grass grow. With the advent of VR, you could kick that up a bunch of notches, and improve your own effectiveness in the process.
Not that he needed much help in the effectiveness department. The truth was that most computer criminals weren’t all that bright, and so far, none of them had been brighter than Jay Gridley, who sat atop Net Force’s electronic food chain. This particular virus was only a threat to people who didn’t know how to deal with it, and Jay could take care of the beast with one hand tied behind him and one eye closed…
“Jay?”
The com override cut into the scenario. Only a few people could do that — his boss, his ex-boss and his ex- boss’s wife, and Jay’s wife. And the voice was that of Saji, his spouse and mother of Mark Jefferson Gridley, the world’s most beautiful baby.
Jay killed the scenario. “Hey, babe. What’s up?”
“Your son just laughed at me.”
“Really?”
“I know he’s not supposed to be doing that at two months, but he did. He smiled and he laughed!”
Jay smiled, too. “The boy is a genius, no question about it. He takes after his father, obviously.”
“I’ll let you get back to work,” Saji said. “I just wanted you to know.”
“Thanks, sweetie. I’m almost done here. I’ll be home in a couple hours.”
“I love you,” she said.
“Me, too, you.”
After she discommed, Jay smiled again. He did that a lot lately. Being a husband and a father had not even been on his horizon a few years back, and it was a big change, but it was so much more than he had ever thought it could be.
He was about to restart the VR scenario, when the com lit again.
It was Commander Thorn.
“Jay?”
“Right here.”
“Come by my office when you get a chance, would you? There has been an… interesting development here.”
“Sure thing, Boss.”
Had to be more interesting than this by-the-numbers virus hunting, Jay figured. He switched off the system and began to shuck the VR gear.
Colonel Abraham “Abe” Kent was lying on his back in the Net Force gym with his feet propped up on a chair, his knees bent at right angles, doing crunches. He had done four sets of twenty-five, and figured he needed at least two more before his abs burned enough so he had to stop. It wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t interesting, but it was part of the regimen. A man his age didn’t get to slack off on keeping fit. Once it was gone, he might not be able to get it back. The days when he could party all night long and then run the Marine obstacle course faster than anybody else on the base were thirty years past; now he was happy if he could run the course and beat anybody without injuring something.
He frowned through the ache in his belly muscles, still doing the crunches, alternating now from side to side, touching his left knee with his right elbow, then the right knee with the left. He wasn’t standing with one foot in the grave — at least he hoped not — but once you hit forty, you were on the downside; fifty, and the wrinkles started winning. You had to fight to keep your muscles and flexibility. Not that he had to do a lot of running if he didn’t want — at his rank he could decorate a chair and no one would think anything about it, though he couldn’t see himself doing that.
After thirty years in the Marine Corps, the switch to commanding Net Force’s military arm was a big change. Technically, he was working for the National Guard now. Nothing wrong with the Guard, he’d known some fine soldiers from that branch, but nobody did things quite like the Corps did.
And, as it had recently, the memory of the assassin who was also a classical guitarist came back to haunt him. Natadze, the Georgian, remained free, and that grated on Kent. He hated to fail at anything, and even though nobody else blamed him for the man’s escape,
His virgil tweeted. He stopped exercising and picked it up. This was the work phone. Whoever was calling would be more important than a few sit-ups.
“Colonel Kent here.”
“Abe, Tom Thorn. Would you drop by my office when you get a minute?”
“On my way, sir.”
Thorn sat in the conference room. Abe Kent was already there, and he saw Jay Gridley being directed this way by Thorn’s secretary.
When Jay arrived, Thorn nodded at him. “Gentlemen, Net Force is about to undergo a radical change.”
Both men looked at him, but neither one spoke.
“A few minutes ago, John Howard came by to talk to me. What he had to say will be made at least semipublic by tomorrow, but he wanted to give me a heads-up, and I wanted to pass it along. I took the liberty of recording General Howard’s visit, so it would be easier if you saw it for yourself.”
He touched a control, and the table’s holoprojector clicked on. The holoproj lit the air above the table, visible from any angle. The image showed Howard and Thorn in Thorn’s office.
“Okay if I record this?” the image of Thorn said.
“Fine by me, long as it doesn’t leave the building today. By tomorrow, it won’t matter.”
“Okay. So what’s on your mind, John, that you had to hurry down here?”
Howard took a deep breath. “I don’t know if you are aware that the National Guard has had something of a budget crunch of late. They’ve got funds for Homeland Security stuff, and regular operations, but special ops, such as Net Force’s military arm, have been cut into deeply.”
Thorn gave a faint smile. “Since I go up on the Hill to talk budget more than I like, I was aware of that, General.”
Howard nodded. “Couple that with the fact that the Internet Fraud Complaint Center and the National White Collar Crime Center are finally up and running full-bore, and handling a lot of stuff that Net Force used to do. Add to that the fact that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff really wants Net Force to put his concerns about his VR scenario problems at the top of their to-do list. Plus the general has mondo clout across the board, and what do you think you get?”
Thorn frowned. “I can hazard a guess, of course, John, you’ve done all but connect the dots for me, but I don’t really like guessing games. Why don’t you just say what you came here to tell me?”
“All right, Commander. The Department of Defense is going to take over Net Force from the FBI. Your military arm will be shifted to the Marine Corps, since you’re already right here at Quantico. Nobody will be fired, everything will stay pretty much the same, at least for the time being, but your primary mission from now on will be expanded. The military’s computer problems just got a pass to the top of the pile.”
“No way,” Thorn said.
“Yes, sir, that’s what I’d say in your position.”
“Can they really do this? Something this complex?”
“Sir, I am here to tell you that it’s a done deal.”
Thorn shut the holoproj off and looked at Kent and Gridley.
“No way,” Jay said.
Thorn nodded. “Oh, yes, way, Jay. DoD swings a real big stick these days, and if they want something and can convince the powers that be that they need it? They get it. Which means we have some things to think about.”
When Jay got home, Saji was in the rocking chair her great-grandfather had built for her great-grandmother. The old wooden chair was hickory, and the joints creaked a little every time Saji rocked in it, but there was
