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  I should have fired Darla then. But our relationship had gotten complicated, so instead I just read her the riot act. She laughed and told me I was cute when I was angry. I told her I wasn’t kidding; she could knock it off or she could look for another sherpa crew. Fine, she said, if Ray’s going to be such a huge pussy about it I’ll leave him alone. Anja too, I said. And the customers. All right, all right, she said.

  And she did knock it off. Mostly. I was relieved, though I also assumed that this was temporary, and that in a week or a month she’d start in again, and there would be another crisis where I’d have to choose between her or the business. I still believe that; it was doomed to end badly, one way or another.

  But the way it did end was this: I got a call from the CAA agent who represents Janet Margeaux. She was set to costar with Jaden Smith in a film about a sherpa crew who stage a bank heist in cyberspace—“a sort of Snow Crash meets The Thomas Crown Affair.” To research the role, Ms. Margeaux wanted to spend a couple days hanging out with some real sherpas. People magazine was also interested: If I agreed, they’d embed a reporter on one of the dungeon runs, get some video and some screenshots, and interview me about the business.

  I hadn’t even said yes yet when I started worrying about Darla. What if she decided to razz Janet Margeaux about the lousy box-office on that Citizen Kane remake she did last year? Or what if she decided to get “edgy” and say something racist to the People reporter?

  I could have tried talking to Darla, to impress on her how potentially important this gig was for the future of the business. I could have admitted that I didn’t trust her, her recent good behavior notwithstanding. But I was afraid of how she might react, so I took a more cautious, which is to say cowardly, approach: I scheduled Janet Margeaux for a weekend when I knew Darla would be offline, facetiming with her family at a reunion in Virginia. I brought in Jolene, who’d subbed for Darla a couple times before, and only told Ray and Anja what was up at the last minute—and even then, I was cagey about it. I think Ray understood that I’d cut Darla out deliberately, but Anja didn’t get it; she thought it was just bad luck that Darla couldn’t be with us.

  The gig went extremely well—Janet Margeaux was thrilled, and the reporter said she’d be devoting a full page to our interview. I told myself that I’d made the right call and that even Darla would come to agree with that, after she’d had some time to cool off.

  But I wasn’t in a hurry to test that theory. The day Darla was due back from the reunion, I went to the Jurassic Swamp again. Call to Wizardry’s most recent software patch had introduced a new subspecies of velociraptor whose claws could be used to make magic necklaces. I switched off my instant messages and settled in to farm a few hundred of them.

  Darla came online and went to the Game Lobby to look for me. She ran into Anja, who, not knowing any better, spilled the beans about what we’d been up to in Darla’s absence.

  Back in the swamp, I got into another territorial pissing match, this time with a couple of low-level griefers. I picked a fight and killed them until they got bored and went away. I was still flagged for PvP when Darla found me. She’d logged in as a 200th-level deathlord, so the first sign that she was coming was when the ferns at the edge of the clearing I was in shriveled up and turned black. She burst through the dead foliage wielding a flaming two-handed sword the size of a telephone pole.

  “Hey Darla, let’s talk,” I said. She decapitated me. I came back from the graveyard and she was desecrating my corpse; I imagine she had her gib setting turned up full. I knew if I resurrected she’d just kill me again, so instead I hovered there, disembodied, saying, “Come on Darla, let’s talk.”

  She logged out. I did too. I went to the Game Lobby and waited. It was karaoke night, and a group of senior citizens were competing to see who could do the most grating rendition of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.” As penance, I decided not to invoke a cone of silence.

  But that was self-indulgent bullshit. One of my mother’s most often repeated pieces of wisdom is that there’s a difference between being unhappy with the consequences of your actions and being sorry. I was unhappy that Darla was pissed off, but I didn’t regret what I’d done—if anything, her reaction confirmed for me that I’d made the right decision.

  Not being sorry, I knew it would be wrong to apologize. I could explain why I’d done what I’d done, I could try to make it up to her, but to say sorry when I wasn’t would only add insult to injury. Do not apologize, I counseled myself as I waited. Do. Not. Apologize.

