The Heretic

Jason K. Chapman

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Copyright ©2000 by Jason K.Chapman.

All rights reserved.

ISBN

1-929925-38-7

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

00-110154

Jason K.Chapman

The Heretic

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Prologue

I am not dead.

Many have tried to disappear by killing themselves, but never very successfully. I can tell a dead person from a real dead person in a matter of minutes. They always leave a trace, some ethereal link to the life they can’t quite leave behind.

Not me. I’m unreachable. No trace. No link. No wispy ghost of an afterimage. I am impervious, because I never existed. It took me the better part of a week to do it, but time has no meaning to the undead. One at a time I reached out, sweeping record after record into non-existence. Hospital records show that my mother never registered to have her second child. College transcripts disappeared during routine maintenance on a night when the backup mysteriously failed. Even my former employer never hired me. That would have been easy even without the access codes. The FBI’s system is far less secure than most people think.

I wander the world at will. Untraceable. Unstoppable. I am a shadow.

Why, then, if I’ve done such a masterful job of eliminating myself, am I writing all of this down? Because someday, someone should know. I am the chronicler of my own history. Where would Merlin be if no one had recorded the tales? Or Hercules? I’ve read the rumors about myself discussed on various webs; the tales of a giant that walks the land, the legends of a powerful electronic demon who leaves footprints leading nowhere. I’ve been suspected of being a glitch, a virus, a team of masterminds hired by a foreign country. One person even supposed me to be the Guild, itself, though I never heard from that person again.

I am none of these things. I am what I choose to be.

In your hands, you hold a legend.

Chapter 1

I was working in my study one evening, or maybe it was afternoon. I’m not really sure which it was, nor does it matter. I was trying to trim that last few milliseconds off of RADER. My RApid DEstructive Relocate program was already impressive. It could spirit away huge amounts of data before most targets could even detect it. It had been my coup d’grace in many battles, but there is always room for improvement.

My study was a spell caster’s dream. I had three separate processors arrayed before me. Two were Guild- certified commercial systems. One of these handled the main processing while the other strictly managed communications. The third, however, was my own design and it was responsible for controlling the complex set of interfaces I used. Yes, that’s among the reasons I never got along with the Guild. I have this thing for hardware. But before you discount me as an infidel, remember; I cast the spells that made it work. It takes more than a piece of glass to make a crystal ball. I see nothing wrong with using a talisman or two, as long as you create them yourself.

The room was lit by fat, dripping candles and washed in the eerie glow of CRT light. I settled into my high-backed chair. It was made of dark, oiled wood and had lion claws for feet. Fierce dragons glared out from the armrests while the scroll work behind me suggested a gargoyle watching over my shoulder. It was a powerful chair.

I pulled on my gloves and my hands seemed to flicker with faerie light. Even the new phonetic keyboards were too slow for my talents. The gloves allowed me to work in my own special sign language, the movements of my hands translated instantly into actions by that third system.

An unholy roar came from the speakers. It was the cry of my guardian, warning me of an incoming message. There was obviously no danger, or it would have taken off, blocking the transmission and tracking it to its source. It was clever enough to scramble the core of a rank amateur without my direct attention.

I waved my hand and a crystal ball appeared on the screen. The message floated to the surface.

“We need to talk,” it said.

That was why my guardian had let the message through. It was from Galileo. That’s what he says when he comes across a situation that requires my presence.

Galileo is very capable on his own, but he’s limited. He holds the rank of Acolyte in the Guild, though I handle his assignments for him. I work hard not to make him look too good. It was agony progressing him through the Apprentice and Neophyte grades, but it was worth it. There were things I could do through Galileo that might have been inconvenient otherwise.

“We need to talk, now!” The words on the crystal ball looked almost frantic.

My left hand traced Galileo’s symbol in the air while my right snapped up a teleport. I was hit with an instant of vertigo. It was as if I were suddenly seeing through the eyes of someone half way across the country. I gestured for a status listing when a tiny, yellow dot appeared in the center of the screen. Before the listing was complete, the dot grew. It became a huge fireball which exploded on the screen, staining everything with a sickly sodium tint. It was a nice effect, but that’s all it was. It told me several things, though. First, the challenger had managed to identify the equipment that my little friend appeared to be using. Otherwise, the fireball trick would never have worked. Second, Galileo was sadly outmatched. His opponent was not an amateur. The fireball was the work of someone well above Galileo’s Guild class. So why had the silly little fool accepted the challenge?

There was no time to worry about it. Galileo had cast an identify and a locate, both of which reported failure. I bolstered his defenses and summoned a SPRITE, sending it down the line to sniff out the attacker. My SPRITE is no ordinary search program. It actually relocates itself from system to system, savaging message buffers in search of the source. It hunts the net like a bloodhound and comes home when it finds the target. I incorporated some artificial intelligence routines I won in combat, so it could make a best guess when the clues were sketchy, and just in case, I added a few surprises.

I had no idea when the SPRITE would report back, so I turned my mind to the battle. The attacker had done nothing since the fireball. It was as if he were waiting for something. He should have at least taunted or bragged or something. I started scanning the status of all of Galileo’s internal systems. Numbers and symbols were scrolling up the screen when all the colors suddenly reversed themselves. I paused the display and the colors blinked back and forth a few times. I pulled up a memory map of the video section just as all the zeros on the screen turned to the letter Z and back to zeros again. Then the fives flipped to A’s. I knew what was happening, now.

The fireball had been fluff, a very pretty piece of misdirection, but a Trojan horse all the same. I changed displays and watched in real time as the intruder probed interrupt vectors and poked at memory addresses, attempting to rewrite the video processing section and eventually take over the whole system. If Galileo had really been running on the Pentonics 1000 he appeared to be, the attacker would have had him dead bang. Fortunately, nothing about Galileo is what it seems to be.

Working mostly from memory, the display was almost useless now, I initiated a process that would constantly rewrite the video section back to its original form. That would solve the problem until I could track down the offending code. Sure, it chewed up CPU cycles, but Galileo had horsepower to burn. The display cleared and I was ready to go to work.

I turned on my microphone and recorded a message. “Nice try. Did you really think that would work? Are you ready for the fun and games or are you out of tricks?”

Like talking into a bottle, I captured the words in digital form. I checked the length. It was long enough. Into the digital packet, I wove the RADER program and a small routine that would key on his audio processor. I still didn’t know what kind of system he was using, but the trick would work on three out of five systems. That is, if he wasn’t watching for it.

I sent the recording and prepared to capture the data that should come streaming in any second. What I got was three numbers: 573. That’s it. A moment later, the SPRITE returned, reporting that he had lost the trail. I checked. The attacker was no longer connected.

I found the nasty little bug that had slipped in with the fireball and squashed it, though not before saving a copy of it for later examination. The big question was why the battle had begun at all. Galileo would never accept a challenge out of class like that.

I called up the records of the exchange. There had been no challenge to accept. Galileo had been attacked without warning and without identification. That was wrong no matter how you looked at it. Sure, Guild members engaged in contests with each other all the time, but there were formalities to follow: exchanging names, working names, of course, not true names, and revealing Guild ranking. Even if the marauder had not been a Guild member, there was an informal code of ethics on the net.

I took some small comfort from the knowledge that the rogue would not last long. The Guild takes care of its own. Hacking Guild members is not exactly a wise career move. Everyone knows the story about the guy who crossed the Guild and found himself suddenly buried in heartache. The legend says he woke up about a million dollars in debt. He had credit card bills he had never incurred and had no way to disprove and arrest warrants that had never seen a judge. Even the IRS suddenly discovered he owed huge sums in back taxes. I don’t know if the story is true or not. It seems like the kind of tale designed to frighten children into good behavior.

It could be true, though. I think I could do that to someone. Not that I would, of course. At least, not without good cause.

There had only been a single contact before the attack and it bothered me on some unconscious level. There had been an anonymous e-mail before the onslaught. It was two pages long in a single column. Over and over again it said 573-.

Was this some sort of signature, the villain’s handle? The sequence was familiar somehow, but chances are any three digit number will strike a chord with most people. As many numbers as we deal with every day, it has to ring some bell; a telephone exchange, an address, the price of the meat loaf surprise at the local diner.

Whoever this 573 person was, he made a mistake picking on harmless little Galileo. That sounds menacing, doesn’t it? It wasn’t meant to. I mean, 573 screwed up. No one can defeat Galileo. Had the attacker come close, my friend would have vanished in a puff of digital vapor. You see, my little pal is a creature; my creature to be exact. He lives between the lines of some file maintenance routines, tucked in a dark little corner of the system segment of a mainframe somewhere in Dallas. The mail order company that owns the system uses it to process orders on-line twenty-four hours a day. They have no idea Galileo is even there. Excuse me if I sound proud, but Galileo is one of my finest creations.

It was time for him to shut himself down for the day. He went dormant during the system’s peak hours so that no one would notice the missing CPU cycles. He operated strictly on the unused processing time that would otherwise be wasted. Incidentally, he also cleans up the company’s phone bills, eliminating any charges for his own activities. I have taken great care to ensure that Galileo costs the company nothing. In fact, he has even foiled a few attempts to gain illegal access to the system. Unscrupulous hackers are always trying to steal credit card numbers or place false orders for merchandise. Galileo takes care of his host. He is a symbiote, not a parasite. He protects them, they shelter him. If the company actually knew he existed, it would be a perfect arrangement.

I snapped back to my study and made sure all was clear. Then I sent out a handful of SPRITES with instructions to search out references to 573. I narrowed the search as much as possible, but they were going to come back with a lot of useless information. Still, somewhere in that mess might be the clue I needed. I sent them on their way and went to bed.

Chapter 2

It was one of those mornings I hate. I lay in bed willing the sun to reverse its course and dive back into the Montana hills outside my window. It didn’t work. Things like that never do in real life.

Galileo was between assignments so I, consequently, was unemployed. The income was not the important point, I left a trail showing that he lived barely within his means, tripping his way along the young professional tightrope. I never touched any of his money. I had other arrangements. Unfortunately, those arrangements included days like these. I had my coffee outside. The air was chilled, the coffee was hot, and I, dressed in my long-sleeved, hooded robe, stood comfortably in between. Like a participant in some ancient Druidic rite, I greeted the day. A hunting bird, what kind I didn’t know, screeched a predatory salute, and as far as I could tell we were the only living things within thirty miles. I liked it that way. That’s why I arranged to occupy this ranch. I had twelve hundred acres all to myself out in the middle of nowhere. Technically, the ranch belonged to the Ledbetter Orphanage. It was maintained so that twice a year a hundred screaming children could get a taste of life outside the big city.

Of course, those kids would need to eat. They would need supplies and sundries. And there would need to be a caretaker who lived there year round. That was me. Another perfect arrangement, flawlessly detailed, exactingly executed, and totally, totally fabricated. I am Ledbetter’s only orphan. Illusion is my specialty, but illusion doesn’t offer much nutrition. I dressed slowly, dragging myself around with reluctance. The only bright spot was when I stopped in my study long enough to transmit a list of supplies to the nearest grocery store. I followed it with a financial transfer in the appropriate amount directly from the account of the Ledbetter Orphanage. I forced myself to leave the net and go out to my truck.

The truck was the ragged red pickup that was the sine qua non of life in back country Montana and I was wearing my residential camouflage outfit; jeans, a flannel shirt, and cowboy boots. I nearly gagged on the cliche, but there is a reason that types evolve into stereotypes. They’re typical. It didn’t matter if people thought I was a native, or an import trying to look like a native, the effect was the same. They would size me up and write me off.

It took me almost an hour to reach town. The ranch was not that far away, but I never looked forward to the trip and my driving showed it. I stayed comfortably below the speed limit on those roads that had them, and practically crawled down those that did not. I rolled into the thriving metropolis of Elk Ridge, Montana, whose population is less than that of my silverware drawer, feeling like a bug on a microscope slide. Strangers drew stares from everyone. Even though much of the commerce in Elk Ridge was carried on by those who lived well out of town, I went there so rarely I was always a stranger. I preferred it that way.

The clerk at the grocery store dripped with that syrupy friendliness that denotes either small town charm or bumpkin buffoonery, depending on your opinion. I explained that I was there to pick up the order for the Ledbetter Orphanage.

“You Mr. Paine?” he asked.

I said that I was. That was the name of the caretaker in the employ of the Ledbetter Foundation.

He looked at me and spoke as if it hurt. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask to see your driver’s license.”

I drew breath to respond, but he started talking first. “I know it’s a hassle,” he said, radiating apology. “The boss says I have to. You can’t be too careful these days, you know.” Sometimes the naivete of the uninitiated is hilarious. A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth as I pulled out my wallet and withdrew the license of one Thomas Paine. The photograph was mine. The twinkling hologram of the great state of Montana flashed its authenticity.

“Looks good,” he said, satisfied.

Of course it looked good. It was genuine. The name, the driving record and the order to replace the lost original were fabricated, but once they were in the computer they took on the reality of granite.

“Name sounds familiar,” he said as he hefted the first of several cartons of groceries. “Can’t quite place it, though.” “I get that a lot,” I said, without a trace of humor.

He continued to chat as we loaded cases of canned goods and boxes of frozen foods. “Still,” he said, “it’s better than John Smith or something like that.”

I longed to just wave my hand and make him silent, but that only worked at home on the net.

“I knew a fellah that changed his name,” he went on. “He didn’t like the one he was born with, so he went to a judge and changed it. Just like that.”

“It’s that easy, huh?” I asked.

“Yup,” he snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

“Amazing,” I said, going back for another box of food.

When we finished loading the back of the pickup, he pulled a printout from his pocket. It was wrinkled and limp with sweat. He flipped to the last page. “Says here they sent too much money,” he said. “There’s an extra twenty bucks.”

“Here,” I said, reaching for it. “Let me sign that. It’s for your tip.”

“Oh, no,” he pulled the printout away. “I’ll have the boss refund it.” He dug into the pocket of his jeans and came up with a wadded ten dollar bill. “Here,” he said, holding it out to me. “Put this with it. It’s for the kids.”

“Keep it,” I said. “The orphanage is very well endowed.”

Very well, indeed. The orphanage had been set up with a grant from the Ledbetter Foundation which in turn had been funded by a very large, anonymous donation from an off-shore account. If the kid actually knew how much money was involved he would probably faint.

“Trust me,” I said. “They have more than enough.”

He looked at the bill, then back at me. “If you say so.” He stuffed it back in his pocket. “Don’t seem right, though.” I assured him it was fine and hurried to my truck. I had had about enough of him, and I still had some other stops to make. He waved as I drove away, but I pretended not to notice.

I stopped at the post office, but not for mail. I get no mail, not even junk mail. That is one great thing about the advent of the net. The junk mail is easier to dispose of. No, there was a package there for the orphanage. I had placed an order for some electronic components, ostensibly for a project for the kids. That embellishment had almost been a mistake. I had to convince Pendelton Electronics not to donate the parts for a write-off. Everybody loves kids almost as much as they hate taxes. Sometimes I get too caught up in my own illusions. The hardware store was my last stop. It was run by an elderly couple who had never quite caught on to the twenty-first century. They had no arrangement for on-line ordering. I had to shop like anyone else, walking the aisles and carrying my selections. They weren’t completely archaic, though. Mr. Paine’s Ledbetter credit card was always welcome.

It wasn’t one of those fancy cards named after some precious metal, but it was valid and it was always paid off. I may be a rogue, but I am not a thief. The card sailed through the approval process and the proprietor smiled at me, proudly displaying his yellowed dentures.

“Amazing things, these credit cards,” he said.

“Yes, Sir,” I agreed. “They are.”

“I hardly ever get any folding money anymore.”

He looked at the card before handing it to me. “Paine,” he said. “You grow up around here? Name sounds awfully familiar.”

I put the card away and picked up my purchases. “I get that a lot,” I said.

Chapter 3

Search Program: Relocatable Interface-Transportable Execution Version 9.3: Ready.

I can acronymize with the best of them. All but one of my SPRITEs had reported back and I was deluged with information. They had spent two full days zipping around the net, collecting bits and fragments, storing addresses and dumping it all at my feet. I started trying to organize it the best I could, sure that the last one would be back soon.

You would be amazed at the number of prominent buildings whose address is 573. Take, for example, the building that houses City Hall in Whipshaw, North Carolina, or the law offices of Esreth, Morton, and James in Omaha. I compiled one whole database of nothing but 573 addresses, then went on to the rest.

Another four hours of work extracted all of the 573 telephone exchanges. Who knows when you might need a list of every city in North America that has a 573 exchange? The amount of data left over was still enormous.

When I thought to eat, I ate in my study, working the system with the keyboard. On my system, picking up a fork is remarkably similar to copying a file. I set aside every reference that contained a single decimal point, collecting everything from weather reports to sale ads. I doubted the attacker had named himself for the day’s high temperature.

My gatekeeper announced an incoming message. I checked my watch. It was two o’clock in the morning. Once again, the crystal ball showed Galileo’s words. “We need to talk.”

I saved what I was working on, it was going nowhere, anyway, and acknowledged the message.

“I have an assignment,” came the reply.

The words were replaced by a small blue symbol. It was a pentagram: the icon of the Guild. I touched it, and nothing happened. I had forgotten to put on my gloves, so I tapped impatiently at the keyboard, wondering why an assignment would come in at that hour. In response, the message was displayed on my screen.

It was a typical contract, with an urgency bonus appended to it. That meant Galileo would receive the standard rate for his class plus additional money for immediate response. It also meant he had to work straight through to the end of the project. That was how urgency bonuses worked: start now and don’t stop until the job is done.

I was already tired from working on the data the SPRITEs had brought back. I considered turning down the assignment, but only briefly. When a member of the Guild, especially a low ranking member, turns down an assignment, he stops getting other assignments. If he turns down too many, he will eventually stop getting work entirely. The Guild lived up to its name in every feudal, tyrannical sense of the word.

On the other hand, quick response and good performance on urgent jobs could help a Guildman’s career. I was determined to get Galileo up to Master rank, or even Mage. In fact, if a rank existed above that, I wanted it, too. The Guild sought to be the final judge of caster skill and quality. They claimed to speak for all who practiced the digital arts. I intended to show them they were wrong. What a joke it would be for a non-person to climb up into their highest ranks! Galileo accepted the assignment.

I pulled on my gloves and adjusted my headset, then checked the client’s phone number in the contract. The area code looked like north Georgia. I twirled my index finger and a telephone keypad appeared on the screen. The tones beeped in my ear as I touched each number.

“Mortgage Services.” The phone was answered on the first ring.

“This is Galileo,” I said, “Guildman, Acolyte rank.”

Before I had a chance to give the contact’s name the woman interrupted. “Oh, yes, Mr., uh, Galileo. Mr. Fields is expecting you.”

The line went quiet for no more than a second before Mr. Fields came on the line.

“Fields,” he said.

“My name is Galileo…”

“Yes, yes. Can you start work immediately? This is very important.”

“Yes, Sir,” I said, “I can, but not before you tell me what the assignment is and provide me with a dial-up line.”

“Oh, right,” he said. “Of course. We process mortgage payments for several different mortgage companies, roughly a million accounts overall, and it’s all gone. I can’t believe it. Something just went through and trashed everything.”

“What about your backups?” It’s the usual first question, and never fruitful. If the company had backups they would not have called in an urgent.

“Gone! Destroyed! I can’t believe this. It’s like…” “Please, Mr. Fields,” I said, “calm down.” People get so emotional about these things. “First, let me ask you a few questions.”

“Sure, sure. God, I can’t believe this.”

“First of all, are you sure it’s gone?”

“Of course, I’m sure! It’s trashed!”

I forced myself to be patient. “This is important: is it trashed or is it gone?”

“Oh,” he said. “I understand. It’s like someone put it through a shredder. It wasn’t like everything was erased, it’s just all scrambled.”

“Good,” I said.

“Good? How is that good? We’re talking about a billion dollars of other people’s money!”

“Believe me,” I said. “That’s good news. If it’s there at all I at least stand a chance of reconstructing it.”

If the backup had been destroyed, too, it was probably deliberate. This was the bright spot in a bad situation. Nothing in computers is truly random. The algorithm can be so complex that the distinction is minimal, but there is still a pattern. If a pattern exists, it can be determined, at least theoretically. If the pattern can be determined, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men stand a chance.

I continued with the questions. “I take it, since you brought someone in, that you don’t maintain a separate backup off-line.”

“Of course we do!” he snapped. “Well, that is we did. Monthly. Almost monthly. It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

“Why not?”

He was silent for a long time. I could hear his breath wheezing in my ear. “Because,” he said, “it’s gone.”

“It was destroyed, too?”

“No, I mean it’s gone. The storage company we use was broken into. It was stolen.”

It was my turn to let the silence stretch as the implications settled in. “Someone must have wanted you pretty badly. A competitor?”

“It’s a coincidence! Plenty of other things were stolen from a lot of different companies. It was just bad timing.” “When did the break-in happen?”

“Last night. Look—.”

“Terminated any unhappy employees lately? Employees with system access, perhaps?”

“Are you a caster or a cop? I just want you to recover my data!”

“Please, Mr. Fields,” I said, trying to soothe him with my voice. “The more I know, the better chance I have. Now, do you have incoming phone lines?”

He drew a deep breath. When he began speaking again his voice seemed paler. Defeat dragged down every syllable. “Several. All of our clients process on-line. Some of the larger ones have high speed leased lines.”

“Okay,” I said. Now he was being helpful. “I may need to talk to your regular Guildman, and the one who set up your defenses, if they’re not the same person.”

This time the silence was deafening. I was reaching to call back, thinking we had been cut off, when he spoke. His voice was strained.

“I don’t have one,” he said.

“You mean you don’t have the Guild on retainer?”

“No,” he whispered.

“What about your on-line security?”

“We set it up in-house.”

There you have it. The amateur takes careful aim, gently squeezes the trigger, and blows his own toe off again. Though I disagreed with its style, the Guild at least delivered quality. “Hey,” he said, defensively, “there’re plenty of good people out there that aren’t in the Guild.”

“You know I’m not allowed to agree with you,” I said. “The Guild will tell you that if those people were better, they would be in the Guild.”

“You charge an awful lot. Why should I keep you guys on retainer when all you have to do is set things up and let them run?”

“Mr. Fields, I’m not here to discuss Guild policy.” Especially since I disagreed with most of it.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ve paid the retainer and I hired you, so just get to work. I’m losing money every minute we’re down.”

I asked for a phone number to use to connect to his system. He gave it to me, and then asked for mine. Their security system required his computer to call mine back. That was supposed to guarantee the call was coming from an authorized location. Well, there were ways around that too. “Just give me the number, I’ll take care of it,” I said.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “You can’t get in if the system isn’t expecting you.”

“Someone did,” I said.

He finally gave me the number, but warned me he wasn’t going to pay urgent rates so I could waste time trying to get in. I assured him that testing his security was included in his monthly retainer. I’m not sure if it explicitly is or not, but I wasn’t about to give him my phone number.

One of the biggest winners of the Computer Age was the phone system. An aging tangle of wires and relays was replaced piece by piece with computerized digital switching networks. It was wonderful. The entire North American phone system became faster, quieter, and loaded with services. Maintenance became a snap. Modules could be replaced in seconds, instead of rewired in hours. The soldering iron and wire cutters made way for the portable computer. Everything was easier. Tracing a call became a matter of seconds, wire taps could be done from almost anywhere. Services could be added or removed with the touch of a button.

Of course, something else became easier, too. Cheating. Let’s face it, if they can reprogram an exchange, so can I. Granted, they already have the passwords necessary to gain access to the system, but nobody’s security is flawless. Consider this, in the interest of better service, a phone company would want the field technicians to be able to perform a lot of services on site. Consequently, every phone company has a thousand or so people wandering around with all the information necessary to gain access to the phone system. If some bright individual collected it all, recording and decoding the tones used, tracking the appropriate phone numbers, he could do just about anything he wanted to.

Enter the bright individual. I called up the file I had on the 404 area code and looked up Mortgage Services’ exchange. I dialed the control number and heard the familiar tone that indicated I was connected. From a digital recording, I played a sequence of tones, two of which can’t be produced with a standard phone. It beeped twice. I was in.

I hunted up the list of available phone numbers and authorized two for use. A forwarding service automatically rerouted any calls coming into the first number out through the second. On the second number, I set it up to call the dial-up line at Mortgage Services. Now, came the tricky part.

I accessed the phone number that Fields had given me and checked its list of services. The local phone companies had taken their cue from the cellular wizards. They set up their systems to redirect any call dialed from a certain number. That way, if the customer neglected the bill, he could automatically be connected to the billing department. Or any other number stored in the system. I redirected any calls from the Mortgage Services number to the one I had just activated.

I disconnected and called my first bogus phone number and was rewarded with a response from Mortgage Services.

“Please hang up now,” my screen said. “The system will dial you back.”

I did so, and one moment, two switching stations and a satellite bounce later my phone rang. My system picked up and words appeared on my screen. “Welcome to Mortgage Services. System access granted.” Fields had done his job. I dropped right past their processing application and into the operating system. All together it had taken me twenty minutes. It would have taken less, but the extra phone number was worth the time. It would prevent anyone from tracing the call. You can’t be too careful with security, you know.

Fields had chosen the right word, trashed. The information was about as mangled as it can get. I copied a segment back to my system and set one of my decoding programs to work, looking for a pattern.

In the old days, when I had a name, I did a lot of work with encrypted data. At the bureau, I saw just about every encoding scheme out there; bit flips, rotations, progressive substitutions, even the fancy stuff that requires factoring thousand digit numbers for the key. The purpose of encoding something is to preserve the information, but make it so that no one else can read it. This person was trying to render the information inaccessible to anyone. The former is like locking your home when you leave so that everything is undisturbed when you return. The latter is like burning it to the ground.

The circumstances helped narrow the search. Had the intruder simply erased the information, it could have been recovered intact in fairly short order. Most systems follow the principle “out of sight, out of mind”. Deleting information is like eliminating a chapter from a book by erasing its entry in the table of contents. If you physically look through the book, the pages are still there.

The Department of Defense uses a scheme that overwrites each and every bit of information in deleted files, but that takes time that this person did not have. The system’s watchdogs would have noticed and pulled the plug before too much damage was done.

He had to do something that looked routine. Most large systems run regular checks for data integrity and accuracy, verifying account numbers, checking for valid zip codes. It would be the perfect cover if you wanted to systematically scramble every single record on file.

I almost wish I hadn’t looked. After the tricks I used to get into the system, I was ready for a challenge, something to test my abilities. I was disappointed. There, stuck boldly in the middle of the file maintenance program, was the Rosetta Stone. Whoever wiped out Mortgage Services’ data had modified the company’s own program to make hash out of each record on the way through. It had been done with a curious mixture of sophistication and childlike foolishness.

The program was good. It used each transaction’s account number as the encryption key, so each record was encoded differently. I would have detected it eventually, but it would have taken a long time.

The encryption scheme was state of the art, and if the intruder wasn’t an employee, he had to be good to get into the system. So why was the program still sitting there? Why didn’t it erase itself to hide its tracks?

Without really paying attention, I wove together a spell to reverse the damage and started it working. I kept a copy of the offending code and repaired the maintenance program. The solution was depressingly anticlimactic.

Still, there was a puzzle, and ten years with the FBI left me unable to leave puzzles unsolved. There were only two possibilities. The damage had either been done by an inside amateur using borrowed routines, or an amateurish professional from outside. An amateur could not have come up with the encryption technique, but someone with the ability to get in the way I did would never have left the solution just lying around. It was almost as if someone had wanted to throw a scare into Mortgage Services without doing permanent damage. That left out competitors, that left out vandals, and, unless they were just plain inept, that left out disgruntled employees. I had to go with the botched inside job. Nothing else made any sense at all.

By the time the damage was repaired, I had finished my report. It included a recommendation for a personnel review as well as specific ideas to improve security. I sent the note and disassembled my telephone scam, returning the numbers to active service, no worse for wear.

My left hand twitched and a clock appeared on the screen. Four and a half hours had gone by since Galileo had called me. Somewhere outside, dawn had broken, then crashed into morning.

I had missed greeting the day. I had missed the first cry of the solitary hunter with whom I share this piece of the world. I gathered myself with regret and went to bed.

Chapter 4

When I awoke, I settled for saying goodbye to a day I had missed completely. The sun was low at my back and the hills I thought of as mine were clad in radiant copper and sheets of gold. They called to mind legends like El Dorado. I could smell the cleansing sweep of night coming on as the clear sky above darkened. The house lights were dimming in preparation for the stellar performance ahead.

Have I mentioned how beautiful it was there? It was like a step or two outside reality. There were no lights, no horns, none of the blaring cacophony of civilization. It was my own Crystal Caves, a quiet place to hide and heal, from which I could reach out to anywhere in the world.

The Earth is no longer round. Distance has less meaning than it used to. Reality is a fluid thing, sluicing along billions of miles of wire, flowing through microwave relays. It rushes along the streams of satellite signals.

I can be anywhere in the blink of an eye.

I can be in two places at once.

Or, when I wish, I can be nowhere at all.

Reality has evolved at the behest of technology.

I waited until the last glow of sun was gone before I went inside. In the study, I checked Galileo’s mail. There was a confirmation from his bank of a transfer from the Guild, payment for the Mortgage Services job. It was a sizeable sum for one job because of the urgency bonus. I made a mental note to flash an order for a new suit to his clothier in London. The suit, of course, would never be delivered. Where would it go? Galileo’s home address is an empty lot in downtown Dallas. The important thing is that all the records would show that the kid had bought himself a prize with his bonus money. Anyone watching would know he was real.

Galileo had his quirks. He liked custom made suits and classical music. He subscribed to an odd variety of magazines, electronic edition so there were no embarrassing problems with delivery. Though he never traveled, he received two different travel magazines. He got several science publications, but also a couple of poetry quarterlies, and, of course, the Guild’s Journal of the Digital Arts. Research into my friend would develop an off-beat profile just detailed enough to be real.

There was a note from Fields that had been forwarded by the Guild. It was a letter of appreciation for the quick work and a request to contact him so he could thank me, if not in person, then at least on the phone. The praise was a little embarrassing considering how easy the job had been.

There was one more message that referred to that job. It contained no routing information and no indication as to who had sent it.

“The solution was right there in front of you, wasn’t it?” the note said. “Don’t you wish all your jobs were that easy?” It ended with a network address and a time. I materialized a clock. The meeting time was just twenty minutes away, not enough time to think things through. Someone was awfully well informed about Galileo’s business. Anyone inside the Guild or Mortgage Services could know about the assignment, but only two people in the world knew how easy the solution had been. One of them was me. Since I’m not in the habit of writing anonymous notes to myself, that narrowed the field considerably. The message had to have come from the perpetrator.

I worked quickly, waving my hands like a conductor in mid-symphony. In rapid succession I gestured for my guardians, sending them out into the world to prepare the way. Every message on the net bounces from computer to computer as it works its way to the proper destination, carrying with it the addresses of both its source and its destination. Millions of systems, chattering back and forth, funnel the flow of information around the world. Each time a message goes out, it leaves a little shadow of its path from point to point. There is no telling what might come sniffing back along that trail. You may have guessed by now that some systems are less protected than they should be. Some are vulnerable enough that an outsider can actually take over, often by exploiting unknown bugs in the operating system. I’ve kept a list of those that I’ve found.

I handed out assignments and my guardians took up residence in several key systems along the route. There they would watch and wait. If any little nasties came along trying to track Galileo’s messages back to his physical location, they would meet with doom. If necessary, my guards could completely wipe the system in which they were hiding, destroying themselves along with it. What they lacked in finesse they made up in brutal loyalty.

I established the route and connected, that is, Galileo connected, to the address in the note. “Wait…,” was all it said. I was early. I took an instant to blink back to Montana, summon a SPRITE, and send it out to search for that mysterious net address. When I shifted back to Galileo, things were already starting.

WAIT…

CHAT MODE INITIATED.

NAME?

“Galileo,” I typed, as if he didn’t know.

NAME? GALILEO

[GALILEO] CONNECTED.

SPHINX› WELCOME, GALILEO.

:_

How appropriate. He took his name from the original poser of riddles.

GALILEO› I THOUGHT YOU WERE HERE TO ANSWER, NOT ASK.

SPHINX› IF YOU WANT ANSWERS, ANSWER FIRST.

GALILEO› ANSWER WHAT?

SPHINX› 573-

:_

I knew those numbers well. I currently had over one and a half million different answers to that particular question, and not one of them made any sense.

GALILEO› THAT’S NOT A QUESTION.

SPHINX› 573-

:_

This was becoming annoying. Maybe I was looking at it all wrong. Perhaps it was a simple logic puzzle, like those tests they made you take in school. I had three prime numbers out of sequence. What would follow?

GALILEO› 131711

SPHINX› YOU’RE GUESSING.

GALILEO› DAMN RIGHT.

SPHINX› NEVER MIND. MISTAKE. WON’T HEAR FROM ME AGAIN.

GALILEO› WAIT.

SPHINX› 573-

GALILEO› WHAT DO YOU WANT?

SPHINX› IF YOU ARE WHAT I THINK YOU WERE, YOU’LL KNOW.

GALILEO› WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM?

SPHINX› 573-

GALILEO› PHONE #? ADDRESS? WHAT?

[SPHINX] NO LONGER CONNECTED.

CHAT MODE TERMINATED…

Within seconds my SPRITE returned to report failure. It had been unable to determine anything about the physical location of the meeting place or the mysterious Sphinx.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was all a mistake. Sphinx could have been looking for someone else, in which case the numbers would be meaningless to me. If it was some sort of prearranged recognition signal the answer could be anything. It could have nothing to do with me, but it bothered me that someone was watching my/Galileo’s moves so closely. I had nothing to go on but an uneasy feeling crawling along the back of my neck; that and a fistful of questions. Why was he watching Galileo?

What did it have to do with Mortgage Services, if anything at all?

The last question was the one that bothered me the most. Why did those numbers sound so damn familiar?

Chapter 5

From the first instant in time when survival was no longer a full time occupation, mankind began seeking diversions. Story telling, dance, the first repetitive thumps of rhythm, all these things evolved into the uniquely human activity called entertainment.

From campfire tales to books, from amphitheaters to television, entertainment has kept pace with technology. For many of us, this evolution reached its zenith in the Game. You’ve seen it called a dozen different names, but those of us who consider themselves die hard fanatics just call it the Game.

When computers first got together with entertainment, the Game became destiny. As technology allowed virtual reality to move from the realm of imagination to the world of the senses, the game players kept pace, moving from words to pictures to animation to three dimensional images reproduced in special goggles. Computing power grew, allowing more detail and faster response. Sensors were developed to detect body and head movements, interpreting them instantly into virtual motion. A union with the net was only a matter of time. Games began appearing all over the world with varying degrees of quality. The best ones tried to be commercial, charging for game time, but too many free games were available for it to work. For a while, the biggest expansion market was Game parlors, where companies rented time on leading edge equipment, the expensive stuff. Every mall had sprouted a room filled with VR platforms hooked up to games around the world.

Then the producers of the games got smart. They made entry into the games free and concentrated on developing the best story lines and the most convincing worlds. They never gave up the profit motive, though. They recorded everything. Everything you did and everything you said became their property, adapted some time later into a book, a movie, or even sold, uncut, directly to the digie markets.

There were always dozens of major games going on, playing out over months. Many spawned sequels, allowing characters to retain their virtual possessions and identities from episode to episode. I had been in the Dungeons of G’taal every week for two months, now, and it was just getting to the really hairy part.

Most people still can’t afford their own platform. They go to the parlors to play. The orphanage was nice enough to buy the best. Nothing is too good for the Ledbetter kids.

I stepped onto the platform and put on the belt, careful not to tangle the wires. The platform was about a square yard, surrounded by a waist high railing. Sensors along the rail detected movements of the belt, gloves, and headset, while the floor took care of the feet. Every movement of my body was transmitted to the Game, where the corresponding actions were made by my digital character. I could walk, duck, jump, and even handle virtual objects. It was the next best thing to being there.

I put on the helmet and the world changed.

Chapter 6

“It’s about time you got here.”

I had to look up to see his face. Gorn was easily a head taller than I was. He was a sturdy barbarian whose powerful chest was barely contained by the leather armor he wore. His arms were as big around as my thigh. His left fist was on his hip while the right gripped the pommel of his sword. He wore a frown, rendered in chiseled strokes that matched the furrows on his forehead. It was not surprising. Of the five expression Gorn had registered for his character, four of them were frowns. The fifth, which I had seen only once, was intended to be a smile. It had made me think of kidney stones.

“Sorry,” I said. “Wizard business.”

“That’s okay,” said a woman’s voice, “we still… damn.” I turned to find the other three behind me. Melina, standing just ahead of Elidan and Petrus, looked down. Though I could not see her face, her body language spoke of frustrated anger. That was a shame, because the body she had used when she registered an image for her character was incredible. It defied gravity in a way only virtual reality can. “What’s wrong,” I asked.

She shook her head and only then remembered to look sad. Her eyebrows were hunched together and her lips, normally full, pressed themselves thin. “I keep expecting Hoven to show up.”

About a mile behind us, on a trail in the woods, was a statue. It was cold, white stone shaped in an excellent likeness of a Gnome warrior. That was Hoven.

“Next time you steal a scroll,” I said, with just a touch of menace in my voice, “you’ll let me check it for curses before you hand it out.”

“It looked like a normal strength scroll!”

“It was,” I said. “It just happened to be cursed!”

Petrus stepped forward. “Everyone calm down. We need each other even more, now.”

Petrus was human. He wore the white robes of a cleric and carried a Staff of Righteousness. That staff could blast an Orc across the room. I noticed something new. There was a small Roman numeral five on his left breast. He had just earned enough points to reach the fifth level at the end of the last episode, and had gained a powerful new healing spell. He was proud of his new level.

“We work together,” said Elidan, “or we don’t work at all.” Elidan was my height, but far more slender, as all Elves are. The majority of his bulk came from the dazzling chain mail he wore. He was a deadly accurate bowman, and not half bad with a sword, either. He had one other special advantage. He carried a ring that would turn him invisible. He had killed one of G’taal’s Dark Wizards for it. Occasionally, he would loan it to Melina. Her abilities as a thief made her perfect for silent reconnaissance, but Elidan was always careful to demand its return immediately. It’s hard to trust a thief, even when she’s on your side.

We stood outside a stone fortress. Huge wooden doors barred our path, but the entrance to the Dungeons of G’taal was somewhere inside. The fortress was overgrown and the iron fittings on the door were fouled with rust. At each side of the door were hideous statues of winged ghouls; minor demons. It was just the kind of cheery atmosphere G’taal would call home.

Petrus spoke up with leadership in his voice. “Gorn,” he said. “See if you can break through those doors.”

“Wait!” I cried, but it was too late. The huge barbarian lifted both arms and slammed his fists into the doors. Sounds of splintering wood were quickly drowned out by a scream from the pits of hell itself.

I slapped my side and floating before me were images of the things I carried. I snagged a scroll and unrolled it. Even though I knew the words, the scroll had to be unrolled for the spell to work.

“Kalach mentus!” I cried. “Pell mentach!”

The demon statues had begun to move the instant they changed to flesh. One raked a claw through Petrus and he instantly glowed red. He had been hurt badly. The other had taken a swipe at Melina, but her thief’s agility allowed her to escape unharmed.

Suddenly we were bathed in golden light. My Scroll of Protection had taken effect.

“Petrus,” I called. “They’re Undead. Use your staff!”

There was only a small chance that it would work. While demons were undead, they were far more powerful than your average Ghoul. I wasn’t sure they could be banished by a mere fifth level cleric even with a Staff of Righteousness. Petrus aimed his staff at the nearest demon. “Begone!” he cried, firing a ball of fire at the thing just for good measure. It glowed red and faded. It was hurt, but still in the game. My scroll would not last long. I left Petrus and Gorn to finish off the wounded demon and turned my attention to the other.

Melina had her short sword out, but couldn’t quite reach the demon without leaving the protected area. Elidan let fly an arrow that buried itself in the creature’s shoulder. It drew back and spit, but the acid hissed into steam against the golden glow.

I gestured and a fireball leapt from my fingers. The demon was singed, but barely injured. Its scream was more one of rage than of pain.

It came off its perch and began circling the group, testing, probing for a weakness in the protecting glow. It was opposite Melina and she raised her short sword above her head, point down. Leaning back, holding her left hand slightly forward for balance, she was poised like a cobra.

Either no one else noticed it, or only I could see it, but the glow around us pulsed once, then dimmed. The spell was wearing off.

I tried to warn Melina, but only got out her name. Too fast, the demon’s claws swiped at her, just as the glow retreated. Her hand was exposed! It flamed bright red as the black, pestilent claws raked across it. Like lightning her sword drove down, piercing the demon’s hand. It howled and swung its other hand at her, claws set to slice her apart.

What a thief lacks in strength is balanced by dexterity. Melina followed the thrust to her knees, driving the sword through to the hilt. The creature overbalanced and the blow swung over the thief’s head. She let go of the sword, leaving it buried in the demon’s flesh, and sprang back within the contracting protection spell. Her hand was bright red, the color fading just past her wrist.

I launched another fireball as a cold blue light exploded over my shoulder. It had come from Petrus’s staff. Crimson fire and azure lightning struck the demon’s chest together and its entire upper body flared red. We’d hurt it.

Gorn yelled and stepped outside the area of protection just as it pulsed and contracted further. Before long, we would all be exposed.

“To me!” Gorn cried. “To me, you putrid scum!” His massive broadsword arced back and forth, flashing around and above him, constantly moving as he let out one long, continuous berserker yell.

“Dammit,” Petrus said. “He’ll be killed.”

The demon spun toward Gorn, approaching in a coiled crouch.

“Gorn,” cried Elidan, knocking an arrow and stepping clear of the group. “Keep it distracted!”

Gorn laughed, his sword still in constant motion as the hell spawn crept cautiously toward him. “It’ll be distracted enough,” he cried, “when it’s gnawing on my bones!”

Elidan drew back on his bow. The arrow burned with silver fire. It was no normal arrow. It held magic. Earth magic. Elven magic.

“That’s your only one,” called Petrus. “We may need it!”

“Should we die saving it for later?” asked the elf. “Gorn! Stand him up! I need a clear shot.”

Gorn howled and lunged at the demon. It shied back from the flashing broadsword. Gorn danced back a step, just out of reach. His sword froze above his head, ready to weep down like a guillotine. “Now, demon,” he said. “We end it!” The demon growled, seeming almost to smile. It slowly pulled the sword from its hand and dropped it. Its head tilted back as it drew breath to scream.

The scream never came. There was an instant’s pause as Elidan’s arrow buried itself in the creature’s throat. Silver fire exploded around it, enveloped it, consumed it. The demon collapsed in a pile of ash just as the last faint glow of the protection spell faded.

