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I was about to fall asleep when Dip alerted me that Vito was calling. “What’s up, Vito.”
“I got back a message that you will be personally contacted about the leaker and the change in plans.”
“Yes, had that contact tonight.”
“Oh… well, anything else?”
I thought for a moment. “I have a question, and I need it sent as high up the chain as possible.”
“What question?”
“‘Why?'”
“Why what?”
“Just ‘Why?’ Can you pass on the question?”
“Sure, but…”
I cut him off.
“Was that part of your game?” Dip asked.
“No, that’s separate.” So I was given him actual answers now; he earned it.
“Have you figured out your game yet?”
“Sorta. The game is to kill as many bad people as possible in as short a time as possible. Bonus points for surviving. Zero points for any civilians killed.”
“How about negative points, Rico?”
“If they’re smart, they’ll get out of the way.”
“How many points for Detective Diane Thompson?”
“None. Things are much bigger than her now. No reason to kill her unless she’s actually trying to kill me. Hopefully, she’s smarter than that.”
“Hopefully? Would you rather Diane live?”
That was a slip. Didn’t even notice it. She’s interesting and a challenge; I’d rather keep her around. “My business, Dip.”
“Another question: What defines a bad person?”
“Dip, I think you can take guesses at that.”
“But there are no points for you killing yourself?”
“That better have been one of your jokes. By the way, I just remembered I have some data to send you and analyze. Might lead to a great move in our game if you can do something with it.”
“I’ll be happy to analyze it, but , might I make an observation on you and competitive games?”
“Hit me.”
“You’re not very good at them. Do you know why?”
Yes I did. “I’m a creature of habit.”
“Even when you try to be unpredictable, you do it in a predictable fashion. It’s quite obvious from just the few games of chess we’ve played. Your predictability is usually not a problem in your job since you never have to kill the same person twice, but it will be a great weakness we’re you to match against people who may know something about you.”
“So I need my actions to be unpredictable in an unpredictable way?”
“That would be my suggestion.”
“And how would I do that?”
“I do have a very good random number generator, Rico.”
I grinned. I was in unknown territory and really had no idea what to do next. I might as well take the help of my computer algorithm friend. “Okay. Let’s give the wheel a spin.”
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