Larry Niven & Steve Barnes - The California Voodoo Game

The California Voodoo Game

by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes

Selected Dramatis Personae

Dream Park and Cowles Industries

ALEX GRIFFIN: Chief of Security

MILLICENT SUMMERS: Financial operations officer

THADDEUS HARMONY: Chief of Operations, Dream Park

TONY McWHIRTER: Data operations, IFGS liaison

SHARON CRAYNE: Cowles Industries security executive

MITCH HASEGAWA: Dream Park Security

DOCTOR NORMAN VAIL: Dream Park psychologist

International Fantasy Gaming Society (IFGS):

ELMO WHITMAN: Game Master

DORIS WHITMAN: Game Master

RICHARD LOPEZ: Game Master of international reputation

MITSUKO "CHI-CHI" LOPEZ: Game Master of equal renown

ARLAN MEYERS: IFGS arbiter

Gamers:

The University of California "Manhunters":

ACACIA 'PANTHESILEA' GARCIA: Loremaster, Warrior

CORBY 'CAPTAIN CIPHER' CAULDWELL: Magic User

MATI 'TOP NUN' COHEN: Cleric

STEFFIE 'ACES' WILDE: Engineer/Scout

TERRANCE 'PREZ' COOLIDGE: Warrior

CORRINDA HARDING: Thief

Texas Instruments-Mitsubishi "Cyberjocks":

ALPHONSE NAKAGAWA: Loremaster, Warrior

CRYSTAL COFAX: Engineer/Scout

MARY-MARTHA 'MARY-EM' CORBETT: Warrior

PEGGY 'THE HOOK' HOOKHAM: Engineer

FRIAR DUCK: Cleric/Magic User

OSWALD 'OZZIE THE PIKE' MURPHY: Warrior

Apple Computer "Troglodykes":

TWAN TSING: Loremaster, Magic User

TAMMI ROMATI: Loremaster' Magic User

MOUSER ROMATI: Thief

APPELION: Warrior, Magic User

GORDON REESE: Scout

GEORGE 'INDIANA' HOWARDS: Warrior

Army:

MAJOR TERRY CLAVELL: Loremaster, Magic User

CORPORAL S. J. WATERS: Scout/Thief

LIEUTENANT MADONNA PHILLIPS: Warrior

LAWRENCE BLACK ELK: Cleric, Magic User

GENERAL HARRY EVIL POULE: Warrior/Scout

CHAIM COHEN: Cleric

General Dynamics:

NIGEL BISHOP: Loremaster, Magic User

HOLLY FROST: Warrior, Thief

TREVOR STONE: Magic User

TAMASAN: Cleric

ILSA RADICHEV: Warrior

MIKHAIL RADICHEV: Warrior

Glossary:

THE BARSOOM PROJECT: the ongoing attempt to transform Mars into a

habitat suitable for human life. Named after the Martian locale in novels by

Edgar Rice Burroughs.

CHARACTER: a role played by a Gamer, in broad categories such as Magic

User, Scout, Engineer, Cleric, and Warrior. Characters are often continued

from one Game to the next. During Games, Gamers accumulate points,

talismans, and

treasures, which strengthen their characters. Gamers can also "split"

accumulated points to create a character with abilities in two different

areas: for instance, a Scout/Warrior.

COWLES INDUSTRIES: Dream Park's parent corporation. Driving force behind

the Barsoom Project.

GAME MASTER: one of those responsible for designing and guiding Dream

Park "Gaming" scenarios.

LOREMASTER: one of those who plays within a scenario, recruiting and

guiding a team of Gamers.

MIMIC: Meacham Incorporated Mojave Industrial Community.

NPC (NON-PLAYER CHARACTER): an actor who performs within a Dream

Park scenario. Often, but not always, in opposition to Gamers.

PALO MAYOMBE: Congolese variant of voodoo. Generally thought to be

violent and death-oriented.

SANTARIA: a Latin American variant of voodoo.

SCANNET: MIMIC's security system.

VOODOO: a belief system, or system of magic, incorporating African and

European cosmologies.

Prologue

Tuesday, July 19, 2059 - 3:00 P.M.

For seventy minutes now, the murmur of five thousand throats had built

steadily into a cacophony. The lobby well of the Dream Park Hyatt was

filled from mezzanine to rafters with cheering, stomping, hooting fans.

Banners streamed

and flickered in the wind like the tails of small dragons. Faces from a dozen

countries were animated, eager, expectant.

