AN EVENING AT THE NIGHTCLUB SIERRA
Ivy and Robert walked down the dark street, towards the address they had been given.
The streetlamps were few and far between, and this seemed to be far from a healthy
neighborhood.
“I think this is it,” he said dubiously, looking at the small door in the alleyway, upon
which a small sign read: “The Nightclub Sierra (Where We’re All Part Of The Sierra Family)".
“Doesn’t look like much, though.”
“Don’t judge a book by its cover, dear,” Ivy said coolly. “Or a club by its door. Let’s go
in.”
Robert shrugged, and knocked. A small window opened in a door, and dark glasses
look out suspiciously. Actually, it was the eyes that looked out suspiciously, but Robert
couldn’t see them. So let’s just say the glasses looked out suspiciously and get back to the story.
“What’s the password?” growled the person behind the glasses.
Robert swallowed. “Um – Ken sent me.”
The window closed, and after a minute, the door opened. There, with his arms crossed,
stood a huge man, dressed in black leather clothes, shades, and a plastic pig’s snout. As if this
were not enough to set him apart from a crowd, his hair was cut and dyed into a flashy red
Mohawk. “Welcome to the Nightclub Sierra,” he growled, in the voice that all bouncers seem
to have. “Down the stairs and through the door. Enjoy yourselves, and remember – ” he
grinned a huge, toothy, and somewhat menacing grin, “we’re all part of the Sierra Family
here.”
Robert and Ivy thanked him, and then started down the stairs. And as they went, this
narrator decided to describe them. Ivy was a short, petite girl, with long, curly blond hair that
came down to her hips, and eyes that were, by the grace of God and contact lenses, a stunning
green. She was dressed to kill, as they say, and wore more makeup than a girl of age should
have money to buy. It was, however, very tastefully applied, on the whole making her look like
the most sophisticated twenty-three year old in the city.
Robert, on the other hand, looked decidedly uncool, wearing black pants and a dark
red polo shirt, aside from the look of a man who would so much rather be quietly reading a
book somewhere instead of coming to the Nightclub Sierra (Where We’re All Part Of The
Sierra Family). But Ivy was his best friend, and Ivy wanted to come here… So here they
were…
They arrived at the door at the bottom of the stairs and opened it…
The Nightclub Sierra (Where We’re All Part Of The Sierra Family) was built with the
fortunes made selling game addicts their fix. Not having any budget problems whatsoever,
then, the Nightclub was large, sophisticated, and almost unbelievably chic. Everything was
black – walls, ceiling, tables, bar… The company logo was stamped all over the place, a
mountain in a circle cut into various horizontal strips. Colored lights danced about the place,
illuminating the diners, the dance floor, and the singer and band onstage.
Along the walls, there were framed portraits of those who had brought glory to the
Sierra name, with golden plaques beneath them with their name inscribed on them… “Graham
of Daventry”, “Roger Wilco”, “Larry Laffer”, “Blond Schmuck With No Real Name” (that
was a pretty big plaque, reflected Robert), “Dr. Thaddeus Egghead Puzzle Brain”, and “Laura
Bow”, to name only a few. The large screen behind the stage and the small monitors scattered
around depicted classic scenes from Sierra’s gaming history.
“The music is horrible!” were Robert’s first words when inside, as a song that seemed
to embody the corniest country music had to offer assaulted his ears.
“It’ll get better,” said Ivy optimistically. “Let’s find a place to sit!”
They moved through the dark club, until they finally found an empty table. They sat
down, and a waiter dressed in a policeman’s uniform quickly moved to attend them. “Hi, I’m
Sonny, you’re waiter for the evening!” he said cheerily, handing them menus. “Take your time
to pick, and remember – we’re all part of the Sierra Family here!”
As the waiter moved away, Robert grumbled, “I don’t get it. What’s he dressed as a cop
for? There’s another one there dressed as a weird robot… There’s a wizard… There’s Robin
Hood, for crying out loud! What IS this place?”
“You don’t understand because you haven’t played the games,” said Ivy. “Just pick
something to eat.”
