restore the project, now 30 years later.)
RM18 was just about to explain. Then he remembered that he had no idea who the hell these people were. So before explaining..
“Erm..just out of interest…who are you all?”
AJ stood out, and announced himself as the leader. RM18 held back a laugh. AJ was a gamer, who wanted his only source of education to come back.
Time Warp told RM18 about his life. He used to jump in and out of time through his console. Everyone laughed when he told people, and his ‘gift’ had yet to be proven.
Eliminator was famed, and given his name, because of his job. He worked on the Quake 3 servers, happily killing folk, until the Government hired him because of his skills. He discovered the project through seeing a computer monitor, with details, in the Govt. place he worked. Dept. 304 as it happened. He had his own desk and everything. But he left after his revelation, and told folk about the project. And about the artifacts.
The gerrid was a bit in the middle. He was a part-time shop assistant, and a freelance photographer. And a rebel in his spare time. Any opportunity for a jaunt around the world with a bunch of gamers was worth a bit more than spare time, and therefore, gave up his shop assistant job, along with its huge wage. Yes, huge. Really. Well. No.
RM18 weakly smiled. They all registered highly on the weirdometer. But nonetheless, when RM18’s was a young whipper-schnapper, he played and nayed and oooooooo suits you sir on his Dreamcast and, in his folk’s own words, ‘Lord knows what else’. And also, anything must be better than this dead end job.
“Since I like, erm, gave you the idea can I…come with you”
The others muttered. The 5 artifacts – 4 people = 1 artifact without a finder. The 4 took a couple of minutes to suss out this immense question.
“Meh, why not. Come save the gaming world with us”
RM18 smiled.
“Mexcellent” was heard. “Mexcellent indeed..”
-----------
The plane was busy. Almost every seat in the 2 columns of 5 was full. RM18, Time Warp, Eliminator and AJ were also parallel to each other. Why the hell they were on a plane to infiltrate the artifacts was beyond them. But apparently some guy in New York had various things, including the right equipment, and symptoms of the bubonic plague.
The plane left off, and it was happily flying, minding its own 30,000 foot high business, when Time Warp spoke, the first of the 5 to speak on the whole flight. He was sitting at the window.
“Would you look at that?”
gerrid and RM18 turned. The other 2 continued to listen to the film playing, and the radio through the headphones. AJ found the static quite an intellectual listening experience. Both replied with something like..
“Look at what?”
The outside was interesting for a while, but their was only so many clouds shaped like famous people’s torso. Both gerrid and RM18 expected Time Warp to have seen a famous cloud. They were wrong.
“There a man wingwalking..how cool”
At first, the gerrid and RM18 didn’t think about what he said. Then it dawned on them…the project was Government secret thingy. Can’t tell a soul they said. Can’t leave the country, they said…oh god. RM18 spoke quietly
“Erm…maybe we should hide you guys…like..now?”
Time Warp, RM18 and gerrid all moved. Fast. Eliminator, on seeing the others, lay down where the others were sitting. AJ wouldn’t be suspected. He was so away-with-the-fairies, and weirdly innocent, how could he do wrong?
Somehow, 5 minutes later, the wingwalker managed to get into the plane. Obviously he hadn’t planned how he was going to get the 5 rebels out, but considering he’d got this far, there was no turning back, and he’d think of something on the spot. The wonders of initiative. Or at least, stacks of it.
The passengers cried out when he came into full view. How the hell was he here? And why the heck could we see him, wasn’t this a special ops thing?
Apparently not.
“Er..a need to find 5 guys…yup….anyone seen them?”
Every female looked at every male. Every male looked at the air stewardess who had a ‘special operation’ as she called it. She looked at AJ. AJ looked dazed.
Someone could be heard calling out.
“What do they look like?”
The wingwalker pondered.
“Let’s see…yup…im just checking…D’OH!”
He had left the e-fits and his finger detector at home, in the cupboard under the stairs (along with the psycho who thought he could do magic. Heh … heh … heh)
“I’ll be back!”
He jumped off the plane and released his parachute. Away he floated, into the fluffy white clouds.
Time Warp, gerrid and RM18 came out of wherever they had found. Eliminator stood up. AJ continued to look dazed.
“That was far too close. We should have known he would come”
All 4 looked at RM18.
“And we would know how, genius?”
Nothing more was said for the rest of the flight. Except the occasional stomach rumble. And other ruffling noises. But apart from those, and th tapping of feet on the floor, and the crying baby, nothing was mentioned, except everyone muttering about the wingwalker, but apart from that, nothing was said.
As you may imagine, it was rather noisy until touchdown.
-----------
The airport was rather busy. It was New York, and around 11:00am in the morning. All 5 of the intrepid ‘heroes’ were tired. Sleeping was the easy option. Saving the gaming world could wait. They’d waited 30 years, why not wait a few more hours.
-----
10 Hours Later
-----
They woke up. 3 mounds of change and a novelty New York cap had been left in front of them. They really had to change clothes..and wash….and stop drooling. There was time, however, or at least, there could have had time if the mysterious wingwalker hadn’t appeared.
“Sleepy bye”
They looked up.
“We just slept”
“You’re gonna sleep some more”
All 5 were quiet for a second.
“Meh” was heard, as each one had a strong sleeping potion of sorts injected into them. They woke up somewhere different.
-----------
A dark room was around them. Suddenly, though, a purple glow could be seen to the far left. Then a silver one. Then a green one. And a swirly sky one too. Finally, a blue glow appeared,
“Can….can it be?”
Someone walked in, but avoided the glows, so couldn’t be seen.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?”
It would appear they were what the 5 thought they were.
“The artifacts, the remnants of a project ended 3 decades ago. And I hear you search of them..to release them and restart the project. Why is this?”
The 5 didn’t want to restart any project. They wanted a new a new start. A new time. Just to find out and recreate the artifacts to begin the process again, forever. AJ spoke.