At the lobby floor was a multileveled crystal dome with a narrow, tapering

top. Beneath that dome lay a miniature city that sparkled as if riven from

diamonds or carved from ice. Within its walls, lights crawled like glowing

snakes, panels slid like ships through oiled seas, and braziers pulsed with

scented smoke. Any lurking minotaurs would have felt right at home.

This was the Crystal Maze. It was covered by one-way transparent plastic,

allowing observers on the mezzanine and upper levels of the Hyatt to

witness the duel to come. Vid cameras would broadcast everything to

thousands of room

monitors and hundreds of thousands of homes and gaming venues

worldwide.

A whistle split the air, stilling voices. A door opened at the western edge of

the lobby. Four combatants advanced to the mark.

Tammi Romati's ash-blond hair was tied back by the band of her slimline

Virtual goggles. She was beautiful, a vision in white leather. Tammi had the

physique of a semipro bodybuilder. Her energy and intensity intimidated

most men even before they learned her sexual preference.

Beside her, enfolded in a red cloak and an emerald sheet of flames, was

Twan Tsing, Magician. Twan's black hair was chopped short and hidden

under the emerald skullcap that incorporated her Virtual apparatus. The

green-tinted liquid crystal lenses of the Virtual gear leached the color from

Twan's Cantonese eyes but couldn't disguise their intensity. She was half a

head shorter than Tammi, and more smoothly muscled. She gestured

mystically, fingers intertwining in arcane, angular configurations. Her aura

flared until it matched and then surpassed the radiance of all the Hyatt's

lights, then silently subsided.

To her left stood Tammi's son, Mouser. He was clad in grey leather, a silver

saber weighting his belt at the left hip. He was a Thief, if not a reaver or

slayer. Two months shy of his fourteenth birthday, he combined an

adolescent's narrow-eyed insolence with an adult's cold-blooded

self-assurance. His thumb tested the edge of his blade.

Beside Mouser was the Warrior Appelion. He was everything Mouser was

not: tall, sinewy, black-bearded, and ferocious in countenance. He balanced

a single-headed battle-ax easily in his massive left hand.

Both wore their own versions of the Virtual gear, video equipment that

would enable them to see specialised overlays on the holographic and

mechanical illusions to come.

All four raised their hands to the assembled multitude, graciously receiving

a deafening ovation.

And then, the eastern portal swung open.

Again, the first through was a woman, Acacia Garcia. She was dressed in

the leather body armor and chaps of a nomadic warrior. Not as muscular as

Tammi Romati, Acacia was a lithe, athletic blend of Pueblo Indian and

Spanish with a dash of Moor. She was sloe-eyed and wide-mouthed, quick

to laughter or anger. Her long black hair gave her an air of sensuality that

quieted the room and evoked a clearly audible "Jeeeesus Christ" from

somewhere above her. She

scanned the room almost absently. She relaxed, shoulders slumping ... then

in a flash her sword appeared in her hand, with only the hint of a blur to

suggest a draw. She stood perfectly balanced, as alert as a hungry leopard.

Behind Acacia came a short figure in a nun's habit, with a tranquil,

sun-bronzed face. The roar "Top Nun!" rose from the crowd. The Cleric

inclined her head solemnly, her fingers tracing a Star of David on her chest.

A small, pale, chunky

man followed her: Captain Cipher, Magician. And beside Cipher was a man

with the height, color, and weaponry of a Zulu warrior. His name was

Terrance Coolidge.

All wore slimline goggles or costuming incorporating the Virtual lenses.

The Crystal Maze shuddered before them, groaning and weeping as if it

were a living thing.

"In two days we're going head-to-head with the Troglodykes in the

California Voodoo Game. They're used to winning. We've got to shake them

now. Establish dominance, or at least gain respect or they'll motor over us.

I've got a strategy," Acacia had told her team. "It may seem crazy, but you

have to trust me..."

Now, looking into the vid monitor and the coldly confident gaze of Tammi

Romati, who had never lost a game of Crystal Maze, Acacia wondered if her

confidence had been misplaced.

The door to the Crystal Maze opened to a cloud of flaming pink smoke.

A little man walked out of the smoke. He stood only waist-high, his thick

grey skin mottled with warts the size and shape of half-dollars. His hand

brushed smoke from his stubby nose, then waved Acacia and her

companions forward. "This way," he whispered, raising a gnarled finger to

his lips.

Acacia followed the troll, trusting in her instincts and sword arm to save

her. Her opponents hadn't had time to subvert the locals ... had they?

The wall slid shut behind them.

"Eyes open for a double cross," she whispered to "Prez" Coolidge, the tall,

stocky African-American at her left. His eyes were focused intensely. He

would miss nothing, and she had seen him catch flies in midair, on a

summer day...

