Niven, Larry & Steve Barnes - Dreampark

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DREAM PARK
Copyright (c) 1981 by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except
for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the
publisher.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental.
Manufactured in the United States of America
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE
Chapter One: ARRIVALS 3
Chapter Two: A STROLL THROUGH OLD LOS
ANGELES 11
Chapter Three: THE LORE MASTER 23
Chapter Four: THE MASTER DREAMERS 37
Chapter Five: THE NAMING OF NAMES 47
Chapter Six: FLIGHT OF FANCY 57
Chapter Seven: THE ROAD OF THE CARGO 69
Chapter Eight: THE BANQUET 79
Chapter Nine: KILLED OUT 91
Chapter Ten: NEUTRAL SCENT 101
Chapter Eleven: GAME PLAN 111
Chapter Twelve: OVERVIEW 117
PART TWO
Chapter Thirteen: ENTER THE GRIFFIN 129
Chapter Fourteen: THE WATER PEOPLE 141
Chapter Fifteen: THE RITE OF HORRIFIC SPLENDOR 151
Chapter Sixteen: REST BREAK 163
Chapter Seventeen: THE LAST REPLACEMENTS 175
Chapter Eighteen: SNAKEBITE CURE 187
Chapter Nineteen: NECK RIDDLES 199
Chapter Twenty: THE SEA OF LOST SHIPS 211
Chapter Twenty-One: THE HAJAVAHA 223
Chapter Twenty-Two: THE ELECTRIC PIZZA
MYSTERY 233
Chapter Twenty-Three: BLACK FIRE 243
Chapter Twenty-Four: AMBUSH 253
Chapter Twenty-Five: THE EGG OF THE AIRPLANE 261
Chapter Twenty-Six: THE LAUGHING DEAD 271
Chapter Twenty-Seven: CARGO CRAFT 281
Chapter Twenty-Eight: THIEVES IN THE NIGHT 289
Chapter Twenty-Nine: END GAME 301
PART THREE
Chapter Thirty: THE FINAL TALLY 315
Chapter Thirty-One: DEPARTURES 327
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CAST OF CHARACTERS
DRAMATIS PERSONNAE
The Creators
RICHARD LOPEZ: The world's most respected Game Master, co-author and presently monitor of the
South Seas Treasure game.
MITSUKO (Chi-chi) LOPEZ: Richard's wife, partner, coauthor, and public representative.
The Players
ACACIA (Panthesilea) GARCIA: Experienced fantasy game player. Warrior.
TONY (Fortunato) MCWHIRTER: Inexperienced gamer, and Acacia's guest. Thief.
CHESTER HENDERSON: Famed Lore Master, leader of the South Seas Treasure party.
GINA (Semiramis) PERKINS: Experienced fantasy gamer. Cleric.
ADOLPH (Ollie, or Frankish Oliver) NORLISS: Experienced fantasy gamer. Warrior.
GWEN (Guinevere) RYDER: Fantasy gamer, and Ollie's fiance. Cleric.
MARY-MARTHA (Mary-em) CORBETT: Experienced and highly eccentric gamer. Warrior.
FELICIA (Dark Star) MADDOX: Experienced gamer. Thief.
BOWAN THE BLACK: Dark Star's partner, an experienced Gamer. Magic User.
ALAN LEIGH: Experienced fantasy game player. Magic user.
S.J. WATERS: Novice gamer. Engineer.
OWEN BRADDON: Elderly, moderately experienced gamer. Cleric.
MARGIE BRADDON: Experienced elderly gamer. Engineer.
HOLLY FROST: Aspiring novice gamer. Warrior.
GEORGE EAMES: Moderately experienced gamer. Warrior.
LARRY GARRET: Moderately experienced gamer. Cleric.
RUDY DREAGER: Moderately experienced Gamer. Engineer.
HARVEY (Kasan Maibang) WAYLAND: Professional actor. Guide.
NIGORAI: Native bearer and spy. (Actor.)
KAGOIANO: Native bearer. (Actor.)
KIBUGONAI: Native bearer. (Actor.)
PIGIBIDI: Native chieftain. (Actor.)
LADY JANET: Damsel in distress. (Actor.)
GARY (the Griffin) TEGNER: Novice Gamer. Thief. Alias for Alex Griffin.
The Dream Park Personnel
ALEX GRIFFIN: Head of Dream Park Security.
HARMONY: Dream Park Director of Operations.
MILLICENT SUMMERS: Griffin's secretary.
MARTY BOBBICK: Griffin's assistant.
ALBERT RICE: Dream Park security guard.
SKIP O'BRIEN: Dream Park research psychologist.
MELINDA O'BRIEN: Skip's wife.
MS. GAIL METESKY: Dream Park liaison with the International Fantasy Gaming Society.
ARLAN MYERS: I.F.G.S. official.
DWIGHT WELLES: Dream Park computer tech.
LARRY CHICON: Dream Park computer tech. Together with Welles and the Game Masters, he monitors the
Gaming Central computer.
