“Whoa, hold on there.” Jacob held up his hands. “I had no idea you had so many ideas. Some of those are really good.”
“Thanks. The friends stuff wouldn't be hard since it could be tied into the log-in information,” I said with a smile. I winced in embarrassment as I realized I had gone a little overboard. “But, now I'm going computer geek on you and that's not really part of our date.”
“But, it is a part of who you are,” Jacob replied gently. “So I like it. Keep talking. I'll take notes.”
I laughed as he pulled out his phone and pretended to write stuff down. I started telling him just how I would implement each option. The friends list would be imported from social media, the lures could be purchased or earned. I even started telling him how I would code for it.
He kept up with me, asking me questions and making my ideas even better. It was just too bad that no one from Monster GO was there to hear our brainstorming session, because it would have made them millions of dollars.
We were discussing how to do alerts when both of our phones vibrated.
“Must be a Monster nearby,” he said, switching on the application. I shook my head at him, but pulled out my phone as well.
As soon as I looked at the screen, I nearly dropped my phone in surprise. A Legazeus was nearby. Normally, this wouldn’t have meant a single thing to me. But Tommy had been talking about this particular Monster for weeks now, pretty much since the game came out.
He said the Legazeus was one of the rarest Monsters. They only ever showed up in special places, and nobody ever knew when or where that will be. I remembered him saying that the last one to appear was in Central Park and caused a major traffic jam due to people stopping to catch it.
“These are rare, right?” I asked, not believing what I was seeing on the screen.
“Insanely rare,” he said. He grinned at me. “Let’s catch it.”
We held up our phones and lined the camera up with the cartoon looking character. It looked like a Centaur. It jumped around on the screen as I attempted to catch it with the Monster Catcher.
I missed on the first try and I got nervous. I knew it was only a game, but this thing was rare and I didn’t want to see it go before I could add it to my inventory. Tommy would freak out if he saw that I had one, and that was where the majority of my motivation came from.
With a swipe on my screen, I tossed another Monster Catcher toward the Monster and it landed a few feet away from it.
“Darn it,” I said, my body filling with anxiety.
“Don’t overthink it,” Jacob coached. “Just pretend it’s a Fireliz.”
I drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. With my nerves calmed, I attempted one last catch. I swiped my screen and watched the Monster Catcher fly up into an arch above the Legazeus. My breathing stopped as it began to fall.
Come on. Don’t miss, I thought.
Relief filled me as the Monster Catcher landed directly on top of the creature, capturing it and adding it to my inventory.
“Thank God,” I whispered. “Did you catch it, too?”
“Not yet,” he said, as he brought his focus to his own phone. He had been helping me catch mine so he hadn’t had a chance yet. Like a professional, though, he tossed one Monster Catcher toward the Legazeus and caught it immediately. “Got it.”
“You’re too good at this,” I said, shaking my head.
Jacob smiled and parted his lips to respond, but before he could, a group of young boys came running up. They walked right across our blanket, shouting in excitement.
“Oh, my God,” one said. “It really is a Legazeus. I can’t believe this.”
There were five of them and they all looked to be about the same age as Tommy.
“This is insane,” another said. “We’ve got to tell Alan about this. He’s going to freak.”
Jacob and I looked at each other and chuckled. It wasn’t too surprising that they had run over for such a rare Monster, but it was amazing at how little they cared that they were practically standing on our picnic.
Not more than thirty seconds passed before a mother and her two kids came up. They all had their phones out, including the mom.
“This can’t be happening,” the mom said. “Barbara is never going to believe this.”
She smiled at me, with a look in her eyes that was more enthusiastic than her kids. The parents were just as into this game as the kids.