Gameprey

5

Maj guided the Striper through the blue sky high above the windswept desert. So far, she hadn’t been able to find the dragon or its rider. Powering the jet down, she dropped toward the hard deck and unsnapped her facemask in frustration.

“Warning, Room Five Eighteen!” a shrill voice suddenly screamed. “Impending security breach.”

A sudden chill ghosted through Maj. Her body was back in a hotel room, not safely tucked away at home. She forced herself to be calm. “Notify the security desk.”

“The security desk no longer exists.”

The statement caught Maj by surprise. “Check again.”

The only way the security desk doesn’t exist, Maj knew, is if new programming has invaded the security system and redefined the parameters. The assault began on this room before someone started forcing the door. “Bring up the door’s external security vid scan.”

A letterbox-shaped two-dee screen popped into the cockpit with her. Only gray fuzz showed on the screen.

“Where’s the vid?” Maj asked.

“Scanning. Nothing exists outside the parameter of this room.”

There was a sound like breaking glass, then the two-dee screen suddenly disappeared.

Near panic, Maj refastened the mask over her face, then slammed a gloved palm against the ejection button. The cockpit canopy blew free, swept away in the jetstream. The seats launched from the Striper a heartbeat later. Maj rode the seat high into the air. When she pulled her chute free, the drag yanked her up and back into the real world.

She opened her eyes in the implant chair in the hotel and watched as, across the room, the doorknob turned.

I have definitely had better ideas, Catie thought as she stared down the five-story drop to the street. Knowing time was working against her, she glanced around the rooftop facilities the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel offered.

A huge pool occupied an area just off-center, flanked by dozens of lounge chairs. Farther back to the left, the banquet area sat in quiet order, stripped of tablecloths and the flower arrangements Catie had seen earlier.

On the right was the low-roofed building that housed the gym. The third side of the rooftop opened up to the western skyline.

Maj is in trouble. As soon as the thought passed through Catie’s mind, she was in motion. She oriented herself quickly, sprinting for the low-roofed exercise area. She played a lot of soccer when she got the chance, so she was in good shape and knew how to handle herself.

Small balconies stuck out from every room in the hotel, each equipped with a small plastic table and two lounge chairs.

Catie vaulted from the top of one of the huge pots on either side of the exercise room and grabbed the roof’s edge. Wearing the foilpack strapped to her wrist, she hauled herself up onto the building. Dashing across the building, she found it wasn’t as close to the nearest balcony as she’d hoped.

She halted at the edge and peered down through the darkness. Neon lights chased away a lot of the night’s shadows, and it only made the view to the street below clearer.

Never look, she told herself as fear turned sour and cold inside her. It’s definitely not a good idea to look. She took a deep breath and backed away from the edge.

“Catie!” Matt’s voice burst from the foilpack earpiece.

“What?” Forgot I still had the vid function on the foilpack.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to get Maj.” Catie counted the balconies. At least the balconies were closer together than the gym was to the first balcony on the fifth floor. And the jump would be more lateral without the vertical she faced now.

“You can’t do that.”

“Not with you yelling in my ear.”

“Catie—”

“We don’t have a lot of time here,” Catie interrupted. “Those guys who are after Maj have to know she’s a Net Force Explorer. That means they know what kind of trouble they’re getting into. They won’t want any witnesses.”

“Wait,” Matt urged. “I’ve contacted the LAPD. They’re already en route. They can—”

Catie drove her feet hard against the roof of the exercise building, pushing away the numbing fear that made her arms and legs feel as if they’d been filled with lead. I’m right, Matt, and we both know it. No time to argue. I just hope I can make this jump!

Without hesitation, thinking of Maj’s safety hanging in the balance, Catie threw herself from the building’s edge, arching up high to reach the balcony above. The balcony railing thudded into her chest just below the level of her armpits. Her breath left her in a whoosh, but she hooked her elbows over the railing and pulled herself onto the balcony. She didn’t waste time trying to make a great landing on the balcony, just dropping into a loose sprawl that tangled her briefly in the legs of one of the lounge chairs. Gingerly she tried the balcony door but found it locked.

