The God Game

by Danny Tobey

  Area Mapped! Time to Level Up!

  And then it started.

  On their phones, the gamespace was a perfectly realistic simulation of the school, mapped with all the surfaces and objects of the space around them. But then Charlie saw it, creeping in from the edges of the screen. A rippling, which turned out to be animated vines and cracks moving over the walls and ceilings and floors, buckling the surfaces and giving them a gamelike, hyperreal sheen. Vines like from some medieval castle or haunted Victorian mansion, winding through the doorways and down the halls, into the slats of the locker vents and around the Roman clock. Virtual cracks opened up in the plaster and cinder blocks, giving everything a dark vibe. Torches flickered on the walls. The EXIT sign, always lit, now glowed a deeper red at the end of the hall, pulsing slowly, like a burlesque vampire den.

  Wherever they moved their phones, they could see the real world through the screen, layered with the gamespace as an alternate dimension of weeds and fog and iron gates and glowing hieroglyphs, augmenting the reality of Turner High with something new and extra.

  Peter reached past his phone to a locker. They could see his hand on the screen, grabbing some stranger’s locker and lifting the latch.

  In real life, the locker stayed shut.

  On the screen, it swung open. A small pile of Goldz was inside.

  “Yep.” Peter nodded in appreciation. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  17   THE BREATH OF GOD

  Beyond the creeping vines and smoldering torches, a whole overlay of runes and codes and glyphs, objects waiting to be unlocked, appeared through the school. It was medieval and futuristic at once, everything dusty and faintly neon.

  Through their phones, the nameplate on the principal’s office was no longer MRS. MORRISSEY, but her common nickname, DRAGON LADY. The swinging sign Charlie had smacked no longer said GO TIGERS! but FUCK TIGERS!

  Peter had collected his Goldz from the locker. Three hundred in all.

  No one had any Blaxx yet. No one even knew how to get them—or, more to the point, how to avoid them. Charlie thought about the sliding scale of Goldz—three hundred, eight hundred—what would that mean for Blaxx? Well, who cared—his lousy chess pieces didn’t even move. Big deal.

  “You should cash your Goldz in. That’s a lot,” Charlie said aloud, then wished he hadn’t.

  “How do you do that?”

  “Click on the counter. Here, bring up the inventory. This is the bank, up here.”

  Peter read his phone. “We have choices. Gather round. ‘The Sword of Pelicus.’”

  “Interesting.”

  “‘The Gate of Tannhäuser.’”

  “Too many doves.”

  “And one more.” Peter looked up, eyebrows raised. “‘The Breath of God.’”

  “Yes,” Alex said.

  “Yep,” Kenny agreed. “It’s called the God Game. You have to go with the Breath of God.”

  “To play devil’s advocate for a second,” Charlie said—and Vanhi interrupted with “No pun intended”—“swords and Tannhäuser Gate sound a little more exciting than ‘breath.’”

  Kenny shook his head. “You guys never read your Bible. The breath of God is more than breath. It means spirit. His power. To create or destroy.”

  “Which is it?” Charlie asked. “Creation or destruction?”

  “Maybe that’s up to us,” Vanhi said.

  “I’m convinced,” Peter announced. Without taking a vote, he clicked on number 3 and purchased the Breath of God.

  18   THE WRATH OF GOD

  At first, nothing happened. They all watched on their phones, alone in the hallway, still a few hours from sunrise.

  Then, a low, gentle noise rippled through their phones, starting with Charlie’s. He was farthest back down the hall toward Morrissey’s office. He swung his phone up, just in time to see the papers tacked to the bulletin board by her office flap in the wind in gamespace. In reality, everything remained still and quiet.

  An indoor breeze, momentary. Then the papers fell still.

  At the same time, Kenny’s phone rustled as the breeze passed him, a low creaking noise like that of a rusty hinge as he looked up at the GO TIGERS! sign (FUCK TIGERS! in gamespace), which now rocked back and forth, then came to a stop.

