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Forum to read?: ARCADE

SUBJ: How we narrowly avoided the crash of 198X
NAME: Jason Takeshi (jtak)
DATE: Sun Jan 08 23:39:30 199X

Since so many of you on this forum seem blissfully ignorant of arcade history and how it all nearly went down the crapper, let me bring you up to speed.

In the eighties, the industry was booming. The Atari 2600™ was synonymous with the concept of "video game," arcades were filling up with quarter-hungry epics like Space Invaders™ and Pac-Man™, and everything looked like it was going to be amazing forever.

Then the entire industry in North America nearly went headfirst into the dirt at supersonic speeds in 198X.

It's all down to greed, honestly. Greed and gluttony, everybody wanting a piece of this hot new fad, grabbing at short-term profit without at thought for the long-term health of the industry.

Take E.T.™, for example. Did you know that game was supposed to be out for the 198X holiday season? And that they originally only gave Howard Scott Warshaw two @!#?@!ing months to make it? Just imagine the disaster that could've been. Imagine if they made more copies of a terrible game than actual Atari 2600s in existence, like they'd planned.

They'd have to bury their shame in a landfill afterwards.

But you probably never heard that story, because Atari came to their senses and delayed the game until Warshaw had enough time to properly develop and debug it.

Same thing they did with the 2600 port of Pac-Man -- I played an early prototype, and you can't even begin to imagine how bad it was. Flickering ghost monsters, terrible audio, the works. But they changed their minds and took the time to fix it up, just like they did with E.T...

I think 198X was a wake-up call for many in the industry, realizing they had to take this seriously and scale things back a bit or they'd flood arcades with trash and ruin it for everyone. I can't say exactly how the sea change started, but that breathing room made sure arcades thrived and continued to thrive.

Now it's the distant future year 199X and arcades have stayed hot all this time. There are alternatives, of course -- home consoles like the SNES™ and the Atari Panther, PCs running MS-DOS or SparkSoft VaporWare. (And I'm just as curious about the upcoming Nintendo™ PlayStation™ as you are, I mean, seriously, a CD-ROM console from Nintendo would be rad.) But... nobody can question that the beating heart of gaming lies in the arcade and always has. This is where the dream started.

But... always remember your history, okay? Remember that dream was almost destroyed. Remember we got lucky.

Dreams are fragile; if you go into something wide-eyed and naive, you may end up on the wrong timeline. Just like arcades almost were.

---

From her point of view, she could only see the sky and the descending pattern of chords. The lights, the roaring crowd, the stage beneath her feet, none of that even registered -- only the music, floating through the stars, ethereal and perfect.

The point of the performance wasn't really to perform. The distant silhouettes gathered to bear witness to this show held no interest to her, gave her no motivation. Instead, she drew the power from those power chords themselves. She could see them falling from the clouds, a perfect array of color and shape, each one representing a specific sound at a specific time. Her fingers caught them and played those sounds across her instrument with practiced ease.

She'd been practicing this song for three hours now. The same song again and again, but the crowd didn't mind at all. They ate it up as if they were programmed to love anything they heard, as long as it was played well. And by hour three, she'd nearly perfected every single strum. Flawlessly perfect, every time.

But despite perfect play, she couldn't call it a perfect song. Only once in her seventeen years on this hateful rock had she experienced the absolute perfection of music...

It called out to her from beyond the darkened recesses of a musty old video arcade, the kind of mediocre tourist trap that existed along some forgotten highway to ensnare a family station wagon when it was running low on fuel. She'd vaguely poked at video games now and then in her few years, but never an arcade game -- never one of these impossibly-tall boxes full of strange promise...

Normally video games could only produce beeps and boops, something not entirely unlike but functionally identical to music. But this time... this time, she heard perfect chords. A sound so compelling that it pulled her past all the hot action titles and aspiring classics, right to a blue-and-black wooden cabinet with glowing joystick lurking behind them all.

And when she dropped in her quarter, standing on her tip-toes to play -- being very small, so very small before that giant obelisk -- one perfect song filled her mind. A song so wonderful that she could've listened to it forever...

Except her dad, frustrated at how long this minor pit-stop on the way to their vacation at Pengy Paradise was taking, pulled her away before she could hear the rest of it.

She never found that game again. Never heard that song again.

Tonight she still wasn't hearing it, despite how completely in sync she was with these strands of guitar rock floating down from on high. It still felt good -- damn good -- but nothing yet had compared to that one perfect moment from her memory.

Not that it would stop her from searching, of course. Never stop searching for the perfect sound. For that perfect game.

Much to her father's dismay, she requested / demanded a guitar shortly after getting home from that youthful summer vacation. Practiced it all day and night, until the callouses on her fingers could stop bullets. Practiced it for years. Practiced right through the divorce, past the point where he bailed on them, leaving behind a quiet home. She didn't mind the quiet; filling the quiet with music made perfect sense.

And today, here and now, she was wrapping herself warmly in that musical fantasy. Seeing the notes, ignoring the crowd, making it happen. It wasn't the legendary game from her childhood memories, but it would be enough. It could be enough.

If only she could perfect it, pull one of her favorite songs kicking and screaming out of this plastic instrument, let the chords pour into her until they could maybe fill the hole left behind by--

"Hey! Hey! Do you mind?!"

--and her fingers slipped off the colored buttons, causing her to break an otherwise flawless combo of notes.

With frustration, she turned her eyes away from the pixelated crowds, now starting to boo as she missed pixelated note after pixelated note scrolling down the arcade monitor. But their virtual displeasure didn't even rank, not compared to the phalanx of girls pulling her attention away from the screen.

She knew them, of course. Everyone in Public School #223 knew them, even if sometimes the names didn't match the faces. Two of them were Susans and one was a Jennifer -- their leader was known to be a Susan, so presumably the one angrily glowering at her now was also Susan. All three in mix-and-match fashions from The Gap™, nice and colorful and safe and perfectly acceptable as popular-girl garb for this foul year of 199X.

The guitarist pushed her bangs from her eyes (she hadn't needed to actually look at the screen for some time, having memorized the colored note markers by this point) and looked up to them.

"What?" she asked, knowing what the what actually was.

"How long have you been playing that same stupid song?" presumably Susan demanded to know. "It's too damn loud! You're screwing up our Showtime Stage music with your noise."

She let the 3/4ths scale guitar dangle from its well-worn strap, letting a shrug roll from her shoulders towards the golden-haired popular set.

"Not my fault they put Guitar Legends next to Showtime Stage," she said. "Not my fault they set the volume levels this high. Can't you play a Showtime Stage somewhere else in the arcade? There's like three of them here. But only one Guitar Legends."

"Yah, well, we're playing this one," Susan grumbled, nodding towards the flashing lights of the pseudo-dance-studio arcade rig. "And you're messing things up, Little Miss Melissa Ethridge. Or should I call you k.d. lang? That's you, right?"

Common nicknames. Common pseudo-insults. Ones she'd head from any number of Susans throughout her three years running at Public School #223.

Her actual, factual name was Katie Lang. Meaning when k.d. lang came out of the closet back in 199X, well, that's when the populace of her peers gained a new weapon to use against her. A subtle way to jab at Katie Lang, teenage misfit, without using the words that would get them dragged in front of the principal.

(She didn't even like k.d. lang's music. She wasn't constantly craving anything in particular.)

Katie was not a Susan. Katie wasn't even a Katie -- she preferred Kay. Shorter, for starters. Sounded more like she felt.

She lacked the long and wavy golden locks of a Susan, preferring a short bob with a bit of a bang to it. Sometimes dyed black, sometimes not. (Today it was half-and-half as she couldn't be bothered to fix it up lately.) She lacked the Gap clothing of a Susan as well, preferring a well-worn concert tee that suited the hot summer weather and a flannel overshirt tied around the waist for when entering a building with cranked-up air conditioning. And importantly, instead of a flashy skirt or really expensive pair of designer jeans, she'd worn the same few pairs for three years running -- holes in the knees, complete with sun-bleaching wear and tear.

Because why not. Because nobody cared. Because even if she tidied her up her image and mirrored the normals, they'd still call her k.d. lang behind her back, and make the same jokes.

So when the Susan laughed in her face, Kay took it in stride. No point in pushing back against it. No authority to appeal to. No sense in fighting back.

Instead, she pulled the guitar strap off over her head and hung it up neatly on the peg in front of the Guitar Legends arcade cabinet. And walked away.

The girls laughed and made a few more jokes at Kay's expense as she exited the scene, but she'd tuned them out by that point, letting the chords in her head wash them away.

But by the time she reached the snack machine to get her usual post-gaming soda... she realized she'd been breathing a bit harder than usual. Hands shaking a bit more than usual.

Hated them. Hated this place.

Hated this arcade, this massive national franchise arcade -- Deco's Palace, the kiddie-friendly, family-friendly, beer-and-chicken-wings-soaked festival of gaming. Everybody thought of Deco's as a safe and pleasant arcade, a proud American tradition... and while it may have been conveniently around the corner from her home, while it may be every child's birthday party wish, for Kay it represented a unique sort of hell.

This is where you went if you fit in, if you wanted to game where everybody was like you. A sea of familiar faces, all from her own pocket neighborhood in the downtown area of the city. Here all of them called her k.d., all of them either poked at her or shrugged and turned away when the poking started.

She didn't belong here. Kept coming back for the music, the only place to find her beloved music games, but in the end she didn't belong here.

Kay paused before keying in the "9" in "E9" for a crisp Jolt™ cola from the machine. Just the sort of body-destroying beverage needed to keep her awake after another restless night and another Guitar Legends rampage. She could go for hours on this stuff, enduring Deco's Palace all the while. Enduring it all.

Popping the top, she had a long pull... then slumped against the wall of the snack area and slowly slid down to the floor. Sitting there, hugging her knees, trying to hold the music in her mind and failing.

