39 THE CATACOMB OF VEILS
Charlie found a terminal in a corner of the library, where he could focus. A public computer, not linked to him. He went to Google and typed, How do I quit the God Game?
He hit Enter.
Nothing happened.
All he saw was the blank white page, the Google logo, and the text box below it. Still the cleanest, purest website on earth. No muss, no fuss. Just an empty page, a question, an answer.
Charlie typed in again:
How do I quit the God Game?
He hit Enter.
Nothing.
The text box just blinked empty.
“Come on.”
He typed, What is the God Game?
Nothing.
Who made the God Game?
Nothing.
How did it do that? Had the game hacked Google? Unlikely. Had it commandeered his screen?
He tried another angle.
How do I make a hat?
Enter.
And on and on and on.
He typed:
What is a fart?
Enter.
So the internet was still intact. He typed:
What is the God Game?
Nothing.
No answer.
He googled Friends of the Crypt. Only two of their names were public: the rest were minors at the time, their names sealed. There was Dave Meyer, the leader, who killed himself. And Scott Parker, who’d gone to jail. Charlie typed in:
Scott Parker Austin Friends Crypt
The latest mention was a tenth-anniversary story in the Austin Chronicle. It mentioned Parker being released from prison. But after that there was nothing. Charlie couldn’t trace him.
A quote from Mr. Burklander was in the follow-up article: “We think we know what’s going on in teenagers’ hearts, but they’re a black box. We only see what they let us see.”
Other groups like Charlie’s had to out there. Like the FOTC. He was missing something. A back door. A way to search.
On a hunch, he went back to the original game page. The circus tent and the taunting lizard-Trump. He scanned down until he saw what was on the edge of his memory.
COme inside and play with G.O.D.
Ding!
That was it. The something he’d remembered.
It was an acronym. What did it stand for?
Good Old Dad? Game of Drones? Get off Drugs?
He googled G.O.D.
Two billion results came back. Merriam-Webster: “the supreme or ultimate reality.” Wikipedia: “omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence.” Endless pictures of white men in the sky.
Then he remembered: Google ignores periods. G.O.D. and God were the same in its eyes. He smacked the keyboard.
Still, there had to be a way.
He searched for How do you search with periods in Google?, which made him laugh out loud, partly because he was googling Google, which felt like staring down an infinite reflection of mirror on mirror. And partly because he was losing it a little.
But the search worked.
He found a forum of people who enjoyed talking about how to search in Google. Mooredc54 said, With some exceptions, punctuation is ignored (that is, you can’t search for @#$%∧&*()=+[]\ and other special characters).
But: The underscore symbol _ is not ignored.
Okay. That was worth a try. He liked the sound of it. Underscore sounded like underworld. Maybe it was meant to be.
He searched for G_O_D_.
Now there only 1,560 results.
Way better than two billion.
And weirder. As if he had peeled a layer off the internet and gone deeper. It wasn’t the Dark Web. That required a special browser and was filled with things he wanted no part of. But this branch of the larger Web was a strange avenue, a narrow alley. It felt like an older Web, before it was colonized by global corporations.
The links were cryptic. Bizarre, even.
Wittgenstein’s language game as practical theology—YouTube
10000 Meters.G_o_D.+2-GAYnesis_Prollcheckers—Commodore 64 …
Steam Community:: *G_O_D*
G_O_D—Summary—DOTABUFF—Dota 2 Stats
How the US worships G_O_D Gold, Oil and Drugs—We are Anonymous
[Обсуждение]—Anime, обсуждение, критика, манга, фан-арт …
He began sorting through the results. They were closer in style, but nothing relevant in substance. It was too much to go through. It would take hours. Days. Even at a measly 1,560.
He tried combinations: G_O_D_ Game secret. G_O_D_ Game hack. G_O_D_ Game underground. G_O_D_ Game dead.
The last one was a hit.
He stumbled onto a forum talking about hacking Reddit, but as he read deeper, he started seeing another conversation within the thread.
game play G.O.D. fourset suitable hax don’t play heeb’s dead
Someone quoted that deeper down and said:
KHS
No. didn’t lissen too many blaxx. bullshit KHS
Original poster:
STFU
Charlie scrolled down further.
How out?
No out
sure KYS
TT dead
ATTW 3
Charlie couldn’t help but wonder: KHS? “Killed himself.” TT dead? Another player. ATTW—and then there were 3? How out? Kill yourself.
It all had an eerily familiar ring. Like the Friends of the Crypt. Like his friends.
He scrolled further and found the conversation down to two people.
One of them kept demanding a private chat.
121
no
121
No
1TG
TN8
1TG
TN8
And then it stopped. The hacking thread went on, but the subconversation weaving through it stopped after “One to Go. Tonight. One to Go. Tonight.”
That was three years ago. In some unknown place.
The conversation went dead after that.
Charlie rubbed his eyes. He went back to Google and typed:
How do I quit G_O_D_?
He hit Enter.
No answer.
But the word above the text box had changed.
Instead of Google, it said:
Golog
How do I quit G_O_D_?
He hit Enter again.
Gog
How do I quit G_O_D_?
Enter.
Magog
How do I quit G_O_D_?
Enter.
Moloch
How do I quit G_O_D_?
Enter.
Baphomet
How do I quit G_O_D_?
Enter.
Eat Shit!
How do I quit G_O_D_?
Enter.
Eat Shit!
How do I quit G_O_D_?
Enter.
Eat Shit! Eat Shit! You Can’t Quit!
How do I quit G_O_D_?