Gameprey

13

Dressed in his astronaut-style crashsuit, Mark Gridley jetted through the twisting maze that was the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel’s security system. Some of the time-savers he’d implanted in the system earlier had folded when the security system went down.

A small image remained at the bottom of his vision, flatfilm reproduction of the confusion filling the convention hall. He also maintained an open window for any IMs the other Explorers might try to send to him.

He rushed from the latest tunnel, searching for access to whatever security vidcams that might be operational after the latest attack on them. Three directions were open before him.

Pausing for just a moment, Mark shook his right hand twice, accessing one of the search utilities he used to crack and map a computer system’s programming. When he opened his hand, three armored butterflies streaked forward, each taking one of the optional directions.

“Passage blocked,” the first butterfly search program reported back.

“Passage leads to outside access,” the second butterfly informed him. “Data port presently unoccupied.”

“Data flowing fine,” the remaining butterfly radioed.

Mark kicked in his boot jets again and shot forward, making the hard S-turn to follow the circuitry path. He stretched out his left hand and sprayed a neon orange stripe along the entrance to let himself know he’d been that way. With the collapse of the security system and the virus that raged within it, a number of the circuits cannibalized themselves, creating endless loops as the programs tried to connect.

The system was a total and complete mess. Mark really didn’t think he could have done a better job himself, but he hoped he could unravel some of the mess in time to provide them with a few more clues.

“Miss Green.”

Maj glanced down at her foilpack and saw Detective Holmes centered in the view. “Where are you?”

“En route,” Holmes replied. “I went home and grabbed forty winks, not thinking we’d have trouble so early. Big mistake on my part.”

Maj trotted at the heels of the convention-goers who flooded into the Eisenhower Productions booth. Her eyes roved over the beautiful artwork lining the walls. Concept art for the Realms of the Bright Water decorated the interior, and the center of the booth contained a miniature model of the forest they’d seen on holo.

The lack of light and power made the interior of the booth almost creepy. But it didn’t slow the convention-goers, who oohed and ahhed over the displays of art, action figures, and clothing. Evidently Eisenhower Productions had kept their marketing staff busy.

“Even if you’d been here,” Maj said, “I don’t think you’d have managed to affect the situation very much.”

“Always loved a vote of confidence.” The sound of Holmes’s siren screaming echoed over the telecommunications connection. As he glanced over his shoulder, the traffic through his back window was briefly visible. He barked orders over his police wristcom.

Maj gazed through the quasi-twilight that filled the booth. Thankfully, the fans weren’t in total riot mode. They weren’t tearing things down or open, contenting themselves with investigating what there was available to see.

“I’m also assuming you called for something other than to let me know the bad news.”

“Peter Griffen disappeared in the middle of the crisis,” May said. “I got the feeling it wasn’t planned.”

“That’s not the impression I got when my sergeant told me about it,” Holmes said. “She thinks this was a publicity stunt that got way out of hand.”

Maj silently disagreed. She glanced back at the interior of the Eisenhower Productions booth, noticing the security lights hanging above it. All of them were dark. Something’s wrong.

“My people have orders to pick Peter Griffen up,” Holmes went on. “I want to have a little chat with him about some of the civil ordinances he fractured today.”

“Do you know what room he’s in at the hotel?” Maj forced her way through the crowd, then spotted a door on the right. She crossed toward it.

“Yeah,” Holmes said. “I’ve already had a couple uniforms check it out. He’s not there.”

Then he’s got to be here, Maj told herself. She hopped onto the wraparound booth in front of the door and walked across. Piles of plastic-wrapped shirts lay scattered across the floor. They all held pictures of Sahfrell the dragon. She tried the door at the back and found it open.

Stepping through, she found herself in a small room with an implant chair. “I found the room Peter probably did the holo from.” She walked to the implant chair, drawn by the dark stain that covered one side. Even in the darkness the pool of liquid held a crimson gleam. Her stomach turned. “There’s fresh blood in this room.”

“Hold your position,” Holmes ordered. “I’ll have a uniformed officer there in just a moment.” He broke the connection.

Maj scanned the room. There weren’t any other doors, and she really didn’t think Peter had enough time to get out of the booth without someone noticing him. They’d have mobbed him if they’d seen him. And there was enough blood that she knew he couldn’t be in terribly good shape.

