1430 hours
Within the gaming dome, the gamers were making their way through a tunnel into bubble 61-E. Scotty was in the lead. He held up a hand. “Where are we? Darla: How’s the map in your head?”
“One level up from bedrock. We can get down into the foundation layer if we make it through here.”
They cautiously opened a door leading into the next bubble, and stepped in. It was a cavern filled with flowers with metallic petals. Their wristlamps stabbed into deep pockets of shadow.
“Look here,” Sharmela said. “Somebody’s home.”
They gathered around to see a row of robotic Selenites lined up against the wall.
“My guess is that these were supposed to come to life. Some kind of display or attack. No power, no attack.”
“Look,” Wayne called. “Finally! An emergency communications node!” The glowing green triangle was obvious once you focused your eyes properly.
“Thank God!” Angelique said, and tapped at the flower indicated. “Xavier? Can you hear me?” She drew an earpiece from the middle of the flower. Scotty stood close, listening.
A pause, and then a thin ghost of Xavier’s voice floated to them, from nowhere, from everywhere. “I’ve been screaming at you, but I guess only the earpieces are working. No loudspeaker. Listen to me: We detect heat signatures moving in your direction.”
“What can you tell us about the search patterns?”
“There are two down on the pool level. They didn’t even try to follow you, just assumed that they could cut you off if they got there first.”
“Good thinking,” Scotty said.
“Aside from that, they’re doing a standard grid search, one level at a time. But the good news is that it looks as if they have one team searching from the top down, while another searches from the bottom up.”
“Why is that… oh, I see. If they miss us, they’ll go up. If we can fool them, we still have to get past the two at the pool.”
“Yes, that’s true. And we might be able to help. We’re trying to route auxillary power, but they scrambled us pretty damned well. You’ve got about three minutes. Find a place to hide.”
“Where?”
“Here’s a hint: You see stalagmites, but not stalactites? Nothing projects from the roof?”
“… Funny,” Wayne said.
“The stalagmites are hollow. We were going to ambush you.”
Angelique stiffened. “What?”
“Well,” Xavier said, “if you look closely, those stalagmites aren’t rock. They are actually piles of mooncow dung, calcified.”
“What? And what was going to attack us?”
Xavier chuckled. “Let’s just say that mooncows have worms. With teeth. I’d suggest that you hide.”
As he finished speaking, Scotty pulled another earpiece out of the flower. “What are these?”
“Just a local network. Probably only works inside this room. There are what, three sets in there?”
“Then let’s use ’em,” he said.
There had been no sound in the cavern that had proven to be a gigantic lavatory. The door on the far side vibrated, then fountained sparks from a fist-sized hole. The door clanged open and several members of Neutral Moresnot entered, fanning the room with their flashlight beams.
“Attention!” the first one screamed into the silence. “If you are in this room, we will find you. If you give yourselves up now, there will be no repercussions. Any act of aggression against us will be met with aggressive force.”
There was no response, and Scotty wondered what they felt. Anger? Anxiety? He could imagine that things had not been going their way, but the small brown lens in the plaster dung heap didn’t give him much of a view.
“All right.” A woman’s voice. “All right. Bai Long-go left. Miller-right. Fan out. Report back in ten minutes.” Celeste left the chamber.
The men followed her orders, moving with care but no apparent wariness, like men hunting for rabbits.
Scotty spoke quietly, hoping that these guys weren’t capable of scanning multiple frequencies. “Darla. Are you there?”
“Here, Scotty. It should be safe to talk.”
He peeked out through the lens. A guy with a flashlight lashed to the underside of his crossbow walked past. As soon as he was a dozen feet away, Scotty spoke again. “These guys are good, but overconfident.”
“Meaning…?”
“Meaning that if the stalagmites were designed for ambush, I think it would be a shame not to put them to use.”
Scotty watched the two men Celeste had called Bai Long and Miller work their way through the room, scanning carefully. It was a nervous time: They seemed to be heading almost directly toward him.
“What is this stuff?” the shorter one said. “It isn’t rock.” Scotty labeled him Bai Long, engaging in a bit of racial stereotyping.
“Papier-mache crap,” the taller man-Miller? — said. “I’ve seen better effects in Halloween spook houses. I don’t know how these guys got their reputation.” A knowing laugh.
“Where do you think they are?”
“Hiding in a corner. Wait-what’s that?”
The beam of light focused on a hollow Selenite head. Miller picked it up and examined it carefully.
“What’s this?” Bai Long asked. “Think that someone’s in here?”
“Might have been left behind.”
Scotty cupped his earpiece. “Did someone leave that? Crap. ”
Darla’s voice answered him. “I think it might have been left by a prop team. We were supposed to have time to get everything in place. You guys wouldn’t have reached this level ’til tomorrow.”
They were heading right toward him. Had they heard him? Before sealing himself in, Scotty had tested the stalagmite’s quick-release catch. He hoped to hell it would work properly.
“Scotty-?” Darla sounded as nervous as he felt.
“It feels as if, if I flip the one catch here, this thing should just open up. Is that right?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then get ready.”
