Virtual Vandals

“No, sir. I think he may be a target. He has a very open veeyar. It’s used for junior press conferences—”

“And it’s protected by diplomatic immunity,” Winters cut in.

“I think the programming may have been corrupted,” Matt went on. “Maybe you could try an unofficial approach, tell them you’ve heard about the press conferences, and express interest in the programming behind them. They give out copies of the program. If you ask for recordings of recent conferences, you might get a reproduction of the corrupted coding.”

Captain Winters gave a short, irritated grunt. “It might be worth a try,” he admitted. “Let me make the contact, and we’ll see what happens.”

The phone rang just as the Hunter family was sitting down for dinner. Matt’s mother answered from the kitchen extension, putting down the platter of protein burgers she’d prepared.

“Hello? Oh, yes, Captain. He’s right here.”

She passed the phone to Matt, then pointed to the tray.

Matt got the message. “Hello, Captain Winters. We’re just sitting down to supper.”

“Then I’ll keep it brief,” the captain said brusquely. “Looks like you were right about that program corruption. I got a copy from the Irish embassy and sent it down to Quantico. Our technicians there found an entire section of coding that doesn’t belong. It looks like an old-fashioned trapdoor program, allowing access to the simulation and the computer hardware from outside.”

“Really?” Matt said in surprise. “But I thought modern programming made that sort of setup impossible.”

“Not anymore,” the captain said grimly. “It may be an old-fashioned idea, but whoever whomped this up has managed to evade even the newest security routines.” He paused for a second. “There are lots of people at Net Force who’d very much like to talk with this person.”

“If I find anything out, Captain, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Captain Winters made a noise that sounded suspiciously like “Humph!” Then he said, “I guess that’s all we can ask for. Good night, Matt.”

“Good night, sir.” Matt hung up the phone and picked at dinner until his father gathered up the dishes and began washing them. Matt dried, then went to his room — and the computer-link chair.

Again, Matt waited until he’d reached a busy Net node before he donned Leif Anderson’s Mr. Sticks proxy. Then he activated Cat Corrigan’s communications protocol and streaked across the neon wonderland. Yes, he was coming up on the government Net areas. Then he veered off into the quieter neighborhood of the rich and well- connected.

There was the glowing version of Mount Vernon, dead ahead.

He rocketed straight for the glowing wall…and crashed.

Matt huddled on the cushions of his computer-link chair, holding on to his head as if he feared it was about to fall off. His teeth were gritted together so tightly, the muscles in his jaw ached. But he didn’t want to yell, didn’t want to bring his parents in.

Pain seemed to be pounding along every neuron in his brain. He’d experienced system crashes before, and this was no worse than any of them. Certainly, he was better off than Leif Anderson had been after being hit by that virtual bullet.

Matt was conscious, and breathing…and aware of every twinge racing around his nervous system. He knew that the fizzling pain would die away. By the time he woke up tomorrow morning, all he’d have was a mild headache.

What really hurt was the way he’d been cut off from Caitlin Corrigan.

Man, Matt thought. When she doesn’t want to answer questions, she certainly lets you know!

Chapter 9

Even a night’s sleep hadn’t completely erased the headache from Matt’s crash — literal and figurative — with Cat Corrigan’s system. As he rode to school on the autobus, Matt daydreamed about confronting the girl, grabbing her, giving her a good shaking. Didn’t she know he was trying to help her?

Annoyed, Matt shook his head — and wished he hadn’t. Of course she didn’t know he was trying to help her. He really wasn’t. He was trying to track down the virtual vandals who’d caused such chaos and hurt Leif Anderson. Was he getting turned around because one of those vandals turned out to be pretty…and scared?

Besides, there was no way he could confront Caitlin without giving away his identity. Not unless he wanted to give a new target to this bunch of nuts who could shoot people in holoform.

But with Caitlin hiding out from him, he’d lost any chance of unmasking the other members of the group.

Or had he?

Prep period seemed louder than usual, thanks to Matt’s continuing headache. But he pushed that aside, waving over Andy Moore and David Gray.

“Idiots,” Andy growled. His sunburnt face had reached the peeling stage, and he was pretty annoyed that some classmates had hung the nickname “Scab” on him. Between anger and the remaining burn, his face looked redder than ever.

“Keep that up, and they’ll start calling you ‘Tomato,’” David warned. “Besides, you’ve stuck some people with a few nicknames. If you dish it out—”

“Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to take it,” Andy grumbled. “But that doesn’t say anything about having to like it.”

He grinned at Matt. “So how’s the big investigation going? I figured that’s why you dragged us over — especially since we barely heard a word from you after Saturday. Have you been spending all your time with… Caitlin?”

Andy made the girl’s name sound incredibly gooey, finishing with a romantic sigh.

Matt didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or angry. “Get over it!” he snapped. “I’m trying to get a line on the three guys who are in the group.”

“You mean Caitlin hasn’t told you yet?” Andy asked pointedly.

“Why not give it a rest, Scab?” David said. Then, ignoring Andy, he turned to Matt. “What can I do to help?”

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Andy said quickly. “I want to help, too.”

Matt pulled two datascrips from his schoolbag. Each contained copies of the file Matt had gotten from the Net Force computers — the diplomatic brats who’d been in contact with Cat Corrigan.

“I’ve got two lists on these. One tallies a couple of hundred foreign guys who’ve been seen with Caitlin Corrigan. The other is the top-ten listing of diplo-brats who know her. What I need to know is how many of these guys would qualify as hackers.”

Matt scowled. “Somebody had to come up with the programming that lets the virtual vandals do what they do. They didn’t buy it in their friendly neighborhood Micro-Shop.”

Andy’s eyebrows zoomed toward his hairline. “So you think the kick-butt program was developed by a mad genius on Diplomatic Row?”

“I don’t know,” Matt admitted. “But I do know that the other vandals seem to be foreigners. One’s a Brit, another speaks with some kind of European accent. And the third doesn’t seem to speak English at all. So I’ve got two sorting jobs to do.”

“I call dibs on checking the language thing!” Andy swiftly said. “I’m betting there aren’t many people in diplomatic circles nowadays who can’t speak English. It’s the lingo everybody uses in international politics and business. Who’d want to have an ambassador standing around like a dummy?”

“So you figure that sort of diplomat would…stand out?” David asked.

Andy nodded smugly.

“Of course, with that kind of handicap, an ambassador might want to keep his ignorance a secret,” David