And why hadn't Richards shot her? She had been with Chu. She might have been another cop for all Richards knew, although – and the memory filled her with shame – an exceptionally cowardly one. But Richards had run right past her. He'd had plenty of opportunity to shoot her but he had ignored her completely.
And the guns...
She had no doubt they were deadly. Guns were used in all kinds of interactive adventures in VR. People played out every kind of battle from the Civil War to imaginary space wars. The guns they used wouldn't hurt a fly – just knock you out of the game. But she knew that the police and criminals had guns that would hijack a worldlet's software and deliver dangerous feedback through a person's neural implants. The gun and the bullets – like everything else when you were unlatched – were merely metaphors. They helped the gunman direct the software to the target whose cognitive implants they intended to fry. She'd seen a documentary about it once. Worldlet builders were forced to include mandatory security layers to prevent such attacks – except by the authorities – but criminal hackers could always get around them, and so many proprietors failed to keep their worldlet security up-to-date. The documentary had shown people with severe brain damage, living their whole lives in hospice worldlets, needing twenty-four-seven care.
It could have been me.
She stopped walking, waiting for her breathing to settle, before moving on.
So the Consortium was hunting the cop who was keeping an eye on Ginny. They probably knew where Ginny was. They probably knew all about Della. She felt panic rising in her. What the hell were they playing at? And what was she going to do, if even the cops couldn't keep her safe?
She didn't like the fear. She didn't like being helpless. She felt a sudden irrational resentment that her CEO knew something about the Rice Consortium that she wouldn't tell. Della's life was in danger and no-one seemed to care. It hadn't seemed quite real when Ginny had told her about it. It had been behind glass, somebody else's problem. Now she had seen too much of it, all first-hand, hackers changing their identity and appearance, gunmen shooting at the police. It felt as if everything she had known and trusted had been a lie. Like the wet sand beneath her feet, shifting and oozing and sucking her under...
She realised she had stopped again and was staring blankly into the distance. She shouldn't be doing this, she told herself. She should get back home, talk to Ginny, make plans. A small jolt of fear hit her as she imagined herself – her real self – supine and helpless in her tank, and Dover Richards standing over her. She started walking again, agitation overcoming inertia. The security on her unit was minimal. A lock on the door, that's all. But people didn't waste time and money making their physical homes secure. What would be the point? They contained very little worth stealing. Everybody's true wealth was on QNet, these days. That's where you made your money; that's where you spent it. If you wanted art or fancy gadgetry, you got it for your virtual world, not the real one. The criminals knew this. There were no burglars any more – except in VR.
She opened a portal so she could teleport back to her tank, but she hesitated. What if he was there? What if he was just waiting for her to come out? She looked around at the endless beach, the vast empty ocean. What if he stepped out of a portal right there? She would have nowhere to hide, nowhere to run.
“I can't live like this!” She shouted it at the blue dome of the sky, but the crashing waves made her shout a tiny thing, and the blustering wind took it and tore it to shreds. She had to go home, no matter who or what waited for her there. She wanted to be angry, so angry she would spit in the eye of the Consortium and its murderous thugs, but all she had was fear.
And money. She could hire protection. You could get robot guards off the Net – not exactly legal, but who gave a stuff? She could put in a fancy security system. She could go away – physically – to Europe or the States, somewhere far away, while all this sorted itself out. She could pay that creep Sorenssen to change her identity, keep her hidden. She could –
But what about Ginny? Again resentment welled up in her. It was all Ginny's fault. She'd told her to take that damned package to the police. But no, she'd had to do what Cal asked her. That was Ginny's trouble. She'd always been so eager to please, so accommodating and appeasing. Well, no wonder with a family like hers. Anybody would grow up warped in a home like that. It was no wonder she didn't have a career or a bloke. She was so busy doing what everyone else wanted she had never made a stand for what she needed. And now she'd landed herself in this mess, all for the sake of some man who – surprise, surprise – was just using her all along.
