Gameprey

Excitement flooded through Maj. Communication! There was nothing like communication!

“Griffen has broken through the language inhibitor virus,” Heavener said.

“I know.” Gaspar reached back into his own veeyar and uploaded the power-ups he’d copied from the game. The power-ups were intended as bonuses and prizes for the other players as they worked through the quest levels in the game, but he’d written in additional programming that made them his anytime he wanted.

He reached into the game menu and accessed the enemy programming. At present the game was set on NORMAL play, allowing the destruction of the tera’lanth forces. He activated the AUTOMATIC RESPAWN feature and re-created his army. Instantly, the skies filled with the winged warriors again. Without mercy they descended on the dragon and the jet.

Quills rained destruction down on the jet. Black smoke trailed after the aircraft in clouds. The jet dived, taking advantage of rather than fighting gravity, descending like a striking predator.

Flapping his wings and taking advantage of his power-ups, Gaspar dived after them. He’d spent countless hours in the tera’lanth form, either watching Peter Griffen’s activities and sometimes playing along, or in the version of the game he’d had to work with.

Gaspar followed the gleaming needle shape rocketing above the green sward. He folded his wings, diving into an interception course. He arrived less than a quarter mile directly in front of the jet.

He spread his wings, halting his downward momentum. With his heightened senses, he was aware of the two missiles leaping from the jet’s wings as well as the fireball hurtling from the dragon’s throat.

He unleashed his quill attack from his spread wings an instant before the two missiles slammed into him. The twin concussions hammered him, doubling him over, but the power-ups he’d used left him alive in the game.

Then the quills ripped into the jet. Less than a hundred yards out, silvery bits of metal and Plexiglas flew in all directions, followed by an explosion as the high-octane fuel blew.

“Game over.” Gaspar grinned, but he didn’t have long to enjoy his victory. The dragon’s fireball hit him and burned him to a cinder.

Matt Hunter opened his eyes and instinctively lifted his head from the contact points on the implant chair. He could still feel the detonation that had destroyed the jet and triggered the Net’s automatic log-off safeguard.

He scanned the walls and saw that he was in his own bedroom back in Columbia, Maryland. Questions filled his mind, but mostly he was worried about Maj.

He lay his head back on the implant chair and felt the buzz as contact was made. When he opened his eyes again, he was in his own veeyar.

He floated cross-legged beneath a star-filled sky that gave him a better view of space than most observatories. A comet streaked by overhead, leaving purple phosphorescence twinkling along behind it. In the next moment the comet hit the atmosphere and caught fire, creating a pyrotechnic delight as it burned.

Matt ignored the comet and reached out to the black marble slab in front of him. He punched the inch-high blue icon that opened the computer’s vidphone function. A rectangular screen opened in front of him.

“You have messages,” the computer voice announced.

“Save for later,” Matt commanded. “Open phone database.” He hadn’t memorized the number of the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel where Maj was staying. She’s okay, he told himself desperately.

The rectangle opened with a ripple. “Please state preference.”

“Los Angeles, California. Bessel Mid-Town Hotel. Room five eighteen.” Matt waited, listening to the vidphone ring the other end. His anxiety increased with every ring, but Maj didn’t pick up the vidphone.

Breathing raggedly, Gaspar Latke opened his eyes in the darkness. His heart hammered inside his chest. Too many hours online, he knew, and not nearly enough sleep. A light film of perspiration covered him, chilling him in the air-conditioned room Heavener insisted on keeping just above the frost level.

“They’re out of the veeyar?” the woman asked.

Gaspar held up a trembling hand, observing the quivering fingers with bright interest. The fireball had been so big and so real. He had to give Peter that. Gaspar hadn’t been hit by a fireball in the game in months. Losing wasn’t an experience he liked to repeat. “Yes.”

“The veeyar overlap happened in the hotel,” Heavener said.

“It had to,” Gaspar said irritably. Everyone knew that the game’s programming only affected local computer systems.

“We want you back online. We want her computer scrubbed.”

“Scrub it if you want,” Gaspar said, “but she’ll still talk.”

“No,” Heavener said calmly, “she won’t. We have people on-site there.”

A chill even stronger than the air-conditioning filled Gaspar. He knew D’Arnot Industries had no qualms about killing, but he’d never been part of it himself.

“Find her,” Heavener commanded, “and scrub any archived computer files she may have saved online.”

Gaspar reluctantly pushed himself from the implant chair. As soon as he tried to stand, his knees buckled, refusing to take his weight. A fresh wave of perspiration covered him as he caught himself on his hands, just saving him from hitting the floor with his face.

Heavener cursed and crossed the room immediately. She grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to his feet. “Don’t give up on me now, you little piece of feek.”

Gaspar felt hot tears filling his eyes. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so close to total exhaustion. The last few days he wasn’t sure if he’d slept or not. D’Arnot Industries had wanted him pulling twenty-four-hour surveillance on Peter on the Net, and Peter worked incredible hours. But Peter Griffen was healthy and didn’t have other assignments that D’Arnot Industries wanted from him.

Heavener dragged Gaspar to the other implant chair and unceremoniously threw him into it. “Get online. Find the girl and scrub her computer.”

Gaspar’s stomach rolled sickeningly. He retched, but only a thin, sour drool leaked down his beard-stubbled chin.

“Latke,” Heavener barked, “now! We don’t have time to waste!”

Raking the sour drool from his chin with the back of his arm, Gaspar lay back in the lineup chair. His implants touched the laser beam connectors. He felt the familiar buzz, started to enter his veeyar, but saw the cluttered room suddenly fade away before he could seat himself at the desk. He tried twice more, but each time the veeyar faded away.

Heavener stood at his side. “What’s wrong?”

With a quivering hand, Gaspar pointed out the chair’s vital signs readout. “My current level of anxiety, stress, and health are dangerous. The chair won’t allow me on the Net until my vitals are within the tolerance limits.”

“Then we’ll beat the vital signs readout.” Heavener took a slim case that Gaspar had never seen from her pocket. She opened it, revealing three slim hypodermics neatly held inside. She took one of them from the case, popped the protective sleeve covering the needle, then depressed the plunger to make sure there was no air inside.

“No!” Gaspar croaked.

Heavener popped him in the throat with her elbow, causing him to gag. “Lie down.”

Hypnotized by the hypodermic, Gaspar grabbed the arm holding him down but wasn’t able to leverage her off him. She forced him back into the implant chair and the automatic formfit feature kicked in, shrinking the chair around him. The pip-pip-pip of the vital signs rejection echoed in the big room.

“No,” he gasped. “Please.”

Heavener’s cold, amber cat’s eyes shone as she looked into his. “You’re alive only as long as you remain useful. You’d do well to remember that.” Her hand flashed forward, and he felt the needle pierce the side of his neck.

A warm lassitude drifted through Gaspar’s body. In seconds he felt removed from his body, even more distant than going online left him.

But inside he was still screaming.

The pip-pip-pip rejection from the implant chair slowed, then quit.

“Find the girl,” Heavener commanded harshly over the audlink. “Find the girl or no one will ever find you.”