Game Over - By James Patterson Page 0,27

final phase of a video-game arc. Previous generations of the program entice players to continue, thereby helping us to optimize programming to ensure we have maximized its addictive properties.

“For instance, with the humans, right now we’re up to the 4G version. The next edition will be the 5G, just like yours.”

“So?” said the freaky squirrel.

“So,” said Number 7, “at 5G, it stops being a game. And when we release that edition here—as we’ve done on several planets before, including your own—all the world’s gamers are going to start acting out the ultraviolent competitions we lay before them in real life.”

So that was how they were going to make humans extinct. They were going to turn all the first-person shooting and war games into the real thing. The game players of the world would go berserk across the planet.

“What does that mean for us?” asked the owl-headed one.

“Have you tried to pause the game lately? Tried to get up from your machine and go get a snack?”

The aliens looked a degree more nervous. Some of them nodded gloomily.

“You see, now you are not playing Intergalactic Safari Hunter. You are living it. This is not your video-game self—this is your real self. In other words, no more restarting the level if you happen to die.”

You could almost hear the sickening realizations dawn around the boardroom table. This was why they hadn’t been able to pause the game. This was why everything had seemed so real. And this was why Number 7’s threat to terminate them should be taken seriously.

I wasn’t sure what kind of a long-term management technique it was, but something told me that Number 7 had just lit quite a motivating little fire under these greedy, selfish aliens, and that this night’s hunt was going to be particularly hard fought.

That poor Pleionid didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell, whatever its abilities were. I cleaned my eyes and flicked my wings, which I guess is the fly equivalent of a discouraged head shake.

“How disgusting!” screeched Number 8. “A fly! There on that hat! Somebody vaporize it!”

Uh-oh.

Chapter 33

I ZIGGED, I zagged, I climbed, I dove, and somehow I actually managed to dodge a half dozen swipes from hands, claws, tentacles, and even several blasts from a variety of alien weapons.

Being small, fast, and nimble was a huge advantage. Fortunately, such an accomplished gathering of intergalactic safari hunters was used to going after larger and more interesting prey, and somehow I made it away from the conference table, and then under the door, and then out into the hallway, without any of them in hot pursuit.

Still, next time I tried spying as a fly and found myself in the middle of a table surrounded by alien safari hunters, I resolved to do a better job blending in.

I landed on the ceiling a little way down the hall and tried to recover my fly breath, but a moment later the conference-room doors burst open and the aliens poured out, readjusting their human costumes and grumbling like a bunch of high-school students who’d just been given five hours of homework.

“I can’t believe this,” whined one of them.

“Should we just take those two out and run the hunt ourselves?” suggested another.

“Yeah, you give that a try. They didn’t get top-ten rankings for nothing.”

“Maybe we should just get the heck out of here.”

“Great idea,” another chimed in. “Let’s all just leave this backwater planet.”

“I mean, if we don’t try to hunt the Pleionid, then we can’t fail, right? And, if we don’t fail, they won’t terminate us.”

“Yeah, seriously, that’s a great idea! We know it’s not a game now, right? So we just need to get away!”

“Hey, wait a second. What guarantee do any of us have that we’d all leave? I mean, how would I know if you decide to stay? This hunt would be pretty easy to win if there was just one guy in it.”

“I’d never go back on my word…”

“You’re so full of it. That’s it; I’m staying right here. You guys couldn’t hunt your way out of a paper bag anyway.”

I guessed Number 7 and Number 8 knew a thing or two about the psychological makeups of these selfish hunters. There was no way they would abandon this opportunity to hunt one of the universe’s most legendary creatures if it meant letting somebody else have the chance.

I dropped back onto my favorite hat and rode it down to the lobby.

The aliens exited the building together, but as soon as they’d stepped