Once again, the scenario was over the top, much more
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necessary to troll for the kind of information Jay The man never let one simple vision serve when Icould do nine visions complicated. And even the public rios he chose were major sensory sims, like that stu- : climb up Mount Fuji. Please.
eller grinned at that memory. That had shaken old Jay f some, when he'd gone over in persona and sat down
: next to him. Old Jay hadn't expected that. |When the boat got within range, Keller laid the rifle's stock on a gnarl of root and aimed. The rain slashed hard, the wind blew, and the scope was wet and The trawler was bouncing up and down on the water, and enough of it was sloshing up through mangrove roots to keep Keller soaked, despite the
at. It wasn't an easy shot. He managed to put the first round into the wheelhouse ; window, shattering it, but missing Jay by a good foot. : worked the bolt and fired again, aiming at the hull just slow the normal waterline when the boat came up on a ftve. He ejected the empty shell and chambered a third ad, which he fired at the life preserver hung next to wheelhouse. Must have missed that completely, he n't see it hit.
* The boat chugged on, no sign of Jay, who must be I down inside the wheelhouse, wondering what the was going on. Enough. He had other business to which he needed to ad. This was fun, pulling Gridley's chain, but Omega : coming, and they had less than a week to get ready. : nearly enough time. He was going to have to let this Too bad.
In this scenario, which was Jay's, Keller had a small hidden behind the mangrove island in the swamp just short of the Gulf where some nameless river ied into it. Probably it had a name, come to think of since Gridley did stuff like that. Keller dropped the rifle, for which he had no further e, and worked his way to his boat. Might as well check
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things out as he left. Gridley wouldn't have come here if he hadn't been looking for something in particular, and maybe Keller could spot it.
He reached the boat, and started to untie the line that kept the craft from drifting away. When he did, a monstrous figure rose from the water like the creature from the Black Lagoon.
Keller froze.
The monster said, "Surprise!" and Keller realized it was a man in scuba gear and a wetsuit. Behind the face mask, he recognized Gridley's basic persona, which looked pretty much like the real man.
Gridley had a big knife in his hand. He smiled and moved awkwardly toward Keller, his flippers slapping the water noisily-
Keller bailed.
CyberNation Train Baden-Baden, Germany
Keller came out of the scenario cursing. Dammit! He had underestimated Gridley again! He should have known better! He threw the wireless sensory gear down hard, and regretted that instantly. These headsets weren't cheap. If he broke it, the replacement would come out of his budget.
He picked up the set, touched the test button. The diodes lit up green, one after another.
Thank God for small miracles. He put the set down more carefully, hanging it on its rack.
Over-confidence had been the downfall of a whole lot of programmers, and he had seen it happen enough to know nobody was immune, even him. Gridley might have opted for the status quo, turned into a fedhead, fat and happy, but he still had some moves. Keller was better than they'd been in college, but it wasn't smart to think that
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,? Old Thai had stayed where he'd been. He was, after I1 the head of Net Force's computer operation- He might ; be as good as Keller was, but he wasn't a total lube- , either.
. was too bad he didn't have time to call Jay out for 11 wrangle. To make it a one-on-one, no-holds-barred. r show Jay who was better now. |Well. There was no help for it. And no real harm done, ler's net persona was a mule, a Joe-average construct " didn't look like anybody in particular, certainly not i real self. Even if Gridley had seen him, he hadn't seen dy he could put a face to.
J even if he had known who it was, well, so what? .ring who and figuring out where he was, finding him doing anything about it before Omega launched n't going to happen. And afterward? Jay wouldn't be ,- to do much to him then, either. The train was moving. That very morning it had left " siding where it had been for days, and was now only .couple hundred kilometers northeast of Dijon. France. would arrive at the border shortly, where- it would turn and and head back toward Berlin. The powers that b in CyberNation did not want their three mobile cen- i anywhere near their headquarters in Geneva. The ship in the Caribbean, the train went back afld forth be- ._sn Berlin and the French border, mostly, half-loaded iith tourists who knew nothing of the high-tech gear on ird the other half. The third station was on a barge ensibly being rebuilt at a shipyard in Yokohama, Japan, ugh it could be hauled off at any time. If the German .Jiorities being paid to ignore the train developed pangs " _j conscience, or if the Japanese harbor officials who were fibribed not to worry themselves overmuch about the re- on the barge suddenly went mad, the ship was the jty, the most secure backup. If something happened to j train or the barge, or both, the ship would be the base ody could legally touch. But any one of them was ugh by itself to get the job done. All three were sim-
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ilarly equipped, and what one did was quickly uploaded to the others, so that at any given moment the lead team was never more than a few hours ahead of the others. Major data transfers were done four times a day in all directions, so if the train or boat or barge was suddenly hit by a giant meteor, there wouldn't be more than six joint hours of work lost to the remaining two centers.
It was a good system. Not Keller's design, but good, nonetheless.
Well. As much as he'd like to square off with Gridley and kick his ass, he had to get on with it. Omega was coming, and his group wasn't going to be caught short. Maybe after it all came down he'd go find Jay and show him up, but that would just have to wait.
