punk.”
What in the world?
“Cavor has been busy,” Xavier said at her elbow. She turned to look down at the little man, who grinned up at her as if he was standing in a hole. She caught no whiff of insecurity about their relative size, and she knew that he was already calculating how he would manage this or that if he ever managed to get her in bed.
“We figure that in the years since his capture, he’s shared some aspects of Earth technology with the Selenites, resulting in some really nifty hybrid tech. Angelique will have a kitten trying to figure it out.”
Dammit, she felt a smile wanting to tug at the corner of her mouth. Even under the current circumstances, she could appreciate the work and care and creativity, let alone the resources, that had gone into the game.
She hoped to God she wasn’t about to blow it all up.
“We have a problem,” she said.
Xavier frowned. “A problem? In my game? What exactly are you talking about?”
“You have an NPC named Chris Foxworthy?”
Xavier blinked. Without turning his head, he said: “Wu Lin?”
Both his assistants were up on the platform, twisting and turning their bodies like contortionists while the computer transformed them into alien worms. “Hold,” Wu Lin said. “Yes, Xavier?”
“We have an NPC named Foxworthy?”
“Yes. Local, won a lottery, I believe. Playing a minor Selenite during a melee, but he’s out of place. I called Security twenty-five minutes ago.”
“Let’s find him.”
Magique stepped down from the stage, narrowing her eyes at Kendra as she approached the wall console. “NPC holding area personnel list please.”
The wall displayed a series of faces, some of them familiar, most not. Twenty in all. And one of them was… Chris Foxworthy. His avatar blinked in the dome’s third level restroom.
“Give me video in that toilet area,” Kendra said. A chord, and they were looking in the restroom. The cubicals glowed emerald. Empty. The hair on the back of her neck tingled.
Magique’s plump hands fluttered, and Wu Lin watched carefully. When she had finished, the Asian girl said: “Magique thinks he ditched his tracer. Show me all the NPCs.” The screen divided into rectangles, each rectangle filled with a costumed gamer.
“That’s not live, is it?” The background behind each of them was a uniform blue, and she noted that their smiles and grimaces were repeating. This was some kind of a looped program.
“Ah… no. These are just the CAD models for each of them. But they show in the holding area.”
“Do you have a live feed into that area?”
Xavier was curious now. He chorded in the next set of directions personally. The wall shifted, showing a room with a couple of couches, lots of chairs, and a table stocked with cold cuts and pouches of juice and soda. A dozen or so people lounged around the room, talking and watching monitors. Some were in Selenite garb, others dressed as even stranger creatures, although their headpieces were off, giving them a damned strange aspect.
“Do all of these people match your records?”
Wu Lin hopped down and joined them. “What’s going on?”
“We have a missing NPC,” Xavier said.
“I know. He entered the gaming dome, then-poof.”
“Actually,” Kendra said, fighting to keep her voice calm, “I’ll be rather surprised if he turns up.”
“And why is that?” Xavier said. It wasn’t quite a snarl, but it would do.
“He’s in my office right now. Someone attacked him last night, maybe trying to keep him out of the game. He’s been locked in his room. Whatever the intent was, the question remains: Who the hell checked in to your game as Chris Foxworthy, and where is he now, and why?”
20
1013 hours
Initially a volcanic bubble created by the geological activity that had marked Luna’s ancient volcanism phase, Heinlein base’s main aquifer had been blasted and sealed until it could hold a hundred million gallons of melted lunar ice.
It had taken decades to build up enough lunar water for the subject of recreational swimming to be seriously broached, but at last it had. And with the specter of tourism and the income that such tourism promised, the possibility of using the aquifers for water sports on the moon was delicious.
In one-sixth gravity, scuba and snorkle and swimming took on a completely different feeling than it did on Earth.
There were three entrances to the aquifer within the main dome: one in the main rec room, one in the water recycling facility and one in central maintenance. Because the sealed cavern was irregularly shaped, some of its pseudopods extended outside the main dome, and one reached under the dome now designated as “Gaming A.” In fact, the underground lagoon had been co-opted as a part of the game.
Thomas Frost considered these things as he made his way down through the dome’s service corridors, careful to deactivate or scramble any security cameras along the way. It was quiet and cool here, down where the main bubble’s support struts were sunk in bedrock.
Quiet, too, now that he had closed the vacuum safety doors behind him, sealing them and moving on. It was much like descending into a tomb. There were other paths, wider and better lit paths, descending into this darkness, but this one seemed not merely adequate, but appropriate.
Nothing that Thomas had planned or had done in training on Earth had quite prepared him for this. This was not theory or plot or dream. This was deliberate, and real. Their primary believed that anyone whose visa included off-Earth low- or zero-gravity experience or travel would be flagged and given special attention as a security risk.
Had that happened to Victor Sinjin? The man assigned to trade places with Chris Foxworthy had failed to check in. They couldn’t reach him. They’d had to use a backup plan.
Or… perhaps trained spacemen would pose a different kind of security risk. Certainly, if Kikaya III was in any danger from Earth, said danger would come in the form of operators experienced in the ways of vacuum.
Thomas and Doug had gone another route. Every man they’d hired was used to deep-water operations, with all that that implied about pressure and oxygen and the dangers of a single unguarded moment.
What had happened to Sinjin, in an unguarded moment? Were they blown? Was it too late to call this off? Yes, infinitely too late. They could only go forward.
It felt as if his heart were pumping ice water. He didn’t want to consider what would happen when Shotz learned of this mistake. This all had to be timed properly. He’d heard that was the secret to any military operation. Surprise, courage, force and timing. When they worked in your favor, you won.
At this moment, all of them were working in the favor of their plans. If that continued, Shotz would be in a good mood, and if he was in a good mood when he learned about Sinjin…
Then the men of Neutral Moresnot might just fulfill their contract, after all.
The stairwell descended through a steel framework anchored deep in lunar rock, three stories down before terminating at another pressure door. Their hack had deactivated the surveillance cameras, giving instructions to play back a previous hour’s video and thermal scans, leaving security with nothing to concern themselves. Soon enough Piering would panic, but by then they’d be able to crash the entire grid with no fear. For now? It was little cat feet. Pure stealth, until Shotz gave the word.
Thomas unsealed the pressure door with the scan card provided by their primary. He admitted to a moment of unease while he waited for the little green and red lights to stop dancing.
No problems: The lights went green. A hiss and a sigh, and the door opened.
