by Tom Clancy
He turned cold eyes on Caitlin Corrigan. “That label you were fiddling with — that’s a program icon, isn’t it? Removing the backing — that started the program. Now it’s eased its way into the coding for this simulation — probably for the whole veeyar.”
He caught the flash of terror in her eyes. Even as he wondered why she was getting so upset over what he’d realized, his hand darted out to grab her by the arm.
That was a lucky move. Just as he established contact with her, Cat bailed out of the press conference.
Because he was holding on, Matt followed along as they rocketed wildly through the Net.
Caitlin tried to peel him off, dragging him through roaring rivers of daytime data exchange. Even with flex-time, the hours from nine to five were still the heaviest times for information passage.
Matt hung on for dear life as they bounced around like a pinball moving at light speed. Now he had two questions he really wanted an answer for. What was in that weird label-program she’d left in Sean McArdle’s veeyar? And why would simply asking about it result in this frenzied attempt to run away?
Cat was gulping in air as if she’d been running for miles — or was she simply sobbing? Finally, they pin-wheeled into a familiar setting.
They were back in the virtual chem lab at Bradford Academy.
“You know,” Matt said, “my lab partner managed to make a mistake in here that would have blown us up out in reality. Instead, we got caught in a system freeze and had all our chemicals deleted from the simulation.” He paused. “And, of course, everybody in the class laughed at us because of the big red warning label that appeared—‘UNSTABLE REACTION INITIATED.’ They called us the Unstable Boys for weeks, until somebody else got shut down for spilling hydrochloric acid down the front of his shirt. I guess we were lucky. People still call that guy by the nickname ‘Bernie’—for acid burns.”
You’re babbling, he told himself sternly. Pull the plug on it before you say too much!
Caitlin crouched against one of the stone-topped laboratory tables, her eyes closed. “Just get your hands off. Let me go, will you?” she begged.
“I told you those stories to show that anybody can make a mistake,” Matt said gently. “Didn’t you think I’d ask about that stick-on program if I saw you use it? It’s pretty ingenious, after all. Subtle. Not exactly the style of your jeweled-up pal or that cartoon cowboy, I’d think. Was it whipped up by that guy who morphed from a giant frog into a fancy swordsman?”
Still resting her cheek against the cool stone tabletop, Caitlin stared at him wide-eyed. “I can’t tell you! I can’t!”
“You mean you have to talk it out with your friends first?” Matt said. “I can live with that.”
“Just let me be!” Tears sparkled in Caitlin’s eyes and began streaking across her cheek.
Matt couldn’t stand watching the girl cry. He relaxed his grip on her arm.
Instantly, she disappeared.
Nice going, he told himself sourly. That’s two experiments you’ve blown in here. It’s lucky the monitoring program isn’t on, or there’d be big red letters glaring around me now. He could just imagine the error message: “SOFTHEARTED JERK.”
Matt quickly bailed out of the virtual chemistry lab — it was forbidden territory except for working classes. He’d have been in a lot of trouble if he’d gotten caught in there. Still playing it safe, he visited another busy Net node before returning to his home veeyar.
The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that there was someone behind the virtual vandals he’d seen. Whoever it might be, this genius just about scared the fertilizer out of Caitlin Corrigan. In comparison, she’d been downright calm when her friends had threatened to silence Matt permanently. She’d even been cool when Mr. Jewels — Gerry the Savage — had loomed over her, threatening Cat with a pounding.
What was it about whoever created their programs? Why did that person fill Caitlin with such terror that she just wanted to run away?
Matt couldn’t be absolutely sure about his suspicions. He’d have to dig deeper into Gerald Savage’s background, find out how much programming the English kid knew. Somehow, he’d also have to unmask the other characters and do the same with them. It had been a gut feeling, saying that the stick-label program seemed too subtle compared to the proxies the three boys were using.
But then, maybe somebody really subtle would be able to hide behind an obvious mask….
