The World's Game

by Jacobo Izquierdo

  “Honestly, it’s been long since I last went to a party.”

  “At nine,” Margaret said giving him a colorful card.

  Josef nodded instinctively. His only obsession in that moment was getting out of there and sheltering himself in his private paper paradise. He took the invitation unwillingly and as soon as he could, he got to the library. «But what have I done?» During the whole afternoon that was the question that span in his mind. A little more nervous and clumsier than usual, he tried to organize some shelves. Nothing turned out well. The books fell to the floor in a sunset to forget.

  That day, only a few students visited his domains. Quite a different image from the one it could be seen in that room fifty years ago. Up to eight librarians worked in that place trying to counsel the stressed students. The emergence of the digital book eventually weakened the print edition until its practically disappeared. Going to the library gradually fell into disuse and so did the need of librarians. For 2040, only one librarian remained working in that immense room full of Literature works of art. Nowadays, no more than three hundred students attend on a daily basis. The comfort provided by the fact of being able to get a digital book at any time prevailed over the nostalgia the paper offered.

  The clock struck 08:01 pm. «Time to close.» As every evening, he checked on the computer that nobody was in the library. He turned off the lights and closed the door. With decided and firm steps, he rushed home and changed clothes: a pair of jeans, a black shirt with buttons, a blue navy jacket and matching moccasins especially chosen for the occasion. He got into his car and indicated the computer the address of the house where the party would be celebrated. From a distance of two hundred meters, place where he parked, the shouts and yields of the ethylically uncontrolled teenagers could be heard. He rang the bell and was received by Betty. Her appearance had changed radically. There was no track of the perforations caused by the acne. A thick layer of foundation was in charge of hiding the imperfections. Her hair was not short and full of ringlets: it had turned long and perfectly stretched. A naughty smile looked at him with suspicion.

  “Hi,” she said gladly with her voice distorted by gin.

  “Hello,” Josef answered shyly. “Has Margaret arrived?”

  “Yes, she’s over there,” Betty answered raising her right hand and pointing a place behind her. The girl stroke her hair constantly and her eyes looked at him with carnal lust. “You’re very handsome.”

  “Thank you,” he muttered blushed. “May I come in?” He asked trying to get rid of the drunken girl.

  “Of course,” she answered trying to keep her verticality.

  Josef jutted out in the house and raised his eyes looking for Margaret’s whereabouts. There were all kinds of profiles: the sleepy head was still, upside down on the living-room carpet, visibly harmed; the brave one, after a manliness demonstration, was running desperately looking for a place where to throw up the excess of alcohol; the joker was dancing in underwear on the living-room table as the others filmed him; the popular one was surrounded by teenagers that laughed at his offensive comments; the destroyer raised his arms after having breaking a valuable vase. Finally, his eyes spotted Margaret on a room corner. She was beside the drunken striker that hammered her ears restlessly.

  Margaret, with a tired and bored gesture, put up with the striker’s insistence. Josef got close to her to help her.

  “What a surprise! You’ve come!” She smiled.

  She was wearing a beautiful blue suit that highlighted her eyes even more. Her lips, covered by a crimson lipstick, looked even fleshier. And her high heels made her even taller.

  “I’m a man of his word,” he said smiling her back.

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  Josef nodded. The deafening sound of the music had impeded him hearing her, but that night he was willing to do anything.

  “Come with me.”

  Margaret took his hand and they went through the room. They walked a few meters under the supervision of all the teenagers, who did not take their eyes from the girl. They got to the kitchen. A large rectangular table bore the weight of fifty bottles. Gin, rum and whisky led the amalgam of spirits.

  “Astonishing!”

  “I was surprised as well,” she kidded. “What will you drink?”

  “A beer.”

  The girl looked at him a bit surprised and, without saying anything, she opened the fridge and gave one to him.

  “I’ll have a mojito,” she said showing her perfect teeth.

  The two of them went back to the room and they danced and laughed joyfully for several hours, making everybody envious. The striker went close to them several times trying to catch the girl’s attention. Without any interest at all, Margaret very kindly invited him to leave.

  It was 02:24 am. The alcohol had completely made Josef uninhibited. No track of the shy guy of some hours ago was left. The complicity with Margaret was full.

  The striker watched the scene with indignation, thinking about the way of stopping being invisible. A crazy idea had been spinning around his head during the last minutes.

  «Bad guys attract women,» he thought mistakenly, since Margaret was not that kind of woman. He stepped out into the garden, took the rubbish bin and, without thinking it twice, it set fire to it. Carrying that tinplate cylinder at its highest, he got into the room.

  “Now you do look at me!” He shouted full of rage.

  “Get that think out of my house!” Betty ordered with fury.

  The burnt refuse started to produce a thick and black smoke that, in a matter of seconds, invaded the whole house. A sensor placed in the center of the room closed the contact and a powerful siren started to emit striking sounds. Josef covered his ears with his hands and fell to the floor on his knees.

  “Stooooop it!” He shouted.