  Then I saw her, standing over by the bar. She saw me too—had seen me first, no doubt—but pretended to ignore me.

  I walked up to her. “Darla,” I said.

  She turned and threw a virtual martini in my face. This is less effective than throwing a real drink—like a chest-bump aimed at an avatar teammate, it passed right through me.

  Darla’s words had more of an impact. “You lying, backstabbing piece of shit!” she shouted. Onstage, the latest bout of Titanic theme music had just ended, and the scattered applause hadn’t yet begun; Darla’s exclamation landed at full volume in the space between. Suddenly it felt like everyone in the Game Lobby was staring at us.

  I spoke without thinking: “Darla, I’m sorry. I—”

  “Sorry?” Darla said. “You’re not sorry . . . But you will be.” Then: “Dead to me.”

  That was two and a half months ago. I spent the first week awaiting Darla’s revenge, which I assumed would take the form of a post on the sherpa forum. There were things she could have revealed about the nature of our relationship that would have been embarrassing, and maybe bad for business. But time went by and no post appeared. Darla blocked me on social media, as I’ve said, but she didn’t take her accounts private, so by logging in under a different name I could look and see that she hadn’t posted on Facebook or anywhere else, either. It was as if she’d left the internet entirely—though of course, she was free to log in under a different name, too.

  The People magazine article came out. The publicity had the effect that I’d hoped for, and more—Sherpa, Inc. was suddenly very busy. I raised our standard fee and hired Jolene as a full-time replacement for Darla. We made good money, at first.

  There were a few negative repercussions. Some of the other sherpa outfits, jealous that Janet Margeaux hadn’t picked them, started badmouthing us. Others complained that by inspiring “John Chu wannabes” the article was creating too much competition, driving overall profits down. Gold-selling scams increased, and Tempest, unhappy with the expansion of the black market, began cracking down harder on EULA violations. All of the accounts we’d used for the Janet Margeaux job got banned.

  The price of fame, I figured. I had other accounts, and could afford to get more. I settled in to what I thought was the new normal, and talked about expanding.

  But now our luck has changed again, and instead of building a larger crew I’m struggling to hold the core group together. Karma, or Darla? The main argument against the latter is that I just don’t see Darla having the patience for an extended revenge scheme. Her idea of a long game is making sure you’re listening with both ears before she unloads on you.

  But strong emotions can cause people to act very differently than they normally would. That’s another of my mother’s axioms. I keep thinking about the expression on Darla’s face when she pronounced “Dead to me” in the bar that night, which was the same expression she wore when she cut my head off in the swamp. As if she were wishing the invocation of death were more than just a metaphor.

  Speaking of death: In Gauntlet, my elf, who needs food badly, falls to an onslaught of grunts. Rather than plug in another virtual quarter, I open a pop-up screen and surf over to Darla’s Facebook page. There are no new posts. While I debate whether to leave a message tagged with my real name, Darla’s profile pic stares at me, grinning.

  I’M ABOUT TO LOG OUT WHEN I GET AN INSTANT MESSAGE, the words appearing in a pop-up box at the bottom of my vis
ual field:

  ARE YOU AVAILABLE TO MEET NOW? — SMITH

  Smith—no first name, no “Mr.” or “Ms.,” just Smith—emailed me a week ago, claiming to be the personal assistant of a “wealthy, famous person” who wanted to hire a sherpa for a special project. The job paid “quite generously,” Smith promised, but added that the client wished to remain anonymous. Would that be acceptable?

  Coming as it did on the heels of the Ollie Oxenfree incident, this offer struck me as highly suspicious, but on the off chance it was for real I wrote back. I said that I was fine with not knowing the identity of my employer, so long as they were willing to pay my full fee in advance—and by the way, what did “quite generous” mean in actual dollars? When I got no response, I assumed that whoever it was had given up the gag after having their bluff called.

