Scouts, twenty minutes to pick their way to the fourth floor.
Footholds and handholds had been cut by unknown artisans. It was true: others had been here. Somewhere in MIMIC, frightened eyes might be watching. Angry lips were whispering deadly secrets somewhere out of sight. MIMIC seemed impossibly old and evil.
Hands hovered above weapons.
Stifle the melodrama, Acacia snapped at herself. One step at a time.
It was hard not to pay attention to her instincts, hard not to wonder, not to speculate.
One step at a time.
She extended a helping hand to Black Elk. A moment later, he saved her from a twisted ankle. One step. Then another. And another.
And then they were at the top; they had climbed a tumbled fall of rocks that took them to the brink of the fourth floor, only five feet from the window.
Behind her there was a commotion. Boards were pulled out of a heap of rubble and passed forward. Alphonse said, 'Looks like these are used in an emergency. Must be a more reliable system inside. Let's see.'
Alphonse, moving with the assurance of a circus acrobat, helped them steady the boards against the ledge. He tested it with a halberd, felt the board jiggle, and then looked down: a nasty spill. Not fatal, but it would probably incapacitate.
'I can make it, but I'm not sure-' Alphonse said.
'Then move aside, darlin',' Mary-em said, and tested the board with a booted foot. 'Piece of cake.'
She spread her arms out for balance and tested one board, then the other. When she was satisfied, she strolled jauntily across.
She hunkered down onto hands and knees to peer through the window. Then she nodded as if confirming something. 'Dark in there,'' she called back. She wiped at the sill with a gloved hand. 'No dust. Somebody's been here. Recently. This is it.'
She drew a torch from her belt and shone it around inside. Then she crawled in.
Acacia's nerves burned for a few moments, and then Mary-em reappeared. Now she had another plank of some light plastic. It was broad, with raised rounded edges, like a big chunk of surfboard. She laid it atop the other boards, anchored it on her end, and beckoned them across.
And what would Panthesilea be feeling? The wind was still moaning. The entry was open to hidden and hideous dangers. Their transport was six smashed maglev cars.
Acacia played with Panthesilea's thoughts. How are we going to get home? What if the legends are wrong? We could all die here.
She was giving herself the creeps, and it was her turn to cross the bridge. She sheathed her sword and stepped carefully across. Just before she stepped into the window she took one last glance at the outside world.
In for a penny, in for a pound…
Panthesilea hopped inside, leaving the world of the known behind her.
10
'Generally, an artful Loremaster will ensure that his lines of support, supply, and information are well maintained.
'He needs Barbarians and Magic Users for speed. Armored Knights for heavy combat. Locally (game-world or real-world) recruited troops and allies for cannon fodder. Actual provisions are usually supplied by the Gaming facility; therefore one need only stock nonstandard material relevant to strategic play within the Game-world; but these must be thoroughly stocked. Caches must be hidden and mapped, and strong backs recruited to carry them.' — Nigel Bishop, The Art of Gaming, 2052
Thursday, July 21, 2059 — 8:20 A.M.
You expected glitches. Of course you did. You waited for them…
Those doors were supposed to lock, isolating the Gamers in their respective cars. The message would reach each team separately. The club car, empty, was to be shredded in the crash. Five cars would slide to rest within reach of five entries. Five teams would enter MIMIC separately, wary of enemies, fearing each other more…
Tony McWhirter was swearing under his breath, but it wasn't slowing him down. He put in quick requests for a repair team to examine the train and report to him. Not that they'd be using the cars again, but he had to know what had gone wrong. It would tell him where else to look for problems.
They'd worked around it. They hadn't shredded the club car; the Gamers were alive and walking. The secret message was no secret now. There would be less paranoia, and alliances among the five enclaves, probably. Not a ruined Game, just an altered one.
Still, it was a bad omen. Glitches were a lot like cockroaches. If you didn't catch them in time, they'd scuttle off into someplace dark and warm and begin to breed.
Alphonse Nakagawa was third through the door, his adrenaline pumping hard.
Nakagawa's Law #1: Something in the next shadow is waiting to eat your face. He never let himself forget that. It was this conviction that kept him alive often.
Fool-Killer, where are you?
For the moment, nothing. But it was lurking. Al knew it, and the beast knew it. If Al wanted to keep his face, he would have to remember that the beast knew he knew it.
First search the room. There were broken boxes and scraps of plastic everywhere. Peels of paper littered the floor. Madonna Philips pulled twenty pounds of anonymous metal motor part from under some torn cardboard boxes, hefted it, and discarded it. Storage room? Over the decades, scavengers would have stripped it clean. Probably.
Nakagawa's Law #2: Probably doesn't count. There might be weapons here, or clues, or traps…
'They've rifled this stuff a hundred times,' Corporal Waters muttered.
'Search it anyway,' Alphonse said. Acacia flickered him an approving glance, but possibly for the wrong reason.
Corporal Waters was right, of course. There was no treasure here that he need fear to leave in the hands of a rival team. Let them spring the traps. Al wanted an overview. Was there any clue to the nature or contents of this vast structure? What did the locals consider worthless? What valuables should have been there, but were not?
The others were piling in through the window. The room was getting belly-to-back pretty quick.
'Nothing here, children,' Mary-em said, flinging a torn carton aside. 'Let's go kick some heinie.'
The others were gathering by the door. Al the B picked up the carton. Mary-em had seemed too casual. The box was empty, the logo illegible… the trace of a sketch remained: girl in a raincoat?
Drop the box before someone sees. Stand by the door. Check the hinges. They seemed in good repair, not too likely to squeal embarrassingly.
Let someone else open it. (When it rains it pours. Salt! The raiders had valued salt. Not a grain remained. There wouldn't be any tinned meat either.)
Another exchange of nods between the Troglodykes, and Tammi turned to Mouser, her Scout. 'Enhanced hearing,' she whispered. 'Anything out there?'
The boy placed his fingers to his temples and tilted his mop of copper hair sideways. 'No… distant. I hear feet. Distant. Shuffling. I don't like it.'
California Voodoo. Images of sun-bleached beach bunnies cavorted nakedly around a titanic bottle of sunscreen lotion…
Tammi slipped through the door, followed by the hulking Warrior Appelion. He gave Alphonse the Evil Eye as he passed. It was impressively evil, too. It was his left, and it was swollen and bloodshot. A blue flame glowed in its depths.
Alphonse waited to see if the Fool-Killer was waiting outside. It seemed to be elsewhere. He chanced a swift,
