State of War

the chamber in flickers of rich red and gold. Details in the room stood out, more supplies and old tomes became visible, all casting hard shadows as the globes moved toward the cage.

Within the cage the glowing balls of light that represented his words of power combined over the pentagram. He heard a popping sound as a formless something appeared within the wards he’d set up. It slowly took on shape and color, coalescing into a minor demon.

“WHO DARES CALL ME TO SERVICE?” The little thing’s voice was deep.

Jay smiled a bit at his younger self. Pretty melodramatic stuff.

“It is I, Jay Gridley.” When he said his name, the little demon cringed as he’d programmed anything he summoned to do. Even though he knew it was infantile, he couldn’t help but think it was kind of cool.

Well, some things hadn’t changed.

He spoke to the demon, laying out what it was to do. As he gave it instructions, it gradually assumed a somewhat different shape to match its goals.

It ceased glowing and became smaller, more transparent, like the viruses he’d analyzed. It resembled a tiny devil, with horns and a tail, but more squat, dwarflike. Its eyes grew huge, so it could see better, its nose longer to sniff out traces of the target viruses, and it grew wings, tiny batlike things that spun quickly, like a hummingbird’s.

Jay reached into the pocket of the wizard’s robe and removed the bug-forms of the three target viruses. He tossed them through a gap in the top of the cage. The creature grabbed them, sniffing and probing each one before ripping it open to devour the buglike guts of each.

“I AM READY, MASTER,” it said.

“About time,” Jay said. “Go.” He waved the wand. The cage dissolved in a shimmer of gold sparkles, the wards fell dark, and the creature flew up and out through a tall window by the bookcase.

He let out a breath he’d been holding. Well. He’d done it now. All the old adages came to him—it takes a thief to catch a thief, absolute power corrupts absolutely, it’s a slippery slope.

Although he had certain powers and rights as Net Force’s chief VR man, releasing a virus on the public wasn’t one of them. On the other hand, if he called it a tracker program, he might be able to get away with it.

Not that he was going to call it anything unless someone came asking. Since he was the chief cop on the block when it came to viruses, it was unlikely anyone would.

Besides, he’d made it good. Although he hadn’t used it in years, he’d kept the workshop program updated on the latest techniques for virus construction. That was part of the overhead of keeping on top of things: updating software you might never use.

It was hard work, being king of the mountain.

The virus wasn’t going to damage anything, or even make itself noticeable. It would piggyback on incoming and outgoing traffic only, and only report to him information about when the three viruses had hit — and where. It would erase all tracks it had ever been there, and no one would be the wiser.

He hoped.

He waved the wand again and the crystal ball on the table grew to the size of a beach ball. He uttered a word, and a tiny simulacrum of the United States appeared within it. As he watched, tiny dots of red, blue, and yellow began to appear on the map, each one corresponding to a computer which had been infested with one of the three viruses.

The dots expanded at a geometric rate, getting faster and faster as his imp-virus multiplied and expanded in its own wave of infestation.

Pretty soon now he’d have an idea of what to check next. The hacker who’d messed with him had better enjoy his last few free computing hours.

Mess with the best, go to jail like the rest.

17

Kim’s Business and Industrial Center

Dover, Delaware

The security guard turned out to be much better than the cop had been.

The guy came in dark. He had turned his car lights off far enough away that Junior never even caught them. He didn’t hear the motor, either, which meant that the guard must have coasted the last couple hundred yards in neutral, maybe even with the engine turned off. The first Junior saw of him, the guard was on foot and working his way toward the office with the kicked-in door.

He wore a dark gray and black uniform and some kind of dark-colored baseball cap. He was using cover and shadows and had his piece already drawn. He held the weapon in a crosshands grip, gun in the right, with a flashlight in the left hand above, pointing along the sight line but not turned on.

From the position of his hands, Junior could tell that the flashlight must have a button in the butt. It was probably one of those fat, stubby, tactical cop lights, most likely a Sure-Fire M6. If so, it was going to flare like a movie spotlight when the guard turned it on. Those things put out five hundred lumens, and cost two-fifty, three hundred bucks.

Junior had gotten one like it in a trade with a drug dealer once. He lost it somewhere later, but it was a fine piece of machinery. Anyone carrying one of those flashlights that he probably paid for himself was serious about his work, that was for sure.

Whether he was the real thing or a wannabe, that was something else. That was what they were going to find out.

This guy wanted to catch somebody, no question. If all he’d been looking to do was scare a burglar off, he’d have come in code three, those silly rent-a-cop orange rack lights flashing, siren howling, giving plenty of warning he was on the way.

But no, not this guy. He sneaked in quiet, gun in hand, GuardMan to the rescue! He was hoping somebody would still be there, hoping the door-breaker would be armed, hoping he’d resist. Then he’d blind him with that light cannon, and if the guy didn’t get his hands up fast enough, he was going to drop him.

Junior could tell that by watching the guy. He’d bet the farm on it.

It put a different spin on things. GuardMan there already had his gun out, so it wasn’t going to be a fast-draw contest. Junior didn’t get a great look at the hardware, but he saw enough of it silhouetted to see it was a semiauto, and his impression was that it was a SIG, could have been a 9mm, a.40, even a.45, they all looked pretty much the same at a distance, and all of which were fine combat weapons not likely to jam when the guy started cooking. Probably a.45, if he had to guess. The serious shooters still liked those best.

How good was he? No way to tell for sure, but he moved well, he kept his hands low and ready, to shine- and-shoot, and you had to figure the guy had some ability, given the company’s ads and all.

So Junior’s idea of stepping out of the shadows and yelling at the guy straight out went away real quick. If he did that, and if the guy was any good, the guard would spin and, flame on, light Junior up like a Christmas tree, and as soon as he saw him go for his heat, GuardMan would cook faster than a hot dog in a microwave, ka-blam!

No, Junior decided, he couldn’t do it that way.

But he also couldn’t mess around out here. He was pretty sure that the company dispatcher had called the cops at the same time that he sent the guard. If so, the official heat would be along, and probably sooner than later.

Junior would bet that Dover, Delaware, was not exactly a hotbed of serious felonies on a weeknight. A bored cop, county mountie, or smokey would be looking for something interesting to passe le temp. So letting the guard root around in the office for a few minutes and waiting for him to come out all relaxed thinking nobody was around was also not such a good idea. He wasn’t ready to rock with a hotshot guard and a state policeman, with maybe even a local shurf or two coming along just for grins at the same time.

As GuardMan worked his way toward the door, getting ready to make his move, Junior decided how he was