This Is Not a Game

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Interesting,” Dagmar said. Warily, because she had a feeling she knew where Charlie was heading with this.

  “Interesting, hell!” Charlie said. “It’s brilliant! Pass out enough of these things, and you can analyze every body of water on the planet, including every source of drinking water. You end up with a complete database of available water sources. Right now, we just added a new entry for tap water in this cabana.”

  Dagmar sipped her drink. Tequila fumes flamed up her sinus.

  Charlie held up a USB cable. “When you get one of these units,” he said, “you connect it to your computer with the cable, and you get an account with a company up in Portland called Tapping the Source. When you log on, you can read any data that you sent them yourself, so you’ll always know if your own drinking water is safe. But if you want access to the whole database-which a lot of people will-you have to pay a fee.”

  Dagmar nodded. “A model of responsible environmental capitalism,” she said.

  “Yeah. That’s why I like them.” He looked at her. “That’s why I want you to build these units into the game.”

  She had, of course, been expecting something like this. Charlie had no reason to invite her to his cabana other than to screw with her work. But even though she had anticipated him, she still felt the shock, as if he’d just punched her in the ribs.

  “Why not the next game, Charlie? ” she said. “I’m already up to my neck in rewrites.”

  He shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “This game.”

  Dagmar feigned a patience she didn’t feel. “Charlie,” she said, “we’re in week three of an eight-week game. The last two weeks aren’t even written, and I’m still doing rewrites caused by the last piece of technology you wanted me to include in the game.”

  “It’s not going to be that hard,” Charlie assured her.

  She gave him a cold stare. “Uh-huh.”

  She was tired of explaining about writing to people who didn’t write and didn’t know how to write.

  “Look,” Charlie said, “your bad guys, the ones meeting in Planet Nine, are terrorists, right? ”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what sort of terror are they up to? ”

  “Dirty bombs in major cities.”

  Brussels, London, New York, Charleston, Delhi, Seattle, and San Diego. So that the players could each be sent on errands that would uncover important clues to the terrorists’ identities.

  “Right,” Charlie said. “So instead of nuclear terrorism, make it chemical or biological. They’re contaminating water supplies. And they’re doing it in-for example-the fifty cities where we have the largest concentration of players.”

  “Fifty? ” Outrage burned in her blood. “You’re going to ask the players to test the water reservoirs of fifty major cities, and do it without getting arrested or-”

  Charlie shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be reservoirs, or even tap water. It could be lakes, creeks, ponds. Public fountains, even.”

  “And what are they testing for? We can’t actually contaminate all these bodies of water.”

  Charlie held up his unit. “These babies analyze the water down to parts per billion. You put a tiny amount of some neutral chemical in the water-something that won’t hurt anyone but will show up in the scans. Tell the players that the terrorists are testing their delivery systems before they use the real thing.”

  “Charlie!” Dagmar said. “Now I have to find a person in each of fifty cities who can put this chemical into a body of water, and do it without being noticed!”

  “There are go-to guys in every city,” Charlie said. “We just have to find the right-”

  “Are you crazy? ” Dagmar demanded. “We don’t have the personnel to do this! We don’t have the budget! The technical staff doesn’t have the resources. We’d have to reshoot video and rerecord audio. And I don’t have enough time to do the rewrites.” She glared at him. “Plus, the players are going to revolt if they have to buy anything new. How much do those units cost? ”

  “Tapping the Source has a couple of hundred thousand of them in the warehouse and is selling them for cost, in hopes they can get as many out into the world as possible. They cost something like forty bucks, including postage and handling.”

  “Forty dollars! That’s more than the encryption software!”

  “Stop bouncing,” Charlie said. “You’re going to spill my jus.” He moved his meal tray from the couch to the hassock, balancing it atop his computer.

  “You’re going to wreck Great Big Idea!” Dagmar said. “You’re giving us a job that we flat can’t do, and that will destroy our credibility with the players.”

  Charlie regarded her coldly. “No, I’m not.”

  “But-”

  “Money,” said Charlie, “will get you through times of inadequate staffing better than inadequate staffing will get you through times of no money.”

  “Which means what, exactly? ”

  “I’m giving you the keys to the kingdom,” Charlie said. “I’m going to set up a bank account with an adequate budget for you to get this thing done. You’ll be able to hire the go-to guys in fifty cities. You’ll hire more technical staff.” He reached out and tapped her knee. “And you’ll hire more writers. Okay? ”

  “It’s far too late for any of this,” Dagmar said.

  “No, it’s not,” Charlie said. His look was level and very serious and very intense. “You’re going to do this, Dagmar. Because you owe me, and you know it.”

  An argument followed, but Dagmar lost it, which was what happened when you were fighting someone who had all the power and all the money. Her only option was to quit her job, and-aside from the fact that she liked her job, at least usually-she couldn’t afford to stop taking Charlie’s money.

  In fury, she gulped the remains of her Tres Generaciones and stomped out, blinking in the bright sun and the reflection off the pool. She felt ridiculous because she had an armful of the Tapping the Source units in their white boxes, a visible reminder of her failure.