The men approached more closely, weapons at the ready. He held his breath as they paused… and then passed him. As soon as they passed Scotty, he flipped the release catch and leaped, smashing them both to the ground. A flurry of punches and kicks subdued Bai Long, but then Miller managed to scramble to his feet, swinging his weapon around.
Scotty looked up, directly into the pipe bore of an air gun, knowing that he was about to die.
Then… Sharmela broke out of her stalagmite, and hit Miller from behind. She was joined swiftly by the other gamers, bursting out of their petrified mooncow turds.
And after another flurry of blows and kicks, the two men were subdued.
As the others stood around panting and gasping for air, Scotty ripped off Miller’s headset and tried it on. Then hefted the air gun. It was the size of a sawed-off shotgun, with a tube of compressed gas as thick as his wrist beneath a length of small-bore pipe anchored to a shoulder stock. It was fairly well balanced, not at all a bad weapon. He felt grudging admiration for its fabricator.
“Well, all right,” Darla said, carefully hoisting an aluminum frame that must be a cocked crossbow. “So what do we do now?”
“Now, we talk.”
He knelt down in front of the taller man. “I assume your name is Miller.”
No response.
“Well, you look like a Miller. Miller, all we want to do is get out of here alive.”
“Then you just made a very bad move,” Miller said.
“Maybe,” Scotty said. “What’s your end game?”
The tall man’s mouth revealed no emotion. “We recapture you-and we will. We complete our contract.”
“Which is?”
Miller glared at Scotty as if he was a specimen on a slide. And remained silent.
Ali smacked his fist into his palm. “There are techniques. Palace children tell each other.”
Scotty sighed. “What? You want to torture them? You have the time and inclination? Go ahead. But I say we keep moving.”
Ali looked at him in disbelief. “They will tell others where we’ve gone! You want to fight them again?”
“Maybe,” Scotty shrugged. “What are they going to say that Moresnot doesn’t already know? Anyway, we can slow them down.”
His eyes went from Tall to Short and back to Tall again. “I don’t want to kill you, but I can’t just leave you behind us. Sorry,” he said, “but this is going to hurt.”
“What are you going to do?” Bai Long asked.
“I watched both of you. You’re both right-handed.”
“I don’t understand-”
And without further preamble, he broke first Miller’s right thumb, and then Bai Long’s.
Angelique looked pale. “I thought you said you didn’t torture.”
“Did I ask questions?” He hit Miller squarely on the point of the jaw. Then Bai Long on the base of the skull. Both folded to their sides, unconscious.
Darla chirped in excitement. “All right! Here’s the doorway to the next level!”
Scotty nodded. “Hoorah. Let’s move. And keep it quiet, if we can. And conceal the opening.”
Back at Heinlein, Kendra was growing aware that she hadn’t eaten in eight hours. She ordered in sandwiches. Coffee alone was going to burn a sour hole through her stomach.
She looked over the data for a few moments, and then addressed her crew. “We have a list now. This is everything that our NPCs saw that the members of Neutral Moresnot could not reasonably have expected to move through our security, or things that clearly were fabricated here.”
“Air guns, crossbows, aqualungs, communications apparatus… there is more,” her assistant said.
“The Frost brothers,” Kendra said. “We have tabs on Thomas right now-”
The air rippled, and a wire-frame map of Heinlein base appeared. It was filled with tiny red moving blips. “I’m filtering…” Kendra said. Dots disappeared until only one remained, near the ground level. “Thomas Frost,” she said.
“You know,” Foxworthy said, “the bad guys could have acquired the communications gear without complicity on the part of the supplier. But the air guns smack of Fabrication.”
“Kendra!” one of the techs called. “We’ve got a link with your husband.” And popped it through.
“Thank goodness,” Kendra said. “Scotty?”
He appeared like a genie. “Kendra! We dropped down into some kind of monster fest. All holograms, and they’re moving in loops.”
She could see a little of what was going on behind Scotty. Creatures were battling, blocking an entrance highlighted in green.
“How are you doing this?” Kendra asked.
“It’s some kind of a video link here, not on the main circuit. Listen: I don’t know how much time we have. Do you have any kind of thermal fix on the pirates?”
She was relieved that she actually had good news to offer. “Yes. If all of your people are currently with you, then Moresnot has six men working their way down from the top. Three more on the second level, two on the third. And… indistinct traces on the access stairs along C and E.”
“They may be putting their wounded there.”
“Wounded?”
“We used Xavier’s little ambush against them.”
She felt her breath catch in her throat. “What did you do?”
“Well, they won’t be winning at ‘thumb war’ any time soon, and they’ll wake up with the headaches of the year. Oh… and we have their weapons.”
“You do? What?”
Scotty looked at his equipment. “Some kind of crossbow pistol. Very compact, very nasty. They almost tested it on us: drove a bolt through a quarter-inch steel plate. Uses a kind of hand-crank to cock the latch.”
“Christ!”
The Kowsnofski woman appeared behind him. “And we have an air gun. Haven’t tested it yet. Works on pressurized gas.”
“Darla!” Kendra said. “You work in… Engineering, right?”