  I’M AVAILABLE, I message back. WHERE?

  GAME LOBBY PRIVATE CHAT ROOM #24, Smith replies. ENTRY CODE 77G4M9.

  The door to the chat rooms is right outside the arcade. I knock and a peephole slides open; a robot bouncer jabbers at me in faux Star Wars droid language. “Room twenty-four,” I tell it, and recite the code. The door opens and I step directly into a conference room where Smith and the client are waiting.

  They are Gray People. This is a special type of anonymizing avatar, inspired by a bit of business from an old Ursula K. Le Guin novel. Users manifest as androgynous, racially nondescript humanoids with light gray skin; the avatar suite includes an audio filter that replaces your real voice with an accentless monotone, though unless you’re also speaking through a translator, your word choice can still give information away.

  I see they have opted not to use the avatar’s lack-of-affect toggle. The Gray Person on the right is smiling as I enter, and he or she regards me with an open and intense curiosity. The Gray Person on the left is more reserved, but in a way that suggests seriousness rather than an absence of emotion.

  “Smith?” I say.

  “I am Smith,” the serious one replies. He—I decide to think of him as “he,” because otherwise I’ll think of him as Darla—indicates his companion. “This is my boss, Mr. Jones.”

  “Hello. I’m John Chu.” I nod. Jones doesn’t nod back, just goes on staring at me, his smile starting to seem a little creepy now. “I understand you’re interested in hiring a sherpa for some sort of project.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Jones says. “I wish to undertake a comprehensive survey of the world of more pigs.”

  More pigs: MMORPGs. “What kind of survey?”

  Smith answers: “Mr. Jones believes that the design philosophy of massive multiplayer online role-playing games may have applications beyond the realm of mere entertainment. Applications that are relevant to his own profession.”

  “Which is?”

  “Not your concern.”

  “I have researched the subject of more pigs,” Mr. Jones says. “Read articles, watched videos. But I lack firsthand experience. I want you to help me rectify this.”

  “OK,” I say. “Do you know which games you’d like to play?”

  “All of them.”

  “All? You know there are dozens of them, right? Hundreds, if you count legacy games.”

  “All of them,” Mr. Jones says. “I wish to experience the full potential of the medium. You can arrange this for me?”

  “I can,” I say. “I’ve got accounts on all the most popular MMORPGs, and I can get others. But it’ll cost you.”

  “Money is no concern.”

  It is to me, I think. “When do you want to start?”

  “As soon as Smith is satisfied with the security arrangements. You understand, I must maintain strict anonymity.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  “The logistics of that I leave to Smith. But I do have a question before we begin.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It is about identity.” He lowers his gaze and studies the backs of his avatar’s hands. “I can resemble anything I wish to, in here.” Looking up again: “And so can you.”

  “And so can anyone else.” I nod, guessing where he’s going with this.

  “Yes,” Mr. Jones says. “So when you are guiding me through the world of more pigs, how do I know that you are you, and not one of my enemies? How do you know that I am me?”

  I can’t tell whether he’s asking because he really wants to know, or just wants to see if I do. But I’ve got this covered. “It’s a standard cryptographic protocol,” I say. Jones arches an eyebrow: crypto-whaticol? “Here, let me show you . . .”

  I pass my hand over the conference table between us, causing three objects to materialize there: a small blue box, a blue key, and a red key.

  I pick up the red key. “This is my public encryption key,” I say, offering it to Mr. Jones, who accepts it after exchanging a quick glance with Smith. “Because it’s public, I can give away a copy to anybody who wants one.

  “The blue key is my private key,” I continue, “and I’m very careful not to let anyone else have that. Now if I want to send you a message, I can put it in here . . .” I lift the lid of the blue box. Inside is a business card, which I hold up so Mr. Jones can read the words preprinted on it: IT’S ME, JOHN CHU. I put the card back in the box and close the lid. “Now I lock it with my private key.” I turn the key and the box turns red. “And I send it to you.” I slide the box across the table. “If you’ve got my public key, you can open it.”

