Another poster covered the back of Gimble’s door—Farrah Fawcett, wearing the red bathing suit that sent every girl at school to the mall to buy a red one-piece. Mulder had the same poster on his bedroom wall back home.
He pointed to Farrah. “Now I know why we get along.”
“Think she’s a Trekkie?” Gimble asked hopefully.
“Doubt it.” Mulder took a closer look at the miniature Enterprise. The model was meticulously hand-painted just like Phoebe’s, though Gimble had added a white G on the back of his ship.
Gimble sighed, still checking out Farrah. “You’re probably right. Nobody’s perfect.”
Farrah Fawcett is pretty close.
“Wait till you see this.” Gimble rushed to his nightstand and opened the drawer. He turned around slowly with one hand behind his back, and then made a dramatic show of revealing what he was holding.
A pamphlet.
“It’s an original zine from Lord Manhammer.”
Mulder shrugged. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”
“Have I taught you nothing in the past three months? Lord Manhammer … the king of D and D?”
“Dungeons and Dragons?” Mulder asked. Most of what he knew about the role-playing game he’d learned from listening to Gimble talk about it. Even Gimble’s nickname—which everyone, including the teachers, called him—came straight out of the game.
“There’s only one D and D.”
“Not true,” Mulder said. “There’s drunk and disorderly and deuterium deuterium.”
“How could I forget deuterium deuterium?” Gimble groaned with an exaggerated head smack. “When most people hear ‘D and D,’ their minds definitely go straight to nuclear fusion.” He held up the pamphlet, undeterred. “This is a copy of Lord Manhammer’s Underground EP Strategy Guide. It outlines Manhammer’s strategy for accumulating experience points. He only printed four hundred copies, and I have one of them.”
“Can I take a look?” Mulder asked. Gimble was his only real friend in DC. The least he could do was fake a little interest in what seemed like his prized possession.
Gimble handed him the newsprint pamphlet. “Be careful. The paper is thin.”
Mulder took it and thumbed through the pages. Lots of references to armor class and adventure goals. Serious geek stuff. Phoebe would love it.
“Interesting, huh?” Gimble craned his neck to see which page Mulder was reading. “We have an empty spot in our party.”
“D and D isn’t really my thing. I played once, and I sucked.” Mulder handed him back the pamphlet.
“At least give it some thought. Our dungeon master, Theo, likes new blood, and you’ve got me. I’m the best teacher around.”
“I’ll think about it.” Then I’ll say no.
Gimble returned Lord Manhammer’s sacred text to the nightstand. “Want to take a look at my Star Trek cards before we check out the telescope? It’ll give you something to talk about if you get stuck meeting the Major later—which you probably will—since he watches Project U.F.O. in the living room every day at four.”
“The show about aliens?” Mulder had watched a few episodes with Phoebe.
“More like the people who believe in them.”
“I didn’t know it was on every day.”
“It’s not,” Gimble said. “We have it on VHS. The Major tapes the episodes and watches one every day at four, even on Christmas Day. He usually makes me watch it with him.”
Mulder tried to imagine his dad videotaping a show for them to watch together. But it was too hard, because it would never happen.
“It’s actually a decent show if you want to watch a little,” Gimble offered. “Some of the UFO footage looks real.”
“Maybe it is. NASA’s Ames Research Center still hasn’t found a way to explain the Wow! signal.”
“Funny.” Gimble flicked his head to the side to get the hair out of his eyes. “Don’t say anything like that around the Major. He’s crazy enough without any encouragement.”
“Has he always been like that?”
“No. It started right after my mom died. Her car went off the side of a bridge. The Major couldn’t handle losing her. He retraced every move she made that day. He ate bran flakes for breakfast just like she had that morning. He scrubbed the bathtub and wore her flowered rubber gloves when he washed the dishes. He even found the fantasy novel she’d been reading on her nightstand—Stormbringer—and he read it cover to cover. That’s where the Major got the idea for the code words—Agent of Chaos.” Gimble took an octagonal die he used in D & D games out of his pocket and rolled it between his fingers nervously. “That’s when he started talking about Chaos and Law, government conspiracies, and collateral damage. Someone on the base must’ve found out about it, because he was discharged right after that.”
“Sorry, man. I didn’t know.”
Gimble shrugged. “Nobody does. It’s the kind of thing you keep to yourself.”