Gameprey (2000) Read online

  Maj climbed again, cutting back on speed since the threat seemed to be gone. The dragon flapped its bat wings and dropped into the same heading she’d chosen. In seconds the dragonrider was at her side again.

  Outside the canopy the dragonrider made a few gestures. A necklace of violet-red links appeared around his throat. He gazed at Maj and asked clearly, “Who are you?”

  Excitement flooded through Maj. Communication! There was nothing like communication!

  “Griffen has broken through the language inhibitor virus,” Heavener said.

  “I know.” Gaspar reached back into his own veeyar and uploaded the power-ups he’d copied from the game. The power-ups were intended as bonuses and prizes for the other players as they worked through the quest levels in the game, but he’d written in additional programming that made them his anytime he wanted.

  He reached into the game menu and accessed the enemy programming. At present the game was set on NORMAL play, allowing the destruction of the tera’lanth forces. He activated the AUTOMATIC RESPAWN feature and re-created his army. Instantly, the skies filled with the winged warriors again. Without mercy they descended on the dragon and the jet.

  Quills rained destruction down on the jet. Black smoke trailed after the aircraft in clouds. The jet dived, taking advantage of rather than fighting gravity, descending like a striking predator.

  Flapping his wings and taking advantage of his power-ups, Gaspar dived after them. He’d spent countless hours in the tera’lanth form, either watching Peter Griffen’s activities and sometimes playing along, or in the version of the game he’d had to work with.

  Gaspar followed the gleaming needle shape rocketing above the green sward. He folded his wings, diving into an interception course. He arrived less than a quarter mile directly in front of the jet.

  He spread his wings, halting his downward momentum. With his heightened senses, he was aware of the two missiles leaping from the jet’s wings as well as the fireball hurtling from the dragon’s throat.

  He unleashed his quill attack from his spread wings an instant before the two missiles slammed into him. The twin concussions hammered him, doubling him over, but the power-ups he’d used left him alive in the game.

  Then the quills ripped into the jet. Less than a hundred yards out, silvery bits of metal and Plexiglas flew in all directions, followed by an explosion as the high-octane fuel blew.

  “Game over.” Gaspar grinned, but he didn’t have long to enjoy his victory. The dragon’s fireball hit him and burned him to a cinder.

  Matt Hunter opened his eyes and instinctively lifted his head from the contact points on the implant chair. He could still feel the detonation that had destroyed the jet and triggered the Net’s automatic log-off safeguard.

  He scanned the walls and saw that he was in his own bedroom back in Columbia, Maryland. Questions filled his mind, but mostly he was worried about Maj.

  He lay his head back on the implant chair and felt the buzz as contact was made. When he opened his eyes again, he was in his own veeyar.

  He floated cross-legged beneath a star-filled sky that gave him a better view of space than most observatories. A comet streaked by overhead, leaving purple phosphorescence twinkling along behind it. In the next moment the comet hit the atmosphere and caught fire, creating a pyrotechnic delight as it burned.

  Matt ignored the comet and reached out to the black marble slab in front of him. He punched the inch-high blue icon that opened the computer’s vidphone function. A rectangular screen opened in front of him.

  “You have messages,” the computer voice announced.

  “Save for later,” Matt commanded. “Open phone database.” He hadn’t memorized the number of the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel where Maj was staying. She’s okay, he told himself desperately.

  The rectangle opened with a ripple. “Please state preference.”

  “Los Angeles, California. Bessel Mid-Town Hotel. Room five eighteen.” Matt waited, listening to the vidphone ring the other end. His anxiety increased with every ring, but Maj didn’t pick up the vidphone.

  Breathing raggedly, Gaspar Latke opened his eyes in the darkness. His heart hammered inside his chest. Too many hours online, he knew, and not nearly enough sleep. A light film of perspiration covered him, chilling him in the air-conditioned room Heavener insisted on keeping just above the frost level.

  “They’re out of the veeyar?” the woman asked.

