The Search for Ball Zero

by Tony Dormanesh

  Lemmy pointed South, Tony nodded. The drove a few a minutes in silence. Tony again noticed the air seemed different, it was hard to tell anything in the dark, but something felt different, maybe it was the air, maybe he’d been gone for too long. He peered his head up, trying to look over the trees. The tip of Treetop emerged.

  “There it is!” Tony yelled.

  Lemmy yelled back,”Where are all the murderous cops you were scaring us with?”

  “Ohh they’re out there!” Tony replied.

  They rolled up to the trees behind Treetop Games. It was the North part of town, on an already abandoned street, they should be able to park here and go up without being noticed.

  Tony looked up at the once familiar Treetop, it looked like one of the big bay windows overlooking the city was cracked or broken. Above Treetop, dark grey clouds flowed and splashed through the sky like an angry river.

  Lemmy killed the motor. “That it?” He asked, but he knew the answer. “Everyone grab a Stacker before going up.” The clown car of a Jeep emptied. Most of the primates and monkeys stayed behind Tony, heads tilting around in curiosity. Tony noticed the elevator lights were off, those usually stayed on even after closing. He walked towards the stairs and started jogging up. His partners mostly ignored stairs, since to them that was the slowest, most energy consuming way. They swarmed around the stair supports, climbing up it in all directions. From the outside, it looked like one of those big CG shots in the Planet of the Apes remakes.

  They got to the top, Tony was tired. The door was locked, he looked passed the

  doors and saw trash on the floor. That never happened. He looked closer, it wasn’t looted, at least not fully.

  A gorilla grabbed the door and pulled apart, it bent then ripped and the glass

  shattered. The gorilla looked at Tony. Tony took the first step in, then the Monkeys and Primates quickly but silently entered around him. Their eyes all opened with wide interest.

  Tony tried the light switch, nothing. Monkeys were picking up things and

  examining them. They were all keeping pretty silent still. He walked across the main floor of Treetop from the elevator towards the bay windows. Looking left, right and at the ceiling, looking for anything out of the ordinary. It seemed to be the good ole Treetop Games he remembered, it kind of looked like an Earthquake had knocked a few things over, but that was it. He approached the window, it was cracked, and he looked out and saw Valley Forest, in rubble.

  “What the?” He cried out without trying.

  Lemmy was at his side, “What’s wrong?”

  For a moment Tony said nothing. The angry river of dark clouds above him

  swam by. He looked down at the town he grew up in, in ruins. It looked like a future scene from the first Terminator. It was that destroyed. No building was left standing. Tony’s, L’s and Perry’s apartments gone, the whole buildings were leveled to the point it was hard to make out what street was which. The few areas that weren’t rubble were craters. There were no lights, no electricity it seemed. A few places thin wisps of smoke rose to the sky.

  Park street was untouched. Although it had been abandoned long ago and everything except Treetop Games was a boarded up shell of a building. The buildings on Park Street were not destroyed. Treetop was a little mess, but it seemed ok.

  Tony stared longer. Certain areas seemed to stand out now. There were

  warstore tracks going through the heart of the city. The Telnet warstore corpse was still on the edge of town. The Old Shitty Walmart was completely destroyed. Perry’s Taco Bell, gone. He turned around, almost all the Monkeys and Primates were standing behind him silently.

  “You home?” One of them asked.

  “Yea, right there.” Tony pointed to a pile of rubble, “Something bad happened

  here.” He felt the need to explain,”It wasn’t like this before. 80,000 people lived here 2 weeks ago!?”

  His friends looked at each other puzzled, thinking “Oops.” “All your tribe dead?” The crowd asked.

  “My tribe already dead.” Tony replied,”Just memories.”

  “Then let’s party!” Lemmy said, holding up a dangling white worm.

  The Monkeys and Primates dispersed. Some stayed to enjoy worms, others opened up games, looking at the packaging. They didn’t know about old school, classic games. They didn’t know what a treasure museum they were rummaging through. To them, the cash register was just as interesting as an NES system, or the original Pong arcade cabinet Treetop owned.

