Death Match

always said she felt sick before one. And I don’t feel sick…just stupid.

She rubbed her eyes and stood up for the first time in an hour or so. I guess I have to admit that Mark’s right. It’s not the imagery that’s at fault. I’ve looked at all the “canned” images in the routine, and all the code for the imagery that’s created “on the fly.” Nothing’s wrong with the code. The problem has to be somewhere else.

There’s nothing else I can do but start looking at all the rest of this to see if I can turn anything up.

But if the Net Force people haven’t seen anything…what in the world makes me think that I’m going to? Just more overconfidence. She blushed at the thought of what she was going to say to James Winters when they debriefed at the end of all this. “Sorry, I bit off more than I could chew, I don’t have a clue what’s going wrong.”…So much for my chances of ever actually getting a job working for this man, or his organization….

Catie stood there with her arms folded for a while, realizing that she might be looking at the beginning of the death of a dream. And what else do I do with my life if Net Force doesn’t want me? Catie thought, despondent. The time after high school, which had looked like a whole spectrum of new beginnings, now started to look like a dead end. I guess I can find some kind of entry-level job in advertising art, something simple, or—

Then Catie shook her head, feeling angry and helpless for the moment, but not quite beaten yet. The future would take care of itself, but right now there were other things to think about. For one thing, I’m getting moody…it’s blood sugar, probably. I need a break.

“Workspace management,” Catie said.

“Listening, visitor.”

“Hold this imagery in nonreadable memory for me, locked to my voiceprint. When I return, reset it.”

“Done.” The structure vanished.

Catie pushed the key into the darkness, and the gateway into her own space opened up again. She stepped through gratefully and waved it shut behind her. Immediately she felt a little more relaxed. All the while she’d been there she couldn’t get rid of the idea that someone from the ISF was going to pop out of nowhere and demand to know what she was doing there. Or — in her more paranoid moments — she imagined that one of the shadowy people who’d been tampering with the space in the first place might come across her. She shivered at the thought.

Catie chucked the key onto the Comfy Chair, and yawned. She was going to have to turn in soon, but meantime there were still problems to handle before bedtime. She was going to have to get some kind of report together for James Winters, regarding what George had told her. There were a few odds and ends of schoolwork that she still needed to handle…nothing serious, fortunately. And as she looked over at the chessboard, she realized that she’d promised George another move, and for all she knew, he was sitting up waiting for it, glad to have something to distract him from the tensions surrounding the “lottery” draw in the morning…and other things.

She looked over the chessboard, taking a moment to more closely examine George’s last move, and the state of the board in general. It was getting crowded toward the center of the chessboard as the beginning of the “mid- game” settled in. A lot of pieces were set to attack a lot of other pieces…but neither of them had started the shin- kicking yet. It was as if George was waiting to see what Catie would do, whether she was going to become the “aggressor” in this game. Though he’s already getting pretty aggressive himself, Catie thought, eyeing the way George had set his bishops up to control the diagonals. Still…why wait to let him start the carnage? I’m sure in a mood to start a little myself at the moment.

George was presently using one of his knights to threaten a couple of Catie’s pawns in a “knight fork,” but one of her own pawns was advanced far enough to be a threat to the knight in turn. Her attention until now had been on developing other pieces of her own. Now she let out a long annoyed breath, thinking Why not? She moved the pawn over one square diagonally, taking George’s knight, and picked it up and carried it off the board to set it down on one side. “Space?”

“The final f—”

“Don’t say it,” Catie said, grim. “Just don’t…I’m not in the mood. Send him that move, and make it snappy.”

“Uh, yes, ma’am, right away, ma’am.”

Catie sat down in the Comfy Chair again and contemplated the chessboard…but she wasn’t really seeing it, for having made her move, her mind had now immediately reverted to the earlier problem. All that code. But I have to find a way to look at it and see if I can turn something up. I can’t get rid of the idea that the imaging calls are being manipulated in some way that we’re not anticipating.

And what human minds can devise…

Yawning, she got up again, went offline, and got up out of the implant chair to go make herself some more pasta.

Catie was up at about six the next morning. Her father was asleep, but she actually caught her mother in the kitchen, making one last cup of coffee before heading to work. “Got a project in the works, honey?” her mom said, stirring the coffee in her big British Museum mug as she made her way to the kitchen table, where the usual pile of books was waiting to be taken back to work.

“Yup,” Catie said.

“The one I’m thinking of?”

“Yup,” Catie said. She started making tea for herself, not unaware of her mother’s eyes on her.

“Well,” her mom said, “be careful.” And she didn’t say anything else, possibly perceiving that Catie wasn’t worth much until she got some breakfast in her, and was going to be careful anyway. She finished her coffee in silence, taking just a few minutes to stand in front of the fridge and read the headlines from the Washington Post that were scrolling down the LivePad, then she picked up her books and her shoulderbag, kissed Catie, and headed out the door.

Catie was still sitting there about half an hour later, finishing her tea, now cold, and thinking about what George had said to her after “I shouldn’t be telling you this.” Not “Don’t tell anyone else,” not “I can trust you not to mention this to anyone,” but simply “I trust you.” Her conscience had been troubling her a little about the prospect of passing the information on, even though it had been freely volunteered. The feeling of discomfort had kept her from sending off the message to Winters last night, after she had gone online again and composed it. But once again Catie got the feeling that George was asking for help without actually saying so in the clear. Maybe he’s just being supercautious about the possibility he’s being eavesdropped on. It’s possible, I guess.

She decided to set her concerns aside and send the message to Winters when she got back online. Meanwhile she had to get back to that horrible pile of code and finish looking over the imagery issues, no matter how she wished she could avoid it. She had slept badly, her dreams buzzing and writhing with lines of light that tripped and choked her, spheres and oblate spheres and ellipsoids and discs that dropped out of the tree of light onto her head and made it ache worse than ever. Yet at the same time she couldn’t get rid of the idea that she might nonetheless be on the edge of finding out something useful.

Catie finished the cold tea, rinsed the cup out in the sink, went back into the family room, and got back online. In her space she saw that there had been another move in the chess notation window. BxN… bishop takes knight, she thought. Yes, he’s in the mood for shin-kicking too, now. Well, it’ll have to wait a little while.

Catie reached down to the floor beside her Comfy Chair and came up with the “key” again. “Space?” she said.

“You mean the authorities haven’t come for you yet?”

Catie laughed. I’m going to have to have a look at the management code myself, she thought, and see exactly how Mark programmed in all these rude responses. “No,” she said, “though the recycling people may be coming for you shortly. I’m sure you’ll make somebody a terrific boat anchor. Meanwhile, just open my gateway to the server again.”

The doorway appeared before her, outlined in light in the middle of the Great Hall. “Do you want your calls forwarded?” her space manager said.

“No, just flag me as unavailable unless it’s my mom or dad or Mark.”