The Imperium Game (21 page)

“You and me both,” a different voice replied. “I give up for tonight. I can’t find any documentation on Mars, but I think it’s okay until tomorrow. Besides, I don’t know what I’d do if I could find it; I’m so tired, I can’t see straight.”

“Yeah, this Jeppers character is a real slave driver. He’s even pressuring me to move into the dome, but it’s not in my contract, and my wife absolutely refuses. She thinks these players are a bunch of nut cases.”

“I’m with her. Did you hear abou . . .”

Kerickson heard feet walking down the corridor in the opposite direction toward the outside lock as the two voices faded into murmurs. He waited a few more minutes, then stood up. Silence filled the complex, thick as wool.

Peering into the glass window of the Interface, he saw only the even blue glow of the screens and the two empty seats before the console—where he and Wilson had labored together for five years. He slipped in and shut the door behind him, then lowered the blinds for good measure.

He sat in the padded chair on the right, his old place, then punched in Wilson’s code. The central screen dissolved into the Temple of Jupiter. He flipped the manual override. “Record voice pattern for keyed-in code sequence: Wilson, Giles E. Game status: Management.”

“Recorded,” the computer said.

He sat back in the chair and rubbed his forehead. Now, at least, he would be able to use the Management Gate whenever he wanted, unless someone figured out what he had done.

Still, the fact remained that he needed sleep and plenty of it, as well as a decent meal. The last thing he could recall eating was that pomegranate down in Hades.

Deciding to test his newly acquired access, he punched in the call code for Neptune.

After a second the sea god’s mournful green face appeared. “OH, IT’S YOU. DECIDED TO WORSHIP ME AFTER ALL, HAVE YOU? WELL, IT’S ABOUT TIME.”

Kerickson wrinkled his forehead, then keyed the program into a standby mode and read through the parameters. His eyebrows headed for the ceiling. Almost nothing was set where it should be. At the moment, Neptune was cleared only for manifestation down in Hades and had lost all influence over water. Working from memory, Kerickson went through the list and reconstructed the settings as best he could. Finally, he sat back and checked the list again. Probably some of the parameters were a little off; for instance, he couldn’t remember whether Neptune had controlled the Tiber River before or not, but it seemed safer to leave that off for the moment.

Satisfied that his purloined access was working, he punched Neptune back into the system, then went through both Diana’s and Venus’s stats in the same way, releasing them from Hades and resetting them from memory. That done, he thought about the best way to find the information he needed. He suddenly remembered thinking something hadn’t looked right when he’d run diagnostics back at Gracchus’s villa. No doubt he should just run the same program again. “Run diagnostics series fourteen,” he ordered, and sat back as the central screen dissolved into Jupiter’s shield.

“Testing,” the computer said. “Primary stats in thirty seconds.” Statistics marched across the screen like tiny Legionaries.

He blinked and rubbed his eyes. What had caught his eye the last time he’d done this? He fished inside his tunic for the hard copy he’d run back at the villa, and found it still wedged in his underwear. In spite of the river, the characters were readable. Spreading the plas out on the console before him, he stared at the file allocation figures, trying to remember why he had copied them off in the first place.

“All Four-thousand-level buffers are out of service due to system maintenance,” the computer said. “File allocation tables in ten seconds.”

“All Four-thousand-level buffers?” Kerickson sat up. “At the same time?” He punched up system maintenance tables on a separate screen, but the times recorded there looked reasonable, not nearly what would be required to service an entire level of buffers.

He dropped the plas sheet on the floor, then punched up Buffer 4000. “Buffer out of service,” the computer told him. “Please select another.”

“Dump contents of Buffer 4000 on-screen,” he said, then watched. After a second, the screen filled with a bewildering array of numbers and names. He squinted, trying to make some sense out of what he saw. “Helena Antonia Longus,” one entry read. “EP: 3. HP: 2. AP: 14. CP: 3.” Experience points, hit points, and so on. These supposedly out-of-service buffers contained a record of the points stolen by the illegal bracelets.

“Print a hard copy.” He picked up the plas sheet from the floor and compared its figures with the current file allocation tables in the center screen. They seemed to be largely the same, including the financial sector, which was still up to a whopping seventy percent in usage. Yet the enrollment figures had actually dropped slightly since the murders. Where were all those extra transactions and accounts corning from?