Washington, D.C. The Zoo
Jay and Saji walked along, looking at the tiger cage. It was cold enough so the big cats were inside their heated enclosure. A lot of the less furry animals seemed to be. For a long time after he had been mauled in VR by such a creature, it had been all Jay could do to look at the tigers. Now, he made a point to stop by the zoo every so often to remind himself.
He was only paying half his attention to the walk though, and, of course, Saji noticed.
"Where are you?" she said. "Not here."
"Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about die fishing boat scenario. I think I know who the shooter was."
"Really? How so?"
"Well, when I ran the lists of the best computer programmers graduated in the last ten years, I came up with quite a few I knew. Me, for one. A lot of guys I went to school with at CIT, others I knew from the net and web, conferences, like that. Some of them I've kept
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ich with, others kinda drifted away, so I tried to run some of the guys I used to pal around with that I en't seen in years."
ey passed the brown bear compound. The bears n't around. Hibernating maybe? .es," she said. "And... ?" "A couple have died. One in a car wreck, one from Most of the rest of them went into the field and done pretty well. A few dot-biz millionaires, some nercial software producers. Some got out of the field, to work in other areas. One woman I knew who was x programmer opened a chain of daycare centers for of kids. One guy writes comic books and TV shows, did well enough to quit work and live in Hawaii 'somewhere. A couple dropped out completely to raise nic carrots or whatever on dinky farms in Footlick,
or like that." :r"Yes. And ... ?"
"Two are missing. No record of them. Didn't die, didn't married or change their names, just dropped off the of the Earth. One of them was a weirdo we all ex- would go ballistic one day and assassinate some- y. The other was one of my best friends, a guy named ckson Keller. We exchanged a couple of Christmas
; after school, and then lost track of each o
ther." "I see."
"The thing is, I can't imagine he would drop out of the He was gung ho, like most of us. I figured they'd ave to haul his body away from the console if he died, lut there's no sign of him anywhere from about three
I after we graduated. Poof." The insect house was not far ahead. It was always warm there, if kind of humid, but it was getting chilly, and By nodded at it. "Let's go look at the bugs." Inside, small children darted from window to window, oking at giant cockroaches, horned beetles, and all kinds scorpions from around the world. It felt like a jungle, i and damp, though the lights were fairly dim.
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"So you think maybe this weirdo is somehow part of things?"
He shook his head. "No. I think it's the other one-my old buddy Keller."
She looked at an albino beetle the size of a mouse as it lumbered over a floor of fine-grained sand. "What makes you think that?"
"A couple things. The weirdo-his name was Zimmerman-never had the chops to make me look bad in VR. Keller wasn't quite as good as I was, but he coulda gotten better. And I've been thinking about that climb up Fujiyama. When the old Thai guy came and sat next to me. That's what Keller used to call me, back in college. Jay, the Old Thai. He was a year or two younger than most of us, a child prodigy who finished high school at fifteen."
"You think the VR construct was a hint?"
"I think so, yeah. And you know what it really feels like? It feels personal. Like this guy knows me, wants to screw me up. And his stuff is like the stuff Keller used to do-he was always big on ambushes. He used to say if you are going to duel with somebody, shoot 'em in the back before they see you coming, it'll save you a lot of grief. Their fault if they weren't paying attention."
"Huh," she said.
" 'Huh?' That's the best you can do?"
"What do you want me to say? Yes, you must be right, you brilliant stud!"
He grinned. "That would be okay, I like the sound of that."
She grinned back at him. "I bet." She looked back at the beetle. "So, if this is true, how do you find out for sure? And then what?"
"Well, to start, I can dig deeper in public records, see if I can find Keller anywhere. Maybe I'm imagining it, maybe he's got a job in Silicon Valley somewhere running some company and I missed him."
"Maybe he changed his name," she said.
"Why would he do that?"
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"For all your smarts, you sometimes miss the easy stuff, | Jay. What if he got into debt? Maybe some kind of white| collar crime? Needed a fresh start. Or just went bonkers [and decided to start calling himself 'Ra, God of the I Sun.'"
Jay watched the bug in the glass case .going about its t business. It had found something in the sand and was [digging it up. Jay halfway expected to see the insect un; earth a tiny human skull. "I don't think so. If he had, |there'd be some record of it under his old name. First i things I checked were criminal records, B&D stats, and |Deja, and he was active on the net until about five years lago. After that, he's just gone. You'd think somebody who was planning on leaving would say good-bye-he was on a lot of newsgroups and professional pub pages, then he stopped posting. I had a searchbot scan all his postings: There's no mention of being in trouble with the law, or in debt, or wanting to change his name. One minute he was there, the next, he was gone." "Black helicopters got him?" she said. Jay smiled. "Uh-huh. Don't forget, I know where those guys hang out."
The beetle came up with something that looked like a little ball made out of Tootsie Roll, and proceeded to roll it across the stand toward a far corner of the cage.
"All right, then," she said. "Hunt him down and find out what he's been up to." Jay nodded. Yes.
