He squeezed her hands back, but there was little affection there. “Yeah, well, you were so busy slaying dragons that I guess you didn’t have time to notice that you were coming on a little strong. I mean, I might like to play too.” There was hurt in his voice, and Acacia didn’t know what to say.
“Hey, Tony, I’m sorry, really. Listen—”
He thrust outward with his hands and shook his head defensively. “File it, Cas. I’ll be all right. You just can’t keep telling me to take everything seriously, then suddenly tell me it’s just a game. I didn’t get to do a damn thing today, alright? I got to watch everybody else play hero while I lay with my face in the dirt. I don’t know what that would feel like to you, but I felt pretty shitty, alright?” He reached out and stroked her gently on the left cheek, then turned and walked away.
Acacia watched him go, her mouth hanging open, jaw working as if trying to find something, anything to say. Words wouldn’t come.
Gwen tugged at her arm. “Come on, Cas, let’s check out our bunk space.” Numbly, Acacia nodded and followed.
One of the village women showed them to their hut. Gwen, Acacia, and Mary-em laid their bedrolls down one side of the woven-reed flooring; Gina and Felicia down the other. Acacia said nothing as she watched her mattress inflate.
A callused palm slapped her heartily across the back. “Man problems?” Mary-em boomed cheerfully. “Don’t worry about your boyfriend, honey. He’s just got first day jitters, that’s all it is. Just hunt him down after lights-out and give him a little bit to calm him down, and he’ll be all right.”
The little woman chucked her under the chin with a playful nudge that nearly lifted Acacia from her feet, but the dark-haired girl managed to keep smiling. “Right, Mary.”
“Right? Of course I’m right. Mary-em sees all, knows all. You take it from me.” And she waddled away humming a verse from “Eskimo Nell” that dwelt on the amorous advantages of six-month nights.
Acacia grinned in spite of herself, and lay down on her bedroll, gazing at the ceiling and waiting for Closedown.
And approximately thirty seconds later, without noise or fuss, the natives outside the door turned transparent and faded gently away into the night.
Chapter Nine
KILLED OUT
Albert Rice unlocked the front door of the R&D complex and stepped aside. It was 9:15 p.m., and Rice had just, twenty-two minutes to live.
His public smile was in place, but Ms. Metesky and the Lopezes never saw it. There was a bite in Richard’s voice “It may be that you don’t quite realize just what three tenths of a second’s delay can do to the Game, the Gamers, and me.”
“Welles and Chicon are thoroughly competent” Metesky said placidly. “They’ll have it fixed long before morning.”
“They’d better. They’d drowning well better. It wasn’t my programming, Metesky. That bird didn’t drop right away, and Panthesilea had to stand there with her foot out in the middle of a battle! And Bowan had to repeat himself before he got his fireblast . . .”
They passed outside. “Thank you,” Ms. Metesky said to Rice, and stepped after them, adjusting her wire-rimmed spectacles as she went, frail hands trembling a bit from the cool air. Rice locked the door behind them.
As the door slid shut his smile faded like a happy-face drawn in a puddle of mud.
He was thinking, How could anyone give a damn about three-tenths of a second, anyway? Lopez was a cocky little shrimp who liked giving orders. Talked funny, too. Prissily precise even when he was being nasty. Always: “Excuse me, do you think you could assist me with . . . ?” Or, “May I have a tracking badge, please? I’d like to stretch my legs a bit, and I don’t want anyone to get nervous.” Always with that phony politeness: phony, because the correct answer to every such question was, “Yes, sir.”
Time to start rounds. Rice hopped the elevator to the third floor and thumbprinted the timeclock as soon as he stepped out.
On the third floor were many of the model-building shops. Working in steel, aluminum, wood, fiberglass, styrofoam, molded plastic and many more exotic materials, the wizards of Dream Park designed in miniature the rides and attractions of the future. Structures first produced as computer-drawn holograms would one day become foamed steel or the absurdly delicate-looking carbon crystal fibers. Rice enjoyed the occasions when he worked the day shift and could look in on the shops, hear and feel the vibrations of lathe and press and drill working their wonders, smell the burnt-plastic tang from the molds as a new concept was given solid life.
