by Matt Ruff
I ask Googlebot to find me a more sober news report about the murder of General Han. I send Mom the link, along with a note. If we assume Kim Jong-un ordered the hit on the general, I ask her, could that be a sign of bigger problems inside the regime? And if there is some sort of palace intrigue going on in Pyongyang, could that be the reason I haven’t heard from Smith or Mr. Jones?
Forty-five minutes pass before Mom sends back a one-word response: “Creative.”
IT’S AFTER MIDNIGHT. I’M ABOUT TO LOG OFF WHEN I get an instant message from Anja, asking me to meet her in the Game Lobby.
I find her at the bar. “What’s up?”
“I have a game in a few minutes,” she says, “and I was hoping you could come along.”
“Dungeon run?”
She shakes her head. “Habitual Offender.”
I smile. “Going to do some crimes?”
“Going to rob some banks. We’re trying for the Butch and Sundance achievement on the South American server.”
“Is this a paying gig?”
“No, just for fun . . . But I’d really appreciate it if you’d come.”
From the way she says this I know she doesn’t want me along for my bank-robbing skills. “Is this about a guy?”
She nods. “Javier,” she says. “I met him when I was leveling up that cleric for Ray.”
“You want my read on him?”
Another nod. “If you don’t mind. He seems really nice, but . . . you know.”
When Anja first joined the crew, she was dating a guy who went by the name of Hans Steuri. They’d met through Reboot, a virtual support group that helps severely disabled people adjust to life online. Hans claimed to be a nineteen-year-old from Switzerland, a one-time Olympic hopeful who, like Anja, had been paralyzed in an accident—in his case, a ski jump gone wrong.
Anja brought Hans along on a level grind one day. I took an instant dislike to him. He was friendly, but aggressively so, like a used-car dealer desperate to make a sale. He also played badly and didn’t listen to advice. But Anja seemed smitten with him, so I did my best to make nice.
Then Hans got a phone call. He tried to take it in private but screwed up the b-channel. His voice changed: He suddenly sounded older, and American. The woman he was speaking to, who was obviously his wife, seemed to think he was out showing a house to someone. When Hans realized we could hear him, he hung up on her in mid-sentence. He made a half-hearted attempt at bluffing, but between my Googling and Anja’s pointed questions, we soon got the truth out of him.
Hans’s real name was Harvey Gladstone; he was a forty-eight-year-old Realtor from Miami. He confessed that he had never been on skis in his life, and aside from “a touch of sciatica,” he was completely able-bodied. Listening to him struggle to explain himself, I couldn’t quite work out whether meeting girls at Reboot was just a creepy pickup strategy, or if there was some additional kink involved. But that was more information than I needed.
Anja was mortified. She pronounced Harvey dead to her. But the next day she came to me in a panic. Harvey had gotten a new online ID to get around her block, and had approached her in the Game Lobby, wanting to talk things over. She pronounced him dead again. Half an hour later he was back, disguised in a new avatar; she recognized him by his body language.
She didn’t know what to do. Harvey knew her routine and her favorite online hangouts; she didn’t want to have to change all that, or get a new ID herself. And even more so than for most people, leaving the internet entirely wasn’t a reasonable option for her.
I told her I’d take care of it. I reached out to Griefnet, the cybervigilante group, and called in a favor. I don’t know what they did, but less than twenty-four hours later, Anja got an email of a recording in which a scared-sounding Harvey swore he would never bother her, or anyone else at Reboot, ever again.
Anja was relieved. She was also grateful. I tried to discourage the latter sentiment, because I guessed where it might lead, and I didn’t want the responsibility of vetting all her future boyfriends. But some jobs fall to you whether you want them or not. It has become a thing, when Anja meets a guy she likes, that she asks for my impression. Is he as nice as he seems, or should she be wary? And while we’re on the subject: Do I think he likes her, too?
