The God Game

by Danny Tobey

  “He’s a better coder than any of us.”

  They seemed uncertain, wavering.

  “Look, this is about faith,” Charlie said. “You said it yourself: We’ve all done things we regret. There has to be a second chance for all of us.”

  The three Vindicators stared at each other.

  “One for all…,” Kenny began.

  “Oh, shut up,” Vanhi snapped. “Goddamnit.”

  Charlie grinned. “So what are we doing?”

  Kenny took a breath. He looked around, to make sure no one was passing by.

  “I think I know how to hack God.”

  69   PIECES

  They had a plan. Charlie pressed through the crowded hallway. Kenny stayed in the library, prepping. Charlie would go find Peter, and Vanhi would get the gear.

  As they split up, Charlie had taken her wrist. “Let’s go together.”

  “Nah. I’m good.”

  “Vanhi, I’ve seen them, the other players. You haven’t.”

  “Just kids.”

  “Not all. And the guy with the bat beat my ass. That car nearly ran Kenny over.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  But she didn’t look sure. It was fake bravado. How had he never realized that before?

  “I know, but…”

  “Charlie, we all have a job to do. Go do yours.”

  She hadn’t stayed to argue, but she did touch his face tenderly before walking away.

  On the way to his car, Mary intercepted him. He hadn’t seen her all day, since the assembly threw everything off-kilter.

  “Nice posters,” she said dryly.

  “I didn’t … sorry.”

  “It’s fine. We agreed to go our own ways. I didn’t know that meant scorched earth. But, good for you.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  She waved the topic away. “I want to tell you something.”

  He thought of the nasty text: Next stop, Loserville! “I can’t. I’m in a rush.”

  “I want to tell you why I don’t leave Tim.”

  Charlie froze.

  “I owe you that much,” she said.

  * * *

  Peter went to see Caitlyn. They met quietly in an empty classroom, where no one would see them, at Caitlyn’s insistence.

  “We won’t have to hide like this for long,” Peter said happily.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I know what your boyfriend did to Alex today. It was horrible.”

  “It was.”

  Peter was surprised she agreed. “So then, maybe this won’t be as hard as I thought.” He pulled out his phone.

  Without explanation or fanfare, he showed her the illicit video, Kurt and the other man, Dan, locked in gentle, urgent passion.

  He watched her face. She didn’t look away or flinch. When it was over, she looked up at him and didn’t say anything.

  “So?”

  “So what?” Caitlyn wasn’t angry or shocked or reacting in any way he’d hoped for. She seemed a little weary maybe, but with no hint of surprise or denial.

  “Did you know?” Peter felt the ground shift under him.

  She gave a little half shrug, staring at him.

  “Did he tell you?”

  “God, no. I doubt he knows how.” She didn’t say this cruelly. It sounded as if she meant it literally—as if Kurt lacked the vocabulary to explain himself.

  “Then how?”

  “There are some things you can’t fake,” she said mildly.

  The thoughts were starting to connect for Peter, in a way that he couldn’t live with.

  “You mean…” He stopped and tried to frame it right. “You knew, and you still didn’t choose me?”

  She didn’t put a hand on his or soften her voice or do anything to comfort him. Her life had been a series of hard edges, a monster visiting her at night. She slept with Peter because she wanted him physically, not any other way. She took him on her terms and felt no pity. He was seventeen years old. She’d dealt with far worse at twelve. Pity wasn’t an instinct that came to her anymore. Even at Careloft, she brought strength, not sympathy.

  “You chose a sham over us. Why?”

  “If he’s free, if he does something rash … Say people think I knew all along … or say they think I didn’t know … either way, I won’t be humiliated senior year. I’ve made it this far. My parents never loved each other, and they’ve been together thirty years. I can make it to graduation.”

  “Not if I put this out.” Peter raised his phone.

  “If you do, you’ll never see me again.” Her eyes were cold. “The world is what it is, Peter. Get used to it.”

  * * *

  Vanhi walked alone through the parking lot. Her job was to run to her house and pick up all the old laptops she kept around to mess with and soup up. She would unscrew the Bluetooth ports and Wi-Fi cards, strip them down to their landlocked essences. No portals. No routes of entry. More than an air gap. A lockbox.

  She shivered at her conversation with the fake admissions officer.

  Rats get stuffed and fucked.

  You wanna get stuffed and fucked, rat?

  Everything vile and repellent, right there, in that call. Toxic masculinity. Or toxic electricity. She wasn’t sure which.

  I’m gonna need you to suck my dick.

  Thanks, Game.

  Gray clouds swept in, and Vanhi drew her jacket tight as the wind picked up. She kept a lookout for rat-stuffers and suck-my-dickers. The lot was so empty that anyone would have stood out, so the man across the street she noticed now did stand out.

  Was he watching her? She couldn’t tell. Charlie told her the Game was full of people spying on them.

  Was he one? In the flesh?

  His face wasn’t visible yet but he seemed to be keeping pace with her but not looking at her. Just sort of moving in parallel, hands deep in his pockets. Why? Because it was cold? Because he had a knife? Was he looking for a rat to stuff and fuck?

