Game: A Thriller (22 page)

There was silence on the line.

Rebecca’s heart was pounding so hard that she imagined she could see her shirt fluttering over her chest.

“LOOK, IT’S LIKE
this, my friend. The Game requires a hell of a lot of money to function.” Erman counted quickly on his fingers. “The Ants, the phones, the server farms, and last but not least the functionaries, the people who are employed to keep the whole thing on the rails. Then there’s all the money that’s constantly being paid out to the Players, and the rewards for anyone who does particularly well. There are quite a few fixed costs each month, but I’ve done some calculations and they pretty much cover those with what they take from the live betting. The really big cash cow, the golden goose that gives the owners their profit—are the people who commission the assignments.”

HP nodded as if he understood, but in truth he was feeling completely lost.

“Basically, various customers turn to the Game to get things done, if you follow me?

“Things that can’t be done any other way,” Erman went on, almost manic now.

HP was still looking blank.

“Illegal stuff, get it?!”

He drummed his index finger impatiently on the tabletop.

Yes, HP thought he was starting to get it . . .

“You mean you can call and order something to be done, and the Game fixes it?” he said cautiously.

“Something like that.” Erman nodded eagerly.

“This part is top secret and is only handled by the Game Master’s closest circle. I don’t know all the details, but I think it goes something like this: a customer wants something done, but without there being any trail back to him. It could be information, business secrets, or something more medieval, like messing with someone you’ve had an argument with. The Game has the ability to do all that, although obviously it comes with a serious price tag. Maybe there’s an Ant who can dig up what’s needed, or they can send a Player to get the job done if it’s something more risky. The Game can be used for absolutely anything.”

His face had been getting redder and redder, and somewhere at the back of HP’s mind a little alarm bell started to ring.

“So, for example, that lawyer you told me about. At a guess, he’s managed to seriously upset someone, but instead of contacting the Law Society, that person contacted the Game. And in a flash the Game Master conjures up a wheel wrench and a Player desperate for cred who hates Sture Square lawyers. The customer gets his revenge documented on video, and if you screwed up and got caught and were stupid enough to break rule number one, there wouldn’t be much to tell—at least nothing that anyone would believe. It’s just like Verbal says in
The Usual Suspects
:

“
The
greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist
. You’re just an ordinary nobody, with no
connection whatsoever with the person who actually commissioned the assignment. Lee Harvey fucking Oswald, man! You have to admit, it’s a stroke of genius, but at the same time it’s pretty fucking creepy!”

Erman flew up and started pacing around the little kitchen impatiently.

“Erm . . . sure!” HP agreed, as he tried to squeeze this latest information into his already overworked brain. This all sounded pretty weird, which was probably the understatement of the year . . .

“So you mean . . . ?” he began, mostly out of politeness.

Erman flashed him an impatient look and sat down again at the table. Evidently he wasn’t completely happy with HP’s hesitant response.

“Obviously, the problem is that there aren’t any boundaries, isn’t it? Okay, so the Game Master can’t actually
force
a Player to do something; that’s one of the main points of the Game. The Player must always have a choice, you know that yourself. Red or blue, right or wrong, in the end it’s up to you Players to decide, and that’s the way it has to be. Even if the Game would naturally prefer a particular outcome, there have to be different alternatives, there has to be an opening for the unexpected, for surprises. Otherwise there wouldn’t be anything to bet on, and thus no Game!”

Erman’s voice was cracking into falsetto.

“But what the Game does is to keep shifting the boundary of how far a Player is prepared to go. Just look at what happened to you! We’re talking GBH, arson, sabotage, even murder! You only need to look at the paper to see what goes on every day!”

Erman got up and resumed his restless pacing.

HP was getting more and more convinced that his suspicion was correct, that Erman was well on the way to losing it completely. You only had to look at the color of his face to know that Eyjafjallajökull was about to erupt.

Not to mention all that creepy staring . . .

