The California Voodoo Game

35

Friday, July 22, 2059 — 5:46 P.M.

Griffln found one of the hidden wall panels and thumbprinted for entrance. It slid back, admitting him to a sealed corridor. A second door yielded to him, and he entered a deserted offlce. He flicked on one of the monitors and punched up Harmony's number.

Harmony appeared in the air in front of him, looking startled. "Man, you look like hell. When was the last time you slept?"

"I got some sleep last night," Griffln said lamely. If he looked half as dead as he felt, they should have played him alongside Baron Samedi.

Millicent's image appeared, followed by Tony and Richard Lopez. Griffin wasn't happy about that, but it took only a minute to understand the sense of it.

"Mr. Lopez," he said finally. "We assume you will hold the following discussion in strictest confidence?"

"Of course." Lopez's image flickered a bit, and Alex adjusted it.

"All right. Thaddeus, what have we got?"

Griffln fought to maintain concentration while Harmony brought him up to date. God. All he wanted to do was crawl under a bush somewhere and sleep. "So Bishop might have known Sharon. Big coincidence. And he can't con himself into believing he could pull off this Army thing? Because that was the obvious…"

Tony shook his head, an emphatic negative.

Richard Lopez spoke carefully. "Understand, Mr. Griffin, that much of Bishop's strategy originates in his reverence for Sun-tzu's The Art of War. One reason that The Art of War is so easy to computer-model is that it suggests a very specific set of reactions certain stimuli. For instance: 'If you outnumber the opponent by a factor of ten, surround them. When five times greater, attack them. When two times greater, scatter them. When fewer in number, avoid them,' and so on. The combination of reactions creates infinite tactical variety. The basic reactions are If-Then propositions. At the very core is the constant reminder to never do what the opponent expects."

"Reasonable enough."

"But do you really understand it? The American military officer who came closest to Sun-tzu was probably Douglas MacArthur. During his Philippine campaign in World War II, he committed to retaking Manila. 'I shall return,' and so forth. The Japanese had prepared a series of reinforced military obstacles on his way there and he simply leapfrogged over them, never engaged at all. This strategy is typical of Sun-tzu. Bishop has had months to study your defences, and is probably prepared to leapfrog them."

"How?"

Lopez shrugged. "It will probably be conceptual in nature. You are already swimming in supposition, which has clouded your perceptions."

Griffin sat back, thinking hard. First, Bishop is just playing the Game, with Acacia as a lover. Then he's arranged to win with Acacia throwing the Game. Then he 's throwing the Game to Army, with Acacia's help. Then maybe he's not interested in the Game at all but if not the Game…

"We're wondering if he's after something in MIMIC, Alex," Harmony said.

"Then he's already got it."

"You know this, Alex?"

"Close… Bishop's turned flaky. He's just playing now. Whatever he wanted… Please stand by," Griffin said apologetically, and put Lopez and McWhirter on hold. Both of their images fizzled out.

He turned to Millicent, although he spoke for the computer. "I want a list of everything moved into MIMIC during the last eight months."

"On it, Alex." She performed magic, and a seemingly endless list began to scroll through the air before him.

"Shit. Sabotage?"

Millicent shrugged. "We wondered about that."

"Bugs. We'll have to sweep."

Harmony slapped his desk with his palm. "Dammit, why didn't we have ScanNet up by now?"

Griffin closed his eyes. "We got it in as fast as we could, Thaddeus."

"Yeah. So somewhere in that mess of possibilities is what Bishop wants."

"Maybe. Probably information; it's so portable. How long has Bishop spent off the scanners?"

Harmony consulted some figures in front of him. "About three hours total."

Alex brought McWhirter back on line. "Tony. None of the scanners have been disabled, have they?"

"No. Working perfectly, or close enough. We've had microburst static in several sectors."

"Analyzed for patterns?"

Tony's voice was small. "No. Security was waiting for you, I think-"

"Do that, dammit! What sectors? Pipe it in!"

The familiar holographic model of MIMIC appeared on the desk before them. "So… ScanNet picked up microburst transmissions… when?"

"Often when Gamers were moving through the areas. Probably RF static from Gaming equipment. Not all of that stuff is properly shielded, Griff."