  The noise died for Kenny as Vanhi and Peter heard the wind pass and saw the dust bunnies and crumpled paper roll and slide down the hall, away from them, through their phones, as the breath of God moved past, invisible, as if they were outside not inside, a single mild breeze traveling down the hallway until it hit a dead end and, improbably, took a left turn.

  One of the dust bunnies rolled to a stop at the far wall, the same place where Burklander had guided Charlie’s hand on the sign-up sheet—one among many flapping sheets—that his friends had blessedly paid no attention to. The papers rustled, then fell still, just as oddly the dust bunny began moving again, to the left, carried by the breeze out of sight.

  Then everything was still.

  It occurred to them, as they stared at one another for a split second, that if they lost the breath of God, they might not find it again.

  “Let’s go!” Kenny said excitedly.

  They took off down the hall, turned left at the corner, and saw the breeze in the distance—drifting detritus, flapping papers—disappear down the east stairwell.

  * * *

  In real life, the boiler room was unlabeled—lest pranksters and hookuppers identify it as a good place to break in and cause mischief. But now it had a bold sign on the blank door, as if carved into the solid metal:

  “What does it mean?” Charlie asked.

  “It looks like the letters on Darth Vader’s chest plate,” Alex said.

  “It’s Hebrew,” Kenny answered. “Ruach elohim.” He smiled triumphantly. “‘The breath of God.’”

  To the right of the door in real life was a little badge swiper, where the janitors and facilities crew could flash their IDs to tend to the heating and other climate needs of twenty-five hundred overcrowded students. But when Alex passed his phone over it, he saw something different: not just a blank of gray plastic to hold a badge against, but the digital image of a numeric keypad. The virtual numbers glowed red. All they needed was a code.

  “What should we try?” Alex asked.

  “Six six six?” Peter offered, smiling.

  “Um, maybe let’s not summon the beast just yet,” Charlie answered.

  “Right. Good call. It does say the breath of God, after all.”

  “Seventy-six? The score on Alex’s last physics test?” Peter offered.

  He was kidding, but Alex flinched.

  Charlie wondered about that—the way Alex sometimes came to school stepping a bit gingerly after a bad grade or behavioral incident. He never spoke about it. Never admitted anything when Charlie asked.

  Kenny said, “I have an idea.” He was still aiming his phone at the door, long after everyone else had stopped. Below the Hebrew words, another phrase had materialized, glowing like embers.

  I WILL POUR OUT MY INDIGNATION ON YOU; I WILL BLOW ON YOU WITH THE FIRE OF MY WRATH, AND I WILL GIVE YOU INTO THE HAND OF BRUTAL MEN, SKILLED IN DESTRUCTION.

  “‘Brutal men, skilled in destruction.’ Sounds like Kurt Ellers,” Vanhi said.

  Charlie wondered, Did she already know about the standoff by the portables? Had he been hiding it for nothing? No one had mentioned it, aside from Vanhi fretting over his lip, but maybe that was out of courtesy for Alex. Maybe the gossip had spread far and wide.

  “Maybe this time we’re the brutal men,” Peter responded. “Maybe we’ll blow on Kurt with the fire of our wrath.”

  Did Peter know, too? The possibility thrilled Charlie—Peter would know Charlie was brave, and he didn’t even have to be the one to tell him. That was even cooler.

  “It’s Ezekiel 21:31,” Kenny said. “He was foretelling the destruction of the Ammonites for their vanity. They thought they’d be in power forever.”


  “No one ever thinks they’ll lose their power,” Peter said. “But they always do.”

  “Well, that answers the question of creative or destructive,” Kenny said. “We’re talking about the wrath of God here.”

  Charlie shook his head. “That’s not set in stone. It’s just a quote. We haven’t decided anything. We don’t even have to go through that door.”

  “But we know how, if we want to,” Kenny said.

  They all knew what he meant: Ezekiel 21:31. A four-digit code. An entry code. But no one said anything. No one touched the keypad. The unspoken agreement seemed to be that it was Kenny’s decision to make.

  “Try it,” Peter said. “Twenty-one thirty-one.”

  “How?” Kenny asked. “On the screen or in real life?”

  “Real life. It’s a real door,” Vanhi said.