Matt reached his home veeyar, broke the connection, and sat slumped in his computer-link chair. He could play what-if and maybe until he grew a long gray beard. What Net Force needed was to get a little hands-on with some of the other side’s programming.
He got out of the chair and went to the phone, just managing to catch Captain Winters. The captain was not delighted to hear from him.
“Are you now suggesting that the son of the Irish ambassador is involved with this bunch?” he demanded.
“No, sir. I think he may be a target. He has a very open veeyar. It’s used for junior press conferences—”
“And it’s protected by diplomatic immunity,” Winters cut in.
“I think the programming may have been corrupted,” Matt went on. “Maybe you could try an unofficial approach, tell them you’ve heard about the press conferences, and express interest in the programming behind them. They give out copies of the program. If you ask for recordings of recent conferences, you might get a reproduction of the corrupted coding.”
Captain Winters gave a short, irritated grunt. “It might be worth a try,” he admitted. “Let me make the contact, and we’ll see what happens.”
The phone rang just as the Hunter family was sitting down for dinner. Matt’s mother answered from the kitchen extension, putting down the platter of protein burgers she’d prepared.
“Hello? Oh, yes, Captain. He’s right here.”
She passed the phone to Matt, then pointed to the tray.
Matt got the message. “Hello, Captain Winters. We’re just sitting down to supper.”
“Then I’ll keep it brief,” the captain said brusquely. “Looks like you were right about that program corruption. I got a copy from the Irish embassy and sent it down to Quantico. Our technicians there found an entire section of coding that doesn’t belong. It looks like an old-fashioned trapdoor program, allowing access to the simulation and the computer hardware from outside.”
“Really?” Matt said in surprise. “But I thought modern programming made that sort of setup impossible.”
“Not anymore,” the captain said grimly. “It may be an old-fashioned idea, but whoever whomped this up has managed to evade even the newest security routines.” He paused for a second. “There are lots of people at Net Force who’d very much like to talk with this person.”
“If I find anything out, Captain, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
Captain Winters made a noise that sounded suspiciously like “Humph!” Then he said, “I guess that’s all we can ask for. Good night, Matt.”
“Good night, sir.” Matt hung up the phone and picked at dinner until his father gathered up the dishes and began washing them. Matt dried, then went to his room — and the computer-link chair.
Again, Matt waited until he’d reached a busy Net node before he donned Leif Anderson’s Mr. Sticks proxy. Then he activated Cat Corrigan’s communications protocol and streaked across the neon wonderland. Yes, he was coming up on the government Net areas. Then he veered off into the quieter neighborhood of the rich and well-connected.
There was the glowing version of Mount Vernon, dead ahead.
He rocketed straight for the glowing wall…and crashed.
Matt huddled on the cushions of his computer-link chair, holding on to his head as if he feared it was about to fall off. His teeth were gritted together so tightly, the muscles in his jaw ached. But he didn’t want to yell, didn’t want to bring his parents in.
Pain seemed to be pounding along every neuron in his brain. He’d exp
erienced system crashes before, and this was no worse than any of them. Certainly, he was better off than Leif Anderson had been after being hit by that virtual bullet.
Matt was conscious, and breathing…and aware of every twinge racing around his nervous system. He knew that the fizzling pain would die away. By the time he woke up tomorrow morning, all he’d have was a mild headache.
What really hurt was the way he’d been cut off from Caitlin Corrigan.
Man, Matt thought. When she doesn’t want to answer questions, she certainly lets you know!
Chapter 9
Even a night’s sleep hadn’t completely erased the headache from Matt’s crash — literal and figurative — with Cat Corrigan’s system. As he rode to school on the autobus, Matt daydreamed about confronting the girl, grabbing her, giving her a good shaking. Didn’t she know he was trying to help her?
Annoyed, Matt shook his head — and wished he hadn’t. Of course she didn’t know he was trying to help her. He really wasn’t. He was trying to track down the virtual vandals who’d caused such chaos and hurt Leif Anderson. Was he getting turned around because one of those vandals turned out to be pretty…and scared?