“Yes. Structural.”
“That will do just fine. Look at those guns. If I told you they were constructed here on the Moon, who made them?”
Darla looked more carefully at the makeshift weapons. When she spoke again, her speech was more measured and clipped, with less trace of her Oakie accent. “I… hmm. That’s interesting. I’d say that the energy efficiency on the crossbow suggests some kind of compound construction, maybe foamed steel stock… some kind of polymer. Falling Angels, maybe. But that’s the raw stock.”
“Construction?”
“Well,” Darla said. “I can’t get there with the crossbow. But the air gun? It’s using the same gas cartridges used to drive the Liquid Wall bubbles, but the size… these welds imply an arc. Most of the shops use laser welds, but this looks like plasma to me. More expensive, but higher temperatures and more precision.”
“I need an opinion,” Kendra said.
Now at last her speech patterns betrayed her childhood again. “Well… I’m not looking for a lawsuit or anything, Honey, but if I were you, I’d talk to Toby McCauley.”
Kendra exhaled hard. “Thank you.” She turned to her assistant. “Get me Piering.” Then back to Scotty. “What can we do for you guys?”
“We need to stay ahead of Moresnot. Keep scanning us. Scan them. If we’re in trouble, you tell us. We have their communications gear, and we’re changing the frequency to… one point two three.”
“Got it,” Kendra said. “Good work. Get moving.”
“What are you doing?”
“If Thomas Frost and Toby McCauley are implicit in this, then for the first time, we’re ahead of the ball. And I want to stay ahead.” A pause. “And another thing-”
“What?”
A hard smile. “You just won my election for me.”
As the image faded, Kendra turned to see the hulking Piering squeeze through the door.
“Kendra?”
She nodded greeting. “I want to put out a hypothesis to you to see if there is anything I’m missing. But first I’m going to write a name on the other side of this paper.” She did so.
Piering seemed puzzled. “What is this?”
“This is in reference to your experience. Someone is helping the kidnappers. We believe that the Frost twins are expatriate Kikayans with a grudge. They arranged this, but they had help.”
“Help?”
“Help, yes. The kind of help that could get someone spaced. Weapons. Equipment.”
Piering squinted, and frowned. “All right…”
“Now,” Kendra said. “It could be money, but the Frost brothers don’t have much. It could be that someone arranged payments to an account on Earth that we can’t cover, so we’ll look into that. But what I’m asking is: Did the Frost brothers ever touch on anything that might lead them to having leverage on someone connected with Fabrication or machining?”
Piering sat down, hard. “You know… back almost four years ago, your husband and I were looking into an information link.”
Kendra winced. “Is this the same incident where he was injured?”
“Both of us were injured,” Piering said. “Yes. Do you remember?”
“Data loss, connected with an He3 find if I recall.”
“That’s it.” Piering nodded approval. “It was interesting because the Frost brothers vouched for someone. They said that he was with them at a time when a data terminal at his shop was being accessed.”
“I remember. The lock on the shop was broken.”
“And do you remember the name?” he asked. “It was Toby McCauley.”
Kendra turned over the piece of paper. TOBY McCAULEY, was printed in block letters. “What a coincidence. Toby McCauley’s shop has everything necessary to make the weapons used in the assault.”
“Where does that leave us?” Piering asked.
“It leaves us setting a trap,” she said, and then turned to her assistant. “Tell Toby I’d like a meeting with him in fifteen minutes. It’s an emergency.”
“If he asks what the emergency is?”
“He’s not an idiot. He knows what it’s about. Even if he’s innocent, he knows what it’s about.”
The alien fungus farm looked like something out of Alice’s Wonderland. As Shotz and Celeste entered, the overlapping shadows turned the entire room into a Halloween graveyard. Weapons at the ready, they searched the entire room. Not until Celeste heard a low groan from within one of the stalagmites did they find Miller. Bai Long was nearby, wrapped tight within a second spire.
Shotz shoved them awake as Celeste worked on the wire binding their wrists.
“What happened?”
The taller man groaned. “They… came out of the stalagmites.”
Shotz shone his lights around the room, feeling a grudging admiration for the trick the gamers had pulled. Their opponents were more capable than he had expected. “And now they have your weapons. I would kill you, but we’ve lost enough people.”
Bai Long held up his hands. “They broke my thumb!”
“Then I don’t need you, do I?” He grabbed a thumb and squeezed, just enough to produce a whimper.
“I… I can still search, or run communications!” he said.
Shotz patted Bai Long’s head. “Don’t make another mistake.”
In bubble 80-F, the gamers huddled, conferring.
“Scotty. You need to get to the substation in bubble… 115-H.”
“What then?” Scotty asked.
“We want to raid the dome, but the pirates have placed explosives. If they see us coming, they might detonate them.”
“Yes. I saw one of the packages,” Scotty said. “I don’t know a lot about things like that, but I don’t think they’re bluffing.”
“Scotty,” Piering said. “I’ll head up the team. What we need to do is send you a data feed. You save it on a PDA, and hand-inject it into the surveillance system. We have to believe they’ve compromised the security, turned it to their own use.”
