The Never Game

Knight digested this with a frown. “Avon? Oh, Destiny Entertainment? Did I? Probably. When somebody tries to fuck me over, I sue them. You’re not answering my question.”

“That young woman who was kidnapped the other day, Sophie Mulliner? The kidnapper was re-creating The Whispering Man.”

Not a flicker of reaction, other than the appropriate confusion. Which effectively deflated Shaw’s hypothesis about Knight to low single digits. “Destiny’s flagship game... What do you mean ‘re-creating’?”

Shaw explained about the room in the factory, the five objects, the chance to survive.

“That’s one sick fuck. Why?”

“Maybe a disturbed gamer... I have another idea.” He explained that the crime was intended to get even with Marty Avon or bring down Destiny. “When word gets out that a kidnapper was inspired by the game, the company would be sued and boycotted by the anti — violent video game crowd. It goes out of business. Destiny’s already been through this before.”

Shaw told him about the two teenagers who’d kidnapped their classmate and nearly killed her.

“I remember that. Sad story.” Then he scoffed. “And you thought I was behind it? Because I had some grudge against Marty Avon for stealing code? Or I wanted him closed down because The Whispering Man competes against Prime Mission?”

“We need to explore every option. There’s been another kidnapping.”

“Another one? Shit.” Knight asked, “When was that first incident? The boys who hurt that girl?”

Shaw told him.

Knight stood and walked to a terminal where one of the uniformed employees sat. She glanced up with wide eyes and, when Knight lifted his palm abruptly, leapt up and held the chair for him. He sat and spent a few minutes keyboarding. Behind Shaw came humming and ca-shhh from a printer. Knight rose and collected several sheets of paper, which he placed before Shaw. Knight withdrew a pen from his pocket. It was a ballpoint, but an extremely expensive one — made from platinum, Shaw believed.

“We subscribe to a marketing data service that tracks the sales of products and services all over the world. Did Cheerios outsell Frosted Flakes in March of last year? In what regions? In the places where Cheerios won, what was the average household income? What are the ages of the schoolchildren in those homes? On and on and on. You get the idea.” He tapped the top sheet before Shaw with the pen. “This chart tracks Destiny Entertainment’s sales of The Whispering Man.”

Knight circled a flat line. “That period was the two months following the Ohio girl’s attack, when, we can assume, the protests were the loudest, the press was the worst. Somebody tries to murder a girl because of the game and what happens? No effect on sales whatsoever. People don’t care. If there’s a game they like, they’ll buy it, and they don’t give a shit if it inspires psychos or terrorists.”

Shaw noted that the data confirmed what Knight was telling him. He didn’t ask if he could keep the sales stats; he folded the pages and slipped them in his pocket to verify them later, though he didn’t doubt the figures were accurate.

The CEO said, “What happened with Destiny is, the suit? I think they might’ve tried to poach some retailers I had an exclusive with. Penny-ante stuff. But I had to come down hard. You can’t let people get away with anything. And Marty Avon? He’s no threat. He’s the mom-and-pop corner store of the gaming world.” Knight looked him over. “So. We cool with everything? My guys got too rough?”

“Not a worry.” Shaw rose and looked for the door.

“There.” Knight was pointing.

Shaw was almost to the exit when Knight said, “Hold up.”

Shaw turned.

“There’s somebody you should talk to.” He sent a text and then nodded to the table and the two men sat once more. “I want some coffee. You want coffee? I fly the beans in directly from Central America.”

“El Salvador?”

“No way. It’s my own farm in Costa Rica. Better than Salvadoran, hands down.”

Shaw said, “Why not?”

37

Jimmy Foyle, the cofounder of Knight Time, was in his mid-thirties.

Shaw recalled that he was also the chief game designer, the “gaming guru.” Whatever that meant.

The compact man had straight black hair in need of a trim. His face was boyish and chin dusted with faint stubble. His blue jeans were new, his black T-shirt ancient and the short-sleeved plaid overshirt, faded orange and black, was wrinkled. No corporate uniform for him, presumably because, as the creator of fifteen quadrillion planets, he could wear whatever the hell he wanted to.

Shaw decided the look was Zuckerberg-inspired, though more formal, owing to the overshirt.

Foyle was fidgety, not in an insecure way but in the manner of those who are intensely smart and whose fingers and limbs move in time to their spiraling minds. He had joined Knight and Shaw at the table in the workstation room, and the three were alone. Knight had cleared the room of the keyboarding employees by shouting, “Everyone, get out!”