💾 Archived View for clemat.is › saccophore › library › shorts › defcon › 25 › DEFCON-25-Lucaster-Pla… captured on 2022-06-04 at 01:03:31.

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⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)

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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.