Ten minutes and one soda later, and she'd held both the empty can and her plastic Deco's Palace swipe card over the yawning mouth of the recycling bin, pondering tossing both of them.

Only reason she hesitated? The idea of literally throwing away money was madness, considering how little she managed to scrape together week-to-week to play arcade games. Just ditching three dollars and change compressed into a magnetic swipe strip into the trash felt... wrong. Even if she'd be damned if she ever spent a cent in this arcade again.

So instead, she located a nearby child -- happily munching away from a small baggie of chips -- and clicked the card down on the kid's table.

"Happy birthday," she told the girl. "Play something you love."

And then at long last, Kay walked out of Deco's Palace, never to return.

---

SUBJ: Arcades with Guitar Legends?
NAME: CobainFan (cobainfan)
DATE: Fri Jun 03 13:03:07 199X

hey

any arcades with guitar legends in this city aside from the deco's palace in downtown?

ideally us rev 2 guitar legends, with the altrock bonus songs and not just all the anime stuff

hate deco's palace, wanna play somewhere else, maybe away from downtown completely because tired of the people who play there

let me know thanks

---

The city had been her home since before she could remember. Various apartments in and around the metropolis, usually scaling from larger to smaller as time went on, but always within city limits. The idea of falling asleep without the sound of traffic and the occasional wail of a siren was alien to Kay -- these were her lullabies. Even if insomnia tended to settle into her brain like dust from the rafters of an old house, she could always catch a few hours here and there as the city's perpetual ambient loop rocked her to sleep.

But dawn over the city was another matter. Depending on which apartment they were living in at the time, the sun may or may not actually hit her bedroom window around the time it actually lifted over the horizon. Back before her dad bailed, she'd wake with the sun -- now, living in a shabby downtown cubbyhole of a home, it had to crest an office building before it hit the slats of her window blinds.

So for the last four years, she'd woken to the sounds of an alarm clock rather than the dawn's early light. Assuming her body didn't prematurely awaken on its own and refuse to go back to sleep. Like it did that morning.

Just five hours of sleep and her brain suddenly decided it was go time, hauling Katie Lang out of bed under considerable protest. She groaned, stretched, cursed the hidden dawn, and swung her legs out and over the edge of the flat-pack IKEA™ twin bed she called her own. No point trying to force it and go back to sleep now.

Plus... this gave her one advantage. She could hop online before her mother woke up, and before the phone lines to GameOver got too busy to break through.

Dragging herself to the semi-broken office chair in her bedroom, she pushed away and wheeled its squeaky wheels across the floor. Arrived at the flat-pack IKEA desk, at the keys of her woefully obsolete personal computer. Flipped the heavy red switch, waited for the beeping and grinding to wind to a halt, then fired up her modem software.

Kay had been a member of GameOver for two years now -- one of the few good bulletin board systems within her local calling range, one which wouldn't rack up any long distance fees by hopping area codes. GameOver catered to arcade fans in the city, providing a hub for discussion boards about the game industry, about tips and tricks for score-chasing, and just for shooting the breeze with like-minded folks.

Nobody on GameOver knew who she was, beyond "CobainFan." They didn't even know she was a she, and Kay wasn't about to correct any misconceptions on that front. Keep things nice.

A few of them were even nice enough to email condolences when her namesake died a few weeks ago.

Not a good month for Kay. Not a good month at all.

But this was summer vacation -- according to her mother, summer vacation was meant to be a time for relaxation between stretches of brain-melting school semesters. Problem was, she needed a new arcade to relax in if Deco's Palace was off the menu. That's why she briefly stepped online last night to ask for help, and why she stepped online in these early hours before she could get stuck behind endless phone busy signals as regulars got up and started hogging GameOver's singular telephone line.

Not that she was expecting a reply right away. BBS correspondence could be slow, particularly popular ones like GameOver. Everybody beating down the door trying to get in and spend their precious quota of minutes to fire off mails and post to threads meant only a few dozen people got to communicate at all on a daily basis.

And yet, when she logged in this morning... there was a reply, fresh and ready for her.

SUBJ: RE: Arcades with Guitar Legends?
NAME: Jason Takeshi (jtak)
DATE: Fri Jun 03 22:34:55 199X

Good idea, Deco's Palace is complete garbage. Sooner it burns to the ground the better. No good game designer wants anything to do with the place but hey I'm just an indie dev what do I know.

Only Guitar Legends rev 2 I know of is at my home arcade so take it with a grain of salt when I say it's gonna be your new home too. If you can get up to midtown, head to the Twin Pines Mall (it's actually a strip mall) and visit Frederick's Arcade Funplex. Nice old couple owns the place, it's quiet and friendly and nobody @!#?@!s with you here.

I'm complete @!#?@! at music games but you'll probably find me there in the workshop if you wanna talk and aren't going to annoy me too much. Ask for Jason.

See you there, CobainFan. Or not. Up to you, whatever.

...which made Kay sit back in her creaky chair, to ponder this offer.

She'd never heard of that arcade. Or that mall, for that matter. Not surprising considering she rarely got out of the downtown area, since travel meant time and money, neither of which were in heavy supply. And if it was wedged deep in some strip mall, odds are it wouldn't be as luxurious as Deco's Palace...

But so what? So what if it was a grimy hole-in-the-wall. So what if it was out of the way. In fact, out of the way meant away from anyone who knew her. She could stay an anonymous face in the crowd, like she was at GameOver. No taunting and teasing, no reputation to keep burying in the mud. Just Guitar Legends and her favorite songs, over and over...

After firing off a quick thank-you reply (and after checking to make sure nobody blew up her cargo ship in TradeWars 2002 while she was offline) Kay shut down and started her day.

Best foot forward; she wanted to be fresh and ready for setting foot in a new arcade. Besides, the place wouldn't be open for a few hours anyway. That meant a shower, picking out her least wrecked clothes, do some guitar practice, then grab some toast or something before scooting the heck out the door--

"Hey, where's the fire?"

--halting her momentum, bread in hand, hovering over the cheap plastic toaster.

With a sigh, she looked up.

"Hey, mom," Kay said, dropping in the bread. "You're up early."

Her thirty-three-year-old mother lifted a mug of coffee to her seventeen-year-old daughter, in a toast of greetings. A non-bready toast.

(Kay could be absolutely certain of her young mother's age because she knew in no uncertain terms that her conception was a teenage accident. But her mother took great lengths to emphasize that Kay was a "pleasant surprise," not a "disaster." Even if her father felt otherwise.)

"They moved my shift hours at the hospital again," her mother said, with a sigh. The circles under her eyes seemingly deepened in response, despite her best efforts to cover the exhaustion in layers of makeup. "I'll be missing dinner tonight. You good with making yourself something?"

"Actually, I'm heading out. Visiting a new arcade. Done with the neighborhood Palace."

"Really? But you love Deco's Palace!"

"Mom, I loved Deco's Palace when I was six," Kay said through gritted teeth, as she pulled the piping-hot toast from its slot and dropped it on a plate. "Back when I was having birthday parties there. Now Deco's kinda sucks. It's time I moved on."

"Don't all your friends go to Deco's Palace? Wouldn't you miss them?"

(For all the love and care and acceptance her mother showed her, the woman tended to assume the best of everything. Including the best of Kay's social situation.)

"Whatever," Kay said, not wanting to go into the details, as she sat down to enjoy a brief breakfast with her mom. "New arcade sounds better. It's up in midtown, a few stops down the red line. Has Guitar Legends, too."

"You need any extra for the subway fare?" her mom asked, reaching for her purse--

--before Kay blocked her, with a quick hand.

"Mom, no. I don't need more money," she insisted.

"But midtown's so far away! And if you'll be out all day, you'll need to get yourself some dinner. It's okay, I can--"

"I'm fine. It's fine."

"We have enough for it," her mother insisted, tugging the purse away and opening it regardless. "I'm getting a 1% cost of living pay raise, you know. Everybody on the E.R. staff is getting that. We're fine. And I won't hear any talk of you getting a summer job -- summers during school should be for finding yourself, not for making a wage like I had to do. So take a few bucks and go have fun, okay?"

"Mom..."

"Besides... maybe you'll meet some cute girls at this new arcade," she said, with a wide grin and a big, obvious wink.

"Mom!"

"What? Just because you're gay doesn't mean you're completely off the hook for grand-kids. Once you're older and ready for them, of course. But I want little cheeks to pinch!"

(Coming out of the closet was surprisingly easy. After months of anxiety over how her mom might take it, Kay finally admitted who she really was before dinner one night. And her mother's response? That's nice dear, I'm so proud of you, but I still need to know what you want on your pizza. Since then, she'd been nothing but supportive and just as horribly embarrassing as any parent would be regardless of orientation.)

Eager to steer things away from... that, Kay scarfed down her toast and accepted the fistful of small bills offered by her mom. Better than to protest it and drag this little encounter out any longer.

Right now, Kay would be satisfied with getting her hands on that plastic guitar once more, with touching the sky with her music. Everything else... everything... could wait. All she really needed from this "Funplex" place was access to the music she loved. Access to her dream of a perfect song.

Her one true dream. Nothing else mattered. Right?

---

Riding the red line was identical to riding the blue line was identical to riding the yellow line. The main difference was how the yellow line's color scheme masked the occasional steaming pool of pee someone left behind on the floor.

Sadly, to work her way up to this fancy new midtown arcade, the red line was a must. A bus would do the job, but not nearly as quickly or directly. Taxis were absolutely out of the question given the costs. Bicycles got stolen and bike riders got flattened at intersections. Ergo: Subway.

Just one of the many joys of living in the city, but as a street-raised local Kay had gotten used to it all. Only the tourists bothered lodging complaints with management.

So she found herself hanging on to a wrist strap, her body loosely swaying back and forth as the red-tinted train car rocketed towards its destination. Hearing the mixtape she'd jammed into her cheap plastic knockoff Walkman over the grinding of metal-on-metal took some effort, but knowing the songs inside and out helped with that. The tape served as a mental reminder of the music she loved moreso than a full performance of it, at that point.

