by Larry Niven
Games with a display of options. Gaming tours that would take players into exotic lands and match them against environments in Africa, Asia, and even one to be played in a cluster of shuttle tanks anchored near the Falling Angels lunar industrial complex.
Gamers strolled in costumes, in armor, in holographic projections and nude. She tried not to giggle, but some of them strutted about absolutely starkers, with grotesque genital prostheses in every conceivable configuration.
These, of course, didn't show to the naked eye. These Gamers were broadcasting on one of the Virtual Kink channels. Acacia wore slimline glasses/movement sensors-cost a damnedfortune, way more expensive than a standard helmet system and her decoder brought in every public channel, including the adult ones. Some Gamers were broadcasting multiple images simultaneously, some explicitly X-rated.
A man with a pink, prickly organ that would have cored a rhinoceros smiled slyly. Acacia realized that she must have been staring and quickly turned away. She let him see her program her glasses to filter out the porno.
She waved when she recognized friends. Friar Duck… was with Texas Instruments-Mitsubishi this trip, wasn't he? Normally a burly gentleman with a wide mouth and large feet, he was projecting as Dirty Duck, a squat, cigar-chomping alcoholic mallard from the Golden Age of the National Lampoon's comics section.
She thought for a moment before returning another woman's smile. Felicia… something. Played as Dark Star. She wouldn't be in California Voodoo-Felicia had been caught cheating once or twice. Acacia… hadn't.
There were millions of dollars' worth of equipment on display in the three tiers of the expo hall. Security personnel roamed everywhere, alert for trouble.
She searched for a familiar face, and didn't see it.
Alex, where are you? Do you still work for Dream Park?
Do you think of me? Of Acacia? The fanfares here were for her alter ego, Panthesilea.
Arlan Meyers took the podium, way down at the other end of the hall. He was bald and lemony, with a thin, prissy mouth and a manner that suggested a life of library excitement. He had been one of the great Magic Users, and a driving power behind the IFGS.
"Testing is the image all right?" Arlan bowed his head to speak the words low, and then came up grinning again, greatly enjoying himself. The hologram system made of him a dumpy-looking thirty-foot giant. "I would like to welcome everyone to the opening of the tenth biannual IFGS sweeps."
Applause rippled through the crowd.
On the holoboard above the hall were betting lines on the teams, with every team member, his personal stats, and lifetime scores listed in full. Team organization strategies weren't there, but it was enough for the Vegas boys to establish odds in all of the major categories.
UC was the second-highest-rated team. First came Apple Computer, the team headed by the Troglodykes. Army was ranked third, and only because of their familiarity with War Games in the Gaming domes. General Dynamics would have been last, instead of Texas Instruments-Mitsubishi, but for the presence of Nigel Bishop. Bookmakers in Vegas and Atlantic City gave them a shot based on Nigel's presence alone. It was hard to fault their logic.
The IFGS had existed for sixty years, primarily as a brokerage house. They established rules and point-exchange protocols between the thousand separate and proudly independent Gaming groups around the world.
Does blitzkrieging a balrog in Brazil equate to slicing samurai into sashimi in Singapore? Ask the IFGS.
Game Masters, Loremasters, and the categories of Wizard, Warrior, Cleric, Thief, Scout, and Engineer were cross-referenced for hours of supervised play. Points could be earned by accumulating experience or taking standardised tests of mental and physical skill.
The results were integrated into a central processing system, and the rankings allowed players from different parts of the world, playing entirely different rules, to come together and enjoy each other's poison.
Oh, the infighting was dreadful! But the end result was worth it.
"…and a very special thanks to Travis Cowles," Arlan said, "grandson of Arthur Cowles, and presently Chairman of the Board of Cowles Industries. Travis?" winy, Acacia thought. At least he didn't glance down at notes. But his eyes flicked left, slow right, quick left: his notes were displayed on his glasses.