  Lemmy did a worm, he shook and danced as it entered his nasal cavity. Just as Tony was about to do his worm a chimp’s head popped over his shoulder.

  “Show me that one game.” Bob Marley said.

  “K, hang on.” Tony sniffed really hard and sucked up the worm. He reached down and held onto a rack full of games. Euphoria filled his eyes and head and he slowly looked over at Bob, eyes moving first, head trailing behind. “It’s over there.” He said and stumbled over. He tried to get up, but a game was stuck to his hand, Superman N64. He laughed out loud, “Worst game ever! Ha” And threw it like a left handed baby, it flew randomly and bounced into spot it would never be seen again. Good.

  Bob did a worm and they both relaxed for a while. Bob was wearing a rasta cap

  today and a Bad Brains shit. He had a necklace that Tony hadn’t noticed before, it had a little book hanging from it. Tony was wormed, he reached out and touched the book.

  “What is that?”

  “The Art of War.”

  “Raaaaad.”

  “Let’s go Search for Ball Zero.” Bob said.

  Tony’s eyes opened, “Shit. Yea!”

  They got up, they had been in Treetop for probably ten minutes now, all the Monkeys and Primates were feeling comfortable, they were scattered everywhere, even on the walls and ceiling. Lemmy walked up and joined them walking towards the arcade section. Near the front of the arcade, there were four linked Rush 2049 sit down racing cabinets. Tony said in a wormy voice as they passed it,”That game rools!” and threw a drunk arm pointing at the 4 linked machines. Lemmy reached over and touched an Elohssa computer Stack to the side of the cabinet. The Stack stuck to the cabinet. The screen flickered and lit up. In it’s trademark loud whisper the arcade machine let out a “Rushhhhh!” and the frenetic electronic music started.

  Tony stopped in amazement. “Wait a second?” He thought, “Lemmy touched

  the Stack to the piece of wood on the side of the cabinet, and it powered up the machine through the wood? And it stuck to the wood? WTF?”

  “That works?” Tony questioned out loud. “Cooool.”

  Three monkeys slapped Stacks to the side of the other machines and they all

  turned on. Instantly four primates filled the seats and they tried to start a game. Actually it was three chimps and the last cabinet had a monkey that wasn’t quite long enough to reach the gas. She used her tail to reach the gas and she was ready. But still they pressed buttons and nothing happened.

  Bob, Tony and Lemmy made their way to the pinball area as the tribe tripped out on Rush, even though the games didn't even have any credits. There Tony saw the best pinball game ever made, Caveman. He wobbled up to the machine and hugged it. Only a true pinball fan would understand this hug. Bob and Lemmy laughed a bit. It was a real hug, not like some wanna-be hippie hugging a tree, Tony had spent thousands of hours with this exact piece of machinery, they had enjoyed triumph and tribulation.

  Lemmy stuck a Stack to the side. Inside the machine, parts moved and switched, it made some mechanical noises.

  “Aww fuck, do you have any quarters?” Tony asked looking down at the coin mechanism.

  “A quarter of weed, why?” Bob asked.

  “Nah man, a quarter... Money!?” Tony asked again. Then he realized what he

  was asking, of course they didn’t. Tony was about to ask them to rip off the lock, but then remembered no one was here, he could just go get a key. He ran to the back room and grabbed a mast
er key. As he was running out of the office with the key he noticed L’s name tag stuck on the wall. He remembered her beautiful face and all the times they had in this back office and for a second he was in another world. He shook his head and jogged out of the office.

  He ran by the Rush machines, the chimps and the one monkey were still in the

  seats, but boredom was setting in. “Ohh shit, can’t forget about you guys!” Tony unlocked each of the Rush coin mechanisms and showed them how to flick the wire under the quarter drop to add credits. He pressed start on all the machines to make sure they started a 4 player game and went back to Bob, Lemmy and Caveman.