She walked away from the ocean towards the line of pandanus trees, where the sand was dry and hot, and sat down, not wanting to stay, but unable to make the decision to go home. At least here she was out of it all for a while. Well, she could pretend she was, anyway.
Ginny and Sorenssen were expecting her to join them later to burgle the Chastity offices, but Della knew now that she couldn't do it. If Ginny found a way to reach the Consortium, she would go there. She would do whatever she could to uncover their nasty little secrets and expose their plans. They wouldn't like that. They'd try to kill her. And they'd probably succeed. What could Ginny do against them? Poor, sweet, gentle Ginny?
The touch of tears on her cheeks made Della realise she had started crying. Ginny was her best friend, the only friend she had these days, once you discounted all the acquaintances at work, the over-friendly vendor reps who wanted so much to be her mate, the people she had known and once been close to but with whom she had been too busy to stay in touch. And now she was going to let Ginny down. She had to. She wasn't some kind of hero from an interactive. She was just an ordinary person, a manager in a mining company. She juggled figures and negotiated contracts. She wasn't fearless and brave. She couldn't face down terrorists and killers...
She stopped and blinked in surprise.
But Ginny could. Poor, sweet, gentle Ginny could do all that. And she didn't even have to. No-one was making her. No-one was even suggesting that she should. She had already faced the kind of danger that had made a quivering wreck out of Della, and she was going back for more, deliberately putting herself in harm's way just because she thought it was the right thing to do.
Since when had meek and mild little Ginny been such a hero? Where had all that courage come from? It disturbed Della that they had both been tested in the fires of deadly danger and, while Ginny had come out tempered and hardened, she herself had turned into a molten puddle. That wasn't Della's conception of the two of them at all. Ginny was the weak one, the one who always gave way, and let people walk all over her. Della was the strong one, the one with the will to succeed and the backbone to make it happen. Could she have been so wrong about all that?
“You're the sensible one,” Ginny had so often told her. And it was true. All her life she'd made the right decisions, weighed costs and benefits, evaluated the risks and made the sensible choice. She'd been proud of that. It had made her a solid achiever, a person of substance. But maybe sensible just meant 'safe'. Maybe her whole approach to life was based on an underlying cowardice, an inability to take risks, a fear of failure. Of course, Ginny had her hang-ups, lots of them, but maybe Ginny had been the brave one all along.
She sat on the beach and thought about her life and her friend, her fear and her options as the sun passed its zenith and began its descent. In the end, she knew barely more than when she started. But she was sure of three things; she was not going to Chastity with Ginny and Sorenssen, even though she would not stop them; she was going to tell Ginny all about Inspector Chu, however bad it made Della look, Ginny had a right to know the police were already taking action; and she was leaving town that very afternoon on the first flight to anywhere that was a long, long way from Sydney.
She got up and teleported home. Her eyes were tightly closed as the lid of the tank lifted, but nothing happened, no-one spoke. She peeped out at the empty room and almost sobbed with relief.
At a loss, she sat down and tried to work out where Ginny might be. There was no sign of a struggle. The door had not been kicked in. She jumped up and went to the guest bedroom. Ginny's things were not in the wardrobe, and her bag had gone.
That's when Della noticed the piece of paper on the bed. It wasn't real paper, of course, but another of those endless metaphors, a private message, geotagged to the bed, looking like a folded sheet of paper.
“Dear Del,” it said. “I've gone with Odin, Father of the gods, to do that bit of business we had planned. I hope you won't be too cross that we left you out of it. I think it's for the best. You've been a true friend to me when I needed it most and I will always be grateful but I can't impose on you any longer – and who knows how this might all end? Take care of yourself. I'll tell you what happened soon, I hope, when it is all over. 'Til then, love, Ginny.”
Part 4
Chapter 17
Ginny looked around the office as if the desks and coffee machines, potted palms and corporate artwork might just explode in her face.