"Still, dammit Tony, I trusted you. You know how important this is." Griffin's head was throbbing. "If you don't have enough sense to study those bursts-"

"I've b-"

Alex cut him off coldly. "Get on it, McWhirter, or suggest someone who can."

Tony stiffened. "I think that… if you feel like that, maybe Hasegawa should be doing this. He's already involved."

Alex massaged his right temple and felt the blood pulsing against his fingertips. "Yeah. You stick to the Game."

Tony nodded grimly. "I'll tell him." And he winked off.

No one spoke. Then Richard Lopez cleared his throat. "I think that I should return to my Game. Thank you. It has been… interesting."

Griffin nodded his head as the little man winked out.

"What now, Alex?" Harmony asked uneasily.

"I want MIMIC sealed. Most of the Gamers and NPCs are still there, waiting for the final scenes. Well nobody leaves until the Game is over and I've had a chance to think about this. Do you understand me? Nobody."

Tony McWhirter was angry, and hurt, and, more than anything, scared. Scared for Alex. Scared for himself.

Scared for Acacia. He had to admit it. Griffin had been pushed too far. Had he slept at all in the past three days? He was riding on the rims, and that wasn't rare, but Tony had never before seen Alex take it out on an employee.

In the main control room he gathered his things and said good-bye to the Game Masters, and spent a few minutes watching Sis. No worries there: the Oklahoman was handling six things at once without any visible strain.

Maybe Tony McWhirter wasn't needed at all.

Nobody had told him to leave the building; Griffin hadn't even insinuated that Tony was no longer an employee. After everything had cooled down, there might even be an apology.

If there was an afterward.

Tony wanted to do something, anything, to keep images of Acacia out of his mind. He had to talk with her again. Somehow. And if he could be a hero, could rescue the fair lady from her own stupidity, he might be rewarded with a kiss…

Or something. Dammit.

Now he was out of the loop altogether, and that was perfect for Bishop. While Bishop couldn't have counted on it, he had to know that Griffin was overloaded enough to make mistakes.

Everybody else playing this Game was playing by the rules. Tony McWhirter had promised himself a long time ago that he would play by the damned rules. Now a man who understood those rules was beating the hell out of the best minds

Dream Park could offer.

So Tony McWhirter would have to even the odds.

He went up to level fifteen, now deserted. Guards lurked in the building, and extra monitors had been quietly placed in position.

Tony found an unused console and used his security key to get in. It didn't take him long to access the recent conferences. He studied the security charts, noting the areas where microburst transmissions had been recorded.

All had been recorded while Gamers had been in, or minutes after they had been through, the area. Could Bishop have planted something to interfere with the Gaming computers? Making his own magic more effective, perhaps, overriding the on-boards…

Tony wanted to see one of those areas for himself.

On the thirteenth level, he found the Hollywood mock-up of Ile Ife. He grinned, remembering the chaos their stop-motion monster had caused. Tony kept to the shadows. The fields of reception weren't completely overlapped, he knew. There were places where a reasonably quiet person could move without being noticed by security apparatus.

After all, ScanNet's chief problem was to determine what was and was not fit to be sent on to the next substation. They couldn't send everything. So with the system only forty percent operative…

Dream Park's blind spot is its Gamers, Tony thought grimly. We're soft on them. It has to stop.

Tony sidled up to one of the monitors. It was a substation computer, set up to coordinate information sent to it by other monitors on this level. And it had sensed inappropriate static?

Disruption? Information? If Bishop had wanted to do something inappropriate during the Game, might he have wanted to disable the main processors?

But they would have known if a station was outright disabled.

But what if the information was distorted a bit?

All right. Say Bishop is after a piece of information stored in one of the Barsoom Project areas. Outside the Gaming sections. He transmits it during a melee. The sensors are overloaded; no one will notice.

Transmits it where? He can't get it out of the building.

How about one of the modular apartments? He steals information, breaks into a modular apartment, lifts the weather shield, and tight-beams the data to a waiting receptor miles away. On line-of-sight he could use a laser without tripping an alarm… could he? Maybe not.

But he couldn't have counted on it when he was preparing for California Voodoo. Whatever Bishop had, it was still in the building.

