Death Dream

by Ben Bova

  Susan clenched her teeth as she stared at the screen. One of these files contains all the code names, she told herself, but I can't get the damned codes unless I know the code name of that particular file. Catch-22.

  What would a real hacker do? she asked herself. She had read news stories about ten-year-olds who had broken into computer files of national banks, investment houses; even the Pentagon, using nothing more than their home computers, a telephone link, and their ingenuity.

  GET DICTIONARY, she typed. Then she pressed ENTER. The screen split into two parts: one retained the file list, the right-hand side showed a string of words beginning with "A, a (a) n; (pl) A's a's As, as: 1. the first letter of the Roman and English alphabet . . ."

  WORD SEARCH, Susan commanded. CORRELATE AB. ENTER.

  The right side of the screen disappeared in a blur too fast to follow. In a few minutes, Susan knew, the computer would display every word used in Vickie's file names. Maybe the list would include the words that were hidden from normal access. Would Vickie be so security conscious that she would hide access to her code words even from the dictionary search subprogram?

  Susan hoped not.

  The day had started strangely for Vickie Kessel. She had wakened with a jolt, startled that she was not in her own bed. Blinking the sleep away, she remembered: Quentin Wayne Smith III. Chuck. It had been some years since she had made love with a man so young, so insistent, so powerful. That was the word. Chuck Smith exuded power: exciting, passionate, animal power.

  She turned and saw that she was alone in the king-sized bed. Vickie sat up. "Chuck?" she called, modestly tucking the bedsheet over her bosom.

  No reply. She heard no sounds from the bathroom. The door to his sitting room was shut. Then Vickie glanced at the digital clock on the night table: 9:46. My God, she thought, I haven't slept this late in ages. She smiled, realizing that she probably hadn't fallen asleep until two or three in the morning. It was a busy night, she said to herself.

  She padded naked to the bathroom, thinking, He's probably gone to the office to keep an eye on Jace. And to watch his football games. I'll call him there. After all, we have to make plans for Thanksgiving dinner tonight. And then afterwards.

  CHAPTER 31

  Chuck Smith felt almost proud of himself. He had enjoyed a rousing good time in bed with Vickie, coming twice himself and stirring her to frenzied orgasms. There was always the chance that she was faking it, he knew, but what the hell if she was. He certainly wasn't. And there'd be more tonight.

  He had never been in bed with a Jew before. All his life—since prep school, at least—he had heard conflicting tales about Jewish women. Either they were cold to the point of frigidity or they were wild sexpots who would do things no ordinary girl would even think of. He remembered the old line about Jewish foreplay: a trip to the jeweler's and then two hours of begging. Smith grinned to himself.

  He certainly had not had to beg Vickie at all. She and been more than cooperative. Then he remembered another old saw: Jewish women don't believe in sex after marriage.

  He laughed out loud as he drove the leased BMW toward ParaReality's building. Of all the activities of the past night, he considered his best accomplishment was getting out of the hotel suite without awakening the woman. Master of the fade-away, he said to himself. She'll snoop through the place, look into the closets and the drawers. Women do that. He thought of Victoria waiting in his bedroom when he got back, wearing nothing but one of his shirts, unbuttoned. Nice image. But she won't wait there; she'll go home.

  First, though, she'll look for any papers she can find, he knew. She's no fool. Wants my job, does she. Well, okay, if she helps me move up, why not? His face hardened as swung the sedan off the highway and onto the access road that led to ParaReality. Is she the type to get possessive? Will she let her emotions control her? Fall in love?

  Not likely, he decided. She's old enough to know better old enough to know a lot. I wonder who taught her how to use body lotion like that? How much of what she told me last night was true? he wondered. And why doesn't she want Muncrief to know that somebody's snooping around his company? Has informants inside his walls? What kind of a game is she really playing?

