Fool's Experiments (22 page)

"Getting cold feet?"

And sweaty palm. "Nah." Long silence. "Light on snappy repartee, perhaps." More silence; time flies when you're having fun. What was his problem? Say something. "You knew that I grew up in Wisconsin, right?"

"You never mentioned it." She turned toward him. "Where?"

"Would you believe suburban Appleton?" Something like the clanging of garbage-can lids intruded from the rear speakers; at least the pounding bass mostly obliterated the antisocial lyrics. "Dad tied flies for a living. Really exotic- looking things. He sold a zillion to the tourists every summer."

"They must have been good."

"That's the funny part." He grinned. "Not one of Dad's flies was ever known to catch a fish. They just
looked
great. Flies are like haute cuisine, Dad always said. 'Presentation is everything.' "

"But the fish didn't like the presentation."

"The fish weren't the ones buying."

Then reality intruded, diverting Cheryl into reciting directions through the neighborhood of McMansions where her friend lived.

He stayed in the car while Cheryl walked Carla to the friend's door, reveling in the silence. Whether it was Milwaukee or Appleton, Dad was quite the marketer, all right, even though Doug had been fifteen before he learned Dad had once been director of marketing for Milwaukee's biggest ad agency. Life in the boonies couldn't take that marketing acumen away from him.

Couldn't eliminate the stress, either. Dad had died of a heart attack at age forty, a month before Doug turned twelve. It was hard to believe he was only five years younger than Dad had been. Not to mention scary.

Doug had loved running weekend errands with Dad, the car radio always on. Dad would hum along or whistle, or sing the chorus,
badly
out of key, tapping the rhythm on the steering wheel. Doug's taste in music, frozen in time, was Dad's taste.

With a peck on Carla's cheek and cheery wave to her friend, Cheryl finished the drop-off and returned to the car. Turning the small talk to Cheryl's childhood—she was that true rarity, a native northern Virginian—Doug delivered them safely to BioSciCorp. The prosthesis-training sessions for which the VR courts had been installed might have ended; the courts remained, still free if you had building access. It pained Doug to be signed in as Cheryl's guest. He paused outside the locker rooms. "I'll meet you in court two."

" 'Huh,' she responded, wittily."

Doug grinned. "Humor me." He understood her confusion: Virtual racquetball was typically played between two people in separate courts.

Cheryl was already on the court when he arrived. He had been delayed by a detour, new game disk in hand, to the VR control room. She had changed into a superbaggy shirt and, when he looked closely, white short shorts that peeked out beneath. Her normally wavy brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail by a bright blue scarf. Her VR goggles were on, covering hazel eyes whose striking beauty he'd been too shy ever to comment upon.

The shirt seemed to be a high school varsity jersey. Doug took an instant dislike to Number 10, whoever he had been. She didn't have any brothers.

She said, "Take a picture. It will last longer."

You worked with Cheryl for months, he chastised himself. What is your problem? The problem, idiot, is that this isn't work. "Sorry."

Was it only his imagination or was the air between them crackling?

"Well?"

It made Doug no less uncomfortable that she was smiling. "Showtime."

The unseen computer took its cue instantly. Cheryl needed only slightly longer to spot his surprise. "Doubles. This is
great
!"

He slipped on his own goggles. The wand in his prosthetic hand became a proper racquet. The room doubled in size. Two stylized opponents stood in the opposite court; as ceremonial bad guys, they wore eye patches and backward black baseball caps. Doug took his side of their court. "Volley for serve."

Pop. Doug blasted the red pseudoball when it materialized. Zip. Zap. Zip.
Blat.
"And the forces of evil win first serve."

After a few near collisions, Cheryl and Doug settled into a frontcourt/backcourt style of play. The new positions reduced their interference but did nothing for their score.

Blat.

"What handicap level did you give us?" she panted after a long, but ultimately losing, volley. Her forehead glistened with perspiration.

"Gimp and simp. I guess I was too kind."

Her hazel eyes hidden by VR goggles, the smile seemed incomplete. Warm, but incomplete. "Eyes front, partner." Too late. The ball shot past him to land at his heels.
Blat.
One of the stylized figures did a little victory dance in honor of his aced serve.

