She wrapped her legs around the rope and edged forward. The crystal monkey eyed her from its upside-down world. She swept the sword at it experimentally.
It skittered back, chattering. It crept closer… and closer…
Acacia readied her sword. It was almost close enough A sudden realisation stayed her hand. At no time had the creature actually attacked her. When one came right down to it, all that it had done was come close and investigate. Might it not be friendly?
She smiled, as broadly as she could. She said, "Pretty thing. Friends?"
The monkey's expression didn't change. But it reached out a long arm, a limb as clear and hard as diamond. It touched her arm and left no mark. The monkey smiled, and the cash register ran in Acacia's head. Another eight hundred points?
Hand over hand, it returned to its side of the gorge. Acacia followed. Then, as if sharing a secret, sacred knowledge, it showed her how to extend the bridge…
Twan's magic was irresistible. Tammi and her team glowed blinding white, and before that aura, the crystal hands retreated. Her team was scarred and bloody, but they were almost out of the caverns.
Tammi crept out first and saw Acacia's team ahead of her on the bridge.
Tammi screamed, "Attack!" and they swarmed down.
Terrance the Zulu Warrior met Tammi's attack coolly. His assegai jutted at her. She swept the short spear aside and lunged. Terrance blocked twice with a tak-tak! rhythm, then disengaged and stabbed for her chest. He was good, better than Tammi in a confined space. She had discovered that during a previous encounter. But for all of his speed and coordination, he was weak on tactical maneuvers.
She used the blind pressure of her charge to force him back a little, where she had more room for swordplay.
Mouser saw an opening and slipped past Terrance, and headed for the bridge. Then Appelion was able to join Tammi.
With Acacia on the far end of the gorge, and with no time for Top Nun to launch a spell, Tammi would have the Zulu down and dead in another moment. Terrance fell back to the mouth of the rope bridge. They were piling up. Only Captain Cipher had made it across. Top Nun was still at the halfway point, with Mouser in hot pursuit. If Tammi could fight past Terrance, Appelion could pepper Acacia with arrows.
"No!" Tammi heard herself shriek. Incredibly, Acacia had bent to the line and was sawing away! With her own teammates at risk? What manner of insanity was this? "Back!" Tammi yelled.
It was already too late. The bridge was falling. Top Nun, Mouser, and Terrance plunged screaming into the gorge, lost in the rushing current.
The rope dropped away from under Tammi's feet. She fought back for safety, too late. Falling, she managed to grasp a rope. The wind whooped out of her as she smashed into the spongy cliff face.
Tammi hung there, twisting in the mist, and stared shuddering into the heart of the falls. What the hell had happened? Acacia had lost two: Top Nun and Terrance. The Troglodykes had lost one: Mouser.
A poor, and almost incomprehensible, sacrifice.
There were no individual points in Crystal Maze. Only team points. Still, a two-for-one loss?
Tammi climbed to the top of the gorge, helped the last few feet by Appelion and Twan. She stared back down, and then across.
Acacia and Captain Cipher were gone. And worse…
In some odd fashion that Tammi couldn't quite grasp, Acacia had gained a delicate advantage. Tammi knew it, but couldn't identify it.
Some unnervingly complex and subtle trap was being laid out right under her nose. She was certain she had all the necessary clues, but she still couldn't figure it out. Whatever was going on went beyond Acacia's capacity for guile.
In fact, it had a touch of the Bishop about it.
And if that was so…
Then the rumors were true.
3
As he opened the door, the sights and smells of backstage MIMIC hit Alex Griffin in the face. Smelting, lifting, loading, painting. Stenches, vibrations, roar, and whine. There were always a thousand minor jobs left undone until the last minute. Some were part of the California Voodoo Game, some were unrelated aspects of the Barsoom Project.
But Barsoom and Dream Park were part of the same thing, weren't they?
Share a Dream… Share the Future. That slogan, emblazoned on a billion stickers in a hundred different languages, had become a catchphrase, a battle hymn, a mantra for an entire generation of Earthlings.
A neat irony. Mars, the god of war, had brought peace. And Dream Park was a place of illusion, whereas the Barsoom Project would pound and carve the planet Mars into a habitable world: not an illusion at all.
Griffin remembered a conversation with Norman Vail, chief psychologist for Dream Park. Halfway through an excellent bottle of Tanaka "White Plum" '02, Vail had held forth on the mythic power of dreams.
"In dreams we walk through phantasmagoria, our judgment sleeping," he had said intensely. Vail was sixty-seven years old, but a superb exercise and nutritional regimen had bought him the health and appearance of a forty-five-year-old outdoorsman. His skin looked more weathered than wrinkled. Tonight his bright little blue eyes were a bit unfocused. "Our drowsy judgment cannot distinguish reality from fantasy, the possible from the absurd. An inanimate object rears from the mist, snarling. We greet it lovingly, and in the greeting transform it into a friend, an ally, to help us on our journey."
"Well, that's dreams for you." Alex took another sip. The wine virtually sang on his palate. Its bouquet was clear and warm, sweet to the teasing edge of cloying, but not an inch beyond.
"Alex, you see, but you do not observe. A poor trait for a detective."
Alex placed his hand at his waist and bowed without standing. He kicked his heels onto a footstool and surrendered. "Please instruct me, Holmes."
"Quite. Do you perceive the parallel between dream and human existence?" Vail leaned forward eagerly. "From the perspective of our covetous misery, our neighbor's chattel often seems the solution to our own poverty. Isn't the history of human interaction the conversion of neighbors into enemies? Or into nonhumans, that we might deprive them of said chattels, or life itself?"
"Ah… I'm not following you. Maybe you're a little drunker than I am. I'd better catch up." He poured himself another glass of Tanaka.
"The atom bomb was supposed to kill us all. I say it transformed us into a cave full of troglodytes, up to our knees in gasoline, armed with cigarette lighters. No option save learning the other man's grunts and clicks, eh?"
"How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."
Vail looked peeved. "Don't you see?" He snatched the bottle from Alex's hand. Actually, it took two tries: he missed the first swipe. "The weapon of war creates the necessity for communication. The god of war becomes the symbol of peace. Five billion people, speaking a hundred languages, dream the same dreams at night. They seek to create their wealth, rather than loot it. Finding new friends in old enemies."
"My my. Aren't we in a philosophical mood this evening."
"Treasure it, heathen. You shan't see such again."
Alex had been warmed by Norman Vail's unusual burst of optimism. But when one came right down to it, wasn't Vail right?
Dreams were the ultimate intimate language. Mankind had always struggled to bring its dreams into reality. It mattered little whether they were fantasies of bloody conquest, yearnings for love, or hopes for a brave new world. Whatever the images and intent, man needed to dream, and to share those dreams.
And hadn't books, films, radio, and multivision paved the way for understanding?
Through them, a new vision of mankind had been forged.