You think about doing things in dreams, but we're always wrong about dreams. When people talk about dreams they mean daydreams. That's where you're Superman or whatever. That's where you win every- thing. In dreams everything is weird. I'm in a dream now. Or something Like a dream. And when I wake up, all the ScreeWee will be back in game space and they'll be shot at again, just like the Space Invaders.
Hang on . .
Hang on . .
He stared at the meaningless controls again.
On one of them the symbols ~ S If c rearranged themselves to form 'Main Engines
This is my world, too. It's in my head.
He looked up at the big screen.
All of them. They're all there, waiting. In bedrooms and lounges around the world. In between watching Cobbers and doing their homework.
All waiting with their finger on the Fire button, and each one thinking that they're the only one
All there, in front of me
'I wasn't expecting to do this,' said Kirsty, behind him. 'I wasn't expecting to be bandaging aliens. Put a claw on this knot, will you? What's your pulse level?' 'I don't think we have them,' said the Captain. The ship thumped.
The distant background rumble of the engines was suddenly a roar.
The seats had bits sticking up where humans didn't expect bits to stick up. Johnny was sitting cross-legged on one, both hands on the controls, face multi-coloured in the light of the screen.
Kirsty tapped him on the shoulder. 'What are you doing?'
'Flying,' said Johnny, without turning his head.
'He said it's too late to turn round.'
'I'm not turning round.'
'You don't know how to fly one of these!' 'I'm not flying one of these. I'm flying the whole fleet.'
'You can't understand the controls!'
Green and red light made patterns on his face as he turned to her.
'You know, everyone tells me things. All the time,' he said. 'Well, I'm not listening now. I can read the controls. Why not? They're in my head. Now sit down. I shall need you to do some things. And stop talking to me as if I'm stupid.'
She sat down, almost hypnotized by his tone of voice. 'But how-'
'There's a control that lets this ship steer all the others as well. It's used on long voyages.' He moved a lever. 'And I'm flying them as fast as I can. I don't think they can go any faster. All the dials have gone into the % /2 © - that's ScreeWee for red.'
'But you're heading straight for the players!'
'I've got to. There isn't time to turn round . .
Wobbler had a pin-up over his bed. It was a close-up photograph of the Intel 8058675 microprocessor, taken through a microscope; it looked like a street map of a very complicated modern city. His grandfather complained that it was unhealthy and why didn't he have a double page spread from Giggles and Garters instead, but Wobbler had a vision: one day, if he could master GCSE maths and reliably pick up a soldering iron by the end that wasn't hot, he was going to be a Big Man in computers. A Number One programmer, with his hair in a ponytail at the back like they all wore. Never mind about Yo-less saying it was all run by men in suits these days. One day, the world would hear from Wobbler Johnson - probably via a phone-line it didn't know was connected to its computer.
In the meantime, he was staring at columns of numbers in an effort to make a completely illegal copy ofMrBunleyGoesBoing. It had been given four stars and declared 'megabad!!!', which was what Splaaaaatttd magazine still thought meant pretty good if you were under sixteen.
He blinked at the screen, and smeared the grease on his glasses a bit more evenly.
And that was enough for tonight.
He sat back, and his eye caught sight of Only You Can Save Mankind, under a pile of other discs.
Poor old Rubber. Of course, you called people men- tal all the time, but there was something weird about him. His body walked around down on Earth but his brain was probably somewhere you couldn't find with an atlas.
Wobbler shoved the disc in the drive. Odd about the game, though. There was probably a logical reason for it. That's what computers were, logical. Start believing anything else and you were in trouble. The title came up, and then the bit that Gobi Soft- ware had pinched from Star Wars, and then- His jaw dropped. Ships. Hundreds of them. Getting bigger and bigger. Yellow ships, filling the screen, so that it was just black and yellow and just yellow and then blinding white. Wobbler ducked. And then a black screen. Almost black, anyway. For a moment the words hung there. Hi, Wobler- And then vanished.
More alarms were clanging and whooping. Kirsty peered out from between her fingers. 'I don't think we hit anyone,' said Johnny, tapping on the keys. 'You flew straight through them!' 'That's right!'
'OK, but they'll still come after us.'
'So now we turn round. It'll take a little while. How's the Captain?'
A clawed hand gripped the back of his chair, and her snout rested on his shoulder.
'This is very bad,' said the Captain. 'Our engines are not designed to run at this sort of speed for any length of time. They could break down at any moment.'
'It's a calculated risk,' said Johnny.
'Really? How precisely did you calculate it?' said the ScreeWee.
'Well ... not exactly calculate ... I just thought it was worth a try,' said Johnny.
'You're turning back towards the players!' 'And we're still accelerating,' said Johnny. 'What were you typing just then?' said Kirsty. 'Oh, nothing,' said Johnny. grinning. 'Just thought I saw someone I recognized. You know, as we flashed past.'
'Why are you looking so happy?' she demanded. 'We're in terrible trouble.'
'Dunno. Because it's my trouble, I suppose. Captain, why have all those lights over there come on?'
'They're the ships of the fleet,' said the Captain. 'The commanders want to know what's happening.'
'Tell them to hold on to something,' said Johnny. 'And tell them - tell them they're going home.'
They both looked at him. 'Oh, yes, very impressive,' said Kirsty. 'Very dramatic. All very-' 'Shut up. 'What?'
'Shut up.' said Johnny again, his eyes not leaving the screen.
'No-one tells me to shut up!'
'I'm telling you now. Just because you've got a mind like a, a hammer doesn't mean you have to treat every- one else like a nail. Now here they come again.'
Wobbler took the disc out of the drive and looked at it. Then he felt around the back of his computer in case there were any extra wires.
That Johnny ... he was the quiet type. He always said that all he knew about computers was how to switch them on, but everyone knew about computers. He'd probably messed around with the game and given it back. Pretty good. Wobbler wondered how he'd done it.
He put the disc back in and started the game again.
'Only You Can Save Mankind' ... yeah, yeah.
Then the inside of the starship. Missiles, guns, score total, yeah, yeah
And stars ahead. The sparkly ones you got in the game. He'd done much better ones for Voyage to Alpha Centauri.
No ships to be seen.
He picked up the joystick and moved it, watching the stars spin as the ship turned
There was a ship right behind him. Very much behind him. Dozens of ships, again. Hundreds of ships. All getting bigger. Much bigger. Very quickly.
Very, very quickly.
Again.
When he got up off the floor and put the leg back on the chair, the screen was all black again, except for the little flashing cursor.
Wobbler stared at it.
Logic, he said. Not believing in logical reasons was almost as bad as dropping hot solder on to a nylon sock. There had to be a logical explanation.
One day, he'd think of one.
'They're following us! They're following us!' Little coils of smoke were coming up from the con- trols. There were all sorts of vibrations in the floor.
'I'm pretty sure we can outrun them,' said Johnny.
'How sure?' said Kirsty.