  Gaspar held up a trembling hand, observing the quivering fingers with bright interest. The fireball had been so big and so real. He had to give Peter that. Gaspar hadn’t been hit by a fireball in the game in months. Losing wasn’t an experience he liked to repeat. “Yes.”

  “The veeyar overlap happened in the hotel,” Heavener said.

  “It had to,” Gaspar said irritably. Everyone knew that the game’s programming only affected local computer systems.

  “We want you back online. We want her computer scrubbed.”

  “Scrub it if you want,” Gaspar said, “but she’ll still talk.”

  “No,” Heavener said calmly, “she won’t. We have people on-site there.”

  A chill even stronger than the air-conditioning filled Gaspar. He knew D’Arnot Industries had no qualms about killing, but he’d never been part of it himself.

  “Find her,” Heavener commanded, “and scrub any archived computer files she may have saved online.”

  Gaspar reluctantly pushed himself from the implant chair. As soon as he tried to stand, his knees buckled, refusing to take his weight. A fresh wave of perspiration covered him as he caught himself on his hands, just saving him from hitting the floor with his face.

  Heavener cursed and crossed the room immediately. She grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to his feet. “Don’t give up on me now, you little piece of feek.”

  Gaspar felt hot tears filling his eyes. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so close to total exhaustion. The last few days he wasn’t sure if he’d slept or not. D’Arnot Industries had wanted him pulling twenty-four-hour surveillance on Peter on the Net, and Peter worked incredible hours. But Peter Griffen was healthy and didn’t have other assignments that D’Arnot Industries wanted from him.

  Heavener dragged Gaspar to the other implant chair and unceremoniously threw him into it. “Get online. Find the girl and scrub her computer.”

  Gaspar’s stomach rolled sickeningly. He retched, but only a thin, sour drool leaked down his beard-stubbled chin.

  “Latke,” Heavener barked, “now! We don’t have time to waste!”

  Raking the sour drool from his chin with the back of his arm, Gaspar lay back in the lineup chair. His implants touched the laser beam connectors. He felt the familiar buzz, started to enter his veeyar, but saw the cluttered room suddenly fade away before he could seat himself at the desk. He tried twice more, but each time the veeyar faded away.

  Heavener stood at his side. “What’s wrong?”

  With a quivering hand, Gaspar pointed out the chair’s vital signs readout. “My current level of anxiety, stress, and health are dangerous. The chair won’t allow me on the Net until my vitals are within the tolerance limits.”

  “Then we’ll beat the vital signs readout.” Heavener took a slim case that Gaspar had never seen from her pocket. She opened it, revealing three slim hypodermics neatly held inside. She took one of them from the case, popped the protective sleeve covering the needle, then depressed the plunger to make sure there was no air inside.

  “No!” Gaspar croaked.

  Heavener popped him in the throat with her elbow, causing him to gag. “Lie down.”

  Hypnotized by the hypodermic, Gaspar grabbed the arm holding him down but wasn’t able to leverage her off him. She forced him back into the implant chair and the automatic formfit feature kicked in, shrinking the chair around him. The pip-pip-pip of the vital signs rejection echoed in the big room.

  “No,” he gasped. “Please.”

  Heavener’s cold, amber cat’s eyes sho
ne as she looked into his. “You’re alive only as long as you remain useful. You’d do well to remember that.” Her hand flashed forward, and he felt the needle pierce the side of his neck.

  A warm lassitude drifted through Gaspar’s body. In seconds he felt removed from his body, even more distant than going online left him.

  But inside he was still screaming.

  The pip-pip-pip rejection from the implant chair slowed, then quit.

  “Find the girl,” Heavener commanded harshly over the audlink. “Find the girl or no one will ever find you.”

  “Sure,” Gaspar replied. He didn’t care. She didn’t matter to him. Nothing did. He was on the Net, and for the moment he was as free as he ever got. Seated behind the desk in the cluttered room of his veeyar, he launched himself onto the Net and streaked for the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel.

  3

  Matt Hunter grew more frantic as the vidphone connection failed to complete.

  “Attempt failed,” the computer reported. “Would you like to retry or report failure to BellNet?”