“We wanna play……”
He couldn’t resist it.
“Like. Pure healthy like”
The figure came into view RM18 gasped. The others gasped also, even not knowing who he was.
“M..M…M”
“Yes, RM18, I am creator of the cheesy gaming nation’
“Microchips?”
Microchips, working alongside RM18, had stayed with the Government. Now a lot older, and slightly spiteful since his steady supply of spoofs on a chat forum had become slightly tired through the bringing down of gaming, nodded his head.
“T’is me, RM18, t’is me”
“We’ve established that”
“Oh…well…good….anyway, the artifacts are Government project property, and you cannot have them!”
The 5 looked at each other, each, in turn, lost hope by the ton.
“And also, there’s the minor matter of me having to kill you. Kill you all…unless you get rid of the underworld gaming scene, where Pong is desperately and lovingly at the same time being created, and where Tetris clones are rare (the inverse of Earth)
The 5, once again, looked at each other. Was the cause worth death? Of course not! But it didn’t stop their courage from shining through like polished glass with the rest of the glass being dirty and covered in mud. Or something.
“We’d never do that. You’d have to kill us all it seems!”
gerrid piped up.
“Ill destroy the underworld!”
AJ slapped him
“Only joking, gawd, you’d think I was serious, no I’m not serious, nope, not at all, nope, can’t say I am. Not at all”
He was nervous. The others stared him into place.
“Your bravery is admirable, but now you must die. Sorry and all that!”
Microchips left the room, and sealed the door. Pipes came out of the ceiling, and let a deadly gas slowly fill the room. All swore like nothing before, and in sheer anxiety, tried to pull the door open, only making the vents pump more gas in.
The room was almost full, and the artifacts would never be theirs, when a final hope could b heard. It was the psycho under the stairs.
“Alohamora”
The door opened. It was, apparently, a magic spell.
RM18 groaned. As much as being saved was all good and well, this boy had a reputation for being the soppiest film star ever. And working with Rupert Grint. Is he completely stupid?
AJ picked up the purple glowing thing. gerrid got the blue glowy artifact, Time Warp got the silver glower, RM18 managed to get the swirly glow leaving Eliminator with the green glow artifact. They had the artifacts. Now they needed to get inside them.
They escaped the house they were imprisoned in, in central New York. Microchips had left, and surprisingly, and conveniently, there were not guards of any sort. The psycho child was told to go home. Before he unlocked any of his ‘own kind’.
-----------
Mid New York was busy. Very busy. They hailed a cab over. 3 ignored them They were English. And wanted .. ‘change’. Another looked insane, so they put their hands down for a while, and the 5th finally let them in.
“Where to?”
AJ handed over the address. It was on a ripped piece of paper quickly taken on a leaflet for Manchester Tours. gerrid had a great time.
“No problemo”
It was a long time since the 5 had heard that phrase. Thankfully, they probably wouldn’t hear it again. Damn Simpson’s. Damn…damn Simpson’s.
They cab ride was somewhat uneventful. That was, until they reached their destination. A grotty apartment in a tall block. A really grotty apartment. In a *really* tall block. Really.
They walked in. Went to the floor the piece of paper mentioned. Floor 13 indeed. Not a great omen. The lift looked somewhat dodgy, so they took the stairs
-----
13 floors later
-----
The paper read Door 15.
The door number read Door 15.
“This is it.”
Each as holding an artifact. Eliminator knocked on the door. A strange man appeared. Not the sort who asks you for change and recommends buses, the sort who says you’re a model, and he’ll play with you ‘if you like’
“The artifacts!”
He was a master of observation. No, really.
“We need to use your equipment. We need to get inside them”
The man pondered.
“If you can guess my name, I’ll let you in..”
“It’s Knick Knack, isn’t it?”
The man hung his head in shame.
“So you read the internet post?”
gerrid nodded. AJ squinted his eyes. RM18 nodded also.
“Well, you’d better come in. As you may have guessed, I’m called Knick Knack. Nice to meet and all”
Yet, there was no time for pleasantries. The room they walked into had 4 seats, and a small monitor next to each one. Also, a table with various leads was laid at each seat. Plus, a small station, for the smallest artifact.
“Sit down, with the artifact, at a terminal. One to each”
All of them sat down, with their artifacts still glowing.
“No time to waste. Place your head back, and tap the white button on the monitors”
“Erm..what white butt…?”
The white buttons bounced around the screens.
“Why are they going so fast?’
Knick Knack just gestured them to touch it. All of them succeeded.
“So you are true gamers? That was lightning fast. Only true reflexes of a gamer could tap those.”
All looked smug. That was, until a bolt of the colours of console they held hit through their spine, and transported themselves into the artifacts. The small silver artifact just whirred, and had a really low resolution, and virtually no light. Damn technology of the time. But Time Warp still found himself, well warped into the console.
-----------
AJ was inside the purple artifact. Huge signs, like neon, flashed round him. It was the Gamecube, the final part of the project. The space he walked in was a black void, with the occasional line or two of various colours floating beneath him. Or above. His feet made no sound, he was walking on nothing. A familiar voice could be heard…
“It’s a-me, Mar-i-o!”
AJ turned round.
“Woah – you’re like – Nintendo’s main man…or at least, your creator is..”
Mario went from happy to angry in a matter of picoseconds
“You-a-mentioned his-a name! He made-a-me clean all of Isle-a-Delfino!”
AJ pondered.
“But we, er, controlled you..?”
Mario looked even angrier
“No you a did not1 Don’t-a lie! Feel my pain! That is, if you want to unlock this Game-y-Cube thing-a”
The black void dropped, as did AJ, landing on a huge coloured block. There was a platform course ahead of him, and weird Mario music playing.
