The Impossible Fortress Read online

  “What are you doing?” Alf asked.

  Holding the branch to steady himself, Tyler sidestepped across the top of the fence, then crossed onto the roof of the train station.

  “Come on, ladies,” he said. “Let’s get moving. I don’t have all night.”

  Alf didn’t need to be told twice. He leapt onto the fence, trying to mimic Tyler’s graceful movements, but he didn’t have any of Tyler’s strength or coordination. He thrashed and flailed like the coils were electrocuting him, and Clark and I had to push up on his ass to help him reach the top.

  “I’ll go next,” Clark volunteered.

  “What the hell are we doing?” I whispered.

  “Just stay cool,” he told me. “Tyler doesn’t have all night.”

  Clark squeezed his claw through the fence, anchoring the left half of his body, then used his good arm to pull himself up. Over the years he’d learned to compensate for his weaker side; he did nightly push-ups to keep his body symmetrical, and he was easily the strongest and most athletic of our group (which admittedly wasn’t saying very much). Clark could have been a varsity athlete in track, soccer, tennis, wrestling, maybe even baseball—but insecurity over the Claw kept him from attending tryouts. He hated any activity that drew attention to his hands.

  One by one, we joined Tyler on the roof of the train station, and then followed him up a fire ladder to a second, higher rooftop. From there we scaled a steep gable on our hands and knees. This brought us to the very top of the train station—a small eave overlooking Market Street. We were fifty feet off the ground, lying flat on roof tiles that were cracked and spotted with bird shit. The rain gutter was full of stagnant water and smelled like farts.

  “This place is awesome!” Alf whispered. “How’d you find it?”

  Tyler shrugged. “My brother showed me. We bring girls here sometimes.”

  “For sex?” Alf asked. He was practically salivating.

  I was embarrassed by his question, but Tyler just laughed. “I’ve had more ass on this roof than you’ll see in a lifetime.” He gestured up at the night sky. “Girls see all these stars and it’s like their belts unbuckle themselves.”

  I wriggled forward, peering out over the gutter. The top of the train station offered a bird’s-eye view of all the neighboring buildings.

  “So where’s the magazine?” I asked.

  “Look across the street,” Tyler said. “You see General Tso’s? The Chinese restaurant on the corner?”

  General Tso’s Mount Everest was the nicest restaurant in town, and the only place to take a girl if you didn’t have a car. Every item on the menu came served in pint-sized or quart-sized containers.

  “There’s a fire escape ladder in the back of the restaurant,” Tyler explained. “What you want to do is climb the ladder to his roof. You need to be quiet because the General lives above the restaurant. He’s got the apartment on the second floor.”

  “Wait a second,” I interrupted. “What are we talking about? What are we doing up here?”

  Tyler sighed long and loud, like his worst fears about me had just been confirmed.

  “Let’s just hear him out,” Clark said.

  “Yeah, go ahead, Tyler,” Alf pleaded.

  As Tyler continued, Clark started taking notes. He brought out a pencil and paper and sketched the buildings along Market Street; from our perspective they seemed small and easily scalable, like obstacles in a video game. Most stores were crammed side by side, but General Tso’s was separated from its neighbor by a narrow alley.

  “You’ll need to hop across the alley,” Tyler explained. “That’ll put you on the bike shop. They use their second floor for inventory, so you can be as loud as you want. And then you just walk east. Bike shop, travel agency, Zelinsky’s. He uses his second floor for inventory, too. Old typewriters and shit. So you don’t have to worry about noise.”

  I turned to Alf and whispered: “How does he know all this?”

  “I worked there last summer,” Tyler explained. “Now, you see that bump on the roof? The little square box? That’s an exit hatch. Zelinsky keeps it locked from the inside, but the whole door has gone to shit. The wood’s rotten, the hinges are rusted. You could probably pry it off with your bare hands. With a crowbar it’ll take two seconds.”

  At last I understood he was describing a burglary. “Are you kidding? You guys want to steal the magazines?”

  A moment passed, and no one said anything.

  “Well,” Clark reasoned, “technically it’s not stealing if we pay for them. We could leave money in the cash register. Four dollars for every copy we take.”

  “Then we fix the hatch on our way out,” Alf said. “We’ll bring a screwdriver and we’ll put the hinges back on.”

