Acacia was tiring. She managed to deflect a sai and lifted her leg high, smashing her heel into the turtle's breastbone. Well, her heel didn't actually make contact with anything, but the creature sailed backward and crashed into a pinball machine with a satisfying thump. Sparks erupted, and steam, as the evil reptile was electrocuted. The air reeked with the stench of scorched turtle flesh.
The battle was going poorly. All about them, the video machines were disgorging Tie-fighters, mercenary soldiers, and professional wrestlers. A Michael Jackson clone moonwalked off a screen, pirouetted, and rolled his snap-brim hat into his hand. He threw the fedora like a Frisbee. It skimmed through the air and struck Aces Wilde in the side of the neck. She crashed to the ground, dead.
Dogs were dying, borne screaming to the wall by Larry, Moe, and Curly. Their sinister nyack nyack nyacks reverberated endlessly, drowning out the yips of canine terror.
'Cipher!' Acacia screamed. 'Where the hell are you?'
The fabled Troglodykes were doing better than any of the others. Shattered, smoldering centipede segments lay heaped about their feet. Six dogs had formed a pack behind them, cowering but alive.
A statuesque brunette Amazon in red-white-and-blue spangled tights threw a golden lariat at Twan. The Troglodyke glowed, caught the noose, and spun, sending her attacker hurtling through the air. The Amazon landed in the lap of a grotesquely deformed sailor, his tattooed forearms swollen to the size of beer kegs. His eyes bugged, and he said, 'Arf arf arf! Blow me down, little lady!'
Suddenly, Cipher croaked his reply. 'I can hear you, but I can't see you…'
Twan knew that it was time to take a chance. To flip from this level of reality meant to blind herself to the very real danger of the video demons, but she had a hunch, and she'd play it.
'Tammi! Cover me. I'm going blind for a few seconds.'
Tammi's breath was coming in shallow, controlled hisses. 'All right, hon. Make it fast.'
Twan switched off her Virtual field.
She could see no dogs, no miniature starships firing photon torpedoes. She was in the unchanged arcade. A pinball machine had collapsed. Captain Cipher was at the video game, playing desperately, enmeshed in his own Virtual world. The cocoon about his chest and shoulders heaved like a devouring mouth. His bound hands struggled with finger toggles, fighting miniature video images. The images came faster and faster, giving him no time for rest. No time for thought.
A video game, she thought. That's exactly what this is.
In certain video games, it is impossible to win. All you can do is survive as long as you can, piling up points, until you are eventually dragged down and killed.
Much like life itself?
She hit the floor in a flickering shoulder roll and came up next to Cipher's machine.
Twan conjured with her hands, chanting spells. The air crackled and leapt with blue and green power bolts, darkened with mystic smoke. Her feet slid around the lower edge of the video game.
She locked both hands around her sword, while her left leg edged around for the power cord. Carefully, she wrapped it around her foot Instinct made her flip her Virtual visor into place. Tammi was busy, trying to swat a tiny black, bat-winged helicopter from the air. Twan started to flip it back up, when a leering moose appeared next to her. It giggled like an imbecile and said, 'Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.'
What he pulled out of a black top hat was an abomination, some unnatural meld of lion, gorilla, and maybe squirrel. It snarled and leapt Her foot twisted in the power cord, and she yanked The mutant screamed, and froze, and spun backward into the hat. The moose disappeared. Turtles, centipedes, Michael Jackson, all vanished.
'Iiii ammmm Ogguuunnn,' Cipher's video machine groaned. The cord lashed and writhed across the floor like a wounded snake, searching for the outlet. Twan watched in horrified fascination.
Cipher, gasping, ripped himself out of the cocoon, scrambling out so fast that he fell to the floor, breaking his fall with his hands. There was genuine fear in his face. 'Screw you!' he yelled. His aura flared, bolts of power arcing out and playing over the machine. It smoked and burned, plastic and metal melting, tiny video images in the flames screaming and writhing until there was nothing left but slag.
Acacia examined the ruin, and then Cipher. He was flushed, sweaty, heaving for breath.
Acrid smoke filled the air. The other Adventurers were silent. 'Ah
… Cipher,' she said as gently as she could. 'If it isn't completely dead, would you maybe like to torture it for a while?'
He considered for a moment. 'Naw,' he said finally. 'That would be cruel.' He dusted himself off and went to inspect the damage.
Acacia stared after, trying to figure out which was worse: the fact that he might be serious, or the fact that she couldn't be sure he wasn't.
19
'And when Ile Ife, the place of creation, was complete and ready for life, the Great God sent his messenger, the Chameleon, to inspect it and be sure it was good…'
Tammi and Twan shot their fists into the air and gave a mighty cheer of 'Ahroooo!' The human sound blended with one that was pure canine.
Alex realized that the dogs had vanished. Only one animal remained a smallish black Labrador. It crept up to Twan and tried to lick her hand. It couldn't touch her, but she patted its discorporate head and spoke to it.
It arfed, turned, and burrowed under the shattered wall. It was into the broken jewelry case next door. In a moment it was out, dragging… a necklace. The necklace was made of metal beads: seven brown beads alternating with three black beads.
Twan hefted it. 'Talisman.' She handed the beads to Tammi. 'God of war. Your turf.'
'Bobo-what do you think?'
Alex Griffin, aka Bobo, tried to remember what he had been told. 'Oggun challenged you. You won. He has acknowledged victory-your power will increase.'
That sounded pretty good. Moreover, the voice of the Game Masters was silent.
His eyes met Acacia's squarely. Her lips moved silently. Alex.
Tammi made a T formation with her hands, and said, 'Fifteen minutes, potty break. I saw a crescent moon back a door or two. '
Acacia Garcia slipped away from her compatriots and found a quiet corner. She drew her belt knife and twisted off its handle. Within the five-inch hilt was two inches of hollow. She shook out a tiny cube with a standard tripronged electrical plug attached. She spoke into the cube rapidly, concisely, spitting consonants, then plugged it into the nearest electrical socket.
It was 5:30 P.M.
There were apartments on the eighteenth and seventeenth floors. Nigel set his team sampling them at random. Trevor Stone, Bishop's Sorcerer and second-in-command, found two sets of ancient scuba gear in a closet. Bishop flickered a smile at him, the equivalent of a pat on the head, and left him to carry them. Stone dithered, then handed one set off to Holly Frost; but he couldn't make himself get rid of both. The stuff was heavy, too.
There was no salt anywhere, not in any kitchen or dining or breakfast room, until Tomasan found lemon pepper in a fifty-years-abandoned spice rack. Not many Gamers would have had the wit to read the list of ingredients: the first named was salt.
Bishop decided to skirt the fifteenth floor's arcade, although his guide, the irrepressible Coral, had recommended it strongly. 'Let Da Gurls do da work,' he had said with a flat, hard smile. 'Then, if they came up
