This Is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams

Author:Walter Jon Williams [WILLIAMS, WALTER JON]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC028010
ISBN: 9780316040440
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2009-03-24T04:00:00+00:00

An argument followed, but Dagmar lost it, which was what happened when you were fighting someone who had all the power and all the money. Her only option was to quit her job, and— aside from the fact that she liked her job, at least usually— she couldn’t afford to stop taking Charlie’s money.

In fury, she gulped the remains of her Tres Generaciones and stomped out, blinking in the bright sun and the reflection off the pool. She felt ridiculous because she had an armful of the Tapping the Source units in their white boxes, a visible reminder of her failure.

By the pool, people were still under their umbrellas, talking on their cell phones.

Being seen and doing business. Being seen while doing business.

Kimba Leigh stood behind the poolside bar, giving orders to the Guatemalan bartender. Maybe she actually was the food and beverage manager. Dagmar walked past her and didn’t receive a glance. She wasn’t important enough to rate Kimba Leigh’s attention.

Dagmar decided she was too drunk to drive, so she went to the hotel lounge and, conscious of a degree of irony, ordered coffee.

She sat behind her square wooden table with its colorful inset Mexican tile, sipped her coffee, and looked down at the white boxes scattered before her.

What the hell… ? What in God’s name was Charlie up to?

Players would wander all over fifty major cities, testing every water source they could find: tap water, public fountains, creeks and rivers. Data would flow into Tapping the Source. Which, apparently, wasn’t nonprofit: it was building the database in order to sell it.

So Tapping the Source would have a much bigger database to sell. Which meant Tapping the Source would be worth more money.

At least it was a company that had a more sensible business plan than Portcullis. And they were about improving water supplies, so that was a good thing.

Still, it looked like another Maffya-style pump-and-dump stock scheme, buying a company’s stock while it was cheap and then inflating its value.

Though she had to admit that it was difficult to picture the Russian Maffya getting interested in a company with such a green profile. Helping the earth was not one of their usual priorities.

She decided, in alcohol-ridden despair, that she should assume that Charlie was in thrall to the Maffya. He must owe them money, or owe them something other than money. Probably the latter, because if he owed them money, he’d just give it to them.

She paid for her coffee and took the 101 past the exit for the Hollywood Bowl and up over the hills to the Valley. She parked in the AvN Soft parking lot in view of all the new security cameras, then got out of the car. Afternoon heat shimmered: it was hotter here than in Los Angeles proper. She walked past the uniformed guard at his security station and into the building.

Even though it was after business hours, the building still hummed with activity. People still sat amid the ferns of the atrium,

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