Prompt: In the RB3 post game story, Bamo and Regu gets their hands on the OOParts, powerful devices created to combat Rei's tyranny. Who created them? Could there be a resistance group that existed before Tari's destruction?
"Uh, h-hello." Rei glanced up from the meeting room desk. "What can I help you with?"
"Oh, I'm actually looking for Anoyndeath." With a sigh, Nepgear sat down, and set the blue box down on the table. Despite the hacker's efforts at redeeming himself, it was still a little embarrassing, having to seek help from a former villain because she couldn't figure this thing out on her own.
"A-Anny? I think he's in Lastation again." Rei was blushing heavily, and her voice had faded to a bare whisper. "Sorry, you know him and his...hobby."
"Okay? Tell him that Peashy really misses him when he comes back, please? And that I need his help in bypassing the encryption on this device." Nepgear picked up the blue box again, and started squinting at it with an intense curiosity.
"It must be thousands of years old, so why is it so difficult to break through the codes, even with modern tools? Maybe I'm just too inexperienced..."
"Thousands of years old?"
"I know, it doesn't look that old, right? But Bamo and Regu found this thing inside the old Tari ruins, right next to their stack of OOParts." Nepgear said, before she remembered something. "Wait, do you know where these OOParts come from? They said the devices were used to combat your tyranny back then, but—"
Her voice trailed off when she saw the look on Rei's face.
"F-Forgive me. I shouldn't have brought that up." Nepgear shook her head. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about—"
"Hand it over." Rei pointed to the box, with a trembling hand.
"W-What—?"
Nepgear almost toppled over in her chair, as Rei slammed her fists onto the table, and stood up.
"HAND. IT. OVER."
There was a cold, venomous flame in the woman's eyes, and for a second, it looked like Rei was on the verge of transforming again—before the color drained from her face, and the rage was replaced by sheer horror. Like a puppet with its string cut, Rei slumped back into her seat, and buried her face in her arms.
"I-I'm so sorry, I-I can't..." Rei's voice was cracking. "Please, just...leave, b-before I go all crazy again. And put that box inside Anny's workshop."
Power. Divinity. Miracle.
Words could not describe the burning sensation that surged through every inch of her body, as Rei descended from the sky. It was miles apart from the frigid coldness of the night, the throbbing void of hunger, and the crushing weight of fear. This power surpassed anything the mortal world could offer, and even the pesky little fairy dared not speak a word as she watched Rei reduce the criminal pests that plagued the city streets to ugly stains on the ground.
Jackals, all of them. Feeding on the blood and flesh of their own kind. But she was prey no more.
As the flames and screams died down, one by one, people began to shamble out of their makeshift shacks. They gathered around her, gazing at her glowing form with their sunken eyes. The adults were shielding their children behind them. When Rei flew closer, some of the men started screaming.
"I-It's coming for us! The...The monster!"
The heat inside her chest reached a searing intensity. They lacked the power to rid themselves off those maggots, and now they had the guts to blame their savior? Maybe they were jackals, too. Just too cowardly to show their true nature in the face of her might.
For a second, Rei wanted to strike them down for their insolence. But it would just confirm their pathetic words, wouldn't it—?
"Idiot! Don't call her a monster!"
Rei turned at the sudden yell. A young girl was poking her head out from behind a building. Her hair was a messy tangle of black weeds, gathered up in a loose ponytail, and her rainbow scarf and oversized safari shirt was covered with dirt. Despite her short, skinny build, she stood as straight as a wooden board.
"She is...a hero!" The girl ran up to the front of the crowd, "S-She'd killed all these bad people, didn't she?"
More muttering. Quite a number of people were nodding, and Rei grinned at the awe in their eyes. Good. They weren't as completely ignorant as she thought.
"Yeah..." An old man added, in a low, coarse voice. "She's...the chosen one. Destined to end this chaos once and for all. It's all there in the legends."
"With a legend on our side, we'd defeat the Odysseus Warlords, and build our own nation!"
"This calls for a celebration!"
The crowd burst into cheers. Behind her, Croire made a snorting sound. "You hear that shit? You are like, a celebrity."
Rei tried her best to hold back her laughter—no, she did not need to restrain herself. No one could rule over her anymore.
"Heh. Of course! With this much power, it's only natural to be feared by commoners."
