The Game Trilogy (48 page)

‘Micke.’

‘Hi, it’s me.’

‘Hello.’

His voice sounded reserved, which was perfectly understandable.

‘How are you?’

‘Fine …’

There was a short silence on the line. Obviously he wasn’t going to make this easy for her.

‘Listen, I know I haven’t been much fun lately …’

More silence.

‘… not exactly very good company.’

Still not a sound from him. Had he hung up?

‘Are you still there?’

‘Yep.’

‘Okay …’

She had prepared what she wanted to say, had even written down a few keywords, but she had lost her thread already.

She took a deep breath and skipped to the last line of her notes.

‘I need help with something, it’s to do with everything that’s been going on over the past few weeks. Work, my behaviour – everything. I know it’s asking a lot, but I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important …’

More silence, as she held her breath and waited.

More evening work – but this time sadly nothing to do with any new special job. Instead his internet training was continuing with an evening in the Laundry.

It had taken him a week or so to realize that ArgosEye never blinked.

Nights, weekends, Christmas – there were always a few people working in each department, with at least one section head on duty in the office.

‘But you don’t have to be awake,’ Beens grinned, opening a door that HP had only ever walked past before.

‘Cool, eh?’

The room was actually a small lounge. A comfortable sofa and armchairs grouped in front of a large flatscreen television with surround sound. Towards the back of the room was a small pantry with an espresso machine, microwave and fridge, then, beyond that, a closed door.

‘The bedroom,’ Beens said with a grin. ‘But don’t worry, darling, it’s got bunk-beds.’

HP smiled back, sticking his thumb up to show just how impressed he was.

Beens might have been a section head, but he definitely wasn’t cool. Even if his suit had probably come from the same smart Östermalm tailor as HP’s, it didn’t quite seem to fit him. It almost looked like his pale, chubby body was trying to shrug it off.

‘So what, do we spend all night hanging out in here, then?’

‘Nah, we’ve got to do some work first. Or at least look like that’s what we’re doing …’

Beens winked at HP.

‘New guys don’t usually get to know more than they have to, but you seem to have taken over from Stoffe as Philip’s new favourite. Either way, I’ve been told to show you how everything works, so we may as well start over in our section, then take a look at the Filter, and then cause a bit of trouble for the Strats before we settle down …?’

‘Sounds good to me.’

‘Great, stay close to me and I’ll let you in. Your card won’t work on all the doors, only the chosen few get that honour …’

Once they had made it into the Laundry, where the nightshift was already in full flow, Beens said:

‘Okay, it’s like this. Here in the Laundry we deal with a sort of reverse toplist optimization, if you see what I mean?’

HP did his best to look as if he did, but evidently Beens still felt that he had to offer an explanation.

‘Our clients pay us to keep their search results neat and tidy. The Filter scans their trademarks and domains on the most common search engines – Google, Yahoo, Bing and so on – and if the hits throw up any crap, then we’re the ones who get to wash it off.’

He walked over to his overflowing desk, pulled up an extra chair for HP, then sat down.

‘Ninety percent of the people searching on Google never go beyond the first page, and another five percent fall away on the second page. By the time you get past the third page, there’s only a hard core of people left.

‘Our job is basically to make sure that the first two pages of results for our clients are kept clear of negative buzz. That might be blogs dissing them, competitors spreading cyber gossip, or even obsessives who start up whole sites to put people off using Volvo or Telia, for instance.’

He waved one hand in the direction of a projector screen at the far end of the room.

‘So how do you go about cleaning things up?’ HP asked.

‘Oh, there are plenty of different ways, but I’ll give you a couple of examples.’

He counted on his fingers.

‘One: you fill the hit lists with your own information, often by splitting your main site into different links. If you try looking up Microsoft you’ll see that almost all the hits in the first few pages are variations on microsoft.com. The basic principle is the same as filling up a notice-board with your own posters so that no-one else gets any space. Are you with me?’

HP nodded.

