Springboard

thumbed the safety off and cocked it. That sound seemed very loud. There was a small flashlight on the bedside table, a butt-button job he carried when he traveled, in case a fire or some other disaster cut the power. He grabbed the light, then carefully rolled over the bed and onto the floor to his left, away from the front door. He crossed wrists so that the light and the gun’s muzzle were aimed in the same direction, then he thumbed the light button on.

He did a fast sweep of the room with the light. Nobody there.

The little metal safety loop-latch on the door was still in place — nobody had come or gone that way.

He came up to a low crouch and worked his way to the bathroom.

Nobody in there, either.

He straightened up. Must have been something outside that sounded closer than it was. He switched on the overhead light.

He was only a meter or so away from the closet, and there, he saw two things immediately:

The guitar case was gone.

There was a stack of hundred-dollar bills on the floor where the case had been.

He knew immediately what had happened.

He ran to the door. He flicked off the safety loop and unlocked the door, jerked it wide, jumped outside and dropped low, and spun three-sixty as he looked for a target—

Nothing—

He was in his skivvies, with a pistol in his hand, and fortunately, at three in the morning, no civilians were standing around in the parking lot to have heart attacks when they saw him. He came up from his crouch, all alone.

Natadze!

The bastard had come into his room—had to be through the bathroom window — taken the guitar, and left what Kent was sure was going to be five thousand dollars in its place.

Son of a bitch!

After he hurriedly got dressed, Kent searched the parking lot and the area around it. Natadze wasn’t there.

Sure enough, his room’s bathroom window had been the point of entry — there were tool marks on the frame, where somebody had forced the sliding glass panel open, and what he took to be shoe heel or sole scuffs on the painted wall.

The guy had balls, no question. To break into his room, take the guitar, and then pay for the sucker? That was nervy.

But maybe worse was, Natadze had spotted him, figured out who he was and what he was doing, and managed to tail him — without Kent having a clue. That really galled.

Of course, Kent should have considered that if he would recognize Natadze at first sight, then Natadze might know him as well. Back when they’d been after Cox, Natadze could have seen him. Or maybe just found an image of Kent somewhere — a lot of Net Force information was available to the public, and certainly Kent’s appointment to head the military wing hadn’t been any kind of state secret. Natadze could have found that out easily enough.

Well, that didn’t really matter. What did matter was that the guy had been within a couple meters of Kent while he snored away. If Natadze had wanted to, he could have just as easily shot Kent dead as not, and that made him feel worse still.

Why hadn’t Natadze shot him? Why had he left the money? What kind of man was he, to do that?

Despite his anger, Kent felt a grudging admiration building for the guy. He had made a couple of big points: He hadn’t stolen the guitar, and he could have iced Kent, but had chosen to let him live.

Had to give the man credit for style.

But that wouldn’t slow Kent from trying to find him.

There were two security cams at the motel. One was inside the lobby, set to scan anybody approaching, or at the front desk; the other cam watched the parking lot. Kent waved his ID, made some vague threats about Homeland Security, and the night clerk was only too happy to let him view the recorder.

Natadze wasn’t on the hard disk. There was a good shot of Kent twirling around in his underwear, waving his gun, though.

If Natadze had a car, he hadn’t pulled it into the lot, so he was thinking ahead.

Half a step ahead, just like before.

For a few seconds, Kent considered calling the state police and trying to set up roadblocks. But what information did he have to give them? Natadze could have changed his looks entirely — hair color and style, could have grown a beard, gotten colored contact lenses, maybe even had plastic surgery.

He didn’t know what the fugitive would be driving, wearing, anything. The only certain identification would be the guitar, but Natadze could hide that — under a blanket on the floor, in the trunk, anywhere. Was Kent going to ask the state police to stop and search every car with a man alone? Who was even to say he was alone? He could have a girlfriend, a confederate; for that matter, he might be on a bus or a train by now.

Too many variables, not enough information.

So close. But he might as well have been on the moon, for all the good it did Kent.

16

CyberNation

Jay wandered through a cityscape that looked like Metropolis, Gotham, and the Blade Runner version of L.A., all rolled into one, with a little Tokyo sprinkled in for flavor. The architecture ranged from modern to Gothic to art deco, from 1890s San Francisco to skyscrapers taller than the twin towers in Kuala Lumpur.

Whatever else it might offer, CyberNation had an infrastructure that was something to see. It was huge. Nothing but city, as far as you could see, farther than you could walk in two days.

And Jay now had the keys to the buildings.

Well, not all of them, but enough to keep him busy for the next couple of years, even if he didn’t feel like picking locks or kicking in doors — which he could always do.

It was gigantic, but not evenly built. Most of it looked fuzzy through Jay’s new viewer, though there were parts where it seemed as if somebody else had gotten their hands on a pair of those same glasses and started smoothing things. As he walked down the sidewalk, which, in this scenario, appeared to be a lot like Fifth Avenue in New York on a busy afternoon, full of pedestrians, the road clogged with cars, trucks, bicycles, and Segways, Jay tried to take it all in.

He passed sensoria, where customers could step in and experience canned fantasies — be an action hero, a great lover, explore another planet, or whatever struck your fancy.

There were restaurants, bars, schools, stores, everything you’d find in an RW city, plus things available only in VR: sex shops where your partner could be a particular movie star or group of stars; clubs where you could hunt down and shoot the most dangerous game — other humans. Russian Roulette parlors where you could bet your VR life.

Behold the vices for your enjoyment…

Jay hadn’t begun to see it all, but he was willing to bet that anything legal in VR anywhere would be available in CyberNation, and probably some stuff that wasn’t legal. Kiddie porn wasn’t legal, though there were some weird cartoon exceptions to that, but Jay didn’t expect to find that here. The whole issue was too emotionally charged, and the chance of it backfiring against them was too great.

Drug-dispensing VR gear accessories for your suit were in the same category — prohibited by CyberNation, he thought — but for different reasons. These actually were legal, but they required a doctor’s prescription. Jay knew there were ways around that, and he was sure that CyberNation knew all of them, but he doubted they offered them. CyberNation wasn’t strong enough to flout the laws of RW.