The California Voodoo Game

24

A fire roared in the recroom's artificial fireplace, throwing vaguely human shadows onto the walls. Griffin sat with his back to a bookcase, finishing an omelet. He hated to admit it, but Bishop was a hell of a cook.

A soft voice above him asked, "Mind if I sit down, Bobo?"

Before he could answer, Acacia sat down next to him, balancing a plate of food on her knees.

"So," Alex said. "Your name is Panthesilea?"

"Yes. I come from the domed cities, an enclave far to the east. We came in peace." Her brown eyes were soft. "I come in peace, Bobo."

She chewed thoroughly, giving it her full attention. "I was wondering… if there is more than one reason for your presence."

Alex's tongue teased a scrap of bacon from between his teeth. He should have felt numb at Acacia's proximity, but instead the sensation was closer to dry heat.

"Duty," he said, vaguely disassociated. "I am here for duty."

"And not adventure? Or love?"

In the recreation room behind them, Top Nun had found a guitar and was beginning to strum. He hadn't noticed when it started, but his ears perked up when she said, "I've got one for you, Cipher. Listen to this-" Lentia has a large one, and so has cousin Luce. Eliza Izas a small one, though large enough for use. Beneath a soft and glossy curl, each Lass has one in front. To find it in an animal you at the tail must hunt…

Acacia grinned. "Mali's riddling Captain Cipher again. It won't do her any good."

"He's good?"

"He's a freak. He's got no practical skills at all, but throw him into a trivia game, or funny math, and there's no one better." She caught herself. "And he is a mighty Wizard."

"The world needs more magic," Alex said, a little surprised at himself. Hermaphrodites have none; Mermaids are minus, too. Nell Gwynn possessed a double share if books we read are true. It's used by all in Nuptial Bliss, in Carnal Pleasures found. Destroy it, Life becomes extinct, the world is but a sound…

Acacia had finished her food, and she daubed at her mouth with the corner of a napkin. She stood and extended her hand to Alex. "Walk with me?"

"Wait one," he said, and whispered, "Tony?"

A cricket-voice in his ear said, "Here."

"Watch Bishop."

"Absolutely. "

"And get an inventory on these apartments."

"Got it. Out."

"Ready," he told her. Lasciviousness here has its sources, Harlots its use apply. Without it Lust has never been, and even Love would die. Now tell me what this wonder is, but pause before you guess it. If you are mother, maid, or man, I swear you don't possess it."

Cipher lazily said, "The letter L." And Top Nun groaned.

Acacia laughed and led Alex out.

She collected her bedroll in both arms and threw her head back, hipshot, in an attitude of naked challenge.

Alex followed her out into the hallway and down past the other bedroom, into a modular living room.

The modular capsule hadn't been fitted in. Acacia punched up the safety code, and the weather wall rolled up, exposing blue-black desert sky and night-grey mountains.

Stars clustered beneath and above them in uncountable thousands, like handfuls of diamond dust floating on a warm pool of oil.

Acacia busied herself in creating a nest, pulling together cushions, a mattress, pillows, and her bedroll. Finally she sat down, drawing him to sit next to her.

"Hello, stranger," she said, suddenly shy. She seemed a little smaller, more vulnerable.

"Am I talking to Acacia or Panthesilea?"

"Acacia. You're not here to play, Alex. What is this?"

Alex sighed. Relief was surely not the proper emotion, but it was as if the burden of maintaining an impossible deceit had lifted from him. He stretched; his shoulders relaxed; his spine seemed to expand upward. Acacia watched in astonishment.

"I need to know, and I need to know now," he said bluntly. "Was Bishop with you Tuesday night?"

"Part of the time." She kept her voice even. "I came in late. Then he went out, and came back in. There were a lot of parties going, Alex."

He watched her eyes closely. "One of our security personnel died Tuesday night. There could be a connection to this Game. Can you account for your whereabouts?"

She shook her head slowly, for the first time feeling her disquiet blossom into fear. "I was in my room, alone."

Alex cursed to himself. Acacia was as much of a suspect as Bishop. And with thousands of Gamers in the hotels, and hundreds of parties, how hard would it be for Bishop to establish an alibi? Or a dozen alibis?

"I'll only ask this once," he said. "Are you fixing this Game?"