27
Washington, D.C.
The ceremony was outside, a bright June afternoon. A sea of graduates in blue caps and gowns sat in folding chairs in front of a raised platform. On the stage, a speaker called out names, and students walked across the stand to collect their diplomas. Most of the students looked happy as they accepted their sheepskins and shook hands with the principal. A couple of the boys mugged and did silly waves. One boy flashed the crowd, showing off jockey under- shorts. A typical high school graduation, "Pomp and Circumstance" playing in the background, the proud parents smiling, crying, fanning themselves with programs, watching their progeny morph from children to semi- adults.
Later, a tall blonde girl stood with her arms around two of her girlfriends while her parents, then the parents of her friends took pictures.
As the festivities wound down, students hugging each other, slapping each other on the back, punching shoulders, a father and son walked side by side toward the
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parking lot The family resemblance was strong, the boy a younger copy of his father. The father stopped walking j and said, "Here, son."
The boy took a small plastic card from his father, | looked at it, then back at his dad.
"Your first year of membership in CyberNation," his | father said. He was blinking back tears.
The son looked amazed. "But-but you think this is |"tupid!" He waved the card a little.
"Times change, son. People change, too-they have to, |or they miss what's important in life." The boy looked at the card. "Your mother would have been so proud." Behind them, a woman-the spirit of the boy's mother-shimmered and appeared ghostlike into view. The father and son looked at the spirit, who smiled at them.
With the spirit of the wife and mother watching, the , boy and his father embraced.
"CyberNation," said the deep voice. "It's today, it's tomorrow. It's forever."
A small graphic appeared under the father and son, and in small print the words cybernation appeared.
r._
Michaels pointed the remote at the television in disgust and clicked the set off. "Have you seen this? A three- hanky commercial for an Internet service."
Toni came out of the bathroom with the electric toothbrush in her mouth. "What?"
Michaels waved at the television. "The CyberNation ad."
She held up a hand, a "wait a second" gesture, then went back into the bathroom. A moment later, she was back. "Let me go check on the baby," she said.
"Already did. He's sleeping like a rock."
She moved to the bed and sat. "You were saying something about the TV?"
"Yeah, the CyberNation tear-jerker commercial."
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"Which one? The old lady abandoned in the nursing home by her children? Or the young guy talking to his wife's tombstone?"
"The high school graduation."
"Oh, that one."
"These guys put Coca-Cola, the phone and insurance companies into the minor leagues. Most manipulative thing I've ever seen."
"Wait until you see the thirteen-year-old girl orphan on the street and the cop who comes to help her," she said. "Equal parts of pathos and pedophilia."
He shook his head. "Don't they have any shame?"
"Not if they sell the product."
He shook his head again.
"So, have you thought any more about what we talked about? Guru?"
"You really want to do this?"
She nodded. "Yes. She's as much my grandma as anybody. Every day from the time I was thirteen until I went off to college, I spent two hours with her. Sometimes at her house, sometimes on the steps out front, sometimes in the park. Rain or shine, whatever else was going on, she was there for me. She gave me a skill that's the core of who I am. Whatever else happened to me, I was always sure I could take care of myself if somebody wanted to put his hands on me and I didn't want him to. It was the basis of making my way in the world. If all else failed, I could kick somebody's butt. I didn't have to be afraid."
He smiled at her.
"She's useful here. Little Alex loves her. I love her. And I owe her. For so much. She's eighty-five, she won't be around much longer."
&
nbsp; He chuckled. "She'll probably outlive us all."
"Alex-"
"Okay. If you really want this, then, yeah, okay. Ask her."
"You sure?"
"What I'm sure of is that I want you to be happy. What
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it is. If that means having a coffee-swilling deadly nanny living in the guest bedroom, what the hell." He didn't think he'd ever seen her smile any bigger. : hugged him, and once again he marveled at how good : made him feel, to make her smile. What was it Jay's girl Saji had said recently? Making ebody smile lightens your karmic burden? Well, if was the case, he intended to be karmically clear on li's grins alone, if he could.
SyberNation Train , Germany
i train was stopped, some kind of mechanical problem, outside Kassel, still three hundred or so kilometers Jsouthwest of Berlin. Some of the team had taken the op| portunity to get off and stretch their legs, but Keller saw reason to do so. He had never been a fan of outside. en you could go anywhere in time or space in VR, aid control the weather, the smells, the action, why I would you bother tromping around in the cold and dark jpKxt to a train track in the middle of nowhere? Where you 1 no control at all, save that of your own body's ability I'to come or go? That's what the Luddites didn't under- f stand, that virtual reality was so much better than the real world because you could make it do exactly what you wanted it to do. No wild cards, no chance that you would be caught in an unexpected snowstorm, or bitten by a mosquito chock full of malaria. In VR, life was what you wanted it to be.
This was the real reason that CyberNation would succeed, more than anything. As VR became more and more .like RW, the ability to have anything you wanted, to see, hear, taste, touch, smell, and feel it exactly as you wished | it to be, that was heaven. Give the people what they want. Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path
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