Cooperative Mode
Stephen had felt like he had been awake for three days straight now. His eyes were heavy and walking was difficult. The perfectly normal afternoon traffic was inexplicably annoying today. Frequent coffee and restroom breaks kept him away from his desk at work and his sleeplessness was so obvious that it compelled Kramer to send him home. He had to get control of this situation before anything else was affected. But how would he even start going about this? After thinking for a while, Stephen came up with two possibilities.
The first possibility was that his exhaustion was a result of his mind playing tricks on him. His understanding of the science of sleep was very limited, but the last few nights must have qualified as lucid dreaming. If that was the case, perhaps the picturesque detail and realistic passing of time made his mind think that he was awake and conscious the whole time. Thus tricking his body into thinking it never really slept.
What if that wasn’t the case? The second possibility was nearly the opposite of the first. Perhaps the lucid dreams were brought on by Stephen’s mind going into a dream state while his body somehow stayed awake. That would open up the possibility of sleepwalking with the dreams playing along to whatever was happening to his body. That might explain the bruises Stephen found on himself this morning. Maybe he had gotten up and fallen down his stairs while sleepwalking? But then how did he get back into bed and wake up in the same position he had fallen asleep in without disturbing Selena? She wasn’t a terribly heavy sleeper. She would have noticed if he moved her too much.
With those thoughts considered, Stephen had reached the limit of his understanding on this subject. He was going to have to reach out to someone who could help. So on the way home, he called his doctor, who suggested a sleep specialist and gave him a number. Shortly after, an appointment was scheduled for the next day.
Stephen walked into his house and through the kitchen. On the other side of the kitchen was the living room where Selena lay on his sofa, playing a video game. Stephen reached over his sofa to give her a hug. She paused the game and spun around to hug him back. Her body slammed into his, her arms gripped around his torso like a vice and her head rested over his shoulder. Stephen held his breath and prayed she wouldn’t see how his face was contorting from pain. “What are you doing home so early?” she squeaked with excitement.
Stephen asked for space with a gentle push on her stomach. She took the hint and compromised by holding onto his shoulders and looking into his eyes. “I was sent home,” Stephen said after putting on a big smile.
Selena’s eyes widened. “You didn’t get in trouble, did you?”
“I don’t think I did. Damien saw me sleeping during my lunch break and told Kramer. The phones weren’t ringing much so Kramer said if I was tired then I should take the rest of the day off.”
“That was nice of him.”
“I know, right? I didn’t expect that at all.”
Selena’s eyes sulked slightly. “Does that mean you’re going back to bed?”
“I think I’d rather hang out with my favorite girl.” As Stephen moved to sit down on the couch, he noticed his television. He didn’t recognize the game that Selena was playing. Stephen wasn’t much of a gamer. Excepting an occasional boring weekend, Stephen only played when his gamer friends came to visit. The consoles and games weren’t even his. Stephen’s gamer friends lived in a neighborhood with a high burglary rate, so their games were at Stephen’s house for safekeeping. But this didn’t look like any of the other games. “What are you playing? I don’t think it’s one of the ones on my shelf.” Stephen asked as he sat down next to Selena.
“I brought it from my house to kill time while I waited for you. It’s called Portal 2. Have you ever heard of it?”
“I’ve heard the title before but I’ve never seen it. What’s it about?"
Selena resumed the game. “This gun in the screen shoots portals. The object of the game is to use the portals to solve puzzles and get around obstacles.”
“That sounds fun,” said Stephen.
“It can be but it’s actually really tough. I’ve been stuck on this level for a while.”
“Where do you have to go?”
Selena used the game’s cursor to point to a platform high in the middle of the room with no other platforms anywhere near it. “I think I have to get here. But I haven’t figured out how yet.”
“Show me what you were trying just before I got here.”
Selena pointed the gun on the screen at a nearby wall and pressed a button, making the gun shoot an orange circle at the wall. She then pointed the gun at a higher up platform on the right side of the room. Pressing another button created a window between the rear wall and the platform. Selena walked through the wall and onto the platform she had shot at a second ago.
Stephen found it odd that this narrow platform was painted orange instead of being off-white like the rest of the stage. Perhaps there was a reason for it. “Why is the floor orange?” Stephen asked.
“That’s propulsion gel. It makes you run really fast. I put it here thinking I could use the momentum to get myself to another platform. But there’s nowhere to run to.” Selena created another portal to put herself back on the original platform.
That’s when Stephen noticed two tubes on the right side of the platform. One was dropping the orange paint that Stephen saw on the floor. The other was dropping blue paint. “Why is there blue paint coming from that tube?” he asked.
“That’s repulsion gel. It makes you bounce. I tried using that on some of the other platforms on the left side of the stage but that didn’t work either.”
