Gamer Fantastic

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  “What do you mean?”

  I pointed at Larry’s own attire. “She’s got hundreds of victims packed into the hotel, and a convention is the one place she’ll be able to walk around without drawing too much attention.”

  “That’s why Mason agreed to be a guest,” Larry said. “He’s never done the con scene before.”

  I picked up Smudge and headed for the door. “The hotel’s too big. We have to lure them to us.”

  “Olara will have more of those crystal spiders,” Larry warned.

  We hurried down the hall toward the elevators. Flyers were taped between the elevators, advertising room parties and other events. I glanced at them as we waited for the elevator. Then I blinked and ripped one down.

  “Leave it to the geeks,” I whispered. Larry had mentioned the homemade ice cream, but he hadn’t said how it would be made. In true science fiction fashion, they would be gathering by the pool tonight and using liquid nitrogen to make their ice cream. All we needed was the bait.

  I pulled out Mason’s book, flipped to the back, and began reading.

  The pool was mostly empty at this time in the afternoon. To the few swimmers, I said, “We need to close the pool for a few hours.”

  “You don’t look like hotel staff,” said one.

  I held up Smudge’s cage. “I’m the exterminator. These guys love to make their webs in humid areas.” Even with his legs drawn tight to his body, Smudge was an impressive specimen. I made a show of checking beneath one of the plastic benches by the wall. “Could be dozens of them by now.”

  A few minutes later, the pool was empty. Larry was already wheeling a heavy steel tank across the tiles. “Lau rie’s going to kill me when she finds out I swiped this.”

  “Would you rather die at Laurie’s hands or Olara’s?”

  He actually stopped to think about it. I rolled my eyes, then sat down on the bench and opened Mason’s book.

  “What are you doing?” Larry asked.

  I jabbed the page. “Hold this.”

  Larry obeyed, and I pressed my fingers flat.

  “You said they weren’t able to destroy all of Olara’s eggs. If anything will get Olara’s attention, it’s her own child.” If I could bring the egg through.

  My apprehension must have shown. “What’s wrong?” Larry asked.

  I pushed down until my nails were white from the pressure. Nothing happened. “Magic requires two things. The first is energy, which comes from the libriomancer. From me. That’s part of the reason we can only use our power three times in a single year.”

  “So you don’t run out of energy?” Larry asked.

  “Because when we empty ourselves into a book, the book reaches back into us.” I gritted my teeth and pressed harder, wondering what would be left of Garth Mason. “The second thing is will. Desire. You have to love stories so much they become real.”

  “And that’s a problem?”

  “It didn’t used to be,” I whispered.

  Was that a softening of the page? I shifted my weight and straightened my fingers. The strain made me wince. Much more of this, and either the page would give or my joints would. “For more than a decade, books have been a job. I can’t remember the last one I read for the sheer joy of it. We’re always skimming the new releases, looking for things we can use. I have to file a report on every damn book I read. It sucks the wonder right out of you.”

  He didn’t understand. I could see it from his expression. He looked like he wanted to shake me. “But you’ve done magic. How can you not love that?”

  “I’m tired, okay? I have to use my power fighting books. Every year, I’m banishing thread back into McCaffrey or trying to trick Aladdin’s genie into that damn lamp.” I rapped a knuckle against the book. “They’re tools. Threats. Occasionally, they’re gifts. But they’re not stories anymore. Not to me. That’s what you give up when you become a libriomancer.”

  I narrowed my eyes, trying to concentrate on the words in front of me. Over and over I read a single paragraph, visualizing the scene until I could feel the warm stone of the cave and see the sickly green emanations of some sort of luminescent fungus.

  Cynicism robbed me of desire. Glow-in-the-dark fungus was just one more overused cliché. Mason was a mediocre writer at best. He might be in love with his own words, but I wasn’t.

  I turned away, flexing my fingers to help the blood flow. With my other hand, I opened Smudge’s cage. His head twitched slightly, the first time he had moved since the fight in Mason’s room.

  Desire came in many shapes. Either I stopped Olara or Smudge died.