Besides, there was no way he could confront Caitlin without giving away his identity. Not unless he wanted to give a new target to this bunch of nuts who could shoot people in holoform.
But with Caitlin hiding out from him, he’d lost any chance of unmasking the other members of the group.
Or had he?
Prep period seemed louder than usual, thanks to Matt’s continuing headache. But he pushed that aside, waving over Andy Moore and David Gray.
“Idiots,” Andy growled. His sunburnt face had reached the peeling stage, and he was pretty annoyed that some classmates had hung the nickname “Scab” on him. Between anger and the remaining burn, his face looked redder than ever.
“Keep that up, and they’ll start calling you ‘Tomato,’” David warned. “Besides, you’ve stuck some people with a few nicknames. If you dish it out—”
“Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to take it,” Andy grumbled. “But that doesn’t say anything about having to like it.”
He grinned at Matt. “So how’s the big investigation going? I figured that’s why you dragged us over — especially since we barely heard a word from you after Saturday. Have you been spending all your time with…Caitlin?”
Andy made the girl’s name sound incredibly gooey, finishing with a romantic sigh.
Matt didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or angry. “Get over it!” he snapped. “I’m trying to get a line on the three guys who are in the group.”
“You mean Caitlin hasn’t told you yet?” Andy asked pointedly.
“Why not give it a rest, Scab?” David said. Then, ignoring Andy, he turned to Matt. “What can I do to help?”
“Hey, don’t be like that,” Andy said quickly. “I want to help, too.”
Matt pulled two datascrips from his schoolbag. Each contained copies of the file Matt had gotten from the Net Force computers — the diplomatic brats who’d been in contact with Cat Corrigan.
“I’ve got two lists on these. One tallies a couple of hundred foreign guys who’ve been seen with Caitlin Corrigan. The other is the top-ten listing of diplo-brats who know her. What I need to know is how many of these guys would qualify as hackers.”
Matt scowled. “Somebody had to come up with the programming that lets the virtual vandals do what they do. They didn’t buy it in their friendly neighborhood Micro-Shop.”
Andy’s eyebrows zoomed toward his hairline. “So you think the kick-butt program was developed by a mad genius on Diplomatic Row?”
“I don’t know,” Matt admitted. “But I do know that the other vandals seem to be foreigners. One’s a Brit, another speaks with some kind of European accent. And the third doesn’t seem to speak English at all. So I’ve got two sorting jobs to do.”
“I call dibs on checking the language thing!” Andy swiftly said. “I’m betting there aren’t many people in diplomatic circles nowadays who can’t speak English. It’s the lingo everybody uses in international politics and business. Who’d want to have an ambassador standing around like a dummy?”
“So you figure that sort of diplomat would…stand out?” David asked.
Andy nodded smugly.
“Of course, with that kind of handicap, an ambassador might want to keep his ignorance a secret,” David went on.
Andy suddenly looked nervous.
“On the other hand,” David said, “computer courses or awards should be a matter of public record.” He gave his pal a big, cheerful grin. “Gee, I’m so glad I got offered the easy job.”
Matt was still chuckling as he headed for his first-period class.
There wasn’t much else for Matt to enjoy during the day. With all the investigation he’d been doing, his classwork had suffered. It seemed word immediately went out on TeacherNet, because every class instructor seemed to find some way to drag him over the coals.
At lunch, Sandy Braxton was sympathetic. “Mr. Fairlie really nailed you today,” the rich kid said. “I thought he only saved those kind of zingers for me.” Sandy started to laugh, but cut off in mid-chuckle. “I hope our project isn’t distracting you too much.”
More likely, he’s now worrying that I’m going to mess up whatever part he doesn’t, Matt thought.