“Good shot!” cried Gorn. “But you could have let me slice him once or twice.”

Elidan’s voice depicted his smile better than his image did. “I could have let him kill you, too.”

Gorn swept his foot through the ash. Amazingly, it swept aside, some swirling in the wind. Attention to detail is the hallmark of good programming. He picked up Melina’s sword and handed it to her. She took it with her left hand, and it fell to the ground. Her arm was red to the elbow as she held it up to her face.

“Hey, guys,” she said. “My hand’s not working.”

“Poison,” I said. “It’s spreading.”

She looked at me. “I forget,” she said. “Does demon poison kill you, or make you a demon?”

“Either way,” I said. “You’re lost.”

“They wouldn’t let me play as a demon thief?”

I winced at the slip. Staying in character was not only part of the Game, it was in the rules. The less they had to edit, the happier the backers were. She would lose a few rating points for that comment.

“The gods,” said Petrus, “would abandon your soul. What’s left would be controlled by the Dark. Life would be a game you could no longer play.”

Nice save, but she’d probably lose the points anyhow.

That was when I noticed how badly Petrus was hurt. He had been struck at the beginning of the battle, and now the red glow had spread across his entire chest, seeping into his shoulders. We had to do something quickly. I pointed at his chest, and he finally looked down.

“Oh my god,” he said.

“Two of you,” Elidan said. “Any ideas?”

Gorn spoke up. “Petrus, will your new healing spell take care of it?”

“One of us, maybe,” he said, still staring at his chest. “But it takes a lot of energy. I would have to rest before I use it again.”

“What else do we have?” asked Elidan.

Everyone slapped their thighs and stared at nothing. I looked at the objects floating before me. “I have a minor healing scroll,” I said. “Good for a couple of…” I almost said hit points, a slip that would have cost me. “…ounces of strength,” I finished.

“I’ve got a healing potion,” said Melina. “Don’t know how powerful.”

“Okay,” I said. “Petrus, use your spell on yourself.”

“I won’t be able to use any more magic for a while,” he said.

“You’ll be dead if you don’t, and you can still use your staff. We’ll save the other two until we see what happens.” Melina spoke up. “I should get the other two!”

“We wait,” I said showing my frown to make sure I was clear. “If he’s still hurt too badly we’ll have to use them on him.”

“No way,” she said. There was a blue vial in her hand and before anyone could say anything, she drank it down. The red faded from her hand. She held it to her face and watched as she flexed her fingers.

Gorn’s sword was at her throat. “You may have killed him!”

“It happens,” she said. “And unless you think you can get through the rest of this without a thief, I suggest you put your sword away.”

“She’s right, Gorn,” said Elidan. “We need her.”

“For now,” he said, reluctantly sheathing his sword.

Petrus knelt and intoned the words of his spell. He was bathed in blue light that faded slowly. When it was gone, there was still a faint red patch on his chest. “Damn,” he said, looking down.

I snagged the scroll hovering before me and began to unroll it. “Wait,” said Elidan.

“It’ll start to spread again.”

“No,” Petrus said. “Elidan’s right. We may need that later. Let’s see how fast it spreads first.”

I put the scroll away. “It’s your life,” I said.

Melina entered the fortress first, slipping into the shadows while Elidan stood in the doorway, his bow at the ready. Sneaking around in the dark was the natural work of a thief. I wondered if Elidan’s bow was guarding her. It might just as easily have been aimed at her.

“Uh oh,” Elidan said, drawing the bowstring to his ear.

“What is it?” I said.

“Melina! No!” he cried.

A guttural shout from inside was followed by the thrum of Elidan’s bow.

“Melina!” called the elf.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s over.”

Inside we found Melina searching the corpses of two Orcs. One’s throat was slit in a dark red gash, the other had an arrow protruding from its left eye. That answered the question of Elidan’s aim.

“Thanks for the assist,” she said.

Elidan pointed his finger at the corpses. “That was stupid,” he said. “You should have come and gotten us.”

She was rummaging through a pouch on one orc’s belt. The jingle of coins echoed from the stone walls. “I thought I could take them both. Orcs make lousy guards.”

“What’s this?” Petrus was standing beside a wooden chest.

“Careful,” I said. “It’s a little too convenient.”

“Ah hah!” cried the thief. She held up her hand and in the dim light I could just make out an oddly cut gem. “This should be worth something.”

I waved my hand and the gem danced with red sparks. “It’s magical,” I said.

“Cursed?” Melina asked.

Ah, she was finally learning caution. “Yes,” I said. “Let me have it.”

She pulled her hand back just a little. “You said it was cursed.”

“I’m a wizard, you fool. Let me have it!”

She gave it to me and I made it disappear into my pouch. Her whole head moved as she watched me put it away.

Petrus called her over. “Check this thing for traps.”

She touched the chest briefly and declared it clean, but when she tried to open it nothing happened.

“Locked?” the cleric asked.

She pointed to a metal plate. There was an angular depression in it, but no keyhole. “Not with any lock I’ve ever seen.”

“Move aside,” I said, pulling out the gem.

“You said it was cursed!”

“I lied.” The gem fit perfectly into the depression. There was a blinding flash of light and the chest was gone. Instead, standing before us was a man. He wore chain mail that rippled with rainbow colors as only elf-made armor can. At his side hung a gleaming sword. It was not as massive as Gorn’s, and looked as if it could be wielded with one hand. It’s edge glinted dangerously.

“Hello,” he said, looking around.

The point of Melina’s sword was at his throat just above the where the chain mail ended. “Hold,” she said.

His hands moved away from his sides. “Declare yourself,” said Gorn.

Elidan drew his bow. “With caution,” he added.

Melina spoke without moving. “Wizard?”

I cast an identify spell and the man glowed blue. “He’s real,” I said.

“As real as we are,” she said. “But is he a… ?”

She almost slipped again, but caught herself in time. “You mean,” said Petrus, “what lord does he serve? What gods does he follow? Is he in control of his own actions?” “Yes,” she said. “Those things.”

The man called himself Corbin and he wove a convincing tale of being captured in the woods by a band of orcs. I only half listened while I checked the dead guards to see if Melina had missed anything. Sometimes too few people in a group survive long enough to keep the Game interesting. When that happens, it’s not unusual to find help along the way. Of course, there’s always the danger that it’s a trap.

Satisfied, the rest of the group was making introductions. “Who’s the wizard,” Corbin asked.

Melina answered him. “He’s called the Heretic. Watch out. He lies now and then.”

I flashed her my ‘snide, but oh, so dangerous wizard’ smile in acknowledgment.

Corbin walked toward me. “I’ve heard of you,” he said. “Skull Castle. You helped retrieve the Crown of Timbeth.” It was true. The Crown of Timbeth was my character’s first adventure. We were barely successful.

“I don’t remember you,” I said.

“It’s in distribution. I downloaded it.”

No one spoke. No one even moved. The anachronism was so blatant we were all stunned.

“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just…”

His voice trailed off. I shook my head. This was not an easy adventure. It was only open to fourth level and up. The fact that he was here and the gear he was carrying indicated a lot of experience in the Game, but he talked like an amateur, a first timer who was still so wrapped up in the technology that he couldn’t keep his mind on his role.

He started to speak again. “Shut up,” I said. “Your confinement has addled your senses.”

“I trust,” said Gorn, with menace in his voice, “you’ll be yourself soon.”

Corbin gave a quick nod and stayed silent. His expression went completely neutral.

We searched the room, looking not only for exits, but for anything else that might be of use. I warned everyone not to touch or try to use anything unusual until it had been checked for traps or dangerous magic.

“One door only,” called Petrus. “Over here.”

The others looked it over as I walked toward them. “No traps,” said Melina. “No lock either, but it won’t budge.” Petrus suggested that it might be barred from the inside.

“Then how did the orcs get out?” asked Gorn.

“Maybe,” said Petrus, “they were never inside. There may be another passage.”

I reached the group. “Let me see.” What I saw made me furious. “What the hell is that?” There, carved into the wood of the door was 573-XX.

I turned to find Corbin still staring at me. If his expression was intended to be a smile, it was a twisted one. I swung out of anger and my hand passed through Corbin’s face. His cheek barely glowed red. Wizards don’t exactly have a lot of strength. “What are those numbers?” “Easy, wizard.” Corbin produced a dagger from nowhere and held it at my throat.

“What numbers?” said Melina. “What are you talking about?”

I was still talking to Corbin. “You rigged the god damned game!”

Gorn drew his sword. “Turn him loose, Corbin.”

“Forget it,” I said. “The whole thing’s ruined anyhow.”

“I can kill you,” Corbin said, “before they stop me. I don’t care about dying here, but I think you do.”

“What difference does it make? You rigged the game!”

“What are you talking about?” Melina said again.

“Those numbers on the door! They don’t belong here.”

“There’s nothing on the door!” she said.

“It’s just a door,” Petrus said.

Gorn agreed.

I looked again at Corbin, and his smile was replaced by a different, larger one. “What’s the matter, wizard. Not feeling very social?”

“What do you want from me?” I said.

He shrugged. “Losing your sense of security?”

There was something in the way he stressed his words that sounded odd. Then I had it, and for the first time I was glad that facial expressions in the Game weren’t automatic. Mine would have given me away. “Social”, he had said, and “security”. Now I knew why the numbers sounded so familiar. I had searched for them far and wide for the sole purpose of erasing them. They were the first part of the social security number that had once identified me.

“Do you know?” Corbin asked.

“Four zero,” I said.

“What the hell,” Melina demanded, “are you two talking about?”

He gave the next two numbers and I completed the sequence. “I’m leaving, now,” he said. “Meet me. Same place as last time.” Then Corbin disappeared.

“Wizard,” Elidan began, “just what the hell… ?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I think the game’s over.”

I slipped the helmet off.

Chapter 7

It took me a moment to adjust to my surroundings. The mind is a resilient thing, but it stumbles now and then when the rules change too quickly. The light was brighter and my eyes, still expecting stone, blinked at the open log walls. I thought I smelled a musty dampness like a lingering trace of the ancient stone fortress. That was odd. I was remembering a detail I had never actually experienced.

My hands gripped the railing of the VR platform, as if the extra pressure would make it more real. A part of me still expected to see my companions in the room even though none of them may have ever been closer than a thousand miles.

I stripped off the belt and gloves and crossed the polished wood floor to my work station. The oiled gleam of the chair comforted me as I caressed the dragon at each hand. It was time to go to work.

I lit up the system, wrapped in the muffled whir of cooling fans. Power crackled in the monitors. The sound enervated me. I could almost feel the voltage coursing through my flesh. I was home.

I called up twice as many guardians as before and sent them out in two different directions. A host of SPRITEs launched themselves at my command, prepared to track the Sphinx back to his origin.

When everything was ready, I linked up.

WAIT…

CHAT MODE INITIATED.

[GALILEO] CONNECTED.

SPHINX› ABOUT TIME.

GALILEO› SORRY. LONG TRIP.

SPHINX› SHOULD HAVE KNOWN. GALILEO. THE HERETIC. YOU WERE ALWAYS A REBEL.

GALILEO› WHO ARE YOU?

SPHINX› NOT HERE. IRL.

GALILEO› BULLSHIT.

There was no way I was going to meet this guy “in real life,” not until I knew more. He held all the cards. He knew who I was, or at least who I had been. Though I doubted he had tumbled to Galileo, yet, he already knew too much. I knew nothing.

SPHINX› TEMPER.

GALILEO› WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?

SPHINX› MUST SPEAK W YOU.

GALILEO› SPEAK.

SPHINX› NOT HERE.

GALILEO› THEN NOT AT ALL. GOODBYE.

My screen split into two sections and messages began pouring into one of them.

GUARDIAN #1: trace detected

GUARDIAN #2: trace detected

GUARDIAN #3: link terminated…

I was safe, but angry as hell. My guardians had done their job, severing the link before the trace could be completed. I was not concerned that Sphinx could trace the line all the way back to me, but if Galileo’s true nature were discovered his usefulness would be destroyed. As long as Galileo was real, no one had any reason to look further.

I reconnected using the second route.

GALILEO› DON’T DO THAT AGAIN!

SPHINX› DO WHAT?

GALILEO› YOUR TRACE FAILED. DON’T TRY AGAIN.

SPHINX› NOT ME. SOMEONE ELSE.

Yeah, right. I switched to the other side of the screen and began receiving reports from my SPRITEs. They were hot on Sphinx’s trail, bounding around the country from site to site, tracking his packets back to a physical location. He had set up an elaborate path, but so far it was nothing spectacular.

GALILEO› WHO?

SPHINX› CAN’T SAY.

GALILEO› BETTER SAY SOMETHING OR I’M GONE.

The SPRITEs narrowed down the terminus. Area code. Exchange. Bingo! They had the phone number of origin. There was only a brief pause while they looked up the corresponding address. It was Denver.

Colorado. My kind of state. It was home to forward thinking paranoid politicians and lousy casters. I blessed whatever gods watched over the net that it was Colorado.

It was in the mid-nineties that the United States was shocked by a new import: terrorism. Local governments and law enforcement agencies on all levels sprang into action like a room full of roaches in the sudden glare of the kitchen light. Solutions were everywhere and most were enacted without much planning. Some were ill conceived, others were merely ill considered, but laws and policies changed. There was little thought given to a uniform, coordinated response.

Colorado took a page from the FBI handbook that referred to cutting commercial power in the event of a hostage situation. Unfortunately, they took that page and threw away the rest of the book. They decided that the governor should have the ability to cut the power to any grid in the state without the time-consuming task of contacting local officials. The Emergency Response Power Network was born.

The ERP network was available to the governor at all times. He carried a portable terminal with him that could link to the network by a scrambled cellular phone signal. A few keystrokes could darken an entire power grid. It was supposed to be completely secure, but security is only as good as the people who set it up. Human nature is the weakest link in any chain.

Millions of people lock themselves out of their homes each year. It was even more common before the boom in physical identification locks using esoteric strategies like retinal scanners and palm print readers. All over the country there are keys hidden under welcome mats or over door jambs, providing second chances to the forgetful.

Most casters are no different from anyone else. The concept of a “back door,” a permanent, built-in password that bypasses normal security, is so old it’s become a cliche. The concept of sending that password to someone else by e-mail, especially in an organization that automatically archives all such correspondence on-line, is just plain stupid. Someone just might stumble across those archives; someone who might be willing to scan through ten years of interoffice memoranda looking for a few key words and phrases. “Password” was one of the first words I looked for.

SPHINX› WAIT. I NEED YOU.

GALILEO› WHO ARE YOU?

SPHINX› CAN’T SAY.

GALILEO› THIS IS GETTING OLD.

I dialed up the ERP network on a separate line and it responded immediately, dutifully requesting the password. I typed the name “WYATT.” I was in. I had my hand on the biggest light switch in the world.

SPHINX› YOU KNOW ME.

GALILEO› PROVE IT.

SPHINX› NOT ON LINE.

ERP’s cross reference spat out the power grid where Sphinx was located. I tapped the number in and followed it with the command to shut it down. All that was needed was a final touch of the enter key.

GALILEO› LAST CHANCE. WHAT DO YOU WANT?

SPHINX› YOUR HELP.

GALILEO› WITH WHAT?

SPHINX› NOT ON LINE. MUST MEET.

GALILEO› FINE. NOW WE’RE BOTH IN THE DARK. GOODNIGHT.

I switched back to ERP and pressed the final keystroke. “Complete,” it said. Southeast Denver was dark. Sphinx could light a candle and think things through. Hopefully, the stunt was impressive enough he would think twice before bothering me again.

The SPRITEs confirmed it within seconds, Sphinx was no longer on line.

Suddenly, where the screen should have been blank, messages appeared.

GUARDIAN #7: trace detected

GUARDIAN #8: trace detected

GUARDIAN #9: link terminated

I sat quietly for a long time, staring at the lines. Part of Sphinx’s story seemed to be confirmed. The trace was run by a third party. Sphinx, at the moment, was powerless. Someone else was trying to find me. I was becoming far more popular than I had ever wanted to be. The paranoia Sphinx had displayed had been warranted. Someone was watching him, and Galileo was guilty by association. It was time my little friend took a vacation.

I wanted it to look as innocent as possible. If people were watching, they had to be convinced. I was still working through the complex connection that linked me to Galileo, so everything I did would appear to come from him in Dallas.

I hooked up to the airline guide and spent some time comparing rates and schedules. Finally, I bought a ticket, coach, of course, first class was too expensive for Galileo. The flight went from Dallas/Fort Worth to Anchorage, Alaska, with a connection in Seattle. I grinned as I typed in the name on the ticket: Charles Darwin. Sphinx was right, I had always been a rebel at heart.

Galileo/Darwin prepaid the air fare by electronic funds transfer, then went browsing through Alaska guidebooks. He arranged for transportation down the Kenai Peninsula to Homer. It was just past the summer season and most of the tourists would be gone. The town was a combination of fishing village and artist colony. It would make a great vacation spot; that is, if I were actually going.

A detailed investigation would show that no one actually occupied Darwin’s seat on the plane or stayed in the room Galileo reserved at the tiny bed and breakfast in Homer, but at a glance it was convincing enough. The note to the Guild listing Galileo as unavailable for two weeks would add to the realism.

Marketing on the net is so automated it’s spooky. Within minutes Galileo’s mailbox contained five advertisements: one for a camera sale, two for charter fishing boats that sailed out of Homer, one super special luggage offer, and one for bargain rates on flight insurance. I had to laugh at that last one. The joke of insuring a non-existent person who wouldn’t be on the flight even if he were real was almost too tempting. I resisted, though. Creating a fake beneficiary was bordering on insurance fraud, not to mention schizophrenia.

Galileo’s trip was all arranged. He would be leaving in two days. I checked the mail once more before logging out, expecting to see something from Sphinx. There was nothing. He was probably still waiting for the lights to come back on.

There are places on the net, and then there are places. There are communities, cultures, and societies. Some are familiar; digital models of day to day life, rendered in words or pictures. Others are less so. Our social nature draws us to others like us and our surroundings take on the flavor of the group.

There are groups I find distasteful. Often, they are also useful.

I went back to the VR platform.

It was time to go slumming.

Chapter 8

I stood in a room made infinite by shadows. Circled around me were tall candelabra of tortured iron. I touched the glowing sphere that dominated the circle’s center and it brightened, awaiting my commands.

A gesture manifested a map of North America. It hovered in the air before me. On it, I traced a complex route that bounced from city to city. My guardians strode forth to protect it. With a final tap on northern California, I was transported to my destination.

The room was nearly full. Large as it was, likenesses were packed from wall to wall. Scattered through the crowd were the stiff cardboard stand-ups that stood in place for members who did not have access to VR gear. Everyone wore the customary robes of his Guild rank, to which the blue pentagram logo was prominently affixed. Here, only human images were allowed, but, as in real life, the diversity was broad.

Whether or not the images bore any resemblance to the people behind them was another question, my own was rendered from an ancient portrait of the man whose name I used. Even internally, the Guild required strict anonymity. The images were registered and permanent. Only working names were used. From the viewpoint of the Guild and those members present, Galileo had just popped into the lounge.

“Ho, Galileo!” A portly man in Acolyte robes came toward me. He went by the name of Bard and he was among my favorite reasons for avoiding the Guild lounge.

In his haste, he lumbered right through a Mage who held a knot of guildmen in conversation. The processors, momentarily confused, coughed up a ball of visual static as he passed through. Silence rippled outward from the point of the offense. Heads and bodies turned toward Bard.

“How dare you?” The timbre of the Mage’s voice was such that it almost had to be artificially enhanced. Grey hair struggled to escape from under his hood and his long grey beard reached almost to his waist. His aged face gave not the impression of weakness, but of the strength of weathered stone, as if wind and endless rains had etched his features from the world’s flesh.

Bard stumbled to a halt. As he turned to face the Mage, his shoulders pulled upward and his head sank between them. He stammered as he spoke. “I’m sorry, Remus, I—I didn’t—.” The Mage seemed to grow as he stared down the slope of his hawk nose at Bard. “You didn’t see me? Is that what you were going to say?”

“I—.”

“Is that the sort of attention you apply to your craft? Tell me. Is it rudeness that drives you or incompetence?” The walls played catch with Remus’s voice, tossing it back and forth. “Neither, I assure you, shall stand you in good stead with this organization. Who are you?”

“Bard, Sir.”

Remus’s hand twitched and he seemed to stare at the space between Bard and himself. “I see,” he said at last. “Just two months an Acolyte.”

“Yes, Sir,” said Bard.

Remus reached out and clutched a handful of nothing. “I could change that,” he said, “this very instant. I could set you back to Apprentice or drop you from the Guild entirely.”

“But—.”

“Yes,” said Remus. “I hold your career in my hand, as they say.”

“Please,” Bard said. “I’m sorry, I really am. It won’t happen again.”

After a moment, Remus tossed the subject aside with a backhanded wave. “Not more than once,” he said, then turned to rejoin his conversation.

Bard’s mouth was pinched and bitter when he reached me and I wondered whatever would possess someone to choose such a face. “I really hate that bastard,” he said. “Scorch is right, someone needs to take him down a peg.”

I looked over Bard’s shoulder. Remus had moved to the other side of the group. From the tilt of his head, he seemed to be watching me as he spoke. “I don’t know him,” I said.

“That’s because you don’t spend enough time around here. Sonofabitch thinks he’s the goddamned emperor or something.”

A casual step to the side put Bard between Remus and myself. I made a few gestures using Bard’s virtual bulk to conceal them. In the air before me hovered a copy of Remus’s Guild record. When I saw his ranking points I let out a soft whistle.

“What,” Bard asked. “What are you looking at?”

“He’s a powerful one, isn’t he,” I said.

“You—. You’ve got his record? But, you’re just an Acolyte! How did you do that?”

“Tricks of the trade,” I said, dismissing the information. In truth, it was no great feat. Compared to the useful things like real names and addresses, a Guildman’s track record was loosely held. I had long ago given up trying to get any further. “You mentioned Scorch, where is he?”

“You hacked the Guild’s records?”

I made sure my face was neutral and leaned closer to him. “Now, really,” I said. “Have you ever heard of anyone hacking the Guild before?”

“No.”

“Then I must not have done it. Now, if you don’t really believe I did it, it would be foolish to mention it to anyone, right?”

A nod was his only answer.

“And if you do believe I did it,” I said, “well, mentioning it would be downright stupid. Don’t you think?” I punctuated the words with a smile of sweetest innocence.

He leaned back quickly as if my virtual breath smelled foul. “Sure,” he said. “No problem.”

“Now where is Scorch?”

He turned and pointed toward a corner.

Above a clot of people, I saw the head of Scorch’s tall image. “Thanks,” I said, deliberately walking straight through Bard and leaving him stammering behind me.

Scorch turned at my approach. “Well, if it isn’t Galileo.” “Let’s go somewhere,” I said.

He lit up his smile and answered without hesitation. “Your place or mine?”

“Yours.”

“You still have the address?”

I nodded.

He vanished.

With a gesture, the world changed again.

I looked around. Scorch was next to me. We were standing in what looked like an underground cavern. Puddles of mud spat vapors into the air. Fire blossomed from the walls in irregular gouts. The flames were new. They were also annoying.

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” I said.

An impossibly huge grin spread across his face and his head spun around twice. I laughed so hard I had to use the railing on the VR platform to lean on.

“Like it?” he asked with all the pride of a new father. “It’s the ultimate conversation stopper!”

I was still trying to catch my breath as I answered. “It’s a shame you can’t get that into the Guild lounge.”

“Who says I can’t?”

“I do.”

He spread his arms in a broad, regal gesture. “What, you don’t think we can hack the Guild?”

I smiled at him deliberately. “If by ‘we’ you mean you and someone who can actually cast a decent spell, then maybe.”

“You don’t really believe the myth that the Guild is unhackable, do you?”

“No,” I said. “I just think you’re more hack than hacker.” “Hah!” he cried. “I’ll take your challenge. Right now!”

“I don’t have time,” I said. “Right now I need some info.” He folded his arms grandly. “Help with a spell or two, perhaps? Who’s the hack now?”

I shook my head. “Just an address,” I said, “and a key.”

“To what?”

“The LOC.”

Scorch stepped back and his face shifted to a bitter caricature of itself. “Get your scrawny little image out of my box,” he said.

“I need them.”

“You’re an idiot!”

“I know you know them, Scorch. You told me so. I just need to get into their system.”

“Do you know what would happen if they found out I gave it to you? No way! The Lords of Chaos is not a group to screw over.”

I sighed. I had really hoped to do it the nice way. “I need to find them, Scorch.”

“You’re outta here.” He snapped his fingers. A scroll appeared in front of me that only I could see. On it, my system reported that his watchdog had tried to block my access.

He stepped forward and waved his hand through my chest. “How the hell are you still here?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Like this,” I said. In an instant, I took control of his box. The operating system he used had a little known flaw. Corrupted data strings beyond a certain length were truncated, leaving the remainder hanging free as an executable program. In this case, that fragment contained instructions to turn control over to me.

First, I shut down the silly flames, just to show him I could, then I spread the entire contents of his system on the floor, so to speak. Filing cabinets appeared around us representing all the information on his system.

He stared at me. “You’re no fucking Acolyte.”

I paced my words slowly, giving each its own leaden tone. “Yes,” I said. “I am. And you’ll remember that, because I can do this anytime I want.”

“What do you want?” His voice cracked.

“Just the address and key.”

“Fine!” A ball of blue light appeared in his extended hand. “Just remember you got no idea where you found it!” “Thanks, Scorch,” I said, taking the data.

“Get out of here.”

The world blinked and I was back in the circle of candles. I stored the address and waved up a spell that was intended to make me invisible to any systems out there. I gestured and the world changed a third time.

Once inside their system, it took me no time at all to find the meeting place of the Lords of Chaos. I was in a room that looked like someone’s torture chamber nightmare. Every hideous device ever created to inflict suffering on a human being was represented here. They were occupied by silent, writhing forms each identified with tattoos across their foreheads. A “congress person” suffered the rack while a “lawyer,” briefcase and all, was crushed in an iron maiden. These people were twisted.

An ogre with open sores on his face was holding court with a winged demon, a pillar of flame, and a large snake. The ogre I knew by reputation. He went by the name King Kaos. “You lying sack of shit!” King Kaos said to the demon. “You did not.”

The demon’s wings beat rapidly. It turned slightly and I noticed the image had breasts. The throaty voice sounded petulant. “I did!” she said.

King wagged his head back and forth. “No one’s hacked the NSA. You’re full of it!”

“You don’t think it can be done?”

“Well I sure as hell don’t think you could do it.”

Suddenly, the room flashed red and klaxons pummeled my ears. I checked with my system. My presence had been detected, but the security failed to block me.

King was waving madly and staring at nothing. “What the hell’s going on? It looks like an intruder, but there’s nothing there!”

“Maybe it’s a bug,” said the demon.

“Not in my code! Shit! I’m shuttin’ the box down.” King’s hands went to the sides of his head.

“Wait!” I said. I snapped up the Heretic image and appeared before them.

King, his hands still comically poised to take off his VR helmet, stared at me for a moment. Finally, he relaxed and dropped his hands. He nodded slowly. “Is that a copy or are you really him?”

“I’m here aren’t I?” I said.

King nodded again. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess you are. If you’d meant to trash the place it would’ve happened already, so what is it? You come to join the Lords?”

I showed a smile. “I guess you don’t know my rep as well as you should.”

He shrugged and tried to smile back. “There’s always hope.”

I shook my head. “Not in this case.”

The demon walked over to me to get a better look. “I didn’t think you were real,” she said.

“I’m not.”

The snarl she showed might have been intended as a smile. “No one’s ever gotten in here uninvited,” she said. “I used to think King was the best.”

“Shut up, Angel. So what is it, Heretic?” King asked. “What do you want? You with the feds or something?”

“Why?” I gave him my most charming smile. “Have you done something illegal?”

He laughed. “Nothing you could prove.”

“Are you sure of that?”

His throat strangled the laughter and he coughed. “So what is it?”

“A friend of mine is being stalked. I thought you might know the scum responsible.”

He spread his hands trying his damnedest to look poised. “It’s a big net,” he said.

“But the scum still clots together.”

“You’re not being very nice.”

“And you’re not being very helpful. So where do you want me to start trashing your box?”

“Wait! Wait a minute. Okay,” he said. “Who’s your friend?”

“He’s a Guildman by the name of Galileo. Whoever is after him is good.”

It was King’s turn to smile. “I thought the Guild took care of its own,” he said.

I raised my hands as if to begin casting spells. “King,” I said, “I really don’t have time for this.”

“Okay, okay!” he said. “I’ll look into it. Probably take me a coupla days. What do I do with the info if I get it?”

I pointed to the floor. “Leave it here for me. I’ll pick it up.”

His mouth tightened. “What if I change the lock?”

“I’ll still get in,” I said. “I’ll just be pissed when I get here.”

“Whatever,” King said. He shoved a hand at the air. “Fine. I’ll leave it here. Come back any time.”

The demon stepped up to me and held out her hand. “Here,” she said. “It’s my personal e-mail address. My name’s DarkAngel. E me sometime.”

I took the address from her out of politeness.

In a flash, I was home.

Chapter 9

I saw him for the first time the next morning. The sun had just exploded over the horizon and there, painted against the purple sky, was the falcon. He was motionless, wing tips splayed, grasping just enough updraft to hold him steady. I swear he was watching me.

I raised my coffee cup in silent toast and received a piercing cry in return. We were of a kind, he and I, and he seemed to know it. He waited silently, watching the world from the outside, choosing where and when he would partake.

Suddenly, his wings folded and he shot downward like an arrow. I lost him against the hills as he dove toward the tangle of scrub and grass. Two breaths, three, and there he was again, climbing toward the sky. His wings beat mightily, each downstroke lifting him higher, struggling to carry not only his own weight, but that of the motionless burden clutched in his talons.

The area was rife with thousands of field mice and other such creatures. They scurried through their orderly little lives, oblivious to the broader world around and above them, completely unaware they were being watched. That did not make the falcon bad, nor did it make him a rebel. He had rules. They were simply different rules.

I said a silent farewell to the falcon and went inside to begin the thing I wanted least to do. It had been three days and King Kaos had still come up empty. It was time to reenter the world. Something was going on out there and I was being drawn inexorably toward it. I could cut Galileo loose, just make him disappear and end the trail there, but how long would it be before Sphinx tracked me down again? And what about the trace? Who else was trying to intrude on my life?

There was only one solution. I had to find them first.

I worked directly, without routing through Galileo. In minutes, the Ledbetter Foundation had booked a flight for Mr. Paine. He would be leaving for Atlanta that night. His reservations were confirmed at the Peachtree Plaza Hotel and a rental car would be waiting at Hartsfield International. I knew Atlanta well. I went to school at Georgia Tech. That was where I met the FBI. I remember how odd it had seemed to have an organization like the Bureau recruiting on campus. I had expected engineering firms and software companies. The bureau seemed as out of place as their agents looked.

Someone had decided that the “New Bureau”, badly in need of an image facelift, had to join the exciting new world of high technology. The truth of the matter was that technology had slipped right past a sleeping bureaucracy. There were crimes being committed in the Fed’s jurisdiction they were ill- equipped to understand, no less combat. Computer fraud, electronic scams, cybercredit, all of these things were booming industries.

Suddenly, geeks were in. The bureau scoured the university system looking for a few good nerds. Their interviewers were stiff. You could see in their eyes that they thought they were dealing with another species. My interview went terribly, at first. My grades were excellent, but I didn’t seem to fit the image of what they wanted. Maybe it was because I didn’t wear glasses or because my pants legs were the right length, I don’t know, but I thought I had no chance. It was at the end of the interview that everything changed. Appended to my transcripts was a record of certain disciplinary actions I received from the school. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that there were several incidents where supposedly “secure” information on the campus computer systems emerged into the public eye.

I was never actually caught, mind you, but I was implicated strongly enough that warnings were issued. They revoked some of my computer privileges, as well, but that just made things more of a challenge. My interviewers seemed thrilled with that last part and implored me to give them details. The more I talked the more excited they grew. By the end of the interview, they had made me a substantial offer.

As always, I chose that moment to push my luck. I accepted their offer with one condition. Their mouths fell open and they stammered in stereo. I spoke quickly, explaining why it made sense, and in the long run they accepted. They had recruited me as a civilian programmer. They hired me as an agent.

I went through it all, the same training as any field agent. After that, I immediately set about doing for the FBI what I had done so well for Georgia Tech. Poking holes in their computer security. The only difference was that no one at the Bureau knew. When the Electronic Crimes division was formed I was the first agent assigned and some of those holes came in handy while I was doing field work. One good loophole is worth a ton of red tape.

Packing was almost painful. I pretended I was in my VR rig. This was just another game. The rules were different and I had to play for keeps, but I always played that way. I checked out some of the toys I hadn’t seen since my days at the bureau. I unpacked the ten millimeter Glock and checked the action. It was as smooth as the day I had packed the pistol away. I dumped my shaving kit out onto the bed and pried out the false bottom. The Glock slipped easily into the compartment. The plastic stock of the pistol and the hidden metal shapes in the shaving kit would combine to make a very non-weapon profile in an x-ray machine.

Next came the sheath I strapped to my left forearm. I slipped the flat, black blade out and examined it. There was no gleam to it at all. It looked like it sucked the light right into itself. It was made of a polycarbon compound that took an edge and kept it as well as the best steel. It had one advantage over a regular knife, though. It wasn’t metal. You could cruise through a metal detector convention with it and never cause a beep. Strange tools for a spell caster, I know, but I told you, I have a thing for hardware.

Chapter 10

The flight was a nightmare. I was packed with two hundred other people into a space the size of a small apartment. Even though my first class ticket had granted me an extra eight inches of elbow room, it was too little for someone who had grown used to an extra thirty miles. I was strapped in a seat breathing recycled air, listening to recycled conversations.

The bilious conventioneer in the plaid sport coat who occupied the seat next to me considered it his duty to strike up a long lost friendship with me. He twisted himself in his seat to offer me his hand and his business card at the same time.

“Name’s Ron,” he said, delighting in the fact, “Ron Lewinsky.”

I handed him one of the business cards I had printed before leaving home. “Al Hamilton,” I said, by way of introduction. His hand seemed damp and puffy and it made my skin crawl.

“Prairie Mortgage Company, Helena,” he read my card aloud. He flipped it over and looked at the requisite contact information: voice number, voice mail, pager and fax numbers, net address, e-mail addresses, both U.S. Postal Service and Western Express. Most of them were bogus. “I haven’t heard of it,” said Ron, apology in his voice.

“It’s a small company,” I said. Very small. As of that morning it consisted of a listing I had inserted in the Helena directory service, an automated voice messaging service, and, just for verisimilitude, a registration with the Montana Board of Lenders. That last would never stand up to a detailed inspection. I had not had the time to create real registration numbers in half a dozen systems, but a casual observer would stop with the fact that the company was listed.

Ron insisted on trying to draw me into a conversation. Actually, he wanted to draw me into an audience of one. The word conversation implies two way communication. I made the appropriate noises as he talked about his business and his family and the operation his dog had undergone the week before. It was when he began asking questions that I begged off.

“I have a ton of work to catch up on,” I said. I pulled out my portable computer and hooked it up to the jack in the armrest.

Ron watched me set it up. “They make it harder to get away from the office every day,” he said. “There’s a restaurant in LA that’s got phone jacks at every table. Can you imagine that? Like you just have to send some e-mail over dinner.” I smiled. “We’re just one big happy global village.”

“Guess it’s cheaper than cellular,” he shrugged. “Ooh! Nice rig.”

“Christmas present,” I said, putting on the glasses that served as the computer’s display. Words seemed to hover six inches before my eyes, but I could easily look through them at the cabin around me. It was like the heads up display in a jet cockpit. It saved weight on the computer and kept nosy people in plaid jackets from looking over my shoulder.

The display panel on the seat back in front of me came alive when I pulled the control pad from the armrest. It offered a list of choices including current national news and a whole contingent of games, along with the charges that would automatically be assessed. I selected air-to-ground datalink. Ron looked crushed. “I guess I should leave you alone and let you get some work done.”

“You know how work is,” I said.

I tried to connect with my system, but got no response. I wiggled the cable connection and the jack popped out of the armrest, still attached to my cable. Only one wire was still connected. I swallowed my frustration and turned to my pal, Ron.

“Excuse me,” I said, pointing to his armrest with the end of my cable. “Do you mind? Mine seems to be broken.”

“Sure, but…”

“I’ll pay for the charges.”

He nodded and leaned his seat back. “Sure, okay. I was just going to catch some sleep, anyhow.”

The new connection was fine and I dialed through to a number in Washington, D. C. A cheerful little bulletin board responded offering a variety of information services including ‘A history of American Glass Blowing’. The board was a cover. While most of the topics worked perfectly well, droning through information no one really cared about, the glass blowing subject would bring up a request for a password whenever the user selected the biography of one Federico Burro, famous American glass blower. Providing a valid password would put you on line with the FBI’s research library. It was a way for field agents to check case histories and file reports without millions of hackers trying to gain entry. The bad news was that I no longer had a valid password. I had yet to determine if there was a good news or not. Hopefully, no one ever told them about the bug in the system. I know I never did.

I switched to local control and concocted a tiny file. It was a string of arcane, unprintable characters that can not be typed on the keyboard. I dumped it down the line and the system tried to interpret it.

ERROR LINE 52648: _cmdline_parse

:

It still worked. The program blew up, leaving me at the system level. I ran the link directly, skipping the inconvenient password request, and was welcomed into the FBI’s system. From there it was a short hop to my real destination: FLEX. The Federal Law Enforcement eXchange was a political creation of the nineties, designed to improve information flow between police departments. Bribed with federal funding, departments all over the country scrambled to join, exchanging arrest records and investigation reports with sibling services, including the Bureau. Joe Officer in Backwater, Mississippi could research a suspect’s wants and warrants in Nowhere, New Mexico, or search the entire country for crimes similar to his case, all in a matter of minutes. A nervous public was assured it was entirely secure. Good thing. I would hate to have unauthorized people getting access to it.

I searched for the name Mortgage Services. It took a few minutes, but a match came up. They were listed as one of the victims in a break-in at Security Storage. While the company offered facilities as large as four hundred square feet, the perpetrators had homed in on just one small section. It was a single high security, fire proof room filled with individual lockers like large safe deposit boxes. The security guard had been assaulted, but ski masks had prevented any identification.

I browsed through the stolen property report and was suddenly struck by what was wrong with the entire case. It never should have happened! From a thief’s point of view it was a stupid target. Anything really valuable, like jewelry or cash, would be kept in a safe deposit box at a bank. Only items that were important, but not vital, expensive, but not priceless, would be stored there. The report consisted of company records and sensitive files, and, in the case of Mortgage Services, current backup tapes of their computer records.

Three men had assaulted a guard and circumvented a high-tech alarm system for nothing. The stolen property amounted to little of value to anyone but the owners, or perhaps a few competitors.

“Excuse me.”

I jumped when the hand touched my arm. Floating behind the report was the face of the flight attendant.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but we’re getting ready to land.”

“Sure,” I said, trying to look at her and the report at the same time. She just kept looking at me as I scanned the last few pages.

“Hello?” she said. She waved a hand in front of my face. Her voice had that cheerful, patient quality that signified disgruntled impatience among well-trained airline employees. I snatched off the glasses and blinked at her. “Yes?” I said.

Her smile got broader at my tone of voice. “You’ll have to put that away, now, and prepare to land.”

I looked at the keyboard then back at her. “Oh, right!” I said. “Sorry.”

She positively beamed at me. “No problem, Sir.”

Ron woke up as soon as the plane nosed down for the final approach. He yawned and stretched as well as he could in the confines of his seat. “You know,” he began before he had finished yawning, “I never could do anything but sleep on planes. Something about the noise and vibration.”

I nodded and made one of those grunting affirmative sounds.

“I read an article once,” he said. “It has something to do with remembering the time before you’re born. It’s warm, cozy. Like being in your mother’s womb.”

“Sure.” I cocked a thumb at the window. “Womb with a view.”

He laughed like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. “Womb with a view! That’s great! We’ve got to get together in Atlanta. I got some pals you should meet.”

“I have a pretty hectic schedule.”

“We’re staying at the Airport Hilton,” he said. “We’ve got to get together for a couple of drinks.”

I told him I would try, knowing I wouldn’t.

“If you say you’ll try, then you’ll do it. I can tell that about you. You’re not one of those phony types. I can’t stand phonies.”

I shrugged. “What you see is what you get.”

I tried to pay him the five dollars I owed him, since he would be charged for the use of the datalink.

“Forget it,” he said. “You can buy the first round.”

I never saw Ron again, but I found out later that I had paid him back in a way. I bought him half a dozen rounds. It still makes me sick.

Chapter 11

The next day, I arrived at Security Storage too early. I had been aiming for lunch, but the trip to the Stone Mountain area from the hotel had taken less time than I thought it would. Somehow, I remembered the traffic being much worse.

I was tired. Sleep had taunted and beckoned, but it had escaped at every turn. The noises of humanity had kept me awake. Even whispered conversations had thundered through the halls. Closing doors were magnified to explosions, while each flushing toilet roared in my ears like white water rapids. I was not adjusting well to having civilization so close at hand. I just wanted to find out why I was being stalked, stop it, and go back to my life.

I went to a coffee shop on Memorial Drive to wait out the time until lunch. The price of the local paper was a shock, but I thumbed two dollars into the machine anyway. The more people opted for the electronic editions, the more expensive the printed versions got. It had been a long time since I had read a paper that had anything to do with paper.

I sat at the counter with a bottomless cup of coffee and flipped through the national news. Nothing captured my attention and I reached the last page quickly. It was only by chance that I read the local section at all. My attention was not only captured, but bound and gagged and chained to the bottom inside corner of page five. I would have ignored the story entirely, but a name like Lewinsky stands out.

My long, lost buddy from the airplane had been shot six times in the face at point blank range. The paper said it was an apparent robbery, though the Fulton County police had not confirmed that. The body was discovered in the parking lot just minutes after the shots were heard. There was the usual noise about witnesses being questioned and leads being followed, but no one had seen anything.

Pop quiz: What is the most precious commodity while committing armed robbery? Time. Ten points. Second question: Why shoot someone six times at point blank range when once should be sufficient? It’s a trick question. There are two answers: Either you’re very, very angry, or you want to make sure the person is dead. Now for the extra credit: Why did the police refuse to confirm the robbery motive? Maybe they found nothing stolen. Maybe his wallet and watch were still on him. These days everyone likes to fall back on the old ‘drug deal gone bad’ theory, but the story said nothing about the police finding drugs or cash.

I do not believe in fate, nor do I believe in predestination. Without those two factors, all coincidences become suspect. The fact that we were on the plane together was one thing. We were total strangers, and I could count our seating assignments out as random chance. There was something else, though. I had borrowed his connection for my in-flight research. If someone had traced my actions without my knowing it, it would have led to him, not me. What had begun as an annoyance had just become far more serious.

