“Pah!” spat Fred. “I should charge ya rent for all the time you spend lollygagging around. Food or no.”
“Slumlord would definitely be a step up for you, buddy,” said Jack. “Hey, you seen Matt or Chunk?”
“In the back,” said Fred. “At the arcade.”
The “arcade” as Fred liked to call it consisted of one (yes, one) video game, plugged into a dangerously exposed electrical socket and tucked away in the back of the restaurant. Jack made his way over to the hidden alcove to find his two buddies hard at work among the “bleeps” and “boops” of Nova Commander IV. Matt was gripping the game’s joystick, his eyes narrow with concentration, with Chunk at his side cheering him on.
“Look out for the plasma cannons!” cried Chunk. “You got a fighter on your six. Ooooh-oooooh, there’s a power-up over there!”
“Would you shut up, dude!” snapped Matt. “I know what I’m doing, okay? I’ve only played this game a billion times.”
“And you still suck at it!” Jack said with a smirk.
Matt and Chunk looked up from their game in surprise. “Jack?” said Matt. “Holy crap! Is it five o’clock already?”
“Whoa,” said Chunk. “Seems like we just got here. This game is eviiiiiiil!”
“Chill, dudes. You did just get here,” said Jack. “You’ll never guess. Mr. Shepherd let me out early.”
Matt and Chunk exchanged a disbelieving glance. “Um, you didn’t actually kill Mr. Shepherd and are trying to stage an alibi, are you?” asked Matt.
“Swear to God,” said Jack. “I’m just as shocked as you are.”
Suddenly, Nova Commander IV sang a depressing little ditty signaling the failure of a mission and game over. Matt cursed under his breath and kicked the machine.
“Dang it, and I was just about to beat my high score, too,” he complained. “Thanks for distracting me with your good news, my so-called friend.”
“When you gonna learn?” smiled Jack, sidling up to Nova Commander IV and gingerly patting it like a cute little puppy. “No one is ever gonna dethrone me when it comes to this game. I’m the best star pilot on this side of the galaxy.”
“Not anymore!” piped up Chunk.
“Huh?” asked Jack.
“Yeah, some dude with the initials MTS beat your score,” said Matt, with just a hint of a smirk. “Guess there’s a new king in town.”
Jack glanced at the screen. Sure enough, when the top scorers flashed up, his initials were indeed second, with the mysterious MTS beating him out by just a couple hundred points for the top spot.
“You gotta be kidding me,” mumbled Jack. After all he’d been through today, losing out on the top spot for Nova Commander as well was just too much. Since even before he had started high school, Jack had spent countless hours of his life hanging out at Big Jim’s and playing this game. He had perfected the art of flying the Nova Commander Starfighter better than anyone he knew, getting as far as the 18th level before succumbing to the hordes of enemy starships. It was rumored that some guy out in Cincinnati was actually able to get to level 19, but as far as Jack knew, it was largely believed to be impossible to get much further.
So the fact that he was able to accomplish a score that maybe one other person in the entire world could beat gave him a certain sense of pride – and he wasn’t willing to give that up just yet, especially not on a day like today.
“Gimme a quarter,” he said to Chunk, holding out his hand.
“Aw, c’mon Jack,” whined Chunk. “Play some other time. I don’t feel like hanging around Big Jim’s all day while you try and recapture your glory.”
Jack shifted his outstretched palm to Matt.
“I’m with Chunk, bro,” said Matt. “There’s way cooler stuff we could be doing than playing a game that pre-dates Pong.”
“I am not leaving until one of you gives me a quarter,” said Jack sternly.
Matt and Chunk exchanged a look that acknowledged their friend’s stubbornness. Chunk sighed and dug a quarter out of his pocket, slapping in into Jack’s hand.
“That’s all I got,” said Chunk.
“It’s all I’ll need,” said Jack confidently, as he sidled up to the game and popped in the quarter.
