IT WAS 11 PM, CLOSING TIME at Planet X. Most of the gamers had all ready filed out to the street and started their walk home for the night.
Danny was sweeping up the front of the arcade, waiting for the last few stragglers to leave so he could lock up. Todd had turned off the stereo and turned on the bright fluorescent lights fixed to the ceiling, a subtle hint that: It’s closing time, finish up your last game of Golden Axe, then get the hell out of my arcade.
The last groups of friends shuffled out of the arcade, realizing they weren’t welcome anymore. Danny locked the door, leaned on his broom, and hollered to Todd, “Well, how’d we do?”
Todd was counting out the arcade’s single register. “We did all right. Not bad at all. We might just stay afloat.”
“I had to empty the trays on the air-hockey table twice,” Danny said. “They were bursting with quarters.”
“The Ninja Turtles machine did better than it ever has.”
Danny said, “That’s weird,” and he went back to sweeping. “That cabinet hasn’t had much play in a while.”
“Well, the Ninja Turtles movie releases on VHS next week, so I think that helped generate some excitement.”
“What about the new one? Fan…Fan-tass…Fan-tass-us…” Danny struggled to pronounce the name.
Todd raised an eyebrow, a warning, a Don’t say ‘I told you so’ after this. “It made a buck.”
Danny laughed. “A buck?”
“Yeah, a single buck. My buck.”
Danny stopped sweeping again. “Get out. You’re pulling my leg.”
Todd said, “No, amigo, no leg pulling here.” He glanced up from the register to catch Danny fighting back a smirk. “Go ahead, rub it in.”
Danny couldn’t help but laugh. “Rub what in? I’ve got nothing to say.”
“It’ll generate money eventually.” Todd sighed and went back to counting greasy, crumpled dollar bills. Why couldn’t children learn to use wallets? They kept their money stuffed deep in jean pockets, only to be fished out by grubby fingers coated in a candy glaze or popcorn oil. Disgusting.
Danny said, “Look, don’t spaz. On a good month the Centaur pulled in what—twenty, maybe fifty bucks? And the people at Vidtronix are paying you five hundred big ones just to let Phantasos sit on our floor. So, who cares if no one ever plays it? For as long as they display it in our humble establishment, we’re off the government cheese.”
Todd sighed. His friend had made a good point. “Have you played it yet?”
“Nope,” Danny said.
“You should try it out, the visuals are really fantastic. Fantastic, Phantasos? Maybe that’s where the name comes from…anyway, you should check it out.”
“I’m not a sucker,” Danny said. “You just want me to feed a buck into that machine so you can say it made two instead of one.”
“It’s not that at all,” Todd said, and he laughed. “Try it out.”
Danny stopped sweeping and looked at the machine. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but the machine bothered him. It kept him on edge. Whenever he was near it, he felt a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach. He thought he was imagining it at first, but as the night went on he watched his customers. No one showed interest in the machine or wanted to be around it. Despite its state-of-the-art graphics and claims of virtual reality, Phantasos seemed to repel anyone who neared it. Maybe it was the high cost per play, but deep down, Danny suspected there was more to it than that.
Danny hadn’t mentioned any of this to Todd, of course; the man was running himself ragged throughout the night, working himself to the bone to make his profits. Phantasos was Todd’s great white hope, something to believe in, and Danny didn’t want to shatter that with a Listen, pal, no one is playing this dumb machine.
“What’s it even about?” Danny asked.
Todd stopped counting, looked as if he’d been asked a question in a foreign language that he didn’t speak. “How do you mean?”
“Is it a shoot-em-up? A fighter? A side-scroller? Puzzles? What’s the objective of Phantasos?”
Todd said, “Well, it’s more like—” and the phone in the back office rang. Todd mumbled something, fanned the dollar bills in his hand, and scribbled a number into a ledger beside the register. He slammed the till shut, pivoted on one foot, and raced to grab the phone.
