Springboard

2

Chang Han Yao sighed and shook his head at the image on the computer screen. Pornography, and from a Chinese website no less. At least the server was in Beijing, thousands of kilometers away from him.

It was not particularly inspired, the picture, a plain-vanilla Chinese man and woman, both naked, coupling, nothing perverse about it. They appeared young, but they were not children. They might even be married, so that what they were doing could be perfectly legal in and of itself, although the posting of it in public to drum up sales for more of the same was certainly not.

Chang ran the simple backlook bot he had gotten in England the last time he’d been there, a basic, no-frills, easily fooled piece of software he’d been using for almost a year — a lifetime in computer circles — and it took all of two seconds for the program to render the address of the person who had posted the image of the young couple. A telephone call, and the People’s Police would drop round and gather up the sleaze artists. And that would be the end of that — at least as far as Chang was concerned.

If only all his work was this easy.

Fortunately, most Chinese were still not as sophisticated as the rest of the world when it came to computers, and that made some of Chang’s job relatively simple.

Unfortunately, that was changing. Once his people had gained access to the international net, the home-grown product had started to improve dramatically. Now there were people in his country who would not be caught so easily as this would-be smut peddler, those who could rascal their addresses from all but the most cutting-edge huntbots. Chang’s generally superior software and abilities were constantly being overtaken by a new breed of operator, and his goal of running a Chinese agency at the sophisticated level of the United States’ own Net Force was a very long way from being realized.

Still, if one reached, one should reach high.

Pandora’s box had been opened, the cat allowed to escape from the bag, the thousand-year-old egg hatched — and there was no turning back. This new breed of hackers and sysops was smart. More, they had grown up enjoying private enterprise, so they had money, and money gave access to better and better software and hardware, not all of which was legal.

Chang himself, only thirty, had been one of the Xaio Pangzi children — the “small fatties,” so called because they grew up in a time when food was plentiful for the middle class. A fat child was a testament to his parents’ wealth. Chang knew those with whom he was dealing.

It was a long way from Beijing to Ürümqui. Were it not for the computer school established here only eighteen months past, and the new chip plant still under construction, Chang would not have been sent to this town. Yes, he had others working for him, and certainly they did their jobs as best they could, but the government still did not understand so much. If they would just—

He smiled, laughing at himself. Yes, yes, yes. And were there no sun, it would always be night.

Chang shook his head. There was no point in traveling along the what-if road. It led nowhere.

He constantly had to struggle to convince the powers that be that he needed to upgrade his systems just to keep pace, to say nothing of staying ahead of the criminal elements. As a Muslim who had the right to put “Haj” before his name, having made the pilgrimage to Mecca only two years before, Chang had a strong sense of morality. Evil would ultimately be punished by Allah, but in the meantime, Chang was able to offer his small part in this world.

Getting some help himself now and then would be nice, Insh’allah…

Captain Jay Gridley looked at his crew. They were down a man, the air in the ship was stale and smelled like lube, but the alien that had killed Hobbs wasn’t going to get any more of them. They were still more than ten light seconds away from the Mars Skyhook, almost two million miles, clearing the Bussey Cluster with a cruise-ship-sized chunk of nickel-iron on the pusher, and nobody was anywhere near close enough to help them.

“All right,” Captain Gridley said, “here’s how it is going to be. Everybody is armed at all times. Nobody goes anywhere alone. We stay together constantly, no exceptions. If you hear a funny noise, you don’t go to check it out, we all go. If you are hungry, we will all go to the galley and have a snack. We sleep in shifts, and you will have a blaster under your pillow. If you see the alien, you shoot it first and tell the rest of us later. If you see somebody start shooting, you aim your weapon in the same general direction and you cook, too.”

He paused to let that sink in, then continued. “We aren’t going to go into the air duct system looking for this thing, nor are we going to roam around in the storage areas where the lighting is dim. If it wants us, it is going to have to come and get us and we will make it cross empty space to do it. No matter how tough its skin is, it can’t withstand the fire of seven blasters hitting it at once. If we see it — when we see it — we kill it. If it is the last of its kind, too bad — it should have thought of that before.”

He paused again, making eye contact with each individual member of his crew. “This, people, is how you stay alive when faced with this kind of threat — you’ve all seen idiot-plot movies and you ought to know by now that the first rule is: You don’t do anything stupid so the monster has a chance to get you. Any questions?”