Acacia's stomach sank. It had all come down to this. Bishop was a Thief, a liar, a manipulator. But he wasn't a killer. She was certain of that, as certain as a woman could be of a man she… cared for. She could never have opened her heart like that, never have responded like that…

Then, why were you afraid? You have no proof, she told herself. And if you say anything, and Nigel is innocent, then millions will be lost, to no avail. And even if he If he did it…

There would be time later for prosecution. Buy time to think. She knew damn well she had hurt no one, but she might still be implicated. She would need that money for her defence. As Nigel would need it for his. And after all, he's innocent until proven guilty.

Mother of Mercy, Nigel just couldn't…

It isn't difficult to fool a lie detector, or a superb inquisitor. One technique involves deliberately misunderstanding the question. The question Alex had asked was, "Are you fixing this Game?" a question she had anticipated.

The question she answered was, "Does Gaming bore you?"

"Jesus, no," she said fervently. "Alex, I love competing, more than anything in the world. Don't you know me better than to ask that?"

Alex searched the beautiful face he knew so well. Something flickered there, some unease…

But he couldn't call her reply a lie, and his gut instinct told him that she was no murderer. Whatever she was concealing, it was not that.

He wanted to believe her…

And he wanted to believe her a liar. It would have made everything so damned simple. Case solved. Sleep well, Sharon. You made a mistake and paid for it. But I brought the bastard down.

Now, he felt lost. Where to start? Unless there was physical proof, or a solid motive, or a link between victim and prospective perpetrator…

He had zip.

He felt tired, and old, and beaten.

A dot of light flashed across the horizon-the real horizon, wasn't it? Could there be a hologram going? It would have to be huge, and to what end? So that was a flying car zipping just above the horizon, heading over to Yucca Valley.

There was a glow over the hills to the north. Was that the new spaceport? And what would be coming in there? There was a very distant hum, perhaps the sound of a helicopter. They were building things out there, things that would have some meaning in the new world that was coming.

And he, Alex Griffin, wouldn't be a part of it. Sharon would have been. But Sharon was dead now, had been cold for sixty hours.

Clutching at straws, Alex bore back down: he and Acacia had met during the South Seas Treasure Game. There, Tony McWhirter had used her to get in and commit industrial espionage. Tony truly believed she had been duped. Could it be happening again? Or could she be partially guilty, and afraid to talk?

"So now you're with Nigel Bishop?" he asked casually.

She smiled. There was only moonlight and starlight and the distant glow around them. Alex rolled over and looked up at the luminous height of MIMIC, allowing himself to feel awe.

"As much as anyone could be."

"Where is he now?" He watched her starlit face flicker with uncertainty. And then he was sure. She doesn't know what he's done. She has no idea.

"I'm cold," Acacia said, her voice a child's. She had snuggled up closer to him. Her body smoldered, like a coal wrapped in cotton. She draped the sleeping bag over them both, concentrating enough heat to bake potatoes.

Someone had found a music system, and from one of MIMIC's other alcoves drifted a soft, seductive rhythm. It seemed to wrap around them, separating Alex from the pain and the suspicions. He gazed out over the desert. It seemed so open, so direct and unsullied. It reminded him of another Alex Griffin, a younger Alex Griffin. The night's chill enveloped him.

Acacia sensed his withdrawal. Her head lowered, until she was staring down the blanket, at the floor.

The moonlight silvered her hair, her eyes, the long elegant line of her throat. He remembered the times of holding, and striving together. Remembered when they had tried to love each other.

They had failed. Failed each other, and themselves. And what, if anything, did he owe this magnificent creature now? The benefit of the doubt?

"Are you ever sorry we didn't work out, Alex?"

"I was. I'm not."

She chewed on that for almost a minute. Then: "Do you have someone?"

"No," he said quietly. "No one."

Alex felt that chill penetrate into his bones, transforming him, as if with some subtle Dream Park magic, into a man of ice.

"I'm sorry about us, Alex." She laid her head on his shoulder with surprising tenderness. "I'm just your garden-variety man-eating adrenaline junkie." She choked back a small, sad laughing sound. "That's not what you need."

He smiled bleakly. "And what do I need?"

"If you knew what you needed, you'd find it. And hold it."

