Game Over by Andrew Klavan Page A

refused to go along.Wasn’t equality worth it? Of course it was. Equality was only fair, after all!
    But the Americans hadn’t seen it that way. No, they had destroyed his country and caused the murder of his father, and Kurodar had sworn vengeance on all of them. As Hepplewhite understood it, that’s what this whole crazy MindWar Realm scheme was all about. Payback. Bring America down.
    A fantasy, Hepplewhite thought. That’s all it was. However brilliant he might be, Kurodar was just an angry little geek with a pipe dream of revenge. The Axis Assembly also wanted America destroyed, after all, but they were willing to do it the right way, slowly, almost unnoticeably, day by day. Infiltrating their agents into American government where they would preach equality. Placing them in American universities to teach the young about the glories of equality. Getting them jobs in newspapers and on TV . . . until Americans started to cut one another down to size without any need for violent intervention at all.
    But the Assemblymen had allowed Kurodar to seduce them with his daydreams of a United States in flames. The MindWar Realm. Madness.
    Now Kurodar’s grand schemes had been foiled—twice—and by a kid who played video games. Enough. It was time to bring this madness to an end.
    â€œWell,” Hepplewhite said drily. “You will have peace now. I have come to give you peace.”
    He took his right hand from his pocket and was aboutto reach inside his jacket for the .22 under his arm. But when Kurodar spoke again, something in his tone made Hepplewhite pause.
    â€œYou have a smart phone in your shirt pocket, do you not?” he said.
    Hepplewhite’s hand hung in the air. His eyes narrowed in confusion. “Excuse me?”
    â€œA phone. In your pocket,” said the slimy purple thing that had once been a genius.
    Hepplewhite shrugged. “So?”
    â€œSo I have entered it.”
    Hepplewhite did not understand. Entered his phone? What did that mean? He knew he should just shoot the man and get it over with. But he was curious. “Entered . . .?” he began to say.
    â€œThe phone. It’s a computer after all. I have linked my mind to it through the MindWar Realm. I have taken it over.”
    â€œAh,” said Hepplewhite. This is nonsense , he thought. Once again, he started to reach for the gun beneath his jacket.
    But Kurodar said, “If you put your hand inside your jacket, I will cause your phone to explode with a force that will embed a thousand shards of plastic in your heart. You will be dead before your gun ever clears the holster.”
    Hepplewhite’s face went blank. His hand froze midway to his jacket. He became very aware of the screens and machines blinking in the room all around him, themachines whose wires ran into Kurodar’s veins and nerve endings as if he and they were one. “No,” he said. “If you could do that, you’d have killed the Traveler and his kid—what’s his name . . . Rick Dial—by now.”
    â€œThe Traveler’s defenses are deep and strong. Yours aren’t.”
    Hepplewhite shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe you,” he said—but he did not continue to reach for his gun.
    Kurodar laughed again, boom , boom , boom , that dull drumming noise. “You believe me, all right. And here is what you are going to do now. You are going to leave here. You are going to return to your friends in the Assembly. You are going to tell them I want nothing from them. I need nothing from them. I am going to destroy the MindWar Project and I’m going to destroy the United States of America, and I need no one to help me.”
    Hepplewhite’s hand still hovered near his gun. He was not sure what to think. He was not sure what to believe. He was not sure what to do. He said, “What makes you think you’ll succeed this time? The Traveler and his boy have defeated you at