“Matt,” she whispered.

“Yeah. Just getting my breath back and trying to figure out how many ways there are to tell a friend how stupid she is.”

Catie swallowed hard. The post-adrenaline shakes hadn’t settled in yet. “Sound the fire alarm.”

There was only a slight pause. “Done.”

Alarms jangled inside Maj’s room, echoed by the other alarms of the other rooms. Catie yanked on the balcony door and swept the heavy curtains away. Maj was rising from the implant chair, her attention on the turning doorknob.

“Maj.”

Maj’s head whipped around, her eyes widening in surprise. “How did you get up here?”

“Don’t ask.” Catie took Maj’s hand and hustled her out to the balcony. “Worry about how we’re going to get down.”

Maj peered over the balcony. “Down doesn’t look fun.”

“We’re not going that far.” Catie levered her body over the railing, hung by her hands, then lowered herself down the bars till she was much closer to the balcony below. Her foot was only a couple feet short. Swinging forward, she forced her hands to release the railing. She fell.

Mark Gridley carefully watched the bearskin-clad warrior standing in the air outside Maj’s room at the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel.

“No talk,” the warrior roared in a deep voice. He moved the wickedly curved sword before him, catching glints from the neon lights around them.

“Who are you?” Mark demanded. Outwardly he remained calm, but he was angry that anyone would attack one of his friends.

The warrior didn’t answer. But the sword came to a dead stop, pointed directly at Mark. A bright blue laser beam spat from the curved point directly for Mark’s chest.

Mark lifted a hand, accessing one of the firewall security programs he had on file. A glowing green disk suddenly spread out from his palm till it was nearly two feet in diameter. The bright blue bolt impacted against the green shield, shattering it into myriad gleaming bits of programming the Net interpreted as energy patterns. They flamed out long before they hit the street below.

The warrior lashed out with the sword again, spinning off a bolo net made up of golden light.

This guy’s good, Mark thought as he allowed himself to fall toward the street. The golden net sailed over his head, but he knew it would have caused a system crash if it had wrapped him up. He brought up his own menu again and armored up.

In an eyeblink he was clad in the space suit he habitually wore while attempting to break code in programs his mom brought home from Net Force. He added a streamlined MMU backpack to the suit. Only this manned maneuvering unit was capable of Mach speeds. He triggered the controls in his glove, blasting straight up into the air.

The bearskin-clad warrior slashed again, spinning out a jagged double-spike of ruby lightning.

Mark pressed a hand out, summoning up another shield. The lightning bolt smashed into the shield. Instead of destroying it this time, the air around him suddenly caught fire, wreathing him in flames.

The virus probed at the suit’s weaknesses, finding none, but triggering one diagnostic check after another, effectively shutting Mark out of taking any active part in the Net. As soon as the automatic firewalls detected another tendril of the virus, they reacted, draining the suit’s resources.

Rendered nearly inoperative and floating in a stasis, Mark accessed a purge program. He unleashed it in a blaze of silver that burst through the suit’s seams. It also burned the virus out. In control of the suit again, sweating profusely as the on-board air-conditioning fought to make the environment livable again, he scanned the night sky.

The bearskin-clad warrior was gone.

Disgustedly, Mark pulled up his IM list and tagged Matt.

“Catie’s not going to make it.”

Matt gazed at the two-dee screen maintaining the vidphone link with Catie’s foilpack. He didn’t look at Megan O’Malley, who stood beside him in his veeyar. She’d been online with Catie when he’d gotten his call through. Megan was also en route to the game convention, but her plane had been delayed in Salt Lake City, so she’d used an inline chair at a cyber café in the airport. Megan was also a friend and an Explorer. She twirled a strand of her dark hair between her fingers — a nervous habit — and her brown eyes held worry.

