Chapter 6: Chapter 6: A Challenger Appears.
Your Adulting skill grows by 1 point. Current level: 76.
Ever since the call, as short as it might be, something changed in Adam. He had forsworn baggy t-shirts and sweatpants opting instead for a shirt, with a mandatory pocket protector. He ordered a few pairs of pressed trousers and a reasonably-priced suit, but his broken leg held too much sway in any negotiation, so he had to compromise - at least for the time being.
He wanted a haircut, but moving around was still a hassle, so he contented himself with shaving. But quietly he counted hours until the hateful cast would be cut off and he could finally visit a proper barber. Well, a long, hot bat first, barber close second.
And, most important of all, he got himself a new alarm clock, so when the doorbell finally rang, the postman almost fell backwards surprised by Adam's lightning-fast reaction.
After apologising profusely for scaring the poor man, Adam tore into the envelope. The letter was fairly short:
'Hi, Honey! I'm so sorry for abandoning you like that. I only meant to chat for a moment, but I lost my sense of time… I promise to make it up to you!'
This time the system chose to render pictures of a huge, purple aubergine, hand and mouth as a photo-realistic, life-size painting, and Adam nearly suffocated laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all.
He took his time writing a response.
' Don't worry. I was happy to make you happy, and the call helped. I feel like a completely different man already.
And as to make it up to me. See that you do it at the first opportunity, otherwise, this will go on a wall in the Louvre.'
He attached a Polaroid photo of himself holding the painting with a shocked expression and put it in a sealed envelope with the next batch of parcels to be sent out. He would no longer bother any of his friends to run to the post office on a whim, the time dilation meant that Mary wouldn't even notice a day's delay.
Whistling a tune he got back to work. Today he was multitasking a little, he was both copying the SEX games, which required only intermittent attention and writing code for his newest project.
In one of the papers, he found descriptions of text-based adventure games and decided it was something he would like to try. All those games, however, were designed for a mainframe server, usually by bored students forced to take a mandatory programming course. And right now it was the perfect time to strike, as the capabilities of a home computer slowly approached those of a ten-year-old mainframe. It still wasn't enough for what he had in mind, but with a bit of cunning, he could overcome the hardware limitations. But this ridiculously low amount of RAM. The basic versions of the available computers frequently had less than 2KB of memory, and expansions were expensive. He already had a partial solution to the problem - a loader, he already used to partially safeguard the winning code for the competition. The loader was the only program, which had to stay in memory permanently. It would load (duh.) data from the tapes as needed and after a part of the game would be completed, the loader would clear the memory, save for a small, encoded portion holding the state of the game - quests completed, objects in inventory, et cetera.
This way, the game could be arbitrarily long, even with meagre resources. It could even support a sort of manual save game, he realized. There was nothing preventing the loader from giving the code to the player, to keep on a piece of paper to type it back in when necessary! But the use of a loader had its own host of problems. Everything worked great on the Colorful Computer with its dedicated cassette deck, which the computer could start and stop at will. It was sometimes slow, especially when the machine had to wait for the whole supply of tape inside the 8-track cassette to go past the head, as the system supported neither rewinding nor fast forward, but it worked.
Durian, however, used a run of the mill cassette deck, connected by a pair of cables - for a microphone and headset, which couldn't provide any control over the tape, so Adam's solution relied on telling the users exactly when to start and stop the tape, which caused a whole host of problems when the end-user wasn't quick enough or disregarded the prompt on purpose.
This was a conundrum he wasn't going to solve anytime soon, so he had to make do.
A few hours later he still wasn't any closer to the finish line, but a phone which was unusually quiet that day finally rung, giving him a perfect excuse to stretch.
"Hello?" A young voice in the receiver quivered with uncertainty. "I'm calling about the reward."
"Good morning, Adam speaking. So you have slain the great red dragon?" Adam asked without much hope. He hated to disappoint the kids who slew the first, green dragon and excited called him to claim the money.
"Yes, and the code is A, seven, eight, X, two…" The young boy recited a string several characters long.
"Well," Adam said stalling for time while desperately trying to decode the sequence using a cheat sheet and trying to load up a decoder program at the same time "what is your name, young knight?"
"Billy, Sir" replied the boy, a bit more sure of himself now.
"So, Ser Billy, it appears that you are indeed the very first Knight to slay the red dragon!" Adam was relieved that for once the code checked out. "Could I take the details, so I would know where to send the prize?"
