It had been a long, long time since the last time we paid a visit to Gamestop in Sheridan, Wyoming, but it didn’t show. The inside of the store looked just as it always had done. Sure the displays had changed and the stands were full of The Joker’s face rather than Bamboo hat wearing pandas, but the layout was no different and the people milling around the store still looked just the same.

A young man, probably no older than 19 or 20, walked up to the counter and dropped a stack of green and blue edged cases in front of the clerk.

“Good afternoon, sir.” the clerk asked as he scanned the first item. “Did you find everything you were looking for today?”

“Yeah, and more!” The youngster laughed, “Had no plans to get all of them!”

The clerk responded with a polite laugh. He’d only asked because he had to, he wasn’t being paid nearly enough to care if some kid was able to pick up a copy of Bioshock: Infinite?

“Hey, uhhh...” the youngster uttered hesitantly as he reached into his pocket for his wallet. “That game you’re advertising over there.”

“Defiance?” Asked the clerk as he slipped the game cases into a bag.

“Yeah, does that have anything to do with the TV Show?” the youngster asked.

“Yeah, it all ties in with that one on SyFy.” Replied the clerk.

“SyFy?” Asked the youngster, “No, I meant Defiance, Wrestling.”

“Wrestling?” Asked the clerk as he finally looked up at the customer and tried not to laugh in his face, “What would make you think that?”

The youngster pointed to a signed and framed photograph hanging just behind the display. One that showed a familiar face to almost all of you at home. “Isn’t that Eugene Dewey up there?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Replied the clerk, “He comes in here sometimes. Not been in for a while though. Gave us that photo as a thank you after we reserved a few things for him.”

“Ahhh man, that sucks!” Said the youngster as he handed over his credit card, “It’d be awesome to meet him some time.”

The clerk simply shrug in response as though he were asking ‘what’re you gonna do?’ as he did what he needed to do with the customer’s card.

“Do you know why he hasn’t been in for a while?” The youngster asked as he looked around the store expectantly.

“No idea.” Said the clerk as he handed the card back. “I don’t really follow Defiance.”

The youngster sucked his cheek and scooped up his bag, “Ahh well, thanks man.” He said he headed for the front door.

“No worries, have a good day.” Replied the clerk in the most monotonous tone of voice ever.

The youngster stepped towards the automatic doors, but the slid open half a second earlier than he was expecting. In from outside walked a man wearing a pair of dark shades, a long brown trench coat, and a matching hat. He couldn’t have looked more like an incognito FBI agent if he’d tried.

“Oh, sorry!” Exclaimed the youngster as he jumped out of the man’s way and let him past, “Hey...”

The youngster looked at the man intently, “Wait a minute...” He whispered to himself as he looked at the back of the man’s head, where a small tuft of orange hair poked out from under his hat, “...Eugene?”

The man didn’t break stride as he headed straight for the ‘Injustice’ display.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Asked the youngster as he trotted after the ‘cloak and dagger’ man, “You’re Eugene Dewey, aren’t you?”

“No.” Replied the man in a noticeably fake voice.

“You are! It’s Eugene!” Exclaimed the youngster as he bounced on the spot, “Hey, everyone! It’s Eugene Dewey! It’s Eugene Dewey!”

The youngster reached out and grabbed the man’s hat and ripped it off of his head to reveal a wild bush of ginger hair. As the hat came off, so too did the dark shades to reveal a set of prescription glasses underneath. Of course the man was Eugene Dewey, but he really, really didn’t like being revealed.

Eugene pushed his finger to his lips and hissed “shhhh” at the youngster, but he wouldn’t listen, He continued to jump up and down, up and down screaming at the top of his lungs, “Eugene Dewey! Everyone! Eugene’s here! Eugene Dewey’s here!

“Please, I don’t want-” Eugene started to say before being cut off by a hoard of gamers, all of them asking one question or another.

“What’s Tom Sawyer like?”

“What happened to The Good Fight?”

“How much do you earn?”

“What happened to Wayne?”

“Why haven’t you been on TV recently?”

“Is your mom hot?”

With a panicked look upon his face Eugene tried to answer as many questions as he could, but the feeling of being part of a particularly ill managed Comic-Con Q&A simply served to overwhelm him.

With a scream Eugene barged a group of nerds out of the way, sending two into a ‘Walking Dead’ display and another into the shelving full of older, but probably better, games. The cases from said shelving scattered around the floor with an awesome racket.

“Please...!” Eugene pleaded as he turned back to the crowd. “I’m sorry.”

And with that Eugene turned on his heels and ran for the door, leaving the perplexed nerds to scoop up their fallen comrades and start asking questions to themselves.

Namely, ‘what was all that about?’

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