The Impossible Fortress(75)
I’d never been to a college before, and I wasn’t sure if I was dressed okay. I’d worn turquoise Jams and a white polo shirt with a popped collar, because the preppy kids in movies always popped their collars. But as we got in line with the other kids and parents, I realized I’d worried for nothing. Everybody else was wearing tees—Pac-Man tees, Bloom County tees, Far Side tees.
To most people, I’m sure it looked like a science fair crammed inside a gym. But I felt like I’d arrived at Disney World. There were rows and rows of folding tables with all kinds of computers, and giant bundles of power cables crisscrossing the floor. There were schools and colleges advertising their computer science programs; there were wholesalers and software vendors and computer club representatives. And everywhere I looked, there were kids—hundreds of kids, all of them computer geeks just like me.
Along one wall was a row of coin-op arcade games set to free play, and Alf and Clark drifted off to try them. I walked over to the registration desk and met a man named Dr. Brooks, who introduced himself as a trustee of the university. He wore a navy sports coat with an American flag on the lapel; his face was very tan, almost orange, and he had the whitest, brightest teeth of anyone I’d ever met. He handed me a badge that said FINALIST and said, “I liked your game, Will.”
I thought he was mistaken, that he’d confused me with someone else. “My game is The Impossible Fortress.”
“I know. You’re Will Marvin,” he said. “I’m judging the winners this evening.”
“You’re judging? Where’s Fletcher Mulligan?”
“His flight was delayed,” Dr. Brooks explained. “There were storms over Pittsburgh, and his plane was rerouted to Cleveland.”
“So what time is he getting here?”
“I’m afraid he’s not going to make it.” My disappointment must have been obvious because Dr. Brooks quickly started telling me about his own qualifications. He explained that he was an executive at Boeing, an aerospace company that supplied jets to the air force and rockets to NASA. “I’ve been working around computers my whole life, so I’m pretty sure I can judge a video game contest.” He looked over my head to Tack and winked. “I’m sure Fletcher Morgan would approve of my decision.”
“Fletcher Mulligan,” I said. “His name is Fletcher Mulligan.”
“Exactly,” Dr. Brooks said. “Go have some fun, Will. This is going to be a great night.”
I couldn’t believe it. I’d had my share of bad luck over the past three months, but this was ridiculous. How many mascara tubes had I capped waiting for this moment? And now Fletcher Mulligan wasn’t even coming? He was in stupid frigging Cleveland?
As we walked away from the registration desk, Tack draped a burly arm around my shoulders. “The doc says he likes your game, Will. I don’t know much about computers, but I’d call that conversation a good sign.”
“It’s not,” I said. Mary and I had designed The Impossible Fortress for the king of video games, not some smug, suntanned corporate executive who didn’t even know Fletcher’s name. “There’s no way I’ll win.”
“Win, lose, who cares?” Mom asked. “It’s 1987 and Robert Redford still hasn’t won an Oscar. Do you think he lets that get him down?” Ever since she started dating Tack, my mother saw the bright side of everything.
There was nothing else to do except walk the aisles of the gymnasium—but even this was a disappointment, because the vendors were giving away disks, supplies, and other accessories, and every freebie was a reminder of what I’d lost. My mother insisted I take something, so I accepted a small plastic key chain molded in the shape of a Compaq PC. I knew it was the only computer I’d bring home that night.
Eventually Mom and Tack peeled off to an aisle of colleges offering programs in computer science, and I walked toward the coin-op arcade games, looking for Alf and Clark. Some kids were playing Ms. Pac-Man and Rolling Thunder, but the biggest crowd had formed around the Gauntlet machine, a game that allowed up to four players to compete simultaneously. I assumed a team of players had reached some unprecedented level, and I pushed through the crowd to get a better look. I found myself squeezing past a large man dressed in a white shirt and black tie.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Uh-huh,” Zelinsky grunted.
I did a double take. He was dressed in his usual work clothes, like he’d come straight from the store. My face must have said “What the hell are you doing here?” because he shook his head slowly: I honestly have no idea.
The Gauntlet screen flashed GAME OVER and the players turned to face a round of applause. Mary Zelinsky was joined by Lynn Scott, the cashier from Video City, and Sharon Boyd, the girl from the Regal Theater. At that moment, I realized they were the only three girls in a gymnasium crowded with teenage boys. Their very existence seemed a sort of miracle.
Mary recognized me and waved. Her fingernails were painted with a rainbow of zeros and ones, the same binary pattern she’d worn on the day we started working together.
“Hey, Will.”
She looked fantastic, a suntanned and more radiant version of the Mary I used to know. Her hair was shorter with blond highlights, a new look for summer. She was wearing an outfit I’d never seen before—a white blouse, khaki shorts, and pink Chuck Taylor sneakers. The new clothes fit her perfectly, now that she had nothing to hide.