The dim mutter of voices from down the hall broke his concentration. He glanced up. Was the cleaning crew corning in already? Whatever he was going to do, he’d better take care of it now. He had no guarantee of regaining access tomorrow; all it would take was one security guard on duty and he’d never get in.

A grim smile tugged at his lips. “Put all Four-thousand-level buffers back into service immediately.”

“That will require a class-three Management override.”

Class three? Kerickson grimaced. He and Wilson had only had class-two clearance. “Cancel that.” He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. “Cut power to all Four-thousand-level buffers.”

“Done,” the computer replied.

“Now print me a list of unassigned living quarters on the playing field.” He waited tensely until the sheet of plas fed out of the slot, then punched off, hoping no one would bother to check users’ codes tomorrow. Of course, by then it wouldn’t matter. The interruption of power had erased the buffers’ contents and he would be long gone—along with all of Quintus Gracchus’s illegal points.

AMAELIA
picked up a fresh green fig
from the golden platter of fruit and played with the firm flesh for a moment. It was no use; she couldn’t eat with Quintus Gracchus’s chill gray eyes staring across the table at her. Besides, remembering her near-fatal encounter down in Hades, she felt uneasy in the Empress’s apartments amidst the fussy pink draperies and the narcissistic statues that all stared back with her stepmother’s face. It seemed altogether possible Demea might suddenly appear and blast her to cinders.

“Could I bring you something else, my lady?” Flina’s concerned face hovered at her shoulder.

She glanced up into the maid’s dark features. “This is Saturnalia, Flina.
I
should be serving
you
today, not the other way around.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Gracchus lolled back on the low dining couch. His short military tunic rode up around his thighs, revealing massive, tanned legs that bulged with muscle. “I already have more than enough points to make Emperor. Don’t humiliate yourself with the servants just to score a few more meaningless authenticity points.” He scowled at Flina. “Leave us, wench.”

Flina bowed her crown of black braids, then backed out and left them alone. Gracchus pushed off the couch and planted his legs before her like trees. “I don’t like that gown.”

Startled, she glanced down at the white silk stola embroidered with ivy Flina had brought her that morning from Demea’s wardrobe.

“It’s too plain. Change to something more colorful and have Flina arrange some jewels in your hair.” Leaning over, he fingered a lock. “I should think emeralds would go well with your particular shade of red. You have to look every inch the Empress today.”

She jerked away from his touch and combed her hair back into place with her fingers.

“You really should be more appreciative, you know.” His voice had an underlying edge to it. “It was very careless, getting yourself killed like that. I had no end of trouble nullifying your death—a death, I might add, which would not have occurred had you merely stayed in the Palace, where you belonged!”

She stared past him, out the window into the dull blue early morning sky. “Gaius promised he could take me to the Interface.”

“Interesting you should bring up that particular name.” He clasped his hands behind his back and struck a pose in front of the window. She thought he looked like one of those overly noble statues down at the Temple of Jupiter.

“Did you know the Game computer contains almost no information on the background of Gaius Clodius Lucinius?” he asked without looking at her.

“The computer?” The rising sun glinted off the metal strips of his highly polished armor and made her squint. “But—”

“But what?” With a clink of metal, he turned around.

The measure of this man’s power suddenly registered with her. Not only did he control the Praetorian Guard and possess more points than anyone else in the Game, but he had something else no one could possibly match—his own Interface with the Game computer.

His bushy brows knotted as he focused on her, staring as though he’d never really seen her before. “You were saying?”

“N—Nothing.” A shiver crawled up her spine. She made a show of fiddling with one of Demea’s many bracelets, a thick
silver snake swallowing its own tail. “I’ll go change.” She slid off the couch and reached for her sandals.

His powerful fingers seized her wrist. “Wives shouldn’t keep secrets from their husbands.”

When she was barefoot, the top of her head barely reached his chin. She stiffened in his grasp, trying to think of anything but what she had seen in his villa.

“Something on your mind, girl?”

“I’m just—worried about Gaius.” Her voice sounded thin and reedy. “He was a good friend to me.”

