The California Voodoo Game

Friday, July 22, 2059 5:55 A.M.

Dawn had come to the Mojave. It painted the eastern mountains a burnt orange, with the promise of greater, warmer light and life behind it. Slowly, long before the temperature of the air began to rise, the light silvered. The radiance spread up behind the mountains, the shadows began rolling back, and back, and daylight marched toward MIMIC.

Alphonse was awake and packed, ready to move.

Three of his compatriots had formed a seated triangle: S. J. Waters, Crystal Cofax, and Major Terry Clavell.

SJ was Scout and Thief. Clavell was Magic User and Warrior. Crystal was a Scout. All had special sight, special powers of discernment. For some fifteen minutes they had been locked in magical ceremony.

In the center of the triangle, uncomfortable and a bit squat, sat the pregnant Mary-em.

"This is ridiculous," she said.

"Shut up," Crystal replied politely.

SJ cocked his head sideways. "Did you know that you glow when you're pregnant?"

"SJ," Mary-em said calmly, "I did a paper on exotic torture methods once. Care to contribute to its sequel?"

"Is that any way for a mommy to talk?"

The three joined hands around the edge of the triangle, and chanted. Somewhere in the universe, the powers that be evaluated their ceremony and intent and decided that they had enough of whatever such gods decided it took for them to achieve their intended goal.

Mary-em's tummy began to glow. The embryo within glowed more brightly: Chango's unborn boy-child. He had developed with preternatural rapidity. His eyes were open, his face aware and alert, if annoyed.

"Why do you awaken me?" he whispered. "I have need for sleep."

Alphonse said, "We need to know our next destination."

"Seek the water people," the embryo said. The vast brown eyes were heavy-lidded, threatening to flutter closed. "And let me rest."

"We are afraid. Afraid of ambush, by others of our kind. We need to know where they are."

A light pulsed out from inside Mary-em, turning her entire body transparent. Organs and bone structure were available for perusal. A translucent ghost of MIMIC formed around them, floor to ceiling, as if Mary-em were embedded in Jell-O.

"Here. They are here, on the twelfth floor," the fetus said dreamily. A patch of the floor blinked. "The Nommo are a level beneath them."

"The water people?"

"Yes. Seek them, and you will learn what you must. I… hope that you… swim well."

And then the light faded away.

Mary-em's heavy mouth creased with amusement. "Well. My son, the godling."

The general asked, 'What do we do? How many of us swim?" Hands went up.

" Puck that," Clavell said. "We're not there yet. How many of us can fight? As far as we know, Bishop and Da Gurls have all banded together, and they're going to wipe us out, first chance they get."

"Which will be in about half an hour if we go down there," said Poule.

Clavell said, "We're not defenceless either. We have a talisman that probably can't be beat. And we can be sneaky."

"Listen up," Alphonse offered. "We consider ourselves one team till the end of the Game. No backstabbing, no bullshit. Help each other earn points, watch each other's backs. This time out, there's enough goodies for everybody if y'all don't get greedy."

"But how do we get past Apple?" Crystal asked.

"Good question," he admitted. "Twan's read a book-she can track us. Even if we sneak around t'other side of the building."

"Now look." Clavell drew a simple map on a sheet of paper. "There's something else that we can do…"

Trevor Stone refused to speak to a Game Master.

Tamasan hadn't seen anything that led up to the disaster. The Cleric had come running when Trevor and Holly were suddenly surrounded by showy magical effects…

Holly Frost had slept badly, and not in the Gen-Dyn quarters. She'd refused to be near "A maniac" Stone. She slumped in a web chair and studied Tony through pink, bleary eyes. "I know you. You're the asshole almost ruined the South Seas Treasure Game."

"Years ago. Holly, I'm a reformed soul. Now I save Games."

"Like you saved this one, Game Master?" She couldn't wait for an answer; she bounded to her feet and screamed, "Can you believe that maniac? All we had to do was sit tight and wait for Bishop. Stone just didn't know how to handle it.

