It's The End of the Game and I Feel Fine

“What?” was all John could say in response to Scott Gallagher’s question.

“I said that I want you to kill me,” Scott repeated. “I’ve even provided the means for my own murder.”

For a moment, John hesitated before something in his mind refused to let the proposition move any further. “I thought you said earlier that if I did anything to you, I would be stuck in this room for the rest of my life.”

Scott leaned back and crossed his arms. “I did say that, didn’t I? I might’ve lied a little bit so that we could have a brief conversation. I have a map contained in the desk right here.” He gestured at one of the drawers beneath his workstation. When John said nothing, Scott continued, “What, did you think that I had the entire route memorized? Fontaine is a special case. He’s the sort of person who can commit something to memory in a matter of seconds if you ask him to. It boggles the mind how one gains such an ability.”

John just was left feeling like an idiot, annoyed that he hadn’t dared to press further before. Now that he knew there was a way out, his mind could finally contemplate Gallagher’s proposal and he couldn’t help but find it enticing. To end the life of the man responsible for everything by his own hands and get some form of revenge that would satisfy the gnawing rage sitting in his heart. If all went well, he would be considered a hero, the sort of person who was willing to do what it took to set things right. It might even be enough to salvage both his reputation and his career. Anyone else left in this game would have their suffering ended prematurely and things could go back to how they were. In the end, it came down to an age-old question: did the ends justify the means?

He stood up, grabbed the gun, and held it to the head of the man sitting across from him. Scott looked pensive, almost contemplative. It was like he was as torn about the decision as John was. There was something John wanted to test first before he made any choice, however.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” Scott asked after a minute of waiting.

“Why are you in such a hurry to die?” John asked in return.

“Haven’t I provided enough reasons? I’ve lived a life of misery with nothing but revenge on my mind. Those I hated have felt my pain.” He paused for a second. “Do you believe in coincidences, John?”

“Not particularly,” he replied curtly.

“Neither do I. I’m not religious, not by any definition of the word, but I’ve come to believe that things in this world happen for a reason. If there is an afterlife, I know it’s unlikely that I’ll be seeing its better side. I do not seek to repent of my sins, nor do I believe in any form of forgiveness for those I have chosen as players.”

For whatever reason, this stirred something in John’s heart. “You don’t even want to hold onto some form of hope for your mother? Of meeting her again?”

“Of course I have hope. I have hope for vengeance. If there is something akin to heaven, then no one deserves it more than her.” Gallagher stared at him with rage in his eyes and tenacity in his voice. “If God will not enact justice, then I will.”

“Then you are religious, aren’t you?” John asked.

“No, but my mother was,” Scott replied solemnly. “It is because of her that I know what justice is, even if I do not necessarily share in her beliefs.”

“I don’t believe that what you’re saying is the whole truth,” John retorted, pressing the gun harder against Scott’s forehead. He tried to keep his hand steady, but he couldn’t help trembling under the weight of the firearm. “There’s something off about this whole set-up and I don’t like it one bit.” He attempted to take a breath to steady his aim, but that did nothing to clear his mind. “Earlier, we talked about hypocrisy. I’d be nothing but one if I took your life. I may have done terrible things in my time here on this Earth, but I am not going to directly take a human life with my own hands, no matter how much I might want to. No matter what my heart tells me what might be right, it’s my soul that matters and must be protected.”

“The soul over the heart, eh?” Scott smirked. “My mother used to speak like that. In a way, perhaps she had more hope in her heart than I did.”

“If someone like her, who you claim to hold in such high regard, can hold onto hope and be kind to others, then why can’t you?” John asked. His arm steadied itself even further, yet his mind felt less certain than before.

“You speak as though you know her,” Gallagher replied, a streak of hatred running through his voice, “but you’re nothing like her. She was the most innocent woman who has ever lived, while you’re anything but.”

“You know what I’ve done down to the tiniest details. You probably know more about my actions than I do. You tell me: wouldn’t it be hypocritical of me to take your life for what you’ve done simply because I disagreed with your actions when I’ve gone after others for theirs?”

“It would be, I suppose,” Scott answered, rubbing his chin. “Then I guess you’ve come to a conclusion about your choice.”

Without a second thought, John continued speaking. He didn’t want to allow Gallagher to get a word in before he could. “There is one thing that I don’t think you know about me, even then. You may be a technology expert, but you aren’t an expert in humanity.”

“Oh, I see, is the journalist about to lecture me about how my data is worthless? I’ve done nothing but analyze people throughout my career. As I have looked at the data I’ve acquired, my goal has only become clearer to me because it all showed me one thing and one thing only: man is desperately wicked and deserves the punishment I will inflict upon it.”

John felt like he had reached the true beliefs of Scott Gallagher, but now it was time to refute and dissect them. “If that was true, then why offer a chance of survival if you truly believed that people only deserved death? If you knew everything, then surely you would know all there is to know about human nature. Of course that’s not true, because such a thing is impossible. Instead, you should consider what you do know.

