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thought belatedly as he saw the gleam in Calloway’s eye. For the third time in half an hour, the affected British stereotype had taken him off guard. He should know better – Vitus Calloway was one of the richest men in the world, and men like that didn’t simply drop by to chat about their latest acquisition. He could have sent a fleet of accountants to take care of the change of management, but he hadn’t – he’d come in person. There was something Calloway was trying to figure out about Archimago, something he thought he could only get in person. All the more reason for Wolfgang to be cautious: this wasn’t just his boss, this was his owner.
    “Let's go downstairs and I'll show you the type of work we’re currently up to."
    "Very interesting, I'm sure," Calloway responded heartily. "Most keen, yes, all these new projects. But what about the big game, eh? That's the bread and butter, isn't it?"
    Wolfgang smiled. "I always like to leave the game for the end of the tour, since that's what everyone knows us for. Kind of a climax. But if that's what you want to see..." He ushered his guests back towards the elevators.
    "I like to let everyone know that the game isn't all we do here, but you're quite right in that it is the focus of our work. In fact, it takes up about eight stories of this building, not counting the servers and the hardware in the basement. Let's go straight to the heart of it. Henry, eight please."
    The elevator doors snapped closed, and there was a brief surge. When the doors opened again, the elevator was flooded with a rainbow of light, and an explosion of sound. Wolfgang stepped forward and spread his arms impressively. When he spoke, he sounded truly proud.
    "Gentlemen, Ms. Forthwhit, this is the game. This is Crucible."
    They were standing on a metal dais, part of a platform supported by open-beam scaffolding which ran around the edges of the enormous room which filled the entire eighth floor of the building. Around the walls were a number of gigantic holographic screens, each twenty feet across. In front of these was a long, arched lectern at which were seated some dozen people, dressed in everything from lab coats to cut-offs, some reclining in virtualounges and some manipulating the holographic control-fields which hovered over their desks. Scattered throughout the room were row upon row of additional, smaller workstations and virlos, partially partitioned off from one another by portable room-dividers. Everywhere was activity as people ducked from one workstation to another or discussed the contents of this or that screen.
    The screens themselves were what truly drew the eye, and the variety of their contents made the peoples' activity dull by comparison. In the nearest screen, a green-scaled humanoid in a hood swung a scythe at a group of humans, who fled, screaming. To the other side, a line of fur-cloaked shapes trudged up a mountainside in a howling storm. Two adjoining workstations showed another scene from two different points of view, a vast pillared courtroom presided over by a figure mummified in rotting bandages, wearing a tall golden crown. Another presented a scene that was practically bucolic by comparison: a fenced field set among rolling hills, home to a dozen grazing horses. Only closer observation revealed that the horses had wings. All around them, mythological scenes from a hundred cultures swung and skittered and swirled and snarled and screamed.
    Wolfgang snuck a glance at his audience. Vitus Calloway wore a grin of amazed delight which took twenty years from his face, while even Bernardo's bleak expression had been wiped away by the sight before them. His eyes were round, as was his open mouth, giving him a slightly panicky look. Henrietta Forthwhit had clutched her wrist computer to her heart like a protective talisman and was leaning back towards the elevator doors.
    "It is a bit much to take in all at once, isn't it?" Wolfgang almost had to shout over the din from