Duel Identity

Chapter 17

It's not fair that I have to do this, Megan grumbled to herself as she walked to the nearest store to pick up milk, muffins, and other breakfast stuff. The boys devoured it all. Why should I have to replace what they ate?

Unfortunately, she also knew that if she didn't take care of it, the shopping probably wouldn't happen. Mom and Dad were both working against tight deadlines to finish books. Her brothers would be tearing out of the house on training runs or heading off to summer jobs. Everybody would be hungry.

So somebody had to get food. And by getting it now, she'd keep the peace at home in a way that would benefit everybody, even her. Still, she sighed as she lugged the bag of groceries home.

Megan got back just in time. Her father came into the kitchen, apparently moving in slow motion. "Coffee," he said in a hoarse voice.

"Fine, Dad. Just sit down. You know you're all thumbs when you've been up late working." Megan got a filter-great, running low. Something else that needed buying. She wrote it down, then loaded the coffeemaker, and soon the room filled with the smell of brewing coffee. Dad inhaled gratefully. Megan wrinkled her nose. Everybody in the house was a coffee drinker-except for her.

The boys came thundering through, grabbing cups of coffee and things to eat. Dad sat quietly enjoying his first cup of the day. Then Mom padded in, wearing slippers and a robe. She poured herself a cup and sat down opposite her husband. "You got to bed late," she said. "How is the book going?"

"I'm getting there," Dad replied. "Just a few chapters to go. But I've got to hit the library. Last-minute research. How's your project coming along?"

"My editor is acting like a little kid who has to go to the bathroom," Mom replied with a smile. "I think I'll have the series done before any real… accidents."

While both her parents headed for their computers, Megan did the dishes, then went through the house, tidying up. In the living room, she found three books lying on a table-The Illustrated History of the Machine Gun, The Lives of the Saints, and The Book of the Sword.

Dad's research, she thought, though trying to fit three such unlikely titles together was as much of a mystery as the story her father was writing. Megan skimmed through the third book with some interest. Maybe I'll read this later.

Then, because it was still her turn, she started collecting dirty clothes for another round of the dreaded laundry. With seven people at home, there was even more than usual. She ran a bunch of loads through the washer and dryer, folded up the clean clothes, and delivered them to the appropriate rooms.

Her final load took Megan back to her own bedroom. She glanced from her watch to the computer-link couch. Then, dumping her fresh clothes on her bed, she sank back against the upholstery of the couch, synching in, giving orders to her computer.

Enough of being a housemaid, she thought. Let's have some people around to pamper me for a while.

She opened her eyes to find herself in that library/ study on the second floor of the palace, sitting in her familiar seat while the Graf von Esbach came through the door.

"Colonel Vojak and your Texan friend will join us soon." The prime minister took a deep breath. "If all goes well, this nightmare might be over soon."

Megan gave him an impish smile. "So, you consider working with me a nightmare."

"Never in a million years, dear lady," the normally unflappable von Esbach protested, flustered for the first time since Megan had met him. "But for the colonel and I have had to do our duties under a terrible strain-not to mention you and your friends."

I certainly won't mention Leif and David, Megan thought. They would have to bail on us just before things got really interesting.

Colonel Vojak came in, a tightly rolled sheaf of papers in his hand. He was followed a moment later by P J. Farris, who exuded a decidedly cindery smell.

Vojak unrolled the papers, revealing a map and a sketch of a three-story stone tower. "Several of our scouts were set upon as they searched through Grau- heim. Three have not returned. But one of our men spotted a young woman attempting to escape from here."

"Thank heavens he didn't recognize her as Princess Gwenda," von Esbach said.

Megan examined the sketch. "What is this place?"

"It was built as a watchtower more than five hundred years ago," Vojak explained. "Villagers from the whole area fled there for protection during an invasion. The invaders slaughtered all they caught outside the walls. To deal with those inside, the invaders cut down every tree in the area, creating a pile of wood taller than a man around the base of the tower."

He paused. "Then they set it on fire. The stone walls served as a gigantic chimney. Everyone within died."

