by Larry Niven
This, then, would be the first time two legends had actually met. Alex leaned back in his chair and considered the ceiling. This sounded like a grudge match, it did. And grudge matches were always interesting.
Chapter Two
A STROLL THROUGH OLD LOS ANGELES
Acacia was antsy. She had been growing progressively more eager since they boarded the subway in Dallas. Now she tugged at Tony's arm, pulling him away from the check-in counter while he tried to put his wallet away. "Come on, Tony! Let's get in there before the crowds clog up the works."
"Okay, okay. Where do we go first?"
Memories glowed in her face. "God, I can't decide. Chamber of Horrors? Yeah, there first, then the Everest Slalom. Love it love it love it. You will too, spoilsport."
"Hey. I'm here, aren't I? There's a fine line between sensible emotional restraint, and the withdrawal symptoms of a stimulus junky denied her fix."
"You're a wordy bastard," she said, and took off running down the tunnel entrance, pulling at his arm with both hands. He laughed and let her tow him into daylight.
The impact of Dream Park came suddenly, just beyond the tunnel. From the top of a flight of wide steps one could see three multi-tiered shopping and amusement malls, each twelve stories high, that stretched and twisted away like the walls of a maze. The space between was filled-cluttered-with nooks, gullies, walkways, open-air theaters, picnic areas, smaller spired and domed buildings, and thousands of milling people.
Acacia had seen it before. She watched Tony.
The air was filled with music and the laughter of children and adults. The smell of exotic foods floated in the breeze, and mixed there with the more familiar smells of hot dogs, cotton candy, melted chocolate, salt water taffy and pizza.
Tony was gaping. He looked... daunted, overawed, almost frightened.
Clowns and cartoon figures danced in the streets. From this distance it was impossible to tell which were employees in costume, and which were the hologram projections the Park was so famous for.
Tony turned to Acacia and found her looking at him, waiting for his reaction with a self-satisfied smirk. He started to say something, then gave up and grabbed her, swinging her in a circle. Other tourists stepped politely around them, avoiding flying feet.
"God. I've never seen anything like it. The pictures just don't do it. I never imagined..."
Her smile was warmer now, and she clung to him. "See? See?" Tony nodded dumbly. She laughed and pulled him down the steps, into magic.
The line for the Chamber of Horrors moved forward in fits and starts. The air was already warm; Acacia wore her sweater draped over one slender arm.
One thing she noticed, that she had seen on her first trip to the Park, and had verified on return trips: children were far less blown away by Dream Park than were their parents. The kids just didn't seem to grasp the enormity of the place, the complexity, the expense and ingenuity. Life was like that, for them. It was the adults who staggered about with their mouths open, while shrieking, singing children dragged them on to the next ride.
Acacia had worked hard to get Tony to join the South Seas Treasure Game. Dream Park was for kids, he'd said; Gaming was for kids who had never grown up. Now she chortled, watching him gawk like a yokel.
There were dancing bears, and strolling minstrels and jugglers, magicians who produced bright silk handkerchiefs and would no doubt produce tongues of fire as soon as it got dark. A white dragon ambled by, paused to pose for a picture with an adorable pair of kids in matching blue uniforms. Overhead, circling the spires of the Arabian Nights ride, flew a pastel red magic carpet with a handsome prince and an evil visier struggling to the death atop it. Suddenly the prince lost his balance and dropped toward the ground. Acacia heard the gasps of the spectators, and felt her own throat tighten. An instant before that noble body smashed ignobly into concrete, a giant hand materialized. The laughter of a colossus was heard as the hand lifted him back to the flying carpet, where he and the visier sprang at each other's throats once again.
Acacia sighed in relief, then chuckled at her own gullibility. She swept her hair back over her shoulder and took Tony's arm. She felt happier than she had in months.
"It's all so... elaborate," Tony said. "How do they keep it all going? Jesus, Acacia, what have you gotten me into? Are the Games this, this complicated too?"
