Page 27.

Chapter 15

In the morning, as David picked up his mail in the foyer—a letter from his sister Dora, which he sliced open with his finger—Colonel Jankowsky signaled for him to step in and close the door. “Find anything last night?”

Love, David thought, maybe. “No sign of Shoob, Sir.” Love, if that’s it again, that crazy, mysterious, upsetting, dark force...

“Stick with this lieutenant and help her try to find Shoob. Keep a tight lip about this place, and watch your back. I’ll fill you in a little more as warranted.”

“Yessir.” He felt a little prickle of sweat under his collar—did sticking around include lying on the rug with her? Would Jankowsky nail him if he found out...? Something was going on here, maybe lots of somethings.

As they approached the Naval Observatory along the tree lined street, David said: “Looks different in the daytime.” On their left was the Vice Presidential mansion, still shuttered but not ominous. All around were buildings of the Naval Observatory complex, many with small observatory domes on their roofs, others with antennas and microwave dishes. Tory pulled into a parking spot marked XO. Tory shook her head: “I always think about you getting shot, and Ib getting abducted. Night or day, this place is starting to give me the creeps.”

She gave him a brief tour inside the National Systems Security Office (NSSO) building. He had an impression of windowless offices, of short corridors angling into other short corridors; and of military personnel with close mouths, guarded looks, and multiple security badges. She showed him her office. Unlike the others, it had a nice big view window overlooking green lawns, big old trees, and the red brick walls of 1890’s Naval architecture.

Her office gave an impression of neatness, yet warmth and personableness. On her desk sat a photo cube showing off family. In one corner was a bag overflowing with exercise clothing. He nudged her. “You jog wearing pink socks?”

They both stared at the wool crew socks peeking from the unzipped bag. She nudged back. “That was a laundry accident. I was going to ask if you’d like to go jogging with me, but if you feel that way about my socks, imagine how you feel about me.”

He whispered “I will wear baby blue socks, okay? Anything.”

“I might give you another chance,” she said rolling her eyes in mock sternness. She turned to leave the room. He followed her past a row of small offices, each occupied by a warm body and crammed with equipment. A door with a sign M/CPO Shoob remained conspicuously shut. Tory introduced David to a pert young Marine Corps staff sergeant named Marguerite “Jet” Steffey. Steffey had a dimpled chin, mischievous eyes, and a pixie face. She had café-au-lait skin and a Hispanic accent. “Nice to meet you, Sir,” Jet said.

“Captain Gordon was one of the last people to see Ib,” Tory said.

Jet said: “We’re all so worried about him.”

David felt awkward at her hopefulness. “Let’s hope for the best. If only I’d really believed him—or gotten to Observatory Circle sooner!”

“Captain Gordon’s with the I.G.,” Tory reminded Jet.

“Chief Shoob is my client. I’d like to learn more about his work,” David said. Tory guided him to a special chair, like a cockpit seat.

Jet started to put a headset on him, but wrinkled her nose. “Ib’s old headset smells of sweat and tobacco.”

“I’ll let you borrow my goggles,” Tory said. She left the room and came back in a moment. Instead of a clumsy head set, these were more like eyeglasses. With delicate fingers, she put them on David. “That feel okay?”

He swallowed the temptation to tell her how he loved the touch of her fingertips on his temples. Instead of a lens, each eye was covered by a black hemisphere, a 180 x 180 degree theater. “It's pretty compelling,” Tory said. “Things just want to look three-dimensional inside them.” David found the goggles were very light, with good peripheral vision.

“Tell me if you get any VR effects,” Jet said. She sat in a similar cockpit nearby and donned her own headwalker gear.

“I’m a little leery,” David said. “Seriously, I’m okay.”

“It is a little strange at first,” Jet said.

Virtual Reality made some people feel ill, or panicky. It was a radical transition, an immersion, like the dive of a submarine. David’s V.R. persona stood looking along the sidewalk on an avenue in a big city. The whole scene was an ink sketch as if from a fashion artist. The picture was frozen, without motion, but with depth all around. The figures were lean and had poise. He had a feeling of vertigo, as if in a rocking boat. Jet’s hand guided his grip to a metal hand rail in the real world.

He heard Tory: “I’ve tried it. You almost have to learn to walk again.”

Jet made some adjustments and talked: “Some people have to bail out right away. How are you feeling?”

“A little funny,” David said carefully. “But I think I’ll manage.”

“You can bail anytime,” Jet said. “I'll drive. Just come along.”

“We won’t tell anyone,” Tory jibed, poking his ribs.

“Ouch.” He reached out blindly to his left and poked something soft that retreated. Tory.

“Here we go, Sir,” Jet said.

He felt Tory behind him. She had her hands on his shoulders, rubbing his muscles, fingering his neck, and he felt a delicious thrill at her touch. He patted her hand, and she secretly squeezed his hand with hers.

“Are you ready, Sir?” Jet asked.

David stared at the frozen tableau of sketch figures. “Yes.”

“I’m taking us in.” Suddenly, there was movement. A blur of it. David sat back involuntarily. All around him, the pencil sketches were moving. Clouds raced across the sky. Cars roared past.

“Remember, Sir, it’s all a metaphor.”

“Can I see you?”

“Negative. Ib and I don’t use icons of ourselves. Especially when we chase a bad guy. It’s stealth all the way. Icons are for jokers. That's what we call amateurs, the kind of nasty freaks, third-rate talents, who must leave an ego signature in systems they maliciously hack or destroy.”

The sketch people were becoming clearer. Shaded cheeks became flesh and on occasion blushed. Eyes glanced through him with airbrushed insouciance. Couples rushed by in the growing dusk, dressed for the opera or the theater, maybe late from dinner and searching for tickets in a wallet or purse. The metaphor was filled with charming detail like that. But David knew it was all wallpaper, as the trade called it. The real meat of the matter was the Niagara of information flowing in a powerful data stream behind the scenes. Picture a vast water pipe. An underground river. Nothing looked quite real. You always knew it was a picture or a painting or a video clip. “We’re in the Washington Muni stream,” Jet explained. “The city did a nice job, don’t you think?”

“It’s overwhelming,” David said sincerely, holding the metal bar with both hands as they flew along the sidewalk at a dizzying pace as though jogging, but without the bouncing. Sometimes they went around people, other times through them.

“This is mainly transit,” Jet said. “Public domain. We’re in the system and we can go look at available files. Want to go to the bank? Look up the current interest rates?” David found himself turning tightly, and entering a heavy door among Grecian pillars. Jet controlled all the motion. He just had to hang on. They entered a lobby, and the whole tone changed. The sketch people were gone, replaced by wholesome cartoon people in solid colors. The entire bank was a realistic cartoon in cheerful, toned-down hues. “World InterBank does it their own way,” Jet said. “Everyone does. Some places are like being inside a Da Vinci, or a Van Gogh or a Rembrandt painting. Other places are wild like Zap Comics. I like ligne claire, like Hergé used to do, the creator of Tintin.” They stood before a huge book of sorts, with marbled covers, gilded edges, and a fancy satin bookmark. The ledger pages turned slowly, revealing banking information. Real estate loans were at a 26% nominal rate for prime paper, reflecting the times that had brought about CON2.

“I believe you,” David said, trying to decide if a brief queasy feeling was lunch trying to come up his gullet like a message up a pneumatic tube. The VR Effect had been documented over twenty years now. Many people had violent reactions of vertigo and nausea; the younger, the worse the effects. The longer they stayed in virtual reality, the longer it took to recover. In an early documented episode, a worker who had been in VR for several hours went to get a cola—and when she tried to drink it, poured it in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Jet said, “I’ll try to slow down. I’m so used to zipping around here. Sometimes I feel like a jet pilot,” Jet said. “That’s not how I got the nickname—”

“—But it fits,” Tory said somewhere and they all laughed.

“We are riding the most powerful computer in the world, “ Jet said.

David snapped his fingers. “Oh yes, yes, what is it—CloudMaster. Wow.” There were only a few of these machines in the world, he remembered reading.

“We have one here in the building,” Tory said. “I’ll show you afterward.”

“Somewhere in here,” Jet said, “lb said he discovered something so important he couldn’t sleep nights.”

“How much did he tell you?” David asked.

Jet seemed to hesitate, driving along a virtual boulevard in a cartoon land created by the metropolitan water department. They were cut off by a Ford Model T full of dogs in suits with violin cases. The Ford was being chased by a similar car full of dogs in police uniforms who waved tommy guns. Pretty soon there was a racket as cops and gangsters fired machine guns at each other. Then Jet cruised into a Pentagon data suburb, and it was no-nonsense straight lines and pencil people again; no sound of any kind. David felt as though he were floating rather than being driven.

“Go ahead,” Tory urged Jet.

Jet said: “He found a message from Vice President Cardoza just before he was killed. Ib never told me what was in the note, but it must have been important stuff. Now Ib’s missing and you’re here. That’s all I know. Oh and one other thing.”

“What’s that?” David coaxed.

“He told me he was thinking of asking for a transfer. He said sometimes he envied the civilians, like Tabitha. She resigned and I think it had something to do with—”

“Who’s Tabitha again?”

Tory cut in: “Tabitha Summers, the woman I mentioned the other day. She was a systems security analyst, GS-18. Twenty six years’ service last January, planned to go for thirty. Suddenly changed her mind and retired.”

“She and lb were pretty good friends,” Jet said. “All three of us were. They were a lot older, and I got the feeling they were trying to shield me from whatever they thought was going on. They seemed paranoid. Until—”

“Until lb disappeared,” Tory said.

“That’s right,” Jet said.

“If you find out anything more, tell Lieutenant Breen right away.”

“Sure,” Jet said. “Well, that’s the tour. Unless you want to visit anywhere else.” The scene shifted high up over the virtual city, toward a sun logo containing the words SPUS EXIT and circumscribed with the words Shanghai Portland Utility Software in English on top and Chinese characters on the bottom. As pixel sunlight rastered the rooftops, they rose up into the sun, which flared briefly, then closed like a camera shutter, leaving blank screens. David took the glasses off. He rubbed his eyes, shaking his head. For a moment the regular daylight hurt his eyes. Then they readjusted. His stomach still felt a bit queasy. “Thanks, Jet. That was really impressive. I wouldn’t want to do that for a living.”

“Any time, Sir.” She shook his hand and beamed proudly.

As David and Tory headed for Tory’s office, he glimpsed CloudMaster through a slightly ajar door in a plain room with painted-over windows: a huge egg shape that glistened ominously amid grappling shadows. Tungsten steel bolts big as fists anchored it to the yard-deep concrete floor. All that raw strength existed to hold in one of the most powerful near-vacuums on earth.

Tory stopped David from peering within in fascination. “No time to sight-see. I’ll give you a tour when we have time.”

In Tory’s office, David pushed the door shut and sat on the windowsill. She plopped in her chair by the window. “I have an idea.” She spoke to her com button: “Call Tabitha Summers in Falls Church.” Routing the call took seconds. Tory plugged her com into the desk phone in Conference mode.

“Yes,” said a middle-aged woman flatly.

“Tabitha, it’s Tory Breen.”

“Lieutenant Breen. How are you?”

“I’m fine. We still don’t have any sign of Ib. I was wondering if I could bring Captain Gordon from I.G. out there and if we could talk with you.”

“I’m out of the business.”

“I know you are. I was hoping—”

Tabitha Summers said something curt and indistinct and rang off. As the line went dead, David looked at Tory. “What was that last thing she said?” They listened to the recording again. Tory guessed: “‘lb should have kept his nose out of it.’”

“That’s great,” David said. “Will you try to call her again?”

Tory frowned. “Maybe Jet can talk with her. That’s it! They were friends.” She pressed the intercom. “Jet, would you come in here a moment?”