Nova Commander IV was a relatively simple game. At its core, it was all about flying a starship through enemy territory and facing more and more difficult encounters with enemy spaceships. While its predecessors had a top down view of a tiny triangle that was the spaceship as wave after wave of other geometrically shaped objects fell at it from the top of the screen, Nova Commander IV took the giant leap forward in technology by putting the player in the cockpit of the ship and letting him fly through a 3-D wireframe universe that actually did a passable job of simulating real spaceflight.
Each stage of the game required the player to reach a “warp hole” which allowed him to travel further and further into enemy territory, until eventually reaching the mothership of the enemy fleet, which he would then have to destroy to advance to the next level.
When it came to actually playing the game though, only two skills were required – being able to manage the energy needs of the ship between the lasers and its shields, and being fast enough to take on multiple opponents without getting blown up. If the game were just about one or the other, it would have been much simpler to beat. But in Jack’s opinion, the careful balance between controlling his ship and fighting multiple enemies is what elevated the game into an art form.
“Listen, dude,” said Matt as Jack started playing. “If you’re gonna be a while, I’m gonna run down to the Circle-Mart and get a hot dog or something. I don’t think I could survive another slice of Fred’s pizza.”
“True that,” said Chunk. “I’ll come with. You want anything, Jack?”
“Just the two of you to be ready to kiss my butt after I prove to the world how awesome I am,” he responded.
“Yeah, ‘cause that’s the first thing everyone associates with being good at prehistoric video games,” quipped Matt.
“Your jealousy warms my cold, black soul,” intoned Jack.
After his friends departed, Jack breezed through the first couple of levels of the game. The world around him seemed to disappear, and he might as well have been in the actual cockpit of a starfighter as he took on wave after wave of increasingly difficult foes. As so often happens when Jack played video games, time seemed to fly by, and before he knew it, he was back to the dreaded level 18.
Things were not looking good. His ship was damaged, his shields were weakening, and the enemy mothership had dispatched yet another wing of deadly starfighters. Jack made a run for a far off power-up he was hoping to reach before he was within firing range of the enemy. Sure enough, he made it just in time, and got just enough power to keep his shields intact while he fought off the new wave of fighters.
Before he knew it, he was able to unleash his torpedoes and destroy the enemy’s mothership, and a new warp hole appeared.
Suddenly, he realized – he’d made it to Level 19!
Jack’s heart pounded. The gravity of what he’d just accomplished crashed on top of him like a ton of bricks. Not only had he regained his high score, but also he’d finally been able to beat the level he’d thought was all but impossible to defeat. Jack’s mind raced. He wondered what new foe he’d be facing, what new obstacle he would have to overcome, what new puzzle he’d have to solve, and a weird kind of excitement filled him and made him woozy with anticipation.
And just as his ship emerged from the warp hole, the screen of Nova Commander IV suddenly flashed, the graphics melting into a mish-mash of strange characters, and an annoying note began to hum from the speakers.
The game had locked up.
“No, no, NO!” cried Jack. He’d been so close. Now, not only was his high score erased, but he also might never be able to get to Level 19 again. He gave the game a swift kick that was so hard it hurt his toe. But the screen continued to project gibberish, mocking him.
; Jack marched up to the front counter where Fred was hunched over, reading the swimsuit edition of his favorite sports magazine.
“Fred! I thought you were gonna get that game fixed!” said Jack angrily.
“Huh?” Fred said in response, not bothering to glance up.
“Nova Commander,” clarified Jack. “It froze up again!”
“Oh, yeah, gee, I’ll get right on that,” Fred responded in mock concern, again without looking away from his magazine.
“You don’t understand!” Jack pleaded. “I did it! I finally made it to Level 19! Beat my old high score! And now no one’s ever gonna know!”
“My heart bleeds for ya, kid,” said Fred, picking his nose. “Maybe ya should get a new hobby, eh? Like curin’ cancer or sumtin’.”
Jack glowered at Fred’s ugly unshaven mug.
“Can I at least get my quarter back?” he asked.
