pure gravel-“Is that your little game is over, and a new one has begun. The stakes are quite a bit higher.” He smiled, and by some unfathomable transformation became handsome. Dashing. The sudden change was quite disturbing. “In this game you win by not dying.”
23
1125 hours
“What is this?” Ali asked. “Are you…” He searched for words. In the intense, bleaching light he looked young and lost. “Did Professor Cavor…” He was trying to work it out, make sense of it all in the framework of the game. “Who are you?”
Scotty Griffin’s nerves were burning. He put a hand on Ali’s shoulder and pulled him back, warned him to silence with a shake of his head.
“Very good,” the leader said. “I don’t mind you knowing my name. Before this is all over, everyone on Earth will, and I’ll never be able to use it again anyway. I am Shotz.”
Confusion, not panic, was Scotty’s dominant emotion as their attackers herded the gamers into a room perhaps twenty meters across. This bubble had no Wellsian motif, just a domed space littered with boxes, equipment and costumes.
Prince Ali tensed as the intruders ordered them about, seemed about to swell up like a frog. The wrong damned time to be imperious. Scotty gripped his arm until Ali winced, gave him a quick, warning shake. Not now.
“Move! Move!” The blond woman who looked like a biker angel said the words calmly, but there was a kind of frenzy under the surface, well-leashed. For now. She held some kind of jerry-rigged air gun, and Scotty didn’t want to test her speed or accuracy.
He thought he heard this “Shotz” character call her Celeste.
Even though the gamers, NPCs and techs were herded efficiently, their captors missed one. Just one.
Darla Kowsnofski, killed out right on schedule, had been creeping through back passages, avoiding gamers on her way to an NPC holding area, when the intruders showed up. Now she crouched in a shadow, prying at the edge of a hidden hatch. Muttering a prayer.
Darla cursed herself for a coward. Should she try to help someone else escape? Or just take care of herself, and consider that victory enough? Even as an awkward honor student at Oklahoma State, Darla had always thought of herself as a good person. She had always had more confidence in her mind than in her generous, well-cushioned body… and that mind had taken her all the way to Heinlein. But at this moment all she wanted was to be somewhere dark, and alone, and away from the people with guns. And God help her, there was no part of her that felt guilty about it.
“Please, please, please,” she whispered, prying at the panel. Just before she gave up hope it slid open an inch. She got her finger under it, levered it up, slipped in and was gone.
In Heinlein base’s nerve center, Kendra found herself juggling a dozen conversations with two dozen different people. Her assistant buzzed her. “Ms. Griffin? We have a call on two-nine-nine.” A pause. “It’s from inside the dome.”
For a moment Kendra was taken aback, but then she jumped on the communication. “Hello?”
She was looking at a mask: not a game mask, a diver’s mask. The voice on the other side was gravelly, almost as if it had emerged from a machine, or a damaged voice box. “Ms. Griffin?”
“Yes. Who is this?’
“Call us Neutral Moresnot.”
She blinked. “I can’t pronounce that without being rude. Who are you?”
“We are the very serious people who control this dome, and every human being within it.”
That she accepted without another thought. “What do you want?”
“At the moment, what I want is to put your mind at ease. I have no wish to kill our hostages. In fact, if my demands are met, they will all be released unharmed.”
“Does that include Chris Foxworthy, my assistant?”
“I trust so. I seem to have lost contact with my man. Would he be in custody at this time?”
“No. There was an accident. Your man is dead.”
“Dead?” She couldn’t read that damaged voice, but her best guess was that his response was one of surprise. And not mild surprise, either. Anger?
“Oh, my,” he said. The mild words and flat vocal quality concealed hidden emotional currents. “I wasn’t aware of that. Well, that is regrettable, and unexpected. But he can be the last, if you follow my directions.”
“And what directions are those?”
“You will send over a Scorpion transport vehicle. Twenty-eight seats, if it matches spec. There will be no weapons on board, and no one in the transport. We will be scanning.”
But of course he would. By this time, the intruders were probably tied into every communication line they had. “And you are using this transport to…?”
“Evacuate twenty members of the gaming staff, professional and volunteer.”
“From the kindness of your heart?”
“Madam, under the current conditions, do you truly consider antagonism the wisest course? Until you can demonstrate such restraint, I suggest you listen more than you speak. And please have the Scorpion here in ten minutes.”
“If I don’t?”
“We’ll send them out walking… without suits.”
And with that, the visual field dissolved.
Foxworthy drummed his fingers against the console. “What do you think?”
“I think that he wants to reduce the number of people he has to manage. Most of the NPCs are Lunies… locals who know more about the Moon than he does. This way, he’s mostly got gamers. As ignorant of the Moon as he is. Easier to control. And most of them are Earthers. That means off-planet political pressure on us. They want to muddy the water, Chris.”
Foxworthy nodded agreement, as if he had already come to that conclusion. “What do we do?”
“Send him a transport. No tricks.” Pause. “Yet.”
Foxworthy was on it instantly. “Give me the garage. I need a transport for twenty people delivered to the gaming dome. No one on board. No tricks. A Scorpion if you’ve got it.”
The garage manager’s voice was both professional and curious. “What in the hell is going on over there? I’ve heard rumors…”
Kendra interjected. “Keep them to yourself. We’ll have an announcement within the hour.”
24
1150 hours
Fear hung in the room like a curtain of hot, wet air. It was like trying to breathe steam. Scotty Griffin examined the plastic bands cuffing his wrists in front. Given time he could find a way to sever them… but would he have time? He couldn’t guess when or even if such an action might be advisable. And even if he managed to free
