Game: A Thriller (21 page)

But what the hell, he just had to bite the rotten apple and make the best of it.

“One hundred and twenty-eight,” he muttered, and for the third time in just a few days he told his whole story, right from the start, with a few choice bits missing.

When he was finished Erman nodded thoughtfully.

“Well, I can certainly understand why you’re here. You’ve got plenty of reasons to be furious, I can see that. But now I’m going to tell you why you should think seriously before getting into round two with the Game Master, if that’s what you’ve got in mind?”

Suddenly he got up from his chair and walked around the little house, bending down to be able to look out of the low windows. Evidently satisfied, he returned to the kitchen table.

“Now listen carefully, lad, because you don’t really seem to be taking this seriously . . . unless you’re just a bit crazy. You don’t mess with the Game, if you haven’t already caught on to that. I used to work for them, so I know more about it than most people, but we can take that a bit later. To start with, who do you think has been leaving comments on your page?”

“Erm, well, people who’ve watched the clips?” HP had never given it much thought. The answer was fairly obvious,
after all. “Well, it has to be people who like watching cool film clips and don’t mind paying for it. Otherwise the Game wouldn’t work, would it?” he added, slightly uncertainly.

Erman shook his head.

“So you really think there are loads of people out there with nothing better to do than watch a load of pranks, and who’ve got fed up of doing it for free on YouTube and MTV?”

“Er . . . yeah?” HP managed to say, mostly in the absence of anything more sensible.

“What about the assignments, then? All that stuff you and all the other players do, they just come about by accident, because it’s all a bit of fun, I suppose?” Erman looked at him inquiringly.

“Erm, well, I haven’t really thought about that,” HP said, feeling his dunce’s hat growing.

Erman sighed.

“No, I’m afraid you’re not one of life’s great thinkers, HP. I suppose you’re the sort who follows his impulses and does whatever suits him, am I right or am I right?”

“Huh, what, what do you mean?” HP was pretty sure he’d just been insulted, and quickly adopted his most aggrieved expression.

“What I mean is that you’re the sort who takes care of himself and doesn’t give a shit about anyone else.”

“So what’s so wrong with looking out for number one?” HP folded his arms over his chest and leaned back.

Erman sighed again.

“Nothing at all; in fact it’s pretty much an advantage when it comes to the Game. We don’t know each other, but let me try a few wild guesses.” He counted on his fingers. “You haven’t
got a permanent job, you don’t mind cutting a few corners if necessary, and as a result you’ve got a criminal record for various minor offenses. And you’ve got little or no family and not too many close friends. Stop me if you think I’m going too wide of the mark . . .”

He glanced quickly at HP before carrying on, using the fingers of the other hand:

“You’re also desperate for approval and/or seriously short of cash. How am I doing so far?”

HP was speechless.

How the fuck could this dude know all that?

Had he checked him out somehow, or had someone blabbed?

“Easy, my friend.” Erman chuckled. “I’m not a mind reader. It’s just that the qualities I’ve listed are the things that are valued in a Player—in other words, someone like you.”

He nodded to emphasize what he was saying, as if HP was a bit thick, which irritated him more than the quick run-through of his personality.

“Nothing in the Game is a coincidence, you have to remember that!” Erman went on. “You found that cell phone because they wanted you to find it. They’d already selected you because they thought you had what it took. First you got a couple of easy assignments so that everyone could see what you were like, pretty much like when they warm up horses out at Solvalla: place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, and then the Game is up and running!”

HP’s head had gone blank.

“You . . . you mean they were betting on me, like the horses?” he eventually managed to say.

“Congratulations, Einstein, you finally got the message!” Erman grinned. “The Game is fundamentally nothing more than an advanced betting setup, only a hell of a lot more exciting than football or horse racing. They’ve been playing for years, long before the Internet. The men placing bets are called the Circle, and they’re all over the world. You can place short-term bets, from assignment to assignment, or you can place a long-term bet on the End Game.”