“Well, at least that awful singer’s stopped,” grumbled Robert as he picked up the menu.
“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for Al Lowe and the Fronteir Pharmacists!” said
the compere. There was polite applause, and the man continued, “Al will be back later with the
Lounge Lizards – not singing, thank God! But for now, I give you – Bob Bergthold, Debbie
Siebert, and the Sense Gnomes!”
“Thanks, Magpie…” muttered one of the musicians as he strutted onto the stage,
blowing kisses at a waitress whose nametag read “Princess Rosella”.
“Well, guys, decided what you want?” asked the waiter encouragingly as he approached
Ivy and Robert’s table.
“I’ll have an Astrochicken a la king , and a Lockjaw Milkshake,” said Ivy.
“What’re these ‘Cedric Drumsticks’?” inquired Robert, perring suspiciously at the
menu.
“Ah, our most popular dish! It’s chicken, but we encourage our customers to pretend
it’s owl. They feel SO fulfilled while eating it… They stab it with a fork a lot, too,” replied the
waiter.
“Ah… Maybe not what I want…” Robert said hastily. “I’ll just have the Slipheed Salad
and a Slam Dunk Cola, please.”
“Right you are, sir!” said the waiter, collecting the menus and moving away. The band
began playing an aching ballad, and images of what seemed to be an Arabian princess in a
tower and a colorfully-dressed man looking for her were displayed on a large plasma monitor
behind them.
Robert sighed. “After dinner, we can leave, right?” he asked.
Ivy looked at him with her striking green eyes. “Oh, come on. The dance music hasn’t
even started yet. Besides, there are some cute guys here,” she said playfully, pointing at the bar
where a handsome, brown-haired man sat chatting with a few other people. The man was
wearing a sweatshirt with the words, “I may be underdressed, but I am Jeff Tunnel.” written
on it.
Robert looked in the direction she was pointing. “The one with the wild grey hair?”
“Not him, the brown-haired one!” scolded Ivy. “The one who isn’t screaming!”
Indeed, the grey haired man was talking loudly and gesticulating wildly. As the waiter
came back to the table and set down their drinks, Robert asked him, “Who’s the guy with the
grey hair?”
The waiter chuckled. “We call him Crazy Ol’ Elon. He’s harmless, unless you happen
to be afraid of big words.” He moved on to another table and Ivy and Robert started on their
drinks.
Nearby, Dennis Kastowski drummed his fingers insistently on the smooth black table.
He was inconspicously dressed, wearing a light blue shirt and dark blue pants, though the
wraparound dark glasses were an odd touch in the dark nightclub. A tenchcoat hung over the
back of his chair. Every once in a while, he sipped a little of his drink – a Double Jerrod. But
his nervousness was apparent. He had been the first one in the club this evening, and had not
moved from his table the entire time. He was waiting.
He was jerked out of his tense reverie when a man dressed in a long brown robe with a
hood, much like a monk, sat down abruptly across from him. “Wear clean undergarments,
brush after meals!” hissed the stranger.
Dennis was taken aback. “Eh?”
“Wear clean undergarments, brush after meals!” repeated the stranger, whose waiter’s
nametag Dennis now saw idenitifed him as “Manhunter”.
Dennis suddenly understood: the code they’d agreed upon. “And always remember,
nothing is as it appears!” he replied triumphantly.
“Not so loud!” the Manhunter told him. “I had to bribe one of the waiters to leave and
give me his costume to meet you here. If Ken, or the Magpie, or even Al or Josh see me, I’m
done for. You remember what they did to the King in Gobliiins? They’ve no mercy on their
enemies, Dennis, none.”
Dennis ignored the rant. “Do you have the CDs?” he asked.
The Manhunter nodded. “They’re here. You have what I wanted?”
“Yes,” said Dennis. “My car is outside. It’s the grey Volvo. There’s a fake passport in
the glvoe compartment, along with tickets to Hawaii, Brazil, and Romania. You can take your
pick. There’s a briefcase with ten thousand dollars hidden under the passenger seat. You can
make your escape, and no one will ever find you.”
