Rediscovering an Old Friend

The title is rather misleading I think, ‘cos it’s actually six friends. I will start with some history. Back by the end of the 90’s, computers are a very rare commodity in our place. I’ve only seen a PC in some of the educational institutions. Fortunately, one of my cousins had a computer. I used to visit him once in a while mainly to get my hands on his computer and play some games. During one of my visits, he showed me a game. It was known as the commandos. The game graphics was really stunning and the feeling was like participating in a war. More real than the movies and the then popular TV games. I couldn’t understand many details then, still I loved that game. Coming back from there, every day I wanted to play that game.

Later I figured out one of my friends had a computer, a Pentium 150MHz with 16MB of RAM and all. He stayed near to my place. I somehow managed to get a demo version of the game commandos. We found ourselves in front of the PC 24x7, till we finished the 2 missions which were there with the demo in 2 days. That was when I befriended those six guys I mentioned earlier. Tiny, Duke, Fins, Inferno, Tread, & Spooky. And when I finished my schooling and pre-degree, I bought my own PC, [my dad bought it for me]. The first thing I wanted to do was getting as many games as possible and guess what, Commandos: Beyond the Call of the Duty was the first game I have ever purchased. Rs500/- was not a small amount for me at that time. You can guess what happened next, I dedicated all my effort in finishing the game. I wrote all these just to show my personal relation with the game.

I had experienced only the first version of commandos and its expansion package back then. Recently I was in search of some games and I stumbled up on the old CDs of mine. I loaded them to my laptop, and I didn’t even realize then that I was holding my breath while the game loaded. Just like old times. All those feelings were coming back to me. The excitement, the adrenaline pumping, the satisfaction when you hear Tiny saying ‘Consider it done Boss’ or the Sapper’s ‘Affirmative Sir’, overall, it was amazing. Then I did some Googling to find out what happened to the game and I found out there are 3 other versions after the first one. With in 2-3 days, I was playing the first missions of Commandos 2: Men of Courage.

I stay alone these days, but when you play that game for some time, you won’t even feel the surroundings, let alone loneliness. I usually found myself thinking about different possibilities of how to kill a guard or how to plant some bombs near the AA [anti-aircraft] guns, even when I am doing something, like eating or even talking to someone over the phone.

My Friends
[*Spooky was away when I took this photo]

A Scene from the Field
[*They sent this over to me]

May be I am a game freak or something. But these six men, they really mean something to me. They are not just my friends [for those who have no idea about the game, I am talking about] they are the members of an elite commando unit which was formed by the allied troops during the Second World War. Incapable of resisting the overwhelming advance of the German army, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Poland, France are brushed aside within a matter of months. Britain has become the only refuge in the face of the unstoppable advance of the Third Reich. A plan is approved for the creation of a special group of elite men in order to turn the tide of the war. Experts in hand to hand combat, in handling all types of weapons and explosives, one of the best, the most highly trained men, only men of courage. Their mission, to become the bank guard of the allied troops, the spearhead of the counter offensive that must lead to the defeat of the Third Reich, the Commandos are those.

So, better be careful next time you think about challenging me, I’ve got some powerful men at my control, more precisely, some ‘influential’ friends.

Mission to Mall

The time was around 1830hrs. I was walking really fast to get to the basement of my building. I looked back to see whether anyone was following me. None was there to be seen. The place was almost deserted. I walked fast to the direction where I parked my bike. I had a feeling that someone was following me. My contact was waiting for me. The scheduled time was 1845hrs and the rendezvous point was a mall near by. I switched off my mobile. Just for a moment I got a glimpse of someone just disappearing around the corner. But I couldn’t let that happen. I can’t let anyone distracting me from this assignment. I have waited long for this day to come.
I started my bike and got out of the basement and slowly entered the courtyard. Suddenly I sped my bike in to the road in front of me ignoring the “Dead slow: High speed traffic ahead” sign board. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another bike getting out of the basement. There was heavy traffic in the road. I took a left turn after sometime and entered in to a less crowded road. I wanted to reach the mall in time. I can’t afford to let my contact go away. He traveled half way around the world for this meeting. He had some computer discs with precious data I had custom ordered him to bring from the country he was doing his previous assignment.
I decided not to use the mall’s parking facility. No records [parking tickets] of me being there are to be found. So I parked my bike near another building behind a construction site. I started walking towards the mall. The mall was heavily crowded. I tried to merge in to the crowd. I took my mobile, switched it on and called the contact.
“I haven’t had my lunch, so I will be there in the food court”, heard the voice from other end.
“Ok, I will be there soon”, I said.
I again checked whether I reached there in time, I was not too late. I looked around and started towards the food court. The time was 1900hrs. I scanned the area for any immediate threats and also to find out my contact. He was waiting there at one of those tables, eating some thing, some continental dish I guess. I made sure no one else was watching us and decided to proceed.
I joined him. “Hey man, how are ya?” I asked.
“Nice to see you man, its almost half an year”, he smiled.
“You got the data I asked for?”
“For sure man, I do”
“Show it to me then”. I took my laptop and switched it on, used its finger print scanning facility and logged in. He gave me a small baggage. My mind was racing. This is the moment I have been waiting for the past 6 months. I opened it. Yeah! The discs were there. I inserted the DVDs one by one in my laptop to see if it was for real. Yeah, all of them were for real. A smile came in to my face.
All of the computer games I asked were there. The games I dreamed having. My friend, who just came from Japan after his onsite assignment, brought me those. Bioshock, Crysis, Lost Planet Xtreme Condition, Shadowrun, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, HALO 2, Half Life 2, DOOM 3, Need for Speed Carbon, Age of Empires III etc.
“So are you happy?” He asked me.
“Ofcourse man, you are my best friend”, saying that we hugged each other.
Later we had a nice talk over the dinner together, after 6 months.

ps: Except for some minor details, all the incidents in this blog are true. Thanks to him, one of my best friends who gave me this idea. :)