“Now, let us in to play,” Jak said. “Fuckers.”
THE DISPLAY OF THE GOLD was effective. The insolent guard stepped aside and pointed them to a back office, past the many working vid games crowded into the arcade.
“Boss is back there. Name’s Templeton. He’ll fix you up.”
As true children of Deathlands, both Dean and Jak had never seen anything like the darkened chamber. There was no interior lighting to speak of. All illumination came from the many vid screens. The noise they had heard coming out into the mall passage was busy and louder inside; electronic bleeps, boops, explosions and screams mixed with each machine’s dozen digitized soundtracks for a staggering variety with differing intensities.
“Used some comps back at school with games, shoot-’em-ups, wag-driving simulations, mystery hunts, but they were nothing like this,” Dean breathed.
“You forgetseen these kind games before,” Jak said, speaking as loudly as he could in order to be heard over the noise.
“No way. Where?” Dean asked.
“Redoubt. Western Islands. When Trader and Abe still with us,” the albino replied.
Dean looked at his friend curiously. “You funnin’ me, Jak?”
“No.”
Dean scratched his head, eerily mirroring the motion and posture of his father when puzzled. “I swear I don’t ever recall seeing a vid arcade in a redoubt. Seems I’d remember a hot pipe like that.”
“I know. Specially since one game blew asses sky-high.”
Now Dean was truly perplexed. “What are you talking about?”
Jak sighed. He wasn’t much for talking under the best of conditions, and the last thing he wanted to do was to try to enter into a detailed description about the past in the middle of a electronic maelstrom like the Freedom Mall’s vid arcade. How to summarize one of the stranger redoubts the group had ever visited?
The underground installation had been small, tiny even, with only a mat-trans chamber and an upstairs series of rooms containing administrative offices, a small cafeteria, smaller armory, stripped-down living dormitories and secured nuke power plant. No elaborate maze or top secret labs, just enough in the way of supplies and room to house a staff to keep the mat-trans gateway open and properly functioning.
The redoubt’s setup didn’t even possess the usual military design. There was no sense of permanence in the evacuated rooms.
Adding to Doc’s voiced theory of rotating shifts in charge of operating the redoubtwith living quarters located somewhere outsidewas an amusement center, filled with a dozen sophisticated arcade-quality video games. Jak remembered Dean being so excited, the boy had to be physically restrained by Ryan when the arcade was first discovered.
In fact Dean and Ryan both were as physically and mentally exhausted as could be at the time, what with having to endure three mat-trans jumps in a row
“That’s it!” Jak cried.
“What?” Dean replied, struggling to make himself heard over the noise.
“You and Ryan took triple jump. First, all came to Western Islands from Maine. Then you stuck in chamber, door accidentally closed. Activated cycle. Jumped back to Maine. Ryan used LD button, went after you. Then, both jumped back to Islands. Triple-fried brains, make you forget arcade. Memory loss caused by jumps,” Jak said excitedly.
“Makes sense, I guess. I do remember something about jumpingand Dad coming back to get me. Yeah, you’re probably right, Jak. Good thinking.”
The albino was pleased. “Thanks.”
“Still don’t explain how our asses almost got blown out of our britches,” Dean added.
Jak had an answer for this, as well. “Happened later, when you and me went to play gamesjust like this time, only nobody else in arcade.”
The games in the redoubt had been set up for quarters, twenty-five cent pieces, not game tokens. Luckily some of the brightly decaled consoles had several spare quarters in their coin-return slots. What appeared to be a broken paper roll of coins had been dropped on the carpet. Dean’s eyes fell on a garish oversize console half-shaped like an Indy racing car molded out of brilliant crimson plastic.
“Grand Prix,” Dean read off the brightly lit glass housing, pronouncing “Prix” as “Pricks.”
“Some kind porn game?” Jak mused, until he realized it was a race-wag simulation.