William waited patiently with his arms crossed as Jet entered the code to the code room of Turbo Time. He sighed as the door opened and they went inside. There's just something off about all this.
"So we're here," Set said pointedly, "What is it that you're going to show us?"
"Follow me," William said tiredly as he led them along to Harry's file which was floating just off in the distance where it could hardly be seen.
"How did you even know this was here?" Jet asked curiously. It wasn't noticeable in the slightest.
"Let's just say that I can see things differently than you can if I want to," William said dryly as he activated Harry's memory file to show a list of his memories. He typed into a small search field at the top of the list of memories after a holographic keyboard generated in front of him. Let's see now.. Search 'Turbo' and 'RoadBlasters'.. The memories vanished without a trace, and then ones referring to the first instance of 'going Turbo' appeared one after the other. He tapped on the earliest one with his right hand and selected an option listed as 'Run as video'. A small screen popped up and promptly played the memory.
The video itself comprised mostly of people simply badmouthing Turbo out in Game Central Station, and them thanking their lucky stars that he supposedly got unplugged with RoadBlasters. People he had once considered 'acquaintances' were no exception. He didn't really have any close friends except for perhaps Felix, and Gene who had a similar appreciation for damn good parties. But there Gene was with everyone else in Game Central Station. It was a little known fact that Gene was the first to utter the phrase 'going Turbo'.
Turbo simply floated there silently, his mouth agape in disgusted shock. His heart ached as he was slammed with the cold, harsh reality of what he had done in the original timeline. What he did to RoadBlasters. What he did to Roxie. I did that.. He shook his head. There's no doubt about it. I did that.. He swallowed hard as he anxiously pulled out his napkin with the Konami Code neatly written onto it. He stared at it hatefully. What good could I possibly do if I hold onto this?
William and the twins looked over to Turbo who was still deathly silent in contemplation. William narrowed his eyes, while Jet and Set were shocked to see the code in Turbo's hands in the first place. Turbo lightly pressed the napkin into William's hand without a word before leaving the game.
Jet watched as Turbo left. He was still trying to take in what just happened. He gave up the code.. I didn't know he even had it.. Should I go after him?
"Now's your turn, Set," William said reluctantly. I guess I don't have to worry about Turbo.. I should still at least make sure he doesn't remember the code.. "This doubles for Jet, of course, but he knows full well what the two of you did."
"Great.." Set said worriedly, "Whose life did we ruin besides my own?" He glared at Jet, mostly angry at himself. He sighed and shook his head as William accessed another of Harry's memories. Did I do something to Sorceress? He clenched his teeth as he watched the memory intently. Now I really need to know..
The memory was a conversation in Battlezone, when the twins thought that they were alone. Harry had been suspicious of the two for a few days before Set officially grew bored of the game and decided it was time to move on. The video itself was useless, as neither Jet nor Set were on it. Just the extremely dark landscape, other stone obstacles, an empty tank, and the volcano out in the distance could be seen. The audio could be made out at least.
Litwak's Family Fun Center and Arcade, circa 2005.
Harry was in his UFO form. He didn't even have a human form in that timeline. He was hiding behind one of the large stone cubes to conceal his presence as he listened in on the disguised Jet and Set's conversation.
"Listen Jet," Set said in a hushed tone, "I think it's time we go to another game. This one is getting pretty old. I think we should go to that new one that just got plugged in about a week ago. Joust."
Joust was actually released in 1982, but Litwak had only bought it recently as he got a pretty good deal on it, and it also seemed to be pretty popular. What's not to love about a game where you joust while riding an ostrich?
"I don't like this, Set," Jet furrowed his brow nervously, "The more we do this.." He shook his head. "We're going to get caught. This game will get unplugged too.."
"It'll be okay, Jet," Set chuckled, though his eyes held a certain kind of seriousness in them. "I made a mistake in the previous ones.. But I have it figured out now. You go ahead and leave first as usual. I'll catch up with you at the gateway after fixing things back the way we found them."
Jet clenched his teeth worriedly and sighed, "Fine. Just.. make sure to be careful this time. Without you.."
"I won't leave you to fend for yourself," Set scoffed as he hugged his brother tightly and patted him on the back, "Everything will be fine."
"Do you still remember the code?" Jet asked worriedly, "I know it's been a while since we used it.."
