Dream Park Read online

  "She's right, you know," said Ollie. "We're seeing more bones than before. A lot more. And something else... there isn't so much mud and barnacles on these old cars."

  Gwen almost stepped off the green path, trying to get close enough to check for herself. "I don't know, Ollie..."

  Now he was getting excited. "Look, there are more scavengers, too." This was readily apparent. Fish darted into heaps of rubble more frequently now. A pair of small sharks cruised through the area.

  They passed another skeleton, but, disturbingly, not all of the clothing had been torn away, and there were strands of meat on the bones. Tiny fish fought over them, clustering like carrion crows.

  A pleasure launch had smashed through the window of a jewelry store, and it was surrounded by a mass of wriggling fish. There were no barnacles on it at all.

  The recorded narrator had noticed nothing. It blathered on:

  "Despite, or perhaps due to, the grotesqueries found in these waters, they are a favorite location for scuba divers and single­subs..." But nobody was listening. An undercurrent of startled wonder ran through the group, as stones began to shift apparently of their own accord.

  "Look!" someone screamed, the scream followed by other fear­ful, delighted outbursts. A skeletal hand probed out from under a stone, pushed it off with a swirl of suddenly muddied waters. The skeleton stood up, teeth grinning from a skull half-covered with peeling skin, and bent over, dusting the silt off its bones.

  "Over there!"

  Two waterlogged corpses floundered from within a shattered bank, looked around as if orienting themselves, and began lumber­ing toward the green path. They passed a flooded dance hall where death had come in mid-Hustle, and there were additional laughing shrieks as the disco dead boogied to life.

  The water swarmed with scavengers of all sizes, and now full-sized sharks were making their appearance. A shark attacked one of the walking dead. The green-faced zombie still had meat on its bones. It flailed away ineffectually as the carnivore ripped off an arm.

  Now, all around them, the water was clouded dark with blood where fish and animated corpse battled. Here, a dozen "dead" struggled with a shark, finally tore it apart and devoured it. There, half a dozen sharks made a thrashing sphere around one of the zombies.

  There was much good-natured shivering in the line, but it was infused with laughter-until the beefy redhead stepped off the strip. There was a shiny metallic object half-buried in the sand, and she was stretching out to reach it. Somehow she overbalanced and took that one step.

  Immediately, a flashing dark shape swooped, and a shark had her by the leg. Her face distorted horribly as a scream ripped out of her throat. The shark tried to carry her away, but now a zombie had her by the other leg. It pulled, its face lit by a hungry grin. There was a short tug-of-war, and the redhead lost.

  "I'm gonna be sick," Ollie moaned. He looked at Gwen's smile and was alarmed. "My God, you really are sick!" She nodded happily.

  It was near chaos. No one else stepped off the strip, but zom­bies and sharks darted toward the group, again and again. They were getting in each other's way.

  Another scream from the rear as a teenaged boy threw himself flat. A great shark skimmed just over him. The boy huddled, afraid to get up. The walking dead were converging on the green strip... and when Ollie looked down, the green glow had faded almost to the color of the mud. He chose not to mention it to Gwen. The others saw nothing but sharks and zombies converg­ing, reaching for them.

  There was a sudden rumbling, and the ground began to shake. "Earthquake!" Tony yelled. Then his long jaw hung slack with amazement.

  Because the buildings were tumbling back together. As they watched, sand and rock retreated from the streets, and tumbled masonry rose in the water to reform their structure.

  A golden double-arch rose tall again, and a fistful of noughts sprinkled themselves across a sign enumerating customers, or sales, or the number of hamburgers that could be extracted from an adult steer.

  Zombies were sucked backward through the water, into office buildings and stores and cars and buses. Bubbles rose from be­neath the hoods of cars waiting patiently for a traffic light to change. Fully clothed pedestrians stood ready to enter crosswalks.

  Then the water receded, and for a moment they saw Los An­geles of the ‘eighties, suddenly alive and thriving, filled with noise and movement. They were shadow figures in a world momentarily more real than their own. A bus roared past the group, and Tony choked on a powerful, unfamiliar, somehow frightening smell.

