Alex jumped over Cody on his way to the star across the stage. The streaking star trailed a sparkling rainbow up, over, and across the sloping hills of level 1-5. As the star made its way across the final bridge, Alex shot a projectile aptly named “goop” back at Cody that stuck him in place, securing the star and winning the game. Alex looks over at Cody with a triumphant smile, “Yeahhaha! Gotcha bitch!”.
Cody shoots Alex a grimace and shrugs, “Yeah man, you got me.”
“Damn right I got you. I got you on level 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4. I’m not sure you’re going to have much left in the tank if I keep whooping that ass boy.” Alex sits up from his sunken bean bag and walks over to the refrigerator, thrusting his hips forward and whispering, “whooping that ass, whooping that ass” with every hump. Cody hears the familiar chunk of the refrigerator opening and the sound of a plastic seal breaking. He figures it must be a bag of shredded cheese, Alex’s favorite mid-game snack. Cody doesn’t need to be in the kitchen to know Alex is sticking his fat little fingers inside the bag and coming out with a pinch of cheese to throw down his gullet, like a pelican flipping a fish in the air before choking it down in its flapping jowls.
Cody’s eyes scan the ceiling of Alex’s basement. There are no panels, exposing an interlocking matrix of PVC pipe and copper tubing running within the space between 2x4s. The copper tubing sweats, and beads of water grip precariously onto the tubing, shaking each time Alex takes a step in the adjacent room. The house is a small, ranch style home, where the basement takes the lion’s share of the real estate and the upstairs is more of an afterthought. In the basement there is a sliding door leading outside, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a utility room with a fridge, where Alex’s head is currently cocked with fluttering eyes in a state of bliss, munching on his fourth pinch of shredded cheddar cheese. The upstairs holds a kitchen, a master bedroom, and a small living area with a front door. The only window in the house is located over the upstairs kitchen sink, a fact that Cody always found a little dreary and inhumane. The drops on the copper piping begin to shake and in walks Alex from the utility room, loaded to the gills with shredded cheese and a stupid grin on his face. Alex plops down on the beanbag, the air inside quickly exhaling, and cracks open a Yeehaw.
Cody sits up, “Hey. Fat ass. Couldn’t bother to grab me something from the fridge could ya?” Alex looks over, takes a swig of his soda, and lets out a satisfied sigh followed by a burp in response. “What, did your dad pack the rest up some dude’s butt while he was out last night?” Alex shoots Cody a look, gets up, grabs a Yeehaw from the fridge and chucks it at Cody.
“No, I had to go over to your place and fish it out of your mama’s booty crack. Sorry I took so long.”
Cody snickers and pops open the soda, slurping the fizz that shoots to the top, “You’d know best how to fish things out of butts. You’ve had plenty of practice with your Dad.” Alex stares at Cody. Cody meets his eyes, waiting for a response, daring Alex to respond. Alex shakes his head, “Fuck off…”
The two hang out at Alex’s every day after school. As much as Cody hates Alex’s gloating, he’d much rather deal with him than sit in a silent house alone. His parent’s work night shift and require absolute silence, not an easy task for a restless high school student. Alex’s parents were usually upstairs watching some cheesy sitcom while snuggled on the couch. Cody never could tell if they worked. But Alex’s house is silent, absent of the laugh track that normally filled the space between Lunar Race soundtracks and banter. Now the air is empty, still—the silence chilled the basement. Alex shrugs and stares at the TV, still displaying the rotating star and message “P1 wins! Congratulations!” Cody cocks his eyebrows, “You seriously don’t have any other games besides Lunar Race?”, and without waiting for a reply lunges across the floor to the stack of games. “Lunar Race 2015…Lunar Race 2014…Lunar Race 2012, what you didn’t like ‘13”, Cody mocked.
“No,” Alex replied, “Lunar Race 2013 changed all the mechanics of the game. It was basically unplayable, plus the graphics sucked balls.”
“Or it’s the only one you sucked at so you didn’t want to be a loser for a whole year.” Cody mumbles to himself as he fingers his way through the stack of games, “Lunar Race 2011, 2010, 2009…Dude you never get bored of this shit? Jesus.”
Alex scoffs, “I tell you what, get a console and buy all your own damn games if you don’t like it. Oh wait, that’s right, you can’t buy dick so shut your mouth and pop in another Lunar Race so I can whoop that ass.” Alex proceeds to thrust his hips from seated position and bounce up and down on the bean bag, causing the beads of water on the ceiling to quiver and the TV to shake. Cody spots a game case poking out from underneath the TV cabinet. He pulls the case out from under the cabinet, immediately noticing its coloring. The case is the blackest black Cody’s ever seen, so black he wonders for a second if he has in his hands a rectangular container of dark matter or one of those circles Wiley Coyote put down to catch the Road Runner. The game has no title and only a single, red, heart on the front of the case, a heart you’d see on a valentine or drawn on the back of school bus seat. On the back, two arms cut at the elbow grasp the other’s stump to create a circle. Cody looks over at Alex, “Well,” flashing the case at Alex, “Looky here, a game that isn’t Lunar Race.”
