The Sacrifice Game Read Online Free Page B

think the real world is just some collective hallucination or alien holographic projection or veil of Maya or whatever. If only. Nope. The reason, the only reason, is that I spoke to the babies. That is, I met the unborn. All of them. I listened. And they don’t want to be here. And I’m the person who’s in a position to do something about it.
    So, I have reason and opportunity. Do I also have the right?
    I don’t know. But I do tend to think that’s a meaningless question. The only point is, like I say, I’m in a position to do it, and so I have the
duty
to do it. I didn’t want to be the villain. Nobody does. But some are called—
    PING. Ah. My imaginary internal alarm’s telling me it’s time to check in on that second domino.
    Hmm. I’m almost afraid to look.
    Okay. Not almost. I’m terrified.
    Maybe if I don’t look it won’t have happened. Maybe it’s all just a fantasy . . . maybe it can’t happen, things like that don’t happen, things stay the same, there’ll still be things, there’ll still be coffee and Japan and mornings, another season of
Battlestar Galactica,
there’ll be parrot fish, crimson sea slugs, Fluffernutter sandwiches, snow—
    Jed. You’re getting maudlin. Stop. Get a grip.
    I called up the price feed and scrolled down . . . slowing . . .
    there it is—
    . . .
    Chix, chix, chix . Xkimik, xkimik.
Ay, dios
. Oh God, oh God. It’s not true, it’s not true . . .
    But it is. It happened. I did it. It’s happening, it’s happening.
Todo por mi culpa
. All my fault. Oh my God, ohmyGodohmyGodohmyGod, OMG, O, O, O.
Ya estuvo.
It’s done. There was that numbing swell again, like I’d inhaled a chestful of chilled helium. And there was just garden-variety terror, of course, and even a smudge of—well, I don’t know if I’d call it, exactly . . . would I call it doubt? Cancel, cancel. It’s done, Jed, it’s done, even if I, even I, can’t believe it’s really happening, it is, it is, it is, it is—
    Breathe.
    Whew. Well, it can’t be helped.
    Okay. It’s getting late, so I’ll take a last question from the house. If the Game works so damn well, why don’t you use it to show you how to avert all these horrible eventualities and make the future great for everybody?
    Answer. I have. This is it.
    Well, that’s about it. And, like I—
    Hang on.
    Okay. I noticed I’d thrown up a little in my mouth and managed to choke the bolus of sour mush back down into the right tube. Okay.
    And, like I say, you want it. Search your feelings and you’ll find you crave release. Just like this mutilated dog I knew one time, you want it even if you can’t ask for it. You’d thank me, if you could, for building us all a bridge out of Akron. And at least now you know. That is, you know all there is that’s worth knowing, that the world won’t end in fire, or in ice, or with a bang, or with a whimper, or even with a shrug. Just a click.
Very, very sincerely,

Joachim Carlos Xul Mixoc DeLanda

( 2 )
     
    M arena’d texted me while I was in the middle of writing my Dear Doomed World letter. She said she was back from Belize, and she was in her house, and I should come by. Wow, now what? I thought. And what do I tell her, besides nothing? I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist, though. She still had a hook in me. Well, let’s say a harpoon. And she knew it. Beeyotch. Anyway, I hadn’t even been to her house yet, so I guess it was on my bucket list. Okay. I got the tanks into self-maintenance mode. I had some Fluffernutter and, just for clarity, a shot of
tsam lic
. It was basically the same proportional combination of the same two molecules as the drugs that Jed 2 had buried in Oaxaca, except that they were now synthetic, of course, and each with a few pairs of hydrogen atoms added for ease of absorption. It rocked.
    I cleaned up and even got out a sort of nice gray summerweight Dormeuil jacket. Wait, is that a moth hole? FUU—oh . . . it’s not. Just a speck of