“The end game?” the dryer in HP’s head had suddenly kicked into action.

“Good question, maybe you’re not so slow after all!”

Erman got up and started waving his arms about.

“Players who get past a certain level get to participate in larger scenarios where all the assignments eventually lead up to some sort of grand finale. The Circle can bet on the final outcome, the End Game. Will a Player be able to cope with the pressure, or will he buckle, you get it?”

HP nodded uncertainly. His loony radar had started to bleep. This sounded completely crazy . . .

“Best of all, Players don’t usually work out how everything fits together but act purely on impulse, which makes the Game even more authentic.
A true show of character
, you could say.”

Erman took another turn about the cottage before he returned to the kitchen table.

He gave HP a long, searching look, and seemed to be weighing something up seriously before he went on.

“Okay, like I said, I don’t usually talk to anyone, and above all never about the Game, but you’ve got a pretty good sponsor, who guarantees that you’re okay, and you seem a bit too daft to be playing a double bluff . . .”

Erman pulled a piece of paper and a pen from a kitchen drawer and started to draw a pyramid.

“This is what it looks like. Right at the bottom are loads of small-time players who are happy with a little bit of excitement and a reliable source of extra income; they’re called Ants. The Ants are used for small jobs, like getting hold of stuff, or information, preparing and delivering the tools for various assignments, or helping to film them. Ants never aim for the top; they never become real Players; they just play it safe, if you see what I mean?”

HP nodded quickly. He hadn’t missed the fact that Erman had just called him daft, but this was actually fucking interesting!

“I bet it was an Ant who left the cell on the train for you, and filmed your trial. The guy with the umbrella could well have been an Ant, unless he just happened to be there; it’s hard to tell,” Erman went on.

“But all the other stuff: the pass card, the tools for the Ferrari, the flash-bang grenade, the locker at the Central Station, the key under the table . . . ?”

“Probably all sorted by Ants!” Erman confirmed. “The entire Game is built on the Ants. Without them nothing would work, and they’re always recruiting more. There are Ants everywhere: in the police, social security, Telia, Microsoft, Google, you name it. So you can be sure they knew anything that was worth knowing about you way before they let you find the cell.”

Erman drew another layer in the middle of the pyramid.

“The Ants also help to find Players, people like you. The Ant who found you gets a bonus for each assignment you
complete, and the further you get, the richer you make him or her.”

HP held up his hand. He had to pause a bit to digest what he had just heard.

So someone had tipped the Game off about him?

Maybe someone he actually knew?

Erman seemed to be reading his mind.

“You might not even know your Ant. It could be anyone who stumbled over your credentials, an employer, someone in social services, or who dealt with your unemployment benefit claim.”

For some reason the explanation didn’t make HP feel much better.

For him the whole thing had been just a game, a way of passing the time with a bit of a twist. But this . . .

“The Players are a different category to the Ants, and they’re used for more advanced and risky assignments, if you see the difference?”

Oh yes, HP got it. His door and the arson attack on the shop weren’t the sort of thing you’d get an Ant to do; that took a lot more balls.

“As you already know, each Player gets a series of assignments,” Erman went on, as he drew the top layer in the pyramid.

“They’re all designed to find out how far they can push you, and obviously the Circle bet on what the boundaries are. Over time most of you fall by the wayside, but the Game takes that into account. Players are basically no more than perishable goods, and only a very few have what it takes to reach the summit. When you sang your heart out to that cop, regardless of whether he was real or not, somewhere in cyberspace
was one gang of happy souls who’d bet that you’d crack, and a load of others that you seriously disappointed. But you can be sure that someone else has already taken your place in the limelight.”

He drew an arrow through the whole pyramid.

“The Game always goes on—
you’re always playing the Game
, you get it?”

“But the high-score list, the clips, and everything? I mean, I was first runner-up, that has to mean something?”

He could hear how desperate he sounded, but made no effort to hide it.