  “What’s the matter?” Margaret asked startled.

  Without answering, the librarian continued kneeling down with his eyes shut. The music stopped and several of the teenagers there were looking at the situation in disbelief.

  “Haven’t you ever heard a siren?” A young boy said kidding.

  Josef stood up and, stumbling, he ran away bumping violently into whoever stepped on his way. Margaret went after him, but she could to reach him. Without even stopping to take his car, he ran for half an hour until he got home. He got into his bedroom, closed the door and lay on the bed.

  «I’m dizzy. My head’s gonna explode. I feel anxious. I can’t breathe. Light hurts me. I’m getting very dizzy…»

  Chapter 11

  Father and son descended the stairs up to the lower part of the meeting room. They went through one of the doors and walked along a long corridor that led to the control room.

  The chamber was circular. On the walls that formed the circle, there were a hundred huge monitors —six meters tall by seven meters wide. Sitting in front of each of them, there was a scientist. They were the people in charge of supervising uninterruptedly and without taking a break everything that happened in Racot. The screens were able to show any part of the planet, from the most insignificant detail to the most important one. Any relevant change was immediately communicated to Cabolun.

  The central computer or zac was placed in the middle of the room and protected by a plistor dome. It was in charge of transferring the images and details of Racot collected by the satellite. It also allowed changing the parameters to alter climatology, introducing diseases or any other variation on the planet.

  “Get out of there, idiots!” The leader shouted barging in the room. “You’re so useless!”

  Cabolun pushed one of the scientists who were sitting in front of the monitors and he fell onto the floor. He stood up and, without saying anything, he left the room.

  They were used to this kind of treatment; blows and pushes were habitual during his visits. On one occasion, one of them questioned his behavior and he responded with a strong ray that caused him death. Such incident remained lodged i
n the other’s minds and none of them rebelled again. No one was allowed to leave that room without his permission.

  “Why do you treat them in such a way?” Palac asked.

  “Because they’re good for nothing. Sit down!” He ordered.

  The novice midarian sat by his side, surprised by what he was seeing on the monitors.

  “Who are those beings?”

  “Racots!” He answered with hate. “Dirty and disgusting racots!”

  “How small they are!” He kidded. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to introduce new diseases our scientists have created.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what your grandfather ordered in his boards,” he answered sharply. “It’s necessary to increase the number of deaths in Racot in order to control its population. Through the zac, we introduce the diseases in some racots at random. Over time, they scatter across the planet. Several of them are eradicated easily over the years, but there’s one which they will never find the way of curing.”

  Palac looked at him astonished. Every word his father said was loaded with hate and frustration.

  “They are infected. Your grandfather programmed the zac so as all the beings that were born had molecules of our blood in their organisms. The immunity of this to diseases creates a cellular failure that destroys their bodies inside. In other words, the racots aren’t prepared to function with our blood. On some occasions, they have managed to create medicines to stop or reduce the effects, but as soon as we realized, we increased the amount of molecules and that way we were able to make the disease more destructive.”

  “Does that mean that if all of them are born with such pathology sooner or later they are going to die?”

  “The theory says they are, but in practice things are quite different. In some cases, this cellular failure takes several years to appear. In others, it simply never appears. The incompetence of our scientists is unable to detect the cause that leads to some racots to be immune to our blood. Luckily, only a minority enjoys such privilege.”

  Palac remained in silence, trying to assimilate the horrible words his father was telling him.

  “You don’t realize about anything,” he continued. “What began as a game can end up putting our civilization at risk. If we don’t end with their lives…” he made a pause, trying to find the way to justify himself, “…maybe they come to attack us in some years.”

  The novice raised his look and saw that in three monitors on his right it appeared a green field full of racots running after a tiny ball. He found it somehow similar to wetroc: that game was also watched by thousands of spectators around a rectangular valley. He imagined himself playing with them in that place. «I’m twice as big as them. I wonder if they let me play.» His brief thought was interrupted by a his father’s withering look.

  “But we are the creators of that planet,” Palac answered trying to recover the thread of the conversation. “Our technology is far superior than theirs. How could you be afraid of beings which we are thousands of years ahead of?”

  “AFRAID? ME?” Cabolun shouted. He stood up from his seat and punched one of the monitors breaking it into a million pieces. “I’m not afraid of anything or no one, but their evolution pace is extremely fast thanks to the piromeisians. They have begun to colonize some planets near Racot and they will soon find the way of moving faster to conquer more distant objectives.”

  “I understand the need of keeping them controlled, because they are animals, but isn’t it enough having the military base installed on their satellite to solve any inconvenience?”

  “Yes, but it’s too late to be merciful with them. For years they have indiscriminately shot down several of our brothers’ control crafts for no reason. On one occasion…”

  The midarian leader stopped talking when he realized his son had stood up and was on the other corner of the room observing one of the monitors. On it, there was a racot dressed in white and talking to thousands of peers from a building. Cabolun, at seen his rebuff, we walked to him and gave him a slight blow on his head.

