88 Names

by Matt Ruff

  “Of course I am, but that’s not foolproof. If they wanted to backtrace us badly enough, they could—”

  “Oh my God!” Darla said, looking suddenly stricken. “What if they’re recording us right now? What if they digitize our faces, and then send image-recognition bots to scour the internets?”

  “I know you think you’re being funny, Darla, but if they wanted to identify us, that’s exactly how they’d—”

  “Attention, Tempest corporate overlords!” Darla cupped her hands to her mouth as she shouted up at the stars. “JOHN CHU and DARLA JEAN COVINGTON are FUCKING inside your computer!”

  She cracked up, clutching her stomach and rolling around on the bed. I decided to be fatalistic. I mean, she was probably right: The fact that we hadn’t been booted off the site meant it was unlikely we’d tripped any alarms. And if the system administrator had noticed us, there was nothing we could do about that now.

  “Where did you get the password from?” I wanted to know.

  “Orville,” Darla said, still laughing. “A hacker friend. Don’t worry, I’m not fucking him,” she added, though in fact that was the last thing I was worried about.

  “And what is this?” I asked, scanning the horizon again. “Concept art for a new game?”

  “Think TempestCon, two years ago,” Darla said. “It’ll come to you.”

  I did, and it did. “Call to Infinity.” That was the working title of an MMORPG that was, or would have been, a sci-fi sibling of Call to Wizardry. Tempest had shown a teaser trailer for it at one of their annual conventions, but there’d been no further news about it since then. The consensus in the gaming community was that the project had been canceled, probably because it was a little too similar to Call to Wizardry; most people only have time for one MMORPG in their lives, and it made no sense for Tempest to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a game that would cannibalize their existing player base.

  “This isn’t just concept art,” Darla told me. “It’s a virtual studio for level design. This planet is hollow; there’s a hatch a few craters over that leads down inside, and they’ve got all kinds of assembly tools stashed in there. It’s what I used to build this dome. I thought you might want to check it out for yourself.” She laughed again, watching my face as the words “intellectual property theft” flashed through my brain. “I’m not saying steal the tools—although we could. But you should at least play with them, maybe learn some tricks to use for our game.”

  “Our game?” I said. “Are we partners now?”

  She shrugged. “I know everybody and his brother talks about making a game, but you actually started a business, so I know you’re not just hot air. But you’ll never do anything cool without someone to kick your ass and get you out of your comfort zone . . . And I suppose it wouldn’t kill me to have someone practical to rein me in now and then. As long as you’re not a patronizing dick about it. Of course,” she added, “that’s assuming we even have a future together.”

  “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “Because you already got what you really wanted from me. Now you can cut me from the crew and keep Ray. And not that I even care that much about the job, but you know I’m going to be pissed, right? This time next month, you’ll probably be dead to me.”

  “Jesus, Darla . . . I don’t want to cut anyone from the crew. I want you and Ray to get along.”

  “Yeah, well, like I said before, there’s what you want, and what you can have.”

  “What I need is for the business to be successful. It takes capital to start a game company.”

  She snorted. “You think you can finance an MMORPG with the money you make as a sherpa?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not about the profits. It’s about the contacts.”

  Give Darla credit, she got it right away: “You mean like the Kwan brothers? You’re going to ask them to invest?”

  “They’d be on my short list, yeah. When I’m ready.”

  “Huh. That’s . . . actually not stupid.”

  “Gee, thanks.” I started to smile, but then this image came into my head, of walking into a meeting with the Kwan brothers with Darla at my side. Easily bored, extremely volatile Darla.

  “What is it?” she said. “Your face just did something weird.”

  “Nothing,” I said, thinking, Change the subject. “You and I should meet up in person.”

  The suggestion caught her off guard. “You couldn’t handle me in person.”

  “I’m willing to risk it. I’ll even come to you, if you want.”

  “Gosh, that’s so generous.”