“Get to the end, you-a-fool!” Mario shouted, and fizzed out, like the third neon sign. From the left.
AJ jumped. He was now on a platform that moved, and flipped, in a steady rhythm. He thought back to the days of gaming, of the project.
:Triple jump and I go far!”
He launched himself across that section with ease, with 3 jump and a clever back flip. He landed on a cube, turning every direction possible. AJ then succeeded with a wall jump after the cube, and crossed some shapes which turned, melted, faded out and did other, various motion-law defying tricks. A huge yellow shine was ahead.
“So close!”
He crossed some stars which turned, and jumped over some cuboids with little divots and bits that stuck out.
The shine was…erm…shining.
AJ jumped for it. The platform was there…
“SHINE!”
AJ instinctively watched Lakitu swerve in on him with the camera, and held the shine in a pose never attempted before. Then, the shine hit the ground.
“Wwhat?”
It mutated in various ways. Dog, book, giraffe, Libyan flag and then..
The purple switch. A glowing sign of hope, and the key to unlocking the first, and possibly hardest, console.
AJ butt-stomped it. It depressed somewhat, and AJ sat upright, in his chair, the artifact next to him spawning in shops across the globe. The revolution had began.
-----------
gerrid was cautious. He’d visited the first place, or to be specific, lived in it (reality and all). The second place was a bit dingy, and slightly pixilated, and he’d never ventured into the third place.
It seemed all right. Colours flashed, and shapes spun round. A heavy fog, grey in colour, had formed in patches, along with glowing red 3D things. Then a small creature appeared. It was a man, made up of several orange layers. gerrid spoke.
“The third place, huh?”
The figure nodded, its body moving rhythmically to a music gerrid couldn’t hear.
“I need to find the release switch..where is it?”
The figure was still moving. It lifted its arms, and clapped.
A whole vector universe unveiled itself to gerrid. Palaces, rivers and simple lines and shapes appeared. As did a sign.
“-AREA 1 .. LOG IN-“
gerrid was amazed. Then the music began – he remembered it well. Buggy Running Beats.
“Do I not get a gun?”
It was Rez. He had to prepare, and the figure handed over a gun. It then disappeared.
The first wave of enemies made its way towards gerrid. He linked his shots, and took out 8 at once. A massive score counter appeared. He continued to take out every enemy until layer 6, where he missed a few from a monstrous barrage. The final 4 layers were harder. In layer 7, the enemies fought back, with a vengeance, and successfully downgraded gerrid to level 1 from level 3. In the eighth and ninth layer, they let off s little. But only to help in the final layer.
A huge sphere, made up of tiles and various electrical pulses appeared. The score meter went into overdrive, as did the..er..overdrives.
The outer crust of tiles shattered once, then again. The final circles of tiles appeared, it was almost the end.
He shot wildly. The tiles he missed flew at him, and just as he wiped the enemy’s energy bar to 0, a green flyer hit him. He downgraded to level 0.
The cross of the enemy that was left floated around for a while. The ends then each turned in clockwise, and formed a circle. From inside, swirls of black and blue mixed together. The button landed on ground. gerrid shot at it, and down it went. Light hovered around its seals, then gerrid suddenly jumped up from his ‘sleep’ at the unit. The infamous PS2 started to find its way back to the homes of those who previous enjoyed their wonders. The artifact was opened, released. Only 3 more to go until gaming was restored. Of course..
There HAD to be a minor hiccup.
-----------
RM18 found himself inside, of course, the Dreamcast. The console may have flopped, but the games on it had left inspiration in the minds of all those who played it. RM18 was no exception. The Dreamcast found memories of itself in RM18’s mind, and recreated them, instead of the black void that the other 2 had currently experienced.
There was fields full of flowers, then a city, then a race track. It ended on the fields, and a story of a killed father.
“Heh… Shemue”
The fields disappeared again. He was back in the slightly rotted-away city. And standing in front of a wall with chalk markings. There was a grid, consisting of 16 spaces, and 9 of the spaces were filled. 3 with a star, 3 with an arrows pointing up, left or right, 2 with a cross, and a circle with star inside. A piece of chalk lay at the side.
RM18 began.
“The arrows must lead to the star in circle. You must pass through the sta…I remember this!”
He worked on the puzzle, play stars on areas to pass through, and more arrows to make up the direction. Once all 16 of the spaces were filled, the 9 things he filled in faded away.
“Wrong? What the hel…?”
He tried again. A few arrows were twisted the wrong way, on further inspection, and one didn’t pass through the star. The 16 spaces were once again filled.
The lines all merged into a swirl, which then came out of the wall. RM18 yelled.
“WOO Yeah!”
People turned round. RM18 was quiet, and pulled out the huge swirl. It landed on the ground, and next to it, a swirl shape hole appeared. The swirl fit perfectly, and RM18 woke up violently, back in 2032, in New York. The Dreamcast once again did its magic on the world, as people who had longed for years for its return welcome it into their homes. It was then that Time Warp emerged from his artifact, discovering it was the legendary GBA. He shouted at The Eliminator.
“Wake up and get out!”
RM18, gerrid and AJ looked at him. gerrid spoke.
“What’s wrong with you! It’s the final artifact, now that you’ve unlocked yours”
Time Warp was shuddering
“Microchips…in the artifact..said he’d get Eliminator..got to save him..”
-----------
The Eliminator was in the black, just like 2 others had been with the other artifacts. It was the Xbox. A rather vast space, but filled with money. Looks good, but to the touch, it displayed a face of Bill Gates, screaming, ‘coming to get ya’
He left it well alone.
“Anyone here?’
A figure could be seen seen rushing quietly, and the blackness turned into the first world of Halo.
Microchips stood there..
“You were doing so well. 4 artifacts unlocked, gaming to be returned to the world and mindless idiots with little better to do than to make a cat stop time would have made a swift comeback to reality.”
