'…true that you must cooperate with the other four cohorts. But you six have a greater obligation, and a greater destiny. '
Acacia's mind whirred. 'California Voodoo,' the game's artfully vague information packet, had arrived on her fax a week earlier, although the title had been known for months. Twenty single-spaced pages contained just enough information to tantalize, and to send frantic Loremasters on a frenzied last-minute data hunt.
But this was the real briefing. She triggered a recorder at her belt pod, knowing that a dozen other hands were doing the same thing.
So far, she was pretty certain that the vid had been 'accidentally' triggered. This was to have played to only one… cohort. She glanced down the corridor. Screens were alight in the shuttle cars, too.
'Two hundred years ago, the Age of Miracles ended. Earthquakes, pollution, global warming, and famine struck a world already drastically overpopulated. Nuclear, chemical, and genetic warfare followed. Nations fell, supplanted by isolated states and townships. Through years of delicate negotiating, diplomatic communication between the five great North American enclaves has been reestablished but much unpleasant history has had to be censored to control public opinion. What I was pledged not to say to you, but find I must say, is: Do not trust the others.'
A hush stole over the car. Beneath Acacia's feet the train hummed toward its destination. Vaguely, through the partial shadows, she saw the silhouettes of other Adventurers as they nodded uneasily. Teeth gleamed.
'Meacham's Folly is the world's last hope, true enough. There, across the desert, lies the last working power plant capable of running a city. We had neither the resources to reach it, nor the means, until a robot repair system on the old tramway was activated. That required cooperation among the five enclaves. It is therefore reasonable and right that each enclave send emissaries to MIMIC.
'It is also prudent. With the fall of technology, the old magic returned with a vengeance. Arcane techniques useless for centuries have become viable once again. Whether due to human mutation or a shift in the Earth's magnetic field, no one knows. But you have as many magicians and clerics among you as soldiers and scouts.
'By common agreement no team carries guns. Guns would make it too easy for one team to slay another in its sleep.
'For, mark my words: as soon as you have reached MIMIC, scouted its mysteries, and determined what will be needed to conquer it, at that moment the other teams will have no further use for you. They will try to slay you. You must be alert, and dispose of them when the opportunity arises.'
Now the grumbling in the car was audible. Acacia's ribs itched, expecting a dagger's point at any moment. Instead she felt a vulnerable back pressed against her in the darkness. Her hand wandered toward her own dagger… and paused.
Who knew what skills would be needed? The woman on the vid had said, 'After you have scouted out MIMIC…'
After.
Defeat might well be the penalty for killing off another member too soon. She would have to wait and see.
The woman was winding up her spiel. 'My brave ones, you fight for all of us. You are the best of us. You are our only hope. Do not fail us.'
The image flickered and died. Moments later the train emerged into daylight. Gamers blinked out at a yellow-white desert whipping past them in eerie silence.
They watched each other cautiously, all amusement suspended. Which team was expected to play the double-cross game? Thumbs edged nervously toward daggers. Magical staffs and shields glowed at low level.
Nigel Bishop raised his hands. 'My friends-' he began, with such high-octane sincerity that no one protested his presumption. They waited and grinned and nodded when he continued. '-and trusted allies. We love our cities, but their war, and their past, is their own. We are sent to start a new world! Surely we can leave the treachery of the past behind us? Surely we need not accept their legacy of hatred?'
The Bishop was in his pulpit, and his congregation was in thrall.
There were solemn or half-solemn nods. Hands dropped away from blades. The teams turned to each other, faces wreathed with saccharine smiles, and brawny arms draped about broad shoulders.
Looks like Christmas Eve on Death Row.
The train raced a few feet above the brown-and-yellow desert, at just under the speed of sound. Here windblown sand had covered the track. The train shivered slightly, but magnetic levitation didn't fail. They passed a forest of worn metal stumps, and suddenly Acacia knew where they were. Those had once been hundreds of propellers turning on posts: experimental designs for windmills. That made this the Mojave, north of Joshua Tree National Monument; and hundreds of years in the future, given what time and wind had done to those propeller mounts. Or had it been the hot breath of a thermonuclear fire-mushroom?
Time had made other changes. Plants close to the shuttle track flashed by too quickly for detail. But those farther away seemed… alien. Like twisted, mutated skeletons. Joshua trees had been weird enough, but stranger plants had invaded.
So this was the world shaped by… ecological disaster? A shift in the earth's magnetic field? Biochemical weapons to cause genetic mutation? Whatever; but the woman had spoken of magic, too.
Of course, that could be mere superstition. Acacia played her recording back into her earpiece. One never could tell what one might find concealed in a briefing.
The Adventurers crowded close, shifting like seabottom currents as some sought access to the bar. Old friendships were here, and new ones forming. No Gamer would trust another forever, but Gamers took relaxation when they could.
Trevor Stone of Gen-Dyn was a brawny middle-aged Englishman, a Gamer before Dream Park erected the Domes. He was second-in-command on Bishop's team. He was speaking of the old days, and most of the University team was lapping it up.
'We used any kind of land we could get access to. Marsh, mountains, whatever. Once we used a Scottish castle. We'd march four groups through the Game site in a day…'
Funny how no team had returned to their private cars. Were they wondering, as Acacia had, whether it was possible to detach one of the cars, seal it off, and simply leave it stranded in the desert?
'So we weren't supposed to use the whole bloody castle, because it was up for sale-the rental agency had made the arrangement with us, and they were also showing parts of it to prospective customers. Movie people, a bed-and-breakfast outfit, so forth. We went through the wrong door at full battle alert, and found ourselves face to face with a Girl Scout troop. The Loremaster stared at them for a moment-there we were dressed up like mad folk, you know, swinging these great padded swords and axes. I think the lassies were close to fainting and our Loremaster says to the Game Master, 'Do we see this?' '
Steele and Prez looked puzzled. Top Nun said, 'Pray tell, what then, bubele?'
A shrug and a smile. 'It wasn't in the Game. The Game Master shook his head, the Loremaster waved his hand and said, 'Away phantoms,' and back we marched to the other room. We could hear the girls going doololly, and couldn't really blame 'em.'
Cheerful he was, and most amused by his own story. It was a dominance game, of course, even if largely unrecognised. Acacia understood the code.
You challenge me? Trevor was saying with polite incredulity. I've been at this infinitely longer than you have, children. I'm the Hazard from Afar.
His eyes flickered to Bishop and back. His smile lost some of its life. Acacia amended Stone's internal monologue: and I should have been the bloody Loremaster, not that upstart Bishop.
A thin, sharp elbow in her ribs. Zulu Warrior 'Prez' Coolidge was pointing with his nose, through the window and ahead of the train. She looked.
Hills loomed, and something angular, artificial, hard to see because it was the same sand color as the slopes. She'd seen it before, or something like it, but where? The half-buried track was a ridge in the sand, curving left toward that building… that very distant, tremendous building.
And the ride was becoming bumpy. Acacia remembered riding an imitation mining car at Dream Park, dodging avalanches, rocking back and forth as dynamite explosions thundered about her, and holding on tight to…
Tony McWhirter?
