Jack Dann - Dangerous Games

“Lucy?”

There was no reply.

› I’m very sorry you and your friend quarrelled.

She felt numb and unreal. There were rules for Fahrenheits, lots of rules, and the penalties for breaking them varied, but the penalty for attacking a fellow Fahrenheit was-she couldn’t think the word; she closed her eyes, but there it was in big glowing letters: EXPULSION.

But Lucy had started it, right? It wasn’t her fault.

But who would believe her?

She opened her eyes. Her vision swam through incipient tears. Her heart was thudding in her ears.

› The enemy isn’t your fellow player. It’s not the players guarding the fabrica, it’s not the girls working there. The people who are working to destroy the game are the people who pay you and the people who pay the girls in the fabrica, who are the same people. You’re being paid by rival factory owners, you know that? THEY are the ones who care nothing for the game. My girls care about the game. You care about the game. Your common enemy is the people who want to destroy the game and who destroy the lives of these girls.

“Whassamatter, you fat little cow? Is your game making you cwy?” She jerked as if slapped. The chav who was speaking to her hadn’t been in the Baang when she arrived, and he had mean, close-set eyes and a football jersey and though he wasn’t any older than her, he looked mean, and angry, and his smile was sadistic and crazy.

“Piss off,” she said, mustering her braveness.

“You wobbling tub of guts, don’t you DARE speak to me that way,” he said, shouting right in her ear. The Baang fell silent and everyone looked at her. The Pakistani who ran the Baang was on his phone, no doubt calling the coppers, and that meant that her parents would discover where she’d been and then-

“I’m talking to you, girl,” he said. “You disgusting lump of suet-Christ, it makes me wanta puke to look at you. You ever had a boyfriend? How’d he shag you-did he roll yer in flour and look for the wet spot?”

She reeled back, then stood. She drew her arm back and slapped him, as hard as she could. The boys in the Baang laughed and went whoooooo! He purpled and balled his fists and she backed away from him. The imprint of her fingers stood out on his cheek.

He bridged the distance between them with a quick step and punched her, in the belly, and the air whooshed out of her and she fell into another player, who pushed her away, so she ended up slumped against the wall, crying.

The mean boy was there, right in front of her, and she could smell the chili crisps on his breath. “You disgusting whore-” he began and she kneed him square in the nadgers, hard as she could, and he screamed like a little girl and fell backwards. She picked up her schoolbag and ran for the door, her chest heaving, her face streaked with tears.

“ANDA, dear, there’s a phone call for you.”

Her eyes stung. She’d been lying in her darkened bedroom for hours now, snuffling and trying not to cry, trying not to look at the empty desk where her PC used to live.

Her da’s voice was soft and caring, but after the silence of her room, it sounded like a rusting hinge.

“Anda?”

She opened her eyes. He was holding a cordless phone, sillhouetted against the open doorway.

“Who is it?”

“Someone from your game, I think,” he said. He handed her the phone.

“Hullo?”

“Hullo, chicken.” It had been a year since she’d heard that voice, but she recognized it instantly.

“Liza?”

“Yes.”

Anda’s skin seemed to shrink over her bones. This was it: expelled. Her heart felt like it was beating once per second, time slowed to a crawl.

“Hullo, Liza.”

“Can you tell me what happened today?”

She did, stumbling over the details, back-tracking and stuttering. She couldn’t remember, exactly-did Lucy move on Raymond and Anda asked her to stop and then Lucy attacked her? Had Anda attacked Lucy first? It was all a jumble. She should have saved a screenmovie and taken it with her, but she couldn’t have taken anything with her, she’d run out-

“I see. Well it sounds like you’ve gotten yourself into quite a pile of poo, haven’t you, my girl?”

“I guess so,” Anda said. Then, because she knew that she was as good as expelled, she said, “I don’t think it’s right to kill them, those girls. All right?”

“Ah,” Liza said. “Well, funny you should mention that. I happen to agree. Those girls need our help more than any of the girls anywhere in the game. I’m glad you took a stand when you did-glad I found out about this business.”

“You’re not going to expel me?”

“No, chicken, I’m not going to expel you. I think you did the right thing-”

That meant that Lucy would be expelled. Fahrenheit had killed Fahrenheit-something had to be done. The rules had to be enforced. Anda swallowed hard.

“If you expel Lucy, I’ll quit,” she said quickly, before she lost her nerve.

Liza laughed. “Oh, chicken, you’re a brave thing, aren’t you? No one’s being expelled, fear not. But I wanna talk to this Raymond of yours.”

ANDA came home from remedial hockey sweaty and exhausted, but not as exhausted as the last time, nor the time before that. She could run the whole length of the pitch twice now without collapsing-when she’d started out, she could barely make it halfway without having to stop and hold her side, kneading her loathsome podge to make it stop aching. Now there was noticeably less podge, and she found that with the ability to run the pitch came the freedom to actually pay attention to the game, to aim her shots, to build up a degree of accuracy that was nearly as satisfying as being really good in-game.

Her dad knocked at the door of her bedroom after she’d showered and changed. “How’s my girl?”

“Revising,” she said, and hefted her maths book at him.

“Did you have a fun afternoon on the pitch?”

“You mean ‘did my head get trod on’?”

“Did it?”

“Yes,” she said. “But I did more treading than getting trodden on.” The other girls were really fat, and they didn’t have a lot of team skills. Anda had been to war: she knew how to depend on someone and how to be depended upon.

“That’s my girl.” He pretended to inspect the paint-work around the light switch. “Been on the scales this week?”

She had, of course: the school nutritionist saw to that, a morning humiliation undertaken in full sight of all the other fatties.

“Yes, Dad.”

“And-?”

“I’ve lost a stone,” she said. A little more than a stone, actually. She had been able to fit into last year’s jeans the other day.

He beamed at her. “I’ve lost three pounds myself,” he said, holding his tum. “I’ve been trying to follow your diet, you know.”

“I know, Da,” she said. It embarrassed her to discuss it with him.

“Well, I just wanted to say that I’m proud of you. We both are, your Mum and me. And I wanted to let you know that I’ll be moving your PC back into your room tomorrow. You’ve earned it.”

Anda blushed pink. She hadn’t really expected this. Her fingers twitched over a phantom game-controller.

“Oh, Da,” she said. He held up his hand.

“It’s all right, girl. We’re just proud of you.”

SHE didn’t touch the PC the first day, nor the second. On the third, after hockey, she showered and changed and sat down and slipped the headset on.

“Hello, Anda.”

“Hi, Sarge.”

Lucy had known the minute she entered the game, which meant that she was still on Lucy’s buddy-list. Well, that was a hopeful sign.

“You don’t have to call me that. We’re the same rank now, after all.”