The Impossible Fortress(18)

“Help you?”

“Is Mary here?”

He set down his pipe, folded his newspaper, and looked me over. “You were here last week,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Some bullshit about starting a software company.”

“That wasn’t BS. I make games for real.”

“Why should I believe you?”

I showed him the disk. The paper label on the front read: THE IMPOSSIBLE FORTRESS

A Game by Will Marvin

Copyright ? 1987 by Planet Will Software Zelinsky lifted the disk by its corner and observed it from multiple angles, like he was examining counterfeit currency. “This is just a label,” he said. “Any joker could write their name on a label.”

I’d also brought a printout of the code—eight pages, single spaced, in a dot matrix typeface. Zelinsky flipped through it, not really reading it, because of course it was all Greek to him. “You understand this stuff? All these PEEKs and POKEs and whatnot?”

“Pretty much.”

He pointed to a random line. “What’s this? POKE SC comma L?”

“That changes the value of SC, the screen color. If L is zero, the screen turns black.”

“What’s DS equals PEEK JY?”

“That checks the value of the joystick register to see which way it’s pointing. If you’re pushing up, the value is three. If you’re pushing down—”

He handed back the printout. “No sodas on the desk,” he said. “I don’t want any spills. And I want you out by seven o’clock. She has homework.”

The bell over the front door rang—new customers had arrived, two men in coats and ties—and Zelinsky turned to greet them. Apparently I was free to proceed. I hurried into the store before Zelinsky could change his mind.

Soft rock was playing on tinny speakers in the ceiling—Hall and Oates’s “You Make My Dreams Come True.” I found Mary in the same place back in the showroom. She was hunched forward in her chair, her eyeballs inches from the screen, like she was counting pixels. She was listening to a Walkman, so she didn’t hear me approaching. The volume was so loud, I could hear the Phil Collins leaking out of her headphones. Sitting on the desk beside the 64 was an open can of Pepsi.

She saw me and pulled off the headphones.

“You got my message,” she said.

I nodded. “How’d you find my locker?”

“I live next door to Ashley Applewhite. She said she knew how to find you.”

I was surprised that Ashley Applewhite even knew my name. She was the kind of girl who took Honors Everything. Her father was superintendent of the entire Wetbridge school system.

“I really like the game,” I told her. “The Van Halen was dead-on.”

Mary shrugged and said it was no big deal. “I assumed you’d want old Van Halen, not new Van Halen.”

I was impressed that she even knew the difference. “Totally.”

She wore a black blouse, black skirt, black stockings, and black shoes. It would have been easy to mistake her for one of the gloomy goth girls who hung around the art room at my school, but Mary’s face glowed and she looked like she was smiling even when she wasn’t. Three hundred pounds was a ridiculous exaggeration. She was a little stocky, sure, but nowhere near obese. Mary rolled a swivel chair over to her desk so I could sit beside her.

“You want a soda?”

“No, thanks.”

“We’ve got Pepsi, Slice, Dr Pepper, and Jolt Cola. Have you tried Jolt Cola? It’s got twice the caffeine of Pepsi.”

“Your dad said no soda on the desk.”

Mary sighed and moved the Pepsi to the top of the computer monitor, balancing the can on its narrow, flat edge. “He always says that, but I’ve never had a spill.”

The can immediately slid forward on a skin of condensation, tipping over the side. My stomach lurched; I reached out and caught it just in time. “Maybe we should put it on the floor.”

“Whatever,” she said. “Let’s see this game.”

I gave her the disk with the Planet Will logo and braced myself for the usual razzing à la Alf and Clark. Mary looked at the label and laughed. “Planet Will Software, that’s a fantastic name,” she said. “Have you trademarked it?”

“Not yet.” I didn’t even know what that meant. “Should I?”

“Absolutely. I’ve been trying to name my company all year. The best I’ve got so far is Radical Music.”

“That’s pretty good,” I said.

“Planet Will is way better! It’s bold, it says fun, and your name’s in it. You better lock it up before somebody steals it.”

Mary loaded the game into memory and typed RUN. To my surprise, I found that my arms were trembling; I was actually nervous. I’d never shared my games with anyone who knew how to program—let alone someone smart enough to design an entire mini-game in a single weekend.

The title screen appeared with an 8-bit illustration of a foreboding castle. The hero and the princess stood center screen as a tinny theme song played, and then an ogre hauled the princess over his shoulders and dragged her away.

“This is awesome!” Mary exclaimed. “How did you draw this?”

“Koala Pad,” I explained. “Then I touched it up with Doodle.”