He idled at another traffic signal, and while waiting for the light to change, glanced at the newsstand on the comer. The hardcopy papers and magazines wilted under the heat and high humidity, covers drooping flaccidly. There was one of those big colorful maps pasted on the kiosk: CyberNation! He really was going to have to check that out a little more. A man in his position needed to know such things.
A headline caught his attention. He waved at the vendor, held up a dollar and pointed at the paper he wanted. The man next to the stand stepped into the street, took Jay's money and handed him the paper.
The headline said: THAI PRIME MINISTER DIES IN CRASH.
The vendor didn't offer any change.
Gridley had time to scan the first paragraph before the light turned green.
Apparently Prime Minister Sukho had driven his car off a bridge. He'd been alone at the time. A freak accident.
His widow had no comment.
Gridley blew out a sigh. Well, well.
The traffic was bad in the Crescent City, the roads jammed with locals and tourists coming to visit, to see the river, taste the spicy foods, maybe take in a strip show on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. When you visited an officially sponsored city-site in VR, you had to live with the RW local conditions, and even in October, the heat and dampness were oppressive here.
The place he was going was called Algiers, and it was not the best of neighborhoods, despite years of trying to renew the district. He had done a little research on it, enough to know he wanted to get in and out quick. His Viper would move fast enough to keep him ahead of a lot of trouble, but it wasn't a tank. He depended on his speed and skill, and so far, he'd been able to outrun VR thugs, but even an expert could get trapped in a dead end.
He wove his way through narrow streets, keeping a careful watch on the other traffic. He also watched with care the pedestrians who lounged on corners, drinking beer from long-necked bottles or unknown liquid from pints hidden inside little paper bags. In this section of town, most of the faces he saw were dark, or at least swarthy, and none of them looked kind.
He saw money being exchanged for small baggies or vials, saw women dressed in short skirts and hooker heels leaning against bus benches or in the lee of bar doorways, watching for potential customers.
Even in VR, Gridley wanted no part of these women.
He glanced down at the directions he'd gotten. Another turn, a right, and he was on a street barely wide enough for two cars. Ahead was the branch of the Bank of Louisiana he'd come to find, what looked like a trailer without wheels, set in front of a lot full of building rubble.
Parked in front of the bank branch was a shiny new metallic-blue Corvette convertible with the top down, the motor running. A man came out of the bank in a hurry. He looked young, but he moved old, wore a nice suit, and he carried a briefcase in one hand. He would have passed for a customer, a businessman — except he was wearing a mask.
He looked up, saw Gridley, and ran for the Vette. He threw the briefcase into the passenger seat as he opened the driver's door and jumped into the car.
On some level, all of a sudden, Gridley knew. It was him! The programmer! He was sure of it!
He grinned, gunned the Viper. He'd cut the sucker off, block his escape.
The masked man got the jump on him, though. He pulled away from the curb, leaving rubber as he upshifted.
All right, all right, it didn't matter! The Vette was fast, but it couldn't touch the Viper, through the gears or topside — it didn't have the guts, no way!
Gridley stomped the gas pedal, felt the Viper surge as if it was goosed. Gained on the Vette. Aloud, he said, "Might as well shut it down, pal, you ain't goin' nowhere!"
The narrow street hadn't been designed with muscle cars doing eighty in mind. A curve to the right burned more tire rubber on both vehicles, but Gridley kept the Viper on the road, shifting, tapping the gas, still gaining. He was a hundred feet back and he'd eat that space in five more seconds—
The driver of the Vette threw a handful of shiny dimes into the air.
At least that was what it looked like at first. It wasn't until the dimes hit the street that Gridley saw they weren't coins at all, but some kind of spiked things.
Caltrops!
He stood on the brake pedal. The Viper's brakes locked, the car skidded and slowed, but not enough. The left front tire went first, made a noise like a firecracker going off. The Viper lurched to the left. Gridley jerked the steering wheel, partially straightened the car out, almost had it — then the right front tire blew. The Viper spun into the new flat, lost traction as it hit the curb, popped both rear tires and slammed into a storefront. Glass exploded as the Viper smashed through a big window and into a small bakery, shattering display cases. The car slid backward, knocked over a table and came to a stop against a counter. The impact tumbled the old metal cash register onto the Viper's trunk.
The Viper was going to need some major repairs.
Covered with glass and pastries, Gridley looked up at a startled baker in a white apron and hat standing a foot away from the Viper's door.
Gridley shook his head. The guy had suckered him, trashed his ride and gotten away clean. He looked at the baker, who stared at him wide-eyed.
"Hi there. Say, are your donuts, uh, fresh?"
23
Standing at his locker, waiting for the thumbprint reader to open the door, Tyrone Howard heard the Voice of Doom. It didn't sound the way he thought the Voice of Doom would have sounded. Instead, it was soft, throaty, sexy, not a hint of disaster connected to it.
"Hi. Are you Tyrone?"
He turned and saw Belladonna Wright, all fourteen years of her, standing there, the most beautiful girl in Eisenhower Middle School, probably the most beautiful girl in all of the District. She was smiling at him.
Smiling at him.
He was a dead man.
What did she want with him! If anybody said anything to Bonebreaker LeMott, he might as well kiss his ass goodbye now and avoid the rush later. Jee-sus!
"Uh, uh, yeah?" To his horror — and burned forever into his memory — his voice cracked.
"Sarah Peterson told me you were pretty good with computers, that you could make it so simple even a doof like me could understand it. I have to get at least an eighty in Basic Cee or I'm in trouble. Could you maybe help me?"
The voice of self-preservation screamed — from behind the big mind rock where it had run and hidden as soon as it realized who was talking to them:
No! Danger! Danger, Will Robinson! Warning, warning, run, flee, the dam busted, the volcano blew, the aliens are coming! No, sorry, no, can't do it, uh-uh, negative, negative, zipper-roo, count zero!
"Uh, okay, sure," came out of Tyrone's mouth.
Who said that? Are you insane? Death! Dismemberment! Destruction! Aaiiee! screamed the voice of self-preservation as it tried to dig a hole under the rock.
"Oh, thank you. Okay, here is my number," Bella said. "Call me and we can set up a time, pross?"
Oh, yes, we pross! Bonebreaker LeMott taking us apart like an overcooked chicken, that's what we pross!
Tyrone took the slip of paper from her and smiled reflexively. "P-p-pross."
She smiled, turned and walked away. Well, she swayed away, something like a Polynesian princess on a white sand beach in the hot sunshine might sway as she moved. Ruler of all she surveyed.
Lust reared its head in Tyrone. At the same time, fear dried his mouth to a consistency roughly that of a pile of bones left to bleach a hundred years in the Gobi Desert sunshine.