“So, what do you think?” Julio asked “Not bad, for a beat-up old trooper. Why did you choose this in particular?” “I went here once, for real. I have some good memories of it. Besides, I wanted to see what you looked like in a bathing suit.” “I bet you say that to all the girls.” “Sure I do. But my intentions are honorable– I could have made it a nude beach, you know.” She laughed.
As they rounded a big rock and the shoreline curved inward, Winthrop noticed some thing odd. The water seemed to be… receding, ebbing away and growing shallower as she watched.
It moved out so quickly that fish were left flopping on the bottom. A big eel wiggled frantically, trying to catch the subsiding sea.
“That’s a nice effect,” she said.
“What’s it for?” He shook his head.
“I don’t have a clue. I’m not doing it.” The water continued to ebb, and Winthrop looked farther out to sea.
“Uh-oh,” she said.
“What?” “I just realized what’s happening. See there?” Julio squinted into the sunshine.
“Looks like a big wave.” “Yeah, it’s a big wave, all right, and it’s going to get a lot bigger as it gets closer. It’s a tsunami.” “A tidal wave?” “That’s a misnomer. It doesn’t have anything to do with tides. They’re usually caused by earthquakes or volcanic activity.
Sometimes by a big meteor hitting the ocean–or somebody playing with big nukes can make one.” “So why all of a sudden is there a tsunami in my scenario?” “Got me, but it looks like trouble in paradise.
Something big is happening on the net. I hate to cut the lesson short, but we need to jack out of this scenario see what RW scans show.” “Yes, ma’am. You’re the expert.” “Stand by–” Saturday, January 15th, 3:30p.m.
Quantico, Virginia Fernandez came back to himself in the computer room, sitting next to Joanna. She was waving her hands at her computer station, calling up a rapid blur of images and words and numbers from the holoproj in front of her. And she was cursing like a sailor while she did it.
“God dammit! How the hell can this be happening?” She waved her hands again, then tapped furiously at the keyboard on the desk.
Fernandez kept quiet, knowing this was not the time to fill her ears with foolish questions.
Whatever was going on, though, it didn’t look good.
“No, no, no, you bastard! Don’t route there, you’ll crash the–dammit, dammit! Stop!” Jay Gridley came running into the room, and excited as he was, he must already know what was going on.
“Winthrop, you see what the hell is happening?” “I got it. Jesus Christ!” Gridley slid into a chair in front of another workstation.
“Man, oh, man! The kick outs at Fe done just blew.” “We need to scramble some programmers. Jay– was “Already did it. Boss is on the way in, so is everybody else who can warm a seat.” “You call Fiorella?” He spared her a glance from the flashing holoproj in front of him.
“Didn’t need to. I bounced her virgil’s location. It’s within a couple of feet of the boss’s. She’s with him.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Isn’t that inter esting?” “Old news,” Joanna said.
“You need to pay more attention to RW around you, Gridley.” “Screw you, Winthrop.” “In your dreams, monkey fingers.” “In my nightmares, you mean.” Fernandez felt like a fifth wheel. He didn’t know what was going on, and he wasn’t gonna ask, but whatever it was, it was bad.
“The blast doors on Fed Two just slammed shut,” Joanna said.
“See ’em,” Gridley said.
“Maybe we can reroute the–ah, piss! Fed Three just rolled over too. We got a major infection here!” “A virus?” Fernandez said.
“Not a virus, a goddamned plague,” Gridley said.
“Somebody got past the best antivirals we have and threw a replicant bomb. The bugs are reproducing and going through the federal financial systems like water through a fire hose. The only way we’re gonna stop it is to shut down everything it’s contaminated and flush it one system at a time.” “Crap,” Joanna said.
“Crapeacrap, crap!” She leaned back, watching the screen flash stuff that was meaningless to Fernandez.
“Well, I’ll say one thing,” Fernandez said, “you sure know how to show a boy a good time.” “Hold up, hold up,” Joanna said.