“You can look at any media outlet you like, and you’ll be able to find the Game in an instant. All you have to do is keep an eye out for phrases like
inexplicable, unknown reasons
, and
no obvious motive
, and you’ve stumbled across the Game . . .”

Erman suddenly ran over to one of the windows and peered anxiously at the trees, as if he’d heard someone coming.

When he didn’t manage to see any danger he took two quick strides back to the kitchen table and leaned over toward HP.

“As long as you can pay, they’ll take pretty much any job!” he said into HP’s face, giving him a close-up of a yellowing row of teeth.

“There’s always some dumb fuck who’s prepared to do it. Some willing patsy who’s already crossed the line. It goes on all the time, in a whole load of different places all ’round the world. Check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me!”

Erman’s voice cracked again and HP sighed in disappointment. Fuck it, this had all started out so promisingly . . . Up to about five minutes ago the guy had seemed more or less kosher. A bit weird, maybe, but who wouldn’t be, out here in the middle of nowhere. But now he’d crossed the line, big-time!

That was it, then: the evil organization, the global conspiracy that was behind all the shit that ever happened in the world. The CIA, Opus Dei, ZOG, or the Freemasons, it just depended which lunatic you asked. A placard stuck to your chest and a regular spot in the town square.

I’m the only one who’s worked out the truth!
Yippee ki-yay mothafucker! Game over, thanks for the coffee, time to go now . . .

“Well, thanks very much, Erman, this is all good information, but right now I should probably . . .” he muttered, standing up.

“. . . a cigarette, no problem, but you’ll have to go outside. I’ll cadge one off you,” his host muttered, confused, as if the comment had interrupted his train of thought and made him lose his thread.

Before the astonished HP had time to protest Erman had shepherded him out onto the front steps.

It was nice to get a bit of fresh air, at least, he thought as he pulled out his cigarettes.

He offered one to Erman, then lit it and his own with his trusty old Zippo. He took a couple of deep drags and tried to stop his head spinning.

Okay, so Erman might have a few screws loose, but on the other hand he clearly possessed loads of useful information about the Game. Even if it had seriously messed with his own ideas, he couldn’t deny that a lot of what the guy had said actually made sense, and even seemed logical, if that word could actually be applied in this context.

But the theory of the Global Conspiracy was a bit hard to digest. Serious pulp fiction stuff, all it needed was a couple of serial killers and a dysfunctional cop to tick all the boxes. But what was the line between hard fact and wild fantasy?

They stood there smoking in silence while HP tried to work out his next move.

Really he felt like leaving; that weird stare Erman had flashed at him a while back had actually scared him a bit and
he suddenly remembered that they were completely alone out here in the bush, with no way of calling for help.

But Erman seemed to have calmed down again now. The mad look on his face had gone and the parts of his face that were visible behind his beard had resumed their normal color, so it probably wouldn’t be that risky to hang about a bit longer.

Besides, he had a feeling there was more he needed to find out.

“So how did you get dragged into all this, Erman?” HP began tentatively.

Erman took a long, final drag and then flicked the butt into the nettles.

“I was the one who installed their farm up here.”

He glanced quickly at HP and discovered that he was looking lost again.

“Server farm,” he explained slowly, as if he were talking to a child.

“The Game has five in total, or at least they did when I got out.”

He counted on his fingers again:

“North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe or Middle East. Seriously massive giant farms that handle all the data in the Game. The servers in there control all the mobile phones, image files; they send out the assignments, gather it all together and store the information, and handle the cash flow. They also control all communication between the Players, the Game Master, and the Circle. No farms, no Game, get it?”

HP nodded eagerly, he got it, and more important: this was seriously useful information!

“So you installed the one for Europe?”

“Europe and the Middle East,” Erman corrected.

“That must be a pretty massive farm, then?”

HP was trying to sound impressed. Evidently it worked, because the guy suddenly looked a bit happier.