"Up Up, Down Down, Left Right, Left Right, B A Start," Set tiredly, "I'm not going to forget the code, Jet.. Now come on, we don't want to get caught, right?" He forced a smile.
Jet nodded and wiped his eyes of the tears he had begun to shed and left Battlezone while still inhabiting the body of Jameson.
Set sighed and went down the elevator to the thirteenth floor to begin his work.
"Damn it.." Harry muttered to himself as he quickly floated around as if he were pacing. What do I do? There's nobody else on the surface besides Larry and Jim.. Jam- Jet left already and I can't fit in the elevator, let alone press the buttons..
A few minutes later, the stone pyramids disappeared without a trace. A moment later, so did the cubes, including the elevator going down. Everybody in the game except for Harry, Larry, and Jim, the UFO that originated in Battlezone was in the underground base asleep. Larry and Jim were shooting at the volcano in the distance to kill time since they lacked the metabolic processes which required rest.
Harry frustratedly flew over to the volcano in hopes of at least getting his brothers out of the game before it got unplugged in a few hours when the arcade opened, but when he finally did retrieve them and made his way to the exit with them in tow, there was a large stone pyramid blocking the tunnel. There was a crack just large enough for a human to fit however.
Not that Harry knew, but from the code room, Set unmerged Jet and Jameson, then set the latter's coordinates to inside the base, in the barracks. In effect this 'called' him back to Battlezone whether he liked it or not. After doing this, Set unmerged himself from Renko and quickly changed his own coordinates to somewhere near the tunnel and left.
Inside Set's mind, this had always been a delaying tactic of sorts. They had everything they needed to fix the game if they could just figure out how. Renko should have been able to recall everything Set ever did while in his body. He should have been able to follow everything Set did, except in reverse to undo the damage. They could have even used the 'Help' program named 'Tanky' to do a full restore if that was somehow necessary.
Set was unaware of one fatal fact in all this, however. It takes time to remember such details. The memories were there, as he knew they should be, but for hours they would be fuzzy and fragmented at best. From his perspective those guys just didn't care enough to figure out how to fix the problem and chose to live somewhere else instead even though it didn't make sense to him. For the longest time he didn't even try to understand 'non-greys', so it was nothing new to him when they did something that defied logic.
Fortunately, Battlezone would be the fourth and final game which met this fate.
"Do you see now?" William asked in an accusatory tone, "I don't suppose you have a copy of the code as well?" I'll find out either way when I wipe any traces of it from his memory..
"No," Set stared blankly at the now-ended video, "That.. But that still doesn't prove that I got the game unplugged on purpose though! Sure, what we did there was.. wrong.. Abhorrent even.. But I was the only one there, maybe I was just slowing them down or something so that they couldn't chase after us. Sonny easily fixed a kill screen on our game just yesterday! Couldn't they have fixed their game as well? Shouldn't they have remembered what I did in their body or something?" There.. There has to be an explanation for this.. I wouldn't just kill a game like that just because I was bored of it, right? He cradled his head with his hands and shut his eyes tight. I wasn't really a monster in that other future, was I? He swallowed hard as he desperately tried to make sense of this overwhelming bit of new information.
"It's a moot point regardless, as the crime hasn't been committed," William said pointedly, "But I'm going to make sure that it won't be committed.. By ensuring that you can't break into code rooms to alter anything, I can rest easy knowing that the arcade is safe. That's all that matters in the end." His explanation is possible, though nobody really knows what he did in the code room that day.. Not even Jet. He sighed.
"What about me?" Jet asked worriedly. What will you do?
William shook his head and sighed again, "I don't even know.. I think I should have a look at your memory files before deciding anything." We'll just have to see from there.. He's a.. special case.
"Can.. can I go?" Set pleaded nervously, "I gotta get out of here.."
"Go ahead.." William said somewhat sympathetically as he turned away and closed his eyes. This is exactly why I didn't want them to come here.. How would I feel if someone revealed to me without a shadow of a doubt that in an alternate future I committed atrocious crimes against the arcade? I can't even imagine..
Set slowly made his way out of the code room as Jet followed William to his file.
Jet's heart raced. Should I pinpoint some memories for him to look at? Does it even matter which ones he looks at? Damn it.. I don't want to lose this room. I can do so much good here..
Author's Note: In case you're wondering, 'Jim' isn't the UFO's file name. He just gave himself a name rather than be known simply as 'UFO'. I'll answer any questions you may have if I failed to make something clear enough. Just let me know.