“Can’t you kill the power?” Scotty said.
“We’re also assuming that they have backup,” Kendra said. “McCauley’s shop could rig batteries pretty easily-”
“McCauley?” Scotty asked. “Toby? What’s he got to do with this?”
“Well,” Kendra said. “We believe that he’s cooperating with the Frost brothers.”
Ali’s eyes widened. “The Kikayan? I’ve seen him.”
“Jesus Christ,” Scotty said. “We’ve got traitors inside, traitors outside-”
“We’re going to deal with that,” Kendra said. “But you need to get to 115-H. Can you?”
“We’ll have to move through the interstits,” Darla said. “If we can’t find a way through the bubbles.”
“We need to get going,” Scotty said.
They generated a glowing, floating map of the dome. “Here we are. We have one more level to go, and I think we can get there within the protected pathways. We’ll lose the advantage of knowing where the pirates are, but as of right now… we’re clear.”
“Then let’s get moving,” Angelique said.
“Ah…,” Maud said. “Can I find the potty first?”
“I think we all need to take five,” Wayne said. “But just five. There’s a restroom hidden right over there.” He pointed. If you squinted just right, the rocks composed a familiar crescent moon. They broke off to take care of their needs. Scotty sat heavily, next to Ali.
“I am so sorry about all of this,” Ali said. “It’s my fault. Asako’s death is my fault.”
“No,” Sharmela said. “She wanted to be a hero. She wanted a chance to die like a hero… instead of dying for nothing. If we honor her, we must also honor her choices.”
When the third-level airlock door slid open, the Moresnot pirates discovered Asako’s pod. “What the hell happened here?” Miller, the big bodybuilder demanded.
Carlyle speculated. “I reckon she must have tried to leave the dome. This contraption of hers didn’t hold up.”
“Hope the warranty’s still good.” Gallop tapped his communicator. “Shotz. We found the body of the Japanese woman.”
“In her environment pod?” That damaged voice.
“Yes.”
“I want you to get the information from her radio. Pass the word to shift to alternate frequency Bravo in three minutes. I believe our quarry is communicating on a local network. If they make the mistake of using the same frequencies, we want to be able to capitalize on the error.”
In Heinlein base’s nerve center, Kendra watched the dome map carefully, interrupted as her assistant turned to her. “Kendra… if this is a stalemate, they win. What’s their endgame?”
“President for Life Kikaya abdicates,” Kendra said. “And a new government is quickly recognized. Diplomatic and economic pressure is put on us to allow Moresnot to leave. Remember: Kikaya invested in this base. If he leaves, his successors control that investment.”
Foxworthy blinked. “Could that happen? Could they just walk? The woman Asako died! They can’t just…”
“They might,” Kendra said. “We have to stop it, and the best way of doing that is to free the boy before his father steps down.”
“What’s happening in Kikaya?”
“Hard to say,” Kendra said. “There isn’t much news coming out. I just don’t know.”
Foxworthy cupped his ear. “Just heard that McCauley is on his way. What do you have in mind?”
A pause, then Kendra said: “Pain.”
The gamers were making their way through a central corridor, looking out through the windows at the cross-hatching of ladders and walkways linking the bubbles.
“I’m just a little worried about the dome integrity. I wish you could see air.” Scotty said.
Wayne snorted. “Ever been to London?”
“This is 102,” Angelique said. “One-oh-three is one level down, and we should be able to get there.”
“Was this a part of the game?” Scotty asked.
“The bubble, yes, but not this walkway. You’ll notice that this hasn’t been made up H. G. Wells style.”
“What’s on the other side?” Scotty asked.
Darla’s smile was strained. “That would be telling, big guy.”
Scotty shook his head. “You guys are frickin’ crazy. All right. Let’s go.”
They cracked the door open, and then stared, agog.
The room was an impossibly vast junkyard. The walls seemed kilometers distant, the ceiling as high as the sky.
Scotty whistled. “What in the hell do we have here?”
The room was filled with technology, but the technology was alien. Martian war machines, walkers recognizable from plates in science fiction novels and theatrical films. And other odd equipment, of a strangely organic design.
Wayne matched Scotty’s whistle. “This… looks like a museum.”
“Yes. I think that the mythology was one of the entire Wells oeuvre.”
“ War of the Worlds?”
“Yes. Somehow, the Martians and the Lunies were at war, once upon a time.”
They walked between the rows of giant machines, the ceiling impossibly high above them, brushing the stalactites of a major cave system.
Sharmela climbed up one of the walkers, waved her hands right through the metal. “Holograms. There’s some power in this room.”
Mickey frowned. “How many ways are there to get down to the aquifer?”
“Why?”
“I want to arrange a little surprise for our friends. Something to slow them down a bit.”
Maud seemed to glow with pride. “Mickey. How you talk.”
As Toby McCauley’s shuttle pulled in, and he emerged, he was met by two security men.
“What’s this all about?”
Piering smiled. “Just additional precautions, what with everything going on.”
“Right,” Toby said, sounding rather unconvinced.