‘Two: if that’s not enough, Rilke’s bloggers get to work and add a bit of positive buzz around the client, or one or more of their trademarks. Twitter’s good, it generates loads of traffic, especially if it comes from people who are in at the moment. But the principle is exactly the same …’

‘… piling on as much positive buzz as possible so that the negative hits slip beyond the second page,’ HP concluded for him.

‘Exactly, Manga, you’ve hit it right on the head! There are other variations on the same theme: YouTube clips and Wikipedia articles, for instance. The search engines almost always promote that sort of thing to the top ten.’

‘What if that doesn’t work? If you don’t manage to suppress the negative buzz with your own message?’ HP interrupted quickly. ‘Suppose there’s a persistent little nutter out there, beavering away to stop his hate-site ending up on the sidelines …?’

‘Erm … that doesn’t actually happen very often …’

Beens was already holding up a third finger, but seemed to have lost his thread.

‘Well …’ he muttered after a few seconds’ pause, ‘we hardly ever get it wrong, maybe once a month at most, something like that.’

He looked round in both directions, then leaned closer to HP.

‘But seeing as you asked …’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘The very few cases that we don’t manage to fix get sent upstairs.’

He gestured with his head towards the ceiling.

‘To the top floor,’ he added when HP evidently didn’t respond in the correct way.

‘Ah – okay! To the twin detectives, you mean?’ HP hazarded.

‘Exactly! It works every time. A couple of days there and, hey presto, it’s clean …’

Beens raised his eyebrows and nodded in a conspiratorial way. HP had no choice but to join in.

‘So they’re some sort of computer geniuses, then?’

‘I doubt it,’ Beens snorted. ‘I can’t imagine any of their desktops contain anything beyond the basic Office package, even if they do have unlimited access … But they’ve got
contacts, fucking good contacts. The sort who seem to be able to fix anything!’

He glanced quickly over the edge of his screen at his section of the office, then leaned closer to HP again.

‘We’re talking code, Manga …’

‘Code?’

Beens gave him an irritated look.

‘The code, the spiral, the syntax, the PR of E? Does that ring any little bells?’

HP shook his head slowly.

‘Shit, Manga, and you’re supposed to be our new hotshot,’ Beens sighed.

‘PageRank, Google’s search algorithm!’

‘Sure, of course …’ he replied after a few seconds. ‘Just tell me what you need.’

His voice no longer sounded quite so hostile. She breathed out.

‘I need help checking out a website. Someone’s writing loads of stuff about me on there.

‘Lies,’ she added when he didn’t respond. ‘Whoever’s writing them seems to be out to hurt me, and I’d like to try to find out who it is. I’m starting to think it must be someone I know …’

The leather sofa in the overnight lounge, 23.48.

Beens was already snoring away on his half, which wasn’t really that surprising considering the turgid Monty Python film he had put on.

HP should have headed over to the bunk-beds and tried to get some sleep, but he already knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Not after what he’d just heard …

Last year, when he was caught up in the Game, he had tried to dig out some more information about it. Searching
with all manner of different parameters: Game, The Game, Alternate Reality Games and so on, but never found anything more exciting than Wikipedia articles about mind games, or various book and film sites.

During his long exile, on the rare occasions when he felt completely safe and didn’t think anyone would be able to trace him, he had tried a few more times. But the end result had always been the same.

Not a single hit. Not the slightest buzz, rumour or even a whisper about everything he had been through. It was as if the Game had never existed.

But after listening to Beens’s explanation, understanding was beginning to dawn and the whole of his undercover mission suddenly started to pay serious dividends.

The perfect hiding place.

Deep Internet!

He’d heard the phrase before but had always thought it sounded most like a myth: that part of the internet was hidden from the rest of the world, that you couldn’t see it because all connections to the surface had either been cut or were so well hidden that search engines couldn’t find them.