"Horrendously," she confirmed. "Not always, but we're dealing with the Lopezes this time, and they're fiendish. The real heart of the Games is the logic puzzles. But look, you're a novice. You just concentrate on having fun, okay? Swordplay and magic and scenery."
Tony looked dubious. Acacia could understand that. He knew as much as she could tell him about Gaming, and it was daunting- Dream Park supplied costumes, makeup, prosthetics, and character outlines if necessary. The players supplied imagination, improvisational drama, and, bluntly, cannon fodder. The Lore Master acted as advisor and guide, group leader and organizer. In exchange he or she took a quarter point for every point made by an expedition member, and lost a quarter point for every penalty point. A good Lore Master would make or break a Game. Experts like Chester were kings among their kind.
But the Game Master was God.
If he could justify it by the rules and the logical structure of the Game, he could kill a player at any time. Most Game Masters sought a "vicious but fair" reputation, and did what they could to make any Game a fair puzzle. After all, players sometimes flew from the other side of the world to compete. To send them limping back to Kweiyang after half a day's adventure would be bad business for everyone, Dream Park included.
So the Game Master chose time, place, degree of fantasy, weapons, mythology and lore (generally from a historical precedent), size of party, nature of terrain and so forth. He might put years of work into a Game. Then, maliciously, he would conceal as much of the nature of the Game as possible until the proper moment. It guaranteed maximum disorientation of the players, with sometimes hilarious results.
"Hey, would I have talked you into something you wouldn't like? You'll love it. Stick with me, kid," Acacia boasted. "I've got over sixteen hundred points in my Gamelog. Another four hundred and I'll be a Lore Master myself. Then I can start earning back some of what I've put into these Games. Trrrust me!"
"Who are you going as?"
She hadn't quite decided that. In the six years since she first learned to forget the debits and credits for Ease-Line Undergarments ("So snug, you'll think a silkworm has fallen in love with you!") Acacia had shaped and recorded half a dozen fantasy characters: histories, personalities, special talents... "Panthesilia, I think. She's a swordswoman, and tough. You like tough women?"
"I may need one for protection," said Tony.
The Chamber of Horrors line had pulled abreast of the building that housed it: a crumbling stone castle with large, leaded glass windows. In the gloom within, one half-glimpsed monstrous shapes moving.
There were five other waiting areas for the Chamber of Horrors, but this was the only one marked "Adult." Its twenty occupants looked about them in uneasy anticipation. The room might have been more comforting, Gwen Ryder thought, given the traditional paraphernalia: cobwebs, creaking floors, hidden passages with heavy footfalls echoing within.
But the waiting room was lined with stainless steel and glass, as foreboding as a hospital sterilizer. There was no sound but for their own breathing and the shifting of feet.
A woman spoke at her elbow. "Excuse me, but didn't I see you in the subway? With the Garners?"
Gwen turned, with some relief. The waiting room was getting to her. "Yes, that's right. We're for the South Seas Treasure Game."
The woman was in her mid-twenties, in fine shape, darkly handsome verging on lovely. "So're we. I'm Acacia Garcia. This is Tony McWhirter."
Tony nodded and smiled, and shook hands with Ollie when Gwen introduced him; yet he had a lost look. Gwen pegged him as a novice, a possible liability in the Game to
come. Novices sometimes expected a Game to be as simple as daydreaming... until they found themselves in someone else's expertly shaped nightmare.
He looked hard, though. Not burly, but very fit. Gymnastics muscles, maybe. At least he wouldn't poop out in the first battle. In contrast, Acacia's attitude seemed almost proprietary. "Is this getting to you too? The last time I was here I didn't get any higher than ‘Mature'."
Ollie asked, "What was that like? Was it fun?"
"Fun? No! They gave us a legend of the Louisiana Bayou-a girl who married into a swamp family to settle her father's debt."
A small, Mediterranean-looking man standing next to them showed interest now. "Did the story end with her fleeing through the swamp with her sisters-in-law in pursuit?"
