Gameprey

6

LAPD Detective Third Grade John Holmes walked through the door of the second-floor conference room the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel had lent Captain Winters for the debrief. The room was large and fully equipped with holoprojectors so even the Explorers who were in other places could attend in holoform.

Maj leaned against the window looking out over the hotel’s entrance. So far the LAPD had kept everything low-key. Out in the street the last of the hook-and-ladder fire trucks that had responded to the fire alarm were clearing hoses while uniformed police officers kept the crowds on the other side of the red and white sawhorses.

John Holmes didn’t look as if he’d seen thirty yet. He was earnest and neat looking in his charcoal gray suit. His badge gleamed as it hung out of his jacket pocket. He had an easy smile, but something had left a wicked pink and gray scar on his left cheekbone that stood out against his ebony skin.

Captain James Winters stood at military parade rest in the center of the room. He was a tall, lean man with sharp blue-gray eyes that glinted like a hunting bird’s. His hair was neatly clipped in a Marine buzz cut. He wore a navy suit.

Holmes pulled out a chair at the table and sat, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his thighs. “The perps got away. Forensics is still going over the room. They’ve turned up a couple dozen fingerprints, and they’ve matched all but two through hotel records. At present we’re not terribly enthusiastic about the odds of finding out who these guys are through fingerprints. We’re running the images Matt took through NCIC and other crime databases. We’ll have to wait and see.”

“Did you get anything from my veeyar or the implant chair?” Maj asked.

“Whoever went through the veeyar and implant chair left it stripped of the whole encounter you’ve told us about. Your veeyar seems to be intact otherwise, but you’ll know that better than us. However, all the Net record temp files archived since your arrival here at the hotel are gone.”

“What about the dragonrider?” Maj asked.

“I’ve got uniforms canvassing the hotel now, but we’re limited in what the management here will let us do. They don’t want people to get the idea this isn’t a safe place.”

“You’ve got an attempted murder charge you can work with,” Matt pointed out.

His words sent a chill through Maj. As Net Force Explorers, they’d been involved on the periphery of some Net Force operations, but being shot at really wasn’t something she supposed people got used to.

Holmes nodded. “I think it’s possible that those men knew you were in holoform and just pushed the performance. I don’t think I’d have a problem getting a warrant from a judge based on the circumstances, but where would I go with it? The hotel’s being as accommodating as they can be. They’re even letting me post a few more uniforms at the convention than they’d like to have.” He flashed a thin grin. “They think there’s something about a uniformed police officer on the premises that will impede festivities.”

“If people believe they are police officers,” Mark put in. “Gaming conventions have a tendency to go totally bizarre. You’ll find people in full costume from their favorite games, shouting, joking, all wrapped up in their own worlds. Covering the event isn’t going to be easy.”

“I know,” Holmes said. “I’ve been here before. I game whenever I get the chance.”

Maj was surprised.

“What about you?” Holmes asked Maj. “Are you working on something top secret that’s going to turn the gaming world on its ear?”

“I’ve developed a flight-sim. It’s nice, but it’s nothing earth-shattering.”

“Is there any reason anyone would be after your sim?” the detective asked.

“They weren’t after the sim,” Maj answered. “Those men came into my room because we bumped into the dragonrider.”

“Why not go directly after him?”

“We don’t know,” Megan said. “We haven’t come up with a good answer to that one.”

“I’m beginning to think,” Winters spoke up, “that we don’t quite have all the right questions, either.”

“I agree,” Holmes said.

“What story is the hotel going to give the media?” Winters asked.

“HoloNet has a team covering some of the major designers and players who’re going to be here for the weekend. So far, the hotel has told them that as yet unidentified parties pulled the fire alarms as a prank.”

“But,” Winters said, “any reporter worth his salt is going to notice the abundance of LAPD police officers responding to the call.”

“I told them, off the record, that there were some reports of attempted corporate espionage we were looking into.”

“That will also explain why you’ve got extra officers on the premises during the convention,” Winters said.

“Yes. And not all of my officers are going to be in uniform. I’ll have men circulating in plainclothes, too. The gaming convention is big business in LA. I didn’t have any problems getting some overtime approved to run security for it, and no shortage of volunteers. There will even be some off-duty guys here.” Holmes shrugged. “I negotiated some free passes from the hotel and a few other perks.”

Winters smiled. “You’ve been busy.”

“That I have.” Holmes glanced up at the captain speculatively. “Personally, I think we’re on a snipe hunt here. I think that the break-in last night was purely an advertising attempt by one of the gaming companies. They do this kind of thing. One year when I worked this convention, we picked up rumors of an assassination in the works. HoloNet picked it up, too. All of us were out here busting our humps to get the true skinny on it. Know what it turned out to be?”

“Last year?” Matt said. “Matt2Matt games killed off Zord, one of the benevolent lords in Crimson Steel.”

“Right,” Holmes replied. “Another year we thought we had a jumper off the building. Turned out to be a stunt rigged by X-treem Sportz who fuzzied the hotel’s holoprojectors to make it look as if there was a skier shushing down to the street level. I could go on with the list. Some of it hit the media and some of it didn’t.”

“It’s cheap advertising,” Winters said.

“You bet. Even when we catch them, all they generally have to do is pay a fine. I’m going to look into this thing carefully, but I’m not going to overinvest. I assume Net Force is on the same wavelength?”

