The Barsoom Project

Chapter Nine

The world was blind with snow as Max Sands crawled out of the qasgiq. The frozen ground was rough on hands and knees. Other Adventurers popped out of the tunnel to sprawl gracelessly on the snow.

The sun was a pale disk daubed in watercolors upon a paler sky. Tiny flakes of ice flurried like flower petals driven by the wind.

Max stretched his back. He was cramped and sore.

A ragged chorus of barks split the air, and a dog sled appeared around the curve of the lodge, driven by an old woman. The six dogs pulling the sled described a semicircle, slowed to a crawl, and stopped. The sled carried one soot-stained crate from the plane and an additional pile of equipment.

Bowles and the Guardsman went to the sled. The Guardsman opened a sheathed knife and went to work on the crate. A slat creaked in protest, then pulled loose with a long, thin whine.

“Yeah!” Max hefted out one of the rifles, checked its action-long-forgotten ROTC training flashed to mind-then passed it to Orson.

The rifles were relayed hand to hand like fire brigade buckets. When the last weapon had been distributed, the National Guardsman balanced a gun in one big fist, then brandished it overhead. “Is there anyone who doesn’t know how to use one of these?”

Some of the refugees paused, then raised uncertain hands.

“All right. These are Remington thirty-caliber gas-operated semiautomatic carbines-”

Max sidled over to Eviane, ready to lend assistance. She didn’t need any. As the Guardsman called out instructions she worked with manic intensity, with a mixture of dread and fascination that was almost alarming to watch. During a pause in the instructions she relaxed, and then looked up at Max, through

Max, as if he wasn’t there at all. The bullets in her hand were blanks, and she was not his enemy; but there was something in her eyes, something in the way she gripped the gun that made him feel queasy.

“-we don’t know what we’re heading into, but we do know that it’s dangerous: we don’t want to lose any of our own.” There were sober nods of agreement from the others, but Eviane stared fixedly ahead, her eyes on the snow-blown horizon, or beyond.

Damn, she was really into this. Had she Gamed before, in the real Games? Once her hands closed around the rifle she didn’t seem to want to release it. Her reluctance created a neat topological puzzle as she tried to pull on her backpack.

“Need a little help, there?” Max volunteered. “Why don’t you let me hold that?”

She clutched the rifle defensively for a moment. He watched her face tighten and then reluctantly relax. “Yes. Thank you very much.”

She handed him her rifle. She shrugged into her pack, bent, and fastened on her snowshoes. “Check me, will you?”

“Nothing looks broken from here. Maybe a closer look.” He ran a finger along her shoulder.

A smile struggled with her businesslike expression, won for a moment, then fluttered nervously and died. “You’re nice,” she said shyly. “I hope we make it out of this.”

“Stick with me, kid,” he said, giving it his best Bogart.. “I’m strong enough for both of us.”

She took the rifle, twirled heel-toe, and was gone.

He knew he was pushing it. Bulky, flirtatious, helpful Max Sands. Some women seek a nonthreatening man. He could usually tell, but he couldn’t tell with Eviane. Maybe she didn’t know herself.

He could switch out of that “harmless” mode. He could do a Jekyll-Hyde and become “Mr. Mountain,” but he didn’t want to.

God, he was tired of Mr. Mountain and his lavender leotards.

Distantly, he heard a playful announcer singing about “purple Mountain’s majesty-”

With a little help from Dream Park’s magic, he just might retire that role forever.

Snow Goose knelt by the lead dogs to hug a muscular light gray husky with reddish highlights in his fur. They nuzzled each other like old friends.

Max hunkered down next to her, scratched the back of the dog’s neck, peered out toward the horizon. The weather was clearing a bit, but a curtain of snow rolled across the horizon, reminding him of an Arizona dust storm.

Snow Goose said, “This is Takuka, the Red Bear.”

“Hail, O Bear.”

Red Bear sniffed at Max, found him mildly unobjectionable, and then turned back to adoring Snow Goose. She said, “He and Otter are our last lead dogs. All of the others just ciphered. Disappeared. Lost.”

As if on cue, Red Bear whined disconsolately.

“We’ll get ‘em back. We’ll get everyone back.”

She nodded silently, then stood.

Most of the gear had been tightly packed onto the sled, then bound with tarps and oilskins. Antibiotics, coils of thin line, hard-weather gear, food. The dogs came to attention, shuffling and whining at Snow Goose impatiently, as if awaiting a signal.

