Terminal Connection (5 page)

“What about
Varyag
?”

Ed shifted in his seat, and the interviewer continued.

“The Chinese battle group near the Paracel Islands includes a ship called
Varyag
. It is a Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier bought from the Ukrainians in an auction by a surprisingly small company called the Chung Travel Agency Ltd. Ever hear of them?”

Ed shook his head.

“Neither had we. They claimed they were going to convert the ship into a floating hotel and gambling parlor, towing the carrier to Haikou on Hainan Island. The problem is that officials in Haikou had warned the Chung Travel Agency that they would not be permitted to dock the huge ship in their harbor. So, if Haikou had already rejected their plan for a floating entertainment complex, why do you think the company went ahead with buying and towing the warship?”

Ed glared at the interviewer, who continued to speak.

“The Hwang News Service has learned that the Chung Travel Agency does not have offices in Haikou. In fact, there’s no such company listed anywhere in Hainan …”

“Okay, that’s enough, Mom,” Allison said.

“ … It turns out that Chung Travel Agency is owned by a Hong Kong firm called Chin Holdings Company. Six of Chin Holdings’ eight board members hail from the same area in China, Shandong Province, which just happens to be where the Chinese Navy builds its ships. And Chin Holdings’ chairman is a former career military officer with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Coincidence, you think, Mr. Davis?”

“Mom, I said stop!”

“Computer, hold it,” Jamie said.

The scene froze.

“Please, call me Jamie. Now tell me, what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? I gave you an exclusive and in return you’re crucifying my boss!”

“The people have a right …”

“Stuff it, Mom. I can rant National Security and none of this will get aired.” Her mother sighed.

“I don’t have time to banter with you. Make your decision,” Allison said.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Cut everything after Ed’s speech on Warscape. That’s the spin he’ll be looking for.”

“Ally, don’t be disrespectful. If your father …”

“Edward was Dad’s best friend and practically my uncle. You know
exactly
what Dad would say.”

Silence followed. “Okay,” her mother said. “But I don’t think the networks will buy it.”

“Do your best.” Allison sighed.
One down. Now to work on Steve and win him over
.

S
teve sat down on the bed next to his daughter. Although she forced a smile, her red and puffy eyes betrayed that she had been crying.

This could not be good for her, sulking like this.
Steve sat up and opened the shades to her room. The sunlight streamed in and bathed Brooke in light. She was very distraught, he noticed, and he felt another pang of guilt. His invention had killed her friend. How could he tell her?

He sat down next to her, brushed the hair from her face, and wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks.

“Thanks,” Brooke said. She took his hand, cradled her face with it, and turned and pressed her forehead against his hand. After a few seconds, she sat up. Steve helped her into the wheelchair.

“It’s okay. I’ve got it now.”

“Take it easy today. I’ll be in my office if you need me,” Steve said.

Brooke shifted in the chair and looked down at her withered legs.

It won’t be long,
he thought. He would correct the past. Steve left and walked down the hall to his office where sat behind his desk.

“Dad?”

Steve looked up.

Brooke maneuvered the wheelchair through the doorway.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“I need my Nexus. There’s a chemistry test next Monday.”

“Definitely not!”

Brooke stared at him, wide-eyed.

“I mean, uh, no. There’s a problem with the Signal Amplifier,” Steve said.

“Whatever. Can I use yours?”

Steve shook his head. “You need some down time.”

“I told you; I forgot about Monday’s exam. It’ll just take a minute.”

“If it’s just a minute, use the Portal Sphere.”

“You’re not making sense!” Her gaze bored into him.

He looked down. “Your friend died while using the Nexus. I don’t want you to use it until I know more.” There. He had said it.

“Camille, her name was Camille! You could at least try to remember her name now that she’s dead!”

Steve cringed. He was never good with names. “I’m … I’m sorry, Brooke.”

Brooke left his office and slammed the door the best she could from her wheelchair.

He should have watched Austin more closely. The Nexus should have never been released without the hardware fix. Poor Brooke. He knew he was being overprotective. Out of the millions of Nexus users, why would Brooke be the next victim? Something in his gut warned him just the same.

