Chapter 22: Time to Phone a Friend

“YES YES YES!” shouts Charlie. The throng of well-dressed onlookers claps politely. The croupier pushes over a neat stack of bills, which Charlie quickly scoops up and pockets. “Nice going, kid! This will get us into the stud po…” he catches himself. “I mean, the super challenge league.”

You yawn. “Please not another baseball game tonight… I’ve played a double header today already, not to mention three trips to the Casino.”

“Yeah,” says Melvin earnestly. “An exhausted Player can’t win, and we need the Player to win, for the Queen’s sake.”

Charlie seems to collect himself. “Right, right, for the Queen’s sake. Tell you what,” he says. “I have business to attend to, anyway. Why don’t you go up and get some rest, and we’ll meet at Super Challenge Stadium first thing tomorrow?”

“How many stadiums does this town have?” you wonder aloud.

Melvin laughs, “If there is one thing that this town loves, it’s baseball! There’s stadiums all over!”

“Ha, yes, right,” says Charlie, now seemingly in a hurry. He snaps his fingers, and the tuxedoed robot seems to appear from nowhere. “Please show these two to a room,” says Charlie. “And make it nice! They need their rest.”

“Very good sir,” says the robot deferentially. “If you’ll follow me…” Charlie waves a gleeful goodbye as you follow the robot to the elevators.

The hotel room is hard to believe. It has an enormous four-poster bed made of onyx, chairs and tables made of silver and gold, and a bar made of some weird metal that glows in every color of the rainbow. You stare at its hypnotic glow with tired eyes. “Melvin, what is this stuff? I’ve seen it a few places now.”

“That’s spectronium,” says Melvin. “It’s the most precious material in the entire Atariverse. It’s not only beautiful, but indestructible. It’s what the Rainbow Castle is made of.”

“But… that got destroyed.”

Melvin is irritated now. “I know, you don’t think I know that? It’s just one more thing around here that doesn’t make any sense.” He calms himself. “But… it’s okay. We’re going to fix it… somehow. If you can win the baseball challenge, and we can get the ring, well, maybe Queen Stella can fix things.”

You crawl under the covers of the giant bed. Thinking about your situation just makes you more tired. “Melvin, that’s just the second of twenty-six treasures, and I’m getting the feeling that they aren’t going to get any easier to find. Is this really going to be worth it?”

Melvin is uncharacteristically quiet now. He turns down the lights, and glides over to a velvet pillow that seems to have been provided just for him. “I love my Queen, because she represents all that is good and right in the Atariverse. And right now, I’m watching that fall apart before my eyes. Be patient Player, get some rest. Don’t worry about the quest, all you have to worry about right now is winning another baseball game.” He puts the light all the way out.

You drift off to sleep, thinking about pixelated baseballs, but in the back of your mind, you hear the laughter of Charlie Hustle.

The next morning, you find yourself back on the ball field, in your bright red uniform. This stadium is a lot like the Realsports™ one, but everything is cleaner and brighter. Your bright red robots are bigger and chunkier, like upside-down exclamation points, and they have a peculiar gait when they run.

“Okay,” says Melvin, “this is a lot like the Realsports™ league, but you’ll have better control over your pitches.” You cup Melvin in your hand, and throw out a trial pitch. An eerie sound seems to come from everywhere. “Boowoowoowoowoowoowoowoowoop!” and when the catcher catches Melvin there is a weird “Deedle-dee!” kind of sound. The catcher robot wings Melvin back to you.

“What the heck was that?” you ask.

“Ha, yeah,” says Melvin. “The Super Challenge league is big into sound effects. It’s the organist, I think. Anyway, don’t let it throw you… when you throw me!”

You take a look around the stadium again. “Hey… where’s the shortstop?”

Melvin laughs, “Yeah, no shortstop in this league. Maybe that’s the ‘super challenge.’”

You wind up for the first pitch. “Just when I think this place can’t get any weirder, it finds a way.”

“That it doooooeeeeeeesss…..” says Melvin, as he zips toward the plate, drowned out by the sound of… whatever that weird noise is.

Put the Super Challenge Baseball cartridge into your Atari 2600. For this game, you will need to find a friend to play against. You’ll play the red team, your opponent will play blue. Play until you win. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.