Virtual Vandals nfe-1 Read online

  “Still recovering from that hit, huh?”

  Leif nodded — and winced. “Ever been caught in veeyar when a program suddenly crashed?”

  “Who hasn’t? Usually you wind up with a killer headache.”

  “Multiply that by about a hundred, and you’ll have an idea of how I feel. Gah! It even hurts to listen to myself talk.”

  Leif sighed, carefully letting his head rest back against the chair. “My implant is okay, and the doctors say there’s no nerve damage, just…sensitivity.” His lips crooked in a half smile. “No veeyar until the neurons calm down. And out here in regular reality, well, my folks are delighted. No loud music, no action holos with sirens, car chases, and explosions. In other words, no fun for a while.”

  He sent a sharp look Matt’s way. “There hasn’t been much on the HoloNet about what went down in Camden Yards. I can’t believe the cops don’t have a clue. Has Net Force clamped down on it? What was it all about? Terrorists?”

  “It was kids,” Matt said. “The cops — and Net Force — have no idea who they are.”

  He went on to explain what Captain Winters had told him.

  Leif frowned. “What sort of sickos would even consider shooting down a field full of hologram baseball players?” Then he answered his own question. “Spoiled, rich, sick kids, messing people up for fun — no profit.”

  “Maybe it was people who hate baseball,” Matt suggested.

  “You mean the sorts of geekoids who never got chosen to play on a team?” Leif leaned forward in his chair. “We’re looking at money and brains here. And if it’s kids with money in the D.C. area, I should know them — or know people who know them.”

  Leif sank back, eyes shut, sighing. “You know, I’d be just the right person to track down these virtual vandals — if I could get on the Net.”

  He darted another look at Matt. “You’re after them, aren’t you?”

  Matt nodded. “I’m trying, but I could use some help.”

  “Bet you could.” Leif was still frowning, but now he was frowning in thought. “It will mean dealing with a different crowd than you’re used to, even going to Rich Kids’ Prep.”

  Matt laughed. “What’s that old saying? ‘The rich are different’?”

  But Leif didn’t join his laughter. “They’re only interested in who’s got more money or social clout. That’s why they like diplomats — usually they’ve got money and clout. Pull some stupid prank, and the State Department will hush it up.”

  “You think that some of the vandals may be diplomats’ kids?” Matt asked.

  “It’s possible,” Leif said. “Nothing like a little diplomatic immunity to make a person completely irresponsible.” He looked at Matt. “But that doesn’t help you get in with them. Rich kids are always ready to use you.”

  Matt suddenly thought of Sandy Braxton and the help he’d be getting.

  “Or you could interest them, which is just using you in a different way — for entertainment.”

  “Hey, you’re a rich kid, too,” Matt said. “You’re dumping on your own sort of people pretty hard.”

  “I’ve met my share of snobs and users,” Leif said curtly. “I’m familiar with them. And to use another old saying, ‘Familiarity breeds contempt.’”

  He thought for another moment, then said, “Computer! Identify for voice commands.”

  “Voice identified as Leif Anderson.” The computer’s response was quiet, yet it seemed to fill the room.

  “File transfer. Proxy, entree, Maxim dot com. Iconize.” Leif turned to Matt. “Hand out, buddy.”

  As Matt stretched out his holoform hand, a small chess piece popped into existence on his palm. It was a pawn, maybe an inch tall, made of swirling red fire.

  “That’s a program you’ll be able to take back with you through the Net,” Leif said. “Run it through your computer, and you’ll have the coordinates and a password for a very special Web-node — a virtual chat room.”

  “Oh, great,” Matt muttered.

  “I said it was special,” Leif said. “It’s a chat room for the young, rich, and restless. Nobody shows up in his or her real face. Everyone uses proxies — the wilder, the better.” He paused for a second. “That’s the rest of the program. I developed a new proxy for myself, something to catch the attention of the people who hang out there.”

  Matt stared at his friend. “You go to this chat room?”

  Leif laughed, but there wasn’t a trace of humor in his voice. “Oh, yeah. I like to hang out with the rich kids, too. Even if it means I have to interest and entertain them.”

