head. He twisted and spotted a huge shape bearing down on him. When he saw the bat wings that flared out on either side of the gigantic creature, he thought for a moment that they’d found the great dragon.
But the shape wasn’t long and sleek like that of the dragon. Despite its enormous size, the creature’s body was squat and man-shaped, possessing two arms and two legs. Blue-silver armor covered it, showing great hinged joints. Even the wings looked too stunted for its size.
“Rhidher! Sit!”
The great creature came to a stop in front of Matt with a flurry of bat wings despite the fact there was no atmosphere in space. The thing dwarfed him. A seat, built along the lines of a cockpit console, was strapped across the thick, broad neck. Long, tubular weapons occupied areas on either side of the seat.
“Rhidher!” The great beast looked at Matt imploringly with manhole-sized brown eyes that held glints of cyberwear. “You must sit! Enemy come!”
The voice inside Matt’s head didn’t hurt as much as it had. He reached out and caught the edge of the seat, pulling himself in. Belts automatically stretched across his chest and shoulders, locking him down.
Andy’s face blurred into focus on the screen at the front of the console. “Welcome, Rhidher Matt.” Like Matt, he wore the bubble helmet and bulky space suit.
“These aren’t the dragons we’re looking for,” Matt said.
“We’ll look around for a minute.”
Before Matt could reply, a triangular-shaped aircraft attacked. Pink lasers strafed the darkness. The sizzle was even audible. The gargoyle beast he rode dodged automatically.
“Oh, yeah,” Andy said. “Meet the enemy.”
Maj peered up at Peter Griffen as the game designer held court on the table he’d climbed up on. In spite of the fact that he had a reputation for shying away from publicity, Peter seemed at home in front of the convention crowd.
HoloNet reporters stood in the forefront of the crowd with their equipment trained on him. “Why was there so much secrecy involved in this game?” one of them asked. Maj didn’t know the man’s name, but she’d seen him reporting on the up coming gaming convention over the last few days.
Peter smiled shyly. “To get you to ask questions like that.”
The crowd laughed.
“Seriously,” Peter said. “There were a lot of reasons not to talk about the game until now. How many times have we heard about a game’s release date pushing out a month or three? Or even a year?”
The response from the crowd was a grudging acknowledgment of the industry’s primary pitfall. Even with all the technology available on the Net, designers fell behind on delivery dates.
“I look around today,” Peter went on, “and I can name six different games I can point to from here that were supposed to release six months and more ago.”
“If you’ve found a way to fix that,” one of the reporters commented, “you’re going to make a mint.”
Peter shook his head. “I haven’t fixed that for anybody but me.” He paced on the table, showing nervous energy instead of a planned attack to get more attention. “I’ve been in this business for four years. Luckily, I’ve gotten the chance to work on a number of well-received games.”
“It wasn’t luck,” someone in the crowd said. “The guy has a real gift for picking the right property.”
“I’ve written code, game designs, worked with art, done finished as well as concept treatments, written dialogue, and everything else it takes to make a really good game,” Peter said.
Maj remembered reading that from the text files available over the Net. Peter Griffen had been a true Renaissance man in the gaming industry. There hadn’t been any aspect of computer-based gaming that he hadn’t touched.
Some of the articles Maj had read that were taken from top game review magazines had lamented at the loss of the crown prince of the game scene. But that had been then, eighteen months ago, right after the launch of the Promethean Directive, a game based on politics and economics that had rocketed up the sales figures in the gaming industry.
“Eighteen months ago,” Peter went on, “I quit my position with my last software developer. I had an idea for a world, and for gameplay that would be so cutting edge that no man, woman, or child could resist picking it up. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Realms of the Bright Waters.” He waved his hand and the holoprojectors behind him filled with dazzling color that took the crowd’s breath away.
10
“How are you doing, Montoya?”
Facing the security guard, Gaspar accessed a file on the man. The flatfilm pictures flashed by in the corner of his virtual vision, flipping through images. He found the one he was looking for. Leon Tatum was a day guard. According to the records Heavener’s people had turned up, Montoya — the personality proxy Gaspar currently wore — and Tatum worked together only occasionally.
“Fine, Tatum,” Gaspar replied. “Sleepy, I guess.”
Tatum nodded. “You worked all the excitement last night?”
“Yeah. What’s going on out there?”
Tatum shrugged. “Some whiz kid unveiling the goods. Getting quite a draw.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “You can get a free cuppa caffeine back there. Help you stay awake.”
“I think I’ll go see what’s going on.”
“Whiz-kid stuff,” Tatum said. “Me, I’ll take holo and a good ball game any day.”
Gaspar walked to the outer fringe of the crowd and peered up at Griffen. Jealousy stirred restlessly within him, taking first place over the fear. Peter Griffen had it all — talent, skill, and the breaks to help him make the most of them, and Gaspar had nothing. For just a moment it felt good that he was helping take it away from Griffen.
Leaving his holo active, Gaspar accessed the deeper programs inside the virtual version of the hotel. Although the convention center stayed in place around him, Gaspar seemed to step outside himself, cloning his presence as he slipped into the security code protecting the veeyar that had been set up to run the Eisenhower Productions booth.
A freestanding doorway formed in front of Gaspar. He put his hand on the door and pressed. The metal felt cool to the touch. It also felt impenetrable.
Gaspar rubbed the door slowly, then more vigorously, using crack programs he’d developed, found, and traded for. Gradually the door’s surface peeled away, leaving only the cycling orbit of atoms standing in his way. He kicked in another part of the crack program and turned his second virtual self into two-dee.
Moving carefully, he flowed through the orbiting atoms, sliding inside the veeyar controlling Griffen’s presentation.
“The Realm of Bright Waters is bigger than anything out there,” Peter Griffen said. “It’s almost half again as large as Sarxos.”
Maj watched the images on the holo, as mesmerized by the sheer beauty of the world as the rest of the audience.
“It’s gonna
The viewpoint suddenly climbed, rising above the thickly bunched trees. For the first time the crowd saw how tall the trees were. Near the canopy, the branches and leaves thinned out enough that diffused green sunlight punched occasional holes through. Maj spotted the red sun above, and she didn’t doubt that the blue one would be long in coming.
“Look!” someone shouted.
There, just for a wisp of a second, was a glimpse of a civilization built in the treetops. Materials stripped from the trees created fantastically shaped huts suspended in the branches of the huge trees. Narrow bridges connected them, some of them built with steps that led up or down. Small humanoid figures dressed in leaves and bark, colors added from fruits or vegetables, clambered through the bridges and branches. They drew back bows, and arrows whizzed too close for comfort, reaching out into the audience using the holoprojector set up in the room.
