Game of Death

by David Hosp

‘You are done with the Doctor,’ NetMaster says to Killkenny. His inflection is ambiguous enough that it could have been either an order or a question. From the violence simmering under his demeanor, I am assuming NetMaster meant it as a directive.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ Killkenny says. ‘I’m done with him for now. I may have a few follow-up questions later, obviously, but for the moment he’s been very helpful. Thank you, Doc.’

  ‘You are welcome,’ NetMaster answers for Gunta. ‘If you have any further questions, please let me know, and I will arrange to have them answered.’ He makes clear that any additional access will have to come through him.

  ‘Sure thing. I’ll need the name of the photographer, as well as the names of the two programmers who were involved in the process as well.’

  ‘Of course, Detective,’ NetMaster says. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yeah, actually. I need a list of all the models who were hired, and pictures of them matched to their names.’

  ‘Why?’ NetMaster demands.

  ‘Because, at the moment, we still have a killer out there who is choosing his victims from your company’s prototypes. I think it’s only fair to warn them, don’t you?’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘What did you think?’

  Killkenny, Yvette and I are out in the parking lot at NextLife’s headquarters. It’s a little after noon, and the sun is shining in that crisp way it does in New England. Even from ground level, we can still see the tallest buildings downtown peeking over the smaller buildings in Brighton. I know Killkenny is going to ask me the question even before it comes out, and I’m not sure exactly how to answer it. I’m still a top executive in the company, and complete honesty isn’t necessary or appropriate in that role.

  ‘Interesting,’ I say. It’s noncommittal enough, I figure.

  ‘That’s one word for it.’ Killkenny takes out a pack of cigarettes, slides one out, puts it between his lips. He holds out the pack in our direction. ‘Either of you smoke?’

  ‘Only when I’m drunk,’ Yvette says.

  I wave him off. ‘I’m good, thanks.’

  ‘Is he normally like that?’ Killkenny asks.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Gunta.’

  ‘Like what?’

  He takes a long drag off his cigarette, looking at me carefully as he takes it into his lungs. ‘You know what I mean,’ he says as he exhales. ‘When we started talking about the girls, he looked like I had his nuts in a vice and was turning the screws.’

  ‘Some people are uncomfortable talking about murder,’ I offer. It’s clear from his expression that Killkenny isn’t buying it.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘Seemed like something more to me.’ He looks at Yvette. ‘How about you? What’s your take?’

  ‘I think he’s a creep,’ Yvette says. I close my eyes and shake my head; she’s never been one to sugarcoat her views. ‘What?’ she demands of me, noting my reaction. ‘He is; he’s a creep. He looked at me like my vagina offended him.’

  ‘You think he could’ve killed those girls?’ Killkenny asks her. I think about interjecting to keep her from saying anything more, but it’s unnecessary. She shakes her head.

  ‘He’s creepy, but he’s not De Sade. A least, he sure as hell didn’t create the LifeScene that I walked. Whoever created that scene is conflicted – completely fucked-up, actually – but they’re also obsessed with women. There’s an aspect of pleasure that I sure as hell don’t see in Dr-Stick-Up-His-Ass.’

  ‘Maybe that’s a cover,’ Killkenny suggests.

  ‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘But my impression is that anyone Gunta’s obsessed with probably has a dick between his legs.’

  I have the same impression, but I’m not going to express it.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘You see the way he was looking at the pretty-boy assistant?’

  Killkenny thinks for a moment. ‘I need you to talk to all of the people who work for you,’ he says to me. ‘I want to talk to anyone who has been into any of De Sade’s LifeScenes. You said he’s a heavy user, right? What did you call them? Hummers?’

  ‘He’s one of the heaviest users,’ I agree.

  ‘So you keep a pretty close eye on him in that dungeon of yours, right?’

  ‘He’s on the list of people we track. That doesn’t mean we’ve had someone in all of his LifeScenes, but many of them, yeah.’

  ‘Okay, I want any of your people who have seen any of his fucked-up fantasies to look through all the models’ pictures. Maybe we can get a handle on other girls who are in danger.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ I agree.