"In the old tongue the place is called Horiela Kula- the Burnt Tower," von Esbach explained. "Needless to say, it has a bad reputation. Gray Piotr's grandfather rebuilt the tower as a hunting lodge. But while he was staying there, he went mad, killing all the servants."

"Sounds like a charming place," P. J. muttered.

"I regret to report that Horiela Kula is a strong place," Vojak replied. "Thick walls, a heavy door, and a guard at the top of the tower would see an attacking force long before it could reach the entrance, much less break in. We would need artillery, and I don't think there are enough horses in the world to bring guns up that slope."

"I don't doubt but that you're right," P. J. said, "in the normal course of things." He jerked a thumb toward the study window. "But we have the equivalent of forty horses sitting in the courtyard outside."

Megan leaned forward across the table as her friend went on.

"I was with the colonel when this information came in," P. J said. "In between, I've been talking with the palace blacksmith. Suppose we rigged a ram on that Mercedes…."

It was late afternoon when David showed up at the Andersons' Washington apartment. He and Leif had talked it out and finally agreed to make the hacking attempt from Leif's system. David was really only contributing his knowledge of creating sims. Leif was the one who had the software for cracking into other people's systems.

The building's concierge called upstairs to warn Leif that a guest was on the way. Leif was already standing in the open doorway when David got off the elevator.

"A little eager, aren't we?" David said as he followed Leif inside.

"We've got time," Leif said, leading the way into the living room. They sank into surprisingly comfortable Danish Retro furniture as Leif went on. "I had a little chat with Sergei Chernevsky. This famous fencing class begins around six, and ends about ten o'clock."

He glanced at his watch. "We could order something in before we get down to business. My dad called. He's going to be out most of the evening on another business dinner. We can bet he won't be home until after ten."

David nodded. "All right. We have a four-hour window of opportunity to get into Slaney's computer and get some idea of what he's up to."

"If it takes an hour to get in, I will personally eat my computer system-without salt," Leif said. "How much time will you need once we've hacked our way in?"

"Two hours should be sufficient," David replied. He handed Leif a datascrip that he took out of his pocket. "This is the toolkit I'll need once we're inside. Of course, how long the job takes will all depend on what we find."

"So, in the perfect universe, we'll have an hour's grace-more, because we're not counting Slaney's travel time to and from the salle-however much that may be."

"You mean you haven't been following him with a stopwatch?" David joked.

"I'm afraid I'm not that obsessive-unless it comes to food." The boys got up and headed into the kitchen, where Leif opened a drawer to reveal a stack of takeout menus. "What do you think?" he asked. "Pizza? Chinese? Mexican? Peruvian chicken? Good old American ribs? I think we've even got something from a Corte- guayan place in here…. You decide while I load this into my system."

The rib place turned out to have more of a selection than David expected. But then, the Andersons were used to getting the best-even if it came to fried chicken. After two platters of specialties, fresh cole slaw, and surprisingly delicious roast potatoes, David was ready for anything-even a foray into a decidedly gray area of Net morality.

The boys decided not to synch into the Net, since that would mean connecting another computer-link couch into Leif's system. "I get headaches enough with just one couch in the circuit," Leif said.

David shrugged. "I'd be just as happy to keep one layer removed from what we're doing," he admitted.

They seated themselves facing the display of Leif's system, and Leif began giving orders. The holo display went foggy for a moment, then cleared to show the living room of Leif's virtual stave house. On the low table in front of the couch was a collection of small doodads.

They looked like misplaced game pieces-except for the unearthly glow around them.

"Looks like you were already sorting through your toys." David shot Leif a look. "Either that, or you didn't want me to see where they came from."

"A bit of both," Leif said, a bit shamefaced. Quickly he began describing the programs represented by the icons. "The jade ax is something called Cracker-it will get you into a system, but it may leave some damage along the way."

"So the victim will know he's been hacked," David said. "Do we want that?"

"It's the old trade-off-dependability versus subtlety. The electric-blue bundle of wires with a switch in the middle, that's Splice, version 122.5-very good if you're expecting a lot of alarms and stuff." He glanced at David. "Are we?"