Eliminator shrugged his shoulders.
“And then, your little friend Time Warp physically abuses Yoshi. And guess who is in charge of animal welfare in the GBA artifact. 3 guesses.”
Eliminator pondered.
“Hitler?”
Microchips shook his head.
“Stalin?”
Another shake..
One final go.
“You?”
A large sign, flashing correct, came down onto the world. Eliminator safely assumed he was in charge of animal welfare. Damn”
Microchips continued.
“And now, I must kill you, and destroy the release crystal”
It stood high upon a mountain, a plateau high up. Microchips began to run, and Eliminator swiftly followed. He armed his weapon and tried to shoot Microchips. Microchips shouted.
“Time Stop!”
The world froze, as did the bullets. Both continued running.
“Release the hounds!”
Eliminator stared.
“What?”
Microchips stuttered…
“Erm…Time Unlock”
Eliminator had a smug grin. Fancy pants time stopper can’t even say right phrase. Microchips was embarrassed. To a certain extent.
The running continued, and the crystal was still a distance large away. Rounds were fired, bullets dodged, aliens hit, blood splattered. The usual. That was, until, the game stopped. Microchips was puzzled. As was Eliminator.
“Damn Xbox, crashing on me.”
The crystal reappeared, dotting round the area. It was fading in and out, but not smoothly, more frame by frame. Eliminator was amazed.
“It’s the RootBox”
Microchips still looked puzzled.
“The system upon which the Xbox is built upon. The very first Boxe’s had these, but it was found unnecessarily big, and replaced”. The actual casing, however, remained huge. Despite public demand.
The gun still lay in Eliminator’s hand.
“Heh, gotta live up to my name”
Microchip’s face fell from ha-ha-you’re-buggered-now to oh-god-im-buggered-now. It was entertaining to say the least.
“BYE BYE!”
The shot was fired. A camera swooped down on it, and the whole process was slowed down. The ripples of sound in the air could be seen. The movement could be pinpointed to any point. Microchip’s face was paralyzed in fear.
“Damn”
The shot hit. In the head. Microchips fell to the floor. Nothing was said.
The crystal continued to dot around. Eliminator aimed his gun. Shoot the crystal, push the button, restore gaming.
He aimed, and fired. A shot came out, The crystal continued to dot, but weirdly, the bullet followed the crystal. Then, finally,
It hit.
The whole Root Box area filled with lines. Green lines indeed, and they slowly formed a huge ‘X’, with a massive green button in the middle. It glowed.
The Eliminator slammed down on it.
And found himself back in the New York apartment, on the chair. Xboxes returned to all those who owned them, the majority going back to Americans. All was good in the world. And as soon as all 5 could walk (going into a games console as an artifact wasn’t easy) they left. Knick Knack really wasn’t the safest guy to be in a room with.
-----------
AJ, gerrid, Time Warp, Eliminator and RM18 were all back at Foreman’s house. It was one of gerrid’s best mates. Seemed nice enough. Eliminator had to ask, however..
“What the HELL did you do to Yoshi?”
Silence followed. Time Warp went red.
“Erm..well..he would suck in the apples, and wouldn’t get the coins, and demanded fruit and Mario and Peach and I just couldn’t cope!”
Further silence.
Then.
“So what did you do to him?” gerrid asked. Just one more question.
“Beat him violently. Surprised they had animal welfare in the artifact however. Enough talk, now, we need more play.”
All nodded. RM18 pulled out Samba de Amigo and 4 sets of maracas. And the fun they had waited 30 years for began again.
The End (for now)
-----------
Cast
AfroJoe
Gerrid
The Eliminator
Time Warp
RM18
Microchips
Knick Knack
Foreman (just sneaked you in at the end :D)
Just wanted to make the point this story is completely fictional, in its plot AND in the way I describe the characters. AJ is not dumb. Microchips is not evil. Time Warp is not a dinosaur-abuser, etc etc.
This story was posted on ukchatforums.com and is © Paul Holmes 2002
And finally, thanks for making it through all the story (that’s if you did, otherwise, go back :D)
-----------
Fuzzy
-----------
Gerrid was pacing the floor. Time Warp was sitting on a large, plastic chair, swinging his feet, hypnotically back and forth. Eliminator was sitting at a large, plywood desk. It was made with cheap board, and a hollow noise was being made every time he rapped his fingers off it. Afrojoe stood up.
“It would seem we have a problem”
The other 3 looked, a mix of bemusement and worry across their faces. Maybe they should go back to fiddling. Or maybe not.
“The artifacts have…erm…”
The 3 looked slightly less bemused, and slightly more worried. Just like the time Knick Knack’s uncles sentence was being called, after he had missed the hearing.
“Disappeared”
Silence. Then a squeaker.
“Sorry..heh..”
The silence continued. The smell went from through its life cycle within a minute. The room was back to its original state.
“All of them..every one? Even the Xbox?”
AJ nodded.
“God…they must be desperate.”
Silence ensued for a while longer.
“Well, what do we do?”
The 4 contemplated. gerrid thought he could play with tin foil and a small electric current to get them back. Time Warp considered maybe broadcasting a public announcement over the Internet. Eliminator was wondering if he could possibly travel the world to get them back. This was, of course, the era of online gaming. *4* spoke.
“We could try and search the world for them?”
The other 3 shook their heads.
“Well, gerrid, how’s the tin foil theory going to work?”
“Well, you see, if you….”
“I was joking”
“Oh..”
Further silence, whilst everyone reconsidered. Time Warp’s idea was to be ignored, for no particular reason. Then AJ had somewhat of a brainwave, a rare occurrence for a person with IQ 60. The doctors called him ‘mentally underdeveloped’. His ‘friends’ called him stupid. His parents called him…’special’
“We could, like, go, like, multiplayer, like. Healthy, like”
This idea, however, was too basic, too simple. It had to be built upon. And who better than the resident care taker of the office building. They think he was called RM18, after the war and all, and his real name had been lost with an arm, shares to Microsoft and a few love letters from his deceased wife when he had been evicted from his flat with violent force. Mostly worthless, really.
