Et in Arcadia Alter Egos, Chapter One

“Calvin’s fallen in,” the counter-Juniper reported to the others.

“Into the boating lake?” cried Pat.

“Nothing so funny, I’m afraid,” replied the grave one. “Come on, I’d better show you.”

So saying she led the group to her arcade, where the love-tester machine stood with two of its illustrations missing from the female half. That however seemed to be the least of its troubles today. All the illuminable windows adorning its monolithic north face were flaring on and off, as though the circuitry beneath languished in a state of recursive glitch.

“What happened was really Flashsatsumas’s fault,” the counter-Juniper proceeded, “because he insisted I use the love-tester to generate his little counter-Piloshiki girlfriend-to-order while Calvin was watching. Obviously that would give a boy ideas. And I don’t know why everyone automatically assumes I understand how this sort of thing works, but anyway when he came to me this morning and asked, I didn’t see what harm it could do.”

“But,” began Mini-Flash Juniper, glancing at Flashsatsumas and trying to be tactful. “Calvin has a crush on, well, us, doesn’t he? Or rather you,” she added. “He saw you first.”

“Don’t offload him,” protested the counter-Juniper. “You encourage him more than I do.”

“What she means,” put in Flashsatsumas, who felt he’d held his peace long enough, “is that if you were doing it, and if servo-mechanisms in this place have their own strange version of functioning something like real ones, then we’d be looking at a feedback-loop.”

“That explains the technical side,” Mini-Flash Juniper concurred. “But now the question is, how do we get Calvin out?”

All along the arcade’s open-sided roomy span, several clustered groups of children were complaining their respective computer-game cabinets were acting up or not doing what they ought to. What ailed the love-tester was apparently becoming widespread. The counter-Juniper quickly ducked inside, and emerged again confirming Calvin was no longer there.

Mini-Flash Juniper, having assessed the situation, suggested they split up and search. So they did, and in no time at all Maureen called out: “I’ve found him!”

The friends hurried over, and there was no doubt about it. That was Calvin alright.

Reduced to pixels and two dimensions, rendered in no more ten colours, but Calvin.

On the title-screen of an arcade game.

There he stood in hero’s stance, visible from the waist up, protective towards the princess-type beside him while looking a little uncomfortable with her overaffectionate bearing.

She however probably wasn’t the only reason Calvin was nonplussed. Pat explained that the image and the game it headlined were familiar to him, but somehow their friend was substituting for the role of its playable character. This so resonated with what had been heard already from other arcade patrons that Mini-Flash Juniper was able to conclude Calvin must be bouncing back and forth between the many machines present. Meanwhile Maureen, who alone among Pat’s audience hadn’t required a beginner’s course, was already flexing her fingers having dropped ten pence into the slot.

“So what I reckon is,” she commenced, “all we have to do is finish the game Calvin’s in, and that should get him out of it. Doesn’t seem to me there’s any other way this could work.”

“Finish it?” repeated Pat. “This one? Since when can you even get past the first level?”

Maureen ignored her brother and hit the start-button.

Immediately a tiny graphical representation of Calvin, clad his usual sports clothes, was jogging on the spot before a background of palm trees and crags. All of this was new for Miss Ugly, whose short mortal existence had ended well before the invention of any kind of moving pictures, and she was wide-eyed and gaping-mouthed as Maureen proceeded to steer their little trotting avatar onward.

“Maureen, what’s happening?” Miss Ugly cried. “What does Calvin have to do?”

“He’s got to get to the end of – ”

“Maureen, don’t touch that!” shrieked Miss Ugly.

“No, that’s the tomahawk,” Maureen returned, causing for the Calvin-sprite to jump and subsume its icon.

“Won’t it harm him?” asked Miss Ugly, trembling.

Maureen had Calvin hurl two axes which dispatched the giant snails obstructing his course. “It harms those,” she then answered. “And other things like – ”

“Maureen, look out!” Miss Ugly screeched.

“Those are bananas! Why would they be dangerous? He needs them to live!”

“Maureen, there’s a hole in the – ”

“I can see it!”

“Yes, but Maureen, there are more of those snails too, and – ”

Calvin as brisk and purposeful as ever ran straight over the edge and plummeted from sight.

“So,” began Miss Ugly slowly, “what if he falls into one of those…?”

Maureen shot her a warning look. The arcade machine’s screen turned black, but for the words “GAME OVER” etched in plain white computer-text.

“Do what?” erupted Maureen. “I’m meant to have two more lives!”

“Fingers crossed the same goes for Calvin,” was the counter-Juniper’s comment.

“We already know it does,” Mini-Flash Juniper pointed out. “It’s obvious by now that when Calvin dies in one game, he transmigrates to the next. So in other words, we’re going to have to pool our loose change.”

With that she thrust a hand behind and dragged out from under her three elastic waistbands all the jangling ten pence pieces she had.

“Right now Calvin needs everything I keep safe in my panties,” Juniper added seriously.

END OF CHAPTER ONE