  She walked faster, and his pace picked up. She tried not to look at him. That was just slowing her down. The car was fifty feet away.

  Her keys were in her backpack—fuck!

  Why couldn’t they be in her pocket?

  Seconds mattered, and she’d have to rummage.

  Being a woman meant feeling a tingling fear on the street every time, as if each man were a lottery ticket: friend, mugger, kind-heart, rapist.

  But this was no ordinary day. And the man was definitely following her now because he was zigzagging, crossing the street at a weird time, only for her.

  She swung her backpack around and fished out her keys without breaking stride. She had a keyless entry, but she put the old-fashioned hard key between her knuckles, letting it stick out like a knife. She would not go down, not today. Or if she did, it would be fighting.

  The footsteps were evident now behind her, gravel crunching. How close was he?

  No sense turning around. That would lose precious seconds.

  She broke into a run and let her thumb click the doors open from ten feet away.

  No penetration necessary. Waves and electricity.

  I’m gonna need you to suck my dick.

  No, I don’t think so.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and she swung around and drove the key blade forward.

  He knocked her hand away, but she put the other palm upward into the man’s nose, feeling him buckle backward from the pain, and she got into the car and slammed the door, flooring the gas and ramming up and over the concrete hump in front of her parking space, hearing a grinding noise under her car but pushing ahead and leaving the man, knee down, in her rearview mirror.

  70   EVERYTHING VIBRATES

  Mary told Charlie everything.

  In October of 2014, her brother Brian was turning eighteen. She couldn’t believe it when he chose to spend his birthday on a double date with her and Tim. Brian was a kind older brother, if aloof, but they didn’t hang out socially.
After all, he was a senior, a god on campus who already had a full ride to A&M to play football, after which he would join the Marines. She said yes in a heartbeat. That night, Brian drove, with his girlfriend, Tracy, next to him, and Mary and Tim in the back. Brian had supplied the alcohol, and she remembered all of them laughing about something when the headlights blinded her and everything went black.

  Tracy died instantly. Brian would die two days later. Mary remembered hazy patches from the crash, her parents at the scene, and her dad’s lawyer, too, an important man talking in low tones with the policeman. And just like that, it all went away. The police report would reflect that the driver in the other vehicle had been intoxicated, above the legal limit. She never learned if that was true. He had died instantly, and his mother was an elderly woman who lived alone and had no resources to question anything. The police report declined to mention alcohol in the kids’ car, or underage drinking, or Mary and Tim at all.

  Her mom kept reminding her what a pointless shame it would’ve been to ruin their positively bright futures and unblemished records. She was devastated over the loss of her son, and she would gladly sacrifice a stranger’s legacy for his.

  Mary knew the irony of founding a SADD chapter in her brother’s name. She didn’t know what else to do. On the first anniversary, she’d found the address of the other driver and almost gone there. Her mom had stopped her. “They will take everything from us. They’ll want money. There could be criminal issues with the police report—do you think that officer helped us for free? You will destroy this family. For what? Because you can’t carry the guilt? That is the very definition of selfish.” Mary had tried to push past her mom, who grabbed her, eyes welling with tears, begging her, “I have lost everything”—Mary didn’t miss that word—“and you want to do this to me?”

  Now, Mary looked up to see how appalled Charlie was, how much he hated her. “If I leave Tim, he’ll tell everyone.”

  “That’s crazy. And take himself down, too?”

  “You don’t understand him. He would in a heartbeat. I’m his destiny. He’s got it all planned out. It would destroy my family. And that would be worth it to him.”

  “Call his bluff. Set yourself free.”

  She shook her head. “I won’t. I may hate my family, but I won’t hurt them more. I have to live with this.”

  “What if Tim wasn’t a problem anymore?”

  Mary shook her head. “Don’t talk like that. I didn’t come here for help. I just wanted you to understand.”

  Charlie nodded, then asked, “Did you ever get a text from Caitlyn, something about Loserville?”

  She looked at him, confused. “No.”

  He nodded. He believed her.

  71   ROBIN GOODFELLOW

  Reeling from his conversation with Caitlyn, Peter had left campus. Now he was alone in his apartment, the one the Game had rented for him, with enough Goldz. Everything was transacted online. The Realtor loved the quick cash, and the paperwork looked right. He’d never know he was renting to a high school kid.

  Peter had needed a place to stash his stuff. Sure, his dad was rarely around. But his version of parenting was the occasional random drug sweep when passing through town, and then there was hell to pay. As if that made up for months of absence.

  Peter’s newest toy was a $10,000 Voyan bathtub, seventy-two inches long with air jets and chromotherapy. The ceramic had a built-in warmer.

  Peter knew Charlie thought he was directionless, but he had goals. He wanted to work on Wall Street one day. That was where smart money went to take dumb money.

  He understood the way they thought on Wall Street. It was systems and anarchy. You played the system to achieve what anarchy used to provide: the power to take what you want.

  Charlie thought if you worked hard and followed the rules, things would be okay. He should know better. But even cancer—that random leveler—hadn’t shattered his naïve earnestness. He kept crawling back toward the light.