Stephen studied the stage for about ten seconds. “Can I see that platform you were just on?”
Selena pointed the gun to the right. “Like that?”
“Just like that.” Stephen looked over the platform. An angled surface on the wall above the platform caught his eye. It was suspiciously level with another angled surface across from it. “Can you make the blue stuff come out from here?” he asked and pointed to it.
“Yep!” Selena put an orange circle under the tube that dispensed the repulsion gel. Then she put a blue ring on the wall Stephen pointed at. He watched the blue globs drop through the hole in the floor and then fly through the hole in the wall to splatter against the ramp. “Do you have a plan?” Selena asked.
“Not really, but I have something I’d like to try.” Stephen reviewed the stage one more time. “Go back to the platform with the propulsion gel.” Selena made another portal that she could walk through and found herself facing the wall they had just used to launch the repulsion gel. Stephen pointed to the wall directly in front of her and the surface they had launched the gel from. “Make it so you’ll go through the lower wall and come out through the high wall.” Selena followed his instructions. “See if that works.”
Selena pushed the character forward through the portal and out the wall. She hit the wall that they covered in the repulsion gel and was sent airborne, dropping down on a higher platform two seconds later. “That was awesome!” Selena cried. “I’ve been trying to figure that out for an hour. Are you sure you’ve never played this game before?”
“I’m not sure what to tell you,” said Stephen. “It was just the first thing that popped into my head.”
Selena turned around in the game and found a cube set next to where she had landed on the platform. “Oh! We’re making progress.” She pressed a button and the cube started floating in front of the gun. “These are supposed to hold down buttons so we can move on. Where do you think we should go next?”
“Let me see around the room,” said Stephen. As Selena panned the camera around the room, Stephen studied the stage’s layout again. “Drop down to that platform.” Selena obeyed his command and gave Stephen another three hundred sixty degree view of the stage. To their left was the starting platform and what appeared to be a machine on the platform next to it. Stephen pointed to the machine. “Can I see what’s over there?”
Selena made a portal to that platform and stepped through it. “Huzzah!” she cheered. “See that red square on the floor? That’s where this cube needs to go.” Selena went over to the square and set the cube on top of it. Stephen watched the machine on a platform straight ahead turn upside-down. “Well, that doesn’t do us any good!” Selena giggled.
Stephen looked over to the left and saw the starting platform tubes dripping the different gels. Then he remembered the rest of the stage’s layout. Somewhere on a higher platform was a ramp that pointed at this machine. “Is there a way to make that platform go back to normal?”
“Like this?” Selena took the cube off the button. The machine turned back to where it was positioned originally.
Stephen pointed to the floor under the machine. “Make the blue stuff come up from the floor so it splashes the bottom of the machine.”
“What’s the plan?” Selena asked.
“I still don’t know,” said Stephen. Selena put a portal under the repulsion gel and opened it on the floor under the machine. When the blue gel dropped through the hole under the tube, it launched straight up and splattered against the machine. “Now make it turn over again,” said Stephen. Selena obeyed and put the cube back onto the button.
“What now?”
“If I’m on the right track, you should go back to the starting platform.” Selena took Stephen’s suggestion and held the camera on the right side of the room. Stephen looked it over and found what he was looking for in under five seconds. “Can you make blue gel hit this ramp up here?” he asked, pointing to a specific platform on the far right side of the room. Selena sent a portal and made the tubes spray it with repulsion gel. “Now go back over to that spot with the orange stuff,” Stephen pointed out the platform he was referring to. “You’ll want to go through this wall again,” Stephen’s finger traced his game plan on the screen. “But make it so you come out of this wall here,” Stephen pointed to the ramp where they had just dropped the repulsion gel.
Selena prepared herself by setting the portals in the necessary spots. “Let’s give it a shot!” she cheered before running forward again. She went through the wall at high speed and came out of the higher wall. Stephen watched Selena cringe with anticipation as her character was launched across the screen, losing momentum halfway through the drop. She then gasped with excitement when her character bounced off the rotating platform they had covered in repulsion gel. The extra boost of momentum launched Selena up and across the remaining distance, landing perfectly on the stage’s highest platform and straight into an elevator to the next level.
Selena launched up from the sofa with a cheer and a shriek. “That was awesome!” Selena held her hand up high. Stephen slowly rose from the sofa to grant her the high-five. “How did you do that so quickly?”
“Like I said; it was just the first thing that popped into my head. But I’m liking this game. Does it have a cooperative mode?” Stephen asked.
“It does actually!” As excitable as Selena could be, Stephen hadn’t seen her this enthusiastic in a while. Stephen wasted no time in preparing the second player controller while Selena exited her single-player game.
