"Hey, Rusty! Check this out-Monitor Three!"
Sollars's voice was more disbelievingly amused than alarmed, so Rusty finished taking the bite into his meatballs-with-mayo sub that he'd been opening his mouth to take when the usually silent security "eyes" had piped up. Chewing methodically, he strolled over to the control desk.
Sollars was pointing up at one of the long arc of external security monitors, and Rusty prepared himself for viewing an overly fat, pale and unlovely amorous couple rolling around on a blanket on one of the gently-sculpted hillsides, or perhaps two dogs doing the same thing without a blanket.
He was not expecting to see six dark-armored men, visors down and swords drawn, stalking steadily past the eighth hole bunker toward the Holdencorp building.
At first he was alarmed-they looked so purposeful-but then relaxed. There was no way thieves, vandals, or terrorists would walk a mile in this heat; these had to be fans. Crazies, of course, but fans. A free beta preview sampler disk each from the forthcoming Falconfar expansion set should send them happily on their way. Still…
He flipped a switch and leaned forward over the microphone to announce briskly, "Ground Floor Security, Ground Floor Security! Six intruders, south lawn, coming in from the eighth hole. They're dressed as Dark Helms-armor and swords, all of them-so take the tear-gas rifle, and make sure enough of you go to outnumber them. Loading Dock Security, vehicles and your tear-gas, ready for backup."
"Roger that," one voice rapped out of the speakers, in reply.
A moment later, an older voice drawled, "Copy. You're not kidding, are you, Rusty? This isn't just you checkin' to see if we're awake?"
"Negative," Rusty said flatly. "I mean it. Six crazies with swords that sure look real from here."
"Uh-huh. Who's their backup?"
Rusty snorted. "Cut it, Sam, this isn't a joke. They haven't got any backup, of course…"
Yet he hadn't checked, and a good security chief…
He clapped Sollars sharply on the shoulder in a wordless order that set the eye-man to punching buttons and turning magnification and camera-aim toggles like a frenzied spider.
Only to spit out some words of profane astonishment as the feed from Camera South Forty-Six came up on the big monitor, and his finger mashed down a button that brought the flashing sequence of images of empty golf course to an abrupt halt.
"Holy shit!" Rusty gasped, staring at the large screen.
"What?" Sam's voice demanded, over the beeping of a forklift truck backing up along the loading dock.
He was echoed almost immediately by Mase, head of Ground Floor Security. "Rusty, what's all the excitement?"
Rusty shook his head, then bent over the microphone again and snapped, "Sam, Mase, listen up! I am not crazy and this is not a joke. Got that?"
"Copy. Tell us!"
"Well, there's something following the six guys with the swords. Well back, but it's flying. Most of the time, anyway. Keeping to cover, like it's trying to keep hidden, but keep watch on what the six are up to."
"So this isn't just fans, then. This is serious."
"More than serious, Sam." Rusty drew in a deep, unhappy breath, and asked, "You-Mase, you too-have played Falconfar, right?"
The speakers made affirmative noises. Rusty nodded, his eyes never leaving the big monitor, and asked, "So you know what a lorn looks like? The flying faceless things?"
"Yup. Oh now, hold on there, Rusty, you're not expecting us to believe-"
"I don't believe it myself, but I'm seeing it. And I am not shitting you. Repeat: I am not kidding or joking or lying. And it's not some guy in a monster suit, or a clumsy homemade bolts-and-car-parts robot. Unless someone has found a way to send very realistic animated images over these monitors that I haven't heard about-with proper perspective, lighting, the works-there's a lorn out there, flying right at us!"
"Roger. So I bring along the riot rifles, not just the gas gun?"
"No! No, we-yes, damn it, yes. I've seen too many movies to…"
"Rusty." Sam's voice was kindly. "Your mom never tell you movies ain't real?"
"Just do it, Sam!" Rusty shouted. "Now! The Dark Helms'll be at our doors in a minute, and that thing's about two little hillocks behind them!"
"Roger, Rusty. Go eat your sandwich and simmer down. Or have you gulped it already, and washed it down with a little something extra?"
"I have not,'" Rusty roared, "been drinking! Now get going!"
"Roger!" Sam and Mase snapped back in hasty unison. The speakers promptly burped the two loud clicks of their switching off, presumably to snatch up their high-band handphones and run.
Staring at the front lobby monitors, Rusty started swearing. Those swords, and all that glass. The six crazies didn't have to use the front doors. Thanks to his imagination-and yes, all those movies-he could already hear glass shattering everywhere, and all those long-legged, icily elegant secretaries and marketing managers in all their down-front glass box offices screaming and fleeing in all directions.
As Dark Helms with sharp swords in their hands and rape and murder on their minds ran among them.
"Shit," Rusty told the microphone, without intending to, "I need a drink."
Rod Everlar drew in a deep, unhappy breath, then squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and flung open the door.
The passage was almost mockingly empty and silent. So where had Syregorn and his knights gone?
Ahead of him, probably, if all this time had passed and they hadn't burst into any of the rooms Rod had so fumblingly and cautiously wandered through. Perhaps they'd thought he knew the way out, and would just run as fast as he could toward it. Moving through Malragard, down the hill the fortress descended, to reach a floor or two below where he was now. Maybe.
Yet there was no reason not to believe the unhappy mutterings among the knights that death-spells would dice anyone trying to climb out over the garden walls-and there was no way to blast a hole in any wall, and so step right out of Malraun's trap, except magic that he didn't have and wouldn't know how to use if someone handed it to him. Not to mention that blowing a hole in the side of the wizard's home was more than a little likely to alert Malraun instantly about what had happened-and just where to find the guy who'd just done it.
So, walk along obediently in the death trap it was, and would have to be. Rod turned the way he knew to be away from the garden and-eventually-downwards toward Harlhoh, and the front doors, and started walking. Slowly, reluctantly, and as quietly as he could, avoiding all doors.
So when did he get to rescue the princess, slay a dragon, and accept a triumphal fanfare?
Or at least play the hero with some small degree of competence?
"Lock the doors!" Rusty roared, wondering where the bell Mase and his boys were; they should have been out on the lawn stopping these clowns well away from the building, not nowhere to be seen, as the Dark Helms-looking very much like dangerous thugs, now, and not awed, giggling fans-stalked up to the outer doors. "Lock the fucking DOORS!"
Sollars stared up at him, not knowing whether to be scared white or to grin at hearing Holdoncorp's grayhaired and straight-arrow security chief spitting out curses.
"You're in charge here," Rusty snapped at him as he unbuttoned his holster-and then sprinted away, heading for the service stairs. "Hank," he called to the largest and strongest of the custodians, "get out the fire axe and defend everyone on this floor, if any of those guys come out of the elevator!"