boilermakers.
But the man who enjoyed dropping a shot glass of whiskey into his beer
stein, depth-charge style, wasn't really there--he was a proxy.
While it was true that none of the people in the ersatz biker bar were
really 'there,' some were less so than others.
A proxy was a shell, little more than a link to another location,
something to mark a place, and not somebody you could interface with
directly. A ghost of a shadow.
Jay was able to get a location, but a quick pulse in that direction did
a re verb with nothing more than an RW street address, somewhere in the
District. Apparently Mr.
Boilennaker here didn't like to reveal too much on the net, and if Jay
wanted to speak with him, he was going to have to drop out of VR and
go
RW.
Huh. Who did that anymore?
He wasn't a field op, he was a net jet so he could pass this along to
one of the staff investigators to have them look up Boilermaker here
and have a face-to-face chat with him.
Jay shook his head. That might take days, given the way the field ops
took their sweet time about such requests.
Even if the boss put a rush on it. Jay didn't altogether trust the
shoe skidders--some of them weren't particularly sharp, and it would be
his luck to get a dull one who'd mess up the interview.
Soji had been after him to get out more. No reason why he couldn't
drop by and do the interview himself, was there? It wasn't as if he
was afraid of going outside.
He looked around for Tyrone, but the boy had vanished.
'Tyrone?'
A biker with the physique of a competition bodybuilder whose monthly
steroid bill was higher than his house note smiled at him.
'Hey, Jay.'
'Nice suit,' Jay said, waving at the mound of muscle.
'I thought it was a good idea. It's a modified pro wrestler, all I had
to do was change the clothes and add a couple of tattoos. I didn't
want to stand out.'
'Come on, let's leave this pit. I've got a private room.'
He rattled off the password and headed for the door.
As he reached the exit, the exotic dancer's music changed, and the
first notes of Destroyers' version of 'Bad to the Bone' rumbled its
bass beat from the speakers. Jay grinned. For a second, he'd
forgotten he'd programmed that in. Yep, that's me. Jay Gridley,
better not step into my path, 'cause I'm bb-b-b-bad!
Wednesday, June 15th Woodland Hills, California
Ventura wiped a thin film of sweat from his forehead as he stood
outside the theater, smiling into the parking lot.
It was probably almost eighty degrees, and it was not yet nine a.m.
Hardly a surprise that the sun came up bright and hot here this time of
year. The Los Angeles basin pretty much had two seasons--hot and real
hot. Ventura could remember going to the beach in January, and getting
