Clancy,Tom - Net Force - Cybernation.txt

by Cybernation(lit)

  As the POV shot approached the massive doors to the building, they began to open and dissolve. Doves flew out and scattered. The music began to morph into a classic rock 'n' roll number with the words seeming to grow right out of the organ notes, something with a heavy, driving beat, all about American dreams and suicide machines. As the music changed, so did the image, from a towering pseudo-Gothic edifice to a futuristic nightclub. The camera continued to dolly in and through the doors, and inside the club dozens of beautiful people danced together, frantically gyrating to the rock beat. Sweat made their thin shirts and blouses stick to perfect bodies. The men obviously all lifted weights, the women didn't wear bras and didn't need them.

  Overhead, lasers flickered through clouds of colored smoke, and the slogan cybernation-we can take you anywhere you want to go!" appeared superimposed over the dancers, with the sign-up URL under it.

  The scene froze. "That's the intro. What do you think?" the tech asked.

  "Not bad," Chance said. "But dial down the volume on the music a hair, and when we get the slogan super, I want a wah-wah sting that echoes the bass line. And see if we can vibrate the words a little. Who is doing the voiceover?"

  "Foghorn Franklin."

  "Good. He's perfect. What happens from here?"

  "We're still working on the wire-frame dinosaur stuff, and the space aliens, but we've got the harem sequence and the shopping at Harrods almost done. The wire- frame'll be ready for texture in a couple of days."

  Chance nodded and turned away from the Avid. She glanced at her watch. She hadn't heard from Roberta yet. She wondered how he was doing.

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  ; was probably doing just fine. She worried too much t the details, she knew that. It was hard to trust people what you told them to do, and with good reason. ; upon a time, she had been a corporate manager, on ast track to the vice presidency of a Fortune Five 1 company. She'd been making good money, had i well-respected, and had been kicking ass and taking but she'd had to quit. People kept screwing up, ; things differently than she'd told them, and it drove i the wall. The idea of being a decent manager .was: t hired good workers and turned them loose, and they i't call until the job was done, except if they had prob- The reality of it was: You inherited a lot of dead- in whatever department you took over, and it was : until you could figure out who worked and who papers and pretended to work. Yeah, once you .the lay of the land, you could fire the lazy ones, but you had to spend time looking for somebody new, : was always the devil-youknewversusthe-devil- n't. You'd read this great resume, the guy would up and give a good interview, and as soon as he le job, he'd turn into a brain-dead lame donkey you n't move with a flaming two-by-four shoved up his Half the time you couldn't lop off the deadwood in : place because they'd sue for one kind of discrim- or another-gender, age, race, whatever. You > catch somebody stealing the petty cash, flashing old > in the subway, or snorting cocaine in the lunchroom it wasn't enough to get rid of them if they had the lit leverage.

  office politics? Stupid bosses who'd Peter Princi- : out? Backstabbing coworkers?

  I't even hike those trails ... 'Chance smiled at the memory. Being in charge of most i was no picnic in the park. The reason she had taken oh was that they let her start from scratch, hire any- she wanted, and she could get rid of anybody who for her with two words: You're gone! There was

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  no appeal. She didn't have to answer to anybody except the Board, and as long as she met the goals of the business plan-which she herself produced-nobody cared how she got it done. She couldn't imagine a better job.

  Roberto was good, and she should trust him to do what was needed, but she was still too hands-on. She still worried every time her neck was essentially in somebody else's hands. She'd have to work on that. She needed to relax-'Berto was the best she'd ever found at his kind of work.

  But if he didn't call in the next hour or two, she was going to be bent out of shape.

  San Rafael, California

  Killing the three was the easy part. After he had gotten everything from Dowling he wanted, and a whole lot he hadn't cared about, he very carefully choked the man out, using the special hold he'd learned from a Vale Tudo jujitsu fighter in Brazil. Enough so the guy was unconscious, but not so he'd die. Then he had retrieved the bodyguards one at a time, choked them out, and put everybody into the limo. He'd driven to the spot, only half a mile away, choked them all again to make certain they were out. Then he accelerated toward the guardrail overlooking an eight-hundred-foot drop-off, and locked the car's brakes in a hard skid that stopped right at the edge of the pavement.