"I wish I could say," David sighed. "The Alan we've been introduced to in public-"

"The Dr. Jekyll version," Leif put in.

David nodded. "He probably would just have an easily hacked password. But if he's actually hiding something-a la Mr. Hyde-he's probably got security up the wazoo."

"Tripwires, firewalls, encryption-and alarms," Leif agreed.

David pointed at what he considered the most disturbing of the icons on display. "What's that supposed to be? The sort of off-green amoeba thing." The icon had the sickly phosphorescence of rotting wood and kept changing shape, oozing along the surface of the table.

"That's Amorph," Leif replied.

David gave him a different sort of look. He'd read about Cracker and Splice. But Amorph was a new hacking weapon. "Is it as good as everyone says?"

"I haven't tried it yet," Leif admitted. "Just happened to pick it up recently."

"From what I hear, it sort of slurps around system defenses, infiltrating right into the security programming and opening things up. Sort of a trapdoor program, except it opens the front door for you."

Leif nodded. "All I can say is, it made my security look like Swiss cheese."

"That sounds good enough for me," David said definitely. "Any drawbacks?"

"It can be slow."

David made a "who cares?" gesture. "Hey, we've got an extra hour."

Leif insisted on waiting until it was six o'clock before they began their attack.

"You're sure he's gone?" David teased. "Just our luck, he'd come down with stomach flu and be using his system to watch a holo sitcom."

"Oh, he'll be gone, all right." Leif was grimly confident. "Alan's got a big deal going on tonight. Sergei told me all about it. Besides the fencing class, there's a whole bunch of Latvinia role-players going to the salle tonight, to see how this sword-fighting thing really works. Our pals von Esbach and Vojak — will be in attendance-not to mention P. J. Farris."

"Full house." David laughed.

"And you can be sure Mr. Slaney will be there, right at center stage."

Off in the living room an antique clock chimed the hour. "It's time," Leif said.

A new set of orders to his computer, and they were out of his virtual workspace, bouncing almost at random through the Net. The idea, David knew, was to lay as confusing a trail as possible between this computer and wherever they were going to launch the hacking program. If their attempt to break in was noticed, it should be impossible to trace it back to here.

The images on the display seemed to spin and swoop, making David wish he hadn't been quite so enthusiastic at dinner. At last they stopped in a grayish blank space.

"This used to be long-term storage-coincidentally enough, it's in one of the computers in the building where Alan works," Leif announced with a grin.

"We're lucky he didn't decide to expand Latvinia and erase your little hidey-hole," David shot back.

"Anyway…" Leif gave a few more orders, and the Amorph blob popped into existence in the middle of the dust-gray floor. Looking at a piece of paper, Leif recited a long Net address string. The Amorph icon faded from sight.

"I won't ask how you got that," David said. "Now are you going to burn it, or eat it?"

"Let's leave it for later," Leif said, "when we know whether or not we get in there."

They sat in silence, watching the dead boring image of a drab, empty room. David yawned and stretched. He rocked back and forth in his seat, wondering if there was time for a bathroom break before Amorph opened the way up for them. He glanced over at Leif.

"I told you this program takes its time," Leif defended himself.

"I know," David said. "That's the difference between what you see on the holovids and reality. Now I'm just wondering if we're missing out on any good holo shows while we wait."

At long last a portal of sorts began constructing itself in the inactive storage space. The empty doorway was the same sickly greenish-white as the Amorph amoeba.

"Looks like we're in," Leif announced.

"My turn now," David said. He called up his virtual bag of tricks, and gave the order to proceed. Leif had already programmed his system to respond to David's voice commands. They went through the portal, and found themselves in a disturbingly familiar room. It was the study/library from the palace in Latvinia-just multiplied by about twenty times. There was a ton of stuff filed away in here.

"Good luck," Leif muttered.

David pretended not to hear. He began deploying his weapons-directory crunchers, an internal searchbot program, even a file-viewing utility-and set to work.

After a long while David leaned back, listening to his neck crack. The more he'd wormed his way through Slaney's system, the farther and farther he'd hunched forward. "What's our time look like?"

