The California Voodoo Game

6

Wednesday, July 20, 2059 — 10:00 P.M.

Acacia glided through the ballroom, nodding and accepting nods, flirting and accepting flirtations, saving an edge of her awareness for her team.

Corrinda Harding, her excellent Thief, was dancing with Terrance "Prez" Coolidge. They looked like Mutt and Jeff: Prez was almost a foot taller, although they weighed about the same. Corrinda wasn't fat, but she was one beefy Wagnerian Valkyrie, a picturesque contrast to Terry's Zulu Warrior.

But Corrinda was nursing a knee injury suffered two weeks earlier in sword practice. Damn it, even with the pneumatic cuff, that knee might cause problems. At least she and Prez were slow-dancing, working a little more of the stiffness out. One could assume that was their intent…

The music became a hurricane shriek. Corrinda stepped back. Terry snatched at Mati "Top Nun" Cohen's hand and seemed to go into rhythmic convulsions. Top Nun's habit flipped to the music. The little Israeli had no skill but sufficient grace to make her fun to watch.

Where was Steffie? That was Steffie's chair, and twelve feet of huge pike propped upright between chair and table. Steffie must be dancing with Ozzie the Pike. They were old friends. Maybe she could learn something.

Oswald Murphy was with Tex-Mits on this roll, and he was a hell of a dancer, too.

Captain Cipher orbited somewhere near Acacia's elbow, as he had all night. On the breast of his jacket rode a green tag emblazoned Universities of California. His own attendees had kept him from being a nuisance. Yes, Captain Cipher had fans, and tales to tell, as well.

Look at those pudgy hands swooping through the air. Let the fans listen for enough years, and one day he would talk well. He'd play with his image, get a suit that fit and a tie with less flash and more imagination… She'd seen it happen in others.

The Universities of California were one of the strongest teams. Captain Cipher was from UC Irvine. Steffie "Aces" Wilde and "Prez" Coolidge were from UCLA, Corrinda from San Diego, Mati from Berkeley. Acacia was something of a ringer. She had home-linked courses in Polynesian Cuisine and Archaeology through UC Berkeley. She had never actually seen the campus, had never entered a classroom even in Virtual mode. She hated cooking. The thought of digging up old bones made her yawn. She probably had enough life-experience credits from the last few years of Gaming to get undergraduate degrees in either. It was just barely within the rules, and no one complained loudly enough to make a difference.

She was one of the highest-rated players in the United States. There had been sly offers of "part-time" employment at Texas Instruments, and a proposal for a very temporary enlistment in the Army. UC's cash scholarship offer was a token at best, but their team actually had a chance.

She had chosen and crafted well. She had one Cleric, one Thief, a Warrior, a Magic User, and an Engineer/Scout. Panthesilea would compete as a second Warrior.

A newsman drifted up to her. He was short, with pink cheeks and long white hair. A vidbot trailed behind him on a tripod dolly, balancing upon its slender stalk. Both fixed her with dreadfully serious gazes. "Panthesilea?"

She winced. "Acacia, please. Jimmy Crest?"

The reporter from Star and Shield magazine dimpled and half bowed. "Acacia, isn't it a bit unusual for rival team captains to be…" He paused, rolling his adjectives around, searching for the one that would give the proper impression of reluctant intrusion.

"Romantically involved?" she offered politely. She tried not to look at her own image, suddenly vast above the crowd, a bronzed goddess surveying her subjects.

"Well, yes. There are no rules against it, but there really isn't a precedent, either."

"There isn't really a precedent for Nigel, either, is there? Or me. We don't break rules, but we bend the hell out of them." There. She could almost hear the little delighted intakes of scandalized breath, all across the wide, wide world of sports.

"Are you sure you can do your best against a man you are involved with?"

"Especially against a man I'm involved with," Acacia said. "I know his soft spots, and I never back off. He'd better watch his sweetbreads."

They laughed. Women nearby applauded. But that was Panthesilea talking: Acacia Garcia had retreated into silence, miserably wishing that it was all true.

