Chapter 84: From Peoria to Plano

KABOOM! You blow up the thirtieth virus, and a third black rectangle appears on the screen of the Proteus, along with the words VIRUS DESTROYED.

“Did we do it?” Melvin asks.

The Doctor’s voice crackles over the radio. “You did it,” he says excitedly, at least as excitedly as the reformed Dr. Jekyll gets. “You saved my life, and now you’ve saved the world. You two really are heroes.”

You and Melvin exchange a high five (somehow), and you call into the microphone, “so, Doc, can you turn me back to normal now? Being the world’s tiniest lizard has been fun, sort of, but I’m really ready to be human again.” You look at your skin, and it continues to glow green, probably on account of all the radiation you’ve absorbed during this weird adventure.

“Yes,” says the Doctor. “I’m ready to return both you and the Proteus to normal size.” You feel swirling as the syringe sucks you up from the virus replicator, and things go from dark to light. “Get ready,” he says. “Here comes the enlarging ray.”

Pulsing purple light surrounds you, and you see things moving and changing outside your ship. Eventually, you see the doctor’s giant face looking down at your tiny ship, but he is shrinking and backing away – at least, it looks like that, because you and your ship are returning to normal size. Finally, the purple light stops, and the Proteus is sitting on the street next to one of the skyscrapers, and there is the Doctor, waving to you. At least, you assume it is him. He looks so different than he did before! He still wears a lab coat, but his huge red face is no more, replaced with a timid, narrow, pale face that is tinged slightly blue. And weirdly, he’s still shrinking. And… so is the Proteus?

“Player, what’s happening to you?” says Melvin, in alarm. To your amazement, you realize that you haven’t turned back into a normal human, but are now a human sized lizard… or, you were… somehow, you are still growing! You hit your head on the ceiling of the Proteus, and realize that you are getting bigger and bigger!

“Doc, turn off your ray!” shouts Melvin.

“It is off!” cries the Doctor in alarm.

“Then what’s happening?” shouts Melvin.

“I don’t know,” says the Doctor, through the radio, “but you better get out of there, before you tear the ship to pieces!”

But it’s too late! You are already too big for the hatch, and the walls of the ship press in on you, tighter and tighter, until suddenly the whole ship bursts open under the pressure from your growth! You stand amid the fragments of the Proteus and watch in astonishment as everything around you shrinks, and you grow taller and taller! Soon, you are nearly forty feet tall! You try to speak, but only Godzilla sounds come out.

“Doc, what happened?” says Melvin.

“I… don’t know,” says the Doctor, looking on incredulously. “I… think maybe it was because of all the radiation the Player absorbed… maybe mixing with the toxins? In any case, the growth was definitely accelerated.”

“Yeah, and they got real big!” adds Melvin.

You still aren’t back to normal, you realize, and at this rate, you never will be. You get so frustrated, you punch a building, and parts of it rain down on Melvin and the Doctor.

“Easy there!” calls Melvin. “We’ll… find some way to get you human again!” He turns to the Doctor. “We will, won’t we? Doc! Put down that newspaper!”

But the Doctor is paralyzed, staring at what he reads. “Oh no… Oh no!” he cries.

“What is it?” asks Melvin.

“I… wasn’t the only one!” he says, somehow turning paler than he already was.

“The only what?” asks Melvin.

“I wasn’t the only dentist to be infected! It says here that dentists all across North America have created virus factories, just like I did!”

“WHAT?” shouts Melvin. “How did that happen?”

“Every dentist at that conference must have caught the same virus!”

“So what do we do?”

“I don’t know!” the Doctor says in alarm. “There’s no time! And I can’t shrink you again! If only we could… blow them up, somehow!”

“How are we gonna do that?” yells Melvin. “We’ve got no ship! The Proteus is destroyed, and the Player has turned into, I don’t know, some kind of weird monster!”

After all this, the world is still going to be destroyed by viruses? You become so furious you start pounding the building next to you, and it begins to collapse. You look down at the Doctor and Melvin, and realize they are about to be crushed! Quickly, you scoop them up in your giant lizard hand, just before a thousand tons of masonry squashes them both flat.

“Of course!” says the Doctor, looking up at you. “Lizzie, you’re a genius!”

You still don’t like being called Lizzie, but you wonder what he’s talking about.

“I’ve got a list here of all the cities with virus factories. I can fly you there with my mega-blimp, and you can smash them to bits! The blimp is fast – this could work! Lizzie! Can you take me to the top of skyscraper 4?”