As Jolene is quick to remind me, I take advantage of Anja’s good nature and her willingness to work overtime—more than I should. But I try to treat that as a two-way street. If Anja wants something from me, even something I’m not comfortable with, something I wouldn’t ordinarily say yes to, I do my best to accommodate her. To maintain the karmic balance between us.
That balance was thrown out of whack when I infected her computer with Smith’s malware package. According to Mom’s tech people, the malware is primarily spyware. Like all code that operates at a root level, it has the potential to be destructive, but its main function is surveillance: to keep tabs on what Anja sees and says and does, and to open her files to inspection. Even if Smith decided to turn the malware into a weapon, there are limits to what damage it could do. Google was right: Anja’s life support is controlled by a separate, independent computer system. The malware can’t touch it. Unless, maybe, there’s a coffeepot in the room.
So I haven’t put Anja’s physical safety at risk. But I have sold out her privacy, which is still bad, even with Mom’s tacit approval. Focused on the mystery of Mr. Jones—and the money—I managed to avoid acknowledging this until after I got Anja to download the software. Now I’m feeling guilty. Which, like apologizing when you’re not sorry, is self-indulgent bullshit.
But I can still try to address the balance. And if Anja wants to know whether some guy she met on the internet is genuinely trustworthy, or only seems to be, I suppose I can provide some insight into that.
“You’re sure Javier won’t mind you bringing someone else along?” I ask.
“We’re going as a group,” Anja says. “Javier’s bringing his sister and her boyfriend. We’ve got this cool SUV, too,” she adds, “all tricked out for the bank run. You could be the driver, if you’d like.”
“No, that’s OK,” I say. “You really want to know if this Javier is worth your time? Then you need to be the driver. And you need to pretend you’re not very good at it.”
WHILE I WAS ANJA’S GO-TO FOR SCREENING POTENTIAL boyfriends, there were other romance-related topics she couldn’t discuss with me—or with Ray. Darla wouldn’t have been my choice for sex counseling either, but I can see why Anja picked her.
A few days after the second Zuul’titlan raid, we arranged to meet up for a level grind in the House by the Crossroads. I was late, and when I got to the meeting place I found Ray harvesting magic herbs by the roadside. He was alone, but judging by the irked look on his face, he hadn’t been for long.
“Because poop,” Ray said, before I could ask.
“What?”
“We were coming down from Lookout Point,” he explained, gesturing towards the hill I had just descended, “and we passed the spot with the outhouse quest, you know, the one with the goblin?”
“Proctor.” Proctor the Traveling Salesgoblin, who has gotten himself trapped in an outhouse. He wants you to kill owlbears in the surrounding woods and collect the scraps of soft parchment they are carrying. Bring him eight scraps and he will reward you with a handful of warm and smelly diamonds. “Yeah, I remember that quest.”
“Everyone remembers it, it’s disgusting,” Ray said. “Anyway, Darla sees the outhouse, and she starts riffing on all the different quests that involve poop.”
“It’s true, there are a lot of them.” Spend time leveling up characters in Call to Wizardry and you realize that someone on the design team has a thing for scatological humor. There’s even a poop-related fishing quest, where you have to use a lump of unicorn dung as a lure to attract a sea monster.
“Yeah, so Darla’s going through the whole list. And then she looks over at Anja and she’s like, ‘Hey Anja, how do you poop?’”
&nb
sp; “Oh God,” I said. “Was Anja upset?”
“No, actually, she was cool with it,” Ray said. “Now that Anja’s had time to get used to her, I think she kind of likes the fact that Darla doesn’t tiptoe around her condition the way most people do. So that’s fine, but the thing is, I don’t want to know how Anja poops. I mean, if it’s one question, OK, I can close my ears and ignore it. But of course it’s not one question, it’s a whole goddamn topic of conversation: What sort of container does it go into? Who empties it? How often? Are there hoses? And then, and then, Darla starts talking about this fashion model she heard about who’s got Crohn’s disease, and her thing, right, her signature, is to be photographed with her colostomy bag showing.
