Jack Dann - Dangerous Games

› talk, then

she typed. Meeting players who moved well and spoke English was hardly unusual in gamespace, but here in the cleanup phase, it felt out of place. It felt wrong .

› My name is Raymond, and I live in Tijuana. I am a labour organiser in the factories here. What is your name?

› i don’t give out my name in-game

› What can I call you?

› kali

It was a name she liked to use in-game: Kali, Destroyer of Worlds, like the Hindu goddess.

› Are you in India?

› london

› You are Indian?

› naw im a whitey

She was halfway through the room, mowing down the noobs in twos and threes. She was hungry and bored and this Raymond was weirding her out.

› Do you know who these people are that you’re killing?

She didn’t answer, but she had an idea. She killed four more and shook out her wrists.

› They’re working for less than a dollar a day. The shirts they make are traded for gold and the gold is sold on eBay. Once their avatars have leveled up, they too are sold off on eBay. They’re mostly young girls supporting their families. They’re the lucky ones: the unlucky ones work as prostitutes.

Her wrists really ached. She slaughtered half a dozen more.

› I’ve been trying to unionise them because they’ve got a very high rate of injury. They have to play for 18-hour shifts with only one short toilet break. Some of them can’t hold it in and they soil themselves where they sit.

› look

she typed, exasperated.

› it’s none of my lookout, is it. the world’s like that. lots of people with no money. im just a kid, theres nothing i can do about it.

› When you kill them, they don’t get paid.

no porfa quiero mi plata

› When you kill them, they lose their day’s wages. Do you know who is paying you to do these killings?

She thought of Saudis, rich Japanese, Russian mobsters.

› not a clue

› I’ve been trying to find that out myself, Kali.

They were all dead now. Raymond stood alone amongst the piled corpses.

› Go ahead

he typed

› I will see you again, I’m sure.

She cut his head off. Her wrists hurt. She was hungry. She was alone there in the enormous woodland cottage, and she still had to haul the BFG10K back to Fahrenheit Island.

“Lucy?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m almost back there, hang on. I respawned in the ass end of nowhere.”

“Lucy, do you know who’s in the cottage? Those noobs that we kill?”

“What? Hell no. Noobs. Someone’s butler. I dunno. Jesus, that spawn gate-”

“Girls. Little girls in Mexico. Getting paid a dollar a day to craft shirts. Except they don’t get their dollar when we kill them. They don’t get anything.”

“Oh, for chrissakes, is that what one of them told you? Do you believe everything someone tells you in-game? Christ. English girls are so naive.”

“You don’t think it’s true?”

“Naw, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t, OK? I’m almost there, keep your panties on.”

“I’ve got to go, Lucy,” she said. Her wrists hurt, and her podge overlapped the waistband of her trousers, making her feel a bit like she was drowning.

“What, now? Shit, just hang on.”

“My mom’s calling me to supper. You’re almost here, right?”

“Yeah, but-”

She reached down and shut off her PC.

ANDA’S Da and Mum were watching the telly again with a bowl of crisps between them. She walked past them like she was dreaming and stepped out the door onto the terrace. It was nighttime, eleven o’clock, and the chavs in front of the council flats across the square were kicking a football around and swilling lager and making rude noises. They were skinny and rawboned, wearing shorts and string vests, with strong, muscular limbs flashing in the streetlights.

“Anda?”

“Yes, Mum?”

“Are you all right?” Her mum’s fat fingers caressed the back of her neck.

“Yes, Mum. Just needed some air is all.”

“You’re very clammy,” her mum said. She licked a finger and scrubbed it across Anda’s neck. “Gosh, you’re dirty-how did you get to be such a mucky puppy?”

“Owww!” she said. Her mum was scrubbing so hard it felt like she’d take her skin off.

“No whingeing,” her mum said sternly. “Behind your ears, too! You are filthy .”

“Mum, owwww !”

Her mum dragged her up to the bathroom and went at her with a flannel and a bar of soap and hot water until she felt boiled and raw.

“What is this mess?” her mum said.

“Lilian, leave off,” her dad said, quietly. “Come out into the hall for a moment, please.”

The conversation was too quiet to hear and Anda didn’t want to, anyway: she was concentrating too hard on not crying-her ears hurt .

Her mum enfolded her shoulders in her soft hands again. “Oh, darling, I’m sorry. It’s a skin condition, your father tells me, Acanthosis Nigricans-he saw it in a TV special. We’ll see the doctor about it tomorrow after school. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, twisting to see if she could see the “dirt” on the back of her neck in the mirror. It was hard because it was an awkward placement-but also because she didn’t like to look at her face and her soft extra chin, and she kept catching sight of it.

She went back to her room to google Acanthosis Nigricans.

› A condition involving darkened,

› thickened skin. Found in the folds of

› skin at the base of the back of the

› neck, under the arms, inside the elbow

› and at the waistline. Often precedes a

› diagnosis of type-2 diabetes, especially

› in children. If found in children,

› immediate steps must be taken to prevent

› diabetes, including exercise and

› nutrition as a means of lowering insulin

› levels and increasing

› insulin-sensitivity.

Obesity-related diabetes. They had lectures on this every term in health class-the fastest-growing ailment among British teens, accompanied by photos of orca-fat sacks of lard sat up in bed surrounded by an ocean of rubbery, flowing podge. Anda prodded her belly and watched it jiggle.

It jiggled. Her thighs jiggled. Her chins wobbled. Her arms sagged.

She grabbed a handful of her belly and squeezed it, pinched it hard as she could, until she had to let go or cry out. She’d left livid red fingerprints in the rolls of fat and she was crying now, from the pain and the shame and oh, God, she was a fat girl with diabetes-

“JESUS, Anda, where the hell have you been?”

“Sorry, Sarge,” she said. “My PC’s been broken-” Well, out of service, anyway. Under lock-and-key in her dad’s study. Almost a month now of medications and no telly and no gaming and double PE periods at school with the other whales. She was miserable all day, every day now, with nothing to look forward to except the trips after school to the newsagents at the 501-meter mark and the fistsful of sweeties and bottles of fizzy drink she ate in the park while she watched the chavs play footy.

“Well, you should have found a way to let me know. I was getting worried about you, girl.”

“Sorry, Sarge,” she said again. The PC Baang was filled with stinky spotty boys-literally stinky, it smelt like goats, like a train-station toilet-being loud and obnoxious. The dinky headphones provided were greasy as a slice of pizza, and the mouthpiece was sticky with excited boy-saliva from games gone past.

But it didn’t matter. Anda was back in the game, and just in time, too: her money was running short.

“Well, I’ve got a backlog of missions here. I tried going out with a couple other of the girls-” A pang of regret shot through Anda at the thought that her position might have been usurped while she was locked off the game, “-but you’re too good to replace, OK? I’ve got four missions we can do today if you’re game.”