“Then where did they go? All those people, for God’s sake.”
“Some religious zealots in other towns in the area began to believe that the Second Coming had indeed occurred in Avalon and that everyone there had been transported to heaven.”
“But that’s preposterous! Jesus.”
She smiled. “You see how easy it is to revert to religious terms when a seemingly impossible event occurs?”
Balenger stared dismally at the floor. “This hasn’t helped. I don’t know anything more than when I started.” His voice tightened. “I have no idea how to find Amanda.”
10
Behind him, Balenger heard the elevator open. He turned toward the open door, beyond which footsteps grew louder, heavy, a man’s.
Ortega stepped into the doorway. “I was beginning to think I was in the wrong building.” He didn’t look happy.
Balenger introduced him to Professor Graham. “We’ve been talking about the Sepulcher of Worldly Desires, but there’s not much solid information about it. Did you find Karen Bailey?”
“No.”
Another disappointment. Balenger’s shoulders felt heavier. “What about the game case? Did you send a patrol car to the row house?”
“We can talk about it later.”
“Look, I understand your reluctance to discuss this in front of a third person, but Professor Graham has a special interest in the topic. She might be able to help us.”
“Still acting like you’re in charge?” Ortega asked.
The air in the room felt compressed.
“Acting like someone who’s scared,” Balenger said. “Was the game case still in the attic?”
Ortega hesitated, then reached into his suit coat. He removed a transparent plastic bag that contained the case. “Scavenger. The name still doesn’t sound familiar.”
Balenger took the case from him. Beneath the game’s title, he saw an image of an hour glass in which sand drained. The sand at the top was white. As it fell through, it changed to the scarlet of blood.
“May I see?” Professor Graham asked. Fatigue lines etched her face.
Balenger handed it over. She examined the cover and turned the case. “A copyright for this year. But I read all the game blogs on the Internet. I never heard of this one.”
“You read all the game blogs?” Ortega asked in surprise.
“People think video games are for teenagers. But the average age for a player is thirty, and plenty of people my age are fans.” She held up her knobby fingers. “You’d be amazed how it keeps the mind sharp and arthritis at bay.”
“Even so,” Ortega said.
“A professor of history playing video games, many of which are violent?” The white-haired woman forced a smile. “I suppose I could play a universe-exploring game like Myst, which is fairly outmoded now, or a role-playing game like Anarchy Online, in which I control a character in another reality. But to tell you the truth, they’re too slow for me. The ones with weapons and cars — they’re the ones that get my juices flowing, and at this stage of my life, that’s not a small thing to accomplish. Believe me, I know every game that’s available, and this one never got any publicity, which surprises me, given the money that went into the first-class packaging. I know you’re using this plastic bag because you’re worried about marring fingerprints, but if there’s a way to do it safely, I’d like to take the disc out and play the game.”
“I’d like that, too,” Balenger said. “But when we found the case at the house where the fake professor gave the lecture, the disc wasn’t in it.”
“You found this where you heard the lecture?” Professor Graham peered through the plastic bag and read the text on the back of the case. “ ‘Scavenger is the most vivid action game yet created. It has an astonishingly realistic appearance that allows you to identify with characters trapped in a mysterious wilderness, proving that wide-open spaces can be as threatening as any haunted house. The characters engage in a life-and-death obstacle race and scavenger hunt, using high-tech instruments to discover a message to the future to be opened in the present to understand the past.” “
Balenger felt cold. “Part of that was in the invitation Amanda and I received for the lecture. It’s what caught my intention and made me go there.”
“‘The objective is to find a lost hundred-year-old time capsule,”“ Professor Graham continued reading. ”“In the process, both the player and the characters discover that Time is the true scavenger, sucking our lives, even as we and the characters spend an irreplaceable forty hours playing the game.”“
The professor lowered the case and stared at them. Dark circles under her eyes made Balenger suddenly wonder if she was ill. But before he could ask her about that, Ortega had a question of his own. “Is that typical of the descriptions you find on the back of video-game cases?”
“Hardly. They usually talk about ‘blood-rushing action,” ’spectacular graphics,“ and ‘battles with Hell.” They emphasize effects rather than what the content means. This is so brooding it’s almost existential. “Time is the true scavenger, sucking our lives?” You’d think Kierkegaard wrote that on one of his darkest nights.“
“What does the reference to ‘forty hours’ mean?” Ortega asked.
“That’s the length of time most video games take to be played,” Professor Graham answered.
Balenger rubbed his arm. “Is that how long I’ve got to find Amanda?” In anguish, he peered at his watch. “It’s after five. Shortly after midnight yesterday, I woke up in Asbury Park. That was more than forty hours ago. God help me, I’ve lost her.”
LEVEL FIVE
THE MIND OF THE MAKER
1
“Have any of you read Dorothy L. Sayers?” the Game Master asked.
Amanda adjusted her headset, convinced that she couldn’t have heard correctly.
“Who?” Viv asked.
Amid the ruins of the church, Derrick stared up at the glaring sky. The rocks of the fallen walls radiated heat. “First, you want to know if we can guess what this Sepulcher thing is. Now you ask about—”
“Amanda,” the voice said, “you ought to be able to tell us about Ms. Sayers.”
“Why would she know?” Ray demanded. “You already told us she’s your favorite. Are you giving her the advantage, asking questions only she can answer?”
“I work in a bookstore,” Amanda told them. She deliberately used the present tense, needing to convince herself that life could be normal again. “Yes, I know who Dorothy L. Sayers is.”
“Prove it,” the voice said.
“She’s a British mystery writer who created an amateur detective named Lord Peter Wimsey. Her most famous novel is probably The Nine Tailors, which is about bells in a church steeple and a body that’s found there.”
“This is more bullshit.” Ray wiped his sleeve across his forehead. “The clock’s ticking, and we’re wasting time, yacking about a mystery writer.”
His stomach rumbled, the noise so loud that everybody noticed.
“Good heavens, Ray,” the voice said. “Are you hungry?”
His face turning scarlet, Ray glowered at the others. “Talk to this guy all you want. Waste your strength as well as your time.”
He yanked the empty water bottles from Viv and Derrick, then programmed the latitude and longitude numbers written on them into his GPS receiver. “While the rest of you dick around, I’m going to find out how to win this game and get away from here.”