Death Match

“Done.” The glowing tower of text vanished.

“Door,” Catie said. Her gateway back to her space appeared before her. She slipped through it, waved it shut.

The first morning sun was glinting through the windows around the top of the reading room dome as Catie made her way back to the Great Hall. “Space!” she said.

“Now what?”

She grinned again. “Get me Mark Gridley, right now. Flag it urgent.”

“Is he even going to be up yet? Growing boys need their rest.” The tone of voice, if not the voice itself, was almost exactly Mark’s.

“Get on it,” Catie said, and picked up from the floor beside the Comfy Chair the piece of paper which stood for the virtmail she had been intending to send James Winters. “And see if James Winters is available, while you’re at it.”

There was a pause. A second later Mark appeared a few feet away.

“Oh, good,” Catie said. “Listen, do you know what I found? There’s—”

But Mark was speaking. “—not available right now, and I’m not sure when I will be. If you’ll leave a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as I’m free.”

Oh, great! Catie thought. It was a recorded message again. It froze in place when it was done, leaving Mark standing there and looking slightly vague. Now what? I can’t tell James Winters about this! I wasn’t even supposed to be in that space!

But then Catie burst out in a sweat. If Net Force wasn’t told about this right away, there was no telling what might happen during the play-offs. It wasn’t just a matter of whether or not South Florida might win or lose. It was a matter of basic fairness, now, to all the other teams as well…. Not to mention not letting the bad guys get away with it!

And I have to talk to him anyway.

No point in putting it off.

Suddenly James Winters was standing there looking at her. “Uh, Mr. Winters,” Catie said. “I have—”

“—apologies for leaving you a canned message. Unfortunately I’m away from my desk at the moment. If you’d kindly leave a message for me, I’ll return the call as soon as possible. Thank you.”

“Uh,” Catie said. “Mr. Winters, it’s Catie Murray. Please call me back as soon as you can. It’s very urgent. Meanwhile I’m also sending you a report on a conversation I had with George Brickner. This is urgent, too…please get back to me soon. Thanks.”

The image of Winters vanished. Catie glanced over and saw that the one of Mark had taken itself away as well.

“Wonderful,” Catie muttered. There was nothing she could do now but go offline, go to school, and try to get hold of both Mark and Winters from there if she had time.

7

In a huge darkened space filled with the rustle and breathing of expectant people, one man in a dark All Over suit stood at a “virtual podium,” a reading window floating about chest height and tilted toward him. Off to one side, two other people stood by a table on which was a large cut-crystal bowl shaped like a spatball and containing a number of small opaque plastic balls.

“If our guests would go ahead and stir the choices—”

The two celebrity guests, a handsome tall dark man in a formal kilt and jacket with jabot and a blond woman wearing an electric-blue dress that covered her completely and yet left absolutely nothing to the imagination, both plunged a hand into the crystal bowl and started stirring. From somewhere a dramatic drum roll started to fill the space.

The stirring went on long enough and energetically enough to convince the most skeptical viewer that there was no way either of the celebrities in question could have picked a specific ball on purpose. “First choice, please!” said the ISF president, who was acting as the master of ceremonies.

The woman and man each came up with a ball and handed it to the ISF president. This worthy, a short earnest-faced gentleman of Eastern extraction, proceeded to crack the balls open one at a time. From the first one a small spark of light burst out, floated up into the air, burning and growing, spinning and throwing off sparks like a Catherine wheel, and gradually turned into the famous red M and owl logo of one of the play-off teams.

“First to play in the quarterfinal series: Manchester United High—” A roar went up from the gathered Man United fans as the ISF president cracked open the second ball. Another spark of light shot out of it, leaped up into the air, and after a certain amount of shining and spinning, turned into a stylized flame surrounded by the letter C.

“—plays the Chicago Fire!”

Shrieks of delight from the Chicago contingent. The two logos charged at one another in the air, did a brief waltz around one another, and finally settled down to hang above and to the left of the ISF president.

“Second choice, please!”

The celebrities stirred the bowl again, each picked a ball, and once again handed them to the ISF official. He cracked the first of the two balls.

A streak of light arched up out of it and exploded into a miniature fireworks display overhead; after a few moments the fire faded away to show a stylized green grass-hopper and the letters XZS. “In the second match, Xamax Zurich—”

The ISF president cracked the second ball open. The fireworks that went up were white at first, then turned yellow and black, leaving a yellow oval with two black spots at one end of it. “—plays South Florida Spatball Association!”

“Well, good,” Darjan said, sitting back in his implant chair with a satisfied expression.

“Listen,” Heming said to him, from nearby in the darkness of their joint experience of the lottery draw. “Didn’t you hear what I said? They’ve been in the server!”

Darjan waved one hand in a languid way.

“What’s the matter with you!” Heming said in an angry whisper. “If Net Force should find—”

“They nosed around for four days straight and didn’t find anything,” Darjan said, unconcerned, as he watched the draw for the third team to play begin. “We own somebody on the ISF’s server maintenance team. He was looking over the Net Force geeks’ shoulders the whole time. They went right through the system structure and couldn’t find a thing wrong with it.” And Darjan smiled.

“That they told your guy about, maybe!” Heming said. “What if they just want to catch our ops actually using the ‘flipflop’ instructions?”

“That’s not going to happen,” Darjan said. “The server issue is handled. Stop worrying about it, and just make sure those conditionals get used properly.”

“And in the third match, the Rio de Janeiro Rotans—” said the ISF president.

“You saw the tests,” Heming said.

“Tests are one thing,” Darjan said. “Just make sure your people function at least that well on Thursday. What about those ‘repairs’ to the South Florida team’s Net boxes?”

“—play the New York JumpJets—”

More shouting came from the selection ceremonies. “Which means that the Los Angeles Rams play Sydney Gold Stripe in the fourth match. And here’s the play-off schedule—”

Heming scowled and waved the volume down. “Almost all done,” he said. “The only ones not done now are the captains and two of the forwards. They’ll be done today or tomorrow…plenty of time.”

“Good.” Darjan’s smile persisted, and it wasn’t particularly pleasant. “Not that they’re likely to be a problem again in play. Xamax should wipe them up nicely even without help. But some of the principals want them out of the play-offs right away…they’re still pissed off at the ‘Kiwanis kids’ having the nerve even to get into the same volume