It was seven years before that summer, back when the world still seemed like it might have hope; although it\u2019s still happening, you understand, it\u2019s always happening, it\u2019s always been happening and it always will happen, I think, because that\u2019s just the way it is.<\/p>\n
It goes like this.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a cat curled up on old Mrs. McGinty\u2019s porch.<\/p>\n
There\u2019re crows croaking raucously on a nearby power line.<\/p>\n
Margerie walks up from the south. She doesn\u2019t look around. She finds a square of sidewalk and she sets up her Konami Thunder Dance pad.<\/p>\n
The crows go silent as death.<\/p>\n
She plugs her pad into a PlayStation 5 and an uninterruptible power supply. She kicks off her shoes. She steps up onto the pad.<\/p>\n
The cat uncurls. It stretches. It lopes away.<\/p>\n
Now old Kalov comes clicking down the road from the north. He\u2019s got his game under one arm. He\u2019s using the other hand to hold his cane.<\/p>\n
He sets up his dance pad.<\/p>\n
He plugs it in, just like Margerie\u2019s.<\/p>\n
He steps on. And smugly, because it\u2019s allowed in the University\u2019s Konami Thunder Dance Club rules, he rests his cane tip beside his feet on the dance pad.<\/p>\n
\u201cKalov,\u201d says Margerie. \u201cDon\u2019t be stupid. You can\u2019t beat me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kalov doesn\u2019t crack a smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaggie,\u201d he says, \u201cIt\u2019s the decision of the Konami Thunder Dance club that we\u2019re going to upgrade to the new version. It\u2019s a good version. It\u2019s a better <\/i>version. It has improved spiritual harmony. It has contextual help menus. It has over 181 new songs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s dishonest,\u201d says Margerie.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re a good dancer,\u201d Kalov says. \u201cDon\u2019t ruin your life.\u201d<\/p>\n
The air is as clear and still as glass. The sun isn\u2019t moving.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the way it is with Konami Thunder Dance. They could stand there all day, if you\u2019ll pardon some linguistic ambiguity, and the sun wouldn\u2019t move one inch.<\/p>\n
But Margerie just shakes her head.<\/p>\n
She doesn\u2019t let it sit like that. She moves her foot to the side, just sweeps it across what Konami calls the \u201ckeyboard of the feet,\u201d and she\u2019s hit the Symbol for storms.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s lightning in the sky.<\/p>\n
And Margerie says, \u201cIt ain\u2019t the true thing any longer if we do this. It isn\u2019t the Konami Thunder Dance<\/i>, if we do this, given to us by God. It\u2019s just a \u2014 pathetic corporate sell-out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re too inflexible,\u201d Kalov complains.<\/p>\n
\u201cKonami doesn\u2019t care about us,\u201d she says. \u201cThe original team\u2019s all gone on to work for Round Square. They\u2019re just squeezing a few more Euros from the newbs.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s raining.<\/p>\n
\u201cLois Lethal\u2019s dead, Maggie,\u201d Kalov says. \u201cThe Kid is dead. They were buried alive<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scissors had fallen from the sky one day, sextillions of them in a swarm from space, all wicked metal and great scissors-mind and twin gleaming blades on every pair. Scissors had fallen, strange though that may have been, and in that rain the dancers had died. Dozens of them \u2014 dozens of the best <\/i>of them: not cut, they were immune to cutting, they couldn\u2019t be cut while the power to their PlayStation was on, but they\u2019d drowned, they\u2019d died, they\u2019d been buried in the piles of metal that fell from space. And if it had stopped there, people would\u2019ve just blamed the scissors, but it hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Like he\u2019d said.<\/p>\n
A landslide took the Konami Kid. Lois Lethal went down a well. And even Ren the Bing \u2014<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you want<\/i> to die?\u201d he asks her, raw.<\/p>\n
Because that\u2019s how it is, when you dance the Thunder Dance.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the genuine thing.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re good enough, if you\u2019re only good enough, or maybe it\u2019s actually only if you\u2019re just too good<\/i>, then one day the Earth will open up and swallow you. Or you\u2019ll get trapped in a mine cave-in. Or something else. Something else will happen and it will bury you alive \u2014<\/p>\n
That is the Konami Thunder Dance, as it was given to the world by God; that is how it is,<\/i> or how it was, anyway, at least.<\/p>\n
\u2014 until the patch.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think you can just do<\/i> that?\u201d Margerie says. \u201cYou think you can just go into the high scores coding and set LIVE_BURIAL to FALSE and change the plans God made for this mortal world? Just how arrogant are you, Kalov? Who the Hell do you think you are?\u201d<\/p>\n
He glares at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the faculty advisor for the thunder dance club,\u201d he says, and he clicks his cane, and the Earth groans and the sun goes black.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was breakdancing in Los Angeles when you were in diapers,\u201d he says. His voice is cold and even. \u201cI was playing Dance Dance Revolution <\/i>when you were just a chit. I broke X2 <\/i>and In the Groove<\/i>, Maggie;<\/i> I danced too well for them. And I was dancing the thunder dance, I was shaping the world with its designs, even before the scissors fell. God\u2019s plans, Maggie? You think I care about God\u2019s plans, Maggie? He can ask me mine.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s pretty cool. He thinks. He thinks it sounds pretty cool.<\/p>\n