During the short jog to the back office, Todd wondered who could possibly be calling at such an hour. Probably not (hopefully not) bill collectors, but just to be safe he didn’t ask Danny to get the phone. He didn’t want his junior partner to know just how massive the debts had grown. It was probably a parent phoning the arcade; it wasn’t entirely uncommon for a mom to call late at night looking for her kid, or to check on something her kid lost, hoping to hear it that it was safely in the lost and found.
Todd glanced into a cardboard box on the floor of the office, the designated lost and found, saw that it was empty and answered the phone. “Planet X Arcade, what can I do you for?”
“Hello, is this Mr. Todd Prower?”
“Sure is. But lady, we’re closed. What can I help you with?”
“Oh, Mr. Prower, I am so sorry to have called past business hours. My name is Amy Armstrong, and I’m calling on behalf of the Vidtronix Games Corporation. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about the Phantasos machine we installed at your arcade earlier today?”
Todd flicked his wrist and looked at his watch. 11:11 PM. Danny always got cranky when they stayed too long past closing. “Sure, but uh, time is a factor, all right?”
“Of course, Mr. Prower.” The woman’s voice on the other end was saccharine sweet, absolutely sickening. How can anyone be this pleasant at 11 PM? Todd wondered.
The woman said, “On a scale of one through ten, how would you rate your satisfaction with this morning’s delivery service?”
“Hm,” Todd said. He didn’t want to sound like a jerk. “Seven outta ten.”
“And we sent someone out to service your machine for calibration, before it was installed, yes?”
“Sure,” Todd said. “His name, I think, was Mr. Varghese?”
“Of course, Mr. Varghese. And once more, on a scale of one through ten, how would you rate your satisfaction with Mr. Varghese’s visit?”
“Nine outta ten.”
“Oh, we’re so pleased to hear that, Mr. Prower. Really pleased. Now, if you don’t mind me asking, you mentioned that your shop has closed for the evening. Do you have the income totals for the Phantasos machine present?”
“No, but I don’t need them. The machine made a lousy dollar all night. My dollar, mind you. That was it.”
“We’re so sorry to hear that, Mr. Prower. Of course, per our agreement with you, we will pay for the use of your floor space no matter how well or how poorly Phantasos earns revenue in your arcade.”
“Sure, of course,” Todd said. “Sounds great. Anything else?”
“Just one last question, Mr. Prower, if you’d be so kind. Have you ever thought of jumping in front of a speeding train?”
Todd shuddered, felt a ringing in his ears, felt his hands go limp. He nearly dropped the phone. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“I’m sorry, is it a bad connection?” A pop of static hissed on the line. “What I said, was, have you ever thought of jumping in front of a speeding train?”
“The hell is this, some kind of sick joke? Who is this? Who are you?”
“Do you ever think of Shelly Mr. Prower do you ever think of jumping in front of a speeding train have you ever found yourself thinking of what you might look like jumping in front of a speeding train or have you ever thought of how it would feel standing on the tracks and down the line comes a speeding train—”
“Who is this you sick, son of a bitch? You’re a terrible human being! I’ll trace this call, you sick fu—”
“Do you ever wonder how you’ve failed Shelly and do you ever wonder how you’d feel lying on the tracks as a speeding train—”
“I’ll kill
you, do you hear me?” Todd screamed. His face was hot with anger. Sweat was forming on his forehead, underneath his bangs. “I’ll find out who you are, and I’ll kill you where you stand. I’ll tear your throat out, do you understand me?”
“And do you ever think of how you’d look just lying on the tracks and—”
Todd screamed, an agonizing howl, he screamed and he hollered before the tears could hit the corners of his eyes, and he tore the phone off of the wall—he tore it, plaster falling, wires snapping—he tore it from the wall and with an impossible strength he threw it into the floor of the office, and it shattered into a million pieces.
At the speed of light Danny came running into the office. He found his business partner kneeling on the floor in a pile of splintered plastic and said, “Holy shit! What’s going on in here? Are you all right?”
Todd was sobbing in big, wheezy sobs. Tears the size of marbles streamed down his cheeks and he said, “It’s just someone with a sick sense of humor. Just an awful person. An awful, awful person.”
