The Theory of Games (17 page)

I had been reduced to going over the code, line by line, when, on the third day, I found it:

LRESULT CALLBACK mainCallback(

HWND hwnd,

UINT msg,

WPARAM wparam,

LPARAM lparam

) {

WORD cmd;

HMENU hmenu;

HDC hdc;

PAINTSTRUCT ps;

BITMAP bm;

char *bits;

RECT r;

/*--------------------------------

Standard Windows callback

Through Windows

API.

No known problems.

Hmenu used for standard pull-down

On reading mousedown.

Paintstruct points to

External bitmap

= image to blit.

Every texturemap

Picture stored externally.

Hwnd points to active window.

Integer math used.

Always flush cache

Longitude scan lines

Texture maps

External storage

Standard Windows callback

-HLP

---------------------------*/

“What does this mean?” the Authoritarian Man asked.

“Hand me a piece of a paper and a pen and I’ll show you,” I answered and started jotting down the code fragment. When I was finished it was obvious that the Authoritarian Man was even more confused than before.

“Okay, Jim,” I started, “very quick lesson in reading C code. Anything that appears between a slash followed by an asterisk is ignored until the compiler encounters an asterisk followed by a slash. So you see all that text between those dashed lines? Those are all comments; they’re ignored by the compiler.”

“If they’re ignored by the compiler, whatever that is, how could you have found the bug?” the Authoritarian Man asked.

“Jim,” I answered, “I didn’t say I found the bug, I found something more important. It’s in the comments. The code above the comments is pretty standard Windows stuff. It handles mousedown events, like when you click on the screen, but that’s not important. It’s the comments that are important.

“I’m looking at the comments, and I’m looking and I’m looking and they really don’t make any sense. It kinda makes sense; but it’s really all just gobbledy-gook. ‘Always flush cache’ and ‘Longitude scan lines’ it’s just nonsense. Nobody would write a comment like that. Then I saw it. Read the first letter of each line of the comments:

STANHOPE = EPHIALTES

- HLP

“So Stanhope equals Ephialtes,” the Authoritarian Man harrumphed, “who the hell is Ephialtes?”

“Remember what Hwan Lee Park’s password was? It was ‘Leonidas’, the Spartan king who died defending the pass at Thermopylae. On the first day of the battle the Spartans successfully held off the Persians at the pass but they were betrayed by Ephialtes that night when he showed the Persians a trail that went around the Spartan position. The Spartans were slaughtered to the last man.

“What Park was saying, and he put his initials at the end of the comment so there wouldn’t be any doubt, was that Stanhope was a traitor.” I smugly finished my combination history and steganography lesson.

After I had read Park’s message I got up from the workstation, walked over to the security camera embedded in the ceiling and flipped it my middle finger. I was still flipping off the camera when Finley came running in to the room.

“Colonel,” I said, “we’ve got a big problem. You better take me to Stanhope.”

I followed Finley back into the maze of corridors until we reached Stanhope’s office. Along the way I had been rehearsing a speech of biblical righteous indignation. I was going to tell Stanhope where he could shove this project and I was going to use some great Old English swear words. I had everything ready in my mind but what I saw when Finley opened the door just knocked every thought I had right out of my brain.

CHAPTER 4.8

My old friend, mentor and former employer, Dr. Gilfoyle was seated in front of Stanhope’s desk. “Jake, really good to see you,” Gilfoyle said and stood up to shake my hand. Stanhope beamed in the background.

Gilfoyle led me to a chair - I was definitely weak in the knees – and then continued, “I know this is all confusing – a bit of a shock probably – and I have to apologize for keeping you in the dark. But once I explain everything, well, you’ll see, it was all for the best.” Gilfoyle sat on the edge of Stanhope’s desk in a friendly and reassuring way.

“Jake,” Gilfoyle continued, “it’s no secret that we’re all gravely concerned with the state of the leadership of this great nation of ours. I know you are. We’ve discussed it many times.”

