The California Voodoo Game

41

Monday, August 29, 2059

Alex Griffln usually left CMC at seven in the morning. It was as much of a pattern for him as anything in his life. CMC was an insular community, each of the units nestled into its spread of trees and shrubbery with minimal line-of-sight interference from the other units.

So no one saw the man who was a hundred yards away from Griffin's door that morning, a slender figure in green and brown camouflage cloth. When he shifted position, crawling against a patch of white rocks, the clothing changed color. He didn't approach the apartment, just watched it. He had scanned it, thoroughly, and didn't like what he saw.

The electronic burglar-proofing was dazzling. Griffin seemed to be a gadget freak. It made sense for the head of Dream Park security to be a paranoid, but this was absurd. There was no way a fly could get past the cameras and microphones and sensors without triggering something.

He wondered if Griffin was frightened. He'd been living in his apartment even while it crawled home to CMC, and he hadn't left it since.

What the hell is wrong with you, Griffin?

Nigel was breathing too hard, although there had been no physical exertion. He took a minute to calm his breathing. This was a time to be calm. And precise. MIMIC was unapproachable, true. His principals were screaming at him. Probably looking for him. He would have to go to them, data in hand, or…

Once again, his breathing annoyed him. He was very proud that he didn't think about the dead woman anymore. Never thought about her eyes, or the single thread of bright red…

The slender man lay panting in the shadows, forcing his mind back on track. A frontal assault would surely fail. There was a surfeit of hardware. A trap could be brewing.

But perhaps the human factor could be engaged. Yes. It had worked before. A pity he'd lost Acacia.

Tuesday, August 30

Alex Griffin rarely left the grounds owned by Dream Park-too rarely, it sometimes seemed to his friends. It meant that his contacts were limited outside of Cowles and Gaming.

So when a stunning blond free-lance writer entered his office, it was something of an event.

She stopped at his secretary's desk, his secretary being an attractive black woman with infectious energy. The plate on her desk said Millicent Summers.

"Hello," the blonde said. "I'm Penny Addington. I have an appointment with Alex Griffin?"

She was in Alex's office for an hour, and the two of them left later for lunch, by now chatting like old friends. She touched Alex's arm proprietarily, and Millicent hated her. By walk and dress and tone of voice she broadcasted that she was a bundle of sexual tension held under inadequate restraint. A man looking into those sharp blue eyes must feel he was peeking into a blast furnace.

He would come back cheerful, relaxed. Millicent thought she was braced for that.

Alex returned to the office two hours later, whistling merrily. "How's my favorite temp secretary?"

Millicent glared. "You're late."

"Any sacrifice for Dream Park."

"I'll just bet."

"You wound me. I was all business. I was too stupid to take hints. And oh, Millie, was I glad to see her." He smacked his palms together in delight. "Bishop doesn't have it! And time must be running out fast."

"Excuse me for asking, but what if she's really a vidzine editor? What if she likes muscles without brains?"

"Then the two of you could barhop together. Hahaha… Seriously, you should have seen her. Her hints got broad enough to make me blush. We made a date eight nights from now. She wanted sooner."

"You animal."

"God, if I wasn't me, I'd wish I were. Give Tony her address. I want all her personal records razed."

Millicent stood and moved next to him. When she spoke, her voice held no trace of amusement. "Why don't you just disable a couple of the alarms, Alex. Wouldn't it be… safer?"

"He doesn't like safety, or he wouldn't have sent that woman to get at me. He thought he could take on all of Dream Park, and he just can't do that. I want a chance at him, Millicent. And I'm going to get it."

Millicent started to speak, but then swallowed the words. There was more to this than Alex could ever say directly.

There was Sharon Crayne.

When it came to that little piece of unfinished business,and shadowy Ecuadorians mattered not a damn. In that realm, all that mattered was a final, terrible question which Alex Griffin needed to ask of a man named Nigel Bishop.

Wednesday, August 31

At three in the morning, Alex Griffin awoke from a sound sleep. A holographic window had opened in the air next to his bed. Even before his eye focused, he knew who it would be.

"Um-hmm." He rose, staring at his hands as he swung his feet to the floor.

He pulled on his underpants, and as an afterthought, a supporter with a plastic groin protector, as well. And a set of sweatpants, curling them up over the long, hard muscles of his thighs, to just under his flat, ridged belly.

He pulled a sweatshirt over his head and down his arms, and finally all the way down to his waist.

He gargled a mouthful of water, and spit it out.

Got to be presentable, he thought dourly.

His body creaked. He turned on lights and punched up the coffee maker. He disabled the alarms and opened the front door.

"Good morning," Nigel Bishop said flatly. "I thought that we should… talk."

"Talk?" Alex asked. "What do we have to talk about?"

Bishop walked through the open door, eyes moving constantly, evaluating without comment.

"Perhaps about Acacia. She's an interesting subject." He studied the furniture, the numbered prints, and finally an eighteenth-century ceramic statuette Griffin had acquired in Kyoto. It was a samurai, sword held in baseball-bat position, the kendo attitude known as basso, or eighth phase.

"It's a forgery," Bishop said helpfully. "I hope you didn't pay much for it."

"I don't need an art appraiser. What do you want here?" Alex was fully awake now. There was a hot, tight feeling in the pit of his stomach. And an unholy satisfaction in having lured Bishop into his lair.