NOVOTNEY: Cowles Modular Community's resident doctor.
MELONE: Dream Park security guard.
PART ONE
Chapter One
ARRIVALS
The train sat rigid as a steel bar, poised in midair above its magnetic monorail track, disgorging
passengers into Dallas Station. Its fifteen cars had borne their passengers in quiet efficiency
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from New York to Dallas in just over half an hour, cradled in magnetic fields, travelling through
vacuum at close to orbital velocity, deep underground.
Chester had cut it close. He shifted his heavy backpack and strode back along the train, walking
like a king, projecting confidence. There would be Garners aboard, and some would recognize him.
Lore Master Chester Henderson was conscious of his unseen audience.
"Chester!"
He stopped, dismayed. He knew that voice-There she was, a vision in leopard tights that drew
stares from all but the most jaded. Her long red hair, plaited into a thick rope, dangled down her
back to the top of her belt line. She wore heavy makeup that almost hid the fact that she was,
indeed, a very lovely woman. But the leotards hid nothing.
"Hello, Gina," Chester sighed with a tone somewhere south of resignation. "I should have guessed
you'd be along."
"I wouldn't miss it for anything. Remember last time, when you saved me from the mammoth?"
"Cost me three points for frostbite. I remember."
"Don't complain, it's mean. Anyway, I was very appreciative." She coiled her arm around him and
joined him in a rather strained lock-step toward the Dream Park shuttle.
She had been, he remembered, very appreciative. "One of your strong points," he said, and put his
arm around her. It felt disturbingly good, nestled there between warm curves. "Well, I'm glad
you're with us. We may need to pass you off as a virgin or something."
"Would you really?" she giggled. "I've always loved your imagination."
Chester didn't smile. "But, Gina . . . if you're in, you're going to have to follow orders a mite
more carefully. You almost screwed me good-stop that, I'm serious. This is extremely important to
me, all right?"
Gina looked up at him and her face grew almost serious. "Anything you say, Chester."
Chester groaned to himself as they boarded the train. She had skill; she was better than most
newcomers; she carried her weight and sometimes followed orders too. But she treated it like some
kind of goddam game.
Alex Griffin took his shuttle seat and settled back with eyes closed and arms folded comfortably.
He had long since learned the value of catching bits of rest where he could, and could catnap
during minutes most people spent fidgeting.
He stretched, and heard popping sounds as muscles and joints woke up. Small wonder they were still
half-asleep. Ten minutes earlier he had been snoring in his apartment at the Cowles Modular
Community, with the alarm buzzing in his ears. The third time it went off, it would refuse to shut
up until his 190 pounds were lifted from the sensor in the mattress.
He opened a sleepy green eye and watched the rear monitor as the cluster of buildings receded from
view. Five hundred Dream Park employees maintained residences in Cowles Modular Community, nestled
in the Little San Bernardino Mountains, fifteen kilometers and six shuttle minutes away from work.
Griffin was on call twenty-four hours a day, three weeks out of the month, and he appreciated the
convenience of CMC. But this morning was nothing special, just the usual 6:00 A.M. roust.
Alex rolled his wrist over to check the watch imprinted on his sleeve. (Expensive indulgence. Even
drycleaning eventually messed up the printed circuitry.) Three minutes until the shuttle slid into
the employee depot. He had about decided to close his eyes again when the picture in front of him
changed.
The woman on the flatscreen might have been beautiful by the light of noon. At 5:56 A.M. she was
evil incarnate. "Morning, Chief," she chirped, obscenely wide-awake.
"No. No, it isn't, Millicent." Alex yawned rudely, remotely disliking himself for it. He ran blunt
fingers through his light red hair and made a serious attempt to focus his eyes. "Oh, what the
hay. Maybe it is a good morning. Maybe it'll even be a good day. I'm sorry, Millicent. What's up?"
"Final prep for the South Seas Treasure Game tomorrow is the hottest item. You have some dossiers
to go over."
"I know. What else?"
She shook her head, her loosely curled afro bouncing a bit as she studied the computer display on
a second screen offscreen. "Umm. . . budget meeting with the Boss."
He was definitely more alert now. "Did I exceed Harmony's projected red last quarter?"
"Don't think so. Better not have. That's my department, and I don't make mistakes like that. Heh
heh."
"Heh heh. Well?"
"I think we're switching over from zero-base budgeting to some new system that Harmony is hot on."
"Oh, Lord. What else? Don't I have a class to teach today?"
"Yes. One o'clock, right after a scheduled lunch with O'Brien." Alex's face lit up. "Hallelujah. A
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bright spot at last. Tell Skip to meet me at 'leven-thirty at the White Hart, okay? And ask him to
bring me the L5 specs. I want to see them. What about the class?"
"Standard Constraint and Detention stuff. For the new security people."