But now the shops were empty, the building deserted except for a few techs in Game Central on the second floor, and a few of the late workers in the Psych and Engineering sections on the fifth.
He checked every door and peered down every hallway, checking the shadows, checking the nooks. He remembered a tale about the niece of one of the lathe workers. She’d hidden in the building until after close-up then managed to get into one of the molding shops. Security found her five hours and twenty thousand dollars worth of damage later. In the course of her spree she had some how interfaced a roller coaster and a human anatomy model. The results had been so interesting that it inspire the Mr. Digestion ride sponsored by Bristol-Meyers in Section 1.
She ended up with a spanking and a college trust fund. But a guard had lost his job.
Corridors branched and split, and Rice followed the all, checking every inch before he was confident enough to thumbprint the time clock clear and take the elevator to the second floor.
Even while remaining cautious to check every cranny for security breeches, he still took time to cakewalk. He glided from side to side with graceful speed, ducking imaginary blows. Cakewalk. Typical name Griffin would give fighting move. Strange man, Griffin. Tough but soft. Always encouraged gentleness in his men, always wanted them to give the tourists the benefit of the doubt.
Rice approached the vaultlike door of Game Central’s control room, where the Lopezes worked their magic. He pressed his palms to the door, then, almost timidly, his cheek. He felt its metallic smoothness, and the purring vibration from the machinery within. He stood there for a while, and whispered, “Playing God.” His expression, soft for a bare moment, hardened to a frown and he walked on. Next to the control room was the Dream Park override, where Larry Chicon and Dwight Welles supervised the technical data being fed into the Dream Park computer system. This room had a shatterproof plastic window, and in the interior dimness there twinkled a few tiny red and white lights.
Next came the chamber where Metesky and the other officials checked the events of the game to insure that all was conducted according to the rules of their crazy organization.
The hallway threw his footsteps after him as he reached the last door and doubled back. Working during the day was good, but Rice liked the night too. Nobody around, no oddballs to deal with. Plenty of time to think, to remember.
If he dwelt on it, Rice could remember visiting Dream Park when he was ten years old. How long ago that seemed. Twenty years seemed like eternity. At the same time it seemed that he could reach out and touch the head of the little blond boy with the perennial sniffle. And now he had grown up to work at the great illusion factory.
Come with me, little Albert, Rice invited himself as he summoned the elevator. Come with me and peek behind the dreams. See the computers and cameras. See the gears and oilcloth and plastic struts that make the magic. Then squeeze the last tears out of your eyes, mix liberally with the fractured fairy tales of youth, and try to mold the resultant mess into an adult who can stand on his own, and damn well fend for himself.
A flicker of a grin played on his mouth. He could fend for himself, he could fend himself right into a gravy job here at the playground of the world. There was room at the top for him, for anybody who knew what cards to play. Dream Park’s business was lies, and little Albert knew all about lies. Some of them meshed so tightly together in the mists of years past that he could no longer separate them from reality.
<
br /> Illusions . . . Just why exactly was it that only his father had brought him to Dream Park? Daddy said that Mom was sick and had to go away for awhile: But there been the one phone call in the motel room, when his father screamed, “Emma!,” over and over into the telescreen and mother’s face had been cool and distant until a man’s voice in the background called her away. Daddy had cried into the darkening screen, tears streaking his strong, handsome face. And when the tears dried, he had taken you Albert by the hand and the two of them had gone Dream Park for the second day of a four day vacation
The last three days of that vacation were more fun than any Albert could remember, except that down underneath the smiles and laughs he remembered a grown man crying into an empty screen.
Illusions.
When the two of them returned home, mother was there with kindness and warmth, but afterward she gone more frequently. Whether to go to “the hospital,” “a relative’s,” or a “job seminar,” the result was the same the aching loneliness he could feel emanating from father like waves of heat.
