7/19/99
SRU: Spare Change
Copyright 1999 by Radioactive Loner

[Permission granted to reproduce this on any archive, as long as I'm
informed of its archival.]

Alan's eyes gazed in stark rapture and concentration as he throttled the
joystick back and forth, hitting red and green buttons with a fervid
intensity.  His friend Ralph watched, egging him on with appropriate
enthusiasm or commiseration as befitted each particular situation.  In
the background, one could hear the strains of Michael Jackson's "Beat
It" from the arcade's speakers as Alan grew closer and closer to getting
onto this machine's Top 10 list for his favorite video game, "Metroid."
Daily, Alan blessed Atari for creating it.  Daily, he manuevered the
(admittedly low-resolution) armored form of Samus Aran as he kicked his
enemy all over the Universe.

The excitement mounted as Alan's eyes briefly glanced up to the digits
of his score.  They were higher than he had ever earned before!  All he
needed was to score a few hundred more points, and he'd break no. 10 on
the chart!

Left ... right ... a moment of inheld breath, that golden moment of
suspension ... and abrupt failure.

"Game Over," the screen flashed.

"Come on," Ralph said, "let's walk around the mall a bit, huh?  Maybe
you just need to get away from the game and come back to it.  You were
really close that time, man."

"Yeah, whatever," Alan said, disconsolate.

* * * * *

The two young teenagers began walking amidst the mall.  They checked out
the comic store, the record store, and were heading back to the arcade
when Alan caught something out of his eye.  When he looked at it a
little closer, he saw the words "Spells 'R Us" in gaudy neon across the
storefront.

"Coooooool," Alan said.  "Hey, Ralph, man, let's check that out."

"Nah, man, it's probably just cheesy card tricks," Ralph said.  "Not my
thing."

"Fine, but *I* want to check it out," Alan said.  Something about the
shop looked kinda cool, although he couldn't figure out what he was
picking up on.  "Let's meet back here in ten or fifteen minutes, 'kay?"
Ralph was amendable, as he was in the mood to grab a ice cream cone
himself, and the boys planned to meet up fifteen minutes later.

* * * * *

As Alan entered the shop, two girls dressed like Madonna were leaving,
singing "Material Girl."

"'Ray of Light' ends up being so much better," the Old Man grumbled to
himself.

"Haven't heard that one," Alan said.  "You got a cool shop, Mister," he
said, looking around.

"Feel free to look around," said the wizard, for once abstaining from
calling Alan by his name.  (The eighties, in general, had made him
grumpy. Having to do his storefront in neon to fit in with the mall's
general tackiness in particular had made him *quite* grumpy.)

"Got anything to improve my game?" said Alan, looking around.  Something
unpleasant moved in a jar covered in filth and grime, and Alan stepped
away rather quickly.

The Old Man pulled out a square plastic case out from under his counter.
"This, my boy, is a magic CD-ROM.  Insert it into your computer ... it
will let you actually become the superhero of your video game.  High
scores aplenty.  You might even become no. 1."

"Wow!  But, Mister, what's a CD-ROM?"

The wizard cursed about antiquated technology under his breath.  He
opened the plastic case and took out the compact disc, then waved a hand
over it. Slowly it shrunk in size, further and further, until it
resembled an everyday quarter.

"Sorry, Alan.  Forgot you normally play the arcade machines.  This magic
quarter'll do the trick.  Now, shoo."

And with a few brushes of a wizardly robe, Alan shortly found himself
being pushed out the door.  Ralph was waiting, a pistachio ice cream
cone slowly dripping green fluid over his hand.

* * * * *

"Cool, man.  Did he make you pay for it?"

"Naw, he just gave me the quarter.  But how he made it look like it
shrunk from this big shiny mirror circle into this quarter, man, that
was pretty cool."

They reached the arcade, and, fortunately, no one had yet usurped the
machine.  Alan held up the quarter.

"Here goes nothing, man," he said, inserting the quarter into the
machine.

And with that, to Ralph's great amazement, Alan disappeared.

* * * * *

It was now the turn of the millenium, nearly sixteen or so years later.

"Hey, Dad, play a game of Super Smash Brothers with me?" Danny asked his
father.  Ralph smiled and sat down to join his son.

"I'll be Mario.  You pick a character, Dad," Danny said.  Ralph looked
over the various characters.  A sad smile came to his face when he
noticed the game had a choice of Metroid's Samus Aran as a fighting
character.  Out of nostalgia's sake for his dear departed friend, he
brought up the character's biography.  Then took a deep breath of
surprise.

"Samus Aran was a woman?" he said.

* * * * *

Alan took a deep breath.  A tactical display was displayed on his
helmet's visor, with far more technical detail than he ever had seen in
the game. He began to walk towards a city in the distance ... and
noticed that his body felt very, very different than it ever had before.

Well, he thought, that's natural.  Samus is probably a lot older and
more muscled than I am.

The computer in his helmet spoke aloud.  "No enemy in close range.
Battle armor disactivated."  All around Alan, he felt the armor around
his arms dissipate in a transporter effect.

And when Alan got a good look at his body, he started to scream.

The End