He tore off the first set of pages.
The picture of a handsome, dark-skinned young man with a neatly trimmed beard looked somberly out of the holo. Details were in the opposing corner. Name: Richard Lopez. Age: 26. Gaming position: Game Master.
Oh, well, then this once-over of the file was purely perfunctory. Lopez would have been put through a complete security and tech checkout. Anyone who walked into Gaming Central was cleaner than boiled soap. And sharp, too. Evans, the girl who had guided the recent Salvage Game, had had three years at MIT on top of the Masters degree she picked up in Air Force electronics school. And that was only Gaming Area B. Area A was twice as large, and the Gaming Central was three times as complex. Lopez would be very good indeed. Griffin would make a point to be there when Lopez and his assistant entered the control complex tomorrow morning.
His assistant? A tallish oriental girl with short black hair and shining white teeth smiled shyly from the page. Mitsuko "Chichi" Lopez. Twenty-five, and a quick skim of the dossier confirmed that she was superbly qualified to copilot the four-day jaunt ahead.
Birds of a feather, Alex guessed. Probaby met in Dream Park; might even have been married in one of the Dream Park wedding chapels. Those could be interesting ceremonies; the wedding guests might include anyone from Glenda the Good Witch to Bluebeard to Gandalf to a Motie Mediator. Angels were popular.
Who else? Ahh... the Lore Master. The Lore Master, the Chester Henderson. Henderson ran parties through Dream Park about three times a year, and would come out from Texas even for a relatively small outing. Generally his way was paid by the players or the Game Masters or their backers.
Hadn't there been some trouble with Henderson about a year ago? Alex skimmed down the sheet. Chester Henderson. Thirty-two years old (though he seemed younger in the picture. His deadly-serious look was almost daunting). Had been to Dream Park thirty-four times, and was considered a valuable customer.
Here it was. A year ago, Chester had taken an expedition into "the mountains of Tibet," hopefully to bring back a mammoth. The party had met disaster, three out of thirteen surviving, and no mammoth. Chester had dropped several hundred Gaining Points, threatening his standing in the International Fantasy Gaining Society. And who had been Game Master on that ill-fated expedition?
Aha! Richard Lopez. Chester had yelled Foul to the I.F.G.S., and they had passed down the decision that although something called "snow vipers" were unusually lethal, all of the nasty tricks used against the expedition were within the rules. Lopez was given a warning, but Henderson had lost three hundred and sixty-eight Gaming Points. Even more interesting: until this year, Lopez had operated anonymously, as a "mystery Game Master," carrying out gaming negotiations through his wife Mitsuko. Henderson had demanded a face-to-face meeting for this year's Game, and the I.F.G.S. agreed.
This, then, would be the first time two legends had actually met. Alex leaned back in his chair and considered the ceiling. This sounded like a grudge match, it did. And grudge matches were always interesting.
Chapter Two
A STROLL THROUGH OLD LOS ANGELES
Acacia was antsy. She had been growing progressively more eager since they boarded the subway in Dallas. Now she tugged at Tony's arm, pulling him away from the check-in counter while he tried to put his wallet away. "Come on, Tony! Let's get in there before the crowds clog up the works."
"Okay, okay. Where do we go first?"
Memories glowed in her face. "God, I can't decide. Chamber of Horrors? Yeah, there first, then the Everest Slalom. Love it love it love it. You will too, spoilsport."
"Hey. I'm here, aren't I? There's a fine line between sensible emotional restraint, and the withdrawal symptoms of a stimulus junky denied her fix."
"You're a wordy bastard," she said, and took off running down the tunnel entrance, pulling at his arm with both hands. He laughed and let her tow him into daylight.
The impact of Dream Park came suddenly, just beyond the tunnel. From the top of a flight of wide steps one could see three multi-tiered shopping and amusement malls, each twelve stories high, that stretched and twisted away like the walls of a maze. The space between was filled-cluttered-with nooks, gullies, walkways, open-air theaters, picnic areas, smaller spired and domed buildings, and thousands of milling people.
Acacia had seen it before. She watched Tony.
The air was filled with music and the laughter of children and adults. The smell of exotic foods floated in the breeze, and mixed there with the more familiar smells of hot dogs, cotton candy, melted chocolate, salt water taffy and pizza.
Tony was gaping. He looked... daunted, overawed, almost frightened.
Clowns and cartoon figures danced in the streets. From this distance it was impossible to tell which were employees in costume, and which were the hologram projections the Park was so famous for.
Tony turned to Acacia and found her looking at him, waiting for his reaction with a self-satisfied smirk. He started to say something, then gave up and grabbed her, swinging her in a circle. Other tourists stepped politely around them, avoiding flying feet.
"God. I've never seen anything like it. The pictures just don't do it. I never imagined..."
Her smile was warmer now, and she clung to him. "See? See?" Tony nodded dumbly. She laughed and pulled him down the steps, into magic.
The line for the Chamber of Horrors moved forward in fits and starts. The air was already warm; Acacia wore her sweater draped over one slender arm.
One thing she noticed, that she had seen on her first trip to the Park, and had verified on return trips: children were far less blown away by Dream Park than were their parents. The kids just didn't seem to grasp the enormity of the place, the complexity, the expense and ingenuity. Life was like that, for them. It was the adults who staggered about with their mouths open, while shrieking, singing children dragged them on to the next ride.
Acacia had worked hard to get Tony to join the South Seas Treasure Game. Dream Park was for kids, he'd said; Gaming was for kids who had never grown up. Now she chortled, watching him gawk like a yokel.
There were dancing bears, and strolling minstrels and jugglers, magicians who produced bright silk handkerchiefs and would no doubt produce tongues of fire as soon as it got dark. A white dragon ambled by, paused to pose for a picture with an adorable pair of kids in matching blue uniforms. Overhead, circling the spires of the Arabian Nights ride, flew a pastel red magic carpet with a handsome prince and an evil visier struggling to the death atop it. Suddenly the prince lost his balance and dropped toward the ground. Acacia heard the gasps of the spectators, and felt her own throat tighten. An instant before that noble body smashed ignobly into concrete, a giant hand materialized. The laughter of a colossus was heard as the hand lifted him back to the flying carpet, where he and the visier sprang at each other's throats once again.
Acacia sighed in relief, then chuckled at her own gullibility. She swept her hair back over her shoulder and took Tony's arm. She felt happier than she had in months.
"It's all so... elaborate," Tony said. "How do they keep it all going? Jesus, Acacia, what have you gotten me into? Are the Games this, this complicated too?"
"Horrendously," she confirmed. "Not always, but we're dealing with the Lopezes this time, and they're fiendish. The real heart of the Games is the logic puzzles. But look, you're a novice. You just concentrate on having fun, okay? Swordplay and magic and scenery."
Tony looked dubious. Acacia could understand that. He knew as much as she could tell him about Gaming, and it was daunting- Dream Park supplied costumes, makeup, prosthetics, and character outlines if necessary. The players supplied imagination, improvisational drama, and, bluntly, cannon fodder. The Lore Master acted as advisor and guide, group leader and organizer. In exchange he or she took a quarter point for every point made by an expedition member, and lost a quarter point for every penalty point. A good Lore Master would make or break a Game. Experts like Chester were kings among their kind.