One day Albert came home from school and his father told him that mother was leaving for good, and that boy had to decide which of them he wanted to live with Albert had opted for his father, and within the space of months watched a vibrant, vital man become old and broken. It wasn’t hatred that he felt for his mother, for her little gifts and concerned phone calls, it wasn’t resentment. In a strange way he was almost glad that this thing had happened to the man he loved most in all the world. Young Albert knew that he had learned an invaluable lesson; that all there was in this world were lies and dreams, and that was just the way it was. Thanks, Mom.
He stepped out of the elevator at the first floor, and stiffened almost immediately. Something . . . what? A sound? Yes, a sound, the last hiccough of an echo in the hall, and Rice became very cautious.
Rice looked both ways down the hall and saw nothing. He toyed with the idea of calling it in. Had he really heard anything? Walls do settle in an old building. The hall was perfectly quiet, but Rice relaxed only slightly. He walked out, almost on tiptoe, and turned left toward the secretarial pool. Passing a mirrored light panel he was almost amused to see a slightly crouched shape, the semi-snarl on his lips somehow incongruous beneath the soft blond hair.
No sound. Nothing. Nuts. He made himself check the doors on the ground floor; office space mostly, and easier to clear. Past the administrative section there were some filing closets, but nothing valuable, really. He glanced at his watch: nine twenty-seven, and eighteen minutes until the next check-in. Time for a little break. Past the filing cabinets was the first floor break room, with sandwiches, coffee, and a few small tables.
Rice let himself in and flicked on the light. Oh yes, there was a new soft drink dispenser. He pushed his Cowles Industries charge card into the slot and punched the lemonade button. An eight ounce plastic pouch dropped into his hand. It felt cold and shapeless, like liver straight out of a meat drawer. Rice preferred bottles or cans.
He worked the nipple loose and took a long swig as the arm fastened around his neck.
Lemonade sprayed from his mouth and choked in his throat. The arm tightened. Rice gagged, doubling up, lemonade running from his nose and down his face, his hands flailing ineffectually.
He forced his head to the side, getting his throat into the crook of his attacker’s elbow, so that the strangling forearm no longer crushed his wind pipe. Then he fought: an elbow to his assailant’s gut followed by an identical blow to the other side which brought a satisfying whoof of painfully expelled air. But instead of letting go, the attacker jumped up and wrapped both legs around Rice’s waist from behind, squeezing the ribs until they creaked. Rice felt his sight wavering and threw himself backward, trying to smash a head between himself and the floor.
There was a grunt, and the pressure eased as they both hit the floor. Rice clawed at the strangling arm, gasping a precious lungful of air. With renewed strength he punched back over his shoulder and felt his fist graze flesh. Encouraged now, he punched and elbowed until the grip began to give, then braced himself and started to rise to his knees. If he could do that, he could gain the leverage to throw his weight back against the edge of a table. He made it to one knee and was moving his right into position when his knee landed squarely on the pouch of lemonade. It popped open, and he skidded on the wet, losing all balance to tumble face-first back on the floor.
His attacker landed in the middle of his back, driving the remaining air from tortured lungs. Belly-down on the floor and thrashing, Rice felt a strong forearm slide back across, his throat. Another arm clamped across the back of the neck for added pressure. Bleeding darkness boiled up around and within him, but with an enormous effort of will he pushed the ink clouds back and got one arm under himself. He began to push with arms drained of strength, his lungs aflame and his temples throbbing a bass beat of pain. He tried to scream, to hiss; dry croaking rattled in his, throat as his vision blackened and he heard his own thoughts as a faraway call: ohmygod ohgod, please, just one more sip, one spoonful of air please please . . .
“Get Bobbick here. Now.” Griffin spat it at Melone, the pudgy guard who worked the top three floors of the R&D building. Melone backed out of the room. He was glad of an excuse to leave. He had never seen a dead man before.
And Rice was inarguably dead. A hologram might have shown an unconscious man gagged and bound hand and foot. But to share the same space with Rice was to feel the presence of death. It lay still and muggy in the air. His eyes were closed, head crumpled to the side like the head of a doll, blond hair somehow reminiscent of a wig fitted to a mannequin.