The Manhunter was silent for a minute. “I can’t believe it,” he said in a choked voice.
“It’s finally going to happen. Ever since Chainsaw Monday… I’ve been working as a computer
teacher in a school… And then I met you… You had the money… I had what you wanted…
Now I can start my life over…” He held back a sob.
Dennis was nonplussed. This wasn’t how rendezvous usually went in computer games,
but what the hell. “What’s on the CDs?” he asked.
His contact was all business again. “The first one is confidential e-mails to and from
Ken, about game designs and so on. There are also some early design drafts that were sent to
him – Willy Beamish II, Aces Over Korea, and Ecoquest 3, for instance. The second one has a
fully playable copy of Capitol Punishment, and documents that show the real reason it wasn’t
released.
Dennis raised his eyes, curious.
“Finally,” continued the Manhunter, “the other CDs have every single Sierra game,
from Mystery House to Quest for Glory 4, in fully playable mode, with the bugs fixed and
copy protection removed.”
“Hold on a minute,” said Dennis, his eyes narrowing. “How did you get those?”
“Same place as the others,” came the reply. “Ken’s personal files. He got the games
‘refitted’ by a couple of programmers after Chainsaw Monday, for his own use.”
Dennis nodded. “OK. So what do we do now?”
“You take the CDs. Go over to the game consoles, and type ‘TALKINGBEAR’, which
will get you out of the shell and into Windows. Check out the contents to your satisfaction.
When you’re happy, leave the club, meet me at your car, and give me the keys,” answered the
Manhunter. “All nice and easy.”
“Right,” muttered Dennis. He stood up, took the CDs that the Manhunter handed
him, picked up his trenchoat, and began walking to the cublicles at the eastern wall of the
nightclub, whre computers were available to those who wished to play. For the sake of
appearances, he stopped at the vending machine and paid four dollars for an Oil’s Well CD. It
was a cheap CD-R, with a simple label that said “Oil’s Well – 1984. This CD will self destruct
in five hours. This CD is programmed to run only within the Nightclub Sierra (Where We’re
All Part Of The Sierra Family).”
He entered a cubicle and sat down in the comfortable armchair in front of the
computer. He typed in the code word, then placed the first of the CDs that the Manhunter had
given him into the drive.
From the main part of the Nightclub, he heard Johnny Magpie’s voice announcing,
“Attention, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! The Sierra Family is proud to present as our
guest speaker for the evening, the Queen of Adventure Gaming! Let’s have a big hand for
Roberta Williams, the woman who started it all!”
As cheers erupted for the matriarch of the computer gaming community, movement in
the kitchen was as hurried as ever. “Yo!” called a waiter in the regal greens and yellows of the
Prince Alexander costume. “I need a Cedric Drumsticks with extra ketchup for table twelve,
two Hoyle Steaks, medium rare and well done, for table three, and a Fester Blatz Special for
table seventeen!”
“Comin’ right up!” came the answer. Another waiter entered the kitchen. “Quick, a
bowl of Lillians!” he called. He did a double take as he saw the other waiter. “THERE you are,
Max! What the hell is going on? You said I could be Prince Alexander today!”
The other waiter shrugged. “I was here first. The early bird catches the worm!”
“Dude, screw the worm! I got stuck with this stupid Simbani Laibon costume!” whined
the waiter, adjusting his headdress. “Everyone keeps yelling ‘THIS is for what I have come,
you bastard!’ and throwing food at me! I can’t take it!”
Prince Alexander picked up the two Hoyle Steaks. “Better avoid the Friends of
Rakeesh then, Tim. See you!” He exited the kitchen and made his way to table three, where
Ken Williams and a few members of the cloud of admirers that surrounded him wherever he
went were watching his wife speak.
“Thanks, Max,” acknowledged Ken. “You want to get these guys a bowl of nuts?” he
asked, indicating the four or five who were sitting at his table, hanging on Roberta’s every
word.
