A year before, he had purchased the brand new, sleek, beautiful Sentilon Dove with his parents' money. He picked out the sound system and installed it himself. He found an old, rusting Chevrolet and refinished the tailfins by hand. The Schilijets were the first models to hit the market, and he was among the first to buy a set. That car became an obsession to Edison, and he would spend most of his free time modifying it in some way, making it more and more perfect. And now it was a perfect mess. 

"But that girl," Edison thought. "My God, you don't suppose she could ever have a chance of being interested in /me/... I mean, she's .... she's beautiful... Stupid. You don't have a chance; she's bored maybe maybe she just wants to get along with the other players, ... not for me, .... somebody, I don't know, probably cuter than me, I guess..." 

Edison looked over at her from behind. Her black hair was a waterfall, flowing from her head, cascading down her neck. Edison could feel his hands caressing it... 

"Stop it, Self, you don't know what you're getting yourself into. But I'm so damn alone these days, everybody out of town or out-of-it... and the Dove gone now... But anyway. Let's listen to the nice BG person and forget her. For now. Yeah. Okay. She's forgotten. Good. 

"She does look familiar, though, doesn't she? Wasn't she the one who called about the Games in the first place? Yeah! I guess she's a player too. Well that'll be nice. Now I know something about her. Besides the fact that I'm about to forget all about her..." 

"...get right down to the basic scheme of the games, okay? Okay." BG flashed a toothy, to-die-from smile at the audience, and winked at Lora. She just stared back at him, plainly unaffected. BG was surprised but wasn't going to be caught off- guard. He continued. 

"First of all, you're all on the same side. All on one team. All for one and one for all, got it?" 

The gamers had got it before he said it, but since he was BG, it was generally assumed that he saw some subtle secondary level of cleverness in the remark that was over their heads. 

"Good. Now the object of the game is to pick up clues. Clues? What sort of clues?" He mimicked the invisible questioner with raised eyebrows. "I'll tell you what sort of clues. --No, on second thought, I'll let you figure them out. You'll find them, and you'll know them then. And then? Then, when you know where they are, the brightest of you will know what they are. And this is where they are."

He sat casually on the table that held the VIC, crossing his legs. He swept his arms around to indicate the keyboard. 

"This, my young friends," he said with a generous smile, "is where they are. Right in this little console here. Some history buffs might remember this as the Commodore Vic Twenty home computer circa the 1980s. You are more or less not entirely so much incorrect as you are just missing the point. That is to say, most of this computer console here is indeed a Commodore Vic Twenty. But not all. It has been found out that with an extra memory chip from an Aquarius Home System of the same decade and with the OS from the Coleco Adam Computer, this little baby is capable of using infinity," he paused for effect, "as a variable. 

"How is this possible? I don't know. Erkonn only knows what the inventor of the ALTAP told us, all of which I have now told you. This device can handle infinity; understand it, calculate it, and make decisions based on it. Which makes it incredibly useful," another pause for more effect, "in time- travel."

There was a generally sarcastic gasp in the audience. 

"Oh, I know you don't believe me. I know you think this is going to turn out to be a cheap simulation and I'm just giving you the setup. But no."

"Time travel is now a reality at Erkonn Conspiracy. We can do it, and now we're going to let you. This cartridge," he said, holding up a plug-in VIC-20 program cartridge, "is specially programmed to handle the ALTAP's complex controls. With it you need merely to tap a key or two. At your end, it's that simple. 

"What are these clues for? Whoops, almost forgot! These clues are going to lead you to Erkonn's ... special actors, who are stationed and hidden at the locations programmed in here. All you need to do is gather information from solving the clues and then find whom they lead to. Sounds simple, right? Well, it basically is. The clues are difficult; the goals well-hidden. It'll help prove to the world that this sort of thing can be done. And it's a load of great publicity for the Conspiracy, eh?" He smiled a transparent I-don't-really-care-about-the-publicity, you-know; I'm-just-a-simple, down-to-earth-guy smile at nobody, whom it had no trouble at all convincing that he was truly sincere. 

"That's it, you ask? Yes! That's it! The game will end when all is found or one month is up. How do we keep track of your time? Elementary!" he said, proud of how literate he seemed. "A function of the ALTAP is to run off of the power beams sent to it, no matter when it is, from Erkonn. No matter what time you are visiting, those beams are connected to our time here, and every 24 hours to you will be another day gone for us. The times are parallel, you see?" 

The gamers saw. 

"Good! That's all there is to it. You may now socialize a bit. The games will start tonight at five o'clock. Food is located in the refrigerator compartments here." He indicated a few doors to his left. "Don't stuff yourselves; this has to last you a month when you can't find a decent meal outside." He pointed to the door with the ALTAP sign; Edison now noticed that it was rather large and very thick, and curved in some very uncomfortable ways that he had difficulty trying to fit into his brain. So instead of dwelling on his newfound dwelling, he found himself almost completely unable to keep from thinking of those beautiful dark shining eyes.