"Tea and flowers," Eve murmured, "everything's just so homey."

"Which, of course, automatically raises your suspicions. Still, some people..." He stopped in his turn around the room. "Eve," he said, just as the locks on the door snapped shut, and the room shimmered away.

"I t's a goddamn holo." Eve reached for her weapon, and drew a sword. "Oh, fuck me!"

"We'll have to wait on that. To your left."

She barely had time to pivot, to block before the blade sliced down. She looked into a scarred face mottled with tattoos. I t grinned while twin red suns turned the sky to the color of blood.

She came up with her left elbow, rammed him in the throat. When he stumbled back she took a fraction of a second to glance toward Roarke. He fought a bare-chested mountain of a man armed with sword and dagger. Beyond him, in the blue observer's circle, stood Var.

Frightened, she thought as she met the next thrust. Scared, desperate, but excited, too.

"They'll come looking for us, Var!" she shouted. "Stop the game."

"I t's got to play out."

She felt the boggy ground under her feet, and part of her mind registered the heavy, wet heat, the scream of birds, the wildly improbable green of thick trees. Swords crashed, deadly cymbals, as she fought for any advantage.

T o play the game, she thought, you had to know the rules. "What the hell are we fighting about?" she demanded. She leaped when her opponent swung the sword at her knees, then struck back at his sword arm. "We've got no beef with you."

"You invade our world, enslave us. We will fight you to the last breath."

"I don't want your damn world." She saved her breath, spun away from his sword, and reared up in a kick that caught him in the side. When she followed through to finish him, he feinted, fooled her, and ran a line of pain down her hip with the tip of his sword.

She leaped back. "I 'm a New York City cop, you son of a bitch. And I 'm going to kick your ass."

Riding on fury, she came in hard, her sword flying right, left, slashing through his guard to rip his side. She pushed in, slamming her fist in his face.

Blood erupted from his nose.

"That's how we do it in New York!"

Rage burned in his eyes. He let out a war cry, charged in. She rammed her sword into his belly, to the hilt, yanking it free as he fell, then whirlingtoward Roarke.

Blood stained the black body armor he wore and smeared the gleaming chest of his opponent. Beside them a river raged in eerie, murky red while enormous tri-winged birds swooped.

As she ran toward him, she took the drumbeats she heard for her racing heart.

"I 've got this," he snapped out.

"Oh, for Christ's sake." She swung her sword up, but before she could land the blow, Roarke sliced his across his opponent's throat.

"I said I had it."

"Great. Points for you. Now-"

She turned with every intention of rushing Var and holding the point of the sword to his throat. Another warrior leaped into her path, then another, and more.

Men, women, tattooed, armed. And as the drumbeat came from the bones more of them rapped rhythmically on the trees.

"We can't take them all," Eve murmured as she and Roarke moved instinctively to guard each other's backs.

"No." He reached back, took her free hand in his, squeezed. "But we can give them a hell of a fight."

"We can hold them off." She circled with them as the first group moved in slowly. "Hold them off until the backup gets here. I f you can get to the controls-if you can find the damn controls, can you end it?"

"Possibly. I f you could get through to that little bastard over there."

"Solid line between us and him. A goddamn sword's not enough to... Wait a minute, wait a damn minute."

I t wasn't real, she thought. Deadly, murderous, but still not real. But her weapon was. She couldn't see it, couldn't feel it through the program, but it was there.

Muscle memory, habit, ingrained instinct. She shifted her sword to her left hand, drew a breath. She slapped her hand to her side, and her hand remembered. The shape, the feel, the weight.

She fired, and watched the warrior struck by the beam fall.

She fired again, again, scattering the field.

"Clutch piece. Right ankle. Can you get it?"

"No time." Roarke whirled to strike at the man who came at her left. "Hit the controls. Blast the bloody controls."

"Where the hell are they?"

She took out another before he landed his sword on Roarke's unguarded side.

"Right side of the door!" he shouted, grabbing a second sword from a fallen warrior. "About five feet up."

"Where's the fucking door?" She sent out streams, shooting wild and blind. Those unearthly green trees fired and smoked, screams ripped the air while she struggled to orient herself.

They just kept coming, she realized as she fired again and again in a desperate attempt to keep the charging warriors off Roarke.

Var had rigged the game, programmed it for only one outcome.

"Well, fuck that!"

Across the damn river, she thought, and east. She concentrated her fire. Five feet up, she thought again, and plowed a stream in a wide swath at five feet.

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye, started to pivot, to lift her left arm and the sword as she continued to fire with her right.

Roarke struck in between her and the oncoming warrior, knocking the sword clear of her.

She watched in shock and horror as the dagger in the warrior's other hand slid into Roarke's side.

In the same instant tongues of flames spurted with a harsh electric crackle and snap. The images shimmered away. She grabbed Roarke, taking his weight when he swayed. "Hold on. Hold on."

"You cheated." Var stood, stunned outrage on his face, in a room filling with smoke. He made a run for the door.Eve didn't spare him a word, simply dropped him.

As Var's body jolted and jittered, she eased Roarke to the floor.

"Let me see. Let me see."

"Not that bad." He took a labored breath, reached up. "You took a few hits yourself."

"Be quiet." She ripped open his already ruined shirt, shoved his jacket aside. "Why do you always wear so many clothes?"