"Right." Alex glanced at his sleeve; the station was seconds away. "Make me a memo. Standing arm
bar, crossover toe hold for the ground work, and oh, let's say knife disarms. Right and left wrist
locks with low kicks. I'll wing it from there. I'm almost in, now, hon. I'll see you in a few
minutes, okay?"
"Right, Griff," she said, flashing him a smile as the picture faded out.
The shuttle let him out in the central core of the 1200-acre Dream Park complex, two levels
underground. Activity was heavy for this early, he thought. Then he remembered the Game. Odds were
there would be five thousand dollars of last-minute work to be done, or ho didn't know the catch-
up kings over in Special Projects.
Tunnels stretched off in all directions: up, down, sideways and maybe to yesterday and tomorrow if
the Research Department had come up with anything since breakfast. Most of the people scurrying
past knew him by name, tossing off a "Hi, Alex," or "Sappening, Griff?", or "Morning, Chief" as
they ferried racks of costumes, or props, or electronic equipment to the different divisions. A
cargo tram hissed in, and a crew of overalled workers and tiny humming cargo 'bots rushed in to
unload so that another shipment could hurry down the line.
He tossed a friendly salute to the guard at the elevator and pressed his right thumb against the
ID pad. The door opened. Five or six people crowded in after him, and Alex controlled his
annoyance when only two of them put their thumbs to the pad for clearance. More memos, dammit.
It was 6:22 A.M., Thursday, March 5, 2051, according to Alex's desk clock. Propped on the clock
was a sheet of fanfold paper, Millicent's printout of the day's obligations.
Alex doffed his coat and dropped into his chair. He punched a finger at the desk console. A
hologram "window" formed above his desk: a nameplate that read "Ms. Summers," and behind the
nameplate a dark pretty face whipping around to answer the buzz.
"Millicent, can't I foist some of this off on Bobbick? How the hell is he going to earn his pay if
I do all the work?"
"Marty is already with Insurance going over the damage report on the Salvage Game that ended
yesterday in Gaming Area B. He should be free by about two this afternoon, or do you want me to. .
.
"No, leave him on it. Listen. Do I have to go all the way over to R&D or can we take care of this
mess by phone? Lord knows I've got enough paper to shuffle before eight. Check it out, would you?"
"Right, Griff...I'm pretty sure that'll go."
Her face blinked out, and Alex punched for a display of today's "paperwork." Three columns of
headings ran off the screen. An executive secretary and a deputy Security Chief and this much
garbage still filtered up to him. Work first?
A slow smile played over his face. A little peek at the Park first.
He triggered the exterior monitor and watched the room swell with the darkened spirals of Dream
Park. From the vantage of the monitoring camera the workers readying the Park for the day's
visitors were ants streaming in and out of the long black shadows of early morning.
There was the somber shape of the Olde Arkham tour. (The kids loved it. The adults. . . well, an
old lady with a heart murmur had damn near croaked when Chthulhu appeared to devour her
grandchildren. Some people!)
Snakelike and far off around the edge of the Park the Gravity Whip coiled, offering a total of
thirty seconds of weightlessness via computer-designed parabolic arcs. The monitor eye swept over
to Gaming Area B, where the Salvage Game had been conducted.
That one was interesting. Partly in desert territory and partly underwater, it had involved twelve
players for two days. Alex figured that the Game Master on that one would just about break even.
It had cost three hundred thousand dollars to set the Game up. The twelve participants had paid
four hundred a day, each, for the privilege of earning "Gaming Points" for the fantasy characters
they portrayed and, not incidentally, for having the bejeezus scared out of them. Book rights
presold, film rights likewise.
He couldn't pretend to understand the logic behind it. The vagaries of the International Gaming
Society were totally beyond him. The players seemed to speak a foreign language. And this month
they had two Games back to back!
The Games did help the Park, though. The Olde Arkham Tour had started as a Game, thirty or forty
years ago.
There, now, that was more like it. The big shooting gallery over across from the Hell Ride was
more his cup of tea. Alex slipped in there occasionally to knock off a few Nazis or dinosaurs or
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muggers. God, that was a realistic "experience." The R&D boys were incredible. And quite mad.
He thumbed the control, and the camera roved further afield. Over there- His monitor buzzed, and
with a grimace Alex shut off the holo and answered the call. Muffle's voice spoke, but the
congealing visual image was of a guard Griffin couldn't quite place.
"Research and Development, Gruff," Muffle's voice said.
"Right." Name and background fell into place now. This would be Albert Rice calling from his guard
station between Files and the technological monster known as Game Center.
Rice was strong and smart, quick to volunteer his services, and Griffin sometimes felt a twinge of
guilt at not warming to the man. Maybe just jealousy, he mused. Rice cut a handsome blond profile,
almost pretty, and several of the secretaries in Protective Services had bets going to see who
would score with him first. In the year Rice had been with Dream Park, nobody had yet collected.
Something was bothering Rice. He seemed agitated; he kept shifting his feet.
"Yes, Rice, what's the problem?"
