The Game Trilogy

by Anders de la Motte

  ‘Come on, Manga, don’t act stupid. The flat next to mine, the workshop, the snakes …?’

  He fixed his eyes on Manga, looking for the slightest sign of weakness. But he couldn’t see any, not a flutter of the eyelids or an involuntary twitch.

  ‘I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about, HP …’

  ‘And you expect me to believe that, just like that? Your credibility isn’t particularly high right now, Manga …’

  ‘Come on, HP, I’ve said I’m sorry …’ Even Manga’s voice passed the test. Not the slightest tremor …

  ‘I don’t know everything that’s going on – like I said, the Game Master doesn’t let anyone else see the whole picture. All I’ve got are fragments. Please, tell me about the flat. Everything’s connected, one way or another …’

  HP glared at Manga as he considered what to do.

  Okay, so Manga was a liar, but the lies had actually been meant well. And they were old friends … correction: best friends.

  He’d always thought of Manga as a bit of a coward, a computer geek, and – more recently – a hen-pecked husband under the thumb of his dragon of a wife. But, even though it hurt to admit it, he had been wrong. Manga was no coward, and had actually shown himself to be a pretty capable guy.

  Besides, now that he came to think about it, he had actually suspected Manga from day one – in fact, from the moment he found that bloody phone on the train. So, looking at it one way, he hadn’t been completely taken in. He hadn’t been totally blind.

  But it still made sense to keep some things to himself. Having a slight advantage when it came to information wouldn’t hurt at all.

  ‘That can wait,’ he finally said. ‘So, remind me again why I should go along with this idiotic plan?’

  ‘Sure, no problem.’ The disappointment in Manga’s voice was obvious. ‘Take a look at this.’

  Manga reached for the table and turned the laptop so HP could see the screen.

  ‘I’ve made a list of clients who have already begun to store their data down in that bunker. Sit down …’

  Manga pointed at one of the chairs. He opened an Excel file and started scrolling through the list.

  ‘The Highways Agency, the Tax Office, the Police, Customs, three different bio databanks, one of which already has over 500,000 DNA samples in its register. Dental records, the National Population Register, the electoral roll, and a whole load of smaller official bodies. Pretty much all telecom and internet providers signed up before the EU directive was passed, which means that all telephone records, and all IP addresses and text messages are already stored in the Fortress.’

  ‘Okay, that’s more or less what I thought …’ HP mumbled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A few weeks ago they replayed all my computer records, as well as all my texts to you and Becca. A little warning, just to let me know they were keeping an eye on me. I couldn’t quite work out how they got hold of everything so quickly from so many different sources. But now I get it. All they had to do was press a couple of buttons …’

  Manga nodded.

  ‘Go on …’ HP waved one hand.

  ‘Okay, so you’ve already worked out the basics, but before too long the big supermarkets will be joining in, followed by pretty much every other company that runs a loyalty card scheme. They’re all terrified that their information is going to leak, with the ensuing loss of customer confidence. But what’s most interesting is probably what’s hidden right at the bottom of the bunker …’

  ‘Hi Ludvig, it’s Rebecca, sorry to call so early …’

  ‘Er, no problem. I was awake anyway …’

  She could tell he was lying, and gave him a few seconds to come round.

  ‘So, what can I do for you, Normén?’ he said, in a slightly less sleepy voice.

  ‘I want to come back to work.’

  ‘Er, okay. That shouldn’t be a problem. Call the personnel department after nine o’clock and they’ll help you. It’ll probably take a couple of weeks to sort out …’

  ‘No, no, I haven’t got time for all that. I want to come back now, right away. The wedding’s tomorrow, and you told me yourself that you needed every bodyguard you could get hold of.’

  ‘Of course, yes. But surely you can see …’

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘Well, as long as this business with your brother is still going on, I can’t take you back, no matter how much I might want to. Stigsson would go mad if I so much as suggested it …’

  ‘Ask!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Call and ask him!’

  ‘I’m not quite with you, Normén …?’

  ‘I’m asking you to call Stigsson and ask him if it’s okay for me to return to duty. Please, will you do that, straight away?’

  There were a few moments of silence.

  ‘Sure,’ he muttered eventually. ‘But I already know what the answer’s going to be.’

  Me too, she thought.

  ‘The lowest level of the bunker is reserved for one particular client. The whole thing’s top secret …’

  Manga looked over his shoulder, as if he were worried that someone was listening.

  ‘To be honest, I think this particular client is more than just an ordinary customer. It could be that the secret tenant in the lowest level is actually behind the whole PayTag Group. But instead of risking their own valuable brand they’re using PayTag as a front, a windscreen for the insects to smash themselves to death on, while those with the real power are sitting nice and safe in the passenger seat on the other side of the glass.’

  ‘And who might they be?’

  Manga shrugged.

  ‘Who do you think? Which companies have the most influence within the information-gathering industry? Which ones are constantly designing new services to tempt us into saying what we’re doing right now, where we are, which search terms we use most often, or even – what we’re thinking?’

  HP thought for a moment.

