This Is Not a Game Read online

  Dagmar was the only customer. She went to one of the terminals where a pair of headphones waited. She took off her faux panama, stashed it atop the monitor, and put on headphones that smelled faintly of someone else’s sweat. The instructions were in Javanese, but she managed to call up a directory and began to sample what was on offer.

  There was rap. There was reggae. There was heavy metal and bubblegum pop and classic rock and sappy love songs with far too much reverb. World culture was available to anyone with a T1 connection, and the local people downloaded it, wrung it for meaning, remixed it, rebranded it, uploaded it, and broadcast it onto the street from speakers mounted on the facades of music stores, from off-brand MP3 players, from speakers in taxi cabs, from podcasts and webcasts and radio and audio streamed from thousands of sources, from unlicensed radio stations run by enthusiastic amateurs in Brazilian favelas, by religious fanatics in Sumatran kampungs, by fierce college girls in Kansas with piercings in their navels and anarchy in their hearts…

  And by Dagmar, standing atop the massive bandwidth of Great Big Idea Productions in Los Angeles, the media capital of the world. Dagmar, whose job was to take all that culture and history and find, or invent, the collusions and cabals that kept the world dancing… all the content zooming out into the world, where it would join with all the rest and be downloaded and adored and hated and absorbed and remixed again, only now with Dagmar’s fingerprints on it…

  Now Dagmar, listening, was worried about how she was going to pay for any content that she downloaded. She figured that the kid behind the counter had no way of breaking one of her twenty-dollar bills, and she still had no local money, not that it would buy much. There was no sign saying the place took credit cards.

  She went to the counter and tried talking to the kid, but despite all the rap and classic rock his store had on offer, he had no English at all. She offered credit cards, but he shook his head. She took out Indian rupees and waved them. He looked at them in a businesslike way and took a thousand-rupee note, about twenty dollars U.S., then waved her back to her station.

  Dagmar was happy with the exchange, and she congratulated herself that the kid’s family would eat for the next couple of weeks. She took out her cell phone, thumbed the catch that revealed the USB connector, and plugged the phone into her terminal. She began her first download.

  There was a few seconds’ pause, and then the phone screen began blinking red warnings at her, and an urgent pip-pip-pip began to sound. She looked at the screen for a startled instant, then yanked the phone from the connector. She reversed the screen to read it and discovered that the download store had just tried to load a virus into her handset.

  She looked up at the kid with the Frankie Avalon haircut.

  “You little bastard!” she said.

  The kid affected nonchalance. What’s your problem, Kafir?

  “You tried to steal my shit!” She turned off the phone, with any luck killing the virus, and marched to the counter. She banged the counter with the metal USB connector.

  “Give me my rupees back!”

  The kid shrugged. The rupees were nowhere in sight.

  Dagmar had just about had enough of Jakarta.

  “You want me to call the cops?” She looked out the door and to her immense surprise saw three policemen, right on the spot and right on time.

  Two policemen, blue shirts and white helmets, rode a motorcycle. The driver kept the bike weaving between the cars stalled in traffic, and his cohort rode pillion, turning to look rearward as he talked into a portable radio.

  The third policeman was on foot. He’d lost his white helmet, and blood ran freely from a cut on his forehead.

  He was running like hell.

  Dagmar became aware of a strange sound echoing up the street: bonk-whonk-thump-bonk! Like people kicking a whole series of metal garbage cans down the street, or the world’s biggest gamelan orchestra on the march. Behind the metal crashings there was a background noise, a roaring like the crowd in a stadium.

  The kid was startled. He ran to the door and took a peek outside, and then suddenly there was a wide-eyed look of fear on his face and he was out on the stoop, reaching over his head to yank at the rolling mesh screen that covered the front of his shop when he wasn’t in it. He had forgotten Dagmar’s existence.

  Bang-thump-whonk-thud! The metallic crashings were coming close.

