Net Force

8

In his office, Jay Gridley prepared to ride the net.

Cyberspace wasn't really like the old movies that had first depicted it, Gridley knew. But virtual reality constructs — VRCs — did use imagery to help a webwalker navigate the web. The images could be almost anything a user wanted. There were hundreds of standard commercial overlays, from cities with freeways, to old Western towns, to space flights. And there were tens of thousands of shareware scenarios to be had on the web. Some of the best software you could get was free. Download or timeshare the ware, and the net could be anything anybody had ever bothered to program. If you couldn't find anything that suited you, you could create your own vehicle. You didn't even need to be a programmer; any fool could do it. WebWeaveWare these days was easier than paint-by-numbers.

Gridley had several favorite travel pieces he used when he donned his VR gear and went on-line. He did the finger weave to access the command mode, waved the web to life and said, "Dodge Viper, Bavaria."

The VR gear gave him an image of a mountain road in a somewhat-stylized German landscape. He was inside an RT/10 Viper, a black convertible roadster with broad white racing stripes, driving down a steep switchback. There would be a border crossing coming up soon. He clutched and downshifted from sixth into fifth, tapped the accelerator and grinned at the crisp breeze ruffling his long black hair. He enjoyed the classic James Bond movies, even though saying, "Gridley, Jay Gridley," didn't have quite the same ring to it…

The border crossing loomed. A single uniformed soldier stood behind a black-and-yellow-striped pole blocking the road, a submachine gun held at port arms.

Gridley downshifted and braked. The roadster rumbled deep in its muscular throat as it rolled to a stop.

The guard said, "Your papers, please."

The guard smelled like cheap aftershave and stale sweat, with a touch of cigarette tobacco thrown in.

Gridley smiled, reached into the pocket of his tuxedo — well, if you were gonna play, you might as well go all the way — and removed his passport.

Eventually, he would have to program himself a female passenger to complete this scenario. A sultry redhead, perhaps, or a dark and deadly brunette. A woman afraid of the speed, but excited by it nonetheless. Yeah…

In the real world, an electronic password was tendered to a gate server on the web, bits of binary hex code pulsed from one system to another, but in VR, the visuals were so much more pleasing and much more intuitive.

A cursory inspection, then the guard returned his passport, nodded curtly and raised the barrier. Gridley had come this way before. There was never any problem.

Around the next curve, the mountain road turned suddenly into an autobahn, with traffic zooming past at speeds in excess of 160 kilometers per hour. He tromped the Viper accelerator, laid rubber — first… second… even in third — upshifted when the engine peaked in fourth, then fifth gears, achieved sixth as he merged with the flow of cars and trucks barreling along.

James Bond's old Aston-Martin, and in the later movies the BMW, would never have kept up with the Viper. It had a top speed of around 260 kilometers per hour, with an eight-liter, ten-cylinder engine that would get one to that top speed with unbelievable rapidity. It was a rocket with wheels.

He was in the netstream now, his program running smoothly. He liked the freeway image, but he could, if he wished, switch to a more leisurely hike along a stream, or a bicycle tour of France, although that kind of sudden program change did tend to jar one somewhat.

Ahead was an exit sign: CyberNation.

Gridley frowned. There had been a lot of infospew lately about CyberNation, a VR "country" that was accepting not only tourists, but residents. They — whoever the programmers were who'd created the VRland — were offering a whole bunch of computer perks if you were willing to "emigrate" to their creation — if you were willing to give up your electronic citizenship in your own country for theirs, a thing that seemed unlikely. He hadn't checked into it himself, but it was an interesting idea. Some day, in his copious spare time, he'd have to see what all the fuss was about.

He glanced at the analog clock inset into the car's dashboard — no digital gauges for this beast.

A sleek Jaguar passed the Viper, and Gridley smiled at it. Oh, yeah?

He goosed the Viper, felt the jolt of acceleration even in sixth gear as the car surged forward and began to gain on the Jag as if it were standing still. He flew past, seeing the frowning driver's face. Gridley grinned. The Jag didn't have any more, and the Viper wasn't even close to redlining the tach. So long, pal!

He was still feeling pretty full of himself when he saw the wreck about half a mile ahead of him. A big semi had flipped and turned onto its side, the trailer now blocked all the lanes on his side of the freeway. Traffic was lined up for a quarter mile, and the line was getting longer fast.

Damn!