The couple played together, solved puzzles and laughed together. Stephen rarely took more than a couple minutes to work out most of them. During some of the momentum-based challenges, Stephen was often able to point out mistakes they had made and fix them while airborne. Not only did this save them from quite a few in-game deaths but it was also a pleasant surprise to Stephen, who didn’t know he could do this type of thing.
The hours flew by. But after so long, Stephen’s mind started getting cloudy and the stages were gradually taking him longer to figure out. Not that the difficulty was any greater, but that it was getting more difficult for Stephen’s brain to connect the dots. After his mind bogged down, his speech became slow and slurred. But the last cue to stop playing came when Stephen’s stomach growled at them in the middle of a puzzle, causing Selena to burst into laugher and fall into a trap.
“Perhaps it’s time we get some dinner,” said Selena when she stopped laughing.
“Then some sleep,” Stephen muttered, rising from the sofa.
“We’re not going for a walk tonight?” Selena asked with a curled lower lip.
“I’m absolutely beat today, Selena,” Stephen said as he made his way into the kitchen.
“Is it because you didn’t sleep well last night?”
Stephen started digging through his refrigerator. “It’s because I didn’t sleep well the last couple of nights.”
Selena tried to comfort Stephen with a hug. Stephen prepared himself for pain, but thankfully, she was being especially gentle and didn’t grab around any of his bruises. “You’re not sick, are you?”
Selena let go of Stephen when he came out of the refrigerator. “I promise I’ll be fine.” Stephen didn’t know if that was true. But he didn’t want her to worry about him too much. “I’ve got an appointment with a sleep specialist tomorrow. Hopefully I can get this sorted out before it becomes a real problem.”
“That’s good. Let me know how that goes.”
The dinner was enjoyable even though Stephen didn’t find leftover take-out to be as tasty the second day. Some of the pleasure came from how Stephen didn’t have to put any effort into preparing it. He simply didn’t have enough energy to do anything more complicated than a microwave. The rest of the enjoyment came from having Selena there with him. Though they saw a lot of each other, Stephen enjoyed every moment and really didn’t want to picture spending his free time any other way.
It was a little after six-thirty when they finished washing the dishes. Stephen made his way up the stairs with Selena close behind, refusing to head out for work as he requested. After saving him from falling over this morning, she wanted to make sure he was alright getting up the stairs. Though he was a little slower on the ascent, he got up the stairs without a problem.
“I told you I could get up here myself. I’m not old yet,” Stephen chuckled.
“But what would I do if I come back tomorrow and you were laid out at the bottom of the stairs? I don’t think I could handle that.”
Stephen plopped himself onto his bed and Selena bent down to give him a kiss. “Do well at work and I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Stephen.
“Sleep tight for me, okay?”
“I will.”
After Selena left, Stephen felt himself nodding off. Finally, he would get some much sought-after sleep.
“Gosh darn it!” Stephen shouted into the library.
“Landsakes!” a southern accent cried out in response.
Stephen looked around the room. Twilight, Applejack and Spike were gazing at him, wide-eyed and startled, over a stack of wood planks and tools. Stephen hung his head low and walked towards them.
“We have got to figure out why that keeps happening,” said Twilight.
“So he really does appear just like that, doesn’t he?” Applejack asked.
“Yes, and he disappears just as quick,” said Twilight. “Earlier today he vanished right out of my hoof!”
“Sorry for startling you,” Stephen muttered. “What did I interrupt this time?”
“We were just gettin’ to fixin’ this here dent in the floor from last night,” said Applejack.
“Sounds fun,” said Stephen. “Well I’m here now so let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
Spike chuckled as he picked a crowbar that was on the floor. “Yeah we’ll let you know if we need you to smash a piece of wood back into place.”
“Spike, don’t be rude!” Twilight scorned.
“I’m just joking with him. Geezelouise!” Spike grunted and shoved the crowbar into the floorboards.
Stephen laid down on the floor and tried to relax while he watched Spike work. The dragon bent his crowbar down as far as his little body could push it. The floor creaked and one of the broken boards bent upward.
“I got it!” Applejack declared.
Applejack rose onto her front legs, coiling her hind legs into her body. Stephen looked at the way the floorboard was bent to a point of breaking and then noticed how he was laying straight in front of it. “Oh my…”
A sonorous crack resonated through the air when the board snapped under Applejack’s powerful legs. The board was catapulted across the room, spiraling end-over-end as it flew right towards Stephen’s face.
Stephen’s reflexes took over, causing him to cover his head with his front legs. For a few suspenseful seconds, he awaited the smack of a wooden plank that never came. Peering up through his forelegs, he found the villainous plank was mere inches from his face, hovering in mid-air and glowing purple.
