They were tired, they were dirty, their shoulders sagged under
the weight of their packs. They looked like walking dead as they stumbled into the Hot Spot. They stopped, looked about them blearily, and found all tables full.
Alone at a table that might barely hold five drinks, a tall black woman beckoned cheerily. She looked familiar, somehow, Gina thought. She smiled and started that way, tugging on Chester's backpack strap, knowing Gwen and Ollie would follow.
They stacked their packs against a wall. Ollie headed for the Orders window while Chester looked for empty chairs.
"Good Game," the stranger said. "I'm Gloria Washington."
Chester performed introductions. Gina was wondering where she had seen her before. Suddenly the memory dropped into place, and Gina swayed in place, vision blurring.
The tall woman saw it. She snatched an empty chair from the next table over-moving stiffly, a bit clumsily, but fast-and slid it into place behind Gina. "Here, sit down, love. I didn't mean to startle you. I thought you'd recognise me."
Gina sat down hard. "You were missing an arm and a leg the last time I saw you. And the make up. .
Chester smiled suddenly. "Aha. The demon undead, undead 0! That was a very effective piece of misdirection."
"It was, wasn't it?"
"How did you, urn... ?"
"I picked the wrong time to visit Antarctica Ciudad. I was lucky they thawed anything. These prostheses are... well, I can use them, but I've had a hard time getting used to... anyway, when Mrs. Lopez suggested this walking dead gig, my doctor thought it would be great therapy. Get me used to the idea." She was slowing down, having trouble getting words out. "That I'm a person who has one leg and one arm. But still a person. You know, I think he was right."
Ollie arrived, carrying a tray. Hands converged on mugs of Swiss Treats before he could reach the table. Gina savored the heat and sweetness in her mouth; her own hunger, suddenly stronger than her fatigue; the moment of revelation. You're real again.
She said, "Right or wrong, it was hellishly effective. I couldn't believe you weren't a hologram. It was like you came straight out of a grave." She laughed, but it was shaky. "I'm glad we met. It was bothering me." She knocked her mug against Gloria Washington's. "Skoal."
"Confusion to our enemies," Gloria answered.
Alex crumbled a sheet of paper into a tiny ball and bounced it off the wall into the recycler. He wanted another cup of coffee, but it would have turned his stomach into an acid-scarred wasteland.
"What's left?" His voice sounded like a stranger's, tired and thin. A stack of printout paper leered back at him from the top of the desk, and he groaned.
"My God." Numbly, he touched his computer screen to life and asked it for a second printout of "Urgent" material only. As expected, a mere four sheets folded up out of the desk.
One was a synopsis of the McWhirter briefing. It would be sent to all concerned department heads on a need-to-know basis. Griffin nodded as he read. Tony had kept his promise. His description of the woman who had contracted him for the job might do them little good; she'd have changed both name and description.
But they probably had enough information to nail the pick-up man. With the stakes as high as they were, someone had to try for the hiding-place.
He initialed the sheet at the bottom and set it aside.
Two pages were a condensation of Park business for the last four days. He set it aside after a brief skim. He and the computer had differed before on what was urgent and what wasn't.
The last sheet was a query into the status of Albert Rice's personal belongings. That needed thought, and a clearer head than the one he carried at the moment.
He glanced at his watch. A quarter to eleven, and time for any sane human being to get some sleep. Hell-why bother going all the way back to CMC? Why not just curl up in the office? He thumbed down the light and yawned until the hinges of his jaw hurt. Every muscle ached for sleep, but a singie image remained clear and sharp in his mind.
"Damn you, Acacia. Leave me alone." Her face, that lovely dark-eyed face with the questioning mouth, had been haunting him all day, the most overwhelming reality of four days of fantasy.
He glanced at his watch again, and muttered, "They're probably all in by now..." then remembered the early-morning bull sessions of the Game and knew he was lying to himself.
Why fight it? He wanted to go. Tired and irritable and slogged
down in a cesspool of work, he still wanted a chance to say good-bye to an unforgettable group of maniacs.
And perhaps one particular lady maniac.
He swung his feet down from the desk and was moving towards the door almost as they hit the ground.
Alex took strange satisfaction in the debilitated condition of the other Garners. Chester's suite was spacious enough to accommodate the extra couches. Those couches were draped with boneless-looking, bleary-eyed casualties. The suite looked like an emergency ward.
Only the Garners who had been killed out the day before seemed alive, and the empty beerskins scattered around the room gave even these good reason to look woozy. He caught a strong, sweet whiff of something that wasn't tobacco and ground his teeth, weighing duty against fatigue. No contest. Fatigue won.
He saw Acacia in the corner of the room and headed toward her without haste, letting his ears drink in snatches of talk.
A half-familiar voice, jarringly energetic. "No, no, no. The
Haiavaha was there because you needed the anti-fire to fight the
Undead. You were supposed to ignore the airplane's egg entirely.
And why didn't you go back for more anti-fire?"
It was Richard Lopez, sharing a couch with his wife and- Chester Henderson! The Game Master seemed awake and alert. Mitsuko Lopez listened without comment, her attention shifting as if she watched a tennis match.
"-can't tell me that. You weren't standing in front of the damned thing," Chester said without heat. He fished absently in a bowl of dried dip with a handful of corn chips, then popped them all into a mouth that had already started to speak again. "Ooo ner thrying... You were trying to kill us off and you know it."
Richard shook his head. "Be your age. Where would I sell the Game that wiped out Lore Master Chester Henderson?"
"I'm too tired to giggle. You were going easy on us, hey, Lopez?"
"Oh... my youthful enthusiasm sometimes leads me to excesses. Mitsuko had to keep reminding me of the money we'd lose if I played too rough. Terrible woman. Always business before pleasure." He and his wife exchanged a quick kiss.
Chester saw Alex, and extended a hand. "Hey, Griffin. Good Game, man. You're not half bad."
A ghost spoke behind him, and Alex jumped. "What happens to McWhirter, Griffin?" Gina! But she's dead.
"It's out of my hands," he said, glad that it was true. He kept moving; he didn't want to talk about it.
Mary-em, dressed in light green slacks and blouse and looking quite undrowned, was another sight he found startling. She was deep into reminescence with Owen and Margie and a stranger, a boy in a wheelchair, when she spied Alex pressing through the crowd. "Griffy!" she bawled. From some reserve of human strength she found the energy for what amounted to a flying tackle, setting him back on his heels.
"I was afraid that you wouldn't make it."
Overcome with an absurdly strong wave of emotion for the chunky little woman, Griffin hugged her back fiercely. She stepped back and set her fists on her hips, measuring him. "I may be off my mark, but I think you're gonna be one helluva Gamer."