“Sure,” Gaspar replied. He didn’t care. She didn’t matter to him. Nothing did. He was on the Net, and for the moment he was as free as he ever got. Seated behind the desk in the cluttered room of his veeyar, he launched himself onto the Net and streaked for the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel.
3
Matt Hunter grew more frantic as the vidphone connection failed to complete.
“Attempt failed,” the computer reported. “Would you like to retry or report failure to BellNet?”
“Run diagnostics,” Matt said.
“Compliance. Diagnostics running.” A menu screen popped into view inside the vidphone screen. “Systems parameters meet established criteria. Would you like to retry the number or report failure to BellNet?”
Matt didn’t feel as if he had time to go through the automated services of the Net phone company. Even as fast as they were, he knew he could work faster. He punched Mark Gridley’s number. Despite the fact that it was one o’clock in the morning in Maryland, the Squirt would be up and online somewhere.
“Attempt failed,” the computer said. “Would you like to retry or report failure to BellNet?”
Matt’s mind raced. If the vidphone system checked out but he still couldn’t call out, that left only one option: Someone was shutting him out of the link. “Examine systems for virus.”
“Diagnostics reveal newly installed programming,” the computer reported. “It doesn’t appear detrimental to this system.”
“Compliance.” The screen overlying the vidphone menu enlarged and the surface rippled.
Matt stood and placed a hand on the screen. The sensory input from the screen made it feel slightly chill and damp. When he drew his hand back, the surface tension clung to him. Taking a deep breath, he plunged through.
On the other side of the access panel, he spotted the configuration for the vidphone uplink. Thick cables covered a wall to his right, leaving the rest of the large cinderblock room undisturbed.
How long had it been since he’d been dumped out of the Net? Maj was on her own until he found a way to get help to her. Catie Murray was at the same hotel. Catie was another Net Force Explorer and Bradford Academy student and friend.
But the vidphone had to be operational before Matt could get word to her.
Accessing his operating-system tools, Matt stretched his hand out. Immediately a flashlight formed along his forearm, spurting out a wide-angled beam. He played it over the wall where the cables were. The shadows slithered away.
He stepped forward. The programming for the vidphone didn’t actually look like the confusion of cables protruding from the wall, but that was how his computer operating system rendered them in veeyar.
Tiny green-shelled bugs moved among the cables, rerouting the interfaces so they constantly fed back into themselves. Receiving a signal from BellNet was no problem from this end, but getting out was impossible.
“Analyze,” Matt ordered. Instantly the flashlight changed into a triangular device that fit comfortably in both his hands.
Slipping a virus along the BellNet lines was all but impossible. Whoever had tagged him with it knew a lot about Net systems. But who would try to shut him down? And why?
The triangular analyzer came up with a virus purge code in seconds. Mark Gridley had few equals in writing code. “Purge.” The triangular analyzer reconfigured itself into a pump mister. He squeezed off a burst, and white powder drifted down over the virus.
As soon as the power touched them, the green-shelled bugs went into a frenzy, crawling along the various cables. Even as they were going on retreat, two cables suddenly snapped their moorings and shot at Matt.
He twisted and backed away, dodging the sudden strike. A brief image of a mechanical snake’s head ghosted through his mind. He twisted and dodged again, completing a back flip that narrowly brought him out of range of the second mechanical snake as it plunged through the yellow octagon marking time.
Realization that the virus had come encoded with its own protection crystallized in Matt’s thoughts.
He started for the door only to see it slam shut. Dim shadows on the wall slithered and danced, closing in on his shadow. He leaped over another attack. Hard, cold metal rasped along his leg. In real time the impact would have broken his leg, but in veeyar it only knocked him from his feet.
He lifted his right wrist, aiming Mark’s tools package at the closest mechanical snake. “Analyze.”
The cable-snake waved from side to side as it rose to its full height. A liquid hiss squeezed from between the distended jaws. Saliva dripped from the snake’s mouth, filled with bouncing electrical particles that sparked and spun.
Code strands spun on the triangular device’s screen, then locked in as the cable-snake struck again. The open mouth flashed at Matt.
“Purge!” The analyzer morphed from the triangular device to a quicksilver glove that oozed over Matt’s right arm. The wicked snout of a firearm protruded from his fist. He fired and a sea-green burst of laser light hit the cable-snake.
The light disintegrated the cable-snake’s head in a white-hot explosion. The second attacker ripped through the shadows, moving too quickly for Matt to target. He rolled and came up firing. A cloud of sizzling sparks ignited around the cable-snake, and it vanished a heartbeat later.
Breathing heavily, Matt surveyed the room. Nothing moved except the tiny green-shelled bugs. He switched back to the first antivirus program and hosed them down. The tiny bugs dropped to the cinderblock floor with metallic
Matt stepped back through the access screen and into his veeyar again just as the comet slammed into the ground and left a crater nearly an eighth of a mile across. Returning to the black marble slab, he touched the vidphone and repeated his request for the number and room at the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel.
The phone rang and Matt waited tensely.
Gaspar Latke walked through the virtual doors of the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel and covered himself in the SHEPPARD, TED proxy. His head felt curiously full, but he didn’t care.
He crossed the lobby and opened the computer interface at the desk. After bypassing the security, he brought up the Net access records, looking for the access port that had crossed over into Peter’s veeyar.
The guest list scrolled under his finger as he touched the screen, complete with Net access records. Public housing kept excellent records. They had to so they wouldn’t get implicated in any wrongdoing that took place under their roofs. They also held the right to block access to all records until handed a court order.
The guest record stopped moving when the search criteria were met.
Gaspar read the name out loud. “Green, Madeline. Fifth floor, room five eighteen.” He closed the guest records and touched the vidphone link, punching in the room number.
The phone rang at the other end of the connection. When it was answered, Gaspar relaxed his virtual body’s cohesiveness and flowed into the vidphone link.
The vidphone drew Maj’s attention as she blinked her eyes open in the implant chair. She sat up and quickly checked her surroundings. The hotel room, complete with desk and chair, king-sized bed, chest of drawers, and computer, looked much more welcoming than when she’d first arrived that afternoon.
She punched the vidphone and brought the connection online. The taglines on the screen let her know the call was coming from inside the hotel.
The screen came up briefly, just a flicker that showed the mural behind the check-in desk downstairs. Then it closed.
“Weird,” Maj said, disconnecting. “Though not the first weird thing I’ve seen tonight.” She thought about Matt