“That was a close one!" Twilight called out. "Are you alright?”
“Yeah, thanks for catching that,” Stephen said as he moved to lie down in a safer spot of the room.
“It’s not a problem,” Twilight said proudly.
Stephen watched from a far corner of the room as the ponies repaired the floorboards. After Spike and Applejack finished removing the damaged floorboards, Twilight levitated them into a neat pile. Now that all the damaged floorboards were removed, there was a hole in the library’s floor where the basement below was visible through its ceiling’s frame. The new floorboards would need to be fitted into where the old ones were taken out. But the edges of the hole were jagged and uneven from where Spike had snapped them off. They’d probably need to be sanded even but Stephen didn’t see sandpaper among their tools. Just as he thought that, Twilight’s horn started glowing again. The split and uneven ends of the surrounding floorboards shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and made a perfectly rectangular hole in the floor. That was just plain amazing.
Applejack approached the hole with a measuring tape in her mouth. Stephen looked at the hole and then to the boards they had and noticed something was off. Looking over their tools, he noticed they didn’t have a saw. “I think you’ll need to cut about a half foot off those boards,” Stephen spoke up.
“How could you tell?” asked Spike.
“I get a lot of practice at my job,” said Stephen.
Applejack measured the hole and compared it to the length of the planks. “Well I’ll be,” she said. “That’s just about right. I’ll have to run to the hardware store across the street.” Applejack set down the measuring tape and jogged out the door.
“Stephen, since you know a little about this, would you like to help when Applejack gets back?”
Stephen sat up and shrugged. “Sure, anything to kill the time.”
Applejack returned a few minutes later with a saw and they went to work. Twilight’s magic would hold the boards steady while Spike would cut them to the proper length. Applejack and Stephen would put the boards down over a layer of glue. They worked with great teamwork and efficiency and within a half hour, the hole in the floor was covered. Then Applejack went over it with a layer of lacquer. Twilight zapped it with her horn and it instantly dried. Applejack applied a second layer and Twilight zapped it again. After that, Stephen couldn’t even tell there had been a hole in the first place.
“Phew! Now all we have to do is figure out how to do the same thing on the ceiling,” Twilight said as she pointed to the Rainbow Dash shaped dent.
“That was awesome, everyone,” said Stephen.
“Shucks, it ain’t nothin’,” said Applejack.
“I wish repairs could be made that quick where I come from,” Stephen replied. “My job would be a lot easier.”
“Anyway, Stephen,” said Applejack. “Twilight tells me you two have a little wager going on and you need somewhere to hang out for the night.”
“Yeah, you could say that,” Stephen replied.
“Well it just so happens that zap-apple season is startin’ tonight,” said Applejack. “My Granny Smith can’t ward off the timberwolves anymore. So it’s up to the rest of us Apple-folk to take up the reigns. It’s our first year doing it without Granny Smith so we could use all the help we can get. You up for a challenge?” Applejack asked as she started packing her tools.
Stephen only caught Applejack’s first sentence. Everything else she said got tuned out by horrific flashbacks of getting chased two nights ago. “Timberwolves?” he asked. “Those things made me run for my life two nights ago. I’d like to stay very far away from them if at all possible.”
Applejack finished packing her tools into her saddle bag and threw it over her back. “Aw shoot. It ain’t anything to worry about. All ya gotta do is bang pots and pans together. C’mon! It’ll be fun!” Applejack pleaded as she trotted up behind Stephen. Pressing against his backside, she pushed him towards the door. Stephen's hind legs came right off the ground and he slid all the way across the library as he resisted in futility against Applejack's strength.
Desperate for help, Stephen looked back for support from Twilight and Spike. However, Twilight was waving goodbye and spike was giggling at his misfortune. “Have fun!” Twilight called out.
“Help me for goodness’ sake!” Stephen pleaded as he was pushed through the door. With a hind leg, Applejack kicked it shut behind them.
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"Huzzah"? Works at night? Loves videogames? Selena sounds a lot like Luna. Coincidence?
1543091
I sense Gamer Luna...... which makes me think: He's dreaming, but which parts are the dream?
and there goes my hopes that he is American. Or British... Or Australian. You know, I have never me anyone who says that out of pure frustration/rage/aggravation when they are not used to being around kids.
1543091
Not to mention Luna and Selena both mean 'Moon' in I think Latin for Luna and Greek for Selena.
(I found this out from a typo in a Habsro MLP book, where they called Luna, Princess Selena.)
(O_O) AND they enjoy going for walks at night!!! (O_O)
Why does this make so much sense!!??
What could possibly go wrong? I forsee a lot going wrong.
How is she spinning and slamming her body when she's laying down?
3387879
So he's Canadian?