LOCKED (3 page)

“On TV! Remember? Everybody
was fighting over a new pandemic in Europe?” I was able to recall.

“Oh yeah! Everybody must
just be shut up in their house, nobody wants to go anywhere. Nobody must want
to leave. Too dangerous to send boats and ships over unless it’s really
necessary. There we go, that’s that. Shakes must not have been able to keep up
with rental fees and stuff without any imports for all the die-hards. It’d just
take too long for the disease over there to be cured for him to stay in business
all by himself like that. He just couldn’t imagine losing the shop his family
had for that long. Drove him nuts.” Danni concluded. We nodded in unison, both
of us sure that we knew the end of that story. Still, I thought I could still
find the faintest, most subtle hint of anxiety in her voice…

We began our small voyage
again, having made an informal agreement to forget what happened to Shakes. The
sun was beginning to set in the faded sky, so we only had a few hours left to
the day. Maybe something-

“Hey Leo, have any money on
you?” Danni asked, nodding in the direction of a worn out arcade, one of the
last of its kind in this charming town of
Burybury
.
The lights on the once-bright and cheery title sign flickered duly, struggling
just to display “arcade” in big letters. 

“Uh…a little…” I responded,
shoving my hands in my pocket and pulling out lint, a few quarters, and some
more lint.

“Perfect! You don’t mind,
right?” she teased, taking the quarters from right out of my palm and
mercifully leaving me with my valuable lint.

I took a step inside the
place that must have taken half of all the money I ever made. The space was
dimly lit and only a few other people were inside, most of them being bored
staff members; most other teens preferred to hide in the urban jungle in the
summer instead of being in a stuffy, outdated arcade. They’d rather spend their
time in the concrete maze rather than be swept up in a pixelated world of far
off lands, impossible worlds, or whatever else the developers of these machines
could design.

Danni was already busy at
one of the games. I leaned against the cabinet and took a look at the screen
that she was so preoccupied with.

“So when are you
gonna
pay all of this back to me, anyhow?” I asked.

“Oh, Sooner or later.”

“I don’t believe you.” I
smirked. She paused the game for a moment.

“
Aww
,
don’t trust me?” she pouted. Unfortunately, she already knew me inside-out, and
decided to abuse that power.

“Well…whenever. I’m a
sucker.” I sighed.

“Yep. There’s room for one
more, by the way.” she shifted over, making room for me at the second set of
controls, consisting of a joystick and a couple of worn out buttons, their
once-bright colors now faded and chipped away.

“It’s MY money, there better
be room!” I beamed. She returned the smile, and began the game again.

I didn’t really know a whole
lot about this one; it just seemed to be another generic retro game set in
space. Ironically enough, the name was just as generic: “Space Adventure”. The
cabinet was adorned with comic book-styled explosions, zooming space ships and
mammoth planets, all against a background of the deep blackness of space; even
if I didn’t particularly like the game, the design of a good cabinet was a lost
art.

“So… how do I play?” I asked
Danni, easing myself into the game already in progress.

“Joystick moves…red button
shoots, blue button shoots missiles…you’re a smart kid, you’ll figure it out.”
Danni mumbled, occasionally tilting her head in the vague direction of what she
was talking about, too busy to unglue her eyes from the screen.

I got a decent hold of the
controls, and started surveying the situation. Danni seemed to be doing just
fine as she kept herself busy by abusing the little red button in front of her,
shooting away endlessly at asteroids. I felt content with exploring the
controls a little bit more, getting a better feel for the game. I pressed this
button and that one, the one to the left in tandem with the one to the right,
holding the blue one and the red… I noticed a sudden change on the top of the
screen. I noticed a little meter that said “P1- 11, P2- 9”. I pressed it again,
and saw the meter change to “P1- 12, P2- 8”. She wouldn’t mind if I borrowed a
few lives, right?

“Ooh, I’m
gonna
have fun with this one.” a grin spread across my face
and Danni finally caught on.

“Hey, what the hell!” she
objected as I kept pushing those buttons until the meter said “P1- 19, P2- 1”.

Danni grimaced at first, but
a sly grin spread across her face after a moment.

“Two can play at this game…”
she practically hissed, now commanding the very power that I had before. The
meter was going crazy during our little fight, the numbers reaching the highest
highs and the lowest lows. Before we knew it, our little characters had gone
through pixelated explosion after explosion due to our careless behavior. Soon
enough, we ran out of lives to fight over, and…

 “CONTINUE? 10…9…8…”
the screen displayed in a bold red font.

“C’mon Leo, hurry up!” Danni
pleaded. I fished through my pockets for that last quarter that I didn’t have,
but the clock eventually ticked down to zero, disappointingly displaying a
“GAME OVER”.

“That sucks.” Danni groaned.

“Nah, you do. If you weren’t
so bad, we’d still be playing.” I responded, getting a little playful revenge.

“How could you SAY such a
thing? How could you?” she mock-gasped, feigning a reaction of finding my
comment to be deeply insulting.

I took another look around
the empty arcade. Every machine was old, rusty, and the parts inside were
probably decaying at this point; it was a miracle they still worked. Then
again, materials always USED to be built with quality; doesn’t everyone feel
that everything was better yesterday, no matter how good it is now? Wasn’t the
grass always greener ten years ago?

Now that we were depleted of
our funds (which really meant my own), we were forced to find a few quarters
here and there elsewhere. We squinted in the darkness illuminated only by the
dozens of old machines and were quick to head to the second floor (just in case
the first-floor staff was interested enough to care that we were snooping
around for free cash).