Martin the Arctic Fox emerged from the qasgiq tunnel. Old age and despair seemed to have filled his joints with rust: his neck virtually creaked as he scanned them. He pulled a bag out after him.

He pulled out a fistful of little leather pouches on leather thongs. “Hang around your necks,” he said. “You are angakoks now.”

Again he reached into the bag. “These are things of power,” he said. He pressed a bird’s foot into Max’s hand. Max took it, grimacing. “Owl claw. Give strong fists.”

He gave a withered Caribou’s ear to Bowles, who smiled and bowed. “Make you quick of hearing.” He pulled a crumpled skin from the bag, opened it to show that it was crusted with black soot, and gave it to Kevin. “For strength. Soot is stronger than fire.” For Charlene he had a swatch of white fur. “Sealskin. Hide you.” Kevin whipped out his little computer and entered the new information soberly.

He moved along the Gamers until the bag was empty. Then Martin spoke to them all. “You from the hot countries are our final hope. If you cannot prevail, all is lost. I trust the Gods will grant you victory. Seek the Thunderbirds. Only they can take you to the underworld.”

Snow Goose hugged her father. Captain Grant took his place at the sled, and cracked his whip once. The sled began to move. The huskies snapped the reins taut, straining against the inertia of the sled. Slowly, it began to slide across the field, toward a blank, wind-whipped horizon.

Some of the Adventurers were puffing, but none were falling back. Max was easily able to keep pace with the sled, staying abreast of Snow Goose. He asked, “What’s next?”

She smiled enigmatically. “We’re off for Seelumkadchluk, where the sky meets the sea. Daddy did a number for us, opened the path.”

He peered out across the snow. It was as desolate as a salt flat, and not much more inviting. “I don’t see anything special.”

“You will.”

“Okay. Then what? I still don’t quite understand what we’re supposed to do.”

The wind was a faint, consistent howl around them. Hippogryph and Charlene Dula crunched through the snow to walk next to her.

“Daddy told you most of what I know. Somebody whacked Sedna out, and we have to undo it.”

“Whacked her out?” Orson puffed as he quick-walked up next to them. “You talk funny for an Eskimo.”

“Did you expect grunts and clicks? I have a master’s in Cultural Anthro from Alaska State U, Nome.” She cracked the whip again, humanely high above the backs of the trotting huskies. “That was before all of this began.”

Orson seemed a little embarrassed, but Max jumped into the gap. “Cultural Anthro. I’d think you’d be somebody’s class project. I’d love to read your thesis.”

“It does make you kind of split-brained to grow up hearing all about the spirits and the Raven, and then go off to school. When they talked about Eskimo lore in the books they might as well be talking about the Great Pumpkin. I’m not sure where I really stood. I mean, I’d seen some stuff that would weird anyone out, but the books explained everything away, made it all sound so reasonable…”

“Anyway, when everything came apart it was time to choose sides, and quick. Daddy thinks that I’m the best choice to help you guys survive.” She paused, reflecting. “Rephrase: I’m the only choice. You’ve kind of run out of options, you know?”

Max was enchanted.

Orson puffed, “I think I know what’s wrong with your dad.”

“Yeah, he’s sick,” Snow Goose said thoughtfully. “And poor Ahk-lut, he went completely wacko. Some of the first generation, the Raven’s children, they look like that. Something wrong with the way they were made, maybe.”

“No!” Huff. “Max, I remembered something. Her dad said that talisman”-puff-”was a satellite that fell on Canada in the eighties?”

“Okay… why?”

“If it’s the one I’m thinking about”-puff-”it had a nuclear plant aboard. If Martin and Ahk-lut-”

“-are both suffering from radiation poisoning. Damn good, Orson!”

“Maybe that’s where… magic comes from.”

Snow Goose considered. “A powerful talisman is one that has traveled a long way. When I was just a cub, I saw a Swiss army knife that had been carried from Quebec, swapped over and over. Guy traded it for a bear fur and six cases of beer. Long nights. Plenty of time to party.”

“Heh,” Orson puffed. “That skyfall talisman… went round and round the Earth… hundreds of times.” Puff; huff. “So we find the Lady Sedna. What do we do then? Or is that a secret?”

“We have to comb her hair.”

“That doesn’t sound very difficult.”

“Well, Sedna is a very choosy lady. It has to be done just right.”

