He was wandering. He drew himself back to the meeting at hand. “We are going to have to push up our deadline on Attack Omega,” he said.
That drew louder grumbles.
“I know, I know. You are already running as fast as you can. There is no help for it — the decision comes from on high. We will be coordinating with the other agents of change on this, and we can’t slip the deadline even by an hour. Whatever we have when Omega launches is what we have. I’d like for it to be as much as possible. Okay, let’s put on our question hats and get them all out in the open…”
Later, after they had filed out, Keller sat at the table, idly tapping his fingertips on the wood, thinking. His team would give him all they had. And he would roll up his sleeves and help them — Jay Gridley was the linchpin around which Net Force’s security operations revolved. Throw enough sand at Jay, and he’d grind to a halt, and if Jay was stymied, much of Net Force’s interference would also be slowed, maybe stopped.
Whatever Santos thought of him, all it would take would be for Keller to point a finger at Jay, and he’d be a dead man. That was the surest way of removing him from the picture. And probably it was safer for CyberNation to do it that way.
But…
Where was the honor in that? The skill? The knowing that he could take Jay on and beat him, using the weapons they had developed with their brains. Any thug could crack somebody over the head with a club. Beating Jay Gridley mano a mano, VR against VR, computer to computer, that was something to make a man feel good.
Kill Jay? No. Not with a gun or knife. Beating him at his own game, that was how he would do it. Defeating him intellectually, shattering his confidence, taking away what he thought he was, that was worse than death for a man like Jay Gridley.
Nothing less would do.
He took a deep breath. Well. Might as well get started. He had a couple of things he could give Jay to chew on. He smiled. Yes, indeed.
Santos finished his exercises. Drenched in sweat, he headed for the shower.
The workout had been good, but he was getting stale. It had been too long since he had trained against an expert. The solo dances were okay for maintaining muscle tone, to stay flexible and to keep alive the basics, but you did not learn to fight men by practicing alone. Mirror warriors were no threat. To keep a skill sharp, you had to hone it against another player of equal or better skill. Timing, distance, position, those could only be learned against dangerous opposition. The flow had to be there.
Soon, he would have to find players of enough ability to challenge him. There were none on this ship, none within easy travel range. Maybe in Cuba — he had heard there were some old-line players still there, hiding in the cane fields, practicing by moonlight, since the art was still frowned on, even after the Old Man was gone — but finding them would be the trick. There were some in the U.S., of course, even in Florida, but to get a real challenge, he would need to go home, that’s where the best players still were, and that was not in the cards in the near future — not until this job was finished.
He sighed. A man had to learn to put off his wants to deal with his needs.
He turned the cold water on full blast, shucked his pants, and stepped into the shower. The cold needles made him catch his breath, but it was a good feeling.
Then there was the problem of Missy Chance to consider. She was sleeping with Jackson Keller, at least, maybe others — who knew? One of the barmaids in the casino had told Santos this while she had been enjoying his body in her room, after he had returned from dispatching the vice president of the server company.
Santos soaped the long-handled and stiff-bristled brush and began to scrub his face and neck.
He saw no irony in finding out that his mistress was sleeping with another man from a woman he was screwing. Men were allowed to be with more than one woman, God had made men that way, but a woman who was unfaithful? That was wrong. He could not blame Keller for wanting Missy, though he, too, would have to pay. But if it was not rape, and he could not imagine that happening to her, then Missy must be made to… atone for her action.
He moved the rough brush down, scrubbed his shoulders, his armpits, his back.
Missy was expert in bed, but she was too sure that such ability made her superior to other women. It did not. In the dark, they were all the same, true?
She must be made to understand that some things could not be allowed by a man such as Santos. Not allowed.
“A nightclub?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “More like a… roadhouse,” she said.
Michaels looked at Toni and raised one eyebrow.
They were in the living room. The baby was asleep, and so was Guru.
“We haven’t been out since Alex was born,” she said.
“Yes, we have,” he said.
“Not by ourselves,” she said.
“We didn’t have a baby-sitter,” he said. “And if we had had a baby-sitter, we wouldn’t have trusted her.”
“Well, we do now,” she said, smiling. “Guru.”
“She’s a witch, you know. She’s put a spell on our son. No baby should behave that well.”
“Alex…”
“So, what is the attraction of this roadhouse exactly?”
“The food is supposed to be terrific, and they have a great live band.”
“As opposed to a great dead band?”
“Has anybody ever told you how funny you are?”
“All the time.”
“Yeah, well, they lied.”
“Now who’s being funny?”
“Anyway, the band is called Diana and the Song Dogs.”
“What kind of music do they play?”
“Well, it’s kind of, well, uh… country/rock/folk/blues fusion.”
“Oh, please. Not another of those new-age bands playing touchy-feely elevator music—”
“No, no, nothing like that. It’s just the kind of music you can listen to while having a beer. Foot-stompin’, bug-squashin’ music.”
“Had a lot of that in the Bronx, did we?”
“We had radio. We had television. Why, we even had transportation that could take us to places outside our neighborhood.”
“Ah. I see.”
“No, you don’t. But you will.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t just rather stay home and enjoy the quiet? Just the two of us in the house? Alone?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Guru can take Alex to the park for a couple of hours—”
“We are going out. I am not going to become one of those women who, if she ever gets the chance to talk to anybody, prattles on about what color her little darling’s last poop was when she changed his diaper.”
“What color was it?”
“Go get dressed, Alex,” she said. Her tone was ominous.
The roadhouse was called the Stone Creek Pub and Grill, and it was far enough out into the Virginia countryside that it took a while to get there. There were a lot of trees, so there was plenty of oxygen in the air when they found a parking spot in the crowded lot. And there were animals living in the area, too — less one skunk somebody had run over, adding a fragrant stink to the evening breeze.
“Jeez, what an odor,” Toni said.
“You wanted to come here.”
The place appeared to be a converted barn, lots of open woodwork and bare walls with old metal signs and horse harnesses and such hung on the walls. They managed to find a table, and it was noisy, filled with people, and busy. Still, Michaels was fine once he had gotten up and past the inertia. Toni was right; they needed to get out more. Having her back at work was good, but hardly restful. Becoming parents had put a big crimp in their lives. Michaels really didn’t mind, since he would usually just as soon stay home as go out after a hard day at the office. But it was all too easy to turn into a couch potato who stayed home all the time, warm and secure in the nest. The baby hadn’t helped that. It was easier to be where they had everything they needed; if they went out, they had to pack diaper bags with bottles and clothes and rattles and stuff, and it was a hassle. He had gone through that with Susie when she’d been a baby, but he had forgotten, it had been so long.