The California Voodoo Game

5

The mezzanine thundered its applause, echoed by five thousand hands in surrounding hotels.

Dream Park's twenty-six hundred acres was surrounded by dozens of fantasy-theme hotels. Some were owned by Cowles Industries, many were not. All were touched with the Dream Park magic; all were a tram away from the most fabulous amusement park in the world. At the moment, most of them were operating at minimal capacity.

Dream Park was closed.

In thirty-six hours, four hundred of the Park's employees would be involved in the greatest Game in its history. For one week, the management would take a rare opportunity to shut down, to perform as much maintenance and overhaul work as they could.

The Arabian Nights Hotel was a prickly forest of minarets under a canopy of laughing jinn. It was raucously noisy now, swelled to capacity with Gaming enthusiasts.

If Dream Park, crown jewel of the Cowles empire, was momentarily subdued, it still burned in the night like far Damascus. At this precise moment, to one special observer, it seemed to be blazing upside down.

A man hung by his heels from the roof of the Arabian Nights. His calf-boots were snugged in a loop of synthetic filament the approximate thickness and weight of a spiderweb. It had a breaking strength of twenty-seven hundred kilograms.

His was an unusual figure: wasp-sleek, perfectly muscled, moving beautifully beneath a leotard-thin shadow-black jumpsuit.

Surprisingly, the wind blowing off the Mojave carried a mist of rain. It slicked his face, dropping the temperature to below fifty. He hadn't reacted to the heat, or to the exertion, and now had no reaction to the wet.

The sky above crackled with lightning and a distant roll of thunder. The wind stiffened, and the rain became a pounding curtain.

He hung, a spider weaving its web in a torrent. Unmindful, he watched the inverted phantasmagoria of Dream Park and sighed. It had been… what? Seven years?

He spoke a quiet word. His visor fogged. On its clouded interior was projected an image stolen from the Hyatt's security cameras. Excellent. The crowd was still congratulating Acacia on her rather plebeian draw.

The Troglodykes. Tammi Romati and her brat, and her lover.

Did they think the family that slays together stays together? He snickered.

He breathed another word into his helmet. A thermal sensor triggered. The pod at his belt scanned the room for sound and heat, bounced a beam around and off the wads, and then reconstructed the interior for his visor screen.

"Not home, Alphonse." Heat blurs, but nothing more recent than a half hour. Still some warmth in the bed, a feathery tangle of bodies, fading even as he watched.

Stepping out on the pregnant wife? Alphonse! I'm shocked! Does Saray know about this? A hint dropped, say, three hours before the beginning of California Voodoo, could result in a disturbing phone call from a hysterical, pregnant woman. A juicy confrontation might ensue, leading to split attention at a vital moment…

Sun-tzu said: The highest form of generalship is to disrupt the adversary's will to compete. The next highest is to disturb vital personal relationships and alliances.

He grinned and broke the five-digit emergency code that sealed the window. Another twelve seconds defeated the alarm system. The window slid open.

Silence.

He hitched his weight onto the sill, shook his foot out of the loop, and dove into the room. He rolled with perfect coordination and came to balance squatting on the balls of his feet, silent. Black against black. Drops of rainwater puddled on the carpet beneath him.

His reimaging system picked up sounds and heat impressions from the bed beyond, transmuting the wads to glass.

He giggled with pleasure and dried his hands on a used bathroom towel. A quick sweep found luggage. It was sealed with a mechanical lock, which the intruder broke in less time than most men would have spent fumbling for keys.

It contained nothing worth stealing. But there was another suitcase.

It was tougher. The lock looked the same, was the same, but the case didn't open. He probed patiently… there was another lock, hidden… There.

Inside, a few data cards. All right, then: Alphonse Nakagawa used a personal data system, and kept it with him at all times. But he would have encrypted backups.

The intruder didn't know what system his adversary would use, but he would break it.

And he had time. Alphonse, like a good little Loremaster, would be watching Acacia's lackluster performance over at the Hyatt. Most IFGS members could watch in their rooms, but the LMs had to be present for the kill, had to parade themselves in front of their public. This the intruder had counted on.

