The old beeps came from the attic, like ghosts tapping in code.
He hadn’t touched that Atari in decades — not since that final game.
One friend moved away. One score was never settled.
Now he was seventy, alone, and staring at a blinking cursor.
It was time to find out who really won — before the clock ran out.
🟨 Part 1: The Console in the Dust
Derek Hanley hadn’t climbed into his attic in years.
It was the smell that got to him first — insulation, mildew, old cardboard. He squinted past the dust, shifting boxes with joints that reminded him of their age. A half-torn Christmas wreath, a high school yearbook, a crate of cassette tapes.
And then it called to him — that grey box with a joystick. The original Atari 2600. The one with black tape on the side where his cousin spilled root beer during a sleepover in ’83.
He sat cross-legged like a boy, the air brittle with memory. He ran his hand across the console, over dust that hadn’t been disturbed in decades. A shiver passed through him.
He wasn’t Derek the widower now. He was Derek the Champion. The kid who ruled the living room with a flick of his wrist and a focused glare.
He carried it downstairs like a relic, blowing gently into the cartridge slot the way Luis used to.
Luis Alvarez.
The name hit his chest like a soft punch.
Derek plugged the machine into the living room TV. He had to jiggle the RF connector just right, like he used to. When the screen blinked to life with Combat — a tank game from a time when everything seemed simple — he froze.
The 8-bit beep echoed in the quiet house. He hadn’t heard that sound since he was seventeen.
He watched the tank roll out. His hands moved instinctively.
His thumb still knew how to win.
But all he saw was Luis’s face, sweaty and laughing. That last summer before Luis moved. Their final game. The day Derek cheated.
He’d never told anyone. Not even Luis. Especially not Luis.
The score on the screen back then had crowned him Champion. Derek Hanley — unbeatable. The boy with the best hand-eye coordination in three counties.
But he had looked at the screen too long. Never at his friend’s face when the final point tallied.
And then Luis was gone.
New town, new school. No social media back then. Just distance.
Now Derek sat in a quiet house in Wilkinsville, Indiana, surrounded by silence that only grew louder as the years passed.
Claire, his wife of thirty years, was gone two winters now — breast cancer.
His daughter Karen called once a week. Grandkids too busy with soccer and screens.
His legs hurt when it rained. His back was like a cranky accordion.
But that beep… that beep had time-traveled him.
And for the first time in years, he felt something stir that wasn’t pain or routine.
He opened Facebook, typed:
“Dug this up from the attic — still works! Who remembers Combat on the Atari 2600?”
And underneath, he added the high score: 8-7.
Then he paused.
That was the score from that last game.
The game he won by nudging the cartridge just enough to stall Luis’s tank mid-round. A glitch. He’d blamed it on the machine.
He hit “post” anyway.
An hour later, the comments rolled in.
“Whoa, throwback!”
“Still got mine in the garage!”
“Remember playing with my brother until 2 AM.”
One message was private.
From: @RetroByte1989
“Are you Derek from Jefferson High? Hanley? If so… I think we’ve got unfinished business.”
His mouth went dry.
The cursor blinked like a heartbeat.
He clicked to open the full message.
🟨 Part 2: PixelPanther1989
“If so… I think we’ve got unfinished business.”
Derek stared at the message.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard, unsure whether to type or tremble.
The username was @RetroByte1989. The profile photo showed nothing but a pixelated tank and two joystick emojis. No real name. No location. Just a banner that said:
Player 2 is waiting.
Could it really be him?
Luis Alvarez, the boy who could pull off a joystick 180 like no one else.
The kid with the freckled nose, loud laugh, and quick temper.
The only one who ever came close to beating Derek — until that day in ’83.
Derek clicked the profile. Sparse. Mostly retro gaming groups. A few posts about Atari homebrew tournaments. One grainy photo: a hand resting on an old console, ringed with medical tape.
Something stirred in his chest — guilt, old friendship, and the kind of fear that only comes with long silence.
He typed.
“This is Derek Hanley. From Jefferson. Are you… Luis?”
The reply came quicker than he expected.
“Took you long enough.”
He blinked, reading the words again and again.
“I saw the high score. 8–7. You still play dirty?”
A laugh escaped Derek, low and dry like rusted hinges.
It was him. Had to be.
“Guess I owe you an apology. Been forty years, but some scores stick.”
For a moment, no reply came. Just the blinking dots of a man thinking far too hard.
Then:
“You still in Indiana?”
“Wilkinsville. You?”
“New Mexico. Albuquerque. Been here since ‘85. Family moved right after… well, you know.”
Derek sat back. So it was true. Luis had lived an entirely different life, state away, and not once had their paths crossed again.
Until now.
“You ever wonder?” Derek typed. “What might’ve happened if we had one more game?”
Luis’s answer came after a long pause.
“Every time I hear that damn beep.”
A beat later:
“But my hands aren’t what they used to be. Had a stroke last year. Still recovering.”
Derek’s throat tightened. He hadn’t expected that.
He could still picture Luis as a wiry teenager, always chewing gum, always fidgeting with his thumbs like the world was a controller waiting to be cracked.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Derek wrote.
“Hope you’re doing okay?”
“I can play… just not as fast. But for you, I’d play left-handed. One last time.”
Derek felt something warm behind his eyes.
The cursor blinked.
He imagined it blinking in time with Luis’s heartbeat. Slower now. Maybe fading. But still there. Still beating.
“Then let’s do it,” he typed.
“One last round. The rematch.”
Luis replied with a photo. Not of himself. But of his Atari, duct-taped at the edges, perched on a wooden crate. Underneath, a caption:
“Still waiting for Player One.”
Derek chuckled. He looked down at his own machine. His wife’s afghan still draped across the sofa behind it. Claire used to call it “that noisy little box,” but she always brought him a sandwich during long games.
He wondered what she’d say now.
Probably something like: “Well go on, then. Go settle it.”
By the next evening, they’d agreed on the format:
- Game: Combat, tanks mode, no ricochet.
- Platform: Emulator online — Luis couldn’t hold a joystick long enough.
- Time: Saturday night. Just like the old days.
But that gave Derek a few days.
A few days to practice.
A few days to remember who he used to be.
And maybe — just maybe — to face a truth he never said out loud:
He had cheated that day.
And the guilt had followed him into every corner of adulthood.
He spent the next morning rummaging through an old box marked “Miscellaneous.” Inside was everything from expired batteries to a broken harmonica. But tucked between a Bible and an unopened birthday card was a Polaroid.
Luis and Derek, both thirteen, holding their joysticks like trophies, sweat-darkened hair stuck to their foreheads. Behind them: Derek’s dad’s TV. On the screen: the blinking Atari logo.
Luis was smiling in the photo. Derek wasn’t.
He’d been too focused. Too desperate to win.
Looking back now, Derek wasn’t sure what he had really won that day — except a memory that never sat right.
He framed the photo.
Set it next to the TV.
And whispered, “One more time, my friend. For real this time.”
