（外文电子版资料）Kevin J. Anderson - Gamearth 03 - Games End.pdf

file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Kevin%20J%20Anderson%20-%20Game%2003%20-%20Games%20End.txt ====================== Games End by Kevin J. Anderson ====================== Copyright (c)1990 by Kevin J. Anderson Fictionwise www.F Science Fiction NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk, network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment. *Prologue* David kept watching the clock. As Sunday afternoon ticked toward evening, fear grew inside him, echoes of nightmares and impossible things. Tonight they would play the Game again -- or it would play them. The empty house buzzed with silence. David opened the curtains, showing the gray afternoon and the cold drizzle outside. Every once in a while, a gust of wind rattled the windows. The house felt fragile, as if at any moment some powerful outside being might crush the walls and sweep him away. As he had done to characters on Gamearth. David thought of the flat, colorful game-board that Melanie had painted. For the past two years, he and Melanie and Scott and Tyrone had acted out their adventures on Gamearth, following rules they had created and adapted from other game systems. They enjoyed their quests for treasure, their battles, their magic. They had fun. That was the primary rule they all agreed on -- to have fun. But as the four of them poured their imaginations into the world, built generation after generation of characters, backstitched history and made the entire place whole and real in their minds. The players created a synergy with their imagination, a force that had _pushed_ their made-up world into a life of its own. And Gamearth began to strike back at them. David saw this sooner than any of the others. He suggested they all stop playi