I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe where Gilfoyle was going; but that’s exactly where he went, “For a number of years now academics, intellectuals – like yourself - respected military commanders and industrialists have worked together to find a solution to this leadership problem. After a great deal of soul-searching we have been left with the inevitable conclusion: it is the electorate itself that is the cause of the problem. The people of this great nation are going to continue to elect whatever smiling face strikes their fancy. And it is the modern electoral process that simply encourages and reinforces the dumbing down of our executive branch. The president cannot lead - he cannot make the tough decisions, the right decisions – while keeping one eye on the popularity polls.”

“You want to eliminate democracy?” I asked incredulously.

“Jake,” Gilfoyle continued smoothly, “once you look at the problem rationally you will come to the same conclusion as we have. Many people that you trust and whose opinions you respect are already on board.”

“Other than you and Stanhope who are you talking about?” I shot back.

“How about Katelynn O’Brian?” Gilfoyle answered.

That was a blow I had not expected. Kate was in on this, too? “No, not Kate,” I felt nauseous.

“Yes, Jake, I assigned Katelynn the task of keeping an eye on you; helping you along, when necessary. I’m sorry that I had to fire you from the college, but you wouldn’t have taken the project on if you hadn’t needed the money. And we needed a back-up plan in case Park couldn’t deliver the simulation on time. He couldn’t and so here you are, just as we anticipated.”

My gut clenched and I felt the bile rising quickly into my throat. I knew I was going to vomit any second.

“We call ourselves the Neo Spartans because we wish to emulate the virtues of that great heroic nation,” Gilfoyle continued.

“You’re all gay?” I blurted out. “I mean, that’s okay with me, it’s just that I didn’t think… you know… ah… it’s… ahhh.” I finally regained control of my mouth and shut up.

“We’re not fags!” Stanhope roared.

“It’s okay with me,” I had lost control of my mouth again, “but the Spartans were big time homosexual. You guys didn’t know? You never read Plutarch?” I began to quote from memory, “‘By this age the boys came to be courted by lovers from among the respectable young men.’ Plato considered homosexuality the reason that the Spartans were such great warriors. You know, you’ll fight harder to protect a lover in combat.”

“Shut the fuck up! We’re not fags!” Stanhope roared again.

“What we wish to emulate of the Spartans is their sense of duty,” Gilfoyle interrupted Stanhope, “and the way that only military veterans could own property or run for elected office or vote.”

“Gil,” I interjected, “you were a supply sergeant in Vietnam. It’s not like you were Sergeant fucking York or something.”

“Okay, I’ve heard enough,” Stanhope bellowed. He unholstered his sidearm, a .45 automatic, pulled back the slide and jacked a round into the chamber. “I do not have time for this crap.” Stanhope walked around from behind the desk and grabbed me by my shirt collar. “Mr. Grant let me first explain how serious this situation is. Your student, Mr. Constantine, was eliminated because he stumbled upon something he shouldn’t have.”

I collapsed. My knees gave out and Stanhope yanked me back upright. “Yes, your old friend and mentor Professor Gilfoyle had to terminate him. Now, Mr. Grant you have exactly two options before you, and I am going to graphically demonstrate them both.”

Stanhope dragged me back into the hallway; the .45 never far from the right temporal bone of my skull; Finley and Gilfoyle followed behind like puppies. Stanhope guided our little convoy through the maze of corridors until we stopped before a door labeled STORAGE. “Open it up,” Stanhope ordered Finley.

Finley fumbled with his key ring until he found the right one and unlocked the door. He pushed it open and turned on the light and stepped back. He knew what was in there and he obviously didn’t want to look at it.

One bright overhead incandescent bulb illuminated the corpse of Hwan Lee Park stuffed into the storage closet and sandwiched up against a cleaning bucket and mop. He had been shot in the forehead; presumably with Stanhope’s .45,. A river of dark brown coagulated blood flowed from his skull, down his face and pooled in his lap. “We will call this Option One,” Stanhope said.