The walls of the Maze throbbed around them like the chambers of a titan's

heart. Faces flared momentarily behind crystal panels, mouths leering or

laughing. If she turned to look at the faces they dwindled, then vanished

altogether, their laughter echoing mockingly through the corridors.

Acacia glanced at her wrist monitor. She brushed a button on it and gained

an aerial view of the Crystal Maze. The Troglodykes were clearly visible as a

cluster of red dots. She could keep track of them—it was the only sane

thing to do. But the monitor's special ViSiOII had cost dearly.

Both teams were expected to struggle to the center of the Maze. Then,

equally drained of power, they would slug it out for the pleasure of the

audience. There might be another, better way...

She punched buttons, disabling the wrist monitor.

"What are you doing?" the slender Zulu whispered.

"Trust me," Acacia told him. "I have a plan."

"Jesus. Don't they all?"

A bone-chilling buzz vibrated the walls of the Maze, and Acacia tightened

her sword grip. It sounded like ... what? A swarm of flies? Bees?

Light flared ahead, light that moved with such impossible torpor that it

bounced back and forth between mirrors in a visible sheet. Still, it moved

much too fast for her to dodge or avoid. When it struck her face, the world

was instantly seared white. Then black specks rose in a mass, black against

a screen of white, and swarmed toward them.

Bees. Swords were useless. "Top Nun!"

The small, dark-cowled woman pushed past her to face the approaching

swarm. She raised her arms high and began to chant. "fly gevalt! For honey,

bees are good. One of your better ideas, God. Stingers on the other hand,

pfui!"

A brisk, irresistible wind flared up behind them, striking the bees just as

they reached Top Nun's hood. The entire swarm tumbled away, down the

corridor and gone.

Acacia hissed air. Top Nun had probably won them five hundred points right

there, but ... "Too close. Any stings?"

Top Nun scornfully held up unblemished arms. "Stings schmings. Am I a

shmegegge now, or what?"

*1*—New Dreams

Tuesday, July 19, 2059 - 5:00 P.M.

Late afternoon shadows crept across MIMIC.

Meacham Incorporated Mojave Industrial Community was one of the largest

structures in the world, for all of its ruined grandeur, a testament to 1990s

optimism and the vision of the late Nicholas Meacham. Built forty miles

northeast of Barstow, about twenty miles west of the California-Nevada

border, MIMIC looked east with a facade that resembled a nineteen-story

rust-colored sandwich board with a vertical convex crease. A thirty-foot-high

horizontal row of letters spelling M.I.M.I.C. divided the crease from the

tenth to the twelfth floor. The flattened top extended acres of concrete roof

onto Clark's Ridge, a natural mesa. At the bottom, MIMIC measured nearly

half a mile across.

According to documents found among Meacham's effects after his demise,

MIMIC was intended to be the "linchpin of a planned community, an

ever-expanding prefab metropolis poised to house and employ the excess

population which, in years to come, will boil out of the Los Angeles basin

like a crazed yeast culture."

As one might guess, Meacham's genius lay in construction, design, and

financing, rather than the realm of prose. If not for a little seismic

misunderstanding in 1995, MIMIC might have been all he anticipated.

After the Quake, MIMIC lay cracked and rotting for almost fifty years. Myths

about the abandoned hulk multiplied. There was a live nuclear reactor in its

guts; mutants prowled the ruins, shambling semi-human Morlocks with a

taste for trysting teenagers...

Then, abruptly, the nightmares were dispelled. Life began to return.

And with new life came new dreams.

The rooftop stretched to a convincingly distant horizon, a concrete flat

etched with pools and gardens, shadowed with California stucco. Newly

installed sensors scanned sun-bronzed tennis enthusiasts as they swished

their rackets about.

Monitors translated sounds of thudding feet and gasping lungs, waste-heat

silhouettes, and cheerfully exhausted visages into multisensory data for the

security banks. Like glowing ghosts, guests roamed through three

minimalls, lounged in tiny parks and arboretums, or chased golf balls

through the flames of purgatory and the gilded clouds of paradise in

Dante's, the best miniature golf course in the state.

A swimming pool glittered in the sun, like a pond touched by King Midas.

Here its border was a white sand beach; there a rippling frictionless slide

with a vertical loop; elsewhere were black basalt cliffs for diving. A hidden

wave generator sent seven white crests rippling across the surface every

minute. Here was an expanse of cattails sculpted of bronze; there,

swimming in a programmed curve, was a weed-and-palm-covered island.

