This Is Not a Game
Page 11
There was a metallic noise as Putri drew her knife. Dagmar stared at it. It was unlike any knife she’d ever seen, a nasty S-shaped thing with a bright little hook at the end, just the size to cut off someone’s finger.
TINAG, she thought. This is not a game.
There was a flash, a bang, and a singing of metal. Someone was shooting.
Abu Bakar leaned out the window and yelled at the driver of the rear car. Then all three cars were scrambling backward as fast as they could go. Crumbling brick walls shot past, and parked vehicles. Whoever had the gun held his fire.
After it put some distance between itself and pursuit, the convoy sorted itself out and began moving westward. Abu Bakar shouted into his cell phone. Dagmar tried to slow her racing heart.
“That kampung,” Putri said, her face white, “was captured by friends of the military.” She sheathed her knife.
“I see,” Dagmar said. She was trying not to gasp for breath.
Abu Bakar managed to reroute his convoy. Now the tank farm was on the right. Then Dagmar scented the iodine smell of the sea, and her nerves gave a little thrill. Despite all obstacles, they had managed to come near the sea. The sea, where rescue floated somewhere in the darkness.
The convoy moved east, and now there was water on the left. Then the convoy turned left and was driving down a long jetty. Wooden schooners floated left and right, all in the local style, with a distinctive raked prow. Some had anchored out in the water, where no one could reach them, but some were drawn right to the pier, their fabulously raked stems and bowsprits hanging over the jetty like openmouthed sharks caught in the act of devouring their prey.
The convoy drove unmolested to the end of the pier. Abu Bakar, very calm now, made a call on the cell phone.
Doors opened. People got out of the cars, stretched, breathed in the sea-drenched scent of the land breeze. Dagmar wandered about in a daze.
A boat engine throbbed somewhere in the darkness. The lead car flashed its headlights. Dagmar stared hopefully out to sea, and then she saw it, a blue and white boat with a tall mast and an extravagantly raked stem in the local fashion. The engine cut out, and the boat made a gentle curve and came up broadside to the jetty. Two crew members threw out rope mats to cushion any impact with the pier, then cast lines to lasso bollards with practiced efficiency. Dagmar saw that jerricans of fuel were lashed to the pilot house. A man in a baseball cap peered out of the pilot house and called over.
“Is Dagmar here?”
She wanted to jump in the air, whoop, wave her arms.
“I’m here,” she said, and then realized her voice was pitched too low. “I’m here!” she repeated, louder this time.
“Good! Come on the boat!”
Dagmar took the time to embrace Putri, the girl who had been willing to draw a knife to protect her. She hugged Abu Bakar as well, much to his surprise. And then she let Widjihartani in his baseball cap help her onto the boat. Lines were cast off, and Dagmar’s last view of Indonesia was of her rescuers lined up on the pier, silhouetted against the car lights, waving as she set off on her return to the Western Paradise.
I never got to meet Billy the Kid, she thought.
Maybe next time.
The dawn rose over the moving ocean, throwing the schooner’s long, dark shadow before it over the sea. Red sun twinkled from the wave caps, long rollers driven by the dry monsoon. Java was well out of sight, but there were islands off the starboard bow. Dagmar stared out over the stern and smelled breakfast cooking.
Suddenly “Harlem Nocturne” rang out over the throb of the engine. Dagmar saw “Charlies Friend” on the display, laughed, and answered.
“Hello, darling,” said Tomer Zan. “How are you?”
“I’m in a boat,” Dagmar said, “heading for Singapore.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Good,” Zan said finally. “The helicopter was crap anyway.”
“Well,” said Dagmar, “I’m sure you tried your best.”
No points to you, she thought.
No world domination, no donut.
ACT 2
CHAPTER TEN This Is Not the End
FROM: LadyDayFan
It has been pointed out to me that this image has appeared briefly on flat-screen billboards in major cities.
The image is a sem@code, a type of bar code that leads to Web content and, once decoded with the proper software, leads us to this Web page, where we find still photographs of a young woman in what appears to be an ordinary motel room. We also have an inventory of her possessions.
Looks like a rabbit hole to me.
I have started the usual series of topics under the name Motel Room Blues, which will serve until something better comes along. This announcement will be copied to the Introduction.
Anyone want to play?
FROM: Corporal Carrot
I’m in!
FROM: HexenHase
Me too. And hey, the lady is armed and dangerous. I think that pistol is a Firestar, probably the 9mm M-43 variation.
The Firestar is a Spanish pistol. I wonder if it is a clue to her place of origin.
FROM: Desi
Her driver’s license is from California and gives her name as Briana Hall. But she’s checked into the motel under the name of Iris Fitzgerald.
FROM: Hippolyte
Hey, cool! I’m in!
FROM: Chatsworth Osborne Jr.
If you download the picture of the driver’s license and enlarge it, you find tiny numbers inserted just below the photo: 01100011011101010110110001101100011001010110111000100111011100110010000001100100011001010110000101100100 (if I have that transcribed correctly).
