This was awful, this was impossible. He had to come up with something or he'd look like a fool. Something that would work with the pathetic graphics of the IBM PC. Something that needed more RAM. And all that popped into his mind was that wonderful old atlas he had spent two days practically memorizing at the Salt Lake City library, the one that had maps showing the electoral and popular votes in every U.S. election since

1788.

"An atlas," said Step.

"We've thought of that," said Arkasian. "They can buy the book for less than the software would cost, and we can't match the graphics."

"No, you do what only the computer can do with it. Like ... elections. Next year Reagan's up for reelection and what with the recession it might be a tight race."

"Recession's over," scoffed Cranes. "Reagan's in with a land slide."

The recession isn't over for me, thought Step bitterly. But what he said was, "Why not an atlas that shows every election since 1788, the states colored in by party? You can animate it by screen flipping, move through Democratic Party electoral votes through history, backward or forward, or flip through all the third-party candidacies that actually got electoral votes. People love maps, they love maps that change. The computer can do it, and the book can't."

Arkasian shrugged and nodded. "OK, that's something."

"And Congress," said Step, warming to it. "A map showing every congressional district in every state. You can do a closeup on the state and show how the districts have changed with every census, and what party held the district. Animate an entire state's history and watch it change over time. Same thing with population, county by county."

"You'd need a hard disk for all that information," said Arkasian.

"Not if you use vectors and fills. Like you said, if they want a road atlas they'll buy the triple-A and put it in the car. So we don't have to get the borders exactly right, we can store everything as coordinates and numbers and draw it in realtime."

"But who'd buy it?" asked Arkasian.

"Every parent who wants his kids to succeed in school. Everybody who's interested in politics during an election year. And you could even sell it as a tool for business planners- you include projected population growth, maybe include a media- markets map with all the TV stations marked."

Arkasian laughed. "This is a program that'll need 512K just to run."

"And so what about that!" demanded Cranes. "I tell you that in five years they won't dare offer a PC for sale that doesn't have a megabyte of RAM in it!"

"Neddy, you're off your rocker and you know it," said Arkasia n.

"I'm off my rocker but that doesn't mean I'm not right! You'll see! And when your company is in receivership because you kept on doing games for the Commodore 64 and ignored the PC, you'll remember that I told you back in 1983!"

Finally Cranes let go of Step and moved on, not even saying good-bye. The man gave off self-importance in great crashing waves, and Step had been caught in the undertow. He watched Cranes go for a moment, then turned back to Arkasian and smiled ruefully, offering his hand. "It was nice to meet you, Mr. Arkasian."

"My pleasure," said Arkasian. "Why do I feel like I'm just coming up for air?"

Step laughed. "He's got a lot of ... presence."

"I actually liked your idea for that atlas program," said Arkasian.

"Oh, really?"

"You were winging it, weren't you?"

Step shrugged. "He kind of put me on the spot."

"That's what Neddy does. But you performed, Mr. Fletcher."

"Please call me Step, Mr. Arkasian."

"Step. Everybody calls me Arkasian. Without the mister. Of course, even if Neddy's right, it'll still be a couple of years before it'll be practical to do that atlas program."

"Yeah, well, it would actually take that long just to do the research for it, if you're going to do it right."

"That was really something, you know," said Arkasian. "Coming up with all that right out of your head, out of the air, complete with the marketing strategy. No wonder Eight Bits Inc. hired your„

And there it was. Arkasian thought that Eight Bits Inc. owned him, and if Step just said outright, I want to quit them and I'm looking for something better, he'd be tagged in Arkasian's eyes as disloyal. Any offer that was going to be worthwhile had to come from Arkasian, without Step asking.

"They just have me writing manuals," said Step.

"Are you kidding?" asked Arkasian.

"I'm not there as a programmer."

"What were they thinking of?"

"Internal politics, I think," said Step. "Doesn't matter, I enjoy the work."

"So you're through with programming?"

Here was the moment.

"I still have the rights to Hacker Snack," said Step. "And I can write programs on any machine that Eight Bits Inc. isn't developing for."

"They aren't developing for the PC?"

"Ray hasn't decided."

"Come here," said Arkasian. He beckoned Step to come around inside the Agamemnon booth.

Unlike the Eight Bits Inc. display, the Agamemnon area -- which was twice as large to begin with, an end-of-the-row double- had something like a private room in it, a three-sided vertical display unit with a lockable door. Arkasian led him inside, into a small roofless space cluttered with empty boxes and packing materials. Arkasian closed the door behind them, and then said, firmly, "Ray Keene is the worst lying son-of-a-bitch in this business.'

Now was not the time for Step to badmouth his boss, not to someone who might later want to be able to rely on Step's loyalty. "I've only been at Eight Bits Inc. since the first of March, and I don't see much of Ray."

"Why didn't you talk to me before you went to work as a manual writer for Ray Keene?"

"I sent my resume to Agamemnon, but I got a form letter back saying you weren't hiring."

"Damn," said Arkasian cheerfully. "We're so big now that we've got a personnel director. Of course we weren't hiring, but we would have hired you."

This was the chance Step had been hoping for- it would never get better than this. Might as well ask for the moon. "I don't want to work for anybody, Arkasian. Not even Agamemnon. If I leave Eight Bits Inc., it'll be because I have a development deal with somebody, and I can work on my own, at home, with an advance large enough to live on while I write code. And I have a one-year noncompetition clause with Eight Bits Inc. Hacker Snack is excluded, though, and also programs for machines that Eight Bits isn't developing for."

"And how much would you need?"

"Depends on how long the program would take to develop," said Step. "That atlas would take a long time."

"What about Hacker Snack for the 64?"

"Two months," said Step.

"And what about Hacker Snack for the PC?"

"I don't know 8088 machine code."

"So include the learning curve."

"Six months at the outside," said Step. "But it won't look as good in IBM's lousy three-color graphic screen."

"I want it monochrome first, anyway."

"Why not do both versions and put them in the same package? That way if they upgrade their machine, they already have the game."

"Why not sell it to them twice?"

"Because they'll feel robbed," said Step, "and if they're thinking about upgrading you don't want them to put off buying Hacker Snack until after they've decided about the upgrade. Heck, they might upgrade just because they already own the colo r version of the game."

"Let me think about this," said Arkasian. "I can tell you right now, I want Hacker Snack for the 64. But different. Upgraded. So we can say, Better than the Atari version. New improved, all that bullshit."

"I'll think of stuff," said Step.

"We haven't decided about the PC, either. Nor would I have any idea how much to advance you on PC