The Search for Ball Zero (25 page)

Bob did a worm and they both relaxed for a
while. Bob was wearing a rasta cap

today and a Bad Brains shit. He had a
necklace that Tony hadn’t noticed before, it had a little book
hanging from it. Tony was wormed, he reached out and touched the
book.

“
What is that?”

“
The Art of
War.”

“
Raaaaad.”

“
Let’s go Search for Ball
Zero.” Bob said.

Tony’s eyes opened, “Shit. Yea!”

They got up, they had been in Treetop for
probably ten minutes now, all the Monkeys and Primates were feeling
comfortable, they were scattered everywhere, even on the walls and
ceiling. Lemmy walked up and joined them walking towards the arcade
section. Near the front of the arcade, there were four linked Rush
2049 sit down racing cabinets. Tony said in a wormy voice as they
passed it,”That game rools!” and threw a drunk arm pointing at the
4 linked machines. Lemmy reached over and touched an Elohssa
computer Stack to the side of the cabinet. The Stack stuck to the
cabinet. The screen flickered and lit up. In it’s trademark loud
whisper the arcade machine let out a “Rushhhhh!” and the frenetic
electronic music started.

Tony stopped in amazement. “Wait a second?”
He thought, “Lemmy touched

the Stack to the piece of wood on the side
of the cabinet, and it powered up the machine through the wood? And
it stuck to the wood? WTF?”

“
That works?” Tony
questioned out loud. “Cooool.”

Three monkeys slapped Stacks to the side of
the other machines and they all

turned on. Instantly four primates filled
the seats and they tried to start a game. Actually it was three
chimps and the last cabinet had a monkey that wasn’t quite long
enough to reach the gas. She used her tail to reach the gas and she
was ready. But still they pressed buttons and nothing happened.

Bob, Tony and Lemmy made their way to the
pinball area as the tribe tripped out on Rush, even though the
games didn't even have any credits. There Tony saw the best pinball
game ever made, Caveman. He wobbled up to the machine and hugged
it. Only a true pinball fan would understand this hug. Bob and
Lemmy laughed a bit. It was a real hug, not like some wanna-be
hippie hugging a tree, Tony had spent thousands of hours with this
exact piece of machinery, they had enjoyed triumph and
tribulation.

Lemmy stuck a Stack to the side. Inside the
machine, parts moved and switched, it made some mechanical
noises.

“
Aww fuck, do you have any
quarters?” Tony asked looking down at the coin
mechanism.

“
A quarter of weed, why?”
Bob asked.

“
Nah man, a quarter...
Money!?” Tony asked again. Then he realized what he

was asking, of course they didn’t. Tony was
about to ask them to rip off the lock, but then remembered no one
was here, he could just go get a key. He ran to the back room and
grabbed a master key. As he was running out of the office with the
key he noticed L’s name tag stuck on the wall. He remembered her
beautiful face and all the times they had in this back office and
for a second he was in another world. He shook his head and jogged
out of the office.

He ran by the Rush machines, the chimps and
the one monkey were still in the

seats, but boredom was setting in. “Ohh
shit, can’t forget about you guys!” Tony unlocked each of the Rush
coin mechanisms and showed them how to flick the wire under the
quarter drop to add credits. He pressed start on all the machines
to make sure they started a 4 player game and went back to Bob,
Lemmy and Caveman.

“
Woah man, this looks just
like you said.” Bob said, looking at the amazing art of the Caveman
pinball machine like a dream.

They started a three player game and played
for hours. Bob and Tony discussed

the finer points of The Search for Ball Zero
and The Art of War. Pinball tactics and strategy wasn’t about
defeating an enemy, although you can see the machine as an
opponent. A large, static enemy that didn’t evolve and would always
respond with the same “attacks”. If you hit this ramp, the ball
would always come out the same way. If you sent the ball into
another section, it would always return to the left flipper. When
it came to tactics, a pinball machine was predictable and that was
it’s only flaw. A pinball machine never deceived you. It’s lanes
and ramps and mechanical ball ejects could be seen as logic lanes,
the same as a rigid AI state machine, impossible to detach from.
Impossible to adapt to a good player if it wanted to. The Art of
War was all about adapting.

