The California Voodoo Game

Thursday, July 21, 2059 — 6:55 P.M.

Cautiously, Bishop and Coral entered the deserted village of Ile Ife.

It was exactly-exactly-as it had been when they first entered. The Panaflex camera sat deserted. Behind a stand of banana trees, the wind machines howled and churned the air. The General Dynamics team might never have existed at all.

Bishop made a megaphone of his hands and shouted, "Hello!"

His answers were echoes buffeted on the artificial wind. Then nothing. The planetarium sky/ceiling above them shifted. Tarnished statues and bronze busts, human figures caught in midscream, moved not, spoke not. Wept not.

Bishop scanned the set for living things, carefully suppressing his grim satisfaction at the negative reading.

"Like, ohmigawd," Coral said. "Where is everybody?"

"Time to find out." Bishop scratched a circle in the dirt with his sword, muttering a guttural mouthful of arcane words.

The wind died. The soil began to ripple and shift. Dust fell from the air, like dry tears shed by invisible eyes. In the dirt the falling many-colored dust began to shape a crude, impressionistic sand painting.

It became less abstract, became an accurate rendering of Ile Ife, with three human stick figures caught frozen in attitudes of horror. More sand fell… the painting took on detail: Trevor Stone and his teammates stood frozen in time. Bishop muttered again, folding his fingers together in a mystic glyph, and the drawing began to move.

Once again, Trevor hurled his grenade at the chameleons. The director descended upon them, enraged. And then "Shit."

Bishop scuffed the earth with his toe, obliterating the painting. He was drawn to the rows of statues scattered about the set. They weren't exactly the same. Three new statues were partially buried in the earth. Two men. One woman. Mouths gaped open in primal scream, as if voicing final pleas for mercy before consignment to the pits of hell.

Bishop held his breath, tensing his muscles to create a convincing imitation of rage. "The fool. That raving imbecile Stone. How could he do this to me?"

He tilted his face up to the ceiling, squeezing his eyes shut as if calculating odds and possibilities. Coral stood in silent confusion, not daring to speak. Finally Bishop's lips curled in a thin, vicious smile. "On the other hand," he said, "one might take the optimistic view: we have just separated the wheat from the chaff."

"Mr. Bishop, you don't have a team!"

Coral had slipped out of character there. Bishop patted her head. "So I don't. I shall adopt one. Come."

Bobo the guide stalked MIMIC's silent halls in a state of total concentration. He sought to pierce the veil of shadows, listened for signs of menace beneath and beyond the fading echoes of the Gamers' own footsteps. Every footfall offered new risk, every dust-sealed doorway concealed new danger.

It was a schizophrenic world Alex Griffin walked. His ache for Sharon and his need to perform his sworn duties were at war with the DreamTime illusions. If he submitted, he was betraying his heart, and his trust. And if he resisted, he could be killed out of the Game.

So he scanned for demons, or goblins, or zombies and kept one unwavering fragment of his attention for Acacia.

She remained as skittishly alert as an antelope, avoiding his gaze, but always an arm's distance away.

Griffin whispered a quiet command. Information scrolled across the left lens of his mirrored sunglasses. He split-focused his attention, searching the halls for danger while he combed through data:

Acacia Garcia, 34, MA in Business Administration, had been top-seeded into the game. There had been little doubt that she would be one of the five leaders.

On the other hand…

Nigel Bishop, 36, with a master's in Psychology and a doctorate in Communication Arts from Columbia University, had stepped back into the IFGS after seven years of retirement. Had bribery or blackmail helped him win his slot? Unlikely but he might have used his reputation, the Myth of Nigel Bishop, for intimidation.

Tammi's eyes shifted left to right and back again, watching for clues or threats. She was point person as their column swept through an abandoned corridor. It was lined with abandoned shops: barber, beauty, comic books, massage, and something called a 7-Eleven store. A sign in its window promised a Big Gulp for eighty-nine cents.

Seven-Eleven? Big Gulp? That last had an unwholesome sound, but even in '95, even in California, surely eighty-nine cents wouldn't buy Sound ahead. Her staff snapped to the ready, but it was just Nigel Bishop again, with Coral tagging behind.

Ambush? Where was the rest of his team?

"Parley," he said.

"What do you want, Bishop?"

"A situation has arisen "

Tammi aimed her staff at his throat. "A situation, eh?"

"Please." Nigel was using his very best let-us-reason-together voice. "While I last spoke with you, my second-in-command disobeyed my direct orders."

Tammi didn't relax, but the corners of her mouth twitched up. "Seeing as how you've distanced yourself from their actions, may I assume that they fucked up?"

