the swirling dust left by the explosions, noticing other shadows that trailed the robot.
A long, thin man with a white beard and a conical hat with stars and moons on it charged out to meet the first robot. His cape swirled around his shoulders as he gestured and cried out words Catie didn’t understand. He threw his hand out, and a wall of force rocked the robot backward.
The metal creature stumbled backward and rammed an elbow through part of the stone wall left standing. Even as more debris tumbled down and banged against it, the robot righted itself, then lifted a foot and brought it crashing down on the old mage.
A young male voice pealed out with the electronic thunder of amplified speakers. “Permanent press, guys! Boo-yeahhhh!” He launched a rocket from the shoulder-mounted weapon that wiped out the second floor landing where King Arthur stood.
Mark Gridley suddenly appeared beside Catie. He looked at her in concern. “You might want to consider logging off.”
Catie didn’t question how Mark had known she was in Legend of the Lake. He’d walked her there before pursuing his own interests. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“There’s trouble all through the convention center,” Mark re plied. “The hotel security programs are getting fried with systematic failures, and Pete’s dragon has shown up in most of the games.”
“If I log off, I may lose the chance of figuring out what’s going on here.” Catie sneezed as the swirling dust triggered the reaction. Conversation was barely possible over the mechanized sounds of the giant robots and the screams of the banquet guests. “I’m part of this programming. Maybe I can isolate the dragon’s signature here and track it back.”
Before she could move, the giant robot turned faster than she’d expected, catching her up in one huge, three-fingered hand that curled around her like a steel prison.
“Hey, now,” the thunderous boy’s voice bellowed over the speakers, “you’re a cute one!”
12
Unable to bear the pain anymore and knowing he was fighting a losing battle against the antivirus programming Peter Griffen had coded into the veeyar, Gaspar Latke ripped the three crimson wires from his eye. He was afraid to look at the wires, terrified that the eye had come with it.
He forced himself up on shaking legs, panting like a bellows as the familiar gut-wrenching ache of a panic attack filled him. “I’m logging off,” he told Heavener. “It’s over here.”
“Then knock out the security programming in the hotel,” Heavener directed. “We have to get Griffen off the premises.”
“Who are you?” a sharp voice demanded.
Gaspar wheeled around, spotting Peter Griffen at the far end of the room.
“What did you do?” Griffen ran at Gaspar, drawing back a hand that suddenly filled with neon gases.
Working hurriedly, dropping back into the hacker’s survival frame of mind, Gaspar made himself two-dee again and wound through the security programming protecting the veeyar.
Peter threw the spinning, gaseous ball.
Gaspar knew the ball contained a trace utility. Cold fear stabbed deep within him. He had no doubts about Peter’s ability to develop a trace utility that would be next to impossible to beat. He oozed through the security programming just before the trace utility splattered against the coding.
Then he was back in the convention center, watching from his holo self as the gaming crowd raced into the Eisenhower Productions booth.
“Hotel security!” a man yelled, pushing past Leif and heading for the besieged booth.
“Los Angeles Police Department!” a uniformed officer bellowed, hot on the security guard’s heels.
Gaspar gazed around at the utter pandemonium that filled the convention center and felt guilty. He’d been to the convention a couple times in the past. He’d never gone legally, of course, always on identities he’d “borrowed” from corporate databases he’d managed to crack. Attending the convention those times had often been highlights of the year.
Now he was responsible for ruining this year’s event.
“Latke,” Heavener called.
“I’m working,” Gaspar said. He took the specially built icon from his pocket, one of the best from his bag of tricks, and fed it directly into the hotel’s computer systems through the reciprocal programming that maintained the holofeeds. He checked the progress of his program against the wristcom connecting him to the hotel security.
In seconds the program became part of the security system and every cam in the hotel went offline. “It’s down,” he told Heavener.
Matt stared at the ironbound chariot wheel swamping through the grainy yellow sand straight at his head. He tried to get up, but the sand kept slipping out from under him. The chariot wheel caught him dead center as the driver yelled out in savage glee.
Pain filled Matt’s body, twisting him up, but it wasn’t anything more than what he’d programmed on the feedback allowed from the Net. He was automatically logged off.
Matt opened his eyes and inhaled sharply, trying to get his bearings.
“Are you all right, sir?”
Matt blinked at the flight attendant, trying to remember where he was for just a moment. Then he felt the familiar sensation of flying. “Yes, thank you. I was playing online. It didn’t turn out so well.”
The flight attendant nodded sympathetically.
“So how’d you get it?” Leif asked. “Find out you had a really slow goblin?”
“It looked liked a Roman war chariot,” Matt answered, “but I couldn’t swear to it. I got shoved into another game from Goblin King. I also saw the dragon there.”
“The one you and Maj saw?”
“Yeah.” Matt glanced at Andy, who lay motionless in the seat beside him. “I don’t think it belonged there, either. How’s Andy?”
“Still playing,” Leif replied. “Why didn’t you think the dragon belonged there?”
“This demo felt like a straight start game, and the dragon was just there, not really interacting at all. Where did you get shunted to?”
“Here. I got taken out by one of those little ships and was logged completely off the Net. I tried to get back into the demo veeyar, but it’s off-line.”
Matt looked at Andy and started to get worried.
“Then where’s Andy?”
Andy studied the heads-up display available to him in the cockpit, recognizing the control configuration immediately. The Space Marines series of games were a personal favorite of his, and he had high scores on a half- dozen Net sites that ran the games.
Cyber-augmented gloves and boots encased his hands and feet and controlled the forty-foot battlesuit. Automatically he ran through the systems displays and weapons checklist. The arms and legs were all in good working order.
The helmet that fit over his head contained the HUD. Pull-down menus kept track of his heading and armament. A long, letter-box-shaped screen fit over his eyes like a visor, giving him a full 360-degree view around the battlesuit as well as overhead.
“Alternative vidscreen,” Andy commanded. “Reduce field of view to one hundred eighty degrees with rearviews on the sides.”
Immediately the viewscreen blurred out of focus, changing from the panoramic spread to an eyes-forward view. Two round sections on either side gave him the view behind him. The radar screen above it pinged targets, then the identify-friend-or-foe function kicked in, reading the signature of the other four cavalry units within the half-klick sweep.
Andy only thought about the sudden change from the Goblin King game to the Space Marines for a moment. It really didn’t matter to him. Gameplay was gameplay. All he wanted to do was roll up a score.
