“Um — I guess not,” Matt admitted.
“No.” The captain’s voice sounded a bit less smug as he went on. “That programming was as American — and as cheap — as mock apple pie.”
Chapter 10
After saying good-bye to Captain Winters, Matt headed back to his computer. He felt as if the ground had just been cut out from under his feet.
Even if the captain hadn’t gone for his theory about the virtual vandals being bored rich kids, Matt knew he was right.
After all, he’d tracked down Cat Corrigan and proven she was involved. He was pretty sure that Gerald Savage was another of the proxied-up troublemakers. And he had a few suspects from the huge number of diplomatic kids who lived in D.C.
So why would a bunch of kids who pretty much have the world by the tail work their crimes with a bunch of el cheapo programming?
It didn’t make sense.
Shutting his eyes, Matt called up memories of the weird wonderland that Caitlin Corrigan used for a veeyar. Everything about it screamed money. He didn’t know about the white room where he and Caitlin had gone to see the rest of the group. But the proxies they had used to mask their identities had definitely been expensive — professionally de signed, top-dollar simulations. The nerdy school reporters that Matt had come up with were simple and crude compared to what these guys used. But then, his creations didn’t have to morph into super-cool swordsmen.
It just didn’t make sense.
Could the dirt-cheap programming be another sort of disguise? An attempt to keep any investigators from looking among the rich, bored kids? It looked as if that had worked with Captain Winters. Winters was looking for someone American working on an antique computer system.
In that case, whoever was coming up with the software for the virtual vandals had to be an incredible genius. He or she had to be able to step away from cutting-edge machinery and create programs that could boggle the latest technology — while using equipment and tools that most people would consider junk.
And there was still a problem with his hypothetical genius pretending poverty. The members of the group were still in their mega-buck proxies when they went out to trash veeyars. No way were the sims they’d worn at Camden Yards quick and dirty disguises.
Matt sighed. There went another good theory down the toilet.
Could there be a practical reason for using what anybody in this country would consider antique equipment? Some Europeans were very thrifty when it came to machinery. In his Introduction to Computers class, Matt remembered reading how certain operating systems were still used in European computers years after they’d become extinct in the U.S. Maybe Gunter Mohler had learned his computing on an ancient system. Or Serge Woronov. Matt knew that there was a tremendous amount of ancient equipment in the Balkans. Plenty of military computers had been left behind by the various peacekeeping forces serving there over the decades.
However, that would have to mean that Gunter or Serge were crypto-geeks. Could David Gray have missed them in his data search?
There was only one way to find out. Matt got on his computer, sending a message to David:
Have two possible non-English-speaking types. Need to know just how much they know about computers.
He attached the file that Andy had sent, and waited to see what David would say.
Shortly afterwards, his computer beeped. David’s message was short.
The folks at Slobodan Narodny are a bit paranoid in their computer security. As for the German computers, well, don’t ask any questions about how the following file got into your hands.
Matt blinked in surprise as he began paging through the attached file. It seemed to be a form of some kind. One line had “Gunter Mohler” written in above it. There were also two addresses — one of them with a Southwest D.C. zip code.
As he went on, less and less of the file made sense. It was in a foreign language — German? — and would have to be translated.
“Computer — auto-translate,” Matt ordered. As the words began to make sense, he gave a low whistle. Somehow, David had gotten into the German embassy’s computer system and retrieved the personal file on Gunter Mohler!
The file was nothing if not thorough. It listed his school grades since kindergarten. Matt sighed when he saw a barely passing mark in Computer Basics — the bonehead programming course. Mohler began to look less and less like the shadowy genius Matt was trying to track down.
Of course, a computer genius would have no problem changing computer records, Matt told himself. But why would Gunter suspect that anyone might be checking this file?
Matt scanned on through the file, moving ahead of the translation. He had to smile at some of the odd-looking German words. There was one—Krankenhaus. What the heck did that mean?
He watched while the translation program chewed through this section, turning the German words into English. It turned out to deal with Gunter’s health. Krankenhaus meant hospital. Gunter had been rushed to an emergency room to have his appendix removed.
Matt’s eyes narrowed as he noticed the date. Gunter had been undergoing surgery at just about the same time as the virtual vandals had turned Camden Yards Stadium into chaos.
“So,” Matt muttered, “it looks like Gunter can’t be the Genius…or one of the vandals.”
Frowning, he sat back in his computer-link chair, closed his eyes, let his implants take over. An instant later, he sat drifting in the air before the floating slab that was his virtual workplace. Good thing he’d finished his classwork. He had a lot of brain-strain ahead if he wanted to turn the vague ideas in his head into real plans.
Matt worked through the evening with only a quick break for dinner and the dishes. It was almost ten o’clock before he decided he was ready. His stomach was tight as he floated in his veeyar, looking at the little line of program icons on the marble slab. On one side was the fiery pawn of Leif’s proxy program and the lightning bolt that would take Matt into the Net. Then there were the programs he’d been working on. A copy of Cat Corrigan’s earring lay on the workspace, twisted and tarnished where Matt had been tampering with it. There was also a small white key that Matt had spent a long time programming, and an icon that looked like a tiny set of binoculars.
Last was a small book — an information file filled with everything Matt had discovered or guessed about the virtual vandals. He not only put this into his computer’s memory, but also loaded it onto a datascrip. Maybe it was asking for bad luck to act as if he’d never come back from this venture. But he knew his half-baked plan was dangerous, and he wanted a record to remain if the virtual vandals decided to silence him.
Matt took another moment to write up a short virtual message that he’d carry along. He’d been thinking about it all night.
Cat,
Okay, I won’t ask where you got the magic label I saw you use. But don’t you think I should get a chance to see your friends again? After all, I did everything you guys asked. I think you ought to keep your promises. I’ll be back at midnight to talk to you. If I find out I can’t trust you, don’t expect me to keep quiet about it.
Mr. Sticks
He turned the message into a little scroll-icon and left it in line with the others. Then, taking a deep breath, he scooped them all up and moved out into the Net.
The virtual constructs seemed much clearer and brighter than they’d ever been before — or was that just the condemned man noticing things he’d never paid much attention to before?