Net Force

28

Jay Gridley was on the net, piloting the Viper at high speed through the middle of Nowhere, Montana, when the override cut into the scenario. What he heard was the chirp of the unlisted landline phone in his apartment. He did a cycle-and-bail from the VR program, degeared and voxaxed the incoming call.

"Yeah?"

"Mr. Gridley?" said a young woman's voice.

Jay frowned. Nobody who had his private code for the landline should be calling him "Mister." He said, "Who is this?"

"My name is Belladonna Wright. I'm a friend of Ty Howard."

Before Gridley could wonder too much about that, the girl said, "Ty is on-line in a scenario. He said to call you and give you the coordinates. He thinks he might have found the blue Corvette you're looking for."

"Jesus! Where?"

She rattled off the coordinates. Gridley had the computer feed the numbers directly into his VR program. "Thanks, Ms. Wright. Tell him I'm on the way. Discom."

Gridley immediately started back to VR, but as he was about to initiate mode, he stopped. Probably it wasn't, but if it was the right car, the driver would surely be suspicious of the Viper. Better switch programs, no point in taking any chances. Something not so flashy.

Gridley called up the gray Neon.

The most common car on the RW roads was a two-year-old Neon, and the most common color of such automobiles was gray. For newbies and people who didn't care what they drove on the net, it was the default vehicle. No doubt Dodge had paid the big servers a whole bunch for that default setting. A Viper was a standout ride, stylish, classy, you got noticed in one. But another gray Neon? Driving such a car made you more or less invisible. And if you knew what you were doing, you could hide something more powerful than a stock engine under the plain-vanilla hood. It wouldn't be as fast as his usual mode of choice, but it would trade off speed for anonymity. If this was the guy, he most definitely did not want him to spot him too soon.

He cranked the program and set it for the coordinates.

The coordinates turned out to be a truck stop-style service station in western Germany. As Gridley pulled the car into the parking area, he saw a pretty girl walk from the public fresher toward Tyrone, who stood by his parked Harley, next to a big Volvo electric van sucking a torrent charge. This was a realistic scenario. Tyrone didn't see him as he drove up; he was looking at the restaurant's parking area.

Gridley glanced at the restaurant, and saw the Vette parked next to the building. It was the right model and color, but that didn't mean much by itself. He pulled the Neon to a stop close to Tyrone's bike, getting quick notice from the boy and girl. He killed the engine and stepped out of the car. It was cool, crisp, a perfect fall day. The smell of diesel hung in the air, along with the ozone odor of the big step-down charger feeding juice to the van. This was a very realistic scenario.

"Hey, Tyrone."

"Hey, Jay Gee. Uh, this is, uh, Belladonna. Bella, meet Jay Gridley."

Gridley said, "We spoke on the phone. Nice to meet you. This a persona or Real World Appearance?"

"RW," the girl said.

"She actually looks better in person," Tyrone said. Then he developed a sudden fascination with the tops of his shoes.

Gridley smiled. Good thing the kid's skin was dark; otherwise he'd be blushing so bright red you could use him for a taillight.

Tyrone knew it, too. Quickly, the boy pointed. "There's the car. The driver is inside."

Gridley nodded. "Thanks for the call. You check the license plate?"

"Sure, first thing. Quikscan says it belong to a Wing Lu, out of Guangzhou, China. But a cross-index number check doesn't match."

"So the plate is probably a fake," Gridley said. "Big surprise."

To the girl, Tyrone said, "A lot of people want to be anonymous on the net, so along with fake names and personas to mask their appearance, they layer in other fake ID — ersatz vehicle registrations, addresses, comcodes. One of the first rules of web walking is—"

" ‘Never trust anything you see,' " the girl finished. "I have been on the web before, even if I'm not a total spider, Ty."

"Sorry," Tyrone said.

Gridley shook his head. Puppy love. It was painful to watch. "So, what else?" he said, to steer the conversation back to the Vette.

Tyrone said, "He drives fast, changes lanes without hitting the centerline bumps, never gets caught behind a slow packet or boxed by traffic."

"A lubefoot," Gridley said.

"No doubt," Tyrone said.

"What's a lubefoot?" the girl asked.

"Somebody who slides along the web without much friction," Tyrone answered. "Means he's real good with this particular mode, probably used it a bunch, or else he's spent enough time on the web so he can probably use any mode well."

"Which means?"

"Probably he's a programmer," Gridley said.

"So, can I ask why you're looking for him?"

"I really can't tell you that just yet. It's part of an ongoing investigation."

"But it's a big deal?"

"Oh, yeah, if this guy is the one we want, it's a gargantuan deal. More we can collect on him, the better." Gridley glanced at Tyrone. "He see you?"

"We passed him to get a closer look. It was a narrow road. We've hung back pretty far since then. I don't think he spotted us following him, but if he sees us again, he might recognize us from when we went around him."

"All right. You want to stay on it, you ride with me, leave the bike here. We'll see how long we can run with him."

Gridley walked to the car, the two teenagers behind him. He had a sudden thought. "Better get in the back," he said, "I've got stuff piled up all over the front passenger seat."