Gridley hit the brakes — carefully, they were top-of-the-line disk but not little-old-granny ABS — and started downshifting. Fortunately, the Viper was as good at stopping as it was at going. He pulled to a halt behind a big Mercedes full of men in hats, then checked his rearview mirror to see that the Jag was also slowing to a stop behind him.

What the virtual image meant was that someone had bollixed the system link he was using. Whether by accident or on purpose, he couldn't say.

A European-style siren dopplered and hee-haw-hee-hawed toward the wreck on the other side of the Autobahn, blue lights flashing. That would be the cops — or the diagnostics — coming to see what was what.

Traffic was now at a standstill on his side of the highway. Gridley vaulted over the Viper's low door; fortunately the tux had plenty of stretch. He'd just mosey over to the cops and see if he could find out what was going on. Surely an Americanized Thai in a tuxedo could get a few answers, especially in his Bond persona…

Tyrone Howard rode the net, wind blasting his bare face — well, bare except for the old-style aviator goggles he wore. These were the only protection he had on the big Harley Davidson XLCH that rumbled along at more than a hundred miles an hour. A classic bike, they didn't make them any-more, and one he was still several years away from being old enough to drive even if he could find or afford one. The thing with VR was that you could do stuff you couldn't do in RW — the real world.

He was in L.A., had just skirted a fender bender that blocked most of the Hollywood Freeway going north, hauling butt toward the valley when the reminder vox he'd set up warned him of the time. His dad was on the way home, and he'd only have a couple of minutes to visit before he had to take off again. He couldn't tell Tyrone where he was going or anything — that was secret stuff — but at least they could say good-bye. His dad had been excited, even though he had tried to hide it. Too bad Mom was down in Birmingham, visiting her sister. She'd be sorry she'd missed Dad.

He pulled the bike onto an off-ramp, geared down and rolled into a parking lot. When he shoved his World War I aviator goggles up onto his forehead, the VR band also went up in RW, and all of a sudden he was back in his room. He blinked. RW always looked so… pale compared to VR. Like it was the imitation, and virtual was the real place.

Just in time. He heard the front door open.

"Tyrone?"

"Hey, Pop!"

Tyrone got up, and nearly tripped on his own feet. Jeez! He was constantly knocking stuff over or slipping and sliding. Grandaddy Carl said that his dad had been the same way at thirteen, couldn't walk down a ten-foot-wide hall without bumping into both walls nine times. Tyrone found that hard to believe, that his dad had ever been that clumsy. Or that he would someday grow out of it.

When he reached the living room without destroying any furniture, he saw his dad there, in Net Force fatigues, neutral gray pants and shirt over spit-polished black boots. Behind his father, Master Sergeant Julio Fernandez stood by the door, dressed similarly.

"Hey, Tyrone," the sergeant said.

"Hey, Sarge. How's it goin'?"

"Not bad, for an old Hispanic." He grinned. Fernandez had retired from the RA — Regular Army — at the same time Colonel Howard had left. They went way back, had known each other for twenty years. They'd joined Net Force at pretty much the same time. His father had told him that Sarge had said if the colonel could work for civilians, he could manage it, too. But Sarge's love for computers was below zero, and Tyrone thought that was kind of strange, given that that was the business Net Force was in.

"I wanted to stop by before we took off," his dad said. "I've already called your mother. She'll be back on the commuter flight arriving at eighteen hundred, so you'll only be on your own for a couple of hours. Think you can handle that?"

Tyrone grinned. "I dunno, Pop. That's pretty scary. After I get home from school, I'll be alone in the house for all that time. I could starve. Maybe die of terminal boredom."

"Life is hard. Mrs. Townsend is running the car pool today, right?"

"Right." Rick Townsend's mother had the duty this week; next week it would be Arlo Bridger's mom, the week after that, his mom. The co-op car pool made getting to school and back a lot easier than catching the bus. He was on the mid-morning schedule this semester, so he didn't have to be there until nine-thirty.

His dad grinned back, then came over and hugged him. "I don't know when I'll be back. You take care of your mother. I'll call when the situation permits."

"Yes, sir."

His dad turned away. "Okay, Sarge. Let's roll."

"You're the colonel, Colonel."

His dad squeezed Tyrone's shoulder once more, then did a crisp pivot and headed for the door.

Tyrone felt a sudden coldness in the pit of his belly. His dad never let on about whether his assignments were dangerous or not, but for him to come home when he didn't have to pick up any gear or anything, for all of a whole minute, just to tell him good-bye — well, that made Tyrone nervous.

Where was Net Force posting his father? And what kind of trouble might be there waiting for him?