Which is binary, and which converted to decimal is 6518124.
FROM: Corporal Carrot
6518124? Is that a phone number?
FROM: Hippolyte
But which area code?
FROM: Corporal Carrot
I’ll call them all!
FROM: Chatsworth Osborne Jr.
I’ll have to get on my other computer before I’m able to convert the binary to roman numerals. That could be important, too.
FROM: Hippolyte
File the 6518124 until later. I’m sure we’ll need it.
FROM: Chatsworth Osborne Jr.
File along with the fact that 216 plus 6518124 is 6518340, which could be a whole = other = phone number. I = never = think numbers are coincidence.
FROM: LadyDayFan
I’ve just converted that binary string into ASCII, and it says “cullen’s dead.” Which is probably the clue that you’re really after.
FROM: Chatsworth Osborne Jr.
‹glyph of slapping forehead›
FROM: Consuelo
Hey, guys! Among the contents of Briana’s bag is an invitation to Planet Nine, which is an online RPG. They’re offering free membership for the next eight weeks, which suggests the length of the ARG.
FROM: Corporal Carrot
Hi, Consuelo! Have we met?
FROM: Consuelo
I’ve just subscribed to this forum, though I’ve been lurking for a while. I was waiting for an ARG to start at a convenient time for me, and this is it.
FROM: Corporal Carrot
You’re not a puppetmaster, are you?
FROM: Consuelo
A lady never tells. But notice that the Planet Nine invitation has a
serial number on it.
FROM: Desi
Has anyone noticed that there’s a DVD sitting atop the TV set? I bet
we can get a video if we solve the right puzzle.
Of course we have to find the puzzle first.
FROM: Consuelo
6518124 doesn’t get much when typed into the YouTube search
engine.
FROM: Desi
But the binary string works when you look on Video Us!
Here’s the URL.
FROM: Corporal Carrot
Binary after all! PSYCH!
FROM: LadyDayFan
Nice work, Desi.
BTW, I observe a high gloss to this production that suggests the
house style of Great Big Idea. Not to mention the woman-in-the
hotel motif that might be viewed as autobiographical in view of the
recent history of a certain friend of this bulletin board.
So hi there, Dagmar, if it’s you! We’re on Briana’s trail!
Dagmar stood in the lobby of Burger Angeleno and watched the hostess chat on the phone. The hostess was very young, maybe just out of high school, and was talking about somebody named Vincent, who was involved in some soap opera issues with another person named Janis. As she talked, the hostess stood behind the cash register and watched Dagmar with an indifference that was perfectly without affect. It was as if Dagmar wasn’t there at all.
Dagmar wondered if she should just grab a menu and seat herself. She peered around the divider between the dining room and the lobby to see if Austin was waiting for her, but she didn’t see him.
She decided she could wait.
After several minutes the hostess wound up her phone call. She hung up the phone and looked at Dagmar for a long moment, again with that affectless expression, as if she saw nothing worthy of interest.
Dagmar looked back at her. Two could play at this game.
Eventually the hostess was stirred to action. She looked up and to the left, as if she were trying to remember something.
“Can I like help you or anything?” she asked, having at last recalled an approximation of the correct line.
“Table for two,” said Dagmar.
The hostess took two menus out of the rack and led Dagmar to a booth.
“I didn’t know if you wanted anything or not,” she said.
“I wanted to sit down,” said Dagmar.
“You might have wanted to pay,” said the hostess.
“I didn’t have a check,” Dagmar pointed out.
“You don’t have to be so rude about it,” the hostess muttered as she returned to her station.
Dagmar stared after her for a long moment, then reached into her pocketbook for a pen.
A few minutes later, Austin arrived and found her writing on the back of her paper place mat.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“A flow chart,” Dagmar said.
Austin dropped his canvas shoulder bag onto the table and sat. “For the game?” he asked.
“No. For our hostess.”
She finished the chart and took it with her to the lobby. The hostess was back on the phone, talking about someone named Tashi. Dagmar walked up to the hostess and held out the flow chart and tapped it with her pen. The hostess looked annoyed.
“I’m talking,” she said.
Dagmar reached out and pressed down the telephone toggle, disconnecting it.
“Tashi can wait,” Dagmar said. “I want to show you something that can help you keep your job. This is a flow chart.”
“A what?”
Dagmar ignored the question. “There’s a box at the top, see. You’ll notice it says Customer stands in lobby. And then there’s an arrow from this to the next box, which says Does the customer have a check?”
The hostess stared at her.
“You’ll see,” Dagmar continued, “that the second box has two arrows, marked Yes and No. If the answer is Yes, you follow another arrow to the box marked Take his money. And if the answer is No, you follow that arrow to the box that says Ask the customer if you can help him. And there’s an arrow leading from that box to the next, which says Does the customer want to be seated?
“If the answer is Yes, the arrow goes to the box that says Seat him. And if the answer is Customer is looking for someone, the arrow takes you to Help customer find his friend, and then to Seat him.”
