how long in total she could remain inside the simulations. She had learned, although reluctantly, that she should be spading with her time. Too much ExEx in one day exhausted her.
She confined herself to three unrelated scenarios, and selected the option for repeated entry as required. Two of
the scenarios were the sort of interdiction setups she was used to from her Bureau training, but which for all their sensory engagement were beginning to bore her. However, she was already thinking ahead to her return to the office, knowing that Ken Mitchell had probably made trouble for her. Some interdiction experience while on leave might count a little to her advantage, if advantage were needed. Butler growing feeling of tedium was real, so for her third ExEx she decided to try an experiment: a short scenario which depicted a major traffic accident, the point being that the user had to learn to anticipate and avoid the accident.
After she had made this last choice Teresa continued to browse through the catalogue. She wanted something different, something that carried no risks, no responsibility, no censure.
Gun incidents and traffic accidents were not the sum of life's experiences, she decided. There were other affairs of the mind and body she would like to experience vicariously, especially those of the body.
She was in a foreign country, alone, largely unknown by the people around her. She wanted a little fun.
She had no hesitation in going to the material she wanted to try, but she did have misgivings about the staff here knowing she was using it. The thought of doing it made her throat feel dry with anticipation; the thought of being observed or noticed doing it terrified her.
Before making her selection she therefore turned to the
The manual had been written by a technophile genius, not a human being, and like many works of its kind it was difficult to read and follow. However, with determination she gleaned the reassurance she wanted: the user's choice of scenario was coded and identified. This was primarily intended for the programming of the nanochips. By default it was information that was available to the technical operator, but the user could alter it if privacy was required.
Teresa selected the following option, then made her final choice of scenario. The fact that it was shareware, as she realized at the last minute, gave her an extra edge of anticipation.
She waited while the ExEx nanochips were programmed. Half a minute later a sealed plastic phial was delivered to the desk by the peripheral, and she took this through to the ExEx facility, eager to begin.
Teresa was a gendarme on night patrol in the immigrant quarter of the city of Lyon; it was January 10, 1959.
Her name was Pierre Montaigne, she had a wife called Agnes, and two children aged seven and five. A steady rain made the cobbles gleam; doorways to clubs and restaurants were lit with a single bulb over the lintels; the streets were a noisy chaos of fast-moving traffic. Teresa was trying to think in French, a language she did not know. With an effort and a flaring of panic, she forced herself back to English. Everything was in black and white.
From the start, she recognized a difference: she had more choice, more control, in this scenario. Indeed, as she joined it Pierre Montaigne came to a sudden halt, practically falling forward. Her partner, Andre Lepasse, was obliged to turn and wait for her. Teresa immediately relaxed her influence over the man, and the two gendarmes continued their patrol.
They reached a small, unpretentious couscous restaurant. lt had an unpainted door and a large plateglass window steamed up with condensation. Over the door, a handpainted sign said:
Lepasse were about to walk on, when someone inside the restaurant must have noticed them.
The door was thrust open, and an exchange of shouts took place with two men, one of whom appeared to be the proprietor.
Teresa and her partner pushed their way roughly into the restaurant, where a man had taken a young woman hostage and was threatening her with a longbladed knife. Everyone was yelling at once, including Lepasse. Pierre Montaigne did not know what to do, because she could not speak French.
Teresa remembered LIVER.
Berkshire, England, August 19, 1987. She was Sergeant Geoffrey Verrick, a uniformed traffic policeman, passenger in a fastpursuit patrol car on the M4 motorway, fifty miles west of London.
A call came through from Reading police headquarters saying that a shooting incident had taken place in the Berkshire village of Hungerford. All units were to proceed there directly.
Maximum caution was advised. Officer in charge would be ...
Teresa said to the driver, Constable Trevor Nunthorpe, 'Hear that, Trev? Next exit, junction 14.'
Trev put on the blue strobe, headlights and twotone siren, and traffic ahead of them began to clear out of their way. The Hungerford turnoff was the next one along, and five minutes after the first call had come in their car was speeding down the slip road towards the roundabout at the bottom.
Teresa said, 'Give the Hungerford road a miss, Trev. Go right round.'
'I thought we had to go into Hungerford, Sarge.'
'Go round,' Teresa said. 'Take the Wantage exit.'
Leaning the car over on its nearside tyres, Trev swung it through threequarters of the roundabout, then followed
the A338 north towards Wantage. As a result they were heading directly away from Hungerford. The traffic again swerved out of their way, or slowed down and pulled over to the verge.
Another message came through, urging all available units to get to Hungerford as quickly as possible: the gunman had killed more than a dozen people, and was still at large, shooting at everyone in sight. Teresa acknowledged, and confirmed they were responding.