They moved through a series of walkways and elevators to a low-ceilinged conference room. And there he was told to sit, and wait. He shifted uncomfortably. Getting nervous. Then the door opened, and Kendra and Max Piering entered.
“Toby.”
“Sheila Monster. What’s this all about?”
“I was hoping that you could help us, Toby. Remember three years back when Thomas Frost said you were with him when your computer was accessed?”
He tensed a bit. “Yes?”
“We were thinking that that was just a little too neat. Too coincidental.”
“I don’t understand,” Toby said.
“You shall,” Kendra said. “Piering?”
Piering stood up. His hands flew over a keyboard at the side of the room. “We began to wonder about the Frost brothers, after it became clear that this entire affair was connected to the Republic of Kikaya.”
McCauley blinked. “How?”
“The target seems to have been Prince Ali, heir to the throne. The Brothers Frost…”
“Their parents were Kikayan, I think. I see.” He seemed both nervous and attentive, as if on the edge of an admission, or perhaps seeking an escape route.
“We began to wonder how they funded the operation. We realized that if they had been responsible for the earlier industrial espionage, and perhaps others that went undiscovered, they could have amassed sufficient funds to mount this.”
“Is there any proof?”
Piering gave a small nod. “We have reason to believe that while Thomas Frost was keeping you occupied, his brother was gaining access to your shop terminal.”
“And further,” Kendra said, “in the last year, there has been an acceleration of contacts between them and certain persons of interest to Interpol. They did a very good job of disguising the communications, but once we started looking for them, we found them.” She turned to Piering. “I have to take care of something. Can you handle things here?”
“Absolutely.”
After the door closed behind her, McCauley said, “This is incredible. What can I do to help?” He managed to ooze sincerity.
“We have reason to believe that they gained access to your shop again, more recently. Possibly other shops as well, and fabricated weapons and tools used in the assault.”
McCauley leaped for the offered lifeline. “You’re saying that if he has my codes, they might have others.”
“Yes. There is no limit to how far into our security they may have penetrated. We need your help. Is there anything you can tell us, anything that might help?”
He stared at his fingers. For a moment it seemed he was about to speak. Then…
Thomas Frost sat quietly, staring at the beige walls of a nine-by-nine cell. Then, the door opened, and Kendra entered.
He managed to affect indignation. “What the hell is going on?”
“Where’s your brother, Thomas? Where is Doug?”
He didn’t flinch. “I don’t know. We’re not Siamese twins.”
“No,” Kendra admitted. “You’re not. But we have reason to believe that he is currently in the gaming dome, and that he has been assisting the kidnappers. We have messages sent to persons of intense interest associated with radical groups in Kikaya, as well as expats. And we have evidence that the two of you colluded to practice industrial espionage against the interests of Cowles Industries.”
He frowned. “What kind of evidence?”
“Piering?” she said. Her voice was clear and low and strong.
The security man pressed buttons on his PDA. Toby McCauley appeared on the wall monitor, face five times its normal size. Kendra appeared across the table from him.
“So…,” the onscreen Piering said. “Can you help us understand how the Frost brothers might have gained access to your security systems?”
“They had contacts,” McCauley said. “Kikayan contacts. The boy’s father invested in the game, and some of the people negotiating the deal had the chance to insinuate themselves.”
“You have direct knowledge of this?”
“No,” Toby said. Was that a tic at the corner of his mouth? A bit of a squint? McCauley was nervous. “No, but we played squash together, Thomas and I, and several times he implied that the government of Kikaya was riddled with revolutionary forces, and that some of them were close to the King.”
“And?”
“They implied that Kikayan loyalists had fingers everywhere, and knowledge that would one day be applied to the freeing of-”
Thomas slapped his hand on the table. “He is lying. I have no such contacts. But Mr. McCauley has debts. It is known that, for a price, his shop has made contraband items that have made their way into Luna’s black market.”
Kendra pushed a piece of paper across to him.
“I want to know what you know, and from whom you learned it. And I want to know now.”
Thomas hesitated, and then began to write.
Piering met Kendra outside the cell. They walked together in silence for a while, and then found an elevator.
“Did you get it?” Piering asked.
“Enough,” Kendra said. “He was easier than McCauley. I think he figured that the ball is in play now, and that after the situation is resolved, he will have sufficient leverage to force us to release him to Earth. While McCauley is making noises as if he’s still staying here, still running for election… but I think that’s bullshit. I think he’s planning to take off with the others.”
“Should we take a look at his residence? See if he’s preparing to leave?”
“Yes, send someone over to do that, I think,” Kendra said. “What the hell happened? The man used to have ambitions.”
“Maybe he still does. Maybe someone made him a better offer.”
They opened the next room, and Xavier greeted them. “Now, that was fun. I was afraid that you wouldn’t give me enough to work with.”
On the screens were wireframes of Frost and McCauley, partially filled in. “We are thinking that if they had more help outside, they wouldn’t have sent one of the brothers in.”
Wu Lin came closer. “Which means?”
“Which means that if we can control the visual feeds, and seal off the dome from outside communications, they might be blind.” Kendra said.
