The Game

by Terry Schott

  Chapter 20

  From time to time, people try to find ways to hack into the Game. In order to discourage this from happening, the Mainframe maintains a tight watch on all systems to ensure outside tampering doesn’t occur. Any unauthorized data entering the system is detected immediately. Mainframe quarantines the data and removes it from play. Games Masters are then alerted and the authorities trace the hacker back to the source and deal with them severely. Imagine someone being able to change the outcome of events in the Game? There is no crime more serious on Tygon than attempting to hack into the Game. Punishment for this crime is death. No one has ever succeeded in hacking the Game. Early in the Game many tried; all of them paid the price.

  Excerpt from ‘How Safe is the Game?

  Everyone sat silently in their chairs. All screens showed Trew at his ninth birthday party; smiles, ice cream and kids walking around talking as they moved from seat to seat. Brandon looked at the screen with a pleasant expression on his face. Beside him Michelle occasionally switched between looking at her tablet, and glancing at Brandon. Everyone else looked down at their tablets, as if they were the most interesting things in the world. Brandon might look pleasant, but no one made the mistake of thinking he was happy with what he was seeing on the screen.

  Danielle walked up to Trew and whispered something. The two of them laughed and Danielle sat down in the empty seat beside Trew. Brandon’s cheek twitched. He turned away from the monitor and looked at Michelle.

  “Michelle?”

  “Sir?”

  “Can you call the hospital, please? Tell them I’ve had a stroke and somehow believe I’ve travelled back in time to an event that didn’t happen.”

  Michelle said nothing.

  “Can anyone tell me who’s playing this excellent joke on us? We tried to hook this up a few plays ago, didn’t we? The poor girl spent all her credits for just this kind of a scene, right? Even in our wildest dreams the two of them wouldn’t have gotten together so well.”

  “Yes, sir.” Brandon held up his hand, stopping Michelle from saying anything else.

  “But for this play, we don’t want her anywhere near Trew! She isn’t part of our plan. She left the Game and we have no idea why she’s back. She’s a loose cannon, with not enough credits to be anything but dangerous. She could die crossing the street, for God’s sake. What if Trew is caught in that mess of a life she’s living?” Brandon stopped talking and closed his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “Look, people, you’ve all worked with me before. You know I’m not the kind to get crazy and start shouting and throwing people out of windows,” Brandon smiled. “We are the only ones that know for sure that Zack is making a play for number one. Raise your hand if you have bet everything you own on Zack pulling it off.”

  Hands shot up around the room. Of the thirty-one people present, thirty had their hands up. Brandon nodded, his was the only hand not raised. He had more than just a fortune riding on this, but no one could know that. “You were all top players in the Game, and this is absolutely your best chance to double your considerable fortunes. We all know the rules. There’s no hacking into the system to affect the outcome of the Game, but we also understand there are many things we can do to help our player within the rules Mainframe has set. We’ve spent considerable time and money putting supporting players in place with millions of credits spent. We have thirty years of experience to try and figure out how Zack can score the best from the life he chose to play. Yes, the Game can decide none of it’s important and score him terribly, but we know how to play the best odds. Each step he takes can lead us down an alternate path, and we’ve taken thousands of them into account. Not one single path includes this girl, however. If he ends up with her, we need to do a complete new set of strategies. So the easiest option is to get her out of his life. Michelle, is that going to be possible?”

  Michelle looked around the room quickly. Brandon’s speech had calmed them all down. He really was the best man in the world to work for. He always called it ‘working with,’ but they all knew who the boss was, and they loved him fiercely. She looked back and met Brandon’s eyes, dark brown with flecks of gold that seemed to be swirling around quickly at the moment. “I don’t know, sir, but we are sure going to try.”

  Brandon nodded. “That was definitely Raphael outside the dojo. Can anyone explain to me how Alex got herself an Eternal to watch over her? They are the most expensive purchase in the Game, and Raphael is one of the best.”

  Michelle looked to Kate questioningly. “She didn’t have the credits to purchase an Eternal, sir,” Kate said. “The only answer we can come up with that makes any sense is a very wealthy fan or group of fans made the purchase for her.”

  One of the young men spoke up, “Can we get Stephanie to ask Raphael to keep her away from Trew?”

  Brandon sat down and grabbed his tablet, tapping out commands to view statistics. “Yes, that’s one option. I also need to know what Stephanie and Raphael were talking about. Maybe there’s some information there to help us decide how to proceed. Tell Angelica to watch that feed and set up a meeting with her and me and you, Michelle.”

  “I’ll talk to her immediately, sir.”

  Brandon looked up and met eyes with the spiritual expert of the group. “Sean, Zack’s displaying the Talent. I need to know the best way to foster that. He’s close to the age where he’ll let it fade away, and we can’t have that. We also can’t let him develop it too much, or it could alert the Mainframe and it will shut him down. I need you to give me a strategy for moving forward by the end of the day.”

  “I’m emailing it to you now, sir.” Sean said.

  Brandon nodded. Once your player went into the Game, time was precious. Taking too long on Tygon would mean missing key points in the Game. This team truly was the best, and therefore the fastest.

  Brandon stood up to leave. “Okay, people, it looks like we all have work to do. I’ll be back in a few hours. I’m sure we’ll talk before then.”

  “Brandon?” Michelle looked pale as she looked up from her tablet. “We’ve discovered who purchased the Eternal for Danielle.”

  Brandon looked at her with interest. “Great. Who was it?”

  “Um… it was the Mainframe.”