Dream Park

Gwen asked, 'You're taking off today?'

'We've still got to check out of the hotel. We shuttle out to New Frisco in about an hour. Are you guys in South Seas Treasure?'

All four nodded. Tony said, 'Any idea how many of us there'll be?'

Acacia nudged him. 'Won't know till this evening. You and I are reserved, and I guess Gwen and Ollie are, and there must have been six more people on the tram with us... I'd guess better than twenty of us, about half of them invited. Della, how many were there in your group?'

Della did some quick figuring. 'Fourteen? Fifteen. I waited a year to get in, too. You?'

'Eighteen months.'

Tony was really interested now. 'What if Dream Park doesn't like the Game enough to buy rights to it? No movie money, no book... what happens then?'

Everyone shrugged, but Ollie spoke, willing to take a guess. 'The Game Master'd be in trouble if he was running on a big deficit. Unless Dream Park took up the slack. But a good Game Master has got maybe two-three movies behind him, and maybe half a dozen books, and if he's really good he's got a Game run­ning here four months out of the year, and there are royalties on that.'

Gwen turned to look at him. 'Ollie... ?'

'Well?' He shrugged again. 'Heck, I've thought about trying to get a Game together. Heck, why not?'

Gwen opened her mouth to answer him, but Acacia cut her off. 'Announcing that it is five minutes after five. We've just got time to finish our sandwiches before Chester's preliminary briefing.'

Acacia and Tony were the last to join the conclave. There must have been thirty people jammed into the small mezzanine confer­ence room. The Dream Park Sheraton was decorated in Twenty-First Century Mundane; it had no fantasy motif at all. Acadia was tickled to find Chester staying here. Still, it fit. Starting a few hours from now, the Lore Master was going to get all the fantasy he could handle.

The Gamers were all shapes and sizes and ages, in all forms of dress from western modern to PseudNude to medieval and neo­lithic. Some were barely adolescent and some had detectable face lifts, and they were all paying respectful attention to the musings-aloud of a tall, almost birdlike young man.

He was sprawled across a couch, taking three men's elbow room. A quite lovely redhead leaned into the curve of one arm. As he spoke he gestured lazily with his free hand. 'I wish I knew more about the Game Lopez has set up. I do know that he said I won't need a parka, and a little bird tells me that the gaming area was used by the military to simulate an assault on Brazil. And of course we've got the title: South Seas Treasure. If I'm right…well, I did some research.'

Gwen Ryder raised her hand as if in a classroom. 'What do you think it means, Chester?'

'Magic of a kind we're not used to. We'll have to watch that.

Light clothing... good boots... bug spray. With anyone else the bugs would be holograms, but Lopez-'

Tony whispered, 'That's your Lore Master? With the gorgeous redhead?'

'A little respect, please,' Acacia murmured, jabbing him with an elbow. 'Chester Henderson is king at this Game. You listen, or you'll get killed early.'

The blond girl had the jitters, Tony thought. It didn't seem Gwen was going to Dream Park for the fun of it.

Tony himself was feeling decidedly twitchy. The rules, the players, Dream Park itself, it was all more complex than anything he had anticipated. The players were all too serious. Even Acacia was behaving as if death in a Game were real. Tony wondered if he had made a mistake, letting himself be talked into this.

'The thing to remember,' the potentate was saying, 'is that Lopez will do about the maximum damage to a party that he can without someone yelling foul. He's got to think about the next Game. If it gets out that he hit us with an eighty-percenter bliz­zard or a flock of plague bats, he won't be able to sell it. So it'll be nasty, but fair.'

Tony asked, 'What exactly is fair?'

Henderson turned to face him. 'Fair is anything that could be found naturally in the given environment, plus anything the inter­nal logic could imply. Like... in my second Game. Medieval world. First person we met was a Round Table knight, obscure, but I knew the name. Well, I started watching for anything that might imply. Black plague, dragons, Inquisition... and I didn't try for the Grail at all, because I'd never be judged pure enough. You follow?'

'Vaguely.'

'Look for the internal logic, always. And who are you? Are you with Acacia?'

'Tony McWhirter.' He put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close enough that her dark hair pillowed against his. 'We're together, yes.'

'Wonderful. You'll have a great time. Hey, Acacia, remember the ‘Frost Holocaust'?'

It sparked an elfin grin of remembrance. 'Who could forget those dog packs? And you should see my pictures of the mutants. Some of them didn't come out too well on film, though.'

'I hear the holos are hellaciously sharper this year. Shouldn't be a problem.' He thought for a moment, then continued, 'We can expect a forest or tropic region. I doubt Lopez would use any common or well-known myth- pattern, so we'll have to be on our toes. We may or may not be allowed modern weapons. I'll get all of that information tomorrow. Magic Users are probably Go, maybe some Swordspersons, an Engineer or two, a couple of Thieves...'

The doorman was appropriately cadaverous. He wore a tattered black hat, and a motheaten cloak that dragged loose threads on the ground. He opened the door for Gwen and Ollie, stepping out of their way with creaking torpidity. 'This way, young masters,' he rumbled.

'Will you look at this?' Ollie whispered to Gwen, goggle-eyed. The tram had unloaded them at the Haunted House, the theme hotel east of the main amusement area. They were still under­ground, in a depot decorated in Early Caligari. Cobwebs fes­tooned the corners of the station, and crawling things with glowing red eyes stalked their strands. The path before them led into a hallway with a glass ceiling.

Gwen looked up. 'Wow.' It was their own reflection; but as they proceeded, the flesh began to melt off their bones. When they reached the end of the corridor their reflections were a pair of skeletons shambling back to the mausoleum after a hard night's haunt.

'I don't know if I really want to open the door,' she said. Ollie edged it open with his fingertips. It creaked hideously.

The lobby was dim, and decorated in blacks and dark reds. Even the couches and chairs were somewhat foreboding. The red seat cushion on one dark chair gave it the unmistakable appear­ance of an open mouth. The ceiling was low. Flickering candela­bra supplied the light.

A lovely hostess in a flowing, wraith-white gown greeted them. Her red lipstick was just bright enough to bring out the paleness of her cheeks. She brought one delicate hand up to her mouth and coughed politely, then favored them with a dazzling smile.

'Good morning, my name is Lenore and I'd like to welcome you to the Haunted House, one of the nine Dream Park hotels. This is a theme hotel, so be ready. Anything can happen.'

The check-in terminal bore the guise of a great orchid plant; and the lovely flowers bowed toward them in entirely too friendly

a fashion. Ollie fished out his preregistration card and allowed a flower to take it. A quick display of words and numbers ran up the orchid-festooned screen; then the words 'Adolph Norliss and S. 0. room 7024.'

Ollie looked at Lenore curiously. 'S. 0.? What's that?'

She laughed sweetly. 'Significant Other. I assume that you and the lady aren't married?'

'Oh, yeah. We're engaged...'

'Then if she's not your wife or your sister, she's a Significant Other.'

Gwen sniffed. 'You could have just listed my name.'

Ollie looked uncomfortable. 'That's my fault, I guess. I wasn't absolutely sure we would be coming together.' He retrieved his card.

Lenore led them off to a brace of elevators. Gwen walked with her head turned to look up into Ollie's