“Mr. Dillinger, Mr. Beatty, and Dr. Crippen, I presume,” Matt said, determined not to show any fear.
“Yuh know, podnuh, you been stickin’ your nose in places you really shouldn’t have ought,” the cowboy said in the thickest Wild West accent Matt had ever heard. “Somebody ought have learned you that’s dangerous.”
Right then, Matt noticed that there was the barest hesitation between the cowboy’s words and the movements of his lips.
But there was no slowness at all as the cowboy whipped out his cartoon pistol and pointed it at Matt’s head.
“I aim to give you a good lesson,” the cowboy said.
Chapter 6
Matt had seen manholes that were smaller than the muzzle of the cartoon pistol in front of his face.
“Okay, Tex, you’ve got my attention,” he said, still determined not to give in to the fear spurting along his nerves.
These people know how to hand out pain in virtual situations, a terrified little voice chattered in the back of his head. What would it feel like to get hit by a bullet from that hand-cannon?
The giant frog suddenly changed shape, too, transforming into a rakish-looking young nobleman from hundreds of years ago. Long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and skintight pale-leather trousers covered his legs. He wore a ruffled silk shirt — and the smile on his handsome features was as razor-sharp as the yard-long sword he aimed at Matt’s throat.
And, of course, Mr. Jewels didn’t need a weapon. He just loomed behind the other two, clenching gleaming fists, each as large as Matt’s head.
“I really have to hand it to you guys,” Matt told the threatening threesome — and the worried-looking girl. “You’re good…really good. At first, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when I heard the reports about what happened in Baltimore. Then I checked out every frame of holo-imagery shot at the game, and ran a Net search to see if anything else like this had ever happened in the Washington area.”
“So how did that lead you to her — and us?” Mr. Jewels wanted to know. His gemlike eyes held an ugly glitter as he looked over at Caitlin.
“You guys can still hide behind your masks,” Caitlin’s voice was bitter as she turned to her fellow vandals. “And we can be just as sure that he couldn’t track me through the Net. He’s got to be somebody from my school who caught on to me in the real world. So you don’t have to worry,” she sneered. “We haven’t met out in the flesh since we began this stuff!”
Mr. Jewels looked ready to slug the girl, and Matt tensed his muscles, ready for a hopeless defense. But the cartoon cowboy gestured the gleaming titan back with his oversized six-gun. “Hold on there, ya big galoot. We’re workin’ from the other end of the rope right now.”
Once again, Matt noticed the fractional hesitation between moving lips and Western-holo speech. If that’s the Idiom Savant program, it’s working even slower than David said it would, Matt thought. Unless…it’s not just changing English into that silly lingo, but a completely different language!
But there wasn’t time to get into that right now. He had to convince this bunch of spoiled rich kids that he could be useful — and amusing.
“My search kicked out all sorts of rumors about people getting their veeyars trashed, and even roughed up. Now, I’ve got a couple of tricks I can pull in virtual — as the lady can tell you.”
“We’ve heard,” the swordsman said coldly. Matt noticed that he didn’t seem to mind that he spoke English with an accent. Unless that accent was some sort of proxy trick…
No, Matt told himself. There’s not the same sort of hang-time on this guy’s lips as on the cowboy.
“So you know my kind of stuff can annoy people, even scare them. But it doesn’t have the same sort of — authority — you can call on.”
Matt spread out his stick-figure hands. “With all the rumors I’d collected, I still wasn’t sure you guys were for real, or some sort of vapor-tale. So I decided to try and find you. I figured you had to be rich — electronic wilding requires resources.” He rubbed his fingers together in the old gesture for money. “I also figured you must live pretty close to where you’ve been playing. That meant getting a line on all the virtual hangouts for rich kids in the D.C. area.”
Matt pinned a smile on his proxy’s sketchy face. “Somehow, I just had a feeling you wouldn’t turn out to be a bunch of forty-nine-year-old computer geeks.”
He shrugged. “And, what do you know, I was right. The first site I tried was Maxim’s. And who do I meet there but the lovely CeeCee, who talked a little, then slugged the real Courtney Vance when she turned up to complain. I heard the punch, I saw Courtney react in pain…and I knew I’d found what I was looking for.”
Matt held up his proxy hand. “I’m not going to tell you how I connected CeeCee with Caitlin Corrigan. Every relationship needs a little mystery. But I do want you to know that I’m way impressed — and I want in.”
“Look here, pilgrim,” the cartoon cowboy said, spouting his silly Wild West jargon again. “I don’t rightly think you realize who holds the whip hand here. You tracked us down, right enough. But one shot from my trusty forty-five, and you’re pushin’ up daisies on Boot Hill. Dead men tell no tales.”
“I’ll say it again,” Matt said, hoping his voice was holding steady. “I don’t want to turn you in, I don’t want to blackmail you. All I want is to join your team — to learn how you do what you do.”
“Then you’d know more than any of us,” the frog muttered.
Matt was confused, but he couldn’t let that show. He had to win this bunch over. But how?
The words burst out almost before he realized he was speaking. “You’re worried about me telling tales? If I ran with you, I’d be in for as much trouble as you catch.”
“Maybe.” Mr. Jewels drawled the word out as if he were tasting it, thinking over Matt’s offer. “I daresay you’ve shown that you know your way around computers, since you got this close to us. But that’s not all you need to prove if you want to run with us.”
“Meaning what?” Matt asked cautiously.
“You have to be able to pull your weight.” The monolithic jewel-monster leaned forward, his words coming faster. “Get us in somewhere we haven’t been able to penetrate.”
A test, Matt thought. That made a certain sort of sense. At least it would let him get out of this empty white room without getting shot.
“I’m willing to try,” Matt promised. “As long as it’s not outright impossible, like the Pentagon or the White House.”
“Oh, it’s more possible than that.” Mr. Jewels gave a grating laugh. “We want to get into the veeyar of Sean McArdle. He’s the son of the Irish ambassador. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you more. You can find out all you want to know with a data search.”
“I’ll start right away.” Matt hesitated before he went on. “You all want to get in there?”
The others laughed. “And walk into a bloody trap? I think not,” Mr. Jewels sneered. “No, all you need to worry about is yourself — and CeeCee here.” He made an ironic bow toward the furious Cat Corrigan.
“Since she’s the only one you know out of our little group, you can contact her when you’ve arranged something.” Mr. Jewels turned his gemstone eyes full on Matt. “If we’ve heard nothing from you in, oh, a week’s time, we’ll simply take it for granted that you’re no longer interested. But if we hear any rumors about our activities — or detect any official interest in Caitlin, then we’ll be forced to interest ourselves in you.”