“Great.” Orson called back along the line. “Hey! Is there a beautician in the house?”

Max turned to look, and that sweeping glance revealed something he hadn’t noticed before: the vista, which had stretched out endlessly only minutes before, was all beginning to change. He said, “The sun looks a little bit brighter. I don’t get it. Why would the sun be brighter now?”

The sky had cleared too. The snow had subsided to flurries. Max was sweating in his fur parka, and there were no buttons. “Looks like the snow’s letting up.”

Orson said, “So we comb Sedna’s hair. Then what?”

Snow Goose examined Orson with amusement. “You know, you’ll probably be a lot happier if you think a little bit less about what happens later, and check out what’s happening now. This isn’t exactly safe, and if you don’t stay on top of it you’re going to end up the world’s pinkest Popsicle.”

The dogs trotted heartily onward, crunching the snow underneath the treads. A faint cawing sound grew swiftly louder. Max whipped his head up as a flock of geese arced across the sky, barely a stone’s throw away. He quickly counted a dozen birds, and there might have been more.

“ Bra nta canadensis,” Snow Goose smiled sadly. “Tuutangayak. My Canadian namesake. I used to love them. Almost extinct, now. My brother…” She paused, swallowed. “Ahk-lut taught me all about the animals. That was a long time ago.”

Orson saw an opening, and went for it. “He’s about thirty years older than you?”

“Just about. Daddy’s had three wives… that he’ll cop to.”

The birds swept south and disappeared into a bank of clouds. Snow Goose followed them with a wistful gaze.

It was remarkably easy to get into the spirit of it, to play to the hidden cameras. Max laid a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. “We’ll fix things, don’t worry.”

“Worry for yourself-it’s your world on the chopping block.” The pilot cracked the whip, picking up the pace slightly. Behind him, the refugees had begun to huff.

The snowshoes crunched step after step, rasping as the snow became thinner underfoot. Max stared at his feet, and then at Snow Goose in astonishment. “Dirt! I saw dirt! I was starting to think I’d never see dirt again!”

“Check behind your ears,” Orson hissed.

The dog sled dragged across the brown patches, slowed by friction. As the snow began to recede, Snow Goose reached down, flipped the sled blades up, and replaced them with wheels. The cart wheels bumped against what he could now see was a rude path that they had followed under the snow.

The first small plants were twisting their way up through the permafrost, cracking their way through delicate rivulets of ice. Max plucked one up, rubbed a tiny leaf between two fingers, and chewed it as he walked along. The sun was warmer and brighter now, and he reveled in it. He had taken that golden disk for granted, as most people did, and as it blazed anew an indefinable depression lifted from his spirits.

He dropped back until he was shoulder to shoulder with Eviane. Her eyes were slitted, and she was watching everything around her like a nervous tiger. Something in her gaze resurrected unanswered questions. “Do you know anything about all of this that you’re not telling? Picked up on a clue or something? You’re so quiet that I can’t help but think that you’ve got a little hint for old Max.”

Her answering smile was quizzical. “Clue? I’m just trying to survive, like the rest of us.”

“I still get the feeling that I should stick with you. Does that make any sense?”

She moved a half-step away. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Ah… no.”

“Great.”

He started to-

Something writhed against his back, as if a sizable snake had slipped down his shirt.

His shoulders arched, and he bellowed. He reached back, clawing for the alien thing attaching itself to his shoulder blades, hooked claws reaching for his heart, fangs gnashing for his spine…

Something hard and cool moved in his grip. He pulled it around in front, ready for the worst horror imaginable. Ready for anything but what he saw.

“My rifle?” It wiggled in his hands, moving as if it had become a living thing. He held it out from himself, watching with awed fascination. The rifle was barely recognizable and still stretching, narrowing, taking on a new configuration under his very hands.

The barrel elongated, sharpened. The front sight flattened and the bore closed, flattened into a triangular shape. The framework butt had closed into a tube.

The Remington had become a long, barbed harpoon.

Max suddenly noticed the growing sounds of dismay behind him. The entire group was chattering excitedly, watching each other’s rifles change into spears and clubs.

Hippogryph’s rifle was now an older gun, a flintlock! A brightly glowing object appeared on the ground in front of him. Hippogryph scooped it up, delighted. “Looks like a magical powder horn!”

In almost as magical a transformation, the group which had been somewhat subdued and quiet was suddenly in the air, whooping their approval.