Disembarking in midtown, she followed directions she'd looked up on the slightly-torn gas station map they kept in the apartment -- one block over, one block up... and finally, arriving at the Twin Pines Mall.

The mysterious "Jason" warned this was a strip mall, a mall stripped down to its raw essence. No fancy marble floors to stroll down while bubbling fountains lulled you into a sense of consumer complacency, just a solid asphalt parking lot and a bunch of outdoor storefronts arranged in a vague L-shape. This particular strip mall was a double-decker, with shops up top and shops down below, every slot occupied by something-or-other. Laundry. Pizzeria. Pawn shop. Nail salon. And, of course... the arcade.

At first, she nearly missed it. This "Funplex" had been tucked away in the crook of the L, flanked on either side by a pizza joint and a bail bonds office. Sure, the giant glowing letters F U N P L E X were there, but clearly they were meant to be part of a greater sign -- Kay could make out the weathered outlines of two more words, ones which had fallen off the building or been pulled down ages ago, leaving behind only the suggestion of what they read. Frederick's Arcade Funplex, once upon a time. But now in 199X, it was just the Funplex, full stop.

Not promising. But with subway fare already sunk into the trip, no point not checking it out.

Plus, it was ninety-four goddamn degrees out here today. Any building with air conditioning would be welcome right now after riding in a stinky hot train car.

With a shrug, Kay walked beneath that incomplete sign and pushed through its double doors.

---

The air conditioning hit her like a cool breeze, albeit one smelling of copper and corn chips.

And within... well, it was an arcade. Certainly what it was.

Hard to really say much beyond that. Tons and tons of games, packed into a space lined with basic brick walls and a few stray neon signs. Snack machines. Skeeball. A desk to redeem tickets for cheap junk, with some sixty-year-old geezer asleep at the wheel. All the expected trimmings, but at a slightly lower level of polish and shine compared to Deco's Palace, which prided itself on looking like some kind of gilded age throwback.

Despite her laser-focus on music games, Kay did know a thing or two (but mostly just a thing, not two) about classic arcade titles... enough to know the place was positively packed with them, to a much higher degree than the modern 199X titles found at Deco's Palace. A bit strange to see, but not unexpected at a low-rent arcade which couldn't afford the latest and greatest in game technology.

Except... Guitar Legends was the latest and greatest in game technology. Music games had only been flaring into existence for about three years now, jumpstarted when someone got the clever idea of tapping buttons in time to a song. Would this retro-flavored arcade really have the game she sought...?

Curious, Kay began poking her way through the lanes and aisles of closely-packed titles. Focused on her search, not paying attention beyond that. Not too many gamers here to nudge her way past, at least -- a few kids standing on wooden crates to reach the joysticks, one or two adults, mostly teenagers like her from local schools. People who didn't know her. (Thankfully.)

After a few moments of searching... the gleaming light of a six-stringed paradise made itself visible, in the back corner of the arcade. As if hiding away from the world.

Guitar Legends, revision two. Giant screen, small-scale plastic guitar, and all the colored note indicators you can strum. Seventy-five percent Japanese songs from shows she'd never seen, given the game's origins overseas. Ten percent eighties buttrock anthems, the kind that middle-aged dads would probably blare from car stereos in twenty years...

But the rest of the songs? Absolute gold. By some miracle a marketing executive somewhere had the forethought to include a number of tracks pulled from the rich Seattle alternative rock sound infesting 199X. All her favorite songs, all in one place. And now to be found in... well, the deepest, dankest corner of a strip mall arcade.

At first, it made no sense to her -- Guitar Legends was hugely popular, and there weren't many second-revision machines to be found in the city. Why take something this rare that practically prints money and jam it away in the shadowy recesses of your arcade? The fact that she couldn't hear the hard rocking jams of the game until she was almost upon it meant it'd be easily overlooked...

But that was the upside, wasn't it? She couldn't hear the game anywhere else in the arcade. It had its own little sonic corner away from the crowd, away from the noise. Much better than Deco's Palace, which stuck all the music games together into one giant congealed lump of chaos, one which lead the Susans to chase her away for ruining their experience.

Here in the Funplex, the Susans couldn't get to her -- not only because she'd vacated their territory completely, but because nobody could complain about her rocking the hell out for hours. This corner could be hers, and hers alone...

Eager to experience the game the way it was meant to be played, lost in her own little world of power chords and furious strumming, Kay pulled the guitar from its holster and slung it into place. Adjusted the strap, to make it exactly the length she liked. Fingered the five plastic buttons, testing them with a rapid series of taps, knowing by heart what the springiness should be.

Every button worked perfectly. No stuck corners, no mushy springs. Someone kept this game in damn fine shape. Perfect.

Unlike Deco's swipe cards, this place took good old-fashioned quarters. And she'd brought a stack of them, what little she could scrape up, ready to go. Coin down the chute, tinking away against the metal inner workings of the game, and it was showtime.

As for the warm-up song? Obvious choice, given her BBS username: Breed, by Nirvana.

Perfect track for getting the feel of a new guitar. One high speed rampage down the chaotic corridors of sound, something raw and emotional without making a hell of a lot of sense. It conveyed a perfect level of anxious energy, just the thing to get you feverishly working the buttons on a plastic guitar -- chord and strum, hand sliding back and forth, following the patterns. Nothing too complex, nothing too simple. Just a screaming trip straight down the note chart, colored pixel blobs dropping from the game's sky, landing right at your fingertips...

At some point Kay just closed her eyes, felt her way through the song. She'd memorized the note chart ages ago. Could even play these riffs on her crappy electric guitar back home, the one she'd bought at a flea market that needed re-tuning three times minimum per practice session...

By the time last straining chords echoed away into nothing, drowned out by the scratchy digitized screams of the digital crowd... she'd found the zone. One perfect moment of glory--

With a flashy, colorful distraction gasping for breath just over her shoulder.

Kay glanced behind her, on the side of her head not slightly overgrown with asymmetric locks of hair.

At first, she worried a Susan had somehow followed her here, like an international spy ring exclusively ordered to ruin her day. The girl with the ample amount of curly orange-ginger tresses certainly felt vaguely like a Susan... but something was off. Like a TV with the saturation turned waaaay too high, colors popping right off the screen, a colorful test pattern to make sure you set could really hit every hue on the spectrum.

She wore the expected amount of fashionable clothes, but they'd been mismatched, arranged in clashing patterns. No muted pastels and earth tones, more like someone was running from the law and crashed into a 198X thrift store rack, emerging out the other side dressed like that complete with little dangling price tags off every item.

There's no way the pixel-art shirt she wore under her loose vest could possibly be from 199X, for instance. Kay didn't recognize the character on it, some sort of princessy-type with a pink flaming sword, but the hard edges of the artwork that suggested the blocky pixels of an old arcade game were pretty clear-cut. Definitely weirdly placed against the splashy designs you'd see on modern fashions, definitely 198X throwbacks.

Hell, she even literally wore a raspberry beret -- the kind you find in a second hand store.

On realizing she'd been spotted, the girl let out a squeaky little gasp of surprise.

"Ohh! Ahh... don't mind me!" she insisted, waving her hands exaggeratedly. "Pretend I'm not even here."

"...uh..." was the best Kay could manage, her brain doing strange things trying to come to terms with the sight before her.

(Despite the Picasso-esque mismatch of... all of the everything on display, well. The freckles, at least. The freckles were cute.)

"It's just that, umm... I've never heard anyone play that song in Guitar Legends before," the freckled girl continued. "Usually everybody wants to play the anime songs. So when I heard something new, I had to come check it out..."

"You... heard me?" Kay asked, puzzled. "I figured this corner was kinda out of the way on purpose... keeps the noise from bothering anyone else with their beeps and boops."

"Oh, eventually you learn to filter those out," the other girl said, waving the idea away. "Makes it easier to hear real music above the mess. So, umm... what was that? That song."

Okay. This was new.

Kay wasn't used to people just strolling on up and striking a conversation like this. Used to people pointing out their annoyances with her, or asking some question like "Do you have the time?" or "Do you know how to get to the train station?", simple and neutral things you'd ask a stranger. Not on par with "Hey tell me about your music!" in the slightest.

Flexing long-forgotten casual conversation muscles took some doing. Kay was so used to being alone on these jaunts into the city that needing to engage in smalltalk was somewhat alien. Thankfully, talking about music actually made things slightly easier.

"It's actually Nirvana," Kay said, warming up. "Get why you might not recognize that track, though. It's not really one of their radio hits."

"Cool! What's a Nirvana?"

Which derailed Kay's conversational warm-up, shifting back to pure confusion. Even people who hated modern rock knew that band -- turn on any radio and you'd eventually hear them or something like them...

Fortunately, the other teenager quickly clarified.

"I don't, uh, listen to a lot of music," she said. "And I'm technically not supposed to go near this game because it's got a devil worship song in it. Right?"

"Devil worship? What? ...wait, you mean Shout at the Devil? That's just Mötley Crüe, they're a joke--"

"I mean, of course it's not really devil worship! That's just silly, right?!" the girl insisted, in a voice a little too insistent. Like she was caught saying something completely off the wall and desperate to return to normalcy. "Umm. But... rules, y'know. Rules are rules. ...it's a long story and I'm already interrupting your game and I'm sorry I'm so sorry I'll go now please have fun and stuff--"

"No no, it's cool," Kay insisted, trying to calm things down again. "Don't mind. It's cool."

"Okay. Okay, great! Was a bit worried I'd like really messed things up there," her new companion said, hands futzing about with themselves nervously. "And, ah, you are...? I... don't think we've met before? I know almost everyone who comes here but I don't recognize you right away, sooo..."

