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The Arcade of Doom was the seventh short story in the Lethbridge-Stewart series anthology Lineage. It would later be packaged in a short The Lucy Wilson Mysteries anthology, Attack of the Quarks.
Plot
Hobo often visits nearby Porthcawl to visit the old arcades. He convinces Lucy to travel with him to the Magic Mirror arcade, both to play a vintage Pac-Man game and then to look at a strange metal cube that has always been at the back. Lucy calls it "a totally Lethbridge-Stewart find". Mentioning her grandfather's name causes the cube to come to life and grow legs: it's a long-dormant Quark and it wants to find Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
Lucy, Hobo, and the arcade worker Tony try to hide in the arcade as the Quark goes on a rampage. Lucy is sure she's heard of Quark's before but doesn't remember where from.
Hobo decides they can "Pac-Man him", where he'll distract the Quark while Lucy gets behind it and throws a blanket over it. The plan fails as Hobo runs out of cover before Lucy can get in place, so she gets the robot's attention by announcing herself as Lucy Lethbridge-Stewart. She expects to be killed but the Quark turns out to be looking for the Brigadier for orders: she remembers that her grandfather told her about a time he reprogrammed several Quarks to disable Rill defence machines. She orders the Quark to shut down.
Characters
Worldbuilding
- Lucy pretends to be unaware of what eSports are.
- Hobo says she might know the term 'Quark' from the Star Trek character.
Notes
to be added
Continuity
- The Brigadier once encountered the Rills and Chumblies in battle. The Quarks came from the Warehouse, the setting of HOMEVID: Auton.
- Hobo says they'll be visiting an eSports Expo in three months time, which is the setting of The Expo of Terror.
External links
to be added