by Rhine, Scott
“What if someone steals my box?”
“The private key is activated only by the password you just typed. If you wish, we can arrange for fingerprint or voiceprint verification instead,” he said, trying to be accommodating. Perhaps he mistook my ignorance for dissatisfaction. “We have a duplicate of each key in our vault in the event your key becomes lost or damaged, but require a 2000 dollar deposit and approval from a race judge before we may issue a replacement.”
“This will be sufficient,” I muttered, pocketing the gizmo.
“Do you understand and agree to these conditions under the authority of the SimCon Racing Consortium?”
I looked at the pile of paperwork. Hell, too late to back out now. They’ve already got the money. “Sure.” I signed the authorization for SimCon to kick me out at any time for reasons specified within their charter. Now it was real. I was in THE race.
“What if I want other people to be able to use my key, other members of my team?”
“Normally, a team rents a unit for each member. The first one is provided as a courtesy.”
I grimaced at the thought of two thousand plus per unit. “We just have the one terminal. Only differing passwords will be necessary, I think.”
“Very good, sir,” he said, sounding like someone who had just stepped in dog droppings. “We can fit up to three additional pilots on the unit at no cost.”
While I signed another paper to add Mary Ann, Foxworthy, and Ghedra itself (the remote control and autopilot) up to the access list, Mr. Niven plugged my unit into the security console. “Please type a unique password for each, and affix your digital signature at the bottom.”
I chose “Fast_Lady” for Mare in view of her history of high-speed chases, “Phi|adelphia” for Foxworthy, and “the Scarab” for Ghedra.
Mr. Niven explained apologetically that since I had signed on so late, all they had left was a puny three-room palace on the shady side of the building on the twentieth story. He raised an eyebrow when I refused a bellhop for my bags, but continued his well-rehearsed speech without skipping a beat.
“Sir, welcome to the Windsor. We hope you enjoy your stay. Your interface station has been connected in the den. The hospitality suite is number 215”
The bellhop went with me up the elevator anyway. Whether to make sure I found my way or so I wouldn’t bother the other guests, I wasn’t certain.
“Ms. Anselm checked in an hour ago. Will the other members of your team be arriving by the scouting run?” he asked, making polite conversation.
“I’m not sure. I haven’t heard from my ... secretary. For now assume it’s just us.”
On my door, I found a note on hotel stationery. Because I could already tell it was from Mary, I waited until I was inside to open it. The common room was more than I expected, with black-leather furniture, a fully stocked bar, and a single rose on the glass coffee table. Throwing my bag into the nearest bedroom, I read the note with eager anticipation.
“Meet you at the booth for DeClerk Enterprises. - M.”
Humph. I suppose for a hundred G’s they throw in a lot of freebies. I plucked the rose from the vase, put on my new sport’s jacket (purchased for this occasion) and headed back to the elevator. The door locked behind me, saying good-bye as I left.
Downstairs, there was a maze of three-dimensional, living car ads, salesmen pushing flyers and models stroking rotating displays. I tried to knock over as few of them as possible locating stall D-twenty-nine. It wasn’t hard to find, a slice of barrenness in all of this hype. It was a gray curtain framing our company’s name and three computer graphics. The pictures were of the three entries in the event, along with three-sentence specifications and the qualifying run ratings. My designs scored high on economy and defensibility, but low on virtually everything else. Out of a field of thirty-five teams, and ninety-five vehicles, the speed of my middleweight entry placed me in position seventy-five, one ahead of the body of heavyweight competitors. My pole position would change drastically after the first race.
Here was the booth, but no Mary.
The salesman in the booth next to mine was a slimy, business type who probably pushed vegetable dicers on TV. I asked him if he’d seen Mare. He answered, “Is this your booth? We didn’t think anyone would be here. Everyone else set up camp at 6:30 this morning. Cripes, you have to bribe half the janitorial force to get extra electricity.”
“Use mine,” I said, looking around for Mary’s face.
“Really? How are you going to advertise?”