"Oh, name's Katie. --Kay," she corrected quickly. "My name's Kay. Wouldn't know me, I'm new here at the Funplex. Came because I heard you had Guitar Legends."

And instantly, the other girl's shame twisted around into joy.

"New to the Funplex?! That's great!" she declared, practically letting out a little 'squee' of excitement. "It's got so many terrific games! I can show you my favorites, if you want. When you're done playing, I mean. Just say the word, and I'll be your tour guide, Katie!"

"Kay," she corrected again, while wishing she hadn't slipped up in the first place. (Would've been nice to leave Katie behind entirely.)

"Right, Kay!" the girl said... extending a hand just bristling with spare friendship bracelets in her direction. "And you can call me Iris."

---

It took Kay about a minute and a half to worm her way through the old arcade cabinets towards Guitar Legends. But with Iris leading the way, it took nearly twenty minutes to get back to the front door. There and back again, but hardly a balanced round trip, with stops at nearly every game in the arcade.

"...which is kind of funny because he just parked Pac-Man in a corner of the maze and went to the bathroom, and I was like 'oh no Pac-Man's gonna die' and when he got back he was like 'no, that's a safe spot' and I was like 'oh okay' and then he kept going..."

All while her tour guide crawled along, stopping at every game to detail its a long and deeply involved history.

Kay hadn't gotten a word in edgewise the whole time; Iris just kept going and going, as if she had a bottomless fountain of quirky stories about the Funplex and its inhabitants. The "inhabitants" meaning gamers and games, combined.

Honestly, Kay hadn't paid much attention to the rest of the arcade in her journey to track down Guitar Legends. She'd noticed the other humans in a vague sense, but paid little attention beyond trying not to accidentally bump into anyone. In contrast, but Iris seemed to know everyone by name. Names she was teaching to Kay indirectly as she struck up a hundred micro-conversations.

"Hey, how's the high score coming, Jamal?" she asked one, intensely focused on his precise joystick moves.

"Oooh, almost had it! Keep trying, Michelle!" she encouraged a young kid, as she fed her machine from a stack of quarters.

"Hmm, what's that thing there, Dave?" she asked, smudging a fingerprint on the monitor as another blitzed a new level in some classic game.

From game to game, player to player. Iris clearly enjoyed being queen of this particular castle, but not in the same way the popular girls ruled over Deco's Palace -- this throne represented a benevolent monarchy. The kind of queen who isn't afraid to muck out the stables now and then and knows all the peasants by name and oh how's your cousin doing, are they over the plague yet?

On and on she rambled, in the ear of a total stranger. Meaning Kay. Kay was the total stranger.

They'd known each other for less than a half hour and already Iris was acting like the two had been friends for years. This bouncy ginger girl, perky enough to perk the perkingest perk that ever perked, was smoothly comfortable with the sullen and confused rocker she'd been dragging all over the place.

Truthfully? Kay kinda wanted to sneak off for the exits, purely based on her fight-or-flight instinct.

Sudden and immediate full-contact social activity was really not her thing, but now she was caught in a trap of social niceties. Kay was simply too polite to tell Iris off in any blunt or unpleasant fashion -- it'd be rude to the nice girl who clearly just wanted to share the arcade she loved. Stepping on her enthusiasm would be like kicking a puppy.

And... well, even if Kay had been inoculated against infectious enthusiasm, being around that level of excitement did have a pleasant aura to it. Like a warm if slightly tacky sweater.

These thoughts kept her nice and distracted, to the point where Kay didn't even notice when Iris finally brought her actively back into the discussion.

"--uh, my what?" she asked, trying to catch up.

"Your favorite games. Other than Guitar Legends, I mean," Iris continued, not even noticing the slip. "The Funplex has all sorts of stuff -- you wouldn't think it since the floor isn't really that huge, but you'd be surprised how much is hidden away in here. Maybe some of your favorites are here!"

"Oh. It's... mostly just Guitar Legends," Kay replied, eyes drifting from screen to screen. "Music games in general, I guess. There's not many of them compared to fighters or shooters, but I like them all, and..."

A highway tourist trap. One perfect song. A glowing blue joystick...

"...and I'm also looking for one rare game in particular," Kay admitted. "I don't know its name, but it's... I think it was a music game? Very old, from 198X. Had great music, just... just beautiful music. And glowing joystick..."

"What, you mean TRON™? That's got a glowing joystick."

"No, not TRON. Music in TRON sucks."

"Ohh. Sorry, that's the only game I can think of like that. I... don't actually know much about arcade games, sorry."

"Don't know much about...? You just spent like... forever telling me everything about all these games!"

"W-Well, I mean, I know some things," Iris responded, with a pout. "Just not, like, an expert on games in general. More of an expert on the Funplex, and what's in it. I've been coming here for years."

"Guessing this is in your backyard?"

"Oh, I don't have a backyard anymore. Not since moving in from the suburbs. Kinda miss my backyard..."

"I... didn't mean literally. I mean it's near your home," Kay clarified.

"Ah! Not really, no," Iris said casually. "It takes a quick subway ride to get here from uptown."

This time, Kay tried not to let her confusion through quite as fiercely. Despite nearly everything about Iris being... perplexing. Befuddling. Making her brain do a variety of funny things.

"So... why the Funplex, then?" Kay asked. "If it's out of your way, why come here? 'cause it's clearly not for Guitar Legends. You're not 'allowed' to play that. What's your game?"

With a sigh, Iris tried to find the words, pausing momentarily before forming something resembling an explanation.

"It's not... okay, it's not any one specific game. It's the place. It's the people," Iris explained. "I don't just mean my friends, like Jason and Michelle and Jamal and so on. I mean... it's safe here. It's a safe arcade, and my parents like it. They like the nice old couple that owns the place. Have you met them yet?"

"Met who?"

"Francine and Frederick. They make sure this arcade is friendly, inviting, and perfectly safe," Iris explained. "And because it's safe, I'm allowed to hang out here whenever I want. I like that, y'know? I like being able to come and go. I like having my own place to be. The Funplex provides that."

"Meaning... you're here because your parents let you be here?"

"Right, you got it!" Iris bubbled cheerfully, not noticing the slight tinge of concern in that voice.

...Kay's mom never really "let" her go anywhere. She didn't not let her go anywhere, for that matter. The two of them respected each other enough that Kay was trusted to do what she wanted with her free time -- encouraged, even. It's your summer vacation! You should live a little and just be you, her mother said. Because I couldn't do the same, she didn't add.

Fortunately, because Kay largely kept to herself and wasn't the sort to end up in jail after some wild party that resulted in thousands of dollars of property damage, this arrangement worked out. Mom never had cause for concern because despite her "rebel rocker girl" motif, honestly, Kay wasn't interested in rebellion. She wasn't interested in much of anything... just the music.

But Iris's parents... they "let" her go to the Funplex. With strong implication that it was one of the few places she was allowed to go. And even while here, she wasn't allowed to play Guitar Legends because it had naughty 198X buttrock about Satan in it from guys who wore stretch leopard print spandex.

All while Iris smiles away, friendly and cheerful, nothing even slightly wrong. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But maybe this was normal. Kay couldn't claim her own situation was normal. Maybe this is how the Susans and everyone else actually lived. No right to judge, no right to even attempt to evaluate. Just... accept that it was what it was, even if it wasn't her.

"That's... great," Kay said, after those thoughts finished running through her mind. "Glad you have a place to be."

"I know, right?!" Iris said proudly. "The Funplex, it's just, it's just super great. And I know you'll be right at home here, too!"

Take it with a grain of salt when I say it's gonna be your new home too.

--and the name finally clicked.

"Hang on, you know a guy named Jason?" Kay asked.

"Oh, right! Jason!" Iris declared, recalling one name from the list of names she'd tangled up in her Funplex grand tour. "That's it! He's way more of an arcade expert than me. Maybe he'd know the name of that rare game you've been looking for! --wait, how do you know Jason?"

"From GameOver BBS."

"What's a BBS?"

"It's... uh..." Kay started, not used to explaining weird computer geeky stuff. "It's like push-pin bulletin board you leave messages on, and people can post replies to them. Except it's online. With your computer."

"Oh! You mean like America On-Line™?"

(Which briefly made Kay flash back to chucking endless free trial floppies and CD-ROMs from junk mail fliers into the trash. Sometimes they were used as drink coasters.)

"Sssssort of, yes. So. Where's Jason?" Kay asked.

"We can go meet him! It's great to see you wanting to really get to know the community here at the Funplex."

"I didn't say I was--"

"Come on!"

And Iris grasped for Kay's hand, tugging the girl along like a force of nature. This friendly whirlwind of color and so much hair could not be denied, as Kay practically found herself lifted off her feet and whisked away, to the darkest depths of the Funplex.

---

From one alien situation to another. One unfamiliar place to another.

This was how Kay found herself in a cramped industrial workspace, some poorly-lit back room within the Funplex not meant for public exploration. How a name laid out in pixels on her monitor became a real live boy.

Jason Takeshi, in person, was far less threatening and confusing than Iris. An unassuming guy about her age, with thick-rimmed plastic glasses and short-cropped black hair. A monochrome approach for a monochrome life, as he also wore an ordinary white button-down shirt and black slacks. (A teenager in biz-casual stood out as unusual, but unusual in that it grounded itself so firmly in normalcy that it embedded itself six feet in the Earth's crust.)

The strange thing about Jason wasn't anything about Jason himself. It was the room in which he lurked, tinkering away with a complex-looking tangle of wires and devices of unknown origin. The place was a mess, with electronic components piled haphazardly on desks, next to rows of chunky arcade monitors -- glass tubes contained within metal frames, each of them heavy enough to kill someone if dropped on their head. Which seemed a possibility given the cheap shelving they'd been stored on.

Kay never saw behind the scenes of the few arcades she'd been to. Deco's Palace certainly never allowed a peek at their guts, preferring people simply enjoy the shiny golden decadence of their offerings. Being pulled into this underworld by Iris was an entirely new experience.