If you knew…

If truth had been spoken in the past hour, it was contained in those three words. If you knew. And in the paralysing light of that truth, all thoughts of lies died quiet deaths. And Alex Griffin, cleansed of lies and thoughts of lies, gazed unblinkingly into his own heart.

They stayed that way for a time, and then she pulled her face away and looked up at him, their lips an inch apart. She kissed him, not passionately, but with her lips parted slightly. Her eyes shone.

We're both in a box, Alex, they said. We both hide in a world of dreams. We can tell lies about that, but we know the truth. And always have. But couldn't we tell just one more lie, just to each other, just for tonight?

He shook his head silently.

"I'm through with lies," Alex said, so softly that the words were lost in the breeze howling in from the east.

So they sat there, sharing the moonlight. Acacia turned her head away from him. Alex thought he heard, or saw, or felt her crying.

But he couldn't be sure. It might, after all, have been the wind.

A few words to "Brother" Prez, and Nigel Bishop was out the door. A little reconnaissance, if you please.

Nigel Bishop moved through shadows. Considering all that had happened, he was at peace. Sharon Crayne's death had been tucked down somewhere inside him. He would deal with it later. Later…

(But from time to time came an image, a stray memory. Just the sight of Sharon Crayne, submerged in water, a thread of blood drifting, curling up from her nostril, dispersing in the warm, oily water…)

Later, dammit!

He forced that phantasm from his mind. He triggered his Virtual apparatus, its slimline visor and auditory channels. Sharon's map floated, superimposed upon reality.

MIMIC's security system was not yet completely in place. There were still pockets where the various line-of-sight, auditory, and infrared devices failed to overlap properly, giving an incomplete image or, better still, no image at all.

Given further adjustments and modifications, all of those gaps would be filled in.

But for now…

Bishop floated through the hallway, remaining in shadow, picking locks to move through fire doors after disabling their alarm systems.

He knew which doors, which hallways, and which passages to challenge. Always. He was never deep-scanned. A few cameras or sensors picked up his ghost, but then there were Gamers in the building anyway, weren't there?

It wasn't strictly illegal for him to be out and about, was it?

The computer pod on his belt sensed the scans, targeted them, and recorded their points of origin. He slipped here and there and there, and as he went, he busied himself with the real function of his trip, the true intent, unguessed by all.

Although Sharon, in her final moments, had had a glimmer of a clue.

Sharon, her dead eyes staring at him, that thread of crimson drifting from her left nostril. It had been so bright. Terribly bright.

Bishop ground his knuckles against his temples, swallowed hard. Bitch. You twisting, faithless bitch. It was your fault, damn you to hell. It was-leave me alone!

Careful. He had almost screamed it aloud, that time. Almost. Close, close, tippy-toe.

Horrified, he heard his thoughts devolve to a giggle.

He had to be calm. He had to finish what he had begun. He should be safe: there was no evidence. Acacia and Griffin would be making the naked pretzel by now, and that suited him fine. Griffin would doubtless try to pump her for information. And that slut couldn't keep her legs together with a C-clamp.

Griffin.

Bishop pulled out of the way as a roving spy eye glided along a track in the upper corner. He steadied himself. It would be a bizarre coincidence if he fell afoul of a Gaming trap just now, wouldn't it? And he wouldn't be surprised if the Game Masters were figuring out how to bend the odds to get to him. They must be foaming at the mouth by now.

Griffin.

He was annoyed with his mind. It didn't want to obey him. Why the interest in Dream Park's rent-a-cop? True, Griffin had a certain style. A spark of challenge.

Not intellectual challenge, of course. Griffin was no match there. But the man had a certain brute physical cunning, combined with enough desperately cultivated coordination that he was probably competent in combative movement.

Bishop thought little of physical combat, although he was, of course, a master of its intricacies. Alex Griffin's head might be a trophy worth having…

Damn it! There was no time to think of things like that. It was insanity. There was only the job. And if the Game had become unexpectedly lethal, that was just more spice, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

Alex Griffin.

There was unfinished busimess there, something for the two of them to say to each other when all of this was through. Bishop wiped his hand across the back of his neck, and it came away cold and clammy.

Bishop heard that giggle percolating again. He was beginning to like the sound.

And that scared him most of all.