But now that he tried to make sense of his evening with Beens, everything appeared in a completely different light. Because what was the fundamental business idea of this company? Identifying and then burying things people didn’t want anyone to see …

Beens actually seemed a bit too excited about the idea that the gang upstairs had once worked in military intelligence. He had gone on about them probably working for the National Defence Radio Centre, the National Security Agency and other similar organizations, and that they could get Google and co. to change their algorithms and make certain hits just disappear.

To begin with he hadn’t really been listening – Beens just seemed to have watched too much television. But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the whole idea of secret contacts probably did have some truth in it. But this wasn’t a matter of a few old spy friends scratching each others’ backs. That sort of thing was far too easy to uncover, and no way would Google and Yahoo with their armadas of lawyers ever buy a story about the NSA wanting to get rid of a stroppy blog-post from
Katla in Kungsängen
…

But if he took off his conspiracy-theory hat and tried to think about it sensibly, and then added it to everything he already knew, he soon ended up at a new and considerably more believable conclusion. The thought alone was enough to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He had already suspected that Anna Argos was involved in the Game in some way. There had been Game vibes there, he was pretty certain about that. And he was still having trouble swallowing the idea that his role as the scapegoat was just a complete coincidence.

And now the pieces of the puzzle were slowly falling into place.

The reason why he hadn’t been able to find any information about the Game out on the net was because someone was filtering it out, cutting all the threads and making sure they could stay hidden way down there in the depths. Hidden beneath layer upon layer of more or less meaningless buzz …

And this someone would presumably be able to inform the Game Master about anyone out there in cyberspace breaking rule number one, trying to post confidential information or asking difficult questions.

What happened next wasn’t too hard to work out. As soon as they had a name and address, a Player would be
dispatched to pay a little home visit. Some attention-seeking little nobody who didn’t have the faintest idea of the real reason behind their task, and who in actual fact didn’t give a shit as long as they could go on getting their kicks.

Fuck, he’d even done a mission like that himself, out in Birkastan! Spraying a threatening message from the Game Master on someone’s door, about the importance of keeping quiet.

Maybe some of his other tasks had actually been ways of plugging leaks? Getting people to shut up when they started blabbing about the wrong things?

He ran through them in his head: the lawyer whose car he had sabotaged, the television presenter he’d called and threatened … Fuck, this really could explain all that!

Piece by piece everything started to slot into place, as the lines joining the dots began to build up more of a picture. A fucking unsettling picture.

The air in the little lounge suddenly felt stagnant and difficult to breathe. HP flew up from the sofa, pulled his shoes on and dashed out through the door. He followed the corridor that ran the length of the office, not stopping until he reached the metal door over in the corner of the Troll Mine.

E
MERGENCY EXIT ONLY
, the luminous green sign said – but he really didn’t care a flying fuck about that. A quick shove of the hip on the bar locking the door, and then he was out on a dimly lit landing in the stairwell, breathing in long, cool gulps of air.

He had guessed that everything fitted together somehow, but hadn’t been able to put his finger on it before now.

ArgosEye was working for the Game!

She pulled on her running gear, headed through the grounds of the teacher training college, over towards Rålambshov Park, then followed the water back under the three bridges on the south side of the island. The circuit was probably five kilometres over uneven terrain, one that she had run plenty of times before.

Only a handful of people were defying the winter darkness and cold to get some exercise on the footpaths, which suited her fine. Just her and her thoughts – and her iPod, of course.

On the way back she headed up across the ridge of Atterbomsvägen, then set off towards her own little street.
The downhill slope made her legs move a bit faster than she really wanted.

She was so tired that she forgot to stop and look before crossing Rålambshovsvägen, but it didn’t really matter. At this time of day there tended to be very little traffic, and the speed limit was so low that she’d have plenty of time to react.

But when she’d taken a couple of strides onto the carriageway she suddenly noticed a car out of the corner of her eye.

The vehicle was parked about twenty metres away, so she could just carry on across the road.

But just as she reached the opposite pavement her police brain suddenly kicked in.

