Private Lives

3

Several days later Leif sat beside his father in the Andersons’ living room, watching the family’s holo system. A recording of the now-infamous Winters interview played to its end.

“I can see why Captain Winters got so upset on-camera,” Magnus Anderson said. “Given the program, and the purported purpose of the interview, that was a pretty low blow, even for a would-be newshound. The captain made a pretty good recover, except for that single, unguarded moment.”

“I’m just glad I finally got a chance to see what all the fuss is about.” Leif glanced at his father. “Thanks for busting it out of Fortress HoloNews. I hope it wasn’t a problem.”

Magnus Anderson shrugged. Leif thought his dad looked a little embarrassed, which was odd. His father usually wasn’t shy about using his wealth or position to get something when he felt the results justified the means.

“It just took a little honcho-to-honcho communication, calling in a few favors,” his dad said. “Deborah Rockwell runs the Washington operation.” He hesitated. “She used to be an on-air reporter, and I knew her.”

Leif raised his eyebrows at the tone in his father’s voice. “Knew her?”

An uncomfortable pause ensued.

“It was back in the dawn of time, before I met your mother,” Magnus Anderson finally said. “We dated for a while.”

“It all comes clear.” Leif laughed. “You bummed a copy off an old girlfriend.”

“Which might teach you something,” his still-embarrassed father replied. “When you break up with someone, try to do it so that you keep a friend instead of making an enemy.”

Now it was Leif’s turn to be embarrassed. Leif’s last relationship had been fairly tumultuous, and the resulting break-up had been a messy one. The girl in question had been a pretty but spoiled debutante far too used to getting her own way and having exactly what she wanted. By the time Leif figured this out, it was too late for him to simply disappear from the picture. When he had finally tired of catering to her every outrageous whim and had tried to distance himself gracefully, the results had been — well, Leif had seen Fourth of July celebrations with less fireworks. Both the spoiled debutante and her parents were still after his scalp.

Thankfully, his father changed the subject. “How much ‘fuss’ has this thing generated?” he asked, gesturing toward the holo display, which now showed Jay-Jay McGuffin moving on to his next guest. The newsman still looked disappointed that his final question hadn’t rattled Winters into saying something inflammatory.

Little had McGuffin realized at that point what he had stirred up with his sledgehammer-style interview tactics. If he’d had the slightest inkling then of the trouble he was in for, he’d have looked nervous instead of disappointed.

“Fuss?” Leif said. “Oh, about as much as if that genius had rammed his face into a hornets’ nest. The kids who saw the interview were calling those who hadn’t while the show was still on. By evening every chapter of the Net Force Explorers in the country had heard of McGuffin’s dirty trick. A fair number of the kids decided to get back at him.”

“And how exactly was he stung?” Magnus Anderson wanted to know.

“At last count, about forty-five hundred phony subscriptions to various publications were entered in his name. He — um—‘enrolled’ in a lot of different newsgroups and got on a lot of e-mail lists,” Leif said. “All of a sudden, he started getting recipes for rhubarb pies, begging letters from every charity known to mankind, and information from the Flat Earth Society. Entomologists Online was keeping him up to date on the latest in insect research, complete with detailed scenarios on the private lives of fruit flies. My favorite touch was the guy who volunteered him to the Amalgamated Historical Simulation Organizations. They were pretty surprised at Jay-Jay’s registration form. Not too many people sign up to get virtually massacred by the Mongol hordes every time they go online.”

His father silently shook his head.

“Well, you’ve got to give the kid who came up with that one credit for originality,” Leif said. “I guess McGuffin wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. Not when he chose to very publicly offend a guy with a couple of thousand protohacker friends.”

“Especially when said friends are mostly under the age of seventeen,” Magnus Anderson said dryly. He looked for a long moment at his son. “And you didn’t get involved at all?”

Leif could understand his father’s skeptical tone. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that he’d gotten into big trouble for hacking into the private files of the Washington Post to help a Net Force Explorer friend. That had not, technically, been illegal. Leif had gotten the codes to get in. But it had been way over the line as far as his parents were concerned. And Leif had paid for it, big-time.

“I didn’t do a thing,” Leif told his father, trying to look as virtuous as possible. “I’ve learned lately to look before I leap.”

Leif didn’t mention that he’d been out the night that the “Get McGuffin!” campaign had started. Or that, when he’d finally checked his e-mail messages, all the best cybervengeance schemes had been used already.

