Games of State

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

As he walked back to the office building, Paul Hood was showered with memories. Crisp, detailed memories of the buried but unforgotten things he and Nancy Jo had done and said to each other nearly twenty years ago.

He remembered sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Studio City, discussing whether or not they would eventually want kids. He thought they would; she definitely did not.

They ate tacos and drank bitter coffee and debated the pros and cons of parenthood into the small hours of the morning.

He remembered waiting for a Paul Newman movie to start in a Westwood theater while he and Nancy discussed the House Judiciary Committee's debate on whether President Nixon should be impeached. He could still smell the popcorn she had, taste the Milk Duds he ate.

He remembered talking through the night about the future of technology after playing the black-and-white video game Pong for the first time. He should have known, by the way she whipped his butt, that that was the field she was destined to conquer.

He hadn't thought of these things in years, yet he could recall so many of the exact words, the smells and sights, Nancy Jo's expressions and what she was wearing. It was all so vivid. So was her energy. He had been smitten with that, even a little intimidated. She was the kind of woman who looked under every rock, explored each new world, looked into every fresh field. And when that lovely dervish wasn't working, she was playing with Hood in discos and in bed, yelling herself hoarse at Lakers or Rams or Kings games, shouting with frustration or delight from behind a Scrabble rack or video-game joystick, biking through Griffith Park and hiking in Bronson Caverns while she tried to find the spot where Robot Monster was filmed. Nancy could barely sit through a movie without pulling out a pad and making notes. Notes she couldn't read later because they'd been scribbled in the dark, yet that didn't matter. It was the process of thinking, of creating, of doing which had always fascinated Nancy. And it was her energy and enthusiasm and creativity and magnetism which had always fascinated him. She was like a Greek muse, like Terpsichore, her mind and body dancing here and there as Hood followed, entranced.

And goddamn you, he thought, you still are entranced.

Hood didn't want to feel the things he was feeling again. The longing. The desire to wrap his arms around that whirlwind and rush madly into the future with her. Hold on desperately to make up for all the time they had lost. He didn't want to feel it, but a big part of him did.

Christ, he yelled at himself, grow up!

But it wasn't that simple, was it? Being an adult, being sensible, would only tell, him how things happened, not what to do about them.

How did they happen? And how did Nancy manage to overwhelm the two decades of rage he felt and the new life he had built?

He could follow, as if it were a staircase, each step that had brought him to where he was now. Nancy disappeared.

He slipped into despair. He met Sharon in a framing store.

She was there to get her cooking school diploma framed while he was selecting a matte for his signed photo from the Governor. They talked. They exchanged numbers. He called.

She was attractive, intelligent, stable. She wasn't creative outside the kitchen she loved, and she didn't glow in that same supernatural way that Nancy did. If there were such a thing as past lives, Hood could imagine a dozen or more souls flowing through Nancy's veins. You couldn't see anyone in Sharon but Sharon.

But that was good, he told himself. You want to settle down and raise children with someone who can settle down.

And that wasn't Nancy. Life wasn't perfect now, but if he wasn't in heaven with Sharon all the time, he was happy to be in Washington with a wife and family who loved him and respected him and weren't going to run off. Did Nancy ever really respect him? What had she seen in him? During the months following her departure, when he'd done the forensics on their relationship and his love had turned to ash, he'd never really understood what he'd brought to the party.

Hood reached the building lobby. He entered the elevator, and as the speed lift reached Hausen's floor Hood began to feel manipulated. Nancy had left, shown up a score of years later, and presented herself to him. Offered herself to him. Why? Guilt? Not Nancy. She had the conscience of a circus clown. A pie in the face, seltzer down the waistband, oops! A big laugh and all was forgotten, at least by her. And people accepted it because she was selfish but endearing, not malicious. Loneliness? She was never lonely. Eyen when she was alone she was with someone who could keep her amused. A challenge? Maybe. He could picture her asking herself, Have you still got it, Nancy old girl?

Not that it really mattered. He was back in the present, back in the real world where he was in his forties, not twenties, living with his precious little planets instead of a wild, soaring comet. Nancy had come and she had gone, and at least he knew what had happened to her.

And maybe, he thought suddenly and surprisingly, you can stop blaming Sharon because she isn't Nancy. Did some deep, regretful part of him feel that? he wondered. God, it scared him, the cobwebbed corridors to which that staircase of his had taken him.

To complete his emotional buffet, Hood felt guilty for having left poor Hausen standing there, his soul exposed, a black part of his history on his lips. He'd left him without a shoulder or the help of the man to whom he'd just confessed.

Hood would make his apologies and Hausen, gentleman that he was, would probably accept them. Besides, Hood had bared his own soul and men understood men that way.

Where tragedies of the heart or mistakes of youth were concerned, men freely gave one another absolution.

Hausen was standing beside Stoll in the main office.

Lang was still at Stoll's right.

Hausen met Hood with concerned eyes. "Did you get what you needed?" he asked.