There was something about the car that didn’t make sense and she slowed down, switched off her iPod and jogged on the spot for a moment.

The car was parked on its own, presumably because it was in a no-parking zone. Now that she was looking properly, she saw that it was actually parked across the T-junction with her own street, and that most certainly wasn’t permitted.

It was a Mazda, not the latest model at a guess, but it was hard to tell seeing as the grille and front bumper were missing, which was probably what had set her alarm bells ringing. A typical yob’s car: rusty, no licence plate, probably not insured and not even roadworthy.

She looked around.

So where were its occupants?

Considering how cold it was, the most likely option was that they’d gone into one of the doorways.

She’d just made up her mind to go and check her own door when she noticed something else about the car. The windows were misted up. There was someone inside it.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Hollywood, Nox here!’

‘Hi!’

HP stood up from his desk and walked to a quieter part of the office.

‘You’re not very easy to track down, man. I knocked on your door but you weren’t home. I was out of credit so I couldn’t call earlier. An away match?’

‘Work,’ HP replied curtly.

‘Okay, yeah. Call in and see me, there’s something I want to tell you, but I don’t want to do it over the phone, if you get me?’

‘Sure,’ HP muttered.

‘How are you, Hollywood? You sound a bit weird …’

‘I’m fine, just been working a lot. Doing nights,’ he added, but the call was already over.

What the hell was all that about, and what did the guy mean, calling him Hollywood?

Really she ought to just let it go. Head back home to a warm bath and let the uniforms deal with it. She had more than enough to think about, and it wasn’t impossible that MayBey had posted something else while she’d been out.

But the idea of being a police officer again, if only to scare the crap out a couple of little hooligans, felt strangely cheering. A few seconds of complete control in the midst of the chaos surrounding her.

She felt in her pocket for her police ID, closed her hand around the rectangular leather holder and headed off across the grass towards the car. She was jogging lightly, trying not to let the loose grit on the road give her away.

She couldn’t see any movement inside the car.

With a bit of luck the people inside were sharing a fix
and wouldn’t see her approaching until she banged on the window.

She was mid-stride when the car’s headlights suddenly went on.

He hadn’t been in the downstairs corridor of the hotel before. It was, if possible, even narrower and darker than upstairs. Old bicycles, plastic bags and general clutter was piled against the peeling walls, like a corridor in some run-down student hostel.

A couple of the lights in the ceiling were out, and the remainder cast a feeble, low-energy glow that was so weak he had to screw his eyes up to read the numbers on the doors.

The rooms down here must have their own little kitchens, because the corridor smelled of food, ingrained cigarette smoke and some other musty smell that he couldn’t quite place. Somewhere up ahead a radio was playing and as he got closer to the noise he realized that he recognized the song.

Nacka Skoglund, the football player, singing
We’re All With You.

Talk about a golden oldie! In fact this whole place felt pretty stone-age …

He pulled out the carton of cigarettes he had bought from the Seven-Eleven and headed to the far end of the corridor.

As he got closer to Nox’s flat he saw that the door was ajar. The music seemed to be coming from inside, and a scratchy trumpet fanfare signalled that the song was starting up again.

HP knocked on the door and it slid open until the safety chain caught it from inside. The room was dark and all he could make out were a couple of little green diodes further in the room that must belong to the stereo.

He looked around in the corridor but there was no-one in sight. For a few seconds he contemplated going back upstairs to his own room.

But Nox had sounded pretty keen on the phone. One last try, then he’d give up …

He tucked the carton of cigarettes under his arm, squeezed his head through the gap and peered into the room. It really did smell musty – a sweet, nauseous smell that reminded him of a festering bin.

A little of the weak light from the corridor crept in through the crack and as his eyes got used to the gloom inside more details emerged. A full bag of rubbish, a broken chair on its side, and something large and square that had to be the end of the bed.

‘Nox?’ he hissed.

Nacka replied:

Suddenly HP realized someone was lying in the bed. A pair of waxen, pale, inert feet were sticking out from under the covers. His stomach was first to understand, and had time to lurch before his brain worked out what he was staring at.

