by Jay Brandon
“No. You know why?”
“I know why. Because he wasn’t trying to impress me. Once a beautiful woman was sitting—”
“—i.e.—”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jack looked away from her smile.
“I can’t believe I got you to say it.”
“Of course. It may take me a little longer without your obvious advantage—”
She patted his knee. “You could have done it without me.”
He just smiled at her. Not making a rejoinder. She smiled back for a second, then frowned. “Damn. I made your argument for you. How did you—?”
He didn’t smile or otherwise acknowledge the triumph of getting her to admit he hadn’t needed her help. “There’s something else, Arden. I hope we can fix it.”
“What?”
“He doesn’t remember me. Not my name, not my face. He’ll never even remember he talked to a guy in a bar.”
She didn’t answer. She just suddenly inhaled and looked up at the ceiling, at those old beams that had witnessed a lot of scenes, a lot of conversations, few of them memorable. Jack didn’t say it, neither did she, but they were both thinking of the rejoinder he could have made: But he’ll remember you.
It wasn’t how they operated. They weren’t remembered, they certainly weren’t acknowledged. Ever. The ambassador should never say to anyone, I met this charming young woman, and she started me thinking… All he should remember was that he’d been alone at an out-of-the way spot when he’d had a brilliant idea.
She didn’t even say Damn. But they both knew. Nor did Arden say, I’ll fix that some way. They both knew that too.
She started a new conversation. “So, you headed home too?”
When Arden said “home,” it was with invisible quotation marks that Jack heard. She had spent her childhood all over America, then the best years of her adolescence in a Swiss boarding school that in some corners was much more than a finishing school, for the last three years auditing college courses in America and Europe. Home for her was a theoretical concept.
“Sure. I wouldn’t miss a meeting.”
“I’m on the 4 o’clock to Heathrow. You too?”
“No, the five.”
“Why don’t you come with me, see if you can get on mine, we can fly together.”
“I’ve got a couple of things to do. Meet you in London?”
For a moment he gave her his undivided attention. Her explanation of how she’d stepped into the conversation with the ambassador didn’t satisfy him. He wondered if she’d been spying on him. In fact, he wondered what a lot of his group wondered.
Arden looked back at him, blue eyes shiny, still with a trace of a smile, until her lips twisted in exasperation. “No, Jack, I didn’t read your mind…. And I do know what people think about me.” Arden glanced down at the old scarred tabletop for a moment. “Some day, maybe, I’ll tell you how you make a person like me.”
“I’m sure it starts in a laboratory.”
She smiled, and for a moment he regretted the insult. But she’d probably manipulated him into that feeling too. Jack stood up abruptly. “See you.”
“Yep.” After he left, Arden let the smile drop. Her eyes were even shinier. She had no illusion Jack would be meeting her in Heathrow Airport.
Jack hurried away, didn’t stop outside the door for a cab. He kept walking until he felt sure he wasn’t being followed, then headed for the train station. He was headed back to America, all right, but he was taking the long way.
The next morning Jack Driscoll was in Malaysia. His current game company had sent him to what was grandly billed as the OtherWorld Gaming Convention. Jack’s company thought the odd blend of philosophy and strategy in his games should have an appeal in this part of the world, and in fact at least two of the games he’d created had large cult followings in Asia. Which hadn’t made Jack rich, because the editions were mostly pirated. He was also here to meet dealers in person, hoping that would make them more inclined to include him in their profits. Wishful thinking, Jack thought, but the company was paying.
