“Terrific. This is what he designed it for. I’ll bet his black heart is tickled pink for the chance to run it.” Alex’s nose twitched at the pungent coffee aroma from the outer office. He would not walk out there and get a cup, nor would he ask someone to fetch one. Time to put a fan in here!
“What’s the situation? Have they agreed?”
“More or less. Chala and Razul should be fighting it out now, but everyone else is twitchy too.” He saw her beginning to relax now that she’d passed the problem on. He turned her off.
He still hadn’t settled back into real space/time yet. The sounds and sights of the shaping of Mars played against the back of his eyeballs. If he closed his eyes even for a moment, blackness exploded into light.
Cary appeared in the doorway. He missed her mischievous expression, transfixed by the steaming mug in her hands. Was she going to drink that in front of him? Could she be so cruel?
“Looked as if you needed this more than me, Chief.”
He stifled a whimper of relief. “You are an angel of mercy. Ten dispensation points. Shoot your husband tonight and move in with me. You’ll still go to the front of the line on Judgment Day.”
“Thanks-I’ll save it. I may need it the next time my boss disappears for three hours and turns off his pager.”
Touche. He sipped from the mug, then made a face. “Half-full?”
“Remember your ulcer.”
He growled at her, and then drained the cup. Damn, that hit the spot. It was the taste he loved. Honest. The fact that decaffeinated coffee never tasted as good just meant that he loved the taste of caffeine. “Give me a minute to digest this. There wasn’t any actual violence, was there?”
“You may want to look at the tapes yourself.”
“Code them through, would you? And any updates on the Dula business.”
Arrgh! There was just too much to do. The panoramic window behind his desk looked out onto the Little San Gabriel Mountains, but the touch of a switch could display any part of Dream Park that he chose. His fingers played on the keyboard, and the window divided into sections.
From an overhead camera in one of the cafeterias he watched a replay of a pushing-and-shouting match. Six of one group and ten of another, all Africans… he recognized Razul, the Libyan Ambassador, so the other, bigger group must be Pan-Africa. They screamed in each other’s faces, mixing languages, pausing to find a word but never finding the chance to use it. The language barrier was driving them berserk. Their interpreters kept trying to interrupt. Now security men and women moved among them, drawing the screamers aside..
The incident had been neatly averted. Whoever was working security had done well, but could he have caught it quicker?
“Zoom.” The screen zoomed up, and he had a clear view of Mitch Hasagawa. Good man on the floor, almost psychically sharp. Reminded Griffin a lot of Marty Bobbick, before Marty put in for desk operations. A good man in the field, a decent man in the office. Alex hoped that Mitch would stay in the field.
He zoomed the second window. It cleared and fogged again. Close-up of the Arab, Razul. Griffin remembered Razul; he had briefed his officers on the man. Razul was Kareem Fekesh’s man. Despite Fekesh’s staggering financial empire, the industrialist was widely rumored to be a primary supporter of Holy Fire, the radical political sect which had grown out of the United Moslem Activist Front in the teens. Nothing had ever been proven, but…
Holy Fire had openly threatened the life of Charlene Dula. Fekesh should never have been permitted within ten kilometers of the Park, but his influence had delivered most of the radical Arab sects, totaling billions of dollars of prospective investment capitol. Money talks, and loudly enough to drown out the voice of a security chief.
“Don’t disturb me for five minutes, Cary. I need to breathe.”
“Got it, boss.”
Griffin looked out over the valley. He stood, twisted his back until his spine crackled. The sun sat low on the horizon, and the mountain shadows stretched slowly toward Dream Park. There was too damn much to do, and it was all too damned important, not just for Cowles Industries, but for the human race. Africa might be a lesson for them all. Perhaps the lines of nationalism and factionalism and every other goddamn “ism” in the world had reduced the chances for this weary planet. Or not. Nuclear devices had existed for over a century, and only four of them had ever been used in anger. This could be interpreted as proof of divine intervention, good luck, a sign that the human race was growing up, or ominous portent, depending upon one’s standing in the “half-empty, half-full” school of cocktail-party philosophy.
For most of recorded history, military technology had been the cutting edge of human knowledge. Only the leap to space called forth more of man’s natural and intellectual resources. Project Barsoom was the most expansive dream in human history, big enough to create a world vision, to involve every world government. It would create millions of jobs and circulate hundreds of billions of dollars. It could be a rallying point, a place to start over.
The door behind him swung open ahead of Marty, who bounced in talking around a mouthful of ham and cheese. “Quite a madhouse, Chief.”
Can’t get five goddamn minutes- Alex squashed the flash of irritation. “Getting madder by the minute. What now?”
“We’ve got the IFGS feed on line three. We need to take this one together.”
“Why me, Lord?”
The question surprised him. “You’ve actually been through one of the Games. Chief, I need the input.” Without waiting for Alex’s approval, Marty leaned over his desk and tapped the vidfeed through.
The screen cleared; the pinched, aquiline features of Arlan Myers appeared. The man always looked like he had a wedge of lemon tucked in one bearded cheek. “Mr. Griffin,” Myers said, with just the slightest hint of what Alex assumed was resentment. Where was Myers? New York? And what time was it there…?
Oops.
“Sorry for the hour, Arlan,” Griffin said solicitously. His imagination wandered, and he found himself wondering what Myers was wearing under the edge of the screen. Maybe the International Fantasy Gaming Society had summoned him out of bed. Better still, maybe Myers was the resident IFGS satyr, and something warm and pliant was waiting for him just off screen. Alex allowed a moment’s fantasy about the official IFGS Kama Sutra. “We’re going to be running that modified Fimbulwinter Game in a few hours. Have you had a chance to scan the Game tapes?”
“Of course.” Arlan sniffed. “A basic modification of the Fimbulwinter scenario.” For the first time a touch of joy appeared on his face. “Rather clever, actually. I worked on that one a few years back, when the Lopezes designed the control sequences.” He shook his head reproachfully. “It’s really too difficult for novice Gamers. I have to admit that I don’t completely understand the method behind this particular madness.”
The lower left screen cleared, and Dr. Vail appeared. He was sixty-four and looked thirty-eight, with that lean and leathery Californian healthier-than-thou look about him. His blue eyes always seemed feverishly bright and intense. “It looks like I timed this right. Mr. Myers, pleased to ‘meet’ you, finally. Your work on the Psychology of Engagement has been instrumental in developing our behavioral programs.”
“Dr. Vail.” Arlan inclined his head slightly. “What does my little treatise on Gaming theory have to do with weight loss?”
Vail smiled. “You expanded Gaming theory beyond the mathematics of penetration, envelopment, and confrontation to the patterns of attention which influence an encounter. ‘Rhythms of concentration,’ you called them.”
Alex leaned back in his seat, fingers laced, fascinated and totally out of his depth.
Arlan seemed pleased. “Yes, of course. Human existence is cyclical: circadian rhythms, Kreb cycles, the circular movements that the human eye makes even when trying to hold steady on a single point, these things are well documented. Mental focus exhibits similar cycles. Regardless of the level of intelligence or concentration, there are ‘down’ points in the cycles, perceptual blind spots, ‘floating holes’ where information simply slips through unnoticed. The more fatigued or single-minded we be-come, the larger the holes get.”
“Yes. And you timed the engagements in the original Fimbulwinter Game to ‘hide’ some of the clues in plain sight, as it were. You took advantage of temporary blackouts due to fatigue or attention engagement. This idea forms the foundation of the Fat Ripper Specials. We hit the Gamers on every level except conscious/analytical. They think that the point of the Game is the exercise. The exercise isn’t the medicine, it’s the spoon.”