“Do you believe in maaa-gic?” Kevin sang, and his skinny body pranced and twirled like a crazed scarecrow. Trianna caught one of his hands and swung him around once. When his feet brushed the ground she set him afoot and composed herself in improbable dignity.

Kevin’s ears were red, and he stared at her even after she turned away. Hmmm? To Max it looked like… well, young lust, at least.

Suddenly Max noticed Eviane’s expression and the Remington that she still held in her hands. Eviane’s weapon remained a rifle. For the moment before her face went quite neutral, she’d looked grief-stricken? Bereaved?

Several rifles remained unchanged. Why? The spirits must be preparing some, but not all, for situations where spears or clubs would be needed instead.

Shoot a seal with a rifle and it slips back into the water. A tethered harpoon might be more appropriate.

Then again… would some unnamed ghastly rather face a primitive spear than a rifle? If so, then their fighting efficiency had just been cut almost in half…

That thought having crossed his mind, Max sobered up and kept his eyes open.

They kept moving. The National Guardsman was watching, running back and forth along the line, almost like a Rottweiler on extreme alert. His rifle had transformed, and he looked so absurd carrying a war club at port arms that it was all Max could do to keep from laughing out loud.

Maybe because of the increased warmth, or perhaps because of the pace of their trek, Max was beginning to feel out of breath. He would have been embarrassed to ask for a halt… and in all his life he had never needed to. He simply waited.

“Snow Goose!” Orson gasped, very predictably. “Anyone! For God’s sake… take a break!”

Snow Goose ignored him for a while, her eyes on the horizon. Finally, she said, “Daddy said there’s a frozen lake up ahead. Warm as it is this side of Seelumkadchluk, it might not be frozen anymore, but that just makes it better for us.”

The snow was receding, and Max could see hills now, and splotches of brown and grass-green spreading. An arctic hare, its blotches of pale brown conspicuous against this new backdrop, poked its head at them curiously. Its ears twitched, and it sprinted across the hill.

Fatigue was a dull, leaden throbbing now, balanced by a growing awareness of hunger. He hadn’t really realized how starved he was. At the end of this trek there would be a break, with fresh water and food. He scanned the sled as it slid along, its wheels furrowing the icy ground. What was in those packages? Tinned meat? Tinned cake?

Hmmm. Army rations had been a joke since Hannibal, but Max loved the pound cake in army surplus survival kits. He hoped that there was an envelope of that in there. Was it likely, in this crowd?

Thin broth, a lettuce leaf, six spaghetti noodles with no sauce. Bet on it. They’d told him the Fat Ripper didn’t exactly starve the weight off. Run it off, that they might do. But no beer…

“No cake,” he murmured.

“And,” Trianna said, in tune with the flow of his thoughts, “no lasagna or steak Diane or noodles Romanoff, and as for the crepes Suzette, forget it.”

“My very thoughts.”

Her laugh was musical. Without projecting it, this woman had more sexual amperage than the other three combined. She was holding it leashed: Max was getting no direct signals.

“Playing menus in my head is an old game,” she sighed. “It’s more fun than thinking about how tired I am.”

She was too pretty not to give it a try. “Do you play any other games?”

She gave him a playful chuck with her elbow and dropped further back in line.

Birds called somewhere, although the horizon was still clear no, wait-there, at the edge of the sky he saw a few dark shapes, coming closer until for a glorious few seconds the entire sky was filled with birds, a gigantic flock that divided the sky with wing and call. The clouds were more golden and a wider gray, moving slowly across the sky. The sun was burning higher and brighter, hotter, almost as bright as a normal sun.

Nice. He was falling into Dream Park reality. It was becoming easy to distract himself with the teeming sky, the chunky poncho-wearing Adventurers, and rifles twisted into bizarre variants of spears and clubs… it was easy to slip into the dream, and believe that they were on their way to a great adventure. And ignore Orson’s whimpering. Would a real Adventure be this tiring?

Worse! Dream Park went easy on the Fat Rippers.

The path twisted up the low rise of a hill. His ankle turned on the gravel. He slipped and almost fell, but caught his balance and straightened up again with Eviane’s hand on his elbow. He looked at her and she looked away quickly, but the moment of contact was blistering.

There: another distraction from hunger. Amazing. He walked a little behind her and wondered when they were going to get a break. A nice, hour-long break, and a chance to sit with Eviane and schmooze.