Swiftly, without any fuss, he drained the data, then replaced the cards in their pouch.

Proximity. People approaching from the hall.

The intruder's wraparound visor sparked with data. Auditory channels amplified, filtered, scanned, and attempted to identify. No match.

He snapped the luggage closed again and slid it back into its place.

Voices closer now. Could Alphonse have loaned his key or code number to some stranger?

The voices stopped in front of the door. The intruder sprang to the window, his foot in the loop. A whispered word started a remote circuit and triggered a tiny powerful motor that reeled him up and out of the room. A second word slid the window closed a moment before the door opened.

The intruder smiled coldly, suspended forty stories above the ground. The rain had stopped. He breathed deeply, watching the subdued lights of a closed amusement park as they dwindled even further.

He chortled melodramatically. "The Pink Panther is gone missing again, " he whispered, and it took all of his considerable self-control to keep from laughing with unabashed, urchin glee.

What a lovely evening.

Acacia Garcia was surrounded by admirers as she rode up in the Hyatt's elevators.

"Captain Cipher predicts we'll kick serious butt, milady."

"Tammi may have a different opinion, Cipher," she said. She was exhausted, and boggled that this strange little man would rather talk than crawl away somewhere and slip into a coma.

She couldn't bring herself to snap at him: his eyes were worshipful, as guileless as a puppy's. She placed her hand on his, and he almost swooned. "Listen. We make a good team?" She mustered enough strength to make intense eye contact. "I need rest."

He tried to peek around her shoulder, peering into the room beyond. "He's in there, isn't he?"

Fatigue vanished momentarily. She stood hipshot, head canted to the side, smiling mischievously. "And just who are we talking about?"

"Oh, milady it's not a secret really, everybody knows you and Bishop are an item. When's he coming out?"

"Man of mystery." She changed the subject. "Corby, we'll be on public display tomorrow. I want you clean. That means soap and water and maybe a wire brush." She slid the door shut without waiting for a reply.

She sighed relief and collapsed with her back against the panel.

The room was entirely dark.

If she stood motionless and opened her senses, Acacia imagined that she could hear the slightly husky sound of his exhalations. She imagined that she could smell his sweat. And that thought triggered a wave of heat that drove away all fatigue.

For the thousandth time, she warred with her own instincts. Just turn around. Walk back out the door. It's not too late.

But then he'll never touch you again.

Lightly, she moved into the room, into the darkness.

In the dark a computer screen flickered pale green, like the face of a ghost. Its fluctuating luminescence flowed with numbers and letters and symbols.

Nigel Bishop was at work. She watched as his fingers manipulated the stylus and tapped at the keyboard, as he whispered into the throat monitor.

He was swathed in shadow, his wiry body sheathed in a leotard that was darker still: Occasionally the light reflected on his torso. He was whipcord slim, chest and back more knotted and corded, more sinewy and powerful, than any she had ever known except one.

And Bishop was wirier, denser than Alex Griffin. Quicker. Maybe not stronger. The thought of Bishop atop her, or she astride him, the pressure of his hands, the taste of his mouth, his faintly sweet and musky scent filling her senses…

She felt dizzy, and hollow, and confused. Did Acacia love Nigel? Or was Panthesilea in lust with the Bishop?

Sometimes she hated that hot-blooded bitch.

His hands were a blur, switching from longhand to typing as the mood struck him. The computer synthesised writing and shorthand typing and whispered cues seamlessly together. Without turning, he said, "You were superb, darling. Your variation on the Horshact maneuver was nonpareil. Excellent trial for your team. You pulled them together, and sacrificed them at just the right moments.''

He paused for effect, or perhaps lost in a parallel train of thought. She could never be sure which. "Did you know that you are just a teensy bit ruthless? "

"I wonder who I learned that from?" She came close enough to peer over his shoulder.

On the screen was data on each of the five teams entered in the California Voodoo Game. Bishop already knew his team, of course, and Acacia's team. But the other three were supposed to be mysteries, their identities and personae concealed until the last possible moment.

One face after another flicked onto the screen. Bishop tapped out notes.

"Did I keep them long enough?"

"Just," he said, bending back to work. A network of lines and curves appeared, fluctuated, and expanded from the screen into three-dimensional abstracts.