  Smith pulled up onto the parking lot in the front of the building, then decided to check the rear. He drove around the building slowly, careful of the speed bumps. Yes, there's Santorini's Honda, all right; he's come back from Wright-Patterson. And Lowrey's crummy old bicycle. Somebody's Thunderbird; looks like a rolling wreck. Nobody else. Well, it's Thanksgiving, after all. Most people are either in church, at a football game, or getting a big family dinner ready.

  He drove back to the front lot and parked the BMW there. I'm not an employee. I get to park with the VIPs. Then he sighed. I also get to watch the football games on television because I've got to spend the whole damned day with Jason Lowrey. I wonder if he ever washes his hair?

  But as he used his temporary security card on the electronic lock at the front door, Smith thought about the dinner he would have with Vickie. And afterward. Might not be such a crummy Thanksgiving at that, he told himself.

  Halfway down the corridor to Jace's lab he saw Joe Rucker puffing his way toward him, an electronic clipboard in his one hand.

  "Oh. it's you, Mr. Smith," said Rucker. "I saw yer car go past out the back."

  "I parked up front," Smith said to the guard.

  Rucker consulted the display screen of his clipboard.

  "Yep. You're okay. You're allowed to park in front."

  Smith started to smile at the hillbilly's earnestness.

  Then Rucker added, "But ye got to wear yer badge, Mr. Smith. I got to be able to see it on ye."

  His smile turned to a grumble, but he fished the red temporary badge out of his jacket pocket and clipped it to his lapel.

  "Thank ye, sir. An' happy Thanksgiving to ye!"

  Go fuck yourself, Smith answered silently.

  Sitting in his office hunched over his computer keyboard, Dan realized that he had failed to grill Jace about the VR system Dorothy had and the shambles of the F-22 simulation. He shook his head, unhappy with himself. Jace always outsmarts me. I start to talk about one thing and he moves me over to what he wants to talk about.

  I've got to pin him down, Dan scolded himself. But this business of manipulating the President is important. Jace doesn't have any sense of responsibility at all. Maybe I ought to have a talk with Smith. Or maybe I ought to force Jace to turn the job back over to me.

  Then he remembered facing Jace in the gunfight sim. He killed me. Shot me down and laughed about it afterward.

  Dan shuddered at the memory of the bullets hitting his chest. And now he's taking over the Washington program. He doesn't care what it's for or how they're going to use it. He's just playing like a kid with a new toy. A kid with delusions of grandeur. Would Muncrief care? I got the impression Kyle wasn't too happy with this Smith guy.

  Jace stuck his head through Dan's office doorway. "Hey, you using a mainframe?"

  "No."

  "Somebody's using one of them."

  "There's nobody else here except us—and Sue, she's down in the Pit with the kids. But she wouldn't need a mainframe to do a literature search."

  Jace shrugged loosely and gangled into the office.

  "Doesn't matter, I don't need it right now."

  "How do you know it's in use, then?"

  "I know everything, pal. Haven't you figured that yet?" Jace plopped down on the leather sofa. "I am all-seeing, all-knowing."

  "All bullshit," Dan said.

  "Like hell."

  Dan blurted, "You set up a VR system for Ralph to use at home, didn't you?"

  Jake's narrow eyes shifted away from him. "Aw, that was years ago."

  "After that fight you two had."

  "Some fight. I was trying to help the sonofabitch and he pops me in the mouth."

  "The system was for Dorothy?"

  "Yeah. To help her while away her lonely nights while h
er true love was away slaying dragons."

  Dan was accustomed to Jace's sarcasm where Ralph was concerned. But now, with Ralph dying, it angered him. He asked, "How the hell did you do it?"

  "Do what?"

  "Make a sex machine."

  "It was really for you, y'know."

  "For me?"

  "Yeah. I figured if Dorothy could play with herself while Ralph was away she wouldn't come on to you. I saved your marriage, buddy."

  Dan stared at him. Jace never does anything for anybody except himself, he knew. And yet—why would he help Ralph? He hated Ralph.

  "You really did it for me?" The question came out high-pitched, almost like a little boy talking to an elder.

  Jace nodded solemnly. "Sure did."

