Authors: Anders de la Motte
The Game Trilogy (7 page)
And the text on the door looked pretty damn good:
REMEMBER
RULE
NUMBER
ONE!
That was a message the grass inside was guaranteed never to forget. A little reminder from the Game Master about what the rules were, basically. Silence is golden …
Bloody hell, he was a body-builder or something, because he looked pretty fucking solid when he came storming out onto the landing.
The sequence from the yard was almost as good. Because he’d only been half-lying on top of the wall, the camera had been pointing in the right direction and he could get a better idea of the effects of his kicking.
You could make out a powerful lower arm and parts of a furious face sliding in and out of shot, then his own size forty-three Nike landing in the middle of the gorilla’s face before everything became a mess of sky and soil when he fell down the other side of the wall.
At a guess, the orc had been too pumped up on steroids to get over the wall.
Too bad, sucker!
Time to cut back on the anabolics.
He grinned broadly and pressed repeat one more time.
The fans liked it when you fried rats. The comments had already started to appear and his average rating had crept closer to four stars. With a bit more exposure he should have passed the boundary to ‘good’ by the morning.
And why not? After all, he was pretty much born for this. A hitman in the service of the Game Master!
The jacket had been a stroke of genius, the new clip was a hell of a lot better than the previous ones. You could even watch the run down Karlbergsvägen without feeling seasick, and he made a note to remember to pull off the balaclava sooner next time. It wasn’t until a couple of old women had screamed in terror somewhere near Hälsingegatan that he had remembered that he still had his face covered.
He’d make sure he did better next time.
Because there was definitely going to be a next time!
All the king’s horses …
From:
Talent Acquisition
To:
Game Master
Subject:
Candidate Evaluation 128
Name:
Henrik Pettersson
Alias:
HP
Age:
31
Height:
179 cm
Weight:
72 kg
Build:
Slight
Hair:
Medium blond
Eyes:
Blue (see attached passport photograph)
Status:
Unmarried
Family:
One sibling (a sister with whom he has only sporadic contact)
Both parents deceased
Profession:
Various, currently unemployed
Address:
Maria Trappgränd 7, Södermalm, Stockholm, a two-room flat which he inherited from his mother
Number of completed assignments:
5
Total points:
2200
Current ranking:
23
Current level:
3
Method of recruitment:
Recommendation
Education:
9 years of basic Swedish schooling, mixed grades
Started but did not complete 3-year course in economics in Swedish high school
Has twice started but never completed adult education courses
Other qualifications:
None
Leisure interests:
The candidate spends most of his time watching television and films, mainly American TV series, action films, comedies and erotica. He often plays Counterstrike without belonging to any particular group or clan. Less regular player of World of Warcraft where his avatars are usually Rogues belonging to the Horde.
Internet habits:
thefragarena.com, various file-sharing sites for downloading films and music, the Block (a Swedish trading site often used to dispose of stolen goods), YouTube, as well as various pornographic sites. A frequent user of MSN. Has recently opened a Hotmail account under the name Badboy.128
Medical history:
One broken arm and two broken ribs in relatively quick succession during the 80s. The case was passed on to social services on suspicion of child abuse.
Appendix removed 1992. Latest medical examination 2007 (conducted during probation) showed no abnormalities apart from THC in his blood (the active substance in cannabis-related drugs such as hash and marijuana). No history of allergies, heart problems, impaired immune system or intolerance to any medication.
Social service records:
After the referral from the health service (see above) the children were placed in care for the duration of the investigation. This decision was revoked a short while later and the case was dropped. Further instances of suspected child abuse followed, but the only result was a number of visits by social workers. One entry in the register refers to a police report, but this could not been identified.
Father deceased 1995 (stroke), mother 1997 (cancer). The records also mention the candidate’s use of narcotics (hash and marijuana), as well as truancy and disruptive behaviour at school. There is also a care-plan established after a district court judgement (see below).
Criminal record and police register:
The candidate’s first conviction occurred shortly after his seventeenth birthday, and concerned numerous instances of minor narcotics offences and one instance of vehicle theft: he was given a probationary sentence under the supervision of social services.
Shortly after his eighteenth birthday he was convicted of aggravated manslaughter and sentenced to ten months in a secure young offenders’ institution. Later entries in police surveillance logs indicate minor narcotics offences, suspected trafficking in stolen goods, and minor larceny.