Dagmar put the flow chart down in front of the hostess.
“I left off a few unlikely situations,” she said, “like Does customer have a gun? which would lead to a box that says Give him money, but I figure in that situation the customer will tell you what to do. But in the meantime, all you have to do is follow these simple instructions, and you’ll do fine.”
The hostess didn’t say thank you, but then Dagmar hadn’t thought she would.
Dagmar returned to her seat and opened the menu. Burger Angeleno was an upscale diner, the kind of place that served you grass-fed bison patties on your burger, offered the option of soy milk in your shakes, and assured you that the chicken nuggets were free-range and had never been within pecking distance of an antibiotic.
“What’s new?” Austin said.
“We launched the new game yesterday,” Dagmar said. “The site had nearly a hundred fifty thousand hits as of noon today, so I’d say we’re in business.”
“Someday,” Austin said, “I hope to have enough time to actually play one of these games.”
“So do I,” said Dagmar.
They looked up as a man approached. He was about twenty, with a spotty complexion. His slim body was neatly encased in a dark suit. He wore a single earring.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m the manager. I understand there’s a problem here?”
“I could use a new place mat,” said Dagmar.
“Donna,” said the manager, “said that you have a gun.”
“Donna,” said Dagmar, “is too stupid to know what the fuck I said.”
A few minutes later, as they drove away in Austin’s car, Dagmar rolled down the window and threw a finger at the receding restaurant.
“I’ve never been thrown out of a restaurant before,” Austin said. “And I liked that place.”
“Plenty of places to get soy milk shakes in L.A. ”
He looked at her from beneath the brim of his Yankees cap.
“Sometimes I worry about you,” he said. “Do you think you might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?”
Dagmar thought about it, then shrugged.
“Who isn’t?” she said.
Austin was a Type One Geek, which is to say he was well over six feet tall and very thin. Because he was now rich, he wore Armani sportswear and custom Ray-Bans and drove a 1957 Corvette, but to Dagmar’s mind he still looked like a Type One Geek, only playing dress-up.
Not that she didn’t love him, of course.
And at least he wasn’t shaving his head, even if he was going bald. You could forgive a rich man a lot for not shaving his head.
And clean on the other end of the scale, he didn’t wear a motoring cap. Points for that, too.
Austin had become a legend in the local world of venture capital because he only had a 63 percent failure rate. Normally 80 percent of start-ups failed, but the 20 percent that succeeded made so much money that they paid for the failures and then some. Austin had somehow made a success of another 17 percent, nearly doubling his company’s income.
Dagmar was really very proud of him.
They found a New Mexican place that had walls covered with embroidered sombreros and black velvet paintings of bullfighters, and Dagmar ordered chiles rellenos, with a sauce made from Hatch green chile.
In Los Angeles, she had observed, menus often told you where the food came from.
“Did I ever tell you about the live event we did in Charleston for Shadow Pattern?” she said. “I asked the hotel concierge where I could find a restaurant with good southern cooking, and he recommended a place. So I went in, and I looked at the menu and saw, ‘Roast breast of upland Carolina quail on a bed of beef tongue tar-tare, garnished with generous slices of foie gras.’ ”
“Did you order it?”
“How could I not?” She laughed. “So that was my experience of down-home southern cooking.”
“Someday I’ll buy you a pork chop and a box of instant grits.”
Austin reached into his canvas shoulder bag and retrieved a package done up in fancy wrapping paper, with a large golden ribbon.
“I bought you a present,” he said.
Dagmar took it with pleasure.
She tore away the wrapping and found a book bound beautifully in rich brown calfskin. The paper was edged in gold, and a pair of red satin ribbons, to mark her place, had been bound into the book. She looked at the spine.
The Unconventional Adventures of Dagmar, she read.
“It’s the fan fiction they wrote about you on Our Reality Network,” Austin said.
“Oh my God!” said Dagmar.
“Have you read any of it?”
“No!” she said.
He plucked the volume from her fingers and opened to where one of the red ribbons marked a place.
“I’ve marked my favorite passages,” he said. He propped the book up before him and began to read. “Ahmed ran his fingers through Dagmar’s strangely attractive pale hair.
“ ‘Ahmed,’ she whimpered, ‘I only feel safe when I’m in your arms.’ ”
“Oh God,” Dagmar moaned.
“His powerful arms encircled her from behind. Dagmar shivered as his lips brushed the sensitive skin of her shoulders. His hands rose to palpate her tingling breasts.”
“Saved!” Dagmar said as their meal arrived.
“The plates are very hot,” the waitress said.
“So’s the prose,” said Austin. “Are there really Indonesians named Ahmed? ”
“Probably. I never met any. Or had anyone named Ahmed palpate my breasts, for that matter.”
She tasted one of her rellenos and smiled. Whatever it was that Hatch did to its chiles, she approved. The taste was a far cry from what Cleveland thought of as southwestern cuisine, chili con carne drenched in cinnamon and served on a plate of spaghetti.