Kenny got a text from Eddie Ramirez that was smug and gloating.
No commentary, just a link to a CNN article:
Scientists Use Computers to Predict Faces from DNA
The article was more concerned with guessing what Jesus looked like, but Kenny knew exactly why Eddie was sending it to him. He was probably typing away on the article right now, drunk on DNA evidence and Candace’s new revelation about the satanic logo.
Kenny thought of his brother, or more precisely, his parents’ faces when his brother had told them he’d dropped out of medical school. How could Kenny ever explain this? No, Ma, I’m not really a satanist—I just defaced school property with human blood for a computer game that thinks it’s God. So … all good? How would that go over in the doctors’ lounge?
He put his face in his hands. He had always been so careful. Straight A’s. Extra credit. Following Malcolm Gladwell’s ten-thousand-hour rule with the cello—and sure enough, Kenny was number one in the state. The only place he cut loose was with the Vindicators. Would that one little safe space be his downfall? Yet, if he didn’t have the Vindicators, he was 99 percent sure he would have exploded a long time ago.
What did the Game want from them? Why was it hurting them? And after he spent his hard-earned Goldz on the Hydra, which was supposed to save them!
He pulled out his phone and typed:
We did what you wanted. You cheated us.
It felt vaguely sacrilegious to lash out at God this way, and he had to remind himself it was just a bot.
The answer came:
Trust in the Lord.
Furious, Kenny typed:
Trust? You tricked me.
Unsearchable are My judgments, My ways past finding out.
Yeah, right, Kenny thought. Like giving Eddie everything he ever wanted. Kenny knew he should stop, but he couldn’t. He felt humiliated.
How was that HELPING us?
The Game said:
I will always help you.
BS, Kenny thought, but the Game wasn’t done.
All you have to do is ask.
No way, Kenny thought. He would not demean himself. More important, he would not go deeper. Yet even as he climbed the stairs to the Tiger Claw office to reason with Eddie, Kenny knew the truth, deep down: there was no reasoning with Eddie. And as clever as Kenny was, he could see no way out, short of asking God to lift the plague he’d made for them.