“Forget Gaius.” His grip tightened around her wrist until she cried out. “What were you going to say?”

She struggled as his fingers bit down through skin and muscle until it seemed he would squeeze her hand off. “Let me go!”

“Tell me!”

“Wh—What?” She sagged to her knees. The room danced around her in shivery waves.

“That day when I brought you back from the Slave Market and you stayed at my house, I found you in my office.” Without loosening his grip, he bent over her. “What were you doing in there?”

“N—Nothing!” She forced the words out between numb lips. In another second she thought her wrist would shatter.

A knock sounded at the door. “Go away!” His gaze never wavered from her face.

“Captain Gracchus, we must speak with you immediately!”

He stared down at her a second longer, his eyes sharp as a Legionary’s sword, then threw her onto the polished floor and stepped over her body. Two guards, resplendent in their scarlet Praetorian cloaks, snapped to attention when he jerked open the iron door. “What is it? I have a very busy day ahead of me.”

Amaelia watched him, cradling her throbbing wrist to her chest.

“It’s—It’s your points, sir!” one of the guards said hoarsely.

“What about them?”

“They’re all—gone.”

Gracchus’s hand gripped the hilt of his sword. “Gone where?”

“Just gone.” The two guards looked at each other, their faces pinched and wary under their crested helmets. “We went down to the Forum to check the daily totals before today’s proclamation, and you weren’t even listed among the top fifty players. General Catulus is the only person listed with enough points to become Emperor.”

Amaelia scrambled to her feet and, supporting her aching wrist with her good hand, edged toward the discomfited guards.

“Catulus!” Gracchus slammed his fist onto the table. Figs and bananas bounced across the pink marble floor. “That idiot isn’t fit to be Emperor of the latrines!”

The guard on the right swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a cork. “No, sir.”

Trying not to even breathe, Amaelia took another step toward the door. If she could just slip out while he was so angry, maybe—

“Going somewhere, lady?” Gracchus seized her arm and sent her stumbling away from the door. “Perhaps, while I go check into this little problem, you should pray for my success, because—” His gray eyes took on the cool calculation of a viper. “—if I can’t be Emperor, I won’t need a wife.”

She caught herself on one of the low dining couches and sank down, trembling. “It’s just—a mistake,” she said. “The computer must be down again. Everyone in the city knows it hasn’t been working right lately.”

His hand played with the hilt of his sword. “Perhaps so, but the Saturnalia games will still go on as planned.” He drew his lips back from his fierce white teeth. “And as you might guess, the arena always has room for another body—even one as lovely as yours.”

* * *

The sound of voices out on the street woke Kerickson from a dream in which he stood before an altar of gray stone in a vast, shadowy temple, offering up a sacrifice of red wine in a golden chalice. As he’d stared up at a huge statue, formulating his prayer in his head, he’d suddenly realized that the statue wore the face of Giles Edward Wilson.

Sitting up in a hard, narrow bed, he stared around the still-dark room, trying to think where he was and how exactly he’d gotten there. He remembered the hot, oily water of the River Styx, then washing up above in the chill embrace of the Tiber River Adventure . . . and losing Amaelia to Quintus Gracchus.

That had been stupid, he told himself as he threw back the coarse wool blanket—really stupid. Once he’d rescued the poor girl from Hades, the very least he could have done was escorted her safely outside. Shaking his head, he groped his way across the cold, uncarpeted floor. Now she was stuck playing Gracchus’s wife again, while he was still no closer than before to finding Micio’s and Wilson’s murderer.

His outstretched hands found the rough stucco of the unseen wall, then slid along until he found the recessed switch. Light flared on from wall fixtures styled to look like candles.

He rubbed his eyes, then took stock of his assets. After leaving the Interface the night before, he had used the printout to find this currently unassigned room above a tanner’s shop not too far from the Palace. Even at the best of times, the Game averaged only between eighty to ninety percent enrollment; last night’s stats showed that it had fallen to about seventy-five percent since the murders. He should be able to use places like this until he found the murderer and turned him over to the police.

Or her. With a start, he realized he had no evidence that it wasn’t a female, perhaps even someone like Demea. He considered his ex-wife for a moment: although she had never seemed to know much about programming, she lived with him for several years after he’d started working for HabiTek. Who knew what tricks and tips she might have picked up in that length of time?