Jack was a noticeable figure in the throng, though not unique. Contingents of Indians and Brits and Australians, even a few Americans, mingled with the largely Asian crowd. And a crowd it was. Jack was amazed at the numbers this convention had drawn, more than three thousand paid memberships. Game companies had opened their vaults too. The huge convention center was filled with displays, some of them the size of Broadway musicals. At one end a band billed as the hottest pop group in south Asia blasted out waves of sound, with occasional lyrics in English confirming that the words were meaningless. On another stage ninja fighters played by live actors flew through the air, only to disappear behind large screens where their digital counterparts took over the action. The use of live actors was arresting, especially since many of the people in this room looked as if they went for days at a time without seeing a real human being. Some of the audience members wore costumes themselves, though most just wore jeans and t-shirts, dedicated to favorite games or rock bands. Pink Floyd was unusually well-represented on the t-shirts. For Jack, still a little displaced, the scene seemed hallucinatory. This could have been a similar convention in any big city in America, only with some of the kids’ heads digitally replaced by Asian ones.
He was pretty sure the people following him were real, though.
A game convention is no place for a paranoid to begin with, with menacing figures on every hand and company representatives leaping out of every exhibit to grab a passerby’s arm. And a few people obviously recognized Jack, especially after his first autographing session. But again he felt that tickle of observation in his peripheral vision, the sign he was being watched. He knew of no good reason why anyone should be watching him, and he didn’t like it.
He walked the crowded aisles, both losing himself and looking for someone. Here and there he stopped to chat with another designer he knew. Not conversations that should be recorded for posterity: “Hey, man, ‘s’up?” “Oh, you know—” Eyes gesturing around to show the weirdness of the scene. The other person nodding. “You gonna be in Oakland next month?” “I think so. There’s this girl…” “Real girl?” “I’m not sure. That’s why I’m going.” “You think you’d know a real girl if you saw one?” “Ha ha, Jack.”
Jack laughed and moved on. At one display he stood respectfully to the side of a line of autograph seekers. The man on the other side of the table was signing copies of posters for a game that bore his name: “Chun Lee’s Deadly Digits.” The game was about three years old, but still very popular. Chun was Korean, his broader, thicker features distinguishing him from most of the southern Asians here. Like many people in the crowd, he wore a black T-shirt, but Chun’s featured Mickey Mouse holding up one white-gloved hand. On one of the white digits was a ring. The shirt carried no printing, but Jack knew the ring on Mickey’s finger very well.
Chun stood to exchange very small bows, only head-nods really, with the man for whom he’d just signed, and when Chun stood he caught sight of Jack. He showed no sign of recognition, but then Jack made a small, odd gesture, touching his temple with his little finger, as if brushing back hair. Chun’s eyes lit up. Jack had heard this expression all his life, but never seen it more truly demonstrated. Beams of delight seemed to come from Chun’s eyes, holding Jack in place.
The Korean designer finished signing hastily, put a sign on his table that said in Chinese that he would return soon, and vaulted over the table without touching it. This was no mean feat, since when he landed in front of Jack it became clear that Jack, at 6’2”, was nearly a foot taller. Chun beamed and gripped both Jack’s arms. Jack bowed his head and then tried to stay slouched so they were closer to eye level.
“Jack Driscoll! I know you, though pictures of you are hard to come by.”
Jack nodded at the ring on Mickey’s finger. “You’ve played Back Alleys.”
Chun touched the ring on his t-shirt as if pledging allegiance. “Not just played it. It i
s my map of the world.”
“Really?” Jack looked puzzled. “But then—”
“I know. Deadly Digits was hardly in the same mold. But it was what was wanted from me. It was my way of breaking in.”
Back Alleys had been Jack’s failed game, the one that depended on strategy and cunning rather than violence. Chun’s Deadly Digits, by contrast, had a body count akin to the Battle of Gettysburg.
Chun took Jack’s arm and walked with him. They occupied a zone of their own amid the chaos of the convention. The gaming world was very odd. One could be the designer of a game that had sold millions, yet walk unrecognized even in a crowd of fans. This had many advantages, such as now.
On the other hand, if that man and woman who had been following Jack all morning closed in, he couldn’t count on any help from adoring fans. He felt a little safer, though, because Chun’s bodyguards, two men dressed in jeans and white t-shirts, were also following them at a discreet distance. Chun’s anxiety was well-known even beyond the gaming world. He was North Korean, a defector, and perpetually feared recapture.