  After returning home through the Net, Matt finished his homework, then had dinner. Only then did he reconnect to his computer and reach for the swirling red pawn. When the proxy program was activated, Matt called up a virtual mirror to check himself out.

  Was this some sort of joke? Leif’s program had transformed him into an animated stick figure — a sort of quick free-hand figure with tiny dots for eyes and a line for a mouth. Even as Matt watched, the figure began turning red — from embarrassment.

  Had Leif really intended to enter that chat room as a walking doodle?

  Then Matt thought for a moment. The stick figure would offer him a perfect disguise. And if Leif was right, it would get him noticed. Matt decided to give it a try. So what if he wound up feeling like an idiot? He could always disconnect, and nobody would even know that Matt Hunter had been there.

  Matt looked down and saw he wasn’t red anymore. He reached out with one stick-figure hand for his gold thunderbolt. His other hand grasped the red pawn with the destination and password.

  He gave the subvocal order. Launch.

  Matt swirled wildly across the neon cityscape of the Net, heading into areas he’d never explored before. The virtual constructions here were spread out more widely — surrounded by security zones, Matt suddenly realized. The developers had also fooled around more in designing them. Matt flashed past what looked like a neon graveyard, than a glowing replica of Dracula’s castle, and finally came to a halt at a set of red-and-gold gates.

  A hulking, faceless figure confronted him. Matt quickly flashed the password he’d been given. He had no desire to find out what that glaring creature of light did to intruders.

  The glowing gatekeeper flashed, transforming into a tall, thin man in an old-fashioned tuxedo — the image of a headwaiter at a super-expensive restaurant.

  “Please follow me, sir or madam.” The waiter spoke with an accent — French, Matt realized.

  He stepped through the gateway, to find himself in a setting of the sort he’d only seen in holos. Matt stood in a large hall, decorated in the style of the ’90s — the 1890s. Everything seemed to be red or gold — red satin wallpaper, plush red velvet drapes and chairs. Brassy gold columns held up a ceiling that seemed to be hammered gold leaf. Private balconies were trimmed with gold. Even the flame of the old-fashioned gaslights had a golden glow.

  Part of the hall was set up as a restaurant, with black-clad waiters zooming among the tables. Another part was a casino, full of games of chance. A small orchestra played ancient music for an almost empty dance floor.

  But most of the huge space was just an expanse of red-and-gold rug, where figures of all sorts walked, sometimes passing, sometimes speaking to one another.

  Matt found himself staring. Off to one side was a giant red-and-gold robot whose head almost scraped the ceiling fifty feet above. People stood in his (its?) outstretched palm, chatting. A superhero swaggered by, every muscle showing in his skintight uniform. Behind him hopped a perfectly natural-looking frog — except that if this frog stood up, it would be a good six feet tall.

  Another figure passed by — Matt recognized it as a cartoon character he’d followed on Saturday mornings. Beyond was something even weirder — a human skull haloed in fire, floating in midair at about eye level.

  Well, Matt thought, guess I don’t have to worry about fitting in.

  “First time at Maxim’s?” a g
irl’s voice asked from behind him.

  He turned to find a young blond woman who looked, well, normal — except for the fact that she was very beautiful.

  “Um…yeah,” Matt admitted.

  “You’re turning red!” she said, laughing. “I love it!”

  “I think it’s a fault in the program,” Matt said in embarrassment.

  “No, it’s great,” the girl insisted. “What’s your proxy name?”

  “I don’t—” Matt began.

  “We’ll call you Mr. Sticks,” the girl said. “I’m CeeCee, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you, CeeCee.” Matt knew he was staring at her, but this woman looked familiar. Then it hit him. She was a soap star on the HoloNet, Courtney Vance!

  Or rather, he warned himself, she’s the image of Courtney Vance. Who knows who’s behind the mask?

  “From the way you don’t seem very impressed by all this, I’d guess you come here pretty often,” Matt said.

  CeeCee laughed, twirling her long blond hair around one of her perfectly manicured fingers. “You mean I don’t bother getting dressed for it?”

  Compared to the elaborate getups on most of the proxies in Maxim’s, her clothes were refreshingly down to earth — jeans and a loose sweater.