  The kid got the screen only about a third of the way down before a silver saucer sailed through the air, hit him squarely in the back of the head, and felled him like a tree. He dropped at Dagmar’s feet, unconscious. Dagmar looked in complete surprise at the VW hub-cap spinning in triumph on the pavement outside the store.

  “Hey!” she said, to no one in particular.

  And then the streets were full of running figures, scores and then hundreds of Indonesian men. Some carried sticks, some carried signs, and a few carried what looked like machetes.

  The demonstration that she had seen in the public square a short while ago had become a riot.

  The source of the metallic clanging sounds became apparent. The runners were banging on the hoods, roofs, and sides of the cars as they ran past them. Banging with their sticks or their fists. The trapped drivers stared at them in horror as they streamed past.

  There were shrieks as a windshield caved in.

  At the sound of the breaking glass, a wave of adrenaline seemed to pick Dagmar right up off the floor. The unconscious boy’s legs stretched out into the street, and she couldn’t lower the screen with him in the way. She knelt by him, hooked both hands in his arm-pits, and dragged him clear.

  Then she looked up to see one of the rioters bent to enter the store. He was a small man with a goatee, a bare chest, and a cloth headdress. He carried a knife as long as his forearm.

  He looked just like one of the men in the store’s heroic action vids.

  Dagmar gave a yell, which startled the rioter. He drew back, then got a better look at Dagmar and took another step toward her.

  Dagmar yelled again, jumped to her feet, and ran for the back of the store. She found a toilet cabinet and slammed the door shut and shot the little bolt. The cabinet was a little over three feet deep, with a discolored, streaked hole in the ground, a tank of water, and a battered green plastic scoop. Dagmar looked for an exit and saw a screened window too high to reach. She then looked for a weapon and saw a mop and bucket. The mop was too long to use in the confined space, so Dagmar snatched up the plastic scoop and held it like an ice pick as she faced the flimsy door and its flimsy lock.

  In the store were a series of crashes and thuds. The music out front stopped playing. More crashes. Footsteps. Then silence.

  Dagmar stayed braced behind the toilet door, scoop raised, ready to gouge whatever flesh she could out of an attacker. The air in the tiny room was hot and rank, and sweat dripped from Dagmar’s chin, patting down onto her silk shirt. Through the open window overhead she could hear, faintly, the poink-whong-bang of the rioters hitting the cars on the street.

  But no sounds any closer than that.

  She thought about calling for help on her cell but had no idea what number to call, and rather doubted she’d ever reach anyone who could help her. Even if she reached someone, she had no idea where in the city she was or what the street address of the store was.

  Dagmar stayed in the toilet for another fifteen minutes, until the sounds of the riot had faded completely. Then-scoop poised to stab any intruder-she flicked the little bolt open and slowly pushed open the door.

  Nothing happened.

  Carefully she leaned out of the cabinet to scan the store. She could see almost the entire room. The kid still lay on his face near the front door. Several of the plasma screens had been smashed, and others carried away. Brilliant sunlight shone through the narrow windows and the open door.

  Dagmar crept out of the cabinet and approached the front. What she could see of the street was empty: the cars and trucks had dispersed. No human beings were visible.
The kid on the floor was still breathing and had bled freely from a cut on his scalp, though it looked as if the bleeding had stopped. The mesh screen was still partly deployed.

  She stepped over the boy, looked left and right-smashed windows, broken bicycles, a Honda burning, sending up greasy black smoke-and then grabbed the screen and hung her weight on it. The screen rattled down, making a shocking amount of noise, and then hit bottom with a bang.

  The bang echoed up and down the empty street.

  Dagmar had no way of locking the screen, but hoped any rioters wouldn’t look too closely.

  She retreated from the door, bent over the Indonesian kid, and tried to find a pulse in his neck. The heartbeat was strong: it looked as if the boy weren’t about to die anytime soon.