  My hand punched through to the cold air of the cave. The egg was heavier than I expected and barely fit through the pages of the book. I left a bit of skin behind in Olara’s cave, but I had what I needed.

  The crystalline shell reminded me of Olara’s spiders, but more chaotic. Bumpy shafts of cloudy crystal covered the egg. Some were small as warts, while other protrusions were the size of my thumb.

  I cradled the egg in one arm. “Help me get the nitrogen to the far side of the pool, then take Smudge and get out of sight.”

  They were faster than I had expected. We had just finished setting up the nitrogen canister when the lock splintered and the door swung inward.

  Olara the spider queen stepped through the doorway. She didn’t look quite the way she appeared on the cover. Her body was more slender. Veins of red ran through her armor. She carried a jagged sword of bloodred crystal. Every time she moved, it sounded like someone had dropped a chandelier.

  Garth Mason followed, along with at least a dozen of Olara’s spiders.

  I’ve only seen full-blown possession twice in my life, and it’s not a pretty sight. The book becomes the author, rewriting his memories, his personality, even his thoughts. The author’s mind remains, but it’s like a palimpsest, a page which has been written on again and again until the original text is almost illegible.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Larry asked.

  “He’s spent too much of his power to bring Olara through. He had nothing left to protect himself.” How many characters had clawed their way from the pages into Garth Mason’s mind? Even the heroes wouldn’t hesitate to destroy him. It was instinctive, like a drowning man so desperate to live that he drags his rescuer down.

  Drool dribbled from Mason’s chin. He still clutched his book with both hands. As I watched, another of Olara’s spiders poked through the cover and jumped down to join its fellows.

  “Not good,” I muttered. The book had been torn open so many times it was little better than a revolving door. “You’ve got to get that book away from him.”

  “I’ve wanted an excuse to deck him since Thursday. You should see the way he’s been treating the con staff.” Larry plowed shoulder-first into Garth Mason, knocking him to the floor.

  I turned my attention to Olara.

  “You have my daughter,” Olara said. Her voice was beautiful, like a trained singer’s. Deep and smooth and seductive. “How did you find her? I don’t understand.”

  She sounded like a child, lost and confused. I could see shadows moving within the crystal, twitching limbs and black mandibles.

  “Leave her alone!” Mason shouted. He and Larry were still struggling for the book.

  “I can’t.” Even though I knew better, I still hesitated. Mason was a perverse version of Pygmalion, and Olara was his Galatea. Holding the egg close, I said to her, “He loves you, you know.”

  She turned to look at Mason, and for a moment, I thought I might have been wrong. But then she raised her sword and advanced toward me. “He is unwise.”

  “No argument there.” Olara had already turned her back on redemption. Even the author couldn’t change what was already written. I set the egg on the floor. “Come and get it.”

  Olara’s spiders charged forward, and I tipped over the canister.

  Fog billowed through the room. I could hear Olara’s spiders cracking like cellophane, but I couldn’t
see anything. I coughed as I waited for the nitrogen to finish boiling away. Had there been enough to reach Olara?

  When the fog dissipated, broken shards of crystal littered the floor. Olara and one of her spiders had survived the nitrogen. The spider limped forward on its remaining legs.

  I waited for it to get closer, then slammed the empty tank down on top of it. Weakened by the cold, the spider shattered.

  “Your death will be a slow one, human.” Ruby flames danced along Olara’s sword.

  “Is that sword as indestructible as the rest of her?” I called out.

  From the other side of the pool, Larry yelled, “It’s unbreakable.”

  “Good.” I reached into my jacket for a tattered, dog-eared book I had carried for over ten years. A book I had read so often as I child that I no longer needed to see the words on the page. My fingers slipped easily through the pages, and the harsh desert air warmed my hand.

  Joy I hadn’t felt in ages knotted my chest as I pulled out a black and chrome cylinder with a gleaming disk on one end. I flipped a switch, and a blue blade thrummed to life.

  Seconds later, Olara’s unbreakable sword lay in pieces on the floor.