Griffin stooped for a closer look. Rice’s hands had been tied behind his back. No, correct that: his wrists had been bandaged together with surgical tape, and his thumbs had been bandaged separately. Tape had been wrapped twice around the ankles; more tape covered his mouth. Rice sat with his back against the soft drink machine, head slumped to his knees. Griffin gently took Rice’s shoulder and eased him upright. There was a shallow indentation in the thin metal, precisely where Rice’s head would have been, were Rice sitting up.
Griffin jumped reflexively as footsteps entered the room. “Sorry, boss, did I—?” Millicent Summers winced at the sight of the dead man.
“He’s dead, Millie. Listen, I called you and Marty because I’m going to need some extra eyes and ears, okay?” She nodded jerkily. “I want the CMC doctor over here in fifteen minutes. I want a complete security sweep of the building. I want to know about anything unusual going on in the line of projects.”
“There’s the Game in Gaming A, Griff.” Her eyes were fixed on Rice, and he could tell she was fighting to remain calm. Griffin felt a certain bizarre satisfaction in finally finding an hour when Millie wasn’t totally awake and alert.
“Right, Millie. I need to know if anything has been tampered with, or if any security seals have been breached. I don’t think whoever did this really wanted to kill Rice. If I’m right, it was supposed to be theft, so that’s where we start.”
Millicent nodded again, her eyes still watching Rice’s corpse. “Get going, Hon,” Griff said gently. “I’ll handle things here.”
She tried to smile. The result was hideous. She gave up and backed out of the room. Griffin heard her break into a run in the hallway.
Griffin examined the room, trying to reconstruct events. Clearly, Rice had lost a fight here. Knowing the guard’s wiry strength, Griffin thought he must have been taken by surprise. That could mean several things: being jumped from behind, attempting to restrain an intruder of unexpectedly high physical skills, whatever. Chairs had been knocked over. There was a half-dried puddle of lemonade near Rice’s feet. His right knee was stained.
A mental replay of Rice’s file was in order. 30 years old, blond, 5' 11", 170 lbs. Ex-Navy man, submarine service. Spent six years there, and left with an honorable discharge. Two years of college, then three years of odd jobs, and finally Cowles Industries. Both
parents alive, mother somewhere in Minnesota, father an out patient at a geriatric center. Fairly well liked, but didn’t socialize except for the company mixers at CMC.
Griffin sat down on one of the undisturbed chairs. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. Wasn’t there something else? Oh, yes. His apartment in Cowles Modular Community had been vandalized. He had declared no losses, and no investigation had followed. Perhaps—
“Bobbick is on his way, Chief.” Melone was back, face reddened as if with exertion. His eyes studiously avoided the corpse against the soft drink machine.
“Right. You stay here until Marty arrives. Have him coordinate a report for me. The legal department needs in on this.” Griffin scratched the wiry fuzz under his jaw. “I need to check into something, but I think an emergency meeting should be set up with Harmony. Buzz me whenever that’s ripe, would you? Oh—I know I don’t need to tell you, but I will anyway. Don’t touch anything that’s been disturbed.”
Griffin’s mind projected a quick layout diagram of the R&D center as he waited for the elevator. There had been a complete security check on all of the alarm units only the week before. Griffin had participated; he knew that it had been thorough and accurate. It would take hours to check over each unit for traces of bypass or tampering, and he would have those results by morning, but there was one possibility that he could investigate right now. It was a long shot, but Griffin had long since learned to check into those little nagging doubts.
The elevator took him down to the basement. When the door opened a night light came on. Alex flipped on the main lights.
There was no sound except the hum of generators, low in the background. Griffin walked to the stairwell, moving between rows of storage boxed and plastic-wrapped maintenance gear. He stooped at the door of the stairwell, checking the lock. There were no external signs of damage or tampering, but a check of the record tape would tell him if the magnetically-encoded lock had been opened within he past few hours. With the right kind of careful preparation, a thief need not have forced the lock.
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