"If the whole place is sealed up, how do they breathe while they're working out?" Leif asked.
"There." David pointed to a ventilation system outlet far above their heads. "Metal grill, and then we'd have to get past the fan."
"Great," Leif muttered. They went back to the door, but it was sturdily built and stoutly locked.
"I don't suppose you have any lock-picking experience we could apply to the front door?" David said.
Leif shook his head.
"But what have we here?" David exclaimed, going farther along the rear of the building. The light back here was dim. Although there was a lamp fixture over the back door, it lacked a bulb. But Leif's eyes managed to pierce the dimness to see what David was looking at. A glint of light on glass somewhere on the second floor, located next to one of those old-fashioned metal exterior fire escapes.
"Give me a boost up," David said.
Leif helped his friend stand on his shoulders, then watched as he clambered up onto the balcony of the fire escape. David lowered the ladder strapped to the balcony, and Leif climbed up and stood beside him.
"It's a window-maybe for an office," David said, carefully feeling along the dirty glass. "And it seems to be slightly open. Let's see if we can improve upon that situation."
Gently pushing the window up, David began climbing through it into the darkness beyond. He was only halfway in when he knocked into something that fell with a clatter.
A second later Leif heard a muffled whumppppfff! — and a scream from David!
Chapter 19
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" von Esbach demanded, shaken out of his usual suavity. Or rather, Joe Brodsky had been shaken out of his usual character. "This is supposed to be a historical simulation, even if it's a little romanticized. We're supposed to be doing Anthony Hope, not H. P. Lovecraft. When AHSO hears about this-"
"You're in my world now," Alan Slaney replied. "And you should be honored that I chose you."
"You've gone off the deep end, Slaney." That was definitely Joe Brodsky speaking, not the polished Graf von Esbach. "I'm out of here."
He concentrated for a moment, obviously giving computer orders. Then his eyes went wide. "You-" Slaney raised his hand again, but von Esbach/Brodsky proved remarkably spry, dropping to hug the ground as the lightning bolt crackled over him.
"There will be no leave-takings," Alan's voice took on a deeper, more oracular tone. "You entered this world through my portal. And you will embark on a new existence here."
Megan was scarcely listening. She was busy trying to bail out of this sim-and the program kept coming back "permission denied."
"We're not on the Net!" P. J.'s voice was a hoarse whisper in her ear.
Those couches in the salle-they must have been hooked up to a stand-alone system, Megan thought. "It really is Alan's world. We're stuck in here-"
She looked down at the blackened form of Colonel Vojak.
And Walt Jaeckel might really be dead!
Megan wanted to recoil in horror as Alan stretched out a pleading hand to her. "Why do you shrink back from me? Don't you realize the boon I offer you? You'll be my queen."
"But you'll be our god, is that it?" She had to force the first words past a dry throat. But the more she spoke, the angrier she became.
"I've created a place where you'll never age. Remember what Burton-who was a fencer as well as a poet- wrote in the Kasidah. 'Hardly we learn to wield the blade before the wrist grows stiff and cold.' That will never happen with us."
"As long as no one pulls the plug on the computers where you're playing out this fantasy," she shot back.
The expression on Slaney's face didn't change, but the air seemed to get about ten degrees colder. No, there was a change. Faintly, then stronger and stronger, radiance began streaming from Alan's face, from his hands-it even seemed to seep through his clothes from the skin beneath, turning the heavy gray garments to a glowing white.
"You called me a god, foolish woman," Slaney said in a rolling voice. "In the bounds of this universe, that's true enough. Let all kneel to me!"
All around them the surviving nonrole-playing characters fell to their knees. The players with free will glanced at each other-and then the silence was shattered by the crash of a pair of matched Colts.
The heavy slugs from P. J.'s pistols didn't even seem to disturb the folds of Alan's clothing. Megan wasn't sure if they were disintegrated on contact, or if they just passed through.
"Damn," P. J. said as his guns ran empty, "I knew I should have sprung for some silver bullets."
The rage on Slaney's glowing face was a fearsome thing to see. He turned on P. J., both arms raised.
"Those sweat stains don't help the godlike image," Megan called, edging back toward the stairs.
Slaney halted in mid-gesture, peering under his arms.
"Made ya look!" Megan called over her shoulder.
She'd already grabbed P. J. by the arm as she plunged down the stairs.
From the way he was sagging, David should have fallen from the windowsill. But he seemed to be caught somehow. He was gasping in pain, scratching fruitlessly at something in the darkness. "My leg!" he said hoarsely. "Caught my leg!"
Leif dashed over, intent on helping his friend. But when he tried to reach through the window, his hand encountered a rough, splintery barrier. He pushed against it gently, and David almost toppled over on top of him.
The other boy cried out again in pain when Leif reached out with both hands to grab him. "It hit me again."
"Hang on to my shoulder," Leif ordered. More carefully this time, he pushed at the invisible barrier.
No, not invisible. Just well camouflaged. It was a huge sheet of plywood, larger than the window opening and painted black. The bottom gave when he pushed against it, but there was more resistance the higher Leif reached.
"Nasty," he muttered. Then he said to David. "You want to get in or out?"
"Out-unless you know what just slammed into me," David replied.
"It's a deadfall-a simple but very effective mantrap," Leif said. "Just a big-ass sheet of three-quarter-inch ply- board with a couple of hinges along the top end. Pull the free end up until it's parallel with the floor, prop it up with a piece of black-painted two by four, and the trap is set. The whole thing is invisible in the dark. When you started coming through the window, you banged into the prop, which fell. Then the sheet swung down, to smash into you."
" 'Smash' is right," David groaned. "Now I know how the fly feels when the swatter comes swooping down."
"So?" Leif repeated. "Out or in?"
David leaned heavily on his shoulder for a moment, silent in thought. "In," he Anally said. "Can't get any worse. And it's not as though I'll be able to run for it if things do get worse."
"Brace yourself against me," Leif warned. He pushed against the hinged sheet of plywood, loosening it from David's leg. "If I keep holding this out of your way, can you swing your other leg up and around?"
"I can try," David said.
It was a slow, painful business, but David managed to turn round on the window ledge and slide down inside. Leif could hear the hiss of pain as his friend shook up his injured leg on landing.
Some of the pressure against Leif's hands suddenly lessened. "I've got it from down here." David said. "Do you have enough space to get in?"
Leif succeeded in squeezing through-at the cost of a couple of splinter-scratches. Once inside he and David let the deadfall swing flat against the wall. As Leif knelt over him, David leaned back against the wall. "Go on," he whispered. "I'll be no help-except for calling in the backup."