💾 Archived View for clemat.is › saccophore › library › shorts › defcon › 25 › DEFCON-25-Lucaster-Pla… captured on 2021-12-03 at 14:04:38.
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I needed that badge. I had tried so many times, but this time, this
time, I was going to win. I was going to beat the puzzle, and get
the black badge. Every year, I had gotten so close, but I hadn�t
won. I had figured out the lanyards last year, I had seen the codes
in the buttons. This year though, I had all the pieces. It wouldn�t
escape me now.
All the clues led to here, a closet in the back of the Caesar's
Palace Hotel. A place hardly anyone went into, especially not with
the con going on just around the corner. It was the perfect place to
hide a part of the puzzle. I pushed aside chairs and cleaning
supplies, searching.
�Come on Lost,� I muttered to myself, �Where did you hide it��
A bit more searching, and I found it. It had to be it, especially
with this year�s badge. I looked down at the blue circle, hanging
from the black lanyard, and laughed. A black disc, glowing blue
inlaid on the edges, of course it all led to this.
An old Tron machine in the back of a closet. It almost made me want
to hold up the badge above my head, but I controlled my instincts.
I looked around the back, and hit the power switch. With a click,
and a buzz, the screen came on. The two motorcycles, yellow and
blue, racing about the screen as the words �INSERT COIN� flashed in
white.
I smiled, and stepped up to the right side of the machine, and
grabbed onto the handle. I tried to contain my excitement, and
pulled out a quarter, sliding it into the slot.
�PLAYER ONE READY. PLAYER TWO, INSERT COIN�
Huh. I looked over at the other side, and with no other option, slid
a quarter into the other side�s slot.
The screen cleared, and the two light bikes were placed on opposite
sides of the screen. They began moving forward, and I heard a click
as the other bike began to turn.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the stick beside me move,
controlling the light bike. Of course I wasn�t playing alone.
There�d be no challenge in that.
I grinned, and turned back to the challenge. It was time to fight.
The bot was fast, and better programmed than the usual bots in the
game, which made a lot of sense. Still, I was doing well. In the
many minutes that had passed, it had lost two lives to my one. As
long as I didn�t make any horrid mistakes, I should be able to-
I then grimaced as I ran into a light barrier, and lost my second
life. We were both down to our last. I kept dodging out of the way,
my mind racing for a solution.
It was a machine, it was a program, there was only so much it could
do. There had to be some flaw in it, something I could exploit, that
I could use to my advantage. I looked out of the corner of my eye,
and watched the other stick as it moved.
It had to have been preprogrammed with responses to everything that
happened in game, and the joystick itself moved just to add to the
fun of it. I considered grabbing the other joystick, to see if it
had an effect, but I decided against it. That wasn�t an exploit,
that was just cheating.
No, maybe the secret here wasn�t to exploit the system. It wasn�t
something to own, just to beat. I didn�t need to break it, just
outmaneuver it. I just had to keep playing the game.
I smiled, and focused. I pushed myself to move faster, react faster.
Even though it was probably only in my own imagination, I felt
almost as if the bot had felt my anxiety, my will to win, and had
started trying harder as well. We both wanted this.
We kept trying every strategy we knew, until eventually we were
locked in an ever closing box. We kept trying to turn at the last
minute, to box in the person next to us, to get them to make a
mistake.
Then, I saw it. A mistake it had made, a mistake that I could use to
my advantage. I jumped for the gap between our barriers, and charged
out of the maze we had created, as it kept making its own prison
smaller and smaller.
I was running out of space, and so was it. I just had to hold out
until it ran out of room. Eventually, all I could see was the
remaining free room I had, and all faded away except me, and my
light bike.
Pixel by pixel, second by second. I could see the end approaching. I
wasn�t going to make it. It was going to beat me. I was going to
lose, again. Five pixels away from a light barrier, the game froze.
�PLAYER ONE WINS�
I slowly leaned back, and looked at the other light bike, trapped
within the box. True, it had taken the best path to give it the most
time, but it wasn�t enough. It had run out of space, and the game
had ended.
I let go of the stick, and laughed. I had won, I had actually won. I
probably would have kept laughing if a small sound from the machine
hadn�t brought me from my revelry.
Something had fallen into the coin return slot.
I reached in, and pulled out a small black coin, about the size of a
quarter. On one side was the signature Jack the pirate printed in
white, the other side had lo57 in similar style..
I closed a hand around the coin, and looked back at the machine.
�Thanks, Lost.� I said, as I leaned over, and hit the switch, �I�ll
play you again someday.�
I pushed the arcade machine back, and walked out of the closet.