“I was basically given a free hand, a hefty bank account, and a few basic specs, then I was left to get on with it. Almost six months’ work, sixty hours a week. All the latest technology, as well as a few things that still haven’t hit the market, and maybe never will. NASA stuff, yeah? The Game could get hold of anything, and I mean
anything
! I just had to say what I needed and they sorted it.”

He sighed happily.

“Sounds pretty sweet!” HP said to flatter him. “But how did they find you? I mean . . . why you in particular?”

“Because I was the best, wasn’t I?” Erman gave him another condescending stare, but HP let it pass.

“Didn’t you get what I told you just now? The Game does its homework, they’ve got informants everywhere, and it didn’t take them long to put together a shortlist of people who could do what they wanted to get done.”

He waved two fingers at HP, and HP quickly finished his cigarette, pulled out the packet, and lit two new Marlboros for himself and his host.

“First an anonymous email to see if I was interested, spiced with just enough questions and challenges to get me going. Pretty much like you and your first assignments.

“It took a while before I realized that they were really serious, that they really were planning to put together an installation like that up here, and weren’t just talking theoretically. When I finally understood it was serious, I couldn’t say no.
This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the sort of thing most people in my line of work could only dream of. The only problem was that I never got any sort of recognition for it.”

He cleared his throat and spat a gob of saliva toward the nettles.

“They flew in a load of suits and I had to sign loads of documents, but they were basically all variations on rule number one:
Never talk about the Game!
When it was all done they came back and checked and once they’d approved everything I had to hand over my keys, pass card, and everything.
Thanks a lot, we’ll take it from here
. I actually offered to carry on, become the system administrator for the farm. I’d almost have done it for nothing, just to keep working with it all, both the servers and what I’d seen of the Game itself; it all seemed pretty appealing . . .”

“But . . . ?”

“ ‘
Thanks, but no, thanks, we’ve got our own people
.’ And that was that! Paid off, just like that, after all my hard work. The pass card I handed in had probably been canceled before I even left the building, and then I was out in the cold. I tried to get remote access to the system a couple of times but all the back doors had been closed. Then I got a little message from the Game Master, and just like you, sadly I wasn’t smart enough to believe it . . .”

He took a couple of deep drags and slowly let the smoke out as he shook his head.

“I was having serious trouble letting go of it all, it was my magnum opus. The best thing I’d ever done, the sort of thing only a very few people in the world could have managed on their own and in such a short space of time. But I didn’t get any recognition at all for it, just thanks for the coffee and
good-bye. I was so stupid that I kept on trying to find a way into the system. Maybe I was thinking that if I found some sort of problem, something that had gone wrong that I could fix, making it all work even better, then they’d know that they needed me and let me back in again. That I was a force to be reckoned with! But there are never any comebacks. Once you’re out in the cold, they never let you back in!”

HP gulped.

That wasn’t the message he’d been hoping to hear.

“So what happened?” he asked, even though he’d already guessed the answer.

“All of a sudden I started to get problems. Installations I’d done elsewhere crashed, programs turned out to be riddled with viruses, and my customers went mad.

“Then my bank account was blocked, and my phone and Internet connections were cut off without any warning, as well as a load of other problems. I worked day and night to put everything right, but after a year or so my business was basically ruined. The same thing went for me, it was ’round about then that I got ill.”

Erman was suddenly sounding tired.

“So I left it all behind and vanished from the map. You won’t find me in any databases anywhere,” he added happily. “I don’t really exist. No personal ID number, no bank account, loyalty cards, or phone, electricity, and water accounts. Completely out of sight of Big Brother!”

“But how do you get it all to work; I mean, you must still need cash?”

“You can sort anything if you really want to. It just takes a bit of planning and work, but it’s possible. Don’t forget, it’s not that long since the Internet was pure science fiction! I just
do everything old-school, cash only and low-tech. It actually works a lot better than you might think!”