respectful attention you pay to your body and the things you put in it, the less likely you are to abuse it.”
“That’s really interesting, but not what I need.” Alex wished Vail would stop waving his coffee around. The smell was driving him nuts. Then again, Dream Park’s mad psychiatrist might be ghoulish enough to do it deliberately, studying Griffin’s conditioned responses.
Alex gritted his teeth and punched in Marty’s “silent” code, knowing that a steady vibratory trill would alert the security man.
Hippogryph waited a few seconds and then got up and moved away from the others. He walked toward where a line of scrubby bushes shaped a crescent moon; but he turned aside before he reached it. The curve of the hill hid him when he took out his communications kit.
“Marty. What happened out there with this Eviane woman?”
“She was stomped by a ghastly. Griff, we just lost somebody. It’s no big thing.”
“Marty, you don’t get it. No one is supposed to be killed out of a Fat Ripper!”
Beat. “What?”
“This isn’t a Game for points. You read the material. This is a Game to teach people lessons. Why should she get killed out? She didn’t make a mistake. Later on you’ll have opportunities to get killed out if you make a mistake, but not now. What point would there be?”
“I… all right, I see the logic. I suppose this is a secret?”
“You bet. We don’t want everybody knowing we have a problem.”
Marty must have heard the impatience in his voice. “I’m slow catching up, boss. They rap me half to death.”
In truth, Marty looked exhausted. It would not do to forget that others besides Alex Griffin might be having problems. “How are you, Marty? Are you going to get through this?”
“We warriors will carry out our duty, 0 Griffin. Besides, the worst part must be over. Have you been watching, Griff?”
He hadn’t, but Marty would surely expect him to. “A little.”
“That scene in the sauna, the smokehouse? Most of us are overweight, Griff, and we all look like it with our clothes off, and I looked just like them. I felt so… fat.”
“Any sign of trouble? Aside from terminal embarrassment, I mean..?“
“No. Nobody’s trying to off Ambassador Arbenz’s niece, far as I can tell. Gruff, it’s hard to tell what’s funny in this environment. I should have been told that we can’t be killed out.”
“I wasn’t told till this morning. I might have told you, and then you’d have been too relaxed. You’ll be too relaxed, unless you watch yourself.”
“So how did it happen to Eviane?”
“The one thing that I do know is that Eviane-her real name is Michelle Sturgeon-was in Dream Park before, and her file has been sealed.”
“Well, who sealed it?”
“Harmony. I’m going to have to take it up with him. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Maybe Harmony kicked her out of the Game.”
“I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have interfered without talking to me. Even so it’s awfully queer… and clumsy.”
“Clumsy. So, what are you going to do with her?”
Griffin looked at the picture of Michelle Sturgeon, smiling and happy in the file, contrasted it with the pudgier, angrier woman who had challenged Vail and his nurse: “ Unless I get you first… ”
“I’d… better talk to Harmony,” he said finally. “I guess it’s time I did just exactly that.”
Chapter Eleven
For twenty-seven minutes Harmony had ignored his personal pager. Cary McGivvon looked at Alex expectantly, her fingers floating above the red button on her keyboard. “Should I try the priority override?”
“No… even Harmony has a personal life. I tell you what.” He moved around behind her, hands resting lightly on her shoulders. “Give me a movement scan. Tell me the last time his personal code passed one of the checkpoints. Let’s be sure he’s still inside the Park.”
She ran the scan. There was a brief flicker of schematics, and the outline of the entire structure of Dream Park appeared in the wall. A sixteen-hundred-acre rotating pie studded with towers and arcs, the skeletal outlines of roller coasters and dropshafts, the single long loop of the Gravity Whip, the facades of thousands of rides, exhibits, “experiences,” shops, stages, mini-hotels, restaurants, tram and train stations, security and information kiosks, and more street vendors than anyone could count. Code colors red, blue, green, and finally executive silver flashed. Thirty-seven hundred and twelve personal checkpoints flashed negative.
“His beeper is still in his office, Griff. He’s inside the grid.”
Alex liked this less by the moment. “Well… why in the world wouldn’t he answer the page…?”
An unpleasant suspicion niggled at the back of his mind. “Get his medivac channel. Get a complete scan.”
Millicent jumped. “Chief… ah, Griff, that’s personal space.”
Cary nodded. “I don’t have clearance for that.”
Alex fished a flat clear-plastic card out of his wallet. “I do. Override it.”
“All right.” She slipped Alex’s card into a narrow slot on her console, and waited a moment as the wall began to fill with alphanumerics. “Well… pulse rate is ninety-eight… it’s erratic, blood pressure high, skin temperature low. He’s very agitated, Griff. Something’s wrong.”
Cary had discreetly omitted mention of Harmony’s alcohol level. It was sky-high.
Alex drummed thick fingers on the desk. “All right, don’t go to priority override. I want to keep this personal until I find out what’s going on around here.”
Millicent raised an eyebrow. “I think I’d better stay here.”
“I think you’re right.”
Harmony’s office was in the Dark Tower, the tallest building in the communications and research complex. Thadeus had been booted up there eight years ago, when Alex was brought in, after a short stint at Cowles Seattle and a longer service in military intelligence.
Considering Harmony’s importance, one might have expected his office door to be larger, the vestibule more ostentatious. It could easily have been the entrance to a secretarial pool.
The scan system showed that Harmony was still in his private quarters, just off his office. Clearly, he didn’t want to be disturbed. Just as clearly, there was no way Alex could honor his wish. All Dream Park executives and personnel above Class 3 were on duty twenty-four hours a day excluding specific vacation time. Get above Class 2 and even that was no protection.
Harmony had accepted the whole bill when he accepted promotion. Not that he was given a choice. In Cowles, as in most major corporations, it was Up or Out.
Harmony still didn’t answer the buzzer. Alex didn’t want to make a stink with the central computer, so he used his priority override card, passed it through the electric scan, answered the vocal scan’s impertinent questions, and waited as the door decided whether or not to slide open for him. It slid.
It was terribly hot in the office. The wall furnace had been turned up to near max.
Harmony was in one of his overstuffed chairs, sitting with his hands wrapped around a glass. His blunt features were heavy and slack. “Alex,” he said, his normally mellifluous tones slurred. The slurring blurred the line between amusement and irritation. “Are you going to stand there, or are you going to come in and pour yourself a drink?”
“Well… I’m still on duty.”
“You’re not on duty. Nobody’s on duty. Goddamit.”
“I am.'