Explorers would find it to be a huge lethargic flatfish with feelers the size

of hawsers writhing about its mouth. In the center of the pool rose an

island shaded by an artificial banyan tree, beneath which a grass-roofed

tavern tinkled with laughter and the clink of glasses. One could swim to

that tavern, or stroll a glass pathway hidden beneath the artificial waves.

Four hundred Dream Park employees were partying hard: swimming,

minigolfing, playing dominance games, drinking.

Sixteen stories beneath them in level three, Tony McWhirter licked his lips.

A drink? Later. He focused on the work at hand, his fingers and thumbs

dancing in the holographic display of a keyboard.

He was an intense man in his middle thirties. Light red hair ran thin above

a lean face with chocolate eyes. His fingers were long and almost delicate,

his forearms still wiry from years of college wrestling and gymnastics.

Muscles bunched and corded as he typed. A window jumped into place,

superimposed on the projection of the roof. It focused on a view of the bar

beneath the island.

Tony knew the man and woman busily mixing drinks: Elmo and Doris

Whitman. Both were white-haired, pink with sun and as oval and solid as

potatoes. They meshed like well-worn gears.

Tony made adjustments. His viewpoint floated in closer, as if his camera

were mounted on a skimmer. He was staring into El's face. Capped teeth

and sun-peeled lips filled the visual field at point-blank range.

Sound: the computer picked out El's voice from the surrounding gibberish,

matched it to his lip movements, filtered, and compensated.

"...part-time for eight years. Never really thought about being full-time

until..."

Doris glided onscreen. She was chunky but esthetically firm and rounded.

Her legs looked damn good beneath the barmaid's skirt.

"Tequilla—"

The computer made a fast adjustment, backed itself up, and now she was a

vocal pattern, locked into the bank. "—Sunrise for table six. "

Doris Whitman's face was pink with sun, pleasantly plump, and invariably

glowing with some private amusement. She plopped her tray down on the

counter and kissed El behind the ear as he juggled bottles and glasses. She

said, "We met at drama school, Metro N.Y., did a lot of summer theater, a

little off-Broadway. I guess we never quite made it big, but we always ate,

which is more than most can say. Anyway, we gave it up maybe six years

ago when an old buddy offered good jobs at a restaurant at Kennedy

International. Lugbot jockeys, off-duty stews, mostly. They went

automated, we grabbed our savings and got out. El, I said, what would we

rather do than anything in the world?"

Tony pulled farther back as another voice came in, highpitched and lightly

accented. "I know your answer. "

Chi-Chi Lopez was the prettier half of the world's most famous team of

Game Masters. Her cheekbones were high and angular, but softened by

ringlets of shoulder-length, jet-black hair. Her eyes were just as dark and

sparkled with mischief.

"Richard and I used three of your DreamTime routines before you even went

pro, Doris."

"Tribute from a master," Elmo said, putting two drinks on Doris's tray.

"Later. Our room." Doris arched her eyebrows. "Tribute from a mistress?"

"Rrrrr!" He swatted her affectionately. She dimpled, sashaying away.

Barmaid's walk, Tony mused. Efficient, no-nonsense sex appeal. She was

old enough to be his mother, but she'd been a private fantasy for months.

Was the Whitman marriage lock-stepped?

Chi-Chi watched them and then turned her attention to her husband,

Richard. Tony remembered the wan little man. More specifically, he

remembered playing the South Seas Treasure Game, designed and executed

by the Lopezes. Their reputation had been well earned: lethal,

unpredictable, but basically fair.

Richard spoke, and the computer automatically adjusted for decreased

volume and pitch change: Richard had lost a lung four years back.

A small dark man with introspective black eyes and a pencil-thin mustache,

he always hesitated over his words, as if writing them on a mental slate

before speaking. "This is the Game I always wanted to conduct," he said. "I

am happy to have you with me, El. Doris. This one will be remembered."

Hell, yes. It would be argued about, debated, and replayed for years.

And even after costs, and dividing up almost seven million dollars in

guarantees among the players, the Park would still profit mightily.

Worldwide pay-per-view, virtual simulations, theatrical re-creations, and

licensing rights would

reap over thirty million dollars.

Damned little of which would find its way into Tony McWhirter's hands.

Richard and Chi-Chi huddled silently against the bar. How long had it been

since Tony had seen them? Eight years? Chi-Chi was tall and slender even

when seated, the elegant curve of her back accentuated by a fluff-fringed

yellow

dress that clung like body paint. If anything, she looked younger and more

alive. Richard, smaller and darker, seemed shrunken. Could his health be a

liability in the coming Game?

No. Richard Lopez never gave less than one hundred percent. Never. It was

what made him great.