"Pretty much," Hood said. He smiled reassuringly. "Yes, thank you. Everything okay here?" Hausen said, "I'm glad we spoke." He managed to smile as well.

Stoll was busy typing in commands. "Chief, Herr Hausen wasn't forthcoming about where you'd gone," he said without looking up, "but I find it strange that Paul Hood and Superman are never around at the same time." "Cool it," Hood warned.

"At once, Boss," Stoll replied. "Sorry." Now Hood felt guilty for having jumped on him. "Never mind," he said in a gentler tone. "It's been a wicked afternoon. What have you found out?" Stop brought the game's title screen back on the monitor. "Well," he said, "as I was just telling Herrs Hausen and Lang, this game was installed with a time-release command by the Deputy Foreign Minister's assistant, Hans— " "Who seems to have vanished," Lang contributed. "We tried him at home and at his health club, and there's no answer." "And his E-mail address at home isn't receiving," Stoll said. "So he's definitely on the lam. Anyway, the photo of Herr Hausen is from coverage of a speech he gave to Holocaust survivors, while this landscape is from here." Stoll hit the recycle command, dumped the title screen, and brought up the photo downloaded from Op-Center's Kraken.

Hood leaned forward and read the caption. " 'The Tarn at Montauban, le Vieux Pont.' " He straightened. "France or Canada?" he asked.

"The south of France," Stoll said. "When you arrived, I was just about to bring up Deirdre's report on the place." He used the keyboard to bring up the file. Then he read, "It says, 'The route rationale, blah-blah, goes north and northwest with the River Garonne to meet the Tarn at Montauban, population 51,000. Town consists of such-andsuch' " — he skimmed the demographic makeup while scrolling the screen— "and— ah. Here. 'The building is a stronghold built in 1144 and has historically been associated with regionalism in the south. As a fortress, it helped fight off attacks by Catholics during the Religious Wars, and has remained a symbol of defiance to the locals.' " Stoll continued to scroll the screen.

Hood said, "Does it say anything about who owns the place?" "I'm a-checkin'," said Stoll. He typed in the word "owner" and ordered a word search. The screen jumped several paragraphs and a name was highlighted. Stoll read, " 'Sold last year for the manufacture of software, with provisions that the owner not make alterations in— yadda, yadda. Here," he said, "owner. A privately held French company named Demain, which was incorporated in the city of Toulouse in May of 1979." Hood shot Stoll a look, then ducked toward the screen.

"Hold on," he said, He read the date. "Tell Deirdre or Nat to get me more information on that company. Quickly." Stoll nodded, cleared the screen, and rang up "The Keepers of the Kraken," as he called them. He E-mailed for more information on Demain, then sat back, folded his arms, and waited.

The wait was not a long one. Deirdre sent over a short article from the June 1980 issue of a magazine called Videogaming Illustrated. It read: GAMES OF TOMORROW Are you Asteroid-ed out?

Have you been Space Invader-ed to death?

Even if you still love yesterday's hits, a new star in the video-game firmament, the French company Demain, which means "tomorrow," has developed a different kind of cartridge to play on your Atari, Intellivision, and Odyssey home systems. Their first cartridge, the quest game A Knight to Remember, will be in stores this month. It is the first game which will be made available for the three leading video-game systems.

In a press release, company research and development head Jean-Michel Horne says, "Thanks to a revolutionary and powerful new chip we have developed, graphics and gameplay will be more detailed and exciting than in any previous game." A Knight to Remember will sell for $34.00 and will be packaged with a discount coupon for the company's next release, the superhero game Ooberman.

Hood took a moment to contemplate the article and weigh the implications. It helped to put together some pieces.

Nancy stole plans for a new chip and sold them to a company, possibly— no, probably— this Demain. Gerard, a racist, makes a fortune manufacturing video games. On the sly, he puts money into hate games.

But why? As a hobby? Certainly not. Little doses of hate like that would be too small and unsatisfying for a man like the one Richard Hausen described.

Assume he did make hate games, though, Hood thought. Charlie Squires's kid surfed into one. What if that were Dominique's? Could Gerard be using the Internet to send them around the world?

Again, Hood thought, assume yes. Why do that? Not just to make money. From what Hausen said, Dominique has enough of that.

He would have to have something bigger in mind, Hood thought. Hate games appearing on the Internet. Confident threats to Hausen. Were they timed to coincide with Chaos Days?

It all seemed to be going nowhere. Too many pieces were missing, and there was one person who might be able- but willing? — to tell him what that could be.

"Herr Hausen," Hood said, "would you mind if I borrowed your driver for a short while?" "Not at all," Hausen said. "Do you need anything else?" "Not at the moment, thanks," Hood replied. "Matt, please send this article to General Rodgers. Tell him that this Dominique may be our hate-game peddler. If there's any more background to be had—" "We'll get it," Stoll said. "Your wish is my command." "I appreciate it," Hood said, patting Stoll on the back and already headed toward the door.

As he watched Hood move through the reception area, Matt Stoll folded his arms again. "There's no doubt about it.

My boss is Superman."