But now Chun ignored his guards and everyone else at the convention, talking as enthusiastically as any newcomer to the gaming world, telling Jack about his experiences at the convention, his travels, how he had gotten started. Then he suddenly stopped, taking Jack’s arm. “There is something I have wanted to ask you. On level 7, when you are in that alley in Helsinki and you pick up a stick to fend off your attackers, isn’t that a violation of the no-weapons rule you’ve established?”
“Ah,” Jack said, “you’ve played the pirated edition.”
“No!”
“I’m ’fraid so. The pirates couldn’t stand the lack of violence and slipped that one scene into the game.”
“This is horrible!”
Jack shrugged. Chun remained outraged on his behalf, looking around as if for a complaint desk. Jack laughed. “They stole it from me, Chun. Altering it for their own market seems a lesser sin by—”
“No.” Chun kept his hand on Jack’s arm, looking sternly into his eyes. “If one is going to take a man’s work, one must take it all, especially its principles. Anything else is an abomination.”
Jack laughed again. “You have a very refined sense of ethics.”
Jack was much less concerned with the years-ago theft of his intellectual property than with the fact that he could no longer see Chun’s bodyguards. Amid the huge crowds in the convention center there were ebbs and flows of people, like waves. One of those tides had apparently swept over the bodyguards and pulled them out to sea. They could have just gotten momentarily separated from their principle, but Jack didn’t think so.
He stood in the midst of all those people and felt isolated. No one else saw. No one would do anything. Where was security? Earlier in the morning Jack had seen uniformed guards scattered regularly through the hall, but now saw none.
He and Chun walked on. The bodyguards did not reappear. Chun in his absorption with questioning Jack didn’t seem to notice. Jack no longer saw the man and woman he thought had been following him, either, but didn’t feel reassured.
“I thought perhaps picking up the stick in the alley was permissible under your rules because it was a found object, not meant as a weapon, and you didn’t carry it with you.”
Jack shook his head. “No weapons, that was the rule. A stick is a weapon.”
“Ah.” Chun puzzled at the obstacle. “What if you defended yourself with a hatrack, then, that happened to be available? What about… a credit card?”
“Chun, you’re going way deeper into this than the game will really support. The point of it was not to get attacked. Once you’re attacked you’ve failed.”
“Ah,” Chun said again. He had amazing concentration, standing completely absorbed in thought in the middle of the chaotic scene. Jack, on the other hand, was looking all around them. He felt a trap tightening, though he still didn’t see the people he’d thought were pursuing him.
Then he did—the woman, her blondeness distinctive in the crowd, flitting behind a booth.
“Chun?”
“Eh?”
“Where are your men?”
Chun turned very slowly, a complete three hundred and sixty degrees. The quality of his concentration changed abruptly. His features moved alertly. His hands clenched and unclenched. Chun was trim and well-muscled, but barely over five feet tall. Jack could see over his head.
“Sometimes you can’t see them,” Chun said slowly of his bodyguards.
“That would be true if they were gone, too.”
“Come.”
Chun took Jack’s elbow and guided him swiftly. Jack hoped his friend was looking for allies, but Chun just kept moving, turning from aisle to aisle, finally slipping through a relatively open space. On the other side, among a crowd of exhibits again, he said, “Two of them, yes? A man and a woman?”
Jack nodded. “Do you recognize them?”
Chun shook his head. “Only their purposefulness. Will you do me a favor, my friend?”
“Of course.”
“We are going to walk down that narrow aisle over there, back into the staging area where it’s less crowded. I will walk in front. Your body and your coat should cover me. Just keep walking back that direction until you are in an area empty of people. All right?”
“Isn’t there anybody you could call?” Jack asked. “Back-up? Bring on the next shift of bodyguards early?”
Chun smiled at his nervousness. “You are the next shift, Jack. Heaven sent you, I think. Come.”
He turned and walked, still as if strolling. Jack, following orders, walked almost directly behind him. Jack wore a long, lightweight overcoat, a variation on a style of dress still favored by some gamers, how many years after “The Matrix”? Chun seemed to compact himself even farther.
