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.