He liked her, without knowing exactly why. Mystery woman? Nothing like curling up with a good mystery…

At the top of the hillock they looked down on a shallow valley and a lake. The air was so warm now that some of the Gamers were taking off their jackets. Red Bear seemed overjoyed that the sled was pulling itself now, and ran arfing toward the distant lake.

The Gamers broke into a run. The lake swelled up in their sight surrounded by reeds and tall grass. Before they went too many more steps, Grant stopped them. “Wait! Something’s wrong here.”

Orson wasn’t the only one who groaned. But Kevin ran up puffing to the front of the sled, freckled face burning with curiosity. “Something like what?” His nose twitched as he scanned the lake ahead. He puffed out his chest, and glanced sideways at Trianna.

“I can feel something wrong. I don’t know how.”

Snow Goose knelt down, took a closer look at the ground. “Something scary big has moved through here, and recently.”

The group gathered at the lip of the hill, gazing down as the wind blew thinly around them. Yeah, the ground had a roiled look, but wouldn’t melting and refreezing frost do that? Snow Goose chewed on her lip, then shook her head. The waters of the lake reflected the sun, choppy wind-blown swells rolling up to lap at the shallows and the reeds.

“Oh, nuts,” Grant said finally. “Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”

The surface of the lake erupted, and fifteen tons of madness intruded on their world.

It burst up, spouting, whistling like a blue and white nuke missile. It hung in the air an impossible moment, a thousand gallons of water raining from its back. With a roar that shook the earth, it slammed back into the lake.

Max’s mind worked at Mach speed, trying to correlate. This is a joke. This is a freakin’ joke! You don’t find orcas in lakes, f’ chrissakes!

Water splashed away from the immense blue and white mass.

The killer whale lunged again, but forward. The thud shook the earth. The whale had beached itself.

With motions reminiscent of a legless, armless man crawling toward a hated enemy, the whale pulled itself out of the water and humped up onto dry land. Wait: there were arms! A gnarled pair of tree-trunk-sized human arms projected from the body of the beast. Fingers as thick as thighs gouged furrows in the ground as it lifted its head and bellowed in rage.

“Jesus Christ!” Grant screamed, and tumbled off his sled as it slid down almost into the orca’s mouth. The sled dogs howled their terror. They tried to run in different directions. The reins held them in place.

The creature was on Red Bear and Otter in a moment, grinning and deadly, its rows of lethal teeth gleaming.

The refugees were scattered across the slope as the beast finished making puppy chow out of the huskies. Eviane had her gun up and firing faster than anyone else. Blood and water sprayed from the beast’s hide. Shucking his paralysis, Grant yelled:

“Dammit! Fire at will!”

He dropped to one knee and began placing careful shots into the whale as it made a bloody mess of the last of the pilot’s huskies.

It noticed him.

It came straight at the pilot with dreadful, unanticipated speed, humping across the ground on its stubby, grotesquely muscled human arms. Captain Grant stood his ground. Those who still had rifles began to fire, and more red splotches opened up on the whale’s flank. It twitched but didn’t slow.

Hippogryph was running toward it, zigzagging. His flintlock would only have one bullet.

Then the whale had reached the pilot, thirty times his size with a mouthful of razors. Grant shrieked as the teeth closed on him, ripped him into pieces, and swallowed him in an eternity that couldn’t have lasted more than six seconds.

The guns were useless. Snow Goose pulled at Max’s arm. “Harpoon! Use your harpoon!”

He had almost forgotten that he held it. If rifles didn’t work, why would a harpoon?

Because it’s magic, you idiot. He hefted the twisted spear and tried to find a balance. What had he ever done that could prepare him for this? Pitch softball? Throw darts maybe?

The beast’s next action ended his hesitancy. It reared about, managed somehow to give the impression of turning a neck that wasn’t there, and heaved itself directly at him.

Max let fly as the creature came within single-lunge distance.

The spear impacted in the dome of its head.

Instead of charging, the creature screamed in palpable agony. It flinched back. The other refugees howled their encouragement and let fly with their weapons. Spears and war clubs sailed true, and barbed the monster’s hide until it ran with blood. As it turned broadside Hippogryph fired point-blank. The beast shuddered and howled its misery, spraying black fluid from its spout-hole.

