A Hacker's Heart - Short Story (random word challenge)

in #story8 years ago

Three months have passed since the break-up. He knew had to leave the house, put on pants. It was healthy.

Max typed in the address for his friend's house. Erica. They had been friends for years. It took her weeks of texts and emails to get him to answer. Now he finally he agreed to visit her new place. 

"In three hunred metrs turn left," instructed his g.p.s. unit.

Max blindly followed the instructions. A part of him was excited. A part of him wanted to crawl back in bed. But he kept his foot on the gas.

He had a way to go. Max kept focused on the road but his mind started to wander. It did that from time to time. He thought back to his ex. There was a moment with her he couldn't shake. It was at an arcade. There first date. They found an old arcade game. She said she could kick his ass. She was right. She one moment she was beating him with one hand and playfully tickling him with the other. That was when they had their first kiss.

"In four-hundred minutes turn left."

Max shook his head to get the memory out. He turned the car. He was heading into the city. This seemed like it was the wrong direction, he remembered Erica said she moved outside of the city. But she said, twice, to follow the directions. He trusted her.

Max stopped in front of an abandoned arcade. There was a light on in the back of it. Max took out his phone. 

'You live above an arcade,' he texted.

'Just come inside', she replied.

'Is that a threat :p' 

'If you know what's good for you.'

Max pushed the door open. There was a cabinet in the back that was light up. Erica stood beside it.

"How do you?"

"Get in, I payed the guy for the night. But we only need this machine."

Erica pointed at an old Donkey Kong cabinet. There was a cord and an electronic device sticking out the back.

"What did you do?"

"Press start and you'll find out."

Max pressed the start button. The familar sounds came on. But the characters were different. It was Donkey Kong on the top of the screen, but Pauline was replaced with a tiny Erica and Mario looked like Max.

"You dork," Max said with a smile.

"Yep, now go rescue me," she joked

"Realisitically you would be the one rescueing me."  

"I know but I wanted you to feel like the man for once."

Max pressed the joystick forward. He made it up two ladders but then ran into a barrel.

"Really, my life is on the line and you only make it up two ladders."

"It's been awhile."

Max focused. He jumped a barrel. Then another one. A third came flying towards him. SMASH. A last second hammer grab shattered it to pieces. He made his way to to the top, went under a barrel and saved the pixelated Erica. The screen went black, then it was a close-up of the two kissing. It froze there.

'That is as far as I could program."

"Good, cause that is as fas as I could get," he said as he turned to look at Erica. They looked eyes.

"There is something I wanted to tell you..."

Erica didn't have to finish her sentence. He went in for the kiss.

                                                                                   -

The random word challenge is to write a story using words from the comments or a random word generator. These THREE words came up when I clicked on generate:

unit 

threat 

wrong


Thanks for reading :)

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