What the …?

The phone!

The stupid fucker must have tried to get it going. Breaking his instructions and sticking a charger into it.

Which meant …?

They’d found him!

The hairs on HP’s neck stood up. He took a step backwards and dropped the carton of cigarettes. Suddenly he felt a pair of hands grab him by the shoulders.

She stopped dead, fighting against the law of gravity as her shoes slid on the grit on the road. The car’s engine revved hard and for a fraction of a second she was caught in the light from the headlamps – blinded, paralysed like a rabbit on a country road while the car came roaring straight at her.

Then instinct took over, her feet finally got a grip and she threw herself at the pavement. In midair something struck the bottom of her leg, making her body change direction, and she hit the frozen ground with her face and shoulder.

Battered and bruised, she got to her knees and watched as the car’s rear lights disappeared in the direction of the
Dagens Nyheter
skyscraper. The driver didn’t appear to have slowed down at all.

‘For fuck’s sake, don’t wake the Chief!’ a voice hissed.

HP span round, only just managing to suppress the urge to swing his arms wildly.

It was Nox.

‘What? W-who?’

Fuck me, Amadeus
, he was so shocked he’d practically shat himself!

‘The Chief …’

Nox nodded towards his flat, where Nacka Skoglund had just started up again.

‘I usually let him stay at mine for a while when things
get a bit rough for him. He’s nice enough, but his top floor isn’t properly furnished, if you get me? Can’t sleep if he isn’t listening to that fucking song. Says it reminds him of when he was little. Happy street and all that …’

‘For fuck’s sake, it smells like something crawled in there and died!’

‘What? Oh that, nah …’

Nox grinned.

‘He’s got some weird illness that makes him smell a bit funny. It’s got some Latin name, but don’t ask him about it, for God’s sake, or he’ll get seriously fucking angry. The Chief’s actually pretty hygienic, which isn’t something you can say about most people in his position.’

He shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t seem to mind the smell. He didn’t even seem to mind being stuck in the dingy corridor with his own door chained from the inside.

‘Whatever, he ends up in a bloody bad mood if he gets woken up. Totally fucking loopy, you could say, and the Chief doesn’t always remember how fucking enormous he actually is. One time he threw Eskil – you know, the bloke in reception – against the wall so hard that the plasterboard cracked. The poor sod fainted and broke three ribs.’

Nox scratched his neck.

‘I had to keep the Chief away from here for six months until things had calmed down. Is that for me, by the way?’

He pointed at the carton of cigarettes that was still on the floor.

‘Sure, here you go.’

HP picked up the box of Marlboros and handed it to Nox, who immediately tore off the plastic and fished out a packet.

‘Want one?’

HP took a cigarette and pulled out his trusty Zippo to light them both.

His hands were still shaking and he pressed his elbows to his sides to steady them.

‘That thing I asked you to look after …?’ he began.

‘The phone? Don’t worry, man. It’s in a safe place, just like you told me …’

‘Good, but I’m going to have to ask for it back …’

She had a serious black-eye, she could hardly raise her left arm above her shoulder, and she had a rectangular bruise in a nasty shade of reddish blue on her right shin. One of the car’s wing-mirrors had probably caught her in midair. She might have a tiny hairline fracture, but nothing serious, according to the weary duty doctor.

All in all, a whole night wasted in various waiting rooms just to get a couple of painkillers and a ‘come back if it doesn’t get any better’.

She kept replaying the incident in her mind, without finding any more details.

But she was getting more and more convinced that she hadn’t almost been run down by a couple of yobs high on amphetamines.

When she got home from seeing the doctor she even limped back up to Rålambshovsvägen. Just as she thought, the place where the car had been parked was ideal if you wanted to keep an eye on her flat but still be able to make a quick getaway.

If you put together everything that had happened over the past few weeks, it all seemed pretty obvious.

The car had been there because of her.