by Zachery Nims
Chapter 19: The End of the World
Time: Five Years Prior
Source: Personal Computer Log
User: Evo
We were there when the bar opened, we were there through the so-called “local rush” and it looked as though we were going to be there when it closed. Knightcr@wler had beaten the game a total of ten times at this point hoping that it was just a glitch. He even had the bartender check for faulty wiring, but neither of them really knew what they were looking for. Phantom was busy looking around the bar with his VEG Jacks, but there was nothing. We had all checked it out earlier but Phantom seemed convinced that we were missing something.
Kira was getting drunk. Her and Knightcr@wler were playing Super Nintendo Tennis. One person served up a letter and then they went back and forth naming Super Nintendo games that started with that letter until one of them couldn’t name one. The person that couldn’t would lose the point.
Knightcr@wler had crushed her in original Nintendo games but in Super Nintendo Kira was up forty to fifteen. They were currently on the letter E and Kira had just named E.V.O. as her hit. Knightcr@wler was drawing a blank. He was spinning a quarter on the table, trying to think of another game. “That’s time,” Kira said.
“It’s only been two minutes. On the last match I gave you like half an hour on the final point,” Knightcr@wler said.
“Here,” Kira said, slamming the quarter down with her hand. “You get one spin and three flicks to keep it spinning as long as you can. Once it falls, after the third flick, your time’s up.” Knightcr@wler loved the wager because he loved spinning quarters. He pinned the quarter vertically under his left pointer finger. Then flicked it hard across its side, sending it spinning toward the center of the glazed wooden tabletop. The quarter was a blur of silver; he leaned back and took no notice of it as he thought.
“Who serves up an E? You’re so cheap Kira. There are only two freaking games that start with an E, Earth Worm Jim and E.V.O. The only reason you knew E.V.O. is because of your lover.” He leaned forward again and used his first flick to send the quarter spinning back to the center.
“YEAH,” the bartender yelled clapping at the TV screen. The Red Sox had just gotten a home run against the Yankees, and Knightcr@wler turned back to Kira with his eyes wide open, “EXTRA INNINGS!” he screamed with excitement. He tossed the quarter to Kira “Same deal, five flicks, suck it Kira.”
She smiled and said, “I only need one.” She flicked the quarter hard and it spun for a second before flying off the table. “EarthBound.”
“EarthBound? I’ve never heard of EarthBound. Challenge,” Knightcr@wler said.
Challenges were allowed once per match when someone was thought to be cheating. “Well then obviously you didn’t play too many RPG’s growing up,” Kira said.
“Whatever I challenge,” he insisted. They both looked at me since I was the mediator and was allowed access to VEG. I confirmed the answer was correct and gave him a brief history of the game that I knew would only enrage him more.
Then Kira put the icing on the cake, “Game, Set, Match... Losers go fetch.”
Knightcr@wler got up and began looking for the quarter that had fallen underneath the adjacent table somewhere. “GUYS,” Knightcr@wler shouted from somewhere beneath us. “Get down here quick.” Kira and I both went crawling to where Knightcr@wler was crouched, focusing on something. “How many tables are there?” he said with his thumb and pointer finger wrapped around the base of the leg.
“What? Why?” I asked.
“Just count the tables real quick,” He said, focused on something. I stood up and took a quick glance.
“Seven,” I said crouching back down for a better look.
The design at the very bottom of the leg was flames climbing up. It looked like a part of the woodcarving but as I looked along the rest of the tables I noticed that each leg was different. “I can move it,” Knightcr@wler said as he shifted, twisting the base of the leg to the right. There was a soft clicking sound and then a secret wooden compartment shot outwards toward Kira. It had a simple rotating combination dial on it that had the numbers zero through seven. “This is fire. Fire must represent Dragon army. It can’t be by ranking because Orson Scott doesn’t discuss the ranking in detail,” Knightcr@wler said as he turned the dial slowly. “It must be by order in the book. Ender never fought Dragon army because he was on Dragon but he was in three other teams first. Regardless dragon must be zero.” He moved the dial into place and nothing happened. Kira pushed the compartment back in and then the flames on the design lit up red.
“It’s a code!” said Knightcr@wler. Kira slapped her hand over Knightcr@wler’s mouth. His eyes were wild with excitement and now flushed with a mixture of anger. Kira made a hand motion toward the bartender who was still enthralled with the baseball game. Knightcr@wler slowly shifted his head up and down with acknowledgement. Kira was right; this was not the time to reveal a hidden door inside a bar. Knightcr@wler shifted the table’s leg back to pop out the compartment and then rotated the number to six before pushing it back into place. We all got up as if nothing had happened. I grabbed Phantom, we paid the tab, and walked out.
We were going to wait till the bar closed at one in the morning but we had a bit of luck. Since the bar was dead, they closed just a little after midnight. “Wait so we are going to break the law to complete a VEG quest?” Phantom asked.