Mutter, mutter. "Handicap level four." That was two notches easier than where Doug had started them and, he hoped, a level at which they could compete. They managed some decent volleys, and Cheryl slammed a return through a floating drop-dead zone to get them a chance to serve. The score had edged up from 7-0 to 3-9 when they collided at midcourt.

No one was hurt, but... Doug climbed to his feet, feeling like an electric shock had thrown him. He offered an arm to help her up; her hand was hot. Both VR wands lay abandoned on the floor. "Are you okay?"

Somehow, their goggles had slid back on their heads, and they gazed at each other. The air was thick with pheromones. Move, he told himself, to no effect. Then he knew he had waited too long, and he released her hand. She waited a moment, then pivoted slowly, with obvious reluctance, toward the front of the court.

The scarf had slipped partway down her ponytail. Ah, the hell with it, he thought, and tugged a dangling end of the scarf. The bow untied, freeing cascades of flowing hair.

Evidently he had thought out loud.

She turned back to him, eyes gleaming. "Not how I would have phrased it, but it'll do."

For a time, neither of them had any use for words or virtually.

The knock was so soft Cheryl wondered at first if she had imagined it. She doubted she would have noticed anything had not Doug a moment earlier inexplicably relaxed his embrace.

Then, remembering her disheveled state, she somehow knew the sound was real. She craned her neck slightly and saw the pale oval at the door's small inset window. The next rap was louder. "We have company." She pushed away a hand.

"I know." He released her and went to open the court door.

The weekend guard stood outside, leering, a radio in his hand. "Better you were doing what you were."

She resisted the urge to smooth her jersey. Her imagination was already previewing next week's office gossip. Damn it, damn it,
damn
it. "Better than what?"

The guard jiggled the radio. "Than computer gaming. Than anything that involves a computer." He turned on the radio.

The opening moments of the newsbreak drove away all thoughts of her own situation.

The page was from Ralph Pittman. Doug was tapping redial on his car speakerphone for the umpteenth time when Cheryl emerged from BioSciCorp. Of course half of the country must be trying to reach the forum at this point. The other half lacked comm.

"How did you know?" Cheryl slid into the passenger seat. Her hair was still damp.

"What do you mean?" He knew
exactly
what she meant... he had just hoped to avoid this discussion.

"You were facing away from the door, and"—she blushed—"somewhat occupied. Yet you knew something was up
before
the guard knocked. How?"

"Pager." Keep it simple, Doug. She won't want to hear this.

"You weren't wearing a pager." She reddened again. "Unless ... it was in your arm." She smacked the dashboard in frustration. "It's one thing to keep using the arm unmodified. It's entirely different to endanger yourself. There's a reason NIT research is suspended, a reason why you went to the forum."

"Speaking of which, I still can't reach the office. Time to try something else."

Pittman answered his personal mobile on the fourth ring. "Catastrophe central."

"Ralph, it's Doug Carey returning your page. I'm at BSC. You've tried phages?"

"We set out cheese.
Yes,
we tried phages. They just pissed it off."

No need to name the phages' target. The car radio, its volume low, spoke of nothing but the artificial-life creature, or creatures, wreaking Internet havoc. "Why'd you call?"

"Doug, it's getting scary.... I could use a cool head in here."

"Is there a plan B?" Cheryl injected.

"You'll have to ask the boss that," Ralph said.

Doug leaned toward the speakerphone. "The switchboard is jammed. Can you hand your mobile to Glenn?"

"He's out, Doug. I can't say where he is. One of us will call you back."

Despite the tightness in his chest, Doug forced himself to speak calmly. "Tell Glenn that I know the one way of stopping whatever is out there."

Pittman rang back within minutes.

"You've got an invitation. It's a classified facility, though. Give me thirty minutes and I'll be by to escort you."

Doug had a flash of intuition. "I'm picturing a squat, windowless brown brick building here in Reston. No signs on it. Surrounded, practically hidden, by tall pines. Bunches of big rooftop dishes. I've never met anyone who admits to working there."

