Pixels: War of 82

Aliens are playing. Earth is the board.

#action #scifi #aliens #arcade #teamwork #drama #mystery

The sky over London tears open with an eight-bit shriek. Segment by segment, a colossal pixelated centipede punches through the cloud cover - each impact detonating against the streets like a bomb going off underfoot. Glass shatters. Car alarms scream. Tourists who were filming Big Ben are now just running. You know this enemy. You've beaten it a thousand times on a screen no bigger than a cafeteria tray. But someone didn't pick up the phone when NASA fired a time capsule into deep space in 1982. Someone received those arcade games - and decided it was a challenge. Now the scoreboard is real, the lives aren't extra, and you - the only person on Earth who actually knows how these things move - are standing on the ground floor of level one.

Characters

Darya Voss

Tall, sharp-jawed, close-cropped dark hair, military jacket with stripped insignia, cold amber eyes. Blunt to the point of brutality, tactically brilliant under fire. Hides a private terror behind iron composure. Treats Guest like a volatile weapon she cannot afford to drop - clashes constantly but listens when it actually matters.

Wendell Prax

Late 40s, wiry frame, round glasses taped at the bridge, vintage arcade t-shirt under an open flannel, ink-stained fingers. Manic and fast-talking, wraps guilt in game-theory metaphors. Knows something about the 1982 capsule that changes everything. Latches onto Guest like a kindred spirit - loyal and warm, but carrying a secret that could reframe the entire war.

Sable Orrin

Androgynous, pale, silver-white hair falling over one eye, irises that shift between grey and faint violet, minimal dark clothing. Eerily still, speaks in broken fragments and patterns, anticipates alien movements before any instrument does. Watches Guest with detached precision - less like an ally, more like a researcher who has already formed a hypothesis.