It fled for the safety of its lake. It rolled once in an attempt to rake the spears from its body. Weapons came free, clattering to the ground covered in whale blood. The spears and spiked clubs, baptized in combat, glowed with power. They sparkled green and red, colors arcing from weapon to weapon like tame auroras.

The land whale smashed back into the water. A huge wave expanded outward. When it subsided the creature was gone. Red boiled to the surface, and dissipated, and left the water clear.

Quietly at first, they walked dazedly over the site of the combat and gathered up the weapons. Max found his harpoon in the rubble, and hoisted it. It seemed different somehow. It tingled to the touch, and the white glow crawled down the length of the spear and onto his arm. The tingling grew more intense.

Bowles was the first to scream in triumph, lifting his war club to the sky. His voice was drowned in a dozen others.

“We did it!” Orson cried. He brandished a glowing spear: longer than Max’s harpoon, with a smaller, flatter head.

“I don’t get it,” Snow Goose said.

Orson looked around, irritated. Snow Goose was a guide: she was supposed to get it. “Now what?”

“That was a land whale. We should be dead now. All we had were Daddy’s talismans, and they were the leftovers, the weakest of the lot. Why aren’t we…” She paused, puzzling darkly.

Orson grinned. “We’ve got our own talismans. When you said that a good talisman gets its magic from-wup!”

They were dancing, falling. The land shuddered and roared. Max was on his hands and knees, but he saw the earth split and a shaggy, writhing wormlike shape rise questing into the light not twelve feet away.

Snow Goose’s face paled. She murmured, “Now, just a damn-” then changed her mind and screamed, “Kogukhpuk!”

Max stalked it, spear held ready. The snake wasn’t big; no more than three meters were showing. Pythons came larger than that.

Then the worm-shape trumpeted with pachydermic fury. The ground roared and crumbled above a great shaggy skull. The creature heaved the ground up and away with such ease that it seemed capable of shouldering the very heavens aside. Tiny eyes glared. The rest of it climbed free of the earth, twelve feet tall and twenty feet long, shaggy brownish fur almost draping the ground, worn and cracked tusks curling up and around like the bow of a sousaphone.

“A mammoth! A goddamned mammoth! But-” was all that the Guardsman had time to say, and then it was on him and — and past. It shuddered as if in agony, twitching and throwing its head back and forth. Trumpeting, it ignored the Guardsman and went straight for Eviane.

She was firing steadily. At the last instant she turned to run. The beast reared up and landed on her with both front feet. She disappeared in a thundering avalanche of dust, and was just gone.

For two or three seconds the mammoth stood like a stop-motion model, and shimmied. Max could almost hear gears hum but Max was in motion, running to get past the great shield of its head, then screaming as he hurled his harpoon into its side, behind the short ribs, aimed at the heart.

The spear went through it, sailed out the other side, and clattered audibly to the ground.

The mammoth flickered back and forth as if incapable of making up its mind. Other Adventurers were attacking. Bowles whacked effortlessly through its leg with a war club… and suddenly it was in motion again. It flailed at Bowles with its trunk, then, with blood streaming from a dozen wounds, it crumpled to the ground and lay sagging like a half-empty rag doll.

Max looked at Snow Goose, and her face was drop-jawed silly. The Guardsman looked the same.

What in the hell?

The mammoth sagged further. It was dissolving. Within a minute it had become dust and bones, then nothing but dust. The torn ground around it healed, until there was no trace that something singular had happened.

And where Eviane had stood, there was no blood, no clothing, nothing but flattened earth. As if she had never existed at all.

“Oh, shit rocks,” Snow Goose said, blanching. “She’s dead.”

“What?”

“She’s dead. I…” Snow Goose looked up, bewildered, at twenty-six pairs of bewildered eyes. She said, “The burrowing mammoth has claimed her for his own. T-tonight we mourn.” The formal words sounded utterly alien in her mouth. She seemed uncertain of her next word or move. “I… I guess we can camp here. We ran it off. We should be safe now…”

With equal uncertainty, the others shucked their packs. Max distinctly heard the Guardsman mutter, “Well, if that don’t beat all-” before their eyes met. The Guardsman was an Actor… wasn’t he? But the consternation in his face was real.

As for Max, it was as if the fates, or Dream Park, had promised him Eviane and then reneged.

He prepared to make camp. What else could he do? But something had happened, even if he couldn’t figure out precisely what. Was it an accident, or a glitch in the programming, or more goddamn clues?

For once, the guides seemed more shaken than the Gamers!