"You've been grinding away in there for about an hour and a half," Leif replied. "Amorph took about forty-five minutes to get us in. We've still got about two hours. What have you got?"

"Not much," David admitted unhappily. "I've found bits and pieces of the Latvinia program, but he's not running the sim from this system-it just doesn't have the juice."

'That's a good thing, isn't it?" Leif asked. "A simple- minded computer means less stuff to be found."

"Yes-and no," David replied. "I keep coming across archived information files-stuff that's been downloaded from the Net, compressed, and stuck in storage. It may all be garbage-handy tips on how to build your own world."

"We knew he'd been downloading a lot of stuff on that," Leif agreed. "On the other hand, this archived stuff could turn out to be his private journals from the time he was eight."

David nodded. "It just takes time to uncompress files, read 'em, and make a decision about whether or not they're useful for our purposes. We could be pawing around until midnight."

"Or?" Leif asked.

"We could copy it all-download it, and then paw around in your space until midnight."

"Could we fit it in the corporate storage we-um- borrowed?" Leif asked.

David nodded.

"Okay. Let's do that. Then we can both paw."

The download went quickly enough. While that happened, David checked to make sure he'd left no traces of his presence. "We probably should cover our tracks. Otherwise, isn't Slaney going to notice that his security has been neutralized?"

"I'll take care of that," Leif said, "after you leave."

David pulled out, and Leif began issuing commands. The phosphorescent portal collapsed in on itself. "Now Amorph will just disentangle itself," Leif announced. "When it's through, we'll just have that shapeless little icon sitting on my shelf in my home space again." He gave another order, and a duplicate viewing station to the one Leif had set up for himself popped out of the wall. "That side okay for you?" he asked, pointing to it.

"Fine," David said. He plunged into the archives they'd acquired, bursting out one document from every folder. Then he hit one section that caught his interest. David decompressed document after document, growing more and more worried as he read. He was so immersed, he didn't even notice Leif come over and give him a shake. Then he realized his friend had been calling his name.

Leif peered at the holotext. "When I have to go that far to get someone's attention, it's usually because they've discovered a set of naughty image downloads," he teased. "I was just going to tell you that the Amorph icon turned up-we're out clean. But now I wonder what's gotten your attention." He wrinkled his nose. "All I've turned up is recipe files for creating more realistic sims."

"Yeah, there are a lot of those," David said, tearing himself away from the display. "This stuff is more theoretical… but a lot more worrisome. You know how hackers sometimes joke about forbidden subjects? That's what this stuff is: 'how-to' diagrams on circumventing safety protocols when creating an off-Net virtual reality. Programming tips on giving you absolute control of the virtual environment while in veeyar. Reports on experiments to disembody human intelligence and port it onto the Net-"

"The old 'ghost in the machine' thing, huh?" Leif looked slightly scornful. "That's like the old-time alchemists trying to turn lead into gold. As far as I know, nobody's ever succeeded."

"Yeah-what worries me, though, is seeing all this stuff archived in one place. Put it together, and you've got a guy who doesn't want to be a ghost in the machine. He wants to be the disembodied supreme being of his own little universe."

"The god of Latvinia," Leif finished, a worried expression coming over his features. "What happens to the beta-testers when he tries this transformation?"

"I don't know-but I don't like this file I've been reading. It comments on the possibility of disembodying one or more persons to come along essentially as subroutines in this private universe."

"Who would agree to that?" Leif asked in disbelief.

'This stuff doesn't necessarily talk about bringing them along willingly," David replied. "It just discusses the need for random interaction in the new environment."

"Translated, even people with a god complex might get lonely once they've been reduced to electrons." He shook his head. "But this is plain science-fiction-no, fantasy."

"I wish that were true," David said. "Not many people know it, but there have been experiments in disembodiment. The results-well, the experiments themselves have been hushed up. But I don't think they could have been promising."

He turned troubled eyes to Leif. "Alan may be clever, but I don't think he's clever enough to pull this off. If the rumors are right, every researcher who has ever tried this has either ended up with severe neurological damage"-he hesitated-"or dead."