"Big time. Only my guide and I are left. I have information and booty to offer, in exchange for joining your caravan."

"Standard deal, aside from that?"

"Standard."

Tammi shook out her mane of blond hair and seemed to be considering the offer. "Hold on."

Acacia and Twan huddled with Tammi, speaking in a hush, only occasionally peeking up at Bishop. Tammi sauntered back to Bishop, putting no more sashay in her walk than the average Barbary Coast fancy girl.

"You're on, big boy."

The caravan regrouped, ten players and two guides proceeding together through the darkness.

Griffin dropped back next to Bishop and took the opportunity to study the man carefully.

He was two inches shorter than Griffin, and weighed perhaps a hundred and eight-five exceptionally muscular pounds. His stride reminded Griffin of a two-legged lynx. Effortless grace, the lazy promise of blinding speed and crushing power. All his life, Griffln had earned physical skills through sweat and bruised flesh, and had the working jock's quiet loathing for, and admiration of, those who possessed such skills naturally.

He remembered the elegance of Bishop's victory over Clavell. What art might have spawned such a devastating move? It was similar to Griffin's home art of jujitsu, but there was a theatrical flourish, a fluidity, which he couldn't quite identify.

Bishop was whistling something between his teeth. "There's No Business Like Show Business," maybe. It was just low enough to be indistinct.

Still whistling, Bishop turned and examined Griffin from shoes to hair, wearing a mild, faintly ironic expression the entire time. Bishop's tune changed, and now he was rendering "Send In the Clowns."

And rendering it beautifully, dammit.

Acacia glanced back at them, uneasily, as if wondering when they would spring at each other's throats.

"Hold up!" Bishop called suddenly, and pointed out a doorway camouflaged as a wall panel. "This is the one." He peeled back a layer of plastic and scanned inside. "Nope, no beasties. Ladies first?"

"I think not," Acacia said icily, and curtsied. "After you, sirrah."

The Adventurers split into a fan formation for a careful search of Ile Ife. Bishop hung back, catching Acacia's arm.

"So, dear heart. Have you and Bobo been having a fascinating conversation? Catching up on old times?"

She twisted her arm, but couldn't pull it away. "We're in the middle of a Game, you idiot. This isn't any time for jealousy. "

"Jealousy? Darling, your warm and supple body is the promise of heaven, but I prefer more mundane rewards."

"I made a deal," she whispered. "I'll keep it. I told you he was here, didn't I?"

His fingers slackened a bit. "Just remember whose team you're on," he said, and his fingers tightened again, with brief, shocking strength. Then he released her.

Acacia felt as if a motorcycle had run over her arm. She rubbed at it, trying to get the blood flowing again.

Her vision clouded, and she blinked hard to clear it.

You bought this horse, you crazy bitch. And you better be able to ride it home.

"What happened here?" Tammi asked Bishop. The stone column still jutted toward the ersatz sky. Bronzed actors still blindly clawed their way from the ground.

"Stone attacked a messenger of the gods. Bad move."

"So what's our move?"

"Begin a Summoning. When a chameleon appears, give gifts. That'll put you in square with the gods."

Bishop lingered back as the Adventurers gathered to begin the ceremony. Almost accidentally, he wound up next to Griffin again.

Strangely, Bishop seemed smaller than before. Was he slumping a little? A little tired and maybe worried? Suddenly Griffin saw Bishop as a Gamer-King of the Gamers, perhaps. Capable of projecting enormous self-assurance, but under pressure, that veneer could crack. Had it?

The sky rumbled, and the chameleon appeared. The Adventurers backed away to give it room to land.

Bishop straightened up, jaunty and invincible as ever. "What are you looking at, Bobo? Hadn't you better help your masters?"

Griffin tensed with anger, and then relaxed. Suddenly Bishop seemed entirely human-sized. A nervous Gamer, losing his Game in front of ten million viewers. The mingled sensations of relief and contempt washed over him

And then receded.

For just an instant, half a heartbeat, Bishop had been watching him, appraisingly. Wondering which mask Griffin would accept?

One by one, gifts were placed on the bulbous tip of the chameleon's sticky tongue.

"They're doing fine by themselves," Griffin said. The hairs at the back of his neck crawled with alarm. What was he sensing? A shell of bravado, around a shell of insecurity, around what?

I should yank your ass out of this Game, Griffin swore silently. But I don 't have justification. Maybe I just don't like you. God knows if I yanked you, you could claim I did it out of sexual jealousy, and cause a stink.

So I'll watch. And wait.

