Not yet, anyway.
There were any number of other esoteric perversions that CyberNation probably didn’t want to risk as well. Other than those, the sky was the limit — or not; you could fly to Mars or Alpha Centauri, if you wanted. In VR.
He passed a huge library with the word “Knowledge” over the door.
He paused in front of a map shop that offered views from spysats — you gave them your GPS coordinates and they could zoom into your backyard with enough resolution to see what newspaper your wife was reading on your deck.
It was easy to see the selling points for a place like this. Why waste your time in the RW, which was messy and dangerous, when you could come to CyberNation and experience everything you ever desired, and all from the comfort of your own home? Don full sensory gear with penile or vaginal accessories — delivered to you as part of your sign-up package — and you could have any kind of sex you wanted with anybody, without the risk of catching some disease.
It was true that VR food didn’t offer any sustenance, but that was part of the appeal — you could eat all you wanted and never get fat. Yes, the stims for food weren’t perfect yet, the electrode cap that cranked up your brain centers had a way to go, but the wireless taste-bud lozenges were getting up there. They could deliver a fairly good approximation of a lot of things using the basic sweet-sour-salty-bitter tropes, along with the nares odor-gen gear. And CyberNation’s proprietary suitware was cutting-edge — Jay had some of it in his own sense-suits.
In top-grade mesh, you could experience tropical heat, arctic cold, or any temperature you considered perfect. With the best sensory-stim, you could feel the sand under your feet, the hard coolness of a rock face you were climbing, or the water around you as you flippered along in your scuba gear to explore for sunken treasure. Still not as good as the RW in a lot of cases, but without the risk — or the discomfort — and getting better all the time. For many, the dream was better than the reality. And Jay was hardly one to point fingers, given the time he spent suited up and in VR.
There was, however, trouble in the city, otherwise Jay wouldn’t be here.
He caught a taxi and gave it the location Seurat had provided: “Take me to the Garden of Perpetual Bliss,” he said.
The cabbie nodded and turned on his sat-radio. “Any kind of music you wanna hear?”
“How about classic rock, late sixties? Beatles? Rolling Stones?”
“You got it, pal.”
Paul McCartney began singing and playing “Black-bird.” An antiracist song, according to Sir Paul, and easy to see from a distance, though apparently at the time few had understood the message.
Wasn’t that always the way?
In his office, Thorn listened to Abe Kent’s report on his encounter with Natadze, nodding but not speaking. When the colonel had finished, Thorn said, “You’re sure it was him.” It wasn’t a question.
“No doubt in my mind. I don’t see how it could have been anybody else. Who would take a guitar and leave the exact amount he owed the builder in its place? Who could know how much that was?”
Thorn sighed. “I don’t see how there was any way you could have known he’d follow you — I wouldn’t have bet a penny against a dollar he’d have even been there.”
“I would have won the small bet, but I lost the game.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Abe.”
“I’d love to have somebody else to lay it off on, but it was my mistake. I should have had a contingency plan. It never crossed my mind, and it should have.”
“Done is done,” Thorn said. “What now?”
“I know where he was, and when. If it’s okay with you, I’ll get Gridley’s people to run a search on security cams in the area — motels, car-rental places, the whole package. He was at the guitar thing in Lincoln, he followed me — maybe he missed a step along the way.”
“You think there’s much chance of that?”
“Frankly, no. It was a fluke that we tied him to the Cox deal in the first place. A lucky break that he happened to be passing by a bank machine while somebody was using it, and that some woman ran a red light in front of him and we got pictures. Can’t bank on luck again.”
“Cox paid for it all,” Thorn said. “Blown to pieces in his own car. We’ve officially moved on.”
“Natadze is a loose end. And we’re sure he was the guy who took Cox out.”
“Depending on how you look at it, he did us a favor. Given the politics and money involved, Cox would have died of old age before we could have put him away, and even that was iffy.”
“He’s still a killer. And I owe him.”
Thorn nodded again. He understood that. “All right. Pass it along to Jay’s group and see what they come up with. Good luck.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
After Kent was gone, Thorn thought about that case. What a mess it had been. Old Soviet Union spies, hit men, a crooked billionaire…
His intercom buzzed. “Sir? Marissa Lowe on one.”
Thorn smiled. “Got it.”
He waved the phone to life and got a visual. Marissa, who did several things for the CIA, including being the liaison between that spook group and Net Force, was a strikingly handsome woman with skin the color of coffee and just a little cream.
“Hey, Tommy.”
“Hey, yourself. How’s…? Where are you again?”
“Classified, I’m afraid. You don’t need to know.”
He laughed. She was a funny woman. Smart, too, though she tried to play that down.
“When are you coming back to town?”
“More classified information, my boy.”
“But eventually?”
“I believe I can stipulate to that much, yes.”
“What a terrible operative you are — see, I just wormed information out of you. What if I were a spy? I could set up a surveillance, knowing you’d be coming to Washington sooner or later. Catch you, just like that!” He snapped his fingers.
She laughed, and he liked being able to make her do that.
“I want to see the requisition you put in for your surveillance team, Tommy. The little box where they ask for approximate cost and time for the team to be in the field. You gonna write ‘eventually’?”
“I’m the boss, I don’t need to fill out no stinkin’ report.”
She laughed again.
“I hear there’s a new restaurant opening up in Foggy Bottom,” he said. “Italian, being run by the guy who used to be the chef at Gianelli’s.”
“Ah. And…?”
“Well, if I had some idea when you’d be back, I could make reservations. Treat you to dinner.”
“Must be nice to be rich,” she said. “But I wouldn’t know, being a lowly GS-13 barely scraping by.”
“Oh, yeah, rich is good. You could marry me, then when we divorce, you could get half, then you’d see.”
“You put that in writing?”
They both laughed.
“Hypothetically speaking,” she said after a moment, “if you were to make a reservation at this new restaurant for, say, Thursday, maybe you wouldn’t have to dine alone.”
“Thursday’s bowling league night,” he said.
“Uh-huh. I can’t even
“I was the lowest scorer in my junior high class,” he said. “A solid ninety-six average. Shall I pick you up?”
“Nah. If I’m back, I’ll meet you there. Eight o’clock?”
