The hook, in god-games, isn’t the destructive power or capriciousness. Sure, you can drop a volcano on Manhattan or fling your worshippers at distant islands, but so what? One might as well build a block city and kick it over in a raging second: fun, but not for long, and you have to clean it up.
No, Alejandro knows, it’s benevolence that addicts you. When else is doing good so easy, so clear, so quickly rewarded? If real kindness were like this, he thinks (drumming with pencils and wishing he was playing another turn), shit, he’d probably be a volunteer.
The tiny postapocalyptic biker gang dangles from Alejandro’s cursor as he tries to decide where in the desert to plop them down.
“You’re addicted to that game,” she says.
“It’s only addiction if my insurance covers it.”
“You don’t have insurance.”
“Shit,” he says, “I should take up smoking.”
“Anyway, this box is the last of your stuff. Unless you want the towels.”
“Nah,” he says, very lightly, “they’d smell like you.”
“Shit,” she says, “I should take up smoking.”
Alejandro drops the flailing bikers. They cheer and pop pixelated wheelies, until the one with the eyepatch dies of radiation poisoning.
