Larry Niven - The California Voodoo Game

Griffin faltered for the first time, and he lowered his voice. "He might have killed Sharon to protect the secret. If he doesn't deliver the goods within a reasonable time, it could cost him his life."

For the first time, some of the tension left Harmony's face. "Bishop's as nervous as we are? Poor bastard."

"He's got to have a backup plan. More than one way to get the information out of the building." Alex called up the rotating model of MIMIC. "Picture information recorded on a disk as big as a quarter but thin as plastic wrap. Push it on a flat surface with your thumb, it sticks. Now picture a handful of quarters-"

Tony said, "Why not a hundred?"

"No. If we found one, we'd search. Find two, we might bite the bullet and change the whole system. He can't afford that. He wouldn't hide more than a dozen, maybe, and he's been careful where he put them."

"Well, that's not so bloody bad. What we need to do is eliminate most of his choices, then lead him to the one we want."

"Tony, we don't have one."

"I know, I know. Jesus, I'm tired. Well, we'll search. Meanwhile, try this…"

Smiling security personnel met the Gamers as they left MIMIC. El and Doris Whitman met them, congratulating each Gamer in turn.

"Your attention, please," El said.

They were half-looped from the free-flowing champagne, but ready to get back to the hotels, to husbands and wives and lovers and friends, to hot baths and real beds.

"You probably noticed that we were using some new technology during California Voodoo." Doris waited for the inevitable nods and murmurs of appreciation. "We were lucky enough to get permission from Cowles to use some of these techniques, on the condition that no raw recordings be made. Some of the illusion technology hasn't been patented yet. So as per section six subparagraph twelve of your contracts, we're exercising our options to confiscate all recording apparatus. They will be erased and returned to you."

"Sorry about this," El said, "but it's the only way we can protect ourselves. You will all receive free recordings of any Game perspective you choose, of course."

There were a few grumbles, and then Bishop shrugged. "What the hell," he said. "Only a Game, right?"

Everybody laughed. "Tell that to my hamstrings," Tammi said.

And some made speeches or threw tantrums, but every Gamer did hand over his equipment, and then passed through a doorway lined with scanning apparatus.

All weapons, costumes, and Gaming computers were thoroughly scanned. Nobody and nothing left MIMIC without going through the procedure.

The entire process took over an hour for the Gamers. In the black wee hours they boarded a ground shuttle and returned to their Dream Park hotels via the same track that had fired them into a talus slope a little more than forty hours earlier.

Alex caught six good hours of sleep in his own bed. It wasn't nearly enough… but he was almost smiling as he answered the doorbell.

Tony looked grouchy but clear-headed. "Come on in," Alex said.

Dawn light glared through the bay-window wall. Tony stood closer than Alex would have, looking down, sipping coffee.

"Tony, don't you have an acrophobia?"

"Not when I'm inside. I'm just picturing it the way it must have looked to Clavell when his rope broke." He turned back. "So we've locked Bishop out. Right?"

"He didn't leave MIMIC with anything," Alex said. "If he planted something on another Gamer, it didn't leave either. We can't seal MIMIC off forever, but a month will screw him just fine. What's next?"

"Acacia?"

"She should have let Bishop cut her in half. Panthesilea would have been killed out, not dead-dead!"

"She must have thought Bishop wanted to kill her." Tony rubbed his jaw. "How's she taking it?"

"Like a death in the family. Tony, I'm not going to hold her hand. Sharon-"

"She didn't know, Griff." Tony sat. He gulped coffee. "Where were we?"

"Say a dozen disks. Say we've blocked him from eleven. Where's the other? Why does he think he can get it?"

Tony nodded. "Play a game with me. What's outside of MIMIC that we think is inside?"

"We should be asking Captain Cipher!"

"Can't. Sewer system?"

"Ask Mgui-Smythe. It probably recycles."

"The water from the flooded levels "

"That was a good thought," Griffin said. "He only had to drop one of the disks. How would he find it, though?"

"Chango only knows. We're guarding that patch of desert. Griff, he didn't go back to the roof, and he could have. There were talismans, one in the pool and one in the cornfields. It would have been legit."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Maybe he never had a transmitter at all. Just the bug and a dozen record disks, of which I would dearly love to find at least one as a sanity check."

"We'll search. We'll keep him out of MIMIC. I don't know what else to do except go toddling back to Dream Park like some cyborg turtle."

The coffee must be helping. Somewhere in Tony's muddled mind, two things connected. "Griff? There's something more we might try…"

Friday, July 22, 2059 — 11:27 P.M.

MIMIC was almost deserted. Voluntarily, all of the employees had accepted scans. Only security men and women moved in and out, and they subjected themselves to repeated inspections. A good pickpocket can place something on a person as well as take it off. Even an innocent employee can be used as a mule.

The building was searched for hours, but without real hope: in MIMIC's vastness, an elephant could have evaded a search for days.

"We can't keep this up forever," Alex said to Mgui-Smythe. "Eventually, the work crews are going to have to come back."

"So what do you want me to do?" the little engineer said softly.

"The Snake is alive," Griffin said. "You just found unexpected earthquake damage. Nobody comes in the building until we have a full reappraisal."

Mgui-Smythe nodded. "Could take weeks."

"Six weeks," Alex said. "Give me six weeks. By that time, one way or the other, it will be over."

Acacia had stopped crying by the time the shuttle reached Dream Park. During the entire trip she had remained on her side of the car, not watching anyone, enmeshed in her own thoughts.

Bishop had kept to himself as well, but as they began to file out, he gathered up his gear and crossed to her.

"Well," he said quietly, fiercely. "You managed to screw yourself out of a million dollars. I hope it was worth it."

Then he turned and left the car.

She felt like a stranger. Security had kept her Virtual projection equipment, her pack, her weapons most of her costume. It was as if she had left the corpse of Panthesilea to be buried at Dream Park. How appropriate.

Panthesilea, dead. Years of growing and fighting, gathering power and experience, all nothing. Dead. She would have to start all over again, from the bottom.

Oh, God. She didn't know if she could do that again.

"Excuse me," a voice in front of her said. "I was wondering if you need a lift."

Acacia looked up and for the first time in eight years faced Tony McWhirter. She saw his tentative smile slip and guessed how she must look.

"A lift," she said. "Yes. Definitely."

Griffin slept for twelve hours, then awakened to the buzz of the telephone. He awakened instantly, relieved to find himself in his modular apartment, returned to CMC once again.

Moshe Osterreich, chief of the Yucca Valley Sheriff's Department, was on the line. "Sorry, Griff. The hookers who saw the man enter the motel identified the car. It was stolen. No prints, no traces, no damage either. Owner never even knew it was gone. Ladies can say it was a tall, slender person, but no description beyond that. Not race or even sex. I'm sorry."