Seventy miles northeast, in MIMIC, Tony McWhirter watched his vid sourly, feet up on a bolster, drinking a fifth beer. He was drunk, and didn't care. He wished only that he dared switch to Scotch.

"But I have promises to keep," he said to himself, to the walls, to no one in particular. He wadded up the beer pod and hurled it at the wall.

He had known she was coming. He had kept the knowledge buried somewhere inside him, hidden deeply enough for him to cope with the pain.

She didn't have to look so damned good. She didn't have to sound so fine. He remembered that voice whispering warmly in his ear, encouraging him, urging him, cooing and caressing.

She didn't have to…

"Damn,"' he said sourly, and pressed himself back into the chair and closed his eyes hard.

"It's delightful being a scandal," Acacia said breathlessly. "Everyone should try it at least once."

Every eye was on them. Acacia Garcia and Nigel Bishop roamed the expo pavilion, sampling hors d'oeuvres, nibbling at a cherry cake sculpted in the shape of a dragon. They walked like a pair of strolling tigers, perfectly matched for stripe and muscle. Her dress was cut from here to there, exposing every curve to best effect. Nigel wore a custom-made ensemble, an elegant meshing of a traditional African dashiki and a tuxedo. The jarring contrast probably wouldn't have worked for any other couple.

"It's good for the Game, don't you think, Mr. Crest?" Nigel asked over the edge of his champagne glass.

"Well, maybe, but…" The little reporter lowered his voice conspiratorially. "There was some controversy about you being top-seeded after all of this time. What do you think about that?"

"I had to pass my preliminaries. I'm completely conversant with all of the recent IFGS rule changes, and we conducted six pure strategy sessions. My physical fitness has been rated 'superior' by two separate panels of experts. I'm not sure whether people think I'm being exploited for my reputation, or whether General Dynamics has purchased an unfair advantage…"

The convention center was crowded with Gamers from all over the world. There were exhibits on every side, Gaming systems, costumes, makeup, weaponry, logic crystals for every make of Gaming computer on the market, sign-ups for

Games with a display of options. Gaming tours that would take players into exotic lands and match them against environments in Africa, Asia, and even one to be played in a cluster of shuttle tanks anchored near the Falling Angels lunar industrial complex.

Gamers strolled in costumes, in armor, in holographic projections and nude. She tried not to giggle, but some of them strutted about absolutely starkers, with grotesque genital prostheses in every conceivable configuration.

These, of course, didn't show to the naked eye. These Gamers were broadcasting on one of the Virtual Kink channels. Acacia wore slimline glasses/movement sensors-cost a damnedfortune, way more expensive than a standard helmet system and her decoder brought in every public channel, including the adult ones. Some Gamers were broadcasting multiple images simultaneously, some explicitly X-rated.

A man with a pink, prickly organ that would have cored a rhinoceros smiled slyly. Acacia realized that she must have been staring and quickly turned away. She let him see her program her glasses to filter out the porno.

She waved when she recognized friends. Friar Duck… was with Texas Instruments-Mitsubishi this trip, wasn't he? Normally a burly gentleman with a wide mouth and large feet, he was projecting as Dirty Duck, a squat, cigar-chomping alcoholic mallard from the Golden Age of the National Lampoon's comics section.

She thought for a moment before returning another woman's smile. Felicia… something. Played as Dark Star. She wouldn't be in California Voodoo-Felicia had been caught cheating once or twice. Acacia… hadn't.

There were millions of dollars' worth of equipment on display in the three tiers of the expo hall. Security personnel roamed everywhere, alert for trouble.

She searched for a familiar face, and didn't see it.

Alex, where are you? Do you still work for Dream Park?

Do you think of me? Of Acacia? The fanfares here were for her alter ego, Panthesilea.

Arlan Meyers took the podium, way down at the other end of the hall. He was bald and lemony, with a thin, prissy mouth and a manner that suggested a life of library excitement. He had been one of the great Magic Users, and a driving power behind the IFGS.

