Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet (5 page)

Mr. Shepherd sighed.  He walked over and closed the door to
the classroom.  Without the clutter of noises from the hallway, the room seemed
eerily silent.

“Why do you think it is I give you so much detention, Mr.
Finnegan?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Mr. Shepherd,” Jack replied, not feeling in
the mood for more lecture.  “Do you have some sort of quota or something?”

Shepherd approached Jack and sat on top of a desk across
from him.  “No,” he said.  “The reason I give you so much detention is because
I expect more from you.”

“More?” asked Jack.  “More what?”

“What I see when I look at you,” said Shepherd, “is a young
man who is undisciplined, unfocused, and utterly without direction in his
life.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

“But…” the man continued,  “I also see a great deal of
potential in you, Jack.”

That was the first time Jack could ever remember Mr.
Shepherd referring to him by his first name.  For some reason, it sounded
extremely weird when he said it.

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

“When you came in here a minute ago, do you remember what I
said?”

“Something about underestimating me.”

Shepherd nodded.  “And what do you think I meant by that?”

Jack sighed.  “I don’t know.  What did you mean by it?”

“I meant that I was very
impressed
with what you did
today.”

Jack suddenly found himself confused.  “Huh?” he said.

“Anna came by earlier and told me what happened. The real
story.  Not what Principal Montgomery informed me of,” said Shepherd.

“So she told you the fight wasn’t my fault?” Jack asked
hopefully.

“No,” said Shepherd.  “She made it very clear the fight was
pretty much all your fault.”

“Oh,” said Jack, a little disappointed.

“But she also told me what you did, and how you shouldered
the punishment all by yourself, so she wouldn’t have to.  Why do you think you
did that?” 

Because I think your daughter is hot
, thought Jack. 
But he certainly wasn’t going to tell Shepherd that.  Jack shrugged.  “I just
didn’t want to see Anna get punished for something she didn’t do.”

Shepherd nodded.  “It would have been easy for you to just
sit there and let the principal punish the others, as well.  But you took
responsibility for your actions.  You made the decision to sacrifice yourself,
so someone who was innocent did not have to suffer.  That tells me that a lot
of what I thought about you was right, Jack.”

“It does?” asked Jack, suddenly wondering what exactly Mr.
Shepherd was prone to think of him.

“Yes,” said Shepherd.  “Despite what you might think, I
don’t have it out for you.  The reason I’m hard on you is because I know you’re
capable of so much more than what you’re putting forth.  I thought that maybe,
if I gave you a hard enough time, you might finally find the courage to start
taking responsibility for yourself.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” said Jack, a little bitterly.

“On the contrary,” said Shepherd.  “Today, you proved you
have that type of courage.  I was just going about getting it from you the
wrong way.”

Jack scratched his head.  Why was Mr. Shepherd suddenly
talking to him so much?  In all the time he’d had detention with the man, he’d
just have Jack do some meaningless chore while he sat at his desk and scribbled
whatever-it-was-he-scribbled in a notebook until time was up.  Frankly, this
was the most Jack could remember Shepherd ever saying to him, and the longer it
went on, the more uncomfortable it made Jack.

“Um… okay,” said Jack, not sure how to respond.

Shepherd stared at Jack with his piercing grey eyes – the
gaze he was famous for.  For some reason, Chunk’s voice echoed in Jack’s mind,
and suddenly the whole serial-killer-cannibal thing didn’t seem so far-fetched.

“Jack,” he said.  “I want you to listen to me, for once in
your life, and really
hear
what it is I’m going to tell you.  No jokes. 
No comebacks.  No half-hearted acknowledgements.  I just want you to listen. 
Can you do that?”

“Yeah, I guess,” responded Jack.

Mr. Shepherd’s eyes narrowed.  Jack picked up on the hint.

“Yes,” he said.  “Yes, I can.”

Shepherd nodded, satisfied.  “There are people out there
that believe life is just something that happens to them.  That they have no
control over the events and circumstances they find themselves in.  But the
truth is, we are the ones who shape the lives we live.  We are the ones that
allow good things and bad things to happen to us.  By taking responsibility for
our actions, we are able to make our lives better.  When we play the victim, we
allow our lives to be miserable.  If you can take responsibility for yourself,
decide to make your life better – and take action to that effect – then you are
the master of your own destiny.  And when that happens, you are capable of
great things.”

“So you’re saying if I do things to get what I want, I’ll
get them?” asked Jack.

“In a manner of speaking,” Shepherd replied.

“Well, I certainly didn’t want two months of detention,”
said Jack.  “But that’s what I got.”

“But what is it you did want?” asked Shepherd.  “What was it
that made you admit to starting that fight?”

“I didn’t want Anna to get punished,” said Jack.

“And did you get what you wanted?”