  “But so can anyone else,” Mr. Jones says. “Anyone with your public key can read the message.”

  “Unless the message is also encrypted, with a code that only you have the key to. But that’s not necessary in this case. In this case, the real message is the box itself. My public key will only open boxes that were locked with my private key. So if you get a box that you can open, you know it came from me.”

  “I see,” Mr. Jones says. “Clever, but also cumbersome. Anytime I wish to verify your identity, I ask for a box?”

  “It’s just a metaphor.” I nod at the table; the box disappears, and the key in Mr. Jones’s hand transforms into a key fob, the kind you use to find your car in a crowded garage. “Go ahead,” I say, pointing to the little blue speaker pin that has appeared on my avatar’s lapel. “Try it.”

  Mr. Jones stares at the key fob like he’s never seen one before. Then he says, “Ah,” in a way that makes me think Smith just b-channeled him. He aims the fob at me and pushes the button.

  “It’s me,” the lapel pin says in my voice. “John Chu.”

  A new smile appears on Mr. Jones’s face. He laughs like a little kid and presses the button again. And again.

  “It’s me, John Chu . . . It’s me, John Chu . . . It’s me, John Chu . . .”

  A dozen times. Finally satisfied, he lowers the key fob and turns to Smith. “This is the one I want,” he says.

  And then he’s gone, without so much as a goodbye glance.

  “Thank you for explaining public-key cryptography to my boss,” Smith says. “You did a much better job than I would have.”

  “It’s no problem.” I consider telling him that I created this demonstration for Janet Margeaux, but divulging even that small a detail about a former client relationship might come across as indiscreet. Instead I say, “I want you and your boss to feel totally comfortable.”

  “It is good that this is your attitude,” Smith says. “Because your encryption protocol is inadequate to our security needs.”

  “Inadequate how? Are you worried about the integrity of my computer?”

  “I am worried about that, also. But I was referring to the encryption itself.”

  “I generate the keys with a Really Good Privacy app. It’s solid. No known vulnerabilities.”

  “No publicized vulnerabilities,” Smith replies.

  “You’re saying someone’s found a hole in RGP?”

  “I am saying my boss has powerful enemies with extraordinary capabilities.”

  “Enemies like who, the NSA?”

  “Thei
r identity is not your concern. But I am going to require root privileges on your computer; I will be modifying the operating system and installing additional software that you are not to remove or tamper with.”

  “You understand why that’s impossible, right?” I try to say this lightly, but it’s hard to keep the disappointment out of my voice. For all of its weirdness, I’d been starting to hope this job offer might be genuine.

  “I understand why you would be reluctant to grant root access to a stranger. But you will do it.”

  “No I won’t, Darla.”

  “I am not your darling,” Smith says. “Now listen carefully, John Chu: In addition to granting me the access I require, you will clear your schedule of all other personal and business commitments. You will make yourself available on fifteen minutes’ notice, any time of the day or night. You will show my boss the world of MMORPGs and answer his questions. You will explain things in a way that he can understand. You will do all of this tirelessly and without complaint, and you will tell no one else what you are up to. In exchange, you will receive a weekly salary of one hundred thousand dollars, for as long as Mr. Jones chooses to employ you.”

  “A hundred thousand a week,” I say. “And is that U.S. dollars, or Monopoly money?”

  “You can have it in whatever currency you like,” Smith says. “As per your email, I am prepared to wire the first week’s payment right now, to the bank account of your choice. The money will be available for immediate withdrawal. You can spend it, transfer it to another account, or do whatever else you require, to convince yourself it is real. In seventy-two hours, I will contact you again, and you will either agree to my terms or refund the money in full. Will that be satisfactory?”

  FIVE MINUTES LATER I STUMBLE OUT OF THE CHAT ROOM and head for the bar. You can order drinks from the cyborg bartender, but since this is virtual reality, you have to provide your own intoxication.