“Try to act natural,” Sorenssen said. “You're Katia Dobric, accounts manager, and you have every right to be here.”
She looked down again at her large breasts and tight pencil skirt. “There wasn't a single woman in the whole accounts department who didn't look like a dominatrix, I suppose? You just picked this one at random? You know I can hardly walk in this thing? If we have to make a run for it, I'm going to look like a complete drongo teetering along in double time.”
“You look fantastic. I don't know what you're complaining about. You're lucky you don't have to look like this.” He made a gesture to show her his own stolen identity, an overweight, middle-aged man with receding hair and heavy jowls.
“Yeah, well, I'm sorry the company didn't hire more Norse gods to run its accounts department. You're sure this bloke will have the right clearances? He doesn't look much.”
“No probs. He's the head honcho.”
They crossed a space littered with sofas and low tables. Around it were individual offices. Bland muzak was playing at a level that made it easily ignorable, but Ginny clenched her teeth anyway, annoyed that Della's company was so cheap as to use out-of-copyright rubbish like that. Ahead was a broad corridor with plush carpet. They had studied a map of the office together in Sorenssen's castle before setting off but it had not helped her much. Luckily her partner in crime seemed to remember the layout – more or less – because they could not use the worldlet's nav system without tipping off the security monitors that there were strangers in the building. The doors in the corridor were labelled with the names of the most senior accounts staff. The last one they came to belonged to Gerry Frink, Head of Accounts.
Sorenssen pushed the door open and strode in, with Ginny mincing along in his wake. They both stopped dead at the sight of a slender young woman staring at them from a desk opposite the door.
“Hello,” said Sorenssen, recovering first from their three-way surprise. They were in a private secretary's office, Ginny guessed. A door to the right of the desk stood ajar, revealing a far larger office beyond.
“Hello,” said the woman. She took a long look at Ginny – or Katia, as it must seem to her – and a hint of a frown crossed her face.
Sorenssen stepped across to the inner office door and pushed it open. Ginny walked past him into the room, painfully aware of her outsize tits and bum as she wiggled past the secretary. Whether Sorenssen had noticed it or not, Ginny could see just what the woman was thinking.
“We don't want to be disturbed,” Sorenssen said in a firm voice and closed the door on her.
“You can't leave it like that,” Ginny told him as soon as the door was shut. “She thinks we've come in here to have sex. She's probably got her ear up against that door right now – metaphorically speaking. Christ! For all we know, those two have got a thing going on. She might do anything.”
Irritatingly, Sorenssen waved her anxieties away with a dismissive sneer. “She'll sit and stew for half an hour first,” he said. “By then, we'll be long gone.”
“You hope.”
With a sigh, the young hacker went to sit in the accountant's chair. “You stand by the door with a vase and clobber her if she comes in,” he said. “I'll be over here doing something useful.”
Ginny scowled at him, lips pursed. If it would have made the least impact, she would have clobbered him with a vase. She watched him pulling up displays and moving information around with quick, precise gestures. Well bugger this, she couldn't just stand there while that woman decided what to do. “Sorenssen, call me back in when you've got the file.” Before he could argue, she opened the door and went out, closing it behind her.
The secretary, Shelise Kwang, according to her ID block, stood up and came over to meet her. She seemed to be labouring under some strong emotion but Ginny could not say what. She stood right in front of Ginny, too close for comfort, staring into her eyes. They were about the same height, although the other woman was of a slighter build.
“What's going on?” she asked, almost demanded.
Ginny tried to sound casual. “It's just Gerry. Some kind of flap about the payroll.” She wished Della were there to come up with something plausible.
The woman blinked, but maintained her self-control. “When I saw you come in here with him, I thought...”
Ginny wasn't exactly used to office politics, she had always worked for herself, but she was fairly sure that this woman's behaviour was far from normal. What on Earth had she walked into.