  “No,” I said. “No way.”

  “Why not?” Tyler asked.

  “Because Alf just gave you twenty bucks! Why don’t you just walk into a store and buy the magazine for him?”

  “That would be illegal,” Tyler said.

  “This is illegal,” I said. “You’re telling us to break into Zelinsky’s and steal the magazine.”

  I don’t know where I found the courage to challenge Tyler Bell. He looked like he was ready to push me off the roof. But someone had to say something. His “plan” was ridiculous. It was straight out of Mission: Impossible.

  And my friends were hooked.

  “It’s not stealing if we pay for them,” Clark repeated.

  “Yes, it is,” I said.

  “Nobody will ever know,” Alf said. “Zelinsky finds some extra money in his cash register. We bring home Vanna White. It’s a win-win.”

  “Exactly,” Tyler said. Clark finished his sketch and held it up for review. Tyler looked it over and nodded his approval. “That’s the plan right there. Three easy steps.”

  I turned to Tyler and made one last plea for sanity. “Look, what’s in this for you? Why are you hanging with three freshmen on a Friday night?”

  Clark drew in his breath, like my questions were unspeakably rude. “Jesus, Billy, he’s being nice.”

  Tyler didn’t seem offended. “I’m just killing time, chief. I’m meeting my friends at eleven thirty, and I figured I’d help you guys while I wait.” He said this all very matter-of-factly, but the explanation stopped me cold: Tyler Bell was so badass, he didn’t start hanging out until eleven thirty! “But if you guys don’t want my help . . .”

  “We do, we do!” Clark insisted.

  “Let’s go right now,” Alf said. “Let’s go tonight!”

  “There’s just one problem,” Tyler said. “Zelinsky has the whole store wired. Front door, windows, and the roof hatch. So as soon as you pop it open, the alarm gets tripped. You’ve got sixty seconds to turn it off or the whole place lights up like the Fourth of July. Sirens, flashers, the works.”

  Down below, a police cruiser slowly drifted along Market Street. Even though we couldn’t be seen, we all stopped talking until it reached a safe distance.

  “How do we turn off the alarm?” Alf asked.

  “There’s a little keypad near the front door. Says ‘Ademco Security.’ You enter a pass code, and that’s the problem. I don’t know it.”

  “Who does?”

  “Just Zelinsky. And his daughter, Mary.” Tyler turned to Clark. “That’s where you come in.”

  Clark blinked. “Me?”

  “You need to smooth-talk her, Pretty Boy. Make her trust you.”

  Even though it was pitch dark on the roof of the train station, I knew Clark was blushing. “I can’t smooth-talk anyone.”

  “Sure you can. You’re a good-looking guy. You wear nice clothes. You’re polite. If you had a little more confidence, you’d be getting tons of pussy.”

  Clark held up his claw. “What about this?”

  “That’s your secret weapon!” Tyler said. “You show Mary that ugly flipper every chance you get. Because it makes her trust you, understand? It makes her feel safe.”

  Clark wasn’
t having any of it. He was so shy around girls, he’d cross the street to avoid walking past one.

  “Just hear me out,” Tyler continued. “Mary works at the store every afternoon. And this chick is horny like a baboon, all right? I had to beat her back with a stick. She couldn’t keep her hands off me. She is desperate for action.”

  “I’m not . . . I don’t want action with her,” Clark said.

  “Just hang out,” Tyler said. “Talk with her, tell some jokes. Act like she’s interesting. Take her to the movies, play with her hair, kiss her—”

  “I’m not kissing her,” Clark said. “I want the magazine. Really, I do. But I’m not kissing her.”

  “Then we’re done,” Tyler said, rising to his knees. “And thanks for wasting my time. I thought you guys were serious.”

  “We are!” Alf said. “We’re very serious!”

  “Then you need the code,” Tyler insisted.

  By this point, I was wishing I’d never left my house. Tyler’s plan was ridiculous. Its chances of working were zero. Any girl smart enough to program “Invisible Touch” on a C64 would never be stupid enough to give up the security code to her father’s store. We had climbed all the way to the top of the train station for nothing.

  “I won’t do it,” Clark insisted. “I’m sorry.”

  “Then I’ll do it,” Alf said grudgingly. “I won’t enjoy it, and I’ll have nightmares for life. But I’ll suffer for the greater good.”