“And hey”—he put up his hands defensively—“I think it’s great, you know, that we live in an enlightened time when people with gross medical issues can have fulfilling careers and feel empowered and whatever. OK? But I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to have to dwell on it. Especially since I know the gross-out factor is the only reason Darla’s even interested.
“So I don’t want to hear about it, but I don’t say that, because it’ll make things worse, and also, I don’t want to hurt Anja’s feelings. But that doesn’t matter either, of course, because Darla’s like a goddamned bloodhound for stuff that bugs people.
“So I’ve got my head down, I’m minding my business, I’m praying for a change of subject, and suddenly Darla is like, ‘Hey, Ray, why so quiet? You don’t like to talk about pooping? Pooping’s natural, Ray. The Pope poops. Jesus pooped—in fact, I’ll bet He shit Himself while He was up on the cross . . .’”
“Yeah, OK,” I said. “I get the picture.”
“Do you?” Looking at me pointedly. “I’m so glad . . . So anyway, I told Darla to fuck off. Which wouldn’t have worked either, but Anja took pity on me. She got Darla to go take a walk with her. So that’s why I’m here all alone with this pissed-off expression on my face. Because poop.”
“I’ll have a talk with Darla.”
Ray laughed. “Yeah, like that’s going to make a difference . . . Have you got an answer to my question, yet? The one about how long?”
“I’m working on it, Ray.”
“Work faster.”
“ATENÇÃO, VADIA!” THE MOTORCYCLIST YELLS AS ANJA cuts into his lane. Then he swerves onto the sidewalk, hits a woman pushing a stroller, and gets catapulted into the side of the Ministério do Turismo. The federal police in the cruiser behind us look over at the crash but otherwise don’t react—Anja didn’t actually hit the guy, so the accident does not count as vehicular assault. When she runs a red light, forcing an old man in the crosswalk to drop his cane and leap for the curb, the cops yawn.
We are westbound on the Eixo Monumental, a massive twelve-lane thoroughfare that runs through the heart of Brazil’s capital, Brasília. This stretch of the Eixo is lined with government office buildings—ministries of trade, finance, culture, energy, planning, defense. Our first bank is a kilometer away, in the commercial sector on the far side of the Eixo Rodoviário.
Anja’s date, Javier Messner, rides shotgun in the front seat of our armor-plated SUV. Javier presents as a slim young white guy with blue eyes, brown hair, and a neatly trimmed beard. Both his appearance and his story—he’s a twenty-year-old barista who lives and works in Buenos Aires—check out on social media. A crosscheck on Ancestry.com shows that Javier’s family emigrated to Argentina from Bavaria before the Second World War—so no, he is not descended from fugitive Nazis.
Javier and Anja converse in a mix of Spanish and German. Even in the latter tongue, Javier sounds completely laid-back, and he is untroubled by Anja’s driving. A few kilometers ago, just after we left the garage where we picked up the SUV, he suggested that Anja make a left turn, and she instead pulled a hard right, directly into the path of an oncoming semi. Javier stayed calm, waited for Anja to finish swerving around the truck, and then said laughing, “Das andere links.” The other left.
Javier’s sister, seventeen-year-old Blanca, is more intense. She sits behind Javier, fiddling with the submachine gun in her lap in a way that suggests she is eager to get on with tonight’s crime spree. But Blanca is also disciplined: Despite her impatience, she does not take potshots at pedestrians the way Darla surely would in the same situation.
Blanca’s boyfriend, sixteen-year-old Bruno Ribeiro, is originally from Brasília, though he moved to Argentina with his mother after his parents divorced. Bruno marvels at what a great job the game designers have done of modeling his native city. To Blanca’s embarrassment, he keeps pointing out landmarks and commenting on how well-rendered they are. “My God,” Blanca says finally. “Why not just tattoo ‘I’m a newbie’ on your forehead?”
I sit all the way in the back with an assortment of heavy weapons. There’s a roof hatch directly above me, so if need be I can stand up and shoot rockets at pursuing vehicles. But for now I just sit quiet and listen to Anja and Javier. I’m using subtitles for translation so I can hear the actual sound of their voices. So far my gut is telling me that Javier is an OK guy. A little too mellow for my taste, maybe, but Anja seems to like that.