But Margerie just smirks.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t see you getting buried, sir, for all that boasting of yours,\u201d she says. \u201cMaybe God just doesn\u2019t know that you\u2019re alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s going to say something more. He knows he is. He feels the word-wroth coming to him.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s going to think of just the perfect thing to say any second now.<\/p>\n
But he doesn\u2019t get the chance.<\/p>\n
She is like God; she does like God; she presses the power button with her toe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no turning back now,\u201d warns the voice of the machine.<\/p>\n
And for Margerie and Kalov alike the patterns of the Konami Thunder Dance begin to flow.<\/p>\n
There are one hundred and sixty-eight distinct \u201ckeys\u201d on the Konami Thunder Dance pad, divided into eight regions. Eight-key sequences, properly timed, combine to form a Symbol. Most of these sequences have four to seven redundant versions, leaving approximately 1.25 x 10^17 combinations. Each Symbol generates a unique effect; each Symbol hacks the world; but with 10^17 of them, and more, most of the possibilities of the game remain undiscovered even by the greatest masters.<\/p>\n
Each Symbol of the Thunder Dance is one thing<\/i>, exactly, for all its many parts; one thing, and one thing only, save, perhaps, for the cheat code Dynamite<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The greatest thunder dancers can make manna to feed the starving. They can bring peace to the harrowed heart.<\/p>\n
Theirs is the power to warp the world.<\/p>\n
They dance to Freezepop and Lauper, then; she dances Flight <\/i>and he dances Time; <\/i>and it is for this reason, it must have been for this reason, that Ipswich has always hung (and will always hang) above the Earth.<\/p>\n
And to the theme from Goldeneye <\/i>she dances of duality and he dances of faces.<\/p>\n
And this is the last of the truly great thunder dances, I think, save, perhaps, for one. The sea writhes with their dancing and burning waves crash down upon the shore. They roust out wolves to chase the sun and moon. The sky rains blood and flowers down upon them and they crack it open to show the hidden light that shines beyond.<\/p>\n
But she is slowing.<\/p>\n
She does not understand it. Not at first. She is slowing. Her thoughts are clouding. She kicks the Symbol for Clarity<\/i>, even though it costs her points \u2014 it\u2019s not a big feature of Yatta!<\/i>, to which she is dancing \u2014 but it does her no good.<\/p>\n
She is better <\/i>than he is, but she is slowing down. It is like there is gelatin around her. It is like it is setting<\/i> around her, closing in around her legs \u2014<\/p>\n
And finally she understands.<\/p>\n
She curses him. She howls curses at him, she blasts at him with honeyed lightning and she calls up flames, she doesn\u2019t care any longer that the Symbols don\u2019t fit the song she\u2019s dancing to, she only tries to kill, and kill, and kill, and finally, she slumps.<\/p>\n
Yatta!<\/i><\/p>\n
He\u2019s downloading it.<\/p>\n
Onto her PlayStation \u2014 he\u2019s downloading it. Its network <\/i>light is on, on his and hers. He\u2019s downloading the patch right onto her machine.<\/p>\n
She misses one step. Then another. Finally, she\u2019s just sitting there, watching the patterns and Symbols float by her until she fails out of the dance.<\/p>\n
\u201cDamn you,\u201d she says. \u201cDamn you.\u201d<\/p>\n
She powers down her machine.<\/p>\n
\u201cDamn you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s settled, then,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it\u2019s all right, you know. It\u2019s good. And you won\u2019t have to die.\u201d<\/p>\n
She sits there. She is crying. She is broken.<\/p>\n
He tries to comfort her. She drives him away. She hits him. She screams at him. He draws back.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll understand,\u201d he says. \u201cOnce you\u2019ve played the new one. Once you\u2019ve tried it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
She doesn\u2019t turn on her PlayStation 5, or any other PlayStation, again.<\/p>\n
It is an age of gods; they walk among us, courtesy of the Konami Corporation.<\/p>\n
But they are smaller, now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was seven years before that summer, back when the world still seemed like it might have hope; although it\u2019s still happening, you understand, it\u2019s always happening, it\u2019s always been happening and it always will happen, I think, because that\u2019s just the way it is. It goes like this. There\u2019s a cat curled up on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"series":[47],"class_list":["post-4842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chapter-0-prologue","series-the-storm-that-saw-itself"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/KTD3.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4842"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6207,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842\/revisions\/6207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4842"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=4842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}