Bob noted that the warstore game they
discovered and played the other night

was similar. The AI war stores always used
the same tactics.

“
They always use the main
cannon, even though the tank turrets are more accurate, reload
faster and have almost unlimited ammo.” Bob said, noticing the same
thing Tony noticed while playing.

“
Also they always went for
higher ground, even taking a few shots to get there.” Tony
noted.

“
Ohh yea, and the other
thing I always used against em,” Bob added,”If you go

behind cover, they will always predict you
coming out the other side. Like if you go behind cover from the
right” He was on the right side of the pinball machine and walked
behind it. Then he said from behind the machine,“They always think
you’ll come out left.” He darted his hand out of the left side of
the machine to demonstrate. Then he popped back out on the right
and acted like he was shooting. “Get’s em every time.” Tony hadn’t
noticed that. “Really? That seems like a big flaw.”

“
Watch next time.” Bob was
confident.

After a few warm up games. Tony held down
the flipper buttons and let the high scores scroll by. DNA at the
top, ASS right below. “I’m ASS” Tony said to Bob and Lemmy.

“
Who’s DNA?” Bob
asked.

“
This guy who was really
good. I learned how to play pinball by watching him.” Tony replied.
“I’m beating that score right now though.” The intense mental peak
of the worm was over, and now he was riding it’s speed-like
afterglow. He actually thought he could beat the score.

He played an amazing game and destroyed
DNA’s score. It was a clinic for Bob, who watched in awe as Tony
pulled every fancy pinball trick there was, catches, passes,
multiball holds, the Lazarus move (also known as the Death Save).
He even got the elusive Caveman Super Jackpot. When that happened
the machine screamed as loud as ever and made everyone in Treetop
look.

They continued to play for the rest of the
night. Switching Stacks to machines

they wanted to play, by the end of the night
all the Stacks were being used. Tony used a Stack to turn on the
microwave and heat up some of Treetop’s infamous pizza. The pizza
sat in a giant fridge room, which had no power, but it was still
cold.

“
You WILL have diarrhea
tomorrow.” He joked as he handed out the pizza.

Just before sunrise they climbed out of the
10 story “Best and Coolest Place for Games in the World.” And they
drove home. Tony wasn’t sure if he was driving home or leaving
home. Probably both.

Tony and the Arcade Monkeys made it home
without incident. Tony was dead

tired after the long ride home, hanging onto
the Oh Shit handles with all his strength most of the time. After a
long night of worming and gaming, he could only think of sleep.

Tony burst into the room to what he was half
expected to see the whole time, but

couldn’t believe it was true until actually
seeing it. Perry and his clone and girlfriend were having a
threesome. At least it was on their own bed. They stopped for a
moment, as Tony said “Hi” and plopped face down on the bed. L
wasn’t there. Maybe she was giving the threesome it’s privacy. He
cared, but sleep overcame him and he passed out.

A few hours later Tony was shaken awake by
L. Perry and the clones were gone.

“
Hey mama.” He said,
looking up. He saw L and Janis both looking down at

him. “Woah, hello!” He was startled, but too
tired to jump. He slowly rolled over.

“
What’s up?”

“
Time to get up. Time to
get ready.” Janis announced. She looked into his eyes, and then
over to L,”Get up, Mr Wormy.”

“
The show’s gonna start
soon.” L added. She was wearing her famous GWAR

shirt. She always saved that epic shows.

“
L, we have to talk.” Tony
tried to say.

“
Just go get ready.” L
said, “We’ll talk later.”

Tony wasn’t waiting for this,”Valley Forest
is gone.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
Destroyed.
Rubble.”

“
C’mon, what are you
talking about?” She knew he was joking,”What kind of

joke is this?”