After several more traffic violations we reach the street where the bank is located. From a block away we hear gunfire—a robbery is already in progress. Following standard in-game etiquette, Anja pulls over and waits for the other crew to finish. Javier takes advantage of the delay to go over the plan one more time.
The amount of cash in the bank’s vault varies depending on how often it’s been looted in the past hour, but it will always contain a special money sack made of red cloth. Stealing that starts a clock on the Butch and Sundance achievement. We’ll then have ninety minutes to collect four other red sacks from banks in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. Habitual Offender squeezes South America’s geography into a few hundred virtual square kilometers, creating a sort of greatest-hits version of the continent, which is what makes this grand tour possible. Brasília to Buenos Aires, for example, a three-thousand-kilometer journey in reality, is just a fifteen-minute commute in the game world—though if you’re being shot at by police, it’s a long fifteen minutes.
You can hit the banks in any order. We have tentatively decided on a clockwise route of Brasília to Buenos Aires to Santiago to La Paz to Lima. Javier double-checks that everyone is still cool with this. Everyone is. “Let’s get on with it,” Blanca says.
At the bank, the gunfire has ceased, and ambulance crews are hauling away bodies. They work quickly. “OK,” Javier says. “John, do you mind standing guard while the rest of us go inside?”
“No problem.” There are griefers here too, of course, and the last thing you want when you’re pulling a heist is to have some clown take off with your getaway car.
Anja parks in the bank’s front lot, and she and the others get out. Anja and Javier, like Blanca, are armed with submachine guns; Bruno wields a combat shotgun. In the real world this would tend to draw attention, but Habitual Offender is an open-carry universe. So long as you don’t aim your gun directly at someone, security guards will ignore it.
While the others proceed inside the bank, I stand up in the roof hatch of the SUV. I am holding a minigun—a heavy, six-barreled rotary machine gun that can fire five thousand rounds a minute. I keep the barrels pointed skyward. A beat cop walking by on the sidewalk smiles and tips his cap to me. “Boa noite,” he says. Good evening.
“Foda-se a polícia,” I reply. Fuck the police.
“FUCK YOUR MOTHER,” DARLA SAID. “IT’S YOUR LIFE.”
I walked through the woods in the direction Ray told me Anja and Darla had gone. I found them on the edge of the zone, on a cliff overlooking the Jurassic Swamp to the south. They were facing away from me as I came out of the trees; I was just about to announce myself when I realized what they were talking about.
“So you don’t have any feeling in your clit at all?”
“Nothing below the neck,” Anja said. “At least, not when
I’m awake. It’s like my brain still remembers, so when I dream, sometimes . . .”
“Remembers,” Darla said. “So before the accident, you—”
“Oh yeah, sure. And there was a guy on the men’s team, Rolando, we did things. Never all the way, but, you know.”
“You and Rolando aren’t together anymore? Because of the accident?”
“No, we broke up before then. Rolando got impatient. He kept wanting to do more, but I wasn’t ready yet. I’m kind of sorry, now, that I didn’t say yes.”
“Nah, fuck that,” Darla said. “If you weren’t ready, you weren’t ready.”
I’d begun backing up, slowly. Then Darla started to turn around. I was about to dive for cover when I remembered I was playing a ninja and hit the stealth mode toggle.
“Anyway,” Darla continued, looking my way now, “the fact that it’s all in your head makes it a lot easier. You don’t have to mess around with hardware at all, so your mother doesn’t need to know what you’re up to. She doesn’t watch what you’re doing online, does she?”
“No, we have a deal about that,” Anja said. “But there is this tech guy who comes in once a month, and he can be nosy. If I’ve downloaded a piece of software he doesn’t recognize, he’ll ask about it.”
“I can show you how to hide the software so your tech guy won’t see it. Or if you want to be extra safe, you can just delete it before he comes and reinstall it afterwards.”