  Peter saw Charlie approach, a dot moving down the hallway of the apartments.

  Peter had installed a Qbit lock on the door.

  Before Charlie could even knock, Peter swiped his hand in the air, and the door clicked. “Come on in.”

  * * *

  Charlie walked into the dark apartment and saw what looked like a cauldron: a pool of bubbling water lit red from the inside, no other light in the room.

  As his eyes adjusted, he made out the lines of the tub, sleek and modern, and saw Peter’s blond hair slicked back and dark with water, his eyes obscured by sunglasses, Aziteks no doubt, one hand still above the waterline, wrist swaying back and forth in the air lazily, drawing commands in the Game.

  “How did you find me?” Peter asked merrily.

  “I got a lot of Goldz from the reservoir.”

  “That was supposed to be my big moment. I guess you lapped me again.”

  It was unnerving to hear self-pity from Peter. Charlie ignored it. “What is this place?”

  “It’s my pied-à-terre. You like it?”

  “You want to put some clothes on?”

  “Not really.”

  “I need your help. But first you have to be honest with me.”

  “I’ve always been honest with you.”

  “Are you a drug dealer?”

  “Did Vanhi put that in your head?”

  “Are you?”

  Peter kept his gaze up at the high ceiling, invisible in the darkness. The red lights of the bath reflected off his Aziteks.

  “I don’t like labels, but, yes, I have occasionally supplied some narcotic refreshments to the free of heart.”

  “Why?”

  “Social utility, at first. Then joy. A place in the great network of human need. It started at St. Luke’s. I was coming in cold. An outsider. I needed a purpose. Turns out rich kids like drugs.”

  “The bag I gave Zeke. Was that…?”

  “Magic mushrooms.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Relax. You didn’t know.”

  But I did know. Why didn’t I listen to myself?

  “You gave Alex that Adderall?”

  “And ayahuasca.”

  “Jesus. Why?”

  “Because he asked. Because his life sucks. What’s wrong with a little escape?”

  “He’s lost. He’s doesn’t know what he wants.”

  “Haven’t you noticed by now, people are tired of you telling them what they need?”

  “You were already playing the Game when you signed me up. Weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you lie about it?”

  “Because it was a game! I was trying to win. I mean, come on. I didn’t know the stakes back then. I thought it was all just internet bullshit and fun. Stop looking for conspiracies.”

  “Did you make my dad get the restaurant?”

  “No.”

  “Did you fake the texts from Mary and Caitlyn about me?”

  “No. Jesus.”

  Charlie tried to read Peter. But Charlie knew one thing above all else. They wouldn’t be able to pull off Kenny’s idea without Peter. Vanhi might not trust him, but they needed him. It was a leap of faith. It wasn’t clear they had a choice.

  “Charlie, I never lied about who I am. I’m a fuckup. But I’ve never hurt you.”

  “I know. I don’t care what you’ve done. We’ve all done things now. What I need to know is, Do you want a second chance? Do you want to be better?”

  Peter took off his Aziteks. He held them up with one hand while he let the rest of his body sink down under the bubbling water, then he came splashing back up, hair dripping, slicked back. He might have had a hard time coming to St. Luke’s as the new kid way back when, but it was hard to imagine, his body gleaming and his face so archetypally handsome.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I really do.”

  72   ANONYMOUS

  Kurt was losing it. The fear had started creeping in when Charlie made that cryptic statement in
the hallway: How would you feel? If someone posted something secret about you? The way he said it.… The way he’d looked at Kurt.…

  What had he meant? What did he know?

  After the fight with Charlie he’d gone to the old playground on Mockingbird, far from school, far from Tim, far from his father. He did his thinking there.

  When the bell for fifth period rang, he was back on campus, waiting for Caitlyn outside her classroom. They went to the parking lot to sit in his car.

  “There’s something I have to tell you.” He was normally so strong. Scary, even. The biggest and baddest. But right now, Caitlyn thought, he seemed scared. Broken. She thought of something Kurt had told her once, offhandedly—what his dad said when Kurt was little about what he’d do if he found out one of his sons was gay. It was a chilling comment, proof that even now the sunlight hadn’t reached as far as people believed. But Kurt had relayed the story almost jokingly, like, Can you believe he said that? Good thing he doesn’t have to worry about that! Yet the way Kurt had paused after telling her the story, in the dark one night, she’d known. On some level she’d always known.

  Now he said, “It might come out anyway. So I want you to hear it from me.”

  Caitlyn realized she actually liked him in this moment. He was a better person, a little scared. She’d always wanted Tim, but Tim chose Mary, and Kurt was number two. You took what you got.

  “It’s okay.” She took his hand. “I know.”

  “Know what?” Then he let go. “You do?” He nodded, as if that made sense. Of course she knew. “You won’t tell anyone? If it doesn’t come out.”

  “No. I don’t think that would benefit either of us.”

  He nodded again. He rubbed a calloused large hand over his face, stopping to squeeze his temples, where his head was pounding.

  “Still,” she said gently, unusual for Caitlyn, “it might be time to see other people.” She gave him a rueful smile. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

  * * *