“Eh, why not go online, and try and bring the artifacty-things out from..eh..in?”
The other four sat (and stood) and pondered, most holding a single finger to their chin to look intelligent. Only Eliminator was actually succeeding, and even he struggled. gerrid spoke
“I could have said that – I just didn’t want to”
Silence again. A quiet bunch they were. RM18 talked some more, breaking the clear (if not clean) air.
“So what dya think?”
Everyone nodded their heads. gerrid thought his tin foil idea would work when people understood that Russians could see through polystyrene. But he nodded anyway. Time Warp started to swing his legs again, nodding in agreement with everything (that, or it was a nasty by product of his leg swinging). Eliminator decided to get to work, and started searching the web for the terms ‘in+and+out+of+the+web’ and ‘jump+in+just+like+those+kinder+egg+card+things’. Afrojoe smiled. Not a nice, normal grin, but a big wide smile. Like that of a mental patient. Only more so. RM18 looked hopeful, and AJ spoke for the group.
“Good idea..yup…we’ll be doing that..uh-huh..yup…erm…so how do we do it exactly?”
(It may be a good time to point out now what the artifacts actually are. The 5 artifacts were created at the end of the 20th and start of the 21st century, on small, perfectly formed. One innovative. One slim and versatile. One with a swirl, a sign of a downward spiral (weakest of the artifacts) and one hell of a brick. They were the final artifacts to be created before the demise of ‘The Project’. Pong to Xbox was simply a project. And the artifacts are the key to restore the project, now 30 years later.)
RM18 was just about to explain. Then he remembered that he had no idea who the hell these people were. So before explaining..
“Erm..just out of interest…who are you all?”
AJ stood out, and announced himself as the leader. RM18 held back a laugh. AJ was a gamer, who wanted his only source of education to come back.
Time Warp told RM18 about his life. He used to jump in and out of time through his console. Everyone laughed when he told people, and his ‘gift’ had yet to be proven.
Eliminator was famed, and given his name, because of his job. He worked on the Quake 3 servers, happily killing folk, until the Government hired him because of his skills. He discovered the project through seeing a computer monitor, with details, in the Govt. place he worked. Dept. 304 as it happened. He had his own desk and everything. But he left after his revelation, and told folk about the project. And about the artifacts.
The gerrid was a bit in the middle. He was a part-time shop assistant, and a freelance photographer. And a rebel in his spare time. Any opportunity for a jaunt around the world with a bunch of gamers was worth a bit more than spare time, and therefore, gave up his shop assistant job, along with its huge wage. Yes, huge. Really. Well. No.
RM18 weakly smiled. They all registered highly on the weirdometer. But nonetheless, when RM18’s was a young whipper-schnapper, he played and nayed and oooooooo suits you sir on his Dreamcast and, in his folk’s own words, ‘Lord knows what else’. And also, anything must be better than this dead end job.
“Since I like, erm, gave you the idea can I…come with you”
The others muttered. The 5 artifacts – 4 people = 1 artifact without a finder. The 4 took a couple of minutes to suss out this immense question.
“Meh, why not. Come save the gaming world with us”
RM18 smiled.
“Mexcellent” was heard. “Mexcellent indeed..”
-----------
The plane was busy. Almost every seat in the 2 columns of 5 was full. RM18, Time Warp, Eliminator and AJ were also parallel to each other. Why the hell they were on a plane to infiltrate the artifacts was beyond them. But apparently some guy in New York had various things, including the right equipment, and symptoms of the bubonic plague.
The plane left off, and it was happily flying, minding its own 30,000 foot high business, when Time Warp spoke, the first of the 5 to speak on the whole flight. He was sitting at the window.
“Would you look at that?”
gerrid and RM18 turned. The other 2 continued to listen to the film playing, and the radio through the headphones. AJ found the static quite an intellectual listening experience. Both replied with something like..
“Look at what?”
The outside was interesting for a while, but their was only so many clouds shaped like famous people’s torso. Both gerrid and RM18 expected Time Warp to have seen a famous cloud. They were wrong.
“There a man wingwalking..how cool”
At first, the gerrid and RM18 didn’t think about what he said. Then it dawned on them…the project was Government secret thingy. Can’t tell a soul they said. Can’t leave the country, they said…oh god. RM18 spoke quietly
“Erm…maybe we should hide you guys…like..now?”
Time Warp, RM18 and gerrid all moved. Fast. Eliminator, on seeing the others, lay down where the others were sitting. AJ wouldn’t be suspected. He was so away-with-the-fairies, and weirdly innocent, how could he do wrong?
Somehow, 5 minutes later, the wingwalker managed to get into the plane. Obviously he hadn’t planned how he was going to get the 5 rebels out, but considering he’d got this far, there was no turning back, and he’d think of something on the spot. The wonders of initiative. Or at least, stacks of it.
The passengers cried out when he came into full view. How the hell was he here? And why the heck could we see him, wasn’t this a special ops thing?
Apparently not.
“Er..a need to find 5 guys…yup….anyone seen them?”
Every female looked at every male. Every male looked at the air stewardess who had a ‘special operation’ as she called it. She looked at AJ. AJ looked dazed.
Someone could be heard calling out.
“What do they look like?”
The wingwalker pondered.
“Let’s see…yup…im just checking…D’OH!”
He had left the e-fits and his finger detector at home, in the cupboard under the stairs (along with the psycho who thought he could do magic. Heh … heh … heh)
“I’ll be back!”
He jumped off the plane and released his parachute. Away he floated, into the fluffy white clouds.