Bishop gave Alex a meaningless smile and continued to examine the apartment. "Isn't there something you'd like to say?" Bishop asked.

Waiting for me to make a move, Alex thought. Doesn't want an assault charge. No breaking and entering. Smart.

Alex poured himself a mug of coffee and went out onto the balcony. His unit was on a slope, and he gazed out over the rolling hills. It was a good life, all in all. He had done stupid things, risky things, and become many different men along the way. And all of those moments had brought him here, to this.

"Yes." Alex said. He nosed at the coffee, but didn't sample it. It was still much too hot to drink. "I'd like to say something. I can't prove it, but we both know you killed Sharon Crayne. I don't know whether I loved her or not. I don't know if it could have worked. But she was young, and lovely, and very alive, and now she's dead. And you killed her."

Bishop made no denial, offered no affirmation. He merely waited, silently.

There weren't going to be any verbal games, then.

His left leg felt a little looser than his right. All right, then. Let's get it done.

Alex threw the scalding coffee at Bishop's left eye, then whipped a low sweeping kick into his right knee as he dodged.

But Bishop was rolling, under the coffee and over the kick. The man was as agile as a monkey, a tight springy rubber ball that bounced once, feinted left, and with eye-baffling speed slipped behind him.

Bishop pounced on Alex's back, hissing like a cat. His thumbs and fingers dug for Alex's windpipe, his carotid artery, gripped and tore at the muscles themselves. Griffin fell backward slammed to the ground, trying to smash the air from Bishop's lungs. Bishop squirmed from beneath him, and Alex lurched up, roaring.

Bishop had his arm in some kind of hold. Alex didn't have time to recognize it before Bishop spun and threw him. Alex felt as if his fingers, wrist, and elbows were all being torn apart. The pain made his whole body leap, and he spun through the air. He slapped the ground with his left arm, hard enough to make a bad breakfall against the carpet. Bishop was already jerking him up again, by the fingers this time. Alex's fingers were torqued into a sankyo wristlock, and in a moment, his head was going to be through the wall.

With a desperate surge of strength Alex went against the hold, wrenching his hand loose. He felt his index and second fingers snap under the unearthly torque.

Alex's mind went blank. He abandoned technique, smashing into Bishop shoulder-first, tackling him, carrying him back over the couch, sprawling on the floor with him, and crashing his elbow into Bishop's face: once, twice, thrice. Bishop's eyes were wide and wild, his face split, blood drooling in a mask from eyes to chin. He snapped forward and butted Alex in the mouth, mashing lips against teeth and driving his head back.

Bishop struck the exposed throat with the web between thumb and forefinger, and Alex retched. Bishop arched his back massively, heaving Alex up and into a table.

Bishop tried to regain control, to return to some kind of a balanced posture, but Alex drove back in with no concern for pain, or injury, or anything except the primal urge to finish what had begun.

They thundered against the wall, into the corner, upsetting another table. Bishop strove to get the distance to use his superior technique, to no avail. Griffin time and again took fearful abuse to ribs and face to hammer Bishop back. To hurt him, punish him, make him forget all of the carefully learned combat maneuvers and force him to react on the animal level. This wasn't a dojo ballet. This was two cats in a sack, and Griffin was beyond concern for life or limb or anything but smashing the man before him.

Alex's face was a mask of blood, but with head bowed he worked Bishop's body, left hooks and right elbows, grunting with the effort, broken fingers standing out at an angle, not thinking, not feeling, a perpetual-motion machine that went on and on and Bishop's nerve broke.

He screamed, forgetting his human skills, forgetting everything except the blind urge to get away from the maniacal thing that Alex Griffin had become.

Alex slammed a knee into Bishop's crotch, the hardest and most heartfelt blow of his life.

Bishop went limp, gagging. Alex stepped back with his left And his foot slipped on the coffee.

He fell, and Bishop twisted under him, sobbing with the effort, foot striking up and into Griffin's groin in a modified tomoenage stomach throw, arching up and back, throwing Griffin high Alex smashed through the patio glass, somersaulting out and over the balcony.

Bishop lurched to his feet, vomited, and almost choked on it. He managed to steady himself and focus his eyes.

He had only seconds, if that. He spun a chair into the center of the room and reached up to the ceiling next to the lighting fixture. There, hidden in a shadow, was a piece of white glue no bigger than a thumbnail. And upon it was a tiny beige plastic chip. His hand shook as he pried it loose.

With agony in every joint and muscle, blood oozing from his nose, Bishop managed to crawl over the balcony and drop to the ground five feet below.

Griffin lay at the bottom of the slope, his head twisted at an odd angle. Maybe the bastard's neck was broken. Bishop didn't have time to check. No time! He had to escape, to find a doctor, to get his precious data into the right hands before someone put a bullet in his brain.

Fingers clutching bruised ribs, Bishop limped into the shadows. Every step hurt. He made his way along a line of retreat secured far in advance. Within minutes he was in his car, had punched in an address and collapsed against the seat, tears of pain starting from his eyes. I'm alive, he thought. Alive and flying now, as the car began to rise. Flying away from Griffin, away from Dream Park. Away from the clamor of alarms and yapping dogs, the steady panicked cry of first two and then a dozen throats. As fast as the car could travel he flew, away from that one thing worse than an honorable defeat: a humiliating victory.