He took a long, hot shower in the ’fresher, then changed the setting and tilted his chin up to let it shave him. The Public Baths were all right, but he’d take modern technology any day—and he’d lay a huge bet the Romans would have, too, if they’d had the choice.

After he finished, he put his clothes through a ’fresher cycle, then dressed in the tattered garments, feeling not only like a different man, but an exceedingly hungry one. Food was a rather mundane topic when there was so much chaos all around him, but—despite the bizarre goings-on down at the Spear and Chicken, the inexplicable new divinity of his ex-wife, the scrambling of all the god programs, and the murders—a guy had to eat.

He walked down through the smelly tanner’s shop just as though he really belonged there, and peered out into the bustling morning street. The normal assortment of plebian merchants hurried up and down the Market District, going about their business.

He stepped into the flowing crowd. Where to start? The computer had provided some interesting information, but no real answers. Whoever had killed Micio and Wilson must have had a reason, something the two of them shared in common, but what? One had been a player, the other a programmer; the only real link between them was HabiTek. The motive behind the murders had to be connected somehow to the Game.

The winter wind bit through his tunic. Shivering, he rubbed his hands over his goose-bumped arms and dodged a large white dove that fluttered to the street in his path.

But the dove strutted after him, its head bobbing. “SO, WHERE IS SHE?”

He looked more closely, noting the tell-tale sprig of myrtle clasped in its beak. “Venus?”

The dove eyed him critically. “DON’T TELL ME THAT RAVISHING REDHEAD DUMPED YOU ALREADY?”

“Uh, no, not exactly.” He realized people were staring, and squatted down, lowering his voice to a strained whisper. “Look, could we talk about this later—like maybe next year?”

“HOW COULD YOU BLOW IT LIKE THAT?” The dove heaved a dramatic sigh. “THAT GIRL HAD THE HOTS FOR YOU.”

“Oh, my gosh, it’s Venus!” a stumpy, slack-jawed woman exclaimed at his elbow. Blushing, she dropped to her knees, folded her hands, and bowed her head. “Hail, Venus, Goddess of Love and Beauty, beguiler of both gods and men! I’ve been to your temple every day this winter and made sacrifice after sacrifice, but you never come to
me
like this.”

“YEAH, YEAH. LONG TIME, NO SEE, KID.” The dove winked, then hopped onto the woman’s head as the people crowded in to get a look. “NOW ABOUT LADY AMAE—”

“Not
here!”
Kerickson lurched to his feet and backed away, trying to lose himself in the squirming press of bodies.

“MAYBE IT’S NOT TOO LATE!” the dove cried as he lost sight of it. “SEND HER SOME HOT-PINK ROSES, OFFER HER A BACK RUB, TAKE HER OUT TO A MUSHY TRI-D—”

Kerickson scurried around the nearest corner and ran until red spots danced in front of his eyes. Then he leaned against a brick wall and concentrated on slowing his tortured breathing. When his panting stopped and he could think again, his stomach growled. He spotted a vendor’s stall across the street and headed that way to buy a meat pastry, then realized there was nothing sizzling on the grill. The bald-headed proprietor scowled as he packed up.

“You’re sold out already?” Kerickson glanced up at the simulated sky, but the winter “sun” had barely cleared the horizon. “Business must be great.”

The man clanged the top of his grill down and latched it closed. “Wouldn’t matter if it was phenomenal. You can’t sell what you can’t get.”

“Can’t get?” The wind gusted and Kerickson stamped his feet, wishing for a cloak.

“Something’s wrong with Supply.” Grunting, the merchant lifted the handles on his grill and trundled it down the cobbled street. “None of my orders come in anymore. This place is going all to hell! I’m going to cancel my new Game license and get my money back.”

Kerickson stared at him, then wandered down the street, peering into the windows of grocers and butchers. They were glaringly empty. Perishable items seemed to be in very short supply—one more area in which things were not running as they should.

Could all this disorder be connected to his problems? He went over the situation in his head. It all seemed to come back to Publius Barbus and the altered Game bracelets that stole points.