Dream Park

face.

'And if I hadn't come, who would you have invited?'

He walked on, ignoring her question for a few steps, and she tugged at his sleeve. 'Ollie? Who would you have invited?'

He was trying, without terrific success, to hide a smile. 'Oh, I don't know. Anyone who could pay half the bill, I guess.'

'You guess?'

They had reached the elevator. Lenore motioned them in. 'Room seven-oh-two-four, on the seventh floor. And I hope you have a pleasant stay here at Dream Park.' She gave the slightest of curtsies, and slowly turned transparent. Only her ringing laugh­ter was still with them as the doors slid shut.

Ollie's jaw hung slack. He said, 'Heyyy...'

Gwen shook her head. 'That was really good. I'm impressed.' Her face sobered, and she squared her chunky body up to him. 'Ollie, would you really have come with somebody else if we hadn't made up?'

Ollie looked stonily ahead, trying to pretend he was still think­ing about Lenore.

'Ollie? I wouldn't have come without you. Really.'

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Gwen started to speak, but the opening hiss of the door silenced her. Ollie stepped out, then stopped and turned. 'I thought you said you were com­ing with Furburger or whatever his name is.'

'Feinburger.'

'Feinburger. Well?'

'Oh, you nut, I wasn't really gonna go with Gordon. All he ever wants... all he wanted was to get into my pants anyway. I just didn't want you to think you had to feel sorry for me.' She brushed a strand of her short yellow hair into place. 'Honest.'

'Well...' Ollie hesitated, then turned and started down the ball. She had almost to run to catch up, to hear him say softly, 'I made the reservation for two ‘cause I hoped you'd come with me, and I didn't put a name down because I was scared you wouldn't.'

Gwen seemed about to speak; then she linked anus with him and matched him stride for stride down the hall. Finally, as if she couldn't stand it any longer, she swung him around and kissed him hard. With her hands locked behind his neck she looked dead into his eyes and said in all seriousness, 'Adolph, I love you. I really do. But sometimes I could just break your kneecaps.'

He smiled at her, and it stayed warm. 'Hey, I think this is our room.' He clicked his registration card into the slot in the door and it creaked open. From within the room there came a widening beam of dark purple light.

'Holy spit.' Ollie pushed the door further open, then stepped in, Gwen close behind. The room was an Edward Gorey opium dream. Dark twisted plants grew meter-high from rudely-stitched planters made of some kind of animal skin. The canopy over the bed fluttered without a breeze. Rain blew against the panes with a sound of crackling bacon. Things moved out there in the dark, and even the shadows on the wall seemed to flux with a strange rhythm. When Gwen looked at the bed closely she could see that the spread was slowly rising to normal level, as if someone had gotten off it the instant before the door opened.

She said, 'Wow. This is really...'

'Really what? Come on, don't keep me hanging.'

'Hush, I'm being terrorized. This is too much! Ollie, I adore this room.' She stood on tiptoe and bussed him. 'I'm very glad to be your Significant Other. Let's get the luggage out of the lift and get to bed. Tomorrow starts early.'

Chapter Four

THE MASTER DREAMERS

The ballroom of the Dream Park Sheraton was completely filled. Bleachers had been set up on three sides of the room, overlooking a conference table set near the fourth wall.

Of the eighteen hundred people in the room, only about fifty occupied the cordoned-off section near the conference table. These were the finalists: those pre-chosen to participate in the Game, and those whose credentials had passed the preliminary screening test.

There was little noise in the room, and no talking at all. All eyes were on the conference table.

Chester Henderson drummed his fingers on the table. His light blue shirt had dark rings under the armpits from nervous perspi­ration, and his eyes darted from the wall clock to the room's main entrance, to the clock, to the entrance. .

He leaned toward the bald man with the roll-top sweater. 'Lis­ten, Myers, do I have to put up with this kind of crap? He's twenty minutes late!'

Myers was fortyish, with tobacco-stained teeth and a receding chin hidden behind a sparse beard. He smiled at Chester with the benignity of a suffering saint. 'Mr. Henderson, this is Mr. Lopez's Game. While the I.F.G.S. may enter your complaints in the min­utes of today's meeting, I'm afraid that there is no set procedure for censuring a tardy Game Master. If you would care to submit a resolution to that effect at the next meeting...

Chester waved a weary hand in the air and sighed his surrender. 'We wait. Metesky, can we at least go over the basic points now?'

The other person at the table was a woman with a stripe of white dyed down the middle of a glorious wealth of gray hair. Age had been kind to her, mellowing the angular facial lines of her youth into softer curves. She moved her leather briefcase a protec­tive inch closer to her chest and calmly said, 'I'm afraid not, Mr. Henderson. Mr. Lopez was very specific about that.'

Henderson lidded his eyes and silently mouthed further specifics concerning Mr. Lopez, then inhaled deeply through his nose, holding the air down for a long count before exhaling. Temper, temper, he reminded himself. In a war of nerves, your own arsenal can destroy you.

There was a swelling murmur in the back of the room. Chester looked up, trying unsuccessfully to mask his eagerness. Two peo­ple were approaching, a short dark man wearing crisp white denims, and a slight Japanese girl several inches taller. Chester knew the woman. Chi-chi Lopez.

The murmur grew to spontaneous applause, and Lopez turned and bowed grandly. After a moment's hesitation his wife Mitsuko curtsied. Chester had to smile. He had expected that forcing Lopez out of the woodwork would shake the great Game Master. The little man might have been born in front of an audience.

He strode directly to Henderson and extended his hand, a cool and businesslike smile on his face. 'I hope my lateness hasn't in­convenienced you.'

Chester took the hand and the gambit with the same firm grip. 'Certainly not. I'm glad you felt free to take all the time you need to get your Game together.'

Lopez nodded curtly, and led his wife to their seats at the other end of the table. There was a barely audible hum, and a 'soft' translucent hologram blossomed in the air over the table, greatly magnifying the faces of the five principles.

Ms. Metesky folded her fingers primly and cleared her throat before speaking. 'As the representative of Dream Park's Special Projects division, I would like to welcome Mr. Richard Lopez and Mr. Chester Henderson to our facilities. This is a momentous oc­casion, as these two greats of the fantasy gaming world have never before met face to face. Mrs. Lopez is known to us all, of course-' Mitsuko leaned over in her seat and gave a little wave to Chester, who returned it with warmth. 'But many of you may not know Mr. Arlan Myers, representative of the International Fan­tasy Gaming Society.' The light reflected from the top of Myers' head as he nodded.