"So… so… So I won?" Billy couldn't believe his ears "I was the first one to beat the game?"
Adam had to spend a long while calming the excited boy, but ultimately he had to ask for his mother to come to the phone to give him the necessary details. When he noticed that Billy's family lived only an hour or so away, he asked whether they would be interested in getting their picture in a newspaper, and when they agreed, he asked them to keep the computer on and wait for him to call back.
His joy at finding the ideal winner was short-lived however, as the second he put the receiver down a prompt appeared:
Quest Failed: All is fair in love and games.
HOW was it possible? Adam double and triple checked everything. Boy's surname and address matched the order made by his father. The information stored in a convoluted way in the long code also seemed correct. The first letter of the player's name was indeed B and the name was five letters long. Each stage's completion left a piece of the necessary information in the computer's memory, which then got passed along a complicated path of overflows and direct memory address reads into the encoder sequence. Even the numbers of keypresses for each stage matched exactly what Adam expected from a standard game.
Everything matched. Billy had to be the real winner, and yet the prompt said he wasn't.
Adam howled but remembered what Art said. It didn't matter whether Billy was a cheat or not. What mattered was that he was a sympathetic child, and hopefully, his picture would look good in the magazine.
Speaking of which, Adam dialled the editor of 'Bit' and after confirming that they would be interested, and maybe even pay a bit for a human interest story, he organized his friends to go to Billy's to do a full ceremony including an oversized cheque. At the same time they were to discreetly check Billy's family programming capabilities, after all, if Billy wasn't a prodigy, then maybe one of his parents was competent enough to bypass Adam's security measures.
Alas, their investigation yielded nothing except for some good pictures. Billy was an ordinary if a little bit pudgy kid, and had absolutely no computer skills besides giving the commands to load the game. His father was a bit better, he was an accountant who purchased the Colorful Computer in hopes of using it for his job. He was sadly disappointed however when he learned that despite looking the same as the terminal he used at work, the personal computer without support from a powerful mainframe was simply not sufficient for the kind of work he did, so he relegated it to a position of a glorified typewriter
Billy's mom knew even less. She was a housewife and had absolutely no interest in the machine.
Everything seemed as it should be, but Adam agonized over each detail, trying to find a single discrepancy and prove once and for all that Billy wasn't just a random lucky kid.
Over the next week, he barely ate and slept, staring at the Quest Failed prompt, which he refused to close, vainly attempting to pierce the veil of secrecy. But in the contest between the mystery and Adam's investigative prowess, the weak link was his body. Abused and malnourished it refused to go on, and Adam fell asleep keeling over from the chair he was sitting in front of the screen, only to wake some twenty or thirty hours later when one of his friends roused him up, saying that there was somebody there to meet him.
Adam made a mental note to thank whoever bothered to move him from the floor onto a bed, took a moment to splash his face with cold water and rinse his teeth and went to meet the mysterious guest.
To his surprise, it was a woman. To be exact it wasn't her sex that startled him, but rather the way she looked. Somehow she managed to pull two opposite images at once, she was at the same time professional, wearing a smart, fairly plain suit, but at the very same time, she exuded an aura of a predatory sex appeal. It might have been the tiny alterations made to her outfit, highlighting certain details while pulling the eye away from others. Or it might have been the high heels, which while not exactly stilettos still made her bottom assume a perfect shape. Or maybe it was all Adam's libido, denied an outlet for too long.
She gave him a long, appraising look and obviously decided that Adam was frozen ogling her and needed at least a soft reset.
"Good morning," she gave him a warm smile, and extended her hand for a handshake "I'm Amelia Marrón, and you must be Adam."
Her hand was soft and warm, but her handshake was firm and confident, exactly as it should be.
"Umm… Yes… Yes… Good morning. I'm Adam. Adam Parsons." He stammered. "Nice to meet you too, Amelia. Sorry, Long hours working are starting to take their toll. Could I offer you anything to drink?"
"Water, please."
Adam used the time he spent getting two cups of water from the fridge to collect himself a bit. He cleared the assorted papers and reference books from the table and a couple of chairs in the living room and they both sat down.
"So, Amelia, what brings you to my humble abode." Adam finally asked.
"Are you responsible for that… piece of advertising." She produced a familiar FREE SEX flier and pointedly placed it on the table.
"Well… I…" Adam squirmed, was she a religious nutjob? Or a mother who wound her son masturbating to his ad of all things?
