'Anyone see the war on the box last night?' said Bigmac. 'Way to go, eh?'
'Way to go where?' said Yo-less.
'We're really kicking some butt!'
'Some but what?' said Wobbler.
'We'll give them the "Mother-in-law of All Battles", eh?' said Bigmac, still trying to stir some patriotism.
'Nah. It's not like real fighting,' said Wobbler. 'It's just TV fighting.'
'Wish I was in the army,' said Bigmac, wistfully. 'Blam!' He shot the double-glazing lady, who didn't notice. Bigmac had a habit of firing imaginary guns. Other people played air guitar, he shot air rifles.
'Couple more years,' he said. 'That's all.'
'You ought to write to Stormin' Norman,' said Wobbler. 'Ask him to keep the war going until you get there.'
'He's done pretty well for someone called Norman,' said Yo-less. 'I mean ... Norman? Not very macho, is it? It's like Bruce, or Rodney.'
'He had to be Norman,' said Wobbler, 'otherwise he couldn't be Stormin'. You couldn't have Stormin' Bruce. Come on.'
J&J Software was always packed on a Saturday morn- ing. There were always a couple of computers running games, and always a cluster of people gathered round them. No-one knew who J&J were, since the shop was run by Mr Patel, who had eyes like a hawk. He always watched Wobbler very carefully, on the fairly accurate basis that Wobbler distributed more games than he did and didn't even charge anyone for them.
The four of them split up. Bigmac wasn't much interested in games, and Yo-less went down to look at the videos. Wobbler had found someone who knew even more complicated stuff about computers than he did himself.
Johnny mooched along the racks of games. I wonder if the ScreeWee do this, he thought. Or people on Jupiter or somewhere. Go down to a shop and buy 'Shoot the Human' games. And have films where there's a human running around the place ter- rorizing a spaceship- He became aware of a raised voice at the counter.
You didn't often get girls in J&J Software. Once, quite a long time ago, during a bit of time she'd set aside for parenting, Johnny's mother had tried playing a game. It had been quite a simple one - you had to shoot asteroids and flying saucers and things. It had been embarrassing. It had been amazing that the flying saucers had even bothered to shoot back. More likely they should have parked and all the aliens could have looked out of the windows and made rude noises. Women didn't have a clue.
A girl was complaining to Mr Patel about a game she'd bought. Everyone knew you couldn't do that, even if you'd opened the box and it was full of nothing but mouse droppings. Mr Patel took the view that once the transparent wrapper had come off, even the Pope wouldn't be allowed to return a game, not even if he got God to come in as well. This was because he'd met people like Wobbler before.
The boys watched in fascinated horror.
She kept tapping the offending box with a finger.
'And who wants to see nothing but stars?' she said. 'I've seen stars before, actually. It says on the box that you fight dozens of different kinds of alien ships. There isn't even one.
Mr Patel muttered something. Johnny wasn't close enough to hear. But the girl's voice had a kind of pene- trating quality, like a corkscrew. When she spoke in italics, you could hear them.
'Oh, no. You can't say that. Because how can I tell if it works without trying it? That comes under the Sale of Goods Act (1983).'
The awed watchers were astonished to see a slightly hunted look in Mr Patel's eyes. Up until now he'd never met anyone who could pronounce brackets.
He muttered something else.
'Copy it? Why should I copy it? I've bought it. It says on the box you meet fascinating alien races. Well, all I got was one ship and some stupid message on the screen and then it ran away. I don't call that fascinating alien races.'
Message
Ran away
Johnny sidled closer.
Mr Patel muttered something else, and then turned to one of the shelves. The shop watched in amazement. There was a new game in his hand. He was actually going to make an exchange. This was like Genghis Khan deciding not to attack a city but stay at home and watch the football instead.
Then he held up his hand, nodded at the girl, and stalked over to one of the shop's own computers, the ones with so many fingermarks on the keys that you couldn't read them any more.
Everyone watched in silence as he loaded up the copy of the game that the girl had brought back. The music came on. The title scrolled up the screen, like the one in Star Wars. It was the usual stuff: 'The mighty ScreeWee fleet have attacked the Federation,' whatever that was, 'and only you...
And then there was space. It was computer space - a sort of black, with the occasional star rolling past.
'There ought to be six ships on the first mission,' said someone behind Johnny.
Mr Patel scowled at him. He pressed a key cautiously.
'You've just fired a torpedo at nothing, Mr Patel,' said Wobbler.
Finally Mr Patel gave up. He waved his hands in the air.
'How d'you find the things to shoot?' he said.
'They find you,' said someone. 'You should be dead by now.'
'See?' said the girl. 'You get nothing but space. I left it on for hours, and there was just space.'
'Maybe you're not persevering. You kids don't know the meaning of the word persevere,' said Mr Patel.
Wobbler looked over the shopkeeper's head to Johnny and raised his eyebrows.
'It's like persistently trying,' said Johnny helpfully. 'Oh. Right. Well, I persistently tried the other night and I didn't find any, either.'
Mr Patel carefully unwrapped the new copy of the game. The shop watched as he slotted the disc into the computer.
'Then let us see what the game looks like before Mr Wobbler plays his little tricks,' he said.
There was the title screen. There was the story, such as it was. And the instructions.
And space.
'Soon we shall see,' said Mr Patel.
And then more space.
'This one was only delivered yesterday.' Lots more space. That was the thing about space. Mr Patel picked up the box and looked at it carefully, But they'd all seen him take off the polythene.
They've gone, thought Johnny.
Even on the new games.
They've all gone.
People were laughing. But Wobbler and Yo-less were staring at him.
4
'No-one Really Dies'
'I reckon,' said Bigmac, 'I reckon ...' 'Yes?' said Yo-less.
'I reckon ... Ronald McDonald is like Jesus Christ.'
Bigmac did that kind of thing. Sometimes he came out with the kind of big, slow statement that suggested some sort of deep thinking had been going on for some time. It was like mountains. Johnny knew they were made by continents banging together, but no-one ever saw it happening.
'Yes?' said Yo-less, in a kind voice. 'And why do you think this?'
'Well, look at all the advertising,' said Bigmac, wav- ing a fry in the general direction of the rest of the burger bar. 'There's this happy land you go to where there's lakes of banana milkshake and - and trees covered in fries. And ... and then there's the Hamburglar. He's the Devil.'
'Mr Zippy's advertised by a giant talking ice cream,' said Wobbler.
'I don't like that,' said Yo-less. 'I wouldn't trust an ice cream that's trying to get you to eat ice creams.
Occasionally they talked like this for hours, when there was something they didn't want to talk about. But now they seemed to have run out of things to say.
They all looked silently at Johnny, who'd hardly touched his burger.
'Look, I don't know what's happening,' he said.
'Gobi Software're going to be really pissed off when they find out what you've done,' said Wobbler, grinning.