Gameprey

Zenzo had brought them to.

“Oscar Raitt’s records have been purged from the gaming convention database.”

Matt looked at Catie’s face on his foilpack’s vidscreen. “What about the off-site location?” He’d asked her to check the records, looking for some kind of proof that Oscar had existed.

They’d already checked the phone records from his vidphone link, but they had been erased from the phone company. The phone company remained a prime target for hackers, and with all the access they had to promote in their business, they were still easier to penetrate than most corporations.

“I checked there, too,” Catie confirmed. “Nothing there.”

“Thanks. I’ll be in touch.” Matt closed the foilpack, wishing his head didn’t hurt so badly.

“Hey, kid,” Roarke said. The Net Force agent stood near the hotel room windows overlooking the enclosed passageway leading back to the Bessel. A helo with police markings buzzed through the sky. “Don’t get so down.”

“Kind of hard not to,” Matt said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was imagining things, too.”

Roarke shook his head. “These people, whoever they are, can try to cover up this stuff as much as they want, but it’s already gotten through the seams. When it gets this messy, more than likely we’re going to figure it out.”

“More than likely?” Maj echoed.

Roarke gave her a grin. “Better than fifty-fifty odds.” He leaned against the wall. “The trick is to figure it all out in time. These things tend to have a perishable date on them.”

Matt couldn’t help thinking of Peter Griffen. Is he still being held hostage somewhere, or has that date already run through? He glanced up at Maj and saw the dark look on her face, knowing she was wondering the same thing.

“Agent Roarke?”

They looked at the door to the hotel room and saw the three men in green overalls standing there with equipment cases in their hands.

“You forensics?” Roarke asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“You know what you’re doing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, if you’re waiting on me, don’t.”

“Yes, sir.” The three men moved into the room and opened their cases, removing aerosol applicators. “Where do you want the luminol, sir?”

“Let’s start with the floor,” Roarke ordered. “Blood tends to follow the laws of gravity. If we find anything, we’ll broaden the search.”

Matt swallowed dryly as he watched the men work.

Standing in the huge warehouse, Andy watched the security systems wink out around them.

“We make it hard for anyone to find us,” Zenzo said. “And if they do, we make sure we have plenty of time to log off and run.” He started forward. “Anyway, getting back to the games. As I was saying, any true gamer’s dream is to design games other people will play. A lot of guys build games and put them on the Net for free.”

“I’ve got some friends who do that,” Andy said.

“I could have figured that. Maybe you’re not hardcore, but I bet you know the guys who are. There’s a lot of natural talent out there, and there are also a lot of guys who really aren’t as good as they think they are. However, that doesn’t stop them.”

Andy followed Zenzo into the small room at the end of the warehouse. It was filled to capacity with five workspaces and the three guys and two young women who occupied them. Computer hardware lined the walls, and Andy didn’t doubt that over half of it was designed for security.

“We design games,” Zenzo said, “but it’s tough getting the attention of publishers. They’ve got their own people. They’re not looking for guys like us, total independents who’ve taught themselves.”

“They usually recruit people from video game design colleges,” Mark said.

“Yeah, and they make money off those colleges, too.” Zenzo said with obvious cynicism. “They make profits off the guys they choose who become successes, and they make money off the dreamers, too. And that is truly bogus.”

Andy scanned the monitors around the workspaces. A few of them showed lobby and restaurant scenes.

“We don’t just stake out the Bessel,” Zenzo said. “We wire up local restaurants and clubs the publishers like to visit.” He smiled. “We know all.”

“So you spy on these people,” Andy said in disgust, “and try to leverage your way in to them to sell your games?”

“No.” Zenzo looked offended. “We’re doing market research here. We take a good look at all the publishers, try to figure out who’s looking for what, who might be more interested in what we have to offer. Then we disburse the information to other game designers. Despite all the colleges the publishers create, despite all these wonder programmers they produce, they still need people like us.”

“And like Peter Griffen,” Mark said quietly.

Andy studied the other monitors. Two of the people worked on backgrounds while two more worked on character design. Tommy T appeared to be testing gameplay.

“Peter’s one of us,” Zenzo said. “He didn’t go to their schools. He sent in samples of his work they couldn’t ignore. Blistered them with stuff they’d never seen before and made them come looking for him. Then, when he could have named his own ticket with any publisher out there, Peter pulls a fade for a year and announces he’s putting together his own imprint, subsidized by Eisenhower Productions. That takes brass.”

“You respect him,” Andy said.

Zenzo grinned. “No, man, I want to be Peter Griffen when I grow up. He’s an example to every self-taught gamer who dreams of making it big. That’s why I want him found. Eisenhower Productions isn’t going to just bury him and take his game away from him if I can do anything about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s in the contract,” Zenzo said. “If anything happens to Peter Griffen, all rights to Realm of the Bright Waters revert to Eisenhower. All rights, and every last nickel and dime in profit.”

“Why would he sign something like that?” Mark asked.

“Peter doesn’t have any family,” Zenzo said. “He grew up in an orphanage. That’s why he didn’t have a problem signing the agreement with Eisenhower. Who was he going to leave it to?”

“You think Eisenhower had something to do with his disappearance,” Andy said.

Zenzo nodded. “Without a doubt. They were the ones who chose the floor space over that underground tunnel. That seems kind of suspect to me.”

“Why would they abduct Peter?” Mark asked.

“After that thing today, when the dragon appeared in all those games, Peter was going to pull the game. We overheard two of the Eisenhower execs talking about it in the lobby right after it happened.” Zenzo turned to the heavyset guy in the Arachno-Boy T-shirt. “Tommy T, roll that vid.”

Images came to life on the monitor in front of Tommy T. Andy watched as a young man burst through the doors of the Bessel convention center into the hallway.

“The feek’s hit the fan in there,” the man said to another man in his mid-thirties. “Peter must have used one of the game packs instead of the rev he had.”

“Why?” the older man asked.

“I don’t know, but something’s going to have to be done. He’s demanding to pull the game. He’s getting ready to step back out and announce that the game is flawed.”

Without another word, the older man shouldered the younger one aside and sprinted back into the gaming convention center. The vid ended abruptly.

“Unfortunately,” Tommy T said, “all our cams and audlinks inside the center were down due to the bleed- over.”

“So you don’t know what happened inside the Eisenhower booth for sure?” Mark asked.