As he looked at the dying sub-routine, he had to shake his head. Apparently not.
Still shaking his head, Jay turned his revolver on the bartender and shot him, too. The rat.
But at least it wasn’t a total loss. He knew something now he hadn’t known before.
Thorn looked at Jay. “Chinese? Are you sure?”
Jay, in the flesh, nodded. “Yep. I did as much backwalking as I could after the scenario, and knowing better where to look, I found some signs. He might not be Chinese, but he’s operating from there.”
Thorn shook his head. This was… unexpected. And in less than an hour, the head of the Chinese version of Net Force was supposed to be walking into Thorn’s office. How weird was that?
“So, what does this give us?”
“It narrows down the search pattern. I can start the Super-Cray straining access to the net from China. That’s a lot of hits, and disguised, I’m sure, but it’s a place to start. I can also start checking around. If the attacker is Chinese, he sure didn’t get that good over there, so he must have studied in Europe or the States. I can run sieves on that.”
Thorn nodded. “Good. Go for it.”
“When is the CyberNation guy getting here?”
“This afternoon, right after lunch. And guess who else is scheduled for a meeting an hour from now — Chang.”
“Huh. There’s a coincidence.” Jay paused. “He could help. He’s got ways of getting in and out of Chinese systems we’d have to go the long way to reach. Maybe I could talk to him?”
“I’ll let you know when he arrives.”
“Thanks, Boss.”
“Keep at it, Jay. I have every confidence in you.”
Jay grinned. “I wish I did. This one is a bear.”
“And you’ll hang around for Seurat later?”
“Yeah. If I have to.”
After Jay was gone, Thorn decided he didn’t have enough time to eat and go work out before Chang arrived. Well, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have a boatload of e-paperwork that needed attention. He’d simply have lunch at his desk. The Republic had more than one computer problem nipping at its heels, and just because overall control of Net Force had been shifted didn’t mean any of those things had gone away…
11
Daytime in the Garden of Perpetual Bliss was usually sunny and seventy-two degrees. It would rain now and again, sometimes a mild drizzle, sometimes a windy storm — but never too windy — and always warm enough to sit in without getting cold. Enough rain fell to keep the lush foliage nourished and vibrant, all the myriad shades of green, all the colorful flowers. Bees buzzed, but never stung. Butterflies danced and flitted by.
Here, a group of Hindus wearing orange robes sat in full lotus, meditating, connecting with the essence of Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva. Next to them, in the shade of a giant baobab tree, a dozen Buddhists kneeled in seiza, counting their breaths and seeking no-mind.
A short way down the path, Christians and Jews and the followers of Mohammed sat in a large circle, exchanging prayers and smiles.
In the Garden, too, were those who thought every rock had a soul, that all wisdom came from their ancestors, that the Sun was the ruler of all it touched. And there were others who had no gods at all, but only their common humanity.
In the Garden, there was no dissent, no jealousy, no hatred. All who came here became one of the family of men, and no man’s hand was ever raised against another in anger. People dressed as they wished, or went nude.
Sometimes music drifted over the Garden, and such was its nature that the sounds each person heard on those occasions were suited to their personal tastes: Here, it was a raga, there a fugue, and past that, delta blues. People sang or danced or sat quietly and listened, and no one resented another’s manner of expression.
Fruit grew on the trees — apples, bananas, pears, coconuts, plums, oranges, every kind a hungry soul might desire was there somewhere. Vegetables, too, and nuts, and all manner of beasts — fish and fowl, even red meat — were available, if that was one’s wont.
One could come to the Garden to do, or just to be. It was all the same, and it was all wonderful.
When the dragon came, red-scaled and breathing fire, swooping down from the clear sky, most in the Garden thought it was some new entertainment.
Until it started cooking and eating people.
The Garden of Perpetual Bliss heard its first screams of terror that day. Smelled the stink of roasted human flesh. Beheld fear in a way that had never happened here before.
The dragon landed and stalked, crushing all before him, pausing to bite off a head here, a leg there, hissing with a sound that stirred neck hairs in atavistic panic. The people had no way to stop it, they had no weapons, and the dragon moved through them unmolested.
Some ran. Some stood their ground and waited for their end.
And in a short time, those who did not flee were consumed…
“Merde!” Seurat said, shaking his head. He removed the headset and sighed, staring at his portable computer. He was in no danger here in his Washington hotel room. As those in the Garden of Bliss VR scenario had not been in any real physical danger, either. But the assault on their psyches must have been a terrible jolt.
Seurat’s anger surged, a hot flush that made him want to scream and hit somebody. CyberNation had created a paradise in that garden, a place where those who wished such a thing could go and bask in an ideal that had never happened in the real world. All men as brothers.
And someone had ruined it. Attacked and destroyed the carefully built scenario, terrifying those tuned to it. Yet another of the hacks that added cracks to the CyberNation’s foundation. Small ones, so far, but left unchecked they could grow and threaten the entire organization.
Seurat could not — he would not allow such a thing to happen. Not on his watch.
The damage to the program had been repaired, of course, quickly and easily. But the damage to the memories of those who had been in it when the incident had taken place? Not so simply fixed. According to his techs, there had been fifteen thousand people worldwide in that scenario when it was attacked. And while that number was but a drop in the bucket compared to the total membership of CyberNation, some of those people would leave and not come back. Like a small stone tossed into a pond, the stories would spread.
CyberNation? Yeah, I used to be a member, but I quit. They don’t have their act together — you wouldn’t believe what happened in one of their shared-scenarios…
Worse, what if the attackers chose one of the giant-scale scenarios next time? The Super Bowl ’cast, or the Pope’s Christmas message? The latest Hollywood blockbuster on demand?
True, those had gotten increased security since the attacks had begun, but since they still did not have a handle on the hacker, who was to say that he couldn’t worm or trojan his way into one of those?
If ten or fifteen million people got a dose of nastiness like that which had happened in the Garden of Perpetual Bliss? That would be… bad.
Very bad, indeed.
Seurat glanced at his watch. Almost time to leave for the meeting with Thorn, at Net Force.
CyberNation’s past with Net Force had been less than happy, and Seurat could not expect them to welcome him with open arms; still, if they could help, he would welcome it. If he had to lie with the Devil to save his child, then that was what he would do. Whatever it took.
None of Locke’s sources at CyberNation in France knew exactly why its leader had traveled to the U.S. Parked in his rented cab near the hotel’s Virginia Avenue entrance — that had been a bit of a trick, but at least this way he would blend in — Locke waited and watched. Even with the occupied sign lit, he’d had to turn away people who wanted a ride. Blind fools.