“But,” Xavier said, “they mustn’t know that they are blind.”
“No, they mustn’t.”
“It seems, Wu Lin, that we have a game after all. One with considerably higher stakes. Please, Ms. Griffin. Dazzle me.”
Xavier and his people watched on a game monitor as the Moresnot men broke into the Mars room.
“We have no direct contact with the gamers, as you know. Most of the time. But we do have some system backup sensors. We received a notification that someone was attempting to hook several of them up in series.”
“Why?” Kendra asked.
“I think they want to activate the animatics and preprogrammed holograms.”
“Where are the pirates right now?” Kendra asked.
“Entering Mars,” Xavier said after a glance at the screen.
“Would Scotty have known they were coming?”
“Very possible.”
Kendra sighed. “Show me the thermals.”
A gauzy map blossomed. A clutch of red silhouettes arrived through a connecting door. Their scans revealed two people hidden in the room.
Suddenly, Kendra understood. “Scotty’s going for an ambush. We have to help him.”
The little Game Master perked up. “What did you have in mind?”
“What exactly are your capabilities at this point?” she asked.
“In terms of communicating or controlling the illusions?”
Xavier closed his eyes and considered. Then he began ticking off points on his fingers. “I cannot control the illusions directly. I can’t add data to the computers in the gaming dome. I cannot send outside power to any of the illusions, nor can I use the main camera feeds to observe.”
“That’s the bad news,” Kendra said. “And…?”
“And… our attackers were smart, but not brilliant. We can do a small amount of imaging, using a subsystem. We can route power from one part of the dome to another.”
“How so?”
“The backups. In case of power failure, we wanted to be able to keep going until major power was restored. We have some backdoor controls there. Let’s see… as you already know, in certain situations we can communicate with the gamers a bit, using Morse code.”
“If Scotty is planning to ambush Moresnot,” she said, “we want to help him. What can we do?”
A pause, then Wu Lin spoke. “There is little we can do directly. But there is one factor that must be taken into consideration.”
“Which is?”
Wu Lin’s eyes glittered. “Mr. Griffin is accustomed to our illusions. The kidnappers are not.”
“True,” Xavier said. “More to the point, the more complex and disorienting we make the situation, the greater advantage should accrue to the good guys, such as they are.”
“What can you do?” Kendra asked.
“Well,” Xavier said. “You have to understand that a game is controlled by both the technological constraints and the commercial considerations. That means that, as with any good story, there is a rhythm to the flow of the game. Smaller illusions give way to larger, more impressive ones until you reach the end, and use the most impressive ones of all.”
Kendra nodded. “And so you suggest…?”
“Taking off the gloves,” the little man said.
The Moresnot pirates combed the Martian graveyard as best they could, when not gaping and gawking at the expanse of machines.
McCartney shone his flashlight up at the ceiling. “This dome…,” He shook his head. “Looks larger than it can possibly be.”
Shotz made a harsh humorless sound. “That has to be the illusions.”
“I thought we cut the power,” Celeste said.
“Backup,” Shotz said. “We cut main power, but some of the environmental systems have backup in case of emergency. I think the Dream Park have people tapped into those lines.”
The shadows of the Martian machines loomed large above them.
“This is creepy. What are these things?”
“Some sort of robot,” Shotz offered.
“It’s hard to believe that people pay to… what? Be frightened? Have adventures?”
Shotz smiled, as if it required physical effort to hoist his cheeks into position. “You don’t understand, because you are the kind of woman who makes her own adventures. People like this must have others make their adventures for them.”
“How much does all of this cost?” Fujita asked. Despite his impressive mass, Fujita walked with great, almost incongruous delicacy and quiet.
“I think,” McCartney said, “that I’m in the wrong bleedin’ business.”
“Quiet,” Celeste said. “And split up. I say that they’re in here, and frightened to death.”
Shotz motioned two of his men this-away, two that-away.
Scotty and Wayne were hiding behind a tremendous tripod with a tiny dome on top. One outsized flat foot concealed them.
“What are they doing?” Wayne asked.
Scotty peeked out and then ducked back. “Splitting up. Trying to pincer us.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Only if you want to stay alive. No, really… we have an advantage. There are only two of us, and they probably won’t have time to search the entire room.”
“Unless they have sensors.”
Scotty made a clucking sound. “Now where would they get something like that?”
Almost as if she had been reading Scotty’s mind, Celeste was operating a sensor pad covered with glowing green wireframes of everything in the room. Their nine men were marked in glowing orange. There were faint four-limbed orange glows marked on the far side of the room. “I think I might have something. I’m getting a signal.”
“Good,” Shotz said. He peered at her screen, and then motioned to his men.
Wayne snuck a peek, ducked back. “Listen. That looks like a rescue sensor the woman’s holding. Used in the mines, but someone could modify it for other uses.”
“You might be right,” Scotty said, peeking out through the misshapen alien shadows.
“Then… why are they going in the wrong direction?”
Suddenly, and without any warning, the Martian war machines rose up, impossibly tall in the cramped space, their domes actually ghosting through the ceilings.
