"I'm not crazy," Shawn said. "I'm sorry if I came across that way. I've been playing this game so much lately that I've gotten used to the world. Believe me, seeing it through your eyes reminds me how horrified I was the first time I put on the helmet."

That, of course, was a lie. The first time Shawn had entered Darksyde City he'd hijacked a car and run down pedestrians until a fleet of police cars forced him into the side of a building, killing him and ending the game. But there was some truth to the statement. After all, Gus had been pretty repulsed by the whole thing, and since they'd still been partners when they first played the game Shawn felt he was ent.i.tled to claim fifty percent of his reactions.

Besides, even if it was a lie it seemed to be working. O'Hara was still standing by the door but she hadn't taken another step.

"Look at yourself, Shawn," she said. "You haven't eaten. You haven't slept. G.o.d knows when you last changed your clothes. You've become obsessed with this game. And now that I see what it is that has you under its spell, I'm really worried about your mental health."

"I don't keep coming back here because I enjoy playing this sick, twisted game," Shawn said, knowing that if he tried lying this blatantly inside Darksyde City his nose would grow at least fifteen inches.

But without the contradictory evidence of an expanding organ, he had apparently managed to strike the right note of sincerity and contrition. She actually moved away from the door a little. "Then why?"

"It's about finding Macklin Tanner," Shawn said. "We may disapprove of his work, but there's no denying that the man is a genius. And somebody has kidnapped him."

"The SBPD looked into the disappearance weeks ago," O'Hara said. "Detectives Bookins and Danner found no evidence of foul play."

"If it had been Detectives O'Hara and La.s.siter, maybe I'd be a little less concerned," Shawn said. "Well, maybe not La.s.sie so much. The point is, the fact that there was no evidence makes this even worse."

"Because if he was kidnapped it was by someone who really knew what he was doing," O'Hara conceded. "But who and why?"

"I don't know why," Shawn said. "Maybe there's some kind of ent.i.ty out there that needed his expertise and couldn't get it legally so they were willing to pay huge amounts of money to anyone who'd deliver Tanner to them. As for who, I'm convinced it was someone inside this company. And I'm equally convinced that person left a clue in this game so that the world could admire his genius."

"And you think this Fawn Liebowitz is that clue?"

"I think she holds it," Shawn said. "The rules of the game may seem random when you first enter Darksyde City, but they are real and they are consistent. They have to be to make the game play satisfying. She's the only thing I've come across that doesn't fit."

"How many times have you tried to make her talk?"

Shawn thought back on his encounters with the student and all the knives, guns, bombs, and poison-gas grenades she'd used to kill him. "At least thirty," he said. "Maybe more."

"What seems to be the problem?"

"I don't know how to talk to her," Shawn said. "There's clearly something I'm supposed to say or do to make her open up, but nothing has worked."

"Well, what have you tried?" O'Hara said.

"I tried being nice to her," Shawn said. "She cut my throat. I accused her of kidnapping Tanner and she blew us both up. I got tough a bunch of times, but she kept finding ways to turn whatever I was using on her against me."

Shawn noticed that look of disgust creeping back onto O'Hara's face. He moved on quickly. "I tried romance a few different ways. I brought her flowers. I offered her jewelry. I even proposed marriage."

"And none of that worked?" O'Hara said, a smile replacing the look of horror. "What kind of game is this?"

"I'm out of ideas," Shawn said. "That's why I was so excited when you came to my door. Because maybe you can get through to her. I'm thinking she speaks a language that only college students understand."

"I don't think so," O'Hara said.

"Sorry I dragged you out here for nothing, then," Shawn said.

But O'Hara still wasn't moving toward the door.

"I don't think it's a matter of speaking a language only students can understand," O'Hara said. "I think you need to speak like a woman."

Chapter Nineteen.

Shawn was on his best behavior. When the streetwalker came up to them and asked if they wanted to party, Shawn knew that the correct response--the one that would add several rounds of ammunition to his cache--was to steal her money at gunpoint. Instead he politely declined and led O'Hara down the street.

Not that she was acting as squeamish as she had been the first time they'd entered the game together. She seemed to have accepted Shawn's reasoning, and instead of being repulsed by what she saw, she took it all as a necessary part of his investigation. She still had qualms about committing the kinds of criminal acts needed to get ahead in Darksyde City, but Shawn was pretty sure that he'd seen a smile on her face when the pustulating wino tried to mug her and she blew him away with a blast from her semiautomatic rifle.