  By the pool, people were still under their umbrellas, talking on their cell phones.

  Being seen and doing business. Being seen while doing business.

  Kimba Leigh stood behind the poolside bar, giving orders to the Guatemalan bartender. Maybe she actually was the food and beverage manager. Dagmar walked past her and didn’t receive a glance. She wasn’t important enough to rate Kimba Leigh’s attention.

  Dagmar decided she was too drunk to drive, so she went to the hotel lounge and, conscious of a degree of irony, ordered coffee.

  She sat behind her square wooden table with its colorful inset Mexican tile, sipped her coffee, and looked down at the white boxes scattered before her.

  What the hell…? What in God’s name was Charlie up to?

  Players would wander all over fifty major cities, testing every water source they could find: tap water, public fountains, creeks and rivers. Data would flow into Tapping the Source. Which, apparently, wasn’t nonprofit: it was building the database in order to sell it.

  So Tapping the Source would have a much bigger database to sell. Which meant Tapping the Source would be worth more money.

  At least it was a company that had a more sensible business plan than Portcullis. And they were about improving water supplies, so that was a good thing.

  Still, it looked like another Maffya-style pump-and-dump stock scheme, buying a company’s stock while it was cheap and then inflating its value.

  Though she had to admit that it was difficult to picture the Russian Maffya getting interested in a company with such a green profile. Helping the earth was not one of their usual priorities.

  She decided, in alcohol-ridden despair, that she should assume that Charlie was in thrall to the Maffya. He must owe them money, or owe them something other than money. Probably the latter, because if he owed them money, he’d just give it to them.

  She paid for her coffee and took the 101 past the exit for the Ho
llywood Bowl and up over the hills to the Valley. She parked in the AvN Soft parking lot in view of all the new security cameras, then got out of the car. Afternoon heat shimmered: it was hotter here than in Los Angeles proper. She walked past the uniformed guard at his security station and into the building.

  Even though it was after business hours, the building still hummed with activity. People still sat amid the ferns of the atrium, connected to their jobs with Wi-Fi; the coffee shop was still open, selling drinks, salads, and sandwiches.

  Dagmar went to her office and looked through her database.

  Over the years she’d hired freelance writers to help her on various projects. Sometimes she’d hire a television writer, but usually she drew her writing staff from science fiction writers scattered throughout North America. They were usually happy to oblige her and earn real money, and all too readily put aside their regular work, which on average paid a word rate that hadn’t changed since the Great Depression.

  She called them all. None were available on short notice. Everyone was on deadline, or on vacation, or had just been hired to script a new drama on TNT.

  Damn it, she thought. There was no way she had the time to train someone new.

  Unless.

  Unless.

  Unless, she thought, it was someone who knew games inside out, and who really needed the money, and who had no job worthy of the name. Someone who had devised the most diabolically complex and treacherous games she had ever played, or even heard of.

  Charlie will really be pissed, she thought.

  Not that she gave a damn about that, not any longer. And besides, a writer didn’t have to work from an office, and since Charlie was never in the building anyway, there wasn’t much of a chance of their paths crossing.

  Oh yeah.

  She picked up the phone and called BJ.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN This Is Not a Homecoming

  FROM: LadyDayFan

  We are sorry that so many players were unable to log on yesterday.

  Our servers have been overwhelmed by the hundreds of

  thousands of new players that have recently joined Motel Room

  Blues.

  As always, we urge new players to check the FAQ List and Player

  Tutorial before asking questions in this forum.

  Thank you.

  “I haven’t been here since Charlie had me thrown out,” BJ said. He had contributed his thumbprint to the database at the new security station and now stood in the AvN Soft atrium, looking past potted palm trees to the upper reaches of the office tower.

  “I had one security guy on each arm,” he said. “Two guys came behind with cardboard boxes of stuff from my office.” He pointed upward, at the eighth-floor balcony. “And Charlie was up there, watching. He didn’t say a damn word. He just watched.”

  He stood there, scowling defiantly up at the place Charlie had occupied on that day. He wore Levi’s worn smooth and pale, and a polyester knit shirt strained by his broad shoulders.

  “Is there going to be a problem? ” Dagmar asked.

  He looked at her with his blue eyes.

  “Nope,” he said. “Not at all.”

  “Oh, Dagmar!” the receptionist, Luci, called from her desk. “I forgot to tell you! Someone sent you a present.”

  She reached behind her chair and lifted up a vase filled with at least three dozen white roses. She put the vase on her desk and fanned out the flowers, producing a brief rose-scented breeze.

  “My God,” said Dagmar.

  “Someone sure loves you,” Luci said.

  Maybe it’s Charlie, Dagmar thought. Maybe he’s trying to make up for what he did to me yesterday.

  She reached for the envelope attached to the display, opened it, and read it.

  I’m so very sorry that you were unable to join me for dinner yesterday evening, she read. Perhaps tonight? Your very own, Siyed.

  “Crap,” she said, and crumpled the card.