  Tyler shook his head. “She’s fat, but she’s not blind. It’s got to be Bryan Adams here.”

  Clark didn’t look anything like Bryan Adams, but I knew what Tyler meant; he had the natural good looks of someone you’d expect to see on a concert stage. Whereas Alf looked like the sweaty kid working the concert concession stand, selling soft pretzels and Polish sausage.

  “I’m not doing it,” Clark said.

  They kept arguing back and forth, but I knew Clark wouldn’t budge; he might be willing to rob a store, but he was too kind to risk hurting someone’s feelings. I wanted to get off the roof and go home. I wanted to get back to programming my game. And that’s when I had my big idea—the stupid brainstorm that set this whole sad story in motion.

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  “You?” Tyler asked.

  “Really?” Clark said.

  “Yeah, I can do it,” I said. “I’ll get the code.”

  This was a lie. I didn’t think anyone could get the code. I wasn’t even planning to try. But pretending to try would give me a good excuse to visit the store and show The Impossible Fortress to Mary. Maybe she’d know how to fix it. I still had fifteen days before the contest deadline.

  Tyler seemed skeptical, so I turned on the macho bullshit. “But I’m going to need some time. I can’t just walk into the store and start grabbing her tits. It’s going to take a week or two. Most likely two.”

  Clark stared at me in astonishment. He knew damn well that I’d never touched anyone’s tits, that I’d never even passed first base. “Seriously, Billy? You’d actually kiss her?”

  “Kiss her, fondle her, I’ll bone her if I have to,” I said. “You guys plan the other details while I make nice with Miss Piggy.”

  For the first time all evening, Tyler looked at me with respect and maybe even admiration. He clapped me on the shoulder. “You see! This is what I’m talking about. This is the kind of attitude that gets results!”

  700 REM *** DRAW HERO SPRITE ***

  710 POKE 52,48:POKE 56,48

  720 FOR HE=0 TO 62:READ H

  730 POKE 12888+HE,H

  740 NEXT HE

  750 POKE 2040,192:POKEV+21,1

  760 POKE V+39,1

  770 POKE V+0,HX

  780 POKE V+1,HY

  790 RETURN

  THE INTERNET AS WE know it didn’t exist in 1987, but people willing to pay a thirty-nine-dollar membership fee and twelve bucks an hour could access CompuServe, which was the next best thing. If today’s Internet is like a vast galaxy with billions and billions of blogs, CompuServe was more like a small, private social club. There were limited topics of discussion and just a handful of games. Everything was controlled by CompuServe, and only CompuServe members could get inside.

  There were no videos or graphics or sound. There wasn’t even color. Our 300-baud modems were barely capable of streaming ASCII characters, and the words filled our screens slowly, one c . . . h . . . a . . . r . . . a . . . c . . . t . . . e . . . r at a time. Every interaction was like waiting for a Polaroid to develop. After logging in to the site, I had to wait a full minute for the main menu to download:

  CompuServe Information Service

  23:12 EST Friday 15-May-87

  1. Newspapers

  2. Finance

  3. Entertainment

  4. Communities

  5. CompuServe User Information

  6. Electronic Mail

  Enter your selection number, or H for more information.

  >__

  I chose option 6, ELECTRONIC MAIL—an easy way to contact Mary without visiting the store and facing Zelinsky. The contest rules had come from a CompuServe user’s group, and Mary’s member ID number was printed at the top of the page. All electronic mail on CompuServe had a maximum limit of twelve lines, so I kept my message brief.

  TO: 59453,1

  FROM: 38584,8

  1: HI ARE YOU MARY ZELINSKY?

  2: MY NAME IS WILL MARVIN.

  3: I WAS IN YOUR STORE THE OTHER DAY.

  4: YOU TOLD ME ABOUT THE RUTGERS CONTEST.

  5: ARE YOU GOING TO ENTER?

  6: I WANT TO . . . BUT MY GAME SUCKS.

  When I finished, I hit Enter, and CompuServe presented me with a submenu:

  OPTIONS

  1. REVIEW WITH MINI-EDITOR

  2. MODIFY

  3. SEND

  ENTER DIGIT FOR OPTIONS OR M FOR MENU, OR H FOR HELP.