  Then Matt found himself staring again. He’d have sworn that CeeCee’s sweater was purple. Now it seemed to be dark blue. No, light blue, which was now shifting into green. “Do your clothes go all the way through the spectrum?” he asked.

  The girl laughed again. “It’s a design for a real sweater. Something to do with microfiber optics and a phased discharge.”

  “What happens when the battery runs out?” Matt asked.

  CeeCee glanced at him. “I dunno,” she confessed. “Maybe it goes transparent!”

  “Good idea if you should just wear it in virtual, then,” Matt said. “The worst that can happen is that you’ll be rated Holo-R.”

  “Nah, this is just a onetime thing, Mr. Sticks,” CeeCee replied. “You keep turning up in the same proxy, and people begin to guess who you are.” She nodded to a big buff barbarian dressed in a wolfskin. “That’s Walton Wheatley.”

  “Walt the Weed?” Matt burst out. The guy had gotten the nickname because he was so tall and skinny.

  “You know Walt?” CeeCee said. “Do you go to Bradford, too?”

  You’re supposed to be here finding out about these people, Matt silently scolded himself. Not giving them information.

  “Got me,” he had to admit.

  “There are lots of kids from Bradford here,” CeeCee said. “Although they all want you to think they’re in college — or even older.” Scowling, she hooked a thumb at a tall red-haired woman with bold blue eyes and nothing much on. Oddly, most of the proxies seemed to be avoiding her. “She’ll tell you she works at her family’s brokerage, but she’s really in my class. That’s Pat Twonky.”

  Besides suffering from a comical name, Pat was a big lump of a girl with a sullen personality. Now Matt understood why people were staying away.

  He also realized that CeeCee had just told him that she went to Bradford.

  “I guess I should thank you for the warning,” Matt told her. “But ripping away people’s masks is a dangerous hobby. Now you’ve got me thinking about you. Do I just go with the blond-and-beautiful image I see here, or should I try to look behind it? Maybe you’re just a wannabe blonde — actually you’ve got stringy, mousy-brown hair.”

  “Yikes!” CeeCee exclaimed. A couple of strands of hair wrapped around her finger came loose. Unconsciously, her fingers tied them into a little bow. “What a nasty thing to say!”

  “Or maybe you’re a computer geekette who’s just here to see how the other half lives.”

  “More like the other ten percent,” CeeCee corrected. “Is that why you’re here?”

  Matt ignored the dig. “Suppose,” he went on, “you don’t exist at all! Maybe you’re a computer sim, set up to clue in newcomers to Maxim’s.”

  CeeCee had to clamp her lips together, but they curved enchantingly upward. Matt could barely hear her laughter. “You’re terrible,” she said. “And paranoid, if you’re worrying about flirting with a sim.”

  “Helps keep me real,” Matt replied. “What else can I do when I meet someone who looks perfect no matter what color her sweater is?”

  You’re letting yourself get distracted, a little voice warned in the back of his head. He was saying things he’d normally never say to a girl. But working from behind his proxy, it was just so easy to go with the flow, to play the game.

  Beyond CeeCee’s smiling face, a new figure swam into existence — another visitor arriving at Maxim’s. The newcomer was a tall female figure, completely surrounded in a cloud of veils.

  The veiled woman started past them, then suddenly whipped round to confront CeeCee. “Hey!” an angry voice demanded. “I thought players here were supposed to come as proxies, not copies.”

  “The house rules say come as you want,” CeeCee answered sulkily.

  “Probably some pimply-faced little high school twit who wonders what it’s like to be pretty.” Matt couldn’t believe how much scorn the stranger put into that one word. “It’s not enough to start work before the sun rises, spend most of your free time learning lines, and have little idiots copy your hairdo. But I draw the line at rich get-a-lifes stealing my face!”

  Matt stared back and forth between the two young women. This had to be the real Courtney Vance — and boy, was she in a bad mood!

  CeeCee’s face was red with embarrassment — and anger. “I’d call it more borrowing for a night. And I came as Alicia Fieldston.”

  That was the character Courtney portrayed, Matt remembered.