"What is that?"

"Preliminary chart," he said. "I now know the full IFGS records of every team." He grinned up at her, his smile brilliant in his night-dark face. His watch beeped. "Ah. Appointment time."

"Appointment?" she asked. Sudden sharp disappointment made her feel hot, flushed, and embarrassed.

And damn the bastard, he knew it. He grinned up at her again and shut down his computer. "Business before pleasure, sweetheart. The lady can't wait."

The lady can't wait. And I can? "Lady?"

"Tsk. Jealousy? From you?" He spun to his feet, swirling her into his arms with the same motion. "You, more than anyone, should know my aversion to ladies."

"Bastard," she whispered. He laughed, and with two fingertips brushed her eyes closed.

"Shhh," he said. He backed her into the bed and folded her down onto it. The sheets rustled against her neck as she sank down into them.

"Just quiet," he said. She shivered, knowing what was to come.

She felt the slight, liquid pressure of his lips and tongue as they drifted over her, touching her at the nape of her neck, behind her ears, brushing her eyelashes. His teeth nipped at her earlobes. Reflexively, her body began to arch, but his thumbs ran along the edge of her hips, pressing, calming them back down, as his mouth nipped and played along the long, warm column of bare throat.

His fingers twined in hers, pressed her hands into the bed as he caressed her for what seemed an hour, but could only have been a few minutes.

When her breath was explosive, her entire body shuddering and molten, she felt his weight leave the bed, and heard him say: "I'll be back." His voice was neutral. "Be ready for me."

The door sighed shut behind him. Acacia waited ten seconds, feeling the tension build inside her until she thought she would explode. Then she screamed in the soundproof room, shrieked until her throat ached, and hurled her shoe against the back of the closed door.

The rain-swept town of Yucca Valley, just south of Dream Park, was a warren of exploitation, a boomtown of auxiliary entertainments and service facilities designed to catch the trickleover from the world's largest tourist trap.

An astonishing variety of pleasures, ethereal or mundane, legal or illegal, could be found there. There was a thriving redlight district, as well as a Buddhist temple, a Methodist church, a Catholic mission, and a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Alcohol was available all over. Cocaine, marijuana, and tobacco could be had in every alley and parking lot along the central strip. Nigel Bishop breathed it in, revering in the sights and sounds and smells of human degradation.

They were pawns, every one of them. Even more amazingly, they liked being pawns. All the easier to use.

A hot-eyed pair of hustlers watched him as he pulled his car into the lot across from the Mate 'N' Switch Adult Emporium. He paid the toll and nosed his car up to an idle charging post. It clicked as the couplings mated and the trickle of current began.

The charging light blinked, splashing the bottom half of his face with green. Despite the darkness, he wore sunglasses of a tint similar to his visor.

He checked his watch. One fifty-five. In five minutes it would happen. He stepped out of the car, sniffing the air. It smelled humid but clean.

His watch beeped. His eyes scanned the Mate 'N' Switch. Just another fantasy sex trap, like any of a hundred in a fifty-mile radius of Dream Park, or a thousand others in southern California that catered to the very special needs of jaded flesh.

There was one difference, a difference known to only a select clientele. In addition to the usual mechanical accoutrements and procurement services, the Mate 'N' Switch offered a commodity increasingly rare in a high-security world: anonymity. They guaranteed it. Pay with cash, and they were notably lax about records, recalled no faces, and routed all phone messages through a cutoff satellite service subscribed to by a select high-security clientele worldwide.

The blocky stucco building was sleazily unassuming, but its customers had included some of the most powerful men and women in the world by their own very private admissions. The Mate 'N' Switch would never comment. Managers paid their fines for noncooperation, or served their time for contempt. When the place was eventually closed down, the shell corporation owning it would dissolve. Weeks or months later the owners would form a new shell and open a new hot-sheet special. Once again the word would spread along the grapevine that privacy was available.

Bishop flicked his cigarette away. It spun, striking sparks against the rain-slick pavement. He cinched his trench coat and crossed the street with studied casualness. His door lay in a shadowed alcove, away from street lamps.

