chauffeur to get lost. When can you leave? Tomorrow?”
“No reason not to. Will the CIA let you take a vacation?”
“I expect so. I could quit, given as how I’m about to marry a rich guy, but they owe me six weeks. Nothing I’m doing can’t wait a few days to finish. Pack warm—it’s chilly down there this time of year.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
When they discommed, Thorn called his assistant. “I’m going to be out of the office for a few days,” he told her. “Emergency calls can be routed to my virgil. I’ll check e-mail and messages while I’m gone.”
“Yes, sir. Where are you going?”
“Georgia. To meet Marissa’s grandparents.”
Jay lay on a slope covered in tall and thick red grass, overlooking one of the alien bases. The sky was a swirly orange, with a dark blue sun and fluffy, electric-blue clouds. Down below this hillside was his target, and the alien base was itself mostly a study in bright green. The visual contrasts were stunning. There was an odd, ozonelike smell to the air, and strange sounds—creaks and cracks, and animals-but-not-as-we-know-them noises—added more layers to the illusion. Jay felt as if he really were on an alien world.
It was just coming on dusk on this part of the planet. The blue sun cast long and eerie shadows. Given the local star’s hue, he wasn’t sure what the real colors would be, but that didn’t matter.
Almost time.
Jay had planned his attack for a hair after sunset. This would provide some cover, and the guards might be less wary, with it only just getting dark.
He peered through the sniperscope, and zoomed in on the guard shack beside the gate. Almost two hundred meters away, the two dark-purple aliens stood there, creatures from a nightmare, each holding a futuristic carbinelike weapon. Their heads were huge, and reminded Jay of Venus flytraps—flat and slightly rounded with huge jaws. Bony ridges sat atop the heads, guarding three eyes—two in the front, and one in back. Sneaking up on them was a bitch.
They were big suckers, too. Had to be at least two and a half meters tall, with three thick stumpy legs and three arms each.
The bugs looked altogether wrong in a human biped’s view.
Which was part of the fun of the game. After all, how hard would it be to want to knock off such creatures? It added to the immersion factor, the being-there aspect of a top computer game, by giving the player an attractive goal.
Earthling versus the u-u-ugly monsters.
Jay double-checked his own weapon. It was an Accuracy International AW-SP with a heavy barrel and suppressor, one of the most accurate of all sniper rifles.
This was his third time at this base. He’d tried getting closer with shorter-range weapons, but he’d been unable to do so unseen by the guards.
So this time he’d come up with a long-range attack.
The War Against the Bugs had an extensive database of weapons built into the game, ranging from swords and knives to modern firearms. Anything that might be available on Earth to somebody trying on an Army base, you could use here. Which made sense.
The game allowed for team play—either with other VR players or AI-bots—but Jay liked playing solo.
This time he thought he had the gear and his strategy right.
The trick was timing. Every twenty minutes roving guards cycled past the gate. Jay wanted to time his attack so that he’d have the maximum window before the dead gate guards were spotted by the rovers. He had tried to take out all the guards at once, but he hadn’t been fast enough—one of them had always managed to get a call for help out, and that was no good. Two at a time was his limit—they were fast for big bugs. . . .
Once inside the base, his goal was to blow up the armory vault. He had all the explosives he’d need in his kit, but to destroy the target he’d have to break inside—it was protected by armor plate and a heavy steel door. One of his gadgets was an electronic code descrambler. Intelligence he’d gained on the alien base showed it to have a high-bit encryption lock. This meant it could take up to five minutes to break into the vault.
The time factors—twenty minutes before the guard came back, minus the five through the door, plus the time required to get down the hill and
He
There went the roving guard, his three legs moving him along at a solid
Jay waited until he had stepped out of sight, and counted to twenty. As he did so, he dialed the magnification up on the scope.
Guard two stood there in shock for a moment before turning toward the perimeter alarm button.
But Jay had timed this carefully—the remaining guard was three meters away from the alarm, giving time for another shot—
He got guard two in the upper chest, spinning him around—fortunately
But this guard was made of sterner stuff, because he still tried crawling toward the control panel.
Jay fired again. The guard sprawled.
And then Jay was up, running down the hill, the backpack with explosives slung over his shoulders—
A countdown timer in his peripheral heads-up vision began running—
18:50 . . . He was at the guard station. He ran past.
The VR was flawless, maintaining a fluid frame rate so that everything stayed sharp and clear. Nothing on the left or right.
Over the simple lift-arm that blocked the entrance . . .
He looked to his right and could see the backs of the roving guards, hundreds of meters away. He slowed slightly, not wanting to draw attention to himself, but needing to keep his speed up—
17:45 . . .
He made his way past several buildings toward his target.
No one in sight.
He hadn’t made it this far before. He drank in every detail. Pale blue pole-mounted lights had begun coming on as the sun set, and he stayed in the pools of shadow surrounding each one as he moved toward the armory.
He readied the descrambler, pulling it off his belt and mashing the on button. His other hand held a silenced HK USP .45. An infrared laser sight provided an aiming point that, in theory, only he could see, the aliens having vision similar to men.
16:10 . . .
Jay’s heart pounded. It was often this way when he made a leap in a game. He might play a single level dozens of times, getting stuck at the same point over and over again, but sometimes he’d break past the bottleneck and make it the rest of the way on the next try.
And it looked like that might happen. . . .
He glanced right and left, scanning for trouble. The problem with getting so excited was that it made you sloppy. Still clear.
He was at the armory.
