first. He savored the burn, the quick hot dizziness spreading out from his lungs.
And thought of her.
Sharon Crayne sat at ScanNet's console, doing what she had to do, what she had committed herself to do. For a moment, she thought of Alex Griffln, and her resolve weakened.
He was just a man, she told herself. Just another man who had used her body. And that made Griffin an animal, like all the others. Something to be used and then thrown aside. Maybe they could have been friends, but that potential had ended the moment he went for the bait, the moment he let her coax him into bed. The moment he had entered her, no matter how gently.
No friendship was possible, and yet her head sagged, and something inside her cried out in loneliness, in need ignored for years. There was something different about Alex, something good and gentle and strong. She was ashamed to have used his loneliness.
Just perhaps, if all went well, they could start over again. Perhaps, if he could forgive her for what she had to do, she could forgive him for what he had done. He needed someone, as she did. He didn't really love her, he was in love with the idea of love. Enthralled, and perhaps amazed, that he still believed in love.
And what did Sharon Crayne believe in?
She didn't know, and wouldn't have time to find out, not until her task was done. So for now, focus on that task. Let nothing interfere.
'I'm coming, sweetheart,' she whispered. 'Mommy's doing everything she can.'
4
Tuesday, July 19, 2059 9:00 P.M.
Acacia Garcia calmed her breathing. She wiped sweat out of one eye at a time for fear of obscuring her vision. She was ever alert for symptoms that the Crystal Maze was preparing to shift.
The Maze's forest of glass and plastic mirrors crawled and crackled with slow lightning. A vaguely mint- scented mist roiled around her knees. Sometimes tentacled things writhed in its depths.
All of the lights dimmed, and she held her breath. A ploy? Laughter. Fanged reptilian mouths materialised in shifting demonic faces, dancing in the wan light. Then the glowing image of Tammi floated through the darkness.
Acacia swiveled, back flattening against the wall. Tammi's face was an illusion: its eyes didn't track her. Perhaps lurking behind her back? Close enough to breathe in her ear?…
Acacia checked her wrist monitor and punched in TAMMI. She got a heartbeat and respiration rate, a blood- pressure reading. If she chose to monitor it long enough, she might be able to tell when or if Tammi was getting ready to spring a trap. But it couldn't give her Tammi's location.
And of course Tammi had a monitor, too.
Six hours before, at the beginning of what was supposed to be a three-hour exhibition Game, Acacia and her team had entered the Crystal Maze.
Wrist monitors were supposed to give each team a complete readout of the other, plus a rough location within the Maze, making general strategy easier and melees more complex.
But…
Team leaders had monitor bands operating on a five-hour rechargeable battery. Acacia shut hers down, then employed the bridge-cutting strategy designed to confuse and infuriate the volatile Tammi. In order to have any chance against the unbeaten Troglodykes, Acacia had to force Tammi to play Crystal Maze to an alien rhythm.
By that dreadful fifth hour it seemed that Acacia's strategy was madness. Both teams were exhausted, but the Troglodykes had lost one player, and Acacia had lost two.
Then Tammi's locator died. Acacia had watched Tammi's panic register in the biomonitor: a sudden surge of respiratory and heart rate. Grimly satisfied, Acacia switched her locator back on.
Acacia sat tight in the Maze, waiting for Tammi to do something irrational.
Waiting… and waiting.
If Tammi was impulsive, Twan, her other half, was as nerveless an opponent as Acacia had ever faced. As a team they were too damned dangerous.
She had to shake their confidence now.
From the balcony around the edge of the lobby, the Maze looked like a jeweled city. The spectators wore costumes from a hundred lands and eras. Some weren't human. They wore prosthetic plastic or makeup, and, in a few cases, moderately effective holographic shrouds to give them the appearance of lizards, or glass-skinned damsels from the planet Wyndex, or denizens of worlds yet undreamed of. There were minstrels, and warriors from Africa and Japan and the Aztec empire. There were costumes from the English Regency and the Italian Renaissance and the antebellum
South.
Wagers were offered and taken as the contestants crept about in their arcane patterns, deployed their various stratagems, and engaged in bloody battles.
In their thousands, Gamers surged at the rails and crowded about monitors in every Dream Park hotel. These were the legions of the IFGS, having the party of their lives. Confetti streamed from the top level. Party rhythms wafted from the rooms, from Waltz to Big Band to Salsa and Elf Hive Hop. A different era and beat blared forth every twenty feet or so.
Hotel security men eyed each other nervously as the press increased. Even for Dream Park, this crowd was decidedly weird.
Without turning, Acacia knew that Captain Cipher was beside her. No sound had betrayed him, and certainly Acacia had no sixth sense. She was merely unfortunate enough to be standing downwind of him.
Sweat plastered his red hair down and painted dark pungent stains in the armpits of his red tights.
'Captain Cipher,' she whispered.
'At your beck and/or call, milady,' he whispered, with a sweep of an imaginary hat. He was slow straightening. He had been on his feet continuously since five that morning and was starting to fade.
The glass walls around them glowed red. In a few moments the glass might clear again, and their antagonists would know exactly where they were.
'Listen,' Acacia said urgently. 'We're going to die here in a minute-'
'But you think Captain Cipher can save the day?'
'Yes,' she said wearily. ''Captain Cipher can save the day. Look at this.'
She tapped out the first five notes of the Starship Troopers theme on a crystal keyboard inset in a wall. A hidden plate slid up.
Within was an old-fashioned computer console keyboard. Its screen revealed the remaining three members of Tammi's team as they crept through the mist.
So, they were together, not separated into a pincer movement. That was valuable information, but she needed more. She needed their location.
'Look,' she said. 'We've accumulated twelve thousand three hundred points. With seven hundred more, we get a tunnel through the mirrors. But we have to gamble seven to win seven, and this is a Fourth-Level puzzle.'
She tapped out a request, and categories appeared: 1) Historical Trivia 2) Famous Battles 3) Killer Konundrmns 4) Minor Masters
Corby blinked his rather protruding eyes rapidly. ' 'Famous Battles.' Erk. History was always Captain Cipher's weakest subject. '
'I might be able to handle that-'
'Not at Level Four. Nine-nosed Napoleon, milady, they'll pull out some fourth-century Mesopotamian ca-ca, trust me. Minor Masters is probably eighteenth-century Italian card sharks and street mimes. Captain Cipher likes Killer Konundrums.' His round little eyes grew shifty and distant as he considered. 'If it's a classic, I'd probably