“One bowl of Lillians. Got it,” said the waiter, jotting it down. “Oh, and Mr. Cole told
me to tell you that he’s fixing up the last glitches in the security system right now, and that it
should be online in a few minutes.”
“Right, great, I’ll go take a look at it,” replied Ken. “And get John over here, will you?”
“Sure thing, Mr. Williams,” answered Prince Alexander. He turned and began weaving
a path through the crowd and tables, until he reached the foot of the stage. He had a quick
word with Johnny Magpie, then turned and went back to the kitchen.
John Williams, or Johnny Magpie, as he was known here, was the compere, manager,
musical director, and public relations director of the Nightclub Sierra (Where We’re All Part
Of The Sierra Family). As such, he was a very busy man. Therefore, he did not immediately go
speak to his brother, but waited until Roberta had finished her speech, and he had announced
DJ Siebert. As he began walking towards his brother’s table, the sounds of a dance remix of
“The Castle of Dr. Brain” filled the nightclub, and customers began flocking to the dance
floor.
When he arrived, his brother was talking earnestly in between mouthfuls of steak to the
“Yosemite Wannabes”, as the Sierra staff termed the teens who followed the Williamses
wherever they went.
“Figure out what you want from life and go get it,” he was saying. “Even if your goal is
to hitchhike around Europe, take it seriously and do it well. Don’t apologize for your goals.
They are yours.”
“Ken?” asked Magpie as he approached.
“Yeah. Hold on a minute, guys,” he said, standing up to talk to his brother. The
Yosemite Wannabes quickly shifted their attentions to Roberta.
“John,” began Ken, “It’s been pretty slow tonight. Where is everyone?”
“Well, you know how it is,” the Magpie said apologetically. “Jim said he’s not coming
back here until we put more Codename: Iceman stuff up. Darryl complains about the noise.
We had to ask Jane to stop coming because she was starting to scare people with those stories
of hers…”
“But those guy never come,” Ken interrupted him. “Where are Mark, Al, Josh, Lolelei,
Bruce…?”
“Oh!” The Magpie stopped to think. “Now that you mention it – Josh and Al I know
are upstairs with Corey…”
“You’re telling me that Al Lowe, who hasn’t programmed a single thing since Leisure
Suit Larry 1, is giving Corey Cole suggestions on how to program the security system of the
nightclub in which all of my capital and goodness knows how many people’s hopes and
dreams are tied up?” demanded Ken.
“Oh, come on, Ken, it’s not that bad. Al is a good programmer, he…”
“I know he’s a good programmer. It’s his sense of humor that I’m worried about,” said
Ken, walking briskly towards the door labeled “Personnel Only”. “I’m not sure I want a
security system with a sense of humor…”
cool.”
“Poker is a man’s game, Josh,” bragged Al Lowe, “You’ve gotta be able to keep your
“Look who’s talking,” muttered Corey Cole. “Are you going to play, or just keep joking
around?”
“Chicken! Astrochicken!” Josh Mandel retorted.
Corey rolled his eyes. “I should have stuck to bridge.”
“Let’s get on with this, shall we?” asked Al. “Josh, got any sevens?”
“Go Fish.”
“Hey, guys,” said Ken, entering the room. “What’s with Go Fish?”
“Well, Corey doesn’t know how to play Poker…”
“And Josh forgot the chips…”
“And Al always goes red in the face when he gets a good hand…”
“OK, OK,” said Ken helplessly, raising his hands. “Forget I asked. Now – what are
you guys doing up here?”
“I was finishing the security system,” mumbled Corey.
“I was helping him,” said Al brightly.
Ken’s eyes narrowed. “No bathroom cameras?”
“Of course not,” said Al righteously.
“No fake ‘This credit card is past its limit’ messages?”
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” Al told him.
“Bad puns in the game computer menus?”
“A few of those, maybe,” admitted Corey sheepishly.
Ken sighed. “Alright, alright. I guess I’ll go back downst-”
One of the technicians interrupted him. “Mr. Williams? I think you should see this.
We’re seeing an unauthorized use of the game computers, and some of the files that are being
accessed seem to be… Well, yours.”