They roared, they lurched, and the Moresnot pirates fired at them with air guns and crossbows.
“Hold your fire!” Shotz said. “It’s just a show. They can’t-”
McCartney, the man next to him screamed as an arrow pierced his side. “Shit!” He crumpled over, clutching his side. “I’m hit!”
Shotz whipped around. “They’re here, dammit!”
“Where?” Fujita’s head snapped around.
A second arrow bolt flew through the air, hit a prop next to Shotz’ head. “Down!”
The pirates hit the deck as the Martian war machines continued to rage, their heat rays sweeping across the floor. A brilliant ruby ray touched one of the Moresnot people, and his bones gleamed through his skin as if he were a cartoon ghost. He screamed.
“I have a visual!” Celeste screamed.
Shotz looked up and across the room, seeing a woman crouching behind a war machine.
“We don’t need her-” Shotz said. “Kill her.”
But when he fired, it was a male scream that answered.
“What the hell-” Shotz growled.
Scotty and Wayne had managed to stay out of the line of fire. “What the hell?” Scotty whispered. “What was that? They’re shooting at each other-”
Wayne whispered in his ear. “Listen, Scotty-visual field manipulation isn’t perfect from every angle. Doesn’t need to be, as long as it’s perfect from the angle of the target.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think Xavier is helping us. He’s creating illusions. Over there-Moresnot men. Over there, too.”
Scotty blinked and looked more carefully. The ghost of an illusion around the Moresnot men, firing at each other and being lashed and confused by the illusion. One Asian woman had a handgun “Illusion,” Wayne said. “That woman they’re shooting at is Asako, before she got sick. Xavier at play.”
“Let’s get closer.”
The two carefully crept from one lurching war machine to another. The machines targeted them with beams, but the pirates did not notice.
When Scotty and Wayne got close enough, they loosed bolts.
Fujita took a bolt in the fleshy left side of his back. Hardly fatal in a sumo-sized man, but he screamed. “I’m hit! I’m hit! They’re behind us?”
Shotz wheeled around, scanning without result. “Dammit! Where-”
Celeste grabbed his arm. “I think we’re making a mistake. They only took two weapons, but they’re attacking as if they have more. I think we’re fighting our own people.”
Next to them Bai Ling screamed: “Look out!”
A crimson beam of light seared across the ground, smoke and fire gushing up from the ground as it did. The air was filled with alien cries, screams, cries of dismay, curses.
And one very human “Dammit!” Rodriquez said that as the heat beam crawled across his body. He screamed… and then looked at himself in disbelief. “I’m alive!”
Then-an air gun bolt hit him in the throat. The Spaniard tumbled with the impact, dying as he fell.
Shotz bent to check the body-and perhaps to get out of the line of fire.
“Dammit. We have to knock out the power system in here. Celeste?”
She was too busy manipulating controls on her portable monitor. “Just a second. I’ll have to take out the air system. I’ll-there.”
The upper sections of the war machines vanished. The din diminished. The Moresnot pirates got unsteadily to their feet.
“They’re picking us off,” she said. “That’s one dead. Four wounded.”
“Four,” he breathed heavily. “All right: Playtime is over. From now on, shoot to kill.”
The man pushing himself up off the ground was shaking, either with fear or rage. “There wasn’t anything to shoot at! Where did they go, Shotz? Where did they go?”
“Celeste?” Shotz asked.
“There are three ground-level exits listed on the map. But there may be unmapped exits.”
“We have to assume that they are heading to the caverns. Kill all the power, even basic life support. No more confusion. No more mistakes.”
Scotty and Wayne had retreated to the spaces beneath the bubble. The tunnel was vertical, and they had to climb down a ladder until they reached a sealed door at the bottom.
“I hope the others had time,” Scotty said.
Wayne seemed rattled. “Scotty. I think I might have killed that man. Have you ever… killed someone?”
“No,” Scotty said. “But today sounds like a great time to start.”
Wayne stopped to steady his breathing. “You aren’t bad with that crossbow. If this was a game, I’m starting to think you’d be okay.”
“Another time,” Scotty said. “Another life.” Scotty grinned. “And besides, this is just a game, remember?”
Scotty unscrewed the hatch. Below, another bubble. There was a ladder across the ceiling and down the inner curve of the dome, and they had to go hand-over-hand, brachiating in a way no one would try in Earth gravity. Their companions were down below, watching them.
The room was covered bottom to top with flat-screen monitors. The gamers gawked at them: The screens showed images from around the solar system, as well as some from a canal-riddled Mars. Locations within the nest itself, displaying a thriving insectile community.
Scotty dropped to the ground. “What is this place?”
“Some kind of communications nerve center,” Angelique said. “Note that the images are stuck on a loop.”
“So… we can’t use them to try to keep tabs on Moresnot?” Scotty asked.
“No,” Darla said. “But they may not find the maintenance hatch we took. Good Lord willing, we just got ourselves another couple minutes.”
They took a moment to examine the screens.
Angelique spoke first. “So far… every major set-piece has come with clues, advantages, resources.”
