"Video Game Testers Wanted", the flier read. As an avid gamer, the thought of being able to play a potential best-selling game before anyone else always peaked my interest. The red hand on the crosswalk sign was still illuminated, so I read on.

"GG Industries is a newcomer to the gaming world and is looking for willing subjects to test a new line of virtual reality video games."

At that point, my mouth was practically watering. Virtual reality had always been the video game equivalent of a wet dream for me. Although pop culture had shown many examples of virtual reality video games in television and movies, no game companies IRL had the technology to create it. I made up my mind. I ripped the flyer off of the pole and ran across the street, shoving the now crumpled piece of paper into my coat pocket.

…

I arrived back at my apartment minutes later, nearly out of breath. Admittedly, my apartment wasn't the classiest. I had a couch, a small TV for my console games, a bed, a desk for the PC that I built myself, a bathroom and a kitchen. What more could a twenty-four year old gamer need? Of course, I certainly wouldn't have hated having actual decorations in my apartment, but sacrificing my less important possessions was worth being able to build my own gaming PC. Needless to say, my PC was my most prized possession and was where I spent most of my time. If I wasn't eating lunch or collecting trash as a "waste collection specialist"—or "garbage man" to the general population—I had my hands on my keyboard and my headphones on, usually spending hours a day playing either my favorite games from when I was younger, like Final Fantasy 7 or Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, or some of my recent interests like Fallout: New Vegas or Call of Duty: Black Ops. Although, if I ever wanted to play a MMO like World of Warcraft, I had to borrow Internet access from apartment 306, who conveniently didn't have an access password. I didn't feel bad about using it without their permission. I mean, if they didn't want me using it, they would've put a password on it, right? Plus, the bandwidth was never bad so it seemed like they didn't use it much anyway. But of course, I had bills of my own to pay. I had to pay the rent and buy food, so I was living paycheck-to-paycheck. Being a garbage man made this lifestyle a bit hard, but I made it work. But, honestly, I didn't mind all that much either. As long as I had some food in my belly and video games in front of me, I was content.

I slammed the apartment door and ran to my bedroom, quickly punching the details on the flier into my phone. I left my phone at home that day because I rode the city bus to the grocery store. Last time I took my phone on the bus, it got stolen and I didn't have enough money to get another one this time so I wasn't going to take any risks. As I typed out the time and date in the calendar of my phone, thoughts of all kind began to rush through my head. What kind of game would it be? Platform? Adventure? FPS? How much would I be paid? Or, more importantly, would the money get me through this month's rent? Once the excitement in my head died down, I glanced at the clock: 9:48pm. The testing wasn't until the day after tomorrow, so I decided to treat myself to some late night video games. I sat down at my desk, flipped on the computer monitor and double-clicked on the desktop folder that contained the various video games and ROMs I had acquired over the years. I admit, some of the games in my library weren't exactly obtained in a lawful way, but it wasn't hurting anyone. I scrolled through the seemingly endless list and debated which game to play first.

As the hours passed, I became more and more tired, but I was used to fighting it. It was worth it to continue playing. Gaming was the only thing that kept me going in life at that point. After failing to even get into a community college, I moved out of my parents' house and got my own apartment. It was my plan to get a dorm in college and move out anyway but, since my parents didn't have to pay gratuitous amounts of tuition money, they lent me enough for the first three months of rent for wherever I could find my own place. At the time, I was working as a cashier at my local grocery store and didn't have a lot of money, so I had to pick somewhere cheap so I could afford the rent when my parents' money ran out. After searching and searching, I finally stumbled upon a small apartment complex in downtown Columbus. It wasn't the most luxurious place I looked at, but it was decent considering how much the rent was.