"Because I absolutely love that move. I almost had to initiate a rewind, but it was brilliant nevertheless. And if you are who I think you are I would like to offer you a partnership." She shot him a brilliant smile.
"Oh, you're another participant. For a moment I thought,"
"That I was some sexy MILF who found her baby boy beating his meat to a sexy, naked elf?" She finished the sentence for him. And started to laugh brightly.
"Well, either that or an eighty-year-old pastor from the middle of the Bible belt coming to burn me at the stake for my misdeeds." His joke was more than a bit flat, but she laughed as if Adam was a stand-up comedian in a Las Vegas casino.
"Do I look like an old priest?"
"I don't know." He risked. "You might be wearing a clever disguise."
But that only made Amelia laugh harder.
"Who knows, maybe you will have to search me before we form a partnership." Her tone made something inside Adam quiver. "Would you like to hear more?"
"Yes, please."
"I have found the Activision four at Atari and managed them to leave the job early. All we need is an investment and some marketing and we will be golden. So what do you think?"
"Activision, Atari?" He asked confused. To the best of his knowledge he didn't know of any of them and yet she was throwing the words as if they were household names.
"Wait!" She exclaimed noticing his confusion. "You have been flying blind the entire time?"
"Flying blind?" Adam's confusion only grew.
"Oh God, he is an NPC." Amelia's face fell.
"I assure you I'm not. But you throw those names around as if they meant something." He protested, offended.
"Are you really telling me you haven't unlocked your memories, and despite that, you've managed to fuck the rest of us over? Do you know not a single competitor made any profit on any of the games? And a few of them have already initiated a rewind? And you were guessing all the time?" Amelia got more and more agitated.
"Well, sorry about that. I already told Joel I would give up the bonus to help them."
"Oh, don't be sorry. This was excellent. And if what you're saying is true, we just have to make that deal. I promise it will be worth your while." Amelia's voice was dripping with honey and exotic spices again.
"But, how did you unlock the memories?" Adam couldn' t let go. If only…
"When you sold the instruments, the guy didn't offer you… Wait! You didn't steal from the band!" She shouted finally connecting the dots. "They are all here. I can hear the drummer even now. He's good."
"If you think Paul's good, you should hear our new guy. He is just like the best musician like ever." He chuckled quoting his wife.
"You have to tell me all about how you managed to beat the first challenge."
Something changed almost imperceptibly, and Adam's head slowly cleared.
"A man doesn't kiss and tell." He tried to tease, but something was missing. Something was wrong.
There were several messages in his view, but until now he didn't pay them any heed.
You have been seduced. Effective Intelligence -90%.
You have unlocked a new skill: Seduction. Current level: 2.
Your seduction level has increased. Effective intelligence -92%, effective willpower -80%.
You have resisted the seduction.
You have recovered from seduction.
Your effective intelligence has been restored to its normal level.
"Did you just try to seduce me?" He was incredulous.
"Damn it, I blew it, didn't I? I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have done it, but I need that partnership so much, and I thought it would work better that way. But I would never take advantage. After all, you will be my new boss, so it would be a bad idea to cross you. I even prepared an agreement with a hundred per cent of royalties going to you, see." She retrieved a thick folder from her handbag and shown Adam a contract, which indeed featured a 100% royalty rate for Adam. "But I'm rambling. Oh my god, I'm thirty and I'm rambling like a confused teenager. It must be all those implanted memories… I just better go. I'm really sorry."
She started packing, her confidence all gone. Adam gave her a long appraising look as if he was seeing her for the first time. And in a sense he did, she was no longer a goddess incarnate, but rather a girl next door, not ugly but not stunning either. Her hair lost the extraordinary sheen, and her outfit was plain although still well-tailored.
"Wait… He said finally. No harm done. So why don't we start again." He offered, trying to remember all the questions he needed to ask her.
Amelia raised her brow but sat back down. "All right, let's start again. Hi! I'm Amelia, nice to meet you." She gave Adam a shy smile.
"Hi, Amelia. I'm Adam. Why won't you start by telling me what the hell happened just now."
"I'm really sorry about that, it's just that I'm sick of that homely girl body the simulation put me in, and as soon as I attempted flirting, I discovered that the system makes you pretty for a time. So I started flirting. A lot. I guess it became my second nature. And I should have known better. Your Intelligence and Charisma must be through the roof, and the minigames at high levels get insanely hard. But maybe it's for the best that you resisted. Those texts the system forced on me were more cheesy than a pizza factory. " She started rambling again.
