Once all of the stock-brokering was done for the day, which left Wes feeling like he needed a long shower to wash off some invisible grime, he slipped his shades back on, got in his car, and called Jace’s new, or rather, old phone as he drove.

After ringing five times, he finally picked up and squeaked, “H-hello?”

“Jace, buddy! I was worried you forgot how to use a cell phone.”

“The stupid thing was right by the bed, but I couldn’t figure out how to answer it. And the ringing was so loud that it scared the crap out of me.”

“Gross. Clean up the place before I get back.”

Jace audibly groaned.

“I’m just calling to check in, try out the phones. You still doing your homework over there? What’s that playing in the background?”

“This one show you didn’t talk about, Bobby’s World. It’s a cartoon with this little kid with a really annoying voice and I kind of hate him…”

“Yeah, you don’t have to watch that one if you don’t want to. How’s the remote working out for you? Stuck watching Jerry again?”

“It’s actually… working. So far, I mean.”

“Is it hard to admit I did something right for a change? Anyway, just a reminder that I’ll be back for lunch. Going to take a joy ride around town.”

“Whatever. I’m not hungry yet. Been eating a lot of snacks.”

“You’re turning into me more and more by the second, pal!”

“Uh-huh. Sure…” Jace said and hung up.

Wes pulled up to a convenience store to pick up a few final items that he had forgotten to acquire earlier, and on the way out, grabbed a newspaper from one of the stands outside. Somewhere within its pages was the next phase of his plan.

He glanced at the headline, for another story concerning the imminent opening of King Arcade, and flipped through to the back pages, the classifieds.

And with one of the pens from the twelve-pack he had just bought, he began circling prospective apartments for rent. Most any of them would do, just so long as he didn’t settle on the same ramshackle domicile in the city’s worst neighborhood.

He had spent enough long, cold nights there during his previous visit. This time, he had brought an iPad full of stock history, and it would keep him quite warm.

• •

On a rainy Friday afternoon, an anxiety-ridden Jace found himself in the mall’s arcade, its neon lights and noise from dozens of cabinets doing a number on his already exhausted senses. His reaction speed diminished, he glanced at Wes, who was gleefully firing his pink weapon at a row of targets. They were playing an early arcade light gun game, Point Blank, and in his current state, Jace was letting down his trusty blue pistol.

“What’s the matter, bee sting?” Wes, victorious, asked as the game ended.

Jace huffed. “Too tired for stupid nicknames. Where are they getting these?”

“I got tired of calling you pal and buddy over and over. So I’m experimenting. I thought you’d be more excited to get out of the room and spend some game time here.”

“I’m overloaded. I watched, like, thirty-two hours of shows over two days…”

“Are they bouncing about in your mind? That’s the conditioning taking hold!”

“They all began to blur together after a while…”

“That’s why we need to inject some gaming into your psyche, get it thinking about something else. I’m gonna go get some more quarters. Here,” he gave him his last one, “play a round by yourself while I do that and scout out another game to try out.”

As Wes left, Jace stared at the quarter in his palm, wishing he could find some other use for it. But out of his choices of either going back to the game or wasting time in the futile struggle of finding something else to do, he picked the easier option.

After firing several shots of infrared light at the screen, he noticed out of the corner of his eye a group of three boys approaching him, all around his age, and like his former friends, they were of course taller than him. He tried to keep his focus on the shooting gallery in hopes that they wouldn’t engage, but it didn’t work.

“Hey,” one of them said and looked at the screen. “Not bad.”

“Yeah, I suck at that game,” another added. “Hey kid, you got a gun in real life?”

“Nice hair,” the smallest of the three commented in an airy voice.

“You got a problem?” Jace suddenly snapped and turned to them after getting a game over, which he blamed on the distraction.

“Ease up, man, we were just watching,” the tallest one said with a friendly laugh.

Jace took a moment to look at their faces and saw that there was no hostility in them. He had to remind himself that they didn’t know anything about him.

“Sorry,” he breathed out. “My uncle made me watch TV for two days straight…”

“Whoa, your uncle makes you watch television?” the middle one with glasses and braces asked. “Mine just has me do farm work when I visit. What shows do you like?”

Dozens of shows ran through his head in a scrambled frenzy, and yet he couldn’t pick one out of the mess, so he simply replied, “Um… A little bit of everything.”

