A Night In: Next Gen

Curled up in the sofa with a book, I watch Dex, my beau, attempt to kick arse on his latest Xbox purchase. He sits hunched forward, his shoulders and spine rock hard from exertion, his fingers and thumbs flying over the joy pad as if playing a piano. Remains of a sunset trickles into the front room, coating everything in weak red fuzz. The coffee table is strewn with the corpses of our Indian takeaway, highlighted by dramatic flashes from the screen. On an unusually warm night in London, I’m wearing newly purchased easy to access clothes from New Look. Dex faces stage front. This is romance of the new age.

He’s reached the portal level, or something. Earlier, he explained, this game requires high intelligence, astute dexterity and maximum concentration. Translation: absolutely no touching and very little talking.

It’s a first person shooter. The character wields a big gun and walks around ice white rooms for long boring periods of time. I’d once asked if the character had a name and was told it didn't matter, baby. I’d argued that Mario has a name. Mario wouldn't be the Mario he is today without his name, and when you added Super, you knew what was about to happen. I’d been granted a kiss on the cheek.
“But, you can name the character after me if you like, babe,” he’d said.
His fingers make the joy pad tap dance. On the TV, something’s coming for him, a creature I nicknamed ‘Beasty’ out of sheer boredom. Whichever deep hole in space it had come from to attack Dex, he promptly sent it back. A door opens and he throws me a look: pure genius. I smile coquettishly and gently poke his side with a toe.
“Babe?” he says.
“Yes, baba?”
“No.” He realises how head master this sounds, turns and smiles at me lopsidedly. “You look very pretty.” He squeezes my cheek as if an outlaw saying goodbye to his girl seconds before going on the run. His fingers meld once more with the joy pad.

I retract the impudent toe and re-adjust my top. Simmering, I watch him make holes in the walls of his environment with the sacred Gravity Gun. It creates a glowing hole on the surface of a wall, a portal. In order to activate the portal, the gun has to be fired at another spot far away from the initial one. The chosen spot has to be precise. Done correctly, you could bypass booby traps, enemies, and find secret places. I think the point of all of it is to make your way as fast and as stealthily as possible to the exit, the reward a meeting with the Gate Keeper who, on defeat, would reveal only ONE clue as to the location of the Master, a mysterious figure who had trapped Dex in the world in the first place. Most importantly, Dex tells me distractedly working his way through the level, he’d finally get the answer to the meaning of the cryptic logo littered throughout the game which comprised three small circles enveloped in a triangle which held the key to his past...

Another Beasty appears on screen.
“Look out for that Beasty,” I say helpfully.
He makes a noise, an Awww sound, but doesn’t look at me. “It’s not a beasty, babe. It’s a Nexus Dweller.”
“It looks like a beast. That’s not a very beasty name.”
“That’s because it’s named after what created it. All of the evil matter that exists within the portal world and deep space.”
“Then they should have called it –”
“Damn it!”
The beasty-Nexus Dweller-has struck a fatal blow. The screen fades to black. Eventually it returns to a check point he’d passed ten minutes ago. The joy pad is sent flying across the room and lands on the other sofa, bouncing high on landing. He throws me a look – it’s very quick but I catch it all the same – before slumping back into the sofa and folding his arms.
I seize the opportunity and shower his face with kisses; let him catch a view of just how low my top can go. It works. He smiles and returns the kisses. Naughty thoughts sprint across my mind. For a second, I realise the game would see us, and then realise how stupid it is worrying about doing it in front of a computer game. I’m smiling.
“Let me have a go.”
Dex untangles himself from my arms, retrieves the pad and starts playing again without saying a word. I sit upright and watch him play a sulky five minutes, muttering to himself. Annoyed, I whip up my book and pretend to read it.

