Walter Williams - This Is Not a Game

“Yeah.”

“And reassemble it.”

“Which won’t be hard, because each message will contain a sequence number as part of the routing information.”

“We’ll have to create some kind of engine that reassembles it. We can’t expect them to do it by hand.”

Charlie shrugged. “Whatever.”

“And the result could be a graphic or a photo, which would be more cool than a text message. And more unanticipated.”

Nodding. “That’s good.”

“Okay.” Dagmar lifted her Coke bottle and offered Charlie an ironic toast. “I don’t actually hate this idea. Especially since it won’t require a lot of rewriting, and I can shift most of the work onto Helmuth and his staff.”

Charlie smiled.

“Excellent,” he said. “Now, the cipher I want you to use is called Portcullis.”

She looked at him. “Why Portcullis? I never heard of it.”

He shrugged. “Portcullis is a start-up out of Dallas. They have a good product, and they also offer support in case the players run into trouble.”

A feeling of unease seeped like a cool mist into Dagmar’s brain.

“This is a private company?” she asked. “They sell their product?”

“Yeah. They sell the cipher fairly cheaply and plan to make most of their money selling support.”

Mentally, Dagmar probed this idea and realized she didn’t like it.

“Why not use freeware?” she asked. “You can find military-grade encryption on the Web and use it for free.”

Charlie straightened in his chair and looked down at her. “Firstly,” he said, “because Portcullis offers support, and a lot of the players haven’t necessarily used decryption programs before.”

Dagmar did not find this argument convincing.

“And secondly…? ” she said.

He gazed down at her expressionlessly.

“Secondly,” he said, “because Portcullis is the program I want you to use.”

Anger flashed through Dagmar, but it faded quickly, to be replaced by an anticipation of oncoming wretchedness-that there was some horrible truth about to emerge, something that would send her spiraling into misery. A sense that she was on a ship running before the storm, only vaguely aware of the reefs looming ahead.

“How much,” she asked, “will Portcullis cost the players? ”

“Basic service is something like thirty bucks and comes with half a year’s free support.”

She looked at him and folded her arms across her chest.

“Charlie,” she said, “that’s going to make the players berserk. Traditionally, ARGs are free Internet entertainment. Players aren’t used to paying for them, and they won’t. ARGs that expected their players to pay for something have all… struggled, to put it as kindly as I can.”

Charlie nodded at her words, but only to dismiss them.

“Enough of them will buy Portcullis to make this work,” he said.

A sudden urgency possessed her. She had to make herself understood.

“Charlie,” she said, “we’re on our way to more than three million players. This game is already an enormous success. Why are we risking that success? ”

He looked down at her. “I do not have to explain my decision.”

She spread her hands helplessly.

“Give me something to work with, okay?” she asked. “Make believe this is a rational act.”

Charlie said nothing.

“Are you invested in Portcullis in some way? ”

Charlie shook his head slightly, a few millimeters left and right. “No. Absolutely not. This decision does not benefit me in any way.”

“Is Austin ’s company involved? ”

“No,” Charlie said. “Portcullis came to him for funding originally, but Austin turned them down.”

“Could that be,” Dagmar said, her voice rising in heat, “because they’re competing with stuff that cryptoware geeks give away for free? Could that be because their business model totally sucks? ”

Charlie inclined his head, an absolute monarch conceding a minor matter to a loyal councillor.

“Last month they did have a disappointing IPO,” he said.

In frustration, Dagmar raised clawed hands and slashed at an invisible barrier. “So why are we- ”

“Let’s just say,” Charlie said, “that I believe in their product.”

Dagmar gave up. She sagged back on the couch in utter capitulation.

Charlie was screwing again with the shape of Dagmar’s game. The inclusion of Austin’s death and the search for Litvinov had unbalanced the structure, but she had hopes that if she skated fast enough, she could beat it into shape again.

Now they were set to anger millions of players. Millions upon whom Dagmar depended for goodwill. Millions who could have stayed in Planet Nine and made Charlie’s new acquisition wildly profitable.

She looked at him, the Type One Geek she’d known all her adult life, and wondered if he knew the havoc he was wreaking upon his own potential bottom line.

“Charlie,” she said, “Litvinov was found in Santa Monica.”

“Yeah.” His face remained expressionless.

“I’ve seen the Seahorse. It’s less than a mile from where you live.”

“Right.”

“Is it more than a coincidence that Litvinov is first seen hanging around your business, and next he turns up right in your neighborhood? ” What if it really was you he’s gunning for? ”

Dagmar saw a twitch in a corner of Charlie’s mouth.

“I don’t know who he was after, Dagmar,” he said.

“And now you’re running your company from a hotel room,” Dagmar said. “It’s like you’re afraid to go home or to the office. Plus you’re involved in a scheme that will bring Portcullis a huge wave of unexpected income, which will drive up their stock price. Which”-she leaned toward him-“looks just like a classic pump-and-dump stock fraud, the kind the Russian Maffya does all the time.”

Again Charlie gave that brief, taut shake of the head.

“You’re wrong, Dagmar,” he said. “You’re way off base.”

She reached a hand toward him but fell short. She let the hand hang in the air.

“Charlie,” she said, “are you in trouble? ”

“If you want to save me trouble,” he said in a flat, controlled voice, “you will follow my damn instructions.”

Dagmar withdrew the hand.

“Right,” she said, and stood.

She carried her drink to the door.

“Don’t forget your peanuts,” said Charlie.

FROM: Jack

Can I ask a question? What’s this “destegging” I keep reading about?

FROM: 16nHorny

Yeh. That one has me pussled to. And what is teh PM’s besides the

afternoon ha.

FROM: LadyDayFan

Our bulletin board welcomes all of the thousands of new players

that have been showing up in the past few days, but we urge

them to check the FAQ List and Player Tutorial before asking

questions.

FROM: 16nHorny

Ok thats cool ha. Is there a way to meet briana cuz she is teh hawt.

Austin’s memorial service was held at Katanyan Associates in a mahogany-paneled boardroom, the guests seated in padded brown leather chairs with brass accents, the whole a California simulation of a New York bastion of Old Money. The illusion was spoiled by the large LCD screens used for teleconferencing, and by the long smart table with the intelligent, touch-responsive screens, all of which demonstrated that the room belonged not to nineteenth-century robber barons but to those of the twenty-first.

The largest of the LCD screens now showed a large studio portrait of Austin, the one used on his company’s home page, smiling out from between tall, brilliant flower arrangements placed on a table below the screen. Austin’s parents sat in the brown overstuffed chairs, and Dagmar went to say hello and then signed the memorial book.