Tony began to scan the monitor. Nothing obvious, dammit. How about the surrounding area? A disrupter device wouldn't need to have physical contact with the equipment…

He crawled along the floor, checking connections. It was dark here. He was grateful for a tiny night-light plugged into the wall, and flicked it with his finger before going on.

He looked at the monitor itself. It was much more than a mere visual camera, but there was a standard, easily recognisable multivision receptor in plain sight. Made the tenants comfortable.

Nothing looked amiss. In fact, the cord looked very new, the joints of the rotating scanner arm as shiny as the day it had been installed.

In fact…

Tony looked at the scanner joint and traced it back into the wall. At the wall everything looked kosher, but the more he looked at the scanner, the more it disturbed him.

There seemed to be an extra metal collar around the output cables. Tony flicked a penknife out of his pocket and pried at it gently. With a click, it fell away.

Jesus. It was a bug, no question about that-some kind of tapping device. Short-range transmitter. To what receiver?

It could be anywhere, dammit, and the intent… What was it waiting to see? The only thing going on now was California Voodoo. The bug must be in place for later use. The microburst transmissions: mere noise…

But they'd led Tony straight here!

So the bursts were system tests? They had to be tests. There simply wasn't anything worth scanning here. Just a bunch of Gamers, fighting monsters in Ile Ife…

Mmm? A rival Gaming company? Disney Japan? Could Dream Park secrets be revealed by But dammit, every feed going out to standard monitors showed everything there was to see! Unless the ScanNet cameras showed things about special-effects techniques that ordinary cameras wouldn't?

What if, Tony thought, the real purpose of the entire exercise was to use ScanNet to analyze DreamTime, Cowles Industries' patented holographic and Virtual technology?

He had to find an office, call someone. Mitch. This tap could record information, and then maybe relay it to a transmitter that could reach outside MIMIC's cocoon of protection. At least I've got this!

"Let me get this straight," Hasegawa said. "You think Nigel Bishop is tapping the security lines to get a better look at DreamTime technology?"

"Yes."

Mitch Hasegawa shook his holographic head. "I don't buy it. In order for that to really be profitable, he would have to have access to the main banks. He only had access to the substations. They gather information and pass it on, get it?

They filter out, to keep the main banks from overload, but they don't interpret. And that's what he'd need."

Tony sighed.

"And anyway, why all of the rigmarole with the gambling, and the impossible bet?"

"It's a blind," Tony said. "He had to figure that somebody might see through part of his plan. This gives us a maze to chase through."

"But we won't chase through it forever."

"It keeps us busy for long enough. Till the Game's over."

"Makes sense." Mitch reached for his cutoff switch. "Gotta get back you know, you're not really supposed to be working on this. Not anymore."

"That makes it easier, Mitch. No pressure."

Mitch winked out, leaving Tony with wheels still spinning madly in his head and a silent giggle bubbling in his throat. No pressure!

Sharon Crayne, who needed help finding the child she gave up.

Nigel Bishop, who needed information only an insider could give him.

Acacia Garcia, partnered with Bishop…

In an impossible venture?

As a blind, the ''forced win" scenario was a good bet. Say Bishop could get five to one on Army. Bishop knew his own team was doomed: that's four to one. Any move Bishop made-nothing too overt, but no obvious opportunity ignored either-would help their chances. Three to one? A good bet, if you didn't bet your ass.

He couldn't make it a certainty, and he had to know it. But Acacia didn't! What if he had her so dazzled she believed that he could pull it off? He'd have a perfect accomplice, one who would bend the rules supposedly for money, while helping Bishop cover something bigger. Nastier.

Something involving the Barsoom Project and its billions of dollars. And some entity in Ecuador powerful enough to pierce Embryadopt's defences through diplomatic channels.

Or something involving Gaming: say, DreamTime Virtual display techniques…

Both had something in common. Tony could feel it, could taste its shape. A territory of the mind, an area bounded by Ecuador, Sharon Crayne, Acacia, MIMIC, the Barsoom Project, the California Voodoo Game and Nigel Bishop.

He could hear Richard Lopez saying, "It will be simple. Very simple. It will only appear to be complex."

He rubbed his temples. "Why can't I see it? Goddamn it, Richard! I'm a Game Master, too."