Read The Dead Slam: A Tale of Benevolent Assasination for Free Online

in the cross-fire!? Mobs descending for a climactic kill?”
    “Seems harmless,” said Virginia.
    “Harmless!?” shouted Thomka. “They’re training for real assassinations. Violent assemblies. They’re casing the whole city. They’re a threat. A real threat.”
    Petey’s dismissal of these games wavered. “Even an empty threat demands a response.”
    Thomka mirrored his cautious tone. “This could get out of hand.”
    Petey remembered something disturbing. “There are lots of other games there, too. Hundreds of them. And they’re all weird like this one. There was one that gave points for GPS marking where fire extinguishers and heart defibrillators are kept.”
    Thomka’s eyes widened. “They’re tagging our emergency supplies.”
    That was it for Petey. “Better to shut this down now than find out it wasn’t just a harmless . . . thing.”
    “Shut what down?” said Virginia. “A social game?”
    “The whole thing. There are hundreds of games like this going on, right now,” said Petey. “And this Tuke guy is formidable.”
    “Tuke?” said Virginia. “That Tuke! The Nobel Prize Tuke. Tuke? Is that German?”
    Murthy rolled his eyes.
    “Pennsylvania Dutch,” said Thomka, as an indictment.
    “Quakers!?” she yelped. “There’s no cure for Quakers.”
    “That’s reason enough to get on this,” said Thomka. “The Quakers aren’t some post-apocalyptic nut-job hippies. They don’t wear funny hats, or obey crazy rules. They’re hyper-rationalists. They think things through. They’re serious. And they’re patient. Very, very patient.”
    “Look, Al,” said Murthy. “Tuke is nothing. The last game-junkie genius. I know how hard it is for you to laugh at yourself — Albert! So let me help you.” He howled, drunkenly poking a finger. “Ha ha ha! Haaaaa!”
    “Better to end this right away,” said Petey. “Just to be safe. The timing is all wrong, there are some,” he paused to make air-quotes, “important deals, on the horizon.”
    Virginia perked up, “Privatizing the NPF?”
    Petey restrained a guilty grin to cover having cracked out of turn, and winked at her salaciously. “Precisely, my love. Privatizing the NPF.”
    “This threat is not empty,” said Thomka. “The Tuke Massive has more members than The Church. They’re growing, and our numbers are in steep decline. We’re teetering on collapse, just as the post-apocalyptic mayhem is over. People outside the walled cities have reorganized. Many are self-sufficient. They don’t want to return to the old ways. Our ways. And there’re a lot of angry . . .”
    Murthy exploded. “Is anyone listening to me? I have someone on this.”
    “I’m happy to hear that,” said Petey. “Who?”
    “I don’t know his name,” said Murthy. “I had someone in my office sub it out. He’s a contractor — used him before, that’s what they told me.”
    Petey was used to overlooking Murthy’s shallow efforts, for his wife’s sake. “What do we know so far?”
    Thomka rubbed it in. “Yeah! What do you know, Mahesh? You don’t have any idea where your subcontractor buddy is. Do you?”
    “It’s only been three weeks,” shouted Murthy, bleary-eyed. “There’s movement. He reported in from some god-forsaken place in Pennsylvania. I have the report right here.” He pulled out his cell phone.
    Thomka glared at Murthy. He was embarrassing both of them.
    “Look it up,” said Petey, moving to the bar and tapping himself another beer. “I don’t like this. It’s an oddly shaped situation. It’s too simple. An underground communications network that started out as game platform. Simple ideas are dangerous.
    “I started The Church on one simple idea. Crush my evangelical competitors with a fire and brimstone product with more hell and brimstone than any other in history. Way more. A lake of fire with a drop of salvation, and I’m holding the water bottle. One simple idea cloaked in a veil of love, serving up a feast of