“Wow. This is where Zach got to grow up?” Laurie remarked as she, Jace, and Adult Millie approached the modern boxy domicile under a twilight sky. “Place is huge.”

           “That happens when your parents win the lottery,” Millie said with an undertone of jealousy. “Some people just get lucky. All right, go have fun, get out in two hours. We need to catch a taxi to the hotel you’re making me pay for. Jace, call me if it ends early.”

           “Where the heck are you going to be, anyway?” Jace questioned.

           “Wandering around Desert Tree, I guess. I didn’t grow up here, so I’ve never really seen it at night. Anyway, be careful with your game banter; don’t let something slip.”

           Good advice for Laurie, but Jace was a pro who didn’t need a warning. As Millie walked off into the dark, Jace rang the doorbell. Zach was at the door in seconds.

           “Jason, cool cuz Lara, hey!” He flashed a grin. “Come on in, we’ve been chillin’ in the living room, waiting for you before heading up.” He granted access, adding after closing the door, “If you’re only in town for a couple days, nothin’ better than pizza and polygons with some old buddies at my place, right? Hey guys! Look who’s here!”

           The rest of the gang, scattered around Zach’s large living room that was kept cold like always, looked up from their Game Boy Pocket screens, friendly chats, and in Wessy and Arthur’s case, Zach’s folks’ already impressive DVD collection that filled up the console shelf under the largest TV that could be made with fading CRT tech.

           Following all the waves and semi-shouted greetings, Laurie commented, “Nice living room. Kind of reminds me of the one at my house. Are those…” she added upon noticing the stacks of early DVD releases, mostly in cardboard cases. “Um… I’ve heard of this stuff.” She whispered to Jace, “DVDs are this old? Geez, Grandma still buys them.”

           “We just got a player at my house, too,” Arthur said. “But Dad’s only bought a few movies so far. Zach’s got… The Mask, Poltergeist, all the Batman movies, Twister, The Running Man, Mortal Kombat… Air Force One, Dragonheart, The Fugitive…”

           “Yeah, yeah, Arty,” Wessy sighed and started putting the cases back. “Zach’s got a real movie theater going here. It is cool tech, though. The picture quality is perfect.”

           “Ya don’t even need to rewind them,” Zach replied. “Movies on discs that will never look better, AOL, Game Boy Color on the way… The future really is here.”

           “The future’s also on your N64 upstairs,” Jared said. “Can we get going now?”

           “All right, J. Can’t spare a sec to dwell on the gang being together again? Sheesh.”

           Zach’s room made him out to be the prince of Desert Tree, and was one of the neighborhood’s few kid sanctums with more media and memorabilia than Wessy’s place. Two large windows gave views of the front yard and the back, out to the house’s lit-up pool. The walls were covered by posters for movies, video games, TV shows, and music albums. Zach had a growing library of curvy gray Nintendo 64 game cartridges under his own big television, which was between a computer desk and shelves of action figures and models of sci-fi spaceships and vehicles. In the middle of the room were two small couches, and by his closet was his current showpiece: a Double Dragon arcade cabinet.

           In the back was Zach’s childhood bunk bed with a vibrant red pipe-shaped metal frame, and of all the glorious things in the cool-lair, it was what got the first comment of the night, from Ash. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in here, Z. You still got that bed?”

           “Of course! I get the top and bottom, and I have a spare for sleepovers.”

           “What sleepovers?” Colin wondered. “You host them maybe once a year.”

           “Yeah, well, that’s what makes ‘em special. Now pick out some games and grab your favorite controller—I got all the colors, and enough for everyone.”

           “I say we start with Mario Kart,” Sadie said while skimming the collection, which put a smile on Laurie’s face. “And I’m sure Wes and Celly want some Goldeneye again…”

           “Now we’re talking,” Celeste replied excitedly. “Playing as Oddjob and throwing mines at everyone’s faces in the Complex level… That’s my new Zen.”

           “Z, did you get that last star in Mario yet?” Jared asked him.

           Zach huffed, “Nah, man… Still stuck at 119. The pizza should be here in fifteen minutes, guys, but there’s paper towels for a reason. No controller grease tonight, ’kay?”

           The doorbell downstairs suddenly rang, and Arthur remarked, “That was fast…”

           “That can’t be the pies already… You all didn’t invite someone else, did you?”

           Curious, Jace and Laurie followed Zach back out into the hallway, but stayed at the top of the stairs as he headed down to the door. He opened it to reveal…

           “Millie? What are you… I mean… Uh, join the party, I guess,” Zach greeted her.