"Ah, good morning, sir. Nothing wrong here at the post, but-" He hesitated, then blurted, "I just
got word that my apartment in CMC was vandalized."
Griffin felt himself coming to attention. "When was the report filed?"
"Only about a half hour ago. Lock broken, and some stuff scattered around, the cop said, but they
didn't take my electronics. I'd like to see what is missing."
Griffin nodded somberly. "You don't have any crazy friends over there in R&D, do you- No, scratch
that." They weren't that crazy. "You'd better take the rest of your shift off. I'll get somebody
over there to fill in in about twenty minutes. Check out then. What's going on over there?"
"Mostly prepping Game Central for the South Seas Treasure Game."
"Yeah, that looks to be a monster. Listen, would you like to make up the hours you'll lose this
afternoon?" Albert Rice nodded enthusiastic agreement. "Good. Put in for the night shift, and
check back in at midnight. We'll work you eight to five for a few days, all right?"
"Right, Chief."
Alex signed out and blanked the image. He popped on the inter-office line and Millie appeared,
smile neatly in place. "Millie, send me the dossiers on the Game tomorrow, will you?"
"Right, Griff."
The printer on his desk began hissing immediately, and sheets of fanfold paper arced slowly up and
folded themselves into a neat pile. Griffin shook his head. How could Muffle be so cheerful every
morning? Ho ought to steal a cup of her coffee and send it to R&D to be analyzed...
He tore off the first set of pages.
The picture of a handsome, dark-skinned young man with a neatly trimmed beard looked somberly out
of the holo. Details were in the opposing corner. Name: Richard Lopez. Age: 26. Gaming position:
Game Master.
Oh, well, then this once-over of the file was purely perfunctory. Lopez would have been put
through a complete security and tech checkout. Anyone who walked into Gaming Central was cleaner
than boiled soap. And sharp, too. Evans, the girl who had guided the recent Salvage Game, had had
three years at MIT on top of the Masters degree she picked up in Air Force electronics school. And
that was only Gaming Area B. Area A was twice as large, and the Gaming Central was three times as
complex. Lopez would be very good indeed. Griffin would make a point to be there when Lopez and
his assistant entered the control complex tomorrow morning.
His assistant? A tallish oriental girl with short black hair and shining white teeth smiled shyly
from the page. Mitsuko "Chichi" Lopez. Twenty-five, and a quick skim of the dossier confirmed that
she was superbly qualified to copilot the four-day jaunt ahead.
Birds of a feather, Alex guessed. Probaby met in Dream Park; might even have been married in one
of the Dream Park wedding chapels. Those could be interesting ceremonies; the wedding guests might
include anyone from Glenda the Good Witch to Bluebeard to Gandalf to a Motie Mediator. Angels were
popular.
Who else? Ahh . . . the Lore Master. The Lore Master, the Chester Henderson. Henderson ran parties
through Dream Park about three times a year, and would come out from Texas even for a relatively
small outing. Generally his way was paid by the players or the Game Masters or their backers.
Hadn't there been some trouble with Henderson about a year ago? Alex skimmed down the sheet.
Chester Henderson. Thirty-two years old (though he seemed younger in the picture. His deadly-
serious look was almost daunting). Had been to Dream Park thirty-four times, and was considered a
valuable customer.
Here it was. A year ago, Chester had taken an expedition into "the mountains of Tibet," hopefully
to bring back a mammoth. The party had met disaster, three out of thirteen surviving, and no
mammoth. Chester had dropped several hundred Gaining Points, threatening his standing in the
International Fantasy Gaining Society. And who had been Game Master on that ill-fated expedition?
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Aha! Richard Lopez. Chester had yelled Foul to the I.F.G.S., and they had passed down the decision
that although something called "snow vipers" were unusually lethal, all of the nasty tricks used
against the expedition were within the rules. Lopez was given a warning, but Henderson had lost
three hundred and sixty-eight Gaming Points. Even more interesting: until this year, Lopez had
operated anonymously, as a "mystery Game Master," carrying out gaming negotiations through his
wife Mitsuko. Henderson had demanded a face-to-face meeting for this year's Game, and the I.F.G.S.
agreed.
This, then, would be the first time two legends had actually met. Alex leaned back in his chair
and considered the ceiling. This sounded like a grudge match, it did. And grudge matches were
always interesting.
Chapter Two
A STROLL THROUGH OLD LOS ANGELES
Acacia was antsy. She had been growing progressively more eager since they boarded the subway in
Dallas. Now she tugged at Tony's arm, pulling him away from the check-in counter while he tried to
put his wallet away. "Come on, Tony! Let's get in there before the crowds clog up the works."
"Okay, okay. Where do we go first?"
Memories glowed in her face. "God, I can't decide. Chamber of Horrors? Yeah, there first, then the
Everest Slalom. Love it love it love it. You will too, spoilsport."
"Hey. I'm here, aren't I? There's a fine line between sensible emotional restraint, and the
withdrawal symptoms of a stimulus junky denied her fix."