I walked into the offices of Security Storage at ten minutes after twelve. A young woman with auburn hair sat behind the counter. She was on the phone holding what sounded like a routine business conversation. Her voice was marvelous. It had a mellow brightness, shaded with just the slightest hint of southern accent. It was instantly appealing. Though she carried what most people would consider an extra fifty pounds or so, her face bore no hint of the self deprecation normally associated with a weight problem. She was totally at ease with herself. Her poise and manner were those of someone who had no problems at all. If her voice was angelic, the rest of her was cherubic.

“May I help you?” she said when she hung up the phone.

“I hope so.” I set my briefcase on the counter among the fliers and applications that crowded it and handed her one of the Prairie Mortgage business cards.

“What can I do for you,” she glanced at the card, “Mr. Hamilton?”

I explained that the company was planning to open an Atlanta branch and that I was shopping for a place to store archived files, computer backups, and other sensitive records. “Oh, yes,” she said. “We have special facilities just for that purpose.”

“I don’t know if you’ve met anyone from Montana before—

“Not till now.” Her smile would have melted a glacier.

“We tend to be a little paranoid out there. The board wants complete assurance of security.”

The phone rang and she held up an index finger to me. She smiled apologetically as she answered it. I leaned forward to peek over the counter while her attention was on the conversation. She was tapping the keys of her computer, looking something up for the person on the phone.

“No, ma’am,” she said, “that unit won’t be available until next week.”

I leaned a little further to see the brand name on the computer she was using. It was one I knew well. Taped to the front of it was a business card that might as well have been an engraved invitation. The upper left corner bore the pentagram logo of The Guild. There was a phone number and a contact name of “Merlin”.

“I’m sorry,” she said to me when she hung up the phone, “but everyone else is at lunch now.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I just have bad timing.”

“We were talking about security.”

“That’s amazing.” I pointed to her computer. “You have all your leasing information on there?”

She waved my words away with the flick of her wrist. “That’s not the half of it. We have the whole place networked. It handles leasing, billing, scheduling, voice mail. It even runs the security system.”

And that, I thought, is what I wanted to know.

I shook my head and tried to look embarrassed. “Maybe I’m a little backward, but computers still intimidate me. Did you set all this up?”

“Oh, good heavens, no!” She laughed. “It’s all magic to me. I just punch the buttons. The boss just called the Guild, told them what we wanted, and poof; there it was.”

“Oh,” I said. “The Guild.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Guild certified. We wanted the best security available.”

I acted suitably impressed and asked her to show me the area where the lockers were so I could assure the board they were safe.

“Well,” she hesitated. “Everyone’s at lunch and I’m the only one in the office right now.”

I looked at my watch. “Gosh, I won’t be able to come back. I’ve got a meeting and then a flight to catch…” Her look of sympathy almost made me feel guilty for the lie. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“It would only take a minute.”

“But the phone…”

I smiled as sweetly as I could. “Didn’t you say that thing could answer it for you?”

“That’s for after hours.”

I reached way down inside myself and pulled out my sad puppy dog look. “Please,” I said.

“Oh, okay,” she relented. “It will only take a minute.”

She took us through a side door, but I stopped just after it closed. “My briefcase,” I said. “I left it on the counter. I’ll be right back.” As soon as the door was between us, I sprinted to her desk. I flipped the card over and nodded to myself. People were so predictable. They were also the weakest link in any security chain. On the back of the card, in pencil, she had written the word “excalibur.” It had to be the password for the Guild’s dial-up account that allowed them to analyze and fix any problems remotely. I snatched my briefcase and ran to the door just as she poked her head back through.

“Sorry,” I said.

She led me down a hallway past several unoccupied offices. At the end of the hall a door let us outside. We were inside the main gate, standing in the driveway that led back to the large storage units. Directly across from us was a separate building of concrete block. It had no windows and just a single door that bore a sign declaring it private. There was a keypad next to the door and she stood close to it in order to block my view while she tapped in several numbers. Something clanked into place and she pushed the door open.

“This door,” she said, holding it for me, “requires a separate code from the main gate. Not everyone has access to this building.”

The lights inside blinked on automatically. “Amazing,” I said, scratching my forehead to obscure my face from the security camera at the door. I asked her how late I could get in.

“The main gate works until ten o’clock. If you’re inside after that, the security guard has to let you out.”

“What hours is the guard on duty?”

“Eight at night till eight in the morning.”

I smiled. “No wonder you’ve never been broken into.”

She started to speak, but stopped short. Distress and uncertainty twisted her features.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“I can’t lie to you, Mr. Hamilton.”

“Alex,” I said. “Please.”

“It did happen once, about two weeks ago.”

I looked around at the storage lockers that were covering the walls. Each had a small slot in the door that looked like modern hotel room locks, the kind that use little plastic cards instead of keys. The doors were pristine, not even the paint was scratched.

I pointed around the room. “But not in here,” I said.

Her fingers twisted together as she looked away. “Yes,” she said.

“How?”

“I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

“Well I’m going to have to tell the board something.”

She looked pleadingly at me. “The agent said we shouldn’t discuss the details with anyone.”

“The police said that?”

“No, they…” She stepped closer and her voice dropped to a whisper. “He came after the police. Asked a lot of questions.”

“Who?”

“The FBI agent.”

My own voice sank to match her conspiratorial whisper as I tried to draw her out. “What did they want with a local burglary?”

She shrugged and it set her whole body in motion. “Maybe there was something, you know, Federal in here.”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head showing every outward sign of grave reservations. “I’ll have to discuss this with the board.”

“Oh, please,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone I said anything.”

I smiled at her. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I was never even here.”

Chapter 12

“Come in, Mr. Hamilton. Have a seat.”

Robert Fields of Mortgage Services looked nothing like I had expected. He was well over six feet tall and thin almost to the point of being gaunt and his every movement had a certain awkwardness to it.

His office was something of a throwback. It was paneled in wood, real wood, not the thin sheets you can hang with a stapler. Brass tacks strained against the red leather of the chairs, barely containing the abundant stuffing. His desk glowed in rich mahogany and I suspected the insert on the top was real leather. The shade of green glass softened the light from his brass desk lamp, illuminating just a handful of items on his desk. There was a phone, a virgin note pad, and a fountain pen. In spite of what the company did for a living, there was no sign of a computer or terminal anywhere in the room.

He folded himself into his chair and propped his elbows on the armrests. His considerable height made him hunch over and as he steepled his fingers under his chin he resembled nothing less than a huge gargoyle. “I understand you’re interested in hiring our services for,” he hesitated for just a moment, “Prairie Mortgage, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. We’re about to open an Atlanta branch and farming out the processing for both branches could significantly reduce our investment.”

“Indeed,” he said. “We’ve already made that investment for you. Equipment, software, staff. Think of it as a way of fooling the economies of scale by pooling resources with others like you.”

I nodded. “Your price schedule seems quite reasonable.”

“We have customers of all sizes,” he said, “and if we weren’t saving them money, they wouldn’t still be with us.” I hesitated and tried my best to look uncomfortable. “There is one thing, though.”

Smoothly, he rose to the challenge, prepared to overcome any objection. “And that is?”

I wrung my hands a little and looked down. “The board is a little hesitant to relinquish control.”

His hands came apart and wiggled in little calming motions. “If they’re worried about the customer service aspect, we have an option where you can do it yourself. You simply access our system for the information.”

“I think their biggest concern is,” I paused for effect, showing discomfort, “well, security.”

His voice lost its animated cheerfulness. It became stiff, almost mechanical. “They needn’t worry on that point, either. Our system is secure.”

“I’m sure it is, but how do I convince them of that?”

He stared at me for a moment before he spoke. “You don’t sound very trusting of computers.”

“Oh,” I said, looking away and acting uncomfortable. I shifted in my seat. “It’s just that, well frankly, the whole subject makes me a little queasy.”

He smiled and I knew I had him by his compassion. He began to warm to what he saw as a kindred spirit. “I understand,” he said. “There’s something Faustian in it, isn’t there? We made a deal for convenience. Instant access any time anywhere. In return we have to live with the feeling of being a little out of control all the time.”

“We haven’t exactly sold our souls to the Guild.”

“I was speaking of computers in general. To them,” he said with emphasis, “we have sold our souls. Everything we are exists somewhere out there in an electronic universe most of us barely understand.”

I shook my head. “Everyone else thinks I’m crazy. They say computers are just a tool. After all, everyone embraced the telephone and trusted others to run them.”

“Ah,” he said. He was settling in as if he had held this conversation many times before. “But they were never so complicated, nor so all encompassing. Telephones only carried conversations. They never took part in them.”

“It’s not like computers make up the information they process.”

“It might as well be. Can you really tell where the information comes from? Look at us! We want to make an investment we consult the oracle. When you make a loan you look in a crystal ball to see the applicant’s past at a glance. Everything we are, from birth records to death certificate, is out there, accessible to those initiates of the arts.”

“Like the Guild.”

He nodded as he continued. “They’re the wizards of myth made real. Every company heavily invested in computers has at least one court magician, if not a whole team of them, and we literally put our lives in their hands.”

I used every ounce of concentration not to smile. He was right. We were spell casters, practitioners of the digital arts, and much of what we did was so far out of the average person’s field of knowledge that it seemed very much like magic. The fact is, I rather liked the notion. Not only was I one of those wizards, but I was a very powerful one.

“And now,” he went on, “they’re unionized.”

“The guild isn’t exactly a union,” I said. “It’s more of a professional organization.”

“Oh I know how it started. It’s happened before, railroads, medicine, communications. A board is formed from inside an industry, promising self regulation to allay public fears of monopoly and corruption. Soon it becomes its own monopoly, a true guild in the classical sense of the term, in total control of an industry, determining who does what work for whom.”

“But it’s not a monopoly,” I said. “There are still a lot of independents out there.”

“Fewer all the time. Guild certification, whether it’s computers or individuals, has become more than a recommendation. The public sees it as a license to operate.” “But before the Guild,” I said, “there were all these security problems and scam artists. And what about all those— what are they? Hackers?”

“Trust me,” he said. He seemed almost to spit each word onto his desk. “Things are not much better now.”

It was time to veer him off his personal rant. While his attitude was fascinating, it wasn’t getting me any closer to the answers I needed.

“I take it, then,” I said, “that your systems are controlled in house.”

He started to rise, but instead ended up leaning back in his chair and looking away. “Not completely,” he said.

“What does ‘not completely’ mean?”

Only his deep set eyes shifted to look at me. “Our entire application was developed in house and our system was set up by staff.”

I frowned as if I failed to understand. “Then what is done outside?”

He let out a breath he had not seemed to be holding. “Security.”

“Was there a problem?”

“No,” he said quickly, too quickly.

“Look, if there’s some sort of security problem, I need to make the board aware of it. As you said, we’re talking about putting our lives in you hands. Not to mention the legal liability of keeping sensitive information private.”

The salesman in him came back to life, as he sensed the nervousness I was trying so hard to project. He sat up straight and smiled, seeming to grow years younger in an instant. “It was nothing,” he said. “We had a near miss with a total accident, but it got us thinking about what could happen.” “An accident?” He could have been lying just to keep from scaring me away, or there could have been another reason.

“An accident,” he said. “You know, someone pushes the wrong button at the wrong time.”

“I hope you had good backups.”

He was suddenly intense. “What do you mean?”

That nerve still seemed to be a little raw. “Isn’t it standard procedure? To keep backups in case of accidents? I know we keep a copy in a separate location just in case there’s a fire or something.”

“Of course.” His frown deepened.

“After all, the odds against two accidents are pretty slim.” “What are you getting at?”

“Excuse me?” I was innocence incarnate.

He stared at me, but said nothing. After two weeks, this entire subject still had him completely rattled. “Mr. Fields,” I said. “I’m quite sure I don’t know what you mean, but if this is a bad time, perhaps your competition…”

“I have no competition, yet. The idea’s too new.”

Damn! I should have checked that out before the meeting. Always ad lib around known facts. I had no choice but to bluff my way through. “There’s a new company in New York,” I lied. “I received a notice from them just last month.” His face showed no hint of what he was thinking as he stared at me. The silence grew uncomfortable. Something was definitely wrong. I could understand the subject being touchy for him and why he would lie about the circumstances, especially to a prospective client, but he was too upset, too defensive. Had I been legitimate, his overreaction to an innocent comment could easily have put me off and lost him a new client. He seemed willing to risk that, but for what? It was almost as if he were expecting someone to enter his office under false circumstances, someone who might work the conversation around to the incident without approaching it directly. He was sifting each sentence, looking for innuendo. I felt my way along the chain of logic. Defensiveness implied a threat, perhaps of another ‘accident’. Threat, however, implied foreknowledge, and there is only one reason to tell someone that you intend to do them harm: coercion. In business that translates to extortion.

“Mr. Fields,” I said. “Is there something going on here I should know about?”

“What do you mean?”

I paused, as if choosing my words with great care. “Is there a chance such a thing might happen again?”

Uncertainty crossed his face. He still could not tell if I was legitimate or not. “I never thought it could happen in the first place.”

“What if it does? The consequences could be extremely expensive.”

His eyes became dark slits, crinkling the skin of his temples. He took a deep breath and his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “What…” His voice choked off in a squeak. Clearing his throat he began again. “What might it cost to avoid such accidents?”

That settled it. The two of us were exchanging words, but we were definitely not having the same conversation. I set my briefcase on my lap. The sound of the latches jolted Fields like an electric charge. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” I said to cover my actions. In my briefcase was a small black box. It was one of the products of my electronic tinkering. I activated it and watched the numbers blink on the display. “That’s really not my area of expertise.” The numbers stopped blinking. What was left was a frequency high on the FM band, right where surveillance equipment tends to be tuned. The computers at Mortgage Services were not the only things with bugs.

Fields spoke haltingly as if taking great care in the choice of each word. “It’s difficult to know how to proceed without some sort of guidance.”

I closed my briefcase and stood up. “I’m sure a solution will present itself.”

He stood quickly and leaned across his desk. “When?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

I was already at the door the next time he spoke. “When will I hear from you again?”

“You won’t,” I said, stepping through the door. “Prairie Mortgage will continue to process its own payments. I’m sure you understand.” I caught a glimpse of a very confused and frustrated Robert Fields as I closed the door.

Chapter 13

It took me almost an hour to get back to the hotel. Traffic was still surprisingly light, but I took about as contorted a route as one could possibly imagine. If the offices of Mortgage Services were bugged, it was possible that they were watched as well.

Atlanta is a marvelous place to lose a tail. With three interstates crossing through the center and another running a circle around the whole thing, the opportunities for doubling back and weaving through traffic were everywhere. I used every trick the FBI courses teach you to watch for and then a few more. Unfortunately, I had no idea what I was looking for. For all I knew, Fields had had his own office monitored to try to catch whoever doing whatever.

The first thing I had to do was finish covering my trail. I stopped by the front desk and stood directly behind the registration computer. I fished the plastic card that served as my room key out of my pocket. The young man behind the counter was flawlessly groomed. He looked like something out of a clothing catalog. He greeted me with precise politeness and asked how he could help me.

“My key doesn’t seem to work anymore,” I said. As I started to hand it to him, I dropped it down between the counter and the back of the computer. “Sorry! I’ll get it.” Before he could react I reached my hand over the counter. It took me a second to find what I was looking for and I smiled nervously at the clerk. By touch, I found the network connection on the back of the computer. It was a standard modular connection and I pulled it loose before I brought the card up and handed it to him.

I apologized again but he waved it away as he turned to reprogram the card.

“That’s odd,” he said.

“What’s odd?” I asked.

“Excuse me one second.” He turned to another doll-like clerk several feet down the counter. “Sue, are you down?” I flipped open my briefcase as if ignoring the exchange. Sue tapped a few keys on her computer experimentally. “I’m fine,” she said.

“I hope I didn’t break anything,” I said, “but I am rather pressed for time.”

“No problem, Mr. Hamilton. I’ll take care of it right away.” He walked down to use Sue’s computer.

While he was distracted I took out another of my little black boxes. This one plugged in between the computer and the wire I had pulled loosed. Now the computer was reconnected to the network, but with one small change. I now had a wireless connection right into the hotel’s system and since the desk clerk’s password had already been validated I could do anything I wanted.

“Are you sure you followed the directions?” The clerk was back waving my key in the air. “From what I can tell it should work just fine.”

“Well I’m not much on gadgets,” I said, taking the card back. “Maybe I did something wrong.”

“I can send someone up with you.”

“Oh, no. I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll try it again.”

“If you have any problems, my name is Rick and I’ll be happy to help you out.”

“Thank you, Rick.” I swept my briefcase from the counter. “You’ve been too kind.”

I walked the full length of the marbled floor to the lounge area. The bar was elevated and open to the lobby. It had an excellent view of the front desk. I ordered a soft drink and pulled out my portable computer. Even with the display glasses on I could see Rick clearly. After ten minutes he disappeared into the back room. I quickly took over his computer. I had to poke my way through the menus, but in a short time Al Hamilton checked out. In a matter of seconds one Arthur Deco occupied his room. Hopefully, no one would notice that the same credit card was still paying for it. I cleared the screen and returned to the main menu just as Rick came back out. He never saw a thing.

I went back to my room where my electronic wanderings would be less conspicuous. I would have to retrieve my network tap later when there was less traffic in the lobby. My first step was to crack the local phone company, just as I had when, working as Galileo, I had worked my way through Mortgage Services’ security. This time, however, I grabbed a double handful of phone numbers, forwarding them to each other, leaving just one as an exit. Any trace would have to become hopelessly mired in the pretzeled route without finding its way back to me.

The combination of “Merlin” and “Excalibur” flung the electronic gates of Security Storage wide open. Whoever Merlin was, he had to be a fairly low rank among the Guild. No experienced caster would use such an obvious password. A proper password should either be so cryptic that it defies deduction, or so personal it can not be guessed. You would be surprised how many passwords you can figure out just by looking through someone’s personal information.

I peered around the inner workings of the system. It was large, and surprisingly more powerful than I would have thought necessary. A large block of resources was dedicated to scanning a bank of connections to the outside world; not phone lines, but the kind of interface used to control equipment. Activity caught my attention when something called “GATEVIEW” popped up. It digested a long stream of data from one of the connections, then set about appending the information to an already huge file. When it finished, it receded into the darkness of inactivity. I grabbed the file and looked it over. It held chunk after chunk of repetitive data, each marked by a date and time. The last entry was just seconds ago. They were digitized images of the back ends of cars, snapped as they entered the main gate. That explained the extra horsepower. The whole place was wired and this system controlled it all.

I found the customer records that included the assigned storage unit for each as well as accounting records. Decoding another file with the curious name of “LOCKERS,” I found the codes that would open each of the secure storage lockers. This was where the system validated the card keys each time an attempt was made to gain entry. With this information, I could make keys for every one of the lockers. Anyone with this level of access to the Security Storage computer had everything they needed to clean out the entire place without leaving so much as a footprint, except for the one someone left in the security guard’s face.

The log file agreed with me. On the night of the break-in, every locker had been opened with a valid key card. That was why the alarm never sounded.

The next file I tried to open stopped me cold. Invalid access. That was odd. Merlin should have had full access to everything on the system.

I tried another file at random and got the same response.

And another.

I checked one of the files I had already looked at.

Invalid access.

I whistled up the system utilities and watched as, one at a time, the status of each file on the entire network changed. Someone or something was alerted to my presence and was systematically locking things up.

“Connection lost,” my system informed me.

I dialed back in, but this time the name Merlin was rejected. The whole process happened so fast it had to be automated. There may have been some internal security trap triggered by accessing certain files out of sequence. I should have seen it. At least I managed to learn something before I got thrown out.

I was just about to dial back out to clean up the telephone maze I had created when an unfamiliar feeling gripped my stomach. It was something I had not felt since my days with the Fed. It was fear.

The cellular connection on my portable was ringing. Someone was dialing in! I tried to convince myself that it was a wrong number, that someone had accidentally struck on a combination of digits I could not even remember. The alternative, that someone had managed to trace back through my labyrinthine tangle of phone connections and somehow come up with my cellular number, was too frightening. It would have meant that there was some powerful mojo out there and it was hunting for me. I had tried before to crack the cellular networks to that extent. I had failed.

My mind flashed to the falcon with which I shared a small piece of Montana. My sense of connection was slipping away. I could only see him from the scrub, wings spread, grabbing air, talons stretching toward me. Funny. I had never thought to look at him from the point of view of the field mouse.

The phone kept ringing. Bullshit! I had tricks the field mouse did not. I was talented and taloned. I ran through the possibilities. What if he had the cellular number? What could he learn? Nothing. The account was bogus. Though I made sure the bill was paid every month, the payments were untraceable.

Location? That was secure as well. The only method of tracking a cellular call requires field equipment to triangulate on the signal. There had been no time for that.

Panic set aside, I answered the phone, but said nothing.

“Who is this?” The voice was deep and cold like an ancient cavern. Something about it seemed almost familiar. “Merlin,” I said.

He chuckled and it sounded like a rumbling deep in the earth. “Nice try,” he said. Then, after a pause, he finished with, “Mr. Hamilton.”

“You’ve mistaken me for someone else,” I said.

“And you’ve mistaken me for a fool. You’ve been delving into matters that don’t concern you. Do not pursue it.”

“I can’t imagine what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Nor can you imagine what I’ll do about it.”

“‘Lay on, MacDuff,’” I quoted.

“There is no place to hide, Mr. Hamilton.”

“I was just going to say that.”

He was silent for a moment. Obviously, my witty bantering had put him off. Two points for pith.

“Mr. Hamilton,” his voice was suddenly amiable. “I do not wish you any harm.”

“Anyone explain that to Lewinsky?”

“I am quite sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“And I was just beginning to trust you.”

“I don’t want your trust.” The hard edge returned to his voice. “I just want you to go away.”

I thought about it. It was tempting. After all, the only thing I wanted was to go away, to get this mess over with and get back to my own private life. I had not gotten into this to save the world. My crusading days were long in the past. They ended the day I discovered that I was alone, that those for whom I worked had less interest in changing the world than in keeping it the way it was. Oh, they wanted to catch a few bad guys here and there, solve a few crimes, but no one actually wanted to change anything. It was bad for morale, bad for business. Good heavens, it might even let the public take responsibility for their own lives! Where would we be then?

There was still Sphinx to consider. It was his contact that had dragged me into this. As long as he persisted, I could not back away. The whole thing would just keep following me. I almost mentioned my enigmatic shadow, but stopped before I even drew breath. This person knew only of Hamilton. Sphinx knew only of Galileo. I didn’t even know if the two events were related. Things were getting entirely too complicated. It was best that I shut up before I gave more information than I wanted to.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“Think quickly.”

I broke the connection.

I decided to check with the LOC again, just in case they had discovered anything. Though I was stuck without a VR rig, I could function well enough to grab a message. I went through the phone maze and tried to hook up with King Kaos’s system. The screen rebuked my efforts.

I checked the address against my files and tried again with no success. The system was not out there. The stupid netscum had either taken his box offline or gotten a new address. I had thought he was smarter than that. He had to know I would find him.

Then I remembered DarkAngel. I summoned her e-mail address and fired a message to her. It was short and sweet. I told her to tell King I would find him.

She must have been waiting for me, because her response came just a few minutes later. “You won’t find him,” it said. Then it gave the location of an article on one of the online news services.

I linked to it and as I read, the air in the room seemed to congeal. A man by the name of Carter Weeks had been found dead in his Chicago apartment the night before. From the equipment and documents the police had discovered, they determined that he was the leader of a hacker organization known on the net as the Lords of Chaos. Weeks’s net persona was none other than the infamous hacker King Kaos, who had been sought by various Federal agencies for years in connection with several security violations.

It went on to recount several well publicized security “incidents” of which King had been suspected, but I lost my concentration. My coincidence alarm was ringing too loudly.

Chapter 14

It’s funny how the little things make the big differences in your life. I had become accustomed to sleeping in silence; utter, complete aural darkness. Living in the middle of nowhere will do that to you.

The steady thrum of humanity that most people take for granted kept me barely on the edge of sleep. My mind grabbed every sound. Each horn on the street below seemed to rattle the windows. The lightest step in the hallway trampled my rest. That’s why, when the lock on my door made the tiniest snick it brought me completely awake.

I was lying on my side with my back to the door. Marley’s ghost made less noise than whoever was unlatching the chain. I moved my hand under my pillow as I sensed the door swinging open. My pistol wasn’t there! In my fitful sleep, I had wandered across the huge bed. My Glock was an acre away under the other pillow. The intruder was already in the room. If I went for it now, I would never make it.

I placed him toward the foot of the bed, near the table. I recognized the sound of my portable computer being opened. He was making sure that Arthur Deco and Alex Hamilton were one in the same.

A click and a beep.

He had powered up the system.

His attention was not on me.

My hand slid to the sheath, still strapped to my wrist.

Rattling keys covered the soft slither of the blade against leather.

In one motion I sat up and threw the blade. As it thudded into his back he stood straight up and began to turn to his left. I was already in the air when I saw the silhouette of the gun in his left hand. We landed against the dresser, my left shoulder cracking the mirror. I had both my hands around his wrist keeping the gun aimed away. His free hand landed in my stomach below the solar plexus. Any higher and he would have disabled me.

The first rule of infighting: there are no fair fights, use whatever is available. I kept my left hand clamped around his wrist and flung my right arm backward. I was still half sitting on the dresser and the added height let me wrap my arm around his neck behind me. He swung at my face and missed as I gathered my left leg beneath me. As he drew back for another try I jumped up and backward. My shoulder exploded as it overextended. He landed flat on his back with me on top of him and I heard the cracking of ribs as we hit. They were his ribs, not mine.

He no longer moved. I got up and rubbed my shoulder. That was when I noticed he no longer breathed. I rolled him over. The impact had driven the knife deep into his back, cracking ribs, puncturing lungs, and generally making a god awful mess; especially of the carpet. Barely two inches of the hilt still protruded from his back. I debated leaving it, but there were too few of them in the world. Without my job at the Fed I would never have been able to get one in the first place. They had wanted it back when I left. According to their property records, they had gotten it.

It took me twenty minutes to recover my knife. Ten of those were spent retching in the toilet.

It was definitely time to go. I had never been to the Peachtree Plaza before, but my keen instincts told me they would frown on dead bodies in their rooms. I threw on jeans and a t-shirt and made a quick sweep of the room to make sure I left nothing behind. A sport coat covered the Glock in my shoulder holster. I threw the loose items, comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, into my bag. I stuffed my computer into my briefcase and took one last look around. My fingerprints were everywhere, but that wouldn’t matter. They were no longer on record with anyone. My assailant’s gun, wallet, and keys went into the briefcase and I was gone.

It was midnight. Even though it was a week night there was still activity in the lobby, though it was little enough to make the place seem cavernous. A few diehards still occupied the bar, their attention focused on the drinks before them. There was only one person on duty at the front desk and she was trying to explain to an elegantly dressed couple why there were no rooms available. The couple, I noticed, had no luggage. The terminal where I had tapped into the network was unoccupied.

I took a table at the edge of the lounge, the same one I had occupied earlier. The waitress seemed deeply disappointed when I ordered only a soft drink. I set my computer up and was just putting on the glasses when she returned.

“It isn’t that bright in here,” she said. She had mistaken them for sunglasses.

“No,” I said. “It’s not.”

She wore a short apron that was longer than her black shorts and her stark white shirt was topped with a black bow tie. Her jogging shoes ruined whatever effect the management had been trying to achieve.

She glanced at the computer. “You a magician?”

“A what?”

“You know,” she said. “One of those computer wizards.”

“No,” I said as I tapped into the hotel’s computer, “just a businessman.”

“I just thought since you’re working at weird hours.”

“I see.” I accessed the room records and brought mine up.

The waitress did not leave. “I dated one once,” she went on. “Insisted I call him Mephisto. Can you believe that? The guy would never even tell me his real last name.”

I cleared out the records. As far as the computer was concerned, Hamilton and Deco had never checked in. The room had been unoccupied for days.

The waitress was still talking. “He said anyone who knew his true name would have power over him. Is that crazy, or what?”

For the first time, I actually looked at her. Freckles stretched across the bridge of her nose like constellations. Crystals, perhaps rose quartz, dangled from her earlobes. Her badge declared her name as Cynthia. I typed as I talked, watching her through the words floating before me as I located the personnel files.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It makes a certain kind of sense.” Amazing. Five hundred employees and only one Cynthia: Cynthia Andersen.

“Don’t you think it’s kind of creepy?” she said.

“No, Miss Andersen, I don’t.”

The look on her face was priceless. I had to stifle a laugh. “Do I know you?” Suspicion colored her voice.

“Not at all,” I said. “Oh, by the way, happy belated birthday.”

Her jaw fell. “It was yesterday.”

“I know,” I said. I snagged her social security number and dialed out, leaping into the vast electronic universe. I drifted with the currents, flowing from system to system, looking. The currents combined and strengthened. A torrent of data flowed into one vast pool. I swept my hands through it and came up with a number.

“How’d you know that?” she said. “He used to do that kind of shit to me too.”

“Just a guess.” I came to a gate I had breached many times before. It swung wide and I looked around for a match. In the middle of a nasty little mess, I found it. I continued the conversation as I swept it clean. “I’m a good guesser.”

“What’s going on?” She almost stamped her foot. “Who are you?”

“Ask me about your birthday present.”

An uncertain smile tried to lighten her features. She looked around the room. “Who put you up to this? What present?”

I smiled. “The one from me, of course.”

She looked at the table, then under it. “What?” she said. “Your credit card is no longer past due,” I said.

The suspicion was back. “My what?”

“You still owe the money,” I explained, “but it’s current, not sixty days late.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“I also bumped the credit line up so you’re not over your limit, but I advise you not to spend it.” She watched me put my computer away and stand up. I threw a couple of dollars on the table. “That’s for the drink,” I said.

I picked up my bag and started to leave. She was still staring at me in disbelief. “Oh, yes,” I added. “Your tip.” “What?” she said.

I looked at her carefully. “This is it: take the wizards seriously.”

I turned and walked to the front desk. While the clerk was busy on the phone, it sounded like a personal call, I retrieved my network tap. Cynthia was still staring at me across the lobby. Her gaze followed me all the way to the door. I turned and waved as I left.

Chapter 15

When I woke up, it was almost noon. Adrenalin had kept me moving most of the night. It took me south, toward downtown, where I picked up I-20 East. The interstate let me put plenty of space behind me and I kept watching my mirrors. I drove all the way out to where I-20 hits I-285. At the last minute I slipped onto the exit for I-285 North. The sign said north. Locals have given up trying to apply compass directions to a highway that describes almost a perfect circle. They give directions like inside or outside the perimeter, clockwise and counterclockwise.

I headed counterclockwise, past Memorial Drive, and all the way up toward the Chamblee area near Jimmy Carter Boulevard. The area is mostly industrial, but a few blocks inside the perimeter I stopped at a cheap motel.

“Don’t rent by the hour,” the night clerk said without looking up from a small portable television propped on the desk.

“Me neither,” I said.

He spared me a quick glance, but that was it. I threw forty dollars in cash on the counter to cover the room.

“Need a credit card,” he said without looking at it.

“Sorry,” I said. I threw another twenty next to it. “Here’s my uncle Andy’s.”

His hand snaked out and grabbed the cash. “Mr. Jackson’s always welcome,” he said.

I got a room on the second floor, hauled my bags in, and collapsed on the bed. Adrenalin is great when you need it, but when it goes, you end up exhausted.

The sound of lunchtime traffic woke me up. Tires screeched into whatever dream I was having while blaring horns propelled me into consciousness. I showered and dressed and only then did I feel awake.

I sat on the bed and went through the personal effects of the previous night’s mystery guest. The gun was a Charter Arms thirty-eight with a two inch barrel. There was nothing special about it except that it was perfectly clean. It looked like it had come straight out of the box, never fired. The keys revealed nothing at all.

The wallet contained a Georgia driver’s license in the name of Anton Illiyevitch Vallislavsky. The man was in the wrong Georgia. He carried business cards from the Tahachi Corporation. Instead of a title, it simply said “security.” There was also a credit card with the Tahachi name on it, three hundred dollars in cash, two rubbers, a game ticket for the Georgia State Lotto, and a crumpled Guild business card. The name on the card was Merlin.

A knock on the door brought me straight off the bed. I don’t remember grabbing the Glock from under the pillow, but it was in my hand.

“Housekeeping!” A woman’s muffled voice came from outside the door. I relaxed a little. Just a little.

“Just a minute,” I said.

“Housekeeping!” she said again as I heard a key in the lock. There was no safety chain on the door. As it started to swing open, I planted my left foot in the way, standing with the door between us. The Glock was in my right hand, pointing at the floor.

The door banged against my foot. “I said just a minute!”

“Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I not hear you.”

I peeked through the two inch gap in the door, where an Asian woman stood with a look of surprise on her face. She was wearing headphones and a portable CD player was clipped to her apron. That explained her hearing problem. Next to her was the usual cart filled with towels and cleaning products.

“Come back later,” I said.

“Now is later,” she said. “Boss says you check out.”

“Ten minutes,” I said.

She nodded quickly. Her head bobbed like a child’s toy. “Ten minutes,” she said.

I closed the door and listened until I heard her banging on the next door down. I threw on my shoulder rig and sport coat and grabbed my bag and briefcase. Obviously, Uncle Andy’s name would only get me so far.

I stepped out of the room into an overcast day. The door to the next room was open, and the cart was parked outside. I could hear the purring of a vacuum cleaner. I edged toward the railing and looked down at the parking lot. My rental car was almost directly below me. As I watched, a man in a blue suit walked to the passenger’s side of a plain dark green sedan. He was being careful with the white paper sack he was carrying, using both hands. It was the kind of sack so many diners use for takeout orders. Lunch in a motel parking lot, happens all the time. The sedan was three rows back, but parked with a clear view of my car. Call me paranoid, but I was getting that field mouse feeling again.

I walked toward the stairs, but instead I circled around to the back of the building. More rooms lined the area overlooking the pool. I took the back stairs down to the pool area. Signs were posted all around stating that the pool was closed. The water’s green tinge and the patches of furry growth on the surface made the signs unnecessary.

I walked the long way around the building and came out at the other end of the parking lot. To my left was a coffee shop. It was probably where Suit had gotten his lunch. I stayed low, covering myself with the parked cars, but trying not to look suspicious. Ever try to crouch behind a car without looking suspicious? Trust me, it’s not easy.

Behind me, at the edge of the parking lot, was a long unkempt hedge. It ran along the property line between the motel and the coffee shop. Kudzu grew all through it and whoever maintained the grounds had apparently given the hedge up for lost. It was just as well. About the only way to stop kudzu is nuclear detonation. I stashed my bag and briefcase deep into the greenery, marking the spot in my mind, twenty paces from the Georgia Power transformer, about even with the trash containers of the restaurant next door.

I worked my way toward the street, even with the green sedan, but several rows over. I started around the car in front of me. Something went bang behind me and I ducked behind the bumper. My hand was under my jacket gripping the Glock. I peeked through the car’s glass and saw a guy dumping trash at the restaurant.

Dark tinted glass and the glare from the sun kept me from seeing inside the sedan. A rhythmic thumping marked the maid’s cart as she wheeled it along the rooms. She was working the ground floor now. Nothing in the parking lot moved. It was decision time.

I could run. If the men in the car were watching at all, they were watching my car, not me. I could just as easily grab my bags and go call a cab, but then I would never know who they were or if they were even watching my car.

I moved over another row toward the street, still keeping an eye on the sedan. The guy at the restaurant was banging another garbage can around. If I wanted to run, I could at least take the license number of the car with me.

I ducked low and circled the car at the end of the row. Traffic rushed by twenty yards away. From behind the car, I could no longer see the sedan. I popped my head up and saw nothing but the sun reflected off the rear window of the car I was hiding behind. I blinked several times, but all I could see was a huge dark spot. I waited a minute for my vision to clear, trying to watch with my ears.

The banging at the coffee shop had stopped. All I heard was the traffic racing by on the street behind me. I started over to the next car. Then things went crazy.

As soon as I moved, the driver’s door opened. I don’t know who was surprised more. A man stepped out dragging a briefcase. He had a cellular phone tucked under his chin while his other hand juggled a set of keys.

“What the… ?” he said when he saw me.

“Dropped my keys,” I said.

His face went slack as his eyes widened. The cellular phone dropped toward the ground.

“Don’t move!” came a shout from behind me. Of course I moved. I was already crouched, so I rolled to my left before the phone hit the ground. Pain shot into my shoulder where it hit the pavement.

“Federal agent!” came a different voice, a woman’s voice. I couldn’t tell the direction. “Freeze!”

Cannon fire. Something spanged off the ground next to me. Hot fragments burned my face.

The phone clattered. I was on my back, gun coming out, looking for a target. Explosions everywhere. Someone towered over me. His gun swung away as bits flew from his chest. Fire spit from his gun as he spun toward the ground. I sat up. A pistol swung around the next car. I snapped a bead on the maid.

“Federal agent!” A man’s voice, this time. “Don’t do it!” Tires squealed in the background.

“He means it!” said the maid. She had me just as dead as I had her. We all ignored the guy who had fired at me. He was lying several feet away bleeding as hard as he could.

“Put the gun down now!” yelled the voice behind me. “Put it down! Put the gun down! Now!” Law enforcement technique. Unnerve the suspect by yelling at him. I had every intention of putting the gun down, but I wasn’t doing anything fast, no matter how much he yelled.

“Put the gun down!” shouted the maid.

“Put it down! Now!” The guy behind me again. This was getting old.

They kept shouting as I slowly separated my left hand from the gun. My left hand rose slowly in the air as my right brought the gun toward the ground. When the Glock was between my feet, they finally stopped shouting and I eased my hands behind my head. A vise clamped down on my interlaced fingers. The maid moved toward me. The nasty end of a nine millimeter looks its nastiest when it’s aimed at your head. She swept my pistol away with her foot as my hands were cuffed behind my back.

“Stand up,” said the agent behind me. He helped by lifting my hands. It doesn’t ease the weight, but the pain in the shoulders and elbows sure gives you incentive. When I got to my feet he spun me by the shoulder, leaning me back on the trunk of the car.

He stuffed his ID in my face and I almost laughed.

“Federal agent,” he said, “you’re… Jesus Christ.”

“An easy mistake,” I said. “I get that all the time.”

Phillip Garber was the name on the ID. We had been more than partners at the Bureau. We had become close friends. Of all the things I divorced when I left the real world he was the only one I regretted.

“God damn it, Jake. I thought you were dead.” He shoved his weapon into the apron he was wearing while he pocketed his ID. He had been the guy dumping trash at the coffee shop.

The photo no longer matched. Wrinkles creased the corners of his eyes and grey had begun to infest his blond hair at the temples. Grey is a lot like kudzu.

“Hardly,” I said. “I just disappeared.”

“No, I mean this morning.”

He could only mean the Peachtree Plaza. “I almost was. The guy almost had me.”

“What guy?”

“At the hotel.”

“What are you talking about?” he said.

It sounded like a good question, so I repeated it. “What are you talking about?”

“The plane,” he said.

I was lost. My shoulder hurt, my arms hurt, and now my head hurt. “Do you mind?” I tried to point to the handcuffs with my chin.

He removed the handcuffs. The maid had just returned from soothing the man who had dropped his phone. He had been a babbling mess. Now he was just babbling.

“Doesn’t anyone who works around here actually work here?” I said to Phil.

“Agent Doreen Itake,” he said, nodding toward her. “We call her Tex.”

Either Phil missed it, or he choose to ignore it, but it was clear that Agent Itake disliked the name. Her whole body had clenched when he had said it.

“Top of her class,” he went on. “District marksmanship winner. Fast track material.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

He threw a deliberate smile my way. “An easy mistake. She gets it all the time.”

Chapter 16

I waited in the coffee shop while Phil and Agent Itake did FBI stuff. It was the less glamorous side of the business; examining crime scenes, taking statements, cleaning up dead bodies. Well, one dead body, anyway. It was almost two hours before Phil joined me in the booth.

He pulled out one of the menus that were stuffed between the sugar and the napkin dispenser. “It’s good to see you,” he said.

“What did you tell her?” I asked.

“Tex?”

I nodded just enough to get him to continue.

“You’re an old friend who just happened to get caught in the middle of something.”

“And she bought that? An armed man just happens to end up in the middle of a firefight during,” I suddenly realized I had no idea what I had been in the middle of, “during whatever the hell the FBI was doing here, and he doesn’t get searched, questioned, or even ID’d? If that’s top of the class, the bureau is slipping.”

He looked at me with a funny little smile. It was the one he always used when he knew something other people didn’t. “I outrank her by about half the goddamned ladder,” he said. “She buys what I tell her to buy.”

He was no longer just Agent Garber. He was heading a separate division specializing in computer crime and reporting directly to the deputy director.

“So what are you doing in the field?” I asked.

His face grew serious. “I couldn’t send anyone else.”

“All the good agents were busy?”

No laugh. No reaction. Just that look on his face I hadn’t seen since a time ten years ago when he was contemplating marriage. “This is serious,” he said.

“A leak?”

“More like a whole friggin’ pipeline. I just don’t know where or how.”

I pulled out my computer while we spoke. “Any ideas?”

“None,” he said. “It’s like they know what I’m doing before I do. What are you doing?”

I had put my glasses on and was busy typing away. “Nothing,” I said. “Who are ‘they’?”

“They,” he said. “The bad guys.”

I was already in the FBI’s computer system. I stopped when I realized he was being evasive. The screen was full of words so I slid the glasses down my nose and looked at him over the tops of the lenses. “You don’t trust me either,” I said. “You’re pretty quick for a dead man.”

“I can’t die,” I said. “I’m the man who never was.”

“You died this morning,” he said. “Your plane went down a thousand yards short of the runway, though I guess we’ll find that Galileo never checked in.”

It was the strangest feeling I had ever had. I had never lost anyone close to me before. In fact, I doubt I had ever been close enough to anyone for it to matter. There was a hopeless cold inside me I had never felt. Galileo had been a part of me. No, more than that. Imagine, if you can, hearing the news of your own death.

Something must have shown on my face. “Lighten up,” Phil said. “He was just a cover.”

There was no way to explain how much more he had been than that.

“God, Jake, this is stupid,” he said. “You go back to Texas, pretend you missed your flight, and go back to… whatever you were doing.”

I tried to laugh at myself, but the result was more like something I would expect from a gut kick. “You’re right,” I said. “I just lost my perspective. Shock, I guess.”

He looked at me strangely. “You all right? Having a little problem with reality?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m just trying to redefine it.” I went back to the computer just long enough to crack into the Phil’s personal case files. I cheated a little. His password had not changed since I left the bureau.