His most recent conviction was almost two years ago, for one case of dealing in stolen goods, one instance of aggravated unlawful driving and one instance of minor narcotics offences. As a result he received a probationary sentence and a fine.
Other official records:
The candidate has five notifications for non-payment registered with the enforcement service, principally for unpaid household bills for his electricity and telephone, as well as unpaid standing charges for the building he lives in. It is worth noting that every case has been resolved before the bailiffs were called because his sister settled the debt.
Personal characteristics:
All sources describe the candidate in similar terms. He is intelligent, quick-thinking and imaginative, but is also described as lazy, unreliable and self-centred. He usually prefers simple solutions to long-term engagement, has obvious problems with authority and has few serious friendships or family relationships.
Assignments:
Apart from the trial assignment (scenario 12a), the candidate has successfully
carried out four assignments (up to difficulty level C3).
He regularly watches his own film-clips, checks the comments often, and is quick to respond positively to invitations of new assignments.
So far the candidate has shown no signs of doubt or anxiety about possible consequences, either on his own account or such as the assignments might generate.
Recommendation:
Candidate 128 demonstrates almost all of the qualities required by a successful Player. He is impulsive, intelligent and dynamic, whilst exhibiting little or no empathy for others.
The candidate appears to regard himself as an unfortunate victim or outsider. Someone who for reasons unknown is always being unfairly treated or is simply unlucky. He therefore believes that he has the right to do what is best for himself in all circumstances, usually at the expense of others or of society, and for the same reason, without having to take any responsibility for his actions.
The candidate has no family to speak of, has problems with long-term relationships and intimacy, as well as with trusting or being trusted by others.
Even if money plays a part in his motivation, his main incentive is recognition and attention (so-called ‘cred’) from his peers. For someone
who loathes authority, 128 allows himself to be led surprisingly easily, but only under the condition that he can perceive all choices and decisions as his own, and that everything is happening on his terms.
In light of this, the undersigned recommends that the candidate is raised to level two and that further evaluation take place after an assignment of level D1 difficulty.
Sincerely,
Donovan
Talent Acquisition
HP was fucking like he was in a trance.
He was Rocco Sifredi, Paul Thomas, and obviously the legendary Ron ‘The Hedgehog’ Jeremy, all rolled into one. This evening he was the Emperor of Fucking, and he twisted and turned his willing but still somewhat surprised partner in order to explore all imaginable variations of copulation.
The third shag within two hours or so, way beyond his usual average. They had already worked their way through a quick ride on the sofa, then a standing missionary fuck on the kitchen table with her long legs resting on his shoulders, and he was currently busy frenetically penetrating the lady in question from behind with such force that the entire bed seemed on the point of collapse.
His hands had a firm grasp of her broad hips. Breasts and arse bouncing in time with her moans of pleasure, as he speared her harder and harder with his rock-hard porn-star cock.
‘A bit more, a bit more, I’m almost there,’ she whimpered
breathlessly. But he didn’t give a damn. Because he was the King of Fucking, the Prince of Penetration, the Ayatollah of Fuck’n’Rolla! But, more important than that, he was also Mr Clip of the Week, first Runner-up and number one hundred and twenty-fucking-eight! The coolest dude in the Game, and the thought of that made him considerably harder than his partner and her undoubted feminine charms could ever have done.
With a couple of final powerful thrusts he concluded his masterpiece, and at the moment he pulled out and sent a cascade of slushy love-joy over her sweaty back there was only one thought in his mind: he should have had the camera on!
She lay next to him in the darkness and glanced over at his sleeping silhouette. Maybe not the smartest guy in the world, exactly, but at least he was damn good in bed and this evening he had seemed unusually inspired.
They had known each other for about six months, after meeting in a bar somewhere in the city centre, and because she had been feeling particularly lonely and in need of physical intimacy she had, against all of her usual principles, gone back to his flat with him that same evening. The sex had been good right from the start and after that it had been difficult to stop.