“How about this other character?” Magnus Anderson asked. “The gangster — Alcista?”

“Net Force Explorers are not stupid. Even we know he’s out of our league. Besides, Winters personally asked us to butt out. No more ragging on McGuffin, and absolutely no fooling around with Alcista.”

Leif’s father nodded. “What’s the old quote? ‘Leave him to heaven.’”

“Shakespeare,” Leif said. “And it’s ‘Leave her to heaven.’ The ghost says it in Act One of Hamlet.”

Magnus Anderson gave his son one of those looks. “Well, at least you’re learning something while you’re giving your mother and me gray hair.”

Leif had nothing to say to that. Luckily, he also had a distraction. “My wallet-phone just went off,” he said, reaching into his back pocket.

It only took a moment to convert the wallet’s circuitry. Leif held the foilpack phone up to his ear. “Hello? Matt! What are you—?”

That was as far as he got. Leif sat for a long moment, listening, his face going grimmer with every word he heard.

“Yeah. I don’t think it would have made the New York news, either. Thanks for letting me know.” He sighed. “Maybe this will mean the end of all this nonsense. We can only hope so, at any rate.”

Leif said goodbye to Matt Hunter, then cut the connection.

Magnus Anderson looked carefully at his son. “A problem?” he asked.

“Looks as if someone decided to ignore both Shakespeare and Captain Winters,” Leif said. “According to Washington HoloNews, Steve the Bull Alcista got into his car earlier this evening, and it blew up with him inside it. He’s history.”

Guess you can’t be lucky all the time, Matt Hunter thought a couple of days later as he sat in front of his family’s holo system. Steve the Bull’s release from prison had been lost among a flurry of hot news items. But the Alcista murder happened on a slow news day. Leif had called him to report that Alcista’s death had indeed made the New York newscasts, even led off a couple of the shows. The story was national.

Even now, two days later, interest was still high. The top HoloNews magazine show, Once Around the Clock, had done a special report on the New Mafia. Several reporters hosted segments on the computer-literate leaders who had arisen from old-style crime families to take advantage of the criminal aspects of the Net. In these segments Steve the Bull was depicted as a throwback to the pre-Net days, too quick with his trigger finger to succeed in the new criminal empire.

Then Tori Rush came on. She was the latest addition to the staff of the newsmagazine, with only a couple of years on the air under her belt. Blond and petite, she looked like America’s kid sister — America’s sexy kid sister.

But she certainly wasn’t very cute and cuddly right now. Her story was an exposé on the bombing of Alcista’s car. And she was questioning the current police theory that Alcista’s murder was an organized-crime hit. Tori had done her homework — she’d gone all the way back to the case that had put the crime boss in jail this time: the computer-driven looting of a legitimate corporation.

In addition to background information on the case itself, she had a lot of footage about how Alcista had allegedly tried to kill the pair of Net Force agents investigating that case. Alcista or one of his minions had supposedly rigged the Net Force agents’ vehicles with car bombs.

Tori Rush’s slightly pouty lips formed a hard, thin line as she went into crusading-reporter mode. “The charges that Alcista planted the devices were, in the end, never successfully proved in a court of law, but the bombs were a definite fact. One Net Force agent lost his wife as a result of them.” The hologram image filled with a photo — a younger James Winters with a pretty dark-haired woman holding on to his arm.

“Cynthia Winters drove her husband’s car on the morning of Monday, April 19, 2021. The bomb wired to the ignition killed her instantly. It has been more than four years since that terrible incident. But it’s safe to say that Net Force Captain James Winters hasn’t forgotten, as this recent interview shows.”

Matt’s skin crawled as a familiar scene appeared on the display. Jay-Jay McGuffin asked Captain Winters how he felt about Steve the Bull Alcista getting out of prison.

The image zoomed in and froze on the raw rage engraved on the captain’s face.

Then the terrifying close-up of James Winters was replaced by the image of Tori Rush, looking very serious.

“New Mafia or not,” she said, “it might be wise to remember that Stefano Alcista’s enemies are not all criminals.”

Tori’s segment ended, and an ad came on. But Matt Hunter still faced the holo set, feeling slightly numb.

I always thought Tori Rush was kind of hot, he thought. Not anymore. If she could do that to the captain, she’s cold. He shuddered. Cold as ice.