Alex looks over, slowing his thrusting hips, “Oh, yeah, forgot about that one. I don’t think you want to play it.” Cody laughs, “Oh right, of course I wouldn’t. What do you suck as bad at whatever the hell this is as Lunar Race 2013? Just pop it in man. I need to play something different.” Cody hands the case to Alex who stares down at the game. Alex traces the heart with his fingers and asks, “Are you sure you want to? The only other people to play this game with me were my parents, and I don’t think they liked it that much.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Cody replied, “I don’t think your parents have good taste in entertainment anyway. Have you seen that show they watch?” Cody pops the game out of the case, noting the disk’s lack of artwork, and slides it into the console. “Seriously, I mean, I know everyone watches that show but the plot is so overplayed and the screenwriters pander so obviously to their fans it’s sickening.” He continues to rattle on while the console whirs and the screen turns from the rotating star to white. The screen is still for a second before a blast of music explodes from the speakers. The music rattles Cody’s ear drums. He leaps back from the TV. The song playing is a piano melody intermingled with some snare drum and pops and jingles from a synthetic instrument, like something you’d hear at a coffeeshop or inside a snazzy elevator. The title of the game flashes on the screen in big pixelated letters: Fantise.
Cody bursts, “You play Fantise?! Oh my god, dude, my sister plays that game all day. You can’t be serious. Holy shit. You play Fantise. Did you put it in this stupid case so no one would notice?” laughing, barely audible over the deafening title soundtrack. “I’ve gotta show this to my sister. She is not going to believe this”. Cody takes out his phone and snaps a picture of the title screen. “She is not going to believe this man. Oh my.”
Alex sighs, grabs a controller, and presses the start button. The load screen brings up a folder of saves, each with their own individual names. Alex scrolls. Cody watches as the screen flashes through the save files. The list is vast. When Alex finally stops scrolling, there is an option to create a new file, above which is one named “’Rents”. He selects a new file, and a prompt appears.
Alex says, “I think I’ll name this one, Cody” and enters his name into the text field.
“It’s a little on the nose though if you ask me.” Cody replies, taking a sip of his Yeehaw. “I’m not asking you, and I think you’ll like this game better than your sister’s. I installed a couple of mods.” Alex replied nonchalantly. A loading screen appears. The progress bar slowly fills until it reaches half-way. The music stops playing. The screen turns black. Chuckling and standing, Cody arches his back and raises his arms in the air. “I think one of your mods broke the game. Nice job.” Cody says, “You really are a—”. Cody stops. A heart appears on the screen. Alex hands Cody the case for the game. The heart is pulsing pink and the cover feels as cold as the basement air.
“The mods make the game more interactive.” Alex says, “Go ahead, touch the heart”. Cody shifts in his bean bag chair and tilts his head upward to look at Alex, still focusing intently on the TV screen, controller in hand. Cody rubs the case with his chilled hands, “Oh you installed an LED inside the case. How cute. Could you do that for my sister when she gets home?”
“Touch it.”
Chuckling, Cody places his thumb inside of the heart. The heart’s beat quickens. Pulsating red, then pink, red, then pink, until the two colors mold into an indistinguishable aura of warm light. Then the heart goes dark, the case now completely black. The TV screen shows a blue ready button. “Holy shit what the hell was that? Where did the heart go?” he flips open the case and runs his fingers along the back where the heart used to be. “There aren’t any LEDs in here man. How did you do that Alex?” Alex doesn’t reply. He twirls the joysticks on his controller. “Alex, how did you do that?”
“Are you ready Cody?” Alex asks. Cody feels something grip his hand. Cody looks down and sees the black of the case swirling in a loose vortex with thin wispy fingers winding up and around his arm. Cody tries to move and drop the case but his hand is now somewhere in that dark mess inside the case. He tries to pull the rest of his body away, but his arm is stuck in a stasis. The black reaches his shoulder, then his neck, flowing up towards his head. Cody reaches across his body with his free arm and pulls out his cellphone. Hand shaking, his fingers fumble the buttons on his phone until he reaches his recent contacts. Blackness clouds his vision. Cody strains his head upward to press dial. The phone falls to the floor. Alex laughs. Cody is gone.
“Cody?” a voice calls from the phone. Alex walks over and picks up the phone. “Um, hello? Dork, I can hear you breathing.” Alex holds his breath. “Funny, what is this some stupid prank call like you did to Mom? If it is you forgot to hide your phone number. Same as last week.” Alex holds the phone away from his face and coughs. “Ok, well I have better things to do then listen to my brother cough and breathe like a creep on the phone. Bye”
“Wait!” Alex shouts, “Sorry I was trying to find a signal in the basement. This is Alex. Cody is sick.” Alex pauses and looks around the room. “He um, ate some bad cheese. I think. Anyway, he tried calling you but started upchucking right after. He’s making a mess…can you come get him?”
