But there was something very different going on here as well.
A vid screen had appeared in front of him. It became one with his control panel, but strangely it seemed to be draped over his eyeballs as well.
This screen was flashing a message in large red letters: RESET GAME — NOW.
Next to these words was a three-dimensional icon that looked like an old-fashioned power switch.
Hunter found his right hand reaching out to this switch and flipping it to ON.
Suddenly the screen became filled with bizarre shapes and colors. His flying machine began rocking violently again. Outside, he could see that the neon world below had suddenly become very real. And now the ground was rushing by him at incomprehensible speed. But something was drastically wrong here — his inner ear was telling him so. A wave of vertigo ran through him, and in an instant he knew why.
The surface below him was actually turning quickly in reverse. Although everything in his cockpit indicated that he was moving forward at a very high rate of speed, he was actually hurtling backward.
Basic human instinct drove his hands to his controls — he had to stop this. But no panel he touched or button he pushed had any effect. It was as if his whole being were caught in a rewind. Not a pleasant feeling.
This went on for what seemed like forever, which wasn’t that far from the truth — until suddenly it just stopped. The ground below him ceased turning in the wrong direction, and his flying machine regained some semblance of normal forward flight. Hunter took a deep breath and squeezed his steering controls very tightly. He was bathed in sweat.
He caught his breath and looked out the cockpit to the surface below. It was night. He was over two very long roadways that were running parallel to each other. Thousands of wheeled vehicles were moving along these roads at relatively high rates of speed, half in one direction, half in the other. Most of the vehicles were traveling in one of four designated lanes. They all seemed to be in a great rush.
This place below him looked like the Earth, but certainly not the one he’d just come from. It was almost pastoral. He could see many trees and fields and valleys, and hundreds of tiny houses scattered off in every direction. The moon was hanging high overhead, like a huge orange ball, illuminating it all.
Hunter’s flying machine was flying roughly five hundred feet above the long, ribbonlike roadways. Two huge green bridges were right below him; they spanned a fairly wide river, which by looking off to his left, Hunter could see emptying into a vast ocean. He checked his direction indicator and found he was now traveling due south.
“Okay, now what?” he heard himself say.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he looked down at his cockpit display to find it had changed dramatically once again. Most of the flight control indicators had vanished. They’d been replaced by a second large video screen with lines of alphanumeric information pulsating across it.
Suddenly one line of information froze on the screen. It began flashing in large red letters: The Princess is in peril. To successfully complete this segment, you must rescue her in the time allotted…
A small clock then appeared in the upper-right-hand corner on the video screen. It began flashing: 120 seconds. Hunter felt his flying machine shudder a bit. Another message flashed onto the screen: Failure to complete the task will result in termination.
Hunter blinked once, and the game clock began ticking down…
This is crazy, he thought. But he knew he had no choice but to do as instructed. It was the word “termination” that bothered him the most.
But how was he supposed to save “the Princess” when he didn’t know who or where she was?
No sooner had that thought gone through his head than the video screen began flashing again. One of the vehicles moving on the busy road below was being highlighted in the center of the screen. It seemed to be going faster than the other vehicles, and it was weaving into and out of the designated traffic lanes.
No sooner had Hunter’s forward viewing device attained a lock on this particular vehicle than a message began flashing in bright red letters across his eyeballs: Hurry… she is in mortal danger.
By this time the game clock had ticked down to 108 seconds.
Hunter had no idea what to do — he would have to improvise. He lowered his altitude to about 150 feet.
When the designated vehicle took a sharp right-hand turn, leaving the main roadway by way of a smaller, curving one, Hunter turned his aircraft and followed it.
The vehicle drove onto a much thinner roadway; no other vehicles could be seen on it. The vehicle traveled at high speed for a half mile on this road until pulling onto a dirt path and driving toward a small lake that was nearly surrounded by overhanging trees.
When it stopped in a parking area near the water’s edge, Hunter was waiting for it.
He’d jammed his flying machine into hover mode and was now hanging about 100 feet above the small lake. No sooner had he stopped moving than his video screen changed fields again. Now it was flashing a menu of sorts. The options read: Bright blue light. Whirring FX. Yellow Beam. Flashing lights: red, white, amber.
Hunter looked down at the vehicle. He saw that some kind of tussle was going on in the rear seat. There were only two people inside the vehicle, yet one seemed to be fighting with the other.
Hunter looked at the game clock ticking away on his video screen. It was now down to 89 seconds.
88… 87…
Purely on a guess, Hunter hit the options-all portion of the screen. The entire menu began flashing. An instant later his flying machine erupted in an explosion of sound and light. Just like that, he was emitting a bright flashing aura of red, white, and amber. A whirring sound filled his ears. A incredibly intense beam of yellow light shot out from the belly of his machine. It bathed the vehicle below him in an almost phosphorescent glow.
Now another option popped up on the menu screen. It read: Initiate power outage. Hunter hit the options panel — and every electrical light within ten miles of his location instantly blinked out.
Another option now appeared. It read: False time shift available. With a shrug of the shoulders, Hunter hit that as well.
That’s when everything just stopped… except the clock in the corner of his video screen.
It was down to 54 seconds.
Now Hunter saw the side door on the vehicle open and a young girl jump out. She began running frantically away from the vehicle, looking over her shoulder at the bombastic display being caused by his flying machine as it hovered above the lake. Hunter could not see her face — all he could tell was that she was wearing a skirt and white shoes, and her top was partially torn away. She had long hair and it whipped behind her, back and forth the faster she ran.
He checked the game clock. It was now down to 41 seconds and counting.
“Am I doing this right?” he wondered aloud.
There was no way to tell.
He kept the bright yellow beam pointed on the parked vehicle. He could see the remaining figure inside, frozen in fear by the bright light and the noise his flying machine was making.
Hunter looked up again. The girl was now running down the single-lane roadway. His time was down to 29 seconds. Strictly on intuition, he hit the False time shift option again, and everything began moving once more. The wind was back in the trees, the ripples were back on the water.