while the holograms simulated a web of glittering, razor steel. This was where genuine proficiency, the grueling hours of saber or iaido or Filipino escrima, paid off.
They spun and dodged, Tammi taken aback and disadvantaged momentarily by the need to defend Twan, now fighting to keep her ball floating on its track.
Sword and staff leapt and swished and clacked. Now the sounds of cheering from the gallery were piped in. From behind Acacia's eyes, Panthesilea exulted.
If only she'd brought Captain Cipher! The little man could certainly have handled Twan. But she was winning! Scenting the kill, the cheering throng above them was going nuts.
Block and spin, a lethal tornado of motion. Low feint, trap the staff down, kick to the head blocked with the other end of the staff Acacia saw her opportunity. She accepted a shattered rib to touch Tammi's right arm. Ribs and arm glowed red. Cursing, Tammi dropped her weapon.
Twan screamed, 'Excellent!' The red ball dropped neatly into its hole.
The demon of the Maze appeared. 'Your pleasure?'
Panthesilea froze, and Acacia's personality emerged, figuring the odds. Twan could kill her right then-her Magic User rating was high enough. Then she would stalk down Cipher.
But before the spell worked, Acacia would kill Tammi. For the first time in Crystal Maze history, one of the dread Troglodykes would die.
What would she do? Twan squinted up at Acacia owlishly. 'Stand by,' she said to the demon.
'As you wish,' it hissed.
The crowd was silent.
'I offer a draw,' Twan said.
'Not quite,' Acacia reminded her. 'If we quit now, it's even kills, but you're a few points up.'
'Draw. Take it or leave it.' Tammi's eyes wouldn't leave hers, wouldn't look to the left… she was about to leap for that damned staff. She'd continue the fight left-handed.
'Accepted,' Acacia said, and lowered Panthesilea's sword.
5
The mezzanine thundered its applause, echoed by five thousand hands in surrounding hotels.
Dream Park's twenty-six hundred acres was surrounded by dozens of fantasy-theme hotels. Some were owned by Cowles Industries, many were not. All were touched with the Dream Park magic; all were a tram away from the most fabulous amusement park in the world. At the moment, most of them were operating at minimal capacity.
Dream Park was closed.
In thirty-six hours, four hundred of the Park's employees would be involved in the greatest Game in its history. For one week, the management would take a rare opportunity to shut down, to perform as much maintenance and overhaul work as they could.
The Arabian Nights Hotel was a prickly forest of minarets under a canopy of laughing jinn. It was raucously noisy now, swelled to capacity with Gaming enthusiasts.
If Dream Park, crown jewel of the Cowles empire, was momentarily subdued, it still burned in the night like far Damascus. At this precise moment, to one special observer, it seemed to be blazing upside down.
A man hung by his heels from the roof of the Arabian Nights. His calf-boots were snugged in a loop of synthetic filament the approximate thickness and weight of a spiderweb. It had a breaking strength of twenty-seven hundred kilograms.
His was an unusual figure: wasp-sleek, perfectly muscled, moving beautifully beneath a leotard-thin shadow-black jumpsuit.
Surprisingly, the wind blowing off the Mojave carried a mist of rain. It slicked his face, dropping the temperature to below fifty. He hadn't reacted to the heat, or to the exertion, and now had no reaction to the wet.
The sky above crackled with lightning and a distant roll of thunder. The wind stiffened, and the rain became a pounding curtain.
He hung, a spider weaving its web in a torrent. Unmindful, he watched the inverted phantasmagoria of Dream Park and sighed. It had been… what? Seven years?
He spoke a quiet word. His visor fogged. On its clouded interior was projected an image stolen from the Hyatt's security cameras. Excellent. The crowd was still congratulating Acacia on her rather plebeian draw.
The Troglodykes. Tammi Romati and her brat, and her lover.
Did they think the family that slays together stays together? He snickered.
He breathed another word into his helmet. A thermal sensor triggered. The pod at his belt scanned the room for sound and heat, bounced a beam around and off the wads, and then reconstructed the interior for his visor screen.
'Not home, Alphonse.' Heat blurs, but nothing more recent than a half hour. Still some warmth in the bed, a feathery tangle of bodies, fading even as he watched.
Stepping out on the pregnant wife? Alphonse! I'm shocked! Does Saray know about this? A hint dropped, say, three hours before the beginning of California Voodoo, could result in a disturbing phone call from a hysterical, pregnant woman. A juicy confrontation might ensue, leading to split attention at a vital moment…
Sun-tzu said: The highest form of generalship is to disrupt the adversary's will to compete. The next highest is to disturb vital personal relationships and alliances.
He grinned and broke the five-digit emergency code that sealed the window. Another twelve seconds defeated the alarm system. The window slid open.
Silence.
He hitched his weight onto the sill, shook his foot out of the loop, and dove into the room. He rolled with perfect coordination and came to balance squatting on the balls of his feet, silent. Black against black. Drops of rainwater puddled on the carpet beneath him.
His reimaging system picked up sounds and heat impressions from the bed beyond, transmuting the wads to glass.
He giggled with pleasure and dried his hands on a used bathroom towel. A quick sweep found luggage. It was sealed with a mechanical lock, which the intruder broke in less time than most men would have spent fumbling for keys.
It contained nothing worth stealing. But there was another suitcase.
It was tougher. The lock looked the same, was the same, but the case didn't open. He probed patiently… there was another lock, hidden… There.
Inside, a few data cards. All right, then: Alphonse Nakagawa used a personal data system, and kept it with him at all times. But he would have encrypted backups.
The intruder didn't know what system his adversary would use, but he would break it.
And he had time. Alphonse, like a good little Loremaster, would be watching Acacia's lackluster performance over at the Hyatt. Most IFGS members could watch in their rooms, but the LMs had to be present for the kill, had to parade themselves in front of their public. This the intruder had counted on.
Swiftly, without any fuss, he drained the data, then replaced the cards in their pouch.
Proximity. People approaching from the hall.
The intruder's wraparound visor sparked with data. Auditory channels amplified, filtered, scanned, and attempted to identify. No match.
He snapped the luggage closed again and slid it back into its place.
Voices closer now. Could Alphonse have loaned his key or code number to some stranger?
The voices stopped in front of the door. The intruder sprang to the window, his foot in the loop. A whispered word started a remote circuit and triggered a tiny powerful motor that reeled him up and out of the room. A second