“Do you want to join us for The Simpsons game?” the smaller one with the faint voice and only an inch on Jace asked. “We’re looking for a fourth player…”

“Maybe he’s only good at shooting games,” the tallest, red-haired boy suggested.

“I’m good at all games,” Jace said defensively. “But… I’m waiting for my uncle.”

“So where is this cool uncle of yours?” Braces Boy asked.

“Um…” Jace looked around, and soon spotted him excitedly playing a fighter jet game, having been distracted by bright lights, sounds, and nostalgia once again—and it looked like he was making a fool of himself. Embarrassed, he told them, “I don’t think he’s… coming back right now. I’d play,” he tried to be polite, “but I’m out of quarters.”

“No problem, dude, we’ll spot you,” the tallest said and prodded the short one’s shoulder, who produced a bag full of coins. “Stu here just had a birthday.”

“We don’t… get to do four players that much. It’s worth it,” he explained.

Seeing that there was no way out now aside from running out of the arcade like a coward, Jace relented and nodded his head a little nervously. “All right…”

Konami’s The Simpsons arcade game was a classic, to the point where Jace had even seen a working cabinet outside of King Arcade—in a gas station somewhere, as a child. He had watched its demo loop a few times, but never played it before.

He wasn’t all that happy to get stuck with Lisa, instead of Bart or Homer or even perhaps Marge, and didn’t like the fact that her weapon was a jump rope. Even so, after several minutes, he did feel himself loosen up a bit and have some fun with the others as they beat up countless cartoon characters. The three were experienced. They knew the multiplayer combo attacks well and were able to set them up at every opportunity.

It took half of the quarters in the bag, but after several continue screens and forty minutes of fingers mashing against plastic buttons, the four managed to see the rare, honorary completion screen of an arcade game. Jace felt a sense of accomplishment, yet still didn’t know why Mr. Smithers was leading a jewelry heist at the start of the “story.”

“Wow. That’s only the second time I beat it,” Braces Boy said. “Now what?”

“Air hockey!” Stu answered. “Let’s have a tournament!”

“You can’t really have a tournament with four people, dude,” the tall one, Gavin, replied. “But we could find some other kids who would join in. Maybe your cool uncle could even be one of the players!” He suggested as he looked at Jace, and then eyed Wes over in a driver’s seat with a wheel and intensely swerving his car in a racing game.

“Yeah. I don’t mind playing with an old dude if he’s pretty good at games.”

“Why do you think my uncle is so cool?” Jace genuinely wondered. “Because he’s not. Maybe he used to be, but not anymore. He’s actually kind of a jerk that always tries to get his way. I mean, he buys me stuff and we watch movies together, but that doesn’t really make up for him being a jerk all the time and making jokes about me.”

“Sounds like you got some issues, man,” Braces, aka Mikey, said with a laugh. “Ah, someone else is using the air hockey table anyway. What other four-player games are around? Um, there’s Gauntlet. Blue Wizard needs food!” He laughed a second time.

“Gauntlet is old as dinosaur poop. How about X-Men? That’s four players.”

“Is that another beat-em-up?” Jace asked.

“Yeah, it’s really awesome, and you won’t have to be Lisa again.”

“Is there anything else? I mean, it was kind of fun I guess, but I don’t really like that feeling where… I’m doing the same thing over and over again.”

“Man, you’re really a tightwad,” Stu sighed. “No offense! I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being one. But you just gotta learn how to have fun.”

Jace grumbled, but admittedly did want to play another game because it reminded him so much of his sleepover late night console sessions with his former friends.

So, he quickly made a suggestion before another of the boys could insult him, “What about Hungry Hungry Hippos? That’s four players.”

“Hey, yeah,” Mikey replied. “I always forget this place has that. It’s kind of for little kids, but… uh, I still find it fun. And it’s cheap.”

“I’m up for it,” Stu agreed. “It’s a quick burst of chaos and luck.”

Vaguely aware of the game’s minor cultural presence but having never played it either, Jace followed the others to the dome that enclosed four colorful hippopotami. After a group of girls—all around six years old or so—were finished with their game and ran off to find another, the temporary friends gathered around to start theirs.