“She’ll make it,” Matt said.

But they had no guarantee from the crazy view they had over the vidphone link. They caught occasional glimpses of the street below and the side of the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel as the foilpack swung on Catie’s wrist.

“IM message from Mark,” the computer voice announced. “Will you accept?”

“Yes.” Matt watched as a two-dee screen dawned in an orange sunburst. Mark, dressed in his space suit, stood framed in the screen.

“Lost him,” Mark said. “I’m going to stay here, see if I can pick up the trail.”

Matt nodded. “Be careful. The LAPD cyber unit is going to be all over that area, as well as the fire marshal’s office.”

“Maybe they’ll turn up this guy. I’m going to run some trace-backs on the address signatures Maj got.”

“Keep me updated.”

Mark broke the connection.

“I’ve got Captain Winters online,” Megan said. Captain James Winters was a Net Force commander and the direct liaison between Net Force proper and the Net Force Explorers. He was a good friend and confidant.

“Go,” Matt said. “Bring him up to speed on what we’ve got going on here.”

“Gone,” Megan said, fading from his veeyar and crossing the Net.

Matt watched the foilpack view, drawn by the feeling that only the worst could happen. Then Catie dropped, the two-dee image suddenly showing the street level rushing up.

“Parameters to hotel security systems have been breached,” the computer voice announced.

Breaking loose from the dread that held him, wondering how long Catie had been falling, Matt shoved a hand into the crack-code datastream that allowed him access to the hotel’s security system. It pulled him in at once, shooting him through a blinding tunnel of light.

He crashed through the flimsy defense the hotel security programming tried to erect after all the damage the hacker’s viruses had done in shutting down access to Maj’s room. A split nanosecond later and he stood inside Maj’s rented room, courtesy of the holoprojector entertainment center he’d been able to hack into.

Two of the four men inspected the inline chair while the other two raced for the balcony. Just beyond them, Maj leaned out and dropped over the balcony’s railing. All four men carried silencer-equipped pistols.

Wanting to buy Catie and Maj more time if they’d made the drop to the fourth floor, Matt took a deep breath and said, “Hey!”

The four men turned and raised their weapons automatically. One of the men nearest the implant chair stepped forward, putting the muzzle of his pistol less than a foot from Matt’s head. The man fired without hesitation, totally emotionless.

Who are these guys? Matt wondered just before the subsonic round entered his head.

“Where did he come from?” Heavener tapped the screen, indicating the dark-haired, dark-eyed young man standing in the doorway to the hotel room. He wore black windbreaker pants, tennis shoes, and a dark blue tank.

Gaspar took only a second to recognize the youth. On screen, the new arrival hollered, “Hey,” drawing the attention of the four men in the room.

“That’s Matt Hunter,” Gaspar said. “Didn’t you look at his file?”

Heavener pushed him back, almost causing him to fall. “I had other things to do.” She turned her attention back to the screen. “I thought he was in Maryland.”

“He is.” Gaspar watched as one of the men approached Matt Hunter and shoved a pistol into his face. It was a grim reminder of what was in store for him if he failed any of the tasks D’Arnot Industries placed before him. “He’s just there in holo. Tell them to get the Brainsucker set up. I wiped all the files in Madeline Green’s veeyar. They have to take out the hardware there.”

On the screen, the man fired pointblank into Matt Hunter’s face, the slide snapping back on the pistol. Matt Hunter went down.

The fall from the fifth floor balcony was much easier than Catie thought it would be. She landed in a crouched position on the fourth-floor balcony, then pushed herself up immediately.

Peering up, she spotted Maj looking down at her. “Hang down. I’ll help you.” When Maj’s feet came within reach, she snared them in an embrace. She took part of her friend’s weight and guided her safely toward the balcony. The door in Maj’s room banged against the wall, piercing the screeching fire alarms.

“There she is!” a man’s voice roared. “On the balcony! She’s getting away!”