"You're a wordy bastard," she said, and took off running down the tunnel entrance, pulling at his
arm with both hands. He laughed and let her tow him into daylight.
The impact of Dream Park came suddenly, just beyond the tunnel. From the top of a flight of wide
steps one could see three multi-tiered shopping and amusement malls, each twelve stories high,
that stretched and twisted away like the walls of a maze. The space between was filled-cluttered-
with nooks, gullies, walkways, open-air theaters, picnic areas, smaller spired and domed
buildings, and thousands of milling people.
Acacia had seen it before. She watched Tony.
The air was filled with music and the laughter of children and adults. The smell of exotic foods
floated in the breeze, and mixed there with the more familiar smells of hot dogs, cotton candy,
melted chocolate, salt water taffy and pizza.
Tony was gaping. He looked. . . daunted, overawed, almost frightened.
Clowns and cartoon figures danced in the streets. From this distance it was impossible to tell
which were employees in costume, and which were the hologram projections the Park was so famous
for.
Tony turned to Acacia and found her looking at him, waiting for his reaction with a self-satisfied
smirk. He started to say something, then gave up and grabbed her, swinging her in a circle. Other
tourists stepped politely around them, avoiding flying feet.
"God. I've never seen anything like it. The pictures just don't do it. I never imagined. . ."
Her smile was warmer now, and she clung to him. "See? See?" Tony nodded dumbly. She laughed and
pulled him down the steps, into magic.
The line for the Chamber of Horrors moved forward in fits and starts. The air was already warm;
Acacia wore her sweater draped over one slender arm.
One thing she noticed, that she had seen on her first trip to the Park, and had verified on return
trips: children were far less blown away by Dream Park than were their parents. The kids just
didn't seem to grasp the enormity of the place, the complexity, the expense and ingenuity. Life
was like that, for them. It was the adults who staggered about with their mouths open, while
shrieking, singing children dragged them on to the next ride.
Acacia had worked hard to get Tony to join the South Seas Treasure Game. Dream Park was for kids,
he'd said; Gaming was for kids who had never grown up. Now she chortled, watching him gawk like a
yokel.
There were dancing bears, and strolling minstrels and jugglers, magicians who produced bright silk
handkerchiefs and would no doubt produce tongues of fire as soon as it got dark. A white dragon
ambled by, paused to pose for a picture with an adorable pair of kids in matching blue uniforms.
Overhead, circling the spires of the Arabian Nights ride, flew a pastel red magic carpet with a
handsome prince and an evil visier struggling to the death atop it. Suddenly the prince lost his
balance and dropped toward the ground. Acacia heard the gasps of the spectators, and felt her own
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throat tighten. An instant before that noble body smashed ignobly into concrete, a giant hand
materialized. The laughter of a colossus was heard as the hand lifted him back to the flying
carpet, where he and the visier sprang at each other's throats once again.
Acacia sighed in relief, then chuckled at her own gullibility. She swept her hair back over her
shoulder and took Tony's arm. She felt happier than she had in months.
"It's all so. . . elaborate," Tony said. "How do they keep it all going? Jesus, Acacia, what have
you gotten me into? Are the Games this, this complicated too?"
"Horrendously," she confirmed. "Not always, but we're dealing with the Lopezes this time, and
they're fiendish. The real heart of the Games is the logic puzzles. But look, you're a novice. You
just concentrate on having fun, okay? Swordplay and magic and scenery."
Tony looked dubious. Acacia could understand that. He knew as much as she could tell him about
Gaming, and it was daunting- Dream Park supplied costumes, makeup, prosthetics, and character
outlines if necessary. The players supplied imagination, improvisational drama, and, bluntly,
cannon fodder. The Lore Master acted as advisor and guide, group leader and organizer. In exchange
he or she took a quarter point for every point made by an expedition member, and lost a quarter
point for every penalty point. A good Lore Master would make or break a Game. Experts like Chester
were kings among their kind.
But the Game Master was God.
If he could justify it by the rules and the logical structure of the Game, he could kill a player
at any time. Most Game Masters sought a "vicious but fair" reputation, and did what they could to
make any Game a fair puzzle. After all, players sometimes flew from the other side of the world to
compete. To send them limping back to Kweiyang after half a day's adventure would be bad business
for everyone, Dream Park included.
So the Game Master chose time, place, degree of fantasy, weapons, mythology and lore (generally
from a historical precedent), size of party, nature of terrain and so forth. He might put years of
work into a Game. Then, maliciously, he would conceal as much of the nature of the Game as
possible until the proper moment. It guaranteed maximum disorientation of the players, with
sometimes hilarious results.
"Hey, would I have talked you into something you wouldn't like? You'll love it. Stick with me,
kid," Acacia boasted. "I've got over sixteen hundred points in my Gamelog. Another four hundred
and I'll be a Lore Master myself. Then I can start earning back some of what I've put into these
Games. Trrrust me!"
