The California Voodoo Game

36

There were ten minutes left in the hour break when Alex Griffin returned. Mary-em was in animated conversation with Acacia when he came upon them. They exchanged a brief glance, and Mary-em wandered off to get some water.

Griffin pulled Acacia aside. His fingers were tight on her arm, his voice deadly urgent. "Bishop is up to something, Acacia, and you're in on it. If it's gambling, and that's all it is, I'm not interested. Keep your goddamned money. But I have to know. Now. This is your last chance. If you lie to me now, and I find out, with God as my witness I will nail you to the barn. Do you understand me? Last chance."

She opened her mouth, closed it again. Searched for lies, searched his taut, strained face for mercy, and found neither. Abruptly, all of the terror she had repressed came bubbling to the surface. She had trusted Nigel. Alex asked her to trust him. And he said that he didn't care about the gambling. That he was after something bigger.

She had to take the chance.

Acacia took his arm and led him away from the gazebo. They found a bench and sat. She began to whisper. "Right after the Game was announced," she said, "Nigel called me. We hadn't had an affair or anything, but I knew him, and I'd heard the stories." She stopped for a moment, as if lost in memories.

"Go on," he said flatly.

"We became lovers. I guess that's what you'd have to call it. I don't know what he thought."

Alex had the urge to push her a little more, to coax her. He made himself wait, and finally that patience was rewarded.

"I guess I fell in love with him, with his way of being, of doing things, and of seeing the world. He convinced me that there were bigger games to play, and that together we could play them. I guess I fell for it."

"I can see where this is leading."

"I'm sure. He felt that if we could both get into a Game together, we could fix a superbowl, force a win for one of the other teams. He showed me how it could be done, theoretically…"

"How?"

"The first step is to consolidate three of the other teams into a caravan. Then, on some pretence, capture the team you want to force into the winning position. It gives you an excuse to protect them, see? Then create weaknesses in the other teams so that a vital skill, necessary for the winning of the Game, can only be found in the 'captive' team."

"Sounds simple."

"I hope you're being sarcastic."

"Yes."

Her voice rose. "It's unbelievably complicated. You have to have a very precise understanding of the makeup of all of the other teams, and advance knowledge of the Game itself, particularly the endgame."

"How much inside data did Bishop have?"

"Hard to say what he knew and what he extrapolated. He might be the smartest man I've ever met."

He looked into her eyes, and there was a brief shrug, but no apology.

He tried another tactic. "You know that a security officer died. What you don't know is that a model of MIMIC's security setup might have been stolen. Did you see anything like that?"

She shook her head. "No. He has a lot of information. He's had it for months, on the Game, on the Gamers. The only thing I can say is that the night that the security woman died-"

Griffin grabbed her wrists. "I didn't say it was a woman."

Acacia talked very fast. Hysteria was creeping into her voice, and she couldn't meet his eyes. "I knew from one of your own security people Hasegawa, I think that something was wrong on Wednesday, Alex. I used one of Nigel's programs to break into your communication lines. I listened. I'm so sorry, Alex." She was starting to cry.

"Jesus." He slackened his grip.

"She was important to you, wasn't she?"

Alex nodded.

Acacia said, "I'll tell you anything I can."

"How did you communicate? Did you have a dead-drop system, or what?"

"One of these," she said. She unscrewed the hilt of her belt knife and shook out one of the little three-pronged communicators. "It uses MIMIC's electrical circuitry."

"I'll be dipped in shit." He held it up to the light, marveling. Could McWhirter have been wrong? "Can Bishop really pull this off?"

"Why not?" Acacia said. "It's not even strictly illegal. Gaming isn't licensed by the state athletic commission. I might get blackballed from the IFGS, but this has been the biggest Game ever. Maybe it's time to go."

''And what about Sharon?"

"I don't know more than I've told you, Alex. Maybe he didn't-didn't. Maybe it's nothing."

"Has he tried to kill you?"

"How can I tell? Everything's trying to kill me. I'm a Gamer. "

But the question hadn't surprised her. "I don't think so, Alex. And if he wanted me dead, wouldn't he have drowned me? That was the easiest place."

Alex sat back. What to do? Unless and until he got more information, his hands were tied. Even if Bishop had fixed the Game somehow, there was no proven connection to Sharon Crayne, and there might never be.

Bishop moved carefully around the inner periphery of MIMIC's fourth level. He was in shadow now, invisible to the unaided human eye.

But that wasn't what he was up against. He heard the purr and looked up. A maintenance robot glided along the crease of ceiling and wall. Its camera eyes stalked him, watched him. It would make no mistakes.

And it would not be alone. So. The forces of Dream Park were alert, but it was too damned late.

He had to keep moving. Had to stay in motion. By now Griffin must know all that Acacia knew, but that wasn't enough.

He could hear his own breathing, hear his own heartbeat, but somehow the sound of his crepe soles against the floor, the loudest sound of all, eluded him. I've made it. I've beaten them all.

And still he was second-guessing himself, going over it again, every move at the motel, every countermove. He had compartmentalized all information so that even Sharon Crayne's reanimated corpse couldn't tell them everything they needed to know. He had taken safety precautions, the irony of which Alex Griflin would appreciate, if he was bright enough to appreciate irony.

Nigel Bishop crept through the halls, paying no obvious attention to the roving camera eyes. He checked doors, drew maps of the hallways, made secretive preparations with his equipment. He was back in control. He could feel it. He was safe. All he had to do was hold out another hour or two, play the bucking Game, and get out, get far away, get away from where the woman had lain, submerged in water, blood oozing from her left nostril, her terrible blue eyes staring at him, through him…

He stopped, shaking, and wiped his palm across his clammy forehead. He had nothing to worry about. And it was too late for Dream Park to start being clever.

There's a parable about horses and barn doors, he thought. Griffin should learn it.