Steve reached down and unlocked the file drawer of his desk. No files were inside, only a single bottle of Glenfiddich Scotch and a lone tumbler glass. He filled the glass.

He had not always been a heavy drinker. After leaving college, or rather after he was kicked out, he took a long hiatus from his addiction. Much later, when Nexus Corporation had edged toward bankruptcy, he rediscovered scotch to calm his nerves.

Steve drained the glass and contemplated the empty tumbler. He recalled his first sip after so many years of sobriety. Closing his eyes, he relived the sensations—the feeling of scotch sliding down his throat, his body absorbing it before it reached his stomach. His hands calmed, and the anxiety he felt dissipated. After that day, he became subdued and withdrawn. Numbed by his addiction, he would have been content with letting his company starve itself out of existence; but then fate intervened. His breaks failed and he crashed his car.

Steve filled his glass and swallowed hard. Almost a year had passed since he wrapped the car around the tree and killed Tamara and crippled Brooke. What if the scotch in his blood had not dulled his reflexes? Could he have navigated the turn? Could he have discovered the problem earlier, saved his wife and spared Brooke?

He was lucky. By the time he reached the hospital, most of the alcohol had left his system. A few on the scene were suspicious, but no one knew for sure. To Austin’s credit he had helped keep things hush-hush. Steve had vowed that day to make a difference in Brooke’s life. He had made a covenant with himself—Brooke would walk again.

The next day, with courage borrowed from scotch, Steve empowered Austin to run Nexus Corporation. It enabled Steve to focus on his secret project, the Nexus healer, which would enable Brooke to walk again. Steve shook his head and attempted to evade the memory. What had he done to Brooke? He had taken so much from her—her mother, the ability to walk, and now her best friend.

Steve sighed. He drained the last drop from the tumbler and replaced it, along with the scotch, in the bottom drawer. Steve placed the Nexus on his head, flipped the switch, and entered VR.

Steve materialized in his home away from home—his virtual office. In all directions, an endless black floor, checker-boarded with neon green lines, stretched to the horizon. He did most of his work here. The boundless open space without any frills or distractions allowed him to focus.

“Jan,” Steve said, summoning his automated secretary, an intelligent software agent that controlled his virtual office. She functioned as a glorified keyboard and screen for his VR server. Like every site on the Internet, his home office resided on the hard drive of a VR server located in some remote office building. Jan interpreted what he said and executed the appropriate programs on the VR server. Jan’s ability to understand abstract problems and her attempts to solve them is what made her software
intelligent
.

Jan materialized before him. He had modeled her after Mrs. Jan Beecher, his high school math teacher. Steve had also programmed her with the same disposition. “Oh, good, you’re back. I was getting worried.”

“Jan, open the Nexus file,” Steve said.

He had carried Austin’s file to his office. The object representing the file had been copied from Nexus Corporation’s server, transmitted across the Internet, and saved on his office’s VR server. If anyone had examined the file while it was in transit, it would have appeared as a random series of numbers, letters, and symbols. The encryption key, like a translator, transmuted the file and revealed the true data contents.

“What are you waiting for?” Jan probed.

Steve chuckled. Sometimes he regretted programming Jan with such an attitude. “The key is
patch
, he responded.

“How creative,” Jan said.

The file in his hand disappeared as Jan broke the seal, and a circular globe appeared and levitated in front of him. A short file of Camille Anderson played across its surface. She had visited the house once while on a family trip. She looked now as she had looked then—beautiful, innocent, and very, very young.

Steve took a deep breath. All he could do was concentrate on the problem at hand.

“Jan, summarize the contents of this folder.”

“Oh sure, it contains 941 pages of text, 121 pictures, and 31 video clips. The text consists of 10,381 paragraphs, 37,961 lines, 312,620 words …”

“Jan, that’s enough.” It was going to be a long afternoon.

He looked again at the girl’s image. Her gaze bore into him. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.
No else will die from this. I promise.

S
hannon Pierce grabbed the controls of the flying disk, checked her gauges, and righted the aircraft. The console was dark—no flashing lights. Good, nothing damaged. Well, almost nothing. Her head still throbbed from where she had hit the wall of the cockpit. Whoever he was, he was good.

