Hidden Agendas Part 25

"We're throwing water on it, but we're talking mega forest fire, Boss. It's hot and ugly and getting hotter and uglier every minute. We're gonna have to take some major systems offline and shut down a bunch of the FedWeb."

"Do what you can, get everybody we have on it. We'll be-I'm on my way," Michaels said. "Discom." on my way," Michaels said. "Discom."

Michaels looked at Toni. "I'm sorry," he said.

She shook her head. "I hope you're talking about the call."

"Yeah, I am. But-this-" He waved one hand back and forth between them. "This is probably... not very smart."

"I know."

"I'm your boss. This sort of thing brings up all kinds of problems."

"What sort of thing?"

He stared at her. "Jesus, Toni, you know what I'm talking about. Office romance. Supervisors sleeping with people they supervise."

She grinned, as big as he'd ever seen her grin. "Oh, boy," she said.

"What?"

"You want to sleep with me?"

"Yes, of course. But given the circ.u.mstances-"

"I'll quit," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"If you sleep with me, I'll resign."

"Toni-"

"No, I'm serious. If it would be a problem for you as my supervisor, then we can fix that. I love working for you, Alex, but I can always find another job. Right now, a personal relations.h.i.+p with you is more important than a business relations.h.i.+p."

He blinked at her, stunned by her words. "You would quit your job to have s.e.x with me?"

"In a New York second."

"Why? I'm not that wonderful."

"You underestimate yourself. I'm serious about this."

He shook his head. "Jesus. Look, we have to get back to HQ and take care of this disaster, okay? Can we talk about this later?"

"Whenever you want. You want to go back and get the van?"

"No, leave it. I'll get somebody to pick up it."

He started the Miata's engine.

Holy s.h.i.+t. It never rained but it poured.

Sat.u.r.day, January 15th, 3:25 p.m. Harm, Maui, Hawaii Winthrop was on the net in Joined-VR, showing Julio some of the ins and out of the webweave. She had allowed him to conjure a program, and what he had come up with was a beach on Maui, near Hana. They were in personal persona, dressed in skimpy swimsuits, walking barefoot on a black sand beach. They listened to the breakers curl, to the seagulls cawing. A gentle breeze played over them, the sea where it lapped into the volcanic sand was warm, and the sun caressed their bare skin.

"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 sh.o.r.eline curved inward, Winthrop noticed something 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 suns.h.i.+ne. "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 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 tsunami in my scenario?" 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."

"Standby-"

Sat.u.r.day, January 15th, 3:30 p.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.

"G.o.d dammit! How the h.e.l.l 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d! 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 h.e.l.l is happening?"

"I got it. Jesus Christ!"

Gridley slid into a chair in front of another workstation. "Man, oh, man! The kickouts at FedOne just blew."

"We need to scramble some programmers, Jay-"

"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 flas.h.i.+ng 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 that interesting?" interesting?"

"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 FedTwo just slammed shut," Joanna said.

"See 'em," Gridley said. "Maybe we can reroute the-ah, p.i.s.s! FedThree just rolled over too. We got a major infection here!"

"A virus?" Fernandez said.

"Not a virus, a G.o.dd.a.m.ned plague 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."

"c.r.a.p," Joanna said. "c.r.a.p, c.r.a.p, c.r.a.p!" 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 something."

"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 backwalk 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 a.s.s 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, s.h.i.+t," 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 a.s.sess 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."