  “Ouch!” Palac shouted. “Why have you done that?”

  “Because I suddenly realized that I was talking alone. What’s that so important thing you’re looking at?”

  “Is this the leader?” He pointed to the monitor.

  “One among many,” his father answered not pretty much convinced.

  “They’re many of them?”

  “As far as I could deduce, each region of the planet is directed by a different one. I assume they have to have very advanced mental powers to be able to manipulate so many racots.”

  Palac began to turn around and to look astounded what it was going on every monitor.

  “This room is very entertaining. I wonder where that one might be going in such a rush.”

  “Touch the monitor and you’ll be able to see all the information.”

  “According to the description, it’s fifty-year old male, he’s one meter and seventy centimeters tall, he weighs eighty-five kilos, he lives in the south of Racot… there’s a lot of information about him!” Palac exclaimed surprised.

  “As I can see, it won’t be long before he dies,” Cabolun added.

  “Where does it say so?”

  “In the pathology box is marked the acronym IMB, which means «Infection with midarian Blood.» Our blood molecules have already produced a cellular failure in his organism,” his words showed no sign of remorse. “Now stop playing with the monitors and listen to what I was telling you.”

  Palac nodded and sat in front of the first monitor again.

  “On one occasion…” he continued, “…they dared visit the satellite. Following the instructions on one of your grandfather’s boards, we decided not to attack. Beiler and his army patiently waited until they got out of their craft and in that precise moment, they emerged from the underground military base. Beiler paralyzed their bodies and his army surrounded them. The huge height difference left the intruders astonished. Telepathically, he communicated them that they had to leave that place immediately and that they should never come back. Otherwise, Racot would pay the consequences. Without even answering, they got onto the craft and they never dare to come back.”

  “Why is the satellite so important?”

  “Because we wouldn’t be able to control Racot without it. The satellite is in charge of executing the orders sent by the zac. I’ll show you how it works,” Cabolun touched one of the monitors and started to reduce the vision of the planet until reaching a perspective of about two thousand meters high. “Can you see this area full of buildings?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll pulse over this so populated area!” He exclaimed with hate. “Now you’ll see these racots’ hypocrisy. They spend their lives robbing, killing and being envious of each other, and as soon as they smell danger, they entrust themselves to any inexistent deity.”

  Cabolun pressed an area of the screen with one of his fingers and the whole region started trembling. Some houses were overturned immediately. Several fragments of the buildings were torn off by the earthquake’s virulence. The midarian leader, unmoved in front of so much destruction, watched his own creation without the slightest sign of regret.

  “How cruel!”

  “That was your grandfather’s last will. You’ve already seen it in the scriptures.”

  Chapter 12

  Josef had a bell with an Internet connection installed in his bed which was also synchronized to his mobile. This allowed him to see from anywhere who had come to visit him. Despite having deep sleep, the insistence of the visitor woke him up. With his eyes still matted together, he looked at the screen without recognizing who was at the door. He closed them again and, three minutes later, the song Come as you are by Nirvana woke him up again. He took the telephone strongly and startled when seeing who the visitor was.

  “Give me two minutes,” he answered through his mobile.

  He got out of bed and put som
e jeans on and a blue jumper with black stripes. Without even going to the toilet, he went down the stairs quickly to receive his surprise guest. Once downstairs, he went towards the door and opened it.

  “What are you doing here?” He asked casually.

  “Wow, what a welcome!” Margaret answered. “I remained worried yesterday. You left the party without giving no explanation.”

  Josef, who still felt hypersensitivity, had to struggle to open his eyes because of the excess of morning light. His memory, a bit blurred by the alcohol, searched the moment that had provoked his weird reaction.

  “If you didn’t want to come,” the girl said a bit upset, “you should’ve told me. Now my friends think you’re a freak. When you were running away, you threw my friend John to the floor and he bumped his head.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said with sadness. “Would you like to come for a coffee?”

  “If I come in, are you going to give me an explanation?”

  Josef nodded and they walked to the kitchen, which was completely robotized. A chamber placed on a side separated in three compartments the frozen foods, the fresh ones and those that did not need refrigeration. The kind of food that would be eaten was selected through a screen on the main table by the diner and a perfectly synchronized mechanism started working. The robotized telescopic arms installed on the ceiling picked the utensils and the necessary food to prepare the meals. All the electrical appliances followed at face value the instructions sent by a console. Once the meal is ready, one of the arms served it on the spot indicated by the owner.

  When finishing eating, you only had to select the END OF SERVICE box on the screen. The arms picked up the cutlery and the dishes, and they put them in the sink for them to be washed. Each used entered in the database the foods he or she wanted to have in storage in the chamber, and the program made the shopping list by its own. The user had the possibility of selecting doing the shopping him or herself or sending the list to a company in charge of buying and delivering the foods home. The latter was the option the users required the most, because by a fifty-dollar monthly fee, they forgot about the irritating and stressful queues at the supermarket.