The transition from the
lower floor to the upper was night to day. On this level, the walls were made
up of a few dozen tall windows separated neatly by thin tan borders. They
filtered the light in such a warm way as to bathe the room in a pleasant glow,
the distilled beams themselves being very visible to create a picturesque
scene. The air was much cleaner, and the room much more spacious than
downstairs. This was the “classy” section; gambling machines were lined up in
rows, each one lustful for the chink of greed. The carpet was a light-brown,
soft material that seemed to be more fit to be a blanket than a rug. Logically
enough, this is where parents were assumed to go when their children were busy
in the questionable arcade downstairs.

As we took in the scene that
was a little more elegant than we were used to, our eyes were drawn outside to
a parade of sorts occurring some twenty feet below us on the streets. A quick
glance told us all that we needed to know: just another political rally,
nothing special. Men of many words, few actions, and fewer morals boasted
loudly, though their voices were drowned out a bit due to the distance and the
thick glass between. They preached to any who walked by, waving bright ads and
screaming in their face until the small crowd lost interest. Then they could
just hop in their limos and find a new one a mile down the road.

“Looks like the snakes are
at it again.” Danni grumbled, though with a wisecracking smile all the same. I
didn’t do much more than say “it happens” with body language alone. We took
another momentary look at the convention before turning back to each other, an
awkward moment of silence passing.

“So,
gonna
help? It’s in your interest.” she teased as she already got busy by taking a
look beneath some of the machines.

“It wouldn’t be if you
didn’t steal what I had before…” I teased back.

“It was practically on a
plate. Quit whining.” she half-turned her head from underneath the slot machine
she was already looking at, but I could just hear the sarcastic smile she had.
With one last shrug, I got to work on the other half of the room.

I was about to count my
blessings when the first thing I felt under the very first blackjack table I
inspected was paper, but as soon as I dragged it out, the perplexed look on my
face told a different story than I had expected. Instead of the familiar
crinkle of cash, I found dirtied and yellowed newspaper. It tried its hardest
to pronounce a time long-past, but the date in the corner said otherwise: only
a few ago. I quickly scanned the front page, finding a few key words and images
torn out. I hurriedly took a look underneath a few of the other tables, finding
bits and scraps of the missing papers. I threw my confusion behind me in favor
of curiosity.

“Danni.”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me if you find any
pieces of newspaper. Don’t ask.” I told her without looking up. She seemed a
bit taken aback by my sudden and short-lived obsession, so she scraped a few
more pieces from here and there with only a second’s hesitation. Without a
single word, she hurried over with the few she had, and we put them all into a
pile. I could see her desire to ask
something
increasing with every
passing second, but it was understood that whatever question she had would
answer itself in a few minutes. Soon enough, the newfound hunt turned to a
newfound puzzle and she was helping me piece together what we had into a
coherent form, hoping we had enough. Though fate had made it so, we pieced it
together in its entirety, and with one question answered, a hundred more
replaced it, mingling with suspicion.

“GUERILLAS
ENCROACH ON PRIVATELY-OWNED LAND, CLASH WITH OFFICIALS”

Underneath this bold heading
was the icon of rule within rebellion: a manned machine, a mech, standing atop
a newly-made pile of rubble and ash. The photo was low-quality and blurry; I
could only see a vague outline of the man-shaped machine, though it had a
somewhat stout build. Underneath the photo was a caption…

“A
guerilla fighter sitting atop his newly-claimed land.”

…and in even smaller letters
beneath that…

“Rest in peace, photographer Dan
Drisieg
.”

I took a deep breath, cringed,
and read on. The intro briefly discussed the unspoken law: land was split up
between that which was guerilla owned, and that which is owned by whoever could
afford it, usually headed by one man or a small group. The two came to an
understanding on how land was to be split, and usually abided by these shaky
laws (as if anybody around here didn’t already understand that inside-out; if
they didn’t understand the boundaries, chances are that they wouldn’t come back
to find out). The guerillas hardly lived in luxury on their half of the land;
they seemed to be organized into tribal groups. Their lifestyle’s blend of old
and new was reflected by the tarnished, menacing combat machines they manned
and were rarely seen outside of. 

Now that the guerilla’s draconian
rule was discussed, the article went on to detail their recent, bizarre, and
uncharacteristic spread into territory that was legally forbidden. As to be
expected for a race raised like wolves, they razed any that defied their
desires. In the meantime, panicked officials scrambled to raise funds for any
sort of unified defense, but their efforts were in vain against the
astonishingly well-organized tribes. The districts burned one by one, and it
appeared that none except for the guerillas themselves knew what this one-sided
war was being waged for. 

The rest of the column was
on their tactics and last known locations, though this hardly seemed to be of
use for such a skilled yet unpredictable nation of war mongers. Worst of all,
the greatest question remained unanswered:
why?

Neither of us wanted to
admit it, but I had to be the first to say it.

“Think it has something to
do with Europe…?” I muttered. The question was rhetorical; for a group that had
been violent but driven by honor for so many years before, only the threat of
extinction could shatter that code. Danni simply nodded in response. She stood
up, brushed off her knees a bit, and walked over to the tall windows.

“So that’s what they’re all
out there for…” she mused as she placed her hand on the glass, looking down at
the convention that had mostly disappeared at this point.

“They’re all so upbeat,
though. They want to ignore the problem because they have no realistic
solution. They want to die with a smile on their face. They don’t want anybody…to…”
my jaw dropped mid-sentence. Danni caught on immediately too, turning to make a
split second of arthritic eye contact.

“They don’t want people to
know! God, they could just be hiding things like this all over. They could’ve
just bought it all up the moment it hit stores, and then hid it all over.
Trying to burn it all would bring too much attention, and so would smuggling it
out. Hiding it in any one of their homes would bring ‘
em
hell if they got caught.” she discovered this all in that moment.