Larry Niven & Steve Barnes - The California Voodoo Game.pdf

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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
 

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