Plekhanov was in his office in front of his computer. There was no one around this area, and probably no one on the entire floor. The government could not afford to maintain a night shift, though had he wished it, Plekhanov himself could have paid for it. One of the advantages of being a computer expert of his caliber was that stealing money electronically was not a problem — as long as one did not get too greedy. A million here, a million there, and pretty soon, it added up.

His communication software had reached out and connected him to the Rifle, and now their business was almost completed.

"Are we clear on what needs to be done, Mikhayl?"

"Da, we are clear."

Plekhanov frowned. It was not good that Ruzhyo used a Russian word, though there was not a chance in ten million that anybody would know it. Still, despite that, Plekhanov did not wish to take even that risk. But he would not speak of it during this conversation.

"The specifications for clothing, hardware and vehicles are in the secure file. Use the second account for funds," he said. "Take as much as you need, we want to do a good job."

"Yes," Ruzhyo said. "A good job."

"Is there anything else?"

"No, I believe that is everything."

"Good hunting, then."

"Thank you."

After the connection had been broken, Plekhanov leaned back in his chair and considered his next action. There were so many small details that must be attended to if the plan was to continue to work properly. A call here, a shaft of information there, a few words whispered into an influential ear at this juncture, all added to the momentum and kept things rolling along.

Everything was going according to plan.

Ruzhyo felt a little better. It was always good to have a specific chore, a job to be done, regardless of the constraints. He had already set up his contacts with suppliers; the gear they would need for the next step could be assembled in less than a day. Ruzhyo had known what the step would be, even though it had been a tentative plan until the call confirming it. Knowing it gave him some leeway, and he had exercised it.

Now, he had to call the Snake and the Texan and get them set. This would be tricky, and in one way, probably more so than the assassination of the federal agent, but not so dangerous. This time, they would have the law on their side.

In a manner of speaking.

In his office, Commander Alex Michaels frowned at the young man sitting across the desk from him.

"All right, Jay, what exactly does this mean?"

Gridley shook his head. "I dunno, Chief. I went for a ride on half-a-dozen major highways — netways — and there were wrecks on all of them. Plus a bunch of others I didn't get around to. The cops — ah, the sysops — didn't have any big problems clearing most of them, although the Australian pileup was a real bastard. It was simple stuff, but traffic slowed down everywhere."

"But we're not talking major sabotage? And it didn't seem focused on one particular system?"

Jay shook his head. "Well, sort of and no. No piece of it was a biggie, but taken altogether, it adds up to major. Time is money, especially on the commercial roads, and there was a lot of stuff got shuffled because of some of the delays. If some big portion of that was diverted into one pocket, the guy wearing that jacket could retire and buy Cleveland, if he wanted. Though I can't imagine he'd want to. But as far as we can tell, nobody got rich off the snafu — least we haven't found who or how yet."

Jay paused, blinked, then stared into space as if he'd gone into a trance.

"Jay?"

"Oh, sorry. Far as I can tell, no one system was hit any harder than another. It was spread over dozens of links fairly evenly. I've got houndbots sniffing, but none of ‘em have run anything to a source. Whoever built this program is good, real good, ‘cause he slipped it past a bunch of safeguards and the only people who caught him was us."

Gridley smiled, obviously pleased with that fact.

"So Net Force systems were unaffected?"

"Yep. He tried, but he bounced off our wards. Guy's not as sharp as he thinks. He doesn't know who he's messing with. We'll run him down."

For no reason at all, Michaels had a sudden flare of suspicion. Unless he wanted us to think he couldn't get past our guards.

"All right. Go and find whoever did this. Let me know how it progresses."

"You got it, Chief."

Gridley stood and sauntered from his office. Once the young man was gone, Michaels leaned back in his chair and pondered the situation. Since Steve Day's death, something hadn't felt right. He couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, but he felt as if somehow Net Force was under attack. It could be nothing more than the professional paranoia of course, that went with the job, but if it wasn't, if somebody was out to damage Net Force, who was it? And more important than that, why?

He waved a hand back and forth over his com unit.

From her office next door, Toni said, "Yes?"

"Hey, Toni. Anything new?"

"Sorry, Alex, no."

Day's murder still hung over the unit like a heavy thundercloud: dark, threatening, unresolved.

He started to say something to his assistant, but decided to hold off. He didn't want to sound like the little boy crying wolf; besides, there was enough on his plate to worry about: the murder investigation, the situation in Ukraine, the other net problems. Better to keep his unfounded suspicions to himself, unless something else came along to give them some weight.