"We here at Dream Park feel that we owe you a debt. You helped keep the dream alive. You have supported us from the beginning. You helped us test the technology that sold the Barsoom Project to all the world…"
She spotted a watchful but unobtrusive security man. It was hard to read his broad oriental features, but he looked, she thought, concerned, uneasy. She pulled herself away from Nigel and went to speak to the guard.
His name badge said MITCH HASEGAWA. "Mr. Hasegawa?"
His worried expression cleared immediately. "Yes, can I help you?"
"I was wondering. I guess you know Alex Griffin?"
"Yes, ma'am." His expression grew watchful. Protective?
Acacia looked inside herself, noted the spark of joy, and was happy that she could still feel it, that she wasn't too far along whatever path Nigel was leading her. "He still the boss?"
"Sure." His smile looked freshly pressed, folded, stuck neatly into place. Acacia felt uncomfortable again.
"So if I just rang him up, you think I could talk to him? I used to have his personal line. He changed it."
"Sure." His eyes had already focused beyond her, as if there was something infinitely interesting just over her shoulder.
Acacia's skin crawled. Something wrong here. He wasn't playing the game. Dream Park Security interacted well with Gamers. Alex Griffin had Gamed himself, once, a lifetime ago. He may have continued. She'd shared his bed, and his life, a little; she'd known the security people…
Not this one. Hasegawa was new, or moved in from outside. But he didn't respond to her as a Gamer, a customer, a woman, a person. Coolly polite. Flinched at the Griffin's name. Why?
In a Game she would have tiptoed out with extreme caution and waited to learn more. Here… She excused herself politely and wandered back into the crowd, looking for Nigel.
He was swamped in the middle of a crowd of autograph hounds. She watched him, his black face shining, laughing, in total control.
"Representing the Army team, we have Major Terry Clavell," Meyers said. "Major?"
They loomed gigantic above the stage-Clavell was small, dark-haired, and wiry but not bulky. Give him a few pounds and he would have looked a little like Napoleon. He might easily have been mistaken for a desk warrior were it not for the messianic intensity of his eyes.
"Good evening," he said. "I would just like to assure you, especially those of you on the Armed Forces Network world wide, that I will uphold the honor of my regiment. We invented war games. These… civilians… don't know what they're up against.''
" 'Cacia!"
Now that was a familiar voice! Acacia turned just in time to miss being blindsided by a ball of muscle and wrinkled skin, about four feet one of solid energy.
"Mary-em! "
"The very." Mary-Martha Corbett scanned Acacia approvingly. "I see you've put on a few curves, girl. Playing to the crowd? "
"Aiming at the big time! I didn't know you were here. You're not on the big board."
Mary-em lowered her voice, forcing Acacia to bend almost double. "Traveling incognito. Nakagawa-san is nervous about security. Wants to keep everyone off balance. It's been, what five years?"
"Since the Diskworld Game. Ah… Hamburg."
"Umm-hummm."
Acacia savored the sight of Mary-em and the memories of three Games they had played together. She was an enemy this time out. It didn't matter. When all was said and done, one got points by destroying one's enemy, but made money by cooperating to make the best holovid possible.
She searched her memory. "How's your brother…"
And knew immediately. The little woman's face fell. Deprived of the outflow of maniac energy, she showed her age. She must be in
her sixties now. In mountain-climber shape, to be sure, but still a woman on the verge of serious retooling. Would Mary-em have the money for that?
"Patrick died two years ago, spring," she said. "I'm sort of dedicating this Game to him."
"That's wonderful," Acacia said. There was a swirl of crowd, and she was suddenly surrounded by eager hands with tabs and slates. She began signing signatures as quickly as she could, aware that she was being separated from her friend.
"Mary-em. See you in the Game!"
Mary-em raised a stocky arm and fist, and the sadness was gone. Not submerged or hidden, but genuinely gone, and Acacia was filled with warmth for the little woman, as if she were a symbol of a simpler time, before Acacia had become Panthesilea.
Before Nigel Bishop.
It was another hour before Acacia could sneak out of the hall, into a service elevator, and back to the room she shared with Nigel.
She sealed the door behind her and panted, relieved.
