Larry Niven - The California Voodoo Game

"So am I," Alex said, and punched off the line, and went back to sleep.

In parties throughout Dream Park's peripheral hotels, music, laughter, and debates raged far into the night. Bishop made a few low-key appearances, then slunk back to his room. No eyebrows rose, and few tongues wagged. With so few previous defeats on record, how could his present behavior be judged? Depression and embarrassment seemed as likely as tantrum or bemused resignation.

He packed his bags and checked out. He took the shuttle to Los Angeles, and there changed cars to the Denver line. Two more shifts took him to his condo in Montreal.

Once there, he carefully scanned his luggage and his personal clothing for bugs, and found nothing. Griffin was either as ineffectual as he seemed, or very good indeed and so Bishop discarded luggage and clothing and bought all new.

He walked from the mall to a nearby office building. On the second door was a lawyer named Trapman, who had accepted Bishop's cash retainer a month before. Trapman admitted Bishop to a soundproofed room with a com screen. Bishop spoke a telephone number that connected to a number in Ecuador via satellite.

"It was a good Game," he said when the line was eventually picked up. No face appeared on the screen. "Looking forward to playing again. Maybe next year."

Year meant week.

"Those of us who follow your exploits," a heavy voice said, "are disappointed that it will take so long. There is great interest, Mister Bishop, which every day grows greater."

"Next year," he said. He hung up.

He templed his hands together and clapped them over his mouth. The operation could wait another week, damn it. But that was his timetable, not theirs. For the sake of this very special operation, close to two million dollars of their money had been invested.

He had succeeded, but the information on ScanNet was not in hand. There were multiple copies of it. There was no way that Dream Park could find them all, or shield them all.

It was a waiting game.

Now, as at no time during California Voodoo, Bishop felt the cold tight feeling at the back of his neck, at the pit of his stomach.

He had to control himself. Control the vision, and the dreams that he knew would come. Now was not the time to crack. Not now, when he was so close to winning that he could scream.

It was the size of a quarter, made of stiff plastic, almost transparent. A hologram. Mgui-Smythe held it up in two fingertips. "You'll never guess where we found this."

Tony walked around the image. "Oh, Lord, I'm sane. It's not just mob paranoia," he said. "Where?"

Alex Griffin's spectral head popped up next to the engineer's. "Ah. Very good, Mgui-Smythe."

"Where?"

"We found it when we were taking the nuke plant apart. It was in the radioactive tunnel, near the far end."

"He planted one then?" Tony found that awesome. "He does have nerve. Griff, we want a number of people to look that over."

The engineer rang off. Tony stayed on.

"So it's all real," Alex said. "But we still don't have anything actionable. Legally."

"Legally. But give me that disk for a while. Trust me, I'm a Game Master."

Even Norman Vail hadn't suggested taking Bishop to court, and under the civilized veneer, Vail was the most vindictive bastard it had ever been Griffin's pleasure to meet.

Even this last, desperate gambit had been Vail's idea. It had taken every bit of convincing, and Tony McWhirter and the entire tech team at Cowles were working on it.

He hoped Vail was right. Alex Griffin was out of ideas.

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.