Virtually There

*The year is 1985, the place New England. More specifically, Rhode Island. The home of Mercy Brown, America's first vampire, the site of many dark and lurid tales from the mind of H.P. Lovecraft, and the home of the infamously haunted Perron family. And now the site of one of the largest government research facilities in the world: The Loop.*

The day is Friday, October 11th, 1985. It's Columbus Day weekend. The town of Glenbrook is slowly returning to normal after the effects of hurricane Gloria. Component Video is under construction from the fire two weeks ago. All seems to be as it should. Everything, except for Danne.

Due to the reckless endangerment of himself, being out in a **literal goddamn hurricane**, and being in a building that caught fire, Danne is grounded. He's also no longer allowed to hang out with Jojo and Fish. What's at stake? He risks losing his karate privileges!

While the kids lament this absolute travesty, more news has the town of Glenbrook abuzz. Hot off the production line in Japan, the Nintendo Entertainment System is finally making it's way to the shores of North America! Not only is there the promise of holiday shopping availability, but the local Radio Shack owner, Mr. O'Rourke has managed to get his hands on an early release consol. He plans on having a *Duck Hunt* tournament tomorrow, where the winner gets to take home their very own NES!

The only catch is that you have to sign up at the store tonight. Fish and Jojo make their way this Friday evening to the Sorenssen house to liberate their friend from his unlawful Swedish imprisonment.

They arrive outside the Sorenssen residence and quickly identify Danne's room by the Karate Kid poster on the wall. They sneak up to the side of the house, Fish performs an awkward combat roll. For some reason there is an inordinate amount of bushes around his house. Fish tosses some pebbles at his window. Danne is shocked to see them and is scared about getting in trouble. Jojo taunts him by telling him that his arch nemesis Billy Duncan would be able to climb out his window. This pisses off Danne so he ties his karate belts together to climb out the window. He makes it out easy peasy lemon squeezy. Him and Fish share a high five in excitement but Danne is very paranoid about getting in trouble. After getting his bike out of the garage, they cycle like mad to Radio Shack.

They arrive to see a large crowd of kids already waiting in line. Near the front of the line they see Rossy and ~~bully~~ push past all the kids in line to join him. The others aren't happy about it, but Jojo, Fish, and Danne claim their friend Rossy was holding their spot in line. The other kids are very disgruntled.

Then Mr. O'Rourke wheels out the NES on a trolley and everyone is super excited. He's letting everyone take a turn to play any game of their choice tonight. However, there is a fee of $5 to enter the tournament tomorrow and the kids whisper about how they'll come up with that kind of money. They plead with Rossy to lend them some of his mafia money. He's dubious about their ability to pay him back but they swear they're good for it. They offer him an exclusive interview for the school newspaper, too. He reluctantly agrees.

There is a lot of excited unruliness among the kids in line and Jojo threatens violence upon their person. In order to keep them in line, they start spreading the **absolute truth** about how Rossy is in the mafia and how you better not cross him in fear of mob retaliation. This seems to work and the other kids back off. Rossy is wary about the rumors they're starting but they reassure him a little fear is a good thing. He claims he doesn't care about the NES, he's just here to interview Mr. O'Rourke for the school paper.

The kids are unhappy about having to wait forty-five minutes for their turn so they ~~threaten~~ warn the two kids in front of them with mafia violence and are able to move up in line. The first kid in line takes his turn and does a mediocre job at *Wild Gunman* and Jojo and Fish ~~bully~~ heckle him.

It's now Rossy's turn, and he also plays *Wild Gunman*. He holds the laser gun like he's held a gun before, and he absolutely dominates the game and gets a high score. This only solidifies his mafia rep. Danne, Fish, and Jojo all choose to play *Duck Hunt* to practice for the tournament. They all do pretty well. They write their names on the sign-up sheet and they all put Fish's phone number as their own.

When all the kids had their turn, Rossy gets his interview with Mr. O'Rourke. Inside the back room he catches a glimpse of various tech parts, more so than you'd expect from a Radio Shack, including a Van de Graff generator. This gets Rossy's attention as he saw something similar during Saturday detention. When the interview is over they plead with O'Rourke to play the Nintendo more and he lets them. They play until 11pm. O'Rourke kicks them out and they prepare to head home.

As they're about to head out, a panel van drives out from the far end of the strip mall. On the side of the van it says *New England Positronics.* Rossy sees this and takes off after it. Fish quickly follows him, and Danne and Jojo follow. This is one of the vans they saw at detention several weeks ago. It's heading in the direction of The Loop. The van quickly gets too far ahead and they give up on the chase. Jojo has the idea to go back to Radio Shack and search the place.

On their way back to Radio Shack a car heads towards them on the road, they move out of the way and the car slows down as it approaches. It is a black Chrysler Lebaron, with tinted windows and silver rims. The kids share a stare down moment with the car as they pass. They get back to the Radio Shack and head to the back door. Unable to pick the locked door, Jojo boosts Fish up onto the roof access ladder. She makes her way up. She pushes the lid of the air vent off and sticks her head in. On a vent that goes into the back room she sees a square device the size of a golf ball. It has two legs, an antenna, and a little blinking light. It's pointing to look down into the room. Unable to get further, she returns to the ground.