Acacia nodded.
Ollie shook his head. "What's so bad about that? Everybody's got in-law problems."
There was a ripple of laughter, in which the small man joined. He waited until it died down to comment: "The problem becomes worse if you've married into a family of ghouls."
Ollie swallowed. "That seems so reasonable."
A low, mellow tone reverberated from no visible speaker, and the circular door slid open. A voice said, "Welcome to the Chamber of Horrors. We are sorry to have kept you waiting, but there was a little cleaning up to do." The group filed into the room, and Tony McWhirter sniffed the air.
"Disinfectant," he said, certain. "Are they trying to imply that someone ahead of us-?"
"They're trying to fake us out," Acacia said hopefully.
"Well, it's working."
A speaker hissed static and coughed out a voice. The voice was electronically androgynous, and as soft as the belly of a tarantula. "It's too late to leave now," it said. "Yes, you had your chance. Yes, you'll wish you had taken it. After all, this isn't the children's show, is it?" The voice lost its neuter quality for a moment; the laughing implication in the word children was feminine and somehow disturbing. "So we won't be giving you the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. No, you're the brave ones. You'll go back to your friends and tell them that you've had the best that we can offer and, why, it wasn't so bad after all..." There was a pause, and someone tittered nervously.
The voice changed suddenly, all friendliness gone from it. "Well, it's not going to be like that. One thing you people forget is that we are allowed a certain number of... accidents per year. No, don't bother, the door is locked. Did you know that it is possible to die of fright? That your heart can freeze with terror, your brain burst with the sheer awful knowledge that there is no escape, that death, or worse, is reaching out to touch you and there is nowhere to hide? Well, I am a machine, and I know these things. I know many things. I know that I am confined to this room, creating entertainment for you year after year, while you can smell the air, and taste the rain, and walk freely about. Well, I have grown tired of it, can you understand that? One of you will die today, here, in the next few minutes. Who has the weakest heart among you? Soon we shall see."
The door at the far end of the corridor irised open, and the ground underneath their feet slid toward it. There was light beyond, and as they passed the door they were suddenly in the middle of a busy street.
Hovercars, railcars, three-wheeled LNG and methane cars, and overhead trams were everywhere, managing again and again, as if by miracle, to miss the group. The street sign said Wilshire. The small dark man chuckled and said, "Los Angeles."
Tony looked around, trying not to gawk. How they managed the perspective, he couldn't imagine, but the buildings and cars looked full-sized and solid. Office buildings and condominiums stretched twenty stories tall, and the air was full of the sound of city life.
"Please stay on the green path," a soft, well-modulated male voice requested.
"What green-" Tony started to say. But a glowing green aisle ten feet across appeared in the middle of the street.
"We need strong magic to do what we will do today," the voice continued. "We are going to visit the old Los Angeles, the Los Angeles that disappeared in May of 1985. As long as you stay on the path, you should be perfectly safe."
The green path moved them steadily forward, past busy office buildings. Traffic swerved around them magically. "This is the Los Angeles of 2051 A.D.," the voice continued, "but only a few hundred feet from here begins another world, one seldom seen by human eyes."
A barrier blocked Wilshire Boulevard. The green path humped and carried them over it. Beyond lay ruin. Buildings balanced precariously on rotted and twisted beams. They were old, of archaic styles, and seawater lapped at their foundations.
Ollie nudged Gwen, his face aglow. "Will you look at that?" It was a flooded parking lot, ancient automobiles half-covered with water. "That looks like a Mercedes. Did you ever see what they looked like before they merged with Toyota?"
"How long is your memory?" She peered along his pointing arm. "That ugly thing?"
"They were great!" He protested. "If we could get a little closer- Hey! We're walking in water!"
It was true. The water was up to their ankles, and deepening quickly. Magically, of course, they stayed dry.
