Dave and Xander exchanged a quick glance, and then Dave shrugged, a defeated but delighted grin creeping across his features, and Xander merely gave the kid who had shaken Luke’s hand a high five.
“Live long, and prosper,” he said. “Whatever happens after, you’ll always have this weekend. Just remember, it’s a memory, not a dream.”
He got back an enthusiastic fist — pump in response and then they were gone — and Luke was drawn away for a moment by another arriving ambulance and, this time, the good doctor from the Asylum Floor steering a bleary — eyed but still ambulatory patient across the lobby toward the main doors. While they were discussing the matter, another group approached from the general direction of the gamers’ ballroom. Several of them were wearing what looked like clean t — shirts, but a couple of them had just pulled on crumpled hoodies over clothes they had not changed out of all weekend, tucked away in the gamers’ room and their own world.
“Hey, Dave,” one of them said, squinting at Dave and Xander from a couple of paces away and recognizing at least one face. “How’d the con do? Andie Mae happy?”
“It, uh….” Dave began, and Xander offered up a wide grin.
“How did the game go?”
“Oh, you know,” the gamer said. “Intense. Pretty good.”
“Hah,” said a mate from the back of the group smugly. “I smeared you in that fight. Rolled a sixteen in strength, fifteen in dexterity, you were so out of it, dude…”
It was obviously a sore point because they began to re — argue the encounter all over again, touching on which one of them must have cheated, and one of the others pointedly lifted an eyebrow in their direction and then turned back to Dave.
“The pizza was great this year,” he said. “You know. Really good. Did you change the pizza place? You should so keep these new guys on for next time. Seriously.”
“He remembers the pizza? From last year? Seriously?” Xander muttered to himself.
Dave shot him a warning glance, but was himself hunting for the right thing to say — and after a moment, lamely, came up with,
“I, uh, I think they’re closing down at the end of the year…”
“Pity,” said the gamer.
“So then, how did you like the Moon flight?” Xander said, knowing he was tossing out bait but unable to stop himself from doing so.
“I don’t think I played that game,” the gamer said, furrowing his brow. Xander hadn’t followed the discussion of whether he had won or lost on that throw of the dice, but the combatants seemed to have sorted it out between themselves or at least arrived at a truce. “What game was that scenario in? We weren’t doing a straight SF thing — it was more of a…”
“The guys on the other table were talking about Alpha Centauri,” said one of the others helpfully.
“Maybe I’ll try that Moon game next year, then, ” the first gamer said, waving as he walked away. “See you the next go — round!”
“They missed it,” Xander muttered, staring after the departing clutch of gamers. “They missed the whole thing. The whole, entire thing. They missed it.”
“Speaking of those pizzas,” Dave said, turning to Xander, “what actually happened to the replicators?”
“If you’re talking about the food machines, both of the ones in the kitchens are just gone,” Luke said, rejoining the conversation. “Sometime last night, it would seem at the very least, I got the report this morning. Staff turned up and found a very ordinary kitchen once again — breakfast was made the old fashioned way, and supplies barely lasted. I should actually go and talk to our delivery people; we need to replenish our larders pretty smartly.”
“Aren’t you off duty yet?” Dave asked, teasingly but with genuine warmth. For somebody who was thrown into the deep end, Luke Barnes had not done too badly — and had certainly come out sane at the other end, instead of ending up on Dr. Cohen’s Asylum Floor right along with the other patients who had sought refuge in a fit of the vapors.
“I am supposed to hand over the reins in about an hour, when the new shift turns up. And then I plan to sleep for three days. And then really figure out just how much I can tell of what actually happened and still keep this job,” Luke said.
“You still want to keep the job? What about the next time…?”
Luke gave him a tired smile. “Well, now I know how to rescue people from a stuck elevator,” he said. “Flying to the Moon for the second time would just be a bonus.”
“You’re a good egg,” Xander said. “If you need backup for anything, with your bosses, give us a holler. We’ll be happy to give you a good report.”
“Thanks. Appreciate it. Maybe someday someone could sit down and try and convince me that any of this really happened… or if I just ate something bad on Friday morning and simply hallucinated this entire weekend…”
“I’ll drop in for a cup of coffee or something the next time you’re on duty,” Xander said. “We can reminisce.”
Luke looked both pleased and a little frightened at this prospect, but shook hands with both Dave and Xander and hurried back behind the reception counter and then out of sight into the office behind it. Dave sighed, and began to turn away.
“Well, I better see if the GoH people need anything at departure…”
“You found Rory, in the end?”
“In point of fact, no. Haven’t seen him, oh, since Saturday night, really — caught sight of him at one of the Moon parties, having the time of his life. He’s been pretty much AWOL since then — there’s been one reported sighting on Sunday but apparently he wasn’t in a socializing mood at that point and after that he seems to have remembered what room was his and how to lock the door to exclude the rest of the world because that suite’s been locked down tight. I sent Simon around a couple of times, on patrol, just in case, but not a stir in there.”
“Dead drunk, or just dead…?”
“Well, he was due to check out this morning, so if there’s no movement in the next half hour or so I may need to get housekeeping to open the door for me, just to make sure he is okay,” Dave said. “And Vince…”
Xander interrupted him by suddenly reaching out to grip his arm. “Is that Al…?”
Dave squinted at the disheveled figure pushing open the doors into the lobby with one arm while cradling the other in a blue nylon sling, and frowned.
“Looks like,” he said. “But dear God — that bruise on his face — the arm — he looks terrible! Like some small war chewed him up and spit him out. Did we land on him?”
Al Coe noticed Dave and Xander at about the same moment they became aware of him, and after a hesitation he let the door close behind him and stepped towards them.
The question that was asked, by Al in one direction and by Xander in the other, consisted of exactly the same words — but Al emphasized one word and Xander another, and Xander’s tone was one of appalled curiosity while Al’s was more a bewildered resignation.
“What happened to you?” Al asked.
“What happened to you?” Xander said in exactly the same moment.
“Where’s Andie Mae? Is she all right?” Al asked, allowing a wan smile to wash over his face at the greeting ritual.
“She’s… fine,” Xander said. That covered a lot of ground, and there were things that Andie Mae really should tell Al herself if she wanted him to know about them. “But you look like you’ve done a week in the trenches.”