"Man, whatever. At least you aren't the same boring, hesitant bitch you were before, and that's a bonus in my book." Croire rolled her eyes, as Rei began to float away from the crowd, now caught up in a frenzy of dance and songs.
"That weak, pathetic crybaby version of myself is gone." Rei said. "Now I'm the chosen one, and a chosen one can do whatever she wishes, can she not?"
"Whatever, I guess. Hurry up and make one, like they asked."
"Make what?"
"A nation. That's what your power exists for." Croire rolled her eyes again. Seeing the fairy's smug face really made Rei want to tear her book in half. "Cleansing the streets is pretty fun to watch. But wars and conquests are the meat of this whole 'Goddess' thing, y'know? What kind of Goddess doesn't murder a shit ton of people for the sake of her own people? Human rulers sure do, in the name of their flags."
"I was joking. I didn't expect you to be this dense." Rei made a dismissive wave. "Still, this whole thing doesn't sit well with me. But if I absolutely must, I may think about it."
"Nation...? You are...going to make a nation for us?"
Rei looked down, and saw the girl with a rainbow scarf. She was panting—Rei had flown at a much faster speed than she imagined, and the girl must have struggled to catch up with her.
"If that is true, then..." The girl looked into her eyes. "Please let me be your first citizen. I have nothing to lose, and nothing valuable to offer, apart from some cheap records..."
"But you've freed me from those bastards, even though you probably don't even know their names, or what they did. And I'd do anything for you in return." The girl knelt down before her on one knee, with this solemn look on her face. Croire was laughing so hard, she almost fell off her book.
"See? Some people seem to think this is your calling! You've gotten yourself a loyal little slave—I mean, knight—in five minutes! What are you waiting for?"
"Hmph. I have no choice, then." Rei sighed. "It's the chosen one's destiny to lead the ignorant masses, after all. Since you seem a little less idiotic than the rest of them, I suppose I'd grant you the honor of being my first subject! What is your name?"
"Aktivis."
"You shouldn't do everything on your own."
Rei turned back, and saw the girl standing at the edge of the cliff. She had grown a lot taller than before, but she was still wearing that same ragged rainbow scarf.
"Are you questioning my capability?"
"No." Aktivis said. "But you said that some of these problems were...beneath you. Wouldn't it be better if there is a group of people who focus entirely on dealing with trivial matters, while you are out there, fighting?"
Rei did not reply immediately. As much as she hated to admit it, these peasants' incessant babbling and whining was starting to get on her nerves lately, especially with the increasing raids on Tari's coastline. She'd have flown to PC Continent herself and shown those Commord and Silver barbarians what a joke their "empire" was, if she wasn't boggled down with hundreds of demands for help.
"Sure. Do whatever you like. But if you fail, I'm not cleaning up your mess, and when the commoners start pointing fingers, it will be all on you." Rei said, after a long silence. "Is that clear?"
"...Yes." Aktivis made a small bow, before taking her leave.
Rei grinned. If there was one thing she liked about the girl, it had to be her willingness to keep her mouth shut and just get things done.
The "Basilicom" was better than Rei imagined. For mere mortals, the girl and her fellow workers captured the feeling of divinity quite well—even though they had completely discarded her concept sketches, to her great displeasure. As she leaned back on her throne, eyeing the high arches and elegantly decorated marble floor, she almost forgot about Croire's annoying presence, until the fairy spoke up again.
"Yo. Your slave asked me if you could spare some time to see her engineers' latest inventions."
"Stop calling her that. You make it sound like they are capable of anything other than worshipping me with all of their hearts." Rei scowled.
"Then tell her to stop dressing like one." Croire retorted. "Is that a yes or no?"
"Yes, but later." Rei said. "Now, how about you take a few lessons from her, watch that tongue of yours, and get out of here?"
"Wow, someone's having her PMS again. Whatever."
Whipping out her staff and batting the fairy around the room like a ping-pong ball suddenly seemed like a really appealing course of action. But Rei knew how much of a slippery pest Croire was, having already tried that once and failed to land a single hit on her. Besides, she'd hate to ruin such a beautiful new building.
Still, Croire had a point. The person who ran her Basilicom shouldn't look like some shoddy street urchin. Even though she was content to stay behind the scene, it would be an insult to Rei's own image, like she didn't have enough power and riches to provide decent clothes for her closest attendants.