The first eighteen years of my life were spent in a small town in Maine called Aurora. For my entire life, I wanted to get out of that town, out of Maine. I wasn't sure where I wanted to go, but I decided on Columbus because I had an old high school friend, Chad Reeves, who was going to Ohio State University in the fall. At least then I would know someone who I would be able to contact if I was ever in a pickle. I first met Chad in 9th grade, my first year at public school. Up until that point, I was homeschooled by my parents. But once I hit fourteen, my dad thought it was time for me to start going to public school. There weren't any high schools around Aurora, but my dad was able to find a school about an hour away in Bangor, Maine. We went to visit Bangor High School in July and, since my parents liked it, I was enrolled that day. I wasn't particularly fond of the idea of public school, but my parents insisted on it.

My first day of high school was a nightmare. On my way to class, I had to maneuver through crowded hallways, and in class, I had to deal with disruptive freshman who didn't care about what the teacher had to say. I thought students would be more respectful of their teachers. But, there was one thing that made everything better: my fifth period Math class. When I first stepped in to Mrs. Wilson's classroom, I immediately felt a sort of comforting feeling I hadn't felt from any of my other classes. When she greeted me, her voice was like honey and her smile was warm and inviting, in contrast with the cold atmosphere of the rest of the school. This was also the class where I first met Chad. We were seated alphabetically by last name, so when I took my seat, it wasn't a minute later before I saw someone out of the corner of my eye sit down to the left of me. I turned my head and saw a tall, confident-looking guy who looked about as old as a senior, which was weird because we were in a freshman math class. He was dressed in a white Polo shirt and coral-colored shorts. He had medium-sized biceps that protruded from the short sleeves of his Polo. I've heard about the kind of people that look like this from TV. The popular crowd, the cool kids, the "preps". The people I knew I didn't want to be associated with. I turned back to face the front, waiting for the bell to ring and class to begin. As I sat there, studying each person who came through the door, I saw Chad looking over at me. I wasn't sure why he was even acknowledging my presence. I wasn't all that interesting to look at, and my clothes weren't anything to marvel at either. However, my mom did make me dress up that day for the first day of school, forcing me to wear my khaki shorts I'd only ever worn once. The only reason I complied was because she let me wear my Space Invaders t-shirt. Space Invaders was my very first video game, so when I got a Space Invaders-themed t-shirts for Christmas the previous year, it instantly became my favorite t-shirt. I ignored Chad, assuming he was probably trying to decide the best way to beat me up. But, just as I turned my focus my attention back on the door, I heard Chad start humming. I tried to ignore him but the familiar tune filled my ears and clouded my brain. My eyes widened slightly.

"So you DO know Space Invaders," Chad said to me, practically reading my mind.

"Yeah," I scoffed, "how do you know what that is?"

"Well, I know you probably won't believe me," he said, leaning in closer, "but secretly, I'm a pretty big geek."

"Really?" I said, skeptically.

"Yeah! Here, ask me a video game question, anything you can think of." I smiled slightly at the sound of his request. I knew all there was to know about video game facts and history so, whenever I met a supposed "geek", I was always able to conjure up a few questions to test it. I decided to make the first one easy.

"Okay," I said, turning to him, "what inspired Toru Iwatani to create the character model for Pac-Man?"

"The Japanese character for 'mouth'," he swiftly answered.

"Alright." I paused and thought for a second. "What was the first home console developed by Atari and what year was it released?"

"The Atari 2600 and it was released in the US in 1977."

"True, but that wasn't the console's official name." I corrected him.

"Right, the company originally named it the Atari VCS, but with the release of the Atari 5200 in 1982, they decided to change the name of the system to the Atari 2600 after the system's model number: CX2600." I had to admit, he knew a lot more than I expected.

"Okay," I said, preparing my final question. "What five cities does Sega have international offices in?"

"San Francisco, Seoul, Moscow, Chessington, and Vancouver."

"Damn," I said. "You sure know your video games."

"Well, I've done my research." He stuck out his arm, offering a handshake. "Chad Reeves."

"Scott Sanders," I said, accepting his handshake. And that was it. The way he answered my questions without even thinking about it, his vast knowledge of video game history. I knew I had made a friend.

