Death Match - Diane Duane [71]
“—apologies for leaving you a canned message. Unfortunately I’m away from my desk at the moment. If you’d kindly leave a message for me, I’ll return the call as soon as possible. Thank you.”
“Uh,” Catie said. “Mr. Winters, it’s Catie Murray. Please call me back as soon as you can. It’s very urgent. Meanwhile I’m also sending you a report on a conversation I had with George Brickner. This is urgent, too…please get back to me soon. Thanks.”
The image of Winters vanished. Catie glanced over and saw that the one of Mark had taken itself away as well.
“Wonderful,” Catie muttered. There was nothing she could do now but go offline, go to school, and try to get hold of both Mark and Winters from there if she had time.
7
In a huge darkened space filled with the rustle and breathing of expectant people, one man in a dark All Over suit stood at a “virtual podium,” a reading window floating about chest height and tilted toward him. Off to one side, two other people stood by a table on which was a large cut-crystal bowl shaped like a spatball and containing a number of small opaque plastic balls.
“If our guests would go ahead and stir the choices—”
The two celebrity guests, a handsome tall dark man in a formal kilt and jacket with jabot and a blond woman wearing an electric-blue dress that covered her completely and yet left absolutely nothing to the imagination, both plunged a hand into the crystal bowl and started stirring. From somewhere a dramatic drum roll started to fill the space.
The stirring went on long enough and energetically enough to convince the most skeptical viewer that there was no way either of the celebrities in question could have picked a specific ball on purpose. “First choice, please!” said the ISF president, who was acting as the master of ceremonies.
The woman and man each came up with a ball and handed it to the ISF president. This worthy, a short earnest-faced gentleman of Eastern extraction, proceeded to crack the balls open one at a time. From the first one a small spark of light burst out, floated up into the air, burning and growing, spinning and throwing off sparks like a Catherine wheel, and gradually turned into the famous red M and owl logo of one of the play-off teams.
“First to play in the quarterfinal series: Manchester United High—” A roar went up from the gathered Man United fans as the ISF president cracked open the second ball. Another spark of light shot out of it, leaped up into the air, and after a certain amount of shining and spinning, turned into a stylized flame surrounded by the letter C.
“—plays the Chicago Fire!”
Shrieks of delight from the Chicago contingent. The two logos charged at one another in the air, did a brief waltz around one another, and finally settled down to hang above and to the left of the ISF president.
“Second choice, please!”
The celebrities stirred the bowl again, each picked a ball, and once again handed them to the ISF official. He cracked the first of the two balls.
A streak of light arched up out of it and exploded into a miniature fireworks display overhead; after a few moments the fire faded away to show a stylized green grass-hopper and the letters XZS. “In the second match, Xamax Zurich—”
The ISF president cracked the second ball open. The fireworks that went up were white at first, then turned yellow and black, leaving a yellow oval with two black spots at one end of it. “—plays South Florida Spatball Association!”
“Well, good,” Darjan said, sitting back in his implant chair with a satisfied expression.
“Listen,” Heming said to him, from nearby in the darkness of their joint experience of the lottery draw. “Didn’t you hear what I said? They’ve been in the server!”
Darjan waved one hand in a languid way.
“What’s the matter with you!” Heming said in an angry whisper. “If Net Force should find—”
“They nosed around for four days straight and didn’t find anything,” Darjan said, unconcerned, as he watched the draw for the third team to play begin. “We own somebody on the ISF’s server maintenance team.