Dogfight Central had opened last year as a chat room for fighting enthusiasts. The release of the Nexus Transporter had pushed it over the top. It was the new thing. The adrenaline induced from aerial combat was addictive. Dogfight Central diverged from the standard live combat site in that it had the added twist of being a dating service. The site had matched Shannon with another player based on their answers to a common set of questions. The loser would pick up the tab for the date. Shannon came here often because she never lost, and it allowed her to unwind after work.

She clocked the early shift from 4 a.m. to noon as a support analyst for Metis Data. All day she listened to the needs of irate customers. Like most support organizations, they were understaffed and overworked. Of course, the company continued to talk about quality, empowerment, and other such jargon. For Shannon it translated to long hours, low pay, and no respect. She shot down planes, disks, and other aircraft to release her anxiety and relieve her loneliness.

Shannon was alone. She had finally moved out of her parents’ home last year. At thirty-three she was having a hard time adjusting. New in town, she had very few friends. Her odd working hours did not help things. Although it was easy to create superficial relationships online, it was much harder to forge meaningful connections. She satisfied her hunger for intimacy with free dates in cyberspace. They satisfied her enough to get her through until the next day.

Shannon regained her bearings and scanned the horizon. At two o’clock and a thousand feet down, she saw her assailant speeding away.

He assumed he killed me
. His arrogance was her lucky break. Shannon shoved the throttle forward, and her disk accelerated. The sudden surge pressed her back into the seat. She forced the stick down and sent her disk into a hard dive, watching the indicators to make sure she did not stall one of her four engines. His craft filled her view screen. It was a Sierra jet with cropped wings, which made it look more like a rocket. A smile crept across her face as she moved in for the kill.

At the last second, he veered his craft hard to the right, but it was not soon enough. Shannon managed to correct her descent and gouge a three-foot break along the jet’s right wing with the sharp edge of her circular aircraft. Oil seeped from the wound and his jet vibrated from the loss of aerodynamics.

She stole a look aft as she passed him by. His jet slowed and its nose dipped toward the ground. She made a leisurely circle and came around to finish him off.
All too easy.

She lined up her disk behind him and followed his shallow descent, but he dove and broke right, and she overshot his position. The gauges on her console were blank. Where was he? She scanned again and he appeared on the radar—behind her.
He’s good.

Shannon turned a square corner just as a river of fire leaped from the pursuing jet, and bullets ripped through the outer shell of her disk. Still flying forward, she spun the disk around like a top. Her main guns faced her pursuer, and Shannon smashed down on the stick. The disk angled up, and as the jet appeared through her gun sights, Shannon squeezed the trigger. A thousand rounds a second leaped from her gun, but the stream of lead passed directly in front of the jet.

The jet veered up. With the skill of a surgeon, she nudged her rudder and stitched the jet from nose to tail with lead. Fuel spewed from the wounds and caught fire. She checked her gauges. Everything was green—no yellow or red lights anywhere.

Shannon looked up. A shroud of thick smoke hid him. Like a top, Shannon spun the disk back around and faced forward. The ground was close.

She banked up hard and heard the whine of the missile too late. The warhead tore through the outer shell of her disk and knocked her craft sideways. The missile failed to detonate and continued on its path, disappearing into a cloud. She righted the disk, gained a little altitude, and glanced at her gauges.

One of the engine lights flashed red. The fuel gauge’s needle dipped. With the flip of a few switches, she secured the fuel line and shut down the engine. Shannon glanced back at her gauges. No red light, but the fuel gauge’s needle still dropped steadily.

“Computer, ETA to an empty fuel tank.”

“Two minutes,” responded the computer.

An alarm went off in her cockpit and Shannon looked down. The radar showed a missile on her six. She jerked the stick and banked left. The missile traveled past her.

Another alarm blared. She dove, and a flash of light blinded her for a second, follow by a pop above. Shrapnel from the exploding missile spattered against the ship’s hull. The sound reminded her of hailstorms back home.

Enough was enough.

She retarded the throttle, deployed the speed brakes, and pointed skyward to convert airspeed to altitude. Like hitting a wall, her airspeed plummeted. The force slammed her forward against her seat belt.

Shannon looked around. Where was he? He should have flown right past her.