  Killkenny gets in his car, tosses his cigarette butt out onto the tarmac. ‘I’ll be over at the Cambridge office at four o’clock,’ he says. He hits the gas and peels out. For just a moment the sound gives me a flashback to the car that almost killed Yvette and me the night before.

  The cigarette butt is still smoking on the ground, blowing back and forth in a gentle, swirling autumn breeze. Yvette walks over and stamps it out with her thick heels. ‘You really didn’t notice anything fucked-up about how Doc was acting in there?’ she asks me.

  ‘Yeah, I did. I just didn’t want to get into it with Killkenny.’

  ‘Protecting the company?’

  ‘Maybe. Plus, like you said, his reaction was weird, but I just don’t see him as the one who created those LifeScenes. It’s not his style in a dozen ways.’

  ‘I agree. But it raises a couple of related questions that you and I need to talk about.’

  ‘Which are?’

  She looks sideways at me, her eyes narrowed. ‘How far are you willing to go to protect the company, and how far are you willing to go to catch this guy?’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand the questions.’

  ‘I don’t think Gunta created those LifeScenes. But he knows something he’s not sharing. The way he was behaving got me to thinking: we’ve been assuming that we can’t piece together any of these LifeScenes because the Scenes themselves reside on the user’s computer, so we can only access them when they are actually in the Scene – when they are hooked into our system.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘We have limited visibility into the user’s computer.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Yvette says. ‘But what if these Scenes were actually created on a computer that’s already hooked into the system?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What if it’s someone at the company and it’s being done on a computer that’s part of the NextLife system?’

  I think about that for a moment. It’s a long shot, but it’s possible. ‘Anyone who works here would know the risk, and even if they created them on their own laptops that are hooked into the system, they’d be smart enough to encrypt them so that we can’t get at them.’

  ‘They might be able to encrypt them so that you can’t get at them,’ Yvette says with a smile. ‘I doubt they could come up with an encryption scheme that I can’t crack.’

  ‘It’s still a one-in-a-million chance,’ I say. ‘In all likelihood, it’s not someone at the company, and even doing the search will be a waste of time.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Yvette agrees. ‘But it’s my time. And I’m curious.’

  ‘You’re dangerous when you’re curious,’ I say. ‘I know that.’

  Her smile takes on a sad edge as she looks at me. ‘Yeah, you do.’ The wind blows her hair into her eyes, and she pushes it back off her forehead. ‘Are you willing to live with what I find, even if it implicates someone at the company?’

  I don’t hesitate. ‘If someone at NextLife is using the system to practice killing these girls, then, yeah, they need to be stopped. No matter what.’

  She nods. ‘I thought you’d feel that way. I’m going to start poking around, see what I can find.’

  ‘Have a go,’ I say. ‘If anyone can find anything hidden on the system, it would be you.’ I open the door to the Corolla and get in. She climbs into the passenger seat. ‘One thing, though,’ I go on.


  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Let’s keep this between you and me for now,’ I say. ‘If you’re wrong, I don’t want it to come around and bite us in the ass. And if you tell Killkenny, he’ll push it, even if there’s nothing there.’

  ‘It’s his job to push it,’ she points out.

  ‘I know,’ I agree. ‘But until we know whether there’s something there, there’s no point in getting his hopes up.’ I look at her. ‘You agree? We’ll keep this just between the two of us?’

  She looks away from me, out the passenger side window. ‘I’ll add it to the list.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I drop Yvette off at the Cambridge office and swing by home before going back to work. Ma was complaining this morning about a pain in her chest, and I want to stop in to see how she’s doing. I’d call, but Ma wouldn’t say anything over the phone; you had to see the pain in her eyes before she’d admit anything. Her motto since the days I was a little boy was always the same: Life is hard; quit your bitching.

