Death Dream by Ben Bova Page A

monologue of problems to look down at Dan. He frowned, then quickly broke into a sheepish grin.
    "That's another reason I wanted you here," he said. "You guys were a mother hen to me."
    His office was a certified disaster area. It looked as if a tornado had struck a library: papers strewn everywhere. Dan could make out the shape of a small desk and a pair of cheap plastic chairs beneath snowdrifts of loose papers. Bookshelves on every wall stuffed with reports and journals. No decorations of any kind; or if there were, they were buried beneath the papers. One window, which Jace had painted black. Dan saw that Jace must have painted it over himself; the paint was streaked and lumpy, the work of a man who had no time or interest in careful workmanship.
    "Lemme tell you, Danno," said Jace as he pushed papers off his desk chair and plopped down on it, "We got the chance here to do great stuff. Really great stuff."
    "That's what you told me in Dayton, That's why I came down here."
    "As if he hadn't heard Dan, Jace went on. "Muncrief's got the kind of vision I need, pal. Thinks big. We're gonna put Disney out of business, you watch."
    Dan grinned at his partner and tossed his rumpled blazer onto one of the paper piles. "Good. Maybe I can work the glitches out of my symphony orchestra program."
    "The conflict games are the quantum leap, Danno," Jace rattled on as if he had not heard Dan. "Get two people to share a simulation, share a world together. This baseball stuff is just the beginning, pal. Just the beginning."
    "I'd still like to develop the symphony orchestra program," Dan said, raising his voice slightly.
    Jace glared at him. "Don't start that again! Let me do the creative stuff; you handle the details."
    "I can do it on my own time," Dan said. "It won't get in the way."
    But Jace was already off on another tangent. "Two people sharing the same dream, that's gonna be powerful, man. You can fight duels, settle court cases—and sex! Better than real life! Better than anything you ever imagined!"
    Same old Jace , thought Dan. His mind races ahead of everybody else and he leaves me to make his ideas work. But inwardly he was grinning with anticipation.
    "Hey," he said, interrupting Jace's monologue. "Why don't you come over for dinner?"
    "Huh?" Jace blinked at him like a man suddenly awakened from a nap. "When?"
    "Tonight. Now."
    Jace had been such a frequent dinner guest back in Dayton that Susan had called him "my oldest child."
    "Uh . . . I don't know . . ." Jace hesitated.
    "Come on. Sue hasn't seen you in more than a year. And you haven't seen Phil yet, have you? And Angie! You wouldn't recognize her, she's grown so tall."
    "Angie," said Jace, his eyes shifting away from Dan's. "Angie. Yeah."

CHAPTER 6

    The heavy traffic surprised Dan. Glancing at the dashboard digital clock, he complained to Jace, "Jeez, look at all these cars."
    Jace shrugged. "Orlando's a big city, pal."
    Then Dan remembered that he had driven to work in the middle of the afternoon. Still, it was damned near eight o'clock and the broad, palm-lined avenues were choked with cars inching along from one stop light to the next. He saw a highway overpass where the traffic was zooming by at a good clip, but there were huge semi-trailer rigs roaring by up there, spurting black diesel smoke and running up the back of anyone doing less than seventy.
    "Does the highway go past Pine Lake Gardens?" he asked Jace.
    "Damned if I know. I'm on the other side of town."
    Dan was stuck with the crowded streets. I'll have to find the best route, he told himself. Must be side streets and cutoffs I can use, once I get to know the area.
    It was hot. He had rolled all the Honda's windows down, but inching along like this brought no cooling wind. A sleek red hatchback pulled up beside him, radio blaring raucous rock music with a bass thumping so loud Dan could feel his sinuses spasming. He glanced over. A pretty young blonde wearing wraparound sunglasses and lipstick the same