They were all great, in their individual ways—the Lopezes with their

holograms and overall Game design, the Whitmans with their choreography

of Virtual mimes and Non-Player Characters.

Four Game Masters. And Tony made five. A junior member he might be, but,

by God, a member.

Tony's fingers tapped again. A window zoomed on the shoreline, framing

schools of bathers. All those Dream Park employees tended to cluster,

leaving lots of empty space. The roof was too big for them, dauntingly

large.

The water was green, covered with lily pads and shoals of moss. Pure

artifice, it looked as if half a thousand years of neglect had allowed a real

swamp to take over Meacham's toy bayou. But that was Game reality. In

truth there hadn't been water in the rooftop lake since the Quake of '95,

when the tilt of the roof changed and the lake emptied into the desert.

There had been several levels to the roof, even before the Quake. Now it

sagged to the west, and the whole western edge had collapsed. Twelve

thousand gallons a minute flowed from the swimming pool through a safety

grid and over the edge, plummeting two hundred feet to a fountain below.

What was the rate of evaporation? It boggled his mind—only the power of

the Cowles fusion distillery in Long Beach could have furnished sufficient

cheap water to make the lake viable.

Tony zoomed in on the roof party: some of the celebrants were almost at

the edge, near the vine-camouflaged barricades. Narrow focus: he watched

them enjoy the view. Meacham's architects had never planned that

waterfall, either!

"Barsoom Project" was the designation for the projected terraforming of

Mars. The dead planet would gain a breathable atmosphere, arable land,

and enough water for an expanding human population. The Barsoom Project

would take

decades, and would involve the natural, industrial, and scientific resources

of almost every nation on Earth, but MIMIC would house the beginnings.

The vast spaces within Meacham's arcology, and the spaceport now being

built nearby, would be the Mars terraforming project for decades to come ...

unless thirty Gamers and four hundred Non-Player Characters, under the

supervisionof Tony McWhirter and four senior Game Masters, tore the

building apart during the

California Voodoo Game.

Something buzzed at the edge of his attention.

Tony ignored it—not a computer sound, not an alert, nor yet the sound of

data disappearing in randomized bubbles as unimportant. A notion had

come to him. Fingers and thumbs tapped as inspiration took hold. Pictures

jumped around

him on the white half-dome of MIMIC Security: windows into all the corners

of the huge building, windows projected onto windows.

Conversation behind him, a woman speaking. "...Voodoo Game is ready?"

A man's. Deep and musical. "Yeah. McWhirter wanted to tear the building

apart. Travis said no."

"So the Boss finally did something right. Aside from being born into the

right family."

Tony recognised voices: Alex Griffin, and that woman from Cowles Security

in Tacoma. He couldn't resist a comment. "Buildings are hardware. Software

is as cheap as dreams."

"Tony?"

"We did our work in DreamTime. You'll think we spent a billion dollars. I'm

finished here in a minute, Griff."

Out of the corner of his eye he watched Griffin, Dream Park's security chief,

a tall man who carried his seventy-five inches and two hundred pounds with

animal assurance. His hair was shaded a burnt strawberry, dark enough to

make

Tony look almost blond. When Griffin answered "Fine," his voice exuded

enough casual confidence to make Tony wince.

The woman at Alex's side was a stunning brunette. Sharon something ...

Court? Griffin's left hand lightly touched her arm, while the other gestured

with the relaxed authority of a plenipotentiary. "Sharon, there's working

room for sixty people here. MIMIC—"

"You like that name?"

"Seems appropriate."

"I like 'Meacham's Folly,' " she said. "That's what the locals call it."

"All right, Folly. ScanNet breaks it into overlapping quadrants, with variable

scan depth. The entire building gets a standard four-stage coverage, but

some countries have contracted for more. Half a billion dollars' worth of

security.

Quite a system."

"Are you jealous?" she asked innocently.

"Cowles asked me to join up. I get all the stretch in the Park." Irritation

had touched Griffin's voice, very lightly

Tony's fingers kept moving in the hologram, sensors picking up finger

movement and wrist position, inputting far faster than any mechanical

keyboard. The sensors "learned" eccentric movements and habitual errors,

the individual shorthand of the operator, and together with voice cues

created an ideal programming environment. Minimum size of portable units

was no longer limited by the physical dimensions of a keyboard. He was

trying to keep his mind on

programming. The last thing he wanted to think about was Alex Griffin. But

it wasn't working.

Persecutor ... betrayer ... woman-thief ... savior.

Larry Niven & Steve Barnes - The California Voodoo Game

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