It's really late now, so they head home. Fish and Jojo help Danne return to his room. Meanwhile Rossy realizes there is a car following him home. He tries to wait it out but eventually has to get home, it's very late and he's falling asleep. He walks his bike through the forest and makes it home. The vehicle passes his driveway, driving slow, headlights off.

The next morning we see a glimpse into the home life of Rossy, Jojo and Fish. Mr Mahan questions Rossy about getting home so late and Rossy states that his dad doesn't care so what does it matter. No one is home in the Johnson residence as per usual, just a note about fish sticks in the freezer. He leaves with an empty stomach. Fish gets into an argument with her dad about staying out so late and hanging out with a bunch of boys. The argument escalates when she has to ask him for $5 to enter the tournament. He gives her his last $4 in a huff and she storms out with a box of Eggos. She meets up with Jojo and he tries to cheer her up as they munch on the Eggos for breakfast. Meanwhile to get himself out of the house Danne has concocted an elaborate story about helping Rossy with a project for the school newspaper. He's waiting outside his house when Fish and Jojo show up.

They arrive at the Radio Shack and meet up with Rossy. He informs the others that he was followed home last night. There is concern about it being The Loop guy, Mr. Lebail. But they make their way inside, the tournament is well underway. Rossy fronts their entry fees with his allowance. Fish plays her turn at *Duck Hunt* and does ok. Danne ties his karate belt around his head as he prepares for an epic *Duck Hunt* battle. The theme song for Karate Kid plays in his head as he dominates the game, moving right to the top of the leader board!

It's now Jojo's turn. He plays very poorly and much to everyone's surprise, he throws the light gun at the TV in anger, nearly breaking it. Everyone is shocked and Mr. O'Rourke grabs him by the ear and drags him through the back room and out the back door into the alley. Rossy and Fish notice this opening left for them and quickly get to the door before it closes. A tirade of swears from both O'Rourke and Jojo can be heard. Danne is too busy celebrating his epic victory to notice. Rossy and Fish are now inside the back room.

Rossy locks the back door before they start looking around. There are various computers wired together, components every where, the Van de Graff generator, various circuits and microchips, soddering guns, etc. Fish looks for anything that might look familiar to what she's seen before, referencing her mom's journal. She doesn't see anything tech-related, but she finds two business cards stuck to a cork board with a pocket knife. The cards read *New England Positronics* and *Twin Rivers Semaphore*. Rossy finds a bunch of books on coding, Japanese manuals for the NES and other Japanese tech, some other manuals in a language he's never seen before, and a stack of composition notepads. Rossy is able to learn a few things from the pages:

* There are notes about working on some kind of computer program.
* The writing style gets increasingly aggressive towards the two companies *New England Positronics* and *Twin Rivers Semaphore*.
* He seems to have a dislike for The Loop in general and refers to it as the Department of Research and Teleportation.

Meanwhile O'Rourke has threatened Jojo with a ban from the store and a call to his parents. Jojo sprints to the front of the store to get back inside as O'Rourke fumbles with his keys to get the door open. Danne comes down from his celebratory hype and looks for his friends. Rossy quickly takes notes in his journal and puts the notebooks back as he found them. Fish doesn't like this and grabs the notebooks herself and runs for it, grabbing Danne on her way out the door. Jojo runs back inside and steals the sign up paper with the names on it. Rossy acts casual and returns to the line to play his turn at *Duck Hunt*. O'Rourke notices Fish run out the door with his notebooks and he's pissed.

Jumping on their bikes and skateboard, they run like bats out of hell. Danne is very confused as to what's going on. Fish pedals like mad. Jojo eventually let's go of her bike as she speeds through an intersection, nearly getting hit by a car. Fish glances back to see a blacked out Chrysler Lebaron and she loses control and crashes into a curb. The boys join her and demand to know what's going on. She shows them the journals and business cards, adamant they have something to do with what happened to them during Saturday detention. Danne is worried about being in trouble, and Jojo is concerned about her getting in trouble. He's proud of her for stealing, but she's not supposed to get caught! Fish's only concern is finding out what's going on, she thinks they're safe from O'Rourke's retribution.

Rossy joins them carrying the NES Action Pack under his arm. He rigged the leaderboard to make sure he won the prize, so he could ensure Danne would get his winnings fair and square. He confirms that all the kids, disgruntled at having the tournament interrupted, turned the three of them in to O'Rourke. This deflates Fish. She tosses the pocket knife she stole from O'Rourke to Rossy as payment for the $5 entry fee. They gather themselves and make their way home.

We see inside the Johnson residence, the phone rings off the hook, no one is home to answer it. And then we cut to see Fish's dad, passed out and snoring loudly on his reclined laze-y-boy, a can of beer in his hand. The answering machine blinks one message waiting. As Danne rides home, the NES prize under his arm, he sees the front door open and his parents standing on the front porch, watching him approach. He knows he's in big trouble.

The episode ends with a shot of a dot matrix printer, printing out security cam footage of Fish, Jojo, and Danne. Mr O'Rourke takes the pages and puts them on the front window of Radio Shack. Over the pictures of their faces it says:

***"BANNED FOR LIFE"***

## Corruption Bar

1. The Chrysler Lebaron passing them on the road