She turned her foilpack over, using the scant light from the vidscreen to illuminate the shadows covering the carpeted floor. A trail of blood drops led from the implant chair.

Five feet farther on, they disappeared abruptly.

Maj dropped to her knees and studied the floor, passing the illuminated foilpack vidscreen only inches from the top of the carpet. It took her three tries to spot the seam in the carpet.

She hooked her fingers under the edge and lifted, exposing the square mouth of a utility passage that had probably been set up to allow egress to the various power outlets set into the floor around the convention center floor. Darkness filled the utility tunnel.

Using the light from the foilpack viewscreen, Maj located the ladder set into the side of one wall. At the bottom the tunnel stretched out in two directions, bending immediately in both. Small emergency lights burned with dim wattage, barely illuminating the underground hallways to near-twilight.

Something gleamed on the floor, catching her eye. She knelt and used the foilpack light.

The tiny drop of red blood glistened, and it was only the first of the intermittent trail that led through the access tunnels.

Maj followed, reconfiguring the foilpack to send an IM to Mark.

Winded and hurting, Andy pulled himself to his feet and stumbled into the cockpit command chair. He pulled the jetpack off and tossed it to the side, then thrust his hands and feet into the gloves and boots just as a missile slammed into the battlesuit’s side. The big machine rocked and came close to overturning, but the on-board gyros kept it upright.

Sensory feedback from the gloves and boots already had Andy hooked into the battlesuit. He threw one of the battlesuit’s big hands out and caught himself, pushing hard to maintain his balance. The head-up-display helmet descended over his head.

“Belt in or log off,” Andy advised Catie as he sprang into action.

“I’m staying.” Catie spotted the restraining straps on the wall where passengers could tie down. She fit her arms through the loops and pulled the straps tight.

“There’s a crash helmet in the locker beside you.” Andy moved the battlesuit into a run.

“You’re planning on crashing?”

Andy grinned. With the HUD in place, he knew she could only see his lower face. “You don’t plan those things in Space Marines. They just happen.”

“Nice game. Those seem to be your friends.”

“They like to play rough.” A salvo of short-range missiles tore the ground up behind Andy as he ran across the broken terrain. The battlesuit’s big feet sank a half-meter into the ground while he mowed down small trees and brush.

“I think I saw Maj’s dragon.”

“I didn’t.” Sudden movement on the radar screen drew Andy’s attention. The radar tilted, spinning, showing that the most aggressive movement had gone airborne. The battlesuits were also equipped with short-range boot jets that allowed navigation in space and limited flight. “Were you bumped off another game?”

“No. I was in this one when the dragon arrived. Then the armored trolls showed up.”

“Space Marines,” Andy corrected automatically. He paused and turned, locking his feet down to the ground to brace for the recoil from the short-range cannon.

“We’ve stopped. Is that good?”

“Going on the attack,” Andy replied, tracking the crosshairs onto the flying battlesuit. “These guys aren’t as experienced as they act. Man, you don’t give up the ground to go flying around. You’re not locked down to fire your heavy artillery, and you’re nothing but one big…fat…target.” His finger twitched inside his right glove.

Three missiles fired from his shoulder-mounted weapon. They left curving contrails as they rushed toward the airborne battlesuit. All three missiles slammed into the battlesuit’s chest area, ripping a huge crater. A moment later the limited-nuke power plant detonated, ripping the battlesuit to shreds.

Andy opened the comm. “Blue Leader, this is designate Blue Thirteen. My advice is to disengage and log off. Playtime’s over.” He got the battlesuit moving again, flipping up the laser sights and taking out two missiles that streaked for him.

The missiles exploded and rained fragments against his steel hide, but damaged little except the exterior. Blue Leader’s response was way less than gentlemanly.

“Guy’s going to need his mouth washed out with soap,” Andy commented. He moved deeper into the forest and away from the castle grounds. Mounted men had ridden into the inner courtyards, but he knew they wouldn’t stand a chance against the heavily armored and armed Space Marines.

He opened a leg hatch and spread an arc of anticavalry mines. Trees bent and cracked, pulled free of the ground as he thundered through.

Less than a minute later one of the pursuing Space Marines stepped on the group of mines. “I’m hit! I’m hit!” the pilot squalled. “My legs are gone!”

“You’re a sitting duck, pal,” Andy said grimly, tracking the action in his rearviews. He swiveled the shoulder-mounted cannon and fired. Two missiles hammered the battlesuit’s neck joints, triggering the automatic eject sequence.

