Medals Must Be Earned
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Chapter 4: The Tower
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The base's medic sprayed something over Ralph's back, gave him a handful of pills to swallow, quickly wrapped Ralph's torso in bandages, and then helped him into a tight stretchy shirt to protect the bandages and keep them in place. "Okay, you're set," said the doctor. "You're sterilized, bandaged, sealed, and full of painkillers and stimulants. Go get 'em tiger."
"Thanks, Doc," said Ralph and he was led away to be dressed in some armor.
"I can't believe Calhoun's doing this for you, not after what happened," commented the soldier assisting him, a big fellow whose nameplate read 'Davis'.
"I think she understands me."
"Yeah, well, I hear Markowski's going up with us. Don't expect him to watch your back."
Ralph chuckled. "I can't say I blame him. But I can count on you, right?"
The man froze, somewhat startled by the man's cut-to-the-chase question, and then looked at Ralph. And then after a moment, a smile broke across his face. "Yeah. Why not?" He slapped the wrecker on the shoulder, which made Ralph wince. "We'll get you there."
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It all seemed strangely familiar—the charge across the causeway, the hustle and rattle of the unit, the sound of heavy feet on metal, the noise of the carnage. The thick swarms of Cy-Bugs came down but he felt ready. The shock and awe of his first experience in Hero's Duty was over. That minute of disastrous panic had dulled to the current somewhat bearable panic. Once he'd expected Centipede. This time he knew what to expect.
Ralph clutched his rifle and fired away, fighting the urge to toss it aside and smash bugs with his own hands. The weapons here were designed to kill these things.
Before he knew it they'd gotten inside of the tower and to a large elevator platform. "Well that wasn't so bad," decided Ralph aloud to Davis. The big soldier was sticking to his side, having made himself Ralph's personal escort after their little exchange. Another of the men, a mid-gunner named Green, had taken it upon himself to watch Ralph's back. He seemed to have a real knack for moving sideways and backwards while keeping abreast of his surroundings.
Ralph became accustomed to aiming and firing the gun they'd given him, and soon he found some confidence in what he was doing. By the time the party got to the twentieth floor he was feeling confident enough to try shifting the settings on his rifle. By the thirtieth floor he knew how to activate and toss the grenades included with his armor. By the fortieth floor he knew the icons that linked to target points that would reward him with power-ups, replacement soldiers, replacement grenades, cut scenes, and damage repair.
Getting off the elevator at the forty-eighth floor, Calhoun called for a break, and the seven men still with the party slouched against the walls or sat on the floor. "There are no bugs on this level—just this room with the gear and power-ups and what not," said Davis with a wave of his hand at the surroundings. What Ralph had assumed to be a spare battery or some kind of mortar or a specialized piece of equipment slung across Kohut's back turned out to actually be a large thermos full of strong hot coffee. Davis showed Ralph how to remove the cap on the side of his rifle, one that protected something projecting at the side, and to use it as a makeshift coffee cup, which most of the men were doing.
Ralph held out his cup as Kohut came around, and gratefully took a helping. "Thanks," he said and then sat down against the wall, cradling the cup jealously. Coffee had never quite tasted so good than at that moment.
Calhoun came over and crouched beside him. "You're doing well," she said. "I've been watching you."
"Really? Well thank you," responded Ralph with a weak smile.
"We'll be up to the top in good time." She looked him over with a calculating gaze. "You know, Ralph, if you ever find yourself in need of a job, you're welcome here. We could always use a few more soldiers."
Ralph chuckled. "Good pay. Steady work. Free uniforms. Regular beatings."
Calhoun chuckled, as did Davis and a few of the other soldiers sitting nearby. She liked his deadpan sense of humor.
"But seriously, I do appreciate this, Sergeant," he said looking at her.
A smile touched her hard features for a moment, but then she rose and went over to Kohut for a refill of coffee. Sipping it, she looked about the room again. And then she nodded at the wrecker. "C'mere. Let me show you something."
Ralph lumbered to his feet ignoring the protests in his muscles to keep resting—perhaps he should have taken the time to run out and have Felix fix him before heading out—and he followed her to the far end of the room. Instead of going through the door that marked the stairs up to the next level, she opened a doorway in a shadowed wall. It led to an unlit corridor, at the end of which Ralph could see a window. He followed her down the corridor, noting the way her figure was silhouetted by the glow of the sky beyond. Even in her bulky armor she had such a grace.
"There are a lot of places like this in the tower, and I mean a lot," she explained, taking off her helmet. "Rooms that the players don't know about. The shooter modules can't get into them anyway. Only the soldiers have access."
