Heading back to the restaurant for the opening, Charlie started to panic. It was too good to be true, the way the place had just fallen into his dad’s lap. Arthur was just too happy, especially when Charlie was on the outs with the Game. Was it a trap, was his dad about to be crushed, his crazy dream destroyed in some public, humiliating way? Charlie wanted to say, Wait, postpone the opening. But how could he? How could he even begin to explain why?
He remembered something else, too—that crazy question the Game had posed to him two days ago, when he was searching for a way out.
Do you love your dad? Y/N?
He’d asked:
Is that a threat?
And the Game said:
No! Good News!
That same phrase his dad had used yesterday: Good news!
Coincidence? Sure, it wasn’t the most unique phrase. But the Game loved to hint, to tease. It was filled with clues and Easter eggs. Had the Game used that phrase with Charlie, then implanted it in his dad’s mind, too—perhaps it told the suddenly broke and desperate seller to call Charlie’s dad and say he had “good news” for him. The Game was adept at suggestion, at neurolinguistic programming. At programming people.
Or maybe it was just the obvious phrase for the delivery of … wait for it … good news. And in that case, Charlie was just losing his fucking mind.
Something else was gnawing at him. Good luck seemed finite in the Game.
Had hitting Y caused someone else’s ruin? Tanked or blackmailed the seller and directed him to Charlie’s dad?
So Charlie went back to the restaurant resolved to tell his father to stop everything. And when he got there and saw his dad beaming, happy for the first time in two years, Charlie said nothing.
He kept his mouth shut.
And prayed that the Game wasn’t about to destroy his father by raising him up higher than he’d ever been, so it could cast him down all the harder against the saw-toothed rocks.
Kenny stood outside Eddie Ramirez’s house.
Kenny hadn’t slept since Eddie was thrown out of school. He was crippled with guilt. It was bad enough having spray-painted alt-right garbage on the wall. It felt like vomiting on the school. But the worst part, the part that had gnawed at him all night, was the look on Eddie’s face as Kenny and Candace slinked out of the room. Shell-shocked.
Kenny kept telling himself, Eddie was coming for us. We had no choice. It was kill or be killed. But that wasn’t how Kenny felt inside. He felt like he’d ruined someone’s life to save his own, and he was sick about it.
Eddie’s house was a small tan ranch-style, one story tall and aging, in a middle-class enclave called Eleanor Heights. Kenny parked his car. He felt a buzzing in his pocket and glanced at the phone. It said:
Don’t.
No explanation. Just Don’t. Which was weird, because Kenny didn’t even know what he intended to do. Confess? Lay himself on the cross for Eddie? Torch his friends to save an asshole? No, there had to be a middle ground. A way they could both get through this. Right?
As he approached the house, he heard shouting inside. Kenny glanced over his shoulder. The neighborhood was quiet and no one was on the street. His phone buzzed again. He stopped under a tree and looked.
Isaiah 42:8. Do not speak the unspeakable name of G-d.
But that was it. That was the only way out for everyone. To tell him about the Game. The way it had manipulated all of them—Kenny, the Vindicators, Eddie, too. Even Candace.
Yet the Game was one step ahead again, warning Kenny not to speak of the Game before he realized he was going to.
He shivered and looked up and down the street again. Nothing but gray skies and silent houses. No one was stalking him. No one that he could see.
Then the Game said:
Put on your glasses.
Kenny put on his Aziteks. The neighborhood was still empty and quiet. He looked back at Eddie’s house. It was horrifying. On every eave, every gutter, every ledge, curled in every corner and squatting on every nook and branch, there were demons, ugly, gleaming creatures, eyes burning red, expressionless, looking right at Kenny. They squatted like vultures with men’s starved torsos and heads on long necks. Veined wings and curled nails.
All of them breathing slowly, with thin, diaphanous skin over ribs that were bent and crooked like fingers holding up small pulsing hearts.
They lined the phone lines over the house, the television antenna, milled in the grass, crouched in the trees.
The shouting was coming from the window near the front of the house. Kenny pressed against the glass and tried to hear. Eddie was pleading his case to his father and mother. Kenny could hear bits and pieces of different voices. Not my fault! I didn’t do it! Do you think we’re stupid? I can’t explain! How could you do this to us?
Kenny lost track of how long he stood there, ear to the glass. It was too easy to imagine this exact conversation in his own house. Finally, blessedly, they stopped shouting and Kenny heard the front door open and this was it. What would Kenny do? He started rounding the corner toward Eddie.
The Game spoke again, this time on his Aziteks:
Malachai 3:6. Only the High Priest may utter my name, ten times, on the holiest day.
Kenny wiped the message away. Eddie was heading toward his car. Kenny made up his mind. He would tell Eddie everything. They would work it out together. If Kenny had to withdraw from school or be suspended or repeat a year, so be it. He would take responsibility for his actions. And that would matter, wouldn’t it? He thought of something his father had told him once when they were watching the news together and some politician was resigning—It’s never the crime, it’s the cover-up. Confess, confess, confess!
“Eddie!” Kenny shouted.
Eddie! the Game echoed back in his ears, mocking him.
500 Blaxx!
flashed on his screen and tallied on his counter.
Eddie glanced his way, then turned his back.
“Eddie, wait!”
Eddie, wait! the Game taunted.
800 Blaxx!
“Go to hell,” Eddie shouted.
Kenny tried to close the distance between them, but Eddie spun around and stepped forward, grabbing Kenny by the collar and shouting, “You fucked me,” and shoving him hard onto the lawn. Kenny pulled himself up, but Eddie was already coming around the driver’s side of his car and opening the door.
“Wait! I can explain everything.”
Wait, I can explain everything!
