Dream Park

Milhicent nodded again, her eyes still watching Rice's corpse. "Get going, Hon," Gruff said gently. "I'll handle things here."

She tried to smile. The result was hideous. She gave up and backed out of the room. Griffin heard her break into a run in the hallway.

Griffin examined the room, trying to reconstruct events. Clearly, Rice had lost a fight here. Knowing the guard's wiry strength, Griffin thought he must have been taken by surprise. That could mean several things: being jumped from behind, attempting to restrain an intruder of unexpectedly high physical skills, what­ever. Chairs had been knocked over. There was a half-dried puddle of lemonade near Rice's feet. His right knee was stained.

A mental replay of Rice's file was in order. 30 years old, blond, 5' 11", 170 lbs. Ex-Navy man, submarine service. Spent six years there, and left with an honorable discharge. Two years of college, then three years of odd jobs, and finally Cowles Industries. Both parents alive, mother somewhere in Mi

Griffin sat down on one of the undisturbed chairs. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. Wasn't there something else? Oh, yes. His apartment in Cowles modular Community had been vandalized. He had declared no losses, and no investigation had followed. Perhaps- "Bobbick is on .his way, Chief." Melone was back, face red­dened as if with exertion. His eyes studiously avoided the corpse against the soft drink machine.

"Right. You stay here until Marty arrives. Have him coordinate a report for me. The legal department needs in on this." Griffin scratched the wiry fuzz under his jaw. "I need to check into some-

thing, but I think an emergency meeting should be set up with Harmony. Buzz me whenever that's ripe, would you? Oh-I know I don't need to tell you, but I will anyway. Don't touch anything that's been disturbed."

Griffin's mind projected a quick layout diagram of the R&D center as he waited for the elevator. There had been a complete security check on all of the alarm units only the week before. Griffin had participated; he knew that it had been thorough and accurate. It would take hours to check over each unit for traces of bypass or tampering, and he would have those results by morn­ing, but there was one possibility that he could investigate right now. It was a long shot, but Griffin had long since learned to check into those little nagging doubts.

The elevator took him down to the basement. When the door opened a night light came on. Alex flipped on the main lights.

There was no sound except the hum of generators, low in the background. Griffin walked to the stairwell, moving between rows of storage boxes and plastic-wrapped maintenance gear. He stooped at the door of the stairwell, checking the lock. There were no external signs of damage or tampering, but a check of the rec­ord tape would tell him if the magnetically-encoded lock had been opened within the past few hours. With the right kind of careful preparation, a thief need not have forced the lock.

He crossed to the service shaft on the other side of the room. It was three feet from the ground and sealed with a circular steel door. He climbed the short ladder that led to it and examined the surface of the door. There were a few smudges, but maintenance perso

But this tu

Griffin flipped out his wallet and tapped it on. "Patch me through to Maintenance, please." There was a moment's buzz, during which Griffin turned up the collar of his light jacket; the basement was chilly.

A beep sounded, and a woman's voice came on line. "Yes, Mr. Griffin. How can we help you?"

"I want records of all egress and entry into Gaming Area A

service shaft, um," he glanced at the yellow numbers stencilled above the portal, "eighteen. It leads into the Research and Devel­opment building."

"G. A. 18?"

"Right."

"One moment, please."

While the line was dead, Griffin found himself hoping that he was wrong. How could they have overlooked this? It was inexcus­able, and understandable at the same time. Why guard against Garners? He knelt by the base of the stairs and looked carefully. There were definite smudges of dirt, and a tiny shaving of green leaf.

"Mr. Griffin?"

"Here."

"G. A. 18 was used once today at 4:30 P.M."

Griffin held his breath. "What was the reason?"

"Pressure check in sector twelve, apparently. That's one of the lines that feeds the artificial lake."

"Then there was no need for the technician to go topside?"

"No, I don't believe so. There's a Game on right now, you know. All of the work was accomplished in the tu

"Right." Griffin thought quickly, weighing factors. "When that technician comes in in the morning, please have him verify that." He signed off and folded wallet and transceiver away.

He looked again at the smudge. The steps, like every other accessible inch of the Park, were cleaned daily. The smudge must be recent. Probably a foot had descended on this ladder in the last few hours. Griffin checked his watch. Eleven-twenty. Rice had been found at ten past ten, twenty-five minutes after he missed his check-in.

And where would an intruder find dirt and leaves to step in anyway?

Bet on it: these would be Brazilian plant life.

An elevator took Griffin back to the first floor. The CMC doc­tor had arrived, a tall thin man who ordinarily wore a warm smile. Now he wore a rumpled and hastily-do

"Dr. Novotney," Alex said in sober greeting.

The thin man said, "Griffin. Listen, I can't do much here. I'll

have to take the body to my lab to learn anything. We can't move him until the County coroner comes, or the police clear it, is that right?"

Griffin scratched his head. "I think we can handle this. Dream Park is an independent municipality, and I have the authority to clear it. We're going to have to deal with the County, but I'm bet­ting that Harmony will want us to keep this as close to the chest as possible."

"We've got the pictures, Gruff," Marty Bobbick said. "What a mess."

Griffin was glad he was here. Bobbick would see that things got done if Griffin had to get off by himself to think things out. A nervous tick made Bobbick's pleasantly ugly face squint every time his eyes passed over Rice's body. He chewed a mouthful of gum with near-manic intensity as Griffin talked.

"We need prints. There've been too many people in and out of here for a heat scan to do much good, but try it anyway. I want all the record tapes collated. Somebody wanted something in this building. I want to know what it was. Maybe the development people can tell us. Get hold of somebody who knows what the hell they're about and tell him to join me when I meet with Harmony."

Marty nodded, his square jaw pumping up and down with nerv­ous rhythm. "Got most of that covered already. Millie's on the record tape right now, and the infrared equipment should be here any minute." He counted off tasks to himself and came up satisfied. "Guess that's it for right now, then, except for moving Rice... ah, you want him over at CMC?"

"No. Take him to the Park medical center. Better facilities there. Check with the legal department and find out if we can do an autopsy if it's needed."

Rice was being carefully loaded onto a stretcher. Two guards hoisted him away, and Bobbick watched the sheet-covered body go with pained eyes. "Hell of a thing," he said softly.