Dave & Busters | Wednesday

[shireisburning]

Eddie didn't typically work on Wednesdays but he did typically take an edible and walk around the island fairly often. But no matter how strong that gummy you took was, you were going to notice when your place of employment (that you owned somehow?) had changed names.

He placed his hands on the glass door and peeked in. To his horror there were children running around, divorced dads following them around tiredly instead of bowling against the other divorced dads. There were tickets being spewed out of arcade games and the prizes looked to be sponsored by Peppa Pig and Bluey.

And then he heard the dulcet tones of pop music being pumped through the speakers.

That was when Eddie screamed.

The man had taken over his precious bowling alley/arcade!

[open]

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[sith_happened]

Teens and tweens had finely attuned radar that alerted them to a Dave & Busters and that's why Anakin had been dragged in here against his will by his two kids, who took his money and then abandoned him by the prize counter.

"Do you sell migraine medication?" Anakin asked faintly.

[shireisburning]

"They're probably selling pain meds sponsored by Exxon-Mobil in there!"

Yes, "they" because Eddie did not have any ties to this abomination. He refused.

[sith_happened]

"In that case, I'll pass," Anakin said. "Yuck."

[shireisburning]

"I think I'm going to cry." Or he would, if this edible hadn't sucked out every ounce of moisture in him.

But he wouldn't even ask for a cup of water at Dave & Busters!

[sith_happened]

"I don't blame you," Anakin said sympathetically. "The music sounds like my daughter's Spotify."

[shireisburning]

"It's awful." Get out of here, Olivia Rodrigo! "I feel like I have to find a new job now."

[sith_happened]

"Well, there's plenty of new places hiring," Anakin said dryly. "Not sure about the pay, though."

[shireisburning]

"I mean, I was really only getting paid to work one day a week anyway," Eddie admitted. "But still, it sucks when everything gets all corporate. Death of a town, man."

[sith_happened]

Anakin's ears perked up at that phrasing. "Do you think that's what this is, then? An invasion through terrible corporate blandness?"

He thought he prefered the sharknados.

[shireisburning]

"Hasn't that been what's happening to the world since the dawn of the 20th century?" Uh oh, Anakin. Don't get cornered by the weird anarchy dude at the bar.

[sith_happened]

In his own universe, Anakin had definitely been the weird anarchy dude.

"I'm not from around here," Anakin admitted.

[shireisburning]

"Ugh, lucky." He would love to not be from a corporate hellscape. "There's no escape from it unless you decide to live in a shack in the woods."

[sith_happened]

"It's tempting sometimes," Anakin admitted, "as long as the shack came with electricity and hot water."

[shireisburning]

"And internet," Eddie said. "The internet can stay. It's been my favorite thing since coming here."

He just liked to start fights on Reddit.

[sith_happened]

"There are so many idiots who insist on being idiots in public there, though," Anakin said.

[no_culdesac]

Nancy was trying to find a missing child in one of the seemingly-dozen coffee shops on this island, and while initially she had figured she'd just go see if Eddie had any leads -- since, you know, the bowling alley-slash-arcade was totally a way more normal place for a kid to get lost than, 'I don't know, one of the Starbucks' was -- now she was approaching in straight-up horror.

"What," she started, dramatically, "happened here?"

It was so bright.

[shireisburning]

"The man." You know the one.

[no_culdesac]

"Which man?" Nancy was being pedantic, considering she heard how he'd said that. But maybe he had a lead! "Did you get bought out?"

Which was importantly very different from selling out.

[shireisburning]

"I didn't get any money for this!" As if he'd sell this place to corporate monsters. He had a moral code, okay? "They stole it from me. Overnight. Somehow."

[no_culdesac]

Nancy had popped a little notebook out of a pocket, and was dutifully shorthanding down these facts. "Well, first of all, that's a crime."

Thanks, Nancy! Great investigating!

"And I bet we could get whoever's behind this for damages, once we figure it out." Like Nancy knew how lawyers worked, but okay. "Look how clean it is."

Did it even smell vaguely like smoke anymore? Standards, people.

[shireisburning]

"It's an abomination," Eddie declared. "Where's the grease? Where's the 80-year-old bowling shoes? Where's the shifty drug dealer?"

You were standing right there, Eddie.

[no_culdesac]

Yeah, Nancy just looked up from her notepad and gestured from Eddie's hair down to his shoes with her pen before returning to her notes.

"It's so kid-friendly." Which also meant it was much, much louder than Nancy cared for, thanks.

[shireisburning]

"I know," Eddie whined. "They're so happy bowing to corporate overlords. They never stood a chance."

If only they had been Eddie's classmates and could hear his cafeteria lectures. That would fix them.

[no_culdesac]

You know what these kids needed? A lecture on how the music they were hearing wasn't music at all!

"I want to tell them to go outside and kick a ball around or something," Nancy noted, a little concerned at this impulse. Normally she wasn't particularly -- you know, outdoorsy, but that seemed like a way better alternative to playing something called Cut the Rope on a gigantic screen and winning a stuffed blue dog prize.

[shireisburning]

Okay, we didn't need to go that far. It wasn't like Eddie was known for his athleticism.

"Am I unemployed now or something?" he asked. "I can't work here. They're wearing nametags, Nance."

[no_culdesac]

Technically, his name had been on the building until today, but that seemed like a moot point.

"Oh God." No, Eddie could not work here. There might even be uniforms and corporate-mandated phone greetings. "We have to figure this out. Like, the coffee shops and billboards and stuff are weird, but now they took bowling from us."

And also Eddie's livelihood, but mostly: bowling.

[shireisburning]

"Well, we can settle it the Hawkins way," Eddie said. "And just light the place on fire."

Worked for Vecna.

[no_culdesac]

This was such a popular solution around town lately!

"Well, we'd need to evacuate everyone," Nancy pointed out, logically. "Think there's, like, a fire alarm in there?"

More importantly, would it cut through the noise?

[shireisburning]

"I mean, there was." Who knew what was in that monstrosity now. "One of the teens was supposed to check the batteries every month."

AKA there was probably a weed stash in there instead of batteries.

[no_culdesac]

Well, now it was probably all annoyingly to code. There was probably an OSHA poster back there now, hanging by the timeclock or whatever.

"Think we can get our hands on some explosives or something?" Nancy wondered, since it was also going to take a whole lot to set this place on fire.

But you know. She'd helped destroy a mall; a Dave and Busters was, frankly, a step down in scale.

[shireisburning]

"Not unless we can find another weird army surplus store nearby." But those seemed to have their heyday in the 80's.