“Matt,” Catie called out over the foilpack vidphone as she scrambled to her feet.

“I’m here.”

“We’re on a fourth-floor balcony beneath Maj’s room.” Catie glanced up at the balcony over them as they pressed back against the glass doors. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to stay here.”

Nothing happened.

“Matt,” Catie implored, feeling a little more desperate. She glanced up at the balcony hanging over the area where they were.

“If we can make that jump, they can,” Maj said.

“I know.” Catie tried the foilpack again. “Matt!”

“Easy,” Mark Gridley’s calm voice called. “Matt’s off-line. I’ve got you.”

The next instant the alarm rang from inside the room the balcony was on.

Catie helped Maj to her feet, then grabbed the balcony door and shoved it open. She led the way across the room and through the door. When they reached the hallway, it was filled with people responding to the fire alarms on the fourth and fifth floor. Catie led the way down the hall, racing toward the elevators and the fire escape.

Catie glanced at Maj. “Where to?”

Maj held herself and shook her head. “Downstairs. Maybe we can find a computer we can borrow. But definitely not back up to my room. I’ve got a feeling only bad things are going to happen up there.”

Matt’s diving roll to the carpet was instinctive — and far too late. By the time he started going down, the 9mm round had already passed through his head and buried itself in the wall.

Without pause, the man with the pistol fired two more rounds, centering them both in Matt’s chest. Both rounds penetrated Matt’s hologram form without even ruffling his shirt.

“You’re lucky, kid.” The gunman lifted his weapon, a small, mirthless smile twisting his lips. He turned and took up a position beside the door.

The two men working on the implant chair hooked up a small device to the processing and memory modules. The other man came back in from the balcony. “The girls escaped.”

“Pity,” the man beside the door said. “May have to find them later. Could have saved us some trouble if they’d fallen.”

“Who’s the kid?”

The man beside the door smirked again. “Next best thing to a ghost.”

Scared and embarrassed. Matt pulled himself together and stood. “Who are you?” He tried to make his voice as commanding as he could.

The gunman treated him to another cold smile. “Another ghost. I was never here.”

“You won’t get out of the hotel,” Matt said.

“We’ll see. We’ve gotten out of tougher jams than this.”

The two men beside the implant chair stood. “Done here,” one of the said. “Time to rock and roll.”

Frustration and anxiety filled Matt as he watched the men move toward the door.

“You do this bit?” The gunman who’d shot him waggled his weapon toward the hallway where people were still evacuating.

Matt didn’t say anything.

“Figure it must have been you,” the gunman said. “Saving your little friend. Good plan. And it’s going to work out for us, too.” He motioned the three other men forward.

“One more thing,” Matt said, accessing a piece of software from his utility menu.

The man looked at him.

“Smile,” Matt said. He traced a square in the air and a camera popped out. He shot off a roll of “film” that was actually preprogrammed memory, storing image after image.

“Waste of time,” the gunman promised. “You’ll see.” Then they were out in the hallway, mixing in with the crowd pouring out from the other rooms.

Instinctively Matt started forward, wanting desperately to keep them in sight. He yelled for Mark, hoping his friend was online and tuned in.

“Yeah?” Mark replied.

“Any luck?”

“No.”

“I’m trailing the men who broke into Maj’s room. Can you get a fix on them?”

“The hotel systems have shut down,” Mark replied. “I got to the fire alarms on the fourth floor just before the access windows disappeared. I don’t know if it was internal security or the people you’re after.”

Matt rushed out into the hallway and managed two steps before he went beyond the range of the room’s holoprojectors. Suddenly he was a whirl of light, like sand trickling through an hourglass, and the hotel faded from view.

When his vision returned, he was back in his own veeyar. Megan was waiting on him.

“Captain Winters wants to meet with us,” she said.

Matt nodded glumly, knowing Captain Winters might not be happy with the situation. But what else could they have done? “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” he said, “and hotel security or the LAPD will catch the guys responsible.”