           “Millie?” Laurie murmured to Jace. “Couldn’t be the adult one, right?”

           “I said I probably wouldn’t show up,” Teen Millie said as she was let inside. “Not the same as definitely. What’s the matter, afraid I’ll beat you at some games?” She and Zach looked up at Jace and Laurie. “Jason’s in town, and I wanted to say hi, too.”

           “What the crap, Lara?!” Celeste blurted out fiercely as Laurie crossed the finish line in Bowser’s Castle in Mario Kart 64, followed closely by Jace. “How are you so good? You and Jason both—first and second place on every track!”

           “Are you angry?” Laurie said meekly. “I just have… lots of practice.” She looked down at the odd controller again and added quietly, “But I’m still getting used to this thing.”

           “Don’t let Celly scare you,” Colin replied as he came in third with Donkey Kong. “She just gets hyper-competitive with games. Even more so in sports. Then she’s scary.”

           “Welp, Jason and his cuz can clearly dominate in a racer,” Jared remarked from one of the couches, and plucked another thin crust slice from one of the five Pizza Hut boxes. “But, we all know it’s just been a warm up so far for the main event.”

           “Let me guess, Goldeneye,” Sadie, nibbling on some crust, moaned. “It’s been out almost a year, and Celly, Wes, and Colin have all beat it on 00 Agent and unlocked all the cheats… and it’s still all they want to play. It’s fun, sure, but why the obsession?”

           “Hey, I beat it on Secret Agent!” Jared interjected from the other couch, where he was sitting cross-legged across from Arthur as they played on their link-cabled Game Boys. “Sadie, don’t you get it? It brings us back to the good old days of water gunning around the block, or the laser tag tourney. Only it’s a lot faster and easier to get going.”

           Zach, chilling out in his beanbag chair with the latest issue of Nintendo Power that featured Banjo-Kazooie on the cover, commented, “The real thing’s still better. But if that’s what you wanna play next, it’s the cart at the right end of the shelf.”

           “Better than letting this humiliation go on,” Colin said after glancing at the Mario Kart results screen, showing the combined scores of the four racers. He crawled over to the ever-growing row of games, noticing a strange black cartridge that stuck out as he snagged the James Bond title. “Zach, what’s this one with, like, the connector on top?”

           “Oh, that’s my GameShark,” Jared answered. “It’s a cheating and hacking device, Colin. Remember Game Genie? It’s like that. Me and Wes have been trying out all these codes that do funky things, like messing up the graphics and letting you walk through doors. It’s pretty cool—I could see you getting into it. I was showing it off to Z.”

           “My uncle told me about that,” Jace whispered to Laurie. “It’s what got him and Jared into programming. To think, their friendship was in trouble while I was here…”

           “So… it can edit game code?” Sadie replied. “Hm. Can’t do that in Bullet Water.”

           “Mm, yeah, but mostly…” Wessy spoke up, looking like he was about to reveal a painful fact. “Zach keeps asking us to use it to unlock stuff in his games.”

           Ash muttered near Sadie, “Really, Zach? Can’t bother to play your own titles?”

           “I play them lots!” Zach argued. “I’m just a busy guy with a full schedule. I don’t always have time to do every last thing in my games. Let’s just get it started—and I’m in the first round. Ash called me out, so I have to prove I still got plenty of skills.”

           Something caught Ash’s attention, and she removed from her vest pocket an egg-shaped colorful electronic toy. “Uh-huh, sure, but not against me yet. I’m… busy.”

           “Same here,” Colin added, now also tapping the buttons on his small blue egg. “This thing needs feeding and playtime. Maybe I’ll do some shooting in round two.”

           “Those atomo-gotcha things again?” Wessy mumbled as he plugged in his red controller and powered on the console, which booted up Goldeneye and played its iconic spinning logos, heartbeat sound, and James Bond theme. “Why do you care so much about virtual pets? At least you can hug…” he spaced for a moment, “real ones.”

           “Poor Wes,” Sadie said quietly to Laurie and Jace, so he wouldn’t hear. “He’s still getting over losing his old pup last year.” She then continued at a normal level, “I think they’re kind of cute. Remember how we had to take care of real eggs in third grade?”

           “If you two are into digital pets now… I’m telling ya,” Arthur looked up from his Game Boy, “this whole Pocket Monsters thing took over Japan. I dunno, it could be the next big event when it gets here in a few months. I have a feeling everything will change.”

