Death Dream (61 page)

"Mrs. Santorini, Yer little girl's safe and sound. A mite confused, though. She's sayin' her daddy came and rescued her."

"She's all right!" Susan almost collapsed into Wallace's arms.

"Here, take the baby for a minute," the sergeant said to the deputy. "Come on inside and sit down, Mrs. Santorini. Yer daughter's right inside there."

With a deputy's jacket draped over her, Angela came running to her mother the instant she stepped inside the room. Susan hugged her and kissed her and hugged her some more.

"You're all right, baby. You're all right."

Angela was laughing and crying at the same time, apologizing for not coming home from school and kissing her mother back.

Breathless, Susan let the police sergeant guide her to a chair. As she sat down, she looked through the open doorway into the suite's bedroom. Kyle Muncrief lay on the carpet, stark naked, eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

Sergeant Wallace looked slightly flustered. "Yer daughter was all undressed 'cept for that rig over there." He pointed to a sensor net thrown carelessly over one of the chairs. "Her clothes are in the other room, on the bed."

Half a dozen state troopers and one woman in street clothes were in the bedroom. One of the troopers was photographing Muncrief's body. The woman was sitting on the bed, tapping on the keys of a notebook computer.

"Daddy came and rescued me," Angela was saying, "just like in the videos."

"He's dead?" Susan asked Sergeant Wallace.

"Yep. Looks like a stroke, the medical examiner says. It's Kyle Muncrief, 'cording to his wallet."

"Yes," Susan said, "that's Kyle Muncrief."

"Daddy saved me," Angela repeated.

Susan turned her attention to her daughter. "Mr. Muncrief didn't hurt you, did he? He didn't try—" Suddenly she was embarrassed to ask such questions in front of strangers.

"No," Angela said. "He didn't touch me at all. He was going to, but Daddy came and stopped him."

"Daddy found you?"

"Yes!"

The sergeant looked as if he thought Angela's experience had bent her mind. Susan tried to explain what virtual reality was all about, pointing to the minicomputer in the sitting room and the helmet and gloves lying discarded on the floor.

Wallace grunted. "That explains the helmet he was wearin' when we found him. Looked like a biker's helmet, 'cept it was hooked up to the computer in here."

Susan made herself look back at Muncrief's body. He was still wearing data gloves and a sensor net.

"Can I take her home now?" Susan asked.

The sergeant cocked his head to one side, staring down at Angela. "Yew want the medical examiner to look her over? She's right in the next room."

"I'd rather get her home," said Susan. "I'll take her to our own doctor tomorrow morning."

Wallace nodded as if he agreed with her. "Okay. We'll need a statement from yew. And yew, too, young lady. The state police can send somebody over to yer house t'morrow, I reckon."

"In the afternoon," Susan said, getting up from the chair.

"Surely." The sergeant's face flushed slightly. "Uh, yew want to get her dressed, I s'pose."

He went into the bedroom and came out with Angela's clothes in his arms. Then he closed the bedroom door and went out the front door, ushering the sheriff's deputy who was still holding Phil in the car seat. Susan helped Angela to dress, both their hands trembling.

Angela wrapped an arm around her mother's waist and Susan clutched her daughter's shoulder as they left the hotel room. The sheriff's deputy was still standing by the door outside, holding Philip in his car seat.

"He's still sleeping," the deputy whispered hoarsely."

"Thank you." Susan reached for the car seat.

"I'll take him to the car for you," said the deputy. "Got one of my own comin' in a coupla weeks. Be good practice for me."

It wasn't until they were halfway home that Susan remembered what she had done to Muncrief's garage door. I should have told Sergeant Wallace, she said to herself. Then she thought, No. It's better that I didn't. Let me get the kids home and settled in bed.

"Daddy killed Mr. Muncrief," Angela whispered in the darkness of the car.

"What?"

Her voice trembling slightly, Angela said" Daddy said he was going to kill him, and Mr. Muncrief just fell down and died."

"Your father didn't kill Mr. Muncrief, Angie. He had a stroke and died, just like Grandpop Santorini, remember?"

"Daddy was awful mad at him."

"I know. I don't blame him for that, do you?"

"No. He came and rescued me."

