The Complete Game Trilogy: Game, Buzz, Bubble. Литагент HarperCollins USD

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       1

       Wanna play a game?

      The text flashed up on the screen for the umpteenth time, and for the umpteenth time HP clicked it away in irritation. No, he didn’t want to play any bloody game, all he wanted to do was figure out how the mobile phone in his hand worked, and whether it was possible to do anything as simple as make a phone call with it?

      The commuter train from Märsta, early July, heading towards the city.

      Almost thirty degrees, his top sticking to his back, his mouth already dry. Predictably, he was out of fags, and the only consolation was the breeze generated by the speed of the train, forcing its way through the pathetic little ventilation window above his head.

      He sniffed his t-shirt a couple of times, then checked his breath. The results were pretty much as expected. An away match, hangover, and the smell of something rotting in his mouth. Yeehaa! An almost perfect Sunday morning, if it weren’t for the fact that it was actually Thursday morning and he should have been at work two hours ago. So much for that period of probation.

      But so what.

      It was only a McJob anyway, a bunch of losers with a fully paid-up wanker in charge.

      It’s important to be one of the team, Pettersson. Yeah, right. Like he was going to hum Kumbayah and play team-building games with anyone. The only reason he was there was so he could make a new claim for unemployment benefit afterwards.

       Suck on that, mofos!

      He had noticed it shortly after the train left Rosersberg. A small, silver-coloured object on the seat on the other side of the aisle. Someone had been sitting there a minute ago, but had got off and the train was already moving again. So there was no point waving and shouting about it now, if he was seriously considering Doing The Right Thing.

      As if …!

      Anyway, everyone had a responsibility to look after their own damn stuff, didn’t they?

      So he looked quickly around instead, searching for security cameras with a practiced eye and, once he’d concluded that the carriage was too old to have any, he changed seat so he could examine his find at leisure.

      As he had thought, a mobile phone, and his morning suddenly got a bit better.

      A new model, touchscreen. Sweet!

      It was odd, but he couldn’t find the manufacturer’s name anywhere, but maybe the phone was so exclusive that there was no need for one? Unless the engraved lettering on the back was actually a brand-name?

      128, it said in light-grey lettering slightly less than a centimetre high.

      He couldn’t remember ever hearing of a phone company with that name.

      But what the hell …

      It must be worth five hundred kronor or so from the Greek who dealt in stolen mobiles. The alternative was spending a couple of hundred disabling the IMEI code so the owner wouldn’t be able to stop the thing working, then he could keep it for himself.

      But that was hardly an option …

      Last night had blown a definitive hole in his already overstretched finances. He’d had nothing in his account for ages, and he’d already used up all his other life-lines. But with a bit of hustling here and there he’d soon be back on his feet …

      You could never keep someone like him down for long, the mobile was living proof of that. He held the phone up to examine it more closely.

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