That wasn't strictly true, but it would be by the time they got to the car. He could do that from here easily enough.

What the hell. He'd been that young once. Seemed like a long time ago as he looked at Tyrone and his friend Belladonna, but unless his memory had blown a fuse, getting to sit next to a beautiful girl in the backseat of a small car was still a pretty big thrill at that age.

Shoot, when you got right down to it, it was still a thrill at his age.

They had just entered the car when Tyrone said, "There he is!"

Gridley looked. Sure enough, a man was exiting the restaurant. He headed for the Vette. Jay got a good look, then grinned. Yes! It was the same persona he'd seen in New Orleans! The guy was sure cocky, to keep using it. Stupid to keep using it, too. Here at last was the break they needed.

"Way to go, Ty-rone! I owe you one."

"It's him?" Bella said.

"Oh, yeah."

"Exemplary, Ty!"

It sounded as if somebody's stock had just gone up in the backseat. " ‘I have you now,' " Gridley said in his best Darth Vader imitation. He reached under the Neon's dashboard and came out with a com mike. He keyed the mike. "This is Jay Gridley, Net Force operative, ID number JG-six-five-eight-nine-nine, authorization Zeta one-one. I have a Priority Five at these coordinates, that's a Priority Five. Stand by for particulars." Gridley put out the code, the fake tags on the Vette, and a description of the vehicle and persona.

In the back, Tyrone quietly told the girl, "He's alerting law enforcement agencies. Any cop on the net who sees the Corvette will log in a time and location. We might be able to get a location pattern after we lose him."

She said, "After we lose him? You don't think we can keep up with him?"

"Not if the guy is a lubefoot running guilty. He'll be checking. He'll spot a tail sooner or later. If he just cycles and bails, that leaves his lines open and a trail that we can follow. So when he spots us, he has to outrun us, or lose us some other way."

"Not with these tires," Gridley said. "They're puncture-sealers."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

Tyrone said, "If slip comes to slide, the guy can bail out of VR with a gear peel or a power cut. Probably crash his system and damage his VR program if he does it on the fly, but if he does, he's gone."

"Would he do that?"

"I would," Gridley said. "First rule of computers is to back everything up. Might take him a little while to reinstall his software and sharpen things back to where they were, but that sure beats having Net Force kick in your RW door to arrest you."

"Whoa," she said.

Gridley cranked the Neon's engine. "Yeah, well, that's later." He looked at the Vette as it pulled out of the lot and onto the highway. "Until then, he's not gone until he's gone. Buckle up."

As a matter of course, Sullivan paid for the lost dog. She did it the long way. The company that dropped the envelope full of used hundreds at the kennel was the third in the chain; it got the envelope delivered to it by a second company. The second company had it brought to them by a first. The first picked it up from the lobby of a hotel where it had been left by an underage kid who Sullivan had bought a six-pack of beer for, and she had done that transaction in disguise. It was unlikely anybody would trace any of this, even if they were looking, and it dead-ended with the boy, who would remember little more than a forty-year-old woman with a warty mole on her chin.

So now she was in Albany, and now she had made her decision. She was a young woman. She might have another sixty or eighty years, given the state of medicine, maybe more. Yes, it was true, she was at her peak — mentally, physically, her skills as good as they were likely to get. After all the years of dancing on the edge, she had developed a feeling about things, almost an instinct. She had learned to trust those feelings. Right now, on some level, she knew: It was time to leave the party. Hanging around like an over-the-hill boxer to get decked by some big kid with an iron jaw was not a good idea. So. As soon as the missed target was deleted, the Selkie was going into early retirement. She would shut down all the Selkie's lines. If wasn't as if she was poor. She had eight million dollars tucked away. With careful investments, the money would generate all the income she'd ever need. Ten million had been a goal, but never more than a hypothetical number. And there were a couple of high-risk, but very-high-return, ventures she could invest in that were likely to pay off. She wouldn't starve.

But the one big dangling problem was Genaloni.

Probably her employer would wind up like most of the wise guys, dead or in stir. But "probably" wasn't good enough to risk sixty or eighty years on. She did not want to be spending any big part of those years sneaking looks over her shoulder, worrying that Genaloni might lurk behind her in the shadows.

No, Genaloni had to become part of her past. Her dead past.

It wouldn't even be that hard. The criminal types surrounded themselves with muscle and guns to protect themselves from each other. They had lawyers to take of the cops, and they figured they were immune from anybody else. Genaloni was maybe the brightest of the bunch, but he had weaknesses. The Selkie made it her business to know all about her clients before she ever took a job from them. Genaloni had a small army of thugs and lawyers, but he also had a mistress. Her name was Brigette, and while she was well off from Genaloni's care, she had neither lawyers nor bodyguards between her and the world.

So. First Genaloni, then the bureaucrat in Washington. Then off for a month in beautiful Hawaii, maybe. Or perhaps Tahiti. Someplace warm and sunny and without clocks or work to order her day.

The Selkie smiled. It was good to have a new goal.