  I fought a twinge of guilt as I swung again. None of this was Olara’s fault. She couldn’t help being what she was.

  Her armor rang against the floor as she fell. There was no body, only a dark mist that slowly dissipated into the air.

  On the opposite side of the pool, Garth Mason screamed. Though Larry had at least thirty pounds on him, Mason tossed him into the water.

  The book lay on the floor behind him. Another crystal spider clawed through the pages and scurried toward me. I switched my grip and sliced it to pieces.

  “What happened?” Larry asked as he paddled toward the side.

  I deactivated my weapon, retrieving my pistol instead. I didn’t want to kill Mason, but if I had to . . . “I destroyed Olara.”

  “He’s going berserk!” Larry shouted.

  “He’s like a group mind, only the different parts are all trying to kill each other.” The only thing that could unite them was an external threat, and the instant I slew Olara, I proved myself a threat.

  Mason drew a knife and threw with such easy grace that he had to be channeling some sort of elf. I tried to dodge, but my reflexes were no match for his. The knife stabbed my thigh and I stumbled. Stupid elves.

  A burst of wind flung me back. Presumably a magic-user of some kind. I fired once, but it was impossible to get a good shot. I slammed to the floor, and my gun clattered away.

  “So why the hell did you waste your time on Olara instead of fighting him?” Larry shouted.

  I pushed up my head and smiled. “Because it was Olara who was killing my partner.”

  Some part of Garth Mason was still aware enough to understand, but it was too late. He whirled to see Smudge standing next to the fallen book.

  It’s hard to express a sense of satisfaction with mandibles and eight beady eyes, but Smudge managed. Maybe it was his body language, the way he glared at Mason before hopping onto the book. Or maybe it was the way he danced about, deliberately spreading the flames over every inch of the cover art.

  Mason’s scream was a chorus of pain and confusion. “Stop him! We’re burning!”

  Normally, it would have taken a while for the fire to consume a brick of a book like Mason’s. But few fires had the strength of a pissed-off fire-spider. Soon, Smudge stood in a cloud of swirling ash. Scraps of the book remained, but not enough to hold any real power.

  A dripping Larry helped me to my feet. His prosthetic forehead flopped to one side, hanging by only a few bits of glue. His makeup was smeared, and he had left most of his costume in the pool, probably so the weight wouldn’t drag him down.

  “Is he dead?” Larry asked, handing me my gun.

  “He’s in shock.” I clenched my jaw to keep from gasping as I bent down to search Mason’s body. I found a few fragments of crystal in his pocket, but no weapons. The crystals shattered when I threw them against the floor. “Best case scenario, he’ll be in a coma for a few weeks, wake up in charge of his own mind, and spend the rest of his life hearing voices. Worst case . . . well, the council has people who will make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “If he recovers, he could write another book. He could create anything he wanted.” When I nodded, he continued, “Do other authors have this kind of power?”

  “A few we know about,” I said. “And we’re keeping a pretty close eye on Rowling.”

  I sat back against the wall. “You know, if you’d let me get Lucy’s potion, I could fix this,” I said, jabbing a finger at my leg. Adrenaline was still blocking the worst of the pain. That wouldn’t last long. “Run and call 911, would you?”

  As Larry ran toward the hotel phone by the door, I set my hand down for Smudge. His feet were still warm as he climbed onto my palm. Bits of ash clung to his furry body, but he appeared unharmed. When I gave him a chocolate, he pounced on it with his usual enthusiasm.

  “Nice work, partner.” I stroked his thorax as he ate, trying not to think about the paperwork waiting for me back home. Instead, I pulled my newest weapon from my pocket and ignited the blade.

  I knew it was a bad idea. Like most SF gadgets, it had a limited power supply, and I had no way to recharge it. But for a moment, holding the humming weapon in both hands, I felt like a kid again.

  I put it away before Larry returned, first aid kit and hotel staffers in tow. The others checked on Mason while Larry packed gauze around the knife in my leg.

  “Take this,” I said, handing him one of my business cards.

  “What for?”

