Maj gazed through the quasi-twilight that filled the booth. Thankfully, the fans weren’t in total riot mode. They weren’t tearing things down or open, contenting themselves with investigating what there was available to see.
“I’m also assuming you called for something other than to let me know the bad news.”
“Peter Griffen disappeared in the middle of the crisis,” May said. “I got the feeling it wasn’t planned.”
“That’s not the impression I got when my sergeant told me about it,” Holmes said. “She thinks this was a publicity stunt that got way out of hand.”
Maj silently disagreed. She glanced back at the interior of the Eisenhower Productions booth, noticing the security lights hanging above it. All of them were dark. Something’s wrong.
“My people have orders to pick Peter Griffen up,” Holmes went on. “I want to have a little chat with him about some of the civil ordinances he fractured today.”
“Do you know what room he’s in at the hotel?” Maj forced her way through the crowd, then spotted a door on the right. She crossed toward it.
“Yeah,” Holmes said. “I’ve already had a couple uniforms check it out. He’s not there.”
Then he’s got to be here, Maj told herself. She hopped onto the wraparound booth in front of the door and walked across. Piles of plastic-wrapped shirts lay scattered across the floor. They all held pictures of Sahfrell the dragon. She tried the door at the back and found it open.
Stepping through, she found herself in a small room with an implant chair. “I found the room Peter probably did the holo from.” She walked to the implant chair, drawn by the dark stain that covered one side. Even in the darkness the pool of liquid held a crimson gleam. Her stomach turned. “There’s fresh blood in this room.”
“Hold your position,” Holmes ordered. “I’ll have a uniformed officer there in just a moment.” He broke the connection.
Maj scanned the room. There weren’t any other doors, and she really didn’t think Peter had enough time to get out of the booth without someone noticing him. They’d have mobbed him if they’d seen him. And there was enough blood that she knew he couldn’t be in terribly good shape.
She turned her foilpack over, using the scant light from the vidscreen to illuminate the shadows covering the carpeted floor. A trail of blood drops led from the implant chair.
Five feet farther on, they disappeared abruptly.
Maj dropped to her knees and studied the floor, passing the illuminated foilpack vidscreen only inches from the top of the carpet. It took her three tries to spot the seam in the carpet.
She hooked her fingers under the edge and lifted, exposing the square mouth of a utility passage that had probably been set up to allow egress to the various power outlets set into the floor around the convention center floor. Darkness filled the utility tunnel.
Using the light from the foilpack viewscreen, Maj located the ladder set into the side of one wall. At the bottom the tunnel stretched out in two directions, bending immediately in both. Small emergency lights burned with dim wattage, barely illuminating the underground hallways to near-twilight.
Something gleamed on the floor, catching her eye. She knelt and used the foilpack light.
The tiny drop of red blood glistened, and it was only the first of the intermittent trail that led through the access tunnels.
Maj followed, reconfiguring the foilpack to send an IM to Mark.
Winded and hurting, Andy pulled himself to his feet and stumbled into the cockpit command chair. He pulled the jetpack off and tossed it to the side, then thrust his hands and feet into the gloves and boots just as a missile slammed into the battlesuit’s side. The big machine rocked and came close to overturning, but the on-board gyros kept it upright.
Sensory feedback from the gloves and boots already had Andy hooked into the battlesuit. He threw one of the battlesuit’s big hands out and caught himself, pushing hard to maintain his balance. The head-up-display helmet descended over his head.
“Belt in or log off,” Andy advised Catie as he sprang into action.
“I’m staying.” Catie spotted the restraining straps on the wall where passengers could tie down. She fit her arms through the loops and pulled the straps tight.
“There’s a crash helmet in the locker beside you.” Andy moved the battlesuit into a run.
“You’re planning on crashing?”
Andy grinned. With the HUD in place, he knew she could only see his lower face. “You don’t plan those things in Space Marines. They just happen.”
“Nice game. Those seem to be your friends.”
“They like to play rough.” A salvo of short-range missiles tore the ground up behind Andy as he ran across the broken terrain. The battlesuit’s big feet sank a half-meter into the ground while he mowed down small trees and brush.
“I think I saw Maj’s dragon.”
“I didn’t.” Sudden movement on the radar screen drew Andy’s attention. The radar tilted, spinning, showing that the most aggressive movement had gone airborne. The battlesuits were also equipped with short-range boot jets that allowed navigation in space and limited flight. “Were you bumped off another game?”
“No. I was in this one when the dragon arrived. Then the armored trolls showed up.”
“Space Marines,” Andy corrected automatically. He paused and turned, locking his feet down to the ground to brace for the recoil from the short-range cannon.
“We’ve stopped. Is that good?”
“Going on the attack,” Andy replied, tracking the crosshairs onto the flying battlesuit. “These guys aren’t as experienced as they act. Man, you don’t give up the ground to go flying around. You’re not locked down to fire your heavy artillery, and you’re nothing but one big…fat…target.” His finger twitched inside his right glove.
Three missiles fired from his shoulder-mounted weapon. They left curving contrails as they rushed toward the airborne battlesuit. All three missiles slammed into the battlesuit’s chest area, ripping a huge crater. A moment later the limited-nuke power plant detonated, ripping the battlesuit to shreds.
Andy opened the comm. “Blue Leader, this is designate Blue Thirteen. My advice is to disengage and log off. Playtime’s over.” He got the battlesuit moving again, flipping up the laser sights and taking out two missiles that streaked for him.
The missiles exploded and rained fragments against his steel hide, but damaged little except the exterior. Blue Leader’s response was way less than gentlemanly.
“Guy’s going to need his mouth washed out with soap,” Andy commented. He moved deeper into the forest and away from the castle grounds. Mounted men had ridden into the inner courtyards, but he knew they wouldn’t stand a chance against the heavily armored and armed Space Marines.
He opened a leg hatch and spread an arc of anticavalry mines. Trees bent and cracked, pulled free of the ground as he thundered through.
Less than a minute later one of the pursuing Space Marines stepped on the group of mines. “I’m hit! I’m hit!” the pilot squalled. “My legs are gone!”
“You’re a sitting duck, pal,” Andy said grimly, tracking the action in his rearviews. He swiveled the shoulder-mounted cannon and fired. Two missiles hammered the battlesuit’s neck joints, triggering the automatic eject sequence.
The battlesuit’s head twisted into position, the chin cutting a deep furrow into the earth. Then the top of the head fragmented, releasing the cockpit inside and shooting it skyward.
“Kind of like a skeet trap,” Andy said, grinning tightly. He brought the arm laser online and got target lock. His initial burst slagged the escape pod before the parachutes ever popped.
Mark paused in his investigation of the circuit paths of the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel’s computer paths. He’d ended up tracking dozens of dead ends and was getting more than a little frustrated. Data wasn’t flowing in any direction, totally stalled out now, and gave him no reference points at all. But somewhere in there, he knew, there had to be a virus that allowed whoever had popped strands on the security system access.