The Last Starfighter Read Free

squawked and fled for cover, making him feel better. When you’re real small it’s important to know something’s afraid of you, even if it’s only a bunch of dumb chickens.
    As he walked he looked for Mr. President, Otis’s old hound. Mr. President, however, knew Louis from long experience. Since it was forbidden to chew the boy’s arm off, the dog had learned to avoid his approach. From beneath the cool safety of the trailer’s bulk, he watched Louis pass.
    Having taken as much time as possible to go from the trailer to the store, Louis finally mounted the steps onto the wooden porch. Store and porch had been there long before the trailer park, but the old wood was solid as iron.
    Louis crossed the porch, keeping an eye out for scorpions. His big brother was eighteen. To Louis that put him right up there with their mother, though not with Granny Gordon or Otis. Alex seemed impossibly tall to Louis, who knew for a certainty that he would never, ever reach such impressive heights himself. He’d also heard that Alex was good-looking, which just goes to show how much grown-ups know. Because Louis knew it for a fact that his brother was just a malformed klutz whose sole task in life was to make things unbearable for the only important human being on the planet, Louis Rogan.
    At times he could be neat to have around, though, like when they went swimming together. Louis conceded that as big brothers went, Alex wasn’t all that bad. But today he was going swimming with his own friends, and to compound the bad judgment, he was going swimming with girls . That lapse of taste Louis could never forgive.
    Now he strained to see past his brother’s ribs, looking at the videoscreen that was alive with flashing, rapidly changing lights. The images fascinated Louis. They were so alive, so full of movement and trickery. Alex ignored his younger shadow, letting his fingers dance easily over the multiple controls. Louis watched and tried to learn, knowing that Alex was a master at video games. Once he’d watched during a trip to the big arcade in town while other older kids oohed and aahed as Alex ran up several million points on Stargate, a game too complex for his ten-year-old mind to think of trying.
    But this new game, this Starfighter, was even more complex, with half again as many controls to manipulate. Yet Alex seemed better at it than anything else. Something one of the other kids had called “rising to the challenge.” Some kids wouldn’t even try Starfighter because it ate their quarters too fast. On a good day, Alex could play the game for hours on just one.
    When he wasn’t being interrupted, Louis reminded himself. So readily did he lose himself in the game that he’d almost forgotten what had sent him to the store.
    “Mom’s lookin’ for you, Alex.”
    “Yeah, sure.” His brother replied without taking his gaze from videoscreen. His arms hung parallel to the ground, still, relaxed. Only his fingers moved, depressing fire controls, adjusting thrust, guiding the tiny microprocessed gunstar through the maze of enemy fighters. It was very much a virtuoso display. Alex played the game as smoothly as Horowitz did his Steinway.
    “Come on, Alex. Mom’ll be mad at me.”
    “What for?” Bright blue light momentarily filled the screen, fading to reveal a new series of targets attacking faster than ever, relentless and uncaring. “She told you to come tell me she wants to see me. Okay, you’ve told me. You’re in the clear.”
    “Yeah, right.” Louis brightened, tore his gaze away from the motion-filled screen just long enough to locate one of the chairs that sat on the porch. Dragging it over, he climbed up onto the rickety platform. For a breathless moment he was an adult, as big as Alex.
    “Look out!” Somehow his brother avoided the wave attack from the left quadrant. Louis couldn’t imagine how Alex had seen the attack coming in time to evade. He swayed on the chair, mesmerized by the lights and sounds,