Nigel's computer was still on. The security files would be closed, but she didn't need those. He had shown her how to activate the High Pass program, invading the simplest levels of Dream Park Security without chance of trace-back.
Some of the channels were broadcast rather than directline. The computer picked out the right frequencies, unscrambled them, and let her sort. She queried: ALEX GRIFFIN?
The computer scanned. Within twelve seconds the program found the name "Alex" in a conversation. Then "Griff." It queried her to verify the dimunitive, and cross-referenced.
Lines of text began to appear on the screen. She sorted through them as the computer found Griffin's personal code and a nonsecure file giving his location.
Yucca Valley, California, four miles out from Dream Park… in a rattysection of town, she thought. Nigel's program was still at work. A moment later it had found a voice.
''…sure how she died yet. Apparent accident. Drowned in a fucking bathtub."
"Dammit, what was she doing there last night?"
"Assignation. "
"Wasn't she on duty?"
"No."
Acacia listened to the freeze in the speaker's voice and then realized that she was listening to Alex. The voice was flat, almost metallically emotionless. "What do you think?"
She knew that tone, knew the pain it concealed. The dead woman had meant something special to Alex Griffin.
As much as she, Acacia, had meant?
More?
"I want the complete forensics report by noon. Preliminary workup in two hours. Sheriff Osterreich will handle any interviews."
"Griff?"
"Yes. "
"I'm sorry."
Pause. "So am I." He sounded tired.
Then Griffin signed off.
Acacia sat staring at the screen, troubled.
Someone close to Alex Griffin was dead. An employee of Dream Park, so it seemed. Drowned. Freak accident.
No real concern to her, except…
Where had Nigel been last night? He'd come back powerfully in rut, and in the morning had data she'd never seen, coded against theft. Not so strange, that, but was it new? Stolen? And what had caused the frenzy of sexual excitation?
She rubbed her eyes and killed the computer screen, trembling.
Her brain chattered reassuringly to her even as her gut twisted with suspicion. Acacia was proud of herself: she made it two-thirds of the way to the bathroom before champagne and hors d'oeuvres and cherry-frosted cake came spilling back up over her lips, marking her trail to the toilet.
7
Mate 'N' Switch
Wednesday, July 20, 2059 — 11:00 P.M.
Alex Griffin dialed through a series of nine preprogrammed illusions. An igloo next to an ice hole, a castle and moat, a tropical isle and moonlit inlet, an alien world with a vast red sun and a foamy, crimson sea… Each had its own sour smell, its own irritating soundtrack.
He dialed 0. Once again he faced bare walls, a bed mat with rounded corners, a rug/floor with a wide, wild range of textures, a big oval sunken spa with shower heads above it. There were enough hooks, magnets, and suction devices to support a whole wonderful world of sexcessories. An alcove was stocked with sensory skin-quits, direct-nerve-induction stuff.
There was a hole chipped into one wall, high up, the size of his smallest toe. Below it on the rug was a trace of powdered plaster. Vacuuming would have picked it up: it had to be fresh.
Here in this dreary little box, Sharon Crayne had died.
The service door stood open. Local cops streamed in and out, searching, checking, finding little, trying to pretend not to notice his anguish. Failing.
Within the featureless cube of the Mate 'N' Switch building was an open, central well. It was lined with catwalks and resembled the backstage or substage at a Broadway show, or maybe a low-level Gaming area. Gaming Dome X?
The pleasure palace was shut down while Moshe Osterreich, Yucca Valley's understaffed, overworked sheriff, attempted to extract information from the staff of Mate 'N' Switch.
Sharon's body was gone, removed by the county coroner. Again Alex scanned the room, shrinking from its stark and vulgar utility, and found no excuse to edit the pictures in his mind.
Sharon had checked in of her own will, in health, unaccompanied. He-surely not she, or they, though the evidence showed nothing of… He had entered sometime later, and together they had romped in the big bed.
Afterward, the lover had left. Sharon, perhaps tipsy and too relaxed after being well laid-though there was no evidence of alcohol or other funny chemicals-had taken a bath. Her foot slipped, and her head cracked into the rim. It was flush with the floor, but nothing else was hard enough to raise a bruise. She must have flipped like a gymnast.