“You sure it was Dr. Hwan Lee Park?” the Authoritarian Man asked.

“Yeah, I’m positive,” I answered, “I met him at conference a couple of years ago and he was definitely very dead.”

“Okay, please continue,” the Authoritarian Man said.

Stanhope then grabbed me by the back of my neck and thrust my head toward Lee’s corpse. “Take a real good look, Professor Grant, I want you to fully appreciate the ramifications of Option One,” Stanhope growled. I was close enough to the corpse that my nostrils were filled with the stench of decay and rot. I suppose that it was only the fact that we were in a controlled environment under a mountain that kept Lee’s corpse from being covered in maggots. It seemed that he had been dead for about a week; but I’m no forensics expert.

“Okay, now on to Option Two,” Stanhope said and he yanked my head out of the closet and pushed me down the hallway in front of him. I could hear Finley lock the storage closet door behind us and then he and Gilfoyle ran to catch up with our little convoy to hell. We wandered through the labyrinth of corridors until we stopped at a door labeled BASE CHAPLAIN. “Okay, open her up, Finley” Stanhope ordered. Again, Finley came forward, fumbled with his ring of keys, unlocked the door and turned on the lights. Lying on the linoleum floor were a half dozen GI style brown canvas duffel bags. “Grab one, Finley,” Stanhope ordered and Finley complied, picking one of the bags up with considerable effort and slinging it over his shoulder.

“Okay, forward march!” Stanhope led his little column back out into the corridors until we finally reached the gymnasium that had been converted to a VR lab where all this started. The workstation monitor still displayed Park’s commented code as I had left it.

“Okay, Finley, show Professor Grant Option Two,” Stanhope ordered.

Finley swung the duffel bag off of his shoulder, put it on the table next to the workstation, unzipped it and pulled the canvas flaps apart. Inside were bundles of what appeared to be hundred dollar bills.

“One million dollars in U.S. currency,” Stanhope announced proudly. I had read somewhere that a million dollars in hundreds weighed about 44 pounds so I guess Finley’s grunting with the duffel bag seemed to validate the weight.

I walked over to the duffel bag, picked up a bundle of hundreds and riffled the stack like I had seen done in countless movies. I don’t know why I did it; I guess I felt like it was expected of me and I was trying to buy some time while I figured out what the hell I was going to do now.

“Why didn’t you just take the money and cooperate with Stanhope?” the Authoritarian Man asked.

“You know, Jim,” I said to the Authoritarian Man, “I still don’t know what side you’re working for. I don’t suppose it matters, anyway, but the bottom line is this: I may not be the best American; the most patriotic American. I didn’t volunteer for the army and I don’t believe in my country right or wrong. I believe my country is wrong a lot of the time; maybe even most of the time. But I do believe in democracy and I have faith in the basic decency of the average citizen. And I have absolutely no faith in coups or dictatorships. To quote Winston Churchill, ‘Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.’ So, Jim, call me a fool or a patriot but I didn’t take the money.”

I put the stack of hundreds back in the duffel bag and turned to Stanhope. “This is an interesting little game theoretic problem, General,” I said. “But the one problem with Game Theory is that it presupposes that all the players have complete knowledge of all the options and payoffs. Right now, you and I, General, are both in the dark but I’m prepared to take a giant leap of faith. You could kill Dr. Park because you had me as a backup. But I’m prepared to bet you don’t have a backup for me. So, General Stanhope, or whoever you are, I will not be part of a coup to overthrow my government and you
can go fuck yourself!
”

Stanhope must have figured where I was going with my cleverly reasoned argument because even before I had got to the conclusion he had already started the roundhouse right with the butt end of the .45, which crashed into my skull at the very instant I told him what to do with himself and then there was a blinding light as my optic nerves shorted out from the concussion and I collapsed, unconscious, to the floor.