There weren’t any.

Jay grinned. In the real world, he was in Quantico, Virginia, at Net Force HQ, initiating a virus protection program with half a dozen sub-routines, wired and taped and shrouded in VR gear, running cutting-edge software on the latest hardware. Here in virtual reality, he was on a space tug, protecting it from a nasty alien monster, which was definitely a lot more fun.

Most people didn’t realize that specialized computer hacking was normally about as exciting as watching grass grow. With the advent of VR, you could kick that up a bunch of notches, and improve your own effectiveness in the process.

Not that he needed much help in the effectiveness department. The truth was that most computer criminals weren’t all that bright, and so far, none of them had been brighter than Jay Gridley, who sat atop Net Force’s electronic food chain. This particular virus was only a threat to people who didn’t know how to deal with it, and Jay could take care of the beast with one hand tied behind him and one eye closed…

“Jay?”

The com override cut into the scenario. Only a few people could do that — his boss, his ex-boss and his ex-boss’s wife, and Jay’s wife. And the voice was that of Saji, his spouse and mother of Mark Jefferson Gridley, the world’s most beautiful baby.

Jay killed the scenario. “Hey, babe. What’s up?”

“Your son just laughed at me.”

“Really?”

“I know he’s not supposed to be doing that at two months, but he did. He smiled and he laughed!”

Jay smiled, too. “The boy is a genius, no question about it. He takes after his father, obviously.”

“I’ll let you get back to work,” Saji said. “I just wanted you to know.”

“Thanks, sweetie. I’m almost done here. I’ll be home in a couple hours.”

“I love you,” she said.

“Me, too, you.”

After she discommed, Jay smiled again. He did that a lot lately. Being a husband and a father had not even been on his horizon a few years back, and it was a big change, but it was so much more than he had ever thought it could be.

He was about to restart the VR scenario, when the com lit again.

It was Commander Thorn.

“Jay?”

“Right here.”

“Come by my office when you get a chance, would you? There has been an… interesting development here.”

“Sure thing, Boss.”

Had to be more interesting than this by-the-numbers virus hunting, Jay figured. He switched off the system and began to shuck the VR gear.

Colonel Abraham “Abe” Kent was lying on his back in the Net Force gym with his feet propped up on a chair, his knees bent at right angles, doing crunches. He had done four sets of twenty-five, and figured he needed at least two more before his abs burned enough so he had to stop. It wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t interesting, but it was part of the regimen. A man his age didn’t get to slack off on keeping fit. Once it was gone, he might not be able to get it back. The days when he could party all night long and then run the Marine obstacle course faster than anybody else on the base were thirty years past; now he was happy if he could run the course and beat anybody without injuring something.

He frowned through the ache in his belly muscles, still doing the crunches, alternating now from side to side, touching his left knee with his right elbow, then the right knee with the left. He wasn’t standing with one foot in the grave — at least he hoped not — but once you hit forty, you were on the downside; fifty, and the wrinkles started winning. You had to fight to keep your muscles and flexibility. Not that he had to do a lot of running if he didn’t want — at his rank he could decorate a chair and no one would think anything about it, though he couldn’t see himself doing that.

After thirty years in the Marine Corps, the switch to commanding Net Force’s military arm was a big change. Technically, he was working for the National Guard now. Nothing wrong with the Guard, he’d known some fine soldiers from that branch, but nobody did things quite like the Corps did.

And, as it had recently, the memory of the assassin who was also a classical guitarist came back to haunt him. Natadze, the Georgian, remained free, and that grated on Kent. He hated to fail at anything, and even though nobody else blamed him for the man’s escape, he knew he was responsible. Natadze was his job, and sooner or later, he was going to have to do something about it—

His virgil tweeted. He stopped exercising and picked it up. This was the work phone. Whoever was calling would be more important than a few sit-ups.

“Colonel Kent here.”

“Abe, Tom Thorn. Would you drop by my office when you get a minute?”

“On my way, sir.”

Thorn sat in the conference room. Abe Kent was already there, and he saw Jay Gridley being directed this way by Thorn’s secretary.

When Jay arrived, Thorn nodded at him. “Gentlemen, Net Force is about to undergo a radical change.”

