25
Wu was not a man given to rash action. He had never been one to just leap off a cliff in the hope that the river below was deep enough to keep him from breaking a leg. No, Wu was the kind of man who climbed down the escarpment, waded into the water with a long pole, probed to find the exact depth, marked the spot, and judged whether or not he could hit that precise place when he jumped. If he could not, he stayed on the cliff.
And yet, here he was, lying on Mayli’s bed as she finished her shower, enjoying the fragrance of sandalwood incense and the memory of their recent actions, considering telling her things that a careful man would never reveal.
Why was that? What has happened to you, Wu, that you would even dream of taking this road?
Well, Mayli was more than passing adept as a lover. She already knew what Shing was up to, of course. That was part of her job, to get Shing talking about anything and everything. That and keeping an eye on him, and keeping him happy.
But she had also been probing, albeit subtly so, to find out what Locke was up to, and even carefully working Wu himself. Nothing blatant, nothing slap-your-face obvious, but it was apparent. She wanted to know what was really going on.
He could keep her in the dark. Take her along and continue to enjoy her company without ever filling in the blanks. But she was a smart woman, and eventually, she might figure things out, and then she’d be dangerous. He might have to… take care of her, and that would be such a waste. She was the best Wu had ever been with when it got right down to it.
But: The thought of not seeing her again, of her being married to that smug idiot Shing had, oddly, become… repellent. Why should Shing have such a delicious treasure? Why should that narrow and shallow lout be polishing Mayli’s pearl, when Wu was a man much better able to appreciate her in all her dimensions?
He was not a man to delude himself — love was not a factor here, nor did he want it to be. But he knew exactly what she was. She was a trophy woman worthy of a great man. With her close at hand, she could be valuable in so many ways — not just as a lover, but as an ally he could rely upon — as long as their interest lay in the same direction, of course.
A man wanted a mate who not only would help him, but who could help him. Mayli was nothing if not wise in the ways of men.
As rich as he was going to be, she would prefer his company to that of the callow computer-nerd Shing. Yes, Wu was older, but he was fit, adept, and a woman like Mayli would always be drawn to such as himself. He could buy her houses, cars, yachts, cover her in precious gems, give her anything her heart might desire. And if she wished a lover on the side? What did that hurt? She would be happy, and it would not detract from their time together.
Did he not deserve a way to relax, to keep the tensions at bay? It was a small thing against the totality of what lay ahead. Great men had burdens, but they were not bound by the same constraints as the ordinary.
But — Mayli was far too clever a woman to stand by blissfully ignorant. She would wonder, and if she was going to be more than a bedmate, he needed for her to understand why he wanted her. How important he must think she was to tell her.
And in truth, Wu wanted to tell somebody. No one knew the full details of his plans, not even Locke, who knew some, but not all.
If it all came off the way Wu planned, it would be a thing of major importance, and the secret was Wu’s alone. There would be more than a little satisfaction in telling somebody, in putting them in awe of his genius. She would certainly be impressed. She was worldly enough to appreciate the magnitude of it.
Was it a foolish leap into unknown waters? Wu thought he had a pretty good idea of Mayli’s basic character. She was, like him, pragmatic. She served her own interests first, doing whatever was necessary to obtain her own desires. She was skilled. And, of course, she was beautiful, smart, and ambitious. If she knew what Wu knew, who on earth would be a better match?
Betraying him would gain her nothing, and linking with him, the possibility of the world at her feet? A shrewd woman would look at her choices, realize there was little risk, and go with the flow. Mayli was not a Taoist per se, but she was smart enough not to try to swim against the current of a huge river.
The shower cut off — it had been a selling point when Wu had rented this apartment, the water’s pressure was great, and a long, hot, needle spray possible. A cloud of vapor wafted from the bathroom as Mayli slid the shower’s curtain open and stepped out. She stood framed in the doorway, slick and gorgeous, and turned to smile at him as she reached for a towel. She knew she was beautiful, and she knew men liked looking at her.
Wu felt his interest stirring as he watched her dry off.
She glanced at him. “Ah,” she said. “It appears I may have to shower again.”
He smiled. “It is possible,” he said. “Come here and let us see if that is the case.”
They could always talk later, he thought.
Tell her? Or kill her? It might come to that. Which would it be?
The Dyson sphere had come up empty. It was discouraging, but Jay wasn’t going to lie down and die, so he shifted his search.
First, he sneaked into one of the black-ops systems nobody was supposed to know about — but, of course, Jay Gridley wasn’t just anybody. He had heard they had a very nasty program running that kept track of all kinds of e-mail it wasn’t supposed to keep track of, and this was his first chance to take a look at it. You never knew but that some idiot might think he was secure when he wasn’t and say something stupid, like, “Hey, didja see how I screwed up the military’s VR war games?”
Jay didn’t really believe his prey could possibly be that foolish, but stranger things had happened. People said things when they didn’t know they were being watched that they would never say if they thought somebody was peeking over their shoulder.
He went in, popped the firewall and encrypted password open, and looked around. He didn’t see anything useful. He left. This was a top-level system, supposedly bullet-proof, but that was a joke against a man of Jay’s caliber.
He smiled at the metaphor.
Then it was back to CyberNation. Maybe something new there.
Jay stared at the hole in the fence, a small, irregular-shaped blank space in one of the planks making up the stockade wall in the small abandoned mining town. This was where players came to pan for gold, and the idea was that the local streams and rivers had played out, but that there was still at least one bonanza claim waiting to be found here, one missed by earlier panners.
Something was not right about that hole in the wall.
Of course a lot of things seemed odd here. Little things — the details in the programming, the quality of sensory input. It wasn’t bad — most people wouldn’t ever notice it — but most people weren’t Jay Gridley. However, as Jay was a guest, he had to stick fairly close to their existing VR scenario.
Another attack had hit CyberNation recently, this time an on-line SCA enclave. The SCA was the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group that enjoyed harking back to the good old days, and pretending that they were knights and ladies in medieval times. In the RW, they spent much time cooking authentic foods and beating the daylights out of each other with padded swords and sticks.