           Wes turned from the TV screen where he was putting in the multiplayer match settings to ask, “You and Colin keep talking about it, but I still don’t even know what it is. Something to do with that old Monster in my Pocket NES game I rented years ago?”

           Colin explained, “Not even close. You go around catching creatures, then make them battle other trainers’ creatures. Latest news says we’re getting the anime, too.”

           “And for the English dub, they’re calling the main character boy Ash!” Arthur laughed. “Hey, Sis—you and Lara both have video game characters named after you!”

           Ash grumbled and rolled her eyes. “Greeeeat… Well, if it does go big in eighth and I catch crap for that… I can always just change my name to Ashley for a while.”

           “Game’s ready,” Wes reported. “We doin’ free-for-all knock-outs? Jason, Lara—we like to take turns doing four players, and the two with the lowest scores trade off.”

           “Sure,” Zach said. “You guys wanna be in the first round? Looks like Wes does.”

           “Just don’t play the Facility map with him,” Jared scoffed. “He likes to camp in the upstairs bathroom for cheap kills—and he hides mines in the toilets.”

           “Look, J, I can’t help it if that strat has always worked for me,” Wes replied.

           Zach called out, “Mill, you’re pretty quiet over there. You want in on this with your old pal here? Some good old girls-v-boys? I still think about that kickball game…”

           Nibbling on her preferred green pepper pizza from the computer desk, where she seemed to be monitoring a chat room with her feet up on the chair, she answered, “You know I don’t usually take competition seriously. But… maybe a later game, when everyone’s loosened up. And, uh, Zach, do you leave AOL on all the time in this crazy room? My dad gets mad if I tie up the phone line even for just a half hour.”

           “I already had my own line, but now that I got a cell phone like Arty and Colin, I found a better use for it. My one hundred and growing Buddy List is also the future.”

           “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Wes said impatiently. “Let’s get this going. Jared, you up?”

           “Sure, man,” Jared accepted the invite. He jumped off the couch, grabbed his borrowed green controller, and plugged it in next to Jace’s blue one. “You two have a chance to play Goldeneye yet?” he asked Jace and Laurie. “You do have 64s, right?”

           “Um, yeah, of course,” Jace answered. “But, haven’t gotten around to it. My ‘dad’ is always talking about the game, though… I’m good at shooters, so I’ll get the hang of it.”

           “Shooters aren’t exactly my forte,” Lara admitted. “But I do like explosives.”

           Wes exclaimed, “Now we’re talking! J, let’s swap to Temple rocket launchers.”

           “No, Wes…” Jared sighed—his ability to stand up to Wes, if just in minor ways, new to Jace. “Keep things simple for the newbies. Automatics in the Library is good.”

           The players eagerly chose their characters and started their match in the game’s basic wide open, well lit, rectangular arena, with the timer set on ten minutes.

           Jace instantly felt like he was right back with his buddies again, and seconds into the game, he remarked as he sprayed and prayed with a machine pistol, “Ah. This brings me back. Too bad four-player games weren’t really a thing when I lived here.”

           “Other than a few games at the arcade, yeah,” Wes said while sneaking around in the level’s labyrinthian basement on his quarter of the split screen. “It’s much more fun.”

           “But do you really not use the entire left side of the controller?” Jace groaned.

           “Dang…” Laurie grumbled when she found out she had placed in fourth about nine minutes later. “Almost tied with Jared, though. I guess that was kind of fun.”

           “Not bad for your first try,” Jared replied. “But Jason and Wes are something else at shooters. You two weren’t screen-peeking, right? Eh, anyway, who’s next?”

           Laurie and Jared traded places with Zach and Colin, and they jumped right into a match on the beloved chemical weapon plant known as Facility, famous for its long corridors and bathroom of all things. Zach and Wes quickly got way too into it.

           “Games always get rowdier when it’s just the boys playing,” Sadie mentioned to Laurie as she joined her, Celeste, and Ash on a couch. “Well, other than Jason, as quiet as usual. He’s… He’s great. We could use him around at Cookton. Some days get bad.”

           “He gave everyone advice back in fifth, and always had our backs,” Ash added. “You’re lucky he’s your cousin. But he never mentioned you… Are you close?”

           Laurie needed a moment to think about how everyone in the room seemed to perceive the kid that she had known for much longer than they did, but snapped out of it in time to reply before it got awkward, “Oh, um… when he moved, we got closer.”

           “I get it,” Celeste replied. “Easier to see each other, right? Where are you from?”

           “Uh… Port… Land? Portland. You know… in Oregon?”