  “Woah man, this looks just like you said.” Bob said, looking at the amazing art of the Caveman pinball machine like a dream.

  They started a three player game and played for hours. Bob and Tony discussed

  the finer points of The Search for Ball Zero and The Art of War. Pinball tactics and strategy wasn’t about defeating an enemy, although you can see the machine as an opponent. A large, static enemy that didn’t evolve and would always respond with the same “attacks”. If you hit this ramp, the ball would always come out the same way. If you sent the ball into another section, it would always return to the left flipper. When it came to tactics, a pinball machine was predictable and that was it’s only flaw. A pinball machine never deceived you. It’s lanes and ramps and mechanical ball ejects could be seen as logic lanes, the same as a rigid AI state machine, impossible to detach from. Impossible to adapt to a good player if it wanted to. The Art of War was all about adapting.

  Bob noted that the warstore game they discovered and played the other night

  was similar. The AI war stores always used the same tactics.

  “They always use the main cannon, even though the tank turrets are more accurate, reload faster and have almost unlimited ammo.” Bob said, noticing the same thing Tony noticed while playing.

  “Also they always went for higher ground, even taking a few shots to get there.” Tony noted.

  “Ohh yea, and the other thing I always used against em,” Bob added,”If you go

  behind cover, they will always predict you coming out the other side. Like if you go behind cover from the right” He was on the right side of the pinball machine and walked behind it. Then he said from behind the machine,“They always think you’ll come out left.” He darted his hand out of the left side of the machine to demonstrate. Then he popped back out on the right and acted like he was shooting. “Get’s em every time.” Tony hadn’t noticed that. “Really? That seems like a big flaw.”

  “Watch next time.” Bob was confident.

  After a few warm up games. Tony held down the flipper buttons and let the high scores scroll by. DNA at the top, ASS right below. “I’m ASS” Tony said to Bob and Lemmy.

  “Who’s DNA?” Bob asked.

  “This guy who was really good. I learned how to play pinball by watching him.” Tony replied. “I’m beating that score right now though.” The intense mental peak of the worm was over, and now he was riding it’s speed-like afterglow. He actually thought he could beat the score.

  He played an amazing game and destroyed DNA’s score. It was a clinic for Bob, who watched in awe as Tony pulled every fancy pinball trick there was, catches, passes, multiball holds, the Lazarus move (also known as the Death Save). He even got the elusive Caveman Super Jackpot. When that happened the machine screamed as loud as ever and made everyone in Treetop look.

  They continued to play for the rest of the night. Switching Stacks to machines

  they wanted to play, by the end of the night all the Stacks were being used. Tony used a Stack to turn on the microwave and heat up some of Treetop’s infamous pizza. The pizza sat in a giant fridge room, which had no power, but it was still cold.

  “You WILL have diarrhea tomorrow.” He joked as he handed out the pizza.

  Just before sunrise they climbed out of the 10 story “Best and Coolest Place for Games in the World.” And they drove home. Tony wasn’t sure if he was driving home or leaving home. Probably both.

  28

  PREPARTY

  Tony and the Arcade Monkeys made it home without incident. Tony was dead

  tired after the long ride home, hanging onto the Oh Shit handles with all his strength most of the time. After a long night of worming and gaming, he could only think of sleep.

  Tony burst into the room to what he was half expected to see the whole time, but

  couldn’t believe it was true until actually seeing it. Perry and his clone and girlfriend were having a threesome. At least it was on their own bed. They stopped for a moment, as Tony said “Hi” and plopped face down on the bed. L wasn’t there. Maybe she was giving the threesome it’s privacy. He cared, but sleep overcame him and he passed out.

  A few hours later Tony was shaken awake by L. Perry and the clones were gone.

  “Hey mama.” He said, looking up. He saw L and Janis both looking down at

  him. “Woah, hello!” He was startled, but too tired to jump. He slowly rolled over.

  “What’s up?”

  “Time to get up. Time to get ready.” Janis announced. She looked into his eyes, and then over to L,”Get up, Mr Wormy.”

