Reamde

THE TRAILER WAS cleaner and, at the same time, even more of a dump than he remembered. Someone had definitely hit all its surfaces with a diluted bleach solution. The place probably did not contain a single intact strand of DNA. As always, the information technology had aged badly: the plastic shell of Devin’s elephantine cathode-ray-tube monitor had turned the color of dead algae. To his credit, he had a cheerful red diner table in the kitchen, and three chairs to go with it. Richard sat down in one of these and looked out the window as Devin, now in a tracksuit, strode across the lot followed by a train of rattled and nettled assistants. The caboose of that train was Pluto, forgotten and bemused.

Devin’s sleek elven frame made scarcely an impression on the structurally compromised stairs. He banged the door shut and came in looking pissed.

“I’m sorry,” Richard said, “but there is some stuff that we have to sort out.”

Skeletor had not been expecting Richard to lead off with an apology and so this shortened his stride. “The wo-er,” he said.

“Yeah. You know, the last time I came here, the day after Thanksgiving, I was playing the game at a Hy-Vee on my way down and I saw some stuff going on that looked funny to me at the time. But a month later, when the Wor started, it was obvious in retrospect that I had been seeing certain preparations. The creation of a fifth column. Probing been preparing for the Wor one month in advance, who’s to say they weren’t preparing for it six months or even twelve in advance?”

Devin shrugged. “Beats me.” Not the most adroit answer and yet richard was wrong-footed by its sincerity. He had known Devin for a long time and thought he could read the man’s body language reasonably well.

Another tack. “The thing is,” Richard said, “not half an hour ago I’m pulling out of the airport with Pluto and I see that huge billboard for K’Shetriae Kingdom, with the blue-haired guy on it, and in the light of all that has been going on, I can’t help seeing that as dog whistle politics.”

“Dog whistle politics?”

“A signal that only certain people can hear. The very blueness of that hair is a shout-out to the Forces of Brightness. Earthtone Coalition people see it and don’t go any further than to shudder at its tastelessness and look the other way. But Forces of Brightness people see it as a rallying point.”

“I think it’s just that a blue-haired humanoid is more eye-catching. And the purpose of a billboard is to be eye-catching.”

Richard could hardly contest those points. He leaned forward, put his elbows on the red Formica of the diner table, clamped his head between his fingertips. “What bothers me is the trivialization,” he said. “T’Rain is one huge virtual killing machine. It is just warriors with poleaxes and magicians with fireballs fighting this endless series of duels to the death. Not real death, of course, since they all just go to Limbo and get respawned, but still, the engine that makes the whole system run—and by that, I mean generate revenue—is the excitement and sense of competition that comes out of these mano a mano confrontations. Which is why we had Good vs. Evil. Okay, it wasn’t very original, but at least it was an explanation for all the conflict that drives our revenue stream. And now, because of the Wor, Good vs. Evil has been replaced by—what? Primaries vs. Pastels?”

Devin shrugged again. “It works for the Crips and the Bloods.”

“But is that the story you’ve been writing?”

“It’s every bit as good as what we had before.”

“How so?”

“What we had before wasn’t really Good vs. Evil. Those were just names pasted on two different factions.”

“Okay,” Richard said, “I’ll admit I’ve often had similar thoughts myself.”

“The people who called themselves Evil weren’t really doing evil stuff, and the people who called themselves Good were no better. It’s not like the Good people were, for example, sacrificing points in the game world so that they could take the time to help little old ladies across the street.”

“We didn’t give them the opportunity to help little old ladies across the street,” Richard said.

“Exactly, we set them certain tasks or quests that had the ‘Good’ label slapped on them; but, art direction aside, they were indiscernible from ‘Evil’ tasks.”

“So the Wor is our customers calling bullshit on our ‘Good/Evil’ branding strategy, you’re saying,” Richard said.

“Not so much that as finding something that feels more real to them, more visceral.”

“Which is what exactly?”

“The Other,” said Skeletor.

“Say what!?”

“Oh come on, you did it yourself when you saw the billboard at the airport. ‘Ugh! Blue hair! How tasteless!’ When you did that, you identified, you categorized that character as belonging to the Other. And once you have done that, attacking it, murdering it, becomes easier. Perhaps even an urgent need.”