I handed him the glasses, careful not to drag the wires through my coffee. “What’s this?” he asked.

“Just put them on.”

He hesitated just a beat then slid them on. His head swiveled around as his eyes adjusted. Then he realized what he was looking at. “I don’t believe this.”

“There’s your pipeline.”

He took the glasses off and looked at me. “How bad is it?”

“If I can do it, someone else probably can.”

He frowned out the window. The sun still flashed off the cars speeding by on the street. “That’s why I said I needed you,” he finally told me.

If you shake a box full of jigsaw puzzle pieces long enough, some of them will eventually stick together. For the first time since this whole thing started, something went click.

“You’re the Sphinx.”

“Who else?”

“I don’t believe it,” I said.

“Who else knows you well enough to recognize your style.”

“No,” I said. “I mean I don’t believe you screwed up the Game just to get in touch with me. That’s like…”

“Sacrilege?”

“Exactly!”

He reached across the table and put the back of his hand to my forehead. “You’re not well,” he said.

We both laughed at his joke, but the sound was a little hollow and it faded far too quickly. There was a clumsy quiet between us, broken by occasional false starts that trailed into silence. It was less an awkward period than one of confusion. There was a lot to cover and Phil seemed as unsure as I was. I knew my problem. I was trying to figure out how much to say. “Why did you run?” he said at last.

“I didn’t run, I…” What exactly had I done when I chose to leave the old world? “I evolved,” I said.

Phil shook his head. “I mean Galileo. What’s with the sudden yearning for the cold country?”

“Oh, that. Whoever was on your tail came sniffing after me. I didn’t know who Sphinx was, I still don’t know who ‘they’ are, and I just wanted to stay out of it.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I wanted Galileo to stay out of it.”

He rubbed his temples as if he had a headache.

“Someone was tracing our last conversation,” I explained. “More than likely, they had you pegged in Denver just like I did.”

Surprise showed on his face.

“I probably did you a favor by pulling the plug.”

Surprise transformed into total shock. His head moved forward and his mouth fell slowly open. “The blackout?” he said.

I just smiled.

“How the hell did you… ?”

I smiled harder. Childhood taunts came unasked into my mind. I know something you don’t know.

“You won’t tell me,” he said.

“No.”

He looked at me and shook his head again, slower this time.

“I tried to tell you five years ago, before I left the Bureau. I tried to tell them. You don’t understand this world. It’s not the one you grew up in, and it’s not the one you think you’re living in. The old rules don’t count.”

“I know what you said.”

“But you never listened, never understood. Real doesn’t mean what it used to. Look at me!” I leaned forward and grabbed his forearm. “I don’t even exist. Do you know what that means? You can see me, touch me, hear my voice, but you can’t even prove I’m here. No social security number, no birth certificate, no driver’s license. How far do you think you’d get with a subpoena or a warrant? Who would the judge believe, you or the computers?”

“Federal or local?” He smiled.

“There you go,” I said. “You still talk about jurisdictions and borders as if they had some meaning.”

His head started nodding. “You’re talking about the Esperanza case again.”

“I’m talking about more than that.”

“Jake, you had no evidence.”

“I witnessed the transaction.”

“Watching it on a computer isn’t witnessing it. Besides, it happened outside the United States.”

“In support of a conspiracy inside.”

“It was the CIA’s case.”

“There were drugs involved. Why not the DEA?”

“They tried.”

“What about the weapons? The ATF?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, chopping the air between us with his hand. “The CIA got it.”

“Yes,” I said. “And tried to kill it.”

He shrugged. “You should have stuck around for the big finale. The whole organization fell apart.”

I tried not to smile.

He went on. “The weapons got loaded on the wrong ship and ended up in Tokyo. The bill of lading on the coke somehow got flagged as produce. When the Ag inspector found jars of face cream, he opened one up and got a big surprise.”

In spite of my efforts, my smile broke through, but Phil didn’t notice. He was stirring sugar into his coffee. He kept talking as he did. “I figure it was a double cross, because the money disappeared from the offshore account without a trace.” He looked up and saw me grinning at him.

He stared for a long time.

“You didn’t…”

He dropped his spoon on the table and backed as far away as the booth would allow. “I don’t even want to know,” he said.

“The problem got solved,” I said. “Think of it as a gift from the gods.”

“You’re crazy,” he said.

I slid the computer an inch toward him. “Want to order a pizza and have it delivered to the Kremlin?” I asked.

I sat through another of his long, thoughtful pauses. “It’s that bad?” he said.

“Worse.”

He nodded. “That’s why I need you. I need some white magic on my side to fight the black magic.”

It was my turn to pause. “Phil,” I said, “you’re a federal agent.”

“Yes.”

“We were good friends.”

“Still are, I would think.”

“But there are some things we never agreed on.”

“Go on,” he said.

“Some of my magic is a little grey.”

I waited while he took a precise sip of his coffee. “I’ve mellowed a little in the last few years. As far as I’m concerned the rest of the world is right. You never existed.”

“No matter what?”

He frowned and sat back. He was looking for something on my face. “That’s asking a lot.”

“I’m not in this because I want to be. I’m in this because of you. Whoever is watching you came after Galileo only because you wanted him. I just want to stop this thing and fade back into the ether. So I ask you again: No matter what?” “All right,” he said. His face turned a little cold. “But don’t disappoint me.”

I told him everything I had done since my arrival in Atlanta. His eyebrows bounced up and down and he punctuated my story with grunts in a few places, especially when I told him about the body at the Peachtree Plaza, but he said nothing. He made a steady stream of notes on a small pad he had produced from his shirt pocket.

I tapped into the FLEX system and queried the Atlanta Police Department as well as Fulton and the surrounding counties. There were no reports of a body at the hotel.

“What I can’t figure out,” I said, “is how they found me here.”

“Probably the same way I would have,” he said. “They found the car.”

“It’s a big city.”

Phil grinned at me. “Son, you’ve been Lo-Jacked.”

I suddenly felt naive, almost stupid. The rental agency had installed transmitters in each of their vehicles. In case of theft, they could track down the cars by following the radio beacon. Once someone knew the license number, the rental agency could provide everything necessary. The camera at Security Storage had gotten a picture of the license.

Phil continued to grin. His smile was painfully wide.

“What?” I said.

“You’re not perfect.”

“That makes you happy, does it?”

“I was beginning to feel intimidated.”

“Stay that way,” I said.

“Why?”

I leaned toward him. “These people are good.”

“Better than you?”

I leaned a little closer. “They’re very good.”

Chapter 17

The house was like a thousand others in the newer subdivisions in the Atlanta area. It was two stories and planked with wood. There was just enough field stone cemented to the outside to qualify for charm.

Inside, there was a sunken den next to a wide open space that served as living room, dining room, and kitchen. A cathedral ceiling soared twenty-five feet overhead, trying to squeeze every ounce of grandeur out of the small space. Nothing but a counter separated the kitchen from the rest of the downstairs area, making it all one room. Stairs, open on the sides, slanted up to the bedrooms on the second floor.

Phil had caught me up on his history of the case on the way to the house. Officially, Mortgage Services was the most recent of four similar cases Phil’s department had received within a year. In each case a company whose business depended entirely on a well-connected computer system received a series of anonymous threats. The object of the threats was always data security.

Each time, a phone call or an untraceable bit of e-mail would suggest how dire the consequences would be if data security were to fail. As many as a dozen messages might be received during the two weeks before disaster struck. The attack was always thorough, encompassing every backup, alternate, and contingency plan the company had in place.

“I can’t even call it extortion!” Phil banged his hand against the steering wheel. “They’ve never asked for a thing. It’s vandalism, pure and simple.”

“Vandals,” I said, “don’t usually warn you.”

“And extortionists don’t work for free,” he said. “You explain it.”

Phil slid the car off of I-285 at the Memorial Drive exit. As he merged onto the wide street I said, “That explains why Fields is such a basket case. He’s waiting for someone to show up and name the price for leaving him alone.”

“Exactly.”

“And that’s why you’ve bugged his office.”

Phil turned his head to look at me. “What bug?”

I calmly pointed through the windshield and said, “Phil.”

His head whipped around and he slammed on the brakes, squealing the tires just a bit to stop for the red light. “I swept it,” he said. “It was clean.”

“It’s not now.”

The light changed and we passed the turn that would have taken us to Security Storage. Traffic thickened as we got closer to the Stone Mountain area. “Have any of them ever been contacted after their systems were attacked?” I asked. “No,” he said. He spat out the word as if it were bitter on his tongue. “I figure they know we’re involved and drop it. There are probably a lot more cases that don’t get reported. They can make their money off of those.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” I said, “but these people don’t seem to be running away because of the investigation.” “This one’s different,” he said.

“Uh huh.”

A few miles past Security Storage, we turned right onto something called Dogwood Way. A quick survey of an Atlanta map would show that half the streets in the city are either called Peachtree Something or Dogwood Something. Imagination isn’t the city’s long suit.

Another right turn took us into a small subdivision full of rubber stamp houses. Only three floor plans, six if you count mirror images, were used to build all the homes. Even the landscaping looked identical. The houses were all painted in beige and grey, except for the ones done in grey and beige. One rebel on the right went with brown trim. I liked it.

Phil pulled into the fifth driveway on the left. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I’m getting close.”

We got out of the car. “You said you had squat,” I reminded him.

“They don’t know that.”

“Uh huh.”

I stopped and looked at the driver’s side window. There in the corner was a warning sticker to all potential car thieves that could read. It proclaimed proudly that the car was equipped with a radio location device.

I think Phil laughed. It may have been a grunt. “I already disabled it,” he said.

Inside, Phil excused himself to go upstairs as I set my bag and computer by the coat closet. He told me to help myself to anything in the refrigerator.

The furniture was of the Early Rental period. It displayed the chaotic accretion of styles typical of the motif. Vertical blinds hung open on the sliding glass door behind the cheap glass and chrome dinette set. In the kitchen, cheerful yellow curtains framed the window over the sink.

Just as I opened the refrigerator I saw movement in the corner of my eye. There was someone outside the kitchen window.

I closed the refrigerator quietly with my left hand. My right drew the Glock.

I started to turn and heard the sliding glass door move in its tracks. I dropped as I finished the turn, ducking behind the counter.

In one fluid burst, I popped up enough for my head and pistol to clear the counter.

“Freeze!” I yelled. It was cliche, I know, but the surroundings had dulled my imagination.

In a fraction of a second my eye found the rear sight, slid through the notch to line up the blade at the front of the barrel. Three white dots, evenly spaced across the form behind them. I acquired my target.

It was Agent Itake. We call her Tex. Even though it pisses her off.

The t-shirt she was wearing fit snugly, but not obscenely so. She had the sleek toughness of weapon; a revolver whose gentle curves did nothing to hide her powerful, serious nature. I found myself taking the extra moment to explore just how attractive she was. If she had wanted to kill me, I probably hesitated long enough to get dead.

She stood in the doorway, one hand on the door, the other on the jamb. Her right leg was forward, inside the house, while her left foot was still planted on the concrete slab that served as a patio. Light streamed in behind her, outlining her form in a faerie glow, making her look like something out of an ad for the designer jeans she wore.

She looked at me and her mouth curved in a tiny smile. “Is this the part where you pat me down?” she said.

Phil came down the stairs as I holstered the Glock. Itake stepped inside and slid the door closed behind her without turning.

“Problem?” Phil said. He had stopped a few steps from the bottom, watching us both.

She laughed. It was not a dainty sound and her drawl stretched her words out. “It’s getting so a girl can’t get some air without someone sticking a gun in her face.”

“Very professional,” I said. “You’re not even armed. You’re lucky it was just me.” I spoke over my shoulder to Phil. “What’s she doing here?”

“I told you. She came down from Washington with me,” he said. “What am I supposed to do, get separate safe houses?”

“Of course,” Itake went on as if no one had spoken, “he wasn’t exactly aiming at my face.”

I felt myself flush a little.

“She’s the best,” Phil said.

I merely grunted. After all, I had gotten the drop on her. “I mean it,” Phil said. “If she were just good, you’d probably be dead right now.”

I glanced at him, barely turning my head, then back to her. It took less than a second. When my gaze shifted back, her left hand was stretched out toward me. There was a small automatic in it, aimed courteously a few inches to my right. Phil was laughing as he came the rest of the way down the stairs.

“Where the hell did you have that?” I said.

She smiled as she lowered the weapon. Then she winked at me. “You should have patted me down.”

Phil got a glass out of the cabinet. “The best,” he said, still chuckling.

“Excuse me,” said Agent Itake.

I almost hurt myself trying not to watch her walk upstairs. There was a swagger in her attitude that barely showed in her walk. I liked it.

Chapter 18

Phil and I were sitting in the den while the evening news droned on. The furniture was all chunky wood frames held together with over-sized wooden dowels, trying its best to look rustic. The cushions bore an indistinct flowery print in autumn colors. A door at the back of the den led to the utility room where the washer, drier, and hot water heater were. I could hear the water rushing through the walls on its way upstairs to Agent Itake’s shower.

A nineteen inch color television, the kind they laughingly call portable, sat on a cheap stand. Rabbit ears stuck out at odd angles sporting little flags of tin foil. You can’t expect the Bureau to spring for cable.

I had plugged my computer in. The battery needed charging. I was occupied with that when Phil called my attention to the television. “This is it,” he said.

A woman wearing a parka was centered on the screen. Wind toyed with the fur that surrounded the newscaster’s face. Behind her was a chaotic tangle of emergency vehicles and flashing lights. Here and there, rescue workers dug through scraps of twisted metal. I recognized one piece as part of a jetliner’s wing.

“… twenty passengers still unaccounted for, the death toll now stands at seventy-five. There is still no official word on the cause of this tragedy. Investigators have refused to comment, beyond saying that, with rescue efforts still underway, the investigation has already begun.”

She paused and her head tilted down. Her right hand touched the side of her hood in the area of her right ear. Instructions from Houston Control, no doubt.

“We take you now to the press conference already in progress.”

The scene changed to a cramped room filled with the backs of heads. The camera hastily zoomed in over the crowd to settle on a pudgy, balding man whose glasses flashed, reflecting the bright lights as he moved. A pack of microphones huddled on the podium. They were angled expectantly upward like dogs awaiting a treat.

The sound cut in suddenly. “… still twenty passengers unaccounted for. The rescue efforts are still underway.”

He looked to his right and cocked his head slightly. There was a murmur in the background as someone else asked a question. The legend at the bottom of the screen identified the man as a spokesman for the FAA.

“Yes,” he said, his glasses making two bright, white holes where his eyes should have been. “Officially, the investigation began at the time of the first report. Beyond that, I can’t comment while it’s underway. Yes?” He pointed to his left. His eyes reappeared.

The question was almost audible this time, but the only word I could make out was ‘bomb’.

The man on the screen frowned. His eyes squinted into slits behind the round lenses. “We never rule anything out until the investigation is complete, but nothing,” he leaned heavily on the word, “I repeat, nothing has surfaced in the reports so far to indicate the involvement of any sort of illicit explosive device.”

“Would you tell us if there were?” Someone had gotten a microphone into the crowd of reporters.

The man turned back to his right. “Next question?”

A woman’s voice was just within range of the microphone. “There’s been some indications that the air traffic control system malfunctioned and caused the accident. Is your investigation proceeding along those lines?”

Pudgy’s glasses flashed and he responded hastily. “Our air traffic control system is the best in the world. You should be careful which rumors you listen to.” He started to turn.

“You didn’t answer the question,” the woman said.

Another face leaned into view. It was a sharp face, made up of chiseled geometries. It whispered into the FAA representative’s ear. The pudgy man nodded and stepped back, allowing the other to take his place at the podium.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the man said. “I represent the Guild. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have concerning the air traffic control system.

“As far as any malfunction is concerned, I can assure you it is virtually impossible. There are so many redundant layers backing each other up, the system’s fault tolerance is practically limitless.” He paused and pointed to someone in the crowd. “Yes?”

“Can you tell us your capacity with the Guild?”

“Sorry,” he said. He wore charm like an ointment. “My name is Michael Coletti. I am the Guild’s attorney and I represent them in most matters. This happens to be one of them.”

Several people asked questions simultaneously, drowning each other’s words. One struggled to audibility. “Then you’re not actually a member?”

He smiled. “Good heavens, no,” he said. “I told you, I’m an attorney.”

“Why does the Guild feel they need a lawyer here?”

Again the winning smile. “I’m here in my capacity as spokesman,” he said.

“Shouldn’t there be an expert here? An actual member?”

Coletti tilted his head just a bit. He wore the indulgent smile of a forgiving parent. “Please,” he said. “I’m not here to rehash the subject of the Guild’s privacy. All of that was covered when they were first awarded the contract to rebuild the air traffic control system.

“As an organization the Guild comes into contact with some very sensitive information in both the public and private sectors, often with competing organizations. Without their anonymity, the members might be subject to pressures from which they are now protected. Their reputation for strict impartiality could be called into question. The need for neutral self-regulation of the spell casting community should be obvious at this point.”

Phil stabbed his finger onto the remote control. The television went dark. “There’s someone out there they aren’t regulating very well.”

That was something I had not thought of before. “How many of your cases had Guild members on retainer?” I asked. Phil shrugged. “Why?”

“Maybe they’re targeting independents, figuring the security would be easier to beat.”

“You were inside the Mortgage Services system, excuse me,” he held up a hand and smiled. “Galileo was.”

He paused to see if I would react to the teasing. I didn’t. He finished his question. “How was it?”

“Lame,” I said, “but adequate. Nothing the offsite backup shouldn’t have covered.”

“And we still have no explanation for why they leave everything necessary to fix things right where they can be found,” Phil said.

“No mystery,” I said. “The idea is to inconvenience them, not put them out of business. How much money can you extort from a business that just shut down?”

“Then why don’t they ask for money?” It was Agent Itake. She was standing on the steps that led down from the living room, wearing jeans and a t-shirt and a light weight denim jacket. Her boots looked like rattlesnake. No wonder they called her Tex.

She flowed into the chair across the room.

Phil rested his elbows on his knees. When he spoke, he was staring at the coffee table. “Jake says Field’s office is bugged. If they tap everybody, they know when we’re called in.”

“You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?” I said.

“What?” His back arched and his head snapped toward me. “What did I say?”

I started to tick the points off on my fingers. “They made two attempts on Hamilton’s life because he was nosing around at both Security Storage and Mortgage Services.”

“I thought Hamilton was your cover,” Itake said.

“It was.”

Phil spoke up. One corner of his mouth twisted with sarcasm. “Jake has a little problem with reality,” he said. “You should have seen him when he thought Galileo was dead.”

She leaned forward a little and shook her head. “Who’s Galileo?”

Phil took a breath to answer, but I spoke first, trying to finish listing my original points. “They’re still inside the Security Storage computers and watching them closely. They can move through the phone system like it was their own, and they can trace back to a cellular number in a matter of minutes.” I looked at each of them in turn. “Frankly, I don’t think you guys scare them at all.”

“Who’s Galileo?” Itake repeated.

I found a phone jack on the wall next to the sofa and plugged my computer into it. Using the cellular link was too risky until I could program a new phone number for it.

“You think they’re just ignoring us?” Phil’s voice was sharp. He hated to be ignored.

I ignored him and put on my glasses. Charging the call to a credit card that would never be billed, I dialed a long distance number. In seconds the call was forwarded back and forth across the country along a path I had laid out long ago. Then it leapt skyward and perched for an instant on a satellite before diving into Europe. In Brussels, it seemed to disappear in the sub-carrier of a trans-Atlantic terminal. In less then ten seconds a phone number in Montana rang. My system picked up on the first ring.

“What are you doing?” Phil was getting more annoyed with me every second.

“Violating a dozen laws in as many seconds,” I said. “Want the details?”

His eyes rolled toward the ceiling, but he kept silent. When my system at home was satisfied that I was really me, it turned over control. I took a long cable, plugged it into the back of the computer, and handed the other end to Phil. “Plug this into the antenna lead,” I said, pointing to the television. “It’s mostly legal from here on out.”

As Phil complied, I instructed my system at home to dial a phone number only two people in the world knew. I was one of them. Hopefully, the other would answer it.

“I cleared the screen to keep the number private. “Done,” said Phil. Words appeared on the television, echoing the display in my glasses. It was too confusing, so I took the glasses off. The phone connected instantly and a prompt appeared.

PARANOID CENTRAL:

I typed in my response.

CTHULHU?

Seconds ticked by as I waited for an answer. I glanced at the other two. Phil looked curious, leaning forward from the edge of the sofa. Itake just looked confused.

“Something supposed to happen?” She asked.

I nodded. “If he’s there.”

“Who?”

“Cthulhu,” I said.

“That’s a name?”

“It’s Lovecraft,” said Phil.

Now she looked even more confused. “Cthulhu Lovecraft?” She mangled the pronunciation.

Phil and I looked at each other. He was grinning. “Nobody reads the classics anymore,” he said.

I just shrugged. “The great cultural nosedive.”

The screen finally showed a response. “Cthulhu acknowledges. Scramble in 45 seconds,” it said. The seconds began to count down on the screen.

“Scramble?” Phil asked.

As I answered him, I activated my end of the coding scheme. “It’s something the two of us worked out,” I said. “The encryption key incorporates the date to start it, then it changes with each transmission, depending on the number of characters in the previous line.”

Phil shook his head. “He isn’t kidding about paranoid.”

“He’s about as plugged as anyone I know, and he trades the information he acquires.” I looked at Phil pointedly. “There are those who might be a little concerned about how he got the information.”

“I see.”

“This is about as secure as net communication can get,” I said. “Especially considering we’ve never met IRL.”

“Who’s Eye Arr Ell?” Itake asked.

“In Real Life,” Phil said. He went on without a pause. “But if you worked all this out over the net…”

“In about a thousand conversation at a thousand different addresses,” I said. “A lot of the sites we used are pretty restricted access.”

“I don’t want to know,” Phil said quickly.

SCRAMBLE ACTIVE.

CTHULHU› Look out world! The Heretic walks among us:)

HERETIC› Greetings, O Dark One.

CTHULHU› Many moons, no convo. What gives?

HERETIC› I’ve been on vacation.

CTHULHU› Take on human form? Live among the mortals? Like that?

HERETIC› Something like that.

CTHULHU› Tried it. Hated it:(I don’t know what Zeus saw in it.

HERETIC› He did it for the chicks.

CTHULHU› But he always went back to Olympus.

“This guy’s whacko,” said Itake.

“I’ve seen some of his handiwork,” I said. “He’s got a right to be a little cocky.”

HERETIC› I need info.

CTHULHU› What could humble Cthulhu know that is beyond {{The Heretic}} himself?

HERETIC› Tahachi Corp.

CTHULHU› Doesn’t sound familiar. What do you need? Passwords? Account numbers? What?

HERETIC› Everything.

There was a long pause before the next message. I was beginning to think I had lost the connection when Cthulhu finally responded.

CTHULHU› I really wish you had done this yourself. Maybe I’m naive, but I preferred to think you were above this. Cynicism has become my normal state, but you were always different. I thought maybe your sense of honor was your heresy.

“What’s he talking about?” Phil asked.

I had no idea and I said so. Whatever it was, I had the feeling that the person behind the Cthulhu name had meant it sincerely. There was none of his usual playful banter, none of his wizard persona.

HERETIC› I don’t understand.

CTHULHU› Don’t you?

HERETIC› NO!

CTHULHU› Then what do you plan to do with the information?

I looked at Phil. He knew the question without my having to vocalize it. He shook his head sharply, just once.

HERETIC› You don’t want to know. Since when did you care what anyone did with the info you traded?

CTHULHU› Not anyone. You.

HERETIC› Tell me what you’re talking about.

CTHULHU› Tell me why you want the info.

“This is going nowhere,” Phil said. He folded his arms and leaned back on the sofa. I threw a quick sideways glance at him then began to type as fast as I could.

HERETIC› Tahachi employee tried to kill mekjll

“Don’t!” Phil grabbed my right wrist when he read what was on the screen. I slapped the enter key with my left hand and sent the message.

“Dammit, Jake, you don’t even know who this guy is!”

I pulled my hand from his grip. “I know him well enough,” I said. “Besides, whoever is behind this already knows they tried to kill me.”

CTHULHU› Kill who? What are you talking about?

I reached toward the keyboard, but Phil’s left arm struck me across the chest, pushing me against the back of the couch. A blur to my right became the standing form of Agent Itake. The same little automatic I had seen before was in her hand. This time, there was no courtesy in her aim.

CTHULHU› Earth to Heretic. Kill who?

“Put the God damned gun away!” Phil yelled, barely turning his head.

Her aim wavered. “But…”

“You brought me into this,” I said. Phil’s arm yielded when I pushed, but it hovered above the keyboard. “Now tell her to shoot me or put the gun away!”

She jumped at the force of his yell. “I said put it away!” She complied, but it seemed to take a lot of effort.

CTHULHU› Still there?

“You know this could get you killed,” Phil said.

I looked at Itake. “With her around, they won’t have to lift a finger,” I said.

“I’m just doing my job,” she said.

I smiled at her. “I thought your job was to catch bad guys.”

“Her job,” Phil said, “is to watch my back and do what I tell her.” Phil was looking at me, so he never saw it. Itake smiled and stuck her tongue out at me like the victor in a sibling rivalry.

I lost it. The act was so incongruous that I just started to laugh. Phil turned to look at her, but her face was deadpan. He looked back at me. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” he said. “Don’t stick it out if you don’t intend to use it,” I said, gasping the words out between chuckles.

Phil didn’t even turn. “I told you to put the gun away,” he said.

“I did,” she said, smiling.

“Wrong weapon,” I gasped.

Now she was laughing. Phil was looking back and forth between us. His expression made things seem even funnier. “What is going on with you two?” he said.

“Nothing,” I said, still gasping. “I know when I’m licked.” Itake almost screamed. She was laughing so hard she sat down right where she was. She slapped the floor as she laughed.

Phil’s voice shook the walls. “Knock it off!”

We both managed to stop laughing, but made little choking sounds now and again.

CTHULHU› The connex is still good. What gives?

I pointed to the keyboard on my lap. “Do you mind?” I asked.

“Okay,” Phil nodded, “do it your way, but don’t mention the Bureau.”

HERETIC› Sorry. I’m back now. A Tahachi employee tried to kill me last night. I want to find out why.

CTHULHU› I guess they take security seriously.

HERETIC› You don’t understand. Until then, I had never heard of Tahachi.

CTHULHU› Then why would he try to kill you?

HERETIC› I think I’ve stumbled onto something and someone doesn’t like it.

CTHULHU› What something?

I raised an eyebrow at Phil. “You’ve gone this far,” he said.

HERETIC› Someone is doing some major hacking. Total trash jobs, but they always leave a way to put things back. Not just computers, either. They’ll break in IRL if they need to. Looks like extortion, but no one asks for money.

Itake was still sitting on the floor and all three of us were watching the screen. Phil was leaning forward again as if straining to hear.

CTHULHU› You don’t even know?

HERETIC› Know what?

CTHULHU› Something is going on out there. He hits as many as 2 or 3 systems a week just the way you described.

HERETIC› What have you heard?

CTHULHU› Rumors, mostly. Whoever it is has power. He’s slipped some good security. Your name has come up.

Itake and Phil both looked at me. While Phil’s eyebrows merely arched in open curiosity, a cold darkness permeated Itake’s stare.

HERETIC› My name is not widely known.

CTHULHU› Granted. Even in the circles I travel in, most think you’re a myth, but some know there is a {{power}} out there that calls itself The Heretic. I have never taken the time to change either impression.

HERETIC› So when I asked for inside corporate info, you thought it was me.

CTHULHU› I jumped to conclusions. Sorry:(

HERETIC› No big deal.

CTHULHU› Yes it is. I should not have doubted you. I know I’m not the whitest wizard on the net. In fact much of what I do is very dark grey. But I do what I do because I can not resist the sense of power. The world would be a much darker place if I didn’t know that there were some out there who can.

Agent Itake was looking at me strangely. It was as if she were trying to look into me, to see past the flesh to the soul. I looked back at her openly and her eyes focused on mine, then she turned her head, developing a sudden interest in her intertwined fingers.

Discomfort crept along my spine. It was guilt, perhaps, or maybe embarrassment. Cthulhu did not know there were witnesses to our conversation and I had not told him. I had allowed him to reveal inner thoughts to total strangers. In a sense, I had betrayed his trust. A desire bubbled up inside me for the isolated simplicity of the Montana wilderness.

HERETIC› What else have you heard?

CTHULHU› That the FBI has gotten involved. Without success.

“How the hell… ?” Phil’s voice was a strangled squawk. “So much for compromising the investigation,” I said.

HERETIC› Any whispers about why it’s happening?

CTHULHU› Speculation only. No substance. Extortion makes the most sense to me, but it could be a large scale prank.

HERETIC› Pranksters don’t kill people. How long will the Tahachi thing take?

CTHULHU› A day or two. I’ll dig into this other thing at the same time.

HERETIC› NO!!!! Listen only. Do {{NOT}} ask questions. It’s more than one person and they’re better than you think.

CTHULHU› No one can stop Cthulhu.

HERETIC› I’m not talking about magic battles. These people don’t want to zap your system or steal your spells. They kill! Guns, bullets, blood. Physical, real world death. Do {{NOT}} ask questions!

CTHULHU› Call me in a couple of days.

[CONNECTION LOST]

Itake looked at me and there was something new in her eyes. It was something warmer and softer than I had seen before. “Do all wizards think they’re invulnerable?” she asked. “Some more than others,” I said.

Chapter 19

I volunteered to run for dinner. Agent Itake volunteered to go with me.

“I think I can handle this,” I said as we got into the car. “I have to go,” she said.

“What, procedure?”

“No, self-defense.”

We were almost to Memorial Drive before I gave up and asked. “Huh?” I said.

She folded her arms. “Well, I don’t know. You might be some kind of junk food freak.”

I had to laugh. I tried not to, just to deny her the satisfaction, but I laughed anyway. My stomach was suddenly gripped by an uneasy feeling. “You don’t—want—umm—.”

She closed her eyes and her head swung back and forth. “If you say sushi, so help me I’m going to smack you.”

I faked a cringe, glad that I hadn’t gotten the word out. “Not me!” I said. “Never dreamed of it, Ms. Itake. Unh unh, not in a million—.”

“Stop!”

I smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

“The only good fish is a deep fried one.”

“Catfish?” I asked.

“Preferably.”

“Uh huh.”

She turned in her seat to look at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means ‘yes.’ General affirmative.”

“Uh huh.”

“See?”

“Anyone ever tell you you can be infuriating at times?”

“It’s part of my charm.”

“Uh huh.” I was watching the road, but I saw her smile.

We agreed on a barbecue place not far from the house. When I tried to order three rib dinners, she overruled me and made it four.

“Who’s the other one for?” I asked.

She just shrugged. “They never give you enough.”

I kept quiet, but stole a glance at her when she wasn’t looking. I started at her boots and ended at her face, careful not to linger too long in between. She certainly didn’t look like she was in the habit of eating two dinners at a time.

“So what do you want me to call you?” I asked.

Only her eyes moved in my direction. “Like Mr. Garber said, they call me Tex.”

“And you hate it.”

Her head turned slowly toward me. “It’s that obvious?”

“I’m exceptionally observant.”

I had meant it as a joke, but she hadn’t heard it that way. “Yes,” she said. “I believe you are.”

I nodded toward her feet. “You know the boots kind of invite it.”

She shrugged. “I’ve worn them all my life. I’m gonna change now because of some silly-assed nickname?”

“Never said you should.”

She was quiet for a while. Her gaze was pointed at the kitchen, but her focus seemed a lot farther away. “You’re not what I expected,” she said at last.

“Believe me,” I said, “you’re kicking around a few of my preconceived notions as well.”

She tensed. “Which ones?” Her voice sliced through the air between us. “The ones about Asians or the ones about Texans. Or maybe it’s the ones about little girls who should be playing with dolls instead of guns!”

“Whoa,” I said. “Slow down.”

She glared at me.

“I was talking about the ones about award winning FBI rookies.”

The anger drained slowly from her face.

“A little sensitive, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

I leaned against the counter where the cash register sat, trying to be as casual as possible. I spoke softly. “Most of the people I know,” I said, “I met on the net. On the net, you never know what people really look like or where they’re from. Stereotypes are useless. You just have to do the work.”

“Which work is that?”

“The work of getting to know someone.”

The cashier returned with our order and rang it up. I let Agent Itake pay without even trying to object. After all, she could turn it in on her expenses.

As we got back in the car she said, “So what’s an award winning rookie supposed to be like?”

I answered while navigating the parking lot. “I don’t know. Strong willed, I guess, maybe a little egotistical. Strong code of conduct. Stubborn.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, okay, so where’s the one that doesn’t fit me?”

I pulled out onto Memorial Drive. “Funny looking,” I said. “I definitely had it in mind that award winning rookies are funny looking.”

This time she laughed out loud. “Thank you,” she said. “I think.”

“Oh, I meant it in the nicest way.”

“You’re a terrible liar, you know.”

“I know. It’s part of my charm.”

“Is everything part of your charm?”

“Isn’t it?”

She was quiet until we pulled into the driveway. When I shut off the engine and started to open my door, she stopped me.

“I’m sorry about that back there,” she said. “I’m a little hair-triggered on some things.”

There was a softness in her face I had not seen before. Not even the car’s harsh dome light could overcome it.

“It’s no big deal,” I said. “I don’t even remember it.”

“You’re alright for a wizard,” she said.

“An’ you ain’t half bad fer a Texan.”

She smiled. “Your accent sucks.”

“I know.”

Her smile vanished as if she had flipped a switch. “Don’t do it again.”

It was my turn to smile. “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“Dorrie.”

“Dorrie?”

“I like it a lot better than ma’am.”

Chapter 20

It was one o’clock in the morning, but it wasn’t really dark. The sky had that eerie glow of civilization that overpowered all but the brightest stars. It was cool outside, but not enough that I wanted a jacket. I was sprawled on a folding lawn chair that sat on the concrete patio behind the house. A row of cedar fencing defended the tiny yard’s border and it showed the strain of many years of duty.

Phil and Dorrie had gone to bed around eleven. The ribs had left a roiling in my stomach to match the unease of my thoughts. One or the other or both had kept me awake.

I started at the sound of the sliding glass door opening behind me.

“It’s just me,” Dorrie whispered.

“I hope you’re not pointing a gun at me this time, because I’m unarmed.” It wasn’t strictly true. I still had the knife strapped to my arm. I kept my eyes fixed on the sky. The door slid closed again.

“Not this time,” she said. She came into view to my left. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt that came about to the middle of her thighs. If she wore anything else, I couldn’t tell. She dragged over a molded plastic chair from the edge of the patio and sat down. “Mind if I join you?”

A shred of cloud drifted across my view, blotting out the constellation I had been watching. “I think you just did,” I said. Somewhere a car door slammed and a dog barked twice. The tip of Orion’s sword twinkled like pale twilight glittering on a real blade.

“I could leave,” she said.

“Not on my account.” We both were silent for several minutes. Whatever train of thought I had been following was lost, so I waited for the next one to come along, letting my thoughts drift with the shreds of cloud above.

“You’re not Bureau,” Dorrie said quietly. It was the kind of hushed tone demanded by the starlit sky.

“No,” I said.

“But you were, once.”

I turned my head toward her. She was curled up in the chair, sitting on her feet. “Phil tell you that?” I said. “No.” She nodded slightly toward me. “You did. Your manner. The way you handle a gun from a sitting position.” I looked back at Orion. “Yes, I was Bureau once.”

“That where you know Mr. Garber from?”

I nodded. There was enough ambient light that she could see the gesture.

“What made you leave?” she asked.

“Difference of opinion,” I said. “I thought we were supposed to stop the bad guys. It isn’t always that way.” “There are always rules to follow.”

“I have rules,” I said.

“The rules that say you can rip off the phone companies for long distance calls or trespass on other people’s computer systems,” she said. “Are those the rules you’re talking about?” “Exactly,” I said. “And those same rules make me dump an extra grand or two into the bank accounts of those same phone companies every so often. They come out ahead, even if it does drive their accountants crazy.”

“That doesn’t make it legal,” she said.

“No, but it keeps it from being wrong.”

She sighed heavily. “You’re a strange man, Jake the Heretic,” she said. “Is Jake even your real name?”

“Is Tex yours?” I shot back.

Her soft chuckle made my skin tingle the way the night air had been unable to. “Touchй,” she said.

“Everything is a competition with you, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said. There was no hesitation in her answer. It was a fact. She knew it. She said so.

“People don’t find that annoying?” I asked.

“Some do,” she said. “Usually the losers. Why? Do you?”

“Lose?” I said. “Rarely.”

She laughed softly and I turned to look at her. I was fascinated by the things taking place under the fabric of her t-shirt; fascinated and a little unnerved. “Do you find it annoying?” she said.

“No,” I said. “Just a little distracting.” The wind stirred and brushed a bit of hair across her forehead. She reached up and pushed it back, but it insisted, so she let it have its way. “How long were you with the Bureau?” she asked.

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the caress of the night breeze. “I have to admit,” I said. “Your interrogation technique is a new one.”

“I just like to know who’s watching my backside,” she said.

I smiled and said, “I would imagine every male old enough to produce hormones watches your backside.” My eyes were still closed, but I heard her shift in her chair. “You don’t,” she said.

I folded my hands on my chest, relaxed. “I got an A plus in surveillance. You just haven’t caught me,” I said.

Suddenly there was weight on me. I opened my eyes to find her sitting astride me staring into my face. “I’ve caught you, now,” she said. She took my hands and placed them on her hips.

“I still won’t talk,” I said.

She put her hands on my shoulders and leaned forward. “You’ll talk,” she said. “I have other new interrogation techniques.”

“Never,” I said, just before our lips touched. My hands slipped around to the small of her back and met at a very unfeminine obstacle.

“I’ll be damned,” I said, pulling the small automatic from the waistband of her panties. “So that’s how you did it.”

“Semper paratus,” she said.

Chapter 21

I was drifting through that foggy realm somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. Dorrie’s breath was warm on my shoulder. It felt good. Even her lovemaking had had a competitive quality and I think I won in only one category. I was still awake.

I lay listening to the tiny sounds most people learn to ignore: Dorrie’s breathing, the house creaking, a dog barking, maybe the same one as before, the wind rustling the trees, the house creaking.

No, not the house—the stairs.

Phil must have woken up and gone downstairs for something. Another creak. Yes, the steps were definitely coming up. I must have fallen asleep and missed the trip downstairs. I tried to remember if the door to the bedroom I was supposed to be in was open or closed. If Phil saw the room empty, it would be easy to figure out where I was. While that did not bother me, it could be awkward for Dorrie.

Another cautious step, trying not to wake anyone up with the mournful groan of the stairs. Another step, near the top this time. Phil was trying much harder than necessary to stay quiet. There, top step. Phil’s room was across the hall, first door on the right at the top of the stairs. The cheap, hollow door amplified the squeak of the hinges.

Thump! Thump!

Less than a roar, more than a whisper.

It was a small caliber weapon equipped with a silencer.

Dorrie was lying on my right arm and it took me an extra second to free it. It tingled. She made a child-like whimper and turned on her right side, dragging the pillow with her and uncovering the small automatic she had stashed there earlier. I heard a step outside the door. There was no time to wake Dorrie up. I snatched the pistol and slid off the bed to my left, placing the bed between me and the door. I crouched in the shadows.

The doorknob turned and stopped. Again. Bless her, Dorrie must have locked the door on the way in.

Metal scratched on metal, then the latch popped open. Two seconds. Home security at its best.

The door slid open to reveal a wedge of inky blackness. The tip of the silenced barrel poked through. Dorrie’s pistol bucked in my hand three times. Two shots just above the barrel, one about a foot higher. It was a textbook exercise: Two in the torso, one in the head. Something heavy fell in the hallway.

Dorrie was moving before she was fully awake. In a closed room, even her.380 auto was deafening. She dove off the opposite side of the bed. There was barely enough light to see her peek over the top of the bed and I held my finger to my lips. She nodded. I kept the gun aimed at the doorway and gestured to her. She came across the bed and onto the floor beside me.

“One in the hall,” I whispered. “I think he’s dead. Could be more.”

She nodded once, all business. Silently, she opened the top drawer of the night stand and withdrew a full-sized automatic. It looked like a nine or ten millimeter. The girl had guns everywhere.

It was the worst scenario in combat gunplay, an unknown situation outside a door with open hallway to either side. Two people. Two guns. We had trusted each other enough to sleep together, now we would test that trust even further. It should have been funny, two naked people executing suburban SWAT tactics, but the humor escaped me at the time. She peeked high to the right, toward the stairs, while I went low to the left. Both of us kept a third eye on Phil’s door. It was still slightly open across the hall. The body of the gunman was sprawled on the floor, half leaning against the opposite wall. All the holes were where they were supposed to be. My instructors would have been proud.

Dorrie kept watch on the stairs while I checked the bedroom at the far end of the hall, the one I was supposed to have occupied. It was clear. I crawled back down the hall, presenting as hard a target as possible for anyone who might be downstairs. I pushed on Phil’s door, down low near the hinges, and it swung in easily. Nothing moved.

“Phil,” I whispered. There was no response. Dorrie still stood in the doorway of the master bedroom, only her left hand and part of her head exposed. She kept her pistol extended as she watched with that undirected stare that fixed on nothing, but took in everything at once, watching for the slightest movement.

I followed my gun into the room, watching the closet door to my left while making sure no one was crouched behind the bed. The room was clear, and I finally looked at the bed. Pale, sickly light crept into the room from the street light outside. The colors were all wrong. A mannequin of pale yellow wax lay on the bed. Its head was misshapen and someone had smeared everything with a dark and glossy coat of chocolate syrup.

I felt queasy as my mind repainted the scene in vivid crimson on crisp, white sheets and the ruddy tones of Phil’s flesh. I didn’t bother to check for a pulse. There was no point. I doubt I could have brought myself to do it anyhow.

I fixed my mind on the comrades I had lost in the Game, hacked by swords or pierced with the feathered shafts of arrows. The colors had been much more real, but the loss— that was something else.

I checked the bathroom across the hall. If Dorrie noticed that I came out of Phil’s bedroom alone, nothing in her face showed it. We went down the stairs in step. She swept the dining room and kitchen while I covered what I could of the den below and behind us. Together we checked the rest of the den, the laundry room and the garage. Cover and probe. Coordinated fields of fire. We worked together as if we had done so for years. We were clinically flawless. Training stays with you forever.

Back in the kitchen, guns still drawn, we relaxed a little. I noticed the sliding glass door. It was slightly ajar. “Was that open like that on the way down?” I asked.

She followed my eyes. “Just like that,” she said. “Probably point of entry.”

