“There aren’t supposed to be any dragons in this game,” Roger said at her side.
“You’d think there’d be a law against creeps, too.” Catie looked across the great hall, trying to spot another window that would allow her a view of the dragon as it passed over.
“I’m not a creep,” Roger protested. “I’m the greatest hero in all of Camelot. My bravery is renowned, a legend throughout the whole—”
“Trolls!” someone shouted. “We’re under attack by giant armored trolls!”
Before Catie could do more than start to turn, the wall exploded and the sound of an incoming round filled the great hall in the next moment. The concussion knocked her to the ground and sent man-sized blocks spinning from the wall. Several of them crushed the banquet tables as well as the guests seated around them.
“To arms!” a regal voice bellowed. “To arms, my knights!”
Glancing up, Catie spotted King Arthur standing at the second-story railing, peering down over the wreckage that had once been the palace’s great hall. His flowing red hair reached his shoulders and his beard curled out imperiously. Two pages helped him pull his armor together, and he raised the mighty sword Excaliber.
Clanking noises sounded as the first of the armored trolls arrived.
Instead of some medieval giant in hammered plate, the troll appeared to be a forty-foot-tall futuristic robot equipped with lasers and rockets. It strode into the room through the hole left by the explosions. A machine gun mounted on its shoulder fired a steady stream of blistering death across the great hall.
“For Arthur!” a knight cried, charging at the new arrival with his sword raised high. “For Camelot!”
The machine gun swept across him, stitching him with heavy rounds that knocked him from his feet. The knight flew backward and disappeared, logged off in mid-flight.
“Forget it!” Roger yelled, pushing himself to his feet and hurling himself out of the line of fire.
Some hero, Catie thought sarcastically as she got to her feet. She stared through the swirling dust left by the explosions, noticing other shadows that trailed the robot.
A long, thin man with a white beard and a conical hat with stars and moons on it charged out to meet the first robot. His cape swirled around his shoulders as he gestured and cried out words Catie didn’t understand. He threw his hand out, and a wall of force rocked the robot backward.
The metal creature stumbled backward and rammed an elbow through part of the stone wall left standing. Even as more debris tumbled down and banged against it, the robot righted itself, then lifted a foot and brought it crashing down on the old mage.
A young male voice pealed out with the electronic thunder of amplified speakers. “Permanent press, guys! Boo-yeahhhh!” He launched a rocket from the shoulder-mounted weapon that wiped out the second floor landing where King Arthur stood.
Mark Gridley suddenly appeared beside Catie. He looked at her in concern. “You might want to consider logging off.”
Catie didn’t question how Mark had known she was in Legend of the Lake. He’d walked her there before pursuing his own interests. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“There’s trouble all through the convention center,” Mark re plied. “The hotel security programs are getting fried with systematic failures, and Pete’s dragon has shown up in most of the games.”
“If I log off, I may lose the chance of figuring out what’s going on here.” Catie sneezed as the swirling dust triggered the reaction. Conversation was barely possible over the mechanized sounds of the giant robots and the screams of the banquet guests. “I’m part of this programming. Maybe I can isolate the dragon’s signature here and track it back.”
Before she could move, the giant robot turned faster than she’d expected, catching her up in one huge, three-fingered hand that curled around her like a steel prison.
“Hey, now,” the thunderous boy’s voice bellowed over the speakers, “you’re a cute one!”
12
Unable to bear the pain anymore and knowing he was fighting a losing battle against the antivirus programming Peter Griffen had coded into the veeyar, Gaspar Latke ripped the three crimson wires from his eye. He was afraid to look at the wires, terrified that the eye had come with it.
He forced himself up on shaking legs, panting like a bellows as the familiar gut-wrenching ache of a panic attack filled him. “I’m logging off,” he told Heavener. “It’s over here.”
“Then knock out the security programming in the hotel,” Heavener directed. “We have to get Griffen off the premises.”
“Who are you?” a sharp voice demanded.
Gaspar wheeled around, spotting Peter Griffen at the far end of the room.
“What did you do?” Griffen ran at Gaspar, drawing back a hand that suddenly filled with neon gases.
Working hurriedly, dropping back into the hacker’s survival frame of mind, Gaspar made himself two-dee again and wound through the security programming protecting the veeyar.
Peter threw the spinning, gaseous ball.
Gaspar knew the ball contained a trace utility. Cold fear stabbed deep within him. He had no doubts about Peter’s ability to develop a trace utility that would be next to impossible to beat. He oozed through the security programming just before the trace utility splattered against the coding.
Then he was back in the convention center, watching from his holo self as the gaming crowd raced into the Eisenhower Productions booth.
“Hotel security!” a man yelled, pushing past Leif and heading for the besieged booth.
“Los Angeles Police Department!” a uniformed officer bellowed, hot on the security guard’s heels.
Gaspar gazed around at the utter pandemonium that filled the convention center and felt guilty. He’d been to the convention a couple times in the past. He’d never gone legally, of course, always on identities he’d “borrowed” from corporate databases he’d managed to crack. Attending the convention those times had often been highlights of the year.
Now he was responsible for ruining this year’s event.
“Latke,” Heavener called.
“I’m working,” Gaspar said. He took the specially built icon from his pocket, one of the best from his bag of tricks, and fed it directly into the hotel’s computer systems through the reciprocal programming that maintained the holofeeds. He checked the progress of his program against the wristcom connecting him to the hotel security.
In seconds the program became part of the security system and every cam in the hotel went offline. “It’s down,” he told Heavener.
Matt stared at the ironbound chariot wheel swamping through the grainy yellow sand straight at his head. He tried to get up, but the sand kept slipping out from under him. The chariot wheel caught him dead center as the driver yelled out in savage glee.
Pain filled Matt’s body, twisting him up, but it wasn’t anything more than what he’d programmed on the feedback allowed from the Net. He was automatically logged off.
Matt opened his eyes and inhaled sharply, trying to get his bearings.
“Are you all right, sir?”
Matt blinked at the flight attendant, trying to remember where he was for just a moment. Then he felt the familiar sensation of flying. “Yes, thank you. I was playing online. It didn’t turn out so well.”
The flight attendant nodded sympathetically.
“So how’d you get it?” Leif asked. “Find out you had a really slow goblin?”
“It looked liked a Roman war chariot,” Matt answered, “but I couldn’t swear to it. I got shoved into another game from Goblin King. I also saw the dragon there.”
“The one you and Maj saw?”