Cold Case

encountered.

The sound of a HoloNews broadcast filtering through the door of his room sent Matt glancing at the clock on the wall. His breath hissed through his teeth. I was in longer than I should have been, he thought. Mom and Dad are home already. I’ll really have to blow through my homework and supper if I want to hit the Net Force Explorers meeting tonight.

Leif Anderson sighed. Whenever I come early to a meeting, I always wind up regretting it. He glanced around the featureless government-issue meeting space. As virtual constructs went, it was pretty basic — just a place to pop up after you’d synched in to your computer and given the address for the monthly meeting of the Net Force Explorers. It did have one nice touch — the meeting room always managed to grow seamlessly as more and more members turned up from all over the country. But other than that the scenery was strictly low rent. Still, he’d hoped to show up early, run into a few of his friends, and spend some time happily shooting the breeze with them. Things hadn’t exactly worked out that way.

Actually, Leif had really just wanted to get out of the condo his family used as home base when they were in Washington. It was okay when he came down with his father to do some deals in the capital. But this time around, his mom was in the condo, too…and there just didn’t seem to be enough room for all of them. Usually, Natalya Anderson stayed in New York when Dad had business in D.C. Or she went to London, Paris, St. Petersburg — wherever the dance world had a major outpost.

Her interest in dance wasn’t surprising. After all, before Leif was born, she’d risen to stardom as Natalya Ivanova, dancing with one of the world’s best ballet companies. This week she was in Washington to see students performing for a local troupe. No stars, no big names…most likely none of these dancers was ever going to make it to any of the leading companies. But the choreographer for the troupe was one of Mom’s old dancing partners, and he was premiering a new piece. As a consequence, Leif’s mom was taking this very personally.

Before she left for the performance, if the state of her nerves was anything to go by, Leif would have thought his mom would be out there dancing herself instead of sitting in the audience. A little distance from the rare appearance of his mom in prima donna mode had seemed advisable.

Leif had finally fled to his computer, heading early to the Net Force Explorers meeting…and a little peace.

He hadn’t gotten any, though. The first person to arrive had been Megan O’Malley. “You made the society news today,” she announced. “Nice picture of you and your folks arriving in town.”

She gave him a piercing look. “I’ve always suspected you edited your Net image. The holo showed a real-life zit on your chin.”

Things rapidly went downhill from there. Leif couldn’t understand it. He liked Megan. She was attractive, smart, a little sharp-tongued, but then, so was he. He’d missed her over the winter holidays. Instead of getting down to D.C., as he usually did, he’d been drafted for some social duty by his father and had been forced to stay in New York. Magnus Anderson had been forging a business alliance with Hardaway Industries, and Leif had been stuck as the holiday escort for Courtney Hardaway.

In a word, it had been disastrous. Leif had found himself comparing Courtney to Megan — sort of like trying to compare a spoiled and yapping miniature poodle to a playful but possibly lethal Doberman. Courtney was all facade — pleasant to Leif when their parents were around but miserably stuck-up otherwise. During their first moments alone, she’d let Leif know that she considered him way beneath her notice, hopelessly outclassed.

After all, Leif’s dad was the one who’d amassed the Anderson family fortune, not some long-forgotten distant ancestor. That made Leif a social climber.

Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations, Leif thought. My generation is supposed to be the one that blows the money.

On the other hand, the Hardaways had held on to their family loot for more than four generations…not counting the current influx of cash on its way from Anderson Investments Multinational.

The deal was now done, and Leif had been glad to get down to Washington. He’d even had hopes of actually meeting Megan someplace outside of veeyar — until she had popped up at this meeting and begun serving him hot-and-cold running attitude.

Apparently, he was the snob for not getting in touch with her over the holidays. One word led to another, until now they were down to the third-grade level — the “Did not!”/“Did too!” stage of the argument.

Leif never expected to be happy to see Andy Moore turn up. The crew’s jokester usually managed to annoy Leif as often as he entertained him. But at least Andy diverted some of Megan’s bad temper today.

David Gray was the next to link in. He was the calm, scientific member of the group. Leif had noticed that lately his friend looked happier in veeyar than in person. David’s real-life self was currently hobbling around on a cane, thanks to a broken leg — a nasty souvenir from a recent adventure. The virtual David stepped lively to pull Leif away from the throng while Andy teased Megan into a murderous fury.

“What’s going on with O’Malley?” Leif asked. “She just about bit my head off when I arrived.”

“I hear she’s angry with the world right now,” David said quietly. “Especially with anyone she suspects of owning his own tuxedo.”

Leif stared. “What?”

“This guy asked Megan to the Winter Formal — a Leet.”

Even though he didn’t go to Bradford Academy, Leif recognized the school slang. The Leets were the elite — the social in-crowd. Bradford was a good school that attracted students from the families of the wealthy, the politically powerful, and from Washington’s diplomatic community. The date — especially for a Bradford formal dance — would have been a big deal for Megan. “What happened?”

“Guy blew her off at the last minute. His folks hooked him up with this other girl…from their circle.” David’s face looked as if he’d detected a bad smell.

“Megan got stuck with a gown?”

David nodded. “And no date. Moore wound up taking her — in this awful rented tux that he thought was a clever joke and Megan thought was the most embarrassing thing she’d ever laid eyes on. The Leet who’d started the whole mess snubbed her publicly at the dance, and nasty rumors about why he did that started flying all over school the next day.”

“Oh.” Now Leif was glad he hadn’t explained why he hadn’t exactly been available over the holidays. Talk about pouring oil on the fires…

“Why, here’s another hero deciding to grace us with his appearance,” Megan said sourly as Matt Hunter popped into existence beside them.

Matt half-turned. “I can always go,” he said.

“What? And leave us alone with her?” Andy dropped to his knees, his hands up in a begging gesture. “No! Pleeeeeease!” Megan looked about ready to cut him down to that size permanently — and she had the martial-arts know-how to do it, too.

Matt made an attempt to head off any bloodshed. “Hey, I’m sorry if I haven’t been around much lately. I got wrapped up in this really cool sim.”

Arguments were forgotten as everybody clustered around. The Net — with all its possibilities and opportunities to have fun — was the reason these kids had joined the Net Force Explorers. If one member of the crew happened onto something good, the others all wanted in on it.

“I hope this is better than that kayaking-down-the-Matterhorn sim that Andy turned up,” Megan growled.

“Not quite as death-defying,” Matt admitted. “It’s a mystery sim.”

“So what’s the big deal?” Maj Green, who’d somehow managed to synch in unnoticed, wanted to know. “You can find them everywhere. There’s a million and three commercial sites offering interactive investigations.”

“This sim is different,” Matt insisted. “It’s not one of those big-business, one-size-fits-all setups. One guy programmed it, and he’s running it single-handed.”

“A boutique sim,” Megan sniffed. “That means rip-off rates — or are you beta-testing for this guy?”

“Neither,” Matt said. “Ed Saunders is a mystery buff. This is his first shot. And it’s a real labor of love.” He grinned. “There’s a whole bunch of detectives who are competing to solve the case, and if you read a lot of classic mysteries, you’ll recognize them.”

“Homage,” Leif said.