Jack was quiet for a moment.  “Yeah,” he said, suddenly
impressed.

“There you go,” said Shepherd.

“But the detention–” said Jack.

“Consequences of your actions,” replied Shepherd.  “There
will be consequences for everything you do.  Always.  But it’s how you deal
with those consequences that matter.  Will you allow them to take over your
life?  Play the victim to them?  Or will you take more action, and use them as
an opportunity to get more of what you want?”

For the life of him, Jack couldn’t imagine how he could use
detention to get something he wanted.  But despite all that, for some reason, a
lot of what Mr. Shepherd was saying started to make sense.

Jack looked up and met Shepherd’s gaze.  Suddenly, his cold
stare didn’t seem so menacing anymore.  It was almost as though he were looking
into
Jack, and could tell what he was thinking.  And in that strange
moment – it felt like the two of them had reached some kind of understanding
about each other.

After a second or two of silence, Shepherd got up and walked
to his desk.  He took a notebook out of his drawer, sat down, opened it, and
began to scribble.

“Time’s up,” he said.  “You may go.”

Jack glanced up at the clock above the classroom door.  He’d
only been in detention for, at most, ten minutes – not even close to the full
time.  He looked back at Shepherd, confused.

“Unless,” said Shepherd, noticing the look on Jack’s face,
“you want to stay longer?”

“Nope!” said Jack, hopping up and heading for the door.  He
wanted to get out of there before Shepherd overcame his sudden generous mood. 
He was halfway out of the room when Shepherd’s voice rang out again.

“Jack…”

Jack turned, afraid Shepherd had changed his mind.  But
instead, he said:

“Try and stay out of trouble.  Or you’ll come to realize
some consequences are far worse than others.”

Because River Heights was not a very
big town, there were not many options available for young teens when it came to
a popular Earth custom known as “hanging out.”  Most shops were limited to the
bare necessities – grocery stores, hardware stores, and restaurants.  The
closest mall was a 30-minute drive into the neighboring town of Whitecreek, and
for kids without a car, that meant it was unreachable without parental help.

That made the school the unofficial social spot after
classes had ended.  Most kids enjoyed joining various clubs or sports teams as
a way to socialize with their friends.  And though Jack might have been curious
about possibly playing on the soccer team or maybe even joining the school band
to learn an instrument, the idea of staying at school any longer than he
absolutely had to just did not appeal to him.

That is where Big Jim’s Pizza Palace came in.

Big Jim’s was a worn-down one-story building directly across
the street from the high school.  Its décor was gaudy, its sanitation was
questionable, and its pizza was – even by high school standards - bad.  But it
had the distinct advantage of being close, which was probably the only reason
the place was still in business at all.

Indeed, Big Jim’s was the de-facto hang out for most of the
student body.  After the final bell rang, it was off to Jim’s to shoot some
pool, grab a bite to eat, or just sit around and do homework at someplace that
wasn’t home. 

Because both Matt and Chunk didn’t live too far away from
Jack, they usually waited for him at the pizza shop until he was out of
detention so he wouldn’t have to make the trek back to Eagle Hill alone.  When
Jack entered the joint a full hour and fifteen minutes early, he fully expected
them to be surprised.

Jack scanned the room looking for his friends.  The walls of
the place were covered with a faux wood paneling, which must have passed for
fancy sometime back in the 1970’s.  Green-red-and-white colored lamps hung from
the ceiling, but they hadn’t been cleaned in so long, barely any light could
actually escape from them.  In the corner was a scratched and rickety pool
table, and an on-the-fritz jukebox thumped some music that was cool about ten
years ago.

Big Jim’s was crowded today.  Students of all shapes and
sizes staked out most of the tables with their textbooks and study materials while
they nursed soft drinks and ate pizza.  There was a line at the counter, where
Fred – the pot-bellied and unshaven owner of Big Jim’s (and don’t bother asking
why a guy named Fred christened his restaurant after a guy named Jim) – stood
at a cash register taking orders with all the good cheer of a professional
sewer cleaner, which was to say, none at all.

“S’up, Fred?” said Jack as he walked by.

“Welcome back, freeloader,” grumbled Fred.  “I’d ask if I
could get you anything, but you never have any money, do ya?”

“Yeah, which would make it really hard to pay for the
hospital bill if I ever actually ate here,” smiled Jack.

“Pah!” spat Fred.  “I should charge ya rent for all the time
you spend lollygagging around.  Food or no.”

“Slumlord would definitely be a step up for you, buddy,”
said Jack.  “Hey, you seen Matt or Chunk?”

“In the back,” said Fred.  “At the arcade.”