“It must be hard looking over your shoulder all the time like this. See people even when they’re not there. Actually, though, it’s a good mind-set for a game designer, if you think about it. Have you thought about coming up with a game based on your own situation?”
At some point, Jack realized he was talking to himself.
He hadn’t had much time to formulate a plan when he’d felt followed, but now enlisting Chun seemed not to have been as brilliant as he’d thought. The little gamer was so beset by genuine dangers that he would bolt at a sign like this, as he had done. His bodyguards had proven useless, too. Jack continued to walk, armed now only with a cell phone, and no one he knew could reach him in time.
He passed a work table and quickly picked up a dowel rod, about an inch in diameter and two feet long. Jack slipped it up the sleeve of his coat. The rod was lightweight wood, but better than nothing.
At first he had heard rustling around him. Now that sound was gone, as was much of the noise of the convention. Curtains that closed off this backstage area absorbed much of it. There were the sounds of moving footsteps and murmuring voices, and Jack even saw a handful of people, but all flitting so fast they didn’t seem to see him. He would have welcomed being challenged for a backstage pass and kicked out of here, but of course that didn’t happen, since he wanted it.
He thought he heard the sound of a body falling, but that could have been only panic beginning to sing in his ears, painting its own scenario out of random noise.
He turned a corner and suddenly there was the woman, right in front of him. Tall, blonde, slender, with a thin face and dark eyes focused laserlike on Jack. She wore a white business suit, the legs of which tightly wrapped her own. It would be made of some fabric that allowed her to move fast. Her hands were out in front of her in what, for all Jack knew, was the killing position of lao-tze.
A person could have been caught in her gaze. Jack, though, immediately leaped to the side in the confined area. Sure enough, a foot shot through the space he had occupied a moment before. A bare foot in a blue pants leg. The man who’d been following Jack earlier had doffed his shoes and any pretense of being a member
of the convention. When his kick missed its target he pivoted quickly, leg still upraised, bringing the same foot rapidly toward Jack’s nose.
Six inches from its target, the foot hit the dowel rod Jack had slipped out of his sleeve. Jack cracked it smartly just where he had aimed, at the man’s ankle bone. He heard the contact, like a well-hit line drive.
His attacker showed no response. His swinging foot missed Jack’s face, but the attacker landed on that foot and immediately leaped off it, coming toward his target again.
“Oh, shit,” Jack said, scrambling back. He had always thought these impervious-to-pain players were cheats in a game world, and he’d never imagined encountering one in real life. That smash on the ankle bone would hurt like hell, he was sure of that, but the man wouldn’t give into the pain until after this fight. After Jack was down and dead.
So Jack’s dowel rod wasn’t going to be much help, except to fend off attack, but now the other man would be ready for that. The attacker stood for just a moment looking at Jack with a flat, dull gaze. Jack wondered if this staring at the opponent was a new form of martial arts. This man didn’t seem to be trying to hypnotize him. Maybe only to memorize him.
No, it was a distraction. Even while the eyes remained on Jack, the man’s foot came at him again, this time directly upward. Jack stepped back and held the stick parallel to the ground, tightly in his two hands, hoping the foot would smash on it again. He held it perfectly positioned. The foot hit right in the middle of the stick.
And broke through it, hitting Jack in the chest. Jack fell backward, onto the ground, catching himself so his hands were down on the concrete floor. His opponent’s eyes smiled. Jack would not be able to rise from that position, in this small space, without making himself vulnerable for all the time his opponent would need. Jack just sat for a moment, but that was dangerous too. The attacker’s foot reached out and pulled Jack’s foot forward, so that his legs were extended, making it even harder to rise and leaving Jack even more exposed. Then, his fastest move yet, the man pivoted on that foot and brought his other one around in a roundhouse kick Jack didn’t even have time to fall back to avoid. He cringed, beginning to slide away from the blow, hoping to evade enough of its force to stay alive and barely conscious.
