Walter Williams - This Is Not a Game

“Redundancy,” he said, “is still our friend.”

“But it’ll make the job easier.”

“A lot easier.”

World saved, Dagmar thought. Charlie still rich, game still cool.

What could possibly go wrong?

The microwave gave a chime. Dagmar opened the door, gingerly took out her cup of soup by the handle, and put it on the counter.

“Okay,” she said. “When can you have the new patch ready?”

“Tomorrow,” he said, “I hope.”

After the call ended, Dagmar stirred her soup with the plastic spoon, then returned to her office. She found BJ there, peering at her computer screen, his fingers poised over her keyboard.

“What do you need?” she asked.

“I’m looking for the script for Week Six, Part One,” BJ said. “I wanted to make sure I included the bit about Carlo leaving the matchbook behind in the Russian restaurant for David to find.”

“I think you did,” she said, stirring.

BJ was still staring at the screen, his hand busy on her trackball.

“Can we make sure? Because I don’t want to leave that detail out.”

“Let me,” said Dagmar. She put down her lunch, and BJ rolled her office chair out of the way. Dagmar bent over the computer and said, “Open file Briana Assets 6.1.” When the file popped open, she instituted a search for matchbook.

“Yeah,” she said. “There it is.”

She pointed. BJ followed her finger, then nodded.

“Okay. Good.”

She picked up her soup and tasted it.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked.

“I just got back from a lunch with Helmuth,” BJ said. His blue eyes glittered mischievously from behind his spectacles. “I’m thinking of stealing him to work for me at Katanyan Associates.”

She looked at him.

“Not funny, Boris,” she said.

“I was kidding,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

He smiled up at her. “I just got interested in how he does what he does. Making Web sites disappear, hiding stuff in the code.”

“Be careful around Helmuth,” Dagmar said. “Especially if you’re planning on collecting a big salary from this new job of yours. Helmuth will corrupt you faster than hanging with any twenty rock stars.”

BJ was impressed.

“I had no idea,” he said.

“He’ll tell you so himself,” Dagmar said.

There was another update later in the afternoon. It was intended that after the last puzzle was solved, there was going to be a clue hunt in Planet Nine, with the players’ avatars zooming around the rust-colored surface of Titan on flying scooters.

Except that the clue hunt didn’t happen. The players got hung up on one of the online puzzles and never progressed to Titan.

At the end of the day, there was a meeting concerning how to nudge the players loose.

“Okay,” Dagmar said. “The misunderstanding is all to do with the recording of Omar in the safe house. He’s saying, ‘I need what’s on the banana split.’ And so the players are trying to figure out what’s on a banana split, and how to get it to Omar, instead of noticing that ‘Banana Split’ is a feature on Titan in Planet Nine.”

“They’ve all got the Titan map,” Jack said.

“The problem,” said BJ, “is that they haven’t memorized it.”

“And so they’re trying to get Omar a maraschino cherry,” said Dagmar.

“Or whipped cream,” Jack said.

“Or jimmies,” Helmuth said. “They mentioned jimmies.” He looked at Dagmar. “What are jimmies?”

“Little bits of candy,” Dagmar said, “in the shape of mouse turds.”

Lines formed between Helmuth’s brows.

“If I go into an ice cream store and ask for a banana split with jimmies,” he said, “they’ll give to me these candy mouse turds?”

“Yes,” said Dagmar.

Helmuth gave a slow nod. “Interesting,” he said.

He had learned something new about America. Dagmar concealed a smile.

“What about Banana Split in the game?” BJ asked.

Dagmar decided she was too tired to make any major decisions right now.

“Next update’s on Saturday,” she said. “And that’s a big one, because we’ve got players with Tapping the Source machines sampling every water puddle in the world. So we’ve got to get the Titan adventure over before then-let’s say by Thursday night.”

“Okay,” said Jack. “Good.”

“The players could crack the Banana Split thing anytime between now and then. So let’s give them the chance, and if they don’t, we’ll think of a clever way to tell them-or failing that, we’ll just go into one of the forums under a pseudonym and give them the answer.”

The others were happy to put off the decision, and Dagmar called an end to the mission. BJ rose and looked at the others.

“Anyone interested in dinner?” he asked.

Dagmar pushed her chair back from the long table. “Not me,” she said. “I’m for a long night’s sleep.”

She said her good-byes and left as BJ and Helmuth and some others planned a trip to a restaurant.

The reek of the ginkgo trees filled the parking lot. Dagmar looked carefully behind bushes and trees for Siyed or any other lurker, then went through the gate unmolested and went to her apartment. She warmed a frozen meal of chicken and pasta in alfredo sauce-despite the appetizing name, it was alleged to be low in calories-and idly wondered when she had last actually cooked something on the stove.

Weeks ago, at least.

She turned on CNN and ate in front of the television. Charlie’s bots had been busy wrecking South American currencies-Bolivia and Chile had just been a warm-up. Brazil and Argentina were taking a hammering.

The IMF and the World Bank weren’t offering any help. They’d already lost billions trying to prop up other currencies, and now they had removed themselves from the bot wars altogether.

The talking heads speculated that they were keeping what remained of their reserves to prop up the U.S. dollar if it came under attack.

If the dollar fell, it was bad news even for people who weren’t U.S. citizens. The dollar was the world’s reserve currency-it was the currency that foreign governments used when trading with one another, or when buying commodities like gold and oil. Other currencies were coupled to the dollar and would collapse when the dollar fell. And Bolivia and Chile had saved a little of their citizens’ savings by coupling their own money to the dollar. If the dollar fell, they’d be ruined twice over.

It was all too depressing. Dagmar switched the channel and watched a program about a gallant teenager who fought crime with her extrasensory powers. The program’s lack of any connection to reality was a comfort.

She went to bed early and slept late. When she rose, she started the coffee machine and cooked some oatmeal in the microwave, then took a shower. She ate breakfast while CNN reported that South American currencies were still under attack. Dagmar muted the volume on the television while she booted her laptop and checked her email.

FROM: BJSKI

SUBJECT: Corrupiton

Oh hai!

U waz rite about Hellmouth. We haz been out all nite and I iz now

throughly corrupited.

Ai think her nbame was Beverly. She and Hellmouth goze way back.

She drinkz mojitos.

Have you ever haz mojitos? 3 and you can not walk rite. Ai do not

know how Ai gotz home.

Ai just write to let you knowz that I iz going to be lait with the

deliverabblies.

Bj

PS Ai haz spent all mai dollarz. Kin I haz a raze?

Dagmar laughed, saw that the email had been sent at 4:42 A.M., and figured she wouldn’t be hearing from BJ till midafternoon at the earliest.

At least some people in Great Big Idea were having fun.

FROM: Charlie

SUBJECT: Patch 2.0