"Here, I can indulge in the joys of being an unpaid intern," Jason explained, while slotting a fresh piece of silicon into what he called a ROM burner. "I get to spend hours fixing up a bunch of retro throwbacks that keep breaking down. It's all the fun of babysitting, complete with digital diaper changes."

"I thought you volunteered for this...?" Iris suggested, puzzled.

"It's only a half-complaint," the boy said, with a shrug. "Keeps me busy during the summer, and as a bonus I get to tinker with arcade software under the nose of someone who doesn't care if I install hacks and tweaks of my own design. Looks damn good on a resume, too. Not that I need one -- once I get my sheepskin I've got a job at Matsushida all lined up and ready to go. All hail the benefits of nepotism."

All around him lie the gutted remains of arcade cabinets, each broken in a variety of interesting ways, or perhaps being upgraded to his liking. The boy worked tirelessly on these strange electronics projects, even while chatting away with his old friend and new friend. Multitasking didn't seem like much of a big deal to him.

"So what's your deal, anyway?" Jason asked, hands moving independently to socket the ROM chips back in a circuit board, even as he interrogated the newcomer sitting on a nearby stool.

"My deal?" Kay asked, confused.

"Your modus. Your raison d'être," he said. "Your spirit, as Iris would call it. What moves you? I couldn't exactly glean much from the few times you've posted on GameOver."

"I... music, I guess?" she replied, not sure how to form a more poignant response. "I like music. Music games. Things like that."

It was Iris who pouted in response, though.

"There's gotta be more to you than that, though. Right? Right?" she asked, poking at the idea. "I love to learn about people's spirits! The passion within them, what motivates them. It can't just be, like, a music game. Not that video games aren't super cool, but I'm talking about the higher level stuff, y'know? The spirit."

"I, uh..."

Jason sighed, finally pausing his work. "Iris, you're asking for a complete mission statement from someone you just met," he pointed out. "C'mon. Have realistic expectations. Next thing you know, you'll be collating and filing her Identity Traits."

"I just think it's good to know yourself and know what you want from life, that's all," Iris defended. "Helps you figure out your hopes and dreams if you really give it a good think. And you know what? You're right! A proper Identity evaluation of Kay could help with that!"

"Oh Lord, here we go..."

"Hey, no taking names in vain," Iris warned, before fully turning on her own stool to face her new BFF. "So, Kay... would you say you're more Kindly, Steady, Quirky, Gutsy, or Basically?"

Finally... the largely quiet girl held up her hands in a T, indicating a Time Out.

"Look, I just... I really just came here for Guitar Legends," she protested. "That's all. I don't know anything about... anything you're talking about."

"Oh, that's okay! I can explain all about the Identity system!"

"That's not what I m--"

"I think it's more useful than something like a horoscope. Less, uh... pagan-y, too," Iris said, eager to tell-all. "I came up with the system myself! It's neat and tidy, not like those things you find on the back of magazines at the supermarket. Way I see it, everybody is some combination of five 'Identity Traits'..."

("Just roll with it," Jason suggested in a stage whisper.)

"There's Kindly, which is... well, someone who's kind," Iris began. "It's all about empathy and understanding. Kindly people care about the feelings of others, and like to help out as much as they can! I'm very Kindly, myself. My heart is open to the world!"

You don't say, Kay thought.

"Next is Steady, which means you're cool, calm, and rational. You approach things carefully and find the best possible solution, every time! A lot of diplomats and world leaders are Steady."

"Except Saddam," Jason noted. "Or Stalin. Or Pol Pot. Or--"

"In fact, Jason here is very Steady!" Iris declared. "He's one of the smartest people I know. But it's not just intelligence; it's more a matter of how you approach a problem. Kinda the opposite of Gutsy..."

"Wait for it, this is the fun part."

"Shh! I'm getting to that. --Gutsy is going with your gut! Working from instinct, speaking your mind, being direct! A Gutsy person has ambition and isn't afraid to let the world know, no matter the cost!"

Jason grinned ear to ear, at the idea. "And I'm Gutsy," he declared. "I'm Steady and Gutsy."

Kay, who was quietly absorbing this lecture until now, stared back at his toothy grin with doubt.

"How does that work?" she asked, starting to get into the flow of this. "Iris just said Steady and Gutsy were opposites..."

"That's the fun part -- they can work in tandem. I tease her, but I actually like this whole 'Identity' theory for that reason," Jason said. "Steady-slash-Gutsy means you're focused on optimization and problem-solving, trying to find the right way through... but you're also open and honest. I don't really give a crap what anyone else thinks. I say what's what and that's that."

Iris clapped once, in approval. "Right! And I'm Kindly/Quirky," she added. "A Quirky person loves fun and games, and good humor. I like to keep things lighthearted and enjoyable for everyone, but I'm also kindhearted and want to help out anywhere I can! Kindly, plus Quirky. See? It's an amazing way to figure out who people are and what ideals they aspire to! Whaddya think? Cool, right?"

...leaving Kay sitting there, quietly processing it all.

"So... Kindly/Quirky," she said, pointing to Iris. "And Steady/Gutsy for you."

"Right! And you are...?"

Kay gave it some thought. Some.

"Basically," she said. "That's the fifth one, right? 'Basically.' The one in the middle of all the others. I don't... I'm not especially kind, silly, rational, or aggressive. I'm just me. That's all."

"So, you're boring," Jason summarized.

Iris looked aghast. "Jason...!"

"What? I call it like I see it. Steady/Gutsy, remember?"

"There's nothing wrong with Basically!" Iris insisted. "It represents balance, even moreso than Steady. ...honestly I've been considering renaming it to Flexibly, but I already made, like, a color chart and stuff so..."

"Then I'll choose Basically," Kay decided. "Good enough for now. ...I'm not really trying to be some paragon of one virtue or another, I'm just... doing my thing. Playing Guitar Legends, enjoying music. It's enough. It should be enough..."

Which made Iris snap to attention, on remembering the reason she dragged Kay into the back offices in the first place.

"Jason! We need your knowledge," she spoke. "Music game, glowing joystick. Know what it might be?"

Except the boy offered a verbal shrug, hands too busy with a circuit board to offer a physical one. "I dunno, TRON? Sounds like it."

"No, not TRON."

"Then I got nothin'."

"Come ooooon," Iris cajoled. "You know all sorts of things about arcade game history. You're the one who keeps ranting at me about that so-called meltdown in 198X we avoided, right? Well, Kay here is looking for a 198X game with a glowing joystick and great music. Don't tell me you have no clue at all, Mr. Expert..."

Which actually made Jason pause, looking up from his chip soldering. Perhaps mildly offended that he was being called out for not knowing a thing.

"You said you played this thing in 198X?" he asked, directly to Kay.

"Y... yeah," she said, a bit taken aback but the sudden intensity. "At some roadside pit stop on the way to Pengy Paradise."

"Went there straight from the city?"

"Uh-huh."

Jason scratched his chin idly, in thought. "So that means it was down I-95. Probably at South of the Border," he decided. "Or some place like it. Glowing joystick, 198X, highway I-95. Doubt they keep public records, but... I could ask around. Might know some people who know some things..."

With a sense of satisfaction, Iris cheered them both on. "See? See? People helping people!" she declared. "That's the Kindly way. Figure out who needs what and who can provide, and make the connection! Aren't you glad you dropped by the Funplex, Kay?"

"I--"

"Oh, hey, it's almost lunchtime," Iris declared. "Who wants lunch? I could go for some lunch. You two want to go out and get lunch?"

Having decided his part in this arcade mystery was done for now, Jason returned to his work. "Busy," he declared. "But if you brought me something, I wouldn't say no."

"Okay! I'll be back soon. Don't go anywhere!"

Flashing her brightest smile, Iris hopped off her padded work stool, and bounded off through the double doors that led back to the arcade floor.

Leaving behind a largely quiet workshop, with Kay sitting there lost in thought, while Jason was content to keep working on the busted arcade motherboard.

After a few moments, he was the one to break the silence.

"There's an emergency exit that-a-way," he said, gesturing to some corner of the workshop with his soldering iron. "Alarm's been busted for years. You could slip out into the alley and run for the hills. Nobody would blame you."

Kay glanced to the distant outline of a door, with a flickering red EXIT sign over it, then back to the arcade intern.

"You want me to leave?" she asked.

"No, I'm offering the option if you want to leave," he suggested. "I'm the one who dragged you into this, CobainFan, when I suggested the Funplex. I could recommend a different arcade with Guitar Legends revision two, if you'd prefer somewhere a bit less... chatty. You don't seem particularly comfortable here."

"...stool's not that uncomfortable," Kay mumbled, swinging one foot as she swiveled slightly on it.

"It's Iris. She's a hell of a lot, I know. You showed up today to play a game, and now you've got this force of nature carrying you away with her," Jason continued. "Thing is that Iris believes anyone and everyone can be a friend. That people are essentially decent and good, and all anyone needs is a helping hand in life to truly be happy. She goes out of her way to help everyone, like she can save the world... it's optimistic to a fault."

"Huh. What fault, exactly?"

"Because the way I see it, people are generally bastards," he said. "That her blind trust in humanity's flawed and doomed to fail. As should be obvious, I'm absolutely not a people person. Not like her. I'm perfectly happy to tinker on games and get on with my own business, probably like how you're content to play music on your own. And if that's what you want, you can bail right now and let me handle Iris for you. She won't be happy, but that's not your problem. You never asked for this. I'm her friend -- I'll take the brunt of having to be her friend while you have a chance to escape."

One glowing EXIT sign, promising exactly what it described. An exit, a way out of this awkward social situation. She could head to some other arcade where nobody knows her, mind her own business, and play her songs. She could. She could...

"You said this was your home," Kay said, turning back to face the boy who'd already gone back to his electronics work. "Why is that?"