  >__

  I chose option 3, SEND, and CompuServe promised the message would be delivered within four to twenty-four hours. Then I logged off fast before any more charges could be applied to my mother’s credit card. I hoped that by the time she received her Visa statement, she’d have forgotten that I was forbidden to use my 64 anyway.

  I checked CompuServe again the next night, but there was still no reply. This didn’t surprise me. CompuServe was so expensive, most people (especially kids) could only afford to use it sporadically. Factor in the slow delivery time and you could understand why electronic mail conversations often stretched over weeks or even months. It was like casting a message in a bottle; there was no way of knowing when she’d receive it.

  But when I got to school on Monday morning, I found that someone had pushed a 5¼ floppy disk through the vent of my locker. Affixed to the front of the disk was a small white label with my name on it. I skipped first period (Intro to History) and went to the school computer lab. Class was already in progress, and I ducked behind an empty terminal in the back row. The monitor was large enough to conceal my face from Ms. Grecco, the typing teacher, who paced across the front of the classroom, reciting letters for students to type: “A, A, A, A . . . S, S, S, S . . . D, D, D, D . . .”

  I pushed the disk into the drive and opened the directory. There was just a single file titled PLAYME. So I loaded it into memory and typed RUN. The screen went black, then filled with text.

  You are standing outside Zelinsky's Typewriters and Office Supplies in downtown Wetbridge. You are carrying a brass lantern and a floppy disk. On the ground is a hearing aid battery.

  I realized it was a game, or at least a mini-game, modeled after text adventures like Zork. The player typed commands, and the game advanced the story using words instead of pictures. I tried typing:

  >GET BATTERY

  And the game replied with:

  You reach down and pick up the hearing aid battery (because you seem to have a thing for hearing aid batteries. It's weird.) Your score just went up by 50 points!

  Encouraged, I leaned over the key
board and kept playing.

  >ENTER STORE

  You enter the store. Sal Zelinsky is standing here, repairing a typewriter. To the north, a passage leads deeper into the store.

  >WALK NORTH

  Sal jumps up, blocking your way. "Can I help you?"

  >ASK SAL ABOUT MARY

  Sal squints at you and jiggles the plastic amplifier tucked inside his right ear. "I’m sorry, young man, I can't hear you. Can you repeat that?"

  >ASK SAL ABOUT MARY

  He shakes his head. "I´m sorry, I can't understand you. My hearing aid's not working right."

  >GIVE BATTERY TO SAL

  Sal cheerfully accepts your gift. (Your score just went up by 50 points!) He inserts the battery into his hearing aid. "Ah, much better!" he exclaims. "Now what were you saying?"

  >ASK SAL ABOUT MARY

  "She's in the back!" he says, and he steps out of your way. You realize that Sal Zelinsky is very nice once you get to know him. He only acts gruff to frighten potential shoplifters.

  >GO NORTH

  You walk to the back of the store and find Mary sitting at a computer. She is listening to Phil Collins's extraordinary solo album NO JACKET REQUIRED, yet seems unhappy. "Golly," she says wistfully. "I wish I had a good video game to play."

  >INVENTORY

  You are carrying a brass lantern and a floppy disk.

  >GIVE DISK TO MARY

  "Thank you," Mary says. She puts the disk into her computer and she is blown away by the sheer awesomeness of your game. The ceiling explodes into butterflies, the angels descend from heaven and sing hosannas, and you all live happily ever after.

  THE END.

  Your score is 100 out of 100, giving you a rank of Awesome.

  (Seriously, come over after school and bring your game—Mary Z)

  A trill of musical notes played through the computer speakers, and I recognized them as the opening chords of “Jump” by Van Halen. I laughed out loud. Apparently it was possible to program Van Halen on a 64.

  Ms. Grecco interrupted her typing lesson to scream at me. “Billy Marvin! What are you doing back there? You’re not even in this class!”

  I grabbed the disk and ducked out the door. Later, at lunchtime, I used one of the computers in the school library to examine the program more carefully. Even though the game itself was fairly simple, the coding was remarkably complex. Mary had programmed the game to anticipate dozens of commands and requests that I hadn’t tried. It was much more sophisticated than any of the programs in my hobby magazines—and she had somehow written the entire thing over a weekend.