Erman let out a slow chuckle.

“HP, HP, HP . . . You still don’t get it, do you? . . . None of what you’ve been through is real. It was all just a game, a phone app that seamlessly integrates truth and illusion so well that in hindsight it’s practically impossible to know where the boundaries are. Look up the word
game
and you’ll see what I mean!”

The look of incomprehension on HP’s face made Erman sigh again.

“Okay, I’ll spell it out: they’re lying to you, HP! The Game shows you some things that are true, and some that were stitched together just for you. Motivations differ from Player to Player. Some get turned on by sport—others by girls or music.

“Whereas you evidently like films and computer games—so the Game gives you your very own starring role, complete with a fan club and everything . . .”

Erman gulped the last of his coffee before going on.

“Suddenly you’re the leading man instead of a spectator. From nobody to VIP in the space of a few days. The fans out there in cyberspace can’t seem to get enough of you, and pretty soon you can’t get enough of them. And all the Game
asks in exchange for this massive trip is a few tiny little assignments . . .”

He was staring at HP, whose face had gone completely white.

“Basically it works just like any other sort of addiction,” he went on. “Drugs, gambling, or in your case attention and affirmation—the same mechanisms kick in inside your head. And as the addiction grows, the brain loses the ability for critical analysis. You’ve turned into a
recognition junky
! Anything that doesn’t support or increase the buzz gets filtered out and your imagination fills in the gaps. You believe because you want to believe, and therefore help the Game to paper over the glitches in the app. True or false, right or wrong, it matters less and less. Bigger, longer, and more kicks are all that counts.

“But it’s all just a Game—
it’s all a fucking Game
, understand?”

He looked expectantly at HP once again.

“So, to return to your question, my friend. The list they showed you could very well be real, but it could just as easily be something they put together just for you. Because that’s what gets you going. They’re playing with you, HP, just like you play with the poor bastards on the other end of the assignments, which brings me to the less attractive part of the Game.”

Less attractive! HP thought. How the hell could anything be less attractive?

He was suddenly feeling like a prize idiot, a damn puppet that they’d been playing with just for the hell of it. Jerking his strings to see what would happen, and betting on the outcome.

My ladies and gentlemen, guess what will happen if we pull string number four! Will 128 withstand the pressure or not? Will
he throw a stone at his sister’s police car to get a bit of affirmation, will she survive, and will he crack under pressure and cry like a baby? Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets, and stay tuned . . . !

The clothes dryer in his head was spinning fast now and it took him several seconds before he was fully aware that Erman had started talking again.

“. . . the assignments really come from? Betting is only one of the Game’s sources of income. As I’m sure you can understand, it costs a hell of a lot to keep something like this rolling. People are playing on several continents, so the financing is pretty damn important.”

He made a short pause to refill their coffee cups and took a third turn around the house. Once he’d reassured himself again that everything was okay, he returned to the kitchen table.

“You see . . .” Erman began in a low voice, leaning toward HP, so close that he could smell the caffeine cocktail on his breath . . . “this is where it gets really nasty!”

♦  ♦  ♦

She took the chance to do it while the others in the group were playing indoor hockey and the corridor was empty. She blamed the fact that she still felt sore after the crash, and because they’d managed to put together two complete teams anyway, they didn’t try to persuade her.

According to her duty roster, Nilla wasn’t supposed to be working today, so she started with her home number. Two rings, then three, four. The answering machine clicked in and she was just about to hang up when she heard clattering as someone picked up the receiver.

“Hello-this-is-Nilla!”

Her voice sounded more or less how Rebecca remembered.

She took a deep breath.

“Hello, Nilla, this is Rebecca Nor . . . er, Pettersson. Have you time to talk for a couple of minutes? I’d really appreciate it.”

More clattering, then:

“Sorry, I was just turning off the answering machine, what did you say your name was?”

“Rebecca. Rebecca Pettersson.”