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THREE LIVES LEFT. It hurt to think about it. Her son was a freak now—the only member of their family with a missing life. He had been forced prematurely back into the primeval state, the pre-myriadic trinity. Yes, both of his parents only had three lives, but they had earned a fourth in their respective games, just as he had after earning ten thousand points. Their threenesses were different from his. They were a clean three. But his three lives were like a room with only three corners—monstrously incomplete. And it was her fault.

She closed her eyes. This would take time to sink in—both the state of things and her own role in the tragedy. Three lives.

The silence was broken. "What's happened?" cried Pac-Man.

His voice was most horrible when it possessed that wounded, innocent pitch that suggested its owner had been wronged. She herself still felt like both wronged and wronger; she could not handle her husband's presence. "Get out," she pled.

He hove closer; she could tell with her eyes still closed. "This isn't just about us, is it?" he asked. "Please, Pepper. Tell me what's happened."

She hated this. Pepper was the nickname he'd given her years ago. She couldn't bear the idea that she owed him anything—even an explanation. She opened her eyes and ran.

But he ran after.

A single ghost, she could avoid without difficulty. That, she was used to. But her husband was smarter than a ghost, and she was in turmoil. She found herself lacking avenues of escape, missing cues, driven against the west wall. Cornered by her husband. It hardly mattered, though. Even if she wasn't captive to him, she was still captive to her guilt.

"Stop running! Please, Pepper. Tell me why you're crying." He floated toward her casually, as if there had been no pursuit and no prior troubles. In his tone, Ms. Pac-Man could discern nothing but genuine concern—and this enraged her. He was too good to realize how terrible he was.

"Go see to your son," she hissed. "He needs you more than you need me."

He did not respond. Instead, his eyes focused with the import of what had happened; all that remained was to match it with a fitting conclusion. He turned and tore up the ramp.

He did care, Ms. Pac-Man realized. Was this was it took to get him to leave her alone?

It was quiet. Rather than go and face her error, she descended another level. Then another. This misdirected feeling was worse than running from her husband had been. Then, she had had nowhere to go. Now, there was only one place in the world she wanted to go, but she could not bear to go there while her husband was present.

There was noise above her. Turmoil, rage, helplessness. She longed for the next visage she beheld to be Inky's, as unlikely as it would. He would save her from this. But it was not to be.

"PEPPER!" roared her husband as he hurried down after her. "They've killed him! THEY'VE MURDERED HIM!"

She turned away, facing the wall. Did he even realize the real cause of Junior's death? Did it matter?

"Pepper." He wouldn't leave her. He was behind her now, speaking as if the dissension between them was completely forgotten; this made her feel ill inside. "They've taken one of our son's lives. We have to get them now. We've got to fight back. They can't get away with this."

She wouldn't look at him. "It's what they do. We've always known that."

"But they never caught us! They've never taken any of our lives before. If they had… I don't know I would have done." He spun in place, seething, working up his rage. "But this is our son. Our son! Pepper, I know you're mad at me, but I can't do it alone. You need to help me fight them. We'll get Junior to help and we'll take them out once and for all!"

Insanity. "We could never take them out," Ms. Pac-Man snapped, whirling around to face her husband. "If we did, there would be no game."

"Then we'll let the games end early and watch the finale! But we can't let them run free, not after this. What if… what if it happens again?" They both shuddered at the thought, though their intentions were as divided as black pixels from white.

"It was never possible to kill the ghosts when we fought them," Ms. Pac-Man reasoned. "Why would it be possible now?"

"Curse it, won't you even try?" Pac-Man cycled in a tight square, his cheeks fiery. "Your son needs you. Come on."

He sped away, and to her chagrin Ms. Pac-Man found herself following. She had not noticed the same emotion building in herself, but it had, and she too wanted revenge. Her feelings for one ghost had masked those opposite feelings for the other three...until now. Could it be that her husband had a stronger understanding of her own emotions than she did, even now?

Three levels up, back to where it had happened. Four levels; five. Their son had apparently not been encumbered so badly by the shock of his own death as had his parents: he had made two levels of progress in the time it had taken them to reach their sanguine consensus.

Along the way, they talked. "Power pellets make them our prey," rambled Pac-Man, darting frantically around corners. "The question is, does eating a power pellet change us, or does it somehow change them?"

"Why would it change us?" asked his wife. "It makes them blue and slow, but does nothing to us."

"But how can they be changed by something we eat?!" Pac-Man demanded. He rose to the final level and immediately witnessed the pink ghost whizzing by. Like a mad thing he followed after.

"Wait!" cried his wife.

"No. Come with me! I have an idea. Our one advantage here is that we're together! If we can kill them here and now, it's only because we're able to act as a team!"

She chased after him, doubtful. "How could being a team make any difference?"

A tinge of menace entered his voice. "Let's see what happens if we both eat a power pellet at once."

This, interestingly, was something they had never done. But it was consistent with what he'd taught her—to take advantage of any new factor in order to solve an unsolvable problem. Now, the fire of vengeance in her was turning to an equally hot curiosity. Very well—Ms. Pac-Man would set her other issues aside. Quivering, she counted the exact distance in gems between herself and the nearest power pellet. She compensated for Blinky's approach and the detour it would require. She shouted this figure to her husband, who shouted back, racing and calculating his own path to another pellet.

They worked quickly, but forgot one factor: Junior. Still trying to clear the level, he had overheard their yelling. Now he coursed up to his mother and yelled, "Mom! What are you and Dad doing now?"

"I'm sorry, Junior." Even while fleeing the ghost onslaught he brought with him, she peered into his eyes, trying to fathom whether he remembered his own death. "Did… do you know what's happened?"