Tony pulled out his shitty rechargeable cell
phone, opened the pictures and showed her a pic of the destroyed
city from the view of Treetop bay windows.

“
What the?” L asked no
one.

Janis looked at the pic. “What that?”

“
My old home.” L said and
started crying.

Janis held her and tried to calm her.

“
It’s like that
everywhere?” L asked speaking from inside Janis’s hug.

“
The whole place. Rubble”
Tony clarified. “Treetop is still there for some
reason.”

L continued crying in Janis’s hug.

“
I beat DNA’s score on
Caveman though!” He said, maybe that would cheer

her up.

She kept crying, possibly harder,”That’s
nice.” She mumbled.

Tony went down to the waterfall where they
all bathed. He had never bathed with the Primates and Monkeys
before, but he was dirty and really wanted to not be. While
bathing, he drifted off thinking his happy thoughts until he was
interrupted by a female voice,

“
Where’s your friend?” She
asked seductively.

He looked up, it was that gorilla Perry was
staring at in the hallway. The one that almost made him fall
over.

“
Perry?” Tony asked, even
though he knew.

She said in a phone sex operator’s voice,”Is
that his name?”

Tony caught her glancing down at his junk.
His first reaction was to cover up. Then he thought, ”What would
covering up do?” Maybe he had been out here living with the monkeys
too long, his sense of shame fading. The Tony from a month ago
probably wouldn’t have been able to stand fully naked in front of a
female gorilla and been cool with it.

“
Nice.” She said, still
looking down. Still in her seductive voice,“Hopefully he’s as well
endowed as you.”

Tony knew he wasn’t the biggest, but he was
rarely called “Well endowed”

especially taking a cold bath in a
waterfall.

“
Um thanks.” He said,”I
wouldn’t know about his.”

She reach down to touch it, that’s when he
jumped back.

“
Woah!” He yelled, half
laughing. “I’m taken.”

She smiled and apologized. “Tell Perry Candy
says hi.”

Tony was walking back to their room. The
show as going to start when the Sun went down, “Early, but pretty
cool.” He thought. Walking through the tunnels there were groups of
gorillas, excitedly laughing, wearing makeup and rock clothes.
Other groups of mixed Primates laughed and told stories, drinking.
While others ran by. There was something in the air, it felt like
before a rock show. The hallways were like a parking lot party. One
group of Primates he passed reminded him of a group from Heavy
Metal Parking Lot, Tony loved that movie.

He got back to the room and the pre party
was in full swing. Everyone was

there. L with her new best friend Janis.
Perry, his clone and girlfriend. They had a big bucket of Monkey
Juice and they cheered as Tony entered and gave him a glass. The
party was on. They drank, laughed, told stories and were generally
excited.

Perry, Tony and L were in their element.
There’s something about going to a

heavy metal show that brings people
together, not only physically, but mentally also. Everyone gathers
at a certain place, all with the same intentions, to have fun
because they all enjoy the same music. Everyone knowing they will
soon be crammed into a small hot area, smashed together and their
favorite band will play their favorite music. They weren’t into
violent shows where you try to hurt other people. The shows they
went to were rowdy, but the type where if someone in the crowd
falls down, everyone around them stops to help pick that person up.
They had a feeling the Monkey rock shows were like that too.

They partied for about an hour. Every few
minutes someone would rush in

looking for Janis. She had the latest batch
of worms, so they were in the hottest room in the camp. Tony had
time to tell Perry about Candy. Perry got extremely excited. When
Tony told Perry her name he looked up dreamily into the sky and
whispered with a big smile,”Candy!”

Bob showed up and partied for a while, with
some gamer Chimps tagging along. He pulled a massive joint from his
rasta cap, lit it and passed it around. Just when everyone had
about too much Monkey Juice, someone rushed by the door and slapped
it,”Show time!” They all started getting ready. Perry wasn’t sure,
he decided to take clone Perry and leave his girlfriend in the room
to “Watch their stuff”.

There was a small line at the door. It
wasn’t really a line, since there wasn’t