“What do I look like? An ATM?” snorted Fred. “Get outta here, already.”
Fred waved Jack off and went back to flipping through his magazine. Jack glanced at the clock that hung above the entrance. It was a quarter to five. He’d wasted a good forty minutes playing the game, and it was all for nothing.
Since they weren’t already back, Jack reasoned that Matt and Chunk had probably gone on home without him. Jack gathered his things and prepared for the walk back to Eagle Hill. Once outside of Big Jim’s, he decided to cut across school grounds and go through the Juniper cornfields instead of following Detroit Street back. With any luck, the shortcut would get him back home before five-thirty, just in time to watch some bad, family-friendly TV before dinner.
As he passed by the football stadium, he could hear the sounds of the team practicing. No doubt J.C. was there in the middle of it all. Jack wondered if it made him a bad person to hope J.C. got tackled in a freak pile-up of over-sized meatheads and was turned into a mushy human pancake.
Jack was almost to the cornfields when he stopped cold. At the end of the bleachers, near one of the support struts, was Anna. She was sitting on the grass, staring off into the cornfield of the Juniper family farm. The sun was getting low in the sky, and its golden rays shined on her, making her look like she was almost glowing. Jack stood still, afraid to move, overcome at the sight of just how beautiful she was.
Jack looked around him. There was no one to be seen. No Mr. Shepherd to intimidate him. No other kids to laugh at him. Even the football team was hidden behind a massive wall of aluminum bench seating. As far as the eye could see, the only two people in the world were Jack and Anna.
There would never be a better time to talk to her.
At this realization, an overwhelming sense of anxiety crashed over Jack. What would he say? What would she say? Was she mad at him for what happened earlier? Would he continue to make a fool of himself?
Jack struggled with his emotions for a minute. His gut was a tangle of nervousness. His brain was telling him to just keep walking. He could always try again later when he knew the right thing to say.
Then, the oddest thing happened.
Jack remembered his talk with Mr. Shepherd, about how he needed to start taking responsibility for himself. About how he could get everything he wanted, if he were just willing to take action to do so. He thought about the intense gaze of Shepherd’s piercing grey eyes, and in that moment, he felt a small spark of courage flare up inside him.
With that, Jack took a deep breath and walked toward Anna.
“Hey,” said Jack.
Anna looked up at him. If she were happy to see Jack, he couldn’t tell. Her face was absolutely blank. For a moment, Jack thought he’d made a mistake coming over, but as far as mistakes went, he could think of a lot worse.
“Don’t worry,” he said putting his hands up, “I promise not to start any more fights around you. At least for the foreseeable future.”
Anna nodded. “That’s good,” she said.
“I just wanted to come over and thank you for having a talk with your dad about what happened,” he said. “He went easy on me today. It made detention… well, not so sucky.”
“You’re welcome,” she said simply, before turning back to the cornfield and gazing into it, as though she were deep in thought about something. Jack hesitated for a second. He felt as though he should take that as a cue to exit, but he also knew, chances were, he’d never get the nerve to talk to her like this again, so he might as well give it all he had right now.
“I also wanted to apologize,” he continued.
Anna looked back up at him. “Apologize?”
“Yeah, for dragging you into that whole mess to begin with,” said Jack. “Coming from someone who knows what its like to be badgered by J.C. Rowdey, I just couldn’t stand to sit there and let him… I don’t know… bug you like that.”
“That’s okay,” replied Anna. “I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, no doubt,” said Jack. “In fact, that’s part of the reason I came over there to begin with. I mean, I hate J.C. and all, but I thought I’d take pity on him, since my fists of fury are obviously no match to what you would have done if he hadn’t left you alone.”
At that, finally, Anna smiled, a slightly shy, good-natured grin. Jack couldn’t help but notice how glossy and soft her lips looked.
“Hey, I’ve got a question I’ve been wanting to ask you since you showed up,” said Jack making as smooth a transition as he could to sitting down on the grass next to her.
