‘Why would they be deep in the elk woods on Visberg hill?’

‘That must be the least weird thing about this nightmare.’

I notice Tam walk in so I jump off my stool to greet her but then stop myself. She’s with a guy. With her new guy. I fix my hair and rub my cheeks to try to get some colour into them and then I go see them.

‘Tuva Moody,’ says Tam. ‘I’d like you to meet Julian. Julian, I’d like you to meet the best thing about Gavrik town, Tuva Moodyson.’

We shake hands. He’s cute. Tall and skinny with scruffy, brown hair and brown eyes.

‘Tammy’s told me all about you,’ he says.

I think about saying, don’t believe any of it, but I resist because I’m not quite that lame.

Tam whispers, ‘Date?’ so quiet I can’t hear her, but I can read it on her lips.

‘No, no,’ I say, looking back at Tobias. ‘Just work.’

‘Pool?’ she says. ‘After?’

‘Bed,’ I say. ‘Exhausted.’

They leave to play pool and I sit back down on my stool.

‘Nice that you have this place to hide out in,’ says Tobias. ‘We could do with something like this in Visberg. Maybe one day we’ll have a bar of our own.’

‘At least you have the Grill and the gamer café.’

‘Gamer café isn’t really a café, though, is it,’ he says. ‘Mind Games is more like a crèche for angry, frustrated young men who want to kill each other on screens. They launched a game on the first day of the elk hunt called Hunted 2.0, you hear about that? So while the locals are out actually hunting elk in the great outdoors, fresh air and exercise, obeying a code of conduct and maybe culling a few on the first day, these boys were slaughtering hundreds if not thousands of pixelated creatures onscreen. Elk, bears, mountain lions, condors, polar bears, Siberian tigers, the lot. And then, in the later levels, I heard they turn on each other in the virtual forests.’

‘Sounds like I should check that game out.’

‘You game?’

I drain the last of my lemonade. ‘Sure do.’

‘They don’t hunt each other with guns in the final levels,’ says Tobias, his face stern. ‘They hunt with their bare hands.’

‘Onscreen,’ I say.

‘Yeah, but still. Their avatars are augmented versions of the photos they upload. It’s that realistic. They strangle each other in this virtual world. They fight their own neighbours, realistic faces and all, and they tear out each other’s spines and organs. Trophies like scalps and earlobes get them extra points. The players even rip limbs off and beat other hunters to death with them. And…’

‘Go on.’

‘Decapitation. That’s what gets you to the top of the local leader board. You only win if you completely sever the other players’ heads.’

24