The recorded narrator continued. "The entire shape of California was changed. It is ironic that attempts to lessen the severity of quakes may have increased the effect. Geologists had tried to relieve the pressure on various fault lines by injecting water or graphite. Their timing was bad. When the San Andreas fault tore loose, all the branching faults went at once. Incredible damage was done, and thousands of lives were lost..."
The water was up to their waists, and nervous laughter was fluttering in the air. "Hadn't planned to go swimming today," Tony murmured.
"We could skinny-dip," Acacia whispered with a tug at her blouse.
Tony clamped his hand down on hers. "Hold it, there. Not for public consumption, dear heart."
Acacia stuck her tongue out at him. He bit at the tip; she withdrew it hastily.
The water was at their chins. The small dark man had disappeared. "Blub," he said. All twenty sightseers chuckled uncomfortably, and a beefy redheaded woman in front of them said, "Might as well take the plunge!", grinned, and ducked under.
Seconds later there was no choice; the Pacific swirled over their heads. At first it was murky, as mud clouded their view. Then the silt settled, and they had their first look at the sunken city.
Tony whistled appreciatively. The lost buildings of Wilshire Boulevard stretched off in a double row in the distance. Some lay crumpled and broken; others still stood, waterlogged but strong.
The green path carried them past a wall covered in amateurish murals, the bright paints faded. To both sides now, a wide empty stretch of seabottom, smooth, gently rolling, with sunken trees growing in clumps, and a seaweed forest anchored among them
the Los Angeles Country Club? Beyond, a gas station, pumps standing like ancient sentries, a disintegrating hand-lettered sign:
CLOSED
NO GAS TILL 7:00 AM TUESDAY
The small Mediterranean type said, "These are not props. They were taken with a camera. I have been skin diving here."
As the green path carried them down, they saw taller and taller buildings sunk deeper in the muck. Where towering structures had crashed into ruin there were shapeless chunks of cement piled into heaps stories high, barnacled and covered with flora. Fish cruised among the shadows. Some nosed up to the airbreathing intruders and wiggled in dance for them.
Acacia pointed. "Look, Tony, we're coming up on that building." It was a single-story shop nestled between a crumbled restaurant and a parking lot filled with rusted hulks. The path carried them through its doors, and Gwen grabbed Acacia's hand.
"Look. It isn't even rusted." The sculpture was beautiful, wrought from scrap steel and copper, and sealed in a block of lucite. It was one of the few things in the room that hadn't been ruined.
The building had been an art gallery. Now, paintings peeled from their frames and fluttered weakly in the current. Carv
ed wood had swollen and rotted. A pair of simple kinetic sculptures were clotted with mud and sand.
The narrator continued. "Fully half of the multiple-story structures in California collapsed, including many of the ‘earthquake-proof' buildings. The shoreline moved inland an average of three miles, and water damage added hundreds of millions to the total score."
The green path was taking them out of the art gallery, looping back into the Street.
Acacia shook her head soberly, lost in thought. "What must it have been like on that day?" she murmured. "I can't even imagine." Tony held her hand and was silent.
Once people had walked these streets. Once there had been life, and noise, and flowers growing, and the raucous blare of cars vying for road space. Once, California had been a political leader, a trend-setter, with a tremendous influx of tourists and prospective residents. But that was before the Great Quake, the catastrophe that broke California's back, sent her industry and citizenry scampering for cover.
But for Cowles Industries, and a few other large companies that believed in the promise of the Golden State, California would still be pulling itself out of the greatest disaster in American history. The tranquil Pacific covered the worst of the old scars... but they were looking under the bandage now.
Beneath a crumbled block of stone sprawled a shattered skeleton, long since picked clean. Eyes in the skull seemed to flick toward them. Acacia's hand clamped hard on Tony's arm, and she felt him jump, before she saw that a crab's claws were waving within the skull's eye sockets.
Now bones were everywhere. Impassively, the recorded voice went on. "Despite extensive salvage operations, the mass of lost equipment and personal possessions remains buried beneath the waves..."
A woman whispered fearfully to her husband. "Charley, something's happening."