Megan O’Malley blinked through her connection to the Net — and opened her eyes to the virtual meeting hall of the Net Force Explorers. The crowd was bigger than usual, so she had a bit of a job finding her friends. And when she did, none of them — not even Mark Gridley — could explain why a special national meeting had been called.

At eight o’clock on the dot one of the walls receded to create a small stage where James Winters stood. But he wasn’t alone.

“Dad!” Mark Gridley blurted out. Jay Gridley, the head of Net Force, stood beside him. Behind them were two more men — strangers.

“Welcome to this special meeting of the Net Force Explorers.” Captain Winters followed his usual ritual for officially starting a meeting, then hesitated. “I think I’ll let the boss take over from here,” he said.

Jay Gridley stepped forward. “Captain Winters suggested this meeting, and asked that I be here so that you’d be the first to hear about this situation — and you’d get the story straight from the source, without any exaggerations or distortions.”

“What situation?” Megan hissed at Mark Gridley. “What story?”

All she got was a baffled shrug in reply.

“Last night a national newsmagazine broadcast raised certain questions about one of our agents,” Gridley went on. “I don’t think those questions are valid, but for the good of the agency I do think they should be answered fully. So I’ve asked Hank Steadman, the head of our Internal Affairs division, to conduct an investigation of that agent.”

“Hangman Hank, that’s what I’ve heard the regular agents call him,” Megan heard somebody mutter in the crowd. “He’s head of the rat squad.”

The older of the two other men on the virtual stage stepped forward. “My people will try to do their jobs as quickly and unobtrusively as possible,” Steadman said. “But it’s official Net Force policy that while the investigation goes on, the agent under investigation, Captain James Winters, will remain off duty.”

A storm of murmured protest broke out among the Net Force Explorers at this announcement. Captain Winters took the podium and raised his voice. “I realize this is going to be tough on you, just as it’s tough on me. And I’m touched by your loyalty. But rules are rules, and I can hardly ask you to remember that axiom if I don’t follow it myself. This is the way things have to be,” he said, “while Captain Steadman makes his necessary, routine…and hopefully brief…investigation.”

Jay Gridley gave a quick, emphatic nod.

Megan noticed, however, that “Hangman Hank” Steadman’s nod wasn’t as positive.

Jay Gridley took over the meeting again. “Think of it as Captain Winters finally being able to take some vacation time. We all know how hard the man works. A little peace will do him good,” he said. “While Captain Winters is away, your Net Force Explorers liaison will be Agent Len Dorpff.”

Megan finally turned her attention to the fourth man on the stage. Compared to the rest of the men, Agent Len Dorpff looked like a kid. In fact, several of the kids in the crowd facing the podium looked older than he did. Dorpff had an eager, awkward kind of face. With freckles. Worst of all, at least from Megan’s point of view, his ears stuck out.

“Agent?” David Gray muttered in scorn as he looked at the man. “He doesn’t look old enough to have finished college, much less the FBI Academy. Looks to me like Net Force scraped the bottom of the barrel to come up with him.”

“Looks like it,” Leif Anderson agreed. “In Gridley’s defense, it was short notice, and a temporary assignment at that. He probably didn’t want to put someone too valuable into the position.”

Dorpff stepped out front and center, like a cadet about to speak to his class.

“Men,” he began. Then he broke off, his face going a dull red as he scanned his audience. Roughly half the kids there — maybe more — were girls. Megan wasn’t the only girl who bristled at the agent’s unthinking comment.

“People,” Dorpff hastily changed his opening. “Young…people.”

He’s babbling, Megan thought.

The young agent finally got back to his prepared speech, seemingly grabbing at his cue cards like a drowning man at a lifeline. “I’ll be stepping into some pretty big shoes for this assignment, but Captain Winters has been kind enough to brief me—”

“Clearly not enough,” a female voice said with enough volume to make Dorpff blush again.

“I hope we’ll be able to work together to keep things running during the captain’s absence.” Dorpff’s words came out in a desperate rush.

Megan glanced around at her friends, who looked about as stunned and unhappy as she did. She didn’t care how old Dorpff was or what he looked like as long as he was up to the job. But Megan wasn’t sensing a comfortable level of competence about this man. He was in over his head and going down three times — almost before he even started.

We’ve got to do something, she thought. With this clown running things, the Explorers won’t last a week!