1300 Blaxx!
Kenny’s gut clenched, but he ran toward Eddie anyway until a demon jumped between them, ten feet tall and filled with flames and red veins. Kenny stepped through it as Eddie’s engine roared to life and the car began to pull away.
2100 Blaxx!
Shit—Kenny ran to his car to follow Eddie and fumbled for his keys.
3400 Blaxx!
At first Kenny didn’t see or hear the car that was already coming down the block behind him at a steady clip. It was speeding up as it got close, then swerved abruptly, engine roaring.
Kenny moved at the last second, but it made impact and sent him hurtling headlong into the grass.
Vanhi sat fuming at her computer, trying to process her fight with Charlie. She put Pink Floyd on YouTube and played bass along with “Shine on You Crazy Diamond,” but that was too slow, so she tried “Immigrant Song.” Her fingers sailed over the thick strings with Zeppelin, and for a moment she was lost in the music. But when it got to the line “we are your overlords,” it all came crashing back and she got mad again and turned it off.
The Game told her from the computer:
You need to see this
She put on her glasses, and the screen was just as she’d left it, her new and improved essay still there. But then it dissolved and she was inside the internal gearbox of the Harvard system. Names spun past her on the screen like on a roulette wheel, their scores, essays, recommendations, all turning on the dial like constellations of stars. It felt sickening, and yet not surprising, when the wheel slowed, then trickled past the last few names to land on Charlie Lake.
There in front of her was the whole of Charlie’s application. The early ace SAT score (1,590), the grades—freshman year, 4.0; sophomore year, 4.0; junior year, 2.1. The essay (she couldn’t bear to read it):
On December 3, 2015, my mother died from Stage IV ovarian cancer. I was the primary caretaker, unofficially, as my father succumbed to the stress and pressure of the situation. I realize now …
The topic was “Please describe a significant experience in your life.” Jesus Christ, she thought, that oughta do it.
Charlie told her he wasn’t applying. He said, right to her face, that he hadn’t even started an application. But he had. It was right here.
If it’s even real, she reminded herself.
Did Charlie do this? Did the Game? Freshman year, they had a pact. Charlie and Vanhi against the world. They’d apply to Harvard together. They’d both get in. Then they’d set the world on fire. But now they both had blemishes on their records—and Harvard wasn’t going to take two charity cases from one school. No way would Harvard forgive her D, uber-essay or not, if Charlie was also applying, with a much better excuse for his black eye.
Her screen shivered. The Game made her an offer, without speaking or explaining itself. But she knew exactly what it meant.
Charlie’s and Vanhi’s applications flickered back and forth between one another. The numbers and words began to melt and flux between them. Her SAT became 1590. His became 1550. His freshman year 4.0 flickered with her 3.89 until they transposed. His essay, so simple yet gutting, wavered into I have long been impressed by Harvard’s strong academic reputation. Most tantalizing, her D, that junior-year disaster that she’d hidden from her parents, then hacked back, became an A. She’d never dared hack it permanently—getting caught was too risky—but the Game could get away with it on a level she never could, making sure people saw exactly what they needed to see at the right time to never suspect a thing. In the swapping transcripts, her D was sucked into the muck of Charlie’s junior year. His 2.1 barely changed, to a 2.0. The difference to Vanhi’s GPA was huge. It went from a 3.6 to a 4.0.
For Harvard, that was a world of difference.
It was all just numbers on a screen.
The part of her essay about the D was gone now, too. She wouldn’t need it anymore—there was apparently nothing left to apologize for.
The button at the bottom of the page was flashing. It wasn’t a Harvard button. It was a God Game button. It said:
SUBMIT SUBMIT SUBMIT …
You probably won’t even know it, she thought to Charlie. Your application will look just fine to you. You’ll hit Submit. And the bits and bytes will transform from what you saw to what I made happen. And you’ll never know why they rejected you. No one ever does.
Her finger rested over the touch screen.
No. There were limits.
She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t do it. Her magic essay had been a victimless crime, plucked from the ether. But this was an assassination.
Vanhi took off her glasses and walked away before she could change her mind.
One hour to opening.
Charlie could barely stand it. The Game was silent. No warnings. No promises. No demands. Just … silence.
He imagined what it might do—flood the internet with negative reviews? Turn off the gas so they couldn’t cook? Blackmail some kid to release cockroaches under the table?
He could do nothing to stop it.
He checked the internet—the reviews, the ads, were all the same. At least on his screen.
He could do nothing but wait.
That night, Charlie watched his dad reopen World’s Fair as Charlie’s. It was a tremendous success. People came. Old people, young people, families. It wasn’t a massive crowd, but it wasn’t small either. The room felt full and boisterous. It was exactly the kind of place his dad had imagined. You could bring your family on a Saturday night and feel safe and happy.
The Game was nowhere to be found.
Arthur came up to him, and a woman followed tentatively behind. She was pretty, maybe midforties, with sandy hair and a nervous, somewhat sad smile.
“Charlie, this is Susan.”
Not my friend Susan. Not my new girlfriend or your new mom. Just Susan.
He was supposed to hate this woman. Punish her by withholding his courtesy. That was the script. But he wouldn’t. His dad was happy. The restaurant actually happened. Yes, his dad had mortgaged their future, but if things kept going like this, they might actually make money. Maybe college was closer, not further, away. His dad looked better than he had in years. Not to mention, if all this was a trap, if it was going to fall apart as part of some epic Game revenge, at least let him have tonight.
“Hi, Susan.” Charlie extended his hand.
“Hi, Charlie.” Her smile got less nervous, but no less sad.
The look on Arthur Lake’s face said it all. Charlie surveyed the room, all the families eating and having a nice time. For the first time in a week, he didn’t even think about the Game being played all around them.
It was a good night.