Part 17 (2/2)
”Hah! I don't think so,” Dean retorted. ”We had some creaky old stuff on a Commodore 64 back at Brody's. Educational s.h.i.+t mostly, but there were some okay arcade simulations. Still, they were like fighting with wooden sticks instead of hand blasters compared to these games.”
As the boy tried to make a decision among the few unoccupied games, Jak decided to make the best of it. The albino went directly to a three-dimension target console with the unlikely name of Bloodhunter in Dimension 2000. He gripped the stock of the rifle bolted to the control console of the simulator and sighted a phosphor-dot target.
He looked down for the coin box, but the front of the console was smooth. He decided these games didn't need jack to function.
”Don't work,” he announced after a moment of pulling the trigger and examining the rifle. ”Sights off, too. Not shoot s.h.i.+t with this blaster.”
”Push one of those b.u.t.tons. The one that says Fire,” Dean suggested.
Jak did so. ”Nothing. Game busted.”
”It's your brain that's busted, d.i.c.kwad,” a new voice said. ”You need tokens to play.”
”Good one, Brack.”
A boy all of twelve years old, with close-cropped blond hair and an orange-and-brown pullover knit s.h.i.+rt and jeans, was standing behind Dean and Jak. At his side was an older boy, closer to Jak's age.
The older of the two was dressed in a pair of green cutoff denims with a yellow s.h.i.+rt. Long, lank black hair hung down across his eyes. His sartorial splendor was topped off by a yellow-and-purple baseball capworn backwardswith a patch on the front that read Pac-Man Fever.
”Tokens. Right. We need to get them back in the office, like the guard said,” Dean stated.
”No slots,” Jak protested, glaring at the boys who had broken into their conversation, ”Yes, slots, on the side, not on the front, see?” The older boy pointed at the side of the controls.
Jak looked and indeed, the console had the activation controls on the left side instead of in the front at crotch level like the vid games he'd encountered in the redoubt.
”Different. Not on front,” the albino said.
”No s.h.i.+t, genius. Now, if you're not going to play, move,” the twelve-year-old said. ”Dex and I got better things to do than stand and watch you and your little buddy figure out how to put the tokens in the games.”
”You got a mouth, don't you?” Dean retorted.
”So do you, and you can use it to kiss my a.s.s if you keep bothering us,” snarled the older one identified as Dex.
”How about I stomp head?” Jak asked. ”Not take long.”
Neither of the boys appeared impressed. ”Big talk, Spooky. Try it, and mall sec men will show up and kick the s.h.i.+t out of you,” the younger boy said. Jak spotted a telltale bulge under Brack's s.h.i.+rttail. The boy was heeled, a blaster close at hand.
Jak had his own Colt Python, but left it holstered. ”Might be worth it,” the albino said, considering the risks and developing a mental picture of the pair of snide punks on the ground, broken and bleeding.
”I ain't scared of you,” Brack said.
”Me, neither,” Dex agreed.
Jak abandoned the mock friendly tone. Playing nice wasn't in his nature anyway. ”Should be. Should p.i.s.s pants right now.”
Dean took Jak's arm. ”Smoke it, Jak. You're supposed to be keeping me out of trouble, remember?”
”Next time talk s.h.i.+t, chill you,” Jak said to the insolent pair, his ruby eyes blazing as he allowed Dean to lead him away. To their credit, Brack and Dex kept their mouths shut.
The door of the office was open. Dean and Jak walked in and waited for the seated figure in the dress suit to look up. That was, if he could be bothered to stop his rapid writing of numerals in a thick ledger book to notice their presence. The man was doing his mental computations in pen, and by the light of a single oil lamp.
”What?” he barked.
”You Templeton?” Dean asked.
”That's me. Who are you?”
”Clients, I guess. Need members.h.i.+ps and tokens. Guard said you'd take care of us.”
”Prices are on the board.” The jowly man pointed at a chalkboard hanging on the wall behind him. Prices were listed in different colors of chalk inside a preprinted grid. The numbers were hard to read in the low lighting, but not impossible.
”Why do you keep it so dark back here?” Dean asked.
”Saves money,” Templeton replied. ”Juice costs jack. Vid games take a lot of juice. I can use candles and oil lamps ten times cheaper.”
”What do you think, Jak?” Dean asked softly, wanting to know what his friend's opinion was of the prices on the board. Since Jak had the gold, he'd be the one paying for the entertainment. The least Dean could do was to get his input.
The albino shrugged. ”Don't know. Not good with figures.”
Dean studied the board some more, calling up his own knowledge of mathematics from both his time spent in school and what his mother had taught him at night when he was still a toddler. A handy mall rate of exchange with the official silver logo of The Bank of Freedom printed on top was also thumb-tacked next to the cluttered blackboard.
”What do your gold wafers weigh, Jak?” Dean asked, doing computations in his head.
The albino stuck a hand in his pocket and caressed one of the pieces. ”Tenth ounce, mebbe.”
”Don't let him know you've got more than one,” Dean whispered. ”The way this chart reads, we should be able to get out of here with a members.h.i.+p and ten free vid games each. Mebbe more games if he's really honest, which I doubt.”
”You two ready to deal, or what? We don't like loiterers in here,” Templeton said, looking up from the book where he was scribbling in more numbers. ”Get enough of that outside, people waiting, watching. That's why we have the members.h.i.+p fee. Keeps out the riffraff.”
”What's hurry?” Jak said, taking out a single golden wafer, just as Dean had suggested. ”Here's jack. Buy us members.h.i.+p and games, right?”
”Let me see that,” the owner said, reaching out a chubby hand. Jak dropped the light piece of metal into the fat man's palm and waited. Taking the golden wafer, Templeton weighed it, deciding by feel and texture how much gold was there. He then held it between thumb and forefinger up to his face and surprised the two friends by sticking out his tongue and licking the surface.
For a brief second, both Jak and Dean feared the man might decide to swallow the gold, but as a finale, he followed up the oral caress by biting down gently on the wafer and removing it before nodding his approval.
”Slice it thin, don't you?” he asked pleasantly.
”Last longer that way,” Jak told him. ”Still enough to buy you new suit.”
”What's wrong with my suit?” Templeton asked as he put the wafer on the desk, where it glinted in the lamplight. ”Your metal, boysit feels real enough.”
”Is real.”
”So you say,” the arcade owner said.
”How'd it taste?” Dean asked.
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