Free Kingmaker by Christian Cantrell Page B

appear anonymous to any and all intermediate third parties; however the access of any service through AAI constitutes expressed consent to AAI’s terms of service which explicitly grant AAI the right to store personally identifiable information solely for the purposes of improving the customer experience.”
    “Unless I pay extra, right?”
    “For an additional ninety-nine NGD per query, AAI will remove all transactional history associated with your account after one hour of inactivity or upon the explicit termination of your session.”
    “Do it. And from now on, I want you to pay more attention to the privacy policies I agree to.”
    “I understand.”
    “Good. Now let’s talk about gaming.”
    “Would you like to talk about sports, gambling, board games, video games, or the colloquial use of the term ‘gaming’ meaning ‘to rig or influence the outcome of’?”
    “Video games. Specifically online gaming.”
    “Online video games can be divided into three general categories: multiplayer online games, or MOGs, in which players compete or cooperate in a transient arena; massively multiplayer online games, or M-MOGs, where players compete or cooperate in a persistent arena; and online real-life crossover games, or ORLiX, where actions in the physical world affect online gameplay and character development.”
    “The first two.”
    “Both multiplayer online games and massively multiplayer online games can be further subdivided into first-person shooters, role playing games, real-time strategy games, turn-based strategy games, simulations including sports and vehicle operation, casual or social games including—”
    “I’m only interested in first-person shooters, role playing games, and real-time strategy games.”
    “Would you like me to list relevant titles?”
    “Not necessary. I want to know the top twenty players of the top five titles over the last, say, five years.”
    “Query complete. Would you like me to list their aliases?”
    Alexei smiles beneath his visor. “I’ll probably regret this, but go ahead.”
    “In ascending alphabetical order: 5N1P3R, 88Ninjas, A Peach, AssAssIn, Chemical Bacon, Dildo Dance Party, Don’t Blink, Dubious Cow, Foreign Devil, JesusDiedLOL, Manboobs, Mesh, Pig Benis, QueenCodeMonkey, Sweatyboner, The Muffin Man, Unholy Tide, UrMother, Weenie Tugboat, and Your First Pube.”
    “Christ. Where do they come up with these names?”
    “Many names are chosen for their ability to elicit humor or derision when one player kills—or
frags
, to use the common vernacular—another player, and are considered a passive form of ‘smack talk.’ In order to facilitate vendettas and grudges, most games inform players who they were just killed by using the phrase ‘You were just killed by’ and then substituting in the name of the victorious player. The result is a description of a scenario which could be considered comical due to the fact that it is grammatically correct, yet irrational and usually extremely unlikely. For example: ‘You were just killed by A Peach,’ or ‘You were just killed by UrMother,’ or ‘You were just killed by Your First Pube.’ Other names are chosen based on—”
    “Thank you, Emma. That’s more than sufficient.”
    “Did I make a mistake?”
    “No. Never mind. Let’s call that group ‘candidates.’”
    “Understood. I’ve created a group called ‘candidates’ containing twenty records.”
    “Good. Now I want you to find each candidate’s most frequently used IP address and add it to his or her record.”
    “Query and join complete.”
    “Now query the Identification and Demography Index by IP address, and add the resulting data sets to each candidate’s record.”
    “IDI records located for eighteen out of twenty candidates. Query and join complete. Eight thousand nine hundred eighty-two dollars transferred offshore to Anonymous Access, Incorporated.”
    “Sometimes I think I’m in the wrong business.”
    “Would you like to