“It’s okay. I just wanted to talk to you.”
“I wanted to talk to you, too.” Peter gazed in wonder at all the confusion sweeping through the convention center. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“What?” Maj asked.
Before he could answer, a cold blue light suddenly dawned in the center of his stomach. It ate through his holo image like a flame charring through paper. In the next instant Peter was gone as if he’d never existed.
11
Maj stared at the space where Peter Griffen had been standing, wondering if his disappearance had been planned, or if this was another circumstance that had been completely out of his control.
She whirled to face the middle-aged man standing behind her. “Are you the security guard who grabbed me?”
The man held his open hands up. “I was just doing my job.”
“I know,” Maj said. “But I think you need to find Peter Griffen.”
“How?” the man asked. “As far as I know, he wasn’t even here.”
“Then I suggest you start asking people,” Maj replied. “Wherever he is, I think he’s in trouble.”
The dragon continued flying above them, squalling out its impatience as if it, too, realized its master was missing.
Maj reached into her jeans pocket and took out her foilpack. She reconfigured it into a vidphone and punched in Catie’s number. An automated message answered, offering to take a message.
“Hello,” Megan answered.
“Tell me you saw what happened.”
“I saw,” Megan replied. “I just don’t know what to make of it.”
Maj pushed her way through the crowd, not even bothering with being polite. Something way too weird was going on, and the clock was ticking. “I don’t think he did it on purpose.”
Flashlights joined the security lights in opening holes in the darkness.
“If it was just for effect, it seems to have had the desired effect.”
“Peter wasn’t planning this.” Maj put her free hand in front of her, testing the people in the crowd to find out how many were real and how many were holos. When she found someone who was holo, she pushed on through him or her.
“What makes you so sure?” Megan asked.
“I talked to him right before he disappeared. He was as confused by this as everyone else was.”
“I don’t think everyone was confused,” Megan observed. “Some of these people think this was the greatest stunt ever.”
A crowd gathered at the nearby gate leading into the Eisenhower Productions booth. They pounded on the gate and demanded entrance.
“Trust me,” Maj said. “Get hold of the others. Especially Mark. Maybe he can access some of the security vid systems and find Peter.”
“He was online in holo,” Megan reminded. “He could have been anywhere.”
“I’ve got a feeling he’s here,” Maj replied.
“If he is, we’ll find him.”
Maj folded the foilpack and held it in her hand. She looked down at the guy sitting at the Eisenhower table. “Where’s Peter Griffen?”
The guy nervously shook his head. “I don’t know. I thought he was here till he disappeared like that.”
Maj glanced at the crowd pounding on the booth’s gate, feeling the pressure of seconds ticking by. “Can you open those doors?”
“Not me. But maybe one of those guys can.” He pointed at a group of men in business suits. “They’re part of Eisenhower Productions.”
Maj walked toward the men, opened the foilpack, and pressed one of the speed-dial numbers she’d programmed in last night.
“Los Angeles Police Department,” the automated emergency voice answered. The voice was male, crisp, and efficient. The LAPD symbol filled the foilpack’s small vidscreen.
“I need to speak with Detective John Holmes,” Maj said. “He’s currently on assignment at the Bessel Mid- Town Hotel. This is an emergency. My name is Madeline Green. Detective Holmes will know me.”
“Thank you,” the automated voice said. “I’ll connect you momentarily.”
Maj stepped in front of the men in business suits, stopping almost ten feet away because other men who were obviously bodyguards stepped forward.
“Please stay back, miss,” a granite-jawed man said with thin politeness.
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Maj told them, “you’re about to have a full-scale riot on your hands. If you don’t produce Peter or open those gates, you’re going to get covered in some majorly bad press.”
“The girl’s right,” one of the men said to a guy in roundlensed glasses and a thin mustache. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Maj seized on that bit of information immediately.
“Peter knew better than this,” the man with glasses said. “He didn’t stick to the game plan.”
“It’s too late to worry about that now,” the other man replied.
The man with glasses looked up at the big security guard next to him. “I want men inside the booth. I don’t want anything dismantled.”
“Yes, sir.” The man spoke into a wristcom, too low for Maj to overhear. She studied their faces, hoping she would be able to identify the men later if she had to.
An excited shout rang out behind her. She turned and watched as the gates to the Eisenhower Productions booth opened and the crowd swarmed in. She hurried to join the crowd flowing into the huge booth. She glanced up at the dragon twisting restlessly above the convention center, wishing it could somehow lead her to its master. But the dragon looked as lost as she felt.
The wires in Gaspar Latke’s eye started to burn horribly. He dropped to his knees in Griffen’s veeyar, forcing himself not to pull the wires free. He screamed with pain, knowing Heavener was monitoring every sound he made. But he couldn’t help himself.
The antivirus program stepped up the pace, filling the datastreams with bugs that worked furiously to repair the damage he was doing. Overlapping images from the convention center filled his vision, letting him know the whole area had gone ballistic.
“The program is bleeding over,” Heavener complained in the distance.
“I can’t stop it,” Gaspar gritted out.
“Then stop what you can,” Heavener advised. “I’ve got a team who will pick Griffen up.”
Unable to control himself, Gaspar curled a fist around the three crimson wires shoved deep into his eye socket. But he didn’t yank them out. Failing Heavener wasn’t an option.
He cried out in pain again, but he held on to the wires and curled up into a fetal ball, trying to keep his mind clear.
Catie Murray started at the blue-white marble cistern in the center of the reception area. It was elegant, beautifully made. The water arced from a pot carried by a large brown bear reaching for a beehive hanging from a tree branch high overhead. In the physical world, and at the time of King Arthur and Camelot, tapping the artesian well in such a fashion would have been the work of a master. But in the Legend of the Lake game demo, it was gracefully rendered.
She stuck her fingers into the water, finding it cool to the touch. Impulsively she brought her fingers to her lips. The water was ambrosia, almost honey-sweet.
“They say,” a pleasantly cultured voice said from behind her, “you’re never supposed to drink the water from