The “arcade” as Fred liked to call it consisted of one (yes,
one) video game, plugged into a dangerously exposed electrical socket and tucked
away in the back of the restaurant.  Jack made his way over to the hidden
alcove to find his two buddies hard at work among the “bleeps” and “boops” of
Nova
Commander IV
.  Matt was gripping the game’s joystick, his eyes narrow with
concentration, with Chunk at his side cheering him on.

“Look out for the plasma cannons!” cried Chunk.  “You got a
fighter on your six.  Ooooh-oooooh, there’s a power-up over there!”

“Would you shut up, dude!” snapped Matt.  “I know what I’m
doing, okay?  I’ve only played this game a billion times.”

“And you still suck at it!” Jack said with a smirk.

Matt and Chunk looked up from their game in surprise. 
“Jack?” said Matt.  “Holy crap!  Is it five o’clock already?”

“Whoa,” said Chunk.  “Seems like we just got here.  This
game is eviiiiiiil!”

“Chill, dudes.  You did just get here,” said Jack.  “You’ll
never guess.  Mr. Shepherd let me out early.”

Matt and Chunk exchanged a disbelieving glance.  “Um, you
didn’t actually kill Mr. Shepherd and are trying to stage an alibi, are you?”
asked Matt.

“Swear to God,” said Jack.  “I’m just as shocked as you
are.”

Suddenly,
Nova Commander IV
sang a depressing little
ditty signaling the failure of a mission and game over.  Matt cursed under his
breath and kicked the machine.

“Dang it, and I was just about to beat my high score, too,”
he complained.  “Thanks for distracting me with your good news, my so-called
friend
.”

“When you gonna learn?” smiled Jack, sidling up to
Nova
Commander IV
and gingerly patting it like a cute little puppy.  “No one is
ever gonna dethrone me when it comes to this game.  I’m the best star pilot on
this side of the galaxy.”

“Not anymore!” piped up Chunk.

“Huh?” asked Jack.

“Yeah, some dude with the initials MTS beat your score,”
said Matt, with just a hint of a smirk.  “Guess there’s a new king in town.”

Jack glanced at the screen.  Sure enough, when the top
scorers flashed up, his initials were indeed second, with the mysterious MTS
beating him out by just a couple hundred points for the top spot.

“You gotta be kidding me,” mumbled Jack.  After all he’d been
through today, losing out on the top spot for
Nova Commander
as well was
just too much.  Since even before he had started high school, Jack had spent
countless hours of his life hanging out at Big Jim’s and playing this game.  He
had perfected the art of flying the
Nova Commander Starfighter
better
than anyone he knew, getting as far as the 18
^th
level before
succumbing to the hordes of enemy starships.  It was rumored that some guy out
in Cincinnati was actually able to get to level 19, but as far as Jack knew, it
was largely believed to be impossible to get much further.

So the fact that he was able to accomplish a score that
maybe one other person in the entire world could beat gave him a certain sense
of pride – and he wasn’t willing to give that up just yet, especially not on a
day like today.

“Gimme a quarter,” he said to Chunk, holding out his hand.

“Aw, c’mon Jack,” whined Chunk.  “Play some other time.  I
don’t feel like hanging around Big Jim’s all day while you try and recapture
your glory.”

Jack shifted his outstretched palm to Matt.

“I’m with Chunk, bro,” said Matt.  “There’s way cooler stuff
we could be doing than playing a game that pre-dates Pong.”

“I am not leaving until one of you gives me a quarter,” said
Jack sternly.

Matt and Chunk exchanged a look that acknowledged their
friend’s stubbornness.  Chunk sighed and dug a quarter out of his pocket,
slapping in into Jack’s hand.

“That’s all I got,” said Chunk.

“It’s all I’ll need,” said Jack confidently, as he sidled up
to the game and popped in the quarter.

Nova Commander IV
was a relatively simple game.  At
its core, it was all about flying a starship through enemy territory and facing
more and more difficult encounters with enemy spaceships.  While its
predecessors had a top down view of a tiny triangle that was the spaceship as
wave after wave of other geometrically shaped objects fell at it from the top
of the screen,
Nova Commander IV
took the giant leap forward in
technology by putting the player in the cockpit of the ship and letting him fly
through a 3-D wireframe universe that actually did a passable job of simulating
real spaceflight.

Each stage of the game required the player to reach a “warp
hole” which allowed him to travel further and further into enemy territory,
until eventually reaching the mothership of the enemy fleet, which he would
then have to destroy to advance to the next level. 

When it came to actually playing the game though, only two
skills were required – being able to manage the energy needs of the ship
between the lasers and its shields, and being fast enough to take on multiple
opponents without getting blown up.  If the game were just about one or the
other, it would have been much simpler to beat.  But in Jack’s opinion, the
careful balance between controlling his ship and fighting multiple enemies is
what elevated the game into an art form.