  “The show’s gonna start soon.” L added. She was wearing her famous GWAR

  shirt. She always saved that epic shows.

  “L, we have to talk.” Tony tried to say.

  “Just go get ready.” L said, “We’ll talk later.”

  Tony wasn’t waiting for this,”Valley Forest is gone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Destroyed. Rubble.”

  “C’mon, what are you talking about?” She knew he was joking,”What kind of

  joke is this?”

  Tony pulled out his shitty rechargeable cell phone, opened the pictures and showed her a pic of the destroyed city from the view of Treetop bay windows.

  “What the?” L asked no one.

  Janis looked at the pic. “What that?”

  “My old home.” L said and started crying.

  Janis held her and tried to calm her.

  “It’s like that everywhere?” L asked speaking from inside Janis’s hug.

  “The whole place. Rubble” Tony clarified. “Treetop is still there for some reason.”

  L continued crying in Janis’s hug.

  “I beat DNA’s score on Caveman though!” He said, maybe that would cheer

  her up.

  She kept crying, possibly harder,”That’s nice.” She mumbled.

  Tony went down to the waterfall where they all bathed. He had never bathed with the Primates and Monkeys before, but he was dirty and really wanted to not be. While bathing, he drifted off thinking his happy thoughts until he was interrupted by a female voice,

  “Where’s your friend?” She asked seductively.

  He looked up, it was that gorilla Perry was staring at in the hallway. The one that almost made him fall over.

  “Perry?” Tony asked, even though he knew.

  She said in a phone sex operator’s voice,”Is that his name?”

  Tony caught her glancing down at his junk. His first reaction was to cover up. Then he thought, ”What would covering up do?” Maybe he had been out here living with the monkeys too long, his sense of shame fading. The Tony from a month ago probably wouldn’t have been able to stand fully naked in front of a female gorilla and been cool with it.

  “Nice.” She said, still looking down. Still in her seductive voice,“Hopefully he’s as well endowed as you.”

  Tony knew he wasn’t the biggest, but he was rarely called “Well endowed”

  especially taking a cold bath in a waterfall.

  “Um thanks.” He said,”I wouldn’t know about his.”

  She reach down to touch it, that’s when he jumped back.

  “Woah!” He yelled, half laughing. “I’m taken.”

  She smiled and apologized. “Tell Perry Candy says hi.”

 
29

  THE SHOW

  Tony was walking back to their room. The show as going to start when the Sun went down, “Early, but pretty cool.” He thought. Walking through the tunnels there were groups of gorillas, excitedly laughing, wearing makeup and rock clothes. Other groups of mixed Primates laughed and told stories, drinking. While others ran by. There was something in the air, it felt like before a rock show. The hallways were like a parking lot party. One group of Primates he passed reminded him of a group from Heavy Metal Parking Lot, Tony loved that movie.

  He got back to the room and the pre party was in full swing. Everyone was

  there. L with her new best friend Janis. Perry, his clone and girlfriend. They had a big bucket of Monkey Juice and they cheered as Tony entered and gave him a glass. The party was on. They drank, laughed, told stories and were generally excited.

  Perry, Tony and L were in their element. There’s something about going to a

  heavy metal show that brings people together, not only physically, but mentally also. Everyone gathers at a certain place, all with the same intentions, to have fun because they all enjoy the same music. Everyone knowing they will soon be crammed into a small hot area, smashed together and their favorite band will play their favorite music. They weren’t into violent shows where you try to hurt other people. The shows they went to were rowdy, but the type where if someone in the crowd falls down, everyone around them stops to help pick that person up. They had a feeling the Monkey rock shows were like that too.

  They partied for about an hour. Every few minutes someone would rush in

  looking for Janis. She had the latest batch of worms, so they were in the hottest room in the camp. Tony had time to tell Perry about Candy. Perry got extremely excited. When Tony told Perry her name he looked up dreamily into the sky and whispered with a big smile,”Candy!”