  Even at this time of day the traffic is light. A steady stream of runners and bikers and roller-bladers flows along the banks of the Charles as I head east to Charlestown. Most of them are wearing sweatshirts identifying them as connected in some way to the dozens of colleges and universities that make the Boston area their home: Harvard, MIT, Boston College, Boston University, Northeastern, Berklee College of Music, Simmons, University of Massachusetts, Tufts, and on and on. Too many to count. They’re not all college students, clearly; many of them are too old for that. Professors perhaps, or alumni who loved the area too much to leave. It’s one of the reasons that Boston is a hub of technological development and entrepreneurship, second only to Silicon Valley. There is such a rich pool of overeducated, hyper-motivated people coming out of school, it drives innovation and growth.

  And yet Charlestown remains, in many ways, unaffected by it all. Genetically resistant to change and psychologically unwilling to accept outsiders, it juts its chin defiantly at the towns around it. It’s hard not to notice every time I cross the border.

  I pull the Corolla up to the curb in front of Ma’s house because there is a truck in the driveway. A red pickup that is in some need of attention. I frown as I walk by it, wondering whether some contractor is preying on the old woman, trying to convince her that she needs a new roof, or new siding. Work has been hard to come by in recent years, and some of the more motivated home-improvement businesses have become relentless. I know that Ma is perfectly capable of turning them away, but it still bothers me.

  My frown turns to a smile as I walk into the kitchen. Sitting at the table, beer in hand, is an energetic-looking man in his mid-fifties. He’s wearing a weathered pair of Navy-issue khakis, work boots, a flannel shirt and a stained vest. A beaten cap with the emblem of the USS Norfolk sits askew on a balding pate. A fisherman’s beard runs along his jaw from ear to ear, surrounding a face that is dominated by large, sharp eyes and a mouth that is constantly lost between a smile and a smirk.

  ‘Look what the tides brought to us,’ Ma says. I look over at her and I’m shocked. She’s put on one of her best dresses, and fixed her hair. The oxygen sits in a corner, disconnected from her face. Even as thin as she’s become, she looks great – maybe fifteen years younger than I’ve seen her look in the past six months. Her smile is a rarity, and it’s good to see.

  ‘Nick,’ the man says. ‘You look fit.’

  ‘You too, Cormack,’ I say, walking over and giving him a firm handshake. I’ve known Cormack O’Connell for my entire life, and he was the one who taught me when I was a boy: always give a firm handshake. It’s one of the few lessons that has stuck with me. ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘It has,’ he says. ‘We’ve had a busy summer down at the harbor. Lots of work for a change. Good for the lads.’ He still has a hint of the brogue he brought with him when his family arrived when he was five years old. These days he owns three tugboats that run much of the commercial traffic in and out of Boston Harbor. He was one of my father’s best friends, and I’ve always assumed that he’s heavily connected. That’s the way many of the rackets are run here; those in charge have real jobs – often important jobs – that also serve as cover for their more illicit activities. It’s never bothered me; that’s how I grew up. Besides, of all of the people I’ve known in that world, Cormack has always struck me as the most legitimate, and the least violent.

  What brings you by?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head. ‘Nothin’ but neighborliness,’ he says with a smile. ‘How is the world of big business treating you?’

  For some reason, the simple question catches me by surprise and I hesitate in answering. ‘It’s good,’ I say after a moment.

  He knits his eyebrows at me, though the smile remains. ‘If one of my gaffers showed that little enthusiasm, I’d feed him to the stripers.’

  ‘It’s complicated at the moment.’ I sit at the table with him and Ma.

  ‘I’m sure.’ He leans in. ‘You be careful now, boy. You know what your da used to say: There’s no one as crooked as a legitimate businessman. Much truth in that.’

  ‘If it was just someone crooked, I could live with that,’ I say.

  Ma shoots me a hard look. ‘What, then?’

  ‘I can’t talk about it.’

  ‘The hell you can’t.’

  ‘Leave the boy alone,’ Cormack says to Ma. ‘His business is his business. Any man who can’t keep to himself isn’t worth a damn.’ He looks at me. ‘You just keep care of yourself, and understand that there’s no one else who’s looking out for you, understand?’

  ‘Yeah, I understand.’