  “Goodness!” said Luci. “Who is it? ”

  Dagmar gave the short form. “Short psycho married foreigner,” she said.

  Luci gave a knowing nod. BJ chuckled. He picked up the vase.

  “Well, if he’s a bastard, it isn’t the flowers’ fault,” he said. “Where shall we take them? ”

  They went to her office, where they cleared some of the rubble off a shelf and made a place for the vase. The soft scent of the roses floated through the room. Dagmar called Contracts and told them she needed a freelancer contract rushed through. She gave them BJ’s name, address, and Social Security number and told them he was going to be paid two thousand dollars per week.

  “And backdate the contract to Monday,” she said.

  That way, BJ could pick up his first check on Friday. Which, since he had quit his IT job for this, was the least she could do.

  “Thanks,” BJ said, looking out her window at the highway down below. “Now can you tell me what the hell I’m doing here? ”

  “Have a seat.”

  He moved file folders from one of the chairs and sat in it. She explained what was happening in The Long Night of Briana Hall and how all that would have to change. She called up a flow chart of the action, put it on the big plasma monitor on the wall, and walked him through it.

  He adjusted his rimless spectacles and pursed his lips in thought. “So Briana’s suspected of two murders, right? ”

  “Yes.”

  “And the murders aren’t actually connected? ”

  “No. It just seems that way to the cops.”

  BJ rubbed his chin. “That’s a coincidence,” he said. “I don’t like coincidences in fiction. I see enough of them in real life.”

  Dagmar smiled, then gestured at the chart. “The cops don’t believe in coincidence, either. But the players are going to prove them wrong.”

  “So one of the murders is committed by a terrorist, and the other was done by people involved in some kind of securities fraud.”

  “Right.”

  “Can we connect them in some way? ”

  She blinked at him. “How? ”

  “Well,” said BJ, “let’s say that the people involved in the fraud know that the terrorists are about to strike. So they’re planning on-I don’t know-shorting S &Ps or something, knowing they’re going to go down.”

  “Ah. Like al Qaeda was supposed to have done-manipulated stocks just before 9/11.”

  “Exactly.”

  Dagmar leaned back in her chair. Possibilities cascaded through her mind.

  “Yes,” she said. “We could do that. But in that case the players are only confirming what the authorities actually believe. It’s more dramatically satisfying for a player to prove an NPC wrong than to show he’s been right all along.”

  “Then you make it a triple-layered puzzle,” BJ said. “Level one is solved by the cops, who think Briana’s guilty. Level two will be solved by the players, who will prove that the crimes are unrelated and that Briana is innocent of the murders. And then the players unravel the third layer, which shows that the crimes are related after all but that Briana is still innocent.”

  Dagmar looked at BJ and grinned.

  “Yeah,” she said. “We could work it that way.”

  She couldn’t help being grateful for someone who was actually trying to solve her problems.

  “Now,” BJ said, “tell me how this Russian assassin is connected to everything.”

  Dagmar took a long breath and slowly exhaled.

  “That,” she said, “is really complicated.”

  She told him. His blue eyes widened.

  “This is the guy who killed Austin? You’ve got hundreds of thousands of people trying to find a real killer? ”

  “Millions,” said Dagmar.

  “Holy Christ.” His arms made a hopeless, flopping gesture. “I have no idea what to say to that.”

  “The problem is that they aren’t finding him. We’ve got to give them other things to work on until Litvinov surfaces. And if he doesn’t surfa
ce, we’ve got to give the players a satisfactory resolution to that plot.”

  BJ scrubbed his face with both hands. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Wait,” Dagmar said, “till you hear what Charlie wants to do with the water samplers.”

  She was in the middle of her explanation when her desk phone rang.

  “Dagmar,” she answered.

  “Did you get my present, love? ” asked Siyed.

  Her heart gave a guilty lurch at the sound of the East London accent.

  “Thanks for the flowers,” she said, “but I’m too busy to see you.”

  Across the desk, BJ smiled.

  “Please, Dagmar,” said Siyed. “I’ve come all this way.”

  “Sorry, no,” said Dagmar. “There’s this problem about your being married.”

  “I-” And at that moment Dagmar’s handheld began to play “Harlem Nocturne.”

  “My other phone’s ringing,” Dagmar said. “Gotta go.”

  The display on the handheld showed it was Charlie calling. The sight of his name brought a flash of paranoia, and she wondered if one of Charlie’s spies could have seen her bring BJ into the building.

  She didn’t think there was anyone but Charlie at AvN Soft who dated from BJ’s time, but perhaps she was wrong.

  Her hands were clumsy in removing the phone from its holster, and in pressing the Send button to answer.

  “Yes,” she said into the phone.

  “Dagmar,” said Charlie, “are you ready for the keys to the kingdom? ”

  Her head swam. It took her a moment to orient herself to an entirely different context, and then she reached for her stylus.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Charlie gave her an account number and a complicated password, a random mix of letters and numerals. Dagmar jotted it down on her handheld display and saved it to a text file.

  “Got it,” she said.

  “Right,” Charlie said. “That’s your budget for the game. If you need more, let me know.”