“I got some thing.” “You can stop it?” Julio said.
“No, I can’t. But I think I can find where it came from.
Jeez, I can’t believe the guy is that dumb.
Jay?” “I see it, I see it! I’ve got a lock!
How’d you do that, Winthrop?” “I found a ghost on my station from when he broke in here.
There wasn’t anywhere to go with it, it petered out, but just in case, I set up a scan-and-match.” “What does that mean?” Fernandez asked, despite his resolution not to ask stupid questions.
” “It means that even if our perp bounces his signal, we can back walk it–if we hurry, and if the sig is a match.” “Good work, Winthrop!” Gridley said.
“You ready to run him down?” “I’d like to kick his ass personally, but much as I hate to say it, you’re better at this part than I am, Gridley. Go get him.” Gridley smiled.
“You know, you’re not so bad after all– for a white girl. I’m gone.” When Toni and Alex arrived, there was a lot of commotion in the computer center. Jay, Joanna, and half the regular programmers were there, stations lit and working. Julio Fernandez stood next to the doorway watching.
“Julio,” Toni said.
“How is it going?” “I’m not the guy to ask. I’m catching about one word in twenty. It’s nasty, this thing. Gridley calls it a replicant bomb.” “Oh, shit,” Toni and Alex said together.
“But Jo and Gridley apparently got a lock on the bomb thrower. Gridley is running him down somehow. I didn’t understand most of that part.” “Thanks, Sergeant,” Toni said.
“No problem, Commander.” Alex moved to where Joanna sat, and as Toni started to head for her office to assess damage reports, Fernandez’s smile stopped her.
“Something funny I’m missing?” she asked.
“I could use a good laugh.” “No, ma’am, nothing funny.” “Why the grin?” “Oh, I was just, you know, musing.” “About what?” “You and the commander.” Toni felt herself color.
“Me and the commander?” “Yes, ma’am.” Oh, God, does it show? We haven’t even done anything yet!
“What about us. Sergeant?” “Nothing, ma’am. Just lucky how you both get here so quick.” “You’re a poor liar, Julio.” “Yes, ma’am. Probably I need more practice.” “I need to go,” she said.
She hurried down the hall. He knew. How?
How could he know? That little slip of the tongue, when Alex said “we,” instead of “I”? That couldn’t be; he hadn’t even been talking to Fernandez, he’d been talking to Jay.
Well. Worry about that later. Right now, they had a crisis to weather.
One thing at a time, girl, one thing at a time .
Chapter 32 Saturday, January 15th, 3:40 P.m.
Marietta, Georgia
Platt was feeling damn good about his latest caper on the net.
It was amazing what you could do when you had a bunch of secret codes and passwords, courtesy of somebody who had access to a U.s. senator. Like screw up a major segment of the entire United States electronic banking system, blap! just like that. Those poor feebs were running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off, going bug fuck crazy trying to keep the money systems from crashing.
Wasn’t gonna stop it, though, not without shutting down a bunch of it, and that was the point. Because part of what was going down was a big ole safe that kept the net cowboys from robbing the bank.
Once that was out of the way, things were gonna get real interestin…’. He was in the bathroom when he heard the alarm go off.
At first, he thought it was the smoke detector, but after a second, he realized it was coming from his computer, on the kitchen table.
“What the hell–his!” He jumped up and ran into the kitchen.
Sure enough, the little speaker on the portable was wailing away.
For a second, Platt just stood there, staring at the beeping computer.
It wasn’t supposed to happen, but unless there was some kind of software malfunction, somebody had somehow accessed his primary input signal. The only way they could have possibly done that was to have caught it at the satellite before the bounce, and only way that was possible was to have been waiting for the signal, and to know what to look for when it got there.
Couldn’t be. He hadn’t left any clues that big.
He moved, fast. Tapped in the confirmation code. Maybe it was just a software error, a glitch that tripped the audible-Aw, shit backslash It wasn’t an error!