The Impossible Fortress(58)
“How did you know?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Just a hunch.”
“More like natural instincts, if you ask me.” Hibble grabbed my wrists and forced me to study my palms. “You’re a born mechanic! Good with your hands! That’s called a gift, Billy. And Cosmex will put your gift to work, I guarantee it.”
I avoided my locker all day because I was afraid of seeing Tyler Bell. I feared he was planning to take some kind of spectacular revenge on me. But at lunchtime, Alf and Clark explained that I didn’t have to worry. Tyler had dropped out of school just three weeks before graduation and enlisted in the United States Army. “They’re sending him down to Fort Benning,” Alf explained. “It’ll be a long time before you see him around Wetbridge again.”
Relieved, I finished my lunch and went to my locker. Upon opening the door, I found a black Maxell disk waiting atop my belongings. I recognized it immediately. The label read FORTRESS BACKUP in Mary’s pristine cursive handwriting. The night of the deadline, we’d sent the master copy to the Rutgers contest but kept a backup for ourselves at the store. I checked around the disk for a note, some kind of explanation, but there was nothing. Then I remembered who I was dealing with and brought the disk to the library.
The lone computer terminal was available, so I inserted the disk and loaded the directory. There were just two files, a large backup of the game and a smaller file named GOOD-BYE. I loaded GOOD-BYE into memory and typed RUN. At first glance it appeared to be another text adventure, like the other two mini-games Mary had sent me.
They told me what you did, "Billy." I can't believe it's true. But they say you made a full confession, that you answered to everything.
The Impossible Fortress was an excuse.
Radical Planet was a trick.
The plan was to fool the fat girl, make the fat girl think she was pretty. Well, I have to admit, it worked. This fat girl was fooled.
The cursor was blinking, prompting me to input a reply.
>I'M SORRY
But I knew it was a dummy prompt, that it didn’t matter what I typed, that there was no way to win or lose this game. More text spilled down the screen.
I can't believe I trusted you.
I told you so many things that I never told anyone.
And guess what, genius? If you'd just asked me for the alarm code, I probably would have told you that, too. I would have wanted you to know the story behind it. October 2 was my mother's birthday, so 10-02 was my lucky number.
And now that's ruined for me, along with everything else.
Again the cursor prompted me for a reply, another dummy prompt. I didn’t type anything this time, just hit RETURN.
So now I just need to forget. That's what all the grown-ups keep telling me. "Don't waste another minute thinking about that jerk." And I know they're right. I just don't know how I could have been so wrong.
Lucky for me, there aren't many reminders of you in the showroom. Just some notes and backup disks that I've already trashed. This is the last backup copy of the game we made together. I just wish all mistakes were this easy to erase.
As I read, the motor in the disk drive started spinning, a familiar sound which usually meant the computer was loading more data. But then the drive made a loud knocking noise—the sound of a disk being reformatted and wiped clean. I popped out the disk and the game was interrupted by a DOS error. I thought that I’d been fast enough, but when I checked the directory, it came up empty, zero files in memory.
The Impossible Fortress was gone.
2700 REM *** DRAW NEW HERO ***
2710 FOR X=0 TO 62
2720 READ A
2730 POKE 12544+X,A
2740 NEXT A
2750 POKE 2044,196
2760 POKE V+21,16
2770 POKE V+43,1
2780 POKE V+8,HX:POKE V+9,HY
2790 RETURN
THAT AFTERNOON, I WENT to my classes determined to make a fresh start. With no computer programming in my future I was free to concentrate on my grades. I decided I would end the year on a high note. I would ace my finals and give my mother a report card worthy of posting on the refrigerator. I arrived at Rocks and Streams and took a seat in the front row. I opened my notebook and put the date at the top of the page. I listened attentively as Ms. Seidel patiently drilled us on the five kinds of igneous rocks: granite, diorite, gabbro, peridotite, and pegmatite. After a minute or so I turned to a new page and started writing a letter to Mary.
The guilt kept sneaking up on me and derailing my concentration. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d done—or what Mary thought I’d done. I needed her to know the truth. The Impossible Fortress wasn’t an excuse. Radical Planet wasn’t a trick. Everything was real, it was all real.
I spent the afternoon sitting in classes and putting these thoughts on paper, drafting a letter to send to Mary. I didn’t think anything could be harder than writing machine language, but I was wrong. Again and again, I crumpled my paper into a ball and gave up. But after a few moments my thoughts would return to Mary, and I’d start writing again.
The end-of-day bell rang at two forty-five, and I still wasn’t happy with my letter, but it would have to be good enough. I hurried out of wood shop and bolted down the hall, darting around students as they emerged from classrooms, pushing and jostling each other, ready to go home. Everybody had spring fever, but there were still three more weeks of school. I could feel a sort of expanding energy in the hallways, a growing pressure, as if the school couldn’t contain us much longer.