Despite his positioning efforts, Jace got the pink hippo. Stuck with the worst character again, his hopes for a good round dimmed before the game even began.

After the coins were dropped in and a torrent of white plastic balls was released, he watched for a few seconds as the other three started bashing away at the one control mechanism available: a button matching the color of the player’s famished amphibious ungulate. Used to games that needed a controller’s dozen-plus buttons and pads, Jace took a second to devise a strategy as he made his hippo chomp at its food several times.

Whereas the others made their animals bite as much as possible and hope for the best, he realized that with his sharp eyes, he should be able to open his hippo’s mouth at just the right time to gobble a pellet, instead of doing it the inefficient, hope-for-the-best way and having the pellets bounce off the mouth while it was closed. Easy.

Or, it should’ve been. Aside from having the lamest color, his button also kept randomly sticking for a millisecond before he could press it again. As an unpredictable problem, it was hard to work around. Growing frustrated as the short game wore on, Jace soon lost all patience and started pounding away as pellets bounced off the snout.

“Son of a bitch!” he suddenly burst out. “Stupid pink hippo, eat something!”

The other three looked at him, but the game was over before they could respond. Jace had ended up in third place, beating only Stu—who didn’t seem upset at all, as he had rather enjoyed and laughed at simply hitting his button as many times as possible.

“Dude…” Gavin said and looked disappointingly at Jace. “You really gotta calm down and try to have some fun. Seriously, man, it’s just a game…”

“But my button wasn’t working right! I hate losing because of some stupid—”

“Rematch?” Stu interjected. “He can get the blue hippo this time.”

“I… don’t think so,” Mikey sighed. “I don’t want to hear any more complaining today. Sorry, kid, but that’s kind of all you do. Even when we were kicking butt in The Simpsons, you always found something to moan about. It’s bringing me down.”

“Yeah, for real,” Gavin added. “Maybe he’s just having a bad day and we could try again some other time. My mom’s probably looking for me anyway…”

“The heck’s your problem, Jace?” Wes groaned and took a sip from his water bottle as the two sat in the corner of the food court. “I was about to beat story mode.”

“I had to get out of there,” Jace said, slumped into his seat. “I made a real jerk of myself. Hurrrgh…” He crossed his arms. “These kids came over and just wanted to play arcade games with me, and I all I did was complain about everything…”

“Oh?” Wes seemed surprised. “At least you know what the problem was. Still… just complaining doesn’t seem reason enough to run away. They weren’t mean, right?”

“No. I… got desperate so I blurted out a ton of random junk about TV shows.”

“Buh-ha!” Wes laughed. “I can picture the scene. ‘Look at me, I’m a time traveler, watch me try to be hip and trendy.’ That’s not gonna work, Scooby snack.”

“I was stuck inside with the TV for two days, it’s literally all I can think about!”

“All right, all right. I guess I’m partially to blame then. But you did have some fun, right? I mean before your meltdown. Did you four play a lot of games?”

“One of the kids had a bag full of quarters. We only used about half of them.”

“Ugh, Jace… all of that money…” Wes looked disappointed.

“Why do you care how much… Wait, how did you know there were four of us?”

“Just a guess…” Wes then let out a big sigh. “Screw it. Yeah, I paid them off.”

“What the crap, man? I can’t believe you just admitted that!”

“What’s not to believe? Hey, I’m trying not to lie to you, and you probably would’ve found out eventually anyway, and then you’d just be angrier.”

“I probably would’ve stopped caring! Why do you keep messing with me?”

“You were never going to make an effort to meet other kids. I was trying to help, because, listen, you’re too young to be this angry and pushing people away like you are.”

“Oh yeah, you really helped. Now every time someone tries to hang out with me, here and in the present, I’ll think you gave them a bag of money.”

“It was worth a shot. But I won’t do it again. Not like I have infinite cash.”

Seeing a chance to change the subject, Jace asked, “How… much money do you have? It feels like you’ve spent a lot already.”

“Oh, don’t worry about adult issues like that. Look at the bright side: at least you played all those games without your glitch popping up and making things even worse.”

“I guess…” Jace dropped his head into his crossed arms on the table. “Maybe because they were all multiplayer games with other people…”

“It canceled any of that out? Yeah, I see what you’re saying. Maybe you’re right.”