  “I’m between cars right now,” I explained. “But that’s OK, I’ll rent something and drive up to . . . what city are you in?”

  “Nice try,” Darla said. Then: “I’ll think about it . . . If I did decide to meet you, it’d have to be after I get back from my trip.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Family reunion back east, at my mom’s place.” She raised an eyebrow. “Cousin Earl will be there.”

  “You’ll have to shoot him in the ass for me. How long will you be gone?”

  “I’m not sure. It depends what level of psychodrama Mom and I get into.” Then she looked at me, dead serious, and said: “You’d better not disappoint me, if I do let you visit. Me pissed off online is nothing compared to me pissed off in person.”

  “I won’t disappoint you,” I said. “Promise.”

  “All right . . . So, you want to go check out those software tools?”

  I eyed her avatar again. “In a few minutes . . .”

  We stayed on Tempest’s server for another four hours. The next day we came back again. And the next.

  We were going to go there once more, the night before Darla left on her trip. But earlier that same day I got the call from Janet Margeaux’s CAA agent. By the time I met Darla in the Game Lobby that evening, I’d decided to cut her out of the gig and not tell her until afterwards. I was comfortable with that choice—or told myself I was—but it would have felt wrong to have sex with her, with that between us. It’s weird, the lines we draw.

  Instead of going with her to the Tempest server I told Darla I was tired and asked for a rain check. She was immediately suspicious.

  “Rain check? Are you bored with me already?”

  When you don’t trust yourself to lie effectively, the best way to do it is by telling the truth. “I’m definitely not bored with you, Darla.”

  “Hmm . . . Fine then, suit yourself. But if my plane crashes tomorrow, you’re going to kick yourself for passing up a last chance with me.”

  “I will be sad if that happens,” I said. Which was also true.

  “If my plane doesn’t crash,” Darla continued, “I might have a surprise for you when I get back.”

  “Your home address?”

  “Maybe. But I meant something bigger. Something you’ll like.” She paused, studying my expression. “You sure you don’t have anything you want to tell me?”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “Have a safe trip, Darla.”

  Chapter 15

  * * *

  tort of wrongful seduction — A cause of action in a civil lawsuit in which the plaintiff claims to have been enticed into sex by false pretenses, such as a fraudulent promise of marriage.

  In the tort’s earliest incarnation, the right of action belonged to the father of a dishonored woman, and the alleged harm was loss of services to her family. In time, the right to sue was extended to the woman herself, and the harm was recognized to be moral and personal rather than strictly economic. Ironically, this liberalization of the tort undermined it, as changing sexual mores and attitudes about women’s honor—as well as the perennial reluctance of juries to take women at their word—made such lawsuits much harder to argue and win. By the end of the twentieth century, the tort of seduction appeared to be extinct. But the 2020s saw a revival of the tort, as another shift in mores inspired a new generation of plaintiffs—men as well as women—to attempt to re
write the rules of love.

  —Merriam-Webster’s Law Dictionary

  * * *

  So this guy breaks into your apartment, tases you, and hits you in the face with a bag of money?” Jolene says.

  “The tasing came last,” I correct her. “Hurt like hell, too.”

  “It’s supposed to. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Once I could stand up again, I was more worried about my rig. The goggles and earphones are OK, I think, but the gloves are a little twitchy. The good news is, I can afford to buy replacements.”

  Our avatars are in a private chat room in the Game Lobby. In real life, Jolene is outdoors. When I reached her, she was at home, and I asked if she had a yard or patio she could go out to while we talked. I can hear the faint buzz of a lawnmower in the background.

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  “Four hundred thousand dollars. Two weeks’ pay from Ms. Pang. The electricity was her way of saying I need to be nicer about how I ask for it, next time.”

  “I take it you didn’t call the cops.”

  I shake my head. “What would I have told them?”

  “You did call your mom, though.”

  “Eventually,” I say. “First I made sure the guy was really gone, locked the door and moved some furniture in front of it. Then I counted the money. Then I checked that my rig was OK.”

