Blizzard Entertainment, the über gaming company behind World of Warcraft, caught wind of what was happening in Azeroth and pledged to match whatever funds were raised. The money was collected in an account set up by one of Hazel’s guild brothers who, in real life, was a banker. Hazel’s $15,000 swelled to $150,000 almost overnight, and then doubled with the Blizzard match. But it was still many, many leagues from the million-dollar reserve and opening bid. The effort, spectacular though it was, failed.
Hazel couldn’t explain why Jared’s cause had become so important to her. Yes, it started with Boots, but now it was something more. Her life needed meaning. Jared Stone’s plight made her realize that fighting imaginary monsters to get to virtual treasure was a pleasant diversion, but not something to aspire to. Here was a chance to help a real human being.
In the end, though, it turned out to be moot.
“A million dollars,” she said again.
Hazel turned off the screen, flopped on her bed, grabbed her weathered copy of The Fellowship of the Ring, and fell asleep reading.
***
Sherman Kingsborough saw the $1,000,000 bid and panicked. He hadn’t yet received an answer to his query about the seller’s physical and mental state, but he had so worked himself up about the chance to kill another human being that he had to get in the game. His bid was $1.2 million.
It was a worthwhile gamble. Besides, to Sherman, it was really just pocket change.
He had settled on a Hunger Games–like test of skills in which he and Jared would be turned loose in an enclosed wooded reserve. They would be given scant supplies, minimal survival gear, and neither would be allowed to leave until the other was dead. He had already begun scouting locations and hiring staff to make it all happen.
But without Jared, it would all be academic. Sherman needed to win that auction.
***
Sister Benedict couldn’t tear herself away from the computer. She had been sitting there for ten hours, only getting up once to use the bathroom.
She refreshed the page every two or three minutes, a solemn promise to herself that each click of the mouse would be the last, that she would turn the computer off and tend to her duties, returning to the auction later, closer to its scheduled end time. But, despite her best efforts, Sister Benedict was human, and she simply could not look away.
Since the auction began, three different young nuns in training had entered the Sister’s office seeking guidance in resolving personal disputes. With each interruption, Sister Benedict looked up from her computer and said, “God gave us brains and hearts to figure out how to fix our own problems. Don’t come back until you can tell me what path the Lord has shown you to solve this crisis,” the word “crisis” dripping with the sarcasm of absolute authority. The Sister was so lost in the world of the Internet that she had no idea what any of the novices had said to her. For all she knew, one of them was pregnant. (None were.) But still, she couldn’t stop clicking that mouse.
The Sister was aware that her bid was a canard, a red herring, and that she and the Church had no intention of paying the money. Cardinal Trippe’s plan was for the Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration to make sure that they won the bid. When the auction ended and it was time to pay, they would simply renege. In this way, they would block Jared Stone from going through with his plan.
“But aren’t we committing a kind of sin?” the Sister had asked the Cardinal, confusion etched on her thick brow. “If we do not intend to complete the auction, then bidding on the auction is a kind of lie, is it not?”
“Do you know the story of Rosa Parks?” Cardinal Trippe asked.
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“Then you know that Ms. Parks broke the law by sitting where she sat on that bus. Yet what she did was still right.” While Sister Benedict grudgingly acknowledged that the law restricting where black people could and could not sit was wrong, she still thought that Rosa Parks should have followed the rules. Though she, the Sister, was politic enough to know to keep that to herself. She also had to bite her cheek to stop herself from correcting the Cardinal from using “Ms.” when he should have been saying “Miss,” something she did with her students at the Annunciation school.
“It was a form of civil disobedience,” the Cardinal said. “What we’re doing is the twenty-first-century version of the same. Call it social disobedience. It is wrong that this man can sell his life on eBay, so we will block him from doing so, peacefully, passively.”
Dear Lord, the Sister thought, give me the strength to deal with this fool. Next he’ll be talking to me about that Indian martyr in the diaper.
When Sherman Kingsborough’s bid came through at $1.2 million, the Sister immediately bid it up to $1.5 million. Even though the bid wasn’t real, she couldn’t help but revel in the appropriation of such a large sum of money. Perhaps, she thought, I can still convince the Cardinal that when we win the auction, we should pay the price and bring this man under our care. The Sister had, unknowingly, become intoxicated with a feeling of power.
***
Ethan Overbee watched the bidding war heat up. He watched, and he waited.
***