“7-Eleven,” he said.
“There’s no 7-Eleven on Market Street. The nearest one’s five miles away.”
He frowned. “Do you, like, work here or something?”
“You’re stealing batteries.”
The words hadn’t finished leaving my mouth and the kid was already out the door. Zelinsky lunged after him, but I told him not to bother. The kid had left the soda cup on the counter. I pried off the lid, revealing six C batteries submerged in a few ounces of warm cola. Zelinsky’s eyes went wide, like I’d just performed some kind of miracle.
“Son of a bitch,” he said. “How did you know?”
I couldn’t tell him the truth—that Alf and I had practically pioneered the Big Gulp stunt, using the 64-ounce cups to steal cellophane-wrapped music cassettes from Sam Goody.
“I heard him messing around by the batteries,” I explained. “I figured he was up to something.”
That night Zelinsky let me stay an extra half hour, and when the time was finally up, I almost didn’t recognize his voice. Instead of “Get out” or “Go” he said, “We’ll see you tomorrow, Will.”
Mary elbowed me in the ribs.
“You see?” she said. “He’s warming up.”
1600 REM *** OUT OF TIME ***
1610 PRINT "{CLR}{12 CSR DWN}"
1620 PRINT "{12 SPACES} YOU ARE OUT"
1630 PRINT "{14 SPACES} OF TIME."
1640 PRINT "{2 CSR DWN}"
1650 PRINT "THY GAME IS OVER."
1660 FOR DELAY=1 TO 1000
1670 NEXT DELAY
1680 IF LIVES=0 THEN 3300
1690 RETURN
THE DAYS PASSED QUICKLY. The air turned warm, flowers blossomed, and Memorial Day signaled the official start of summer. Normally Zelinsky closed for the holiday, but he agreed to open the store so Mary and I could spend the afternoon working. Our classmates were off at the beach or movies or fireworks, but we were stuck in the showroom, working away.
Our contest entry had to be postmarked by Friday, May 29—and by Wednesday, May 27, we were nowhere close to finished. We had created the perfect ML subroutine, an elegant loop that scattered the guards in different directions—they ran with bending knees and waved their arms and shook their spears. It was beautifully animated and lightning quick. But when we tried pasting the loop into the main program, the game crashed and crashed and crashed. No matter what we tried, the 64 returned an error message: BAD SUBSCRIPT
DIVISION BY ZERO
ILLEGAL DIRECT
ILLEGAL QUANTITY
FORMULA TOO COMPLEX
CAN′T CONTINUE
CAN′T CONTINUE
CAN′T CONTINUE
CAN′T CONTINUE
CAN′T CONTINUE
Mary and I read and reread How to Learn Machine Language in 30 Days, desperate to find our mistake, but we were doing everything right; we were following the instructions to the letter. I was tired and frustrated and suddenly All Your Favorite ’80s Love Songs were driving me crazy. Phil Collins was singing “Against All Odds” for the millionth time, and his desperation seemed to echo my own lousy mood. We were out of ideas and out of time.
“I’m done,” I said. “I give up.”
Mary didn’t look up from her book. “We’re close.”
“No, I’m serious. I quit.”
“You’re going home early?”
“I quit the whole game. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“You can’t quit,” she said. “You have to win the PS/2 so I get your 64. That was the deal. We shook hands.”
“We won’t win,” I said. “We did everything the book told us. It’s not working. My eyes are blurry. My wrists hurt. My back hurts. We’ve been stuck in this store for A days, and I’m tired.”
Mary laughed like I made a joke.
“Go ahead and laugh,” I told her. “I quit.”
“You know what’s funny? You just said ‘A days’ instead of ‘ten days.’ You’re thinking hexadecimally, Will.”
I refused to believe her. “I said ten.”
“You said ‘A,’?” she insisted. “That’s real progress. We’re so close to beating this thing, I can feel it.”
And then the lights went out.
The computer died, Phil Collins stopped crying, and suddenly we were in total darkness. There were no windows in the back of the store. I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face.
“Power failure,” Mary said with a sigh. “Happens every summer when the stores turn on their AC.”
No power meant no computer. No computer meant no progress. I stood up and smashed into a file cabinet.
“Stop,” she said. “Where are you going?”
“This is a sign. God just pulled the plug on our game.”
Mary reached through the darkness and found my arm, holding me back. Her fingers laced through mine and suddenly I was holding her hand. It was disorienting—like my entire center of gravity had shifted to my arm and the rest of me was adrift, weightless, like one of those giant balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I reached out to steady myself and found Mary’s shoulder.
“Sorry,” I said. “I can’t see.”
“Give it a few seconds. Your eyes will adjust.” Her hair tickled my cheek and she whispered into my ear: “You can’t quit now, Will. I won’t let you. We’re too close.”
I leaned forward, pressing against her. Mary’s hair was soft and smooth and cool to the touch, and I’d never felt anything quite like it. The store was completely silent; I could hear her breathing. I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her closer, reveling in her fresh clean scent.
Then a feeble beam of light cut across the showroom, and Mary sprang away from me. Zelinsky was patrolling the store with a handful of miniature flashlights, the kind that sold next to the cash register for a dollar and ran off a single AA battery. “You kids okay?”
“We’re fine,” Mary said.
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled.
He gave us flashlights and raised his voice, calling out to the rest of the store. “Any customers back here? Anybody need help?”
A frail voice cried out from the typewriter aisle—an elderly woman who’d crouched down at the time of the blackout, fearing she’d suffered a stroke. Zelinsky helped her stand up, and we all walked outside onto Market Street.
The customer scowled at Zelinsky. “You should pay your electric bill on time,” she said. “I could have been injured.”
“It’s not our fault,” Mary said, but Zelinsky talked over her. “I’m very sorry for the inconvenience, Mrs. Durham. I hope you’ll come back and see us tomorrow.”
“Don’t count on it,” she huffed.
The old lady hobbled down the sidewalk and Zelinsky turned to Mary. “The customer is always right,” he said.