The remaining Trogs crouched in a thicket of potted banana trees. Tammi and Mouser crowded close, blocking the view of any observer. "Bishop's off talking to Bobo the Second," Tammi said.

Twan nodded. She produced a palm-sized mirror. She made a mystic gesture.

Appelion lay in a double-shelled resurrection coffin. Tendrils of superchilled nitrogen fog writhed around him. His eyes were closed. His face was pale, the cheeks pink with rouge and dusted in frost.

"Ah, he looks so natural," said Mouser.

Twan said, "To wake the dead requires great power."

With eyes still closed, Appelion said, in a wintry, whispering voice like the wind from a great, dark cave, "Greater power yet, to put the dead to sleep. Be sure of your power."

"Wake, Appelion."

The eyes opened. "Even the patience of the dead has limits."

"It's been an active Game."

"I have seen."

"Have the Masters of the Great Game aught to tell us?"

"Seek the waters above and below."

"We thank-"

"That's from them. This is from me, so listen up." He still lay dead, his lips barely moving beneath his bushy black beard. "There's a book, The Sirius Mystery, by… somebody Church. No, Temple, dammit. Robert Temple. The basic idea is Chariots of the Gods with better logic and better evidence. Have you time to hear?"

"We'll make time."

"There's a tribe in Mali, the Dogon, who know far too much about Sirius. They know it's a double star. They know Sirius B is tiny and very dense-"

"What?"

"They put Sirius B, the white dwarf, in a fifty-year elliptical orbit with Sirius A at one focus. How does an African tribe come to know about a completely invisible white dwarf star? And Kepler orbits?"

"Is this for real?"

"Temple believed so, and did his research well. He tracked these legends back to ancient Egypt, and Sumer, and all over the Mediterranean basin. Does any of this sound familiar?"

Mouser and Tammi looked blank. Twan said, " 'California Voodoo', in the notes. They mentioned a recurrence of the number fifty in Egyptian legends."

"Egyptians?" Mouser was puzzled. "What does that have to do with voodoo?"

"Remember to be literal, Voodoo is fragments of African religion, filtered through other beliefs. Fragments, dammit. What was the reality? If a people without a written language played 'Telephone' with a bizarre occurrence ten thousand years old, and the result was the hundred different threads of voodoo, santeria, Palo Mayombe, whatever, what was the original event?"

Twan nodded, one jerk of her head. "Go on, Brother. "

The dead man said, "According to Dogon legends, knowledge was given to men by aliens from outer space. The Dogon called them Nommo. The knowledge givers apparently never claimed to be gods. They're given as benevolent and butt-ugly. And aquatic. They sound alien, don't they?"

"Nommo," Twan murmured.

"Did you notice the headdresses in the Mami Wata ceremony, just before Clavell chopped me open? Ridiculous little fish tails sticking out the back. The Nommo have dominion over water and the ocean, like Poseidon, like the Sumerian god called Wannis, spelled O-A-double-N-E-S. That fifty-year orbit wound up in a lot of legends, not just the Dogon calendar. Fifty Argonauts, fifty dragon's teeth and fifty of Mamissa Kokoe's natives involved in the Mami Wata ceremony on the roof. I counted."

Tammi glowed. "Damned good, Appelion. Cipher couldn't have topped that. What does it do for us?"

"I'm not sure… The involvement with Egypt is very old. Remember the pyramid on the roof?"

"Yeah." Mouser had caught Twan's excitement, was vibrating like a little top. "I thought it was part of the air-conditioning system or something. I want a look."

"Corrinda disappeared during Mami Wata. You know, Thief, bad knee, with Panthesilea? Maybe she got a closer look. Watch her. Watch for pyramids and pyramid power. Watch for the number fifty. Temple published a Dogon sketch of a spacecraft with a rotating rim, 'wheel within a wheel,' but it looked to me like some savage tried to draw a helicopter. There was a lander, maybe: cross-sections of needle-nosed spacecraft with interior detail, but they're obelisk-shaped, so look for obelisks, too."

Twan said, "That's a lot."

"Yeah, and no guarantees. But it's the only place I've ever seen a word like 'Nommo' and I'm out of ideas," Appelion said.

"Then go to your well-earned rest, Warrior."

The chameleon's mouth opened, and its tongue flashed out. Stuck to its tip was a staff, a miniature of the nail-studded column in the town square. He presented it to Acacia.

Captain Cipher inspected it without touching it. "This must be the Staff of Oranyan. This," he said, voice filled with awe, "this is serious power."

Twan was watching. Behind her impassive expression, she was exploding with excitement. You're wrong, Cipher, she thought. The Staff of Orarryan is just another bauble. Knowledge is power.