They walked into the clearing. They were deep in a network blind spot, but from here they had a naked-eye view up the hillside, to ground that must surely be within Pyramid Hill. If they continued that way, the Hill would start charging them.
But the twins were not looking at the Hill. Jerry walked to a small tree and squinted up. "In fact, this is an interesting spot. They tried to patch the coverage with an airball." He pointed into the branches and pinged. The utility view showed only a faint return, an error message. "It's almost purely net guano at this point."
Juan shrugged. "The gap will be fixed by tonight." Around twilight, when aerobots flitted around the canyons, swapping out nodes here and there.
"Well, why don't we help the county by patching things right now?" Jerry held up a thumb-sized greenish object. He handed it to Juan.
Three antenna fins sprouted from the thing's top. It was a typical ad hoc node. The dead ones were more trouble than bird poop. "You've perv'd this thing?" The node had Breaklns-R-Us written all over it, but perverting networks was harder in real life than in games. "Where did you get the access codes?"
"Uncle Don gets careless." Jerry pointed at the device. "All the permissions are loaded. Unfortunately, the bottleneck node is still alive." He pointed upward, into the sapling's branches. "You're small enough to climb this, Juan. Just go up and knock down the node."
"Hmm."
"Hey, don't worry. Homeland Security won't notice."
In fact, the Department of Homeland Security would almost certainly notice, at least after the localizer mesh was patched. But just as certainly they wouldn't care. DHS logic was deeply embedded in all hardware. "See All, Know All" was their motto, but what they knew and saw was for their own mission. They were notorious about not sharing with law enforcement. Juan stepped out of the blind spot and took a look at the Sheriff's Department view. The area around Pyramid Hill had its share of arrests, mostly for enhancement drugs… but there had been nothing hereabouts for several weeks.
"Okay." Juan came back to the tree and scrambled up about ten feet, to where the branches spread out. The old node was hanging from rotted Velcro. He knocked it free and the twins caused it to have an accident with a rock. Juan shinnied down from the tree. They watched the diagnostics for a moment. Violet mists sharpened into bright spots as the nodes figured out where they and their perved sibling were, and coordinated up toward full function. Now point-to-point, laser routing was available; they could see the property labels all along the boundary of Pyramid hill.
"Ha," said Fred. The twins started uphill toward the property line. "C'mon, Juan. We're marked as county employees. We'll be fine if we don't stay too long."
Pyramid Hill had all the latest touchy-feely gear. These were not just phantoms painted by your contact lenses on the back of your eyeballs. On Pyramid Hill there were games where you could ride a Scoochi salsipued or steal the eggs of raptors — or games with warm furry creatures that danced playfully around, begging to be picked up and cuddled. If you turned off all the game views, you could see other players wandering through the woods in their own worlds. Somehow the Hill kept them from crashing into each other.
In Cretaceous Returns , the sound of the free-fall launcher was disguised as thunder. The trees were imaged as towering ginkgoes, with lots of places you couldn't see through. Juan played the pure visual Cret Ret a lot these days, in person with the twins, and all over the world with others. It had not been an uplifting experience. He had been "killed and eaten" three times so far this week. It was a tough game, one where you had to contribute or maybe you got killed and eaten every time. So Juan had joined the Fantasists Guild — well, as a junior wannabe member. Maybe that would make him clueful. He had already designed a species for Cret Ret . His saurians were quick, small things that didn't attract the fiercest of the critics. The twins had not been impressed, though they had no alternatives of their own.
As he walked through the ginkgo forest, he kept his eye out for critters with jaws lurking in the lower branches. That's what had gotten him on Monday. On Tuesday it had been some kind of paleo disease.
So far things seemed safe enough, but there was no sign of his own contribution. They had been fast breeding and scalable, so where were the little monsters? Sigh. Sometime he should check out other game sites. They might be big in Kazakhstan. Here, today… nada.
Juan stumped across the Hill, a little discouraged, but still uneaten. The twins had taken the form of game-standard velociraptors. They were having a grand time. Their chicken-sized prey were Pyramid Hill game bots.
The Jerry-raptor looked over its shoulder at Juan. "Where's your critter?"
Juan had not assumed any animal form. "I'm a time traveler," he said. That was a valid type, introduced with the initial game release.
Fred flashed a face full of teeth. "I mean where are the critters you invented last week?"
"I don't know."
"Most likely they got eaten by the critics," said Jerry. The brothers did a joint reptilian chortle. "Give up on making creator points, Juan. Kick back and use the good stuff." He illustrated with a soccer kick that connected with something that scuttled across their path. That got lots of classic points and a few thrilling moments of quality carnage. Fred joined in and red splattered everywhere.
There was something familiar about this prey. It was young and clever-looking… a newborn from Juan's own design! And that meant its mommy would be nearby. Juan said, "You know, I don't think — "
"The Problem Is, None Of You Think Nearly Enough." The sound was premium external, like sticking your head inside an old-time boom box. Too late, they saw that the tree trunks behind them grew from yard-long claws. Mommy. Drool fell in ten-inch blobs from high above.
This was Juan's design scaled up to the max.
"Sh — " said Fred. It was his last hiss as a velociraptor. The head and teeth behind the slobber descended from the ginkgo canopy and swallowed Fred down to the tips of his hind talons. The monster crunched and munched for a moment. The clearing was filled with the sound of splintering bones.
"Ahh!" The monster opened its mouth and vomited horror. It was so good — Juan flicker-viewed on reality: Fred was standing in the steaming remains of his raptor. His shirt was pulled out of his pants, and he was drenched in slime — real, smelly slime. The kind you paid money for.
The monster itself was one of the Hill's largest mechanicals, tricked out as a member of Juan's new species.
The three of them looked up into its jaws.
"Was that touchy-feely enough for you?" the creature said, its breath a hot breeze of rotting meat. For sure it was. Fred stepped backwards and almost slipped on the goo.
"The late Fred Radner just lost a cartload of points" — the monster waved its truck-sized snout at them — "and I'm still hungry. I suggest you move off the Hill with all dispatch."
They backed away, their gaze still caught on the monster's teeth. The twins turned and ran. As usual, Juan was an instant behind them. Something like a big hand grabbed him. "You, I have further business with." The words were a burred roar through clenched fangs. "Sit down. Let's chat."
¡Caray! I have the worst luck . Then he remembered that it had been Juan Orozco who had climbed a tree to perv the Hill entrance logic. Stupid Juan Orozco didn't need bad luck; he was already the perfect chump. And now the twins were gone.
But when the "jaws" set him down and he turned around, the monster was still there — not some Pyramid Hill rent-a-cop. Maybe this really was a Cret Ret player! He edged sideways, trying to get out from under the pendulous gaze. This was just a game. He could walk away from this four-story saurian. Of course, that would trash his credit with Cretaceous Returns , maybe drench him in smelly goo. And if Big Lizard took its play seriously, it might cause him trouble in other games. Okay . He sat down with his back to the nearest ginkgo. So he would be late another day; that couldn't make his school situation any worse.