  “But the buttons are only on the screen,” Kenny answered.

  He passed his hand between the real badge reader and his phone, letting his fingers hover just over the blank real-life plastic. On the screen of his phone, his hand appeared, and the numbers magically overlaying the swipe box disappeared behind his fingers, as if they were there in real life, printed right there on the box, and his hand were moving over them.

  “Oh, no way, that’s so meta,” Kenny said.

  The illusion was perfect, as if the numbers existed not just on their AR screens, but under his own flesh-and-blood fingers, right on the swipe box.

  In that way, he was able to type on the plain gray square, watching his fingers hitting the imaginary numbers.

  Two one three one.

  There was a pause, then a click, in real life.

  The boiler room door was open.

  19   THE LITTLE MAN

  They crept into the boiler room.

  In the virtual version, the room looked more like the bowels of hell than the guts of a public high school. Just as the halls had grown macabre with vines and cracks, the furnace of the boiler room pulsed orange like a demon’s eyes through the joints and seals of the heating pipes. The fire glowed like teeth through the grating.

  They held their phones in front of them and watched the room through the tiny cameras, reanimated on their screens. Then they saw the little man in the shadows, smiling at them.

  A deformed creature, he was perched atop a stool in the corner. In reality, there was only the stool. But on their screens, the little man was cross-legged atop it, one foot hanging limply down, mangled. In his hands, flat across his lap, was a small hammer-like tool.

  His voice came through the speakers on their phones: “Greetings. What brings you here?”

  “Oh, no way,” Vanhi said.

  He spoke with a spunky, funny-old-man voice, straight out of a vintage Saturday-morning cartoon, like the Crypt Keeper or Dungeon Master. He looked like a beautifully rendered video-game character, realistic but slightly comical, perfectly at ease in the center of the very real Vindicators. The way the little man’s voice echoed from all their phones at once gave it a nice illusion of coming from within the room.

  “This is wicked,” Alex added.

  “Talk to him,” Kenny said, poking Peter. “You’re the cool one.”

  “You’re the Bible expert.”

  “I don’t think this guy’s from the Bible.”

  “I am Hephaestus,” the little man offered, ignoring the way they were rudely talking about him as if he weren’t right there.

  “I am Kenny.”

  “Well done,” Peter whispered.

  “Hephaestus, what are you doing here?” Vanhi said loudly, as if she were talking to a child.

  “I think he’s virtual, not retarded,” Alex whispered.

  “I see you knew the code,” Hephaestus said. “Two one three one. My number, however, is two two one two.”

  “Okay. Good to know,” Vanhi said. They were having fun.

  “I am the god of smiths,” he chirped. “The Egyptians knew me as Ptah. To the Norse, I was Wayland the Smith. The Ugarit knew me as Kothar-wa-Khasis. And of course Hephaestus in Greece.”

  “I’ll call you George,” Peter said.

  Ignoring him, the little man hopped off his chair and steadied himself with a walking stick he had leaned against the wall. He limped over to the furnace. Each time his cane clicked the ground the sound of tapping came through their speakers. The illusion was marvelous. He tapped the furnace. “Welcome to Mount Etna. Do wish to see the Breath of God?”

  They answered yes.

  “Hmm, just one problem.” Hephaestus scratched his chin. “I already told you my number. I think I’ll need something else, instead. Yes. I think so. What could it be?”

  He seemed to think it over, and the lame little blacksmith was almost cute, despite his deformities. Then he grinned ear to ear, as if an idea had just occurred to him, and the smile was bright and chipper, with a slightly sinister undercurrent.

  “I know!” he said cheerfully. “How about a sacrifice?”

  20   THE FIRE OF GOD

  “A blood sacrifice,” the funny little imp said. “That’s the best kind.”

  Peter raised his eyebrows.

  “Can someone tell Evil Yoda here to tone it down a little?” Vanhi whispered.

  Charlie elbowed her. “C’mon, play along a little.”

  “Yeah, don’t insult the guy,” Kenny added.

  Peter approached the figure. “What do we get in return, exactly?”