I went to close it. If there were others waiting outside, there was no sense making it easy for them. I was reaching for the door when Dorrie spoke.

“Jake, wait,” she said. “Evidence.”

I slid the door closed and latched it. “Security,” I said. She was silent for a moment. The tension flowed out of her as she stared at nothing. She seemed not to relax so much as wither. “Mr. Garber,” she said, looking back at me.

I shook my head just once.

“Oh, God.” Her eyes closed and she swayed a little. I was just about to step toward her when she exploded. “God damn it!” she said. Her foot lashed out, denting the refrigerator door. She struck again and things rattled inside.

“Dorrie,” I said, moving toward her.

As she drew her foot back again I put my hand on her shoulder. She swung blindly with her left hand and I ducked it easily, stepping in front of her. “Dorrie,” I said again. I put my hands on her shoulders. She stopped and blinked a few times. There was little recognition in her eyes when she looked at me.

“You’ve never lost a partner before,” I said. “Have you?”

Her voice was flat and arid. “He wasn’t a partner,” she said. “He was a department head. Just a few steps down from a presidential appointee.”

“So this is a career thing.”

Her eyes dipped down and came up moist. “I’ve never lost anything before,” she said.

We were both still naked and it made her seem that much more vulnerable. At least it made the thought of comforting her that much more interesting. I pulled her toward me, but she broke away and turned her back. “I’ve got to report this,” she said. “Get the technicians out here.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I said.

“Why?”

I went up the stairs as I spoke. “Ask yourself how they found us here,” I said, “at a Bureau safe house.” I knelt down and examined the body of the gunman in the hallway. He was wearing black jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, and black, high top athletic shoes—hit man chic. The silencer was of a quality that did not come cheap. This was no garage-made muffler. It was precision machined and mounted smoothly to the front of the little Beretta Jetfire.

“But it’s not,” Dorrie said from halfway up the stairs.

The gun was a palm-sized.25 automatic, its tiny shape overpowered by the silencer. “Not what?” I said.

“A safe house,” she said. She was beside me, now. “Mr. Garber said he leased it through a string of aliases outside the Bureau.”

There was no identification on the body—no wallet, no cards, no keys. “In fact,” Dorrie continued, “he said you taught him how.”

I felt my stomach turn to lead. It was true. Memories arose of my early days with the FBI. I saw myself in Schuyler’s Pub, coaxing Phil to ask for a date from a feisty young woman playing darts. I saw their wedding three years later, myself riding shotgun as best man. I saw the late nights we had spent huddled in the dim wash of a computer’s screen as I showed him some of things that the net could be made to do with a little more effort and a lot less concern for the rules.

Dust seemed to rise around me from the crumbled ruins of the wall I had built to keep the world away. Amid the rubble, I found a thing; a thing I had, in a way, sought never to know. I found pain.

We went into the master bedroom and started pulling on our clothes. “Who else knew about the house?” I said.

“No one.” Watching her get dressed was a little distracting, so I concentrated on my own actions. “Well,” she added, “I did give it to the local office when I filed the report this afternoon.”

I said nothing. I just finished getting dressed and waited for her to catch up. It was a short wait. “They’ve got someone inside,” she said.

“Close,” I said. “Technically they’ve got everyone inside. The local agents file their report, it goes on the computer, seconds later these people know about it.”

She was dressed now and she sat down on the end of the bed to pull on her boots. “How can that be?”

“For some of us it’s easy,” I said. “Get your things together. We have to go.”

She pulled her other boot on and stamped it into place. “Why?” she said.

“The shooter had no keys on him.”

She nodded. “He had a driver waiting.”

“Which means they already know the plan failed.”

Her gaze jumped toward the doorway, then slid away. “What about—?”

“There isn’t anything we can do about him right now.”

She stood watching the nap of the carpet, not moving. She was a doll; a plastic doll. Plastic flexes, but only to a point. “He was married,” she said.

My answer stuck to the back of my tongue. In silence, I picked up her automatic and put it in her hands. Her fingers explored its surface as if she were trying to absorb its strength. “We have to go,” I said.

She instinctively dropped the clip out of her gun and checked the number of rounds left in it. Her words were wraiths. “You think they’ll send more?”

“I think they have to,” I said. “If they’re smart, they’ll do it before the cavalry shows up.”

She got up and retrieved a short barreled Remington pump-action shotgun from the closet. “Bring ‘em on,” she said. The words lacked the propellant of her usual swagger.

I smiled at her. “I think I’m in love.”

Chapter 22

“I need to call it in,” Dorrie said.

The twenty-four hour coffee shop was the same one I had been in before my trip to Security Storage, but at four in the morning it looked completely different. What, in daylight, had been a bright mustard and cheese color scheme looked dry and tasteless by the interior lights alone. It was a place outside of time. Half the customers showed the wrinkled wear that marked this as the end of the day, while the rest glowed, freshly scrubbed—their day just beginning. It was a borderland where two different worlds came together.

Dorrie sat across from me in a booth at the front of the restaurant. The view outside was overlaid with our own reflections.

“Pay phone’s over by the restrooms,” I said. She slid out of the booth and walked to the rear of the coffee shop.

We had left the house, not like fire-spitting dragons, but like the field mice behind my house in Montana. We were quiet, cautious, and watching everything at once. It had been for nothing. There had been no sudden movements, no furtive sounds, no deadly ambush. Everything was exactly as one would expect at four in the morning. It was a peacefulness I was inclined to distrust.

The waitress brought more coffee along with the food we had ordered. She placed what seemed to be an endless assortment of plates at Dorrie’s place—steak and eggs, toast, hash browns, and a side of grits. Dorrie had ordered her hash browns like a pro, scattered and smothered. She had actually used those words, “scattered and smothered.” The waitress had simply nodded and written it down. Seeing them, I decided the term had something to do with the onions and cheese mixed in with the potatoes.

On my side of the table she placed a bran muffin and a glass of orange juice. There was amusement on her face as she looked back and forth between the two meals.

“She’s a growing girl,” I said.

Dorrie came back a minute later. “Done,” she said. “We’ll meet them at the house in thirty minutes.” She attacked her food with fervor.

“If there’s anything there to see,” I said.

She just looked at me, chewing.

“The last time,” I explained, “the cops never found out. Someone cleaned up after I left.”

“Too risky,” she said. “They’ve got to know help is on the way.”

I finished my second bite of bran muffin before I spoke. “That would be the logical thing for us to do,” I said. “Call for help.”

She rested her hands on the table, not quite willing to go so far as to actually put her silverware down. “Something wrong with that?”

I shrugged. “Predictable.”

“We could have thrown a party,” she said. Her voice was sharp. “That would have been unexpected.”

“Wouldn’t work,” I said. “No time to send out invitations.” We ate in silence. Actually, I ate. Dorrie inhaled and food disappeared. I watched a police cruiser glide through the parking lot.

“What would you suggest?” Dorrie finally broke the silence.

“If I had a better idea,” I said. “I would have done it already.”

Dorrie was silent for a while. She toyed with the sweetener packets, rearranging them. “You’re not big on procedure, are you?” she asked. “Is that why you left the Bureau?”

“You’re determined to know, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. She toyed with the earring in her right ear as if its presence reassured her. “You can tell me because we slept together, or you can tell me because, at least for now, it looks like we’re partners. Either way, I think I deserve to know, don’t you?”

I sucked at the last bits of pulp from my juice, stalling. She was right, of course. Either reason was enough. I strained to flex my atrophied trust. “Sometimes procedures,” I said at last, “get in the way.”

“In the way of what, your style?”

I shook my head. “Of the goals. I came across some information on the net. I did some digging and pieced together a three-cornered guns-for-drugs deal that was about to come through the US. When I tried to act on it I got stopped.” “Why?”

I sighed. “My superiors didn’t like my information.”

Her eyes narrowed as she studied my face. “Your information,” she said, “or the way you got it?”

“You don’t understand. There was no way to get a warrant without a full scale raid and that would have sent the overseas partners underground.”

“You broke in.”

“I hacked into the system of a suspected arms smuggler.”

“Which is illegal.”

“Most of the details went across the net.”

“But it was still illegal.”

My voice rose above my restraint. “I watched the transactions take place!”

She nodded while her attention wandered toward the kitchen.

“Anyway,” I continued, “when they finally accepted my evidence, the case got tangled up in the paperwork shuffle. Then the state department got involved because part of the hack job went into a foreign country. After the pile up, the CIA came up with the football and decided to do exactly nothing.” Dorrie dragged her head around to look at me, then returned her focus to her food. “So you quit.”

“Just the Bureau,” I said. “Then I fixed the deal to fall apart so most of the bad guys would get arrested anyway.”

She pushed a word out past the food in her mouth. “Most?”

“The money trail here in the States ended in a brick wall. I got as far as a company called Superior Systems and then the whole thing vaporized.”

“No records?”

I smiled. This was a subject I knew well. “Vanished,” I said. “Every record, every trace, just vanished.”

“There has to be something.”

“Trust me,” I stressed the words, “it can be done.”

The waitress brought more coffee and poured without asking. She glanced at Dorrie, smiled, and walked away shaking her head. Dorrie had just been chasing down the last shreds of hash browns on her plate. She stopped and looked quizzically at the retreating waitress, then at my smile. “What?” she said.

I nodded at the crumb-scattered plates between us. “She’s probably just wondering where you put it all,” I said. “Hey,” she said, trying hard for indignation. “High metabolism. Lots of exercise.”

“Exercise is good,” I said.

“Besides,” she sat up and straightened her frame. “I don’t recall receiving any complaints about my figure.”

“Gee, officer,” I said. “It was dark and it all happened so quickly. Maybe if I could see it again…”

“Keep it up, Bucko,” she said. She plucked the check from the table and stood up. “You’ll bruise my sensitive ego.” I threw some ones down for the tip. “With a sledgehammer, maybe,” I said.

Outside, winter’s first subtle spies were hiding in the autumn breeze, adding a chill to an evening that had merely been cool. Beyond the parking lot vehicles rushed by at random intervals. A few passenger cars were mixed with the early delivery trucks. On the broad expanse of Memorial Drive it was hardly enough to qualify for the word traffic, but the road was never completely still. There were twenty or so cars scattered through the parking lot. I was relaxed but alert. A couple was necking in a compact car near the entrance to the left. Next to the street was a panel van emblazoned with the words Feldman’s Produce. A car was nestled in the shadows to the truck’s right in spite of the empty spaces to either side of the pair. At the end of the row that fronted the restaurant, where the parking lot wrapped around the side of the building, a large sedan was backed into its parking space.

I glanced at Dorrie. She, too, swept the parking lot with her gaze. Except for the compact love nest, there were no tell- tale exhaust fumes signaling a running engine, no piles of cigarette butts outside a driver’s side door, in short none of the giveaways the camera usually zooms in on while the music swells to alert the audience to impending danger.

Next to the panel van, the doors on both sides of the car swung open. I started reaching for the Glock under my left arm.

“Federal agents!” A voice roared. “Don’t move!” There was a man on either side of the car. Both of them had guns leveled at us. The passenger stayed where he was while the driver advanced slowly. In his left hand he held what could have been his FBI ID. At that distance, in the dark, it could have been a membership card to the Mickey Mouse Club. The best evidence of its authenticity was the fact that Dorrie and I were still alive.

As the driver moved toward us, the passenger slid to his right to clear his field of fire. “Put your hands on the car,” the driver said.

I glanced at Dorrie and raised an eyebrow. It was her call. She nodded quickly and we placed our hands on the hood of the car.

“It’s okay,” Dorrie said. She spoke loudly, but calmly. “I’m FBI. My ID is in my left jacket pocket.”

“Agent Itake?” he asked. I began to relax.

Dorrie nodded and started to take her hands from the car. “Yes, I am,” she said.

The driver tensed. “Don’t move!” he said. “You’re both under arrest!”

“For what?” Dorrie’s voice lost some of its control.

The driver raised his gun about half an inch. Where his fingers wrapped around the grip, his knuckles turned white. “For the murder of a federal agent, you bitch!”

The night exploded. Adrenalin amplified the sound and I thought the universe had come apart. Part of me was surprisingly quick to accept death. It bothers me to think that the last words on my mind might have been, “Oh, well.” Dorrie pulled my arm, dragging me down behind the car. I realized it was the driver who lay dead. My mind started piecing things together. Dorrie’s gun was in her hand, her service nine millimeter, not the little backup. The shots had come from somewhere in front of me. My Glock was in my hand, drawn unaided by conscious thought. Someone had killed the driver. There had been four shots. The other agent was probably down as well.

I slid toward the trunk of the car while Dorrie crouched by the front wheel. I heard a car door open. When I peeked around the bumper, there was nothing but empty parking lot. A shoe scraped on pavement as I crept around the rear of the car. The next car over was a small station wagon. It was shorter than our rental car and I had to stay low to the ground to keep from being visible through the rear glass. Coming to rest behind the front wheel, Dorrie nodded to me. In the distance a siren wailed. The DeKalb County Police station was just a few miles down Memorial Drive. The sirens could have been going anywhere.

As soon as I popped up for a look, the glass on the station wagon shattered. Two more shots were fired in rapid succession and I was showered in beads of safety glass. I peeked around the rear bumper, instead. There was a gap of two empty parking spaces, a huge distance when you’re pinned down by an unseen gunman.

The siren was louder, now. I wasn’t sure if things would be better or worse if the cavalry arrived, but at least they would be different.

A car door slammed and an engine came alive. My ears couldn’t see enough. When I risked a look, the car at the end of the row started forward. Dorrie was still low, watching me. “Move!” I yelled, sprinting toward her.

She started to rise and I hooked a hand under her left arm, lifting and letting my momentum carry her. We both went down hard on the sidewalk and rolled around the front of the car. Gunfire blasted the air and bullets slapped the pavement where we had so recently been hiding. Pain bit my left leg and arm. The glass on the front of the restaurant shattered as a shotgun joined the tirade, then the engine growled deep in its throat and the tires cried in anguish. The car sped away. “You okay?” I asked.

She nodded and started to get up. “Think so,” she said.

The siren was much closer, now. It was almost certainly coming our way. “Let’s go,” I said.

“But the police…”

“Exactly.”

I was already at our car and had the door unlocked. Dorrie ran and was in the passenger’s seat before I had the car in gear. As I backed out, the headlights flared across the parking lot. The scene looked like a newspaper photo in starkest black and white. The agents lay still.

“We can’t leave them,” Dorrie said.

I stamped the accelerator and aimed for the street. “Cops’ll take care of them,” I said.

We flew into the street and swerved left, after the gunman, away from the city and the police. Two pairs of flashing blue lights were just a few blocks behind me. I killed the headlights and begged the car for everything it had.

Memorial Drive was a wide, straight swath before me. I saw the faintest glow of tail lights in the distance. The other car had a big lead.

“Shit!” Dorrie was looking out the back window. “They’re staying with us.” She slammed her fist on the back of her seat. “What’s wrong with you?” She was yelling at the cops behind us. “Those agents need help!”

Far ahead, the tail lights I had been following flared to brake lights then vanished entirely. “Dammit,” I said. “I just lost them.”

More blue lights bloomed ahead of us, coming our way. “We have to stop,” Dorrie said.

“No.”

“We have to straighten this out!”

“We’re wanted for murder,” I said.

“But it’s not true!”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not real!”

I saw the road I wanted just ahead. It branched off to the right toward the town of Stone Mountain. The speedometer was knocking on the door of triple digits.

“Hold on!” I tapped the brakes at the last possible second, then tugged the wheel. I felt the rear end of the car trying to beat me through the turn as I floored the accelerator again. I swung the wheel back the other way and we drifted sideways for the longest second on record before the car straightened out again.

Stone Mountain is really a village. Under other circumstances it’s almost cute. It’s a combination speed and tourist trap where the average speed limit is thirty miles per hour. I was doing eighty. My rear view mirror was clear. The police missed the turn, but it wouldn’t take them long to get back on track.

We were through downtown Stone Mountain in just a few seconds and I dropped my speed to fifty as the roads got worse. I turned on the headlights and flipped on the high beams. I heard sirens in the distance.

“Where are you going?” Dorrie said.

The blue lights appeared in the rear view mirror again. “Brace!” I cried. Her hand shot to the dash and I stood on the brake pedal. I swung into a subdivision marked by a red brick sign, Dogwood Acres, or something. We were racing toward a cul-de-sac.

“There’s nowhere to go!” Dorrie cried.

“Dirt road,” I said. Between the two houses at the end was a path of oiled dirt running back into the trees. It was a right of way maintained by Georgia Power. “I used to go off-roading here.”

Behind me the police cars blocked the entrance to the subdivision. They thought they had us trapped in a dead end street.

Dorrie pushed herself back into the seat. “Oh my God,” she said as I accelerated toward the trees.

“You need to hang on up here,” I said.

“Why?”

I twitched the wheel and lined up with the dirt road. “There’s about a five foot drop,” I said.

“Slow down!”

I gave the car more gas. “Don’t worry,” I said. “This always worked in the Jeep.”

We shot onto the dirt and the car bounced wildly. “But we’re not in…”

We were airborne. What had been a mild slope became a launching ramp. Dorrie was right. It wasn’t a Jeep. The car nosed forward. Just as I thought it would pitch too far, the front wheels hit the ground. The car bounced and I fought for control. The hood buckled, but stayed latched. Something under the car was making an anguished sound as I followed the road to the right.

We broke out of the trees and into open land. We were running down a shallow valley alongside huge steel structures marching monotonously to our left. Our speed was down to forty, now, and it was easier to control the car. Dorrie was staring up at an endless line of what seemed like alien robots. “Power lines,” I said. “Main feed. These run all the way to Conyers.”

“Ooh, goodie,” she said. “Conyers.”

Chapter 23

The searchlight slashed the purpling pre-dawn sky. Though the power lines kept the helicopter high, it still seemed deafening. Dorrie and I were tucked beneath the overhang of an old shed. Down the hill, where the searchlight played amid the steel trusses, I could see the small grove of trees at the edge of the clearing. What I could not see was the car stashed beneath the low hanging branches. Even from ground level it would be hard to spot.

The helicopter moved south and west, following the path of the high tension wires through the shallow valley. Eventually, the ground pursuit would catch up and find the car, then a search of the area would begin. I had only managed to buy us an hour or two while the police tried to find out where we had left the electrical expressway, but it was a vast improvement over the two second lead we had held on Memorial Drive.

We left the shotgun in the car, deciding it would be difficult to look inconspicuous while carrying it in the open. Our clothes were still back at the house. We had the weapons on our bodies and my briefcase. In the briefcase was my computer. That was it.

We looked a little shabby. There were rips in our clothes from where we had rolled on the sidewalk. My left arm and leg were bleeding and stiff. My arm was scraped from the concrete. My leg had been gashed, either by a ricochet or a flying chip of sidewalk.

“Looks worse than it is,” Dorrie said, examining the wound on my leg. “Needs to be cleaned, but I think you’ll live.” “Comforting,” I said.

“You look like hell, though.”

“Is that your official opinion as a fashion professional?” “Hey,” she said, “it’s what every well dressed fugitive is wearing these days.” Her mouth tightened and she looked away. The humor was gone, replaced by a hollow stare. I let her have some time while I tried to assess the damages.

I risked using the cellular link on my computer. I had no choice. The best I could do was to keep the connection time short. In a matter of minutes I had confirmed that there was, indeed, a warrant on file for one Doreen Itake, former FBI agent, and an unknown male accomplice for the murder of FBI agent Phillip Garber. The notification was from the federal level, the kind of thing local police rarely question. No one would ever bother to trace the route backwards to find that no actual warrant had ever been issued. It was in the computer. How could it be wrong?

While I was looking, a second notification came through. We were suspected of causing the deaths of two more agents who had tried to arrest us. We were to be tagged as extremely dangerous. Any attempt to take us in would be considered a TAC operation. That meant no locals, no patrol cars—SWAT and snipers only. Nothing but the best. With three dead FBI agents, the chances for an ‘accident’ were almost a certainty. We could walk out naked with our hands in the air and they’d shoot us, claiming self defense. It had happened before.

I slipped back into the Bureau’s own system to look up Dorrie’s record. She was hardly Phil’s hand picked heroine. There were no awards, no citations. Her scores in training had been merely average. There was a series of reprimands on file for insubordination and for improper procedure. One was for using excessive force during an arrest. Her evaluation indicated she had a serious problem controlling her temper and a tendency to substitute her own judgment for the law. They were authored by Phillip Garber.

One item did match up with what I had been told, though. She was still one of the best shooters in the Bureau. Looking at the records, it would be easy to believe that a rogue agent with a nasty temper had sought retribution against a superior, intending to blame it on an unknown assailant. Though they might have trouble explaining the body in the upstairs hallway.

I dug a little further. Of course. There was a copy of a bank statement showing that Agent Itake had made a five thousand dollar cash withdrawal. She had hired the gunman, then killed him to keep the secret. It was all circumstantial, but it was enough to get them started.

I told Dorrie what I had found. “You can’t believe that!” she said. “None of it is true.”

“No,” I said, “but—.”

“I know!” She held her hand up to interrupt me. “That doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

I smiled without humor. “You’re learning.”

“There are people that know me,” she said. “The people I’ve worked with. They can straighten it out.”

“If anyone bothers to ask them.”

She looked at me and her anger was dimmed only slightly by uncertainty. “But there is no warrant. We can prove that. And there were never any reprimands. Hell,” she said, “I’ve never had an extra five thousand dollars in the bank in my life!”

“Yes,” I said. “It would all fall apart under investigation. We just have to live long enough to clear it up.”

She grew quiet and looked away. Her anger had kept her stiff, but it faded slowly. Her shoulders lost their angularity, curving as she bent her legs, hugging them, resting her chin on her knees.

“I guess,” she said at last, “I never realized just how fragile it all is. How easy it is to destroy someone without ever even touching them.”

I reached a hand to her shoulder. “We’ll be okay,” I said. “They won’t get us.”

She shook her head, but didn’t turn around.

It sounded stupid, even to me. I saw a dog, once, trying to understand how the playful yips of puppies could be coming from a tape recorder. It stared at the tiny box, pawed at it, trying to make sense of the thing. That was how I felt. I had never realized, until then, how little I knew about other people’s emotions.

There was a line I had seen in a movie once. I tried it. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” I said.

A laugh burst from her and when she turned, one side of her mouth pulled back in a smile. “I draw faster than you,” she said. “I probably shoot better, and in a fight I bet we’re about even.”

I shrugged, not knowing what else to do. “You don’t have to spare my feelings,” I said.

“You don’t get it, do you?”

She took my blank stare for an answer. Her head swung back and forth then returned to its perch on her knees.

I pinched the skin of her arm between my fingers. “This is you,” I said. “Not the records. I didn’t sleep with a bunch of files and transcripts, I slept with you.”

“Ask yourself,” she said. “Would you have slept with me if you’d read that first?”

I should have answered “yes” immediately, but I didn’t. I paused to think about it honestly and she took that as an answer. Maybe it was one.

“What are we,” she said, “if not the record of what we’ve done?”

“The record is just a shadow,” I said. “It’s like the reflection in a mirror. Sometimes the glass isn’t smooth and the image gets distorted.”

“It’s like there’s another person out there with my name, my life, doing things I would never do.” She looked directly into my eyes. “Do you understand the feeling?”

I smiled in earnest, now. “Yes,” I said. “Several times over.”

“What do you mean?”

“Later,” I said. The eastern sky was growing pale. “We need to get going.”

The property we were on was a large tract. A barn and a wooden farmhouse stood near the street. It was all that was left of a farm that had been subdivided and sold off lot by lot. Up the road, modern houses were ranked on either side. We were in the unincorporated section of DeKalb County where the well-incomed professionals sought refuge from the city at the expense of a slightly longer commute.

It was just after five o’clock and there was no activity in the neighborhood. A few cars stood in driveways, a mix of luxury and utility vehicles. Most of the residents kept their cars locked safely in their two or three car garages.

The first house on the right had a ten year old coupe in the driveway. One fender was wrinkled and the body cried for a wash and a wax. I peeked in the window of the garage door. There was a gold colored luxury sedan and a gleaming black sports car inside.

“A study in contrast,” Dorrie said.

“We need a car.”

“Great,” she said. “Add grand theft auto to our long list of accomplishments.”

“We’ll see.”

She put her hand against the garage door. “Makes it tough to kick the tires,” she said.

I handed her a pen. “Just write down all three license plates.”

We took the list and sat down by the hedge that ran along the side of the house. We were hidden from the view of the rest of the neighborhood. Again I dialed out from my computer.

The first stop was Georgia’s DMV. It was an easy crack, since it was one of the many passwords I had collected and filed over the years. All three vehicles were registered to an Arnold Whitley. The driver’s license bureau blithely divulged Mr. Whitley’s social security number, and from there I was off to the credit records.

It turned out to be Doctor Arnold Whitley, and from his credit records and bank information, I guessed he was a specialist. Whatever he did, he was well paid for it.

“Here’s the deal,” I said to Dorrie. “The guy’s single. A doctor. The heap in the driveway is probably a throwaway. Something for the hoodlums to steal so they’ll leave the nice cars alone.”

“Hoodlums,” Dorrie said. She sat a little straighter. “I kind of like that.”

“Two of his credit cards show transactions yesterday,” I said. “In Barcelona.”

She blinked at me sweetly. “Is that near Conyers?” she asked.

“The Barcelona,” I said.

“So you’re saying he’s out of town.”

“Very.”

She looked at me. There was no hint of humor in her face. “You ever stolen a car before?”

“No,” I said. “But I’ve bought a few.”

“Great.”

“What do you think the heap’s worth?”

“You don’t even know if it runs.”

“Five, six grand?”

“Maybe three,” she said. “If it’s dark.”

“Ten it is!” My fingers flew across the keyboard, flipping through bank accounts like so many pages in a book. I washed ten thousand dollars through the wire transfer department of a bank in the Bahamas and dropped it neatly in Doctor Whitley’s personal account.

“Leave him a note,” I said.

“For what?”

“I just bought the car.”

“For ten thousand dollars?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s a steal, don’t you think?”

Dorrie shook her head as she stood up. “I think you both got robbed.”

When I pulled the thin, flat piece of metal from my briefcase, Dorrie looked surprised. The “Slim Jim” slid easily between the passenger’s window and the rubber weather stripping, but it took me several minutes of fishing around inside the door before I hooked the right piece of metal. A sharp tug popped the door lock up. It was several more minutes before I managed to break open the steering column and hot wire the ignition.

The car started, but the idle was rough. I kept it from stalling, barely, and we rolled quietly out of the neighborhood. It almost stalled again as I turned onto the county road that ran past the subdivision. “Needs a tuneup,” I said.

“Gosh,” said Dorrie. “Maybe you should have asked for a warranty.”

I pulled into a gas station a few miles down the road, just as dawn shattered the horizon behind me. The air was misty and everything was wet with dew. It was as if the world had been washed down during the night, in preparation for another day. I got us both some coffee and Dorrie took hers without a word. She hadn’t spoken since we left the subdivision and I sensed it was something more than weariness behind her silence.

I stood outside the car and watched the dawn streak the glistening road. There was no traffic, yet, and a few birds cheered the sunrise, urging it on. I ached for the simplicity of my life the way it had been. I longed to hear the falcon’s cry. In the distance, a siren hovered like a ghost at the edge of perception. There were other predators out that day. I raised my cup in silent toast, though whether to the dawn or to the hunter, I’m not sure.

Chapter 24

I blended into the morning traffic as it developed, heading back toward town. Having squeezed about as much energy out of my body as I could, I needed nothing more than sleep. I could feel the adrenalin crash coming on.

We swept clockwise around I-285 to the airport, where Thomas Paine of the Ledbetter Organization took a room at one of the less appealing motels. I left Dorrie in the car and left the car parked out of view of the office in case someone started questioning desk clerks. The precaution was probably unnecessary. The clerk barely noticed me.

Dorrie remained silent. She moved listlessly, almost as if she were in shock. The room was on the ground floor on the back side of the building. It had a magnificent view of the filthy parking lot. The scenic sweep of the access road hung behind it.

The motel was an architectural marvel. Somehow, it captured the acoustic energy of every flight into and out of the airport and focused it through the walls. The building rumbled with each load of happy travelers.

As soon as I saw the bed, what little energy I had left began to ebb. Like a siren it called to me, whispering of the silent peace of sleep. I sat on its edge, then lay back. It could have been a concrete slab for all I cared. At the moment I felt as if I were cradled in feathers and rose petals, held softly with the kiss of satin.

I must have dozed, because Dorrie’s voice seemed to drag me back from somewhere else. “Isn’t it?” she said.

“Isn’t what?” My own words sounded distant, like a half- remembered dream.

“Never mind,” she said. “You’re tired. Sleep.”

“Yes,” I said, giving up the struggle for consciousness.

It seemed like just a moment later when I opened my eyes again. I was completely on the bed, though I didn’t remember getting there, and my head rested on the pillow. Low sunlight struggled to break through the barricade of heavy curtains that guarded the window. I looked at my watch. It was just after five. I had slept through the day.

Dorrie was arranging something on the table in the corner of the room. There were smells I couldn’t identify, but one of them might have been ginger. When I sat up, she heard me and turned around.

“Dinner,” she said. “I picked up some stuff from the Szechuan place down the street.”

“I thought you were Japanese, not Chinese,” I said.

“With this accent?” she drawled. “I’m nothing but Texan. At least Chinese food has some kick to it.”

I went to the table and tried to get a surreptitious glance at the receipt. I had to move the white paper sack aside to see it.

“Yes, I paid cash,” she said. “I may not be a wizard, but I’m not stupid.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“You don’t trust me.” There was real anger in her eyes.

“I’ve trusted you with my life,” I said.

She waved it away. “You had no choice.”

I tried again. “I slept with you.”

Her frown etched itself deeper into her flesh. “To most people that don’t mean shit,” she said.

“It does to me,” I said. She shrugged and sat down on the end of the bed. I slid one of the chairs away from the table with my foot and sat facing her. Trust was the issue, and I gave her the insulation offered by the extra space between us. After a minute of watching her stare at her hands I said, “what’s this really about, Dorrie?”

Her hands tried to pluck words from the air before her. They failed, falling resignedly to her lap. “I don’t even know who the hell you are,” she said.

“I’m no one,” I said.

Her face clouded. “Oh, please!”

“I mean it,” I said quickly. “You said we consist of the records of what we’ve done. By that standard I don’t exist. There are no records.”

Her frown relaxed, overcome by a look of curiosity. “There must be some.”

I shook my head. “I erased every one I could find.”

“You?” she said. “But, why?”

“You’d have to know me better to understand.”

She shook her head. “You’re wrong,” she said. “Understanding that is the key to knowing you.”

“I’ve never had to explain this to anyone before,” I said. “Not even to yourself?”

“Especially not to myself, at least not in words. It’s just something I know.”

She folded her arms like a schoolteacher. “That’s an easy dodge.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but it’s all I have.”

She smiled and relaxed. She stretched across the bed on her side, propping her head up with her hand. “Tell me,” she said. “What makes a person want to disappear like that?” “I don’t know. Freedom, privacy, self-ownership. They’re all involved. I don’t have a million people out there owning bits and pieces of me, thinking they know what kind of clothes I like based on what magazines I read and what kind of car I drive. I live in the light and I control the shadows.” Dorrie shook her head, an awkward movement at best since her head was cupped in the palm of her hand. “I was with you till that last part,” she said.

“The real world,” I said. “It’s like a magic show. Smoke and mirrors. The thing is, almost no one seems to realize it.” “Except you,” said Dorrie.

“There are others,” I said. “You’ve done it yourself, locating people by real estate records, driver’s licenses, credit cards.”

“Sure,” she said.

“That’s what I’m talking about. Everything we do casts shadows and reflections. Ever been to the fun house? Seen what happens when you twist a mirror, bend it out of shape?” Her brow creased. “The image gets distorted.”

I nodded. “But you haven’t changed at all,” I said. “Now ask yourself which one people will believe; you or that image.” “But…” That was all she said.

“Ever make shadow puppets when you were a kid? A bright light, a little digital manipulation and you’ve made a shadow of something that isn’t there.”

“And people believe it,” Dorrie said.

“Unquestioningly.”

Dorrie stared at the floor for several minutes. An occasional blink and the steady rhythm of her breathing were all that broke her stillness. “Come on,” I finally said. “The food’s getting cold.”

She moved slowly as if lost in thought. We finished shuffling food between cardboard containers, mixing the rice with some conglomeration of vegetables. I even recognized some of them. Dorrie dug her plastic fork into the container in front of her. She stared at the wall as she chewed.

“You okay?” I said.

She looked at me for a moment then nodded. “This is new to me,” she said.

I smiled at her. “You ordered it.”

There was the faintest echo of my smile on her face. “I’m just a simple country girl from west Texas,” she said. “I’m not used to brooding over philosophical stuff.”

She was talking, now, and smiling some. I preferred to keep it that way. I said, “you don’t strike me as a simple country girl.”

“Country girls,” she smiled, “aren’t what they used to be.” “That’s okay,” I said. “Neither is reality.”

“When he was young,” said Dorrie, “my grandfather had the poor judgment to fall in love with a Korean woman. When he married her, Japan became,” she paused, searching her food for the right word, “uncomfortable for him.”

“Is that when he moved to the States?”

She nodded. “He told me people here couldn’t tell the difference anyway,” she said. “I guess he went through some rough times. Followed the farm work from California to Texas and ended up settling there.”

“Where?” I said.

She was grinning now. “Can you believe it?” she said. “He ended up in a small town called China Gardens. China Gardens! It’s like he was asking for trouble. People there still don’t care for anyone that doesn’t look like them. I got out as soon as I could.”

“If it was that bad,” I said, “why did your family stay?”

She laughed and hidden inside the laugh was the bubbly giggle of a little girl. “Grandfather said that after Japanese prejudice, American prejudice was nothing. At least Americans acknowledge your existence while they’re being jerks,” she said. “Anyway, I grew up fighting with total low-lives against unfair odds. Law enforcement seemed a natural course.”

We finished the meal and swept the refuse into the garbage can. Neither of us spoke about the situation we were in. By silent agreement we acted as if we were a normal couple enjoying a normal rest at a normal motel. Whatever normal is, it can be relaxing. We stretched out on the bed, snuggling close, and turned on the television. Except for the roar of the airport and the niggling drone of traffic outside it was peaceful. The remote control was attached by a steel cable to the night stand on Dorrie’s side of the bed, so she surfed us through the channels. She stopped briefly at each one, just long enough to determine what it was.

“Oh, God,” she said at one point. The person on the screen was lit from behind, so you couldn’t see his face. In the corner was the logo of one of those tabloid shows that lived on the people’s hunger for sensationalism. What caught my attention was the legend at the bottom. It said “Air Traffic Controller.”

“Wait,” I said before Dorrie could change the channel.

The man’s voice was distorted electronically, but the words were distinct.

“I’m telling you,” he said. “The plane wasn’t where it was supposed to be.”

A woman’s voice said, “You mean it was off course.”

“No,” he said. “It was right on course, exactly on the flight path.”

“Then what happened?” said the interviewer.

“Everything was perfect,” he said. “It was a flawless approach. Except the plane wasn’t there!”

“You’re saying the radar was wrong?” asked the interviewer.

“The whole,” a word was bleeped out, “thing was wrong! The plane was never where the screens showed it.”

“That section of the country,” the woman said, “is using the newest ATC system. Could it be flawed? Make mistakes? The Guild experts have already checked out the equipment and given it a clean bill of health. They’re suggesting human error.” The man said nothing.

“Do you think it could be intentional?” the interviewer asked.

Still the man said nothing.

The screen cut to the same clip I had seen before. It was footage of the crash site of the flight to Anchorage, the one Galileo was supposed to have been on.

The interviewer spoke again. “Could the new system be compromised by terrorists?”

At last the man broke his silence. “The plane,” he said, “wasn’t where the screens said it was.”

The station went to commercial and Dorrie turned off the television. “Smoke and mirrors,” she said.

I thought about it. How hard would it be to gain access to the air traffic control computers? The Guild had developed the new software and certainly the security measures that went along with it. Was the system even accessible from the outside?

“What’s the matter,” Dorrie said.

I twisted my head to look at her. “I was on that flight,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“Galileo was,” I shook my head, “or was supposed to be. It was right after Phil finally made contact with him—me. You know what I mean.”

“Oh, come on,” Dorrie said. “You can’t think… Galileo isn’t even real!”

“Yes he is,” I said. “He’s shadow play. He’s as real as the Agent Itake the police are hunting.”

Her jaw fell as she thought it through. Her voice sawed through the silence. “No one would kill a couple of hundred innocent people just to get one,” she said.

“That,” I said, “would depend on what’s at stake.”

“I can’t believe it,” she said. She shivered a little as she tried to inch closer to me.

I nodded. “Maybe that’s what they’re counting on.”

Chapter 25

When we woke, it was night. We made love, but it was different than it had been before. Dorrie was different. There was less playfulness in her actions, less competition. She seemed to act more out of need, as if she derived some sustenance from our joining. There was a tender quality of mutual comfort to it that left me with as much need as it satisfied. I felt like I was in orbit around her, falling forever toward her and never crashing. It was like a dance ordained by natural law with all the sense of rightness and inevitability that implied.

We showered and dressed. It was ten o’clock. I set up my computer on the table while Dorrie was still putting on her clothes.

“Now, what?” she said.

“Now,” I said. “I make us some reservations. Give me a credit card.”

She was putting on her t-shirt. “Me?” she said as her head popped out. “What’s wrong with yours?”

I held my hand out. “They’ll be watching for your cards and Hamilton’s,” I said. “I’ll use them both.”

“But if they’re watching for them…” She stopped suddenly. “Oh, I see, where is it we’re not going?”

“Everywhere,” I said.

She lay two credit cards on the table next to me as I typed. I lined up airplane tickets for several flights to New York, DC, Dallas, and Denver. I alternated credit cards and chose flights spread out across eight hours the following day. “Train tickets, too,” I said.

“Great,” she said, stamping on her boots. “I’ll be a broke fugitive.”

“I can fix it,” I said.

She sighed. “Somehow I knew you’d say that.” She sat down at the table with me. She bobbed her head as she looked at me, trying to see my eyes through the dark lenses. “Why not the bus?” she said.

“I would, but they’re not on-line and they don’t take reservations,” I said. “It’s about the last anonymous form of public transportation left.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The Bureau will be watching the station anyhow.”

I nodded. “I hope so.”

“Book one to Hawaii,” she said. “I always wanted to go to Hawaii.”

“We’re not going on any of them.”

“I know,” she said, “but a girl can dream, can’t she?”

I finished and put the computer back in my briefcase. Dorrie slid back down in her chair. She stretched her legs out and put her feet, boots and all, on my lap. “Okay, pardner,” she said, stretching her accent into a caricature of itself, “now that we’ve established where we ain’t agoin’. What’s the plan?”

“Jacksonville,” I said.

“Florida? I hate Florida.”

“Big airport,” I said. I picked her feet up and dropped them on the floor. “Lots of flights no one will be watching.”

She shrugged. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s saddle up.”

I put on my shoulder holster, checked my weapon, and pulled on my jacket. “How much cash do you have?” I said.

“Have you noticed,” she said as she stood up and checked her pockets, “you’re always asking me for money lately?”

I smiled and said, “You’re the only one with a job.”

We had about forty dollars between us, so I spent some time driving around. It took me almost half an hour to find an instant teller. I parked and we both got out. The machine sat in a tiny pool of light against the wall of a bank. Dorrie looked at me strangely when I took my briefcase with me. She looked around at the deep shadows. “Nice place for a robbery,” she said.

I grinned. “Wouldn’t the crooks be surprised,” I said.

Dorrie nodded. Her voice was flat. “For about two seconds.”

We reached the machine and I held my briefcase out level to her. “Hold this,” I said.

She put out her hands and I laid the case on them. I opened it like a portable desk and took out a card. A thin cable trailed behind it. I plugged the cable into the computer, then slid the card into the slot on the machine.

“Somehow,” Dorrie said, “this doesn’t look like the normal transaction.

“It’s not,” I said.

“So who’s picking up the tab?”

“I am.”

She chuckled. “You who?” she said.

I smiled and said, “One of the many me’s.”

She shook her head and looked at me over the top of the briefcase. “God help me,” she said, “I’m falling in love with a schizo.”

My fingers tangled and tried to press every key at the same time. Her face was indistinct through the glasses. Words and numbers obscured my view. I slid the glasses down my nose and looked over the top of them. Her smile faded and even in the bad light I could see her cheeks flush. Her mouth worked and nothing came out at first. “I mean…,” she finally said.

“Shhh.” I held my finger to my lips. “It’s okay,” I said. “We love you, too.”

“You son of a…” The briefcase tipped dangerously as she started forward.

“Wait, wait, wait!” I cried, trying to keep it level.

She stopped moving and glared at me over the top of the now steady briefcase. “I’ll get you for that,” she said. Then she smiled and added, “all of you!”

I finished bypassing the system’s safeguards and soon the mechanism whirred. It coughed out a thousand dollars. I transferred the money to cover the transaction. The machine would balance, and there would be no record of a transgression against the three hundred dollar limit.

“Handy gadget,” Dorrie said as I put everything away and took the briefcase from her. “You could stiff the bank for that if you wanted to, couldn’t you?”

“That,” I said, “and a hell of a lot more.”

We got back in the car and I drove us toward the interstate. Dorrie turned sideways in her seat and leaned against her door. She stared at me for a while as I drove. “You could be a very dangerous man,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And the only thing that saves the rest of us,” she went on, “is your own code of honor.”

“Yes.”

She shook her head and looked out the windshield. “Smoke and mirrors,” she said.

We drove through the night, taking turns to relieve the fatigue of night driving. We ate at an all night truck stop around three in the morning and rolled into Jacksonville around nine. In spite of its physical size, Jacksonville is a small town trying hard to play big city. Its residents, the imports, not the natives, joke about it being south Georgia instead of north Florida. The same facility might host an art show one week and monster trucks the next. The city is caught in a battle between the good old boys of yesterday and the high-tech whiz kids of tomorrow. The population is in constant flux. Playing host to three naval bases will do that.

Somewhere along the lines, someone had some sense. The airport is well north of the city itself, away from the traffic and the lingering odor of paper mills. We drove straight to the airport and found a cheap motel. The cheap ones are less likely to question being paid in cash.

The room looked pretty much the same as the one in Atlanta, except the owners were a lot less trusting. The television remote control was fixed directly to the night stand. What little charm the furniture had was squeezed out by the steel bolts securing it to the floor or walls. Even the chairs at the table were bolted down.

In the bathroom resided a single plastic cup wrapped in paper “for your protection.” The towels were thin and not much larger than a wash cloth.

“Amazing,” Dorrie said rubbing the toilet paper between her fingers. “How can they make sandpaper so thin?”