“Listen, dude,” said Matt as Jack started playing.  “If
you’re gonna be a while, I’m gonna run down to the Circle-Mart and get a hot
dog or something.  I don’t think I could survive another slice of Fred’s pizza.”

“True that,” said Chunk.  “I’ll come with.  You want
anything, Jack?”

“Just the two of you to be ready to kiss my butt after I
prove to the world how awesome I am,” he responded.

“Yeah, ‘cause that’s the first thing everyone associates
with being good at prehistoric video games,” quipped Matt.

“Your jealousy warms my cold, black soul,” intoned Jack.

After his friends departed, Jack breezed through the first
couple of levels of the game.  The world around him seemed to disappear, and he
might as well have been in the actual cockpit of a starfighter as he took on
wave after wave of increasingly difficult foes.  As so often happens when Jack
played video games, time seemed to fly by, and before he knew it, he was back
to the dreaded level 18.

Things were not looking good.  His ship was damaged, his
shields were weakening, and the enemy mothership had dispatched yet another
wing of deadly starfighters.  Jack made a run for a far off power-up he was
hoping to reach before he was within firing range of the enemy.  Sure enough,
he made it just in time, and got just enough power to keep his shields intact
while he fought off the new wave of fighters.

Before he knew it, he was able to unleash his torpedoes and
destroy the enemy’s mothership, and a new warp hole appeared.

Suddenly, he realized – he’d made it to Level 19!

Jack’s heart pounded.  The gravity of what he’d just
accomplished crashed on top of him like a ton of bricks.  Not only had he
regained his high score, but also he’d finally been able to beat the level he’d
thought was all but impossible to defeat.  Jack’s mind raced.  He wondered what
new foe he’d be facing, what new obstacle he would have to overcome, what new
puzzle he’d have to solve, and a weird kind of excitement filled him and made
him woozy with anticipation.

And just as his ship emerged from the warp hole, the screen
of
Nova Commander IV
suddenly flashed, the graphics melting into a
mish-mash of strange characters, and an annoying note began to hum from the
speakers.

The game had locked up.

“No, no,
NO
!” cried Jack.  He’d been so close.  Now,
not only was his high score erased, but he also might never be able to get to
Level 19 again.  He gave the game a swift kick that was so hard it hurt his
toe.  But the screen continued to project gibberish, mocking him.

Jack marched up to the front counter where Fred was hunched
over, reading the swimsuit edition of his favorite sports magazine.

“Fred! I thought you were gonna get that game fixed!” said
Jack angrily.

“Huh?” Fred said in response, not bothering to glance up.

“Nova Commander,” clarified Jack.  “It froze up again!”

“Oh, yeah, gee, I’ll get right on that,” Fred responded in
mock concern, again without looking away from his magazine.

“You don’t understand!” Jack pleaded.  “I did it!  I finally
made it to Level 19!  Beat my old high score!  And now no one’s ever gonna
know!”

“My heart bleeds for ya, kid,” said Fred, picking his nose. 
“Maybe ya should get a new hobby, eh? Like curin’ cancer or sumtin’.”

Jack glowered at Fred’s ugly unshaven mug. 

“Can I at least get my quarter back?” he asked.

“What do I look like? An ATM?” snorted Fred.  “Get outta
here, already.”

Fred waved Jack off and went back to flipping through his
magazine.  Jack glanced at the clock that hung above the entrance.  It was a
quarter to five.  He’d wasted a good forty minutes playing the game, and it was
all for nothing.

Since they weren’t already back, Jack reasoned that Matt and
Chunk had probably gone on home without him.  Jack gathered his things and
prepared for the walk back to Eagle Hill.  Once outside of Big Jim’s, he
decided to cut across school grounds and go through the Juniper cornfields
instead of following Detroit Street back.  With any luck, the shortcut would
get him back home before five-thirty, just in time to watch some bad,
family-friendly TV before dinner.

As he passed by the football stadium, he could hear the
sounds of the team practicing.  No doubt J.C. was there in the middle of it
all.  Jack wondered if it made him a bad person to hope J.C. got tackled in a
freak pile-up of over-sized meatheads and was turned into a mushy human pancake.

Jack was almost to the cornfields when he stopped cold.  At
the end of the bleachers, near one of the support struts, was Anna.  She was
sitting on the grass, staring off into the cornfield of the Juniper family
farm.  The sun was getting low in the sky, and its golden rays shined on her,
making her look like she was almost glowing.  Jack stood still, afraid to move,
overcome at the sight of just how beautiful she was.

Jack looked around him.  There was no one to be seen.  No
Mr. Shepherd to intimidate him.  No other kids to laugh at him.  Even the
football team was hidden behind a massive wall of aluminum bench seating.  As
far as the eye could see, the only two people in the world were Jack and Anna.