He fed bills into a slot, carefully keeping his back to passing cars. The door opened into an elevator. He punched in a room number. The lift capsule shuttled him up a wall and around the edge of the building, finally coming to rest in a corner slot.

No Mate 'N' Switch guest ever needed to encounter another. Undoubtedly there were entrances even Bishop knew nothing about.

The door opened on an otherworldly garden, reeking with hot citrus. Glimpsed between flowering trees, fertile fields and green-speckled hills stretched off into the horizon. Flocks grazed. Birds cawed in looped melody.

The Garden of Eden? How declasse.

He whispered, "Scan," and the room's genuine dimensions appeared, banishing the phantasms.

It was a mere cubbyhole, an area marked off by the shadow of a single towering fig tree. Beneath it was spread a blanket.

And on the blanket sat Sharon Crayne. Her face was as expressionless as a waxwork.

"Bishop."

His gaze slid past her, examining the room, ignoring the illusion. Bathroom. Wet bar. A closet of possibilities. It opened for him, and he brushed the hanging garments with the back of his hand.

"Sharon. Delightful to see you again." He slid his hand into a long glove that felt like fur-lined silk. It breathed into his hand, tickling and caressing.

He lost the sensation of his arm. His hand felt long and graceful and fragile… feminine.

"This is really rather decadent," he said, smiling. "Shall I slip into something comfortable? And then you can be Adam, and slip into me. I'm certain that all of the anatomical bits are quite clever."

He pulled it free from the closet, holding it in front of him. It was some kind of stretch material. Breasts, now flaccid, would doubtless grow firm if he donned it. Was there a menu of shapes?

Her smile was mirthless, meaningless, tacked on like a doll's glass eyes. "Let's stick to business, shall we?"

"You're just no fun anymore." He slid the woman suit back into the closet and let the door shut and disappear.

Back in the garden.

Sharon spread a series of slender packets out on the blanket. "This is what you want," she said flatly.

He sat cross-legged. "That," he said, slitting one open with his thumbnail, "remains to be seen."

He doffed his sunglasses and slipped a projector-viewer from his trench-coat pocket. He inserted one of the flat crystals. A six-inch model of MIMIC appeared and revolved on the table before them.

"These are the most recent updates?"

"I got you the entire map of ScanNet emplacements. It's only forty percent operational now. In a month, you'd never be able to beat it."

"Yes," he agreed merrily. "But then in a month I'll be in Acapulco earning seventeen percent, darling."

"I don't teach strategy to Nigel Bishop. You can see where the improvements have been made-foundations shored up, new support struts. Where the floors have been lifted or lowered. And where you'll be entering the structure on

Thursday moming. I think that I've lived up to our bargain, don't you?" The emotionless mask had started to crack.

"Umm-hmm," he answered. He fished something from an inside pocket and tossed it to her. "Indeed you have. Yes, I think that this will just about do."

Her hands shook as she opened the packet. There were pictures of a small girl with a sweet, sad smile. The girl might have been six years old. Accompanying it was an official geneticcode scan, and the confidential file marked Embryadopt identifying the donor mother. "What is her name?" She was unable to control the tears now, and they streaked both cheeks.

"It's all there." Bishop rotated MIMIC this way and that, humming to himself. "Tricia, I think. Should be twelve by now. Supposed to be a bright kid. Living in Kalamazoo, Michigan."

"I've got to get her," she said, as if to herself.

"Indeed." He nodded, not really paying attention. "How fortuitous was our meeting, dear girl."

She seemed lost in bitter memory. "I was twelve." Her voice went venomous. "I hope his balls rot off."

"Such a mouth. Hmmm. Eighth level…"

She seemed to be trying to justify something, talking even though Bishop wasn't really listening. "I didn't have an option," she said. "Fetal adoption was the only choice."

"And a child always yearns for Mommy." He grinned and hummed as he worked, almost ignoring her. "Tricia's foster parents are going to have paperwork problems. Terrible for them. Lucky for you. I always keep my bargains-see that you keep yours."

"How did you get this?" she asked, confused, slipping back out of her trance. "I tried every connection I had. I tried money-"

"It's love, not money, makes the world go." Bishop was sliding the crystals back into their envelopes and starting to turn when his world went red and blue, and the illusions vanished completely.