Having already made up her mind on the matter, it didn't take long for Rei to depart from and return to the Basilicom. Rei frowned a little at the smell of machine oil in the air, as she pushed open the plain door of the office. Startled, Aktivis looked up from the blue box she was examining.
"Oh, greetings. I'm afraid that the devices aren't ready for display yet," she said. "Is there anything else you need me to do?"
"Go change your clothes."
"Pardon me?"
"Look. I get that you have to mingle with the dirty masses and force them to get their jobs done." Rei sighed. "That doesn't mean you have to dress like them. Stop making yourself into an embarrassment."
Seeing the flicker of wounded look in her eyes, Rei added, "Here. I get you a new scarf of the same color. Now you can finally ditch that rainbow rag for good. Don't make me waste my time on such trivial matters again!"
After Rei tossed the scarf into her hands, she did not look back, as she walked out of the office. When she saw Aktivis again that afternoon, during the presentation, she was in a business suit, and that round hat she was wearing was formal to the point of being goofy. Rei held back a smirk, and made a small nod in her direction.
That look of joy was almost worth the effort. Not that she lacked admiration and worship or anything.
"Detractors are traitors...and traitors must be dealt with."
Croire looked absolutely astonished by her words. Stupid fly. Wasn't bloodshed and chaos all part of the "fun" in her eyes? If Rei wasn't fuming already, she might've laughed out loud.
But the jackals were back. After everything she had done for them, these ungrateful scums still had the guts to slander her behind their backs. Now that the big fishes were all gone, the little underlings finally raised their ugly heads.
And jackals only understood one language, right? That of violence and death?
Only after the heat of the slaughter had died down did Rei regain enough clarity and composure to return to her Basilicom, like nothing had ever happened. Aktivis, ever the sensible one, did not appear in front of her for the next couple of days. In hindsight, Rei should have known she was trying to delay the bad news until the last second.
When she did walk into the hall, and deliver the sheet of paper to Rei, her head was lowered, and her face a blank mask.
"What is this..." Rei's face scrunched up, as she read out the title, "Resignation Letter?"
"The Basilicom's administrative council asked me to hand this to you," she said. "They are...not pleased with your recent orders regarding the surveillance of civilians, as well as the wage cuts and extended work hours—"
"No one asks for their opinion."
"I've tried my best to negotiate with them. But even I can't keep things running, if every single person under me just quit in unison." Aktivis took a deep breath. "These staff are amongst the top talent of Tari, and I feel that it is in our best interest to give them recognition—"
"I never ask for your opinion, either." Rei narrowed her eyes. "That's what you are proposing? Surrendering to these arrogant fools, like they had any actual power over me? Oh. They really thought I'd just let them walk away."
"And you. You are supposed to choose the best people to serve me. Looking at this nest of traitors, you've obviously done a great job." Rei snarled, as she walked up to the young woman, and tore the letter in half.
"Here's your last chance. Everyone who signed their name on this paper? Tell them to gather in the meeting room tomorrow. When I'm done with them, you better start looking for a new council that actually understands the meaning of loyalty and gratefulness."
"I have one question for you." After staring at the group of people in silence for a long, long time, Rei finally spoke up. "What differentiates you from the peasants, the ignorant masses?"
"Nothing." She squeezed the word out through gritted teeth. Her audience actually had the guts to look outraged. Aktivis, standing besides her, was as quiet as ever, her eyes hidden below the shadow of her round hat.
"You are no more important to me than some random janitors, and anyone can do your jobs." Rei glared at them. "You should be thankful that I found you more useful than the regular maggots crawling the streets, and granted you the honor of being in my great presence. Without me, you'd all be sleeping in a ditch somewhere, and this is how you repay my generosity? With treachery?"
"We do love Tari." A man mumbled. "But we've also been doing the bulk of the work when it comes to running the nation, and we just want some moderate compensation for our efforts."
"I haven't seen my kids in years..."
"I can't even feed my kids, if she cut our wages again!"
"Spying on civilians and building jails is not what I signed up for, when I join the R&D division."
She'd had enough. White light burst out of her body, and the entire crowd backed away at the sight of her HDD Form. Some of them immediately went for the door, only to find out that it was locked shut.
"You want compensation?" Rei growled, as she summoned her staff, and a vortex of dark energy began to swirl around its tip. "Take it, then! Take what you deserve!"
