Charlie spoke, mentioning that he, too, had met Austin as a result of gaming in college, and that he’d subsequently had the opportunity to help Austin set up his company.

“I knew he would be a success,” Charlie said. “With that mind of his, there was no way he wouldn’t be.”

As he spoke, he very carefully did not look in BJ’s direction.

When Dagmar spoke, she mentioned that she, too, was an old friend from the college gaming group, and that as a result of that group, she now wrote games for a living.

She knew she couldn’t top BJ’s anecdote about gaming, and everyone else had covered Austin’s professional life, so she told the story of how she’d gotten herself and Austin thrown out of the restaurant. She changed the story a bit, to make it better-she made the restaurant Austin’s favorite, and she avoided mentioning that this had happened on the day when Austin had been murdered.

Her anecdote faded out rather than came to an end, and she sat down in silence. Her stories were really much better when she wrote them down than when she had to tell them aloud.

Afterward there was a buffet in the company dining room. Dagmar noticed that the Katanyans sought out BJ and spent an hour talking to him.

For someone whom Austin had barely seen in the past six or seven years, he had certainly made an impression.

FROM: Hanseatic

Is Great Big Idea seriously expecting us to spend US dollars for this cryptography program?

FROM: Chatsworth Osborne Jr.

Apparently, yes.

FROM: Vikram

Have we found a hidden sponsor?

FROM: Chatsworth Osborne Jr.

A remarkably unsubtle one, if so.

FROM: Desi

I’m not spending any money on this!

FROM: Chatsworth Osborne Jr.

That’s your privilege. But I ask myself if my entertainment is worth a special introductory price of $31.99 for some software that may have applications outside the game, and I have to conclude the answer is yes.

FROM: Corporal Carrot

So says the spook!

FROM: Vikram

It’s not whether the game is worth the money, but whether they

should be making us spend it at all.

FROM: Desi

Yeah! This is really pissing me off.

FROM: Hanseatic

With the euro under attack, I very soon may not HAVE $31.99.

FROM: Desi

I think I’m going to drop this game. There are plenty of cheaper

entertainments out in the datasphere.

FROM: Hanseatic

I’m not dropping out. But I’m not doing anything that requires me

to spend $$$.

Dagmar looked at the bulletin board and felt another surge of bitter anger, one in a long series. Her prediction about the players’ reaction to Portcullis was absolutely on the money.

It wasn’t so much the players who were posting on Our Reality Network. It was the players who weren’t posting, who were simply absent.

She couldn’t prove it, but she suspected that players were deserting her game in droves. Millions of them, possibly. And the damage extended beyond a single game: she was losing credibility with her audience. They were going to be much less likely to trust her when it came to the next Big Idea game.

The game had entered its third week. Neither the players nor the police nor Interpol had been able to find Litvinov. Murdoch had given up trying to find him in the States and was hoping the Germans would pick him up when he returned to his old Hamburg haunts. Austin had been in a grave in Connecticut for six days. Dagmar’s apartment’s owners had not yet sacked their underwear-sniffing manager. And Charlie had gone crazy-he hardly ever appeared in the office, and instead migrated from one hotel to another. Currently he was renting a cabana at the Roosevelt in Hollywood. He called Dagmar at strange hours and demanded constant updates on the progress of the game.

A chime told Dagmar that she had email, and she clicked to her mail program.

FROM: Siyed Prasad

SUBJECT: Holiday in L.A.

Dear Dagmar,

I’ve arrived in the City of Angels. They’re putting me up at the Chateau

Marmont-very sweet, don’t you think?

I’m still hoping to see you while I’m in town. I know you keep saying

that you have no time, but I’m still hoping you will be tempted to

have dinner with me. I have reservations at the Pentagram tonight at

eight o’clock-will you please tell me that you will come?

Your adoring fan,

Siyed

Dagmar sent Siyed a terse reply to the effect that she was working late and wouldn’t be able to join him for dinner. At which point her phone sang, and Dagmar saw that it was Charlie.

“Have you seen Our Reality today? ” she said. “We’re losing lots of players, Charlie.”

“We are also selling a lot of copies of Portcullis,” Charlie said. “Their servers were jammed today. Whenever I tried to load their page, my browser kept timing out.”

“All you’re doing,” Dagmar said, “is giving hope to a bunch of losers with a delusional business plan.”

“Since when has your division of my company made a big profit? ” Charlie asked.

Good point, she had to admit. Great Big Idea, though it had always been in the black, had never been much of an earner, at least as compared with the rest of AvN Soft.

Best to change the subject.

“What do you need, Charlie? ” she asked.

“I need a sit-down. Come see me at the Roosevelt.”

“Why don’t you come to your office? Meetings are what your office is for.”

“My office,” Charlie said, “is for burying me in piles of trivia. Talking to you is what my cabana is for.”

Dagmar looked at the time in the corner of her display.

“I’ve got a recording session this afternoon,” she said. “That’s in West Hollywood anyway. So I can come by after that.”

“Perfect,” said Charlie.

It was only after the phone call was over that Dagmar realized she hadn’t asked what Charlie wanted to see her for.

It can’t be good, she thought.

FROM: LadyDayFan

We are happy to play host to the tens of thousands of new players that

have been arriving in the past few days, but we urge them to check the

FAQ List and Player Tutorial before asking questions in this forum.

Thank you.

(Signed) Frazzled

The recording sessions usually left Dagmar in a buoyant mood. Terri Griff, the actress she’d hired to play Briana Hall, was incredibly talented, and very good at improvisation. It was a good reminder that not all actors were vapid, self-involved mirror gazers.

Or lying shit-heel married psychos, like Siyed.

Dagmar took an active role in this session, playing the part of Maria Perry, Briana’s best friend. Dagmar had never possessed any inclination to become an actress, but during the fifth week of the game, the players were scheduled to phone Maria and try to sweet-talk her into giving them information that would move the game forward. These conversations were very intense and tended to jump in unexpected directions as the players disgorged everything they thought might get them the knowledge they were after, and an actress might not be able to improvise. Dagmar knew exactly what the players would have to say in order to get Maria to spill, and therefore it seemed sensible for her to play Maria herself.