Sharon flinched as the whites of Bishop's eyes turned dark blue.

"What the hell…"

His hand snapped up in command. "Shut the fuck up," he spaded. "This room is being scanned."

To Nigel Bishop, the walls had become blue glass. He saw and evaluated holographic projection equipment, finer optics, electrical and plumbing, communications…

Cows.

He turned, quiet and deadly. "One can't even rely upon mother love anymore. You don't want her, do you?"

More than the question had taken her by surprise. "How did you…" She was confused, startled, but questions and possible answers were formulating at breakneck speed. She went into a crouch and moved back, away from him.

His eyes no longer resembled human eyes. And all of the slightly arid amusement had disappeared from Nigel Bishop's demeanor. He had become, in a moment, something not entirely human, and not at all sane.

"Scleral lenses?" she asked. "You've got DreamTime technology in contact lenses? That's not available to the public! How-"

He raged about the room, ignoring her implied question. "Morals? Attack of fucking ethics? Enchanted with the single life?"

Toilet, sunken bath, floor mat. Walls. Yes. A triangle of light pulsed next to the bathroom door.

A monitor. Recording, not transmitting.

Sharon's face slackened, sick with sudden understanding. "You're not a Gamer at all, are you?"

Suddenly he relaxed. Totally. Shoulders. Arms. Face. Sharon, watching, attuned to him, felt her own body slacken. Felt confusion course through her. Where a moment before he had seemed as deadly as a rabid snake, now he projected total harmlessness. Her nerves burned, but she couldn't stop herself from relaxing, dammit…

Nigel chuckled delightedly, as if sharing a wonderful jest. "For a moment there-" He slid sideways, and his left arm flickered out faster than a blink. The ball of his thumb dug into the nerve plexus at the base of her ear. Pain erupted, sudden and unbelievably severe. What defence? Kick? Elbow? Knee?

But all of her lovely defense techniques had been learned in a state of clarity. A mind screaming with pain cannot think. A body denied balance and breath cannot respond.

His right thumb dug for a nerve cluster at the elbow. Attacked by two entirely separate sources of pain, Sharon's body spasmed and froze. She couldn't even speak.

Bishop brought his face into her line of sight. It seemed carved from black ice, all bone and muscle and terrible, animalistic fury. "An application of aiki-jutsu, you faithless bitch." She couldn't understand the venom, the sheer murderous hatred in his words.

"It isn't as if I trusted you, whore. But if you didn't care about your word, or your life, you might have given a shit about your child." He screamed the word, and she cringed, expecting a blow that didn't come.

"I should have known," he said, and increased the torque, intensifying the level of pain until her face turned pasty. Then he released it a little, letting her breathe.

She gulped air. Maybe if she explained. "I just wanted some insurance…" His face had become impassive, except for those animal eyes. The eyes promised death. All hope drained from her, and with it, much of the fear. "Who are you?" she asked dully. "What do you really want?"

"Surcease of sorrow." He ground his thumb against the nerve again. Then he mashed the cartoid artery. She twitched hard, shivering, locked between pain and oxygen starvation, and then went limp. Sharon Crayne slid bonelessly to the floor.

"Tsk," he said.

He could see no flaw in the featureless cubicle's walls… ceiling… rim of the pool? Nothing, and seconds were becoming minutes. On a hunch he dialed Eden again, then changed the setting. A castle and moat. A wilderness of ice, a seal hole exposing black water

… what was that, an insect? A lifeless beach beneath a vast sun made of red-hot fog, and the same lone insect hanging in the air.

It was a flaw in the liquid crystal display that sheathed the walls. His thumbnail scraped aside white plaster and revealed Sharon Crayne's tiny scanner.

His body was shaking, and he realized with a start that he was afraid. Everything could come apart, right now, unless he thought clearly.

Why had she bugged the room? And why the hell hadn't he put the sunglasses on before letting her know he had seen it? No mere Gamer had Bishop's level of technology. It took very special connections. The kind that could pierce an

Embryadopt screen…

And now Sharon knew. And that eliminated his options.