  The narrator's forgotten voice had been droning on. "Now we come to the end of our journey to a lost world. We at Dream Park hope that it has been as entertaining for you as it has been for us. And now-" The lost world began to fade, and the green path flared bright as it flowed into a dark corridor. Lights came up, and when the narrator finished speaking it was in the neutral voice of the computer. "Enjoy the rest of your stay. Oh... is anybody missing?"

  "The redhead," Acacia murmured. "Who came with the, ah, the lady who got eaten by the shark?" She sounded only half serious, but there was an answering murmur of inquiry. Gwen tugged at her sleeve.

  "Nobody came with her, Acacia. She was a hologram." Tony elbowed her in the ribs. "Cas, she wasn't there till the trip started. I noticed." He grinned at her. "Faked out again, huh?"

  "Just wait till tonight, Tony, my love," Acacia said sweetly. "It's all set up with the Park. You'll swear I'm there in the room with you..."

  Chapter Three

  THE LORE MASTER

  Griffin heard the laughter as soon as he got out of the elevator. He peeked around the corner carefully. One never knew what might be prowling the fifth floor of the R&D building.

  There didn't seem to be anything ominous lurking about, just an open door to Skip O'Brien's psych lab. Silence, then another gale of mirth. Alex walked softly across the hall and poked his head in.

  A group of Psych Research assistants sat and stood clustered around a hologram of a seven-year-old boy chasing after a loping white rabbit.

  "Stop!" the boy panted.

  The rabbit pulled an oversized pocket watch from somewhere in its fur. Its whiskers twitched nervously. "Oh, dear, oh dear! I shall be too late!" It bounced along a tunnel into the darkness.

  Griffin smiled, then laughed aloud. Synthesizer-assisted or not, the white rabbit spoke with Skip O'Brien's voice and ran with Skip's bouncy walk.

  The rabbit disappeared from the field. The boy was gone a mo­ment later. One of the techs diddled a switch, and the image cut to the boy falling through the air.

  Alex walked around the group to the transmission booth. By the slanted observation window he found Melinda O'Brien.

  Alex tapped her shoulder. "Looks like he's having fun."

  The frown lines that had creased the corners of her mouth shallowed as she turned to him. "He always does, doesn't he, Alex?" She raised a cheek for him to kiss.

  Melinda smelled like perfumed powder, as always. She was handsome in an angular way. She should wear her hair down, Alex thought, to soften the lines of her face. He'd never dared tell her that.

  "It's good for him, Melinda. It's fun to watch, too."

  She smiled for him and turned back to watch her husband.

  In the field, an awkward white rabbit tumbled through space, mugging ferociously. In the transmission booth, Skip waved his arms and thrashed in mock-panic. The computer-generated rabbit animation cloaked him, following his body movements for refer­ence.

  Suddenly Skip looked straight at them and grinned. He hopped out of the booth and said, "Just be a minute. Let me grab my coat."

  The other Psych personnel gave him a rousing round of ap­plause, and Skip took a quick bow. He buttoned his jacket over his modest paunch, and slicked back a thatch of unruly blond hair. The hair was a good transplant that had cut ten years off Skip's appearance. "Let's go," Skip said cheerfully, and led the way.

  "What was that about, Skip?"

  O'Brien h
ad reached the elevator doors. "Oh, yeah, that." He laughed. "We're going to rework the Gravity Whip."

  The doors opened, and Skip turned to Alex. "Where to?"

  "Gavagan's?"

  Skip raised an eyebrow to Melinda, who nodded quickly. Skip punched the Gavagan's code into the selector. The door closed. A gentle sway told them they were moving.

  "Why redo the Whip? It's still pulling ‘em in."

  "Because it is there. Alex, the Gravity Whip is almost twelve years old. We can do a lot better now."

  Melinda was genuinely curious. "That had something to do with your rabbit act?"

  There was a clicking sound as their elevator cage switched rails. It began sliding sideways.

  "Absolutely. We're going to rework the Whip for total Environ­ment. Redesign the cars, add opticals, sound, texture. We've got a dozen scripts waiting for the special effects programs. Think of an ‘Alice in Wonderland' where the customer really falls down the rabbit hole, or a space trip where your gravity goes out at selected moments. Picture yourself as James Bond in that skydiving se­quence in ‘Moonraker'-"

  "Sounds good."