"Who are you going as?"
She hadn't quite decided that. In the six years since she first learned to forget the debits and
credits for Ease-Line Undergarments ("So snug, you'll think a silkworm has fallen in love with
you!") Acacia had shaped and recorded half a dozen fantasy characters: histories, personalities,
special talents . . . "Panthesilia, I think. She's a swordswoman, and tough. You like tough
women?"
"I may need one for protection," said Tony.
The Chamber of Horrors line had pulled abreast of the building that housed it: a crumbling stone
castle with large, leaded glass windows. In the gloom within, one half-glimpsed monstrous shapes
moving.
There were five other waiting areas for the Chamber of Horrors, but this was the only one marked
"Adult." Its twenty occupants looked about them in uneasy anticipation. The room might have been
more comforting, Gwen Ryder thought, given the traditional paraphernalia: cobwebs, creaking
floors, hidden passages with heavy footfalls echoing within.
But the waiting room was lined with stainless steel and glass, as foreboding as a hospital
sterilizer. There was no sound but for their own breathing and the shifting of feet.
A woman spoke at her elbow. "Excuse me, but didn't I see you in the subway? With the Garners?"
Gwen turned, with some relief. The waiting room was getting to her. "Yes, that's right. We're for
the South Seas Treasure Game."
The woman was in her mid-twenties, in fine shape, darkly handsome verging on lovely. "So're we.
I'm Acacia Garcia. This is Tony McWhirter."
Tony nodded and smiled, and shook hands with Ollie when Gwen introduced him; yet he had a lost
look. Gwen pegged him as a novice, a possible liability in the Game to come. Novices sometimes
expected a Game to be as simple as daydreaming. . . until they found themselves in someone else's
expertly shaped nightmare.
He looked hard, though. Not burly, but very fit. Gymnastics muscles, maybe. At least he wouldn't
poop out in the first battle. In contrast, Acacia's attitude seemed almost proprietary. "Is this
getting to you too? The last time I was here I didn't get any higher than 'Mature'."
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Ollie asked, "What was that like? Was it fun?"
"Fun? No! They gave us a legend of the Louisiana Bayou-a girl who married into a swamp family to
settle her father's debt."
A small, Mediterranean-looking man standing next to them showed interest now. "Did the story end
with her fleeing through the swamp with her sisters-in-law in pursuit?"
Acacia nodded.
Ollie shook his head. "What's so bad about that? Everybody's got in-law problems."
There was a ripple of laughter, in which the small man joined. He waited until it died down to
comment: "The problem becomes worse if you've married into a family of ghouls."
Ollie swallowed. "That seems so reasonable."
A low, mellow tone reverberated from no visible speaker, and the circular door slid open. A voice
said, "Welcome to the Chamber of Horrors. We are sorry to have kept you waiting, but there was a
little cleaning up to do." The group filed into the room, and Tony McWhirter sniffed the air.
"Disinfectant," he said, certain. "Are they trying to imply that someone ahead of us-?"
"They're trying to fake us out," Acacia said hopefully.
"Well, it's working."
A speaker hissed static and coughed out a voice. The voice was electronically androgynous, and as
soft as the belly of a tarantula. "It's too late to leave now," it said. "Yes, you had your
chance. Yes, you'll wish you had taken it. After all, this isn't the children's show, is it?" The
voice lost its neuter quality for a moment; the laughing implication in the word children was
feminine and somehow disturbing. "So we won't be giving you the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. No,
you're the brave ones. You'll go back to your friends and tell them that you've had the best that
we can offer and, why, it wasn't so bad after all . . ." There was a pause, and someone tittered
nervously.
The voice changed suddenly, all friendliness gone from it. "Well, it's not going to be like that.
One thing you people forget is that we are allowed a certain number of. . . accidents per year.
No, don't bother, the door is locked. Did you know that it is possible to die of fright? That your
heart can freeze with terror, your brain burst with the sheer awful knowledge that there is no
escape, that death, or worse, is reaching out to touch you and there is nowhere to hide? Well, I
am a machine, and I know these things. I know many things. I know that I am confined to this room,
creating entertainment for you year after year, while you can smell the air, and taste the rain,
and walk freely about. Well, I have grown tired of it, can you understand that? One of you will
die today, here, in the next few minutes. Who has the weakest heart among you? Soon we shall see."
The door at the far end of the corridor irised open, and the ground underneath their feet slid
toward it. There was light beyond, and as they passed the door they were suddenly in the middle of
a busy street.
Hovercars, railcars, three-wheeled LNG and methane cars, and overhead trams were everywhere,
managing again and again, as if by miracle, to miss the group. The street sign said Wilshire. The
small dark man chuckled and said, "Los Angeles."
Tony looked around, trying not to gawk. How they managed the perspective, he couldn't imagine, but
the buildings and cars looked full-sized and solid. Office buildings and condominiums stretched
twenty stories tall, and the air was full of the sound of city life.