Time Warp, gerrid and RM18 came out of wherever they had found. Eliminator stood up. AJ continued to look dazed.
“That was far too close. We should have known he would come”
All 4 looked at RM18.
“And we would know how, genius?”
Nothing more was said for the rest of the flight. Except the occasional stomach rumble. And other ruffling noises. But apart from those, and th tapping of feet on the floor, and the crying baby, nothing was mentioned, except everyone muttering about the wingwalker, but apart from that, nothing was said.
As you may imagine, it was rather noisy until touchdown.
-----------
The airport was rather busy. It was New York, and around 11:00am in the morning. All 5 of the intrepid ‘heroes’ were tired. Sleeping was the easy option. Saving the gaming world could wait. They’d waited 30 years, why not wait a few more hours.
-----
10 Hours Later
-----
They woke up. 3 mounds of change and a novelty New York cap had been left in front of them. They really had to change clothes..and wash….and stop drooling. There was time, however, or at least, there could have had time if the mysterious wingwalker hadn’t appeared.
“Sleepy bye”
They looked up.
“We just slept”
“You’re gonna sleep some more”
All 5 were quiet for a second.
“Meh” was heard, as each one had a strong sleeping potion of sorts injected into them. They woke up somewhere different.
-----------
A dark room was around them. Suddenly, though, a purple glow could be seen to the far left. Then a silver one. Then a green one. And a swirly sky one too. Finally, a blue glow appeared,
“Can….can it be?”
Someone walked in, but avoided the glows, so couldn’t be seen.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?”
It would appear they were what the 5 thought they were.
“The artifacts, the remnants of a project ended 3 decades ago. And I hear you search of them..to release them and restart the project. Why is this?”
The 5 didn’t want to restart any project. They wanted a new a new start. A new time. Just to find out and recreate the artifacts to begin the process again, forever. AJ spoke.
“We wanna play……”
He couldn’t resist it.
“Like. Pure healthy like”
The figure came into view RM18 gasped. The others gasped also, even not knowing who he was.
“M..M…M”
“Yes, RM18, I am creator of the cheesy gaming nation’
“Microchips?”
Microchips, working alongside RM18, had stayed with the Government. Now a lot older, and slightly spiteful since his steady supply of spoofs on a chat forum had become slightly tired through the bringing down of gaming, nodded his head.
“T’is me, RM18, t’is me”
“We’ve established that”
“Oh…well…good….anyway, the artifacts are Government project property, and you cannot have them!”
The 5 looked at each other, each, in turn, lost hope by the ton.
“And also, there’s the minor matter of me having to kill you. Kill you all…unless you get rid of the underworld gaming scene, where Pong is desperately and lovingly at the same time being created, and where Tetris clones are rare (the inverse of Earth)
The 5, once again, looked at each other. Was the cause worth death? Of course not! But it didn’t stop their courage from shining through like polished glass with the rest of the glass being dirty and covered in mud. Or something.
“We’d never do that. You’d have to kill us all it seems!”
gerrid piped up.
“Ill destroy the underworld!”
AJ slapped him
“Only joking, gawd, you’d think I was serious, no I’m not serious, nope, not at all, nope, can’t say I am. Not at all”
He was nervous. The others stared him into place.
“Your bravery is admirable, but now you must die. Sorry and all that!”
Microchips left the room, and sealed the door. Pipes came out of the ceiling, and let a deadly gas slowly fill the room. All swore like nothing before, and in sheer anxiety, tried to pull the door open, only making the vents pump more gas in.
The room was almost full, and the artifacts would never be theirs, when a final hope could b heard. It was the psycho under the stairs.
“Alohamora”
The door opened. It was, apparently, a magic spell.
RM18 groaned. As much as being saved was all good and well, this boy had a reputation for being the soppiest film star ever. And working with Rupert Grint. Is he completely stupid?
AJ picked up the purple glowing thing. gerrid got the blue glowy artifact, Time Warp got the silver glower, RM18 managed to get the swirly glow leaving Eliminator with the green glow artifact. They had the artifacts. Now they needed to get inside them.
They escaped the house they were imprisoned in, in central New York. Microchips had left, and surprisingly, and conveniently, there were not guards of any sort. The psycho child was told to go home. Before he unlocked any of his ‘own kind’.
-----------
Mid New York was busy. Very busy. They hailed a cab over. 3 ignored them They were English. And wanted .. ‘change’. Another looked insane, so they put their hands down for a while, and the 5th finally let them in.
“Where to?”
AJ handed over the address. It was on a ripped piece of paper quickly taken on a leaflet for Manchester Tours. gerrid had a great time.
“No problemo”
It was a long time since the 5 had heard that phrase. Thankfully, they probably wouldn’t hear it again. Damn Simpson’s. Damn…damn Simpson’s.
They cab ride was somewhat uneventful. That was, until they reached their destination. A grotty apartment in a tall block. A really grotty apartment. In a *really* tall block. Really.
They walked in. Went to the floor the piece of paper mentioned. Floor 13 indeed. Not a great omen. The lift looked somewhat dodgy, so they took the stairs
-----
13 floors later
-----
The paper read Door 15.
The door number read Door 15.
“This is it.”
Each as holding an artifact. Eliminator knocked on the door. A strange man appeared. Not the sort who asks you for change and recommends buses, the sort who says you’re a model, and he’ll play with you ‘if you like’
“The artifacts!”
He was a master of observation. No, really.
“We need to use your equipment. We need to get inside them”
The man pondered.
“If you can guess my name, I’ll let you in..”
“It’s Knick Knack, isn’t it?”
The man hung his head in shame.
“So you read the internet post?”
gerrid nodded. AJ squinted his eyes. RM18 nodded also.