I looked at the glorified tin-can he was selling in naked disdain. “By winning. Have you seen anybody hanging around here?”
“Just the convention detective. She grabbed a purse snatcher. Cuffed him, frisked him, and hauled his butt away in under ninety seconds. She was a beauty.”
“5’ 8”, nice legs, and a purse that looks like Salvador Dali gone paisley?”
“Yep. 36-26-38, or close to it.”
“That’s my bodyguard. Which way did she go?”
He pointed, wordlessly. I ended up at the security station. They wouldn’t let me in, but said Mary Ann would meet me in our suite in another thirty minutes when she finished her police statement. Security did, however, pass her the rose for me. In return, I received a thin box, four inches by ten, wrapped in a single red ribbon. It contained a pair of leather, racing gloves, which I promptly put on. They fit perfectly.
Unfortunately, this left me with time to kill because the reconnaissance session didn’t start till noon, and it wasn’t past 10:30 yet. I was already getting pre-game jitters. I needed a distraction, but not the circus out in the arena. I decided to go to room 215, where they served the free drinks and people bragged loudly in earshot of rival companies. I might get the scoop on my competition or find a kindred spirit amidst the hopeful drivers.
The hospitality suite overlooked the convention floor and had no fewer than fifty suits in it, a quarter of them smoked like chimneys. All the ties were making me itch already. On the big screen, they were showing the pre-race review by ESPN. I picked at the hors-d’oeuvres, half-listening to the commercial barrage around me as I waited. This year’s LAS fleet had four members : the Roman, a luxury limousine; the Times, a simple four-door car for the price of a Mercedes; the Turn-pica Elite, a touring sedan designed for long trips; and the Sans Serif, an economy car with no frills for $25,999.
I avoided most of the stuffed shirts in the room successfully while ignoring their glory-grabbing. They had neither designed nor built a single machine, but were claiming credit for all the advances of modern society. I’m certain not one of them could explain a common TV, let alone why they chose to use certain compression ratios in their floaters. They were all packagers and marketers with no grounding in reality, with the possible exception of the little balding man in the far corner who scribbled notes from time to time on a green steno-pad.
I was about to ask him why he didn’t use a lap-top PC like everyone else, when I passed too close to a heated bar-room argument. “You can’t say that. It’s a revolutionary design, heralding a new era. It’ll blow the doors off anything out there. The Trans-Siberian will pull into first place by the third hour.”
The Trans-Siberian Motor Company was a Russian venture with several private investors from all around Europe. The idea was to use old Soviet weapons factories to produce something usable in peace time. They had already produced an assortment of vehicles for NATO and were now advancing into the private sector. From the repair work I had done on a local vehicle, their products were inferior reproductions of more successful cars on the market, all look and no substance. The only good thing I remember hearing was that the heater worked well.
“No. I agree it’s revolutionary, but too much for the common people. I think you’ll be in the top ten during the first leg, but people still won’t buy it. What do you think, you’re a Team Lead,” he asked me.
“Oh, that’s just a knock-off of last year’s Sartori without the spiffy
upholstery and bar. Not even a good copy, at that.” It was just an off-handed comment, but several conversations around the room ground to a halt.
“What’s wrong with it?” asked one offended gentleman in a charcoal-gray Saville-Row.
I popped a handful of peanuts into my mouth and looked again at the overhead view screen. “The bolts holding it to the frame will probably pop at the first high-g turn. The Sartori had special composites for the rivet sites and a maximum cruising speed of about 100 km/h. The new copy is heavier, faster, but not as well designed. I can’t see it from the outside, but I bet they even failed to correct the seam leak that makes the tail-lights shatter every time it rains. I wouldn’t drive it.”
I didn’t mean anything by it, just pointing out what was obvious to any veteran mechanic. Unfortunately, this codger decided to take the comment personally. The little guy in the corner was even taking notes on what I said.
The natives appeared to be restless, so I grabbed a fist full of sandwiches and moved into the hallway.
