Split-Screen Spy

Lyrics

[Intro]
August, 1997.
The carpet is worn thin.
Four of us, packed into a single square of light.

[Verse 1]
The gray box hums, the little red eye is open.
Cables tangled on the floor, a nest of snakes.
I grip the three-pronged controller, my thumb finds the stick.
Top-left quadrant, that's my window.
I can see your face next to me, lit by the CRT glow.
But on the screen, you're just a flicker down a concrete hall.

[Chorus]
Four worlds living on a single piece of glass.
You promised you wouldn't look at my screen.
I can hear you breathing, I can feel the heat from your arm.
But you are hunting me in the Facility.
One shot is all it takes.
The Golden Gun.
We drew these lines between us.

[Verse 2]
Steve Ellis wrote this whole universe in a weekend, they said.
A ghost in the machine, a beautiful accident.
Fifteen frames a second, a stuttering, perfect war.
We don't care, we lean in closer.
You picked Oddjob again, you cheat.
We all yell but we're laughing.
The rules are the only thing that hold the world together.

[Chorus]
Four worlds living on a single piece of glass.
You promised you wouldn't look at my screen.
I can hear you breathing, I can feel the heat from your arm.
But you are hunting me in the Facility.
One shot is all it takes.
The Golden Gun.
We drew these lines between us.

[Bridge]
Slappers only.
Proximity mines on the bathroom stalls.
The sound of frantic clicking, plastic on plastic.
A barn in Twycross becomes our whole world.
For a night.
For a year.
This is how we learn to trust.
This is how we learn to lie.

[Outro]
The screen goes black.
The scores appear.
Just the four of us again, in the quiet room.
You won.
Tomorrow. My house.