“Well, you’d better come in. As you may have guessed, I’m called Knick Knack. Nice to meet and all”
Yet, there was no time for pleasantries. The room they walked into had 4 seats, and a small monitor next to each one. Also, a table with various leads was laid at each seat. Plus, a small station, for the smallest artifact.
“Sit down, with the artifact, at a terminal. One to each”
All of them sat down, with their artifacts still glowing.
“No time to waste. Place your head back, and tap the white button on the monitors”
“Erm..what white butt…?”
The white buttons bounced around the screens.
“Why are they going so fast?’
Knick Knack just gestured them to touch it. All of them succeeded.
“So you are true gamers? That was lightning fast. Only true reflexes of a gamer could tap those.”
All looked smug. That was, until a bolt of the colours of console they held hit through their spine, and transported themselves into the artifacts. The small silver artifact just whirred, and had a really low resolution, and virtually no light. Damn technology of the time. But Time Warp still found himself, well warped into the console.
-----------
AJ was inside the purple artifact. Huge signs, like neon, flashed round him. It was the Gamecube, the final part of the project. The space he walked in was a black void, with the occasional line or two of various colours floating beneath him. Or above. His feet made no sound, he was walking on nothing. A familiar voice could be heard…
“It’s a-me, Mar-i-o!”
AJ turned round.
“Woah – you’re like – Nintendo’s main man…or at least, your creator is..”
Mario went from happy to angry in a matter of picoseconds
“You-a-mentioned his-a name! He made-a-me clean all of Isle-a-Delfino!”
AJ pondered.
“But we, er, controlled you..?”
Mario looked even angrier
“No you a did not1 Don’t-a lie! Feel my pain! That is, if you want to unlock this Game-y-Cube thing-a”
The black void dropped, as did AJ, landing on a huge coloured block. There was a platform course ahead of him, and weird Mario music playing.
“Get to the end, you-a-fool!” Mario shouted, and fizzed out, like the third neon sign. From the left.
AJ jumped. He was now on a platform that moved, and flipped, in a steady rhythm. He thought back to the days of gaming, of the project.
:Triple jump and I go far!”
He launched himself across that section with ease, with 3 jump and a clever back flip. He landed on a cube, turning every direction possible. AJ then succeeded with a wall jump after the cube, and crossed some shapes which turned, melted, faded out and did other, various motion-law defying tricks. A huge yellow shine was ahead.
“So close!”
He crossed some stars which turned, and jumped over some cuboids with little divots and bits that stuck out.
The shine was…erm…shining.
AJ jumped for it. The platform was there…
“SHINE!”
AJ instinctively watched Lakitu swerve in on him with the camera, and held the shine in a pose never attempted before. Then, the shine hit the ground.
“Wwhat?”
It mutated in various ways. Dog, book, giraffe, Libyan flag and then..
The purple switch. A glowing sign of hope, and the key to unlocking the first, and possibly hardest, console.
AJ butt-stomped it. It depressed somewhat, and AJ sat upright, in his chair, the artifact next to him spawning in shops across the globe. The revolution had began.
-----------
gerrid was cautious. He’d visited the first place, or to be specific, lived in it (reality and all). The second place was a bit dingy, and slightly pixilated, and he’d never ventured into the third place.
It seemed all right. Colours flashed, and shapes spun round. A heavy fog, grey in colour, had formed in patches, along with glowing red 3D things. Then a small creature appeared. It was a man, made up of several orange layers. gerrid spoke.
“The third place, huh?”
The figure nodded, its body moving rhythmically to a music gerrid couldn’t hear.
“I need to find the release switch..where is it?”
The figure was still moving. It lifted its arms, and clapped.
A whole vector universe unveiled itself to gerrid. Palaces, rivers and simple lines and shapes appeared. As did a sign.
“-AREA 1 .. LOG IN-“
gerrid was amazed. Then the music began – he remembered it well. Buggy Running Beats.
“Do I not get a gun?”
It was Rez. He had to prepare, and the figure handed over a gun. It then disappeared.
The first wave of enemies made its way towards gerrid. He linked his shots, and took out 8 at once. A massive score counter appeared. He continued to take out every enemy until layer 6, where he missed a few from a monstrous barrage. The final 4 layers were harder. In layer 7, the enemies fought back, with a vengeance, and successfully downgraded gerrid to level 1 from level 3. In the eighth and ninth layer, they let off s little. But only to help in the final layer.
A huge sphere, made up of tiles and various electrical pulses appeared. The score meter went into overdrive, as did the..er..overdrives.
The outer crust of tiles shattered once, then again. The final circles of tiles appeared, it was almost the end.
He shot wildly. The tiles he missed flew at him, and just as he wiped the enemy’s energy bar to 0, a green flyer hit him. He downgraded to level 0.
The cross of the enemy that was left floated around for a while. The ends then each turned in clockwise, and formed a circle. From inside, swirls of black and blue mixed together. The button landed on ground. gerrid shot at it, and down it went. Light hovered around its seals, then gerrid suddenly jumped up from his ‘sleep’ at the unit. The infamous PS2 started to find its way back to the homes of those who previous enjoyed their wonders. The artifact was opened, released. Only 3 more to go until gaming was restored. Of course..
There HAD to be a minor hiccup.
-----------
RM18 found himself inside, of course, the Dreamcast. The console may have flopped, but the games on it had left inspiration in the minds of all those who played it. RM18 was no exception. The Dreamcast found memories of itself in RM18’s mind, and recreated them, instead of the black void that the other 2 had currently experienced.
There was fields full of flowers, then a city, then a race track. It ended on the fields, and a story of a killed father.
“Heh… Shemue”
The fields disappeared again. He was back in the slightly rotted-away city. And standing in front of a wall with chalk markings. There was a grid, consisting of 16 spaces, and 9 of the spaces were filled. 3 with a star, 3 with an arrows pointing up, left or right, 2 with a cross, and a circle with star inside. A piece of chalk lay at the side.