“Who was that?” asked somebody.
“I dunno,” I heard behind me. “Some advisor flown in by the DoD? Could be from Langley.”
“Why the gloves?” asked the first voice.
“Fingerprints, obviously.”
“And the scar? He didn’t get that shaving.”
So the legend of the Scarab at SimCon Five began.
Chapter 7 – Playing Fair
Mary’s first reaction was to notice my clean shaven face. “Smooth.”
I was overjoyed that she didn’t start back at the argument. I had to watch every word, careful not to stick my foot in my mouth again. “New invention, the electric razor.” She hadn’t said anything about the scar yet. She knew about the accident and my problem with healing. Mare also knew that, before today, I’d never shown it to anyone but my mother and the doctor.
She stroked the side of my face. “I like,” she said.
Our suite was bigger than Sam’s garage. It had a huge, central living area with an entry hall, two bedrooms, a bathroom, balcony, dining room, and kitchen going around it in a circle. The balcony had floor-to-ceiling glass windows and a sliding, glass door, giving a beautiful view of the city and the desert beyond. I ran my toes through the plush, white carpeting and gave Mary a back rub while she told me about her trip.
We had an hour to relax together till the recon began. She felt a little guilty about moonlighting, and I joked that she could wear a red wig as a disguise. I convinced her that after meeting the snakes downstairs, I needed her as a bodyguard more than ever. She would also make a great co-pilot on the longer simulations. With me wired into the simulation, someone had to watch what was happening in the real world.
I called room service to bring us burgers and fries while I listened to everything she had done since I left. Tonight, I promised to take her out some place with cloth napkins to make up for all the fast food places I’d taken her in the past. We both smiled awkwardly, and chattered about everything except for the fact that we were now technically sharing a hotel room together.
At about ten till noon, I powered-up my interface and logged in. The simulation was about to begin. I showed Mary the various maps of Europe I had photocopied and other reference materials I wanted handy.
“The first leg of the virtual race is a little one, mainly for the media. At around 400 kilometers, it’s more like a parade than a race. We will start at London at 6:00 tonight, and have four hours to get to Paris any way we can. The only hitch there is the ferry schedule. There’s a ferry leaving from Dover to Calais an hour from post time, but I’ll really have to hump to get there on time. If I miss it, I eat the half-hour till the next one arrives.”
“What about the Channel Tunnel?” she asked.
“True, normally that would save time, but it’s closed this week because of a bomb-threat. Since the simulation tries to mimic conditions in the real-world exactly, we can’t cross there in the game either. Some people might try to drive across the water, but there’s a small craft warning out tonight.”
“Think anyone else knows about that tidbit?”
“The rich ones and the smart ones do. Some of the others will figure it out when they follow the crowd. This object of this recon is to find the differences with reality, and what the game obstacles are that they’ve place in the way to gauge our abilities. All the good pilots have done their homework already.
“I want to do a quick scan of the course, and look at all the major turns, the starts and the finish lines. They don’t put many metrics on the straight-aways unless it’s through a mountain pass or something. We’ll plot a rough course on the autopilot, avoiding cities where we can.” Like locomotives, hover vehicles had trouble with three things—starting, stopping, and hills.
The narrow streets of the old country may have been quaint, but they were a royal pain to navigate. I pulled out an elevation map of Western Europe, and penciled in the milestones we had to pass during our trip. Mary pulled a pop out of the refrigerator, rolled up her academic sleeves and started to read through the papers with me.
Although I had four hours of time allocated for scouting, I only needed two. One difference between this game and the local ones I’d played in was the greatly improved resolution of the computer graphics. The trees beside the road and even the clouds were photo quality. Even after letting Mary pilot for a while to get accustomed to the handling, I was still the first middleweight pilot to sign off. Mary told me that got DeClerk Enterprises a mention on ESPN.