Ralph laughed. "Whatever could you be thinking of?" Confirmation enough—the worst-kept secret in northern Virginia was that the unlabeled building was a CIA facility. Glenn doing something classified explained why Doug's earlier offer to help had been declined. "Call ahead for us, Ralph. If you don't find us in BioSciCorp's parking lot when you arrive, we've figured it out. Then meet us there."

"Okay."

Doug had it right. Dour armed guards kept them standing in the vestibule until Adams emerged to vouch for them. It wasn't much of a wait, but it was long enough to reach a conclusion. "You've been holding out on me, Glenn."

As red flashers hung from the ceiling signaled the presence of uncleared personnel, Adams shepherded them down a hallway painted in institutional gray. "How so?"

"All hell is breaking loose. You would need a damned good reason to leave the forum. To visit what I assume is a CIA lab. I bet this is where Sheila Brunner worked, and that her research was far more relevant to cyberdefense than mind- controlled weapons systems."

"You didn't need to know then what she was doing. Do you now?" Adams gestured at an open door.

Doug hung back. "Since phages can't kill this thing, I'm guessing you'll be sending people into the net after it, through neural interfaces. You must be here to coordinate the attack.

"There aren't many people in this field." Fewer still after Frankenfools and no-nukes viruses erased so many minds. "Cheryl and I are two of the best. If we're to help, you'll have to tell us what's going on."

AJ sat rocking in a comer, mere spectator now in the tragedy that he had crafted. Everyone else had taken a chair at the massive oak conference table: Adams and Pittman from the forum, a gaggle of CIA folk, even Bev. She was tolerated as AJ's moral support. He remembered that she was a reporter. He wondered whether anyone else did.

He didn't feel alone in his comer. The shades of his victims crowded all around him. Most were waterlogged and battered featureless from their time in the flood. Here and there among the drowning victims jostled a few corpses who had been more conventionally mangled. Some had died in car crashes, or by plane wreck, or in civil violence. All watched him accusingly. They were more real to AJ than the breathers around the table.

Two newcomers, Doug something and Cheryl Stem, had arrived late and joined the meeting. A CIA guy whispered why these two were here, but AJ hadn't caught it: The voiceless ones were too distracting. Eventually, AJ gave up the attempt to listen.

When he was ten, the movie
Night of the Living Dead
had terrified AJ. He had lain awake all that night, eyes round, unable to conceive of anything more horrible. He had learned— had it been only hours ago?—how his youthful imagination had failed him. Knowing himself for the cause of so many deaths made
these
zombies that much worse.

Still, snippets of conversation penetrated the fog of exhaustion and guilt.

Pittman: "Look, we had AJ's complete code for this thing. At least we have to assume that it's nearly complete. Of
course
some of our phages found the creature. What they didn't do, obviously, was survive the encounter. Our phages need to be much, much nastier."

Later, Pittman again: "I still say we should release tailored copies of AJ's monster. Bunches and bunches of them. They'll kill what's out there and each other. So long as one of ours is the last, it will have a working self-destruct timer."

AJ's monster: The name twisted his guts. No! his mind shrieked. No! Don't release any more. I can't bear more deaths—but no words issued from his mouth. He sobbed in relief when Pittman's plan was rejected as too dangerous. Not even Bev noticed.

The voices kept talking.

Adams: "Then a reconnoiter with helmets is possible?"

AJ felt absurdly appreciative when Bev turned briefly to check on him. He forced himself to smile back, and tried to concentrate. If only the dead would stop crowding him so.

One of the CIA agents: "I say it's settled. We can't know if it will work until we try. How many of these helmets are there?"

Helmets again. What had helmets to do with anything? A telephone lineman sneered at AJ, mockingly tapping his hard hat. Drops of water rolled down his neck.

No! He had to understand. He had to. The zombies faded somewhat when he focused. What were these helmets? What did the agents want to try?

With great effort, AJ began following the debate. Understanding only deepened his dread. There was a way to project minds onto the data plane. They meant to hunt the monster in its lair!

A mere computer virus had scrambled the brains of previous explorers—colleagues of Doug and Cheryl, AJ inferred. What outcome did these brave fools expect from hunting a predator bred to that world?