The next four years were actually bearable thanks to Chad. I mean, sometimes he'd ditch me to hang out with his popular friends, but I understood. He had a reputation to uphold. Plus, spending too much time with other people left me feeling burnt out, and being alone let me recharge. Although, the times we did get to hang out were awesome. We'd hang out during lunch sometimes and talk about video game strategies and, on occasion, we'd take the school bus back to his house after school and play video games together. After graduation, however, we began to drift apart as Chad was preparing for college. We still chat occasionally, but it's been a long time since I've actually seen him. But regardless, I still appreciate the time we had together. Before I met him, I never had any friends. I was one of six kids in Aurora, all of which were elementary school aged when I started public high school. Most of the people living in Aurora was in their late 60s or older, but the families young enough to have children commuted to Bangor to work. On the days both of their parents were working, I was offered to babysit for them. My mom didn't have a problem with it. Our homeschooling schedule was very flexible so whenever I got an opportunity to make some money, we just postponed whatever we were gonna do until the next day. I never really liked having to keep little kids entertained for eight hours a day, but it was worth it to get paid.

For most of my life, both my parents owned and worked at a small restaurant in Bangor called Biggerson's. After I was born, they decided to work every other day, so at least one of them would be home to take care of me. Sometimes, however, the restaurant would be really busy and they both had to go into work. If that ever happened, my parents would sit me down at a table and give me a Game Boy Color we kept behind the counter, equipped with whichever game I was in the mood to play that day. I guess my parents were the ones that helped spark the interest in video games I have now. Not only did they give me a Game Boy Color for Christmas when I was six, but they also gave me a Nintendo 64 for my seventh birthday. I played the absolute living hell out of those systems, playing all kinds of games: Pokémon, Super Mario 64, Goldeneye 007, Star Fox 64, you name it. But, out of all the games I've played through the years, I will always remember my first game: Space Invaders.

When I was a kid, my mom would take me into town on Sundays when the restaurant was closed. We did all kinds of things, but the thing I'll remember most is when we would go to the arcade. When I was five, my mom and I discovered an arcade in a shopping center not too far from the mall. As soon as I discovered it, I insisted on us going there every weekend. When we went, she would always give me a five dollar bill and then go next door to look around in the JCPenney until I was done. There were all kinds of arcade games there, but when we went, I always gravitated toward the Space Invaders cabinet. I would exchange my five dollar bill for twenty shiny quarters and use all twenty trying to beat my record from the previous week. Ever since I started going to that arcade, I always had a Top Ten spot, signing my initials: SOS, for Scott Owen Sanders. At first I was only number ten, but as the weeks went by, I slowly climbed up the scoreboard until I was number one. I left the arcade the first time I made it to the number one spot with a skip in my step and a smile on my face.

When I came back the next week, I waited until the scoreboard popped up before starting my game so I could marvel at my amazing achievement. But, when the screen finally displayed the Top Ten, I noticed my number one spot was taken by someone with the initials "SLW", pushing my name down to the number two spot. I'll admit, I was a little upset by this, but I took a deep breath and started my usual game, fueled by the desire to take back my self-given title as the King of Space Invaders. After about half an hour, my last quarter was all used up. I glanced at my final score, not able to remember whether I beat SLW's score or not. But, to my surprise, my new score appeared above SLW's previously number one score, prompting me to enter my initials. And from that day, I had declared war on SLW and vowed to never let his score remain in the number one spot for more than a week. When I came back the next Sunday, it was clear that SLW had accepted my declaration of war, as I was back in the number two slot. As the weeks went on, so did the war, each of us beating the score of the other every week. But, after a few months of our back and forth, I went in on Sunday to find that the Space Invaders cabinet had been replaced by a fancy new claw machine. I talked to Al, the owner of the arcade, and he told me the game had frozen in the middle of some girl's game on Wednesday afternoon so he decided it was time to replace it. The game was nearly twenty years old at that point. I left that day with a sad, empty feeling, one that could only be cured by the opportunity to play Space Invaders one last time. But, despite the loss of my favorite arcade game, there was one thing I always regretted: I was never able to uncover the identity of SLW.