It’s a tall building, but climbing it is much easier this time now that you are a giant monster. Careful not to crush the Doc or Melvin in your hand, you climb quickly up the side of it, place them on the roof, where a large white blimp is waiting.

“Perfect!” says the Doctor. He runs to the blimp, and has it airborne in seconds. As it rises, you hear the Doctor over the blimp’s amplification system. “Melvin, get in the blimp with me. Lizzie, grab hold of the blimp.” You reach up and grab two railings that serve as convenient handles. The blimp lifts up, and starts flying out of the city. It’s almost relaxing to be flying so high above the city. You hear Melvin ask, “Doc, where are we going?”

“Peoria!” he says excitedly. “At least… for starters! Lizzie, I hope you like smashing buildings, because we’ve got our work cut out for us!”

Place the Rampage cartridge into your Atari 2600. Play as “Lizzie” until you have destroyed every building from Peoria to Plano. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 83: Supervirus X-7

KA-BOOM! With a massive blast, the third power reactor explodes, and everything arounds you starts de-rezzing – first the shields, then the entire massive structure of the MCP. “NOOOO!” calls a massive voice. “YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME!”

“I’m afraid we did,” says Tron into the radio. “I’m sorry, MCP, but it looks like this is…”

You interrupt suddenly. “Oh, come on, Tron, can I say it?”

He smiles. “Sure, you earned it.”

You take a deep breath, push the microphone button, but Melvin beats you to it, blurting out, “END OF LINE!”

“Melvin!” you shout, and all of you are laughing. With zips, zaps, and poofs, the massive MCP is de-rezzing, and in moments, there is no trace of it.

The screen starts flashing: GAME AWARDS EARNED, and a tiny laser scans out a semicircular patch that reads “BEAMRIDERS”, and a medal with an “X” insignia on it.

“I guess you earned those, Player,” says Tron. The screen flashes again: EXITING MERGE MODE.

“I guess this is where we decouple,” he says, and points to a beam of light stretching up into the sky. “I think that I/O tower is where you need to go.”

“Where will you go, Tron?” you ask.

“I must fight for the Users. Farewell, Player!” he says, as his light cycle reforms around him, and he goes shooting off across the grid.

You steer the saucer toward the I/O tower, and as you watch Tron disappear into the distance, you say, “I should have warned him about CLU.”

“What?” asks Melvin.

But you don’t have time to answer, because the Proteus has entered the beam of the I/O tower, and it and you are filled with a glorious light, as you are carried up, and up, and up, and everything fades into a perfect whiteness.

“Player, are you there?” you hear the Doctor calling, and the ship is suddenly shaking violently in swirling blackness. “You did it! The security is down! I’m in the fourth building!”

You hear alarms and… lasers? In the darkness, you fumble for the microphone. “Doc, we’re here! Are you okay?” Everything keeps shaking.

You hear him panting. “I was able to get in, but the building knows that something is up. It keeps firing” (you hear the zap of a laser) “lasers at me. But I’m almost to the X-7 replicator!”

You hear a few more lasers, and feel everything shaking… you get the sense that the doctor has had to do some gymnastics… or… maybe the lasers got him? “Doc, are you okay?”

“Yes!” He says, and you feel the familiar swirling of injection. “Good luck, Player! If you can’t stop the X-7 virus, we’re doomed. But I know you can do it!”

Melvin sighs as the strange glowing virus appears in front of you. “Sometimes, I wish people didn’t have so much faith in us.”

The screen flashes: ENTERING ANTIVIRUS MODE, and to your surprise, the ship takes the form of a huge spiky ball, glowing with all the colors of the rainbow. The flight stick lets you go everywhere, and the laser system is clearly more advanced than anything you have yet encountered. You give a low whistle. “Melvin… are you looking at this?”

His eyes, not that he has eyes, go wide. The loading chamber is made of some kind of iridescent crystal. He climbs in, and you fire. What seems like a million laser bolts all fly out at once. You let go of the trigger, and Melvin is instantly back in the chamber, glowing like he’s made of spectronium. “SWEET MOTHER OF BUSHNELL!” he shouts. “THIS VIRUS DOESN’T STAND A CHANCE!”

“Don’t be so sure,” says the Doctor. “Antivirus mode is powerful, but the X-7 has already been replicating. You’re going to have to destroy many virus cells before we’re safe. Keep shooting the cell until its energy is depleted, and the Proteus will take you to the next cell. But be careful! The more cells you destroy, the stronger the viral defenses will become.”