"Told you, I get a blank check to mess around with arcade games."

"But you don't seem to like Iris, and she's the queen of this place..."

"Hey, I never said I didn't like Iris," Jason warned, glancing up at her.

"You disagree with her whole world view."

"Definitely. And that's why I'm friends with her," he said. "Because if humanity is actually going to survive into the 21st century... I have to be wrong. I need her to be right -- we all need her to be right. And I'll do whatever I can to support that outcome."

Leaving Kay to chew on that a bit, as he finished up his work. Carefully, he placed the iron aside to let it cool, nodding to himself in satisfaction at the completed board.

"For what it's worth... she's not normally this intense," Jason felt the need to add. "She's instant besties with everyone, sure, but I haven't seen her to go this ballistic on anyone before. You do anything to catch her eye in particular...?"

"Me...? No. Not that I know of," Kay replied. "I was just playing some music. She hadn't heard the song before, but... no. I didn't do anything interesting. I'm... not really that interesting, honestly."

"Huh," he said, pondering that. "Curious. If you do stick around, I'm very curious to see where this goes. ...think you'll be staying?"

All she had to do was walk out the door. Go back to being alone, playing solos on stage. Grind out the last summer of her life before adulthood in some other arcade, without being bothered by anyone...

But... those rosy curls. Those freckles. And around Iris, Kay could just be Kay; her true name was accepted without question.

"Maybe I'll stay," Kay said. "Maybe."

"On your head be it," Jason decided... brushing some dust off the completed project, studying it with an appraising eye. "Can't say I'm not glad, considering I just finished prepping a homebrew replacement board for Guitar Legends which adds like twenty copyright-violating rock songs. I'd hate for all my cleverness to go to waste."

"You...? Wait, that's what you were working on?"

"Call it a housewarming gift," he said. "Just don't tell the RIAA and we'll be cool. And Iris may be Lawful Good, but she won't narc on you. Although the price you pay for all this may end up being--"

"Lunchtime! Who wants pizza bagels?!"

Both of them looked up, to spy Iris carrying a giant tray of microwaved cheesy delights through the doors and into the workshop.

"--that," Jason finished.

---

Kay had never eaten a pizza-plus-bagel combination before. She'd seen them advertised on TV, usually with some extremely annoying little jingle, but they always looked... gross. Like melted multi-colored goop on half a stale doughnut. But with Iris's encouragement, she dared to try one, and...

Okay, it wasn't good. But it wasn't bad. It was approximating both being a pizza and a bagel, succeeding at neither.

One full tray later (with 40% going into Iris's stomach, 35% to Jason's, and 25% to Kay's) and all that remained of that previously frozen box of treats was a few greasy smears on a cheap ceramic serving tray.

"Wasn't that just the best?" Iris asked, making a dramatic motion of patting her belly in the Universal Gesture of Satisfactory Eating.

"It was... it was a thing," Kay decided, mumbling it out.

"I know! I mean, I never get these at home. Thankfully the fridge here at the Funplex is always well stocked!"

"--wait, the arcade has a public fridge?" Kay asked, confused.

"Well... no, not exactly," Iris explained, pushing the empty tray aside. "But I've got a key to the employee break room, and Miss Francine doesn't mind at all if I store stuff there, so I make sure it's always got some treats. Plus Jason here keeps forgetting to have lunch, and I need to keep his strength up!"

The boy, who was busy surgically removing any and all grease from his fingertips with several napkins, snorted out a laugh at that. "Yes, you serve me pizza bagels because you care about my health," he joked. "Primo work there, Iris, thanks for the carbs and fatty acids."

"I'll have you know pizza bagels have exactly 12% of your daily nutrients embedded within their cheesy, saucy goodness!"

"And about 80% of my daily sodium intake, yes, thank you. But... yeah, thank you. I do have a bad habit of just skipping meals when I'm really in the zone, so hey. It's welcome," he added, not wanting to sound completely ungrateful. "Also, you got sauce on your shirt."

"Sauce on my...?"

Which is when Iris finally looked down, to see the reddish-yellow splotch right on the face of the pixel-art princess shirt she was wearing.

In horror, she tugged it away from herself, to survey the damage. With a groan of dismay, her expression drooped down low.

"Oh come ooooonnn...!" she protested against fate itself. "And I was really careful and used all my napkins and everything...!"

"Time to take it behind the woodshed and shoot it, I think," Jason suggested, with an apathetic shrug. "Nothing's pulling that mess out short of industrial solvents."

"But it's my favorite," Iris said with a pout. "One of a kind. Irreplaceable!"

Except in her mind, Kay still had thrift store price tags on everything Iris was wearing. Surely a replacement shirt from 198X couldn't be that irreplaceable, right?

Normally (and it bothered her that she'd already established a 'normally' for this) she'd let Iris ramble on, without a word of interruption. Something felt... wrong about derailing the out-of-control train of thought that was Iris. But this time, she instinctively spoke up.

"Can't you just buy a new one?" she asked. "I mean... maybe it's rare or expensive? Maybe you can't just buy one anymore? Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt, just occurred to me..."

"Buy a new...? Oh!" Iris said, realizing the misunderstanding. "No no, I didn't buy this shirt anywhere. I made this shirt. I mean, the design. I didn't hand-stitch it or -- it's the design. I made the design."

Kay's eyes drifted down to the pixel-art princess, now besmirched with pizza sauce, then back up to Iris's expression of pride.

"You drew that?" she asked.

"Well, not draw, not as such. It's... hang on, let me show you!"

Firmly distracted from disappointment at her shirt's fate, Iris reached into her nearby backpack (apparently left in Jason's workshop for safekeeping, as she wasn't wearing it earlier in the day) and pulled out a sketchbook.

Kay had seen art sketchbooks before, usually at school while trying to find a quiet place to eat lunch away from the chattering crowds in the cafeteria. Eating near the art kids meant peace and quiet, and the occasional sideshow of watching someone sketch away with colored pencils and graphite, creating something from nothing. A talent Kay could certainly appreciate.

But when Iris popped open that book filled with pages... they weren't the standard thick white paper sheaves Kay was expecting. Instead, the book was filled cover-to-cover with graph paper.

Light blue grids coated each page, typically used for architectural drawings or really complicated math equations. But in this case, each thick box held a single color, filled in meticulously by the same colored pencils Kay was expecting to see used.

Each box alone was simply a square. But square after square, square upon squares, piled on even more squares... well, that was a picture. A low-resolution pixel design, given life through the physical medium of the paper and pencil.

Iris flipped rapidly from page to page, eager to show her work. Kay only vaguely paid attention to the rambling narration... her focus instead locked onto the artwork itself. Cute singing flowers and bunnies, on one page. A ship rocking along the waves on another. A complete sprite sheet of a woman with a giant hammer, taking a big 'ol swing, complete with a cartoony "smear" to add emphasis...

"...not much, really," Iris concluded, closing the cardboard cover of the book. "It's just a thing I like doing in my spare time."

"It's beautiful," Kay spoke.

Silence hung over those words for several awkward moments, which Kay completely failed to notice -- too busy re-opening the book, so she could flip back a few pages.

"See, right here," she continued, tapping a page with an illustration of some sort of gazelle running. "It's just a few pixels, but... you get a sense of motion. It's all there, even in a few frames. And it's pretty clear you were studying an actual animal because it's got every leg moving the way it should. I like that. Most art I see is still life, but... I mean, this is still still life, sorta, but you get the right feeling from it, right? It's..."

Finally Kay glanced up, and stopped in her tracks on realizing Iris's cheeks had nearly drowned out her freckles with a deep blush.

"It's... it's great, is what I'm saying," Kay finished, finally emerging from her absolute focus on the page.

"But... but it's just... I'm just, y'know..." Iris tried, twiddling a bit of her curly orange locks around one finger. "I just like to doodle and I had all this paper from math class and I thought maybe I could do something with it and that's all it's really no big--"

Jason groaned, breaking the loop before Iris could continue. "Oh for the love of God just take the compliment," he begged her. "Otherwise we'll be here all day."

"Th-thank you!" Iris blurted out, while glancing aside. "Thank you, I... um. Thanks. I appreciate it. ...a-anyway, uh, that's the story of my shirt. Like. That's what I was trying to explain in the first place, that I made the shirt so... it can't be replaced. ...okay I mean it can be replaced I can just make a new one but I can't buy one I mean I can buy a blank and then add the design but--"

"I will literally pay you money to go buy a new shirt right now if it makes this stop," Jason begged.

"So! Does that mean you make art, too?" Iris said, swerving straight out of this conversation and into an adjacent lane.

"What, me?" Kay asked.

"Yes, you! You clearly know a lot about pixel art!"

"No, I... I mean, I play video games. Everybody does," Kay said. "So everybody knows a little. No, I... my thing isn't art. It's music. You know that already, though..."

"You mean you play music, or make music?"

"...yes?" Kay tried, answering both sub-questions. "I play music and sometimes try to make music. A little. I can play some guitar and some piano. It's not much, but I try."

"That's great!" Iris said, trying to be ultra-encouraging, despite resisting encouragement earlier. "That's great to hear. See? You aren't just Basically, you do have a spirit, you do have a passion! You're a musician!"

"Not like I get paid for it," Kay mumbled.

"Spirit isn't about what you do for a living. It's about what you live to do," Iris spoke, getting her feet back under her as she asserted her personal philosophy again. "You live for music, and that's great! I live for art, and Jason lives for electronics!"

Jason coughed. "Yeah, well, I'm intending to both live for and make a living from electronics, remember?" he said. "Got that Matsushida job all lined up? Kind of my thing? Right. I'm only slumming it in the Funplex until I can get my cushy office."

Iris pouted. "The Funplex is not a slum," she declared. "It's a delightful world of happiness and joy and I'll not hear a word otherwise."