  For several moments Dan could say nothing, think of anything except Jace's concern for him. He did it for me? At last he shook his head, as if trying to clear his mind and get back to the subject he had started with.

  "But how did you do it? How does the sex machine work?"

  "Why, you want one?"

  Suddenly impatient, Dan said, "I want to know how it works. I don't understand how you did it."

  Jace scratched at his stubbly jaw. "Come on, Dan. You know better than that."

  "Dorothy's using it right now, for Chrissakes."

  "Good."

  "How the hell did you do it?"

  "It's better than watching porno movies, I betcha."

  Dan stared at his partner, his friend, the man he had built his career around. His life around.

  "Don't give me that hound-dog look," Jace said. "What the hell. You know that a VR system—any VR system—makes imaginary experiences seem real. It's a wonder nobody's made a sex machine before."

  "Maybe they have," said Dan.

  The slightest little grin wormed across Jace's lips. It made him look sly, almost smug. "No they haven't," he said. "Nobody knows how to, except me."

  "You took measurements of Ralph's body, his nervous system, and then used them as input into the system you gave him."

  "Just his brain, buddy boy. All I had to do was map the electrical activity in his brain. The rest was what they call cape work."

  "Cape work?"

  "Fancy dancing, just to keep Ralph or anybody else from figuring out what I was really doing."

  "The electrical activity in his brain."

  Jake's grin broadened, but his eyes looked somehow sad, weary. "The one thing I remember from the freshman English course they made me take: 'The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.' "

  Puzzled, Dan asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"

  Jace pulled himself up from the sofa. "Figure it out, pal. Figure it out for yourself."

  Susan stared disconsolately at the display screen. She had tried every one of the key words that her dictionary search had turned up; all but four of them were useless.

  And for those four, the screen stubbornly demanded ACCESS CODE. She was no better off than when she had started.

  She shut down the IBM and returned to the desktop mini that was still faithfully searching all the medical journals in the NREN.

  The door opened and Dan walked into the computer center, looking strained, uptight.

  Angela bounced happily toward her father. "Can I play a game now? Is it time now?"

  Dan looked down at his daughter as if he did not recognize her. But then he broke into a tight smile and tousled her blonde hair.

  "We did promise you could play a game, didn't we? Only one, though."

  Angela clutched her daddy as he made his way past the unoccupied row of desktops and minicomputers to where Susan was sitting.

  "How's it going?" he asked.

  Pointing to the display screen that was still flashing medical references, Susan replied, "There's a mountain of data about sports medicine and nerve physiology. You won't be able to sort it out in a month."

  His face went grim. "That's okay. Long as we've got the data, I can put a couple of researchers on the job of sorting it all out."

  "What's the matter?"

  "Jace."

  "What's he done now?"

  "He's taken over the special job I was supposed to be doing. You know, the one for Washington."

  "Good!" said Susan. "Now you can come home nights at a decent hour."

  But she saw from the way he was gnawing his lip that there was more.

  "Can you check into Jace's requests for computer searches?" Dan asked. "I mean, can you find out what he's been looking for over the past couple of days?"

  "Does he log into the search services like everybody else?"

  "I guess so."

  "Then I can trace his requests, yes."

  "Okay. How about his searches from six-seven years ago, back at Wright-Patt?"

  "My God, Dan, I don't think anybody keeps records that far back."

  "No, I guess not," Dan muttered. He went back to gnawing on his lip.

  "What are you looking for?"

  "I want to see what he's been looking for."

  "I can try."

  "It's time for my game now, isn't it?" Angela asked, unable to contain herself quietly.

  Susan turned to her daughter. "Not until we have some lunch," she said. "You and Daddy go out to the car and bring in the picnic basket while I see to Philip."

  They picnicked on the floor of the computer center, sitting on the rough old blanket that they had used on outdoor picnics, chewing on sandwiches that Susan had made and drinking iced tea.

  "I helped with the sandwiches," Angela informed her father.

