'If it isn't,' Poule said, 'we're in bad trouble.'
SJ poked it open with the tip of his stick. They breathed a sigh of relief.
Nestled within a womb of foil were sandwiches, apples, and thermoses of coffee and soup. In the other container were pods of juice and soft drinks.
Dinner!
SJ and Mary-em sat together, tucked back in a corner of the hallway. General Poule took the forward watch to ensure their privacy.
'Been a long time,' Waters said happily.
Down the hall there were rooms marked off-limits with hourglass radiation symbols a guarantee of lethal roentgens for the first person foolish enough to pass the portal. Other doors were a part of the game: they might hide booty or information. For now the most important were the doors with a half-moon stenciled upon them.
It felt strange to let the adrenaline burn out, wear down, and to evaluate the fatigue behind them. SJ felt that, but it was balanced with a spring-steel sensation as well: he had trained hard for this, and was looking forward to whatever the day might bring.
Mary-em said, 'Scout/Thief?'
'Code-name Aquarius, but nobody ever uses it.'
'Used to be Engineer.'
The wrinkled little woman seemed even harder and more deeply creased than when he had last seen her what, five years before? Her hip was stiff when she walked, and he was concerned. But her eyes were as bright as ever. It was difficult to waste too much sympathy on her. Chances were that she would run him into the ground.
She'd left him time to answer, and he hadn't. 'Been traveling,' she said, and rolled onto her back. 'Still a lot of mountains that I haven't tried. K-4 in Tibet.'
'Everest?'
'New. Been done too much. You know exactly what you're up against. I prefer a different kind of challenge. K-4 without oxygen is perfect. After Patrick died-'
'Sorry to hear-'
She waved his sympathy away. 'What can I say? We both knew that it was coming, but that doesn't make things a whole lot easier. I stayed away from Gaming for a while. Wanted to do something real.'
'So the mountains?'
'So the mountains.'
SJ drained his pod of soft drink and groped about in the metal locker, looking for another one. 'My Engineer was killed out,' he said finally. 'I came back as a killer cyborg-'
'The Cyberyakuza Game.'
'Who's telling this? They put me back in the game as a cyborg. Kill Gamers. But I ran across a metaprogramming disk that could have left me running the whole city like it was part of my body!'
'Hospitals?'
'That, too. I could have regrown my body. I violated my programming. Ran for the nearest phone booth. It was smashed flat. Walked toward the Control Center. Cyborgs cut me off. I was so tired, I crawled into a booth that was blinking error messages because I just couldn't go any farther. And it erased my program.'
Mary-em said nodding.
'I'd have made it if I wasn't such a potato. Six years building him, and bang, dead-dead, no more Engineer. I'd been spending my life in front of a terminal. So I joined the Army. And they half killed me, but I'd win this time. And now they've got me Gaming again. And what brought you back, Mary-em?'
'This Game,' she said. 'You can laugh, but… I had a feeling about California Voodoo. That it might be special. Then I found out you'd be here, and Acacia, and I've played with Tammi and Twan…' She sighed contentedly. 'It feels like family,' she said.
SJ considered making a mocking comment, but saw how very serious she was, and thought again. Instead, he raised his second pod and said, ' Salud, then. To family. I'm glad you came.' He had said it just to say something, but as soon as the words left his lips, SJ realized he had spoken the truth.
22
On the twelfth floor, stalks of corn and sheaves of wheat grew from hydroponic tanks, beneath a network of track-mounted lights. Goats and chickens roamed placidly between the rows of tanks, occasionally chased from the checkered tiles back to a grazing pen by healthy-looking barefoot children.
The air was scented with the mouth-watering aroma of Mexican food. Spanish guitar and castanets and the almost-inaudible heartbeat rhythm of drums pattered from a loudspeaker.
Everything was very clean. The hydroponic tanks were capped with glass, and pale green lights flared irregularly in the rows, perhaps sterilising or driving away insects.
As the Adventurers approached, muscular young men appeared, blocking their path. They wore lab smocks and carried clipboards. Pens were tucked behind their ears, and their breast pockets were jammed with pencils. They also carried twenty-four-inch black batons.
Tammi raised her hand. 'We come in peace.'
A young, pale woman in a lab smock pushed through the guards and answered her coolly. 'Greetings. We are a simple farming people, senorita.' She was plain and fair-skinned, her hair pulled back severely in twin braids.
'I see. And can you perhaps spare us a little food?'
'Oh, no, senorita. We are obliged to our neighbors down the way. We give them chickens, goats, and grain, and they refrain from eating our children.' She seemed to consider a new thought. 'But if you could help us with them, then it is possible that we would then have food to give you.'
'This augurs not well,' Prez whispered.
Corrinda agreed. 'If we have to fight, why not here and now?'
Acacia watched Corrinda's face. It was, increasingly, a mask of strain. Damn it. That knee must be killing her.
'No way,' Bishop said. 'Major faux pas. Even the gods can only fight defensively. Clear cue for our own behavior. We march.'
Tammi and Twan nodded agreement.
'Tell us of your enemy,' Nigel said. 'Describe them.'
'Oh, senor, they are very fierce, and they eat people.' She shuddered as if it were just too terrible to relate.
Nigel waited, but she said no more. 'Very well. Can you draw us a map?'
'Yes. Juan!'
A tall, broadly built young man stepped forward and conversed with the girl in rapid-fire Spanish. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and scratched a series of lines on it, involving a big square with a piece missing from one corner.
Lab Smock translated his explanations and then said, 'Juan says that the path is dangerous, but that if you are brave and strong, you may succeed. May Orisha-Oko go with you.'
'Prez' Coolidge, Zulu Warrior, led the way. The remaining Adventurers stretched out in a line behind him. The village bordered on an air well. The railing was rectangular; a blank wall bit a piece out of one corner. Looking over the railing,
Mouser could see the neon glitter of the Mall several floors below, and the well dropping a couple of stories farther than that.
Graffiti and pictoglyphs marred the walls, many of them representing sun and crops and meat animals, speaking to simple peasant concerns.
But as they traveled around the Mall's edge the Latin flavor changed, becoming something else, something