  ‘There are plenty of candidates. Search engines, social media sites …’

  ‘You’re on the right track, young Padwan …’

  Manga closed the laptop.

  ‘Google, Facebook, Twitter and a few more have worked out what we’re too stupid to realize.’

  ‘Which is …?’

  ‘That information is the new currency. If you can get hold of enough information, in the end everyone will want to do business with you. Just look at Facebook’s stock-market valuation. It may be lower than they were expecting, but it’s still three of four times the value of Ericsson.

  ‘But do you know what their assets are, HP? Have a guess! What do you think? Not telecom systems, or years of research, or tens of thousands of patents. What Facebook owns, and what makes it worth all those billions, its very greatest asset, is …’

  ‘Its users,’ HP muttered.

  ‘Exactly! Or, to be more precise, the information that its users volunteer. Everything gets stored – comments, shares, pictures, games, likes …’

  Manga’s face was starting to go red.

  ‘How do you predict the future, HP? By looking back at the past, that’s the starting point for any forecaster. The more information you have about the past, the more reliable your predictions for the future will be. Just think …’

  Manga paused for breath for a moment.

  ‘What if the past, everyone’s past, was stored in one and the same place? State databases, medical records, patterns of consumption, social networking and search engine preferences. All of it in one massive database? All you’d have to do is collate the information. Then all you have to do is type in a search word, anything you like, and you’d be able to watch the trends. How many people had cancer in a particular year, how many people prefer white cars to blue ones, what age groups are most likely to commit crimes, or look for particular brands, are most active on Twitter, where they live, what music they listen to, what books they read, and what they usually buy in the supermarket
on the last Wednesday before payday …’

  He paused for breath again.

  ‘He who controls the past controls the future, Orwell wrote in 1984, and he certainly had a point. Although I’d have to say that the PayTag project is even more refined that that …’

  He paused again, and HP couldn’t help leaning closer.

  ‘He who controls the future, HP, without any shadow of a doubt … is actually the person who owns the past. And that’s exactly what the whole PayTag project is about!’

  HP lit a cigarette. He deliberately took his time, to give himself a chance to think.

  All of this was pretty hard to digest. Besides, it was hardly the first conspiracy theory he’d ever heard. Last time it had been Erman going on about the Game, and now it was Manga and PayTag.

  But if there was one thing he had learned over the past two years, it was that no theory, no matter how far-fetched it might seem, could be written off entirely. No smoke without fire, at least not where the Game was concerned.

  And everything Manga had said fitted in pretty well with the little demonstration he had been given on the computer in the library. Moreover, it also fitted with the little backup plan he’d been working on. In fact it actually made it even better …

  He took a deep drag, then slowly exhaled the smoke.

  ‘Okay Manga, I get what you mean, but to be honest I don’t give a shit what PayTag’s up to. All I want is to deliver a decent kick in the bollocks to the Game Master, Anna Argos and Black. And that’s where our interests seem to coincide. It looks like we’ve got a mutual enemy …’

  He took another drag, then stubbed the cigarette out on a cracked old saucer on the draining board.

  ‘It’s like this, Manga: if you want my help, I need a favour in return. I need to get hold of Rehyman, preferably straight away. I need to talk to him with no-one else listening …’

  Manga looked up from the laptop.

  ‘W-what? Why?’

  ‘I’d rather not say right now. You asked me to trust you, and the same applies here … But, for the sake of appearances, I suppose we could call it my price for taking part in all this …’

  He gestured towards the yellow ceiling with one hand.

  Manga gave him a long look as he seemed to consider the proposal.

  ‘Okay, I suppose that’s fair enough …’ he muttered.

  He tapped at the computer, then dug out a pen and paper and wrote down a number.

  ‘Here, he’s online so you can call him right away. There are some pay-as-you-go phones in that box over there. When you’ve finished, smash the SIM-card and scatter the pieces out in the woods, okay?’

  ‘Sure, no problem …’

  Manga gave him another long look.

  ‘You do know what you’re getting into, don’t you, HP? This isn’t a game. If it goes wrong …’

  ‘Sure, don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control. This isn’t the first time I’ve gone up against the Game Master …’

  ‘Well, I guess that’s true. But it is the first time you’re doing something that doesn’t suit the Game’s plans …’

  ‘Good job I’m not on my own, then,’ HP grinned. ‘If it goes to hell, then we all get fucked at the same time!’

  25

  Quests

  ‘Here.’

  He handed her the key to her gun-cabinet.

  ‘I presume you’ve got your ID and passcard in there as well?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Okay, get your stuff out and then head straight down to the firing range. You’ll need to do the test again before we can let you out on duty. You soon lose it if you don’t practise …’

  ‘That won’t be a problem, Ludvig.’

  ‘Okay, good.’

  ‘Was there anything else?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Before you go, Normén, I just have to ask. How the hell did you get Stigsson to agree to reinstate you?’

  ‘Oh, you could say I had a bit of help from a mutual friend.’

  She smiled and he gave her a long look.

  ‘And is that something you’d like to explain to your boss?’

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘Not right now, Ludvig. But sometime …’

  ‘Okay …’

  He was still looking at her hard.