Like this was a fat-ripper special instead of the goddamn Olympics of Gaming! He killed us all. Can you believe this shit?" Her whole body shook with rage.

"I want you to think back over California Voodoo. Could Bishop have set you up?"

She froze; she stared; she shied back and into herself, as if suddenly remembering that Tony had done more than ruin a Game. "You have gone nuts."

"Okay."

"Wait. "

She sat down. When Tony poured a paper cup of coffee, she took it without comment. She sipped, and thought, and said "I've never heard of anything that insane."

Tony nodded. He felt embarrassed.

"Bishop never does what anyone expects," she said.

"Right."

"You think he manipulated his way back into the Game? He wouldn't need to. Hell, I jumped at the chance to play on the Bishop's team. But did he set us up, McWhirter, why?"

"I–I could be way off here-"

"Game Masters don't leave a running Game for no reason! What do you know, McWhirter?"

"Not enough. Not enough to start a rumor or risk a slander suit, Holly. What do you know?"

"We didn't make any mistakes." Her dark pretty face was composed: Holly had gotten a grip on herself. "I tried to keep Stone calm by getting him to tell Gaming stories. It worked for a while, but then he just had to show Bishop up. Those two got along like balrogs and paladins.

"I warned Bishop not to call him Trevor. He's not a Californian, he's a Brit. Calling him by his first name is an imposition. It's like scraping a nerve every time."

"What did Bishop say?"

"He thanked me politely and said he'd try to stop. He hadn't realised. Goddamn you, McWhirter."

"Being sarcastic?"

"Not so I could see. I wondered."

"What can you tell us about working with Bishop?"

She nodded to herself. She said, "Gen-Dyn forced Stone on Bishop. Second-in-command. Sooner or later Stone had to take the com, and it happened at Ile Ife. If Bishop-if he suckered us, there's no way to blame him.

"He's confident. Unbelievably so. But he's usually dead-on about anything to do with Gaming. One hell of a sexy man." She grinned at him, a shark's grin. "If I'd had an opportunity, I was going to make a play."

"What was he like to work with?"

Holly rolled one long, shapely thigh over the other and stared up at the ceiling. "Intense. Perfectionist. When the name 'California Voodoo' came down, Bishop set into research like a crazy man. Ancient African myths, Haiti, New Orleans, 'The Last Days of the Late Great State of California.' And yet…"

She seemed to be deciding whether or not to continue. Tony remained silent.

"Just a feeling in the back of my head, like a-a taste? There was a lot of movement, but it never felt directed, focused. It was all logical. It all made sense. But this is the Bishop, right? The Bishop does crazy things. The unexpected. The intuitive leap. The deceptive gambit. And he didn't really come up with any of that. It made me wonder. Either he had lost it-"

"Did you believe that?"

Holly smiled and shook her dark, pretty face. "The man was on fire. He is so smart it's scary. Hell of a sexy man. No, I thought he must be planning something crazy, something unexpected, something that it would take a genius to guess.

But killing off his whole team? Why?" Her brow furrowed. ''Does he think he can win single-handed?"

"Could he think that?''

She laughed at herself. "Even Nigel Bishop isn't that crazy."

"What if he's changed the definitions?"

"Of what?"

"Of winning. Like, oh, suppose he bet on another team, for instance?"

"What, on Acacia? That's who he's with now." Her face twisted in what might have been grief. "Damn you, McWhirter."

Tony only nodded.

"He's risking a perfect reputation if he throws this Game. It's tarnished no matter what happens now. He lost his team!"

"You're looking at this the wrong way. In the context of the Game, winning is important. Bishop quit because winning was too easy. No challenge."

"What would be more important?"

"Money?"

She shook her head. "Power. For Bishop it's power."

To Tony that was a new thought. He suggested, "Enough money is power…"

Holly was thinking, her eyes closed. "If Bishop is cheating. If you are seeing him outside the Game, gone rogue, then don't stop at the first easy answer. Bad mistake. He'll leave a false trail. He'll give you an answer you'll buy, and then hit you with something subtler, and bigger." Again, that predator's smirk. "Much bigger."