  I shook my head. “Because you know as well as I do that the instant this is over, you’re grabbing your favorite book and heading to your hotel room. And if you succeed, you can make a lot more of a mess than Mason.”

  He didn’t bother to argue. “What do you mean?”

  “Mason was in love with his own books. You, you’re in love with the whole damn genre.”

  Neither of us spoke for a while, unless you count my gasps as he taped my bandages. Then, in a soft voice, he asked, “Is it worth it?”

  “You love the stories. They don’t love you back.

  Well, not usually.” I leaned against the wall, still petting Smudge. A bit of melted chocolate dripped onto my finger, and I smiled. “Call me when you succeed.”

  GRIEFER MADNESS

  Richard Lee Byers

  Cosmopolis was the city that belonged to every world and none. Or at least that’s what the brochure said, and to give the place its due, it looked like it. A castle covered in gargoyles rose next to a derelict spaceship. Gunslingers, ninjas, and vampires stalked about, and a Tolkien-style dwarf fenced a sci-fi adventurer, battle-ax against laser sword.

  Hoping an aerial view would help me find Jason, I’d chosen the persona of a superhero who could fly. But now, sharing the sky with angels and a wizard in a turban piloting a magic carpet, I realized height alone wouldn’t do the trick if the kid’s virtual-reality mask completely changed his looks. As many of them did.

  So I shut off my goggles, and all the heroes and monsters, me included, turned into ordinary people in green coveralls. We flyers dangled from a spiderweb of steel rails, steering by shifting our weight inside our harnesses.

  I took a fresh look at the concourse below me, the central area accessing all the “lands” devoted to the various live action role-playing genres. Whatever games Jason felt like playing, he had to pass through here. But I still didn’t see him.

  Maybe because he’d already passed through. If he hadn’t completely changed his looks, it might be worthwhile to go back down to the floor, show his photo around, and ask if anyone had seen him.

  I was still considering it when my goggles switched back on of their own accord. A red dot pulsed before me, warning me I was under attack.

  Supposedly you couldn’t be attacked in Cosmopolis unless you were willing. But I was a ne
wbie. I’d never visited this or any LARP park before, and maybe I hadn’t adjusted my settings properly.

  I looked around. The sorcerer sitting cross-legged on the flying carpet was throwing bursts of fire at me.

  “I don’t want to do this!” I shouted. He just thrust out his hands and hurled another blast.

  My harness jerked me upward into a spherical structure of rails raised above the ones I’d been traversing, and Carpet Boy hurtled up after me. The hollow ball was an arena. Players could fight there without getting in the way of other flyers.

  I hoped some of the others would want to fight on my side. But if they did, they didn’t move fast enough. A pulsing yellow symbol announced the arena was now sealed. It was the park’s way of making sure that too many players didn’t jump into a particular melee. That wouldn’t be safe, or any fun.

  Not that I was having fun as it was. I yelled again that I didn’t want to fight. The wizard responded with another blast. Naturally, it couldn’t really burn me—without the goggles, I wouldn’t even see it—but a readout appeared to warn me I was losing Health.

  If the green bar dropped to zero, the park would enforce a timeout, and I didn’t want the delay. So I fought back. I stuck out my arm, clenched my fist, and threw Storm King’s—my character’s—lightning, while jerking my weight back and forth in an effort to avoid Carpet Boy’s blasts.

  Unfortunately, I’d never played this game before. Carpet Boy obviously had—a lot—and it went the way you’d expect. I missed him, he hit him, and my clumsy spinning and lurching around the inside of the round cage only made me dizzy.

  When I ran out of Health, I fell, and my plunge would have satisfied the most demanding rollercoaster fan. The brake didn’t kick in until the last possible instant, or at least that was how it felt.

  I tried to unclip my harness from the foot of the vertical rail. It wouldn’t open. The sorcerer floated down beside me. The carpet vanished out from under his curly-toed slippers as he stood up. Two big, bare-chested guys with scimitars trotted up to flank him.

  “Hero, you are my prisoner!” Carpet Boy said. My goggles told me I was Helpless and Captured.