He spun in a brief circle before continuing on. "You led Sue over toward me and got me killed! Then you went away and now Dad's here too. What gives?"

She took a breath that stuck. Bless his young heart, she thought. He's not shaken. It was nothing to him.

"I feel terrible about that, Junior. Your father and I have an idea. We want to try picking up power pellets at the exact same time…"

Rather than scold the elder Pacs for their experiment, Junior wanted in on it. He was still peeved over his mother's mistake, but had no time to carry a heavy grudge. If the force of two power pellets had a chance of doing real damage, he reasoned, three would be that much more potent. And he too felt the need to channel his frustration. No familiar act would do for this purpose—only something radical and dangerous.

With only two pellets left on the current level, they were forced to wait for Junior to clear it so they could proceed to the next. But they spent the time in sporadic conversation, piecing together their plan. Soon, what had already been a complex operation got geometrically more complex. It was no trivial thing for three moving bodies to pluck up three power pellets at precisely the same moment, even if they hadn't been harried by their timeless pursuers. The members of this family, however, were eager to rechannel their differences into an ambitious project. The routine of dodging ghosts was tedious by now, but this new goal was enough to distract Ms. Pac-Man from her fears, Junior from his recent death, and Pac-Man from his uncharacteristic anger. They assigned each of themselves a target, a waiting point, a path, a signal for when to charge forth. They counted stones carefully, confirming and reconfirming that the lengths of their paths were accurate to the last degree.

The ghosts hurried in and out, confused, pursuing all their enemies but mostly Pac-Man Jr. They acted wildly, as creatures frenzied by an excess of food, for never before had three potential morsels been available at one time, and never before half an hour prior had they actually tasted their prey. Instinct guided them, and this kept them from cognizing the nature of the plan. Thus there was no interference.

It went perfectly. Three angular mouths closed at once over three pulsating pellets. Three glowing yellow souls were energized with the fervor of the righteous, seizing this chance to destroy. She chased one ghost; they chased another, and when Ms. Pac-Man's mouth closed on the frightened blue phantom before her, it seemed somehow a more potent act than usual.

Yet there was no weight behind this apparent genocide. Just as they always had, the ghosts' eyes fled to Central Control, the flashing ceased, and the food chain resumed its normal order. The height of the moment ceased and the three warriors convened, quivering, in a corner.

"I didn't really think it would work," said Pac-Man. "But it was worth a try. Don't worry—we've got some other tricks we can pull."

His small family looked hopefully to him. Any minute now, his wife thought, I'll lose this fervor and remember why I ran from you. But for now she listened, and they brainstormed, and on the next level up they prepared to put their second plan into action, fleeing in an empty loop all the while. Three pellets eaten at once, then a single ghost converged upon from three directions. It would be very hard to coordinate, but hadn't there been some extra potency in what they'd done below? Wasn't it a sign that something like this might work?

"Which one?" Junior asked.

"Sue," said Ms. Pac-Man, confident in her choice.

"Huh? Why her?"

Pac-Man frowned. "I would have marked her as the worst choice. She's the least predictable."

"I want her gone," said Ms. Pac-Man, wondering how much of this preference lay in the fact that it was her mistake with Sue that had cost her son his life.

"Okay, let's be sensible about this," said Pac-Man. "If this works, they're all gone, sooner or later. Those are the stakes. What we need for now is a test subject. A ghost that won't surprise us, and won't interfere too much while we're getting ready. And I think that leaves us with Pinky or Inky."

"Not In—" she started to say, then caught herself and turned away. She spent a beat silent while they stared. "Let's make it Pinky," she said. "I think they're preparing to converge on us. We should scatter."

"What do you mean?" demanded her husband. "I don't think they're planning anything. They're not even—" But Ms. Pac-Man had dashed off and wasn't there to hear.

She had to warn Inky. This was something she should have thought of two levels ago. She owed it to him. So she sought him, but he found her first, quietly hovering in from off the edge of the screen. They moved together for a while, in tandem, saying nothing.

"I know what you're up to," said Inky eventually. Not accusing. Barely informing. Just a fact floating in space.

"Do you know if it will work?" Ms. Pac-Man dared to ask.

His eyes shifted away. "I don't know your exact plan."

"But you know our goal."

"Yes."

"Then why are you still here?" she pled.

The blue ghost detoured around and came at Ms. Pac-Man from the other direction. They were far from anyone else. "Don't do it," he warned.

"Why not?"

"You can't destroy a ghost."

"Can't, or mustn't?"

"You mustn't. I'm sorry, but I can't let you."

"But you're…" She tried to find an argument, but stopped. There were too many doubts, too many things she didn't understand, to craft the kind of power play she would need to break through Inky's will. So she zipped away, asking only, "Why not?"

"We are a family, just like you," was Inky's reply.

Conflicted was not a strong enough word to describe her feelings.

A/N: When I was in college, there was a gaming area in the upper commons, and in addition to the ping pong, foosball and pool tables, the pinball machine and the newfangled cabinets like Tekken 6, there was always an old-fashioned arcade machine. For a while, it was Ms. Pac-Man. The controls were more forgiving than some versions of the game I've played, and I got really good at it. Not good enough to reliably group the ghosts up in clumps so you can collect them all with every power pellet, but good at the basic skills of dodging and gathering. On my best run ever, I netted 279,830 points and reached level 42. On that occasion, I was being cheered on by a couple of fellow college students who also enjoyed the game—they were drumming between rounds and watching avidly, and I didn't want to let them down. It was the one time I was like the hero of the arcade, and it helped cement a connection between me and Ms. Pac-Man.

And isn't "pre-myriadic trinity" a nice turn of phrase?

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