Back on the dance floor, Ivy and Robert were dancing along to a remix of the theme
from Space Quest 3. The monitor over the stage where the performers had been earlier was
now displaying scenes of the epic chase in which the Pirates of Pestulon sought to destroy
Roger Wilco and the Two Guys from Andromeda.
Ivy was dancing with a smile on her face. It was good to be here, good to be in the
whirlwind of make-believe and nostalgia that the Nightclub Sierra was designed to
produce. Every glimpse she got of a designer, or of a piece of “memorabilia”, or just of a
waiter dressed as a character, gave her a warm feeling inside. She felt it again as she
happened to glance upwards and see, suspended from the ceiling, a glss bottle with a small
model of Castle Daventry within.
The music died down and gave way to a vaguely familiar disco song. A spotlight
was turned on, focusing on the middle of the dance floor – exactly where Robert was. He
quickly took a few steps back out of the light.
“And now,” boomed Johnny Magpie’s voice from the speakers again, “Ladies and
gentlemen, boys and girls, with you on the dance floor: the black sheep of the Sierra
Family, that loveable, laughable, lying loser, the Lord of the Lounge Lizards - Larry
Laffer!”
As he spoke, projectors whirled into life, and in the now empty center of the dance
floor, the spotlight was replaced by the holographic image, maybe four feet tall, of a
cartoonish, bald spot-bearing, polyester-wearing man. There was a roar of laughter in the
nightclub as he began dancing, dancing in steps that had not been used since… Well, since
people had been dressing regularly in polyester.
“What the hell is that?” demanded Robert. “Are we in Disneyland?”
“That’s Leisure Suit Larry,” explained Ivy with a laugh. “He’s – well, he’s hard to
explain.”
“A total loser?” suggested Robert.
“That’s it.”
“How whacked to you have to be to be a total loser in a world that doesn’t exist?”
grumbled Robert.
“I – hey!” said Ivy angrily. A waiter, distracted by the spectacle of the dancing
character, had bumped into her and spilled a mug of purple Boogle Beer on her dress.
“Can’t you look where you’re going?” she asked.
The waiter, dressed in a StarCon Uniform with a red bag over his head, apologized.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I’ve told them a hundred times – this uniform is terrible, I
can’t see a thing!”
“Not to mention the fact that your nametag says ‘Droole’,” smirked Robert.
Ivy huffed angrily. “I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be back in a minute,” she told
Robert.
The smirk fell off Robert’s face. “Wait! You’re leaving me alone with these…
people?”
She was gone.
With a cold mask of anger on his face, Ken walked towards the computer game
consoles, flanked by two of the bouncers. Someone had stolen copies of his own e-mail and
still had the nerve to read it in the Nightclub Sierra (Where We’re All Part Of The Sierra
Family). Whoever it was, they were going to be “Roberta-ed”, as the bouncer liked to say.
People who had never played the King’s Quest games never quite understood
“Roberta-ed”, thought Ken absently, nodding to a waiter as he passed. But after being
crackered by Daliah, falling into a bottomless chasm, being zapped by a wizard, being eaten by
an ogre, spotted by a cat, gored by a minotaur, and so on and so forth, you got the hang of
what it was to be “Roberta-ed”.
They approached cubicle seven, which had been identified as the one containing he
miscreant. Ken stepped back as one of the bouncers opened the door…
…to find the cubicle completely empty. Ken gaped, and the bouncers silently looked at
each other in confusion. “Where’d he go?” one of them asked finally.
“The waiter we passed!” asked Ken. “What was he dressed as?”
“Gabriel Wilco,” answered the first bouncer firmly.
“Knight! Gabriel Knight!” corrected the other bouncer. “He’s new here,” he said to
Ken apologetically.
“Did either of you see his nametag?” asked Ken, his heart beating faster.
The two bouncers looked at each other. “Nope.”
“So all we saw was a guy in a trenchcoat?”
“I guess,” answered one of the bouncers.
“Move it!” said Ken. “Find him!”
