Collision Course [+ Additional Levels]

Level Eight - Broken Rules

"Snake... hop.... purple... down... cube...."

Andrew leaned forward with a sigh, setting his elbows on the night desk to rub his temples while his nose scrunched. Even with glasses on, he was starting to feel a headache coming on. He didn't know what to think about what Moe was babbling on about. And now Moe was randomly hopping from subject to subject. Not to mention, he was saying 'hop' a lot too. He looked up at his computer screen. He didn't know how long he had been staring at images of the video game character. Andrew had found out that Coily had been in a cameo in the film Wreck It Ralph, and that he had been in a couple of TV shows. He had also refreshed himself on the history of the character, and knew exactly who Coily was in the game Q*bert and what his role was in it. He had this geeky spell a few years back where he wanted to know everything he could about tech from the 1980s—which included video games—so it was all familiar to him. However—even then—never had he gone through as much research on a single game as he had this day.

In the shortest form, Coily was the only one of the bad guys that chased QBert around. He first comes to the stage as a purple ball, or, egg. At the bottom of the pyramid, is where he changes into a coiled snake that starts chasing. Touch QBert, QBert dies. Simple.

What was not simple, however, was figuring out why on earth Moe was talking about a video game character from the nineteen eighties—in his sleep.

Andrew groaned, and dipped his head. His forehead thumped on the edge of the desk, rattling the laptop a little. None of this was making sense. Andrew tilted his head, and looked past the laptop. A notebook that he had found in a drawer of the desk was laying open. A yellow pencil lay on top of the lined paper. He had written notes earlier on different possibilities for Moe's condition. He straightened, and leaned over the book, reviewing the list.

-Scraped hand and

He shook his head, and went to the next one. He had left that one unfinished. He had no idea how to explain why he would pass out after a minor injury like that. Besides, when wrapping the wound, it didn't look like a scrape, but more like two puncture marks.

-Was found by thugs and was injected by hallucination serum.

He shook his head again. Why in the world would they inject him with hallucinations of Q*Bert? Besides, if the thugs that he was thinking of were anything like the ones in that TV show that he occasionally watched, wouldn't they kidnap him for that? Or even after?

-Blacked out from bad migraines—Andrew tilted his head from side to side—and is muttering from dreams. (dreaming he is playing the game Q*bert)

Andrew paused. He looked back at Moe. Then he shook his head again, and turned back to the list.

Nuh, uh.

He was no expert on migraines, but a. he was pretty sure that it wouldn't make Moe talk in his sleep (and until now, Andrew had never heard Moe talk in his sleep); b. also, until now, Andrew hadn't heard Moe mention anything with even a remote relation to any video games made anywhere near the nineteen eighties, so how would he be able to dream about Q*bert, let alone know any of the specific bad guy names?; and c. Moe didn't get migraines. So, that alone, pretty much shut down that idea all together.

Andrew looked over three others. He decided to negate the idea that Wreck It Ralph had something to do with this. Is it likely that Moe saw the movie? Yes. Is it possible that he somehow learned all the names of the bad guys or learned how to play the game from that movie? No, absolutely not. Unless... the movements describing the gameplay that he listed were all guess work—it was a pretty simple game. Yet, then he'd have to find an explanation for his knowledge of the bad guy names. And... and he didn't have the patience to run through that thought process—again.