"Yes he did, didn't he? But he didn't kill Mr. Muncrief. Your father is too sweet a man to kill anybody."

Angie had screamed when Muncrief collapsed. Dan had whirled about and scooped her back into the safety of his arms.

"It's all right, Angel. It's all right. Nobody's going to hurt you. I've got you and nobody's going to touch you until the police come and bring you home."

Angela peeped around her father's protective form.

Muncrief had disappeared.

"He—he's not there anymore."

Dan turned back and saw that Muncrief had indeed disappeared. The bed, the tower-top room, all the trappings of the castle simulation were still there and solid as rock. But Muncrief was gone.

He knelt on one knee to be on eye level with his daughter. There was a lot of explaining to do.

"Now listen to me, Angel. You remember the motel room where Mr. Muncrief took you?"

She nodded, on the verge of tears.

"Well, in a few minutes you're going to find yourself in that room again. Just like you come back to the VR booth when you play the games at school. You'll be back in the room where you started. Do you understand?"

Angela nodded.

"There'll be policemen in there with you, honey. They've been searching for you because your mother and I didn't know where Mr. Muncrief had taken you. You're not afraid of policemen, are you?"

"No." Weakly.

"They'll be in the room with you because we asked them to find you. But I've found you in this game, in the castle. See?"

"But you found me. "

"That's right, I did. But I found you in the game, right? We're still in the game, in the castle. See?"

She glanced around, then turned her gaze back on her father's eyes.

"The policemen will be in the real world. Your mother's waiting for you in the real world, honey. So's little Phil. He misses his big sister."

She almost smiled. "He's asleep by now."

He conceded the point with a nod. "I'm in that real world too, honey. But not in that hotel room. I'm at my lab, but I'll come right home so we can all be together again."

"I'm sorry I stayed away after school."

"That's all right, Angel. It's all okay now."

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed her father on the cheek. Dan clasped his daughter for a moment longer.

Then, "One more thing, Angel. When you go back into that room, with the police and all, Mr. Muncrief is going to be there."

He felt her stiffen in his arms.

"He'll be dead, sweetheart. I'm pretty sure of that. Or at least he'll be unconscious. The police will be there to protect you, in any case."

"Will Mommy be there?"

"I don't know. Probably not. But either she'll come to where you are or the police will bring you home and she'll be there."

Angela nodded solemnly. Dan knew this was a lot for a kid to absorb in just a few minutes, especially after what she had just been through.

"Daddy?" she whispered into his ear.

"What is it, honey?"

"Did you kill Mr. Muncrief?"

The question stunned him. And before he could even try to frame an answer, Angela disappeared from his arms. Suddenly Dan was alone, kneeling in the fantasy castle bedroom, his arms empty as if Angela had never been there. She never was, he realized, getting to his feet. She never really was.

His shirt lay on the carpeted floor. Dan picked it up and realized that Angie would be naked except for the sensor net when she came out of the game. The anger flared in him again. She'll be stark goddamned naked in front of a bunch of policemen.

Dan waited impatiently for the illusion to disappear. He knew he was in the VR chamber at ParaReality. Time to go home and hold his daughter for real. Dan felt tired, drained; it would be good to go to bed and sleep with Susan beside him.

The tower bed chamber remained. "Come on, Jace," he called. "Wrap it up." And he started to remove his helmet.

"Not just yet, Danno." Jace's voice in his earphones was low, strained.

"Come on—"

"I mean it, Dan! You try to take that helmet off and I'll zap you just like I zapped Muncrief."

CHAPTER 48

"What the hell do you mean?" Dan said. But he took his hands off the helmet.

"I don't know what to do about you, Dan. You're such a friggin' straight arrow. You're gonna make trouble for me, aren't you?"

Feeling only slightly ridiculous to be talking to a disembodied voice in a castle tower bed chamber that did not really exist, Dan replied, "You just murdered a man, Jace. That makes three you've killed."

"Ralph and the other flyboy were accidents. I didn't mean for them to die, not really. I just wanted to teach Ralph a lesson. I told you that," Jace said, his voice growing irritable.

"And Muncrief?"

"He wanted to die. He said so himself, you heard him. I just put him out of his misery."

"That's called homicide, Jace. Murder."

"And you're gonna turn me in?"