  He backed it up a few yards. Then he repositioned one of the unconscious guards in the driver's seat and strapped him in with the seat belt. He jammed the guy's shoe into the side of the accelerator, and the engine roared. He shut the door, reached in through the window, and shifted the automatic transmission lever into drive.

  The car lurched forward and gathered speed. It hit the

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  plenty of momentum, punched through, and i out over the long drop-off.

  ; a lot of noise going down, tumbled and flipped I times. Santos was able to follow the car's fall most way, until the car's lights went out, probably be; the battery had been knocked loose.

  amigos.

  i not totally foolproof, but nobody would have any i to look past the obvious: The driver for a corporate sident, on the way home in the dark on a mountain had seen a deer or coyote or some other animal, on his brakes, and too bad, had skidded right cliff. Yes, a trained accident investigator might i that the safety railing was perhaps not damaged as i as a high-speed impact would warrant. But a Cali- i Highway Patrol officer would see skid marks that the limo's tires, indicating that he had tried to e men would have died from injuries sustained in ck, and there would be no sign of drugs or other i that could not have come from the impact, Santos I certain of that.

  ; happened. A real CHP officer with any time ; job would likely have seen a dozen incidents just s, and if that was what you were looking for, men ; was what you would see. There would be no reason

  anything else.

  aybe die insurance company would send an expert to check on things. Even so, such an investigation I take time, measurements had to be made, tests run, written, and even then, a conclusion would not be

  o, Mr. Acidente Experto, why is it you think this was ,J an accident? fjWell, the guardrail did not show damage consistent jtth a high-speed impact.

  $ Perhaps the metal in this rail came from a particularly irong batch? ?:Not according to my tests.

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  Yes, but-how do you know how fast the car was going when it struck the guardrail, eh?

  The length of the skid marks is indicative of substantial velocity.

  Ah, but putting on the brakes slowed the automobile down, no? Perhaps enough so that the impact was considerably lessened? Is this not possible? . Yes, it is possible...

  As he hiked back toward where he had a hidden car waiting-one with license plates he had swapped with a car in the long-term parking lot of the aeroporto in San Francisco-Santos smiled to himself. If, a week or a month from now, the authorities did somehow become convinced that the limo's destruction had not been an accident, that would not matter. By then, the information he had been sent to collect would have been used. How? He didn't really know or care, that was not his problem. He had been sent to get it, he had gotten it, end of story. There was no way to tie him to the incident in any case. He had bought the car under a false name. Nobody knew him here, and nobody who might have seen him would know who he was or where he had gone. He was just another black man, and they all looked alike to whites, no?

  He would call Jasmine when he got back to San Francisco, using a disposable mobile phone. A short message telling her answering service the job was complete. That would make her feel better. Missy was wound too tight. T
he only time she loosened up was in bed, and even then, she never let everything go; there was always a part of her still in control. He intended to get past that eventually. Bring her to pure animal pleasure, no mind left, just howling and quivering in ecstasy. It might take a while, but he didn't mind-getting there would be half the fun.

  And once he had her there, she would be his slave. Then he would dump her and find another. The world was full of women.

  1O

  ton, D.C.

  . was expecting the postman; the most recent order of ivory slabs for her scrimshaw should be here about so when the doorbell rang, that's who she thought [was. Not that she had gotten much scrimshaw done the baby was born, bits and pieces while he was ng, mostly. Nobody had told her what a full-time ic small human child was.

