And so he did, for Grau began firing electronics and comms jargon at him, first in Russian and at high speed, then in German and even faster, sentences that were phrased as hard questions full of three-foot-long German "portmanteau words," big compound structures some of which were familiar to Leif and some of which were plainly being composed on the fly. Leif translated and answered as quickly as he could, consonant with using the words correctly-once or twice he had to use terms with which he wasn't familiar in a way that suggested he understood them even when he wasn't absolutely sure of the meanings.
And it went on that way for nearly another half-hour, grueling, veering without warning from language to language until Leif started to sweat. But shortly he realized that this test was not so much about his linguistic acuity, any more, but about his reaction to stress. Then he relaxed a little, and started to answer, purposely, more slowly, and with a little more arrogance. These guys were going to have to do better than this if they thought they were going to upset him.
Finally Grau stopped and looked at the others. "Well?" Tessin said.
"Adequate," Grau said.
And now I'm supposed to get mad. Yeah, right. Leif folded his arms, leaned back in his chair, and simply looked back at them casually.
Tessin nodded, looked at Vaud.
"Well," Vaud said. "The Russian in particular is good. And we have a delivery that needs to be made out that way. Gentlemen?"
The three of them looked at one another. Then Tessin and Grau nodded.
"Very well, Mr. Dawson," said Vaud. "We wish you to collect a package from someone who will meet you at Reagan International. Details of this will be virtmailed to you-but you must not use the Breathing Space account to access the information. Go find a public booth and access the address we are dropping into your Breathing Space virtmail now." Tessin nodded, the gesture of a man who has just seen to some matter. "You will be leaving tomorrow."
"So what's the pay?" Leif said.
Tessin smiled slightly. "The eagerness of the young," he said. "Well, this is your first time out, so it is lower than usual. We will see how you do. The price goes up somewhat with continued successful deliveries. Six thousand on departure… six thousand on return with the package that will come back."
Leif thought about that. "I'm not sure it's enough/' he said.
The men all looked at him in open astonishment. "Goodness," said Vaud, "I would think you might feel that we were already doing you enough of a favor."
"So you might," Leif said. He thought for a moment, then said, "Fifteen thousand. Split half and half, as you say."
Vaud's expression went back and forth between annoyance and a kind of skewed admiration. "Oh, go on," Tes- sin said, "we can well afford it."
The other two paused, then nodded. "If you will pass us your account information," said Vaud, "we will have the system pass the funds to whatever cash card you use."
"It's a BlueChip card," said Leif, and rattled off a twenty-digit number. "I'll wait."
"My, what a young mercenary," said Vaud, genuinely annoyed now, but Tessin laughed. "Give me that again," he said.
Once more Leif recited the numbers. Tessin repeated them softly, under his breath, and then added something else that Leif didn't hear. "The transfer is being made now," he said.
Leif pulled out the virtual "twin" of his BlueChip and thumbed it on, touching in his PIN number and then glancing at the little screen which contained his balance. Even as he watched, it went from three digits to four before the decimal point.
He looked up, smiling happily. "Okay, Mr. Winters," he said.
The three men looked at each other. "Winters- " said Vaud. Tessin and Grau were already on their feet, fleeing out of the blue space and into the sunlit plaza. Leif lost sight of them as they went out. Vaud followed them fast. Leif went after.
Vaud was hurriedly threading his way among the tables, like a man constrained by Breathing Space's own virtual structure so as not to be able to simply vanish, but to have to leave via a prearranged "emergency exit." He should have put it closer, Leif thought with some amusement, as one of the people sitting at one of the tables he passed now stuck a foot out and simply tripped him.
Virtual experience may filter pain, and did so in this case, but not actual physical motion, which obeys the laws set up by the local programmer. Vaud scrambled to his feet and started to run again…
… and someone else jumped up from another nearby table and straightarmed Vaud right into the table opposite: he crashed into it, went down.
Vaud was good. Even as glasses and plates and cutlery went crashing to the pavement, he came up rolling, bounced to his feet again and started to dash off through the crowd in the plaza…
… only to discover that it was not a crowd as such, as yet another person bodyblocked him to a stop. Vaud stood there, panting, as the group of "diners" nearest surrounded him. Suddenly all their clothes showed an astonishing sameness-the primary "seeming" they had all adopted for this particular online intervention, under the "secondary" street clothes: the light blue, midnight blue, and silver of Net Force uniform. The whole expanse of Barenplatz was full of Net Force operatives, all now suddenly having reverted to their proper day wear after having been in disguise a little earlier, and all looking grimly cheerful.
Vaud stopped where he was. Over his shoulder, among other Net Force operatives, Leif caught sight of Megan… and saw what she was wearing. He grinned, and changed his own seeming to match.
James Winters sauntered into this group.
"Well, we've been looking for you for a while," he said. "Nice to see one of these operations pay off, though God knows it took long enough." He shook his head. "And wouldn't Dickens just have loved this? Take the innocent kids, use them, throw them away. Or turn them not-so-innocent any more, farming them out to the nastier intelligence organizations and criminal gangs. Pay them a pittance, keep the big bucks yourself… " He shook his head. "Well, I don't think you're going to be harvesting the 'orphanages' of the world anymore. We have about twelve different law enforcement organizations looking at your people's work right now. I think this is a scam that's outlived its usefulness. Certainly for you. Take him and his friends away, boys and girls… "
The Net Force operatives closed in around Vaud: a moment later they all vanished together.
James Winters turned to where Megan and Leif were standing, as the operatives dispersed. "We got a clean line on where they were 'physically' during this little visit," he said. "Three locations: Prague, Helsinki, and New York. Tessin there was right around the block from your dad's corporate headquarters," he said to Leif, "not too far from Wall Street. That wants to be looked into."
Then he grinned rather ferally. "Nice job, though," Winters said. "Nice work, both of you. Though you turned a few of my hairs gray when you upped the price, Leif."
"Why do a deal right away?" Leif said. "I had something they wanted. And besides, it would have made me look too eager."
"Yes, well," said Winters, bending a slightly more severe regard on Leif. "You should talkSo all right, maybe it was allowable as protective coloration, seeing what everybody else was wearing. Just this once. Now take those off… until you're entitled to them."
Obediently enough, though with a touch of regret, Leif vanished his Net Force uniform, going back to polo shirt and jeans, and saw Megan revert the seeming of her clothes to the more normal sweatshirt and day tights that she had been wearing.