"Mmmhmm. Well, how about we go make it a little happier and a little more joyful?" Jason suggested... scooping up his pet project from earlier that day with freshly-cleaned hands. "One Guitar Legends mod kit, pseudo-legal, and packed with everything to give Kay a proper Funplex welcome. Let's go install this bad boy and throw a concert to celebrate. Sound like a plan?"

"All those in favor, say aye!" Iris declared, her hand shooting in the air. "Aye!"

"...aye," Kay replied, raising her hand a bit more slowly.

---

Disassembling Guitar Legends right on the floor of the arcade felt like some sort of occupational workplace safety hazard, but with nobody willing to stop him, Jason was totally okay with that.

The back of the game lie open, its cheap particle board exterior propped up against a wall as he knelt down and started meticulously disassembling bits and pieces of its innards. Plenty of boards and cables and things in the way of the piece he needed to swap out, meaning the whole thing had to be gutted to make way -- and meaning he'd have to push all those guts back in when finished, and sew the patient back up. It'd be gruesome if it wasn't all silicon.

Instead of gruesome, it was simply... well, boring.

"Y'may wanna go take a brief walk," Jason suggested, only his legs visible from behind the game, with a cheap flashlight wobbling around in one hand as the screwdriver in his other did all the work. "I'll shout when I've got this thing fixed up again. Deal?"

"Right! I can show Kay around the arcade more!" Iris suggested. "There's still so much--"

"It's afternoon. You need to report in with your folks," Jason reminded her. "Off to the pay phones with you, young lady."

"--oh, fiddlesticks!" Iris... almost swore. "Right, right. Okay! Back later! Have fun!"

And Iris was off, a colorful blur headed to the restrooms and shiny chrome payphones in the back of the arcade, each one yearning for quarters and promising a different sort of game.

Kay watched her bounce away, curious. And as she'd been speaking up a bit more now, was willing to try to satisfy that curiosity.

"Her parents keep a tight leash, huh?" Kay quietly asked the boy tucked away behind that arcade cabinet.

"You don't know the half of it," he grumbled, his voice echoing from within the innards of the game. "You'll know the half of it and the whole of it in time. For now, take my advice and go decompress a bit. I suggest some Moopy, it's a surprisingly complicated game for 198X. Over that way."

"What way? I can't see you pointing from back there."

A hand emerged, furiously poking towards the left-hand side of the arcade, before resuming its work.

With a shrug, Kay ambled off... alone for the first time in hours.

And it felt... strange? Like she'd come to assume being here in this place meant being knitted into the same sweater with Iris, side-by-side. Despite initially wanting some peace and quiet to just enjoy her plastic guitar strumming, now it almost felt like she was doing something wrong by not having the Funplex's morale officer in tow.

At least the Funplex itself could act as her partner, in a way. She saw the people, this time -- not as vague shapes to brush past on her way to Guitar Legends, but as the colorful array of characters Iris introduced her to. Gave a brief and friendly nod to a few of them, as she went off in search of this "Moopy" game Jason recommended...

One of them nodded her way, friendly-like, despite no Iris introduction. Someone new. Someone looking far too old to belong in a playland of teenagers enjoying their summer vacation.

A little weird, but not that weird considering her location behind the prize ticket desk -- that meant someone who worked for the arcade, rather than a patron. Her slightly wrinkled smile beamed across the room, freezing Kay in her tracks in the same way Iris's smile did.

"Hello, hello!" the woman greeted. "You're new here, yes? Welcome to the Funplex!"

"Uh, thanks," Kay mumbled, taking in the riot of color and fabric the older woman wore, wondering if maybe she and Iris went to the same thrift shops.

The dress was a mash of multiple types of fabric, clearly hand-made -- and with that knitting bag slung over one shoulder, almost certainly hand-made. A shock of graying hair, short and wispy, was the only monochromatic part of the woman's entire aesthetic.

"Can I help you with anything? Just say the word, dearie, and I'll hop to," the woman promised. "Normally my husband Frederick is on duty right now, but he's completely tuckered out after last night and taking a nap. So, it's Francine on duty! Have any tickets to exchange?"

"No, ma'am," Kay spoke. "Just, uh... looking for Moopy."

"Right behind you, dearie."

Sure enough, Kay had been leaning against a tall arcade cabinet with Moopy! on the marquee during this entire conversation without realizing.

"Oh. Oh, okay, cool," she said. "That's it, then. Thanks."

"If you need tips, there's a nice boy who works in the back room that simply adores Moopy," Francine suggested. "He'd be happy to help you out!"

"Jason? Yeah, we've met..."

"Oho! He came out of his little workshop long enough to socialize?"

"No, Iris brought me back there. Sorry, I should've introduced myself, I'm Kay. And I'm apparently Iris's new BFF ...uh, you're cool with me being back there with them, right? I'm a newcomer, and stuff..."

Francine's smile gleamed brightly enough to be visible from space.

"Any friend of Iris is a friend of the Funplex, and a friend of mine," she said. "Perfectly okay with me! Feel free to come and go as you please. We don't really stand on much formality here, even if the signs read Employee's Only."

"That's... very trusting of you, ma'am."

"I'm a very trusting woman," Francine said. "And I trust my friends from the Funplex to do right by the Funplex, in turn. You don't seem the sort to, say, litter or draw on the walls or cause trouble. So what's to worry about?"

(Considering Kay dressed like either a homeless person or a vagabond rocker, the idea of someone not seeing her as a potential troublemaker was a new experience. Even if she did not, in fact, make much trouble. Better to stay quiet and avoid trouble, honestly.)

"So... Iris's trust is enough to let me into the restricted areas of the arcade, then?" Kay verified, just to be sure.

"Certainly! Iris is family. We're all family here, in a way."

"A literal way or a metaphorical way?"

"Metaphorical, dear," Francine noted. "If there's any resemblance you've noticed between me and Iris, that's more her learning from me than anything passed down genetically. I doubt fashion is genetic, for instance. We both enjoy colorful presentation and a friendly attitude, I suppose, but nothing odd about that!"

"I... noticed the similarities, yes. You both seem rather open, in general."

Francine leaned on the glass surface of the ticket counter, above all the rubber spiders and car-shaped pencil erasers, to make things even less formal between them... and yet, slightly more intense. Leaning in closely to say something important.

"Kay, the thing is... the Funplex is for everyone. Here, Iris is free to be herself," Francine explained. "Jason's free to be himself. And for that matter... you're free to be yourself. Without judgment, without reproach. The Funplex exists to be an oasis in a rather silly world, one which can be quite cruel. So by all means, I want you to... not feel at home here, as no doubt many who walk through these doors don't feel at home when they're at home. But I want you to feel like yourself. Do you understand?"

Unsure how to respond, Kay mutely nodded.

"I'm sure you'll come to understand soon enough," Francine said... straightening up, and speaking more casually. "Just let me know if ever you feel uncomfortable here, and we'll sort that right out. But for now... I think your other new friend wants your attention, yes?"

"My what--?"

A glance to the side confirmed Jason waving his arms, trying to signal across the crowded and noisy arcade. And that clearly he'd been trying to some time now.

"Oh! Right. Uh, thanks. Thanks," Kay stammered out, before departing that unusual conversation.

At home at the Funplex, free to waltz in and out of secured rooms, immediately plunged into BFF status with the locals...

Free to be herself. Not that she was ever not herself. Kay didn't know any other self to be; what was Francine going on about, exactly? Like she'd somehow sensed something in Kay, and wanted to hint at it...

What weird world had Kay fallen into, exactly? How was any of this possible, how was this a thing?

And why did she find herself no longer really caring to know those answers?

---

The three converged shortly after on Guitar Legends Revision Two, now updated to Guitar Legends Revision Kinda Shady Jason Takeshi Homebrew.

It took a few moments for the machine to reboot, displaying diagnostics and guitar calibration routines, before Jason declared everything A-OK.

"So based on what little I learned about you from GameOver, I've loaded this sucker up with every modern rock homebrew ROM patch I could find on the Internet," he explained. "Which means--"

"Jason knows everything about the Internet," Iris stated with pride. "Turns out it's not just for college kids and scientists, you can actually get games and songs on it!"

"Yeah, yeah. Give it a few years and everyone'll be on the Internet; then it'll truly suck. America On-Line already kicked off Eternal September last year -- any more and it'll make the green card lottery spam look like a nice Sunday in the park--"

"Jason, the game. Focus."

"You're the one who put me on a tangent, Iris. Ahem. So you've got your Nirvanas, your Pearl Jams, your Sounding Gardens--"

"Soundgarden," Kay corrected.

"Whatever, I listen to techno. Anyway, it's all here. Twenty-six songs with that Seattle sound that's so popular with the kids these days," Jason said, stepping away from the cabinet to allow the guitarist to take center stage. "It's quartered up and ready for a test spin. Now let's see if it crashes when you select a song."

Curious, Kay flipped the guitar strap over her head with practiced ease, and began "strumming" her way past all the default anime songs. (When your only input device is five colorful fret buttons and a thick rubbery strum bar, strumming has to pull double duty.) Down past the handful of rock songs, and into...

...screen after screen of new songs. Titles she loved. Titles she hadn't actually heard of yet. Bands she loved, bands that were new to her. All waiting to be played, waiting to be enjoyed...

"Whoa," she breathed.

Immediately, Iris was within view, peeking in front the side and in front of the song list.

"See? See? We treat folks right here at the Funplex!" she declared, with a hopeful smile. "So are you gonna stay? Huh, huh? ...I mean... you don't have to, but if you want to stay, I just know more good things like this will happen...!"

Kay paused, as if realizing for the first time staying was apparently optional. Iris's insistence and heaping helpings of friendship all day long seemed to suggest she was conscripted into some kind of arcade cult.

But... Jason did give Kay a chance to bail earlier, and she'd passed on it. Maybe I'll stay, she told him. Maybe.