“Computer, back view.”

The jet, no longer on fire, rode her tail. He had matched her maneuver perfectly! A thick oily trail of fuel streamed from her disk to her pursuer. Cleansing fluid steamed across the front of his jet. Likely, goo coated many of the jet’s sensors.

She pushed the throttle past the stops and fired the afterburners. Her craft popped forward and ignited the trail of fuel. Flames enveloped the entire front of his craft. Blinded, he broke off his attack and dove.

Shannon spun her craft around and dove in pursuit. She saw sky.

“Damn it! Computer, front view.” The image changed. She saw a spec against a blue ocean a mile ahead and a few thousand feet below. “Computer, how’s my fuel?”

“I do not understand the question. Please rephrase.”

“Computer, ETA to an empty fuel tank.”

“Thirty-seven seconds.”

“Computer, replace the time display with a count down to an empty fuel tank.”

The time readout in the upper left-hand corner of Shannon’s vision changed—thirty-three seconds.
Plenty of time.
Shannon dove and caught her enemy.

He veered his craft erratically.
His gauges are down; he’s flying by sight!
She smiled and bore down on her throttle. He veered left. She followed. He turned right and she compensated. Shannon moved in closer.

He pulled up, and Shannon eased back and glanced up at the timer—twenty-one seconds.
Patience. Plenty of time.

He leveled out.
Good
. She eased in behind him and lined up her weapons. She took an extra second to target each of her weapons for a different area of his craft; and then she opened fire.

Bullets and miniature missiles strafed his craft, riddling it with holes. Bits and pieces of metal disappeared from the jet’s hull. After a few seconds, black smoke billowed from its tail and the jet dipped into a dive. Shannon shot blindly through the black smoke.

An alarm in the cockpit distracted her. The fuel gauge’s needle rested at empty. She glanced at her display. It still read eleven seconds.

Her disk turned on its side and plummeted at a sharper angle. He would hit the ground first. She would still win. “Another free date,” she muttered.

Her craft passed through the billows of black smoke. To her surprise she saw beneath her a parachute attached to the jet. It drifted to earth.

“No, no, no!” She would have to remember the parachute for her own craft next time, though she doubted anyone would get this close again. She had never been hit before. She steered toward the jet and attempted to gouge it on the way down, but the disk was diving too fast.

Think!
She scanned her console—the harpoon. Her disk was equipped with a harpoon and attached cable.

The disk passed the jet, and she aimed the harpoon and fired. The harpoon impaled the jet’s right wing. As the line between them went taut, her craft lurched violently and threw her face into the console. After a couple of seconds, the disk steadied. She glanced at the console. All the lights were dead. Shannon punched a few buttons for the reserve battery and the cockpit came to life. Blinking yellow and red lights lit up the console. She ignored them. Instead, she flicked on the view screen.

Her craft dangled from the harpoon cable attached to the jet. Behind the jet, she saw the sun. She would hit the ground first and lose the match. At least only a couple seconds separated them.

She looked back at the view screen. Her disk pointed upward, straight at him. There had to be something left. Shannon scanned her arsenal and found it: one Rockland, heat seeking, incendiary missile. She fired. The missile arced back and curved sharply into the jet, the explosion cutting the cable. The disk turned and plummeted to the earth.

“Computer, back view.” The missile had obliterated the jet. Shannon smiled.

The scene faded and then rematerialized as the lobby of a fine restaurant. She now stood in a dimly lit room with vaulted ceilings, white walls, and beige carpets. Works by famous artists decorated the walls. Shannon paid little attention. She was not really into art. She just wanted to gloat over her victory.

“Excuse me, Shannon?” A waiter had appeared next to her.

“Yes?” she asked.

“You won your encounter with Syzygy. He will be along shortly. May I show you to your table?”

Shannon nodded and followed the waiter past rows of tables. Some of the patrons viewed
3
D replays of their duels. Others enjoyed their virtual meals over wine and spirits. All the pleasures of eating without the calories—an anorexic’s fantasy come true. Well, except for the fact that you remained hungry.
The fad would pass,
she thought.

“Is this acceptable?”

The waiter had shown her to a table with a view of a large city from several stories up. She nodded.

