Larry Niven - The California Voodoo 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?