The first real test came when Shawn laid out his plan to lure Fawn Liebowitz to them. He'd acquired a pile of dynamite on an earlier level, and he was going to use it on the dam that held in the local reservoir. The ensuing flood would wipe out a whole neighborhood, but it was the one thing he hadn't tried to get into that jewelry store vault. When he pitched her the idea Shawn studied O'Hara's face closely--at least he studied the face of her avatar, but since the insides of the helmets were lined with tiny cameras to record and mimic the players' facial expressions, he knew it was an accurate gauge of her mood--and she took it calmly.

But even when they were actually laying the dynamite at the foot of the dam, Shawn wasn't sure he'd won her over to his side. As Shawn taped three sticks to the concrete and set their fuses burning, a man's voice shouted, "Stop there!"

Shawn turned slowly to see a security guard emerging from the darkness, pointing an enormous pistol at him. Shawn reached for his own gun, but before he could raise it the guard shot it out of his hand.

"That was a warning," the guard said. "Next one goes right through you. So do the hundred after that. Get the picture?"

"Got it," Shawn said. "What do you want me to do?"

"That depends," the guard said.

"On what?"

"On how much you p.i.s.s me off," the guard said. "If you're nice, all I want you to do is die. But if you make me really mad, I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist you suffer the agonies of the d.a.m.ned."

"That sounds like fun," Shawn said, "but I'm kind of in a hurry. So I think I'll pa.s.s."

"Then die," the guard said, raising his gun.

There was no time for Shawn to grab one of his own weapons. He took a step backward, fumbling blindly behind him with one hand. At first there was nothing but concrete. And then he felt the cold, hard tube. Shawn closed his fist around the stick of dynamite and yanked it away from the face of the dam, then hurled it at the guard.

Just as the dynamite left his hand, Shawn heard O'Hara's voice screaming at him. "Shawn, no!"

Let her be horrified, Shawn thought. If she couldn't stand the thought of the guard spattering down on her like red rain, she should have stayed on her side of the dam. This was business, after all.

But if O'Hara was horrified she wasn't showing it. She whipped out her own gun and got off one shot. Thanks to the time-altering effect of the software, which slowed down the entire world from the moment a gun was fired until the bullet found its mark, Shawn was able to watch the projectile fly through the sky until he realized where it was heading--directly toward the dynamite.

Shawn dived to the ground just before the bullet struck the stick. Even so, he felt the blast wave slam him into the dirt. When he could finally get back on his feet he saw the security guard lying on his back and O'Hara standing over him with her pistol pointed at his head.

"Nice shooting," Shawn said. "What was the point?"

"The point was not letting you kill the guard," O'Hara said.

"That's a nice sentiment, but it kind of leaves us with a problem," Shawn said. "Because the instant you take your gun off that guy, he's going to pop up and kill us both. Believe me, I've played this game long enough to know exactly what kindness and gentleness get you."

That wasn't exactly a lie. Shawn had played the game long enough to have learned this lesson. He didn't actually know how goodness would be rewarded only because he'd never actually tried such a tactic.

"I'm not being nice," O'Hara said. "But if I let you kill this guard we'd never get out of this d.a.m.n game."

"We can leave whenever we want, Jules," Shawn said patiently. "Even if we get caught and thrown in jail, we've just got to take off our helmets."

O'Hara sighed impatiently. "Look at the guard," she said. "What do you see?"

Shawn did as he was instructed. "It's a security guard," Shawn said. "Standard-issue in this game, right down to the beard stubble and the paunch."

"What about the uniform?"

Shawn looked a little more closely. "It's got the usual stains from coffee drips and doughnut crumbs, but it's a little less wrinkled than some other ones I've seen in the game," he said after some study.

"Yeah, there's that," O'Hara said. "Nice level of creativity with the cops eating doughnuts, by the way. Really raises my opinion of the programmers. But I was more interested in the b.u.t.tons."

Shawn looked again. The b.u.t.tons on the uniform shirt were standard plastic, with four holes for the thread to pa.s.s through. There was absolutely nothing special about them, no markings, no color, no insignia. He was about to say something to that effect when he realized what O'Hara was talking about.