  “Run diagnostics,” Matt said.

  “Compliance. Diagnostics running.” A menu screen popped into view inside the vidphone screen. “Systems parameters meet established criteria. Would you like to retry the number or report failure to BellNet?”

  Matt didn’t feel as if he had time to go through the automated services of the Net phone company. Even as fast as they were, he knew he could work faster. He punched Mark Gridley’s number. Despite the fact that it was one o’clock in the morning in Maryland, the Squirt would be up and online somewhere.

  “Attempt failed,” the computer said. “Would you like to retry or report failure to BellNet?”

  Matt’s mind raced. If the vidphone system checked out but he still couldn’t call out, that left only one option: Someone was shutting him out of the link. “Examine systems for virus.”

  “Diagnostics reveal newly installed programming,” the computer reported. “It doesn’t appear detrimental to this system.”

  Yeah, well, an effective virus won’t appear detrimental to an ops system, Matt thought. “Open access.”

  “Compliance.” The screen overlying the vidphone menu enlarged and the surface rippled.

  Matt stood and placed a hand on the screen. The sensory input from the screen made it feel slightly chill and damp. When he drew his hand back, the surface tension clung to him. Taking a deep breath, he plunged through.

  On the other side of the access panel, he spotted the configuration for the vidphone uplink. Thick cables covered a wall to his right, leaving the rest of the large cinderblock room undisturbed.

  How long had it been since he’d been dumped out of the Net? Maj was on her own until he found a way to get help to her. Catie Murray was at the same hotel. Catie was another Net Force Explorer and Bradford Academy student and friend.

  But the vidphone had to be operational before Matt could get word to her.

  Accessing his operating-system tools, Matt stretched his hand out. Immediately a flashlight formed along his forearm, spurting out a wide-angled beam. He played it over the wall where the cables were. The shadows slithered away.

  He stepped forward. The programming for the vidphone didn’t actually look like the confusion of cables protruding from the wall, but that was how his computer operating system rendered them in veeyar.

  Tiny green-shelled bugs moved among the cables, rerouting the interfaces so they constantly fed back into themselves. Receiving a signal from BellNet was no problem from this end, but getting out was impossible.

  “Analyze,” Matt ordered. Instantly the flashlight changed into a triangular device that fit comfortably in both his hands.

  Slipping a virus along the BellNet lines was all but impossible. Whoever had tagged him with it knew a lot about Net systems. But who would try to shut him down? And why?

  The triangular analyzer came up with a virus purge code in seconds. Mark Gridley had few equals in writing code. “Purge.” The triangular analyzer reconfigured itself into a pump mister. He squeezed off a burst, and white powder drifted down over the virus.

  As soon as the power touched them, the green-shelled bugs went into a frenzy, crawling along the various cables. Even as they were going on retreat, two cables suddenly snapped their moorings and shot at Matt.

  He twisted and backed away, dodging the sudden strike. A brief image of a mechanical snake’s head ghosted through his mind. He twisted and dodged again, completing a back flip that narrowly brought him out of range of the second mechanical snake as it plunged through the yellow octagon marking time.

  Realization that the virus had come encoded with its own protection crystallized in Matt’s thoughts. Something as well put together as the virus was, I should have been expecting this, he chided himself.

  He started for the door only to see it slam shut. Dim shadows on the wall slithered and danced, closing in on his shadow. He leaped over another attack. Hard, cold metal rasped along his leg. In real time the impact would have broken his leg, but in veeyar it only knocked him from his feet.

  He lifted his right wrist, aiming Mark’s tools package at the closest mechanical snake. “Analyze.”

  The cable-snake waved from side to side as it rose to its full height. A liquid hiss squeezed from between the distended jaws. Saliva dripped from the snake’s mouth, filled with bouncing electrical particles that sparked and spun.

  Code strands spun on the triangular device’s screen, then locked in as the cable-snake struck again. The open mouth flashed at Matt.