There was a flash of blinding blue light. It was not her attack, which whizzed through empty air a second later, and created a huge smoking crater on the wall. When it faded away, everyone in the room had disappeared without a trace—all except for one.
"...I was still hoping that you'd change your mind. That they'd never have to use what I gave to them." Aktivis broke the silence.
Rei let out a low chuckle. It soon erupted into full-blown laughter, as the realization sank in. Of course. How could she be so blind. She should have known, the moment this backstabbing snake spoke in defense of her fellow traitors. How foolish of her, to think there was any trustworthy person left around her.
"What are you waiting for?" The girl, no, the young woman—oh, how she had grown over the years—she was actually smiling. "You've dealt with my kind before. In your words, I'm just another bug to crush. Nothing unique about this one."
"Yo. Wake up, sleepyhead." Croire poked the woman in the cheek. "I know you ain't dead."
Still slumped against the wall, she opened her uninjured eyes, before squeezing it shut again. Croire had to give Rei credits when it was due—that bitch actually had some finesse and control left in her, and didn't smear her target all across the floor.
"Did she send you here..." She let out a pained gasp. "...to finish the job?"
"Hell no. She just grumbled something about a quick death being too easy for backstabbing traitors, before throwing you into the bottom of this pit." Croire said. "And I don't have the patience to sit here and watch you starve to death. That's almost as boring as regular history."
"...What is history to you, then?"
Croire raised an eyebrow. A philosophical inquiry? People really asked the weirdest questions when they thought the end was near. Guess it couldn't hurt to entertain this sorry thing.
"The same people, making the same thing happen over and over again, without learning anything from it. It's like an endless loop of the most annoying song you've ever heard! And I was supposed to just sit there and record every single note until the end of time. No shit."
"So you'd rather smash the recorder."
"Well, duh, because if I don't smash it, these idiots would never, ever play a new tune."
The woman fell silent for a long time, before she spoke up again. "Why are you still here."
"Eh, because you've surprised me, really. I thought you're just this boring slave, who couldn't stop following that bitch around like some sad puppy. But your little backhand trick there? Man, you're a real rebel. And what fun is tyranny, without a resistance to crush?"
She moved her lips, but before she could say anything, a glowing blue light burst out of thin air. Her eyes widened at the sight of the three men. One of them had a blue box in hand.
"Boss!" They gathered around her, and helped her up. "Gosh, she really did a number on you."
"How did..." Her look was one of sheer disbelief and worry. "...You shouldn't come back here. It's not safe."
"Hey, you of all people should know not to underestimate Tari's engineers. Once that fairy gave us the coordinates, it's a piece of cake. Let's get out of here!"
Croire winked at the woman, grinning. She didn't say anything in return, before the entire group vanished in another burst of blue light.
"Really? Not even a 'thanks' for my efforts?" She grumbled. "Ungrateful bitch."
Rei hurled the spherical device away when she heard the beeping sound, but it was a second too late. The device exploded in a rain of laser projectiles, and she cried out loud when some of them connected with her body. The wounds they left behind were regenerated in an instant, but it shouldn't have hurt so much in the first place—!
Another burst of blue light. When the smoke cleared away, the injured traitors was gone. Again.
"Man. You look like shit." Croire poked her head out from behind a charred tree. "No luck with your Whack-A-Mole game?"
"...Shut up."
These traitors were using her technology, her devices, to spread their foul slander and turning her loyal citizens against her. Hiding in the shadows like the maggots they were, leaving only their foul crests behind. More were joining their ranks everyday, and despite Rei's best effort at suppressing her doubts, she was starting to wonder if this was a war she couldn't win.
That possibility...unsettled her. No. Never. Never had she lost a single battle against anyone! If these traitors ever came out in the opens, she'd decimate them, all of them—!
"Hey, don't be a sore loser." Croire shrugged. "You gotta' admit, 'The Crane' is a pretty cool name for a resistance group. If I was one of your people, I'd totally join them. Especially after that fantastic light show they put up yesterday!"
Rei sent out a blast in her direction, reducing the tree to a pile of ash. Unfortunately, it missed the fairy again.
Now that the Basilicom was an empty building, devoid of guards and workers (all of them, traitors), the crowd had grown much bolder, and started painting the resistance symbol all over the outer walls. The Winged V Crest was everywhere, a nightmarish presence that coalesced into the biggest crowd that Rei had seen, ever since she began executing detractors in public.
