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Sternelli's madness, Burroughs' secret: Our dark trilogy concludes -- for now

I exploded Stephen's spaceship moments from arrival on the Desert Planet with a smuggled load of fresh water. I used the antimatter bomb I had purchased from a shady ex-Federation weapons scientist, and just before he entered the glow of the atmosphere his whole vessel turned a dull orange and flew apart in a swirl of white pixels. This was revenge for his betraying our carefully hammered-out agreement to divide the interstellar black-market in unrefined dilithium, and revenge was indeed sweet.

This game is our latest obsession, our most current technique for escaping the consequences and the ethical relevance of day-to-day life. We cross into the world of this game, as we have crossed into the world of so many others, and we shed the kind, thoughtful, honor-coded, categorical-imperative-driven and secular-Christian virtue that our parents, schools and neighbors have worked so hard to inculcate in us. This particular game came from the Web, and it takes place in the underbelly of the squeaky-clean "Star Trek" universe, a universe of smugglers, arms dealers and unpredictable idealists. The temporal and spatial anomalies, the inter-species romances and the chance to save backwater civilizations that are so much a part of the Enterprise's experience are few and far between here. Instead we accumulate practically unimaginable wealth; we hone our cutthroat bargaining and business skills; and (as I have described) we blow each other up.

Entertainment like this really has no boundaries. We take a deliberate step by crossing into it, but once we've cast off the restraint that held us at a distance from its playful space, the way back into the responsible everyday world is no longer clear. The game seeps into the time that we pretend to work, and eat, and plan, and socialize. When we were playing 3-D battle chess I learned to dream about it, anticipating Stephen's countermoves and planning openings for the next day. At parties we would move through living rooms according to the laws governing knights: two steps forward and one to the right, finding ourselves in who-knew-which tangle of kids discussing the impeachment, or the new DeLillo book, or where they were when they heard Jerry died, or -- if the kids were younger -- Cobain. When I destroyed the water-smuggling ship, Stephen lost not only the black-market price of the goods, the depreciated value of his vehicle and the life of a scrupulously crafted avatar, but also the chance to be taken seriously when we bicker about who's a faster driver, about who obeys the traffic laws a little too exactly.

"Yo, what took you so long, asshole? 'Boy Meets World' in 30 seconds." This is the problem: an everyday afternoon TV schedule that you had better not be late for. Stephen was not angry, but he can't pass up a chance to criticize. At first I could think of no defense:

"Why don't you shut up? Where's the popcorn?"

"Popcorn? Why don't you fucking get home in time to make your own?"

Then I remembered the great coup I had won above the surface of the Desert Planet and I cashed in on it to terrific effect.

"Get home in time? Listen, at least I don't explode for no obvious reason two seconds before pulling into the driveway."

At this point my roommate's impatience ceased to be a personal affront and became just one of a long list of pitiable qualities, a reminder of my strategic superiority. I was no longer threatened by his competent fashion sense (in contrast to my own) or his bottomless fund of insults and obscenity. Stephen's very impulsiveness became a reassurance that the hyperspace shipping routes were safe for my own trans-galactic monopoly, that in our squabbles of one-upmanship I would always have a rejoinder.

N E X T_ P A G E .|. How friends learn to enjoy mutual destruction