" As I said, no harm, no foul. But what actually happened?"
Amelia took a deep breath and collected her thoughts. "A lot of soft skills have their own mechanics. Instead of old and boring role-playing, the system creates a game with results based on your stats and skills. Well, that's at least what I think." She explained.
"Minigames?"
"It's hard to explain, you have to try it yourself. Go on, try to seduce me. I promise I won't laugh… Too much."
Adam tried and the world around him slowed down. A selection screen appeared in front of him, with two extra cheesy pick-up lines with extra cheese on each side. On top there was an icon for what he presumed was a wolf whistle, and on the bottom, there was an icon with what he presumed was an open door. In the centre, there were two needles spinning slowly around in opposite directions, and the whole window subtly changed colours, but he couldn't discern why.
He had no idea what to do, so he focused on the good and tried 'Hey, girl are you an angel, because...?'. And Amelia broke her promise, immediately erupting in an uncontrollable fit of snorting laughter.
"Oh. My. God. That was so bad. Like next level bad. And that smile. Oh. My. God." She explained in between bouts of laughter. "What is your seduction at?"
"Two," Adam answered flatly.
"And effective?"
"Two." At that point he only wished the woman to leave.
"And no bonuses from charisma and intelligence?" She kept pestering Adam.
"None. But I have a -30 to charisma due to my charming smile. But it varies per region if it helps."
"That explains it. Though you might want to consider moving to London. I heard chicks there dig bad teeth."
Adam didn't answer.
"Oh, come on. At least you learned the skill in a controlled environment. I tried in a bar." She blushed.
"Was it bad?" Adam's curiosity got the best of him.
"Let's just say there is a reason I moved three towns over. You at the very least know what to expect."
"Thank you, I guess." Adam managed to look directly at Amelia again. "Do you know how this 'minigame' of yours works? It was just too confusing. Moving needles, changing colours, it made no sense at all."
"Needles? I guess it would look like that at such a low skill level. For me, the fields are about 120 degrees wide. The game is simple, you have three options to choose from, and there is a time limit. When both fields, or in your case needles overlap the colour of the overlay changes to indicate the effect of the option they are pointing at on your quarry."
"What do the colours mean? For me, it was mostly reds and yellows?"
"I have no idea." She admitted laughing. "I think yellow means funny and pink means sexy, but don't quote me on that. It gets more complicated when your skill grows, like matching topics to your mark's mood. But you will have to work it out yourself."
"Fair enough. But why could I speak normally while you were seducing me? Why wasn't I the blathering idiot?" Adam wondered.
"That's simple. The attacker, that was me, uses charisma plus seduction skill as the base value. The defender uses willpower and intelligence."
"You seem to know a lot about the simulation, even with your memories unlocked."
"That one's easy. They have been using a similar setup in the past for internal training and some recruitment, nothing as sophisticated as this two week run of course, but there are similarities. And the engine for this simulation is not exactly purpose-built, so in preparation for this trial, I spent my holiday playing a dozen games. And of course, it helps that my sister worked in the American head office."
Research node unlocked: Game Engines (concept).
Skill increase: Industrial espionage: general +1.
"Insider knowledge? All is fair in love and job interviews?" Adam quipped.
"It's not like that. I admit that I gave you no reason to think that, but I'm trying to be ethical here. Besides, the artificial intelligence governing the sim does a fairly deep memory scan and would block those memories, or even disqualify me outright. But some vague suggestions? Those are perfectly fine. And the games were a lot of fun, much better than this sim. Shame they aren't available in the Federation." She shook her head.
"Care to share some of this secret knowledge?"
"Only because I feel bad about the whole seduction thing. And if you promise to listen to my proposal afterwards." She said with a glint in her eyes.
And so over the next hour or so Amelia shared a lot of, well not exactly secrets, but solid tips and knowledge. Adam learned how to build a research lab on a budget, how to trick NPC's into granting him access to a powerful mainframe computer and where to go to get a free programming course. None of this was exactly vital, but it would make Adam's life much easier.
And then Amelia's demeanour changed completely, she sat up straight, and her tone lost a bit of its warmth. It was back to business.
"I think you have picked my brain clean already, so for your part of the bargain. And remember, you don't have to say yes to anything." Amelia's eyes shined for a moment with a fervour known only to revolutionaries and firebrand preachers.
"It's only fair. Shoot." Adam reminded himself to uncross his arms to at least seem more open to the idea.