Momentum had carried her rolling into the bath…
More likely: Thumbs. Ouch! She rubs her head, curses, and slides into the sunken tub. Arms wrap around her head. She's making a keening squeak of rage and pain, like when she stubbed her little toe against the doorjamb in Griffin's mobile apartment. Doesn't know how badly she's been hurt. Blood leaks into brain tissue, shorting signals. Her head slips under the water…
Hours later, shortly after checkout time, a maintenance crew finds her as dead and cold as the water around her.
Who, then? Whom did she meet?
Alex tried to retain a modicum of professionalism, but it wasn't working. "I'm getting out of here, Moshe," he said to Osterreich.
The sheriff was a thin, wiry man with Groucho Marx eyebrows and a hawklike nose. "It's been a long day for you, Alex," he said. "Usual six A.M. roust?"
"Up at five. I'm beat, but I can't sleep. Not yet. See you later."
Alex shouldered his way through the door and fled to his skimmer. His blunt fingers dug into the dashboard.
He was under control. You have to stay under control, or life will eat you.
He said, "Home," thinking that the skimmer would take him to Cowles Modular Community, not really remembering that the beacon had been reassigned to MIMIC. The vehicle rose to its legal altitude of two hundred meters and hummed out across Yucca Valley, the community surrounding Dream Valley.
The Town that Cowles Built.
The car more or less drove itself, leaving him no distractions. He needed to put his mind somewhere; there were too many questions.
As security chief of Dream Park, he had immense leverage in Yucca Valley, but the truth was, he had no real right to interfere with Osterreich's investigation.
But Sharon had died in that sleazy sex shop after a sleazy assignation. Her life would be sieved by the minds guiding the Barsoom Project. Griffin's relationship with her would be dissected and analyzed. If, at the end, her only business at the Mate 'N' Switch had been the scratching of a physical itch, they would hand back the fragments of his memory, say "Sorry," and let him carry them meekly away.
Griffin guided his skimmer in toward MIMIC's rooftop landing pad. It was almost midnight, and the roof parties had died. A few robots scooted about pi
cking up trash. He stepped out of the car. As soon as he slammed the door, it took off again, spiraling up and over the lip of the roof, down to the parking structure at MIMIC's base.
The elevator sank down toward the security hutch. Griffin was still brooding.
God. So fast. Everything had fallen.
She meant so much to me, and so quickly…
And he hated himself for the next thought: Got under my skin quick, didn't she?
At the Security Center he found Hasegawa and a couple of other people. The room was mostly empty. Condolences had already been offered, but were offered again.
A cold wedge of pepperoni pizza stared at him from a cardboard coffin. What little nudge of hunger he might have felt vanished instantly.
Mitch was offering coffee. Alex sniffed it. Tasted it, glad that his ulcer hadn't bothered him recently.
Hadn't, in fact, since meeting Sharon.
Splash. Coffee stain on the cuff. Shit.
Numbly, he mopped it up.
Sharon. What were you doing in that place? Your tastes weren't that exotic. Why couldn't you have met him in your room? Or his?
Because they work here. At MIMIC. She didn't want me to know.
Griffin's eyes wanted to water. He clenched his eyelids against the sting.
A buzzing sound penetrated his concentration, and he punched up the line. "Griffin."
"Osterreich here."
"Yeah, Moshe. Go ahead."
"We have the preliminary coroner scan. Full workup in about five hours."
"Pump it through. "
Sharon Crayne appeared onscreen. First the usual stats of inches and pounds. Then scars, muscle tone, apparent age. Makeup and recent beauty treatments. The prescription of her contact lenses. The plastic pin in her left wrist.
More intimacies: the nutritional content of her last meal. An ounce and a half of dark rum imbibed an hour before death. No other funny chemicals whatever.
And…
There was no semen in her vagina. Or her throat, or anus… or anywhere on her body… or anywhere in the room.