  "They're good, honey." But Susan could see that Dan's thoughts were a thousand miles away. He sat cross-legged on the blanket, wound up into knots of anxiety.

  "Why do you need to see what Jace was doing back at Wright-Patterson?" she asked.

  Glancing at his daughter, who was trying hard to finish her sandwich without getting any of it on her blouse or jeans, Dan said, "Jace made a VR game for Dorothy."

  "For Dorothy? How do you know that?"

  "For her to use at home. When Ralph's away. Hell, maybe they used it together too."

  "How do you know?" Susan repeated.

  He avoided her eyes. "Doc told me. And I talked with Jace about it this morning."

  "A VR game? For the bedroom?"

  Dan nodded solemnly.

  "That's kinky."

  "I'm finished!" Angela announced, brushing crumbs of her jeans.

  Dan climbed slowly to his feet and put on a smile. "Okay, honey, I'll take you to the lab. Just one game, now. We agreed on that, right?"

  Susan watched them walking away from her, Angela's hand in her father's. Neither one of them so much as glanced back at her. Philip, sitting up in his car chair, waved both hands at them but they did not see him.

  "Which game do you want to play?" she heard Dan ask their daughter.

  " Cinderella,' " said Angela. "Or maybe 'Alice in Wonderland'! No, not that one. 'Green Mansions'! Mary Mackie told me about that one, it's all about this deep, deep forest and there are birds that talk to you and you wear a dress made of spiderwebs and . . ."

  They reached the door, went through, and let it swing shut behind them. Leaving Susan sitting there on the floor with the baby, wondering what a VR sex simulation would be like.

  Then she thought, if Dan's going to set up Angie in a VR game, at least I can watch which programs are put into use. Maybe I can get a clue to Vickie's damned code words that way. She scrambled to her feet, startling little Philip so badly that he broke into a bawling cry.

  The forest-green Jaguar convertible purred to a stop in the roofed parking slot marked K. MUNCRIEF. PRES. Muncrief got out and squinted into the bright sky as he patted his windblown hair into place. He did not expect to meet anyone at the office on this Thanksgiving Day, so he had dressed casually in a short-sleeved shirt and dark shorts. Still, he looked sharp and stylish. Like the picture of Dorian Gray, he thought. Good-looking outside, but
inside a real mess.

  As he walked the ten paces to ParaReality's glass doors he remembered that Vickie had suggested he roof over all the parking spaces. The employees were grumbling that they had to leave their cars baking in the sun all day. But he didn't have the money to spend on that. Later, he told himself, after the cash starts rolling in. If it ever starts. There was only one other car in the front lot, he saw: Smith's rented BMW. He must be in there keeping an eye on Jace. Good. Let the two of 'em get in each other's hair.

  As he strode through the lobby toward his office, Muncrief laughed to himself at that image: Jace with his long tangled mane and Smith's military-type buzz cut.

  He waved to Joe Rucker as the guard came lurching and grinning toward him like an eager St Bernard puppy. "How do, Mr. Muncrief, sir! Happy Thanksgiving to ye!"

  "Same to you, Joe," Muncrief called as he strode through the lobby.

  For the past week Muncrief had been feeling more and more helpless. Out of control of what was happening round him. Vulnerable. Dan Santorini running off to Ohio; the most reliable man in the lab, just dashing off without a word to anybody. How the hell can we get anything done around here with employees who do things like that? I should have fired him. Teach 'em all a lesson.

  And Jace just waltzing in and taking over the Washington job. Who's in charge here? I didn't want that bastard Smith and whatever his damned job is, but here he is, in my building on Thanksgiving day, no less, working with Jace. That's Vickie's doing; she got me into this Washington business.

  He sat heavily in his high-backed swivel chair and flicked on his desktop computer. Nobody in the office, nobody calling on the phones. All the sane people in the country are out enjoying the holiday. Good time to get some work done without interruptions. A chance to study the cash flow and the work schedules and see just where in hell we stand. Quiet enough to think and make plans. Got to get Cyber World running by April first. Got to get Smith off my case and back to Washington.