“Some of what I wrote led to people killing themselves in order to avoid the consequences of their actions. Some people, so horrified by the truth of what they’d done, were more content to take their own lives than live on as the people they’d become. In a way, that’s the ultimate realization of your ideals, isn’t it?” John finally returned the gun to its original spot on the desk next to Gallagher and sat down.

Scott looked down at his hands. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not? After all, I brought information to them in order to meet my own ends. Isn’t that the same as what you’ve been doing? You compared the two of us yourself. If it doesn’t seem right, then why would it be morally correct for me to take your life then? As soon as I realized it was a pattern and that I wasn’t doing good, that was when I stopped actively collecting information.” John hesitated. He hadn’t even told his wife this. “Truth be told, I was debating quitting the journalism profession entirely and becoming a novelist. I’ve spent enough time putting a spin on the truth, I may as well come up with something entirely fictional.”

Gallagher stuttered for a moment before regaining his composure. The gamemaster was beginning to break. “Well, yes, while that might have been the case, what mattered was the fact that you still had done something evil in the first place. What mattered was the original action, not the reaction. Besides, I hadn’t realized that you were considering quitting such a successful career.”

“Yes, you hadn’t, had you?” John stood up now. “You hadn’t realized because you hadn’t spent time living. If you had, maybe you’d see what makes people want more than stagnation.” There was a sudden power in his voice and actions that hadn’t been there before, as if choosing to put away the gun had made him the person he used to be at the height of his career. “Would your mother be happy about that? I’d imagine she wanted you to keep living and growing. Instead, you haven’t left that alleyway, haven’t grown, and haven’t changed beyond the sad little boy who lost his mother on that day.

Scott’s hands were beginning to shake now, but he didn’t say anything. He couldn’t think of anything that would make for an adequate response. There was nothing that he could say in the face of such a revelation, of a comparison that cut so deeply into the depths of his soul.

“I have my own son; do you know that?” John asked.

“I don’t see how…” Gallagher began, his voice beginning to shake in tune with his hands. The information only made him further think of his mother. He knew it already, but his spirit had been chipped away by John’s arguments. Responding was beyond him at this point.

“I would do anything for him. But if I found out that he had grown stagnant after I died and could only fixate on the events which had led to my death, it would break my heart. I think it would disappoint me more than anything else in the world.”

It was only then that the shaking revealed its true purpose. It was the thunder which preceded a storm of emotion which poured down from the eyes of the man sitting across from John. The sight of those tears made him realize that that Scott Gallagher, for all of his intelligence and wealth, was much younger than he had seemed. If anything, he was only a couple of years older than Lee Adams Jr.

He further realized that his own power hadn’t come from a gun, a journalism degree, or any amount of fear. It had come from his family, as his strength the entire night had. Much like with Lee, he saw a person without a parental figure to turn to and began to act as one without thinking. In the end, despite all the lies and pain, it was his family who had allowed him to remove the strength and intellect from Scott Gallagher and revealed the childish nature of his actions and emotions.

Like he would have done if the man was his own son, John embraced Scott Gallagher. He didn’t process how much time passed, but he could tell that type of physical contact was sorely needed. It was then that Scott Gallagher began to cry like a person who had never truly cried before. In truth, it was likely that he hadn’t cried since the day his mother died; so hardened had his heart become in the years since then.

After the two separated, Scott wiped a tear from his eyes and said, “I haven’t felt like this in a long time. It’s almost like a piece of my soul has been missing ever since my mother died… and now you’ve given me the path to finding it. Thank you.” John nodded. His broken spirit had changed his demeanor completely. In a way, there was an innocence that had been there all along which John had never noticed because of how blinded he’d been by his hatred and fear. Gallagher then asked, “What do I do now? I dedicated my entire life to the game. Revenge, vengeance, hatred, it was all I had. Now there’s… nothing.”

“If you want my advice, you can find that missing piece by making a plan of action. It’s what I tend to do when I find myself at a low point. It’s how I survived your game, after all.” Gallagher’s face changed to a more curious expression. “First of all, you turn yourself in,” John answered. “The authorities are, no doubt, looking for you, and I’m certain that they can protect you.” Scott nodded. “Secondly, allow me to interview you when I can. I think if people knew your life story and what motivated you, they might actually sympathize with you a bit more. Thirdly, I want you to end the game, just like you promised. Everyone gets their assets returned to them. How does that sound?”

With a weak and somewhat sad smile, Scott answered, “That sounds lovely, actually. A more complete solution than I could’ve come up with. I assumed I’d be dead at the end of this whole thing. I think I’d like to give living a chance instead.” After quickly typing a command into his computer, Scott grabbed a map out of the desk he had been sitting at throughout their conversation. “Shall we?”

“After you,” John replied.

Not knowing what the future would hold, the two of them proceeded out of the game and back into the real world.