  ‘You always were the smartest one here. Your father knew that, too. Even when you were young, he’d say to me: That boy’s made of different stuff. Smart. He meant it, too.’

  ‘I’ve never heard that before,’ I say. I look at Ma, for some reason feeling as though she’s been keeping information from me. ‘You never told me that.’

  ‘Like you needed someone else telling you how smart you are? You never lacked for confidence in your own brain.’

  It’s a fair comment, but it still annoys me. I’m about to start an argument about it, but I remember that I have to get back to work and I recall the reason I stopped by in the first place. ‘How are you feeling, Ma?’ I ask.

  ‘Never stronger,’ she says defiantly.

  ‘This morning you were saying—’

  ‘Nothing,’ she says sharply. ‘This morning I was saying nothing.’ She steals a glance at Cormack. ‘He worries. No reason, really. I’m feeling fine.’

  I look at her and realize that she’s wearing lipstick and blusher. I can’t remember the last time she wore makeup.

  ‘He’s just lookin’ out for you,’ Cormack says. ‘He’s a good son.’ He looks at her and smiles, and I can see the lust in his eyes as his eyes meet hers.

  It’s funny, when I was little I remember people talking about how beautiful Ma was. Other men used to joke to my father that they’d put up with her attitude just for one night with her. But when my father died, it was as though she aged decades overnight. Her hardness became heavy, and her edge became serrated. When the cancer came for her, it was like the last of her youth was scared off. Now, sitting here in the kitchen, for the first time in more than decade I can see the woman my father married and put up with, and I get a hint of why.

  At that moment there is a buzzing of a text message on my phone. I take it out of my jacket pocket and look at it. There’s an automatic notice from the NextLife system alerting me that De Sade has activated a LifeScene. I can feel my heart beating, and my throat goes dry. I’d like to think it’s because I’m appalled at the notion that this creature could be practicing his next murder, but that’s not it. Mainly I’m just devastated that there is a chance that he is in a LifeScene with the avatar I’m obsessed with, and I’m missing the chance to see her again. I go through a whole range of emotions as I look at my phone, before I realize I’m no
t alone in the room.

  I glance over at Cormack. He’s still smiling, and he tips his beer to me. The juxtaposition between the rush of desire I’ve just felt thinking about the woman in the LifeScene and the discomfort at the notion that my mother may be having a physical relationship with my father’s old friend is dizzying.

  I stand. ‘I just wanted to swing by, but I’ve got to get back to work.’ I feel like I’m stammering.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Nick,’ Cormack says.

  ‘You too.’

  Ma’s still sitting, so I stand there in limbo for a moment. ‘There’s a bunch of stuff going on at work,’ I say. ‘I’ll probably be late tonight.’

  ‘No problem,’ she says. ‘I’ve been looking after myself for long enough as it is. I’ll be here.’

  I walk out and get into my car, feeling sideways, somehow. Ma’s not actually old, I realize, and it makes sense that she should still have feelings for men. And yet, for whatever reason, I just thought that part of her life was over. It strikes me at that moment how much of our lives are directed by our physical impulses. I think about the obsession I’ve developed over the woman in De Sade’s LifeScene. Then I think about De Sade and the twisted passions that he must feel, and I wonder – if he’s not caught – for how long they will drive him.

  I’m still unsettled when I walk through the door to the basement of the building in Cambridge. I head to the back of the open floor, passing dozens of GhostWalkers splayed out on their chairs, headgear and gloves on, peering in on our members’ most intimate fantasies. The sight only makes me dizzier.

  Yvette is at her station, back near the door to my office. She is sitting in her chair, gloves still on and rolled up above the elbows, but her visor is off, resting on her lap. Her face is flushed and she is glancing off into space.

  ‘Yvette,’ I call to her as I get closer.

  She looks up at me, and the distant look remains for just a moment. Then she shakes her head and her eyes clear. ‘I GhostWalked him again,’ she says. ‘We got a ping, so I went in.’

  ‘I saw it,’ I say. ‘Was it one we already know about?’