  : opened the door, but instead of the postman, Guru I there.

  old lady smiled at Toni's startled expression. 3, best girl. Surprise." i**Guru! What are you doing here!" |*Waiting to be invited into your house." feToni opened the screen door and held it wide. "Come t; come in!"

  a-which in Bahasa Indonesian meant "teacher"- up her suitcase and moved past Toni into the She also carried a heavy, wooden cane. |The old woman, whose name was DeBeers, was com

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  ing up on her eighty-fifth birthday. She'd had a stroke back when Toni was five months pregnant, and was supposedly recovered completely. Toni had seen her when she'd taken the baby back to show off to her family six or eight months ago, and Guru hadn't been using a cane then.

  But before she could ask, Guru read her mind: "The stick is for defense, not for walking. Do you think I could 'come all the way from the Bronx on a train unarmed? Did I not teach you better than that?"

  Toni laughed. Of course not. Pentjak silat was a weapons-based art. You only used your hands if you didn't have anything else available. Guru used to say, "You are not a monkey, use a tool. You can fight with your hands. You can also butter your bread with your finger, but why would you if there is a knife handy?"

  Toni waited until Guru had put her bag down and found a seat on the couch. "I'll go make the coffee," she said.

  "That would be nice," the old woman said. "You have any of my nephew's Javanese beans I sent you left?"

  "Sealed in a vacuum bag to keep them fresh," Toni said.

  "You are a good girl. How is our baby boy?"

  "He's terrific. Taking his nap right now, he'll probably be awake soon."

  "This is also good."

  Toni hurried off to grind the coffee beans and put them into the gold mesh filtered drip pot. She used bottled water -Guru was particular about her coffee-and once everything was going, she hurried back into the living room.

  "I am happy you are here," Toni said. "You should have called. I would have come to the train station and collected you."

  "And miss the look on your face when you saw me? No."

  Toni smiled again. Guru had been family since Toni had begun learning the martial art of silat from her more

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  (sixteen years ago. Toni had been thirteen when she'd ib the old lady, past retirement age even then, clean up |front stoop with four thugs brave enough to threaten pipe-smoking granny. Guru had come from Java li her husband as a young woman, raised a family, and widowed before Toni had been born. Her husband f taught her the family martial art usually reserved for

  , and she in turn had passed it along to Toni. I would not be polite to ask the old woman why she 1 come nor how long she planned to stay, but as usual, i was ahead of her. She said, "I will take care of the while you work."

  you, but, uh, I wasn't planning on going back rk," Toni said. "Not for a while, at least."

  i change, best girl. I think maybe you will go back soon." i don't see how-"

  ; phone jangled. Toni was tempted to ignore it, let | computer take a message, but Guru waved at her. should answer that," she said. "I will go and check ; coffee." She smiled. Foni shrugged. As she reached for the com, she saw ¾JD.

  *ey, Alex. What's up?"

  Trouble here in River City," he said. "Got a major ut on the web. It's like somebody poked a stick in est of fire ants, they're running around, mad as hell, ng everybody close. You know, I wish your mother n't gone home, I could sure use your help on this."

  in stared into the kitchen at Guru, who was pouring I coffee from the pot into a carafe, humming to herself, '/had to be a coincidence. Had to be. iut deep in her soul, Toni didn't believe it. What she eved was, Guru had knownl s She couldn't have known that Alex would say that. And there she was, making coffee, as if Toni had called asked her to come up and watch the baby. She had i here, knowing Toni could use her help.

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  How was that possible?

  "Tonir

  "Urn. Yeah. Guru is here."

  "Really? That's great. How is she?"

  "Fine. She came to watch Little Alex so I could go back to work."

  Alex didn't say anything for a few seconds. "Coincidence," he finally said.

  "She said I'd be going back to work sooner than I expected. She got here ten minutes ago."

  There was a long pause. "Coincidence," he said again. "I have to believe that. It's too spooky otherwise."

  'Tell me about it."

  "Coffee is ready," Guru said from the kitchen. "Hello to Mr. Alex."

  "Guru says hello."

  "I heard." Another pause. "Well, you might as well come on down here. I really do need all the help I can get."