“Bad cheese? What the hell do you guys do over there?” Cody’s sister pauses. Alex breathes in and out in long breaths. “Don’t answer that. I’ll be over soon.” Alex ends the call and sits back on his bean bag. Smiling, he picks up his controller.
The game asks if he would like to build a new house or a model from a previous save. He selects the latter and opens the file “My House”. Seconds later a house appears on the screen, with a tiny avatar seated in the basement, next to a utility room, with a bedroom next to it and a ceiling with no panels. The avatar gets up from his beanbag and a frowny face appears over his head. Alex clicks the fridge and tells the avatar to grab something to eat. The avatar moves to the fridge and grabs a soda, still frowning. While the avatar is at the fridge, Alex removes the sliding door in the basement. The avatar turns its head, as if it heard a sound in the other room and runs over to where the sliding door was. An exclamation point appears over the avatar’s head when he reaches the now empty wall and he sprints upstairs. Alex chitters, shaking his head. At the top of the stairs the avatar turns towards the front door; as he reaches to turn the handle, Alex pauses the game. “Oh Cody, you really don’t know what trouble you are in do you” Alex says to himself. He clicks on the door and deletes it from the room. Alex resumes the game and Cody grasps for a handle that isn’t there. A question mark appears over his head. Alex laughs as the bubble over Cody’s head turns from a question mark to a crying face.
Ding Dong. The doorbell. Alex pauses the game and goes to answer the door. “Hey thanks for coming to pick up Cody. He’s really having a tough time.” Alex says to Cody’s sister.
“Yeah well whatever. He owes me. Is he good to come up or do I need to grab him?” Alex’s eyes widen for a second, then soften. “He was hurting pretty bad so I put him upstairs in my parent’s bathroom. Cody said he’d be out in a second.” Before she responds Alex asks, “Hey I heard you like Fantise! I just installed some mods onto the game. Wanna check it out?”
“I love Fantise! I didn’t know you played!” Cody’s sister peeks behind Alex to the closed door behind him. The game’s soundtrack blares from the basement.
“Yeah Alex is in there. Like I said, he’ll be out in a second. Come on.” Alex heads downstairs. Cody’s sister walks over to the closed bedroom door and knocks, “Cody? You in there? Are you ok?” She puts her ear to the door but doesn’t hear a sound. She can hardly hear her own heartbeat over the music. The sister goes to turn the doorknob but it’s locked from the inside. “I’ll be downstairs when you’re ready to leave. Text me if you need help getting out of the bathroom.” She heads downstairs.
Alex is sitting on his beanbag and invites Cody’s sister to sit on the other. She looks at the TV and laughs, “Oh my god, is that your house? That’s really good.” Plopping onto the beanbag, Alex hands her the controller. She moves around the house examining the amenities, “Oh you even have the beanbags from down here!” Moving to the upstairs she sees the avatar with his head in his hands and a crying face in an overhead bubble. “Is that Cody?! You really took the time to make a model of Cody? Yeesh.”
Alex grins, “Have you ever tried removing the doors from a house and trapping the avatars inside the house? They freak out.” Cody’s sister snickers.
“Uh yeah, duh. Everyone does that. Let me show you what the real pros do.” The sister moves to the basement level of the house and selects the piping overhead. The avatar on the top level looks down to the basement and approaches the stairs. He walks down each step slowly, deliberately — a question mark flashes over his head. Cody’s sister mashes all the buttons on the controller. The pipes begin to crinkle. Water droplets fly across the screen. “If you hit enough buttons while you select the pipes then…”. The pipes burst, and an exclamation point appears over the avatars head as he watches water shoot from the ceiling. She selects another set of piping and mashes her controller again. The pipe splits and water cascades from the ceiling. The avatar runs towards the stairs. By the time he is up the steps the basement and stairs are flooded. Water rapidly fills the upstairs. Cody runs to the window above the sink. He pounds the windows with his fists as the water rushes over his head and he’s forced to the kitchen ceiling. Cody swims down and kicks the windows. The window doesn’t so much as crack before a panic icon appears over his head. Bubbles chug from the avatars mouth before his body become limp—a skull and crossbones appear overhead.
“See? Way better.”
Alex stares at Cody’s sister in disbelief while she cackles. “Ok ok. Funs over. I’m going to go grab Cody and head home.” Cody’s sister rises from the bean bag.
“Wait! I didn’t get to show you the new mod yet.” Alex walks over, picks the case up in front of the TV, and hands it to the sister. She eyes the case incredulously, “The mod is in the case?” Flipping the case over, “Why are there three hands making a circle on the back?”
Alex looks at the floating avatar on the screen before going to a drop down menu and selecting a new game. Scrolling through his save files, Alex asks, “What’s your name?”
Without looking up from the case, the sister replies “Christine. Hey how did you get this heart to glow like that?”
Alex reaches the bottom of the saves. The file above is named Cody. “Christine. I think I’ll name it that.”
Christine looks up, “A little on the nose, don’t you think?”