Cabinet Man vs. the New Kids on the Rock

Part five: rematch

    Later that same night, three figures slunk along the sidewalk, sticking close to the walls in an attempt at stealth which was somewhat undone by the volume of the freshly fallen snow crunching under their shoes. Luckily for them, stealth wasn't a necessity until they actually made it inside the arcade. Less luckily for them, even louder than the sounds of their footfalls were the clink and jingle of their oversized utility belts, each loaded up with a million little gadgets: tools and weapons, flashlights, a horseshoe, a hairdryer, a bottle of chloroform, a couple pieces of produce in case they needed to blow anything up... Kevin even had his proton pack strapped to his back, on the off-chance that they should encounter any vengeful arcade spirits. He paused in front of the arcade doors to shift the weight of the trusty device from one shoulder to the other before turning to his companions.

"You guys ready to do this?"

"Yeah," Neil responded in a stage whisper of barely contained enthusiasm. "Let's show this evil arcade machine who's boss."

He pumped his fist as he spoke, which caused his overstocked utility belt to rattle louder. Neil flinched at the noise and stole a hasty glance up and down the street to make sure nobody was alerted to their presence. Fortunately, nobody else was around to see them. Neil motioned to Ryan in an after you gesture. Ryan obediently stepped up, producing a hairpin from somewhere amidst the clutter of strange objects clipped to his belt, and picked the lock.

Despite their many days of preparation, their well-stocked utility belts, and the fact that all their injuries from their previous encounter with Cabinet Man were now fully healed, an impenetrable air of anxiety hung between the new kids as they filed inside. Their muscles were tense, ready to jump out of their skin at the slightest creak of the floorboards. Even the flicker of the fluorescent lights as they automatically turned on made Neil let out a little yelp of surprise. He almost expected the games to all come to life as well, but they remained dormant.

Despite being the most visibly on edge compared to Kevin's mildly wary countenance and Ryan's typically eerie outward calm, Neil wound up taking the lead as they made their way through the empty arcade. It wasn't an intentional move on his part; he just sort of naturally drifted to the front, and his friends fell into step behind him.

Unlike visiting the arcade in the daytime, when it was buzzing with customers and the games were all blinking and beeping, the place was totally silent aside from their own footsteps and the low hum of machinery, no louder than that of an average refrigerator or television. One might expect the emptiness to make the place seem vaster, but if anything, it had the opposite effect. In daylight, with so many other people to maneuver around and so many eye-catching games to play, the arcade seemed as expansive as a shopping mall. But seeing it like this, without any eye-catching bright lights or the bustle of fellow gamers, the arcade appeared only as what it was: a building, around the size of a small warehouse, filled with big machines that you could play games on. To put it another way, it was like seeing the arcade's bare face without any makeup on. Not a bad thing, just... different. Strange. A little off-putting. Walking through the rows of inactive arcade machines felt almost like walking through a graveyard, but they had no time to stop and laugh at funny names as one might when visiting a cemetery. They were on a mission, after all.

The Polybius was tucked into a secluded corner toward the back of the building, with some suspicious stains on the floor around it. It, like the arcade as a whole, looked a lot different with its screen black and no robot limbs flailing around, but its slick black-and-blue design was unmistakable.

Neil pointed--not really a necessary gesture, as they could all see it just fine, but it was the principle of the thing. "There it is."

The new kids came to a stop in front of the dormant machine, holding their collective breaths. After a moment's hesitation, Neil cautiously stepped up to get a closer look, while Ryan and Kevin hung a few feet back in defensive positions, hands at the ready to grab a weapon off their respective toolbelts. There wasn't even the tiniest flicker of light on Cabinet Man's screen, nor any buzzing or beeping to hint that it might not be as dormant as it appeared. Just to be sure, Neil poked at the machine's plastic exterior, then quickly jumped back out of range of any hypothetical retaliation. There was no change in Cabinet Man's appearance upon being poked. Neil repeated the motion a few more times, each time a little hastier in his retreat, yet each time gaining more confidence as the arcade machine continued not to react. Finally, just to be extra doubly sure, Neil unclipped a can of spray paint from his utility belt and bent down, giving it a shake. With meticulous motion, he spray-painted the url "hollywoodeasttv.com" right across Cabinet Man's steel gray cabinet doors. There was still no reaction... at least none that Neil noticed, concentrated as he was on spelling out the url.