He frowned. “What kind of evidence?”
“Piering?” she said. Her voice was clear and low and strong.
The security man pressed buttons on his PDA. Toby McCauley appeared on the wall monitor, face five times its normal size. Kendra appeared across the table from him.
“So…,” the onscreen Piering said. “Can you help us understand how the Frost brothers might have gained access to your security systems?”
“They had contacts,” McCauley said. “Kikayan contacts. The boy’s father invested in the game, and some of the people negotiating the deal had the chance to insinuate themselves.”
“You have direct knowledge of this?”
“No,” Toby said. Was that a tic at the corner of his mouth? A bit of a squint? McCauley was nervous. “No, but we played squash together, Thomas and I, and several times he implied that the government of Kikaya was riddled with revolutionary forces, and that some of them were close to the King.”
“And?”
“They implied that Kikayan loyalists had fingers everywhere, and knowledge that would one day be applied to the freeing of-”
Thomas slapped his hand on the table. “He is lying. I have no such contacts. But Mr. McCauley has debts. It is known that, for a price, his shop has made contraband items that have made their way into Luna’s black market.”
Kendra pushed a piece of paper across to him.
“I want to know what you know, and from whom you learned it. And I want to know now.”
Thomas hesitated, and then began to write.
Piering met Kendra outside the cell. They walked together in silence for a while, and then found an elevator.
“Did you get it?” Piering asked.
“Enough,” Kendra said. “He was easier than McCauley. I think he figured that the ball is in play now, and that after the situation is resolved, he will have sufficient leverage to force us to release him to Earth. While McCauley is making noises as if he’s still staying here, still running for election… but I think that’s bullshit. I think he’s planning to take off with the others.”
“Should we take a look at his residence? See if he’s preparing to leave?”
“Yes, send someone over to do that, I think,” Kendra said. “What the hell happened? The man used to have ambitions.”
“Maybe he still does. Maybe someone made him a better offer.”
They opened the next room, and Xavier greeted them. “Now, that was fun. I was afraid that you wouldn’t give me enough to work with.”
On the screens were wireframes of Frost and McCauley, partially filled in. “We are thinking that if they had more help outside, they wouldn’t have sent one of the brothers in.”
Wu Lin came closer. “Which means?”
“Which means that if we can control the visual feeds, and seal off the dome from outside communications, they might be blind.” Kendra said.
“But,” Xavier said, “they mustn’t know that they are blind.”
“No, they mustn’t.”
“It seems, Wu Lin, that we have a game after all. One with considerably higher stakes. Please, Ms. Griffin. Dazzle me.”
Xavier and his people watched on a game monitor as the Moresnot men broke into the Mars room.
“We have no direct contact with the gamers, as you know. Most of the time. But we do have some system backup sensors. We received a notification that someone was attempting to hook several of them up in series.”
“Why?” Kendra asked.
“I think they want to activate the animatics and preprogrammed holograms.”
“Where are the pirates right now?” Kendra asked.
“Entering Mars,” Xavier said after a glance at the screen.
“Would Scotty have known they were coming?”
“Very possible.”
Kendra sighed. “Show me the thermals.”
A gauzy map blossomed. A clutch of red silhouettes arrived through a connecting door. Their scans revealed two people hidden in the room.
Suddenly, Kendra understood. “Scotty’s going for an ambush. We have to help him.”
The little Game Master perked up. “What did you have in mind?”
“What exactly are your capabilities at this point?” she asked.
“In terms of communicating or controlling the illusions?”
Xavier closed his eyes and considered. Then he began ticking off points on his fingers. “I cannot control the illusions directly. I can’t add data to the computers in the gaming dome. I cannot send outside power to any of the illusions, nor can I use the main camera feeds to observe.”
“That’s the bad news,” Kendra said. “And…?”
“And… our attackers were smart, but not brilliant. We can do a small amount of imaging, using a subsystem. We can route power from one part of the dome to another.”
“How so?”
“The backups. In case of power failure, we wanted to be able to keep going until major power was restored. We have some backdoor controls there. Let’s see… as you already know, in certain situations we can communicate with the gamers a bit, using Morse code.”
“If Scotty is planning to ambush Moresnot,” she said, “we want to help him. What can we do?”
A pause, then Wu Lin spoke. “There is little we can do directly. But there is one factor that must be taken into consideration.”
“Which is?”
Wu Lin’s eyes glittered. “Mr. Griffin is accustomed to our illusions. The kidnappers are not.”
“True,” Xavier said. “More to the point, the more complex and disorienting we make the situation, the greater advantage should accrue to the good guys, such as they are.”
“What can you do?” Kendra asked.
“Well,” Xavier said. “You have to understand that a game is controlled by both the technological constraints and the commercial considerations. That means that, as with any good story, there is a rhythm to the flow of the game. Smaller illusions give way to larger, more impressive ones until you reach the end, and use the most impressive ones of all.”
Kendra nodded. “And so you suggest…?”
“Taking off the gloves,” the little man said.
The Moresnot pirates combed the Martian graveyard as best they could, when not gaping and gawking at the expanse of machines.
McCartney shone his flashlight up at the ceiling. “This dome…,” He shook his head. “Looks larger than it can possibly be.”
Shotz made a harsh humorless sound. “That has to be the illusions.”
“I thought we cut the power,” Celeste said.
“Backup,” Shotz said. “We cut main power, but some of the environmental systems have backup in case of emergency. I think the Dream Park have people tapped into those lines.”
The shadows of the Martian machines loomed large above them.
“This is creepy. What are these things?”
“Some sort of robot,” Shotz offered.
“It’s hard to believe that people pay to… what? Be frightened? Have adventures?”
Shotz smiled, as if it required physical effort to hoist his cheeks into position. “You don’t understand, because you are the kind of woman who makes her own adventures. People like this must have others make their adventures for them.”
“How much does all of this cost?” Fujita asked. Despite his impressive mass, Fujita walked with great, almost incongruous delicacy and quiet.
“I think,” McCartney said, “that I’m in the wrong bleedin’ business.”
“Quiet,” Celeste said. “And split up. I say that they’re in here, and frightened to death.”
Shotz motioned two of his men this-away, two that-away.
Scotty and Wayne were hiding behind a tremendous tripod with a tiny dome on top. One outsized flat foot concealed them.
“What are they doing?” Wayne asked.
Scotty peeked out and then ducked back. “Splitting up. Trying to pincer us.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Only if you want to stay alive. No, really… we have an advantage. There are only two of us, and they probably won’t have time to search the entire room.”