The battlesuit’s head twisted into position, the chin cutting a deep furrow into the earth. Then the top of the head fragmented, releasing the cockpit inside and shooting it skyward.

“Kind of like a skeet trap,” Andy said, grinning tightly. He brought the arm laser online and got target lock. His initial burst slagged the escape pod before the parachutes ever popped.

Mark paused in his investigation of the circuit paths of the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel’s computer paths. He’d ended up tracking dozens of dead ends and was getting more than a little frustrated. Data wasn’t flowing in any direction, totally stalled out now, and gave him no reference points at all. But somewhere in there, he knew, there had to be a virus that allowed whoever had popped strands on the security system access.

A message flared across the bottom of his vision. MARK, IT’S MAJ. NEED INFO. IN UNDERGROUND UTILITY TUNNELS UNDER CONVENTION CENTER. CAN YOU TRACK?

Holding his position in the crashsuit, Mark lifted his arm and brought up the schematics he’d uncovered for the building, located the service tunnels, and sent them along. Then he added, DON’T GO ALONE.

Maj ignored Mark’s final comment and sent a quick thank-you. She pulled up the schematics he’d sent and examined them for just a moment. The blood drips on the tunnel floor had gotten farther apart, as if the bleeding had slowed or Peter was traveling faster.

After a moment spent orienting herself, Maj took off again. More confident now, and her vision adjusted to the dim lighting, she stepped up the pace to a trot.

According to the schematic, the tunnel she presently followed opened up in a storage area that was right off the main lobby. From there it was just a short distance to the street in front of the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel.

Gaspar monitored the building through the security sensors he’d rendered accessible only by him. Most of the network was devices Heavener had instructed her people to install. He stood inside the convention center, maintaining the holo as the chaos continued.

When he punched the menu for the utility tunnels beneath the convention center, he was surprised to find an extra presence. He accessed the nearest vid buttoncam Heavener’s people had installed along their last-ditch escape route. The vid buttoncam had photo-multiplier capabilities and scanned through the dark easily.

When the girl came into view, Gaspar easily recognized her as Maj Green. How did she find out about the tunnels? He didn’t let his mind dwell on the questions that filled it. He opened the audlink to Heavener.

“One of the Net Force Explorers is in the tunnels,” he told her.

“He will be taken care of.”

“She,” Gaspar said automatically.

Heavener’s only response was to shut down the audlink.

Watching the girl run through the tunnels, Gaspar felt a pang of guilt. She was running to her doom, and he had no way to warn her. But what made him feel really guilty was not knowing if he’d try even if he had a way.

In the Space Marine battlesuit, Andy waded through a stream, marking it instantly as an attack zone. The hillside on the other side of the stream went almost straight up. Even as skilled as he was in the battlesuit, Andy had trouble negotiating the climb. At the top, peering down sixty feet to the stream, he knew he was in a good place.

“We’ve stopped,” Catie said.

“Yeah,” Andy said. “These guys are creeps and amateurs, and I don’t have time for them. We need to get back to the convention center and figure out what’s going on. But we’re going on our terms, not theirs.”

“It’s two against one.” Catie huddled against the bulkhead, compacted into a ball.

Andy gave her a grin. “I know. I feel kind of guilty.” When the two pursuing Space Marines plunged into the stream, Andy fired his laser at the water, instantly creating huge clouds of steam. “I figure these guys more for line-of-sight operators rather than guys who are used to instrumentation.”

The steam clouds rose from the stream, turning the world white, rising to cascade over the hill where Andy stood as well. He shifted over to thermal imaging, the scene suddenly shifting to a patchwork world of reds, oranges, and yellows with a few spots of blue and purple. The battlesuit’s interior cooling systems jerked into action, whining and rattling.

“What’s that?” Catie asked.

“We’re blowing up,” Andy teased.

“What?”

“Psych.” Andy tracked the two battlesuits stumbling through the streambed. Both of them acted as if they’d lost their way. He readied the short-range missiles and fired a salvo at each.

The missiles struck the two Space Marines and started breaking them down at once. They shivered and shook like tin cans strung together.

Andy opened the comm-channel. “And that’s all, Blue Leader. Game over. Thanks for playing.”

The battlesuits exploded, showering the nearby terrain with shrapnel.