  Net Force HQ Quantico, Virginia

  Michaels cradled the receiver and shook his head. Someday, he was going to have to sit down with that old lady and ask her how this tenaga dalam, the "inside magic" she claimed to know, worked. There was probably some scientific explanation, but damned if he could figure out what it was.

  Meanwhile, he had bigger problems. He voxaxed Jay Gridley.

  'Talk to me, Jay."

  "We got it tracked to Blue Whale," Jay said.

  "Which is?"

  "Major West Coast backbone server. Couple-three big nodes there."

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  : happened?" m't know yet, boss."

  find out." I'm gone."

  chaels stood and headed for the door. His phone was ; to ring in a minute or two, and the director of the [would be on the other end of the connection, wanting what the hell was going on. Since he didn't have ng he could tell her, he wasn't looking forward to nversation.

  secretary looked up at him as he passed her desk. i going to the bathroom," he said. "When the director , tell her I'm indisposed."

  said, 'Take your virgil with you. I don't want pyelling at me."

  was short for Virtual Global Interface Link, a slightly larger than a cigarette-pack that was a modem, computer, weavewire fax, GPS, credit : scanner, clock, radio, TV, and emergency beacon all e. They weren't common devices, not in the version els had, and it hadn't taken him long to figure out : die FBI had his virgil monitored and sat-tracked 24/ IfThey said this was for the safety of high-level person, If you had a powered FBI-issue virgil attached to your , you could run, but you couldn't hide, and unlike the Jian models with fudge-factors built in to keep terror- i from using them to guide ballistic missiles to targets, military GPS was accurate to within a couple of feet, els was fairly sure it would work even if it was off. ' you actually went to the rest room and took the virgil

  you, they could tell which stall you were in. P^attery is dead," he said.

  ff Uh-huh," Becky said. "Right. And there aren't a half- en new batteries in your top desk drawer where they ays are?" |T11 replace it when I get back."

  NET FORCE

  "Chicken." "That's me. Bye."

  San Francisco, California

  The night was alive with flashing lights, fading sirens, and the crackle of fire dining on everything it could chew and consume.

  The building, a five-story job built after the big quake
of 1906, was burning like, well, like a big house on fire. Black smoke poured from the upper two stories, flames shot out through imploded windows on the third floor. Pumper engines filled the street with red lights and throaty mechanical drones. A hook-and-ladder with a mounted inch-and-halfer giraffe line blew water into the upper story, while ground-based hydrant-fed three-inchers as stiff as wooden beams spewed water into the third and fourth floors. Cops kept the lookie-loos back, and firefighters ran back and forth, moving hoses, gearing up with air tanks and masks, doing what they were supposed to do.

  Jay Gridley, dressed in a stiff and clumsy fireman's turnout suit-coat, bunker pants, gloves, boots, and helmet, light reflecting off the glo-flex strips on the clothing -stood with a group of other firelighters near one of the building's entrances.

  A captain stood there in front of a chart on a stand. He listened to a handheld tactical radio, looked at the team, and said, "Okay, here's the situation. We got the building cleared of people so far as we know. Fire started on the third floor, which is two-thirds engulfed, and is spreading laterally and going up fast, but the first two floors are still cool. I want your line here." He pointed at the chart. "Baker and Charlie squads are entering the structure from the east and south, and setting up here, and here."

  Gridley wasn't up to speed on real fire fighting tactics.

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  started creating this scenario a few days back, but n't had time to do the research, so he doubted this was ' it would work in RW. Would they go into a building ground floor if the floors above it were burning? , something he'd want to do. His scenario was based at vids he'd seen, and everybody knew the never let truth get in the way of a story.

  ely, in VR, it didn't actually have to mirror It didn't even have to look that good, unless you 1 to invite somebody else in to play. It was only the entive types like Jay who wanted die scenario to i real as possible-most people didn't bother. For Jay, st of his creation would be to bring in a squad of Ifirefighters and have them look around, nod, then say, this is how it really is." He figured if you could I somebody who really knew what it was like, you had at scenario.