She almost jumped when Shelise raised a hand and touched Ginny's cheek. “I know what he's like, the fat pig. I'd die if you ever...” She moved forward and kissed Ginny on the lips. Ginny fought the urge to jump back but hyper-sensitive Shelise must have noticed the way she stiffened.
“What's the matter?” she asked, stepping back to study Ginny's face.
Ginny grabbed the woman's hands and held them. “Nothing's wrong... darling. But Gerry's just through that door. He could come out at any minute.”
Shelise yanked her hands free. She raised her chin in a defiant gesture. “So? It's not a crime to love someone, even in this awful place. You're the one who's always saying I'm too timid. You're the one who said we should shout it from the rooftops.” She turned away. “Or have you changed your mind?”
Ginny raised her face to the heavens and cursed her luck. Then she cursed Sorenssen. If he hadn't been such a pervert, he might have picked her an identity that wasn't going to get them both arrested. She took a breath and moved up close behind Shelise, slipping her arms around her and pulling her close. “Don't be silly, darling. You know I love you.” She nuzzled the woman's neck and kissed it. At first, Shelise resisted, not pulling free but standing rigid and unyielding, but as Ginny continued to murmur reassurances, the other woman softened and melted. Eventually, she turned in Ginny's arms and made a small, coy smile.
“So you still love me then?”
“Of course I do. And to hell with Gerry.”
Shelise laid her head on Ginny's shoulder. “I'm such an idiot. Only you're so beautiful and so hot and I know all the men fancy you and I can never really believe someone like you could love me.”
It was breaking Ginny's heart to listen to the poor woman pouring out her insecurities. Yet she daren't say too much to her. One wrong word could give away the whole impersonation. So, instead, she found Shelise's lips with her own and kissed her.
It was a tender, consoling kiss, meant to say more than words ever could, and it seemed to work because, in moments, Shelise was kissing her back. And the kiss escalated quickly from tender to passionate.
Ginny had rarely kissed a woman. There was a girl at school once, and Deborah Beals at university. She and Debs had s
pent the whole of one hot summer night together. But Ginny was basically hetero and had never felt the urge to experiment farther. Even so, she felt herself responding to this woman's keen desire, enjoying the press of body on body, the hands that caressed her buttocks and breasts so eagerly. She opened up to the embrace and let her own hands explore the other woman's delicate curves, let her mouth and tongue return the woman's passion. By the time she felt Shelise's fingers against her belly, sliding down the tight fabric of her skirt towards her crotch, she was so caught up in the fever of the moment that she moaned in anticipated pleasure.
And that's when she realised Sorenssen was standing in the doorway watching them. She disentangled herself from Shelise in a rush, trying to regain her dignity. Damn that boy! How long had he been watching?
“Mr.... er... “ she said, trying to stay in character but completely forgetting Sorenssen's alias.
He grinned. “Katia, would you mind coming in for a moment, there's something I need you to look at. That is, unless you'd rather continue what you were doing.”
Ginny felt herself redden, not just from embarrassment, but from anger at the stupid boy. She turned to Shelise, who had hurried back to stand behind her desk. The secretary fidgeted with a small ornament, a twitch of her head betraying the anger she too must be feeling. Yet, even after so short an acquaintance, Ginny was sure Shelise's anger was directed inwards, not at Sorenssen. She said, “Shelise, why don't you go home? Call me this evening. I'm going to be busy with this payroll thing for ages now.”
Shelise seemed confused. Perhaps she was not used to the beautiful Katia being so assertive. Perhaps she was having even more trouble with the abrupt emotional switch than Ginny was. She looked at Sorenssen, who said, “Yes, off you go, Shelise. I won't be needing you.”
Without waiting to see how she responded, Sorenssen went back into his office. Ginny gave Shelise what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “You know, probably everyone will just forget all about it by the morning,” she said, and followed Sorenssen into the office.
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