Her humiliating retreat yesterday had not helped at all. These OOParts might have been able to scratch her, but they weren't able to overpower her before...was her power weakening?
"The first thing I said, when I saw the Goddess of Tari, was 'she's not a monster'." A voice, no doubt amplified by the device that Rei had come to loathe with a passion, rang through the air.
"Since then, she has done everything she could to prove me wrong. I thought that one who fought monsters must be a hero. Yet all I find in the end is a greater monster, who turns on us the moment she ran out of foes."
"She had tried to slaughter her entire Basilicom, even though we were the ones who ran the nation while she was basking in the glory of her success, who maintained the roads and public facilities, who poured out our blood and sweat developing new technology in her name. Why? Because we wanted her to treat us with some basic respect, and held the foolish belief that we could still reason with her..."
The voice was soon drowned out by a wave of enraged yells.
"Down with the tyrant!"
"Because of her, my family..."
"We can take care of ourselves just alright!"
"Yeah! Let's all sail for the PC Continent! Even being pirates is better than worshipping this murderer!"
"Yo, we got a crowd today, too." Croire said. "You've been staring at them in silence for a while, huh? What're you gonna do about this bullshit?"
This must be a nightmare. But Rei didn't wake up inside her old dilapidated shack, in the cold silence of night. Perhaps your human life was the real nightmare, the voice in her mind whispered. Isn't this what you wanted? You've finally killed all the traitors. No one can betray you now.
As Rei made her way through this razed field of melted glass and metal, trying to find the smallest sign of life, to no avail, she was crying again. Croire was talking again, no doubt spouting mockeries about what a pathetic hypocrite she was. She didn't hear a single word. Eventually, the fairy flew away, probably bored out of her mind by Rei's incoherent mutters.
"It's all gone...because I...turned into that."
Because of her. Because of that wretched power. Because of the mantle of CPU that she should've never shouldered in the first place. But it wasn't over, was it?
It could happen all over again, when another powerless, suffering fool like her was encumbered with a power that no one was meant to have—no, there was a monster inside every human being, no matter how meek and mundane and harmless they appeared, just waiting to be brought to the surface. She was a living proof of that.
If this cycle was doomed to repeat itself, then maybe...
"CPUs shouldn't...CPUs shouldn't...shouldn't exist!"
Her voice had raised from a whisper to a shriek, echoing through the desolate wasteland. No one was left to hear it, yet she was still repeating the two words, over and over again, as she knelt down on the ground, clutching her hair—
"No. You shouldn't exist." A hoarse voice came from behind her. "Even if that's true, why not start with yourself first?"
Without even seeing the figure approaching her, Rei sent out a blast wave in that direction, screaming. She collapsed as the last few fragments of her power connected with her target, and sent the...thing flying backwards. With a thud, it hit the ground. For a second, it just lay there, and a crushing wave of dread washed over Rei at the sight of that limp body.
When the figure twitched and slowly stood up, the dread was gone for a brief second, only to be replaced by sheer horror as it staggered towards Rei. The woman's charred flesh was flaking off her half-naked body. She shouldn't be able to make any sound in that state. She shouldn't even be moving.
"How are you still..."
Rei covered her mouth when she heard the beeping sound. Inside the gaping hole on the woman's chest was one of those spherical OOParts, the cold grey metal fusing seamlessly with her flesh, which was regenerating at a visible speed. Soon, the wound was gone, leaving only a circular burn mark behind.
"I wish I was dead. Like everyone else. But your last attack has some unfortunate side effects."
Within minutes, her face was no longer a mess of melted skin and exposed bone. But this was not the woman Rei knew (Had she truly known Aktivis at all?). Just another horror spawned by this nightmare, tormenting her with that familiar face.
"I'm sorry, but l-listen—it's all my power, a-and now I don't have it anymore—"
Rei's nails were digging into her palms. She didn't even believe in those words she was stammering out, in some pathetic attempts at begging for forgiveness, at defending herself.
"Of course. It's never your fault. Isn't it easy? Everything we've fought for, everyone we loved—you can just wipe it away with a snap of your finger, and then try to handwave it with a 'sorry'."
"...A-Are you going to kill me?"
With the last bit of her power gone, there was no way Rei could stop her. And she should. She had every right to.
