Gameprey

squeals.

Holstering his sidearm, Andy stood and grabbed the finger that was taller than and just as broad as he was. It took everything he had to move the finger, but when it opened, Catie managed to squeeze through.

Machine-gun rounds peppered the stationary battlesuit. Andy felt the vibrations shiver through the hardware that warned him the system was coming back online.

The huge hand they stood on jerked spasmodically. The three undamaged fingers closed a little tighter.

“Hold on,” Andy ordered as he wrapped his left arm around Catie’s waist and pulled her to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, making it hard to keep his head up. He couldn’t walk heavily encumbered, so he chose simply to fall out of the battlesuit’s hand.

No sooner had they left the hand than it snapped closed, sounding like a deadly autobus pileup.

Catie screamed as they fell twenty of the thirty feet to the ground. Then Andy tightened his fist inside the jetpack control glove. The jetpack fired and immediately provided them with lift.

Andy rolled his body, getting them aimed in the proper direction, then fired a sustained burst from the jetpack. He ran close to the ground, no more than five or six feet off the ground. If we crash, we’re not going to have to worry about those guys, he thought.

He flew toward the open head of his battlesuit, cutting power early. He pulled Catie to him more tightly, covering her body with his.

His shoulder hit the upper lip of the access hatch opening, and they ricocheted into the cockpit. He skidded across the steel plate flooring and slammed into the console chair hard enough to drive the wind from his lungs.

“We made it!” Catie shouted in disbelief as she pushed herself up from him.

Andy concentrated on breathing again. Black spots swam in his vision. Getupgetupgetup! he shouted at himself mentally because he didn’t have the breath to speak. They’re not going to wait for you to get ready!

13

Dressed in his astronaut-style crashsuit, Mark Gridley jetted through the twisting maze that was the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel’s security system. Some of the time-savers he’d implanted in the system earlier had folded when the security system went down.

A small image remained at the bottom of his vision, flatfilm reproduction of the confusion filling the convention hall. He also maintained an open window for any IMs the other Explorers might try to send to him.

He rushed from the latest tunnel, searching for access to whatever security vidcams that might be operational after the latest attack on them. Three directions were open before him.

Pausing for just a moment, Mark shook his right hand twice, accessing one of the search utilities he used to crack and map a computer system’s programming. When he opened his hand, three armored butterflies streaked forward, each taking one of the optional directions.

“Passage blocked,” the first butterfly search program reported back.

“Passage leads to outside access,” the second butterfly informed him. “Data port presently unoccupied.”

“Data flowing fine,” the remaining butterfly radioed.

Mark kicked in his boot jets again and shot forward, making the hard S-turn to follow the circuitry path. He stretched out his left hand and sprayed a neon orange stripe along the entrance to let himself know he’d been that way. With the collapse of the security system and the virus that raged within it, a number of the circuits cannibalized themselves, creating endless loops as the programs tried to connect.

The system was a total and complete mess. Mark really didn’t think he could have done a better job himself, but he hoped he could unravel some of the mess in time to provide them with a few more clues.

“Miss Green.”

Maj glanced down at her foilpack and saw Detective Holmes centered in the view. “Where are you?”

“En route,” Holmes replied. “I went home and grabbed forty winks, not thinking we’d have trouble so early. Big mistake on my part.”

Maj trotted at the heels of the convention-goers who flooded into the Eisenhower Productions booth. Her eyes roved over the beautiful artwork lining the walls. Concept art for the Realms of the Bright Water decorated the interior, and the center of the booth contained a miniature model of the forest they’d seen on holo.

The lack of light and power made the interior of the booth almost creepy. But it didn’t slow the convention- goers, who oohed and ahhed over the displays of art, action figures, and clothing. Evidently Eisenhower Productions had kept their marketing staff busy.

“Even if you’d been here,” Maj said, “I don’t think you’d have managed to affect the situation very much.”

“Always loved a vote of confidence.” The sound of Holmes’s siren screaming echoed over the telecommunications connection. As he glanced over his shoulder, the traffic through his back window was briefly visible. He barked orders over his police wristcom.

Maj gazed through the quasi-twilight that filled the booth. Thankfully, the fans weren’t in total riot mode. They weren’t tearing things down or open, contenting themselves with investigating what there was available to see.

“I’m also assuming you called for something other than to let me know the bad news.”

“Peter Griffen disappeared in the middle of the crisis,” May said. “I got the feeling it wasn’t planned.”

“That’s not the impression I got when my sergeant told me about it,” Holmes said. “She thinks this was a publicity stunt that got way out of hand.”

Maj silently disagreed. She glanced back at the interior of the Eisenhower Productions booth, noticing the security lights hanging above it. All of them were dark. Something’s wrong.

“My people have orders to pick Peter Griffen up,” Holmes went on. “I want to have a little chat with him about some of the civil ordinances he fractured today.”

“Do you know what room he’s in at the hotel?” Maj forced her way through the crowd, then spotted a door on the right. She crossed toward it.

“Yeah,” Holmes said. “I’ve already had a couple uniforms check it out. He’s not there.”

Then he’s got to be here, Maj told herself. She hopped onto the wraparound booth in front of the door and walked across. Piles of plastic-wrapped shirts lay scattered across the floor. They all held pictures of Sahfrell the dragon. She tried the door at the back and found it open.

Stepping through, she found herself in a small room with an implant chair. “I found the room Peter probably did the holo from.” She walked to the implant chair, drawn by the dark stain that covered one side. Even in the darkness the pool of liquid held a crimson gleam. Her stomach turned. “There’s fresh blood in this room.”

“Hold your position,” Holmes ordered. “I’ll have a uniformed officer there in just a moment.” He broke the connection.

Maj scanned the room. There weren’t any other doors, and she really didn’t think Peter had enough time to get out of the booth without someone noticing him. They’d have mobbed him if they’d seen him. And there was enough blood that she knew he couldn’t be in terribly good shape.

She turned her foilpack over, using the scant light from the vidscreen to illuminate the shadows covering the carpeted floor. A trail of blood drops led from the implant chair.

Five feet farther on, they disappeared abruptly.

Maj dropped to her knees and studied the floor, passing the illuminated foilpack vidscreen only inches from the top of the carpet. It took her three tries to spot the seam in the carpet.

She hooked her fingers under the edge and lifted, exposing the square mouth of a utility passage that had probably been set up to allow egress to the various power outlets set into the floor around the convention center floor. Darkness filled the utility tunnel.

Using the light from the foilpack viewscreen, Maj located the ladder set into the side of one wall. At the bottom the tunnel stretched out in two directions, bending immediately in both. Small emergency lights burned with dim wattage, barely illuminating the underground hallways to near-twilight.