  She saw a corner of her thousand-rupee note peeking out of the kid’s back pocket. She reached for it, then hesitated. Then withdrew her hand.

  The boy had just had his store wrecked. A thousand rupees might keep him alive for the next few weeks.

  She noticed her faux panama on the floor. Someone had stepped on it. She picked up the hat, brushed away the bits of broken glass that clung to it, and put it on her head.

  She moved back into the store and waited for whatever was going to happen next.

  CHAPTER THREE This Is Not a Cowboy

  “Don,” said Austin to his speakerphone, “I think what we should do is follow the strategic plan.”

  Austin listened with half his attention as Don protested this idea. He and his partners were spending a fortune to retrofit an old office building, and they didn’t even own it.

  “What we need,” said Don, “is a building of our own.”

  Pneumatics gave a gentle sigh as Austin leaned back in his office chair and put his feet up on his desk. He had been through this so many times before.

  “Don,” he said, “we have a big performance benchmark coming up. We don’t have time to build you a new headquarters.”

  “About that benchmark. I’ve got some ideas for new implementations -”

  “No, Don,” said Austin. “Follow the business plan.”

  “Just listen,” urged Don. “This is great.”

  He explained his new ideas at length. Austin let his gaze drift to the window. Century City sat in the middle distance below, white modernist perfection above L.A.’s cap of smog. He thought about Jackson Hole and the sight of snowcapped mountains and the smell of pine, and for a moment he wished he were anywhere but here, going through this scenario yet one more time.

  “That’s all good,” Austin said when Don paused for breath, “but we can save all that for Release 2.0. Right now we need to follow the strategic plan.”

  “But wait!” Don said. “This will make it so much better. It’ll be really cool.”

  And on and on, for another five minutes or so.

  Austin listened vaguely to the speakerphone and thought about trout fishing. He thought about high mountain streams and wild-flowers and cowgirls in faded Levi’s and flannel shirts and straw cowboy hats.

  On reflection, he changed the fantasy to girls in chaps and fringed vests and hats and nothing else.

  Don went on and on.

  This, Austin thought, was the problem with geniuses. They got bored too easily.

  And most business was boring. You set goals and you worked hard to meet those goals and then you started working on the next set of goals. It was all too plodding for creative types, who came up with half a dozen new ideas every single day and wanted to bring them all into being instantly.

  Don paused to take another breath.

  “Listen,” Austin said. “What’s your job title again?”

  Don paused as his mind shifted tracks.

  “I’m chief technology officer,” he said.

  “Right,” said Austin. “And what’s my job?”

  “I don’t know what your title is.” Don’s voice was suspicious.

  “Never mind my title,” said Austin. “What’s my job?”

  “You’re VC,” said Don.

  “Right,” said Austin. “I’m venture capital. Which means that I and my associates have invested in dozens of start-ups. Hundreds by now. And that means that we’ve seen a lot of strategic plans, successful and unsuccessful. And so what I am telling you now is that you need to follow the plan to which we all agreed.”

  He congratulated himself on his sweet reasonableness, that and the excellence of his grammar, avoiding the dangling preposition even in speech.

  “I can talk to my partners about the changes,” Don said. “And they’ll be okay with it.”

  “Ask yourself,” Austin said, “if they’ll be okay with finding another source of start-up money after I refuse to give you any further capital.”

  “But we agreed…”

  Austin’s reply was lazy, airy, while he thought of cowgirls.

  “Why do I have to follow the agreement, Don, when you don’t? ”

  While Don, with greater intensity, explained his ideas all over again, Austin thought of cowgirls riding in slow motion through fields of daisies.

  “Don,” Austin finally interrupted, “if you follow the business plan and achieve every benchmark and every deadline, and the firm establishes itself in its market niche, and the IPO happens and everyone leaves rich, you can buy all the buildings you want. And hang around and make all the new implementations that strike your fancy. No one will argue with you-you’ll be rich.”