“Charles Sanders owns this bar. We can’t get arrested for completing a quest that he built these structures for.” Knightcr@wler said. Phantom was in agreement.
“There has to be some kind of way to get in though without breaking a window or picking a lock,” Kira said.
I put my Jacks on and saw it immediately. A giant augmented neon sign said “Late Night Entrance This Way” pointing at a window in the back. “Look guys!” I took some quick snap shots and displayed it on the ground in front of us with the projector function on my frames since only Phantom had his Jacks.
“Good find baby,” Kira said, patting my bottom as we walked toward the window.
The window opened with ease and there was a ledge that made climbing inside rather easy. “I don’t know how this place hasn’t been robbed blind,” Phantom said.
“I think I found my new favorite bar,” Knightcr@wler said. Once inside it was all business. “Bring up the book in your Jacks Evo,” Knightcr@wler said. He was breathing heavy and you could hear the excitement in his voice. I was already on top of it and was doing quick searches for keywords throughout the book with correlation to their page number.
Knightcr@wler had already activated the first leg of the Dragon Army table. “Alright, Ender started on Salamander army,” I said.
Knightcr@wler got up and went toward the next table “We know, we know... which armies did he fight?” Knightcr@wler sounded annoyed.
“Condor and Leopard army. Then he went to Rat army and Centipede is the only army name mentioned. Next he was with Phoenix but it doesn’t give a specific battle. When Graff gives him Dragon army he fought... Hold on... Six different armies. That’s got to be it. Dragon is Zero and the others are the one through six, making seven tables!” I said.
Kira and Phantom were both going toward their own tables. “I’ve got fire with what looks like wings over here,” said Kira.
“Ok good. That’s Phoenix, number two,” I said looking over the order again and bringing it up in an augmented space in front of me. Kira performed the same actions she had seen Knightcr@wler do hours before and within a few seconds the designs on the legs of her table were glowing as well.
“I got Badger over here,” said Phantom.
“Number 4,” I yelled.
We had three tables glowing now. Knightcr@wler lit up Rabbit without even asking. He had studied the book way too much.
“What is this one?” Kira said.
Knightcr@wl
er was across the room in an instant. “Salamander,” he said as he rotated it to number three. “That was the fight where they were allowed access to the battle arena twenty minutes before Ender. They hung against the outside of Ender’s gate. God, Bonzo was total noob,” Knightcr@wler said.
“Alright I got stripes over here,” said Phantom.
“That’s five or six try one or the other,” I said.
“No, try five. Make them both five. The last table is Griffin. Ender fought Tiger and Griffin army at the same time. There won’t be a six. It’s just a little trick.”
Knightcr@wler said. “He’s right,” said Phantom when the tiger table started glowing.
Knightcr@wler did the honors of the last table, pushing the compartment back in to watch the final one come to life. Without warning, the snake that was wrapped around the mirror opened its mouth. There was a hissing sound followed by smoke that poured from his mouth, filling the entire room with a blinding fog. The snake’s eyes were the only thing visible, red and ominous, sending lazars through the dense fog that both landed somewhere underneath the bar. A tiny secret compartment slid out with a metallic hum and a contrasted bright light shot up from its interior.
Once the smoke cleared, we made our way over to the spectacle. Inside the silver compartment, bathed in white light, was a golden coin. It looked like it had a battle school logo on it. Knightcr@wler picked it up and twirled it round and round with his fingers as I snapped pictures of it. His eyes lit up and without speaking he ran over to the arcade game he had beaten so many times before, tossing the golden coin into the twenty-five cent slot. This time the machine didn’t reject the coin but accepted it and one credit appeared with the exhilarating, “Ender Wiggin, Welcome to Battle School.”
Knightcr@wler played through the entire game with ease since he had already beaten it a thousand times. It felt like none of us were breathing, all eyes were fixated on the game, and an eerie silence hung on the air. When the victory theme sounded the stars came flying by and the word “Congratulations” came into the center of the screen just like before. This time the glitch brought change. The screen looked like it had rebooted, going into DOS mode and it began ghost typing in ancient programming font:
What do you seek in Dethroned the Wolf?
I seek ____________________________
A keyboard came up in the display. Knightcr@wler had already known the answer since he started us on this quest and he typed it in letter by letter.
I seek The End of the World
The screen went blank. Nothing happened and Knightcr@wler slammed his head down against the video monitor, “not again…” Suddenly, the floor started vibrating and the entire cocktail arcade cabinet along with a good bit of the floor around it began rising up.
Knightcr@wler’s body shifted as he yanked his head off the table. He tried to get up but his foot got caught on the leg of the chair sending him falling backwards off the rising platform. He crawled back, like it was some kind of alien revealing itself. Kira, Phantom, and I began stepping away as the cabinet climbed higher and higher toward the ceiling. When it finally stopped an entire stairwell was revealed leading downward into the darkness, smoke pouring out of it like a dragon’s nostrils. We found it. We found the entrance to Charles Sanders most prized quest and it was within five feet of us.
