slowly, words of light stuttered back into existence up in the darkness:
THIS SPACE
FOR RENT
Rik was so chagrined he couldn’t even bring himself to curse. Tom chuckled, though the sound was sad and commiserating. “And all our dreams vanish into air, into thin air . . .” he said.
“Well, crap!” Rik finally said. “I thought I had it at least a little under control . . .”
“Possibly premature,” Raoul said. He clapped Rik on the back, not that the gesture made Rik feel all that consoled. “Well, you’ll get the hang of it. Or if you don’t, you can always sell it to a third-party broker. Assuming they don’t take it off you first . . .”
“They don’t do that,” Rik said. “Or so I’m told.”
“Well, this isn’t your fault!” Barbara said. “You just wanted us to see it right away. And who could blame you? Besides, we talked you into it. Doesn’t matter. It’s exciting, Rik! Keep us posted and let us know when you get it working again. I want to pop the virtual cork at your opening.”
“Yeah,” Rik said. “I’ll do that. Game management?”
“Here, Rik.”
“Can I have the door back into my office, please?”
In the darkness, a door opened on muted afternoon light that now seemed very bright indeed. Rik headed for it, the others following. In his office, they said their good-byes for the time being. “If there’s any problem with the meeting schedule,” Tom said to him as he made his way toward Rik’s outer office door, “give me a call.”
Rik shook his head. “Shouldn’t be a problem,” he said. Barbara smooched him as she went past: Raoul patted his shoulder, heading after her. “See you guys later . . .”
“Later,” they all said. The door shut.
Rik stood there, looking at the shut door, and sighed.
He was tempted to go straight back into the Microcosm and start tinkering again. But no, he thought. I promised Angela I wouldn’t be in here all day.
Damn it!
“Game management?”
“Here, Rik.”
He was about to say “Log off,” but stopped himself. Not just yet. “Ring of Elich, please.”
His office vanished. He was standing near the Ring.
Rik sighed and looked around him again. The plaza was back to normal, as far as he could see. Despite it being the middle of the night, the usual unending traffic was passing in and out of the Gate. He took a deep breath, turned his back to it and started to walk back to his normal ingress spot. A few minutes’ walk, he thought, just to get rid of—
Of what? Of being pissed off at the Microcosm for crashing in front of everybody? Well, yes. No point in taking that annoyance home and dumping it on Angela and the kids. But that wasn’t all of it.
He paused briefly by the great statue of Lahirien the Excessively Far-Traveled, feeling the spray from the fountain, and then moved on. Oh crap, Rik thought, why couldn’t Raoul have come in a few minutes later? Then he wouldn’t have seen anything but the bare substrate.
Of course the others would have told him what happened—
But as he thought about it, Rik became less sure. He remembered particularly that strangely sympathetic look from Tom. But in any case, Tom and Barbara would have been, had been, more understanding about it.
Anyway, it’s just some kind of software glitch! Get over it. It’s stupid to feel down about it. Yet he did feel down. And worse, he felt obscurely like some kind of traitor. He couldn’t get Raoul’s initial expression in the Last Man out of his mind. Betrayed! it seemed to say. How come you and not me? It’s not fair! And even now Rik wanted to shout at him, How should I know how come me? It doesn’t make any sense to me either!
But Jean-Marie had been clear enough about how many different factors were involved. And it’s not my fault if Raoul is getting something wrong. He’s been so intense about what he’s been planning, about how it’s going to make all the difference for him when he gets a Microcosm. But does he ever really have fun in here anymore? Sure, we see him at group meetings, but he never has an independent campaign story to tell anymore. Who knows what he’s doing? Does he even campaign by himself anymore? And does anyone even ask? And maybe that was part of the problem. Are we just feeding into that attitude by letting him concentrate so much on his Microcosm obsession?