  "-trying to steal a parachute before you hit ground! It gets bet­ter, too. We're working on ways to stretch that thirty seconds of free-fall time, psychologically."

  He got a blank stare from Alex, and Melinda gave a wise, tired sigh.

  "Psychological time perception is extremely flexible. Just to start, there's anticipatory time, time spent waiting for something to occur. There's experiential time, the apparent duration of involve­ment in a given set of events, and there's reminiscent time, or ‘recalled time' which is different from the other two due to the ‘storage key' phenomenon."

  "Storage key?" Alex saw Skip marshalling a response, and re­alized his mistake. Too late; Skip was off and running.

  "Do you know about Sperling's eight-second law? You always remember an eclipse lasting eight seconds. It's because eclipse watchers spend the whole time watching one thing. If you want your memory to store more than that you have to keep looking around. What we're doing with the Gravity Whip experience-"

  Gavagan's was a quiet restaurant. Its walls were sponges for sound. It was decorated like a twentieth-century British pub, right down to the dart board on the wall and the lukewarm beer at the bar. The jukebox in the corner didn't play music, but a dollar coin bought fifteen minutes of fancy storytelling from holograms of Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, Jorkins, Brigadier Fallowes...lex Griffin spent a lot of time here.

  Skip had finally wound down, and sat back in his chair listening to a ghostly Harry Purvis tell of finding a nugget of U-235 in his mailbox.

  Gary Tegner, the ever-cheerful manager of Gavagan's, floated their food to them personally. "Fish and chips?" Alex and Melinda both raised fingers. Skip had a Clarkeburger and fries. "Good to see you folks. Melinda, isn't it?" He set out tankards of ale for the two men and a soft drink for Melinda.

  She nodded. "It's been a while. Christmas of ‘49? Staff party?" Tegner gave his deep-bellied chuckle. He had considerable belly to bounce it around in. "How could I ever forget that party?" He nudged Skip. "You nuts in R&D. When eight tiny Santas pulled that sleigh through my window, I thought I'd bust a gut."

  Alex remembered. "Me too. And the reindeer with the whip?"

  Tegner retreated from the table, wiping his eyes as he chortled. Skip wolfed down a third of his hamburger, then, "What's hap­pening with you, Alex?"

  "Same old thing, buddy." Then he remembered. "No, I take that back. We had some vandalism over in CMC."

  "I heard about that. Rice, wasn't it? Anything taken?"

  "Apparently not. It shook him up, though."

  "That fits his profile. He's the nervous type."

  "Hey, don't tell me that, buddy. You should have said some­thing before you recommended him to me!"

  "Alex, a hired guard should be the nervous type. Anyway, I'm a sucker for puppies and lost children."

  Alex caught Melinda's wistful glance. "Hey, genius, when are you going to have some kids of your own? Then you can test-" Skip's lips thinned out, and so did Melinda's, and Alex knew he was on thin ice. "-on the other hand, I was wondering if you brought the L-5 plans. Ahem."

  Skip jabbed lightly at Griffin's hand with a fork. "It's not too bad. Old territory. I don't feel my professional life has room for kiddies yet."

  Melinda seemed to draw into herself, and her voice was tiny. "-And I want them." She nibbled at her fish. "I really do under­stand Skip's point, but I was raised thinking a woman should have children."

  "Were your parents very religious, then?"

  "Who wasn't, after the Quake?" Her answer was simple, and true. The Mormons, the Vincent de Paul Society, and Hadassah had been among the first to bring massive aid into California. The religious environment had filtered all through California society and California politics. For several decades California had been another word for conservatism.

  Skip squeezed her hand. "I couldn't get the L-5 plans, Alex."

  "Problems?"

  "You'll love this. Security problems. It would be the first pri­vately owned space colony, and there are a stack of international treaties to search through. Public support would help, and we're getting it from everywhere but California."

  Alex drained the last of his ale and set the mug down with a clank. "I suppose you've heard all about this mess, Melinda?"

  "Just what Skip brings home with him, and that isn't much."

