Mary-em, Top Nun, and SJ sat together in a triangle, scarfing down canapes. "So…" SJ said, a huge grin splitting his freckled features. "How does it feel to be a permanent mommy?"
She patted her tummy. "M'power just went through the roof, sonnyboy. As far as I'm concerned, I won this Game. Know what this means? I've got more than enough points to go for Loremaster now! Got my eye on the Terminator Game coming up next year. Heh heh. Me and Junior are gonna kick robot butt! "
She was glowing. Texas Instruments-Mitsubishi had come in first, due to a last-minute maneuver by Al the Barbarian. The only Loremaster to emerge with a surviving team member-Mary-em-he had simultaneously saved the day and destroyed two opposing Loremasters. Mary-em's perpetual divine pregnancy hadn't hurt things at all.
In second place had been the Troglodykes. Then Acacia's UC team, then Army, and last, Bishop's General Dynamics team.
Who weren't talking to Nigel Bishop.
Bishop himself stood next to a video window currently displaying an alpine scene. He seemed lost in thought, for once without an epigram or a joke on his lips.
Occasionally someone would approach him and offer condolences. He accepted smoothly and made it clear, with subtle tones of reply and closed body language, that he wished to be left alone.
And so he was. He stood staring, as if trying to imagine himself flying down the slopes. From time to time he would check his watch, or take a sip of champagne.
The flow pattern was a curdle around Corrinda. She'd found a chair and she stayed in it. Friends brought her drinks and rice crackers. Her left leg was stiff and straight, swollen at the knee.
Acacia Garcia floated through the room like a wraith. When she smiled, the mirth went no further than her lips. Tammi watched for a while, and then rolled out from under the blanket and went to her.
"Listen, Acacia, sorry about Panthesilea," she said. "It'll take you a while to work back up to Loremaster again, but I wanted you to know you're welcome on my team anytime."
Acacia tried to respond, but couldn't seem to get her face to cooperate. When she replied, it sounded as if she had a sore throat. "Maybe it was time she died," Acacia said. "She was starting to think she was immortal. Like she could get away with anything." The left corner of her mouth flickered up. "Guess she learned, huh?" There were tears very close to the surface now. Suddenly she surrendered to the grief, letting Tammi hug her hard.
"Dammit," Acacia said, fighting for control. "I hate that bitch, and I'm going to miss her so damned much. I'm just going to…" She couldn't speak any more, and just held on, and let the tears come.
Griffin met Tony McWhirter at the door and held out his hand. "I made a mistake," he said. "I've made a lot of them, lately. I hope to God I can correct them."
Tony shook the hand and took a seat, without saying a word.
Harmony seemed to stop breathing. "Now. He's here. Will you finally tell us what you meant about wheelbarrows?"
"It's an old story," Griffin said. "There was a man suspected of being a smuggler. The chief of police had his men watching at the borders for him.
"Well, the first day the man came by, pushing a wheelbarrow full of straw. And they said, 'Wait! Let's take a look.' And they looked through the straw, but it was just straw, so they had to let him go. And the next day he came with a wheelbarrow full of straw, and they searched it. And the day after that, and the day after that. Every day it was straw, and just straw.
''Years later, the police chief ran into the thief in another city. He said, 'Listen. we know that you were stealing something, but we can't figure out what it was, or where you were hiding it. You're safe now, come on. What was it? Gold, gems?'
"And the thief laughed, and said, 'Wheelbarrows.' "
There was a moment of silence, finally broken by Millicent's small voice. "I don't want to sound stupid, but I still don't get it."
"Not yet? We thought Bishop was trying to beat ScanNet. Later he can get at whatever we use ScanNet to protect, right? The answer is yes and no. He's stealing ScanNet!"
Tony's eyes were still cautious. Griff must be running on fatigue poisons. "Why? How?"
"Let's call them Ecuador. Whoever's behind this. Ecuador, maybe, or some industrial forces within Ecuador. They want proprietary technology, which will be coming in when the Barsoom Project starts in two months. To do that they have to beat ScanNet. Once the system is in place, they can't beat it, but maybe they can get someone into MIMIC before the system is entirely operational. That someone is Nigel Bishop."
"Shit." Tony slapped his palm against his forehead. "Of course. I've got it. I've got it. Here's what Bishop wants-he wants to measure the output from the ScanNet sensors and compare them with the input, what they're seeing. That's the standard Game tapes. That will tell him how ScanNet selects its data, what it sends on to the next substation."
"How does that help him?" Vail, for once, seemed baffled.
"The p-" Griffin began.
"If h-" Tony bit it back.
Griffin said, "The problem with an automated security system is teaching it what information is irrelevant. No processor could handle the insane amount of raw data that ScanNet can pick up. So every sensor is intelligent. It decides what to send on to the next station and what to ignore. And each successive station handles input from, say, a dozen sensors, and it sorts through that and sends on what it thinks is important. And so on through maybe a dozen generations of substations, until you get to the main processing unit. Development of the sensors was easy. Developing the intelligent software was a miracle."
"It took seven years," McWhirter said. "Over a million manhours. If you can tap the sensors and run some stimulus in front of them-"
"Say a special-effects extravaganza?"
"Perfect. Sound, visual, warm human bodies doing all manner of strange things. Sort through all of that. Find out what's being kept, what's being thrown away. What does the system pay attention to? What has it been told to ignore? You can reverse-engineer the software, find the conceptual holes in ScanNet, and beat the system."
There was silence around the table.
"Did he get it?" Harmony asked.
"This is where the real dilemma begins,'' Alex said. "Don't you see? We can't afford to assume that he didn't get it. But if he smuggles it out to his employers, we have to rewrite the entire software scheme and we don't have time to do that. Or we could implement another, inferior system."
"Could he have already smuggled it out?"
Tony shook his head slowly. "Bishop has a reputation for being a loner. Trusting no one. He let Acacia into part of his plan, because he needed a spy, a distraction. I think I think it's safe to assume she was his only confederate. If that's true, then I'd guess it went like this:
"First night, Bishop slips out and plants his taps. The next day his team, or someone else's team, fights monsters in front of ScanNet, and his taps pick up their information. Record it on any kind of storage medium."
"Could he broadcast it out of the building?" Millicent asked.
"MIMIC is shielded. If he was near an external window he might use a line-of-sight laser transmission or something, but he was never near one once the Game began the second day, and he didn't get back to the roof."
"You'd know, I guess. Tony, couldn't he have gone down the modular wall with Army and Tex-Mits?"
Tony barked laughter. "Al the Barb would have cut his line!"
"Oh. Right. Then… his recordings must still be somewhere in MIMIC. On him, or one of the other Gamers, or one of the extras-"
"NPCs."
"Or hidden in a tool, or a wad of chewing gum stuck to a wall… or spilled out with the water when Mgui-Smythe blew the tenth level."
Tony said, "Millie-"
"We'll check it, Alex."
"Jesus. Or all of the above! Why not make a zillion copies and hide them everywhere?" Alex lowered his head into his hands. "There's no way in hell we can scan this whole building for something that might be the size of a thumbnail.