Chapter 80: A Vicious Cycle

You’ve run through door after door, but each one has gray behind it, because each one leads back to the arena. You hurl Melvin and de-rez yet another warrior, and “WOW!” shouts the announcer, “THE CHALLENGER HAS AN UNBELIEVABLE 10,000 POINTS!” You duck another disk, and hurl Melvin at the door… is it more gray behind it? No! You see a glimpse of pink, and run for it! You leap through, and find yourself… somewhere else. The noise of the crowd and the announcer are gone. You are in a large arena with a glowing pink floor, and eerie green walls.

“What is this place?” asks Melvin, who you are carrying, as he is still in disc form.

“I… don’t know,” you say. You look behind you, but the doorway that let you in seems to have sealed up. And… there don’t seem to be any obvious exits.

“Look! Over there!” calls Melvin, who pops out of your hands, and starts flying towards something yellow in the distance. A cube? No… wait...

“The Proteus!” you shout, chasing after him. You arrive at the yellow Proteus, and it seems to be fully intact. Melvin is whooping and hollering, and flying around and around it. “Come on, get in,” you say. You both climb in, jump into the comfortable leather seats, and power it up. “Now,” you say to Melvin, “which way out of here?”

A sinister voice crackles over the radio. “You’ll have to get by me first.” You and Melvin look at each other in alarm, and see in the distance something that looks like a glowing blue motorcycle. “Two programs enter, one program leaves. Those are the rules of the game grid,” continues the sinister voice, as you see and hear the motorcycle revving up.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the announcer’s voice is back. “CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS FOLKS? OUR CHALLENGER WHO PERFORMED WHAT IS SURELY AN ILLEGAL EXIT HAS REAPPEARED HERE, READY TO GO UP AGAINST THE GREATEST LIGHT CYCLE CHAMPION OF ALL TIME: TRON!”

The screen of the Proteus starts flashing ENTERING LIGHT CYCLE MODE, and you find it shrinking around you. Soon, you too are mounted on a sort of motorcycle, and Melvin, still a disc, climbs on your back. “I thought Tron was a good guy!” says Melvin.

“He was…” you reply. “This… must be between the two movies?” you guess.

“They made a second Tron movie?” exclaims Melvin.

“Yeah, it’s a long story,” you explain.

“No time for that now!” shouts Melvin as your light cycle takes off, leaving a tall green wall behind it, which makes you think of your green lizard skin, and Tron’s cycle does the same.

“Prepare to be de-rezzed,” intones Tron’s steely voice over the radio.

“THERE THEY GO, FOLKS! FIRST ONE TO TEN POINTS WINS!” calls the announcer, and the crowd, watching you from somewhere, goes wild.

You always fantasized about being Tron… but battling against Tron? This just seems dangerous! But still – you are riding a light cycle! If only it didn’t keep speeding up!

“Slow down!” shouts Melvin. MEGATHRUST MODE is flashing on the screen.

“I can’t!” you shout back, but you aren’t sure he can hear you over the loud boobooboobooboo of your light cycle.

“WHAT?” he shouts. “It’s too loud! I’ve heard of surround sound, but this is ridiculous!”

Place the Surround cartridge into your Atari 2600. Use game select 4, and set difficulty switches to a. Play until you win with a score of ten points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.