Anna looked at Jack suspiciously. “What type of question?” she asked.
“Well, I just gotta know,” he continued. “Where are you guys from? You and your dad, that is.”
“West Virginia,” she said quickly. “We moved here from West Virginia.”
“Are all girls from West Virginia like you?”
“I don’t know,” Anna replied. “What am I like?”
Jack cocked his head to the side, studying Anna’s face slightly. “You’re just… I don’t know… different.”
“What do you mean?”
Jack smiled and shrugged. “Well, you’re prettier than any other girl in the entire school, but you don’t like to hang out with anyone, you don’t like to talk with anyone, you don’t seem to have any friends… you spend all your time reading books and stuff…”
“Are you saying I’m weird?” asked Anna.
“Yeah, I guess,” replied Jack. “But in a good way,” he quickly added.
“So you think being an anti-social bookworm is ‘good weird’?” Anna said with a hint of sarcasm.
Jack chuckled. “Yeah… that didn’t come out right. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I get it.”
“Get what?”
“You,” he said. “You’re far away from where you grew up, and as far as towns go, they don’t get more Podunk than River Heights. You don’t like it here, you don’t like the people, so you figure you’ll just keep to yourself and suffer through it until you can get the heck out of here and live the kind of life you’ve always wanted.”
Anna nodded her head, good-naturedly. “Wow, I guess you’ve really figured me out.”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. All I’m saying is that I know what it’s like to feel alone, and you get so used to feeling that way, that the idea of getting close to other people gets… scary I guess. Because the minute you do, they could leave. And then you’d be all alone again.”
Anna’s face softened a bit. “You sound like you speak from experience,” she said.
A hazy image of Jack’s dad flashed into his mind for some reason. He couldn’t remember what he even looked like anymore. All that was in his mind was a shock of wavy brown hair and an old leather jacket he always wore.
“Yeah, well… what’s the point of getting close to people if they’re just going to leave – or better yet, if you’re just going to leave, right? It’s like you’re just setting yourself up for heartbreak,” Jack said as he picked a blade of grass absently. “But you know what? Sometimes, it’s nice to be close t
o someone, even if it is just for a little while. After all, you can still carry people around in your heart, even if they’re no longer around, right?”
Anna was quiet for a moment. “Can you?” she asked. “Or do they just slip away and leave a hole in your heart where you used to carry them?”
There was a twinge of sadness in her voice, and Jack suddenly remembered the rumors of her mom dying.
“My dad left when I was little,” he said. “I don’t know why he left. I used to get so mad when other kids teased me about him not being around…”
“Like J.C. did today?” Anna asked.
“Yeah,” said Jack. “And I don’t know if there’s anything you can do to keep people from slipping away. But I’ve got my mom, and my friends. Matt, Chunk, Peter…all those guys. And even though my dad isn’t around, they are. And for some reason, that makes it better.”
Anna nodded. “So you think I should stop being so stand-offish and make some friends? Is that what you’re saying?”
“You can do what you want,” said Jack. “But I’ve learned that as painful as it can be, it’s better to have good people in your life – even if it’s just for a little while – than to spend all your time by yourself.”
Anna was quiet, staring intensely at a blade of grass. Jack was wondering if, by some miracle, his words had actually gotten through to her.
“Maybe you’re right,” said Anna. “Maybe I should try enjoying my time here a little more.”
Jack smiled. “See? Now you’re talking! Unleash Anna Shepherd on the world! It’ll do you good.”
“So how do I do that?” asked Anna. “I mean… how do you make friends around here?”
“Well, if you want to make friends, you’ve gotta meet as many people as you can and find out if you like them.”
“That all sounds good, but… I wouldn’t know where to start. I don’t really have a lot of experience making friends.”
“Start with the dance!” blurted Jack.
Anna looked unsure. “The dance?” she said.
“Yeah! Everyone is going to be there. It’d be the perfect time to mingle and stuff.”
Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet Page 6