The room is filled with muffled clicks and the sound of his breathing. The Nexus Dweller returns with a friend. They flank him, the Gravity Gun spinning left, right, then left again. A miniscule bead of sweat clings to his left temple. I open a window.
“Thanks, babe, good thinking,” he mumbles. “You really do look very beautiful.”
His eyes never leave the screen.
He fires at the Nexus Dweller coming at him on his left. Now just one left. He fires again, but it dodges, coming at him full flow. As it’s about to strike the lethal blow, he pauses the game and throws the pad again. This time it smacks the door.
“Aghh! There must be an easier way around this bit,” he cries. “I’ve avoided other fights.”
“Well, maybe there isn’t.” All of my suggestions are incredibly supportive. “Maybe this is like a trial or something, to impress the Gate Master.”
“Gate Keeper.”
“Whatever.”
He smiles at me, his mouth widening in slow motion, the sort of smile that tells me exactly what he’s thinking. My poor pretty baby, so helpful, and so clueless. “Let me just work this out, then we can go to bed.” He has the audacity to wink and smile.
‘Work this out’ means another hour or two at least. If he doesn’t, he’ll boot up the laptop and scour FAQs or online game debates to find a cheat. When he finds one, he’ll grow a conscience and try again without help. Another hour or two will go by followed by other near death experiences for his joy pad. I could be sat beside him naked, it wouldn't matter.
I don’t smile back.

Noted. He changes tack. “Thirsty? A Coke, I think.”
Damn. If he has a Coke, he’ll be wired for a marathon session, clinging to the edge of the sofa, whooping maniacally at every small victory.
There’s no Coke in the fridge which means he’ll have to pop out. I could watch a bit of telly, he suggests, or read that book you bought with you. I bite my tongue. That ‘book I’d bought with me’ is one I’d bought him, a month ago, now used as disc storage for his games. There is no mention of having a go myself.
OK, I say.
His footsteps vibrate on the way down to the front door. Before I can stop myself, the pad is in my hands. The Nexus Dweller looks like something out of a cheap horror film. Frozen, its teeth bared, there’s even saliva. It’s clear that Dex has had it. The corner of the screen doesn’t show the number of lives left. Silly girl, there are no lives anymore these days. Only endless retries until the human player becomes a vegetable.

Behind the Nexus Dweller are the empty holes of the portals he’s left behind. It’s hard to tell where he’s come from, the whole level looks the same to me.
I try to remember which button does what, and hit start. The Nexus Dweller ends my life and the screen goes blank.
Shit.
I listen for footsteps, but hear nothing. I check the time. It's 00:10. He’ll have to walk to the petrol station, a good twenty minutes away. I work as hard and as fast as I can to get back to the where the Nexus Dwellers wait, thinking how ironic it is that I’m so desperate to place myself in danger again. The Gravity Gun is a lot harder to operate than it looks. I make a portal but can’t work out how to make another so I won’t fall into a gap to my doom, or, as Dex reminded me, the NeverSpace. I die countless times.
Ten minutes left.
Somehow, I manage to find a room that looks exactly like the Nexus Dwellers’ den. But there are no Nexus Dwellers. Panic makes my fingers stiff. I hunt around for them, piercing walls with holes like a crazed artist, cooing at the screen.
There they are.

I wait, point the gun at them, and dare them to Come On. They don’t move. I inch a little closer to them and feel my back strain as I lurch forward. Light from the TV grazes the top of my chest.
Suddenly, one of them comes at me like Usain Bolt, places its face close to the screen and stops. Its face changes. A smile? Gross.
I scream. The pad flies out of my hands. I stand no chance. It breathes heavily on the spot, its shoulders rising and falling, eyes blinking at me. It looks directly at me, scanning the living room with vapid yellow eyes; looks to me again, wearing that same half-mad smile. It makes a sound, a high-pitched grunt. My chest grows tight.
It jumps.
I yelp like a lame dog.
It steps back a few feet, and jumps again.
I grab the pad and manage a shot at it.
It dodges, returns to the same spot, and jumps over and over. It comes at me again, moves back, and jumps a few more times.
Fear slowly makes way for the dawning of clarity. I shoot at the Nexus Dweller’s feet. It falls through the portal.
The other one stayed at the very back of the room. It sidles left. I shoot again, killing it. It sacrifices itself. The first one reappears in a new room through the new portal. Behind it stands a figure draped in a long black cloak. It can only be the Gate Keeper.
Result.

Dex gets back with two Cokes and small bunch of dying flowers. He makes his sorry face, and grabs the pad from where I returned it to the couch. He un-pauses the game punching the trigger button simultaneously. It takes him a minute to realise something’s up.
“The Gate Keeper!” He turns to me, so incredibly pleased with himself, the smile beaming in the near darkness. He looks at the TV again, then to me, then the TV. He frowns.
I'm curled up in the sofa, my top lower than ever, waiting for the minutes to slide into seconds until he defeats the Gate Keeper, who, maybe, will grant him permission to enter the next level.