  “Purge!” The analyzer morphed from the triangular device to a quicksilver glove that oozed over Matt’s right arm. The wicked snout of a firearm protruded from his fist. He fired and a sea-green burst of laser light hit the cable-snake.

  The light disintegrated the cable-snake’s head in a white-hot explosion. The second attacker ripped through the shadows, moving too quickly for Matt to target. He rolled and came up firing. A cloud of sizzling sparks ignited around the cable-snake, and it vanished a heartbeat later.

  Breathing heavily, Matt surveyed the room. Nothing moved except the tiny green-shelled bugs. He switched back to the first antivirus program and hosed them down. The tiny bugs dropped to the cinderblock floor with metallic tinks.

  Matt stepped back through the access screen and into his veeyar again just as the comet slammed into the ground and left a crater nearly an eighth of a mile across. Returning to the black marble slab, he touched the vidphone and repeated his request for the number and room at the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel.

  The phone rang and Matt waited tensely.

  Gaspar Latke walked through the virtual doors of the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel and covered himself in the SHEPPARD, TED proxy. His head felt curiously full, but he didn’t care.

  He crossed the lobby and opened the computer interface at the desk. After bypassing the security, he brought up the Net access records, looking for the access port that had crossed over into Peter’s veeyar.

  The guest list scrolled under his finger as he touched the screen, complete with Net access records. Public housing kept excellent records. They had to so they wouldn’t get implicated in any wrongdoing that took place under their roofs. They also held the right to block access to all records until handed a court order.

  The guest record stopped moving when the search criteria were met.

  Gaspar read the name out loud. “Green, Madeline. Fifth floor, room five eighteen.” He closed the guest records and touched the vidphone link, punching in the room number.

  The phone rang at the other end of the connection. When it was answered, Gaspar relaxed his virtual body’s cohesiveness and flowed into the vidphone link.

  The vidphone drew Maj’s attention as she blinked her eyes open in the implant chair. She sat up and quickly checked her surroundings. The hotel room, complete with desk and chair, king-sized bed, chest of drawers, and computer, looked much more welcoming than when she’d first arrived that afternoon.

/>   She punched the vidphone and brought the connection online. The taglines on the screen let her know the call was coming from inside the hotel. I wouldn’t be surprised if that bleed-over attracted the attention of the house detectives, she thought. She grabbed her foilpack from the bed so she’d have her Net Force Explorer ID handy and turned to the vidphone.

  The screen came up briefly, just a flicker that showed the mural behind the check-in desk downstairs. Then it closed.

  “Weird,” Maj said, disconnecting. “Though not the first weird thing I’ve seen tonight.” She thought about Matt then, wondering if he’d gotten out of the veeyar in good shape.

  The vidphone rang again.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you all right?” Matt’s voice would have sounded calm to most people, but Maj knew him well enough to hear the tension in his words.

  “I’m fine. How are you?”

  “I survived. Have you figured out what just happened?”

  “Someone crashed my veeyar and invaded my system,” Maj replied. “Unless you have any other ideas.”

  “No. Although I think the guy on the dragon wasn’t the only person online.”

  “You’re talking about the demonoid.” Maj had already reached the same conclusion. “The question is, did the demonoid invade my system or the dragonrider’s?”

  “My vote is for the dragonrider. I find it interesting that the demonoid concentrated on us rather than the dragonrider. Maybe the demonoid was there to protect him.”

  Maj considered that, relying on the intuition that usually let her get to the bottom of problems. She’d been told her skills at recognizing the underlying conflicts in situations involving people and events were sometimes uncanny. “I didn’t get that feeling.” She glanced at the computer, watching as the files cycled through. “I’m going back in.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No.” Maj climbed back into the implant chair. She felt anxious, ready to get off the vidphone and find out what was going on. She kept flashing on the confusion and concern that had filled the dragonrider’s face. He didn’t know. He had no clue I was going to be there. Eyes that blue can’t hide the truth. She shook her head at herself. And maybe you’re getting too mushy. “I’m sending two files your way. One of them is an audio file of our communication with the dragonrider. See if you can get it interpreted.”