Free The Sacrifice Game by Brian D’Amato Page B

artist, designer, whatever, I’m just a code monkey—”
    “No, seriously, we really want you on the team.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Like, getting the imagineering and architecture into tune with the Game, more in tune with the new calendar . . .”
    “What new calendar?” Have you been studying?” I meant studying the Game.
    “Yeah.”
    “Great.”
    “But we are already missing your expertise. And it’ll be fun to work with you. I like you.”
    “Oh. Thanks. Well, I like you.”
    Her body sort of constricted and extended. “Hmm,” she said. “Maybe we’re getting into feelings here.”
    “Yeah, I have a little trouble with, you know, feelings whoo whoo whoo feelings.”
    “Everybody has trouble with feelings.”
    “I guess.”
    “But, like I say, I do feel very fond of you.”
    “Thanks,” I said. “That’s great, I, feel fond of you.” Hell. I really did, and it was cramping my act. I guess the takeaway is when you’re planning to betray, destroy, and murder somebody and her child, bonding is not a good idea. Damn. It and I and everything all felt dark, evil, and not as inevitable as I’d—
    “So let’s hang out together and do this project.”
    “Thanks, but still, no, I don’t have time, I mean, it’d take a lot of time.”
    “It’ll take an hour a day, what’s the problem?”
    “I mean, I just don’t feel like doing it.” Except I was realizing that I did kind of feel like doing it. Or at least I was realizing that being here felt good. No, worse than that. I was realizing that I wanted to see what Max looked like in his little Dick Cheney costume, I wanted to see how the next Bond movie would turn out, I wanted to see whether she was right about that orgasm thing, I wanted to settle down in some gated compound and wake up with Marena every morning and go out together to feed the turkeys and water the soybeans and pull the corpses off the electric fence. Hell. Maybe these people really weren’t so bad, I thought. Maybe even a nontrivial fraction of people everywhere weren’t so bad, maybe people in the future would adapt themselves to be even less bad. Maybe I hadn’t been weighing the decency fraction heavily enough, maybe I was wrong, maybe I’d made a mistake, I mean, with the EOE, maybe I had to stop it, maybe—
    “Jed. You said you don’t have time to do it. Not that you don’t want to do it. Which is it?”
    “It’s, uh, the latter.”
    “Bullfuckingshitfuckbullcrapfuckingshit.”
    I thought. I was sure I hadn’t touched my nose or rubbed my ears or any of that stuff. Had I looked toward the door? Maybe she could spot microexpressions. Maybe that’s how she got to be such a big deal in the competitive, high-stakes world of the international entertainment industry. I mean, besides talent. She could walk into a meeting and—
    “Okay,
why
don’t you have time to do it?” she asked. “What’s going to happen?”
    “Sorry, you’re out of questions—”
    “Fuck the three questions.”
    “
You
came up with the three questions.”
    “Then fuck me and the three questions, I’m asking you, as one concerned adult to another.” She bounced up, walked to a built-in bookcase on the south wall, and dug a pack of Camel shorts out of their hiding place behind a copy of
Autodesk Maya 9 Fundamentals.
    “Okay, fine. Nothing’s going to happen.” Wow, I thought, she’s feeling some real angst. Of course, one realizes that nobody ever really quits, but in her case, and with Max in the house—
    “Again I call bullshit,” she said.
She lit a cigarette with an old blue-enamel Decoish desk lighter, came back around, sat down, pushed the Go board aside, and set down a big, heavy glass cigar ashtray in its place.
    Pause. She pulled in a long, luxurious drag, vaporizing a full inch. Despite everything else, you could feel the satisfaction of long-denied addiction.
    Damn it. I’d thought the Q-and-A was over, and I’d been thinking about something else—well, honestly