But he kept those thoughts to himself, smiling and nodding and bowing…
And noticing that one woman in the back, the one with the killer body, was clapping without letting her palms touch. Pure symbol. Her half-face mask shadowed a sardonic smile.
He completed the rest of his pitch encouraging them to come back any time, and every time, and compete for more points and prizes, and to go out and spend the rest of their vacation money at the gaming tables.
After a few weary claps, they trudged back to their changing cubicles.
But the mystery woman walked up to him and said with perfect diction, “Good to see you haven’t altogether abandoned bullshit.”
If she had hit him in the chest with a Mitsubishi shocksword, it couldn’t have been a bigger jolt.
“Angelique,” he said, struggling to find something clever to say. “Angelique Chan. As always, your consonants are remarkable. Since when do you play with the kindergarten?”
“I wanted to find out how much of your talent remains unsquandered,” she said bluntly. “It’s been a long time.”
Was that a reference to their prior relationship, or his current level of skill? There was something lurking behind her words, and he just couldn’t imagine what it was. One dark, hot spark of hope flared for a moment, and Wayne tamped it down. Hope killed.
Angelique was five foot ten, just one inch shorter than Wayne, and taller in her heels. She was dressed as Hela, the death goddess from Marvel Comics: black shadings and a spiky headdress. She was leaner than a Valkyrie, a meld of Chinese and Filipina blood that promised both sensuality and fierce intelligence, and delivered on the promise.
No good could come of those memories, and he shut them down. He said, “So… you’ve seen.”
“Your subroutines?”
“Yeah. The hotel bought some standard games, but I get to tweak and then I get to operate.”
“Not bad, really. You need to tighten up the automated response loops, but really I have no major complaints.” She cut her eyes sideways at him. She was playing a game. Angelique was always playing a game. “Time for a bite?”
He managed a grin. “Schmoozing the customers is part of the job. The Escalade has a great buffet.”
“We can do better than that,” she said, twinkling at him. “Give me ten to get showered, and meet me at the eastern slots.”
“There is nothing like a dame, nothing in the world…”
The naval-white clad waiters and menus sang in unison. The walls exploded in a riot of tropical color, the ceilings opened up into a Busby Berkeley fantasy of clockwork dancers… the White Way restaurant had everything, Wayne figured, with the possible exception of memorable cuisine.
But at the moment, even the finest food would have done little for his numbed tongue. Wayne sat on his side of the table, nibbling at a five-bean salad, watching Angelique wolf down a massive chef salad, wondering where she tucked it all. Her body should have filled out until she resembled one of the Fit/Fat models parading their chubby perfection in every vidzine and holo ad. He wondered faintly if his rather retro taste in slender females was just a rebellious nature prolonged beyond adolescence.
“So,” she said between bites. “What do you know about me?”
“You mean since you dumped me?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “Since then.”
“I’ve followed your career,” he admitted. “Hard not to. You’re probably the most successful female gamer in the world. I saw that ceremony where Acacia Garcia passed the baton. She still looks pretty good, actually.”
“Better in person,” she said. “I’m guessing pineal transplant, but who knows?”
“Anyway, you play at the highest levels, and win more than you lose. The others are chasing you, but can’t catch up. I think you’re about eight thousand points above your closest competitor.”
“I’m impressed,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d keep such close tabs.”
“You’re hard to forget.” He’d actually researched that last bit while she was showering, but why tell her? He rolled the next question around in his head, wondering if he’d really ask it. “All right, we’ve established that I know what you’ve been up to. So what do you know about me?”
“I know you LARP around town,” she said. Live-Action Role-Playing. “You run some games-I really wouldn’t call it a Game Master role, would you?”
Those slanted green eyes dared him to contradict her. He couldn’t find the moxie to do it, and finally had to grin. “It’s a living.”
“Not a really good one,” she said. “I did a credit check. You’ve got markers all over town, Wayne, and some of them are in unfriendly hands. A little gambling problem?”
He winced. Anyone working for the casinos or hotels was vulnerable to credit checking, exposing patterns of… er… entertainment investment? Spontaneous analysis of cumulative distribution functions? Oh, what the helclass="underline" call it gambling. He wanted to curse at her for invading his privacy.
But reconsidered. Why would she look into his financial affairs? This was sounding less and less like idle curiosity, more and more like a serious inquiry of some kind. Angelique Chan was dangling bait there, but where was the hook? Was she testing his temper? Why did she want to know how he behaved under pressure?
You know why.
“So you’ve been helping bookies adjust odds on LARP action. And some of that gambling paid off. I know that two years ago you won a weeklong orbital vacation. How was that?”
As she nursed a forkful of ham and greens, there seemed something studiedly neutral, calm, about the way she asked that question. Calm enough to set off alarm bells.
“It was fun,” he said, more mystified than ever. “I took Buffy Childress, one of my coworkers. We had the honeymoon suite. You should try it.” There-another little dig. Was this a come-on? And if she was interested, would the Buffy story get under her skin a bit?
Rather than becoming upset, her lips curled in a smile. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “My friend didn’t have such a great time. Developed inner-ear problems. If he hadn’t come back down he would have upchucked his belly button.”
“There are drugs for that.”
“Everyone has a special talent. Eddie’s seems to be resisting massive doses of antiemetics. I got a little tired of breathing barf.”
Two waiters warbled arias from some musical play that Wayne couldn’t name.
“-land of the Free and the Brave
We caught the Second Wave
After two hundred years of sweat and toil
We told the Arabs to drink their oil-”
Hmm. Probably something about the Second Canadian War. Their voices were actually quite good. Talent isn’t enough, he reminded himself. You need luck, too.
For a moment, he forgot himself, and his problems, and concentrated on the lovely, slender black-haired woman before him. He even began to wonder if she simply needed a friend to talk to, perhaps a broad perspective from someone who wasn’t in the game anymore. Could he handle that? Could he remember that sometimes, you just gave because it was needed, not because of what you might or might not get in return?
He sighed. All right. Let’s just do this right. If this is the last time you ever see her, how do you want her to remember this conversation? That you were a good guy, in her moment of need, and agile of mind. Try that one.
“You seem stressed,” he said.
Her smile was wan. “And you’re probably wondering why, and what this is all about.”
“Well, you’ve gone to some trouble.”
She put another forkful in her mouth, chewed thoughtfully, and then spoke. “Why am I stressed? I’ve won my way into the greatest game of my life, and there’s a part of me that doesn’t want it.”