Андерс де ла Мотт – The Complete Game Trilogy: Game, Buzz, Bubble (страница 8)
She had read somewhere that the body replaces practically all of its cells over a seven-year period. Even if that sounded made up, the thought appealed to her, that she was literally a new person after everything that had happened. That she was a different, much better person than she had been then.
The identity she had assumed with the job played a large part in that change.
She was proud of her job, and the rectangular police badge that she took everywhere with her, no matter where she was. Its metal shape had even left an impression on the outside of the pocket of her jeans, just like the little tubs of chewing tobacco did with ice-hockey lads. She couldn’t really explain the feeling she got when she held it out and introduced herself as ‘Normén, Police’. She couldn’t imagine life without it. So why didn’t she feel completely happy?
Are you really sure you want to Play, HP?
Hell yeah, he was sure. Absolutely certain! It was a complete no-brainer. Getting paid for running around the city and mucking about – who the fuck wouldn’t want to be part of something like that?
And then there was the whole thing about being filmed.
He couldn’t really explain why, but seeing himself on film like that was … exciting, in the absence of a better word. Not exciting in a sex way, no, this was a completely different feeling. Or was it?
But it wasn’t really the thing about watching himself do cool stuff from loads of different angles that appealed most. Even if he still liked the idea, the initial intensity of the buzz he got when he relived the theft had had time to fade a bit. Sure, he wasn’t about to deny that it still made his pulse go up when he watched it over again, but it was no longer top of the list.
No, what appealed to him even more was the discovery that there were other people out there who could see what he was doing, watching his clips and even rating his performance.
He hadn’t really sussed what was going on the first time he was on the site, but after a couple of days of messing about and checking out the various functions he had a better grasp of what it was all about.
To start with, the Game wasn’t live in the way he had thought at first; it was more like an Alternate Reality Game. A sort of mixture of computer game and reality where the two worlds merged together, according to the definition in Wikipedia, and so far that description seemed to fit pretty well.
But apart from the participants there were a load of other people watching. An audience who, if he understood correctly, even paid to be allowed to watch!
It was pretty logical, really, because why else would you set up something so advanced if you weren’t going to make some money from it? Where else would they get all the dollars that were paid out in prize money and paid for at least one hundred and twenty-eight pretty advanced mobile phones with built-in webcams?
Whatever, these viewers could watch, rate and comment on what the participants were doing. He’d already got a couple of comments himself: ‘
The comments he’d got were gnat’s piss compared to what people had written about number fifty-eight, who was still at the top of the list. ‘
But HP didn’t actually know what Mr Five-Eight had done to deserve all the praise. As a Player he could only see his own clips. A shame, but maybe there would be a way round that later on … There was one exception, though. At the top of the page, just above the leader-board, was a link to what was called ‘Mission of the Week’, where they evidently posted a successful task for everyone to see.
This week the clip was of Player 27 who was currently in fourth place. HP had watched it at least twenty times already. The clip showed a bloke in a balaclava smashing the windscreen of what looked like an American police car, then emptying a foam fire-extinguisher into the vehicle. The whole thing was filmed on the mobile fixed to twenty-seven’s chest, but also by another cameraman standing further away. What made the mission extra cool was it took place in broad daylight, in the middle of an unidentified big city with a load of stuffy pedestrians around the car. The clip had also been professionally edited and had its own soundtrack, Public Enemy’s
The icing on the cake was when the cops got back from the doughnut shop or wherever they’d been and discovered their ride had been wrecked. All of it carefully documented by the cameraman who even managed to catch some of the swearing before he had to break off and run for his life.
Praise was raining down on twenty-seven’s comments section and HP could only agree with it. It was totally fucking cool, and pretty damn ballsy too! Maybe a bit too adventurous for him, but what the hell? On the other hand, it had to be less risky to fuck with the cops in Sweden than in the States. Over there you could easily get your head blown off if you were unlucky, and that sort of thing didn’t happen much here at home, at least not very often.
‘
He finished his Dirty Harry imitation in front of the steamed-up bathroom mirror, holstered his finger, then dutifully ran a comb a couple of times through his long, greasy hair and inspected the results with satisfaction as he blinked at his reflection.
‘Looking good, Louis!
Feeling good, Billy-Ray!’
A quick check of his pockets. Cash – check, cigs – check, keys – check. He picked up the mobile on his way out. It was time to play. Game on!
She had grabbed a coffee in the Sture Gallery, then cruised quickly past all the twenty-year-olds with daddy’s credit card crowding round the boutiques along Biblioteksgatan, then turned to head along Hamngatan towards the main underground station at T-Centralen. Even though it was the height of the holiday season, the Friday rush-hour traffic was almost at a standstill and the exhaust fumes were mixing with the summer smells of tarmac, cigarette smoke and food.
It was almost evening but she still had a couple of hours of her shift left. She had been planning to go to the gym, but she didn’t really feel like it. Even if the incident on the quayside was more than twenty-four hours ago her body still felt sluggish. Almost as if the adrenalin rush had left her with a hangover. But if these were the after-effects that Anderberg had warned her about, she could certainly put up with them.
She decided to head off towards the block housing Police Headquarters anyway. Her occupational injury form would be waiting in her pigeon-hole and it made sense to get that out of the way before she started with the Alpha group. So, the blue underground line to Rådhuset.
She headed diagonally across Sergels torg towards the entrance to the underground station.
In spite of all manner of schemes from the police and social services, she noted that the junkies were still dutifully at work in their market-place around the doors. Not even the latest well-lit renovation had scared them away and these days their presence didn’t seem to surprise anyone, even the tourists ignored them.
It was as if the poor bastards had become a fixed element of the urban scene. Whatever, it was nice to get into the cool of the station concourse.
She showed her police badge at the turnstile and took the escalator down towards the blue line.
The escalator up towards T-Centralen. He latched onto a mother with young children and snuck through the open gate for pushchairs, just as he had done on his way in. Then quickly across the station concourse and out through the doors to Sergels torg.
Even though it was evening the heat hit him like a wall. A couple of junkies were slumped drowsily under the shelter of the roof, it looked like they’d had thin pickings that day. Presumably the dealers went on holiday as well? HP thought he recognized one of them and nodded curtly as he went past, but the look in the bloke’s eyes was so glassy that he probably couldn’t see further than the end of his nose. Smack was a load of fucking shit, no doubt about that. He was more than happy with Miss Mary Jane. It was an absolute joke that the law made no distinction. No-one had ever overdosed on dope as far as he was aware.
He walked across the uncovered part of the square, then went down the slope to the underground shopping level, and a few minutes later he was standing in front of the doors with the golden handles.