“Bon chance,” Jacques replied. They clinked glasses, then drank.
“You have some information for me?” Jay said, after they put their glasses down.
“Oui, my friend. I believe I have exactly what you want. At a price, of course.”
Jay raised an eyebrow. “Whatever it costs, I’ll pay it. Tell me.”
But before he could speak, there was an explosion. A gunshot, Jay realized, as he saw the blood blossom on Jacques’s chest, over the heart.
What the hell—? This wasn’t part of the scenario—!
Jay dropped to the floor in a deep squat and looked around in time to see a native dressed in one of those funny Shriner hats and a white-and-blue striped robe run out of the club.
Jay got up and sprinted for the exit, chasing the man. Who was this? How had he breached Jay’s VR construct?
In the alley, Jay saw the assassin running away. Bullshit!
Jay took off. Whoever he was, he wasn’t nearly fast enough to outrun Jay Gridley in his own damned scenario!
But even as Jay gained on the running man, he realized he wasn’t going to catch him. The reason — reasons, actually, at least six of them — appeared right in front of him.
Half a dozen men, bare-chested, in basketball shorts and shoes, holding baseball bats, chains, knives, and what looked like a pitchfork, stepped out of the shadows between Jay and his quarry.
“Yo, yo,” one of the basketball players said. “What’s your hurry, baby?”
These guys were anachronisms — they didn’t belong here, weren’t right for the time, even if they’d been Jay’s constructs. And they weren’t.
What the hell?!
As they moved toward him, Jay realized he didn’t belong here, either. He didn’t have time to come up with any kind of effective defense. The scenario was blown.
He bailed.
Jay pulled the sensory gear off and threw it at the computer console.
There hadn’t been any real danger, of course, only to his construct. After the business with the mad Brit, he had made damned sure there was no way to turn his computer into what was effectively a capacitor that might be able to deliver an electric charge through the sensory connections. But it was galling anyhow, to be forced out of your own scenario!
How had this happened? Somebody would have to know where he was, be able to get past his wards, and be good enough to reprogram the input without Jay spotting him. For all practical purposes, it ought to be almost impossible — well, at least with a player of Jay’s skill it ought to be. That it had happened was irritating — and scary.
It had to be one of the guys who had bollixed the net and web. They’d already shown how good they were, and now they were putting it right in his face.
Now it was getting personal.
He swore again. He needed to figure this out. And, as much as he hated the idea, he also needed to let the boss know. If nothing else, it meant they were getting closer. You didn’t get that kind of response if you were wandering around in the woods lost somewhere. He must be trampling awful close to somebody’s hidden marijuana patch.
Toni listened to the music with one ear, and Alex’s conversation with the other. It didn’t take long for her to figure out it was Jay Gridley on the other end of Alex’s virgil.
After a minute, Alex broke the connection.
“What’s up?”
He shook his head. “Jay thinks he’s getting closer to the bad guys who screwed the net.”
“That’s good.”
“Maybe not. He says they must have set him up. Gave him a place that he thought he could get some information, then when he went in, they jumped him — electronically speaking.”
“Yes?”
Alex explained it to her. Apparently Jay had been rousted from his own scenario. Which must have really bent him out of shape, Toni knew. She’d never met a computer geek who didn’t think he was God’s gift to electrons.
“But other than a bruised ego, no harm done, right?”
Alex nodded. “That’s how I see it. But as he pointed out, whoever did it must know he’s looking for them. And they knew where he might be apt to look. Which means he’s maybe on the right path.”
She nodded. “Maybe. Or maybe they just set a whole bunch of snares and one of them snagged Jay. He gets his foot out, goes charging down the trail, and maybe he’s heading exactly opposite of where they are.”
“Could be. I don’t have Jay’s expertise to say.”
“But it sounds as if the bad guys do. Not good.”
“No.”
“Do we need to go home? Or to the office?”
“No, no reason for that. Jay was just giving me a heads-up. I asked him to keep me in the info stream.”
“So, you wanna dance?” She nodded at the band.
A few couples were up, moving to the music.
He grinned. “Might as well. Can’t get any work done here, can I?”
Keller leaned back in the form chair, stretched his neck and shoulders, removed the sensory head- and handsets. He smiled. “Well, Jay, old son, that must have been a shock, hey? About to download a juicy bit of information and blap! your source gets potted and the alley is full of NBA villains.” He chuckled. “I hope you had autosave on. You’ll want to go back and look at it again, I am sure.”
He stood, bent at the waist, touched his toes, bounced a little. He straightened, sat back in the chair, took a couple of deep breaths, and let them out, then reached for the wireless headset. By now, Jay would have had time to think about what had happened, figured it out, and gotten pissed off enough to jump back into the net to hunt down whoever was responsible. Keller knew he would have done the same thing in Jay’s shoes.
So. Now we give old Jay a new place to look. But carefully. He won’t hit the next trap as easily. It needs to be… more subtle.
Keller slipped the gear on. Boy, this was gonna be fun.
Jasmine Chance was not a fanatic about it, but she did do enough exercise to stay in shape. It was harder to be a femme fatale if you were built like an overripe pear — a size six on top and size fourteen on the bottom. She used the stairclimber and the weight machines in the ship’s gym for forty-five minutes a day. She wasn’t going to be winning any Olympic events, but she was tight enough to make most twenty-five-year-old women jealous. Not bad for somebody past forty.
She leaned against one of the mirrored walls and took a big slug from her water bottle. She was hot, and sweaty enough so her headband wasn’t stopping it all from running into her eyes. She wiped her face with a towel. Another fifteen minutes and she’d be done. Then she could shower and maybe have ’Berto help her stretch some other muscles. Yes. She’d give him a call, have him meet her in her cabin in half an hour or so. That would be pleasant.
But when she punched in his name on the ship’s intercom, there was no answer.
She tried his phone. Got a leave-a-message recording.
Chance frowned. Maybe he was taking a nap, had the intercom and his phone turned off? Wasn’t supposed to do that, but everybody did.
She called Security.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Is Roberto Santos in his cabin?”
“No, ma’am.”
She waited a couple of heartbeats. “All right. Do you know where he is?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She waited a few seconds, shook her head at the literal-mindedness of the security officer. “Would you mind telling me where? And if you say, ‘No, ma’am,’ I guarantee you’ll be looking for a new job in about thirty seconds.”