'Yes. Right. Better read it, then. Thanks for Star Fighter Pilot-' 'TeraBomber. My dad brought me back Alabama Smith and the Jewels of Fate from the States. You can have a copy if you give me the disc back.'
'Right,' said Johnny. 'It's OK.'
'Right,' said Johnny.
He never had the heart to tell Wobbler that he didn't play half the games Wobbler passed on. You couldn't. Not if you wanted time to sleep and eat meals. But that was all right because Wobbler never asked. As far as Wobbler was concerned, computer games weren't there for playing. They were for breaking into, rewrit- ing so that you got extra lives or whatever, and then copying and giving away to everyone.
Basically, there were two sides to the world. There was the entire computer games software industry engaged in a tremendous effort to stamp out piracy, and there was Wobbler. Currently, Wobbler was in front.
'Did you do my History?' said Wobbler.
'Here,' said Johnny. ' "What it was like to be a peasant during the English Civil War." Three pages.'
'Thanks,' said Wobbler. 'That was quick.'
'Oh, in Geog last term we had to do one about What it's like being a peasant in Bolivig. I just got rid of the llamas and put in stuff about kings having their heads chopped off. You have to bung in that kind of stuff, and then you just have to keep complaining about the weather and the crops and you can't go wrong, in peasant essays.
Johnny lay on his bed reading Only You Can Save Mankind.
He could just about remember the days when you could still get games where the instructions consisted of something that said, 'Press { for left and } for right and Fire for fire.'
But now you had to read a whole little book which was all about the game. It was really the manual, but they called it 'The Novel'.
Partly it was an anti-Wobbler thing. Someone in America or somewhere thought it was dead clever to make the game ask you little questions, like 'What's the first word on line 23 on page 19 of the manual?' and then reset the machine if you didn't answer them right, so they'd obviously never heard of Wobbler's dad's office's photocopier.
So there was this book. The ScreeWee had turned up out of nowhere and bombed some planets with humans on them. Nearly all the starships had been blown up. So there was only this one left, the experimental one. It was all that stood against the ScreeWee hordes. And only you ... that is to say John Maxwell, aged twelve, in between the time you get home from school and get something to eat and do your homework ... can save mankind.
Nowhere did it say what you were supposed to do if the ScreeWee hordes didn't want to fight.
He switched on the computer, and pressed the Load Game key.
There was the ship again, right in the middle of his sights.
He picked up the joystick thoughtfully.
There was an immediate message on the screen. Well, not exactly a message. More a picture. Half a dozen little egg-shaped blobs, with tails. They didn't move.
What kind of message is that? he thought
Perhaps there was a special message he ought to
send. 'Die, Creep' didn't seem to fit properly at the moment.
He typed: Whats hpaening?
Immediately a reply appeared on the screen, in yellow letters.
We surrender. Do not shoot See, we show you pictures of our children.
He typed: Is this a trick WObbler?
It took a little while before the reply came. Am not trick wobbler. We give in. No more war.
Johnny thought for a while, and then typed: Youre not supoosed to give ni.
Want to go home.
Johnny typed: It says in the book you blue up a lot of planets.
Lies!
Johnny stared at the screen. What he wanted to type was: No, I mean, this cant happen, youre Aliens, you cant not want to be shot at, no other game aliens have ever stopped aliening across the screen, they never said We DonT Want to Go.
And then he thought: they never had the chance. They couldn't.
But games are a lot better now.
They never made things like the old MegaZoids seem real, with stories about them and Full-Colour Graphics.
This is probably that Virtual Reality they're always talking about on the television.
He typed: It is only a game, after all. What is a game?
He typed: Who ARE you?
The screen flickered. Something a bit like a newt but more like an alligator looked back at him.
I am the Captain, said the yellow letters. Do not shoot!
Johnny typed: I shoot at you and you shoto at me. That is the game. But we die.
Johnny typed: Sometimes I die. I die a lot.
But YOU live again.
Johnny stared at the words for a moment. Then he typed: Dont you? No. How could this be? When we die, we die. For ever. Johnny typed desperately: No, thats not right because, in the first mission, theres three ships you have to blow up before the first planet. I@ve played it lots of times and there@s always three ships there- Thfferent ships.
Johnny thought for a while and then typed: What happens if I switch of tthe machine?
We do not understand the question.
This is daft, thought Johnny. It's just a very unusual game. It's a special mission or something.
He typed: Why should I trust you?
LOOK BEHIND YOU.
Johnny sat bolt upright in his chair. Then he let him- self swivel around, very cautiously.
Of course, there was no-one there. Why should there be anyone there? It was a game.
The newt face had disappeared from the screen, leav- ing the familiar picture of the inside of the starfighter. And there was the radar screen- covered in yellow dots. Yellow for the enemy.
Johnny picked up the joystick and turned the star- fighter around. The entire ScreeWee fleet was there. Ship after ship was hanging in space behind him.
Little fighters, big cruisers, massive battleships. If they all had him in their sights, and if they ....... He didn't want to die.
Hang on, hang on. You don't die. You just play the game again.
This was nuts. It was time to stop it.
He typed: All right what happens now? We want to go home.
He typed: All right no problem. You give us safe conduct
He typed: OK yes.
The screen went blank.
And that was it? No music? No 'Congratulations, You've Got the Highest Score'? Just the little prompt, flashing on and off. What did safe conduct mean, anyway?
2.
Operate Controls To Play Game
You never said to your parents, 'Hey, I really need a computer because that way I can play Megasteroids.'
No, you said, 'I really need a computer because of school.' It's educational.
Anyway, there had to be a good side to the Trying Times everyone was going through in this house. If you hung around in your room and generally kept your head down, stuff like computers sort of happened. It made everyone feel better.
And it was quite useful for school sometimes. Johnny had written 'What it felt like to be different sorts of peasants' on it, and printed them out on the printer, although he had to rewrite them in his handwriting because although the school taught Keyboard Skills and New Technology you got into trouble if you used keyboard skills and new technology actually to do anything.
Funnily enough, it wasn't much good for maths. He'd always had trouble with algebra, because they wouldn't let you get away with 'What it feels like to be x2'. But he had an arrangement with Bigmac about that, because Bigmac got the same feeling when he looked at an essay project as Johnny did when he was faced with a quadratic equation. Anyway, it didn't matter that much. If you kept your head down, they were generally so grateful that you were not, e.g., causing policemen to come to the school, or actually nailing a teacher to anything, that you got left alone.
But mainly the computer was good for games. If you turned the volume control up, you didn't have to hear the shouting.
The ScreeWee mother ship was in uproar. There was still a haze of smoke in the air from the last bombard- ment, and indistinct figures pattered back and forth, trying to fix things up well enough to survive the journey.