Maybe she'd stay. Maybe it was time to quit sitting in a dark corner, strumming her life away alone.

So, Kay had her answer.

"I think--"

"Ughh! What's your problem?!"

The voice pulled Kay completely out of the moment. One stunned second later... and she found herself face to face with the Susans again.

Literally the Susans, the same Susans-and-a-Jennifer that ran Public School #223. The same Susans she'd walked away from Deco's Palace to avoid. Trendy clothing, correct hair, expensive accessories, all the right aspects to fit in and dominate the social scene.

As this old nightmare unfolded, the three girls confronting her stood in formation, arms crossed and scowling.

"What're you doing here, k.d. lang?" Susan grumbled. "Are you just, like... sooo determined to ruin our day that you followed us all the way here?! God! Quit harassing us!"

Kay's hand fell from the strum bar, game forgotten as she moved her mouth silently in horror at their presence.

"We came to this little arcade because you kept monopolizing Guitar Legends back home -- and what do we find here at this new arcade but you squatting on our game!" Susan continued to rant. "You don't own every game in this city. So go home and quit following us around, k.d.!"

And that was that; another arcade Kay couldn't come back to. Another place the Susans owned.

No point in pushing back against it. No authority to appeal to. No sense in fighting back.

But when Kay was halfway to pulling the guitar strap over her head, Iris stepped up.

"No no, it's not 'Kay-Dee,' it's just Kay," Iris tried to correct. "I mean technically it's Katie, so I can see why you'd be confused, but she prefers Kay so you should really call her--"

"Who's this, your girlfriend?" Susan mocked, briefly talking right past Iris before addressing the girl. "We call her k.d. because she is a k.d. lang. A Melissa Ethridge. You know. She's one of... those."

"What, a... musician?" Iris asked, looking confused.

"Do I really have to spell it out? Are you seriously that dense?" Susan asked, the other Susan-and-Jennifer giggling slightly at the turn this confrontation had taken. "She's gay. She's a dyke. Probably has AIDS, like they all do. You get it now, honey? How much more obvious does it have to be!?"

Kay had slipped, dropping the name she'd been trying to escape. Katie. And now the rest of the baggage followed her along, courtesy of the ones who hassled her on the regular at school and at Deco's Palace...

She'd wanted to leave all that behind. Just go to this little arcade, strum some songs, get in the zone, and head home when done. Simple and clean. But no, now the old reputation came along for the ride. The thing she hadn't told her new "friends," for fear of the reaction they'd likely have.

Quickly, she put the guitar aside.

"I'll just be going," she spoke, quiet enough to be a whisper. "Sorry. I--"

"So w-what if she's gay?!" Iris declared, stepping directly between Kay and Susan, standing her ground to defend her friend. "Who cares? What does it matter? I mean... some of my best friends are gay! Right, Jason?"

"Uh, queer, thank you? Queer spectrum. Not gay," Jason corrected. "Asexual, to be specific. ...buuuut probably not the time to debate terminology..."

"And for your information, Kay's brand new to the Funplex. She didn't come following you! She's here because she loves this game with all her heart," Iris continued, getting a steadier footing now, more confidence. "So I don't know why you're acting so mean, but you'd better stop it! Kay's a wonderful person and doesn't deserve you being cruel to her."

And in the face of this bold, defiant defense of Kay as a person...

...the Susans just laughed. Like they'd heard the funniest joke in the world.

"Oh gawwd, what kind of greeting card did you walk out of, little girl?" they mocked, laughing right in Iris's face. "I was right, you must be her girlfriend. Gross. Now if you ladies would please step aside, we've got a game to play--"

"A-hem."

A simple and polite interjection, with the power of an exploding warhead.

Miss Francine, owner and ruler of the arcade, towered above the teenagers like a kindly sentinel. Still smiling, despite the absolute fierceness of her statement that sent all other discussion to a screeching halt.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the Funplex, dears," she stated, oh-so-politely and with lips curled as she addressed the Susan squad.

"Wh... what?" Susan exclaimed. "We've done nothing wrong! We--"

"The Funplex is for everyone, as I've always said. But in order to keep the Funplex nice and welcoming for everyone, I'm afraid we can't welcome anyone who disagrees with that policy," Francine explained. "Kay and Iris are who they are, and I'll hear no unkind word in my arcade regarding that. Please take your quarters and depart. Thank you for your business, and have a nice day."

"You can't--"

"I can, and I have. Please, don't cause a scene," Francine spoke, with a slight pout. "I'd rather not disrupt my lovely arcade with an... incident. Thank you for your business, and have a nice day."

"But--"

"Thank you for your business, and have a nice day."

Unable to protest in the smiling face of absolute arcade authority... the Susans shrank away, making their way to the exit. While grumbling about persecution and political correctness, of course, but by that point nothing they said really mattered.

The parting words passed through Kay, unheard.

Francine stood up for her. Jason stood up for her. Iris stood up for her.

They barely knew each other -- she'd supposedly become instant besties with the group, but surely that was the sort of fleeting friendship that didn't mean as much in the long run. And yet... not only did they learn her little secret, they were okay with it. More than okay with it. Here at the Funplex, Kay could be herself...

"Well! That was rather unpleasant and exhausting," Francine declared. "If you nice kids don't mind, I'm going to go rest a bit. Enjoy the games!"

With a flourish of her colorful dress, the elder stateswoman of the Funplex departed. Leaving the three a bit... quiet, for a moment.

"I, uh..." Kay tried to start.

Before finding an Iris clamped around her.

"What," she spoke, arms up as she was fiercely hugged.

"You're just so brave," Iris declared, looking up at her with admiration.

"...but I didn't do anything. I was about to run away, to be honest..."

"It's just... I know it's not easy. And I want you to know it's okay to be gay! Totally okay! There's nothing to be ashamed of. The Funplex is a welcoming place for all of the gays, and--"

Which caused Jason to groan. "Iris? Code red, your white girl suburban roots are showing again. Please step away from the lesbian with your hands in the air."

"R-right!" Iris spoke, doing exactly as instructed. (Letting Kay inhale once more, her lungs no longer compressed.)

"So to get it all out in the open because it's probably impossible to make this any more awkward and I'm starting to want to throw up in my mouth, Kay's into girls and I'm into nobody," Jason summarized. "Asexual. I don't care what genitals you enjoy touching, just don't touch mine and we're good. And Iris--"

"Wants to see this amazing new homebrew game in action!!" Iris declared. "We should be celebrating! Kay's joined the Funplex family, officially. And it's time to see if Jason's game modification really works!"

"I... actually would like to verify it's not gonna catch on fire before we let the general public play, yes..."

Both looked at Kay expectantly, if for very different reasons.

The hell have I gotten myself into? Kay thought to herself. As she took up the guitar again, more than ready to play. Ready to hurl herself into this strange new arcade in full...

I can be myself here, she thought. And I'm going to do just that.

Tapping a button to fire up one of the new songs, she assumed her best rock stance, and slammed down the first chords of her opening act.

---

Hours and hours of gaming. Sometimes with the whole trio, sometimes just with Iris. Jason still had actual legitimate work to do, which pulled him away... but he'd pop out of his workshop now and then to join them.

At some point, Miss Francine made them a some proper sandwiches so they didn't need to eat pizza bagels two meals in a row -- her way of keeping the welcome wagon rolling. They talked and ate, ate and talked. Kay vaguely remembered the jokes and discussions going on, through some dreamy haze.

Long after the sun set, Kay very belatedly realized it was time to get home.

There were goodbyes, promises to meet up again the next day, all the usual parting words. And she was gone, out the door. Having done what she set out to do -- find and play some Guitar Legends -- and so much more.

By the time she rolled into the apartment, she found her mother asleep on the couch, with some prime-time sitcoms rolling away quietly on the television. Still in her work clothes, having passed out shortly after getting home.

Kay pulled a blanket over her sleeping mother, then retired to bed. Did some more guitar practice (headphones on), hit GameOver BBS again, went to bed.

And slept soundly for the first time in months.

She hadn't snagged a full night since Cobain died, since the bubble around the world popped to reveal ugliness beneath. Had just been floating along in a haze, through the motions, notes from the sky, strum the colored notes. Sleep off and on. No real schedule. Just... whatever happened, happened.

Tonight, she'd had the fullest day imaginable, and crashed straight into unconsciousness. One more gift to thank the Funplex for. A gift from Iris.

And tomorrow, she could do it all over again.

---

And as for Iris...?

Iris got home after dark, as well. To find her parents awake and waiting.

Not worried, though. Not concerned or upset. It was normal for Iris to stay out all hours, provided she did so at the Funplex -- under the supervision of Miss Francine, who they saw as a stalwart defender of good morals and decency. A safe (and free) babysitter for their beloved daughter.

Her mother barely looked up from the book she was reading, as Iris dropped her keys off in the dish by the door.

"Did you have fun today, dear?"

"Mmhmm! I met someone new. Someone really special," Iris said quickly.

"Ohhh? Do tell! What's his name?"

"Kay. Uh, her name's Kay. Miss Francine likes her."

"Well, I'm sure your new friend is lovely, then," her mom said, with a smile. "Now go brush your teeth and be sure to say your prayers before you turn in for the night. Love you, hun."

And so Iris did just that. Properly brushing her teeth, proper time per quadrant of the mouth, rinse, repeat. Kneel at her bedside, hands clasped, going through the process of faith.

But when she finally turned in for the night, quilt tugged up high... sleep didn't come.

It's beautiful, Kay said. Her art was beautiful.

It's okay to be gay, Iris insisted. It had to be okay. There's nothing to be ashamed of...

It had to be okay.

It had to be okay. No matter what her family said.

 

LEVEL COMPLETE

(Copyright 2021 Stefan Gagne and Fiction Factory Games. This is a work of fiction. All references to trademarked classic arcade game titles are used under nominative fair use and should not be considered an endorsement by their publishers or creators.)