“Not exactly the presidential suite,” I said.

She giggled. “I guess that depends on your potty affiliation,” she said. She couldn’t keep from laughing at her own joke.

“Don’t you ever,” I said, shaking my finger at her, “ever say anything about my humor again!”

“Potty,” she said, gasping for breath between bursts of laughter, “affiliation.”

I walked out of the bathroom and left her there. Alone, I allowed myself the chuckle I refused her the satisfaction of seeing. The pun may be the lowest form of humor, but, damn, are they funny sometimes.

By the time Dorrie stopped laughing and joined me, I was already hooked into the reservation system. I worked from the opposite direction. Using a node in Montana, the Ledbetter Organization booked Mr. and Mrs. Paine onto an evening flight to Helena. Home is where the resources are.

Dorrie tried to pull out the chair to sit down. “Damn,” she said as it stayed firmly bolted down. She sat down on the bed, instead. “When do we leave for DC?” she said.

I said nothing, but she must have understood from the look on my face that I had another destination in mind.

“We have to go to the bureau,” she said.

I looked at her and kept my face blank. “It wouldn’t be safe,” I said.

“People know me there,” she said. “It’s the only way I can straighten this out.”

Her expression was a melange of demand, appeal, and maybe even fear. It was as if her shell of certainty had cracked, revealing the softer mixture it held so well in place. I tried to sort it through. Was I really so concerned about our safety there, or was there something else?

“Jake,” she said and there was a breathless hurt in her voice. “I need my life back.”

Was that it? Was I worried that maybe we could clear things up for her? She needed her life back, her old life, her life before me. In just a short time I had cleared a space for her in mine and found she fit there better than I ever could have known. I had found, in myself, a darkened corner that only her light had revealed, and now I was finding how much I hated those shadows. There had not been much time to think ahead, but I understood at once that every time I had, Dorrie had been there. It had never occurred to me that somewhere up ahead there would be a choice between her life and mine. She needed her life back. Of course.

“Jake?”

“Okay,” I said, coming to a decision. Her life was hers. Mine was mine. If one were to flourish at the expense of the other, the deal was not worth the making. “Who’d you work for before—,” I shoved away the images that rose in my mind, “this assignment?”

“Holchik,” she said.

“Will he vouch for you?”

“Yes.”

I nodded. “What about other agents? Friends at the Bureau?”

“Tons.”

“Friends,” I said, “that would jeopardize their careers to back you.”

The hope faded only slightly from her eyes.

“Friends,” I went on, “that would believe you over the evidence that is their stock in trade.”

“But there is no evidence,” Dorrie said.

“There are records of evidence.”

“It’s not the same thing!” She twisted the blanket in her fist. Her arm shook from the effort.

I crossed the small space between us and sat next to her on the bed. As if I had never moved, her eyes still targeted the empty chair. I put my hand on her back. Her muscles were strained in frustrated tension. “Isn’t it?” I said.

She turned and her hand locked on my forearm with uncomfortable pressure. “There’s nothing I can touch. Nothing to fight! You’re a wizard,” she said, and her words hissed as if squeezed from her by the strain of her muscles. “You can fix it!”

Something blocked my throat. I could not speak.

“I can’t do it,” she said. Her arm relaxed only slightly and her words lost some of their desperate edge. “I need you, Jake.”

“Yes,” I said. She did need me. She needed me to fix things. She needed me to get her life back. “I’ll try,” I said. She stayed on the edge of the bed while I started up my computer. Anticipation lit her features from within. I raided telephone exchanges, leaping across the country gathering phone numbers like fists full of gossamer threads. I wove an untraceable web that tied, eventually, to Washington.

I read her a local number. “Call that,” I said. “It’ll ring at headquarters.” She rushed to comply. “And, Dorrie,” I added. “Be careful what you say.”

She gave me a short nod then finished dialing the phone. I summoned my guardians and posted them at each major junction of my tangled web. They would watch for any unusual interest in the impromptu Heretic Telephone Network.

“Extension 3235, please,” Dorrie said. She paused a moment. When she spoke again, it was with a passable Hispanic accent. She claimed to be Agent Vasquez from the Atlanta office and asked for Special Agent Holchik.

“Oh?” she said after a pause. “Can you tell me where? Sure, I’ll hold.” Dorrie frowned and covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “He’s been reassigned.”

In the silence, I stretched my senses, straining to catch even the slightest grumble of discomfort from my guardians. “You can’t?” said Dorrie. “I see. Then may I speak to Agent Gruber? Sure.”

Again, Dorrie covered the phone to fill me in. “The reassignment’s classified. Director level only.”

“This isn’t good,” I said.

Dorrie shrugged. “We’ll see.”

I grew nervous through the wait. Orders for Holchik’s reassignment could have been inserted from outside the Bureau’s system. If it looked official enough, no one would question it.

“What do you mean, ‘inactive medical’?” said Dorrie.

In a flurry of silent screams, words appeared before me. Guardians began reporting traces. No sooner had one cut off the connection than the next cried out a warning.

“Hang up,” I said.

“The line’s dead,” said Dorrie.

The trace was cut off from the other end, but still it kept coming.

“Hang up.”

Halfway.

“But, I…”

Two thirds.

“Hang up, now!”

Dorrie slammed the phone down onto the cradle as the last guardian announced the detection of the trace.

“What the hell’s going on?” Anger cast a darker shade on the confusion in her voice.

I slid the glasses off and exhaled the tension that had filled me. “They almost got us,” I said.

“Who?”

She was answered by a soft chirp. A chill gripped me as the noise repeated. It sounded more insistent, somehow. Dorrie’s expression asked a silent question.

Again, my computer chirped. I could only stare at it.

“I think you’re ringing,” she said.

I nodded.

“Does that mean they’ve found us?”

I shuddered as the noise came again. “I don’t know,” I said.

She nodded toward the computer. “Go ahead.”

My hand shook a little as I made the connection.

“Agent Itake, I presume.” The voice coming from my computer was the same as before. It had the same resonance, the same imperious depth. “And the persistent Mr. Hamilton, or whatever name you’re using now.”

Dorrie drew breath, but I stopped her with a gesture.

“Oh, please,” said the voice, “I would hate for this to be a one sided conversation. After all, we have so much to talk about.”

“Like what?” I said.

“There you are!” Even in delight, the voice sounded menacing. “You know, you won’t find Holchik. In fact, I’ve been told no one will ever find him. By the time anyone thinks to look for him his trail will be quite cold.”

I could see Dorrie’s muscles tense even through her clothes. “His trail,” I said, “or his body?”

“Both, I’d presume,” and he chuckled like an icy wind. “And as for Agent Gruber, well. Who knows how the hospital records got scrambled? It’s terrible to think that in these days of automation such a terrible mistake could have been made.” “You fuck!” Dorrie yelled.

“Such language,” he said. “Though I suppose I can forgive the outburst, Miss Itake. I understand Gruber is a friend of yours. Or should I say ‘was’? The latest reports say he’s technically brain dead.”

“I’ll find you, you—.” I gestured her to silence and she clenched her entire body like a fist.

“Oh, I very much doubt that, Miss Itake. You see, we live in different worlds, you and I. It’s like another plane of existence. Your friend there should be able to explain it to you. He seems to have at least a rudimentary grasp of the occult.” Dorrie looked at me and her expression did not change. I felt the weight of her accusation as I was swept into the pile along with the voice.

“You mundanes are like rats in a maze, while I,” he allowed himself another cavernous chuckle, “can change the maze around at will. Isn’t that so, Mr. Hamilton?”

I kept my eyes fixed on Dorrie’s face. “Not entirely,” I said.

“Oh, come now. Surely you have seen past the facade and dipped into the more ephemeral nature of things. You’ve shown enough talent to escape us so far.”

“I’m just getting started,” I said.

“I think not, Mr. Hamilton. You see, we mean to have it all. There will be no place left for someone like you to hide.” Dorrie was still watching me and still her features had not softened. “You mean,” I said, “like convincing an airline pilot that he’s at the runway when he’s not?”

“You see,” said the voice, “you do understand. As long as people think things are always what they seem, they can be controlled.”

“I can stop you,” I said.

“I doubt very much that you have the power,” he said. “What would you do, convince the world not to believe their own records? To distrust everything they read? What if you shut off every computer and every phone in the world all at once? You would see a time that would make the Dark Ages seem bright. Face it, Mr. Hamilton; you can not defeat us and you can not afford to expose us. We are the masters of the New World.”

Finally, Dorrie’s expression changed. Her eyes widened and her jaw fell slack. The room felt cold. In my mind, I heard that voice echoing through a chamber. I saw a wizened face, a tangled, gray beard that rippled as words of warning thrummed in my ears. I was damp with icy sweat. I knew the enemy’s name.

“You’re Remus,” I said. “From the Guild.”

I could hear the frozen smile in his voice. “My dear Mr. Hamilton,” he said. “I am the Guild.”

Chapter 26

The traffic was terrifying. I was just as happy I had let Dorrie drive. Expressways and access roads intersected at strange angles. Those who knew the roads zipped around with little concern for the laws of traffic, bleating their horns at the more cautious drivers who were trying to make sense of the chaos.

“Tell me again,” said Dorrie, “why we suddenly have to go to the mall.”

I felt the onset of motion sickness as Dorrie alternated between the gas and the brake, jigging through the traffic like a salmon racing to spawn. I felt the motion, but my eyes were fixed on the words floating before me. My brain was caught between the conflicting signals of sight and balance and my stomach bore the brunt of its confusion.

“I need power,” I said.

Dorrie jinked left as the driver of the car in front of us braked hard. “Available in the power section of your local department store,” she said.

I tried to ignore what I knew was my imminent death by traffic and concentrate instead on what I was doing on the computer. Between keystrokes I spared the time to respond to Dorrie. “There’s a VR parlor at the mall,” I said.

“Video games? Jake, why do you think they call it virtual reality?”

“We’re not going to play. The equipment requires fast computers and high speed communications. It’s a place of power.”

“Like some ancient temple,” she said. “We can light candles and sacrifice a goat.”

I held my temper in check. “You’re ridiculing something you don’t understand.”

She was quiet for a time. Her driving lost some of its manic edge. “No,” she said at last, “I’m trying to understand something I think is ridiculous. All this talk about magic and alternate planes of existence, it should be absurd.”

“Should be,” I said. It was a question in the guise of a statement.

“And yet,” she said, “real people in the real world think I’m a murderer.”

“They don’t think at all,” I said. “They know it for a fact.” “But it’s not true!”

“No, but it’s still a fact.”

“God dammit, it’s the same thing!” Dorrie used the last glimmer of a yellow light to squeal into the Regency Mall parking lot.

“Not any more,” I said.

The mall was busy for late afternoon. Dorrie took the first available parking space, even though it was a long way from the door. The sky was clear and the temperature was perfect. I could almost believe I wasn’t breathing through a thousand exhaust pipes.

Dorrie swiveled her head with every other step as if each car could hide a killer. She watched the eyes of every person we passed. A young man whose scowl abused the world and whose overcoat could have concealed anything held her attention. He stopped by the driver’s door of a luxury sedan and looked around the parking lot. He pulled something from under his coat.

Dorrie angled toward him. I put my hand on her arm to stop her. She froze in mid-stride and our eyes met. Her teeth were almost clenched as she mouthed the words, “I have to.”

I shrugged and we approached the man from behind. He looked back over his shoulder once just before he slipped the object down inside the door, but he didn’t turn far enough to see us.

We stopped just a couple of paces away. Dorrie held up her ID with her left hand. Her right rested oh so innocently on her right hip. “I assume,” she said, “you have your registration and insurance card.”

“What the… ?” The man turned too quickly. I never saw Dorrie move. Her gun just materialized in her hand.

“Oh, hey,” the man said, “it’s my friend’s car, ya know? He locked his keys in it.”

“Good,” Dorrie said. “Then maybe we can talk to your friend.”

“He, uh,” the man hesitated. “He ain’t here. Yeah, he’s back at the crib. Asked me to come get his car.”

“Oh, I see,” said Dorrie, “then I think you need to go call a locksmith.”

The man turned toward me. “Hey, man, what’s the… ?”

I interrupted. “Do I look like I’m in charge?”

He looked to Dorrie’s badge, then to her gun. He started walking backwards. “Think I’ll just go call me a locksmith.” Dorrie just nodded without lowering the gun.

“Pay phone,” he said hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “Yeah, I’ll just, uh, thanks!” He gave an uncertain wave and walked away. He walked like a man with a purpose.

Dorrie holstered her weapon and smiled. “Gee, that was fun.”

“You through, now?” I asked. “Got it out of your system?” “Well, I couldn’t just…”

I headed toward the mall. “Let’s go.”

“What was I supposed to do?”

I kept walking.

“I’m still an agent!” she said.

I turned around. She had not moved a step. “I know you are,” I said. I knew she always would be.

The parlor was in a storefront just down from the food court. Next to the actual stores whose windows and floors were packed with merchandise, it looked sullen and empty. There were eight platforms, similar to the one I had at home, spaced around the floor. The carpet still bore the marks of the display racks of the former occupant and one wall was still paneled with the supports for modular shelving. The back wall had been painted with a bold zigzag pattern in offensively bright colors. Foot high letters proclaimed the place to be “Sauron’s Gate”. Two boys in their early teens were leaving as we came in. They were talking excitedly to each other.

“Didja see the way that one almost got me?” one said.

“Oh, man,” said the other, “came right over that hill!”

“Good thing you popped him.”

“Oh, yeah!” He held out his hand and the other boy slapped his palm. I could still hear them as they merged with the crowd. Now the place was empty except for the attendant. He fiddled with some controls at the counter before he spoke. “Afternoon!” he said. “How ya doing?”

“Fine,” I said. “I need to borrow your system for a while.” “What’ll ya have?” He spread his hands wide. “I got Klaxxar, Dino Hunt, all of ‘em. I can only give you half an hour, though, ‘cause I got a Game coming up.”

I shook my head. “It’s been canceled.”

“No way,” he said. “It’s been scheduled for a month!”

I pointed to the terminal in front of him. “Check your tube,” I said. “The Pits of Assinar, canceled this afternoon.” Dorrie’s scowl was accusatory. I simply shrugged.

The attendant, Kevin, according to his name tag, tapped a few keys and stared pleadingly at the screen. “C’mon,” he said to the terminal, “you can’t do this to me! I had one participant coming and the rest reserved for spectators. I’da been rented out solid till closing!”

“Sorry,” I said. I dropped five hundred dollars in cash on the counter. “It happens.”

Kevin froze in the middle of one of his expansive gestures. He faced the room, but his eyes were turned toward the money. “Those all twenties?”

I nodded.

“Don’t get much cash these days. Even kids got debit cards and stuff.”

I nodded again.

“IRS don’t see cash too well.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “they don’t see it at all.”

Finally, he looked straight at me. His hand crept toward the pile of bills. “No receipt?”

I smiled. “I was never even here.”

He dipped his head and swept the money from the counter. “That’s cool, too. Watcha need?”

I told him and he burst into motion, gesticulating wildly. “Whoa,” he said. “That ain’t happening. I got three more years of payments on this stuff. No way am I lettin’ someone dick around inside the server. You can keep your money.”

“Kevin,” I said with infinite calm, “listen to me.”

“No way, man. You know what this stuff costs? It ain’t your average home gear!”

“I’m not your average spell caster.”

“I don’t know you, man!”

Dorrie moved past me and leaned across the counter. Her voice was deafeningly soft. “Kevin, I think you should listen to the man.”

“What the hell is that?” He was staring at her Bureau ID. “It’s a badge, Hon, and it’s just one of the reasons you should listen to him. I have more.”

Kevin tore his eyes from Dorrie and looked back at me. “You don’t play fair,” he said.

I kept my face expressionless and shrugged my most eloquent shrug.

“That’s why they call him The Heretic,” Dorrie said.

Anger flooded through me and I turned to vent it, but before I could say a word, Kevin interrupted.

“The Heretic?”

I held my outburst. While I was still furious, her transgression had violated the anonymity I held nearly sacred, the name seemed to have some effect on my reticent friend. “You know the name?” I said.

“I know the stories.”

I smiled. “They’re not all true.”

His eyes narrowed. “What module did you crack in EuroCon’s three point two operating system?”

I sighed. “It was actually a beta version of three point three and it doesn’t prove a thing. EuroCon published the bug after they fixed it.”

“What module?”

“It was underscore SECMOD, three hundred seventy- four bytes from the entry point.”

Kevin’s manner changed completely. “The Heretic,” he said. “Damn! Wait’ll I tell…”

“You’re not going to tell anybody,” I said.

“But…”

“Kevin,” I said, leaning close. I lowered my voice. “A lot of those stories are very true.”

The man’s face fell, then slowly climbed back up to an uncertain smile. He held his hands up and backed away. “No problem, man,” he said. “I know better than to fuck with the gods. In fact, I’m a little bit hungry. I could do with some lunch.” He slid from behind the counter and edged toward the door. “I’ll just lock up behind me so you no one’ll disturb you and come back in about, uh…”

“Two hours,” I said.

“Yeah, two hours. You get done before that, you just, you know,” he said, “just leave.”

“Kevin,” I said. He froze like a deer at the snap of a twig. “Thank you.”

He gave a quick spasm that might have been a nod and was gone.

Dorrie looked at me. Her eyebrows lifted in humor or perhaps surprise. “The gods?” she said.

I smiled. “Strange world, isn’t it?”

The server was a rack of equipment mounted in a cabinet at the back of the room. Status lights twinkled all over the front of the components. I located the unit I needed first. It was second from the bottom. I retrieved my tools and computer from my briefcase and knelt down to identify the connectors on the front.

“Good God,” Dorrie said behind me, “it looks like your praying to the damn thing.”

I cabled my computer to the terminal connector and pressed a button marked “reset.”

“If I thought it would help,” I said, “I’d try it.”

It took several minutes to make the necessary adjustments and modifications, but in the end I had complete control of the system. It was running my own interface and it linked automatically with my system back home.

“That’s it,” I said.

“What’s it?” said Dorrie. “You’re done?”

“No, I’m ready to start.”

“Now will you tell me what we’re doing here?”

I thought about it, then tapped a few more instructions into the computer. “Let’s go,” I said. “I’ll show you.”

“Go where?”

I pointed to the VR platforms and grinned. “To that other plane of existence.”

Chapter 27

I was staring at the view from behind my house. The sky was purple overhead. Toward the horizon it brightened with the light of the eternally rendered dawn. The sun was locked forever just beyond the hills.

“Where are we,” Dorrie said.

I smiled even knowing she could not see it. “Home,” I said. “I digitized it at my favorite time.”

“Sunset?” she asked.

“Dawn,” I said. “The creation. The beginning.”

“Don’t go all mystical on me it’s…,” she said. “What’s with the robes?”

I turned and found her staring at me. “It’s an image,” I said, “a persona I use in some of the games.”

She looked down at herself. “Damn,” she said, “whose are these? Your digital playmate’s?”

I laughed. “The body belongs to a thief I know named Melina. I didn’t have anything else to put you in.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “I just wish I could keep them when we leave.” She made a slow turn, looking around. “You live here?”

She was staring at an arrangement of monolithic stones. “Stonehenge,” I said. “I thought it added a certain something. My house is a lot more boring.”

“You know, this is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with fixing my life?”

“Command mode on!” I spoke to the air and a glowing ball appeared before us. It hovered about six feet off the ground. “First,” I said to Dorrie, “I need to talk to Cthulhu.” I faced the ball of light. “Names!” I said. An ancient leather- bound tome appeared before me. With each wave of my hand, the pages turned. I tapped the entry marked with Cthulhu’s name and said, “connect!”

The book was replaced by a large crystal ball. In front of it was an oversized representation of a computer keyboard. Words floated to the surface of the gleaming sphere.

“Cute,” said Dorrie.

“It gets better.”

PARANOID CENTRAL:

As I tapped the keys of the keyboard hovering before me, the letters appeared on the crystal ball.

CTHULHU?

CTHULHU ACKNOWLEDGES. SCRAMBLE ACTIVE.

CTHULHU› It’s about time. Been waiting.

HERETIC› Sorry. Been living in interesting times. Line is secure, good comm lines. Go virtual?

CTHULHU› No sweat. Be there in a sec:)

“Now what?” Dorrie said.

I gestured and the crystal ball vanished along with the keyboard. “You’ll see,” I said.

Thunder rolled around us. There was a bright flash where the crystal ball had been, leaving a dark spot in its after image. The spot grew, becoming a roiling cloud. Tiny strokes of lightning flashed in its dark mass. As it grew, it formed arms and legs, finally taking on the shape of a human being. It became a body of boiling black and grey, lit from inside by intermittent flashes.

“Nice entrance,” I said.

“Thought you’d like it,” said a voice from inside the cloud. It was deep and resonant. “I’ve put a lot of time into it.” I gestured toward Dorrie. “This is—,” I paused, thinking better of using her name, “a friend.”

The cloudy head shape nodded. “I suspect that’s not Melina in Melina’s body. She know what’s been going on with you?”

“All of it,” I said. “She’s involved. You got the stuff on Tahachi?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Here.” He waved a hand and a large scroll appeared beside it. It unrolled dramatically. On it was Tahachi’s financial statement.

“That doesn’t tell much,” Dorrie said.

“No,” said Cthulhu, “it doesn’t. They make about twenty mill a year from the video game industry, mostly support stuff. Their main line is in controller chips, application specific. Mostly digital to analog converters, high speed interface circuits. Things like that. They do their design work in San Francisco. Their manufacturing plants are in Mexico and Malaysia. So far, no big deal.”

“When does this get interesting?” I said.

“On the line that says subsidiary income.” The scroll rolled itself up then unrolled again revealing different words. “One wholly owned subsidiary,” Cthulhu went on, “specializes in the really good stuff. Special control circuits for speed and accuracy, things like missile guidance and satellite relays. Most of its work is in federal contracts. In fact, half its income for the last three years has come from the ATC contract.”

“ATC?” Dorrie said.

“Damn,” I said. “That ties in.”

“What’s ATC?” Dorrie asked again.

“Air Traffic Control,” said Cthulhu. “What’s the big deal?” “Oh, shit,” said Dorrie. Stress tended to put her at her most loquacious.

“What don’t I know?” Cthulhu said.

I filled him in quickly on the details of the Alaskan plane crash and my suspicion of why it occurred. Out of habit, I never referred to Galileo by name. I told him only that someone involved in the situation had intended to be on the flight. When I related the conversation with the Guild he began nodding. He was silent for almost a minute.

“That makes sense,” he finally said. “The other subsidiary ties in, too.”

“Go on,” I urged.

“They’ve got a company out of New York that manufactures sportswear.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Absolutely nothing,” he said. “Which is why I looked into it. How about a sportswear manufacturer that doesn’t own a manufacturing plant, buys no material of any kind, and never advertises?”

“Not much of a manufacturer,” Dorrie said.

“They did, however, buy twenty million dollars worth of computer equipment in the last three years, as well as half a mill worth of supplies. Mostly media. You know, diskettes, tapes, that sort of thing.”

“That,” I said, “sounds more like a software development firm.”

“Yeah,” said Cthulhu, “it does, except they’re not very diversified. They only have one contract for their sole source of income and I can’t tell you much about it. It’s a black hole in New York called Farnwell, Inc.”

“No information at all?” I said.

“Nothing. It’s like they don’t exist.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said. I looked up at the glowing ball that still hovered patiently above our heads. “Map!” I said. A map of the United States appeared before us and I touched New York. Now it was replaced by a map of New York state. Another touch brought up the city. I called for a keyboard and one instantly appeared. I tapped in Farnwell, Inc. “Banks! Account name! Search!”

Seconds later my crystal ball appeared. In it were the words, “not found.”

“I told you,” Cthulhu said.

I turned toward him. “I’m not through yet,” I said. I looked back up at the command sphere. “Transactions! Search!”

The wait was almost a minute, but a list finally appeared in the crystal ball. They were all transfers from Neidham Sportswear. They ended bluntly in anonymous account numbers. I reached into the crystal ball. My hand sank into the surface and I grasped the most recent one. “Trace!” I said, as I pulled it from the ball.

“I know you can’t see my face,” said Cthulhu, “but I am duly impressed.”

“You ain’t seen nothin’, yet,” I said.

The words in my hand stretched and became a living rope. It snaked toward the map of New York and touched a point near the financial district, just a few blocks from Wall Street. The rope grew thinner as the map zoomed back to show the whole east coast. The Caribbean appeared, and the rope, now just a thread, stretched out to the Bahamas.

“This is great!” Cthulhu said.

The thread tied itself to a spot on the island, then leapt back north. It came to rest back in New York City. I touched the spot and the map zoomed back in to Manhattan Island, then even closer to a street map. The crystal ball showed the name of a bank and the terminus of the transaction. It was a custody account held for Farnwell by power of attorney. The attorney was Michael Coletti.

“I’ll be damned,” I said.

Lightning streaked Cthulhu from head to toe. “You know this guy?”

“Sort of,” I said. “He represents the Guild. I think we’ve found our connection.”

“So Tahachi and this guy do all the front work and the Guild stays anonymously in the shadows. That’s a damn big organization to keep secret.”

“I don’t think it’s all of them. There’s a Mage who calls himself Remus. I would swear it was his voice on the phone when my cell call got traced back.

“He traced a cellular number?”

“In no time.”

The storm cloud whistled without tune.

“He’s right about one thing,” said Dorrie. “There’s no way the whole Guild could be in on it.”

“The way it’s organized,” I said, “they wouldn’t have to be. A handful of people with full access to all the assignments could pull it off.”

“But Tahachi’s legit,” said Dorrie.

“It’s also huge. There’s plenty of room to hide a private army.”

“A twenty-first century protection racket.” Cthulhu rested thunderhead fists on his hips. “We’ve got to warn people.” “We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“What if they believed us?” I said. “What if the world suddenly realized it couldn’t trust anything that came through a computer? The stock market, bank records, credit histories; they’d all be suspect. The markets would crash as everybody pulled out, so would the banking system.”

He rubbed the swirling grey clouds of his forehead. “My God. The only thing worse is if we could actually prove it.” We were all silent for a time. I was chasing from implication to implication, watching panic in the streets and I imagined the other two were doing much the same. Then Cthulhu spoke. “You know,” he said, “it would eventually settle out.”

“Only after some very bad times.”

“But it would settle,” he said. “We could wait it out. We could stock up on food, convert everything else to gold and head for the hills. Then pull the plug.”

I looked at the landscape around me and thought of my home. I saw myself isolated in that safety while all around lay chaos. “Could you live with that?” I said.

“I didn’t cause this!”

“Nor did I, but if we plan to withdraw, why do anything at all? The cure would be worse than the disease.”

“I don’t believe this!” Dorrie’s outburst was startling. “We can’t just ignore this and we sure as hell can’t just tear down civilization and hope it puts itself back together! We have to do something!”

Melina stood before me, but I saw nothing but Dorrie. I saw the woman who could not allow herself to walk past a crime without putting things back in order. I saw someone whom I knew was right demanding something I thought was impossible. “What do you suggest?” I said.

“How should I know? You two are the wizards. All I know how to do is shoot them or arrest them and I can’t even find the sons of bitches! We have to track them down. They’ve got to be operating from somewhere.”

“No, they don’t,” said Cthulhu. “They could be anywhere and everywhere. All they need is enough computers and sufficient…”

I waited a moment for him to continue, then prompted him. “What?”

Cthulhu made a gesture like snapping his fingers, but it was muddled in the cloudy motion of his hand. “Bandwidth! Satellite relays!”

It was perfect. If Tahachi’s division had provided the Guild with access to communications satellites, the implications were tremendous. Not only would the Guild be able to move massive amounts of data around at will, they would be able to sift through the normal flow of information, plucking whatever might be useful from the stream.

“If you can give me a link,” Cthulhu said, “we can check it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“My research netted one good thing; access to Tahachi’s system. Maybe there’s something there.”

I called for a link and Cthulhu provided the phone number. A heavy wooden door appeared. When he gave the account name and password, it swung open on its massive iron hinges.

“Guardian!” I called the command to my system.

“What the hell is that?” Dorrie was looking to my right. There stood a densely muscled beast nearly seven feet tall. It looked human for the most part, until one noticed its piggish snout. It had tusks like those of a wild boar. A broadsword gleamed in its right hand. It snorted once and shifted the studded iron shield it wore on its left arm.

“He’s here to watch our backs,” I said.

Cthulhu’s chuckle rolled through the air. “You’re a sick man, Mr. Heretic,” he said, “but you’ve got style.”

I took the extra second to show him a smile. “I’m just getting started,” I said. I stepped to the door and through it. Mist swirled in a dim light that came from everywhere and nowhere. We were in a vast cavern filled with row after row of filing cabinets. Above our heads the darkness receded to a thick blackness long before revealing any sign of a ceiling. “Welcome,” I said, “to the main storage of Tahachi, Inc.”

Cthulhu began opening file drawers and sifting their contents at random. Dorrie did the same. Behind us, the guardian took his station at the doorway.

“This is useless,” Dorrie said. “Interoffice memos, sales reports.”

“We’ll never get through it this way,” said Cthulhu.

“SPRITE!” I called.

Through the door behind us, came a SPRITE. The guardian stepped aside to let it pass. It walked up to me, blinking the eyes that took up fully half of its face. It had impossibly thin limbs. It just stared at me, waiting for orders. “You’re just full of it, aren’t you?” Dorrie said.

I ignored her and spoke to the SPRITE. “TCI,” I said, “or Guild. Search.”

It closed its eyes and its head tilted back, then it vanished in a faint wash of light. The light streaked to the first file drawer, causing it to glow. One after another the drawers glowed in the mist as the search progressed.

“Fast,” Cthulhu said.

“Ugly,” said Dorrie.

We waited almost three minutes. The SPRITE worked its way down the row and disappeared in the distance. Eventually the drawers on the opposite side began glowing in succession. When the last one faded out, the SPRITE materialized before me. It blinked once, then lifted its arms and shoulders in an exaggerated shrug.

“Well?” Dorrie stepped forward and peered closely at the SPRITE. It ignored her.

“Nothing,” I said. “No references.”

A deep growl rumbled all around us. The SPRITE turned its head and stared into the mist.

“What the hell?” Dorrie said.

Two red pinpoints appeared in the darkness as the growl sounded again. They dipped and rose rhythmically as they grew larger.

“Security program,” I said. “It must have detected the search.”

The fog clotted around the glowing eyes. An enormous black hound stepped cautiously toward us. It stopped ten feet away, sniffing.

“So what?” Dorrie said. “This isn’t real.”

“That depends,” I said.

The hound gathered itself and sprang. It was almost on us. Dorrie shrank back instinctively. Her hand made a motion and I knew that somewhere in another world, another Dorrie held a gun in her hand.

Suddenly, there was motion to our right. Moving faster than would have been possible for a creature its size, the guardian stepped in front of us. Its broadsword arced viciously downward as the hound made its final leap. The blade sliced into the creature’s neck. The eyes went dark and the hound vanished in a swirl of mist.

The guardian snorted once and lumbered back to its post by the door.

“Put that away,” I said to Dorrie.

Melina held her empty hand before her face, then jammed it under her left arm. “Habit,” she said.

“Now, what?” Said Cthulhu.

“Now,” I said, “we find out what the SPRITE did learn. Identify!”

The SPRITE waved a long-fingered hand and words hovered in the air. They formed the name and version of the operating system we were standing in.

“I know that system,” Cthulhu said.

“So do I.” I gestured and the fog cleared. The cavern grew brighter.

“Look!” Dorrie was pointing to a cluster of filing cabinets that were now standing where none had been before.

“He raised our security level,” Cthulhu said. “Those files are hidden from normal users.”

I looked around. “That’s not all,” I said. Near where the guardian stood, more doorways had formed. One of them bore the name TCI.

“Well,” said Cthulhu. “Whadaya know?”

Dorrie walked up to the door. “I’m worried,” she said.

“Why?”

“I’m starting to enjoy this.” She reached out and swung the door open. Filling the entrance was a large, blue pentagram.

Cthulhu whistled. “Hello, Guild.”

I indicated the blocked gateway and instructed the SPRITE to try to crack the security. It walked to the door and blinked at it, but then it turned away.

Dorrie looked from it to me. “What’s it doing?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You don’t know? How can you not know? It’s your cre— program.”

“It’s also a very complex one. It follows several different artificial intelligence paths toward problem solving. Some of it is rather fuzzy, almost like instinct.”

The SPRITE walked up to the new filing cabinets and searched them quickly. When it was done it drifted back to the Guild symbol. It put its hand to the center and stood with its eyes closed for nearly two minutes. Then the pentagram vanished.

“Lucky guess,” Dorrie said.

“Not at all,” I said, feeling a little defensive. “A calculated guess.”

“Whatever.” She stepped through the door.

Suspended before us was a nexus of blue light. It blinked and spattered seemingly at random, throwing off beams of light. It looked like ball lightning suspended by flashing spokes leading off in every direction. Each beam terminated in tiny doorways on the walls and ceiling and floor. Pulses sped back and forth along the spokes.

“I don’t get it,” Cthulhu said. “It’s obviously some kind of communications hub, but there’s no system here.”

I pointed to a beam that aimed back at the door through which we had just stepped. “It’s a gateway straight into the hub,” I said. I pointed to the seething mass in the center of the room. “That, I suspect, is a satellite.”

“Jesus,” Dorrie whispered. “There must be a thousand doors.”

“That’s where you’ll find the Guild,” I said.

She looked around and above. “But which one?”

I meant to laugh, but it caught it my throat. Even to me it sounded like a gasp. “All of them,” I said.

“That,” said Cthulhu, “is about as distributed as processing gets.”

“Heretic!” The voice boomed around us. It was huge and deep and cold. It was also familiar. I had heard it coming through my computer. I had heard it threaten Bard with being cast out of the Guild. “I know of you,” said the voice. “I had thought perchance to recruit you.”

Standing near the pulsing satellite was Remus, exactly as I had seen him in the Guild lounge. His image still wore the robes of a Mage, but I now knew he was much more than that. “You are the Heretic, are you not?”

I inclined my head. It was part nod, part bow.

“Of course,” he said. “I doubt very much that anyone else could have gotten here. You, then, are the persistent Mr. Hamilton? That would explain much.” He directed his face toward Dorrie. “Agent Itake, I presume? I must admit your current appearance is quite striking; nothing like the photos in your personnel file.” He looked then at Cthulhu. “You,” he said, “I do not know.”

“I think we’ll keep it that way,” said Cthulhu.

Remus paused. “For now,” he said. He turned back to me. “You, my friend, are impressive. Not many beings have power in both worlds. Until now, you have been unstoppable in either.”

“Maybe,” I said, “you’re not as strong as you think you are.”

“Oh, I doubt that very much. I suppose the brutes they’ve sent in the physical world simply underestimated you.”

“‘They’?” I asked.

He went on without the slightest pause. “I might find a connection somewhere in the military, perhaps? Special forces? Or maybe law enforcement. Yes, what might I find there? The earthly existence of the power I see before me?” “Search where you wish,” I said. “You won’t find anything. What makes you think I even exist outside this plane?”

“Please,” he waved a hand before him, “let us not be absurd. The trappings of magic are quite enjoyable, but we both know this world can not exist without the other.”

I looked at him and shrugged. “You’ve underestimated me before.” I walked toward him, circling to his side, moving casually nearer the satellite. “Does the name Galileo ring a bell?”

I could see the surprise in his hesitation and spoke before he could recover. “How does it feel to know you killed almost two hundred people just to delete a program?”

His finger stabbed toward me. “I did—!” He stopped himself. Slowly, his hand fell to his side. As if the action pressed the bellows of a forge, a deep sigh escaped him. After a time, he went on. “You must know, by now, that there is nothing you can do. I am as pervasive as the wind and as insubstantial.

“There are thousands of Guild members in hundreds of thousands of systems, each giving me control, giving me knowledge, giving me power. I wave my hand and the rich become destitute, fiction becomes reality. Isn’t that so, Agent Itake?”

Dorrie took a step toward him, clenching her fists. I used the distraction to move a step closer to the pulsating nexus. “Please,” he said. “Be my guest. Try to hit me. Your savage instincts are useless here!”

“I’ll find you,” she said, “in the real world. Then my savage instincts will kick your ass!”

He laughed and the sound of it throbbed through my head. I was close enough, now, to touch the satellite. Remus was still laughing as I reached my hand out. “RADER!” I cried as I lay my hand on the sphere. A huge beam as thick as my arm shot out from the ball and through the open door behind us. A steady stream of pulses drained along the beam, sucking the information from the satellite. Every pulse that fed into the sphere was drawn along my beam back toward my own system.

“No!” Remus cried. He gestured toward the doorway and a massive fireball flew from his hands. Just as it was about to strike my guardian shot through. The fireball exploded against its shield, keeping the path open.

“SPRITES!” I called. “One thousand!”

The room was suddenly packed with the huge-eyed creatures. They stood awaiting my directions. Remus swept his hands around him and each SPRITE he touched vanished into vapor.

“Guild!” I commanded. My hand still rested on the satellite. “Search and wait!”

The old man was still destroying the SPRITEs around him, but there were far too many. My system was spawning copies faster than he could delete them. The rest gathered around the flashing ball of light and dove into it, their glow merging with its own. They became pulses in the stream, and flashed outward along the spokes.

“Stop!” he screamed. He waded toward the door, clearing a path through the SPRITES. The guardian raised its sword as he approached, but Remus’s hand flashed to its chest and it disappeared. He reached for the door, grasped it, and slammed it shut.

The three of us stood on a hill in Montana. The shadows of Stonehenge lay on the ground. The gateway was gone. At my feet lay an ancient wooden chest.

“What the hell was that?” Dorrie said.

“That,” I said, “may have been our first victory.”

“What did you do?”

Cthulhu pointed to the chest. “He was stealing information.”

I nodded. “Hopefully we have enough Guild information in here to start rooting them out.”

“But those—what did you call them, sprites?”

“They’re out there, somewhere,” I said. “Searching for the Guild, waiting for instructions.”

“What instructions?”

“I don’t know yet! I’m still working on it.”

“It’s simple,” Cthulhu said. “Just have them zap whatever system they’re in.”

“We can’t. The Guild is resident in legitimate systems all over the world. That would be the same as shutting everything down.”

“I’m still not convinced that’s such a bad idea.”

The air was split by a terrible howl. A guardian appeared from nowhere. His sword was slashing at nothing.

“What the hell?” Cthulhu said.

“Intruder,” I said. “He’s here!”

“Who?”

“The Guild!”

Smoke plumed around the guardian and he disappeared. In his place was an enormous blue dragon. Azure fire burst from its nostrils. It roared with the sound of a hundred lions as it was suddenly surrounded by guardians.

“But there’s no link!” Cthulhu said.

“It’s a virus, dammit. Just like my SPRITEs!”

The dragon swung its head. Flame swept across the guardians, incinerating them. A doorway formed and swung wide. A link was formed.

It knew where we were. It might even have traced the connection to Montana. “We can’t let it escape!”

Its tail swept through the guardians behind it and they vanished. The guardians’ swords had no effect on it. It leapt for the gateway.

“Link close!” I yelled. The door began to swing shut. The dragon burst into coherent blue flame and shot out the door just as it slammed.

“Shit,” Cthulhu said. “What now?”

“Go home,” I said, “and hide. He probably traced the link back to you.”

“He’d never get through my security.”

“Don’t trust that!” I said. “Assume he knows everything. If he can, he’ll kill you in the real world.”

“God damn,” he said, “I’m just a caster! What am I supposed to do?”

“Hide,” I said. “Go someplace else with system access and cover your tracks. You know how to do that.”

“What the hell do I know about killing? You don’t die in this stuff! It’s not real!”

“Listen to me!” I couldn’t even grab him to shake some sense into him. All I had were words. “You know how to hide. Don’t leave a trail and they won’t be able to find you. It’s the same thing you’ve been doing for years, just don’t trust anything that’s stored on your system.”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding vigorously. “Yeah, I can do that. Sure. Then what?”

“Contact everyone you know that you can trust.”

“How should I know who?”

“You knew to trust me.”

“That’s different,” he said.

“Choose only the ones you’re sure about, then wait for me.”

He raised his hands to his sides. “Where? Physically?”

“No,” I said, “on line. Someplace safe.”

“Got it!” He aimed his finger at my chest. “That physics lab at Princeton. You still have the password?”

“I have it,” I said. “Gather and wait for me there.”

“How long?”

“If I’m not there in a week, its because I’m dead.”

He started to laugh, then realized I was serious. “You mean dead?”

“This is serious, pal.”

“I’m gone,” he said. And he was.

I looked at Dorrie. “What about us?” she said.

“Take your gear off. “We have to get out of here.”

She pointed to the ground. “Here?” she said.

“Jacksonville, the VR parlor. He knows where we are.”

Her hands went to the sides of her head where her VR helmet was in the real world. She vanished.

Chapter 28

I stepped from the platform. Dorrie was already standing beside me.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Hold on!” I ran to the server and grabbed my computer, packing it back into the briefcase.

“I thought you said we were in a hurry.”

“I can’t leave this!”

She stood ready, scanning the faces of each shopper that passed outside the windows. “Come on,” she said. “This is really exposed.”

I came up even with her. I carried the case in my left hand. My right rested under my jacket on the butt of the Glock. “We’re out of here,” I said.

She unlocked the door and we stepped out into the crowd. It was after working hours, now, and the mall traffic was heavier. Some people moved with a purpose, weaving their way around the window shoppers. No one looked threatening, and everyone looked suspicious.

“We should be safe in the crowd,” Dorrie said.

“We’re also stuck here as long as we’re in it. The quicker we get to the car, the better chance we have of getting out of here before they can respond.”

She was leading the way, zigging back and forth through the crowd. “You don’t think they have security thugs posted here, do you?”

“I don’t know what they have,” I said. “Chances are they were already searching Jacksonville after we disappeared from Atlanta. It’s not that big a mental leap.”

“But there are definitely cops here.”

“Definitely.”

“I can’t kill them if they try to stop us.” Her words were emphasized in strange places by her jogging gait.

“Of course, not.”

“Then what if it’s cops?”

“Then we run some more.”

She slowed down to swing around two overweight women. One was leisurely pushing a stroller. We stepped into a narrow gap, barely missing someone who had been stepping out of a store. We shot past into the open. We had reached the mall doors.

She stopped and turned without opening the door. She put her hand flat on my chest. “What if they shoot?”

“Who?”

“What if it’s cops and they shoot?”

I looked at her. “I’ll duck.”

“I’m serious,” she said. “It’s not their fault. They’re doing what they think is right. Saving the world from a couple of cop killers.”

“I know.”

“Would you die?”

“It won’t come to that.”

“Tell me!” she said. “Would you die before you shot back? Because I would.”

“If we don’t duck quickly enough,” I said, “or run fast enough, we won’t have to make that decision. We’ll already be dead.”