Whatever his worry, Sandy seemed to forget it as he talked about something he’d discovered in his research on the Battle of Gettysburg. It turned out he had an ancestor who’d fought at the battle. “My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather joined a Virginia regiment and fought until Gettysburg,” Sandy said. “He got his arm shot off.”
“Did it happen during Pickett’s Charge?” Matt asked. If he remembered correctly, the general had led Virginian troops on his ill-fated attack.
“Nah. Great-Whatever-Grandpa was hit during the first day of the battle.”
“Oh,” Matt said. It was easy to see how Sandy got distracted into the gossipy side of history. Maybe he was interested in society gossip, too?
Matt decided to see. “Hey, Sandy, I’ve been hearing rumors about something weird going on among the diplomatic brats in town. Do you know anything about it?”
The other boy only shrugged, shaking his head. “My family doesn’t have much to do with the diplomatic corps,” he said. “Except my daddy made a bunch of money off some of them. He’s developing a gated community down by the Anacostia River. Thought there’d be a bunch of folks from Capitol Hill who’d move in. Instead, it’s, like, wall-to-wall ambassadors. Not that Daddy minds.” Sandy gave him a big, slow smile. “Money is money, no matter what country it comes from.”
At home after school, Matt tried to do some of the research for his joint paper with Sandy. But he kept slipping back to the list of ambassadors’ kids, as if just a little more study might unlock some hidden secret.
One thing he noticed was that the addresses seemed to clump together into two bunches, one in a zip code for Northwest Washington, the other in a zip code in the Southwest.
Matt knew that most of the embassies clustered in D.C.’s northwest corner. Could all these Southwest addresses represent foreign families who’d moved to the development Sandy had talked about?
Setting a search engine to work on the question, Matt was a little shocked at the number of hits that quickly showed up. He asked for an overview, and an article titled “Population Shift — Washington, D.C.” appeared in holoform over his computer console. Browsing through, Matt learned how the Federal Government and private developers had changed the face of the city over the years. One of the things that surprised him most was an old flatfilm picture taken less than a hundred years ago. It showed the dome of the Capitol Building rising over the backyard laundry of a beat-up wooden house that looked like something out of a hillbilly comedy.
Matt couldn’t believe that such an eyesore would have been tolerated on Capitol Hill. Now it was the site of an old office
building and underground parking garage. Still, the area southwest of the Capitol had been home to very poor people for fifty years after that picture had been taken. Pockets of poverty had remained even after the turn of the century.
The article even showed pictures of the new gated community, a place called the Gardens at Carrollsburg, after an old town that existed there before the city of Washington had even been laid out. Matt had to laugh when he discovered that in later and poorer days the place had been called Buzzard Point.
He closed out the article, and had gone back to staring at the list of names when his computer began beeping — a file transfer was underway.
It was David, reporting in. His search for computer wizards among the diplomatic community had clicked with very few people on the list connected with Cat Corrigan. High on David’s computer-geek list was Sean McArdle, the Irish ambassador’s son. Matt noticed that he lived in the Gardens at Carrollsburg.
But it seemed that Caitlin didn’t get along with real hacker types.
Probably thinks of them being as Dexters, Matt thought, running down the list. There were just a couple of names, none of them in the top ten.
David included a news clip on how Gerald Savage boasted about being almost computer-illiterate. Apparently, that was a swipe at all the Irish programmers invading the British job market. David had thought it was pretty funny, but Matt wasn’t laughing. That sort of ignorance — and taking pride in it — was entirely in character for Gerry the Savage.
Matt frowned as he continued to study the two lists, plus the clip and head shot of Gerald Savage.
“Computer,” he suddenly said. “Prepare search engine Newshound. Search nonclassified media databases for any references to associates of Gerald Savage. Emphasis on violence and pranks. Sort by frequency of reference. Then compare with present lists.”
Sighing, Matt further ordered the computer to work in the background while projecting the datascrip Sandy Braxton had given him. Might as well get some reading done, Matt told himself. All that searching and sorting will take a long time.