  “And then you called your mom.”

  “No, then I went to sleep for a few hours.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “I was tired. I was already tired, before, and being electrocuted takes a lot out of you. Anyway, I didn’t feel like I was in any immediate danger. If they’d wanted to kill me, they could have.”

  “It’s the money, isn’t it?” Jolene says. “You were thinking of not telling your mother about it. That’s what you needed to sleep on.”

  “No, I had to tell Mom about the money. What I needed to sleep on was whether to tell her it was four hundred thousand or just two.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “I know,” I say. “But have you ever seen four hundred thousand dollars? Not virtual cash, but real bills you can hold?”

  “I’ve seen people get stupid for a lot less than that,” Jolene says. “Stacking the money higher doesn’t make it less stupid.”

  “Well, look, I wouldn’t really lie to Mom. I just needed to think about it.”

  “So when you woke up, you called her?”

  “After breakfast, yeah. She wasn’t available, but I left a message with her assistant, Ensign Kim.”

  “OK,” Jolene says. “So now you’re going to hole up in your place with the door locked until she calls you back, right?”

  “No, I decided to get out of there.”

  “Why?”

  “After I spoke to Ensign Kim, I started thinking about what else Ms. Pang’s people might have been up to in my apartment. I don’t think the guy who broke in last night did anything after he zapped me, but if he had access, who knows how many times he was in there before?”

  “Your computer?”

  I shrug. “The anti-tamper seals on the case are intact, and as far as infecting the hard drive, I don’t think there’s anything they could do in person that couldn’t be more easily done remotely. But I was looking around the room, and I saw my old Companion Cube up on a shelf. You ever have one of those?”

  “No, but I know what they are.” A Companion Cube is like a hardware version of Googlebot—an interactive digital assistant that you can query or give commands to. And like all internet-connected devices with microphones, it can be turned into a remote listening device if someone hacks it.

  “I got the Cube as part of a game promotion,” I tell Jolene. “I never even put batteries in it. But seeing it made me realize, it doesn’t matter how secure my computer is if someone has a bug in my apartment. They can just listen to me talking on my headset.”

  “And this is why I’m out on my lawn? You think my place is bugged too?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s possible.”

  “Well, I’ve got good news,” Jolene says. “The people I work for, they’re paranoid about security. I get my house swept for bugs once a month. Last check was just a few days ago.”

  “A law firm does that?”

  Jolene pretends not to hear the question. “Where are you now?” she asks.

  “In a motel. At first I had this crazy idea about going to the Hilton downtown and renting out the penthouse, but I realized that even if they were willing to take cash, they’d want to log my ID and credit card into their system.”

  “So you went to a no-tell fleabag instead?”

  “It’s not a fleabag,” I say. “It’s clean, and they’ve got high-speed broadband. The neighborhood’s remote, but it’s safe.”

  “You hope. How’d you get there?”

  “Loaded my gear and the money into a backpack and rode around on BART for a few hours. Changed trains a dozen times. Then I caught a cab.”

  “Hmm.” She frowns. “That might be good enough.”

  “Can I ask you something, Jolene?”

  “What?”

  “You told me once that the firm you work for specializes in estate planning. Why would a law firm like that need to sweep an IT person’s house for bugs? Are they worried you’re going to take the clients’ wills home and read them out loud?”

  Jolene stares at me, lips pursed. She’s annoyed, but not with me—with herself, for breaking character.

  Before she can say anything, a pop-up window appears at the bottom of my visual field:

  HE DESIRES A SESSION, TO BEGIN IN 30 MINUTES. ASSEMBLE YOUR CREW. — SMITH

  This is followed almost immediately by a second pop-up:

  CONFIRM THAT YOU ARE AVAILABLE. THEN SEE YOUR EMAIL FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. DO NOT DISAPPOINT ME. — PANG

  “What is it?” Jolene says.

  THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE NEWS CHYRON reads: MARRIAGE OF NORTH AND SOUTH TO BE CONSUMMATED AT NOON TOMORROW.

  Over the airplane’s loudspeaker, the pilot announces that we have begun our descent into Pyongyang. It is raining in the capital, with scattered thunder and high winds; there will be turbulence during the landing, so we are advised to remain seated for the duration of the flight. But Mr. Jones ignores the warning. He stands in the aisle, staring at the TV at the front of the passenger cabin, which is now showing scenes from the recent unification summit: While crowds cheer outside South Korea’s Blue House, President Sunwoo shakes hands with an elderly Kim Jong-un.

  “What year is this supposed to be?” Mr. Jones asks.

  “Two thousand and fifty-two,” I tell him. Nodding at the TV screen: “The Supreme Leader just celebrated his seventieth birthday.”

  Mr. Jones tugs experimentally at the skin beneath his chin. “And this game—”

  “D.M. Zed.”

  “—it is from the Republic of Korea?”

  “Yes. The company, GangnamSoft, is based in Seoul.”

  “And the government permits this? A game about reunification?”

  “There’s been some controversy about the content,” I say, which is true enough. “But no calls to ban the game, so far. And the sale preorders have been through the roof.”

  The first turbulence jolts the plane. I look out the window. It is night, and we are descending into an unbroken bank of moonlit clouds. The photorealistic rendering is almost perfect, but as the plane bounces, a software glitch sends a silver squiggle cascading across the cloud tops.

  D.M. Zed is in its final week of beta, and GSoft’s programmers are working around the clock to get the last bugs out before the release date. Ms. Pang’s email contained the address and password for this playtest server. My instructions are to keep Mr. Jones logged in for as long as possible. Ms. Pang didn’t explain why she wants this, but my guess is that the game has an unpatched client-side security flaw that she means to take advantage of.

  The view is obscured as we enter the clouds. Th
e turbulence increases; I grip the imaginary arms of my seat and glance around the cabin. Jolene, Anja, and Ray are in the row directly behind me. Our avatars are dressed in United Nations uniforms, with insignia and equipment signifying our different roles. Mr. Jones, who has a big badge on his chest, is an envoy, empowered to give orders to non-player characters and call for help on his satellite phone. Anja is an engineer. Ray is a medic. Jolene is a computer specialist.

  I’m security. The 9mm pistol on my hip is our only weapon at the moment, though I already have my eye on a possible upgrade. The rest of the passengers are NPCs; most of them are UN staff and reporters, but seated at the back of the cabin are two soldiers—one North Korean, one South Korean—armed with futuristic assault rifles. I’ve got dibs on one of those, the moment something happens to its current owner. Which, I predict, will be very soon now.

  “Beginning final approach,” the pilot says. The cabin lights go out, and the TV image is replaced by static and then a solid blue screen. As we break through the cloud layer, the plane banks sharply to the left, and this combined with the darkness in the cabin draws everyone’s attention to the view of Future Pyongyang below us.

  The city looks very different than it did in the CIA Factbook. The completed Ryugyong Hotel is surrounded by a forest of lesser towers, all of them as brightly lit as the skyscrapers in a normal metropolis. Across the Potong River on Mansu Hill, more lights ring the three Kim statues, which look like toy soldiers from this altitude.

  “Beautiful,” Mr. Jones murmurs, leaning across the seats in front of me. He sounds like he might cry.

  “Check out the monorail.” I indicate a string of lights stretching southwards from the Ryugyong. “That’s the cross-DMZ express. Pyongyang to Seoul in under an hour.”

  “Beautiful,” Mr. Jones repeats. But as we circle the city center, we start to see other lights—the flashing lights of emergency and police vehicles racing through the streets—that hint not all is well on the ground. Then, without warning, a massive explosion erupts from the side of the Ryugyong Hotel, provoking gasps from the NPCs. Seconds later, an even larger blast topples the statues on Mansu Hill.