Andy dropped back onto the Net, knowing Mark had begun the final attack on the game engine. He scanned the screens that appeared in front of him, noting the arrival of eight security personnel in space-bound fast-attack craft.
He opened the comm-link to Mark. “Are you ready to rock and roll, buddy?”
Maj ran through the convention crowd, bumping into people and throwing apologies over her shoulder. She streaked for the other side of the center, knowing Matt, Roarke, Leif, and Megan were on their way.
A young man stepped around one of the booths too late for her to stop. She slammed into him, taking them both to the ground. Her martial arts reflexes made her roll instinctively. She got to her feet as the guy stayed there and groaned.
Other convention attendees opened a path before her, shouting out warnings.
Glancing to the side, Maj spotted one of her holo-induced doppelgangers running through people. Their reactions were a little delayed, and they stepped aside after the doppelganger had burst through.
Heavener and her men charged through the convention center, roughly shoving aside anyone who got in their way.
Maj opened her foilpack and punched a quick dial number. “Catie, where are Holmes’s police teams?”
“Investigating a break-in alarm at your hotel room,” Catie replied. “I’m trying to get through to Holmes now to call them off.”
Maj ran toward the nearest door. Before she reached it, a man burst through with a pistol leveled at her chest.
With Andy at his back, Mark turned his attention to the search engine, jetting straight for it. The HUD relayed the information about the eight security programmers streaking toward him, overtaking him quickly because this was their home ground. The home team always had the advantage because their programming interfaced more directly and more quickly than someone breaking in.
“Andy,” Mark called calmly.
“I’ve got your back, buddy.”
In the next instant Mark’s HUD picked up Andy’s arrival. Since he didn’t have to worry about stealth anymore, and he could use Mark’s signal from inside the program to transport to, Andy arrived in a spacetank copied from a Space Marines game. The spacetank was an armored nightmare, fully stocked with weapons. Lasers cut through the virtual world as it locked on to targets and fired.
Three of the attacking security personnel vaporized immediately, thrown off-line by the savage attack.
“Boo-yeeaahh!” Andy cheered. “And we’re rolling up a score.”
Less than two minutes remained until game launch. Even if Captain Winters overrode the Net and had a warning issued by Net Force, a lot of gamers would ignore the warning and download the files anyway, thinking it was a prank by jealous gamers who didn’t have the game pack, or an attack by rival gaming companies. It had happened in the past.
He initiated a systems diagnostic using the access code he’d been given, hoping to find a weak link that would allow him into the gargantuan game engine before him. Lasers flashed from the thing’s eyes as it sought to protect itself.
Mark evaded the lasers as Andy blasted another security man out of the loop, checking over the program’s codes. Surely there was a feed coming in from somewhere. He fired two disruptive virus programs in the form of thermal nukes, but they glanced off the search engine’s armored body like a flat stone on water.
The diagnostics flashed on the HUD, stripping away the mechanical body the search engine inhabited. C’mon, c’mon. There’s gotta be something to work with.
“I’m hit,” Andy called out.
The system defenders were down to three, but Andy’s spacetank hadn’t gone unscathed. Internal gyro problems had developed, a visual interpretation of the defense coding attacking his intrusion into the system.
A bright green blip flared into life on Mark’s HUD. It dawned at the tip of one of the search engine dreadnought’s fingers. Mark tapped out a search-and-identify program. “I’ve got the weak point,” he told Andy. “There’s a satellite feed coming in from the Balkans that Net Force broke into a couple weeks ago for black-market software trafficking that hasn’t been changed. The story never made HoloNet, so D’Arnot Industries wouldn’t know about it. I can get in through there.”
“Go,” Andy called. “I’m on a full-fledged crash-and-burn here.” His spacetank remained barely viable, breaking down even as Mark spotted it on the HUD.
Mark left the Net, knowing his pursuers would think he’d logged off. He streaked through the upper atmosphere and into the telecommunications array. In seconds he flashed through England, France, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Israel, then into the Balkans, disguising himself every step of the way. When he hit the satellite feeding the Balkans connection, he insinuated himself into the satellite feed D’Arnot Industries was using to coordinate the world launch of Realm of the Bright Waters.
He returned to the Eisenhower Productions site just as Andy’s spacetank was reduced to cybernetic ash. Powering the crashsuit’s jets to the max, Mark streaked into the dreadnought’s finger, following the hollow tube of the arm toward the brain.
“Stop! Police!”
Maj experienced a momentary burst of relief as the man in front of her shifted and pointed his weapon at Heavener. But the moment was short-lived. Two shots rang out, one hammer blow on top of another, and the plainclothes policeman flew backward into the door behind him.
Instant pandemonium spread throughout the convention center. Andy’s earlier gunfire might have been mistaken for gameplay, but the man smashing up against the door with blood on his jacket was too real. Gamers screamed and tried to get away, knocking each other down in their haste.
Knowing that she’d be the next target if she stopped to help the policeman, Maj shouldered her way through the door, smashing through, hitting the floor and rolling. She caught herself against the far wall of the hallway, feeling the vibration of bullets smacking the tiles to pieces only inches from her.
“Over here!”
Instinctively Maj crawled toward the voice, recognizing it as Roarke’s only a second later. The Net Force agent stood in a Weaver’s stance, his pistol resting lightly in both hands.
Heavener burst through the door first, dropping into a flat slide on her stomach across the tiled floor. Her pistol spat flame as Roarke’s first shot split the air above her head. The agent’s next two rounds caught both men who hurtled through the door after Heavener, punching into them.
As Maj got to her feet and ran past Roarke, she saw the agent stumble backward, blood spraying from his left shoulder. Even as he went down, Roarke fired again. Then he was hit once more, sprawling backward.
Horrified, Maj ran on, knowing the Net Force team in the area had to be closing in. The rapid slap of shoes against the tile floor came up behind her. Then an arm went around her waist and a shoulder hit her back. Off-balance, she went down hard, Heavener on top of her.
“You’re dead, Latke!”
Heavener’s promise rang in Gaspar’s ears as he stared at the screen showing the hallway where the woman had captured Maj Green. Heavener grabbed a handful of Maj’s hair and held her pistol to the girl’s head.
“Get up,” Heavener ordered, yanking Maj to her feet. “You’re my ticket out of here.”
Gaspar logged off the Net. There was no doubt that Heavener had commed instructions to the men where he was being held to kill him. He pushed his way out of the implant chair, his heart thudding in his chest. Weakly, exhausted by lack of sleep and stress, he staggered for the door. He twisted the knob, but it was locked.