“How many of these do we have to destroy, Doc?” you ask.

“According to this readout,” you hear him dodging a laser, “thirty.”

“LET ME AT ‘EM!” shouts Melvin.

“With all this firepower,” you think, “how hard can this be?”

Place the Spacemaster X-7 cartridge into your Atari 2600. Play until you defeat thirty viruses, indicated by three black rectangles on the bottom of the screen. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 82: This Place is a Death Trap!

With a lot of fancy piloting and shooting, you finally make it to sector 14, and the MCP looms large in front of you. “Melvin, what do we do now?” you ask, dodging frantically.

“Do we have 40,000 energy units?” he asks, briefly reappearing in the loading chamber.

“Yes!” you shout.

“Then pull that torpedo charging lever, and shoot the MCP with a torpedo… and don’t miss!”

You pull the lever, and watch as more than 40,000 energy units are fed into one of your torpedoes. You can see it crackling and pulsing with energy. You carefully dodge around a green blocker, and take your shot! The pink torpedo crackles across the blue grid and there is a huge flash as it detonates against the MCP.

“Melvin, it didn’t do anything!”

Melvin squints. “No! It did! Look there’s a hole!” And you see he’s right! There is a jagged looking hole in the side of the MCP where the torpedo hit. “Steer into that!” shouts Melvin. But just as you turn toward it, you see something blue and glowing streaking toward you, threatening to crash into you before you can enter.

“Melvin, what is that?” you ask, praying that you can make it to the hole in time.

“It’s… Tron!” he says, dumbfounded.

And it is! Tron is on his light cycle, and he appears to be trying one last defense of the MCP. “Melvin, he’s locked on to us! We’re going to crash!” Just as you arrive at the hole, his glowing blue light cycle drives right into the Proteus, and…

ENTERING MERGE MODE blinks on your screen. There is a white flash, and everything seems to go into slow motion, as the Proteus and Tron’s blue light cycle start to merge together. To your surprise, the two vehicles become one, merging into a strange blue flying saucer, which sails right through the hole. A third seat has appeared in the cockpit as well, and there sits a smiling Tron. “Greetings programs,” he says, smirking.

“I thought you were defending the MCP?” says Melvin, suspiciously.

Tron grins even wider. “I just needed the MCP to think that. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to take it down. Can you steer this thing?”

You look over the controls – they let you fly any direction, and the laser lariats are gone, but the torpedo launcher is still here, and ammo count reads UNLIMITED. “Unlimited torpedoes?” you say, surprised. “That’s right,” says Tron. “Hisen-housel torpedoes, formed by the light wall generator from the light cycle. It’s the only thing strong enough to stop the power cores.”

“Hisen-housel?” asks Melvin. “Is that a real thing?”

You’re inside the MCP now, a truly massive chamber. Suddenly an energy shield snaps into place behind you, and you realize… you’re trapped!

“Tron!” you shout. “There’s no way out of here!”

“Yes there is,” says Tron calmly. “We have to stop the MCP.”

You knew that was your mission, but… you didn’t realize it would be like this! Two huge red guns sit mounted on swirling power reactors, and disturbingly, they are trained on your ship!

“What do those shoot?” you ask nervously.

“Plasma fireballs. But don’t worry about that. Hit those guns with enough torpedoes,” says Tron, “and you’ll disable the reactors.”

“Will that shut down the MCP?” asks Melvin.

“There are three MCP reactors. Shut down these two, and it will force the MCP to bring out the backup reactor. Blow that up, and the MCP is done for.”

A plasma fireball whizzes by your ship, and you dodge it just in time. Melvin puts his head in his hands, not that he has those things. “I’ve had about enough of backup reactors today.”

“Get in the loading chamber, little bit,” says Tron.

“I’m not a bit!” snaps Melvin. “I’m a… missile.”

Tron laughs, “Okay, okay, little missile, then. And be ready to steer out there.”

“Steer?” asks Melvin, surprised, “around what?”

“The MCP is the greatest security system on this grid, or any other. As soon as you start to shoot torpedoes, it’ll start to put up walls.”

“Oh, great,” you and Melvin both murmur in unison.

Tron puts his hand on your shoulder. “I know you can do this, User, or should I say, ‘Player.’”

As the massive MCP reactors tower above you, you grip the controls of this truly amazing saucer, and hope he’s right.

Place the Death Trap cartridge into your Atari 2600. Choose the “normal” setting (the X shape), and play until you destroy all three reactors. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.