"They're on the left side," Shawn said. "That's not a shirt--it's a blouse."

"And unless the security guards here are all cross-dressers ..." O'Hara said.

She didn't have to finish. Shawn bent down over the security guard and grabbed him by the crew cut. "h.e.l.lo, Fawn," he said.

Shawn gave the guard's scalp a tug and it tore off in his hand, leaving a jagged hole in his head. Inside, Shawn could see Fawn Liebowitz's long brown hair. He grabbed a piece of loose skin and tore down the guard's body. It ripped an opening all the way down, like the easy-open string on a twenty-pound bag of doggie kibble, and then the guard's body melted away, leaving the familiar form of Fawn Liebowitz behind.

"This is the one we've been looking for, right?" O'Hara said.

"Detective Juliet O'Hara, meet Fawn Liebowitz," Shawn said, giving the student a nudge with his foot. "Fawn, Jules has some questions for you. Although if you'd like to settle this with a hot-oil wrestling match, that would be okay with me."

"h.e.l.lo, Fawn," O'Hara said. "You know what we want from you, don't you?"

The student stared up at her, impa.s.sive.

"That's how you talk to a student?" Shawn said. "Or is that the special language women use with each other?"

"I'm just getting started," O'Hara said.

"My name is Fawn Liebowitz," Fawn said. "I'm a student at Darksyde University. My major is library science."

"We know that, Fawn," O'Hara said. "I'm looking for information. Please."

Shawn looked down at Fawn and saw that she was reaching into her backpack. It couldn't be this easy. How could he not have thought of something so basic? There was only one possible answer--it was Gus' fault. All the years they'd been in the detective business, he'd let Gus handle all the intellectual issues like dealing with museum curators and college students because Gus liked talking to that kind of person. And Shawn had gotten out of practice. Thank G.o.d he was on his own again.

"Are you telling me it never occurred to you to ask her nicely for the information you needed?" O'Hara said.

"It was on my list of things to try," Shawn said.

"Uh-huh," O'Hara said. "And it never made it to the top because?"

Shawn glanced down at Fawn again. "Maybe because of that," he said.

O'Hara followed his gaze and saw that Fawn's hand was coming out of the backpack, holding a fist-sized green oval marked with striations. And it was ticking.

"Grenade!" O'Hara shouted.

Shawn took a step forward and kicked the grenade like he was trying for a game-winning field goal. It soared through the air and exploded in a fireball over the dam.

"Do you have any other brilliant ideas?" Shawn said.

"I'm thinking!" O'Hara said.

"That's a plan," Shawn said. "One strategy this game really rewards is standing around doing nothing. You get to learn all sorts of new and exciting ways to die that way."

"You worry about the threats, I'll deal with the girl," O'Hara said. "You're such an expert murderer by now, I'm sure there's nothing you can't handle."

"Absolutely nothing," Shawn said. "Except maybe for that."

He pointed up at the dam. Directly under the spot where the grenade had gone off, a spiderweb of cracks was crawling across the concrete surface.

"That's not fair," O'Hara said.

"Now you're learning," Shawn said. "So maybe you could speak to our friend before the Shawnstown flood begins."

O'Hara cast another glance up at the dam and saw how quickly the cracks were spreading, then turned back to Fawn Liebowitz. "Have you considered rushing Pi Phi? Because I'm sure they'd love to have you."

"You're kidding," Shawn said.

"Did you try asking her about sororities?" O'Hara said. "That can be an important part of a college girl's life."

"Well, unless Al-Qaeda's got a branch at Darksyde U, I don't think she's interested in social organizations," Shawn said.

While Shawn and O'Hara had been arguing, Fawn had reached into her backpack again and come out with a metal briefcase.

"Now what?" O'Hara said.

"My guess is it's a suitcase nuke," Shawn said.

"An atomic bomb?" O'Hara said, incredulous. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Shawn grabbed the briefcase out of Fawn's hands and gave it a shake. It started to tick loudly.

"And the bar is raised," O'Hara said. "The suitcase nuke is no longer the dumbest thing I've ever heard. A ticking suitcase nuke is even dumber. Nuclear bombs simply do not tick."

"Everything in this world ticks when it's about to blow up," Shawn said. "Ten ticks and you're done."

"Then get rid of it!"