Danny didn’t know what to do, so he knelt beside his friend, his partner, his boss—he knelt beside him and he wrapped an arm around his neck. He had never seen him so upset.
“Let’s get out of here. We’ll lock up now, I need a drink.”
“I haven’t finished sweeping out the front,” Danny said.
“To hell with the front,” Todd said. “We’re leaving now.”
Six
IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT. LAUREN HAD fallen asleep in her lawn chair and Benji was close to drifting off, too. When all the notebooks of the past year had been set ablaze, the trio turned to grilling hotdogs on sticks. When the hotdogs were gone, they switched to making s’mores. As midnight crept close, eyelids grew heavy; Lauren was the first to crash, a smear of Hershey’s chocolate dried to the corner of her lips. Benji would be next, the gentle chirping of cicadas lulling him to sleep.
But Alley, sweet Alley, too good for this world Alley, showed no signs of tiring. Benji suspected it was because his birthday party was the next night.
“It has been a lovely night,” Alley said in a mock British accent. He was staring at the stars, just as he had been for most of the evening. “I don’t think I’ve been bit by a mosquito once.”
Benji yawned. “Me neither, Al,” and he thought to say: maybe it’s time we head inside for the night. But Alley’s face was so filled with wonder, staring up at the cosmos, that he didn’t dare.
“Do you think there’s aliens up there looking back down at us?”
Benji chuckled and thought for a moment. “Whether I say yes, or whether I say no, the answer is kind of spooky. It’s too late for me to start having such gnarly thoughts. They’d keep me up all night.”
Alley continued to press the subject anyways. “Have you ever heard of a guy named Fermi?”
“Fermi?” Benji asked, and he leaned forward, picked up the bag of marshmallows, and skewered one onto the stick he’d been using to cook with all night.
“Yeah, Fermi,” Alley said. “The guy has a paradox named after him.”
Benji smiled, thought: Fermi, paradox, space? Despite being a grade behind him, Alley was always so much smarter than he was, and Benji suspected that Alley was about to prove that point again. “No, Al. I’ve never heard of him.”
“Okay,” Alley said. “Well what Fermi basically said, was this: With the universe being as old as it is, and as big as it is, there should be a bunch of solar systems out there, with suns like ours and earths like ours. So, with the high probability of so many other planets that could nurture life, where is everyone?”
Benji shoved a burnt marshmallow between two graham crackers. All the chocolate was gone. “I don’t know, Al…what do you mean?”
“I mean, everything is in place for another civilization to have visited us by now—or, at the very least, send us a radio message saying ‘hi’—and they haven’t. Why don’t they want anything to do with us?”
“If an alien civilization ever visits Grand Ridge, I hope Sigourney Weaver is in town that day.”
“I’m being serious, Ben,” Alley said, and he threw a piece of stale graham cracker at his friend.
Benji said, “Maybe they have visited us, and we just don’t know it yet.”
Alley laughed. “Well that’s a scary thought. I never thought of that. Yikes.”
The two chuckled, and after a pause Alley said, “Well, where I was going with all of this was…it’s a big universe to feel so alone in, you know? And I wonder, if it’s so big, if there’s a heaven and where it is?”
Benji stopped smiling, stopped laughing. He started to chew on his s’more slower. It was absolutely dreadful whenever Alley got stuck in a depressing train of thought like this, and Benji couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want to think of how sick his best friend was, and all the reasons why he would have thoughts like this. He tried not to be saddened by it, tried to pep up and answer his friends question honestly.
“Maybe it’s there and we just can’t see it,” he said.
Alley looked around at the campfire, then back up at the stars. “I think maybe heaven is right here, right now. Maybe this is heaven.”
Benji smiled and said, “I hope not. If so, heaven is out of chocolate.”
By now, Lauren was starting to squirm, curled up in her chair. She opened one eye and looked over the dying embers of the campfire. “What are you two zeeks going on about?”
“Oh, you know,” Benji said. “The nature of the universe. Basic campfire chit-chat.”
Lauren stood up, stretched her arms and legs, and let out a roar of a yawn. “C’mon, Alley. We gotta get back or mom and dad will kill us. It’s gotta be past midnight.”
