Read Online Press Start to Play by Daniel H. Wilson, John Joseph Adams - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Daniel H. Wilson, John Joseph Adams
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snorted out a laugh to hide his genuine shock. “Bloody hell, I thought it was, like, lunchtime.”
“Nope, you missed that. You been playing that game the whole time?” Sam nodded. “Why don’t you take a break, mate. Come watch this unbelievably fascinating documentary about the 1876–78 Indian famine. Next up’s one about the fastest car in the world.”
“Sorry, I’d love to, but I’ve got to get on with work.”
“Yeah, of course.
Work.
You found anything else out in the desert yet?”
“No. Not yet. Can’t believe it’s been nearly six hours. That’s insane.”
“What’s insane is you’ve been playing it for six hours and nothing’s happened yet. You haven’t even found another cactus? Or an anthill? Or a dried-up twig or a bit of leaf?”
Sam shook his head and grinned. “Nope. It’s brilliant.”
After devouring his curry, Sam went back upstairs. He was nearly at the landing when he heard the familiar noise of the game coming from his room:
chshh
,
chshh
,
chshh
. Wondering if he’d left the controller the wrong way up, he went inside and saw everything was as he had left it. The control pad was the right way up, and, on the screen, his character was standing still.
chshh, chshh, chshh
It was a glitch. It must be. Perhaps he’d uncovered the real reason the game had been pulled, and it was nothing more fantastic than a useless bit of programming.
Sam reached for the control pad to check that the buttons weren’t stuck. They weren’t. Two things occurred to him then. The first was that the
chshh
,
chshh
sound emanating from the television was slightly different from the one he had grown accustomed to over the course of the day. This sound was softer, and somehow more distant. And the spaces between footsteps sounded irregular, less rhythmic and robotic. The second was that there was a small dark shape on the desert horizon that hadn’t been there when he left the room earlier.
More unnerved by both these realizations than he dared acknowledge, Sam laughed and went over to the television to look at the object more closely.
chshh, chshh, chshh
The object had already grown larger by the time Sam got close to the screen. He could make out that it was a small figure now. He could see its arms, and legs, its shaggy yellow hair.
Puzzled, Sam took a step back. The graphics used to render the figure were much more like those from the start screen than the surrounding blocky desert and mountains.
It was a toddler, dressed in a red romper suit and carrying some flat, rectangular object in its left hand.
“Hel-lo,” Sam said, his voice soft.
chshh, chshh
Had he done it? Was this advancing child some sort of clue to the end of the game? His game-player’s instinct told him it might be; he recalled a certain randomness to many of the solutions to old-school games. Even better: How funny would it be if after all that walking, the solution to the game was to just stand still?
He thought about the small shoe that someone had reported on one of the forums. Sam stepped toward the screen and saw that the child, now a third of the way between the top and bottom of the television, was wearing only one shoe.
Sam didn’t feel a rush of excitement upon piecing this together. He’d noticed something unsettling about the child on the screen. He couldn’t be sure if it was just bad design, but the boy—it was obviously a boy now—looked almost skeletal. The romper suit wasn’t packed with pixelated puppy fat. Instead, it hung so loosely on the child that it appeared to be blowing to the left in a nonexistent desert wind.
There was something wrong with the child’s face too. And this, unless the creator was unhinged, had to be some mistake in the programming. The drawn skin and the gaping mouth were reminiscent of famine victims that Sam had only ever seen on news items and in documentaries.
The child raised its one empty hand and reached toward Sam.
Appalled, Sam stepped backward and put
“Nope, you missed that. You been playing that game the whole time?” Sam nodded. “Why don’t you take a break, mate. Come watch this unbelievably fascinating documentary about the 1876–78 Indian famine. Next up’s one about the fastest car in the world.”
“Sorry, I’d love to, but I’ve got to get on with work.”
“Yeah, of course.
Work.
You found anything else out in the desert yet?”
“No. Not yet. Can’t believe it’s been nearly six hours. That’s insane.”
“What’s insane is you’ve been playing it for six hours and nothing’s happened yet. You haven’t even found another cactus? Or an anthill? Or a dried-up twig or a bit of leaf?”
Sam shook his head and grinned. “Nope. It’s brilliant.”
After devouring his curry, Sam went back upstairs. He was nearly at the landing when he heard the familiar noise of the game coming from his room:
chshh
,
chshh
,
chshh
. Wondering if he’d left the controller the wrong way up, he went inside and saw everything was as he had left it. The control pad was the right way up, and, on the screen, his character was standing still.
chshh, chshh, chshh
It was a glitch. It must be. Perhaps he’d uncovered the real reason the game had been pulled, and it was nothing more fantastic than a useless bit of programming.
Sam reached for the control pad to check that the buttons weren’t stuck. They weren’t. Two things occurred to him then. The first was that the
chshh
,
chshh
sound emanating from the television was slightly different from the one he had grown accustomed to over the course of the day. This sound was softer, and somehow more distant. And the spaces between footsteps sounded irregular, less rhythmic and robotic. The second was that there was a small dark shape on the desert horizon that hadn’t been there when he left the room earlier.
More unnerved by both these realizations than he dared acknowledge, Sam laughed and went over to the television to look at the object more closely.
chshh, chshh, chshh
The object had already grown larger by the time Sam got close to the screen. He could make out that it was a small figure now. He could see its arms, and legs, its shaggy yellow hair.
Puzzled, Sam took a step back. The graphics used to render the figure were much more like those from the start screen than the surrounding blocky desert and mountains.
It was a toddler, dressed in a red romper suit and carrying some flat, rectangular object in its left hand.
“Hel-lo,” Sam said, his voice soft.
chshh, chshh
Had he done it? Was this advancing child some sort of clue to the end of the game? His game-player’s instinct told him it might be; he recalled a certain randomness to many of the solutions to old-school games. Even better: How funny would it be if after all that walking, the solution to the game was to just stand still?
He thought about the small shoe that someone had reported on one of the forums. Sam stepped toward the screen and saw that the child, now a third of the way between the top and bottom of the television, was wearing only one shoe.
Sam didn’t feel a rush of excitement upon piecing this together. He’d noticed something unsettling about the child on the screen. He couldn’t be sure if it was just bad design, but the boy—it was obviously a boy now—looked almost skeletal. The romper suit wasn’t packed with pixelated puppy fat. Instead, it hung so loosely on the child that it appeared to be blowing to the left in a nonexistent desert wind.
There was something wrong with the child’s face too. And this, unless the creator was unhinged, had to be some mistake in the programming. The drawn skin and the gaping mouth were reminiscent of famine victims that Sam had only ever seen on news items and in documentaries.
The child raised its one empty hand and reached toward Sam.
Appalled, Sam stepped backward and put
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