have been one place where, for once, Nick was just a little smarter than Charlie… and he didn't think Charlie would grudge him that, either.
Now, though, the concept had acquired an entirely different slant, and Nick wasn't sure he liked it at all. There was something about these suicides and Deathworld that was bothering him, all of a sudden… something fishy. And now Charlie was going to be wandering around down there, new to the place, not knowing the ropes. Anybody could come along and tell him anything… possibly get him in some kind of trouble.
Oh, come on, said the 'sensible' part of Nick's brain. It's not like the environment's dangerous, or anything. If it were, Net Force would come in and shut it down. And Charlie's not dumb! Far from it.
But all the same… these suicides…
All of a sudden they gave him the creeps.
I've got to go see Charlie, he thought. As soon as I finish here today…
Nick headed off into the darkness.
Charlie had been up late again, the night before, sitting sideways on the lowest of the benches in his workspace with his feet up, studying the Deathworld walkthrough. It was complex, but not as bad as some environments he'd played in at one time or another. A lot of the business of getting through the upper circles seemed to involve talking to the Damned. That, by itself, was interesting for Charlie. Later on, once you got down to Eight, it started to be about talking to other gameplayers. It's as if the game designers are trying to teach people to talk to each other, Charlie thought. Easing them into it gradually. It starts out as sort of an entertainment, 'look at all the bad people getting what's coming to them. _. ' Then it changes focus.
Charlie wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Is this the work of some benign behind-the-scenes environment designer? Or could this be something that Bane wanted put in?
He paused for a little while to scan through the various virtclips and text interviews with Bane that he had gathered together. In none of them did Joey Bane say much about his actual input into the environment's design. If anything, he seemed to avoid the topic, or to try to suggest (in one or two of the interviews) that he was a nontechie who didn't know much about computers or the Net.
That Charlie found hard to believe, especially in the light of the way the professional music business was these days. It had become inextricably interwoven with the Net in terms of music distribution and marketing over the last twenty years, and if there was anything Charlie was certain of as far as Joey Bane was concerned, it was that the man was expert, even inspired, in terms of marketing. He suspected that Bane was as involved in this as in anything else to which his name might be attached. But proving
Then again, there wasn't any reason to worry much about that right now. The environment itself was going to present its own challenges. Because after Eight, after you find the way into the Maze and down into the Ninth level. _. no details. Even the walk-throughs, which were theoretically slightly illegal and usually went out of their way to reveal such details, suddenly went dry. It's as if it all stops there… or some really powerful influence is keeping people from discussing what they find there. Weird.
The threat of lawsuits, maybe?
But then you would think that was enough to keep people from talking about the first eight levels, too. And it's not.
Charlie brooded over that for a while. What influence was powerful enough to keep something so secret?
If I get down there, I may find out.
Meanwhile- He swung up and walked around his little gallery of exhibits again. Charlie had folded away all the autopsy results, and now was left with the kids themselves, sitting on front steps, lying on beaches, hitting a softball again and again… Jaime and Richard. Jeannine and Malcolm. Renee and Mitch. They could have been anybody from Bradford, Charlie thought. Or from any school around here. They look perfectly normal. Except that they had all committed suicide. That was the problem, of course. A suicide looks like anybody else, until the crucial moment hits during which taking one more breath becomes just too painful.
And then there are cases like these, Charlie thought, when there's something else going on.
… and only one way to find out what.
He sighed, glancing up at the windows. It was fully dark in London now, but it was still afternoon on the East Coast. He and headed off toward the doorway that led to Mark Gridley's workspace, opened it, and put his head through.
The heat and humidity hit him like a blow. Well, it's Florida, isn't it, Charlie thought, and stepped into the hot sunlight and close still air inside the VAB. But you can have a little too much reality. Mark can be such a perfectionist sometimes… 'Mark,' Charlie shouted as he walked across the concrete, 'you in here?'
'Yeah,' Mark said, from somewhere right across that huge space, though out of sight. 'Be with you in a minute.'
Charlie made his way across to where the hardwood desk had been sitting last time. It was gone. There was one of the new Rolls-Skoda cars there, the sleek new armored number that everyone was talking about. Its hood was up, and Mark was peering in at the engine.
Charlie came up beside him after a couple of minutes and looked in, too. The engine was clean enough to eat off, a complex welter of shining tubes and piping and a massive engine block which had probably been carved in one piece out of a solid cube of steel. 'Considering a purchase?' Charlie said. 'Or is your dad worried about somebody's security?'
'Huh?' Mark straightened up, dusted his hands off. 'No, it's just a sim,' he said. 'Somebody I know let me borrow it. They're having trouble with the way it runs. Keeps going nonphysical at bad moments.'
Charlie thought rather ruefully of his steam engine. 'I've been having spong troubles myself,' he said. 'But that's not what I came over for.'
'So tell me.' Mark put the Rolls's hood down and boosted himself up to sit on it. 'And what happened with all those files?'
'A lot,' Charlie said. 'But, Mark, would you for cripesake turn on the air-conditioning? It's like a sauna in here.'
'Nope,' Mark said. 'I'm waiting for something.' He glanced up. Charlie followed his glance, but didn't see anything but the pygmy buzzards, way up high by the huge slot in the ceiling, circling near it. 'So tell me what's up.'
Charlie shook his head in mild exasperation, but went ahead to briefly describe what he had found in going through the autopsy files. 'There's something going on about all these deaths that just doesn't feel right,' he said. 'And there's no way to look into it except from the inside.'
Mark gave him a thoughtful look. 'Looking into death from the inside,' he said, 'would seem to preclude you doing much of anything else.'
'Not that far inside,' Charlie said, with only a little annoyance. 'Mark, I need you to wire me.'
Charlie had expected to have to explain to Mark what he meant. To his surprise, he didn't. But he was also surprised to see Mark sit down on one of his folding chairs and blow out his cheeks like someone with a big problem. 'Don't need much, do you,' Mark said.
'You can do it, can't you?' Charlie said.
'Will I do it? Yeah, you know I'll do whatever you need done. Is it going to be easy? No, not like raiding those systems the other night.'
Mark pulled his feet up under him to sit cross-legged on the Rolls's hood. 'That was stealing-from-the- cookiejar stuff compared to this,' he said. 'Deathworld's probably got more copy protection schemes built into it than any environment I can think of. Bane's really sensitive to having his stuff ripped off… and half his technical staff keep busy inventing new and interesting ways to stop people from piping information directly out. A whole lot of stuff to have to defeat, second by second. And naturally you don't want anybody noticing what you're doing.'
'Uh, no.'
Mark sat there and brooded for a little. 'By the way, what happened to your fishing trip?' Charlie said after a moment. 'I didn't think I'd find you here.'
Mark snickered. 'Oh, I would have won. Dad has to stay home and do some classified thing.' He shrugged. 'Maybe it's just as well. He'll be out of my way for the rest of the weekend, and maybe longer… which is going to be good, since this is gonna need a lot of concentration… '
The two of them sat there quietly for a few moments more. Then Mark said, 'Talk to me later tonight. I'll let