Nigel Bishop slipped a knife blade from the tip of his belt, slid it under the liquid-crystal wallpaper, and peeled the paper back.

He was still trembling as he lifted out a video-audio recording device no bigger than his thumbnail. Probably stored an hour of image in bubble memory. With this in her hands, she'd thought to hold him captive, to threaten exposure to the IFGS.

Stupid bitch. Bishop fought with his breathing, using his hardwon muscle control to quell his shakes. It took twenty seconds, but finally his stomach unclenched.

Perhaps Crayne had thought to prevent future blackmail. Stupid. "I keep my bargains, Sharon."

A quick search of the room revealed no more nasty surprises. Did she have an accomplice? Unlikely. Was there a device in another room? Unlikely. The sensory cubicles had input but no output-part of the privacy guaranteed by Mate 'N' Switch's exorbitant prices.

In all probability, this was the only nasty she had.

What to do?

Bishop closed his eyes, ran a dozen possibilities past his closed lids in as many seconds. When he found his answer, his eyes opened again, blinked once, and then regarded Sharon without emotion.

He peeled her out of her clothes with impersonal efficiency. He hoisted her onto the bed as if she were a rag doll. He rubbed her hair into the pillow. Rubbed her shoulders into the blanket.

He sniffed where her skin had touched sheets, vaguely recognizing the scent as Aperitif by Chanel.

Slip bug in pocket.

Ready.

He ran his fingers over Sharon's arm, found the pain hold that he wanted, and then checked his watch. Three o'clock. He heard nothing outside. The Mate 'N' Switch was silent, clients either sleeping or humping feverishly away in fantasyland.

Adrenaline boiled in his veins. He clamped his mind back down on the fear. There was still much to do, and not much time in which to do it.

He slung her over his shoulder and carried her to the sunken tub. When the illusion was on, this would be the lagoon, hot springs, alien sea, Trevi Fountain, whatever. Bar soap was hidden in a recessed shelf at the edge. He dipped a new bar into the water and then squeezed it out of the wrapper. He balled the paper up and pocketed it.

Now. Very carefully, he set her heel down on the wet bar, let her weight mash it and skid her sideways. He let her fall, changing grips at the last moment to add the drive of his palm to her forehead so that it smashed hard against the tiled edge. She slid down, the white enamel now dappled with blood.

The water slid up into her nose. Her eyes fluttered open weakly. Dazed and almost helpless, Sharon Crayne fought for her life like a sick kitten. A thread of blood drifted out of her nose. She pushed feebly at his hand.

A few bubbles flowed out of her mouth.

And then she was still.

Bishop stood, wiping his palms against his pants with genuine distaste. "It wasn't in the game plan," he said flatly. "It isn't elegant. Bad call, Miss Crayne."

Moving swiftly, he checked the entire room again, minutely, remembering everything that he had touched, wiping every object and surface clean. He popped the wrapper into a disposal unit, then the child's picture, and watched them flash to flame. Good.

He stepped into the elevator capsule. Ran his actions back through his mind. When he had done this three times and found no flaw, he touched the pod at his belt. The illusion sprang to life once again.

Palm trees swayed in a gentle, fragrant wind. Somewhere distant, a lute played sadly.

And Sharon Crayne floated sideways in a blue lagoon.

The elevator door closed.

Acacia went from deep, druglike sleep to wakefulness in a slow beat. "Nigel?"

He didn't say anything, just pressed himself against her. His skin felt cold.

He was shaking. He pulled himself close to her, then closer still. In the room's dim light, she turned to look at him, touching his face and hair, surprised at his vulnerability.

"Nigel?" She felt sudden alarm, but he shushed her. With strong thin fingers he rolled her onto her back. He parted the veil of her nightgown, ran cold fingers along her warm flesh.

"Shhh." His lips brushed hers. Only his upper body, his cheeks, felt cold. His legs and thighs, his crotch, were feverhot. "Shhh…"

She gasped, inhaling harshly as his weight came down on her.

"Nigel?"

"Not a word, darling," he said. He began to move rhythmically, and despite all of her will, questions and speculations began to dissolve in sensation.

"Everything," he said hoarsely, "is just fine."