She didn't know she was weeping, he thought, his cop, his cool-headed warrior. When she shed her own jacket, ruthlessly ripped off the sleeve, he winced. "That was a nice one, once."

She folded the sleeve, pressed the cushion of material to the wound in his side.

"I t's not bad." Well, he hoped to Christ it wasn't, and concentrated on her face. Eve's face. Just Eve. "Hurts like the bloody fires of hell, but it's not that bad. I 've been stabbed before."

"Shut up, just shut up." She yanked out her communicator. "Officer needs assistance. Officer down. Officer down."

"I 'm an officer now, am I? That's insult to injury." As she shouted out the address, he turned his head at the violent thumping at the door. "Ah, well, there's the backup. Wipe your face, baby. You'd hate them to see the tears."

"Screw that." But she swiped the back of one bloody hand over her cheeks. She pressed his hand to the makeshift bandage. "Hold that?

Can you hold that?" She ripped off the second sleeve. "You're not leaving me."

"Darling Eve. I 'm not going anywhere." Her face, he thought again as the pain seared up his side. "I had worse than this when I was twelve."

She added the second pad, laid her hand over his. "You're okay. You're going to be okay."

"That's what I 'm telling you," he said as the door burst open. The entry team came in loaded, with Peabody behind them.

"Get a medic!" Eve demanded. "Get a damn medic in here. We're clear. We're clear."

"Sweep the place," Peabody ordered. "Secure that asshole." She dropped to her knees beside Eve. "MT's on the way. How bad?" She reached out, stroked Roarke's hair back from his face.

"Stabbed him in the side. He's lost blood. I think we've slowed it down, but-"

"Let's have a look." Feeney crouched down. "Ease back, Dallas. Come on now, kid, ease back." Feeney elbowed her aside, gently lifted the field dressing. "That's a good hole you've got there." He looked into Roarke's eyes. "I expect you've had worse."

"I have. She's some of her own."

"We'll take care of it."

"I t's clear." McNab shot his weapon away, knelt down beside Peabody. "How you doing?" he asked Roarke.

"Been better, but, hell, we won."

"That's what counts. Callendar's grabbing towels out of the bathroom. We'll fix you up."

"No doubt." As he started to sit up, Eve shoved in again.

"Don't move. You'll start up the bleeding again. Wait-"

"Now you shut up," he suggested, and tugged her to him, pressed his lips firmly to hers.

CHAPTER 22

Eve sat in the conference room with the team, her commander, Mira, and Cher Reo.

She watched, with the others, while her recording played on-screen, and tried to ignore the fact that on it she fought for her life wearing a black skin- suit and copper breastplate.

I f she couldn't still feel the memory of Roarke's blood on her hands, and the aches and burns in her own body, it would've been ridiculous.

Again, she watched Roarke block her from attack while she fired at holo-images. Why hadn't she hit the controls sooner, she thought? Why hadn't she found them sooner? Seconds sooner and he wouldn't have taken the knife. Only seconds.

She saw it happen again, the pivot and block to save her, the fierceness of his face. And the slide of the knife into his vulnerable side.Then the scene changed-like a flipped channel-and they stood in a room ruined by her blasts and streams, smoke thick, the controls crackling flame, and Roarke's blood staining the floor.

"I t's bizarre," Reo murmured. "I 've watched it twice now, listened to your report, and I still have a hard time believing it."

"We'll need to keep as many of the details as possible out of the media." Whitney scanned the faces in the room. "As many as possible inside this room. All of his records and equipment were confiscated?"

"Everything in the place," Eve confirmed. "He may have another hole, but I believe that's unlikely. He kept it all close to home. We'll take him into Interview shortly." She turned to Mira. "Ego, competition, pride of accomplishment?"

"Yes, all those areas are vulnerable points. He's become not only addicted to the game, but may have lived inside it for some time. I t's a more exciting reality, one where he controls all-but stands aloof. He didn't engage in play with you."

"He's a coward."

"Yes, but one who believes himself superior. You only won because you cheated. He believes that, too."

"The game was the weapon, he controlled the game. Can we charge him with First Degree on Minnock?" Eve asked Reo.

"Tricky. I t could be argued he only intended Minnock to play, and that the victim could have won. And we have no proof Minnock wasn't fully aware of the technology when he himself started the game."

"That's bullshit."

"I agree, but I can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt in court. We go for Man One-just hear me out," she said before Eve could object. "Man One on Minnock, Reckless Endangerment on Allen, the same on both you and Roarke, adding Assault on a police officer, and the stack of Cyber Crimes, the unregistered equipment, false statements, and so on. We wrap him up, Dallas, make the deal, avoid the trial that could drag on for months-and sensationalize the technology and the crimes in the media. He'll do a solid fifty or more in a cage. A cage, due to the cyber-charges, without access to the e-toys he knows and loves. I t's harsh, and it's apt."

"I want Attempted Murder on Cill and Roarke. I want him charged, goddamn it." She pulled herself back, pulled it in. "I 'm going in on Murder One on Bart Minnock. I f you deal it down later, I 'll accept that, but I want him charged, and I want to start the deal at the high mark."

Reo studied Eve's face. Whatever she saw there had her easing back. "Let's see what happens in Interview, and go from there."

"Then let's get started."