  The small god told them.

  “Who is the youngest?” Hephaestus asked. “The gods love young blood.”

  “That would be Kenny,” Peter answered.

  “Thanks, friend,” Kenny shot back.

  Peter shrugged. “It’s true.”

  “Kenny, is it?” the little god asked, and just hearing it speak one of their names sent a little thrill through the room. The Game was seamless.

  “Yes, Kenny,” he answered, smiling a little self-consciously, realizing that he was talking to an animated character who existed only on their phones. Yet he blended into the room around them, as Kenny’s eyes had adjusted in a new way—all their eyes had—the way you forget after a few minutes that you’re wearing 3-D glasses or flipping between two halves of bifocals. Going between the real world and the augmented one on their phones become a sort of second nature, or more accurately a second sight.

  “Well, Kenny, if you want the power of a god, you must please the gods. A thusia is called for.”

  Kenny shook his head. Among the Vindicators, he alone knew what thusia meant. It was ancient Greek, straight out of Bible study. It came from thuo, “to sacrifice, slaughter, kill, to offer part of a meal to the gods.” It meant “victim.” Kenny didn’t believe all that nonsense about dying in the Game meaning death in real life, but no way was he ready for his friends to keep playing the Game without him. It was too early to lose.

  “I am not your thusia,” Kenny snapped.

  The little god smiled. His teeth were as misshapen as his curled foot and lopsided face. He hobbled over to Kenny and sized him up and down.

  “A handsome boy. A proud boy. The gods will find you most delicious.”

  “Eww,” Vanhi said. “Nobody would find Kenny delicious.”

  “That’s just rude,” Kenny said.

  “It’s that,” Hephaestus said. “Or you can all lose.”

  Kenny studied the odd figure in front of him, cartoonish and flamboyant like a computer game, but hyperreal in his grotesque form.

  “Come on, guys. We just started playing. You’re not going to sell me out just like that?”

  “We all have to go sometime,” Peter said.

  “It’s just a game,” Alex added.

  “What about die in the game, die in real life?”

  “It’s probably not true,” Peter teased.

  “There has to be another way,” Charlie said. “What about a goat?”

  “That’s right,” Kenny chimed in. “You’re a Greek god, right? The ancient Greeks sacrificed animals,
not people.”

  Hephaestus smiled. “You are an animal to me.”

  “Oh, just take one for the team,” Peter said to Kenny. “It’s not like little George here is really going to kill you.” Peter walked toward the little man and jutted his arm forward, to show that it went right through him.

  But it didn’t, because Hephaestus ducked right in time and harrumphed and straightened his hair and shawl indignantly.

  “No one needs to die,” Hephaestus said theatrically. “Just a drop of blood will do. One drop. That’s not so much, is it? One drop of blood, for the power I have offered to bestow upon you? The Fire of God!”

  “Fine.” Kenny stuck his finger forward, in front of the virtual god. “One drop. Go ahead.” He didn’t seem concerned, given that a hallucination could hardly draw blood.

  Hephaestus nodded, pleased.

  He hobbled across the boiler room to a section of piping that fed into a humming unit. On the flat surface were a pair of worker’s gloves, some silvery strips of cut tubing, and a small box of razor blades left behind by the workmen. When Kenny saw the open box, the dull razors stacked haphazardly inside, his smile dropped.

  Hephaestus said happily, “Just one drop will do.”

  “No effin’ way.” Kenny looked at the rest of the Vindicators.

  No one spoke.

  The mood in the room suddenly lurched, from fun to uneasy. Surely the Game wasn’t asking Kenny to actually cut himself?

  “You can’t be serious?” Kenny said.

  The figure just waited, tapping his good foot.

  “I think he is,” Peter answered.

  “He? It? It’s a freaking game. I’m not cutting myself.”

  “Of course you’re not,” Charlie said.

  “Well, then I guess your time in the God Game is over,” Hephaestus said pleasantly to them all.

  “It’s a just a little cut,” Alex said. “I mean, one drop. That’s like a pinprick.”

  “You do it.”

  “Fine. I will.” Alex went for the razors.