"In 1977 Atari, here known as Syzygy released a Video Games Console, Atari 2600. And while Fairchild's Channel F, you can guess its name here, was technically first, it was revolutionary. And it was an instant success. Twenty-five million units sold by the end of production in 1992." She took a deep breath, preparing for the main part of the pitch.
" Wait, 1977? But it's just 1976 now?" Adam used a momentary pause, to interject.
"It seems the simulation started early, similarly the release dates of various systems have been slightly adjusted." She patiently explained, slightly miffed about the interruption to her spiel. "Two years later, four of their programmers, unhappy about how they were treated, left Atari and started their own company, called Activision. It is now one of the largest providers of third-party games for a multitude of systems, while Atari went bankrupt. I have slightly accelerated the process and the four of them are ready to leave as soon as I say the word."
"Wait, when we contacted Syzygy, they right away threatened to sue us. That's when I promised myself to never make games for a closed system." Adam was full of questions.
"Oh, and sue they will. It was actually a landmark case and a humiliating one for Atari to boot." Amelia exposed her canines in a predatory smile. "After that third-party games became commonplace, and Activision had a good working relationship with Atari until the latter's demise many years later. This is a sure-fire way to win the competition. So what do you say? Partners?" She actually made puppy-eyes at Adam.
"I have so many questions right now. Like, how do you know the lawsuit would go the same way this time? And why would you even want to partner? If this business is as good as you say you could win and get the top position yourself."
"The lawsuit will go the same way because otherwise, the whole simulation would make no sense whatsoever. Without legal third-party games, there is no market in console gaming, and that's where the big bucks are. As to why I want to partner up it's simple." She lowered her gaze, slightly shy. "It's my age. In real life, I'm nearly forty, and the cutoff age for the CEO fast-track is twenty-six. The Americans have to abide by the European laws and all the top management has to be non-naturalized citizens, but they want somebody young and still malleable, to form him or her in their own warped image." She laughed mirthlessly. "No, my soft skills are my forte, and I have it on good authority, that the best way to show them off is to make mutually profitable deals with as many other participants as possible."
"For…" Adam stopped himself in time. "Those are all good reasons, but I have to disappoint you. I have promised myself that I won't work on those damn cartridges, and I fully intend to keep my word."
Quest alert: Keep your word. Or break it. It doesn't matter anyway.
"But don't you see that they will lose and be humiliated?" Amelia became agitated.
"Maybe so, but they will indirectly earn money on our games. Each game we make would mean so many more consoles sold, wouldn't it?"
"But we would earn money too. And you need to remember the big picture. You aren't here to save the world, or even earn money. There is a very real top floor office and a comfortable chair at the end of this simulation."
"Still, my point stands. Sorry to disappoint you. If you ever have another business idea, then I'm open to cooperation."
"Fair enough. I can respect your willingness to stand by your convictions, although I can't agree with your reasons. If you ever change your mind, call me." She handed Adam a business card.
They made small talk, as she gathered her things, but just as she was about to leave, Amelia turned back. "Wait, Adam. I just can't leave you like that. It would be inhumane."
Adam answered her only with a puzzled look.
"Your seduction skill. It's abysmal. I will show you some tricks. But I can't do it sober. Have you got any beer?"
Skill increase: Seduction +1.
Skill increase: Seduction +1.
…
Skill increase: Seduction +1.
It took hours of gruelling, self humiliating work, and Adam decided he had to calm his nerves as well. In the beginning, it was horrible, and he hoped to just simply die. His efforts paid off though and finally, he managed to seduce Amelia but was so surprised that he lost control before he could do anything useful like interrogating her. It would be only fair after all.
"And a gentleman to boot." She stood up, misinterpreting him losing control as voluntary relinquishing it. "I better go. I'm too tipsy, and next time you might take advantage." She laughed. "Not that I would necessarily mind that. I better go, before I make a fool of myself."
"Hey, It would be only fair, I've been making a fool of myself for the last few hours." Protested Adam.
"Maybe next time…" Amelia gathered her things and just as she was crossing the threshold, she turned back and gave Adam another white rectangle. "If you serious, call me. This is my private number. We could practice some more, and maybe I wouldn't mind losing a few minigames to you. But now I have to go. This is not the real me, the alcohol, and this young body. But I'm rambling like an embarrassed teenager. I'll better go, but I wouldn't mind some practice."
Amelia left and Adam had to admit to himself that he wouldn't mind some practice either. He wouldn't even mind losing a few to Amelia. Not at all...
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