Andy lifted the HUD helmet and glanced at Catie…“We’re about done here, I’d say. Ready to see if we can get off-line?”

“Very,” Catie said.

“Detective Holmes.”

Maj glanced at the vidphone screen on her foilpack and saw that the LAPD detective was getting out of his car. The vid pickup swirled crazily, pulling the man and the alley into conflicting views as Holmes ran. “It’s Maj.”

“I’m kind of busy here.”

“Me, too,” she replied tautly. “I’m in an access tunnel under the convention center. The people who’ve got Peter Griffen are escaping through it.”

“How’d you find that tunnel?”

“History,” Maj said, her breath coming shorter from the excitement and the exertion. Her feet slapped against the tunnel’s stone floor. “We’re working on current events.”

“Do you know where it lets out?”

“The front lobby. There’s a storage area the tunnel accesses around the corner from the main desk. If they get out onto the street—”

“They’re gone,” Holmes said in agreement. “Got it. Keep this connection open.”

Maj ran harder. She leaned into the running, regretting the stale, still air around her because it wasn’t what her body needed for sustained effort. Her lungs started to burn.

At the next corner turn Maj folded her arms protectively in front of her, bumped into the wall, then pushed off with her hands to change directions rapidly. Wounded or being carried, she didn’t think Peter could move along as quickly as she was. She was certain she was cutting his lead.

The tunnel ended abruptly two turns later. Light glinted off the rungs of the ladder built into the wall. The hatch above was open. She scrambled up the rungs. The air felt cooler in the storage room.

A woman screamed out in the lobby, quickly echoed by other screams and hoarse warning shouts.

Maj opened the door and paused, looking through. The lobby was filled with people from the convention who looked lost and confused. But fear was catching on quick because three men drove a flying wedge through them, knocking bystanders aside with fists, knees, and elbows. Two more men trotted easily behind the wedge, holding Peter in a come-along grip.

None of the men said a word, but the big black pistols in their gloved fists spoke volumes.

“Detective Holmes,” Maj said over the foilpack. “They’re in the lobby.”

“I’ve got men there,” Holmes promised.

At that moment the crowd separated and four uniformed policemen ran toward the group with Peter. “Halt!” one of them ordered in a loud voice.

The three men forming the flying wedge raised their pistols and fired without hesitation. Dulled splats like a hammer driving home a nail echoed in the hallway. The four policemen fell without firing a shot.

Controlling her fear, Maj dashed forward. “Your officers are down, Detective Holmes!”

“How many?”

“All of them.” Maj pulled up short and looked at the bodies while the crowd continued to scatter around her. Natural light filtering in through the polarized windows fronting the hotel gave her plenty of illumination. Yellow-feathered tranquilizer darts stood out against the dark colors of the uniforms. The gunmen hadn’t fired for the center of their targets, choosing arms, legs, throats, and faces.

“What kind of shape are they in?” Holmes asked. “I can’t get radio contact.”

“They’ve been darted.” Maj kneeled beside one of the men and put her fingers on his neck. She felt the pulse beating sluggishly. “They’re still alive.” She pushed up and ran to the lobby doors, stepping over two more people who’d been darted.

The doorman was dropping at the same time she reached the red carpet under the canopy. The doorman fell limply halfway out into the street. Traffic screeched to a halt in front of him, missing him by inches.

“There’s the girl,” one of the men said. He aimed his pistol and fired.

Maj ducked back around the door. Glass broke near her right ear, shattering with a double-clap of impact. Pulling away, she spotted the two yellow-feathered darts that had stabbed through the glass pane she’d hidden behind. Hairline cracks spread out from the darts.

Horns honked indignantly out on the street.

Maj watched through the fractured glass as a gleaming, light blue Dodge van barreled down the four-lane street. The driver laid on the horn, pulling out into the oncoming traffic lane, then cutting back in to pull to a rubber-eating stop twenty feet down from the hotel entrance.

The black-suited men, with Peter in tow, rushed toward the Dodge van as the rear door opened. They threw Peter inside, then climbed in. The van took off before they could shut the door. Traffic ground to a halt in both directions, but the van roared down the middle of the street, careening occasionally from the stalled cars with a scream of tortured metal.

Maj dashed after it, trying to spot its license plate. No luck — it was missing. She lifted the foilpack and gave the best description she could of the vehicle as it sped away. It turned right at the corner and disappeared.