She had been flipping channels on the bathroom TV while getting ready for our “date.” I was more nervous about the evening out than when I was eighteen. When we went out a few years ago, we had made out like bandits. But now, I felt shy holding her arm on the way to the limousine, which arrived at the front door compliments of the SimCon consortium. She wore high-heels for me, which is a huge sign to anyone who knows Mary Ann.
We had an excellent wine with fillet mignon at a candle-lit restaurant whose name I cannot pronounce, also courtesy of SimCon. “No cheese-burgers here. I bet this place doesn’t even have doggie bags,” I said, unfolding my linen napkin.
Mary Ann used a French accent to say, “But it does, Monsieur, you must merely show us it’s pedigree first.” She smiled, and the whole trip was worth it. A few minutes later, under cover of chit-chat about possibility of the latest International Auto Workers Union, she ambushed me with “Speaking of extra income, what are you going to do with the prize money?”
This stunned me for two reasons. First, she put a lot of faith in my rookie design and pilot skills. Second, I had never even considered the money. I must have been thinking too long, because she asked, “There is a prize, isn’t there?”
First prize was a cool million, with 500 grand for second, 250 for third, and 125 each for fourth and fifth. There were also assorted design, honorable mention, and team awards. This sounded like a lot of money, but with entry fees, TV contracts, sponsors, and product endorsements, the event still cleared ten or twenty million a year after expenses. “Yes, the total purse is a few million. I honestly haven’t thought about what I’d do with the money. After I paid the company back the entry fee, I would probably start with a house near where I’ll be working. Hawaii is nice to vacation but the long distance bills will kill me.” Her smile came back, stronger than ever.
“What else?”
I hedged for a little while and played with my glass before settling on, “I’ll need to take some business classes from one of the local colleges so that I’m not totally ignorant about what’s going on in my own company. What about you? What would you do with the profits?”
“I’m not after the money. I want to be a Special Investigator some day,” she said, referring to the Patrol’s version of Detective grade officer.
We exchanged dreams, laughed, and gossiped for over an hour.
The more she enjoyed herself, the more leg Mary Ann showed, and the more I drank. I was feeling no pain
and enjoying the company when the waiter brought a portable phone to my table. It was Foxworthy. He wished us luck, let us know that the investors were watching, and that he had some friends do a bug sweep on the hotel room for our safety.
“One last thing, Hayes—our client wants to confer with you in private. Their agent is incognito, you understand, so I can’t tell you his name. I can only say that he’s chosen a humorous pseudonym, and he’s reserved a private dining room in his name at the same restaurant you’re at tonight. Just make contact, and he’ll take care of the rest.”
I would have preferred to spend my free time rubbing ankles under the table, but if Foxworthy said the secret branch of the FCC wanted to talk to me before the curtain went up tonight, so be it. Technically, I was playing with government money this week, but I was just buzzed enough to irritate this FCC employee like I had the suits in Bayside.
I slipped the maitre-de a twenty to look for a friend of mine in the reservation book. I found it on the first page—Ira Fontenelle, registered under the company Ground-Effect Defense Motors—a known gravy-sucking defense contractor, the thinnest cover imaginable. I told Mary Ann where I’d be and found my way to the private dining hall upstairs. Surrounded by mahogany panels and smoked mirrors, an executive type ate turtle soup while two guards and a toady looked on. His china was better than ours had been, rimmed in gold, with faint pink figures laced around the border. The set looked like a museum piece.
“Ira!” I announced as I came in. The monkey on the left searched me for weapons, and I held up my hands to show him I wasn’t hiding anything. Ira looked at his toady for confirmation, and the man said, “It’s a representative from DeClerk, sir.”
“Ah, yes. What can I do for you? Sit” he said, pausing with his spoon in the soup. The guard pulled out the chair next to his employer for me to use.
“No. It’s what I can do for you. Ask your walking appointment book here, he’ll remind you. I saw the registry tonight and had to come visit you. You’ve got to have a twisted sense of humor to come up with a joke name like that! Fontenelle? Why not just call yourself ‘soft in the head’?” Then I laughed, clapping him on the back.