I started forward, but she didn’t remove her hand. Instead, she pressed harder to keep me in place. “It would kill me if you died,” she said.

“Dorrie,” I tried to stop her, “not now.”

“But it would destroy me if you killed one of them. I think that would be worse.”

I reached up and brushed the hair from her forehead. It was matted from where the VR helmet had rested. It didn’t really need brushing, but the gesture came unbidden as a comforting act. “You don’t really trust me, do you.”

“I don’t really know you, Jake. And the more I learn the more you frighten me.”

“You shouldn’t be frightened.”

“I’m a mortal in love with a god. What else should I be?” “I’m not a god,” I said. “I’m just good at something you didn’t know existed.”

“You’re a god,” she said. She looked down. When she looked back up at me she was smiling. “Who else could have given me tits like that?”

I laughed. “Any good plastic surgeon.”

“You see?” She shrugged. “Doctors scare me, too.”

I looked over her shoulder through the double set of glass doors. There was a car parked at the curb with two men in it. They were wearing identically cut suits of different colors, one brown one blue. The car stood out precisely because it wasn’t supposed to. Its overt plainness screamed for attention. I stepped forward and pulled Dorrie close. She leaned into me, responding to the embrace.

“Your timing stinks,” she said, “but the thought’s good.”

I explained what I saw outside.

“Well,” she said. “Someone knows we’re here.”

We turned and headed back into the mall. “I just wish I knew what team they’re on,” I said.

“Does it matter? It’s a cinch they’re not on ours.”

We reached the main concourse. Dorrie stopped me with a hand on my arm. I followed her eyes across to the food court. Two uniforms from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office were talking to Kevin. I couldn’t tell from the body language whether or not he was giving us up. We turned to retrace our steps. Half way back to the doors we were blocked by a woman who was juggling several shopping bags and trying to maintain control of two unruly children while pushing a stroller. The older children, a boy and a girl, both about five or six, were each trying to force their own agenda.

We tried to pass on the left, sliding between them and a large concrete planter.

“Mama, Mama. Look!” The boy jinked left and the woman stepped in front of us to grab his hand.

“Not now, Franklin!”

We dropped back to go right, but the little girl pushed the stroller in front of us. “This way, Mama!”

The stroller rammed the leg of a man just coming out of a clothing store. The baby’s eyes and mouth opened simultaneously and it began to wail.

“Jennifer Lynn, you stop right there!” The mother dropped Franklin’s hand and grabbed the stroller. “I’m so sorry,” she said to the man who merely scowled and walked away. She dragged the stroller back to chase down Franklin again and we shot through the gap.

Ahead of us, the two men had gotten out of the car. They had just reached the outer doors.

“This way.” Dorrie pulled me to the right, into a hallway that led to restrooms and pay phones. We ducked around a corner where we couldn’t be seen from the mall, and stood beside a door marked for employees only. In the corner near the ceiling was a large security mirror. It gave us a clear view back down the hallway.

Dorrie leaned against the wall. “Now what?”

I looked around for a solution.

“Can’t you just turn on your computer and make them disappear?”

I found the answer on the wall above her head.

“Don’t you have some wizard thing you can do?”

“Yup,” I said. I reached up and pulled the fire alarm.

“Jesus!” Dorrie shrank from the noise.

“Not all magic is big magic,” I said.

I led her back to the hallway. People were beginning to mill out of the stores, looking around. They seemed dazed by the constant din of the alarm. At the doors, one of the suits was talking emphatically to the other. He stabbed at the ground with his finger, then pointed to the doors. The crowd was coalescing into a mob and Blue began to fight his way through while Brown stood at the door, watching the faces that moved past him.

“Franklin! Come here!”

The woman was close to panic. People were scrambling around her. The baby was crying. Jennifer Lynn held her hands over her ears and screamed a single, continuous scream.

I stepped out just as Franklin ran by. “Whoa, pal,” I said, scooping him up. “Mom wants you.”

He froze in my arms. Wide eyed shock kept him still. I carried him back to his mother who was trying desperately to comfort the baby. Dorrie reached Jennifer Lynn just as the child finally paused for breath. The boy started to squirm in my arms. I said his name in what I hoped was my sternest voice and he quieted immediately.

“Let us help,” I said to the woman.

Dorrie had the girl quiet in her arms. “Oh, thank you,” said the woman. “I just I don’t…” I grabbed two of the shopping bags with my free hand; free if you don’t count the briefcase I already carried. She looped the other bag over the handle of the stroller. Dorrie lifted the girl high to block her face from the view of Mr. Brown and we flowed out into the daylight with the rest of the crowd.

Packing everything, and everyone, into her car, the woman thanked us endlessly. Back on familiar territory, Franklin and Jennifer Lynn began arguing with each other over whether it was a fire or a bomb scare. The woman showed us an uncertain smile full of helpless apology before getting in to quiet her kids.

As we crossed the parking lot, Dorrie mumbled. “Miserable creatures.”

I smiled. “Children don’t appeal to you?”

“Not those.”

“Come on,” I said. “You were probably like that when you were a kid.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Uh huh.”

“I wasn’t!” She was silent for a few steps, then added, “I was a pouting foot stamper.”

“Ah hah!”

“But I never argued. With three older brothers, I didn’t dare.” Again there was a pause. “What about you?” she said. “I’m not much for arguing,” I said.

“I mean what about your childhood?”

“Nothing nearly so colorful as China Gardens, Texas. I spent a great deal of time alone.”

A short bark of laughter escaped her. “Who’d have figured?” she said. “No brothers or sisters?”

“Brother,” I said. “One. Much older than me.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know. I was still young when he left home.”

“You never looked for him?”

I stuffed my left hand in my pocket. “It’s a big world out there.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Jake. I’ve seen you operate. If you wanted to find him, you would.”

We reached the car and I unlocked the passenger’s door. “I suppose,” I said. I held the door open for her and she got in without a word.

It wasn’t until I was behind the wheel with the engine running that she spoke again. “What about your parents?”

“What about them?” I said.

“They don’t even know where you are, do they?”

I backed out of the parking space. “They never seemed too concerned about that when I was young. I can’t imagine it bothers them now.”

“Don’t you wonder how they’re doing?”

I stopped a little shorter than I needed to at the end of the row of parking spaces.

“My father just got promoted to department manager last year. It seems he’s developed an uncanny knack for figuring out what the competition is going to do before they do it. His investment account consistently beats the averages, but not so much that it will raise questions. They have triple A credit whether they want it or not. Anything else?”

She stared at me for several breaths. “So you’re their guardian angel.”

“They’re doing okay.”

“It bothers you, doesn’t it?”

“That they’re okay?”

“No,” she said. “Talking about yourself.”

“That’s not me,” I said. “I’m something else, now. Something different.”

She reached out and put her hand on my arm. “You mean like a god?”

I shook my head, searching for a way to put it. “No,” I said, “something flawed. Something uncertain.”

“Like a Greek god.”

I tried to smile. “Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz,” I said. “I’ve seen what lies behind the curtain and it’s not what everyone thinks. It’s a little unsettling.”

“Smoke and mirrors,” she said.

I nodded. “Smoke and mirrors.”

I was about to start driving toward the exit, but stopped when Dorrie spoke. “Jake,” she said. I looked at her and for the first time I saw the delicate grace of her features. I had seen her look angry, cunning, joyful, but this was different. It was a look of open beauty that was somehow strong and vulnerable at the same time. It was like a cherished blossom reaching for the morning sun.

“You don’t even know me,” I said.

“But you’re wrong.” She swept my words away with a careless flip of her wrist. “I may not know who you were, but I know who you are. Maybe better than you do. Knowing someone doesn’t mean being able to list their favorite color or their favorite flavor of ice cream, it means knowing whether it matters that you find out. It means knowing what things mean to them. It means…”

“Dorrie, you can’t…”

“God dammit, I love you! Now shut up and let’s get out of here.” Her frown didn’t hold. She raised her eyebrows together with her shoulders in a look of innocent protest. “You say the sweetest things,” I said.

She turned away and looked out her window. “Shit,” she said.

“That’s not one of them.”

“This isn’t going to work.”

“That’s not true, it…”

“Look!” She was pointing to the exit. Cars were backed up around the mall. It took me a few seconds to realize why. Two police cars were partially blocking the way out. They were examining the faces of each car’s occupants as they let them through.

I drove the opposite direction and back into the rows of parking spaces. It was slow going. People were streaming toward their cars, slowing our progress to a crawl.

“Now, what?” Dorrie said.

I turned and drove around the mall, moving opposite most of the traffic. “I don’t know,” I said. “We need…” “That!” Dorrie cried. She was pointing at a huge fire truck that was idling near the back entrance to the mall.

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“It’s perfect,” she said.

“I can’t drive a fire truck! Can you?”

She grabbed my sleeve and pulled me toward her, pointing out the windshield. “Not the fire truck! Behind it!” I saw what she had been pointing at all along. Parked behind the fire truck was an ambulance. She was right. It was perfect.

I parked the car and we moved against the thinning tide of people toward the entrance. A few firemen stood around the cab of the big truck, their heavy coats were thrown open and most of them had their helmets under their arms. They paid no attention to us.

One man sat behind the wheel of the ambulance. The engine was idling. The driver’s head was bobbing up and down as he tried to see into the mall through the dark reflections in the glass doors.

“Any ideas,” I whispered to Dorrie.

“None,” she said. Suddenly, she sprinted to the open window on the driver’s side. “Mister!” she yelled. “Hey, mister!” Her accent was so thickly Japanese, it was almost a stereotype.

At first, I stayed where I was out of surprise. Then, as I heard her breathless jumble of words I decided not to interrupt. “Partner need you!” Dorrie said.

I saw the frowning disbelief on the man’s face as he reached toward the dashboard.

“Say radio not working!” Dorrie said. “Go quick. Man hurt bad!”

The driver stepped out of the ambulance. “Where is she?” he said.

Dorrie was nodding constantly. “Toys,” she said. “She say come quick!”

“Which store?”

Dorrie just kept nodding, pointing now and then toward the entrance. “Toys,” she said. “You go, now. She say quick.” The man gestured in frustration and ran into the mall. I drifted up beside Dorrie. “So solly, GI,” she said. “No trucky, trucky.”

“Yeeha,” I breathed.

Dorrie was still staring after the ambulance driver. “Almost sad, isn’t it?”

“Let’s ride.”

I checked once more. There was no sign of the ambulance driver. Dorrie went around to the passenger’s side. We got in and rolled away slowly, careful not to pass by the cluster of firemen. When I got near the tangle of cars I hit the lights and siren and drove down the opposite lane. The officers at the entrance looked up and saw us coming. One waved us through while the other moved his patrol car out of the way. Dorrie made a careful inspection of a bag of plasma as we passed near the cops. “You’re right,” she said. “Not all magic is big magic.”

The traffic was too thick. There was no place for those drivers that cared to get out of the way of the ambulance. I dodged back and forth, driving in the turn lanes, on the median, even on the opposite side of the road. It was tricky driving that consumed my concentration.

It wasn’t until we cleared the worst of the snarl and I was given the left-hand lane mostly to myself that guilt set in. “We have to leave the ambulance somewhere,” I said.

“You’re right. They’ll start looking for it any second.”

That was another good reason. The driver would have reported the theft by now. That was not, however, my primary concern. I killed the lights and siren as I pulled down a side street and parked it in a small industrial park. Actually, it was two warehouses badly in need of paint. Some of the space had been converted into offices that housed maybe eight or nine businesses. The asphalt of the parking lot was pitted and scored like the blasted surface of some alien world. The sign, canted several degrees out of true, carried the preposterous name of Grand Villas Industrial Park and Conference Center. “We need to call them,” I said.

“Who?”

“The police,” I said, “or the ambulance company. We need to let them know where it is.”

“They’ll find it soon enough,” Dorrie said. She already had her door open. “Right now we need to get away from it.” We walked back to Atlantic Boulevard. We were away from the bright new construction that had sprung like mushrooms around the mall. Here, outside the mall’s economic radiance, were older buildings in various stages of disrepair. Everything felt dirty and used up. I stopped outside an old cinder block convenience store and checked the pay phone.

“Wait,” Dorrie said. “We’re too close.”

“No.” I dropped in the coins. “Now.”

“Why?”

“One,” I held up a finger to enumerate my points, “it’s an emergency vehicle. Someone’s life may depend on its being available. Two, we stole it.”

“We stole the car.”

“I paid for that car!”

She looked around before answering. “So send them some rent.”

“I plan to.” I dialed the phone number of the ambulance company that had been blazoned across the side of the vehicle. In one sentence I told the operator where it was and hung up. I felt better, but still a little queasy.

“All right,” I said to Dorrie. “We need transportation to the airport, quick.”

She was staring toward the street. “I think I found it,” she said. She pointed to a plexiglass shelter on the curb. It was a bus stop. A sign listed the various routes that passed through that spot. The last one on the list said airport.

“It’s not fancy, but you pay as you go,” she said.

“You think I’m being foolish.”

She started to speak, but stopped herself. She looked at the ground and kicked at a candy wrapper that drifted by. “No,” she said. “I don’t. I’m just a little embarrassed that I didn’t think of it.”

I had no ready quip. No deep, meaningful words came to mind. I could think of nothing to say, so I simply shrugged, even knowing she couldn’t see it.

She stuck both hands in her pockets. “I got so caught up in the whole chase thing. I never even thought about it. You know, desperate situations and all that.”

“It’s no big deal,” I said. “I went along with it.”

“But you felt bad. All I felt was the thrill of getting away.” “It doesn’t mean anything,” I said.

“It might,” she said. “It might mean a lot. Just a couple of hours ago I rousted a guy for trying to steal a car, then I stole an ambulance! How do I know that guy wasn’t being chased? What if he dumped three times that car’s value in the owner’s bank account?”

“It was still illegal.”

Finally, she looked up at me. There was uncertainty in her eyes; and maybe just a hint of desperation. “But was it wrong?”

“Your job is to enforce the law. You can’t make moral judgment calls on every situation.”

Her eyes narrowed as if she were trying to see beyond my flesh, to find something inside of me. Whatever she was looking for she seemed not to find it. “But you do it so easily,” she said. “Right and wrong. It’s so clear cut to you, like everything’s tagged.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m not with the bureau anymore.”

“Is that the choice,” she said, “follow the law or follow your conscience?”

“It was for me.”

“I don’t know if I can carry that kind of weight.”

“You get used to it.”

Chapter 29

It was almost eight o’clock when we finally reached the airport. We waited nearly an hour for the right bus and several patrol cars cruised by during the wait. At first, some slowed to observe pedestrians, but that grew less frequent as they became convinced that we were long gone. The last thing they would expect is that two fugitives would sit down in the middle of a chase to wait for a bus.

We had an hour before Mr. and Mrs. Paine left for Montana. My every muscle burned with an aching tension. Every face was a threat. We moved in crowds, covering ourselves with the confusion of shuffling bodies. Every shouted greeting, every loud word, released a jolt of fear that we had been discovered. We slid into the back of a darkened bar, trying to stay as far away from the eyes of passersby as possible.

Dorrie wiped the condensation from her bottle of beer. “Are you sure this is such a good idea?”

“No, but it’s the only one I have.”

She sat with her back to the room. It was a conscious choice, since her picture was the one being circulated around the country. “You going to tell me where we’re going now?” “That depends.”

“On?”

“On whether or not you’re going with me.”

She laughed, but stopped abruptly when she saw the seriousness of my expression. “If you were planning to dump me,” she said, “you should have done it long ago.”

“I was thinking more the other way around.”

She started tearing bits from her cocktail napkin and rolling them into tiny balls. “Why would I dump you?”

I sipped my beer, more to give me time to compose my thoughts than from thirst. “I’m a little secretive,” I said. She snorted. “No shit.” The words held her usual swagger, but her hand shook a little as she dropped another wad of paper into her collection.

“It’s because I’ve spent a lot of time insulating myself from the rest of the world.”

She tore the rest of the soggy napkin from around the base of her beer, almost upsetting the bottle. “Just tell me, Jake.”

“It only works because no one knows about it.”

“So?”

“You said you wanted your life back.”

She blew out the breath I had not realized she had been holding. “Jesus, is that what this is about? Not telling anyone where the Bat Cave is? Look everybody, it’s Bruce Wayne!” I had to laugh. It was a special magic she held over me. No matter what the seriousness of my mood, she could parody it into melodrama and I could laugh. It took me a moment to recapture some of my seriousness, but I was still smiling when I spoke. “It could come to a choice, you know.”

“Between your life and mine?”

I shook my head. “Between me and the law.”

She reached across the table and rested her hand on the back of mine. “That weight,” she said, “I can carry.”

“Then Montana it is.”

“Montana?” she said. Her tone implied second thoughts.

“Sure,” I said. “It’s a lot like Texas, only colder.”

“A lot colder,” she said.

I looked at my watch. It was almost time to board. “We’ll just have to come up with some inventive ways to stay warm.”

“Subtle,” she said.

“It’s my trademark.”

We were almost out of the bar when Dorrie turned suddenly and put her hand flat on my chest. “Cops,” she whispered.

Two officers were standing in the middle of the concourse. They were watching everyone who passed. Occasionally, they glanced toward the boarding gates. A bodiless voice announced preboarding for our flight.

“Hold this,” I said.

She held my briefcase while I opened it and took out something I had not looked at in a number of years.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“I’m going to go talk to them.”

Her words hissed out between her teeth. “They’re looking for you, too, Jake.”

“But I don’t think they have a picture.”

I started step around her, but she moved into my way again. “They could have a sketch,” she said. “Kevin could have given them a description. Hell, dozens of people could have.”

They called for regular boarding of our flight. “Then you’ll have plenty of time to get away while they’re booking me.”

“There are easier ways to dump me.”

“I’m not dumping you,” I said. “What happened to all that masterful self-confidence you used to have?”

She shrugged. “It’s easier to maintain when the stakes aren’t so high.”

“It’ll work,” I said.

“It better.”

I waited until their backs were turned so they couldn’t see from which direction I had come. “Quick,” I said. “They just spotted them down by the international gates.”

They turned with questioning looks on their faces. One of them looked at me carefully. His eyes narrowed. “Spotted who?”

“Itake and her partner.”

He jerked his head at me. “Who’re you?”

I flipped open the wallet, giving him an instant’s look my old FBI badge. “Your sheriff assured us of cooperation. My guys need backup.”

He grabbed my wrist as I started to put the wallet away. Bringing the picture close to his nose, he looked from it to my face. His head bounced once in quick affirmation before he let go. “Where?”

“International gates,” I said, pointing back down the concourse. “Look for Special Agent Arnold. Big guy, blue pinstripe.”

He grabbed the microphone clipped to his left breast. “No radio,” I said. “They’re listening in.”

He nodded again and the two of them moved away. They walked quickly, just short of a trot. I watched them mix into the crowd as final boarding was called for our flight. Dorrie stepped out of the bar with my briefcase and we strolled toward the gate.

She leaned over and whispered. “You know, it won’t take them long to figure it out.”

“Not before checking every blue pinstripe suit in the airport, I hope.”

“He’ll remember your name—and your face.”

“It won’t do him any good.”

“They’ll pull your records at the Bureau.”

I said nothing, but she read the answer in my face. “Killed on duty?” she asked.

“Never existed.”

She shook her head. “Never mind.”

We moved steadily toward the gate, side by side, watching everyone while trying to look as if we walked through a world without cares. I tried to concentrate on the role of a couple on vacation, perhaps on the way to visit in-laws. It felt so right, that act, that I knew it was more than that. With each step, the floor felt less solid beneath me, my footing less sure. Only one thing grew more certain. This was the wrong thing to do.

I put my arm around Dorrie’s shoulders and gently steered her to the side. She followed my lead with the casual ease of a life-long dance partner. We were just another couple stopping by the drinking fountain.

She bent toward the crystal stream, completing the charade as she spoke. “What is it?”

“Nerves.”

“You said he’d never trace the tickets.”

I took my turn feigning thirst. “He’s done a lot of things I thought he couldn’t do.”

“He wouldn’t risk crashing another plane.”

“I don’t know that!”

She smiled to show the world the tender nothing called for in our script. She kissed me on the cheek and said, “What, then?”

“We leave,” I said. “Find another way.”

A brief hesitation, then a stiff nod; these were her only replies.

We strolled back the way we came, away from the gate. Everyone in the airport was suspect.

“This Remus has you frightened,” she said. “I didn’t think anyone could do that.”

“Why not? You did.” Without the cavalier tone I had intended, my quip fell flat.

“Would you risk it if you were alone?”

“I’m tired of running.”

“So am I,” she said. “But that doesn’t answer the question.”

I pretended to be deep in thought. It was a ruse. Alone, yes, I would have risked the flight, taking the chance that Remus would not be able to figure out which flight we were on and would not risk the publicity of a second plane crash if he did. I knew this in an instant. Why then was I suddenly so reluctant to get on that plane, so terrified of what seemed, just minutes before, like a sound and reasonable plan? It was simple. I was not willing to risk Dorrie.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” she said. “I think I understand. I also think I’m pissed.”

My feet tangled. She took several more paces before coming back to where I stood. I was struggling to make sense of her casual anger.

“I already have a father, Jake. What I want is a partner.” “But, I—.”

“I don’t need your protection. I don’t need you to watch out for the little bitty girl in a big old nasty world.”

“I didn’t—.”

“Partners share the risk.”

At last she ran out of words. Her glance challenged me to answer.

The space between us had the chill of stone. I stepped into it, hoping our nearness would warm it. “I’m sorry,” I said. My mind rummaged through words, fitting them together, tossing them aside. After a moment I gave up trying to explain. Helplessly, I offered, “I won’t lose you.”

Her frown held for a bit, then fractured. Finally, a smile broke through. “You’re not very comfortable with this relationship stuff, are you?”

I shrugged. “It’s new.”

With a long sigh, she pulled herself close against my arm and started us walking toward the terminal again. “You’ll learn,” she said.

We passed back through security in silence. Once in the main terminal, she picked the conversation back up. “What now?”

I nodded toward the doors. “We get out of here, first. Then I track down Kevin’s last name.”

“The VR guy? It’s Bright.”

“Not really. We can’t go back to the mall, and he’s likely to have equipment at home I can use. It’s pretty straight forward.”

“No,” she said. She shoved something in front of my face. It was a business card from Sauron’s Gate, Kevin Bright, proprietor. “They were on the counter.”

My cheeks felt hot.

Dorrie’s voice was schoolgirl sweet. “Not all magic,” she said, “is big magic.”

“I think I’m going to get tired of that phrase.”

She giggled. “I plan to make sure of it.”

Chapter 30

Kevin Bright had thoughtfully listed himself in the local phone book. Trusting that the Thomas Paine persona was still clean, I rented a car at the airport and traced the route across the accordion folds of the rental agency’s map. The clerk sniffed and wrinkled her nose at us. She stayed well back from the counter.

On the way into the airport, knowing we would never get our guns past security, we had hidden them in a parking lot garbage can. The contents had ripened while we were in the terminal. I had thought the smell had already worn off. It seemed I had just gotten used to it.

The aging apartment complex rambled along Roosevelt Boulevard on Jacksonville’s west side. A large plane from the nearby Naval station dragged itself across the sky. We climbed a splintered set of stairs to Kevin’s second floor apartment. The two-by-fours sagged with each step.

Music blared through the door, threatening to shake loose several layers of dirt. I reached to knock, but Dorrie grabbed my arm. Without a word, she pointed at a smeared footprint near the doorknob.

I leaned toward her while still watching the door. With my lips next to her ear, I said, “They couldn’t have gotten here this fast.”

She pulled her ten millimeter from its shoulder holster. “No,” she said. “Of course not.”

I drew my Glock and pressed my ear against the door. The back beat hummed through my skull. Then, I heard something else. It might have been a muffled scream. Or it might have been the music. There was no way to be sure.

“To hell with it,” I said. I stepped back and slammed my foot against the door, exactly where the other footprint was. The force of contact jolted through my body to my teeth, but the door held. It made three quick noises, like darts hitting a dart board. I slammed my foot against it again and dove to the side as the latch gave. Awakened by the impact, agony hammered at my knee. My back was to the wall and I saw two small holes appear in the door across the way.

“Federal agent!” Dorrie called through the doorway. “Put down your weapon!”

There was no response.

“We don’t have time for this,” I said.

She nodded. “High or low?”

I switched the Glock to my left hand. “High.”

She crouched and yelled, “Go!”

I whipped my pistol through the doorway and peeked around the jamb. I spotted someone leaning out of a doorway. It wasn’t Kevin. The gun he aimed at us had a large silencer on it. In an instant I lined up the sights, and was just in time watch him jerk backward, accompanied by the roar of a single round from Dorrie’s weapon. I never fired a shot.

I kept scanning the room for motion. There was none.

“Hey! What the—?”

I spun on instinct and found myself aiming at a man in shock. His FSU sweatshirt failed to circumnavigate his paunch, leaving a thin, hairy strip of flesh exposed. I whipped my aim toward the ceiling for fear he would have a heart attack on the spot.

Neither Dorrie’s aim nor her attention left Kevin’s apartment. She was lying on her right side with her right arm holding her pistol extended. With her left, she flipped open her Bureau ID and aimed it somewhere behind her. “Federal agent,” she said. “Go back inside.”

“But—.”

“Now!”

The man nearly slammed the door on his own gut in his hurry to comply.

“What do you need me for?” I asked.

“To give the bad guys something else to aim at.” Her voice was completely deadpan. I told myself it was her concentration that made it sound so little like a joke.

“The best,” I said, thinking of Phil. I don’t know if it was worth anything to him or not, but we had gotten another one. It was worth something to me.

We swept the apartment. The gunman had been a solo act. We found Kevin sobbing in his computer room. He was bound to a chair with heavy plastic zip ties and duct tape covered his mouth. Three of his fingers pointed in impossible directions and there was a pair of pliers at his feet. Things wrestled in my stomach at the sight.

Dorrie cut him loose, but it still took him several minutes to realize we meant him no harm. He cradled his mangled hand, shielding it from us. His breath exploded in sobs. Our every movement made him cringe.

He had a full VR rig set up, just like the ones in his parlor, and a high-speed net connection. Scattered around the room were stacks of documentation on various operating systems and network protocols. My suspicion grew stronger that Kevin Bright fancied himself a hacker.

I turned my attention back to Kevin. “We have to get him to a hospital,” I said.

Dorrie backed away, talking to him like someone trying to calm a frightened animal. He sank against the wall. When she reached my side, she said, “Maybe in a while. Right now he won’t let us near him.”

“We have to do something.”

“We don’t have time. Just do what you have to do.”

“I can’t just leave him like this.”

“Later!”

“This happened because of me! I can’t let him suffer.”

Kevin was now staring at the body on the floor. “They wanted to know about you,” he said.

I knelt beside him, moving slowly, ignoring the pain in my leg. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think.”

“What did I do?” he asked the body. When Dorrie started going through the gunman’s pockets, Kevin’s gaze leapt away.

“They’re some very bad guys, Kevin. I’m trying to stop them.”

He turned his head to me, but his eyes looked glazed and unfocused. “I told them,” he said. “I told them everything I knew, but…”

“I need your help, Kevin. I need to stop them.”

His gaze hunted the room, settling at last on my face. “Who are you?” he asked. “Really?”

“Just one of the good guys, Kevin. The less you know the better.”

“Well, well, well,” said Dorrie. She handed me a scrap of paper. It bore a net address and password. “They must be running out of the smart ones.”

I allowed myself a smile. Dorrie went back to searching as I spoke to Kevin. “Listen,” I said, pausing until I had his attention again. “I need to use your system. After that, I’m going to dump some money in your account. Use it to disappear.”

His only response was a look of confusion.

“Just for a while,” I said. “Get your hand fixed in the ER then vanish. Stay off the net. Use cash. Go somewhere you can’t be traced.”

“But, I didn’t do anything!”

“You’re a loose end.”

“But the police—.”

“They can’t help right now. Later, maybe, but not right now.”

He nodded, slowly, then looked away, pulling himself into a tighter knot.

Pain bit my knee as I stood. It took several steps for the ache to subside. Dorrie joined me by Kevin’s computer system and ran down the other items she had found on the body.

“Leonard Marsden,” she said, “Tahachi security. Two credit cards with the same name. New York driver’s license matches. Keys to a rental car. His wallet’s full of the usual crap. Even his bank card.”

“They must have flown him in as soon as we were traced,” I said. “No time for a fake ID.”

“New York fits,” she said. “Coletti, Farnwell.”

“What’s that?”

“What?” She spread the loose items in her hands. I slipped out what appeared to be a key card. There were no markings on it of any kind.

“It could be to anything,” she said.

“Hang on to it just the same,” I said. “You never know.”

“No sweat.”

I held up the scrap of paper. “Now let’s see where this leads us.”

Chapter 31

Stonehenge still graced my dawn-gilt Montana hills. The scene was boiling with SPRITEs as they popped into view, dumped chests of gathered data, then vanished. I would eventually have to search through it all.

I gathered the attention of those nearest me. Their giant eyes stared at me as they awaited new instructions. I gave them the address Dorrie had found on Marsden’s body. It would be the starting point of the search. Carefully, I crafted specific instructions, limiting their search techniques to those that stood the best chance of remaining undetected. I had to find my quarry without flushing him out.

When everything was ready, I connected to the address. A doorway formed and I stepped through.

I found myself in an ancient Roman palace. The detail was meticulous. Walls were draped with garish banners. The polished marble floor caught light and tossed it out again in amazing new forms.

I had barely appraised my surroundings when Remus appeared. He was already speaking.

“It certainly took you long—.” He did not change expressions, but his body cramped in shock as he realized who I was. Belatedly, a smile affixed itself to his face.

My system showed no sign of any attempt to cut me off. The cocky bastard was convinced he was unreachable. There was no hint that he was trying to trace me, either. He knew I would be gone before he could get someone near me.

“Well,” he said. “I assume then, that my—friend is in your custody?”

There is a grin I once designed for my Heretic image. It is both nasty and vicious, but not, I like to think, without a certain charm. I had never had the occasion to use it before. I used it then.

“If you’re asking if the guy from the VR place is safe, the answer is yes,” I said. “Mr. Marsden, I’m afraid, is in the custody of Hell.”

“A shame,” said Remus. “In both cases.”

“Sorry. It looks like you need to make another trip to Scumbags R Us.”

Remus strolled over to the low marble throne and sat down. I just shook my head. Unbelievable. The guy had a chair on his VR platform.

A scroll unrolled itself in the air in front of me. It reported the progress of my SPRITEs, then disappeared. They had gotten nowhere so far. I had to stall long enough for them to work.

“Is this what it’s all about?” I said. “Building your own private empire?”

His chuckle had the sound of sawn wood. “Don’t be absurd,” he said. “You think I would go to all this trouble for personal glory?”

“Yes.”

“How unimaginative of you, Mr.—oh dear, I don’t even know what to call you.”

“No,” I said. “You don’t.”

“Heretic, then,” he said after a moment. “The net is a powerful thing. It has grown too fast; too wantonly. Someone has to impose order.”

“Order? Or control?”

He dismissed the question with a casual wave. “The distinction is minimal,” he said. “If left to itself, the whole thing would strangle in a chaotic knot!”

“So you’re willing to kill a couple of hundred people? Innocent people who just happened to get on the wrong God damned plane?” I cut myself off. Phil’s image came to mind again. While I knew my face showed only what I had instructed it to show, I felt anger twist my gut, and pain. I hid my shaking hands behind my back.

Remus looked away for a moment. When his face turned back to me, sadness had stretched it; softened it. “The plane,” he said. “Was not my decision. For what it’s worth, I regret it.”

“Oh, I see. One at a time is alright, but a plane load is over the line. You stupid son of a bitch! What’s the difference?”

Remus shook his head. His face reverted back to its usual appearance. “I am a creature of shadow,” he said. “The real world is—different. It’s messy. Leave us alone and I can promise you the violence will stop.”

“Us?”

He nodded, but did not explain. It was the second time he had referenced some larger organization, a group that seemed beyond his control. Remus was not in charge. The real enemy lay somewhere beyond.

Again my system manifested a scroll. I struggled not to react. At last, I had an address! There, hovering before me, was the spot in New York City where Remus’s signal originated—building number, street number, everything.

“I don’t think you can keep that promise.” I gestured to take in the entire room. “Outside of this I don’t think you can do a damned thing.”

“They will listen to me!”

“I’m sure.”

He jumped up, aiming a finger at me. “Do not underestimate me, Heretic!”

“Damn, you’re quick,” I said. “I was just about to give you the same advice.”

With a wave, I severed the connection.

Chapter 32

“I can’t do this anymore,” Dorrie said. She tried to stretch and twist the kinks from her muscles. “We have to stop.”

It was one in the afternoon, and we had been driving for almost twelve hours. My back and leg yelped pain as an echo to her words. I started watching for motel signs along I-95. We were somewhere in North Carolina.

After switching license plates and rental cars with Marsden, we took Kevin to the emergency room. He had been too shaken to fend for himself. I left him with an extra thousand dollars in cash and a repeat of the warning to disappear. It still didn’t seem like enough. I owed him more.

We found a cheap motel outside of some small town. The name meant nothing to me. My knee, stiffened from the trip, nearly failed me when I got out of the car and it complained with every step. I was tired and I was hungry and the desk clerk took cash without a second glance. I tossed myself on one of the beds in the room and called it Paradise. “Take your pants off,” Dorrie said.

I just looked at her. From her reaction, I must have been leering.

“That, too,” she said, “if you’re a good boy, but right now I want to look at that leg.”

I tried not to sound disappointed. “It’s fine,” I said.

“Yeah, right. That’s why I practically had to carry you up the stairs.”

“Really. It just needs rest.” I closed my eyes.

The bed shifted with her weight. Her voice was a playful tune. “I’ll show you an ancient Japanese healing massage.” I opened just one eye. She was sitting next to me on the edge of the bed. “I thought you said you were nothing but Texan.”

“Fine so I’ll teach you how to ride a bucking bronco, just let me take a look at your leg!”

“Such language!” I said.

“Yeah, well, buck you. Now, drop ‘em.”

The cuts and scrapes were fine. She made sure they were clean, then patted them gently with a towel. She put ice on the swollen knee. It was marked in swirling shades of purple and other colors I can’t even begin to describe, but that had no place on human flesh. It seemed to hurt worse when I saw it.

After tending to my leg, she stretched out beside me. We were silent for a time. I lay with my eyes closed watching patterns dance in time with the throbbing in my knee. Dorrie drew swirling patterns on my chest with her fingers.

“If Remus isn’t behind this thing,” she said at last, “who do you think it is?”

“I don’t know. He’s definitely the power behind computer side, but…”

“You think he might have been lying?”

“Hard to say. That bit about bringing order to the net is the second oldest hacker line out there.”

“What’s the oldest?”

“Eliminating order completely.”

“Good and evil?” Dorrie asked.

“No,” I said. “Wrong and wrong. You see, the net’s birth was chaotic and explosive. Opinions fell roughly into two categories. There were those who thought it was a great tool but that it had to be controlled and regulated like any other dangerous tool. Then there were those who saw ‘big brotherism’ everywhere. They wanted to do away with all the rules.”

“Chaos versus order,” she said.

“Pretty much.”

“And the hackers went for chaos.”

I turned on my side, both so I could look at her and to try to change the rhythm in my knee. “Not all of them,” I said. “A lot of them were just trying show people the gaps. Some ended up using their talent to work against other hackers.” “This was all before the Guild started?”

“Yeah. Everybody got scared for a while. So much information was zipping back and forth. Everybody wanted to jump in and take advantage of the thing. Then there were a couple of major security breaches and people started running scared.”

Dorrie nodded. “So in walks the Guild.”

“Exactly. They were a sort of combination union and professional association. They offered casters steady work and the customers solid security. The anonymity is supposed to guarantee that the members can’t be corrupted. If no one knows who’s working what project, no one can threaten or bribe him into committing a crime.”

“That actually makes sense.”

“In a way,” I said. “It also stifles the individual. Everybody turns into little cyber drones. I think that’s why so many people go overboard with their whole net persona thing.” “Excuse me?” She propped herself up on her elbow. A smile twitched her lips. “This is Jake the Heretic whose real name I don’t even know talking to me? This is the guy who has bug-eyed critters running around the net guarded by giant pig trolls? What, exactly, do you consider overboard?”

I smiled at her. “The name thing really bothers you, doesn’t it?”

She looked away quickly and stared at the television as if the secrets of the universe were hidden in its blank screen. “A little,” she said. Then her head snapped back around and she spoke quickly. “But not for the reasons you think.”

“I’m listening,” I said.

She quietly toyed with the top button on my shirt. At last, she said, “Casters say that knowing their true name gives someone power over them.”

“That’s just because someone could use it to—.”

“Hush!” She tugged on the button for emphasis. “Humor me,” she said. “You joke about it, but you’re reluctant to tell me. It means more than that to you. Something symbolic. That’s what bothers me.”

I thought I was beginning to understand. It was the trust issue again. And even as I thought how silly it was, I realized that I was reluctant. Something like panic gripped my throat at the thought telling anyone, even Dorrie, the name I had worked so hard to destroy.

“Would it make you happy,” I said, “if I told you?”

She laughed and shook her head. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

So much for my newly hatched insight. I don’t remember, exactly, but I said something brilliant like, “Huh?” “Jake, it wouldn’t mean a damn thing to me. That’s not the question.”

“Then what?”

She sighed deeply in a long, steady stream. “The question is: would it make you miserable if I knew? That’s the whole point. Are you able to give someone that power? Lose some of that control? Because that’s how relationships work, hon. You own and you get owned. If you can’t accept that, you can’t commit.”

I was stunned.

I was speechless.

I was stupid.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

“For missing the point,” I said. “I told you, this is new to me.”

She smiled and kissed me. “I know,” she said. “That’s what makes it so cute.”

“You’re confusing me,” I said. It was the truth.

“Uh huh.”

“I’ll tell you.”

“I’m listening.”

It was hard. I swear I had to force the words out, berating myself all the while for being so silly. In the end, though, I managed to tell her.

“There,” she said. “Was that so hard?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” She pressed herself closer and kissed me in earnest. She undid the button she had before only played with. I lay back and relaxed, letting her own me. Fear and panic fled. I gave her power over me.

She used it wisely.

Chapter 33

I have had people try to kill me before. I have been in fights. I have been shot at.

None of it prepared me for the utter terror that is driving in New York City. From the New Jersey Turnpike on, cars swarmed like gnats, buzzing and honking in every direction. The swarm thickened when I got across the river into Manhattan. Why the city bothered to paint lines on the streets, I will never know. Everyone ignored them. From what I could see, the proper technique was honk, move, then look; honking being the most important part.

I understood instantly why parking garages charged a small fortune there. Drivers were so thankful to get off the street they would pay almost anything. I gladly ransomed my nerves from the attendant.

The midtown sidewalks were clotted with pedestrians. The activity was dizzying. Noises, smells, masses of people, swirling, turning, rushing, moving. It was hard to breath, frustrating to move. Even in the clear spots, things were kinetic. A candy wrapper chased a Styrofoam cup into the gutter. A loose page from the Village Voice hurried about its business, ducking past a carefree, cartwheeling cigarette pack. I longed for my Montana oasis.

We were on Fifty-first Street. A block away Saint Patrick’s Cathedral loomed like some ancient guardian of the past. Its Gothic crouch rejected the modern buildings around it, denying them the right to progress. The office building in front of us, clad in dark glass, seemed not to care.

Steam drifted up from a rumbling subway grate as if a dragon had turned in its sleep. Dorrie stared through the cloud at our reflections in the building’s wall. She tried to free a small laugh, but it flopped about on broken wings. “Smoke and mirrors,” she said.

Indeed.

We swept through the revolving door into a cavernous lobby of stark, sanitary marble. The directory held no listing for Tahachi, Farnwell, or Coletti. We scoured it for fifteen minutes, but nothing chimed in tune with any of the names that had come up so far.

“We’ll just have to check everybody,” Dorrie said.

“What, every office of every business on thirty-two floors?”

“You have a better idea?”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. In truth, I had no idea at all.

Dorrie kicked at a pebble that wasn’t there. “Shit,” she said. “The phone line has to go somewhere.”

I looked again at the directory, hoping I had missed something and certain that I hadn’t. Two words suddenly seized my attention. I felt it like a physical blow. My awareness had been so focused on the Guild and its affiliates that I had missed it. “Son of a bitch,” I said.

“What?”

The glass rattled when I stabbed my finger against it. “That!”

Dorrie leaned forward to read the entry. “Superior Systems? What does that—?” I watched her reflection as disbelief overcame her. “Your Esperanza case?”

“Exactly!”

“But you said it dead ended.”

I accented each syllable by tapping on the glass. “It’s just a listing!”

“Under another corporate name.”

“Yes! If it’s not in the records, I’d never find it.”

She paced in thought, each step multiplied in echo. “It’s got to be coincidence,” she said.

“It would explain why they were watching Phil.”

She stopped in mid step and looked at me. “And why they wanted you dead?”

“Why not? They had to know someone blew their deal.”

“So when he tried to track you down—.”

“They tagged along.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s why the stakes are so high,” she said. “It’s not just a protection racket. These guys are buying themselves free reign to do anything they want.”

“Move money and material at will,” I said. “Blank out every trace. And the whole time they can have their fingers inside the major law enforcement agencies.”

“Shit,” Dorrie whispered.

“Deep.”

The elevator moved so smoothly, I was surprised when the doors opened on the twenty-first floor. Suite twenty-one twelve was a small door at the end of the corridor. Bold white letters on a black sign read “Superior Systems.”

The door was locked, the knob refusing even a satisfactory wiggle. Mounted in the wall next to the door was a key card slot.

“Thank you, Mr. Marsden,” Dorrie said as she pulled the blank card from her pocket. We let our hands rest on our weapons, stopping just short of drawing them. She slid the card in and we were rewarded with a solid thunk. When I pushed, the door floated inward on its hinges.

There was no one there. The only light in the room came from the windows. Desks were scattered as if at random. Each had its appropriate complement of clutter dominated by a computer terminal. Dorrie nodded toward a doorway to the right. A short hallway lay beyond. We drew our weapons as we approached.

The lights were off in the hallway, as well. There was a door on either side and a third at the opposite end. A glow fanned out from the bottom of the far door. Our steps were hushed by carpet.

In cautious silence we checked the two side rooms. They were dark and empty. Not even furniture corrupted the space. Communicating with nods and gestures we moved to the last door. The hallway was too narrow to afford any cover. I signed to Dorrie to move up against the wall and open the door, she answered with a shake of her head. I could only look my question at her.

She stepped to the center of the hallway and took up a Weaver stance, aiming dead center of the door. She looked at me and nodded toward the knob.