"No. But if you still have any conscience left in you, go say your apology to them in the afterlife." A small smile crawled onto her face, as she picked up a piece of jagged metal from the wreckage, and put it in Rei's hands. "End your own miserable existence, if you really are sorry."
Rei shivered at the coldness, as she ran her finger across the metal. She gripped the object, and tried to raise it up to her neck. But her hands were shaking, slippery with mud and tears. After dropping it for a few times, the strength drained out of her. Even looking at the...thing again made her sick to her stomach.
"Need some help?" There was no emotion in the woman's voice. As if she was merely suggesting to take care of a stack of paperwork for her.
Rei closed her eyes, and nodded. Maybe this was the best end, for a coward who could never make up for her sins to die at the hands of her first and last subject. She felt a cold hand grabbing onto her shoulder, before the metal's edge pressed against her neck. She was still trembling, but there was an odd sense of peace, as she braced for the pain to come—
"Woah! Hang on a sec!"
Croire's yell rang through the air, followed by a sharp humming sound. As her eyes snapped open, a flood of black and purple flooded Rei's vision, and just like that, the woman was gone.
"Man, to think that I actually miss your old pushover personality and lack of self-preservation instincts..." Croire sighed, after the portal fizzled out. "This reminds me of a riddle, though. If there are two people on the moon, and one killed the other with a rock...shit, what's the next line again?"
"My point is, offing yourself is the most boring way to go. A whole game worth of stories will just disappear, and I won't have anything to record after that! So don't even think of trying again."
"...Where did you send her to?"
Croire shrugged. "Probably some place without a Goddess?"
"I thought you were done with music, after you used your guitar for target practice."
"Go back to sleep, Silis Synapse." She looked away from the jukebox, and turned back in her huge office chair.
"For the love of all that is holy, if you won't call me Blizz, can you just not refer to me by name at all?" The blue-haired teenage girl groaned, before adding in a sarcastic voice, "Darling?"
"Why are you still awake."
"Raids." The girl mumbled. "Not something you'd care about."
"Get over it."
"Excuse me?"
"You've been reading the comments again." She paused. "It's the usual stuff, isn't it? You've lost your idealism. You don't get people anymore. You are all corrupted and out for yourself now. Ha. Every person who said that could really use a good dose of suffering in their lives, and see if they can stay true to their own words."
"Is that why you stay alive? Out of spite and the need to passively spread your own misery? Yeesh. Thanks, but no thanks. I haven't fallen that low yet."
"No. I only live for myself, and myself alone. Anyone who has a problem with that can go fuck themselves." She let out a bitter laugh. "I think you should, too."
"You don't get to tell me what to do."
"True. I can't force you into anything. But the terms of our marriage doesn't forbid me to make suggestions."
"Your suggestions suck. Enjoy your music, and your brooding."
The little cartoon cows on the girl's pajama soon vanished into the darkness of the corridor. She closed her eyes, leaned back in the chair, and let the record music drown out the faint beeping inside her chest.
The oldest third-party game developer has a rich history, and most of them aren't happy. In fact, the first ten years of Activision is Exodus from Atari—Immense success on the VCS—The Great Crash of '83—Wading into deeper and deeper financial shit until they were about to drown in it. It's only natural that a character based on this company would be the idealist who gets all the idealism crushed out of her, until only bitter cynicism and apathy remain.
Reference List:
-Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, actually referred to the Pong clone makers as "jackals", preying on Atari's success.
-The "Odysseus Warlords" is a small reference to the many, many Pong consoles that flooded the market in the 70s, named after the first console that you can play a ping-pong game on, the Magnavox Odyssey.
-The "Commord and Silver barbarians" on PC Continent reference the Commodore and Apple home computers; the PC platform was a hotbed of clone games and piracy, even in the 80s, and Atari was very proactive in their anti-piracy and copyright protection campaigns, so it naturally led to a lot of lawsuits. (Speaking of which, where was the Tari fleet establishing its 8-Bit colonies on PC Continent and getting into blood feuds with the Commord Empire?)
-The name of the resistance group, "The Crane", is a reference to David Crane, creator of Pitfall! and one of the first four programmers to leave Atari and found Activision.
-The blue box device used to teleport people is inspired by the development system Activision used to reverse-engineer the VCS and bypass its copyright patents, which is nicknamed "the blue box" because of its blue sheet metal enclosure.
-The rainbow scarf came from this...rainbow thing attached to the left of Activision's old logo.