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.