She was right, of course. If someone were waiting for us, she could take him more quickly than I. Screw the chivalry. She was the better shooter. I dropped to clear her line of fire, kept my gun handy, and barely caressed the door knob.

Slowly, I turned the knob so as not to make a sound. It caught for a second, then, with a tiny snick, the latch cleared. I breathed through my mouth and listened. There was no sound. I nodded a quick three count and swung the door open.

“Don’t move!” Dorrie shouted. “Federal agent!”

No one moved.

Because no one was there.

The room was only slightly larger than the empty offices. Filling the center was a VR platform. It was a brand I didn’t recognize, but it looked expensive. One wall held racks of computer equipment. In the corner was a desk, angled to face the doorway. The equipment’s steady hum was the only sound. “I guess it’s not going to move,” I said. “Should I cuff it?” Dorrie brushed past me. “Yeah, yeah.” She looked around the room. “Looks like the right place,” she said.

I eyed the equipment that filled the racks. “Hell, we knew that when Marsden’s card worked.”

“So, now what?”

I turned and looked past her, nodding toward the terminal on the desk. “We see what we can find out.”

“All right.” She sat on the edge of the desk, then suddenly jumped up as if burned.

“What?” I asked.

She swung her gun toward the desk as she moved cautiously around it. “Come out of there,” she said. “Right now.”

There was a great deal of thumping and I saw the chair move. A small man crawled out from under the desk and stood up. He raised his shaking hands and his gaze was frozen to the end of Dorrie’s gun. A dark smudge across his shoulder ruined the starched purity of his shirt. His tie was loose. Dorrie kept a bead on the man’s twitching nose. “Who are you?”

“I’m—I’m—I just work here!” He looked away from her then quickly back.

“I said ‘who are you?’”

I expected the rabbitty little guy to soil himself any second. Dorrie could be a scary woman when she wanted to. The gun just made it worse.

Again his eyes twitched away from her for just a moment. “Maintenance,” he said. “I was just doing system maintenance.”

“Your name!”

He hopped back at her tone. Twitch went his eyes. “John,” he was almost whimpering. “John Mill.”

Dorrie appeared to relax a little, in the sense that a cobra relaxes when it draws back. She stepped away from the desk and waved him out, her weapon still aimed at his nose. “Come on out of there.”

His eyes made that annoying little jerk to the side yet again. Without even realizing it, my glance twitched as well. Then I saw the clock.

It wasn’t a nervous twitch. It was the panicky glance of someone watching seconds tick away. But to what?

“Let’s go!” I said.

“What?”

“They know we’re here!”

I jumped forward and grabbed the rabbit by his tie. He cringed, terror in his face. “How long?” I said.

Dorrie spoke from behind me. “What are you talking about?”

I screwed the barrel of my gun onto his nose. “How long before they get here?”

“T—t—ten—.”

“What the hell is going on?” Dorrie said.

“He must have gotten a signal when we opened the door. He was trying to hide until they got here. We have to go!”

The rabbit just shook.

“What about him?” Dorrie said.

I shoved him back against the wall and headed across the room. “No time,” I said. “We have to move.”

“All right, let’s—son of a bitch!”

I was already at the door. When I turned, Dorrie had her gun back in the rabbit’s face. There was a book in her left hand. “You’re coming with us!”

“We don’t have time,” I repeated.

She threw the book across the room without aiming. “It was on the desk,” she said. “On Liberty by John Stuart Mill.” She swung the rabbit around by the tie and started marching him toward the door. “I hate being lied to!”

When we were back in the main office I holstered my Glock and slipped my knife out. “I’ll take him,” I said, pressing the point against his ribs.

“Please,” he whimpered.

“You are Remus, aren’t you?” I said.

I kept the knife concealed behind him, but made sure he could feel it. He led the way out.

“Aren’t you,” I whispered in his ear as we passed the exit to the stairwell.

“Please,” he said. “I’ll tell them not to hurt you.”

Anger overcame me and I slammed him against the wall. “Like you told them not to hurt Phil?”

“I didn’t know!”

Dorrie said, “Jake.”

The elevator chimed.

We moved into the stairwell and I cupped my hand across Remus’s mouth while Dorrie watched through the diamond-shaped window. She held a hand up with her fingers splayed. Five of them. Then she shook it and pointed her index finger sideways. Six.

We moved fast. She waved me down the stairs and took up rear guard. I shoved Remus ahead of me. Every step boomed through the stairwell. As soon as they opened the door above, they would know where we were.

Three floors. Then four. Then another. My sore knee seemed to bulge with every step, growing larger, more painful. On the seventeenth floor Dorrie stopped me. Her head swiveled as she listened. A door banged open somewhere above us and footsteps boomed. We slipped out of the stairwell.

The seventeenth floor was held entirely by a large accounting firm. No one even glanced up as we passed the glass wall of the main entrance.

“Fire code. A building this size has to have another stairway,” Dorrie said.

The elevators were in the center corridor. We passed them nervously, I was limping, now, as we crossed to the other side of the building.

“They’ll have thought of this,” I said.

“You got a better idea?”

“No.”

Again, I covered Remus’s mouth while Dorrie checked the stairwell for sounds of pursuit. She shook her head then nodded toward the stairs and we pounded down them, stopping every few floors to listen. Each time we stopped, the pounding continued, but it sounded in my knee and echoed in the pulse the rang in my ears. Remus was puffing ragged gusts of breath. He seemed resigned, too frightened or exhausted to resist. His skin was slick and waxy and his shirt hung from his shoulders like a wet sheet.

At the fifth floor landing Dorrie grabbed my shoulder and led us out of the stairwell again.

“I don’t like this,” she said. She kept her voice low in case someone appeared from an office doorway. “If I’m the bad guys, I have people waiting at the first floor landing of both stairways and at the elevators.”

I turned to Remus who was struggling to catch his breath. “You know a way out of here, don’t you?”

His eyes widened as he looked at me. His head wagged back and forth.

Dorrie looked up and down the corridor. “This can’t be the same guy that’s chased us all over the country.”

“Yes, he can,” I said. I pulled on his tie for no other reason than because I could. “Can’t you? Oh, you’re not quite as tough without your persona to hide behind, but it’s you.” “You don’t understand,” Remus said.

“You know, I bet you’re valuable to them.”

Like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, he froze. He was a coward by nature and it seemed clear from our talk in his Roman palace that he had less than complete faith in his partners. He had to have a way out. His very nature required that he keep a back door of some kind. “Really valuable,” I repeated. “In fact, they wouldn’t dream of letting anything happen to you.”

Dorrie looked at me and I could tell from her glance that she had caught on. “Exactly,” she said. “As long as we walk out with him, they would never hurt us.”

“They—they’ll shoot you in the back!” Remus said.

I shrugged. “What do you care? They certainly wouldn’t hurt you.”

“I think it’s our only shot,” said Dorrie. “We just march right out with him in the lead.”

“No,” said Remus. “Wait.”

I tugged him back toward the stairway. “Let’s go.”

“Wait!” Remus said. “The equipment room. Second floor. I have the key!”

I stopped and smiled. Dorrie fished in his pocket and pulled out a key ring. “What about it?” I said.

Remus spoke in rapid desperation. “It’s where the air handlers are. There’s a separate service entrance on Fiftieth. I’m sure they don’t know about it.”

I smiled at him. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

We crept down to the second floor landing, careful of every step and scrape. Remus was being the most careful of the three of us. The door on the second floor was locked. Dorrie leaned slowly over the railing and looked down. She held up a finger then pointed down. She took a stance in the corner and aimed down the stairs in case anyone came to investigate.

Remus pointed to the proper key and I kept my knife in front of his face as I opened the door. There was something in the savagery of a blade that held him transfixed.

The growl of heavy equipment rushed out like a beast escaping it’s cage. Whoever was downstairs must have heard it. Footsteps banged toward us as we stepped through and Dorrie pulled the metal fire door closed. The latch jiggled uselessly while she kept her gun aimed at the door.

“He doesn’t have a key,” she said. She spoke loudly to overcome the noise.

“But he knows where we are,” I said. I shoved Remus ahead of me. “Let’s go!”

We moved between the huge machines and came out at a metal staircase. Our steps rang out like church bells, but the sound was almost overwhelmed by the equipment behind us.

A large set of double doors led us out onto Fiftieth Street just as Remus had said they would. Dorrie’s gun was holstered, but she kept her hand beneath her jacket. We sandwiched Remus between us and tried to blend in with the rest of the pedestrians. I watched in every direction wondering which of the people strolling by would suddenly turn deadly. Tires screamed against the pavement behind us. On instinct, I turned and dropped to a crouch, using the cars parked along the street as cover. An engine roared.

A glance back over my shoulder showed Dorrie, knees bent, gaze aimed at the street. I reached up to pull Remus down with us. He came down like a sack of sand as I heard the car race by. There were more screeches at the intersection behind us. The car kept going, its sound fading into the general din of the city.

Remus leaned heavily on my shoulder. “Get a grip,” I said. “It was nothing.”

He called me a liar in the strangest way.

He fell face first to the concrete. A thin red stream crept toward the gutter.

“Shit,” Dorrie said, reaching for the pulse at his neck.

I turned his head. His right eye was gone. I looked away and felt my stomach heave. Bile burned in my throat. Another one. So much blood. So many dead. Just moments before, I would have gladly killed him myself and called it just a token payment on Phil’s account, but now, seeing Remus dead, I knew I could watch them die for the rest of my life and never feel the debt was paid. The comfort of revenge is illusion.

The twitch in my shoulder was Dorrie, tugging on my sleeve.

“We have to go,” she said.

I started to speak, but stopped, trying to keep the contents of my stomach in place. I just nodded instead.

“Come on,” Dorrie said. “People are starting to notice.”

A few pedestrians glanced at Remus and looked quickly away, not wanting to get involved. Soon, some would stop and stare. Then, emboldened by numbers, a crowd would form. Dorrie was right. It was time to go.

We left him bleeding on the sidewalk and tried to become a part of the pedestrian flow. A current formed as we approached Lexington Avenue. It swept us across the street and back up town. It was moving toward the garage where we had parked the car, so we stayed with it.

“I can’t believe they just wasted him like that,” Dorrie said. “They couldn’t risk us getting away with him.”

“But I thought he was their mastermind or something.”

I glanced behind us and to either side again. “I don’t think so,” I said. “He was just a tool.”

“Wasteful of their tools, aren’t they?”

We paused in the shadows that lurked just inside the entrance to the garage. We watched the people stream by. No one even spared us a glance.

“It was a trap the whole time,” I said.

“With Remus as bait?”

“I think so.”

The attendant watched us from the booth. His cap was twisted slightly to the side as if he were trying to wring some originality out of his uniform. His stare was a challenge. He would be damned if he were going to come get my ticket. This was his domain. I would have to go to the window and petition to get my car back just like everyone else.

“They let me trace the location,” I said, “knowing we’d show up.”

Dorrie kept watch on the street while I satisfied the attendant’s ego. When I returned, she said, “Do you think Remus even knew?”

“I doubt it.”

Our car came rolling up. It stopped precisely at the booth and no further. I paid the attendant and tipped him, though he only grunted at the amount. He refused me even a “have a nice day.”

Inside the car Dorrie said, “At least the Guild’s out of it, now.”

“I don’t know,” I said, and started the car.

“You don’t think so?”

I dropped the lever into drive and rolled toward the street. “We’ve been wrong on everything else so far. Why not that?”

She scowled through the windshield. “I’m getting really tired of not knowing what’s going on.”

I started to pull out of the driveway, but I heard a noise behind me. My foot slammed down on the brake and I tried to crush the steering wheel.

Dorrie looked to the back seat then to me. “Your computer’s ringing,” she said.

“I know.”

I drove slowly onto the street and joined the flood of vehicles washing down Lexington.

“You going to answer it?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good.”

We listened to it ring a few more times. It kept ringing as I turned left, then left again to travel uptown on Third Avenue. “Afraid?” Dorrie asked.

“Yup.”

“Good.”

Chapter 34

“Anything?” Dorrie asked.

I looked at her through the words that floated in front of my eyes. “Nothing,” I said. “Officially, there’s no such thing as Superior Systems, and from what I can tell that office we were in isn’t even rented. The property management company has it listed as vacant and undergoing renovations.”

Dorrie paced idly back and forth. It was a short trip, just two steps each direction. The Franklin was a cute little hotel on East Eighty-seventh Street—little being the operative term. The room was the size of some walk-in closets. Though the modern decor struggled to overcome the room’s claustrophobic aura, it still felt cramped.

“We should go back and check it out.”

I shook my head. “Twenty bucks says it’s stripped and sanitized by now.”

She spoke in the tone of a quote. “A wise man wagers only on the sunrise,” she said.

I slid the glasses up in order to see her more clearly and waited. She looked at me for a while before she realized I was waiting for her to continue.

She shrugged. “Something my grandfather used to say.”

“Uh huh.”

“Only bet on sure things.”

“Yeah, well, don’t go all inscrutable on me. There hasn’t been a sure thing in this whole deal.”

She leaned back against the television and struck a pose from a fifties fashion magazine. “Where you’re concerned,” she said, “I’m very scrutable.” She added an over-played wink at the end.

It was hard to keep from smiling. “I thought we agreed to leave the humor to me.”

“We,” she paused, perhaps to rest from the exertion of stressing the word so heavily, “agreed no such thing. Admit it. That was funny.”

“I’ll give you clever, how’s that?”

She considered it a moment, then, “Throw in a ‘very’ and it’s a deal.”

“Done.”

She shifted subjects without breaking stride. “So what about Remus? Any chance we can get to the information the locals dig up?”

I shook my head. “My guess is they’ll find as much as they would if I were the one in the morgue.”

She just sighed and wagged her head in frustration. “No matter what,” she said, “we can’t get any kind of grip on these people. They just puff into thin air.”

“We’ve got one more place to start looking,” I said.

“Where’s that?”

“Coletti.”

“I thought you said he’d have to be clean?”

“I’m sure of it. Well, pretty sure, anyway. It seems like too big a risk to leave your front man dirty.”

“So?”

I took my glasses off and rubbed my eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s something lying around. A hint. Anything.”

“In other words, we’re here so we might as well look even though we probably won’t find anything.”

“Standard procedure, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” she said. “It’s in the handbook. Keep your eyes open and hope for a miracle.”

The hotel had no restaurant so we ordered Italian food from a place around the corner and had it delivered. The kid that delivered it looked to be in his early twenties and seemed the nervous type. His eyes kept darting back and forth between Dorrie and me through what looked like an habitual squint.

We settled in with massive slabs of lasagna to watch the evening news. Neither of us ate while they reported the mysterious shooting that had happened in midtown that afternoon. The victim was still unidentified—no surprise there, but the reporter then mentioned that two people were being sought for questioning in connection with the case. The anchor stressed that the two were not suspects—yet.

Even though I had known it was coming, I was still surprised when the police sketches popped up on the screen. The one on the left was a damn good likeness of me.

“Jesus Christ,” Dorrie said. “We really do all look alike to you people!’

I shifted my gaze to the sketch of Dorrie. It might have been her overweight second cousin—by marriage.

“You’re lucky,” I said. “Mine’s dead on.”

She looked from the screen to my face and back and hummed an affirmative. “We should do something about that.” “Lot’s of stage supply stores in town,” I said.

“A mustache, I think,” she said. Her eyes narrowed into slits as she examined my face. Something about her look set off warning sirens in my brain.

Dorrie read the alarm on my face. She tilted her head in a momentary question, then stopped. “The delivery kid.”

I was already off the bed and gathering my things. “It’s eleven fifteen,” I said. “They could have shown the sketches on the ten o’clock news, too.”

“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” she said. She repeated it a few more times as she wiped the room down with a washcloth. “The television,” I reminded her.

“Dammit!” She wiped the controls, tossed the cloth on the bed, and we were out the door.

The ancient elevator rattled its way to the lobby. The trip felt eternal.

“Dammit,” Dorrie said again.

At last, the door crept aside. The tiny lobby was clear. The night clerk barely glanced at us.

Six quick steps took us to the front door. I tried to walk without favoring my badly pummeled knee.

“We’ll be right back,” I called over my shoulder.

We didn’t wait for an acknowledgment.

In a swift but casual stride, hampered some by my knee, but not much different from the usual New Yorker pace, we reached Third Avenue. I was thankful the sidewalks were still crowded. Before turning the corner, I glanced back over my shoulder. An NYPD cruiser was pulling up in front of the hotel. “The car?” Dorrie said.

“The subway,” I shook my head. “Lots of people.”

“Is that really what we want?”

We crossed Third at the light and walked into the middle of an even thicker knot of people. “We’ve probably passed fifty people since we left the hotel,” I said. “How many of them would you remember?”

“Good point.”

With the thickening human tide, we drained down the stairs to the subway station below.

Chapter 35

I had to admit, I looked rather good. My hair was now almost black, though the smell of the coloring clung to the inside of my nostrils, and I sported a spirit gummed mustache. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses completed the transformation. We had spent the night in one those unseemly hotels not far from Times Square, where cash was never questioned, and questions were rarely answered with anything more than a shrug. The desk clerk, locked behind his steel wire cage, would have paid us no more notice had we walked in naked.

The next morning, a quick trip to a clothing store on Broadway dressed me in a white shirt, a dark, narrow tie, and a pair of dress slacks. When we stepped out of the subway in the financial district I looked like just another clod in the layer of human sediment that settled on the area every business day. We ate breakfast at a bagel cart across the street from the building where Coletti had his offices. Surprisingly, the pay phone on the corner worked and Dorrie used it to confirm that Coletti would be in court all day. She came back licking cream cheese from her fingers.

“No problem,” she said. “They don’t expect him until tomorrow.”

I nodded and handed her the half of my bagel that still remained. “Hold this,” I said. “It’s my turn.”

“You don’t really expect to get this back, do you?”

“Silly me.” I took the bagel with me to the phone and balanced the receiver on my shoulder as I called Coletti’s office.

“Hello,” I said when the receptionist answered the phone. “This is Neil Armstrong with Eagle Networx. Who would I speak to about a service contract on your computer systems?” I was connected to the office manager, identified as Ms. Blakely. She wasted no time informing me that they were perfectly happy with their current service contract, thank you very much.

“Yes, of course, but I think you will find that our high quality service comes at rather competitive rates.” I was cloyingly upbeat.

“Really, Mr. Armstrong—have I dealt with you before?” She hesitated for just a moment. “Your name sounds familiar.” “Quite possibly,” I said. “We have a rather large installed base. Perhaps at another establishment?”

“Well, anyway. I really have no complaints with my current vendor.”

I smiled broadly, hoping it would come through in my voice. “Perhaps I could send you one of our comparison charts. We’ve done an extensive work-up comparing services and rates with our major competitors.”

I could tell she was losing interest. “Sure. Whatever.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll just pop it in the mail. And who did you say was your current contract with?”

“Empire MicroSys. Now if there’s nothing else, I really—.” “Not at all, Ms. Blakely, I have everything I need. Thanks.”

When I returned to where Dorrie was, she smiled at me. “You have that gloating look,” she said. “You must have gotten it.”

“Yup.”

She looked at the bagel half I still carried. “You going to eat that?”

I sighed dramatically and handed it to her. “Texans,” I said shaking my head.

She snatched the bagel from my hand. “Oh, pooh,” she said. “You just don’t know how to eat.”

She finished it quickly as we crossed to Coletti’s building. On the fourteenth floor, Dorrie loitered near the elevators to keep watch while I went into Coletti’s offices.

The receptionist looked up at my approach, but her smile withered as she looked at me. Apparently, I didn’t fit the profile of a Coletti client, so she was less willing to give me the whole welcoming treatment.

I summoned all my nerdish charm. “Hi. I’m Frank Roosevelt with Empire MicroSys. I’m here to work on Mr. Coletti’s system.”

Her hair was in perfect order. Her desk was in perfect order. Everything about her was mannequin flawless. My presence misaligned her entire universe.

“No one said anything to me,” she said.

“He called it in last night.” I hurried over the words. “We can ask him, if you like, but I’d really hate to disturb him.” Her hands wandered over her desk, looking for something to do. “He won’t be in today,” she said.

I snapped my fingers for effect. “Oh, yeah. He said he’d be—like in court or something, right?”

That clicked with her. Something in the chaos had fallen back into place. “Yes,” she said. “Exactly. We really should wait—.”

“I remember, because he said he had research to do for the case.”

She leaned forward. “For this case?”

“I think so.”

She sighed, then unplugged her headset and tapped a button on the phone. “Very well,” she said. “This way.”

She led me to Coletti’s office and let me in. I turned to thank her, but she was already gone.

The VR rig looked completely out of place in this mahogany shrine. So many heavy volumes filled the bookshelves that covered an entire wall from floor to ceiling that I was amazed the wall remained upright. They were probably just decoration to make the clients feel more comfortable. I was willing to bet that anything in those books was accessible more quickly through the computer equipment. The system hummed to life at the touch of a switch. While it went through its initialization, I donned the VR gear. I found myself standing in a vast library, books, no doubt representing files, ranged along the walls to either side of me and dwindled to infinity. That made sense, people were most comfortable when the interface was familiar. Three objects hovered to my left.

One was a wriggling worm with black-framed glasses perched on its blunted face. I touched it, and a form appeared before me requesting search parameters. How cute. A virtual bookworm.

I waved the form away and tapped the second object, a tiny filing cabinet. The room transformed itself. The bookshelves were replaced by filing cabinets. That was more like it.

I opened a drawer marked ‘G’ and flipped through it. There was a thick folder labeled ‘The Guild’. A touch opened the file, but it was nothing but gibberish, long strings of letters, numbers and symbols. A keyboard appeared requesting the encryption key.

Damn. The blanks indicated that the key could be up to forty-seven characters long. There was no way I would have the time to decode it. That kind of encryption takes weeks, even months, of dedicated processing, with no guarantee of success. I would have to figure out a way to rig his system so that I could tap in at will. Then I could work on it at my leisure. Flashing back to the library, I tapped the small telephone, the third and final object. A table appeared. On it was a bank of telephones marked with the names of businesses and individuals I did not recognize. The one on the end bore only the Guild’s blue pentagram. I put my hand on that one.

An empty room surrounded me. No effort had been wasted on a single detail or decoration—no objects, no pictures, nothing. The telephone image floated to my left, but it had come with me. I was about to reach for it when Remus appeared.

At least it was Remus’s image. I assumed someone else was using it. Then he spoke and all assumptions would have gone out the window, if the room had had one. It was Remus’s voice.

“Coletti. We had no appointment today. What is it?”

I said nothing while I tried to figure it out. If this was Remus, then who had been in the Superior Systems office?

“Well?” Impatience thrust the word at me.

“I thought you were dead,” I said.

“Don’t be—.” He leaned forward, as if a closer look at whatever image the system showed him would mean something. “Who the devil are you?”

“Don’t you know?”

His smile clicked into place. “Well,” he said. “Heretic. I really must discuss security with Mr. Coletti.”

“Yeah, later. So who was it you had killed in the street?” “Why, Remus, of course.”

“I thought you were Remus.”

He waved his hands grandly. “Remus is dead,” he said. “Long live Remus.”

“So which one are you? The last one I talked to would have regretted someone getting killed.”

He shrugged the thought away. “Which explains, perhaps, why he was killed. I assure you, Heretic, I hold no such regrets. Your death, for example, would bring me no end of pleasure.”

His image went completely still.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said. “I intend to deny you that little bit.”

The Remus figure was still frozen.

It could have been a communication problem. If the link had gone down unexpectedly, the system would continue to display the most recent information until the connection was reestablished.

It was another thirty seconds before Remus moved. “You really can’t win this,” he said. “You don’t even know what it is you’re dealing with.”

“You mean other than thieves and murderers.”

“That is a very short-sighted view, even if it is technically accurate. It lacks a certain—romance.”

“Oh, please.”

“Can you not see it? Technology has always been taken from those who understand it. The moment a new breakthrough comes along, it is snatched from its creator to be wielded by governments and businesses and armies. It is the technicians who should maintain control—those who will use it properly.”

“You’re rambling,” I said.

His voice sounded excited, eager. “Not at all! It is quite clear. Who knows best how to use this technology than those who truly know it? We can maintain order, direct its growth. You know you’re one of us. We could use you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I want you to hear this!” he said.

“Why?” The question struck me as an excellent one, so I asked it of myself. Why? Why was he blathering on about this? Why did he want me to hear it? To convert me? He had to know better than that. It could only be to—.

I yanked the helmet from my head just in time to see two men enter the room. Their gray suits looked as if they had been stripped from identical twin sharks. One of them presented me with an object I had become all too familiar with, the silenced barrel of a small automatic.

The receptionist’s voice protested from the hallway as the other man stopped her at the doorway and kept her from even seeing into the room.

“You can’t go in there! Who are you?” she said.

“Ma’am, please wait right here. We’ll take care of this.” “I’m calling the police!”

“Ma’am, we are the police. Now, please just—.”

He walked her backward out of the room and closed the door behind him. I could still hear her muffled protests from the hallway.

“Let’s go,” said the one holding his gun on me.

I stripped the gloves off slowly, hoping Dorrie would be around soon. “Why not just shoot me?”

“Let’s go.”

“You just said that.” I took off the belt and laid it carefully over the railing. “Ah, of course,” I went on, “we can’t afford to sully Mr. Coletti with any of this, now can we?”

“Shut the fuck up and let’s go.” His voice was devoid of emotion.

There was still no sign of Dorrie. I refused to carry that thought any further, slamming the door shut on it. She was late, that was all. While pretending to straighten the cuffs of my shirt, I undid the button of the left one to allow access to my knife.

“How original,” I said.

He refused to find the humor in my witty banter. His aim switched to the joint of my left shoulder. “I can hurt you a lot,” he said, “without disabling you.”

I saw his point.

He walked beside me. His right hand crushed my left biceps while his left held the gun under his jacket. I could feel the blunt silencer jabbing my ribs with every step.

“Sorry to disturb you, Ma’am,” said the other one as he held the door open for us. “We’ll be out of your hair, now.” The receptionist started to protest again as we left, but the door cut it short. I glanced quickly for any sign of Dorrie. There was none.

My guard stood motionless beside me while the other one pressed his impatience into the elevator’s call button. I reached cautiously for my knife, ready for an opportunity. “Come on,” the button pusher said.

The door went clunk, then slid open.

He started in, but suddenly bent over, falling backwards. The air whuffed from his lungs.

Dorrie followed the kick with another to the side of his face.

I was already moving, spinning into my guard as I drew the knife. Something tugged at my shirt and my side burned. I plunged the knife into his stomach as I shoved my left forearm against his throat.

Something went crunch and he crumpled to the floor. Dorrie was standing there. She had slammed his skull with the butt of her pistol.

We ran for the stairs, leaving the two lying on the floor. Three floors down, we caught the elevator to the lobby. We would be gone before anyone found the two upstairs. Like any other normal citizens, we strolled out of the building and into the crowds.

“Thanks,” I said as we entered the nearest subway station.

“No, prob.”

“I thought, for a minute—.”

“You’re stuck with me, hombre.” She linked her arm through mine. “Live with it.”

Her arm pressed against my ribs and pain stabbed into my side. Through a ragged tear in my shirt, I saw blood trickle down my side. A bullet had grazed me.

Dorrie moved to hide the wound from the people around us. The last thing we wanted was attention, no matter how well-meaning. The gash was painful, but minor. It would wait until we got back to the hotel.

“Maybe you should stick to the virtual stuff,” Dorrie said. “Real life seems to be hard on you.”

I smiled and spoke through gritted teeth. “How come I’m always the one that gets beat to hell?”

“Because, sweetie, I’m the best.”

The train roared in, howling down my response. It was just as well. It hadn’t been the remark of a gentleman.

The uptown train was thinly populated. We had no trouble getting seats.

“This isn’t going to work,” I said. I filled her in on the reincarnation of Remus.

“How many can there be?” she asked.

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll never find them all.”

Every time the train rocked, my side reminded me of its injury. It joined my knee in a painful percussion rhythm. I clenched my jaws and hoped the ride would be over soon.

Dorrie shook her head. “So you’re saying we can’t win.”

I spoke between gasps. “Not here.”

“New York?”

We rolled into the next station. The doors went bong and slid open. “Real life,” I said. “We can’t win it here.” Dorrie was quiet as the doors closed and the train continued on. After a while she said, “So we’re back where we started.”

“It looks like it.”

“Montana,” she said.

I nodded. “Montana.”

The lights in the car blinked. The train rocked. She looked up at the advertisements plastered above the windows. “God, I hate the cold,” she said.

Chapter 36

It was as if we stood among the stars. Comets flashed past, leaving long, curving trails. Bodies struck hammer blows of cosmic proportions. Energies flashed around us.

There were five of us. Cthulhu’s thundercloud form smoldered beside me. With us were an elf in armor that shone with its own light, a shape made only of the stuff of shadows, and a veiled woman dressed in robes of brilliant white.

This was my first meeting with those whom Cthulhu had collected. Dorrie and I had just, this night, arrived at my home in Montana. We had taken the train to New Jersey where I found a used car lot that would overlook some of the paperwork for the right amount of cash. We were cramped and sore from driving straight through, but it had felt good not having to watch over our shoulders every second. It had been a welcome breathing space. I had never realized just how much it meant to me that no one knew where I was.

Now it was time to take the battle to the field I knew best. “So few?” I said.

Cthulhu gestured toward the others. “They are those that I trust,” he said. “Each is a power. Each knows of you, and now, they know of the situation.”

“Are we in agreement, then,” I asked, “that the details cannot be made known?”

Each, in turn, agreed to remain silent. No discussion was necessary. It was clear that they had gone over all the arguments already.

“Here is what I propose,” I began. “We are five. Together we have the power to shape the shadows, and thus the world, to whatever form we choose.” Murmurs broke out among the three strangers. I raised my hands as well as my voice. “Or to keep it from being changed!”

They fell silent. I dropped my hands to my sides and looked at them. “We are not as few as we seem. Already, I have a thousand pairs of eyes in the field and I am prepared to send hundreds of thousands more.”

The elf stepped forward. “Cthulhu has told me of your SPRITEs. They’re clever, perhaps, but they cannot be enough.”

“They are,” said the woman. She turned to me as she spoke. It was as if she were waiting for some reaction. I knew the voice. It lilted on the edge of recognition, but refused fall. “I have seen them before,” she went on. “I even captured one, once, and tried to reverse engineer it, to no avail I might add. It wiped the system I was using. They are among the most brilliant spells I have ever seen.”

“You’ve been fooled,” I said to Cthulhu as recognition struck. “She’s DarkAngel from the LOC.”

Cthulhu chuckled. “She would never fool me, Heretic, in spite of her new clothes.”

“You knew?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “Why do think the LOC remained as harmless as it did? It was DarkAngel that provided Kaos’s restraint. Without her, they would long ago have descended into something at least as bad as we face now.”

DarkAngel stepped forward and said, “I helped you when you needed it, Heretic. Remember that.”

“You asked for those I trust,” said Cthulhu. “She is among them.”

“You’ll vouch for her?”

“I will.”

I inclined my head toward her in a tiny bow. “So be it.”

I moved to where I could address the entire group. “I propose we improve the SPRITEs even further. We send out a million of them, more if we must. Let them be the soldiers of this council. Let them root out the Guild and break their hold. Let them watch and safeguard the systems out there better than those who own them.”

“All this,” said the shadow, “without anyone’s knowledge?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then we are no better than those we seek to stop.”

“In some ways,” I said, “that my be true, but we have a different purpose. We seek to preserve, not destroy; to protect, not control. We will be the guardians of the shadows.”

“Isn’t that how the Guild started?”

“Started, yes, but the Guild has been subverted.”

“And we? Will we be subverted in time as well?”

“Not if I can help it.”

The elf folded his arms across his chest. His armor chinked as another cosmic collision took place just above our heads. He stared at me for a long time before continuing. “There will be things your SPRITEs cannot do; situations they cannot handle. Who will devote his life to being the god of this realm? Who will lead this Council of Shadows? You, Heretic? Will you take up this power and accept its responsibility?” I started to speak, but my voice caught. This was a step from which I could not retreat. Dorrie’s image came into my mind. She had a life. She deserved a life. She would return to her past while I would be devoted to being caretaker of the universe. Before, I had been alone by choice, but now that I had reason to choose otherwise, the choice would be forever denied me. Still, it was a thing I had to do.

“With the help of all of you,” I said. “I will.”

“Then you,” he said, “are the one we will have to watch.”

“I don’t care if you trust me or not, as long as you help.” Cthulhu stepped forward. “Are we all in agreement?” The others nodded, but kept silent. The elf, reluctantly it seemed, agreed as well. “So be it, then. The Council of Shadows is formed.”

Chapter 37

I removed my helmet and blinked. As always it took a moment to adjust to a sudden change in environment. My study seemed unusually bright after the nothingness in which we had held the meeting. I had already started to strip off the rest of the VR equipment when I noticed Dorrie sitting at the console. On the monitor, she would have seen a flat view of what I saw. She would have heard everything.

I cleared my throat and stepped from the platform. “I thought you were asleep,” I said.

She stood and looked at me. She clutched her arms around her middle as if chilled. “Interesting place,” she said. “A planetarium of some sort?”

“Physics lab.” I walked to her, but as I reached her she turned away. “They use it to model subatomic collisions.” “Interesting.”

“Dorrie…”

“They’re still out there, you know. Somewhere. They probably even know you’re in Montana.”

I tossed the gloves on the table and walked up behind her. The muscles in her shoulder tensed when I lay my hand there. “There’s no other choice.”

“There are always choices,” she said, still looking away.

I dropped my hand to my side. The connection was already broken. The contact meant little. “None that I’m willing to accept,” I said. I walked over to the desk and leaned against it.

“It’s like a chain reaction, isn’t it?” She looked at the ceiling as she spoke. Something about the rough cut beams held her interest. “The Guild chooses. Mr. Garber chose. Now, you’ve chosen. That just leaves me.”

“I already—.”

“Dammit, its not your responsibility!”

“No, but I’m the only one who can do it. I have to do it.”

“Because it’s right?”

“Yes.”

“How do you do that?” She turned and looked at me. “How do you see things so clearly? This is right! That is wrong! This is where I stand and to hell with everything else! How?”

Tears filled her eyes and I longed to wipe them away, but I could not move. I had made my choice. Dorrie seemed to have made hers. The tears were no longer mine to dry.

“I could have killed you, just now, while you stood in that subatomic model,” she said. “Some day that’s what will happen. They’ll find you and they’ll kill you.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Don’t tell me what to worry about! This is my choice!”

Her tone stung me like a whip. “I love you,” I said.

“I know that.” Her interest switched to the tips of her boots. “Why the hell do you think this is so hard? You need me and I need to be here with you. You walk away from us so easily and I know it’s not because you don’t care.”

“It’s not easy.”

“Shut up! Of course, it is, because you know what’s right and you do it because you have to; because you have no choice but to do what’s right. Meanwhile, the rest of us feel like shit because we have to agonize over it. We have to force ourselves to give up what we want for what we know we have to do.”

“I don’t understand.”

She straightened and put her hands on her hips.

“Yes, you do.”

I just blinked at her.

“Someone has to watch your back,” she said. “Bullets aren’t part of your smoke and mirrors.”

Then I understood. “You’re staying.”

“Of course, I’m staying!” She shrugged and walked over to me. “It’s what I have to do.”

I took her hand in both of mine. “There are always choices.”

She barely smiled. “None that I’m willing to accept.”

Chapter 38

Steam rose from my coffee cup only to be whisked away by a gentle breeze. It was crisp and the air seemed to crackle around me. Above, the sky was a dome of glass in graduated shades from subtle rose to deepest night. The sun broke over the hills and I toasted the nascent day.

A screech threatened to shatter the crystal peace. I looked around, but could not spot the falcon. “To you, my friend,” I said and held my cup out straight.

Motion startled me, a sudden silent streak. Pain shot through my arm, but I was only peripherally aware of it. It was dulled by wonder. On my forearm perched the falcon.

His talons, sharpened for the kill, held my arm in their grip. Somehow, I knew it was just enough pressure to keep him still. He shuffled his wings behind him, settling himself. Finally, he looked directly into my eyes. It was a moment of magic, real magic, not the shadow play I knew so well. We stared at each other and I felt as if he knew me. There was an acceptance there, a brotherhood. At last, he screeched again, and, with just a few mighty strokes, flew off into the morning sky.

I watched him go, forgetting even to lower my arm.

“They’re ready.”

I turned so quickly I spilled my coffee. Dorrie stood behind me.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

I pointed behind me. “Did you see that?”

She nodded. “Pretty sunrise.”

“No, I mean…” Had I imagined it or had she simply walked out too late? Either way I decided not to explain. It had been a private moment, for the falcon as well as for me. I hadn’t the words to describe how I felt, anyhow. “Never mind,” I said.

Inside, we went to the study. Dorrie helped me on with my VR gear. Here and there, her hands lingered longer than was necessary. Little thrills shot through my skin.

“What if he traces you,” she said.

“We’ve spent a week preparing the route. There shouldn’t be any way he can.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“And we’ve dealt with it before.” I stepped over to the platform while Dorrie took her position at the console. “Remember, as soon as the link is established, send the message through Coletti’s office. If I’m right, we’ll get his attention soon enough.”

Dorrie nodded and her lips made a kissing motion.

I smiled as I lowered the helmet over my head.

Chapter 39

I stood again in the satellite chamber. Packets of information shot through the delicate filaments that connected it to the world. The rest of the council was already there.

Collectively, it had taken us weeks of digging, prodding, and casting to find a way back through the Tahachi system. All of the security had been changed, but every day I became more certain that there was no system impervious to the talents of the Council of Shadows.

I had modified the SPRITEs and, with the help of the rest of the council, had spread nearly a hundred thousand of them throughout the shadows. All over the net, SPRITEs sat like monkeys on the backs of Guildmen, watching, evaluating, safeguarding the data entrusted to their care. Some few had been lost to unexpected forms of security, but each time we discovered it, we sent a new one out, one improved to defeat whatever catastrophe its forebear had met.

Many were installed in systems still untouched by the Guild. These just sat and waited, watching for unauthorized access, prepared to deny entry to anything that smelled of the Guild.

We waited less than ten minutes before Remus arrived.

“Heretic,” he said. “You begin to annoy me!”

“Obviously, I have annoyed you since the beginning. Why else would you have tried so hard to kill me?”

“You know you cannot stop me.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “but I think together we can. Let me introduce you to the Council of Shadows.”

“Two, five, it doesn’t matter. You can’t stop me without bringing civilization to a halt.”

I gestured and he was surrounded by Guardians. He snorted and swept his hand around the ring. Flame burst from his fingertips and blasted into the chests of the creatures. They stood and watched impassively, unaffected by the conflagration.

“I’ve seen that one before,” I said. “It will no longer work.” I pointed to the creature made of shadow. “My friend, here, has an amazing talent with defensive spells.”

I waved my hand again. Guardians appeared around the satellite. In unison, they reached out a hand and touched the glowing sphere.

He shook his head. “You can’t watch everything,” he said.

“No, but we can watch a lot. Right now, we have a hundred thousand watchers in your midst and we can have a million more if we so choose.”

“And I will find ways around them.”

“And we will find ways to stop you. And so it will continue. You will spend so much of your time trying to get past the Council, you’ll have little time left for mayhem.” “I still have sources!”

I turned to Cthulhu. “Not as many as you might think. Tell him.”

Lightning flashed through Cthulhu’s form as he spoke. “Sorry,” he said, “but about an hour ago some irregularities in Mr. Coletti’s finances were discovered. It seems he’s been linked to some nasty insider trading conspiracy. Certain assets in the Bahamas have been seized.”

“You faked it!”

“In the most splendid detail,” Cthulhu said. “A masterpiece of records seeming to date back ten years.”

“It won’t hold!”

“Yes it will,” I said. “We also have everything in place to break Tahachi and its subsidiaries.”

The wizard folded his arms across his chest. “But you won’t,” he said.

“Not if we don’t have to. There are a lot of innocent stock holders involved.”

“That’s your weakness,” he said. “You aren’t willing to do what has to be done.”

“Yes, it is,” I said, “but I think you’ll also find that it’s our strength.”

He stabbed his finger in my direction. “This isn’t the last of this, Heretic.”

I stepped toward him and the rest of the council gathered by my sides. “No,” I said, “I’m sure it’s not. We may not be able to find you and we may not be able to stop you, but we’ll be damned if we’ll just let you take over. We are the guardians of the shadows. Don’t take it too hard. We’re stopping a lot of others, too. Cybercrooks everywhere are kind of having a bad day.”

His hands gathered into fists and he shook in impotent rage. Without another word he disappeared.

Cthulhu shook his head and turned to me. “‘Cybercrooks are having a bad day’?”

The others began to chuckle. By the time he joined them it was laughter. I shrugged, consciously making the gesture large enough to be seen. “Sorry,” I said. “I ran out of cool stuff to say.”

Chapter 40

Two months have passed, now. Dorrie has settled comfortably in her new surroundings. My first act as head of the newly-formed Council of Shadows was to restore her record at the Bureau to its original state. I printed it all out and presented it to her as a gift, carefully leaving off the last page that listed her as missing and presumed dead.

My intimate knowledge of the FBI’s system made it easy for me to close the breaches in their digital walls—to everyone else. If the Guild wanted inside information, they would have to find some other way to get it. Several times I watched as someone slipped into the system, scratching at the doors, seeking a weakness. Every time, my SPRITEs descended with a vengeance, blunting every attack, tracking the packets back until the infiltrator broke the connection.

DarkAngel put her experience with the LOC to good use. She found a way to ride the back of a legitimate Guild member right into the heart of the Air Traffic Control’s test bed. Harmless, yet annoying, glitches soon began to appear in the new system, causing the FAA to rethink the continuation of their contract with the Guild. It was one case where we bound Remus’s hands the same way he had bound ours. He knew what caused those errors, and yet he could not protest without revealing the truth.

We have horses, now, and dogs; two of each. For the first time, the Ledbetter Ranch has something ranch-like about it. It also has something very home-like. Dorrie seems to like it here, though now that winter has settled in, she rarely misses an opportunity to mention how much she hates the cold.

She has taken her duties as my protector seriously. Every time I don my VR gear, she stands guard, fully armed, waiting. Always, when I remove the helmet, she is there—and so much more pleasant a sight than my virtual Guardians. I may remodel their appearance.

Galileo lives again, though not by that name. The code is revived and Copernicus has just now joined the Guild. The Council will share the work of moving him through the ranks with the hope of working from inside to find Remus and his followers. It may work. It may not. We shall see. If nothing else, it allows us to permanently lock any systems to which he is assigned.

The stalemate grows. Silently, like a single torch, the Council holds back the gathering dark. The lines are drawn. The choices are made. In the shadows, the struggle continues.

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9/10/2007