"Testing is the image all right?" Arlan bowed his head to speak the words low, and then came up grinning again, greatly enjoying himself. The hologram system made of him a dumpy-looking thirty-foot giant. "I would like to welcome everyone to the opening of the tenth biannual IFGS sweeps."

Applause rippled through the crowd.

On the holoboard above the hall were betting lines on the teams, with every team member, his personal stats, and lifetime scores listed in full. Team organization strategies weren't there, but it was enough for the Vegas boys to establish odds in all of the major categories.

UC was the second-highest-rated team. First came Apple Computer, the team headed by the Troglodykes. Army was ranked third, and only because of their familiarity with War Games in the Gaming domes. General Dynamics would have been last, instead of Texas Instruments-Mitsubishi, but for the presence of Nigel Bishop. Bookmakers in Vegas and Atlantic City gave them a shot based on Nigel's presence alone. It was hard to fault their logic.

The IFGS had existed for sixty years, primarily as a brokerage house. They established rules and point-exchange protocols between the thousand separate and proudly independent Gaming groups around the world.

Does blitzkrieging a balrog in Brazil equate to slicing samurai into sashimi in Singapore? Ask the IFGS.

Game Masters, Loremasters, and the categories of Wizard, Warrior, Cleric, Thief, Scout, and Engineer were cross-referenced for hours of supervised play. Points could be earned by accumulating experience or taking standardised tests of mental and physical skill.

The results were integrated into a central processing system, and the rankings allowed players from different parts of the world, playing entirely different rules, to come together and enjoy each other's poison.

Oh, the infighting was dreadful! But the end result was worth it.

"…and a very special thanks to Travis Cowles," Arlan said, "grandson of Arthur Cowles, and presently Chairman of the Board of Cowles Industries. Travis?" winy, Acacia thought. At least he didn't glance down at notes. But his eyes flicked left, slow right, quick left: his notes were displayed on his glasses.

"We here at Dream Park feel that we owe you a debt. You helped keep the dream alive. You have supported us from the beginning. You helped us test the technology that sold the Barsoom Project to all the world…"

She spotted a watchful but unobtrusive security man. It was hard to read his broad oriental features, but he looked, she thought, concerned, uneasy. She pulled herself away from Nigel and went to speak to the guard.

His name badge said MITCH HASEGAWA. "Mr. Hasegawa?"

His worried expression cleared immediately. "Yes, can I help you?"

"I was wondering. I guess you know Alex Griffin?"

"Yes, ma'am." His expression grew watchful. Protective?

Acacia looked inside herself, noted the spark of joy, and was happy that she could still feel it, that she wasn't too far along whatever path Nigel was leading her. "He still the boss?"

"Sure." His smile looked freshly pressed, folded, stuck neatly into place. Acacia felt uncomfortable again.

"So if I just rang him up, you think I could talk to him? I used to have his personal line. He changed it."

"Sure." His eyes had already focused beyond her, as if there was something infinitely interesting just over her shoulder.

Acacia's skin crawled. Something wrong here. He wasn't playing the game. Dream Park Security interacted well with Gamers. Alex Griffin had Gamed himself, once, a lifetime ago. He may have continued. She'd shared his bed, and his life, a little; she'd known the security people…

Not this one. Hasegawa was new, or moved in from outside. But he didn't respond to her as a Gamer, a customer, a woman, a person. Coolly polite. Flinched at the Griffin's name. Why?

In a Game she would have tiptoed out with extreme caution and waited to learn more. Here… She excused herself politely and wandered back into the crowd, looking for Nigel.

He was swamped in the middle of a crowd of autograph hounds. She watched him, his black face shining, laughing, in total control.

"Representing the Army team, we have Major Terry Clavell," Meyers said. "Major?"

They loomed gigantic above the stage-Clavell was small, dark-haired, and wiry but not bulky. Give him a few pounds and he would have looked a little like Napoleon. He might easily have been mistaken for a desk warrior were it not for the messianic intensity of his eyes.

"Good evening," he said. "I would just like to assure you, especially those of you on the Armed Forces Network world wide, that I will uphold the honor of my regiment. We invented war games. These… civilians… don't know what they're up against.''