As calmly as he could, Dan said, "I'm going to see to it that you get help. No matter what you've done, Jace, you're still my friend, my partner. I won't let you down. I'll help you all I can."

"By puttin' me in some funny farm? No thanks."

Dan's chest felt raw, tight. "So what are you going to do, kill me too?"

"Naw, I don't wanna do that."

"Then what?"

"I don't know what to do! Lemme think a minute."

"The first thing to do," Dan said slowly, "is button up this sim so we can talk this over face to face."

A long silence. Dan waited for a reply but none came. He tried to calm his breathing, tried to soothe the rasping in his lungs. Maybe I could snatch the helmet off my head and then I'd be out of this. Maybe he's not paying attention to me, not fully. I could get it off before he knows I've made a move.

But Dan found that he could not move his arms. It was as if the gloves on his hands weighed ten tons each. He could no longer raise his hands from his sides.

Jace laughed. "You're as transparent as glass, Danno. And don't you think that if I could make that hillbilly Rucker think he's got two good arms I can fix you so you can't move your arms at all?"

"Jesus Christ, Jace, what're you going to do, keep me in here forever?"

That hushed, tense voice, almost a whisper, answered, "No, that wouldn't work."

"Then what?"

"Look outside."

Dan looked at the wide window. It had no glass. In this fantasy land there were no insect pests, no cold winds or rain. He saw that now it was full daylight out there, bright sunshine bathed the wooded hills and gently rolling meadows.

"Go to the window and look down," Jace's voice instructed.

Dan did as he was told. A knight in black armor sat on a powerful black charger at the base of the castle wall. He held a lance in one mailed fist upright like a flag pole. At the lance's pointed end fluttered a sky-blue pennant with white lettering emblazoned;
Who Dares Wins
.

"What's that all about?" Dan asked the empty room.

"Who dares wins. That's what it's all about, Danny boy. That's what it's always been all about. Who dares wins."

"I don't get it."

"It's simple, pal. I'm not leaving you alone in the simulation. I'm coming in with you. I'm the black knight. You're going to fight me. Who dares wins."

Unconsciously rubbing at the pain in his chest, Dan replied, "I've got to fight you?"

"Until you admit that I'm right and you're wrong. Until you swear to me that you won't make any trouble out there."

"Jace, you can't do—"

"I can do anything I friggin' want to! You're in my world now, Danno, and you're gonna play by my rules."

"You're just as crazy as Muncrief!"

"Yeah? By the time I'm through with you, pal, you'll be on your knees worshipping me."

"Turn off the goddamned simulation," Dan shouted.

Jace laughed. "There's only one way out of my world, Danno. You've got to beat me."

Dan remembered the asthma attack that had crippled him only hours earlier. And the gunfight where Jace had killed him. The crazy sonofabitch wants to keep me in here until he's got me completely cowed. He wants to dominate me so completely that I'll do whatever he wants.

"Come on, Dan. Go down and get into your armor. Prepare to meet your maker. Pronto, Tonto."

Anger flared through Dan like crackles of electrical sparks along his nerves. His chest was raw, tightening painfully. But he told himself, It's only a matter of time until somebody gets to the lab and shuts down this sim.

Maybe Gary Chan or one of the technicians will see what's going on and turn off the power. Maybe the police will come in. What time is it? How long until the office opens in the morning?

"Nobody's gonna bother us, Danno," Jace said. "Anybody tries to shut down this sim, it'll zap your brain automatically."

"Not yours?"

Jace laughed. "Hey, d'you think I'm stupid enough to rig my own suicide?"

"Jace, this isn't the way—"

"Better get your armor on, Tonto. I wouldn't want to zap you in cold blood."

"I'm not going to fight you, Jace."

"You wanna die like Muncrief did?" Jace's voice flared with anger. "I'm givin' you a chance."

"With the deck loaded in your favor."

"Hey, I'll be fair and square! All you've gotta do is beat me. If you can."

Dan looked out the window again. The black knight held his lance aloft. The pennant fluttered in the breeze.

And when Dan turned away he saw that the bedroom had changed into some sort of armory, with shields hanging on the walls and lances stacked in rows and two silent, stolid men standing waiting for him, sections of armor in their hands. The armor was dazzling white.