Net Force

On some level, all of a sudden, Gridley knew. It was him! The programmer! He was sure of it!

He grinned, gunned the Viper. He'd cut the sucker off, block his escape.

The masked man got the jump on him, though. He pulled away from the curb, leaving rubber as he upshifted.

All right, all right, it didn't matter! The Vette was fast, but it couldn't touch the Viper, through the gears or topside — it didn't have the guts, no way!

Gridley stomped the gas pedal, felt the Viper surge as if it was goosed. Gained on the Vette. Aloud, he said, 'Might as well shut it down, pal, you ain't goin' nowhere!'

The narrow street hadn't been designed with muscle cars doing eighty in mind. A curve to the right burned more tire rubber on both vehicles, but Gridley kept the Viper on the road, shifting, tapping the gas, still gaining. He was a hundred feet back and he'd eat that space in five more seconds—

The driver of the Vette threw a handful of shiny dimes into the air.

At least that was what it looked like at first. It wasn't until the dimes hit the street that Gridley saw they weren't coins at all, but some kind of spiked things.

Caltrops!

He stood on the brake pedal. The Viper's brakes locked, the car skidded and slowed, but not enough. The left front tire went first, made a noise like a firecracker going off. The Viper lurched to the left. Gridley jerked the steering wheel, partially straightened the car out, almost had it — then the right front tire blew. The Viper spun into the new flat, lost traction as it hit the curb, popped both rear tires and slammed into a storefront. Glass exploded as the Viper smashed through a big window and into a small bakery, shattering display cases. The car slid backward, knocked over a table and came to a stop against a counter. The impact tumbled the old metal cash register onto the Viper's trunk.

The Viper was going to need some major repairs.

Covered with glass and pastries, Gridley looked up at a startled baker in a white apron and hat standing a foot away from the Viper's door.

Gridley shook his head. The guy had suckered him, trashed his ride and gotten away clean. He looked at the baker, who stared at him wide-eyed.

'Hi there. Say, are your donuts, uh, fresh?'

23

Friday, October 1st, 1:32 p.m. Washington D.C.

Standing at his locker, waiting for the thumbprint reader to open the door, Tyrone Howard heard the Voice of Doom. It didn't sound the way he thought the Voice of Doom would have sounded. Instead, it was soft, throaty, sexy, not a hint of disaster connected to it.

'Hi. Are you Tyrone?'

He turned and saw Belladonna Wright, all fourteen years of her, standing there, the most beautiful girl in Eisenhower Middle School, probably the most beautiful girl in all of the District. She was smiling at him.

Smiling at him.

He was a dead man.

What did she want with him! If anybody said anything to Bonebreaker LeMott, he might as well kiss his ass goodbye now and avoid the rush later. Jee-sus!

'Uh, uh, yeah?' To his horror — and burned forever into his memory — his voice cracked.

'Sarah Peterson told me you were pretty good with computers, that you could make it so simple even a doof like me could understand it. I have to get at least an eighty in Basic Cee or I'm in trouble. Could you maybe help me?'

The voice of self-preservation screamed — from behind the big mind rock where it had run and hidden as soon as it realized who was talking to them:

No! Danger! Danger, Will Robinson! Warning, warning, run, flee, the dam busted, the volcano blew, the aliens are coming! No, sorry, no, can't do it, uh-uh, negative, negative, zipper-roo, count zero!

'Uh, okay, sure,' came out of Tyrone's mouth.

Who said that? Are you insane? Death! Dismemberment! Destruction! Aaiiee! screamed the voice of self-preservation as it tried to dig a hole under the rock.

'Oh, thank you. Okay, here is my number,' Bella said. 'Call me and we can set up a time, pross?'

Oh, yes, we pross! Bonebreaker LeMott taking us apart like an overcooked chicken, that's what we pross!

Tyrone took the slip of paper from her and smiled reflexively. 'P-p-pross.'

She smiled, turned and walked away. Well, she swayed away, something like a Polynesian princess on a white sand beach in the hot sunshine might sway as she moved. Ruler of all she surveyed.

Lust reared its head in Tyrone. At the same time, fear dried his mouth to a consistency roughly that of a pile of bones left to bleach a hundred years in the Gobi Desert sunshine.

That's our future, fool! Run, hide, change your name, leave town!

'Ty-rone! Was that Bella you were talking to?'

Tyrone stared at Jimmy Joe. All he could do was nod stupidly.

'Man! Way to go, Ty-rone! Studly Dudley! Oh, and congratulations on getting your black belt, too.'

Tyrone frowned at Jimmy Joe. 'What? What black belt?'

'The one you're gonna need when Bonebreaker finds out you're trying to complete a hot circuit with Bella. Either that, or a gun. Me, I'd want the gun.'

'I wasn't trying to make a circuit! She just stopped to ask me something! To help her with her Basic Cee stuff!'

'Uh-huh.'

'No, really! She gave me her number, I'm supposed to call her, we're going to get together later, to — to… uh…'

'Somewhere private, like, say, oh, her place?' Jimmy Joe prompted.

'Oh, man. Oh, no.'

'Oh, yeah. Here's how I scenario it: Bonebreaker drops by, sees you leaning over Bella's tasty shoulder with your hand on her… mouse, and it's sayonara, Tyrone-san.'

'Ah!'

'Well, maybe not. You could, you know, get too busy to help her.'

'Right. And she gets pissed off and tells Bonebreaker I insulted her, and then he kills me.'

'Sounds like a no-win situation, all right.'

'Why are you smiling?! This is not funny, Jimmy Joe!'

'Depends on where you're sitting, don't it? Listen, if you're gonna die anyhow, you might as well enjoy yourself, right? Be a happy man when you discom.'

'I think I need to go to the bathroom,' Tyrone said. Suddenly, he needed to do that real bad.

Jimmy Joe's barely suppressed chuckles followed him down the hall.

Friday, October 1st, 9:45 p.m. Grozny

VR gear removed, Plekhanov sat in his chair, breathing hard. How had that American Net Force operative gotten so close so fast? Yes, he had stopped him, wrecked his program, but that had been too near a miss. It shouldn't have happened.