RM18 began.
“The arrows must lead to the star in circle. You must pass through the sta…I remember this!”
He worked on the puzzle, play stars on areas to pass through, and more arrows to make up the direction. Once all 16 of the spaces were filled, the 9 things he filled in faded away.
“Wrong? What the hel…?”
He tried again. A few arrows were twisted the wrong way, on further inspection, and one didn’t pass through the star. The 16 spaces were once again filled.
The lines all merged into a swirl, which then came out of the wall. RM18 yelled.
“WOO Yeah!”
People turned round. RM18 was quiet, and pulled out the huge swirl. It landed on the ground, and next to it, a swirl shape hole appeared. The swirl fit perfectly, and RM18 woke up violently, back in 2032, in New York. The Dreamcast once again did its magic on the world, as people who had longed for years for its return welcome it into their homes. It was then that Time Warp emerged from his artifact, discovering it was the legendary GBA. He shouted at The Eliminator.
“Wake up and get out!”
RM18, gerrid and AJ looked at him. gerrid spoke.
“What’s wrong with you! It’s the final artifact, now that you’ve unlocked yours”
Time Warp was shuddering
“Microchips…in the artifact..said he’d get Eliminator..got to save him..”
-----------
The Eliminator was in the black, just like 2 others had been with the other artifacts. It was the Xbox. A rather vast space, but filled with money. Looks good, but to the touch, it displayed a face of Bill Gates, screaming, ‘coming to get ya’
He left it well alone.
“Anyone here?’
A figure could be seen seen rushing quietly, and the blackness turned into the first world of Halo.
Microchips stood there..
“You were doing so well. 4 artifacts unlocked, gaming to be returned to the world and mindless idiots with little better to do than to make a cat stop time would have made a swift comeback to reality.”
Eliminator shrugged his shoulders.
“And then, your little friend Time Warp physically abuses Yoshi. And guess who is in charge of animal welfare in the GBA artifact. 3 guesses.”
Eliminator pondered.
“Hitler?”
Microchips shook his head.
“Stalin?”
Another shake..
One final go.
“You?”
A large sign, flashing correct, came down onto the world. Eliminator safely assumed he was in charge of animal welfare. Damn”
Microchips continued.
“And now, I must kill you, and destroy the release crystal”
It stood high upon a mountain, a plateau high up. Microchips began to run, and Eliminator swiftly followed. He armed his weapon and tried to shoot Microchips. Microchips shouted.
“Time Stop!”
The world froze, as did the bullets. Both continued running.
“Release the hounds!”
Eliminator stared.
“What?”
Microchips stuttered…
“Erm…Time Unlock”
Eliminator had a smug grin. Fancy pants time stopper can’t even say right phrase. Microchips was embarrassed. To a certain extent.
The running continued, and the crystal was still a distance large away. Rounds were fired, bullets dodged, aliens hit, blood splattered. The usual. That was, until, the game stopped. Microchips was puzzled. As was Eliminator.
“Damn Xbox, crashing on me.”
The crystal reappeared, dotting round the area. It was fading in and out, but not smoothly, more frame by frame. Eliminator was amazed.
“It’s the RootBox”
Microchips still looked puzzled.
“The system upon which the Xbox is built upon. The very first Boxe’s had these, but it was found unnecessarily big, and replaced”. The actual casing, however, remained huge. Despite public demand.
The gun still lay in Eliminator’s hand.
“Heh, gotta live up to my name”
Microchip’s face fell from ha-ha-you’re-buggered-now to oh-god-im-buggered-now. It was entertaining to say the least.
“BYE BYE!”
The shot was fired. A camera swooped down on it, and the whole process was slowed down. The ripples of sound in the air could be seen. The movement could be pinpointed to any point. Microchip’s face was paralyzed in fear.
“Damn”
The shot hit. In the head. Microchips fell to the floor. Nothing was said.
The crystal continued to dot around. Eliminator aimed his gun. Shoot the crystal, push the button, restore gaming.
He aimed, and fired. A shot came out, The crystal continued to dot, but weirdly, the bullet followed the crystal. Then, finally,
It hit.
The whole Root Box area filled with lines. Green lines indeed, and they slowly formed a huge ‘X’, with a massive green button in the middle. It glowed.
The Eliminator slammed down on it.
And found himself back in the New York apartment, on the chair. Xboxes returned to all those who owned them, the majority going back to Americans. All was good in the world. And as soon as all 5 could walk (going into a games console as an artifact wasn’t easy) they left. Knick Knack really wasn’t the safest guy to be in a room with.
-----------
AJ, gerrid, Time Warp, Eliminator and RM18 were all back at Foreman’s house. It was one of gerrid’s best mates. Seemed nice enough. Eliminator had to ask, however..
“What the HELL did you do to Yoshi?”
Silence followed. Time Warp went red.
“Erm..well..he would suck in the apples, and wouldn’t get the coins, and demanded fruit and Mario and Peach and I just couldn’t cope!”
Further silence.
Then.
“So what did you do to him?” gerrid asked. Just one more question.
“Beat him violently. Surprised they had animal welfare in the artifact however. Enough talk, now, we need more play.”
All nodded. RM18 pulled out Samba de Amigo and 4 sets of maracas. And the fun they had waited 30 years for began again.
The End (for now)
-----------
Cast
AfroJoe
Gerrid
The Eliminator
Time Warp
RM18
Microchips
Knick Knack
Foreman (just sneaked you in at the end :D)
Just wanted to make the point this story is completely fictional, in its plot AND in the way I describe the characters. AJ is not dumb. Microchips is not evil. Time Warp is not a dinosaur-abuser, etc etc.
This story was posted on ukchatforums.com and is © Paul Holmes 2002
And finally, thanks for making it through all the story (that’s if you did, otherwise, go back :D)
-----------
Page: