But that wasn’t why he was here. An end had to be made.
“Nancy,” he said into her ear, “I have to ask you a question.” “Yes?” she said expectantly.
“Have you ever heard of a man named Gerard Dominique?” Nancy stiffened in his arms, then pushed off against his chest. “Could you possibly be more romantic?” His face turned as if he’d been slapped by the rebuke.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “You know—” he started, stopped, looked into her eyes. “You know I can be. You should know that I want to be. But I didn’t come here for romance, Nancy.” Her own eyes pained, she looked at her watch. “There’s a plane I can still catch and I think I’ll go catch it.” She looked from her watch to the bed to her suitcase. “I don’t need a ride, thanks. You can go.” Hood didn’t move. It was as if two decades had evaporated and he was standing in her apartment, caught in one of those arguments that had started as a flake and had suddenly become a blizzard. It was funny how memory diminished those, but there had been a lot of them.
“Nancy,” Hood said, “we think that Gerard Dominique may be behind the hate video games which have begun showing up in America. A game like that just showed up on Hausen’s computer, with Hausen in it.” “Video games are easy to make,” Nancy said. She went to the closet, got her stylish off-white jacket, and pulled it over her shoulders. “Scanning someone’s picture in is also easy. Any well-equipped teenager could do it.” “But earlier today, Dominique phoned and threatened Hausen.” “Government officials are threatened all the time,” Nancy said. “And maybe he deserved it. Hausen gets on a lot of people’s nerves.” “Does his thirteen-year-old daughter get on people’s nerves too?” Nancy’s lips came together slowly. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Of course you are,” Hood said. “The question is, can you help me? Do you work for this man?” Nancy turned away. “You think that because I betrayed an employer years ago I’ll do it again.” “This isn’t the same thing, is it?” Hood asked.
Nancy sighed. Her shoulders rolled forward. Hood could feel the storm die aborning.
“Actually,” she said, “it’s exactly the same thing. Paul Hood needs something and once again I’m ready to flush my life down the toilet so he can have it.” “You’re wrong,” he said. “I didn’t ask for the first one.
That was your doing.” “Let me bask in the waves of compassion,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I feel bad for that headstrong girl, but what you did affected a lot of lives. Yours, mine, my wife’s, whoever you were with, whoever we might have touched together—” “Your kids,” she said bitterly, “our kids. The kids we never had.” Nancy stepped forward and put her arms around Hood.
She began to cry. Paul held her closer, felt her shoulder blades heaving against his open hands. What a waste, he thought. What a tragic goddamned waste this all was.
“You don’t know how many nights I lay in bed alone,” Nancy said, “cursing myself for what I did. I wanted you so bad I was going to go back and turn myself in. But when I called Jessica to see how you were, she told me you had a new girlfriend. So what was the point?” “I wish you had come back,” he said. “And I wish I’d known all of this then.” Nancy nodded. “I was stupid. Insecure. Scared. Angry at you for filling my place. I was a lot of things. I guess I still am. In many ways, time stopped for me twenty years ago and started up again this afternoon.” She stepped back and pulled a tissue from the nightstand. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes. “So here we are, full of regrets and one of us at least feeling that you can’t go back. And that one isn’t me.” “I’m sorry,” Hood said.
“Me too,” she said back. “Me too.” Nancy, took a deep breath, stood tall, and looked into his eyes. “Yes,” she said, “I work for Gerard Dominique. But I’m not privy to his politics or personal life, so I don’t think I can help you there.” “Is there anything you can tell me? What are you working on?” “Maps,” she said. “Of American cities.” “You mean like regular road maps?” Hood asked.
She shook her head. “They’re what we call point-ofview maps. A traveler inputs the street coordinates and what appears on the computer screen is exactly what you’re looking at. Then you input where you want to go, or ask what’s around the next corner, or where the nearest subway or bus stop is, and the computer shows you. Again, from your point of view. You can also get a printout of an overhead map if you want. It helps people plan what they’re going to see and how they’re going to get around in a particular city.” “Has Dominique ever done travel guides before?” “Not to my knowledge,” Nancy said. “This’ll be a first.” Hood thought for a moment. “Have you seen any marketing plans?” “No,” Nancy said, “but that doesn’t surprise me. That’s not my area. Though one thing which did surprise me is that we haven’t done any press releases on these programs.
Usually, the publicists come and ask me questions like what’s unique about this program or why do people have to have it. That actually happens pretty early in the process so the sales people can solicit orders at the consumer electronics shows. But on this, nada.” Hood said, “Nancy— I have to ask this, and I’m sorry.
It won’t go any farther than myself and my closest associates.” “You can take out an ad in Newsweek,” she said. “I can’t resist you when you’re so damn doing-your-job earnest.” “Nancy, there may be lives at risk.” “You don’t have to explain,” she said. “It’s one of the things I loved about you, Sir Knight.” Hood flushed. “Thank you,” he said, and tried to concentrate on what he was doing. “Just tell me, is Demain working on any kind of new technology? Something that ordinary video-gamers would find compelling?” “Constantly,” she said. “But the one we’re closest to marketing is a silicon chip which stimulates nerve cells. It was developed for amputees to be able to operate prosthetic limbs or for the augmentation of diminished spinal cord function.” She grinned. “I’m not sure whether we actually developed that one, or if it came to Demain the same way my old chip did. In any case, we’ve changed it quite a bit.
When it’s placed inside a joystick, the chip generates gentle pulses to make a player feel a kind of subtle contentment or harsher pulses to suggest danger. I’ve tried it. It’s all pretty subliminal, something you might not even be aware of. Like nicotine.” Hood was feeling slightly overwhelmed. A feel-good, feel-bad chip marketed by a bigot. Hate games on-line in the U.S. It seemed like it should be science fiction, but he knew that the technology was out there. Along with the venom to use it.
“Could the two of them be combined?” he asked. “Hate games and a chip that affects emotions.” “Sure,” Nancy said. “Why not?” “Do you think Dominique would?” “Like I said,” Nancy told him, “I’m not part of his inner circle. I just don’t know. I didn’t even realize he could be churning out hate games.” “You say that as though it would surprise you,” Hood observed.
“It would,” Nancy said. “You work with someone and you form certain ideas about them. Dominique is a patriot, but a radical?” Hood had given Hausen his word that he wouldn’t say anything about Dominique’s past. He doubted that Nancy would believe him in any case.
“Did you ever do anything with images from Toulouse?” Hood asked.
Nancy said, “Sure. We used our delicious little fortress as the background for some kind of promotional download.” “Did you ever see the finished product?” Nancy shook her head.
“I think I did,” Hood said. “It was in the game in Hausen’s computer. Nancy, one more thing. Is it possible that those maps you created could be used in games?” “Of course,” she said.
“With figures superimposed?” Hood asked.
“Yes. You could integrate photographs or computergenerated images. Just like in motion pictures.” Hood was beginning to get a picture he didn’t like. He walked slowly toward the phone, sat down on the bed, and picked up the receiver.
“I’m going to call my office,” he said. “There’s something happening that I’m starting to get real worried about.” Nancy nodded. “Since the world’s hanging in the balance, you don’t have to reverse the charges.” Hood looked at Nancy. She was smiling. God bless her, he thought. She was as prone to psychotic mood swings as ever.
“Actually,” Hood said as he punched in Mike Rodgers’s number, “the world, or a good part of it, may very well be hanging in the balance. And you may be the only one who can save it.”