Back on the dance floor, Dennis moved quickly, thoughts running through his head.
Had his contact set him up? Surely the Manhunter must have known about the security system!
Or didn’t he? In any case, he’d been lucky enough so that some stupid technician at the
security system had shut down his computer, alerting him that something was wrong. He had
actually passed Ken Williams and the bouncers and gotten away. Now he had to get out of this
club – fast.
His heart fell when he saw two more guys from Andromeda waiting at the exit. In
desperation, he ran towards the bathrooms, though he knew full well that there were no exits
there. Such was the consequence of having a nightclub built underground.
He was in such a hurry to avoid the pursuers who he was sure were right behind him
that he mistakenly entered the door with the picture o Laura Bow, as opposed to the one with
Roger Wilco…
Both Ivy and Dennis gave a cry of surprise as they saw each other. “This is the ladies’
room!” Ivy shot at him.
Dennis looked around. So it was. “I – um… Sorry,” he said. He looked for a couple of
seconds at the blonde girl, and made a decision. He would have to trust her, if he was to have
any hope of getting the CDs out. “Listen,” he said to her. “I have these CDs – they’re vitally
important to me. I need you to help me get them out of here. There are people who don’t
want me to have them.”
Ivy’s eyes narrowed. “Is this something illegal?” she asked.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” said Dennis. “It is. But…”
“No way, Jose,” said Ivy decidedly. “Count me out,” she told him, walking out of the
bathroom.
“Unreleased Sierra games!” he said desperately. “Capitol Punishment!”
Ivy turned around slowly. “What?” she asked, trying to keep the excitement out of her
voice.
“Everything is on here!” he said, with a glimmer of hope visible in his eyes. “Design
documents! Quest for Glory 4 with no Error 52! Capitol Punishment!”
She looked at him for a minute. Could it be true? There was no way of knowing. But
the smallest chance that it was would be worth the risk.
“OK, what do you want me to do?” she asked.
Dennis gave a sigh of release. “Stick these in your purse,” he said, handing her the
CDs. “I’ll leave here, and they’ll get me. While they’re after me, leave the club nice and slowly.
Meet me outside.”
Ivy nodded. “Let’s go,” she said.
About thirty seconds later, as Ken Williams and the bouncers approached the
bathrooms, the door featuring Laura Bow’s face swung open and out flew Dennis. He
managed to run about five yards before being tackled. “Oof!” he cried, worrying about broken
ribs.
Ivy exited the bathroom slowly. “Use the distraction,” she told herself. “It’s just like
the mechanical nightingale in Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow. Or the birds in Ecoquest 2.”
She walked as calmly, and coolly as she could. She went over to the dance floor, and
said Robert, “Let’s go. Now.”
Robert looked away from the conversation he was having with a waitress. “Oh, c’mon,
Ivy! I’m just starting to feel like Part of the Sierra Family!”
Ivy glared at him. “Robert. Let’s. Go. Now!”
Robert sighed. “Bye, Rosella,” he said to the waitress. They walked towards the exit.
They were almost there…
Ivy saw Ken Williams coming towards the exit as well. “He knows!” she said. She
broke into a run, pulling an astonished Robert behind her. They neared the exit and..
“Hey!” said the bouncer near the door. Ivy ran faster and…
Tripped. CDs cascaded from her purse. She had been caught.
“Well, well, well,” came a voice. Ken Williams bent down to pick up the CDs and read
their labels, impressed. “You’ve assembled quite a treasure trove here, haven’t you?”
Ivy looked up at him, silent, visions of prisons dancing around in her head.
Ken guffawed. “Aw, heck. I figure if I’d been in your place, I’d have done the same
thing. So I’ll tell you what I told the other guy,” he said to her. “These CDs stay. Nice try, but
no cigar… Who knows? Someday maybe you’ll find these on the internet, or we’ll release a
special edition…”
She stood up slowly. Robert was staring, not understanding a single thing.
“But,” said Ken, “No hard feelings. Come back whenever you like. And remember –”
“We’re all part of the Sierra Family here!”