The Impossible Fortress(16)
“Just hear me out,” Tyler continued. “Mary works at the store every afternoon. And this chick is horny like a baboon, all right? I had to beat her back with a stick. She couldn’t keep her hands off me. She is desperate for action.”
“I’m not . . . I don’t want action with her,” Clark said.
“Just hang out,” Tyler said. “Talk with her, tell some jokes. Act like she’s interesting. Take her to the movies, play with her hair, kiss her—”
“I’m not kissing her,” Clark said. “I want the magazine. Really, I do. But I’m not kissing her.”
“Then we’re done,” Tyler said, rising to his knees. “And thanks for wasting my time. I thought you guys were serious.”
“We are!” Alf said. “We’re very serious!”
“Then you need the code,” Tyler insisted.
By this point, I was wishing I’d never left my house. Tyler’s plan was ridiculous. Its chances of working were zero. Any girl smart enough to program “Invisible Touch” on a C64 would never be stupid enough to give up the security code to her father’s store. We had climbed all the way to the top of the train station for nothing.
“I won’t do it,” Clark insisted. “I’m sorry.”
“Then I’ll do it,” Alf said grudgingly. “I won’t enjoy it, and I’ll have nightmares for life. But I’ll suffer for the greater good.”
Tyler shook his head. “She’s fat, but she’s not blind. It’s got to be Bryan Adams here.”
Clark didn’t look anything like Bryan Adams, but I knew what Tyler meant; he had the natural good looks of someone you’d expect to see on a concert stage. Whereas Alf looked like the sweaty kid working the concert concession stand, selling soft pretzels and Polish sausage.
“I’m not doing it,” Clark said.
They kept arguing back and forth, but I knew Clark wouldn’t budge; he might be willing to rob a store, but he was too kind to risk hurting someone’s feelings. I wanted to get off the roof and go home. I wanted to get back to programming my game. And that’s when I had my big idea—the stupid brainstorm that set this whole sad story in motion.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“You?” Tyler asked.
“Really?” Clark said.
“Yeah, I can do it,” I said. “I’ll get the code.”
This was a lie. I didn’t think anyone could get the code. I wasn’t even planning to try. But pretending to try would give me a good excuse to visit the store and show The Impossible Fortress to Mary. Maybe she’d know how to fix it. I still had fifteen days before the contest deadline.
Tyler seemed skeptical, so I turned on the macho bullshit. “But I’m going to need some time. I can’t just walk into the store and start grabbing her tits. It’s going to take a week or two. Most likely two.”
Clark stared at me in astonishment. He knew damn well that I’d never touched anyone’s tits, that I’d never even passed first base. “Seriously, Billy? You’d actually kiss her?”
“Kiss her, fondle her, I’ll bone her if I have to,” I said. “You guys plan the other details while I make nice with Miss Piggy.”
For the first time all evening, Tyler looked at me with respect and maybe even admiration. He clapped me on the shoulder. “You see! This is what I’m talking about. This is the kind of attitude that gets results!”
700 REM *** DRAW HERO SPRITE ***
710 POKE 52,48:POKE 56,48
720 FOR HE=0 TO 62:READ H
730 POKE 12888+HE,H
740 NEXT HE
750 POKE 2040,192:POKEV+21,1
760 POKE V+39,1
770 POKE V+0,HX
780 POKE V+1,HY
790 RETURN
THE INTERNET AS WE know it didn’t exist in 1987, but people willing to pay a thirty-nine-dollar membership fee and twelve bucks an hour could access CompuServe, which was the next best thing. If today’s Internet is like a vast galaxy with billions and billions of blogs, CompuServe was more like a small, private social club. There were limited topics of discussion and just a handful of games. Everything was controlled by CompuServe, and only CompuServe members could get inside.
There were no videos or graphics or sound. There wasn’t even color. Our 300-baud modems were barely capable of streaming ASCII characters, and the words filled our screens slowly, one c . . . h . . . a . . . r . . . a . . . c . . . t . . . e . . . r at a time. Every interaction was like waiting for a Polaroid to develop. After logging in to the site, I had to wait a full minute for the main menu to download: CompuServe Information Service
23:12 EST Friday 15-May-87
1. Newspapers
2. Finance
3. Entertainment
4. Communities
5. CompuServe User Information
6. Electronic Mail
Enter your selection number, or H for more information.
>__
I chose option 6, ELECTRONIC MAIL—an easy way to contact Mary without visiting the store and facing Zelinsky. The contest rules had come from a CompuServe user’s group, and Mary’s member ID number was printed at the top of the page. All electronic mail on CompuServe had a maximum limit of twelve lines, so I kept my message brief.