  “You know,” CeeCee went on. “The character with the improvements the studio adds, so I wouldn’t look like this…” Suddenly, CeeCee’s eyebrows became heavy and ragged. “Or this….” Her perfect nose went a little off center.

  “Why, you little…” the real Courtney Vance growled.

  But the girl in the virtual copy had heard enough. CeeCee suddenly swung, her fist catching the veiled figure in the side of the jaw.

  Matt winced as he heard the impact of knuckles against flesh and bone. That had to hurt!

  The real Courtney Vance vanished like a popped soap bubble.

  Matt stood where he was, the thought still echoing in his brain. That had to hurt. CeeCee had harmed Courtney Vance with a virtual attack. CeeCee had to be one of the people he was looking for!

  He turned to the girl, who was shaking out her fist.

  But before Matt could speak, they were joined by a figure that towered over them both. It was roughly in the shape of a human, if humans came nine feet high and were constructed of glowing crystals. Instantly, Matt christened the intruder Mr. Jewels.

  The crystalline figure lumbered up to CeeCee. “Can’t leave you on your tod even for a couple of minutes, can I?” The words came out in harsh, clanging tones.

  “On her what?” a confused Matt started to say.

  A big, glittering hand stretched out to clamp onto CeeCee’s arm. Although the finger-crystals glowed softly, Matt knew they must be hard as stone.

  CeeCee merely looked at Mr. Jewels in silence, her face a mask of fear — and pain.

  I’ve got to do something, Matt thought, even as he wondered how his stick body would survive being stomped by those big, rocky feet.

  But before he could move, CeeCee and her big, jeweled friend both vanished from Maxim’s.

  Chapter 4

  Matt yawned as he rode the autobus to school the next morning. He’d spent a sleepless night going over what he’d learned from his virtual visit to Maxim’s.

  Not that it amounts to all that much, he thought as he walked onto the academy campus.

  During Prep period, he pulled Andy and David Gray aside. “Leif got me into a rich kids’ virtual hangout last night,” he reported. “I think I may have met some of our friends from Camden Yards.”
>
  “Which ones?” Andy immediately asked. “John Dillinger, or the cute blond?”

  “I can’t be sure,” Matt admitted. “They were in different proxies, of course. One was a guy made up of crystals — I called him Mr. Jewels. The other was a girl named CeeCee. She came as Courtney Vance.”

  “You mean the actress who plays the doctor on Central Hospital?” David asked.

  “I didn’t know you watched the holo-soaps,” Andy teased.

  “Come on,” David said defensively. “Her image is all over the Net.”

  “It sure is.” Andy thought for a second. “Very pretty, and very blond.”

  “It might be a clue,” Matt said. “If CeeCee is the same girl from the stadium, she likes to appear as a blond — maybe she has blond hair.”

  “Or maybe she’s a wannabe-blond,” Andy shot back. “I came across a dictionary of old-fashioned slang — Valley Speak, they called it. They had a couple of names for girls with blond hair — loxies and boxies.”

  Matt and David glanced at each other, baffled.

  “A loxie is like Goldilocks — she gets her blond hair from Ma Nature,” Andy explained with a grin. “Other girls got their blond hair from a box. Nowadays, they can play proxies who look the way they want to. Your CeeCee may weigh three hundred pounds and have a shaved head.”

  “Got any other clues for Sherlock over here to trash?” David asked.

  “The real Courtney Vance turned up,” Matt said. “CeeCee hit her — and hurt her.”

  Both of his friends stopped kidding. “What happened then?” Andy asked.

  “Then this jewel-guy came lumbering over. He complained about not being able to leave CeeCee on her tod.” Matt smiled, proud of himself. “I tracked down that expression on the Net — it’s British slang for leaving someone alone. So Mr. Jewels may be British — maybe somebody from the diplomatic community.”

  “Or maybe it’s someone pretending to be British,” David objected. “Have you heard about that new proxy program, Idiom Savant? It instantly translates whatever you say into any of a dozen other languages. The only giveaway is in the lips of the proxy. There’s a slight delay between the lip movements and the sound as the program processes the translation.”