For the Win

by Cory Doctorow

  “The Gateway of India,” Yasmin said, and Leonard translated absently.

  To one side stood a hotel as big as the giant conference center hotels near Disneyland, done up like some kind of giant temple, vast and ungainly. Leonard looked at it for a moment, then shooed away the beggars that had approached them. Yasmin scolded them in Hindi and they smiled at her and backed off a few paces, saying something clearly insulting that Yasmin ignored.

  “It’s incredible,” Leonard said.

  “Mumbai is…” Ashok waved his hand. “It’s amazing. Even where we’re going—the other end of the Harbour Line, our humble home, is incredible. I love it here.”

  Wing said, “I loved it in China.” He looked grave.

  “I hope that you can go back again some day,” Ashok said. “All of you. All of us. Anywhere we want.” Wing translated.

  Jie said, “They put down the strikes in China.” Leonard translated.

  Yasmin and Ashok nodded solemnly. “There will be other strikes,” Yasmin said.

  A man was approaching them. A white man, pale and obvious among the crowds, trailing a comet-tail of beggars. Leonard saw him first, then Ashok turned to follow his gaze and whispered “Oh, my, this is interesting.”

  The man drew up to them. He was fat, raccoon-eyed, hair a wild mess around his head. He was wearing a polo shirt emblazoned with the Coca-Cola Games logo, a pair of blue jeans that didn’t fit him well, and Birkenstocks. He couldn’t have looked more American if he were holding up the Statue of Liberty’s torch and singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

  Ashok held his hand out. “Dr. Prikkel, I presume.”

  “Mr. Tilak.” They shook. He turned to Leonard. “Leonard, I believe.”

  Leonard gulped and took the man’s hand. He had a firm, American handshake. The four Chinese Webblies were talking among themselves. Leonard whispered to them, explaining who the man was, explaining that he had no idea what he was doing there.

  “You’ll have to forgive me for the dramatics,” Connor Prikkel said. “I knew that I would have to come to Mumbai to meet with you and your extraordinary friends, curiosity demanded it. But once we put our competitive intelligence people onto your organization, it wasn’t hard to find a hole in your mail server, and from there we intercepted the details of this meeting. I thought it would make an impression if I came in person.”

  “Are you going to call the police?” Wing said, in halting English.

  Prikkel smiled. “Shit, no, son. What good would that do? There’s thousands of you Webbly bastards. No, I figure if Coca-Cola Games is going to be doing business with you, it’d be worth sitting down and chatting. Besides, I had some vacation days I needed to use before the end of the year, which meant I didn’t have to convince my boss to let me come out here.”

  They were blocking the sidewalk and getting jostled every few seconds as someone pushed past them. One of them nearly knocked Prikkel into a zippy three-wheeled cab and Ashok caught his arm and steadied him.

  “Are you going to fire the Turks who joined the Webblies?” Leonard said, thinking, Are you going to fire me?

  Prikkel made a face. “Not my department, but to be totally honest, I think that’s probably a good bet. Everyone who signed your little petition.” He shrugged. “I can do stuff like take money out of that bastard’s account when your friend’s life is at stake—it’s not like he’s gonna complain, right? But how Coke Games contracts with its workforce? Not my department.”

  Yasmin’s eyes blazed. “You can’t—we won’t let you.”

  “That’s a rather interesting proposition,” he said, and two men holding a ten-foot-long tray filled with round tin lunchpails squeezed past him, knocking him into Jie. Beggars surged back in their wake, tugging at Prikkel’s jeans. Yasmin scolded them loudly and forceful enough to peel paint. They backed off a step. “I think we could certainly have a good time discussing the idea that the Webblies get a say in who we fire.” He gestured toward the huge wedding-cake hotel. “I’m staying at the Taj. Care to join me for lunch?”

  Ashok looked at Yasmin, and something unspoken passed between them. “Let us take you out for lunch,” Ashok said. “As our guest. We know a wonderful place in Dharavi. It’s only a short train journey.”

  Prikkel looked at each of them in turn, then shrugged. “You know what? I’d be honored.”

  They set off for the train station, buzzing with conversation, shooing beggars, avoiding the traffic, translating to one another.

  When Jie learned where they were going, and why, she snorted. “I can’t wait to broadcast this.” Leonard grinned. He couldn’t wait either.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Russell Galen, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and my beautiful and enormously patient wife, Alice—I couldn’t have written this without you three. Thanks also to Teresa Nielsen Hayden for a sensitive and productive edit, and to Sarah Hodgson for invaluable editorial feedback.

  Thanks to the Silklisters, Rishab Ghosh, and Ashok Banker and Yoda, Keyan Bowes, Rajeev Suri, Sachin Janghel, Vishal Gondal, Sushant Bhalerao, and Menyu Singh for all your assistance in Mumbai.

  Thanks to LEMONed, Andrew Lih, Paul Denlinger, Bunnie Huang, Kaiser Kuo, Anne Stevenson-Yang, Leslie Chang, Ethan Zuckerman, John Kennedy, Marilyn Terrell, Peter Hessler, Christine Lu, Jon Phillips, and Henry Oh for invaluable aid in China.

  Thanks to Julian Dibbell, Ge Jin, Matthew Chew, James Seng, Jonas Luster, Steven Davis, Dan Kelly, and Victor Pineiro for help with the gold farmers.

  Thanks to Raph Koster for help with gamerese and game-mechanics.

  Thanks to Max Keiser, Alan Wexelblat, and Mark Soderstrom for economics advice.

  Thanks to Thomas “CmdLn” Gideon, Dan McDonald, Kurt Von Finck, Canonical, Inc, and Ken Snider for tech support!

  Thanks to MrBrown and the Singapore bloggers for unforgettable street dinners.

  Thanks also to JP Rangaswami and to Marilyn Tyrell.

  Many thanks to Ken MacLeod for letting me use IWWWW and “Webbly.”

  If the seller of this electronic version has imposed contractual or technical restrictions on it such that you have difficulty reformatting or converting this book for use on another device or in another program, please visit http://craphound.com for alternate, open format versions, authorized by the copyright holder for this work, Cory Doctorow. While Cory cannot release you from any contractual or other legal obligations to anyone else that you may have agreed to when purchasing this version, you have his blessing to do anything that is consistent with applicable copyright laws in your jurisdiction.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  FOR THE WIN

  Copyright © 2010 by Cory Doctorow

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden

  A Tor Teen Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  ISBN: 978-0-7653-2216-6