Chang smiled. “One of our proverbs.”
Thorn complimented him on his English; Chang filled him in on his college, days in the U.S. They visited for a few minutes about people and places they had in common. Someone brought black tea in heavy white mugs. They engaged in small talk, polite, and as much a part of every social function in China as whatever business lay behind those.
After a few minutes, Thorn said, “I know you came here to get an idea of how we do things, and I will be happy to pass along what I can. Our governments seem to get along pretty well these days, and we are always glad to help our friends. But something has come up that we could use your help on.”
Chang kept his face impassive, though this was a surprise.
“My help?”
“Yes. Let me explain… ”
Chang listened while Thorn — who seemed very candid and forthcoming — laid out the problem. He did not get into deep detail, and Chang did not expect to hear those specifics, but even so, even saying this much was astounding. Attacks on a secure network? And from within China?
It was not something from which Chang could turn away. If somebody good enough to attack a closed network — Thorn had not specified what kind of network it was, but had given the impression that it was a significant system — and not be caught by Net Force actually
When Thorn was done, he said, “I would be most happy to offer any small assistance I can.”
“We greatly appreciate it, Han. I have another appointment soon, but if I might, I’d like to have my assistant introduce you to our head of computer operations.”
“Jay Gridley?”
“You know of him?”
“Commander, everybody in the computer world knows of Mr. Gridley. He is the top dog.”
Thorn grinned. “Well. Welcome to our pack.”
Seurat drove the Porsche — a new one, with far too many bells and whistles for a man who preferred seat- of-the-pants driving — out of the city and toward Net Force HQ. There had been some changes, or so he had heard, and maybe they could no longer help him — or maybe they wouldn’t offer their help even if they
It was a beautiful country, he had to admit. So huge. The drive to Virginia was short, and traffic heavy much of the way, but there were millions of miles of road in this land, some of which ran through areas where you might not see a house or person or another car for hours. There were states here that still allowed high speeds on highways out in the middle of nowhere, where a man could open up full-throttle and roar along at velocities closer to those of an airplane than an automobile. Too bad he did not have the time to drive across this land — such would be a memorable trip, he was sure.
A slow-moving truck blocked his land, and there was just enough room to whip around it without causing a traffic accident. Seurat gunned the engine and swerved around the truck.
The car in the next lane over honked its horn, and the driver raised his hand and extended his middle finger in Seurat’s direction. One did not need to be a lip-reader to see that the man was cursing at him.
Seurat smiled. He’d had plenty of room for the maneuver — at least two or three meters away from hitting the other driver’s car. It was the other driver’s problem if he could not see that,
He upshifted into fifth, and even in that gear the car surged forward. Ah, the Germans. Savages, brutes, but they did know how to make fine vehicles — you had to give them that.
Looking at the tracker’s map, Locke naturally speculated on Charles Seurat’s possible destinations. Where could he be going outside the city?
The map was a good one, and it wasn’t long before Locke had an excellent idea where the head of CyberNation was heading. The Marine base, the FBI, and Net Force lay only a few miles ahead.
Of course. Net Force was the world’s standard when it came to catching cyber-criminals and — terrorists. Surely the U.S. military would have consulted them about its problems, and it made perfect sense that CyberNation would, too.
Was this something about which Locke and Wu should worry?
Locke was not familiar enough with the organization to know the ins and outs of it, but it certainly bore further study.
If that was indeed where Seurat was heading.
Maybe he was just going for a ride in the country.
Locke smiled. Always assume the worst — that way, anything lesser was a gift.
He would see, soon enough.
Jay had a few minutes before he had to deal with the Chinese guy. And after him, the CyberNation creep.
Might as well keep busy, no point in sitting around stewing.
He reached for the colorful box on his desk, thinking that there should really be a warning on all packaging for new VR tech:
He’d lost track of the number of times he’d crashed his systems with new gear, but playing with bleeding- edge equipment was often worth the risk. This was why he always had at least two computers in his office: one for testing new gear, and one that was a couple months behind the leading edge, but with a stable OS. Should the test box crash, he’d switch, and have one of his guys reformat the crashed one.
He grinned. There were
The box showed a close-up of the head of some bird of prey with tiny ones and zeros reflected on the predator’s yellow-amber eye.
Well, he’d see. He’d heard something good about this new technology from one of his techs and had arranged to get a working sample. Even though Net Force employees were not allowed to make official endorsements, VR companies back-channeled info to each other and dropped rumors for street cred.
The rest of the world wouldn’t see this gear for at least another three months — not long in the RW, but sometimes a three months lead could be a very big advantage.
He opened the box and pulled out what looked like a pair of wraparound sunglasses. A small plastic packet with a cable fell out as he removed the glasses, but he ignored it. Cables were for people who couldn’t afford wi- fi.
The glasses were much lighter than the flexscreen LCDs he currently used.
He opened them and looked at the lenses, which were brightly mirrored.
The inner surfaces were more curved than even flexible-screen technology was supposed to allow. Jay felt his interest sharpening. At the corners of each lens were tiny little holes. The temples of the glasses seemed slightly thick, and there was an optical output on the right earpiece.
He pulled out the installation sheet. Well, not necessarily. If he had an optical repeater, which would pick up tiny infrared pulses from the front of the glasses and run them into the VR input card on his machine, he wouldn’t need wires.
Unfortunately, since he’d been using radio-based wireless for the last several months, it looked like he’d have
