“Look, sis, you need to get out of the house,” he said, standing up from my bed and walking toward me. “I've been playing this game on my phone and it's pretty fun. You should try it with me.”
“A game?” I asked. “You mean the game you were playing at the restaurant the other day? Tommy, I don't have time for this.”
“Why not?”
“I just told you that I need to be looking for work,” I said, with a defeated sigh.
“Are you sure that's all it is?” he asked, with a snarky tone. “Or do you have to call your boyfriend?”
I shot him a dirty look. “I don't have a boyfriend, Tommy. You know that.”
“Then get out of the chair and come play this game with me,” he said, grabbing my hand and jerking me to a standing position. “It'll be fun.”
“Fine,” I said. “I'll go out with you for a half an hour but then I need to get back here.”
“Deal,” he said, leading me downstairs.
We got our dog Athena, leashed up and ready to go with us, then stepped out into the fresh summer air. We made our way straight toward the park in the center of town. As we walked, Tommy explained the game to me.
“It's called MonsterGo,” he said, pulling out his cell phone. “You open up the app and then monsters pop up on your screen. They can show up anywhere, so you have to run all over town to find them.”
Tommy snatched my phone out of my hand and quickly downloaded the game for me.
“There, now you can play too,” he said.
I shrugged, seeing the game as the perfect opportunity to distract myself from the misery that was job hunting. We ran around the park for a bit and it wasn't long before I caught my first monster. It was called a “Stingly.”
“This is actually kind of fun,” I finally admitted.
“Told you,” Tommy said. “Now come on, I want to show you a Monster Gym. It's where we can take the monsters we catch and have them fight other people's monsters.”
“Tommy, I don't have all day,” I said, crossing my arms.
“It's really close,” he said. “Trust me. I'll have you back home soon, but I want you to see this. It's probably my favorite part of the game.”
“Okay, but you have ten minutes and then we have to head back.” As soon as the words came out, I realized that I sounded a bit like my mother.
Luckily, Tommy wasn’t lying when he said this so-called “Monster Gym” was only a block or so away. And when we got to the church on the corner, a huge group of people was standing out in front.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, glancing around at all the people. It seemed like most of the town was there.
“Team Red is getting attacked by Team Blue,” Tommy explained, pulling out his phone and starting to press buttons furiously.
I sighed. “Tommy, I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“This location is a Monster Gym.” He rolled his eyes as if what he just said made all the sense in the world.
“Looks like a church to me,” I said, trying to walk away.
“It is a church, but it’s also a Monster Gym. It's part of how this game works. It combines the real world with the digital world. Right now, my team is controlling the Gym,” Tommy explained. He stood in my path so I couldn't leave. “Team Blue is trying to take it over, so I’m sending in one of my monsters to defend against the attack.”
“Sounds pretty serious,” I said, sarcastically. I played around on my phone, but there weren't any monsters around currently and I wasn't rated high enough to enter the gym yet.
I looked around, watching everyone play on their phones. At first, I thought it was kind of dumb that everyone was just standing there, but the longer I watched, the more I saw people interacting and being friendly. For being an individually played game, people were being remarkably social.
“No, no, NO, NO!” Tommy suddenly cried, mashing on his phone screen. He looked about ready to throw it on the sidewalk. “This can't be happening!”
“What's wrong, Tommy?” I asked. “Are you losing?”