  "It's like this, then. California has been firmly on its feet for more than a decade now. A few Southern Cal politicos think that this would be a good time to strip away some of Cowles Indus­tries' tax advantages. See, we're just another business to them now. They think they don't need us any more. Besides, a tax break always looks good to the voters till they see what they're giving up." Alex's anger was eating through the calm, and he lowered his voice. "So we've got to walk soft. We can hold onto what we've got, maybe, but expansion is going to be difficult. We're just too high-profile, too easy a target."

  Skip nodded. "What it adds up to is that all the big projects are being kept quiet until the details are worked out. So if you want a look at those plans, you'll have to go and sign for them yourself."

  Griffin made a sound of disgust. Then, "I should be glad they're tightening up. Security consciousness around here has been sloppy. I think we may have to have a real problem before Har­mony gives me the word to tighten up on the rumor mill." He looked at his sleeve-watch and winced. "Oh dear oh dear, the Queen will have my head! Skip, I've got to teach a class in about three minutes. Melinda-" He shook her hand with the gentlest of grips. "Always a pleasure. Skip, I think Lopez-tomorrow's Game Master... ?" Skip nodded recognition of the name. "Well, he's coming into Game Central tonight, and I for one want to check him out. Want to drop by? It might be interesting."

  "Sure. About midnight, isn't it?"

  "You've got it. Okay, I'll see you tonight."

  Gwen leaned against the rail of the Hot Spot refreshment stand across the way from the Everest Slalom exit. She was drinking a Swiss Treat special: coffee and cocoa generously topped with marshmallowed whipped cream. It was taking the chill from her bones fast. Her muscles were beginning to quiver with belated fa­tigue. Dream Park's automatic controls made mistakes almost impossible. Otherwise the ski run down Mount Everest was a damnably realistic experience.

  Acacia was talking animatedly with an older couple. "I do the Everest Slalom every time I come here. I'm getting better, too. Eighty-five percent control this time. But, by God, that's the first time they ever threw a baby yeti at me! There he was, right in front of me, all fluffy white fur and big trusting blue eyes. I damn near slammed a tree getting around him..."

  Gwen watched a strolling band of acrobats perform their flip-flops and joined in the applause, wishing that she had kept up with the gymnastics that her mother had pushed her into at the tender age of five. Her thumb traced a line over the bulge around her waist, and she cast a wistful
eye at Acacia's trim figure. Gwen compared her own wispy blond hair to the dark girl's lush brown mane. Even Margie Braddon's hair, though white, was long and thick; and her wrinkles were all smile wrinkles, and her figure was enviable. Envy was what Gwen felt now.

  Gwen Ryder didn't often dwell on the differences between her­self and other women. Most of the time she considered com­parison-shopping either odiously self-congratulatory or self-pity­ing. She liked her mind in neither mode. But there was a four-day jaunt ahead, and romances were known to bloom or die during such, and Gwen wondered.

  Ollie and Tony were playing a computerized hockey game in a small arcade nearby. She loved to hear Ollie laugh, or see him smile, even the uneasy smile he wore when he thought he was the focus of attention.

  It was easy to remember her first meeting with Adolph Norliss. It was an I.F.G.S. function. He was wearing motorized armor lifted from an old novel, Starship Troopers, and she had knocked on the chest cannon and asked if it wasn't a little humid in there. He'd started telling her all about the cooling and dehumidifying system he had rigged up for it. Before they knew it they were in a nearby coffee shop finding out how much they had in common, while a goggle-eyed waitress brought them breakfast.

  Dating and wargaming together had followed, with the spectre of romance hovering close behind. Maybe it was the fact that he never took himself seriously that made her love him. Heck, some­body had to take him seriously, and she wasn't doing anything better than falling in love. But sometimes she worried about what he could see in her, worried that some day he'd decide the whole thing was a mistake, and she would be alone again, haunting the conventions and tourneys and libraries alone, just another little fat blond girl marking off bland days in a bland life.

  The older woman's words broke her reverie.

  "Oh, I was playing Zork when I was seven," Margie Braddon was saying. "My father had a computer and a Modem. You know Zork?" Acacia shook her head. "You played a role-playing game against a program in the computer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Zork was a treasure hunt with death traps, just like some of the Games we play now, but with no sensory effects at all. The computer led you around like a blind person. There were a lot of ways to get killed," Margie laughed. "Monsters, and mazes to get lost in, and logic puzzles.