  “But-”

  “So for now you need to follow the strategic plan. And if you don’t”-Austin smiled at the thought-“I will join your partners in voting you off the board, and you’ll get nothing. And please don’t think I can’t do it, because I can. Ask Gene Kring.”

  There was a moment of puzzlement.

  “Who’s Gene Kring?” Don asked.

  “Exactly my point,” Austin said.

  Honest to Christ, he thought, this guy was almost as bad as BJ.

  CHAPTER FOUR This Is Not a Rescue

  In midafternoon Dagmar heard tramping outside and peered out to see a double line of police marching down the street in line abreast, followed by police cars and vans. The police were dressed more seriously this time, in khaki, with long batons, shotguns configured to fire tear gas grenades, transparent shields marked POLISI, and round helmets that looked as if they were designed by samurai, with plates hanging down to cover the ears and back of the neck.

  The kid with the Frankie Avalon hair was awake by then, if still unwell. He slouched against the wall beneath one of the shelves. His eyes weren’t very focused yet, but he didn’t seem about to drop dead.

  Dagmar saw as the police passed that they were heading in the general direction of her hotel. She figured this was about as safe as her day was going to get.

  She went to the door and rolled the screen up to waist height, then ducked down beneath the screen and out into the street. The rotating lights on the vehicles flashed on broken windows. Dagmar followed the police line down the street.

  At the next intersection the police paused for directions, and that’s when someone noticed her. One of the cops in a car saw her, blipped the horn, and gestured her over. She bent toward him, and-talking around the cigarette in the corner of his mouth-he asked her a question in Javanese.

  “Royal Jakarta Hotel?” she said hopefully.

  The cop looked at her for a long, searching moment, then motioned her to stay where she was. He thumbed on his radio mic, spoke briefly with someone Dagmar assumed was a superior, and then turned back to Dagmar and spoke to her while gesturing at the rear door.

  It seemed he wanted her to get in his car.

  “There’s a man back there,” she said, pointing, “who’s hurt.”

  He squinted at her and pointed at the rear door again.

  She pointed at the download store. “Ambulance?” she said.

  “No ambulance.” The cop was losing patience.

  Dagmar thought she should insist on an ambulance. Instead she got in t
he backseat and hoped this wasn’t her last moment of freedom.

  The car smelled strongly of the driver’s harsh tobacco. The driver put the car in gear and it sprang away, turning onto a side street. They were still heading in the general direction of the Royal Jakarta, which was encouraging.

  A second cop riding shotgun turned around and grinned at her. He seemed very young.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  Dagmar looked at him in surprise.

  “I’m all right,” she said. And then, because he seemed to expect a response, she asked, “How are you?”

  “I’m good.” He made a fist and pumped it in the air. “I’m very good.”

  The car swayed as it swerved around a truck that had been driven onto the curb and then looted. The young policeman nodded, then said, “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to Bali,” she said.

  He pumped his fist again. “Bali’s very good.” He opened the fist and patted himself on the chest.

  “I’m from Seringapatam.”

  Dagmar thought about all the places she was from, and decided to mention the most recent.

  “I’m from Los Angeles.”

  “Los Angeles is very good! Very famous!” The cop was enthusiastic.

  She glanced down a side street as they sped along, and gasped. A large building was on fire-she thought it might have been the shopping center she’d visited. Tongues of flame extruded from smashed windows to lick at the sides of the building. Fire trucks and police were parked outside, and she saw pieces of furniture in the streets where they’d been dropped-looted, apparently.

  She thought she glimpsed bodies lying among the abandoned furniture, and then the car sped on.

  “Are you in the movies?” asked the young cop.

  Dagmar tried to get her mind back on the track of the conversation. Was she in the movies? she wondered.

  The right answer was sort of, but that led to too much exposition. And she had a feeling that reality had taken enough turns today without her having to explain about alternate reality gaming.