Alley waved towards the house across the street. “Uh, they know where we are. They can see us from the living room if they want to. I don’t think they’ll mind. It’s not like we’re prowling the streets of Grand Ridge all night long.”
Lauren crossed her arms. “It’s late, you have a big day tomorrow. You have to be rested for your party.”
“Fine, fine. Whatever.”
Lauren groaned and started clawing at her arm. “Freakin’ mosquitos,” she said. “I was nearly eaten alive tonight.”
Benji walked Lauren and Alley across the street and up to the front porch of the Emerson household. Alley walked in first, said, “Goodnight, lovebirds,” and pretended to vomit.
“So I’ll see you tomorrow night then?” Lauren said.
Benji said, “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Do you guys have any plans during the day?”
“Sitting in the living room, eating ice cream from the carton, watching The Price is Right. That’s about it.”
“That sounds great and all,” Benji said, “but I thought maybe we could bike over to the Shop-and-Save and fish for some quarters. Get a good haul so that we can get some serious playtime in at Planet X later in the week.”
“That sounds fun,” Lauren said, smiling. “And I’m sure Alley would like that plan, too.”
“If he’s feeling up to it.”
“Of course,” Lauren said, and she nodded as if to say goodnight.
“Well, goodnight, Lore,” Benji said.
“Goodnight.”
Benji snuck up the stairs of his house, so as not to wake his parents. He counted the steps in his mind as he went: one, two, three…. Step thirteen had the awful creak, and if you hit it too hard it would groan, and he didn’t want his father—who had to be up awfully early for work—to hear the groan and scold him. Ten, eleven, twelve. Benji held his breath, grabbed the railing, and skipped the thirteenth step entirely.
He found his way to his bedroom, didn’t bother to click on a light. He was exhausted. He plopped onto his bed and stared out of his bedroom window at the Emerson house across the street.
Light from streetlamps poured in through the blinds, along with the high beams of the occasional passing car. He thought of Lauren and wondered what she was doing. She was
probably curled up in bed with a paperback. He wondered if she was wondering about him, then thought it was probably best not to think of such things. The Bauers and the Emersons had been neighbors for ages; Benji, Lauren, and Alley had practically grown up together. More family than friends.
As he stared out of his bedroom window, a familiar light flashed and caught his eye.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
It was Alley, delivering flashlight signals from his bedroom to Benji’s. Benji recognized the triple blink and how it was code for: Pick up your walkie.
Benji was tired, it had been a hideously long day. He just wanted to sleep, but he could never say no to Alley. He got up from his bed, stumbled over to his dresser, picked up his walkie and clicked the switch to on. The speaker hissed to life.
“Alley? Over.”
“Benji. I’ll be quick. Over.”
“’Sup Alley? Over.”
A pause.
“Lauren said you want to go quarter fishing at the Shop-and-Save tomorrow. Over.”
“Yeah, we haven’t been to Planet X in weeks. Figured we could stop in sometime, depending on how many quarters we find. Over.”
“That sounds tubular. I’m so excited, I can’t wait! Over.”
“Me too, Alley. It’ll be a lot of fun. Over.”
“I heard they have a new machine, and it has cutting-edge 3D graphics, and it’s all in virtual reality. They call it fan…fant…Phantasos?”
A loud, squelching tone erupted through the speaker on Benji’s walkie, so loud he worried it might wake his parents. He paused, waited to hear if Alley said anything more.
Alley said, “Are you there? Over.”
“Yeah—did you hear that sound? Over.”
“What sound? Over.”
“It’s probably nothing, Alley, but I have to go to sleep. Goodnight, I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll meet up after Price is Right. Over.”
“I can’t wait. Goodnight. Over.”
Seven
TODD JUGGLED TWO COFFEES IN ONE hand and the keys to the arcade in the other. It was early; the sun was just breaking over Grand Ridge. The air was a pleasant temperature. Crisp, not too cool. By the time afternoon rolled around, it would surely be muggy and sweltering outside.
Phantasos Page 3