“May I get you something to drink while you wait?”

“Yes, I’d like a Long Island Iced Tea.”

“Thank you.” He turned and left.

Looking down, she saw her drink had already materialized on the table. Shannon took a tentative sip. Virtual drinks were not her thing either. Shannon didn’t quite understand the point of them. They had no mind-altering effects. Besides, she had never acquired a taste for alcohol anyway.

“Nice shooting,” a flat voice said. She looked up from her drink and saw a tall man with light skin and deep green eyes.

“I’m Syzygy.”

“Ice,” she replied.

He took his seat opposite her. Shannon gave him a once-over. He was cute. She waited for him to say something. The silence stretched. She felt awkward. “So, you know you’re the first person in a long time that came close to beating me.”

He smiled. Shannon liked his smile. She wondered if he was any good in bed. At thirty-three she found herself victimized by her hormones. Another silence stretched between them. “So, what do you like to do?” She took a nervous sip from her drink.

“Dueling, racing, and virtual sex.”

She almost spewed ice tea across the table. “Well, we are forward, aren’t we?”

“Yes.” He got up. His expression was blank.

“I…I like that.” She rose.
Did I offend him?
Cute or not, he was strange and dangerous. She smiled.
So what? I like danger.

He took her hand. “Have you ever seen the sunsets on Hainan?”

She shook her head. He smiled, opened a portal, and she followed him through.

Shannon emerged with Syzygy on a warm beach. The sun set low in the west, and two monolithic boulders towered above the ocean just fifty or so feet out from the shore. The boulders cast two long shadows that stretched out across the beach to either side of them.

Syzygy held out his hand. She smiled and accepted it. As they strolled along the beach hand in hand and in silence, Shannon drank in the calm sound of breaking waves and crying gulls. After a quarter mile Syzygy stopped. Shannon looked into his eyes. She could not hold his stare, and she glanced away. Such confidence! “Is this a place from your childhood?”

He gave her a perplexed look and did not answer. Instead, he drew her close to him and tried to kiss her.

She put out her hand. “Whoa, stallion, too fast.”

He pressed harder and brushed her lips with his.

“Listen, jerk, I said no!” She pushed against his chest, but he was too strong.

Syzygy kissed her neck.

“Computer, V-chip software online.” Nothing happened. “Stop it!” she yelled at him.

He ripped her blouse and exposed her left breast.

It’s just cyberspace. It’s not real.
But rape was rape, virtual or not. “Goddamn it! I said no!” She kicked him hard in the groin.

Syzygy stepped back.

She turned and ran toward the ocean, and as she did so, she pressed the exit button inset on her wrist. It wasn’t working either. The Nexus did not release her. Why?

As she reached the water’s edge, he grabbed her hair from behind and threw her to the ground. The pain jolted through her body as her face slammed into the hard, wet sand. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The Nexus had safeguards to prevent that level of pain. He pinned her head to the ground with his foot. Shannon grabbed his ankle and rolled. A snap told her she had popped his knee. She got up and ran down the beach. Shannon sneaked a peek back. Syzygy ran after her without as much as a limp. If he could hurt her, why couldn’t she hurt him? He closed the distance between them.

“Help, somebody help me!” she screamed. The site’s computer should hear and assist her. Someone would come to her aid. No one did.

An excruciating headache hit her, and she dropped on the sand at the water’s edge. She got up on one knee, but fell back down. How could anything hurt so badly? Syzygy stopped running and crept toward her. She writhed on the ground, her hands clutching her head.

The headache stopped. Shannon opened her eyes and found she was levitating above the scene. She saw from her bird’s eye perch that Syzygy was on top of her body now. She felt strangely at peace. The image quivered like a disturbed reflection when a stone strikes the surface of a pond.

Back in her room, she levitated above her convulsing body, its eyes open and glazed. Her skin looked pale as the blood drained from her face. Above her, the ceiling was gone. She rose.

With few friends and a high turnover rate at work, Shannon went unmissed. Her boss wrote her off as another burnout case. Given Shannon’s long tenure, the only question on her boss’s mind was what took so long. Her parents did not call, having been chided the previous week to give her space. No one notified the authorities.