strength and technique that had once held Tony McWhirter as helpless as a baby. Tony grinned like a minstrel. 'Yes, boss. Isn't it obvious? If there was diving gear for sale before the Quake, somebody must have been buying it. So I'll put some in the upper apartments, too.'
Griffln chuckled. 'You're getting sly in your old age. Why aren't you partying?'
'I thought if I went through the territory again, I'd come up with something more.'
'You've got four hundred NPCs out there, all partying their hearts out in the forty hours left before your Game begins.' Alex Griffln was being just a little bit careful with his tongue. Might have been drinking, yes? Never seen Alex drunk. Might be interesting to douse his punch with a little Kleerlite 190 proof. 'Why not go out and get a little adulation? Your public awaits. '
'Uh-huh.' Tony's cheeks were getting tired, and he relaxed the grin. 'What are you doing here?'
'Routine check. We need our screens back, Tony. Wrap this up, would you?'
'Oh, Lord. How long?'
'Give me an hour. If everything checks, you can have it all back. The damn Game is done, isn't it?'
Tony bit back a retort: No Garne is ever complete while the authors live, Alex. He stood up, and Alex slid into his chair.
Dream Park's security chief was at work almost instantly. He had a running view of the train depot on levels one and two. Then the Mall on level three. The Mall extended up to level six, with another two stories of light-well. Escalators ran from there down to the train gates. The gates had been there already, but with only one set of track laid, a split-level station carved into the ground and the cliff face.
'How much of this did you actually build?' Sharon asked.
Griffin didn't seem inclined to answer, so Tony said, 'We cleaned out the broken glass and planted merchandise in the stores, and bombed out the stinks and the vermin. Otherwise we left it alone. There're some clues in the Mall-'
'What about the rest of the building?'
'Ah. Well, most of it was in place. MIMIC had eleven thousand in residence, and was going slowly broke, on May twenty-third, nineteen ninety-five.'
'The California Ouake,' said Sharon.
'Yep. You can see for yourself, the place wasn't totaled. California's always been antsy about quakeproofing. MIMIC stood up pretty well. Part of the west face is sagging. See how it's distorted, like someone slammed the oven door on the souffle? Maybe two thousand people were trapped. Rescue was a long time coming, because the whole damn state needed rescue. Over eight hundred died. The building wasn't a total loss, but who'd want to live here after that? Cowles stole it at auction. Hell, everything in California was going for nickels.''
The scanner's eye shifted just north of the vertical ridge on the west face, to focus on the waterfall. The western edge of the rooftop lake cascaded over the broken masonry in a silvery flood. The viewpoint moved down the torrent in jumps.
'When we finish, we'll turn this back into industry housing. Home base for the Barsoom Project. But first, we get to play with it. We'll run the California Voodoo Game from roof to basement, the biggest role-playing game ever.
'We flooded levels ten and eleven, Sharon. There'll be more flooding by the end of the game. We clean it up afterward. The waterfall, that'll stay part of the building forever. Along the crease 'taptap' here we go. This was what
Meacham called 'the modular wall.' '
The view was from the desert floor, straight up the crease. A central track ran the crease, with tributaries splaying out and up like Christmas-tree branches. There were egg-shaped bulges on some tracks, each the size of a camper. Half-crushed eggs lay at the base of the building. One egg hung three hundred feet up from cables that looked no larger than threads.
Griffin spoke. 'Tony, you're not going to use those?'
'Oh, hey, Griff, they're not dangerous. Not anymore. I watched the work.'
'But you've got a whole apartment dangling there.' He leaned closer. 'Crap. That's not mine, is it?'
'Ha ha. Your apartment is down a few levels, and anchored tight, Griff. You don't trust me at all…' Could Griffin veto his use of the modular wall? 'It's a mock-up, just a bedroom and office and some storage.'
'Does it move? Crawl up and down the wall like the others?'
'It does that.'
'It looks dangerous.'
'Exciting, Griff. It looks exciting. This is a Level Ten Hazardous Environment game. They don't get tougher. Lawyers worked overtime on the waivers, believe me. If Gamers or their families even whisper 'lawsuit,' their firstborns disappear in baby-blue puffs of smoke.'
'Exciting, huh?'
'Yeah.' A distraction? 'Griff, hope you don't mind, but I tied some of the Gaming monitors into ScanNet. Seemed a shame to waste all that wonderful full-spectrum imaging technology-'
Sharon's pretty face creased with irritation. 'And how did you manage that trick?'
Griffin clucked with feigned weariness. 'Don't ask, Sherry. There is madness to his methods.'
Tony's grin was pure evil. 'Yesss. Seems a shame not to get some use out of it. After all ScanNet will be obsolete in ten years. Five if the Japanese don't sit on their hands. Maybe three-'
'Leave the poor woman her illusions.'
'Sorry, Griff. Heh heh. Anyway, even if you don't need it yet, I do, to run the Game. Is that stuff in place?'
'We're still mounting scanners. Sharon, let's do a run. Tony, you can stay or you can party.' When Tony seemed inclined to stick around, Griffin added, 'I'd party if I were you.'
'On my way, chief.' Tony saluted and spiraled out of the chair.
He was at the door in three breaths and paused there, casting a final glance behind him. Alex and Sharon were standing close together, generating enough heat to make the air shimmer.
Do you remember Acacia Garcia, Griff? She'll be here, for the Voodoo Game. Did you look at the roster, Griff? Do you know? Do you care?
Tony cared, enough for it to create a sour, aching void in the pit of his stomach. Enough to wonder where she was at that moment, and what she was doing.
The back of Acacia's neck burned with the touch of Wizard's eyes. She longed to check her coordinates on her 'location finder,' but dared not. She had to save that juice! Tammi would be closing in on her with lethal intent. Tammi would be expecting Acacia to prepare an ambush, or to select the best possible location to stand and fight. Neither approach would work. Tammi was too good at selecting her own sites. There would be no way to sucker the Troglodykes.
But there was one stratagem that had never been tried.
She walked rapidly and spotted a telltale reflection only an instant before her nose bumped an invisible barrier. Thump.
She edged around, both hands spread, searching for the ends of the glass. There had been nothing, just another endless crystal vista, and suddenly Acacia stood on the edge of a waterfall. Victoria Falls? Niagara, in some prehistoric age? The air churned with foam, a million acre-feet of water per second cascading into the dizzying depths.
There was no way across? Her team might well fight and die here…
'Captain Cipher!'
An odd, fat, pale little man came waddle-jogging to join her. Corby Cauldwell was as nimble as a somnambulant geriatric. He had the personal hygiene habits of a water buffalo. A bumper crop of potatoes could be grown on his scalp. But his alter ego, Captain Cipher, was not only a certifiable genius, but also one of the highest- ranking Magicians in the International Fantasy Gaming Society.
She needed him now. 'There's a way across,' she said urgently. 'Find it for me.'
Light erupted from Cipher. Its radiance revealed a loop of rope sitting on a tree branch beside the abyss.
Acacia reached for it, then hesitated. What was the trick? Was it as easy as that? She sensed nothing menacing…
'Reveal danger,' the Captain whispered.