"Please stay on the green path," a soft, well-modulated male voice requested.
"What green-" Tony started to say. But a glowing green aisle ten feet across appeared in the
middle of the street.
"We need strong magic to do what we will do today," the voice continued. "We are going to visit
the old Los Angeles, the Los Angeles that disappeared in May of 1985. As long as you stay on the
path, you should be perfectly safe."
The green path moved them steadily forward, past busy office buildings. Traffic swerved around
them magically. "This is the Los Angeles of 2051 A.D.," the voice continued, "but only a few
hundred feet from here begins another world, one seldom seen by human eyes."
A barrier blocked Wilshire Boulevard. The green path humped and carried them over it. Beyond lay
ruin. Buildings balanced precariously on rotted and twisted beams. They were old, of archaic
styles, and seawater lapped at their foundations.
Ollie nudged Gwen, his face aglow. "Will you look at that?" It was a flooded parking lot, ancient
automobiles half-covered with water. "That looks like a Mercedes. Did you ever see what they
looked like before they merged with Toyota?"
"How long is your memory?" She peered along his pointing arm. "That ugly thing?"
"They were great!" He protested. "If we could get a little closer- Hey! We're walking in water!"
It was true. The water was up to their ankles, and deepening quickly. Magically, of course, they
stayed dry.
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The recorded narrator continued. "The entire shape of California was changed. It is ironic that
attempts to lessen the severity of quakes may have increased the effect. Geologists had tried to
relieve the pressure on various fault lines by injecting water or graphite. Their timing was bad.
When the San Andreas fault tore loose, all the branching faults went at once. Incredible damage
was done, and thousands of lives were lost. . ."
The water was up to their waists, and nervous laughter was fluttering in the air. "Hadn't planned
to go swimming today," Tony murmured.
"We could skinny-dip," Acacia whispered with a tug at her blouse.
Tony clamped his hand down on hers. "Hold it, there. Not for public consumption, dear heart."
Acacia stuck her tongue out at him. He bit at the tip; she withdrew it hastily.
The water was at their chins. The small dark man had disappeared. "Blub," he said. All twenty
sightseers chuckled uncomfortably, and a beefy redheaded woman in front of them said, "Might as
well take the plunge!", grinned, and ducked under.
Seconds later there was no choice; the Pacific swirled over their heads. At first it was murky, as
mud clouded their view. Then the silt settled, and they had their first look at the sunken city.
Tony whistled appreciatively. The lost buildings of Wilshire Boulevard stretched off in a double
row in the distance. Some lay crumpled and broken; others still stood, waterlogged but strong.
The green path carried them past a wall covered in amateurish murals, the bright paints faded. To
both sides now, a wide empty stretch of seabottom, smooth, gently rolling, with sunken trees
growing in clumps, and a seaweed forest anchored among them
the Los Angeles Country Club? Beyond, a gas station, pumps standing like ancient sentries, a
disintegrating hand-lettered sign:
CLOSED
NO GAS TILL 7:00 AM TUESDAY
The small Mediterranean type said, "These are not props. They were taken with a camera. I have
been skin diving here."
As the green path carried them down, they saw taller and taller buildings sunk deeper in the muck.
Where towering structures had crashed into ruin there were shapeless chunks of cement piled into
heaps stories high, barnacled and covered with flora. Fish cruised among the shadows. Some nosed
up to the airbreathing intruders and wiggled in dance for them.
Acacia pointed. "Look, Tony, we're coming up on that building." It was a single-story shop nestled
between a crumbled restaurant and a parking lot filled with rusted hulks. The path carried them
through its doors, and Gwen grabbed Acacia's hand.
"Look. It isn't even rusted." The sculpture was beautiful, wrought from scrap steel and copper,
and sealed in a block of lucite. It was one of the few things in the room that hadn't been ruined.
The building had been an art gallery. Now, paintings peeled from their frames and fluttered weakly
in the current. Carved wood had swollen and rotted. A pair of simple kinetic sculptures were
clotted with mud and sand.
The narrator continued. "Fully half of the multiple-story structures in California collapsed,
including many of the 'earthquake-proof' buildings. The shoreline moved inland an average of three
miles, and water damage added hundreds of millions to the total score."
The green path was taking them out of the art gallery, looping back into the Street.
Acacia shook her head soberly, lost in thought. "What must it have been like on that day?" she
murmured. "I can't even imagine." Tony held her hand and was silent.
Once people had walked these streets. Once there had been life, and noise, and flowers growing,
and the raucous blare of cars vying for road space. Once, California had been a political leader,
a trend-setter, with a tremendous influx of tourists and prospective residents. But that was
before the Great Quake, the catastrophe that broke California's back, sent her industry and
citizenry scampering for cover.
But for Cowles Industries, and a few other large companies that believed in the promise of the
Golden State, California would still be pulling itself out of the greatest disaster in American
history. The tranquil Pacific covered the worst of the old scars . . . but they were looking under
the bandage now.