Both men looked at him, but neither one spoke.

“A few minutes ago, John Howard came by to talk to me. What he had to say will be made at least semipublic by tomorrow, but he wanted to give me a heads-up, and I wanted to pass it along. I took the liberty of recording General Howard’s visit, so it would be easier if you saw it for yourself.”

He touched a control, and the table’s holoprojector clicked on. The holoproj lit the air above the table, visible from any angle. The image showed Howard and Thorn in Thorn’s office.

“Okay if I record this?” the image of Thorn said.

“Fine by me, long as it doesn’t leave the building today. By tomorrow, it won’t matter.”

“Okay. So what’s on your mind, John, that you had to hurry down here?”

Howard took a deep breath. “I don’t know if you are aware that the National Guard has had something of a budget crunch of late. They’ve got funds for Homeland Security stuff, and regular operations, but special ops, such as Net Force’s military arm, have been cut into deeply.”

Thorn gave a faint smile. “Since I go up on the Hill to talk budget more than I like, I was aware of that, General.”

Howard nodded. “Couple that with the fact that the Internet Fraud Complaint Center and the National White Collar Crime Center are finally up and running full-bore, and handling a lot of stuff that Net Force used to do. Add to that the fact that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff really wants Net Force to put his concerns about his VR scenario problems at the top of their to-do list. Plus the general has mondo clout across the board, and what do you think you get?”

Thorn frowned. “I can hazard a guess, of course, John, you’ve done all but connect the dots for me, but I don’t really like guessing games. Why don’t you just say what you came here to tell me?”

“All right, Commander. The Department of Defense is going to take over Net Force from the FBI. Your military arm will be shifted to the Marine Corps, since you’re already right here at Quantico. Nobody will be fired, everything will stay pretty much the same, at least for the time being, but your primary mission from now on will be expanded. The military’s computer problems just got a pass to the top of the pile.”

“No way,” Thorn said.

“Yes, sir, that’s what I’d say in your position.”

“Can they really do this? Something this complex?”

“Sir, I am here to tell you that it’s a done deal.”

Thorn shut the holoproj off and looked at Kent and Gridley.

“No way,” Jay said.

Thorn nodded. “Oh, yes, way, Jay. DoD swings a real big stick these days, and if they want something and can convince the powers that be that they need it? They get it. Which means we have some things to think about.”

When Jay got home, Saji was in the rocking chair her great-grandfather had built for her great-grandmother. The old wooden chair was hickory, and the joints creaked a little every time Saji rocked in it, but there was something apparently soothing about the motion and the noise — the baby, even if he was fussy, calmed right down every time.

“Hey,” Jay called as he came through the door. “Daddy’s home. How’s the world’s most beautiful boy and his mother?”

Saji smiled. “He’s almost asleep.”

Jay nodded. “How was your day?”

“Great.” Saji kept rocking, slow and steady, as she told him the adventures of Mark Gridley, the brightest, funniest, most gorgeous child who had ever been born. Every diaper change, every burp, every wiggle. What amazed Jay — what had amazed him from the moment he first saw his child — was that he found everything about Mark just as fascinating as Saji did. He could just sit and watch the baby do nothing. Jay’s new favorite way to spend an hour resting was to lie down with Mark sleeping on his chest. Jay had never felt anything like this before: He was a father, and he couldn’t get enough of it. Had anybody told him even a few months ago that this was how he’d be, he wouldn’t have believed it.

“You want to hold him?”

“Yes.”

They switched places. Jay put the baby over his shoulder and restarted the gentle motion of the chair. Mark yawned, made one of his funny squeaks, and closed his eyes.

“And how was your day?” Saji asked.

“Not as much fun as yours.” He explained about the changes coming to Net Force. Mark fell asleep in the middle of this, apparently not at all interested in his father’s work. He’d sleep for at least an hour, and the drone of their voices wouldn’t wake him — once he was out, he slept like, well, a baby…

“So, what are you going to do, Jay?”

“For now, go along and see how things shake out. I can always get another job if the military folks turn out to be a bunch of bigger idiots than I think they will be. Though I have to say I would be surprised if that’s possible.”

The baby sighed, and added a kind of warbling moan at the end.

His parents smiled at each other. What a wonderful child he was.