It was always interesting to have unlimited access to another human being's secret workings. Because by violating the inner sanctum of Sharon Crayne, Harmony was of course giving Vail permission to take Alex Griffin apart.
Alex Griffin: born September 17, 2021, to Elliot and Darsha Griffin. Which made him… forty-three years old. Alex! We're older than we look! Father dead. Mother's whereabouts… unknown. Nothing dramatic here, Alex, just a career woman with ever-decreasing time for a young and demanding malechild. A child shunted into boarding schools? One who distinguished himself in military service… goodness, look at these classified files. Vail wondered if Tony McWhirter could do something about those…
'Cat's in the cradle,' Vail hummed. Mummy made half-hearted efforts to reconcile with grown-up Alex, who would have none of it. Gradually they lost touch.
Alex Griffin, a man who had talents beyond the typical cop mentality. Perhaps with the right nurturing… of course, was it nature or nurture? The eternal argument. Even studies of identical twins begged the question: prenatal nutritional environment was essential for proper brain development, and twins shared that down to the last amino acid. Light and sound that reached the womb affected the brain of an unborn child.
Vail had once proposed an experiment that would resolve the question once and for all. Stimulate five thousand fertilized ova to produce quadruplets. Double-blind implant the little angels in mothers chosen at random from the
Embryadopt lists all income levels, all education and intelligence levels, all races.
Wait twenty years…
Vail sighed. He supposed he could understand why his colleagues were appalled by the notion. Such squeamishness often obstructed progress.
At any rate, Alex Griffin was what he was, and wasn't terribly likely to change.
On to Sharon Crayne. Thirty-two. Unmarried. Master's degree in psychology, University of Washington. Two years with the Washington State Police, recruited to Cowles Industries after a stint at a private security agency. No record of any problems at all. Six years there.
Vail sighed and leaned back in his chair, watching the numbers and patterns flash past. What was he looking for? A motive to betray Dream Park and/or Cowles Industries?
In Vail's opinion, motives nearly always broke down into three basic categories: 1) Relief from something 2) Revenge for something 3) Desire for something
Vail only knew Sharon socially, as a face at Alex's shoulder. He knew that she had climbed the ranks in Cowles Industries rather swiftly. She would have little to resent in that matter. Revenge was not a plausible motive.
Relief, then. From blackmail? A threat? Certainly possible. He would have to cull the data for a sign, for evidence. For… anything.
Desire? Ever since college, Crayne had chosen challenge over pure money-making opportunity. Her new position with the Barsoom project would entail nearly a thirty percent wage increase, and she wasn't spending the money she made now. Not desire for money, then.
Vail found his resentment slipping away. Here was a puzzle, the unravelings of this dead woman's sorry life. And somewhere in the maze lay the answer.
On level seventeen, S. J. Waters brushed a thin hand across his dripping brow. It was hot here.
The iron box in front of him had twice resisted their efforts to open it. Magic had failed: bolts from Major Clavell's magic wand had glanced off its surface, sparking uselessly. Brute strength had failed: none of the Warriors had a power rating high enough to rip the top off. A direct assault with a crowbar hadn't even scratched it.
But there was something in the box, and they needed it. It was now up to their Thief to try to pick the lock.
SJ muttered a prayer to Baal, god of thieves, and his Virtual vision exploded. He could see into the lock, peer into its most intimate workings, but that wouldn't necessarily be enough. There was no way to avoid a little genuine dexterity on this one.
The interior of the lock looked like a box filled with little gears. He extruded his lockpick and inserted it.
'Ah people,' he said after a moment. 'This thing has a booby trap in it.'
Lawrence Black Elk waved a handful of feathers over SJ. 'We can heal you,' he said positively. 'Fear not, lithe one.'
SJ glared at him. 'Oh, thank you, great mage!' He didn't look at Mary-em, but he could feel her grinning.
He could see the probe as it snaked its way through the twists and turns. He paused. There was a throbbing red obstruction, and he snaked back a little. It was like picking a lock whose tumblers kept moving. In fact, it seemed as if the 'tumblers' were actually searching for the probe He yelped as an electric shock jolted through his fingers.
A dark border outlined his hand. It was creeping up his wrist.
He continued to work the probe. Presently the box sprang open. SJ backed away from it. A black aura pulsated to a funereal rhythm around his arm and shoulder, spreading down his torso Black Elk screamed, 'By the gods of sun and sky bring the death into me, that I might conquer it!'
The black border flowed like ectoplasmic tar, down SJ's arm and into Black Elk. Black Elk danced; he shimmied, he threw powders into the air and twirled beneath them; and the black border settled into his body even closer.
His life energy flowed out through his fingertips, through his eyes, through his mouth and nose.
Then the aurora was solid black. He crumpled to the ground, dead.
Clavell scanned him. There wasn't a spark of life left in him.
SJ was stunned. 'What in the hell was that?'
Clavell had to force himself to speak. 'We can't challenge the magic here-it's just too powerful.' He knelt by Black Elk and brushed two fingertips over the staring eyes. 'He was a good soldier.'
Mary-em straightened up. 'Shall I?'
'Please. Waters, what did we get?'
SJ poked around in the box with the tip of his knife. His peripheral vision caught the motion of Mary-em's mighty swing; he cringed despite himself, and turned as Black Elk's head bounced toward him.
'In the box, Waters.'
'Looks to me like we've got a map,' he said. He turned it this way and that. 'It says something about the land of the Nommo.'
The major took the map and overlaid it on the general map that Loremasters had been given by Mamissa.
'Look,' he said. 'It shows a path. Hidden door here… stairway
… what do you think?'
Crystal knelt and traced a finger along the twisting route. 'I think that we have to go,' she said.
'And there's another passage here,' SJ said, his voice a reverent hush. 'One which we can hardly afford to overlook.'
The major examined the spot in question and agreed soberly. 'Lead the way,' he said.
The halls were deadly quiet here, long abandoned. Cobwebs spanned the walkways, and the shop windows were broken and dusty. But SJ followed the map, and followed the trail that blazed in the air in front of him, a trail that no other could see.
He held up his hand. 'It's here,' he said.
'Are you sure?' Mary-em tightened her grip on her weapon, real tension in her face for the first time that day. She felt the burn of a rarely encountered emotion digging at her, demanding.
SJ looked at the spot where the trail terminated. 'I can't open this,' he said. 'It's going to need magic.'
Major Clavell stretched out his arms and began to chant.
Almost too slowly, the hall began to rock. The winds increased in power, swirling about them like a miniature tornado. Lights danced from the ends of his fingers. Thunder crashed and shuddered, and the hall seemed to warp out of phase Then the wall peeled back, and there were two large metal boxes stacked one atop another there in the wall.
Al the Barbarian licked his lips. 'Do you think…'