Wayne stood shoulder to shoulder with her, trying to see what she was seeing. “Could be the same here.”
“Listen,” Angelique said. “I think that Xavier is watching us, and believe it or not, he’s helping us when he can. These puzzles are fail-safed, in terms of power. So we solve one, and get something in return. A door opens, a map appears… something.”
“Don’t all games work that way?” Scotty asked.
“Dream Park games do. So…,” the Lore Master said. “What’s the point of this room?”
Scotty stared at the screens. What were they seeing?
“Martian walkers,” Sharmela said.
Maud pointed. “What is that? Saturn? And… Europa?”
“This is the important one,” Mickey said. On the screen, a titanic battle between Martian war machines and giant Moon creatures.
“Look,” Angelique said, pointing. “Look. Notice that the Martians use machines, and the Moon people are fighting back with animal forms.”
“What do you think?” Wayne asked. “A biologically based technology? As opposed to machines?”
“Maybe,” Angelique said. “But it might just be that the Martians had to travel a long, long way to get here. Needed machines.”
Sharmela nodded. “But it is possible that Martian technology, even war technology, is primarily mechanical. The Lunies, biological.”
Finally, Scotty spoke. “Well… that would make some sense. The thrust of Wells’ original story was that the Martians were weak, right? They needed technology to supplement their bodies?”
“While the Moon people supplemented theirs with creative breeding. So… they are stronger than the Martians. But not stronger than us.”
“No,” Scotty said. “Not stronger than us. But how does that help us?”
Angelique stamped her foot. “We’ve lost the thread of the game. Let’s stop for a second. What is this game about? I mean, what was it originally about?”
“Rescuing Professor Cavor?” Scotty offered.
“Yes. Rescuing Professor Cavor. Professor Cavor is in this equation.”
“Wait, wait wait,” Wayne said. “Maybe we’re looking at it backward. The lesson isn’t that the Lunies are stronger. It’s that their mechanical technology is weaker.”
“ Was weaker,” Angelique said. “But then Professor Cavor arrived.”
“Weaker?” Mickey said. “Remember the airlock door on the surface? Does that look like an inferior technology?”
“Maybe,” Scotty said. “Or maybe it’s a remnant.”
Angelique seemed interested in that notion. “Regressed civilization?”
“Very popular theme in early science fiction,” Wayne said. “Go ahead, Scotty.”
He sighed. “Sorry. That’s as far as I go.”
“I might have an idea,” Ali said.
“Go on.”
“Consider. These two civilizations, Martian and lunar, have a certain parity. Mars had a mechanical technology, while the Moon has a biological technology.”
“And?” Angelique said.
“This is only apparently a stalemate. The Martians attack, the Selenites fight them back. Can you all see the flaw in this?”
Sharmela snapped her fingers. “The Selenites can’t attack the Martians.”
“Right,” Angelique said. “How do you go interplanetary with living weapons?”
“It would be reasonable,” Ali said, “to think that a difficulty.”
“What if that changed?” Maud asked.
“What would change it?” Wayne asked. Then suddenly, his face changed. “Oh, crap. Of course. Professor Cavor.”
Mickey kissed Maud’s cheek and she bubbled like a debutante. “Good one, Maud. Professor Cavor. He arrived here as one of Earth’s greatest inventors in the Victorian age. Perfectly reasonable that the technology he shared with them might have had an effect on the war with the Martians.”
“And how does this affect us?” Scotty asked.
“It might not.”
“Sure it does,” Wayne said. “No one is going to mount a room like this without a purpose.”
“What I meant is that it might affect a coming clue rather than a previous one. If the Moon people got something that allowed them to attack Mars as Mars has been attacking Luna…”
“For instance,” Maud said, “Cavorite.”
“Yes,” Angelique agreed. “Cavorite. Who knows what Xavier might have had in store for us.”
Wayne shook his head. “That probably won’t work now.”
“I see it,” Sharmela said. “I think I see it.”
“What?” Wayne asked.
“A war. We landed in the middle of a war. A war that has been going on for centuries. Maybe millennia.”
“Cavor’s technology…?”
“Look at these screens,” the Indian girl said. “The design of the ships is kinda familiar, isn’t it?”
“Moon ships,” Wayne said. “Powered by Cavorite, attacking Mars. Crushing Martian cities.”
“As Mars crushed human cities? We saw no evidence of that when we left Earth.”
Angelique was getting excited. “So nobody spoke of it… directly. But the comments about ‘the war’ and ‘the unpleasantness’-it was the War of the Worlds.”
“Holy shit,” Mickey said. “And Mars is pissed at the Moon. And their armada is on its way.”
“I’d say that it’s almost here. There’s our time clock, people. If we were playing a game, we’d have to get out of here before the Martians blow us to hell.”
Wayne cocked his head a bit sideways. “Wait a minute… that means that Xavier had to be prepared to simulate an all-out Martian assault. Darla?”
“Maybe,” she said. “He’d have to shake the dome without damaging it. Sound, smell… big effects.”
“Stage explosives,” Scotty said. “If we can get to them, they might be very useful indeed. Good work. Damned good work. Let’s get going.”