Net Force

were in a water scenario, it would probably be a barge or a ship.'

'But how does it do that?' Bella yelled.

He glanced back at her. Her hair streamed free behind them, whipping back and forth in the wind.

'Easy. If we're in totally different modes, my program just overlays the other guy's imagery. Angle and relative speeds will be the same — air, water, land, even fantasy. If we are in similar enough modes — like the truck is doing roads and not water or something else — my program will take his image and stet it, to keep the VR speeds up. Most people who meet pick one program or the other and use it. Otherwise, you get a couple of microseconds lag on the refresh rate.'

'Ah, I see.'

'That truck? It's really a big info packet. It contains a lot of code, so it moves slow. Watch.'

He twisted the throttle and the Harley's powerful engine roared. They passed the lumbering truck, and whipped back in front of it as a car approached from the other direction.

'Wheee!' Bella said.

Oh, he liked the sound of that.

'So this is all off-the-shelf software?'

'Well, I've modified this one a bunch.'

'You can do that?'

'Sure. I could write one from zero, but it's easier to alter an existing one.'

'Could you show me how to do that? Write my own program?'

'Yeah, sure, nopraw. It's not that hard.'

'Exemplary!'

In that moment, Tyrone remembered talking to his father. Offer the locals something they can't get from your enemy, he'd said. Although Tyrone didn't really see Bonebreaker as an enemy, exactly, the old man was right. Tyrone had something LeMott didn't have, a skill, a talent, and right at this moment, Bella wanted it. This was dee-eff-eff for sure, data flowin' fine to the fourth power!

They came to an intersection with a stop signal. CyberNation was to the left. Maybe he should take her there? It was interesting the few times he'd explored it, but they didn't let you see the really good stuff unless you joined, and that wasn't gonna happen. He could hear his father: 'Give up your citizenship to join a computer country that doesn't exist? I don't think so.'

Cross-traffic rolled past, and Tyrone was so much in his own head that he almost missed the Vette when it zipped across the intersection.

Almost. A mental alarm went off. Corvette… Corvette… what—?

Oh, yeah, Jay Gee's bulletin in yesterday's Email. Keep your eyes open for a young guy in a business suit driving a blue Vette.

The car was past before he had a chance to see the driver, and there were two cars and a small van lined up in front of Tyrone at the light. Probably it was nothing.

On the other hand, maybe it was something. He ought to at least check it out, right? And if Bella asked, he'd have to tell her why, wouldn't he?

Bonebreaker wasn't helping out a major federal agency, was he?

Tyrone tapped the Harley's gears into first and gave it a little gas. He pulled over onto the shoulder and zipped past the waiting cars, earning a couple of horn blasts for his trouble.

'Whoa! Is this legal?'

'Well, not really,' Tyrone said, 'but we gotta do it.' They reached the corner, and he leaned into it, straightened it out, upshifted and goosed the bike. 'You see that blue Vette up there?'

'Yeah?'

'I need to check it out. I'm, uh, helping out a buddy of mine at Net Force.'

'Net Force? Really?'

'Oh, yeah. Jay Gridley, he's their top computer guy. I do stuff for him every now and then.'

'Wow. Exemplary, Ty!'

Was that his imagination, or did she tighten her grip around his waist a little?

'Can we catch him?'

'Nopraw. There's not much that can outrun me in this scenario. Hang on.'

Definitely, she was holding him tighter. Yes!

Sunday, October 3rd, 9:58 p.m. Grozny

Plekhanov was on his way back from the bank in Zurich when he saw the motorcycle coming up fast behind him. He frowned, felt a moment of worry. He watched the bike in his rearview mirror. It wasn't long before the vehicle caught up with him. It swung out into the incoming lane, then started to pass, apparently oblivious to the lorry bearing down from the opposite direction on the narrow two-lane feeder road. He watched the motorcycle peripherally. Two riders, teenagers, a boy and a girl, neither of whom appeared to take much notice of him. After a few seconds, the motorcycle passed, cut back into his lane and accelerated, missing the oncoming lorry by what seemed like centimeters. The two-wheeler quickly left him behind.

Plekhanov shook his head at his paranoia. It was nothing. A Kaffir boy, showing off for his pretty friend by blowing past the fastest vehicle on the road, risking the dangers of oncoming traffic. He had been that young once, although it had been aeons ago. He would not go back to those days, exchange his hard-earned knowledge and wisdom for the hot hormones and reckless carpe diem philosophy of youth. Teenagers thought they would live forever, that they could do anything in the world. He knew better.

Always, there were limits to such things. Even the richest and most powerful men who ever lived eventually went the way of all flesh. Another fifty or sixty years, and his time would be up. But at least in his case, it would be quality time. Quality time indeed.

28

Sunday, October 3rd, 2:20 p.m. Quantico

Jay Gridley was on the net, piloting the Viper at high speed through the middle of Nowhere, Montana, when the override cut into the scenario. What he heard was the chirp of the unlisted landline phone in his apartment. He did a cycle-and-bail from the VR program, degeared and voxaxed the incoming call.

'Yeah?'

'Mr. Gridley?' said a young woman's voice.

Jay frowned. Nobody who had his private code for the landline should be calling him 'Mister.' He said, 'Who is this?'

'My name is Belladonna Wright. I'm a friend of Ty Howard.'

Before Gridley could wonder too much about that, the girl said, 'Ty is on-line in a scenario. He said to call you and give you the coordinates. He thinks he might have found the blue Corvette you're looking for.'

'Jesus! Where?'

She rattled off the coordinates. Gridley had the computer feed the numbers directly into his VR program. 'Thanks, Ms. Wright. Tell him I'm on the way. Discom.'

Gridley immediately started back to VR, but as he was about to initiate mode, he stopped. Probably it wasn't, but if it was the right car, the driver would surely be suspicious of the Viper. Better switch programs, no point in taking any chances. Something not so flashy.

Gridley called up the gray Neon.

The most common car on the RW roads was a two-year-old Neon, and the most common color of such automobiles was gray. For newbies and people who didn't care what they drove on the net, it was the default vehicle. No doubt Dodge had paid the big servers a whole bunch for that default setting. A Viper was a standout ride, stylish, classy, you got noticed in one. But another gray Neon? Driving such a car made you more or less invisible. And if you knew what you were doing, you could hide something more powerful than a stock engine under the plain-vanilla hood. It wouldn't be as fast as his usual mode of choice, but it would trade off speed for anonymity. If this was the guy, he most definitely did not want him to spot him too soon.