Deathworld

off-peak.'

'I won't keep you,' Charlie said. 'But listen, did you hear about those two new suicides?'

'Yeah.' Nick actually shrugged. 'The usual. They got tired of it all. The world stank, and they ditched it. And who could blame them? Anyway, they got a little media exposure on the way out. And they're probably better off. I mean, they couldn't be worse off than to be alive in this world… '

This was so astonishing an assessment, and so utterly unlike anything Nick would normally say, that Charlie's mouth simply hung open for a moment. Finally he managed to say, 'What about your folks? What happened to make them yank your boards?'

'My dad got the last Net bill a couple of days ago and pitched a real extinction-level fit,' Nick said, and shrugged again. 'You know me, though, I can't let it get me down. Got too much to do in the real world. I'm working my way down through the dark, down to the real stuff.' He grinned. 'You should hear some of the lifts I found down there! The best Bane stuff isn't out on open release, not by a long shot. He's been saving the best for his own people, for us Banies. You really should come down with me and have a listen for yourself.'

'Uh, maybe over the weekend. Look, I gotta head out, it's school in an hour. Wanna have lunch?'

'Can't today… I've got to get off-campus and make the most of that access time-it's the only time of day when my folks don't really have a clue what I'm up to. Mornings and evenings, they may have their suspicions, but at lunch I'm free. Look, I gotta go, the system's ready for me.'

'Yeah, okay, I-'

Nick's image vanished.

Charlie stood there for a moment and hardly knew what to think. It's like the pod people came to visit and took my buddy Nick. Who the heck was that??

For a moment more he stood there, irresolute. 'Seven A. M.' said the clock in the corner.

'Thanks,' Charlie said. He was distracted, though. This is just too weird. But… Deathworld. And then… these two kids.

He started to worry.

After a moment he tried to be reasonable, to talk himself out of it. Nick was sensible, Nick was perfectly sane, Nick would never try anything like killing himself-

The normal Nick wouldn't, Charlie thought.

He stood there and sweated. Unlike most of his classmates at Bradford, Charlie knew what death looked like. There were some awful memories from his very early childhood that were not shadows. They were all too solid, and he did not access them willingly. But they were stirring now. And he didn't like the idea of possibly having that kind of memory about one of his best friends.

He's not suicidal, though!

Yet, said the skeptical part of his mind, the part that his Mom said was capable of 'Olympic-level worrying.' But what the frack can I do?

Charlie thought about that for a moment.

Then something occurred to him, an idea which he rejected, and then considered again.

'What time is it again?' he said.

'Seven oh two.'

'Thanks.' And now the question is… would he be in the office this early?

Well, I could always leave a message. Either way, it's worth a try…

'Main routine,' Charlie said. 'Address book.' 'What address, please?'

'James Winters, Net Force.'

'Trying that commcode for you now.'

Charlie swallowed. All Net Force Explorers had a comm-code for Winters, as their 'head honcho' and liaison to the main organization. But relatively few of them ever used it-mostly because it was understood that, except in an emergency or a situation involving the safety or security of people using the Net, if anyone misused it, he or she would shortly be out of the Net Force Explorers on his or her ear. Charlie had been contacted by Winters once before, with no bad results. And he'd contacted Winters once before on his own recognizance, and hadn't gotten in trouble-but those calls had involved much more important business. Now, even as he waited, Charlie was beginning to have major reservations over whether Winters would consider this situation anywhere near as important. If he starts thinking I'm taking advantage or something-

Nonetheless, Charlie stood still and waited.

'Winters,' said the voice almost before the virtuality settled in around Charlie. Winters's office, as it revealed itself a blink later, was relentlessly plain-a metal desk with neat piles of papers, printouts, and datascrips, a pen stand with a U. S. Marine insignia on it, a couple of file cabinets, one of which at least, Charlie suspected, was actually a Net data storage facility in disguise, dusty venetian blinds, and outside of them, a not-overly-inspiring view of a parking lot. The only soft touch about the place was the see-through bird feeder on the outside of the window, which was full of peanuts even though theoretically you were supposed to stop feeding birds after the first of April. The window, the walls, and the filing cabinets, maybe, were real. Everything else Charlie was seeing, he knew, was virtual, an expression of Winters's own workspace, or as much of it as he wanted you to see. Behind the desk sat the man himself: tall, lean, and hard-faced, with his trademark buzz cut looking even buzzier and shorter than usual. Winters must just have had a haircut. He did not look like someone whose time it would be smart to waste. But all the same, his gray eyes were friendly and interested, even at this hour of the morning.

'Charlie,' said James Winters, and looked him up and down. 'Been a while since we touched base. You're up early.'

'Uh, so are you.'

Winters shrugged. 'Occupational hazard,' he said. 'One of the few times of the day when the link doesn't go off every five minutes.'

'I wanted to catch you before I had to go out to class, if you have a few minutes,' Charlie said.

'No problem at all. Come in, take a seat.'

Charlie walked 'in,' sat down.

'How're your mother and father doing?' Winters said.

'Uh, they're fine. Dad's getting ready for some kind of in-service presentation on spinal surgery. Mom's doing a continuing education unit, something about the new nurse practitioner requirements.'

'And you? You're coming up on end-of-term time,' Winters said, leaning back in his chair. 'How's the accelerated program coming along? Any problems?'

'Nothing serious,' Charlie said. He did not feel this was the time to mention his personal feelings about calculus, or the fact that his accelerated program required that he take it, or the fact that he had never heard of any doctor needing it.

''That's not what your calc instructor says,' Winters said, casting an eye over a glowing-outlined 'text window' hanging in the air near his desk. That window looked transparent to Charlie, but he was certain it didn't look that way to Winters.

'I passed the test the second time,' Charlie said, instantly breaking out in a sweat.

'I see that. Aced it, too,' Winters said, and produced a small smile. 'Better than I did the second time. Or the third, or the fourth. Relax… you're doing okay.' That window vanished. 'But this doesn't have anything to do with school, I take it.'

'Not exactly,' Charlie said. 'I'm following up on something I'm curious about.'

'Oh?'

'Deathworld.'

Winters's eyebrows went up, and he folded his arms. 'Saw that in the news, did you.'

'That last double suicide, yes,' Charlie said.

'No connection has been established,' Winters said, 'between the suicides and the virtual operation.'

'Net Force checked it out, I guess.'

'Very completely, after the first two.' His eyes rested thoughtfully on Charlie for a moment. 'No reason for you not to be given a few details, I suppose. Computer? Insight investigations. Deathworld.' Another window opened, and Winters glanced at it. Text scrolled down and through it, and though Charlie could see it this time, it was reversed.

'The first one was in April of 2023,' he said. 'A young man, aged eighteen, then a young woman aged sixteen,