The house was empty. His mother had left him a breakfast tray, which was to say that she'd put together a new Snappiflakes packet, a spoon, a bowl and a note saying 'Milk in Fridge'. She'd also put her office phone number on the bottom of the note. He knew what it was anyway, but sometimes she used the phone number like other people would use an Elastoplast.
He opened the packet and fished around inside. The alien was in a hygienic little paper bag. It was yellow, and in fact did look a bit like the Captain, if you almost shut your eyes.
He wandered aimlessly through the rooms. There die of the day. It was all women talking to one another on sofas. He sneaked a look out into the road, just in case there were half-mile-long rocket-exhaust burns. And then he went back upstairs and sat and stared at the silent computer.
OK.
So ... you switch on. And there's the game.
Somehow it felt worse thinking about playing it by just
sitting in front of it now.
On the other hand, it was daytime, so most people would be at school or at least keeping a low profile somewhere. Johnny wasn't quite certain about game time and real time, but maybe the attacks stopped when people had to go to school? But no, there were prob- ably people playing it in America or Australia or somewhere.
Besides, when you died in your sleep you woke up, so what happens now if you die while you're awake?
But the ScreeWee were getting slaughtered out there. Or in there. Or in here.
The Captain was stupid not to fire back.
His hand switched on the computer without his mind really being aware of it.
The game logo appeared. The music started up. The same old message scrolled up the screen. He knew it by heart. Savior of Civilization. Certain Oblivion.
Only You Can Save Mankind. If Not You, Who Else?
He blinked. The message had scrolled off the top of the screen. He couldn't have imagined that extra last line ... could he?
And then the same old stars.
He didn't touch the keyboard or the joystick. He wasn't certain what direction he should be going in. On the whole, straight on seemed best. For hours.
He glanced at the clock. It was just gone four o'clock. People would be home from school now. They'd be watching Cobbers and She'll Be Apples and Moonee Ponds. Bigmac would be watching with his mouth open at his brother's. Wobbler would be watch- ing while trying to rob some other poor computer games writer of his just rewards. Yo-less probably wouldn't be paying much attention, exactly; it'd just be on while he did his homework. Yo-less always did his homework when he got home from school and didn't pay attention to anything else until it had been finished to his satisfaction. But everyone watched Cobbers.
Except Johnny, today.
He felt vaguely proud of that. The television was off. He had other things to do.
Somewhere in the last ten minutes he'd made a deci- sion. He wasn't sure exactly what it was, but he'd made it. So he had to see it through. Whatever it was.
He went to the bathroom and had a go with the ther- mometer. It was an electronic one that his mother had bought from a catalogue, and it also told the time. Everything in the catalogue had a digital clock built in. Even the golf umbrella that doubled as a Handy Picnic Table. Even the thing for getting fluff out of socks.
'Away with Not Being Able to Know What the Time is All the Time Blues,' said Johnny vaguely, and stuck the thermometer in his mouth for the required twenty seconds.
His temperature was 16:04°.
No wonder he felt cold.
He went back to bed with the thermometer still in his mouth and looked at the screen again. Still just stars.
The rest of them would probably be down at the mall now, unless Yo-less was trying for an A+ with his homework. Hanging out. Waiting for another day to end.
He squinted at the thermometer. It read 16:O7°.
Still nothing but stars on the screen ...
6
Chicken Lumps In Space
He woke up. The familiar smell of the starship tickled his nose. He cast his eyes over the control panel. He was getting a bit more familiar with it now. Right. So he was back in real life again. When he got back to... when he got back to. . He'd have to have a word with the medics about this odd recurring dream that he was a boy in- No! he thought. I'm me! Not a pilot in a computer game! If I start thinking like that then I'll really die! Got to take charge!
Then he noticed the other ships on the screen. He was still along way from the fleet, of course. But there were three other ships spread out neatly behind him, in convoy. They were bigger and fatter than his and, insofar as it was possible to do this in space, they seemed to wallow rather than fly.
He hit the Communications button. A plump face appeared on the screen. 'Wobbler?' Johnny?'
'What are you doing in my head?'
The on-screen Wobbler looked around.
'Well, according to this little panel riveted on the control thingy, I'm flying a Class Three Light head?'
'I'm not sure,' said Johnny. By the main communica- tion screen was another switch saying 'Conference Facility'. He had a feeling he knew what it did.
Sure enough, when he pressed it Wobbler's face drifted to the top left-hand corner of the screen. Yo-less's face appeared in the opposite corner, with Johnny's own head above it. The other corner stayed blank.
Johnny tapped a button.
'Bigmac?' he said. 'Yo-less?'
Bigmac's face appeared in the blank. He appeared to be wiping his mouth.
'Checking the cargo?' said Johnny sarcastically.
'It's full of hamburgers!' said Bigmac, in a voice like a good monk who's just arrived in heaven and found that all the sins of the flesh are allowed. 'Boxes and boxes of hamburgers! I mean millions! With fries. And one Bucket of Chicken Lumps, it says here.'
'It says on this clipboard,' said Yo-less, 'that I'm fly- ing a lot of Prepared Corn and Wheat Products. Shall I go and see what they are?'
'OK,' said Johnny. 'Then that means you're driving the milk tanker, Wobbler.'
'Oh, yes. That's right. Bigmac gets burgers, Wobbler gets boring milk,' moaned Wobbler.
Yo-less's face reappeared.
'Back there it's breakfast cereals, mainly,' he said. 'In Giant-Jumbo-Mega-Civilization-Sized boxes.'
'Then Bigmac'd better bring his ship between you and Wobbler,' said Johnny briskly. 'We can't risk a collision.
'Snap, crackle. fababababBOOM!' said Bigmac and Wobbler.
'How can we?' said Yo-less. 'We're not dreaming.'
'OK. OK. Um. So will we remember this when he wakes up?'
'I don't think so. I think we're only here as projec- tions from his own subconscious mind,' said Yo-less. 'He's just dreaming us.'
'You mean we're not real?' said Bigmac.
'I'm not sure if I'm real,' said Johnny.
'It feels real,' said Wobbler. 'Smells real, too.'
'Tastes real,' said Bigmac.
'Looks real,' said Yo-less. 'But he's only imagining we're here. It's not really us. Just the us that's inside his head.'
Don't ask me, thought Johnny. You were always best at this stuff.
'And I've just worked out, right,' said Yo-less, 'that if we send in the boxtops from every single packet back there we can get six thousand sets of saucepans, OK? And twenty thousand books of football stickers and fifty-seven thousand chances to win a Stylish Five-Door Ford Sierra.'
The four ships lumbered on towards the distant fleet. Johnny's starship could easily outdistance the tankers, so he flew in wide circles around them, watching the radar screen.
There was an occasional zip and sizzle from Wob- bler's tanker. He was trying to take its computer apart, just in case there were any design innovations Johnny might remember when he woke up.
Ships appeared on the screen. There was the big dot of the fleet and, around the edges of the screen,