At the end of the corridor was a room at the corner of the tower, the outer wall formed by the window. "Oh...nice view!" exclaimed Ralph, pushing open his visor. He walked up to the railing around the room and looked out over the desolate landscape that was the world of Hero's Duty.
"Vero è che 'n su la proda mi trovai de la valle d'abisso dolorosa," commented Calhoun.
Ralph looked over at her questioningly at the utterance, but she only gave him a mysterious smirk for an explanation. He turned back to the view, amazed at the size of the game's world. Like he'd seen on his first ascent of the tower, it was all dark and unfathomable, lit by a weak light coming through the high clouds and the green glow produced by the wings and eyes of the Cy-Bugs. The swarms he'd seen from below were now at eye-level.
They stood for some time, neither speaking, neither moving. But when Ralph looked over at the sergeant, he could see a sadness upon her face, the sadness she tried so hard to hide behind her thorny personality and relentless vendetta against the Cy-Bugs. Wanting to try again, he spoke softly.
"Who was he? The one that broke your heart?"
There was a slight gasp, as if she'd been asleep and he'd woken her unexpectedly. But then she gathered her thoughts as quickly as they'd been interrupted. "He never broke it," she said calmly, remorsefully.
"Would you tell me your backstory now? Now that we've gotten this far?"
She bit her lip and closed her eyes to the panorama of her game.
"His name was Brad—Dr. Brad Scott. This tower is a huge research facility, and according to the game's story it's where he worked. I guess things happened like any tragic love story. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Girl looses boy when a Cy-Bug crashes their wedding. Girl spends the rest of her life agonizing over what went wrong."
"Oh jeeze..."
"They made it my fault too." Somehow her voice hid it, but tears were streaming out the corners of her eyes. "I have to do these daily perimeter checks for any Cy-Bugs that have somehow escaped the pull of the beacon. And I did so faithfully, except for one day...my wedding day. A Cy-Bug broke into the chapel and...and..."
"That's horrible," blurted Ralph, figuring out the rest of the story without needing to be told.
"It was all my fault that Brad died." She squeezed her eyes shut and her hands clenched the railing. "If I'd done that check..."
Ralph was aghast at the story. "That's so unfair. No wonder you're this way."
She did not open her eyes. "So now you know. Happy?"
"No," he replied as he shook his head. "That's just so awful."
"But it's what I live with every day, this horrendous burden of guilt and the broken heart that only makes it worse. But I can deal with it. I'm just fine."
"Fine? You're coping, but you could be doing so much better. You could be so much happier without that monster of a memory inside of you."
"How can I be happier? I deserve this!"
He moved closer to her and put his hand onto her shoulderplate comfortingly. "Neither you nor I deserve what fate has meted out to us. But we can change it. That's why I'm here. I came to get a medal to prove to those stupid little Nicelanders that I'm just as good as any of them and certainly just as good as Felix. And you can do the same. You can move beyond this burden fate has dealt you."
"How? What can I do? Every day I go out there and kill Cy-Bugs. That's how I deal with the cards I was dealt!" she spat, pointing wildly at the enemy swarming outside. She turned hard and walked a few steps away and then fell to her knees. Unable to hold it in any longer, she sobbed dry tears of remorse.
Ralph knelt in front of her, took her face between his hands, looked into her eyes, and then ever so gently brushed her bangs back. "Don't give in to the guilt, Sergeant. It doesn't have to be this way."
"But it is this way."
Ralph shook his head. "Prove those programmers wrong. You don't need this pain to do your job. Go find yourself another love and get married and get the biggest, shiniest do-over ever. You have the power to change what we call fate."
"I can't do that. I was supposed to marry Brad."
"And he's gone. Heck, he never even existed. He was just backstory. But he wasn't the only guy out there that could love you. There are lots of guys in your game and in all the other games in the arcade. And lots of them are probably just as lonely as you are. Heck, Felix seemed pretty smitten with you. And if you're really absolutely desperate I'll marry you, even after what you did to me.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Me? Get married? You're absolutely crazy, Wreck-It. "
"There are times we have to move beyond our Code. Think about it, would you?"
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Medals Must Be Earned continues in: Chapter 5 – "The High Priestess"
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The Tower – Tarot meaning
Destruction, dramatic change, loss and ruin, new start, unexpected events
Dark and forboding, the Tower is the embodiment of disruption and conflict. Not just change, but the abrupt and jarring movelment cased by the unforseen and traumatic events which are a part of life. The tower in your spread is always a threat, but life inevitably involves tragedy, and you must decide whether you will face it with grace.
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Wreck-It Ralph and all related concepts, characters, worlds, and events are property of Walt Disney Pictures. Original characters and story elements are property of E. Potter, writing under the pen name of Miratete.