Chapter 56: Let the Midnight Special...

Soaking wet, freezing, covered in spider bites, bat bites, ghost bites (?), and acid burns, you dive through yet another swarm of bats and put the sixth iron rock on top of the stack outside the lab. It turns brown like the others, and electricity starts to pulse through your stack of iron-bearing rocks. “Nooooo!” You hear Doctor Frankenstein call from inside the lab. Suddenly, Igor drops from ceiling, playing a triumphant tune on a flute, and dancing a little jig around the electrically charged stack of rocks. A tiny eye-level panel snaps open in the locked lab door, and the glaring slits of Doctor Frankenstein’s eyes peer out at you and Igor. “Igor!” he shouts. “What are you doing out there with that painter?”

“We’re choosing colors, master.”

“Well, do it more quietly! Something has sapped the electricity from my experiment, and the storm is almost over!” He snaps the peephole shut.

“Nicely done,” whispers Igor.

“Where did you come from, just now?” asks Melvin, a little irritated, and noticing that Igor is not covered with venomous bites.

“Oh… I took a shortcut. I would have told you about it, but… it’s kind of hard to explain. Anyway, great job!” He starts playing his flute again. The muffled voice of Doctor Frankenstein comes from inside the lab. “Igor, enough with that flute!”

“Sorry, Master,” he calls back. He puts the flute back into his robe. “Now…” he says. “You were looking for the silver crosses, is that right?”

“Yes,” you say, excited and glad that Igor remembered the deal. Melvin nods vigorously.

“Yes…” says Igor, sniffing at the air. “It’s almost midnight, I can tell. Come with me, the crosses are in the game room.”

“The game room?”

Igor starts down the hallway. “Oh…” he says. “I almost forgot. We’ll need to charge up the game room.” On the wall near the stack of brown rocks is a large knife switch. He gestures at it. “Can you do the honors?” he asks.

“Uh, sure.” You throw the switch, and you see pulsing electricity leap from the stack of rocks, and flash down a cable that disappears down the hallway.

“Nooooo!” you hear from inside the lab. “Where is the power going?”

Igor smiles. “That’ll teach him to lock himself in the lab. Follow me.” You and Melvin follow him down a dark corridor illuminated only by the pulsing white and blue sparks coming off of the cable next to you. “Careful,” says Igor. “You… don’t want to touch that.” You keep a respectful distance from that side of the corridor.

“Hey Igor,” asks Melvin, as a bat flutters by you, lands on the cable, and is incinerated by the electricity, “When you gave us those rocks, they were red. But when we stacked them up here, they turned brown. What’s up with that?”

Igor shrugs. “The iron in them oxidized in the presence of the electricity. Soon, nothing will be left but a pile of rust. Ah, here we are, the game room.” The hallway ends at a wide wooden door that Igor opens with a prolonged creak. Behind it is a small stone room containing a pinball machine with flashing letters reading “MIDNITE MAGIC.” It is plugged into the electric cable Igor warned you not to touch.

“Finally!” shouts Melvin. “Some pinball!”

“There’s no time for pinball, Melvin,” you chide him, “we just need to get the crosses, and get out of here.”

“Oh, no, you don’t understand,” says Igor. “Master hid the crosses inside the pinball machine. The only way to get them out is to get a good score… at midnight.” He sniffs again. “It’s almost midnight now.”

You squint at Igor. “Why in the world would he do that?”

Igor rolls his eyes. “Well, Dracula knows that people want to use these crosses to stop him. They don’t stop him much, since he’s an immortal undead, but each one will give you maybe four seconds before he kills you. Anyway, Dracula and Frankenstein have had this ‘frenemies’ thing going since I don’t know when, and so the Doctor gathered up the crosses and hid them here, in case he ever needed to use them against Dracula.”

You put your face in your hand, and then take a deep breath. “Okay, sure, but what does a pinball machine have to do with it?”

Igor shrugs. “Duh. Dracula hates pinball. Everyone knows that. Maybe because the ball is like a mirror? Anyway, just drop a quarter in, and you’ll get one cross for every 10,000 points you score. There’s five in there, I think… if you wanna beat Dracula, you’d better get them all. I better get back to the Doc before he gets suspicious.”

You search your pockets frantically. “Wait! Igor! Don’t go! I don’t have any quarters!” You run out into the hallway after him, but he’s gone. You punch the start button on the pinball machine a few times, but it’s no good. Just then, you hear a distant clock start to strike twelve. “Melvin, what are we going to do?”

Melvin smiles, and looks at your chest. “I think the answer is right in front of you.” You look down, and see the Spectran Medal of Valor attached to the double rainbow ribbons. Melvin is right, it is just the size of a quarter. You pluck it off of your chest, leaving the ribbons dangling, and slot it into the machine. It plays an electronic bugle call, and a ball appears by the plunger.

“Well, Melvin, I guess we’re off to the races!” You pull back the plunger, and hope this machine won’t electrocute you.

Place the Midnight Magic cartridge into your Atari 2600. Use game select 1, and set difficulty switches to a. Play until you get 30,000 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.