Winters nodded.

Someone knocked on the conference room door.

“Come on in,” Holmes said.

“Detective Holmes,” the heavyset uniformed police officer in the doorway told him, “forensics is ready for you up on the fifth floor.”

“Good news?”

“Tarkington’s not happy. They’re not finding anything, and he’s going to have to pull half his crew for a double one-eighty-seven that just happened.”

Holmes nodded. “I’ll be right there.”

The uniformed police officer stepped back out the door.

“I’m going to have to go, but I do have one last question,” Holmes said. “I play a lot of games, so I know about the restrictions and parameters of a personal veeyar. I know you can go online to a game like Sarxos, but that doesn’t seem to be what happened here. How do you think this overlap between veeyars happened?”

“It’s not supposed to,” Maj answered. “Glitches do occur.”

“Maybe,” Holmes said. “But you might want to think about this one.” He stepped through the door and was gone.

“What do you think he meant by that?” Megan asked.

“Just what he said.” Captain Winters’s expression was unreadable, but Maj felt he was thinking carefully. Winters wasn’t someone who took an attack on one of his team lightly. “How many of you are going to be here this weekend?”

“Virtual or physical?” Mark asked. “I’ve arranged for a virtual pass.”

“Physical,” Winters replied.

Maj said she and Catie were already on-site. Megan added that her stranded flight would be leaving by morning and she’d be in Los Angeles by noon.

A doorbell sounded from the air above the conference table. “Permission to pipe aboard,” Leif Anderson called out.

“Granted,” Winters said. The conference room controls had been programmed to his voice. No virtual visitors could arrive without his invitation.

Leif Anderson materialized in a chair wearing slacks and a baggy sweater. He looked around the table. “Am I late?”

“Fashionably,” Megan said.

Leif grinned. “Terrific. Just what I was aiming for. Did I miss anything?”

“The police interrogation,” Matt said.

Leif’s grin brightened. “Even better. Those tend to be an exercise in redundancy.”

“Redundancy is one of the chief resources of an investigatory body,” Winters said quietly.

“Yes, sir.” Leif looked only a little chagrined, Maj thought. His naturally ebullient nature quickly reasserted itself. She wished she recovered from things so quickly. “I assume we know everything they know?”

“I think that’s a safe assumption,” Winters said.

“Fine,” Leif said. “Then maybe someone could tell me what it is we know.”

Winters recapped in clipped, succinct sentences. When he was finished, he said, “I was told you were searching for some information.”

“Yes, sir. The audio file Maj saved and sent to me through Matt. I’m not sure why it wouldn’t translate. It was in a variant of Kurdish, so I had to have a friend do the translation for me. There wasn’t much. The guy was just asking what Maj and Matt were doing there.”

Maj felt a little more disheartened. The night’s events continued to escalate in confusion.

“Nothing else?” Winters asked.

“No, sir.”

Silence filled the room for a moment.

“Back to your original questions about who was going to be here for the weekend,” Matt said “Andy Moore and I are coming in tomorrow.”

Leif leaned back in this chair. “I’ll make myself available for the weekend as well.”

“No other pressing engagements?” Megan asked.

Leif smiled. “None that I don’t mind breaking.” The other Net Force Explorers often teased him about being a playboy in the making.

“So what do you want us to do, Captain?” Maj asked.

“Keep your eyes and ears open,” Winters replied. “I’m in agreement with Detective Holmes. I think when the local PD gets to the bottom of this, they’ll find it was an advertising gimmick. Gaming companies spend billions of dollars every year in research and development and make billions more in sales around the world. A few fines for reckless endangerment barely touch their profit margins.

“But corporate espionage is a possibility. If someone was out to steal a game design before it hits the market and get out something similar before the game’s release, they’d impact that corporation’s bottom line in a big way.”

“As well as making some serious cash for themselves,” Mark added.

Winters shrugged. “Take a look around while you’re here. You people know this industry. If you find something worthwhile, let me know.” He looked sternly at Catie. “And no more diving off buildings.”

“Yes, sir.”

The meeting broke up with only a little more discussion. Maj didn’t take an active part because her mind was reeling with everything that had happened. The hotel staff had moved her belongings into Catie’s room. The police were busy ripping her old room apart, and all the other rooms had been booked. Maj felt better about not being left on her own for the evening.

Soon only she and Catie remained in the conference room.

“Are you okay?” Catie asked as they stepped out into the hallway and headed for the elevators.

“Me?” Maj acted surprised. “You were doing a trapeze act five floors up.”

Catie shrugged. “I’m over it. I’ll probably have a couple nightmares later on, but I tend to get past things. You seem locked in on this.” She paused. “Not that I blame you. There’s no telling what those men would have done if you’d been in the room when they got there.”

Maj felt cold inside. Actually, I think we know exactly what they would have done, she thought. “It’s the dragonrider. I can’t get him out of my mind.”

Catie smiled. “Cute?”

“Very.”

“Then it won’t be so bad thinking about him.”

“No,” Maj admitted, feeling some of her dark mood lift at her friend’s good-natured teasing. “The problem is that I don’t think he knows he’s in trouble.”

“If he’s at the convention,” Catie reassured her, “we’ll find him.”

“I know,” Maj said, “but I don’t think we’re going to be the only ones looking.”