  ‘You do know what you’re doing, Becca?’ he finally said in a low voice.

  ‘Don’t worry, Ludvig. You wanted me back and now I’m here. Just be happy with that for the time being,’ she smiled.

  The target turned when she was ten metres away, and long before the conscious part of her brain had registered the fact she had gone into action. Clawing her jacket open, both hands down to her holster.

  Gun out, left hand on the bolt. Then push forward and up, feeding a bullet into position. The steadying hand coming up beneath the barrel. Then the sights, and the target.

  Two rapid shots.

  The target turned away.

  She released the hammer with her left thumb, and continued to move forward. A new target turned, this time far off to her right. She squeezed off a shot, not even thinking about the result. Quickly released the hammer and carried on. Two targets began to turn at the same time, and she’d already shot a hole through the first before they stopped turning.

  Then her gun clicked.

  She hit her left hand against the base of the magazine, then performed the bolt action to release the trapped cartridge onto the floor. Three quick shots.

  The targets turned away.

  ‘Stop, cease fire, unload!’ the instructor yelled.

  ‘Unloaded!’ she said.

  She pulled out the magazine, flipped the bolt and caught the cartridge that was ready to fire. Then she let go of the bolt, holstered the gun and took off her ear protectors. All the targets popped up with a loud hiss, but she didn’t look at the results. The shooting instructor walked past her, did a quick check of the targets, then came back. She heard him whistle.

  ‘Well, Normén, that went pretty well. What do you say?’

  ‘Yep,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t actually time you, but I’m guessing you were somewhere close to the record for the course. I’ll call Ludvig straight away and tell him your shooting is … approved. Can you sort them out yourself?’

  He handed her a roll of little black stickers.

  ‘Sure.’

  He turned his back on her and headed towards the door.

  She tore off four small stickers the size of a stamp and put the roll down.

  On her way to the targets she picked up the little green blank cartridge that the instructor had sneaked into her magazine, which had caused the break in her shooting.

  All the shots were in the dead zone. Three of the pairs of holes were so close together that they were touching, and the other two had just a millimetre of paper between them.

  ‘Good, then you’ll be in touch? Thanks for your help.’

  He ended the call, opened the back of the phone and pulled out the SIM-card.

  He had just snapped it in two when Hasselqvist came round the corner.

  ‘Er, hi, HP. Listen, I just wanted to explain something …’

  ‘Sure.’

  He turned his back on Hasselqvist and sent one half of the SIM-card into the nearest clump of nettles.

  ‘That thing in the van …’

  ‘You mean the GPS?’

  He tossed the other half in amongst the fir trees.

  ‘Yep, that’s right … You see, I’d just found it when you appeared at the door … it had been underneath a bag and just rolled out.’

  ‘Okay …’

  ‘Is it yours?’

  ‘W-what?’ HP turned round.

  ‘The GPS transmitter, is it …?’

  ‘Yeah, I get it, Kent. No, it isn’t …’

  ‘Okay, I just wanted to check. You were the one sitting right at the back, so I thought …’

  HP shook his head.

  ‘Nope, not mine
. Maybe it belongs to the van?’

  ‘I doubt it …’

  ‘In that case I suggest that you get rid of it at once.’

  ‘Sure, I just want to check with Jeff first, it may be his …’

  Hasselqvist drifted away and HP waited another minute before pulling a new SIM-card from his trouser pocket. He inserted it into the phone he had got from Manga, switched it on and tapped in his pin-code.

  The text arrived almost immediately.

  Done!

  Hidden number, but he knew who it was from.

  Fuck, Rehyman was fast!

  They got changed in silence. Tight black wetsuits, rubber shoes, then neoprene ski masks that made the heat intolerable, and which HP pulled off at once. Total fucking madness, on a massive scale!

  ‘Everything’s ready,’ he heard Manga say from round the back of the Polo.

  ‘I still want to double-check,’ Jeff said.

  ‘But it’s getting …’

  ‘We’ve got time,’ Jeff interrupted. ‘There’s always time to check your equipment …’

  Manga seemed to give up, because when HP walked round the car the back door was already open.

  ‘Diving gear, inflatable dinghy, welding equipment, explosives …’ Jeff was saying to himself as he moved his hand over the various black bags in the boot.

  The word explosives startled HP. He had a sudden flashback to the E4 motorway two years before, when he had plugged his phone into a similar bag. A bag stuffed with so much explosive that it was enough to blow an entire building sky-high.

  For almost two years he had believed that he’d blown the Game’s brain to kingdom come. But, according to Manga, that had been nothing but an illusion, a very clever one that the Game Master had implanted in his head. The real Death Star wasn’t located in an old office building out in Kista, but deep underground in a bunker little more than a couple of kilometres away.

  But if everything he had experienced up until a few days ago was just an elaborate mind game, then what guarantees did he have that what he was experiencing now was any more real?

  He had been wrestling with that particular dilemma for several days.

  Even if he decided to trust Manga, there were no guarantees. Manga seemed to be telling the truth, because – as far as it was possible to tell – he genuinely appeared to believe his own story. But what if it wasn’t his story?