There was something about him that appealed to her, that got her going. Not that he was especially handsome or exaggeratedly sexy, he was probably somewhere in the middle on both scales. Maybe it was simply the fact that he wasn’t a police officer but just a completely normal bloke who lived in the completely normal world that appealed to her most. Either way, they met up every now and then, usually when
she
was in the mood. She wasn’t after a relationship and he had never protested against the arrangement
that had developed. But she still couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was exploiting him. Rebecca suspected, or possibly hoped, that he already had a proper relationship, but she had chosen not to ask and he hadn’t felt obliged to tell her anything more about himself. Whatever it was they shared, it wasn’t about feelings but physical attraction, and that didn’t really call for any details, or at least that was what she liked to think.
Oh well, it probably didn’t matter. They were fuck-buddies, to be blunt about it, even if she wasn’t fond of that particular term. She stroked his back guiltily and heard him mutter something in his sleep.
The Game Master had promised him an entirely new world, and so far he wasn’t fucking disappointed! He could watch the clips any number of times, and by now he probably already had.
Assignment number four had been pretty neat. He had removed the wheel nuts from a Ferrari belonging to a sleazy lawyer while the victim was sitting ten metres away having an after-work drink with his hotshot friends at Sturehof’s pavement café. The car was of course parked in the parking bay for deliveries beside the concrete mushroom in the middle of Stureplan, so that everyone could see his flashy penis extension, but in spite of that no-one had noticed a thing.
The tools were waiting for him, neatly wrapped up in a plastic bag, inside the cistern of one of the toilets in the Sture Gallery, and once HP had got going it had taken him less than three minutes to remove the nuts on the wheels facing the street.
Even though it was Friday evening and the place was crowded, no-one reacted to what he was doing, not even the cop who strolled past just half a metre behind his
back. It was actually bloody weird that people cared so little about what other people were doing, at least until Mr Sleazy Lawyer tried to do a wheel-spinning u-turn to head back up Kungsgatan.
Both wheels flew off more or less instantly and suddenly the stupid bastard got considerably more attention than he had been expecting. Apart from the hundred or so who stood there laughing and pointing in an outpouring of Schadenfreude, HP counted at least five others apart from him who were filming the beautiful car as it sat there straddling Sturegatan. The shiny and presumably absurdly expensive disc-brakes were properly embedded in the tarmac, and according to the report in the
Dagens Nyheter
the following day it had taken almost an hour for the recovery truck to get the vehicle cleared out of the way.
But by then HP was long gone. He hated Stureplan, more than ever at weekends, and didn’t want to spend any more time there than was absolutely necessary.
The last he had seen of the car’s owner was the grown man standing there crying like a little girl, leaning on the boot of his ruined darling car, but HP hadn’t felt the slightest bit of sympathy for his victim. Mr Sleazy must have deserved the treatment, you could tell just by looking at his stuck-up face, his back-slicked hair all greasy with Rogaine, and his flashy suit. With a car like that, you were practically asking for trouble, and that’s precisely what HP had provided.
HP had never liked lawyers anyway. The only time he had ever been stupid enough to employ a law-twister, it hadn’t exactly helped him. The bastard had been completely incompetent, hadn’t done his homework, kept calling him Håkan and stank of drink masked by mints in court. HP should have known better than to accept the first name suggested by the court, but he had only just turned
eighteen and even if he knew all the signs of heavy drinking backwards, it would take a bit longer before he had the same sort of grasp of the legal system.
Everything had been a complete fucking mess that time.
Ten months in a secure young offenders’ institution had been the result.
Public defender, my arse! More like ‘public defiler’, as he recalled.
So now at least he got the chance to deliver a bit of payback to the sleazy ambulance chasers, and it felt pretty damn good!
Suck my cock, you stuck-up Stureplan wankers!
And crooks, he thought to himself, to judge by Mr Crybaby’s ridiculously expensive ride.
As per his instructions, he had the wheel nuts couriered anonymously to the law-firm the following week, and for the first time it dawned on him that everything, the whole deal with the Game, was a hell of a lot bigger than he had imagined.
Because what was really the point of sending the wheel nuts back to Mr Sleazy? It was almost like doing him a favour, probably saving him a few thousand kronor on the repair bill. Why not ditch them in the waters of Nybroviken and have done with it?
The only answer he could think of was that someone wanted to see the look on the lawyer’s face when he got the package. And that was when the penny finally dropped. That there were actually other players like him out there, not just in the USA, but here in Sweden, and probably in other countries as well.