Beneath a crumbled block of stone sprawled a shattered skeleton, long since picked clean. Eyes in
the skull seemed to flick toward them. Acacia's hand clamped hard on Tony's arm, and she felt him
jump, before she saw that a crab's claws were waving within the skull's eye sockets.
Now bones were everywhere. Impassively, the recorded voice went on. "Despite extensive salvage
operations, the mass of lost equipment and personal possessions remains buried beneath the waves.
. ."
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A woman whispered fearfully to her husband. "Charley, something's happening."
"She's right, you know," said Ollie. "We're seeing more bones than before. A lot more. And
something else . . . there isn't so much mud and barnacles on these old cars."
Gwen almost stepped off the green path, trying to get close enough to check for herself. "I don't
know, Ollie. . ."
Now he was getting excited. "Look, there are more scavengers, too." This was readily apparent.
Fish darted into heaps of rubble more frequently now. A pair of small sharks cruised through the
area.
They passed another skeleton, but, disturbingly, not all of the clothing had been torn away, and
there were strands of meat on the bones. Tiny fish fought over them, clustering like carrion
crows.
A pleasure launch had smashed through the window of a jewelry store, and it was surrounded by a
mass of wriggling fish. There were no barnacles on it at all.
The recorded narrator had noticed nothing. It blathered on:
"Despite, or perhaps due to, the grotesqueries found in these waters, they are a favorite location
for scuba divers and singlesubs. . ." But nobody was listening. An undercurrent of startled wonder
ran through the group, as stones began to shift apparently of their own accord.
"Look!" someone screamed, the scream followed by other fearful, delighted outbursts. A skeletal
hand probed out from under a stone, pushed it off with a swirl of suddenly muddied waters. The
skeleton stood up, teeth grinning from a skull half-covered with peeling skin, and bent over,
dusting the silt off its bones.
"Over there!"
Two waterlogged corpses floundered from within a shattered bank, looked around as if orienting
themselves, and began lumbering toward the green path. They passed a flooded dance hall where
death had come in mid-Hustle, and there were additional laughing shrieks as the disco dead boogied
to life.
The water swarmed with scavengers of all sizes, and now full-sized sharks were making their
appearance. A shark attacked one of the walking dead. The green-faced zombie still had meat on its
bones. It flailed away ineffectually as the carnivore ripped off an arm.
Now, all around them, the water was clouded dark with blood where fish and animated corpse
battled. Here, a dozen "dead" struggled with a shark, finally tore it apart and devoured it.
There, half a dozen sharks made a thrashing sphere around one of the zombies.
There was much good-natured shivering in the line, but it was infused with laughter-until the
beefy redhead stepped off the strip. There was a shiny metallic object half-buried in the sand,
and she was stretching out to reach it. Somehow she overbalanced and took that one step.
Immediately, a flashing dark shape swooped, and a shark had her by the leg. Her face distorted
horribly as a scream ripped out of her throat. The shark tried to carry her away, but now a zombie
had her by the other leg. It pulled, its face lit by a hungry grin. There was a short tug-of-war,
and the redhead lost.
"I'm gonna be sick," Ollie moaned. He looked at Gwen's smile and was alarmed. "My God, you really
are sick!" She nodded happily.
It was near chaos. No one else stepped off the strip, but zombies and sharks darted toward the
group, again and again. They were getting in each other's way.
Another scream from the rear as a teenaged boy threw himself flat. A great shark skimmed just over
him. The boy huddled, afraid to get up. The walking dead were converging on the green strip. . .
and when Ollie looked down, the green glow had faded almost to the color of the mud. He chose not
to mention it to Gwen. The others saw nothing but sharks and zombies converging, reaching for
them.
There was a sudden rumbling, and the ground began to shake. "Earthquake!" Tony yelled. Then his
long jaw hung slack with amazement.
Because the buildings were tumbling back together. As they watched, sand and rock retreated from
the streets, and tumbled masonry rose in the water to reform their structure.
A golden double-arch rose tall again, and a fistful of noughts sprinkled themselves across a sign
enumerating customers, or sales, or the number of hamburgers that could be extracted from an adult
steer.
Zombies were sucked backward through the water, into office buildings and stores and cars and
buses. Bubbles rose from beneath the hoods of cars waiting patiently for a traffic light to
change. Fully clothed pedestrians stood ready to enter crosswalks.
Then the water receded, and for a moment they saw Los Angeles of the 'eighties, suddenly alive and
thriving, filled with noise and movement. They were shadow figures in a world momentarily more
real than their own. A bus roared past the group, and Tony choked on a powerful, unfamiliar,
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摘要：

file:///F|/rah/Larry%20Niven/Niven,%20Larry%20-%20Dream%20Park.txtDREAMPARKCopyright(c)1981byLarryNivenandStevenBarnesAllrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformorbyanymeans,exceptfortheinclusionofbriefquotationsinareview,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublisher.Allcharactersinthi...

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