Chapter 70: A Bug in in the System

You run through maze after colorful maze, dodging weird items and a spasmodic robotic dog catcher. You’re very hungry, so you are glad when you can catch the flying dog dish and eat some delicious (?) Chuck Wagon dog food. It really does make its own gravy… neat. Gross, but neat. After a few bowls, though, you start to feel… strange, and you notice that the weird flying dog bowl is starting to grow.

“Doctor, the Player is shrinking!” shouts an alarmed Melvin.

“WHAT?” says the Doctor, flipping through his notebook. “No no no! This formula was supposed to turn Chuckie back into a human!” He throws his notebook against the wall in disgust, and it explodes into a shower of pages. He rubs his huge red forehead, and sighs. “Well, to be fair, the formula wasn’t really ready.” He brightens again, and pulls out a magnifying glass. “Poor Chuckie has gotten quite small indeed… let’s go have a look.”

You have gotten so small now that the side of the dog dish looms up above you like a giant wall. Melvin, who is normally just a couple inches on a side is now bigger than you are! “Player,” Melvin says, hovering above you, “Are you okay?”

The Doctor leans over with his enormous magnifying glass, and looking up at his giant magnified red face is truly terrifying. “Ah!” says the Doctor. “The Player is no longer a dog! They have turned into… uh… hmm…” You look down at yourself. What have you turned into? You are like… some kind of yellow dragonfly? With... wheels? You try to spin them, and, to your surprise, they let you zip around like a little car. The doctor raises a giant eyebrow in surprise. “Well! Would you look at that!” He taps his chin. “Now… how could that have happened? I gave precisely the right toxins that should turn a dog into a human… and…” he slaps his forehead. “Oh, of course! It was that dog dish!”

Melvin looks confused. “How could the dish make a difference?”

The doctor laughs. “Do you think it is easy to make a flying dog dish? I had a cross dog dish DNA with dragonfly DNA in order to get that to work.”

“But… dog dishes don’t have DNA,” protests Melvin.

“They do now!” shouts the Doctor triumphantly. He grabs a new notebook and starts scribbling frantically. “This is an amazing discovery… I must run some tests!”

Melvin beats his non-existent hands on his non-existent forehead. “No! No more tests! You have to change the Player back!”

The Doctor waves him off. “How can I do that, if I don’t even know what I’m dealing with? Let’s just run the Player through some simple tests, and I’m sure it will become clear what to do.” He bends down to scoop you up. “Come here, little buggy,” he sings as his giant red hands close around you, and lift you up. “If I’m going to do tests, I must have a control,” he mutters. He calls down to you. “I’m going to have to put you in the cloning machine… it will just take a second.”

He puts you into a large (to you) glass chamber. Through the wavy glass, you seem him put on protective goggles. He pushes a button and there is a blinding flash, and you feel singed all over. You blink your little bug eyes, and see… a mirror? No… not a mirror, but another dragonfly with wheels, and this one is purple! The chamber opens, and the doctor’s two red hands pick each of you up.

“See? That was easy,” says the doctor. Then he frowns. “I’m not sure why the clone is purple… normally they are identical. Oh well,” he says brightly, “at least they’ll be easy to tell apart.” He plunks you down in yet another maze, this one on a tabletop, and bug-sized.

“How many mazes do you have?” asks Melvin, incredulously.

“As many as it takes!” shouts the Doctor, raising a finger triumphantly.

“Any how many does it take?” asks Melvin.

“Three!” shouts the doctor, continuing to hold his triumphant pose.

The voice on the loudspeaker returns. “Doctor, please come upstairs immediately! Your dental patient is very upset!”

“I’VE TOLD YOU TO NEVER INTERRUPT ME WHEN I’M POSING!” he shouts, still holding his pose, grinning weirdly. An uncomfortable silence follows.

“Uh… okay, so, now what?” asks Melvin.

The Doctor rolls his eyes. “Well, obviously, now we’ll race them, while I pelt them with tiny bricks.”

“Why would you do that?” asks Melvin.

“FOR SCIENCE!” shouts the Doctor, pelting you with a tiny brick. You figure you better start rolling… if you don’t win the race, you aren’t sure what the Doctor will do.

Place your Supercharger into your Atari 2600, and press play on Load 1 of the Party Mix cassette. Use your paddles, and find a friend to race against you as the other bug. Play until you win the race. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.