" 'Cacia!"

Now that was a familiar voice! Acacia turned just in time to miss being blindsided by a ball of muscle and wrinkled skin, about four feet one of solid energy.

"Mary-em! "

"The very." Mary-Martha Corbett scanned Acacia approvingly. "I see you've put on a few curves, girl. Playing to the crowd? "

"Aiming at the big time! I didn't know you were here. You're not on the big board."

Mary-em lowered her voice, forcing Acacia to bend almost double. "Traveling incognito. Nakagawa-san is nervous about security. Wants to keep everyone off balance. It's been, what five years?"

"Since the Diskworld Game. Ah… Hamburg."

"Umm-hummm."

Acacia savored the sight of Mary-em and the memories of three Games they had played together. She was an enemy this time out. It didn't matter. When all was said and done, one got points by destroying one's enemy, but made money by cooperating to make the best holovid possible.

She searched her memory. "How's your brother…"

And knew immediately. The little woman's face fell. Deprived of the outflow of maniac energy, she showed her age. She must be in her sixties now. In mountain-climber shape, to be sure, but still a woman on the verge of serious retooling. Would Mary-em have the money for that?

"Patrick died two years ago, spring," she said. "I'm sort of dedicating this Game to him."

"That's wonderful," Acacia said. There was a swirl of crowd, and she was suddenly surrounded by eager hands with tabs and slates. She began signing signatures as quickly as she could, aware that she was being separated from her friend.

"Mary-em. See you in the Game!"

Mary-em raised a stocky arm and fist, and the sadness was gone. Not submerged or hidden, but genuinely gone, and Acacia was filled with warmth for the little woman, as if she were a symbol of a simpler time, before Acacia had become Panthesilea.

Before Nigel Bishop.

It was another hour before Acacia could sneak out of the hall, into a service elevator, and back to the room she shared with Nigel.

She sealed the door behind her and panted, relieved.

Nigel's computer was still on. The security files would be closed, but she didn't need those. He had shown her how to activate the High Pass program, invading the simplest levels of Dream Park Security without chance of trace-back.

Some of the channels were broadcast rather than directline. The computer picked out the right frequencies, unscrambled them, and let her sort. She queried: ALEX GRIFFIN?

The computer scanned. Within twelve seconds the program found the name "Alex" in a conversation. Then "Griff." It queried her to verify the dimunitive, and cross-referenced.

Lines of text began to appear on the screen. She sorted through them as the computer found Griffin's personal code and a nonsecure file giving his location.

Yucca Valley, California, four miles out from Dream Park… in a rattysection of town, she thought. Nigel's program was still at work. A moment later it had found a voice.

''…sure how she died yet. Apparent accident. Drowned in a fucking bathtub."

"Dammit, what was she doing there last night?"

"Assignation. "

"Wasn't she on duty?"

"No."

Acacia listened to the freeze in the speaker's voice and then realized that she was listening to Alex. The voice was flat, almost metallically emotionless. "What do you think?"

She knew that tone, knew the pain it concealed. The dead woman had meant something special to Alex Griffin.

As much as she, Acacia, had meant?

More?

"I want the complete forensics report by noon. Preliminary workup in two hours. Sheriff Osterreich will handle any interviews."

"Griff?"

"Yes. "

"I'm sorry."

Pause. "So am I." He sounded tired.

Then Griffin signed off.

Acacia sat staring at the screen, troubled.

Someone close to Alex Griffin was dead. An employee of Dream Park, so it seemed. Drowned. Freak accident.

No real concern to her, except…

Where had Nigel been last night? He'd come back powerfully in rut, and in the morning had data she'd never seen, coded against theft. Not so strange, that, but was it new? Stolen? And what had caused the frenzy of sexual excitation?

She rubbed her eyes and killed the computer screen, trembling.

Her brain chattered reassuringly to her even as her gut twisted with suspicion. Acacia was proud of herself: she made it two-thirds of the way to the bathroom before champagne and hors d'oeuvres and cherry-frosted cake came spilling back up over her lips, marking her trail to the toilet.