Et in Arcadia Alter Egos, Chapter Two

The friends soon found Calvin again, this time participating in an animated sequence which the Earthlings among them deduced was attached to an historical of sorts. Computerized Calvin, still in shorts and singlet, acquired a silver suit of armour which sprang up to cover these. Then he strode out for a gruesome world of perpetual night to do battle with goblins and ghouls and –

“Ghosts!” exclaimed Miss Ugly, her eyes suddenly alight.

“Yeah, ghosts, and more holes in the ground,” Maureen observed.

Miss Ugly plucked one of Mini-Flash Juniper’s coins and inserted it extremely primly. “I happen to occupy a unique perspective on such matters, Maureen, in case you haven’t noticed,” said she. “It’s quite clear to me this is fate, and happily I’m the only one here in a position to recognise it.”

The introduction presented a map. Bold Sir Calvin was apparently to venture through the churchyard to the village and the windmill to the mountains and thence at last the haunted castle.

“Right,” muttered Miss Ugly importantly. “Right.”

Level one began. An instant later Calvin had lost his armour. The instant after that he was a heap of bones.

Calvin as a cyborg law-enforcer of the future fared a little better on the counter-Juniper’s turn. Certainly she threw herself into bashing crooks with his fists, and transforming the ones on motorbikes to fiery explosions and flying wheels. Then however Calvin-cop unlocked his gun from a compartment on his new aluminium thigh, and snipers perched in the upper windows of derelict tenements made him their prey. With life-levels dangerously low he was then confronted by a two-legged mechanical monstrosity, whereat one boy’s crusade against crime came to an undistinguished end.

“It’s not even possible to do it!” raged the counter-Juniper, banging her buttons. “I’m all for rescuing Calvin, but not if they’re going to program these things so you can’t even do it!”

Flashsatsumas didn’t like to agree, but his try on the next game quickly reacquainted him with feelings the males of his galaxy and generation knew far better than the females did. This antiquated type of Earth-sport was altogether too much like being a male Mini-Flash. Here, as at home, you were pitted against an opponent which thought and acted faster than you could, and the longer you struggled on, the harder it became to shake off the suspicion you were being giggled at and teased. If there were times when it might have seemed paranoid to attach second gender attributes to crude circuit-boards in a plywood shell, mid-game for Flashsatsumas was apparently not one of them.

His task was to guide Calvin to the top of a pyramid made of gravity-defying platforms, avoiding various hazards, and above all the large belligerent caricature who held the high ground. He was the biggest problem of all, in every sense, for he dogged Calvin’s movements so relentlessly that no matter where Flashsatsumas attempted to gain that all-important uppermost stratum, there he would be, blocking him.

Exactly like Flashball with the girls.

Which wasn’t a helpful comparison when Flashsatsumas was already fighting back first-gender infuriation with every scintilla of his energy-based being.

That said, and speaking of girls, the three on either side of him screeching out different instructions and advice all at the same time weren’t terribly helpful either.

Mini-Flash Juniper and Pat meanwhile watched from behind the huddle. Neither could pretend it was going well, or that any outcome other than the inevitable seemed at hand.

Oh, Calvin, heaved Juniper, really anxious.

Poor Flashsatsumas was doing all he could, but he’d never been able to grasp fourth-dimensional geometrics. It had been the first point she’d ever noted in him.

Come on, Flashsatsumas. Come on, Calvin.

A girl from Planet Earth, in the throes of such agitation, might have blown a kiss or struck up a cheerleader recital. Thus it was that Mini-Flash Juniper, like any female Mini-Flash, smelled her care and supportiveness directly at the arcade cabinet’s screen.

A throbbing pink love-heart immediately appeared thereon.

Juniper blinked. Had she done that?

The heart was smaller even than the toddling icon of Calvin, but it didn’t waste any time. Up and along the stack of platforms it wove, slipping step by step through the gaps between, until it was hovering above the brutish bully. Then it knocked upon a bucket which had been hanging from the top rung for reasons hitherto obscure, and dropped it as neatly as could be over the enemy’s hairy head.

That was Flashsatsumas’s cue to move, unless the massed scream rising up from three pairs of lungs was.

A frantic skyward scramble past the now-bumbling adversary, and it was accomplished.

Calvin, for the first time since his problems began, had cleared level one.

Mini-Flash Juniper, still awhirl that she might have somehow affected the course of the game from outside, stared with her friends. The screen blanked out as the others had, but this time three arrows appeared on it, two pointing to either side and the other upwards. Each indicated one of the neighbouring cabinets which stood nearest.

It seemed that whenever Calvin finished a level, the player was allowed to choose where he went next.

Juniper weighed up his prospects, as quick as the Flash she was. Working by the rules as they seemed to stand, Calvin’s shortest route to freedom would involve three more steps. Once they’d brought him to the third, Mini-Flash Juniper reckoned she could see a way clear to bringing him back to himself for good.

“The only thing is that we mustn’t fail on either of the other two,” she added, in the interests of keeping everyone properly informed.

The first step was called Distant Rumblings, and Mini-Flash Juniper announced she meant to tackle it herself. Pat was needed for step two, which Juniper could tell was a game about terrestrial vehicular transport. This was evident not only from the title but also the shape of the unit, which instead of the more common upright model was styled after an Earth-car so you could sit down in it. Juniper told Pat without reservation that he alone among their party boasted the motoring skills to see Calvin safely through that all-important penultimate stage.

“Be there ready to start, Pat, the minute I finish Distant Rumblings,” Juniper went on. “If this local equivalent of a feedback-loop is anything like an actual one, then bearing in mind the time already elapsed, pattern-degradation will be inevitable before long. We have to work fast if we’re going to get Calvin out of these things in one piece.”

“Distant Rumblings is a right nightmare though, Jen,” Pat told her in some concern, sounding as if she’d resolved to go and face its dangers for real. In all fairness however, everyone by now was a little mixed-up as to what was arcade game and what wasn’t.

Mini-Flash Juniper bit her lower lip. “Have faith in me, Pat,” she breathed to him.

“Erm,” interjected Maureen.

They had to work fast. Yes, those had been Juniper’s very words. Speedily the company divided, half of them headed for Distant Rumblings, while Pat led the others to the car.

END OF CHAPTER TWO