Massively Multiplayer (37 page)

Whatever it was, it was better that he be playing it here, where Blanks had some tenuous contact with him, than elsewhere, completely invisible once more. Sumter’s aggressive approach, however, threatened that shaky balance. She might drive Tenser back underground just when they’d finally got a-hold of him. The man clearly wanted to brag about whatever he was up to – his performance this morning had proven that – but was holding back his real intentions.

What Blanks needed was the same lever he’d always relied on when he worked in the theft division: an inside agent. Happily, he might have just located one. Sharps had just reported back that the Hunter boy had agreed to meet with him in the morning. The address he’d provided was fairly local, just a short ride by sub-orbital. Blanks planned to meet him and get back to Archimago before the afternoon, in order to prevent Sumter from pressuring Tenser into moving.

And then there was this funny little email from Getts, over in Financial Operations.

Subject: Archimago Investigation

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Savvy,

thought you might want to see the attached newsFeeds, relative to your standing order for new info on this company, relative to the Tenser case. Seems an EU consumer group has its panties in a bunch over some files incorporated into their most recent patch. Some Greek university student apparently set them on to it. Could turn out to be more noise and flap over nothing, or even the company drumming up scandal on purpose, for increased buzz. But if the complaints are legit, finOps will be on them like crazy, and maybe interNatCom too. That company could be in for a world of hurt, legal and financial.

Say hi to Trace for me. John.

So a consumer-protection group in Europe suddenly had a big problem with the Archimago company’s recent rollout. A problem big enough to bring down the company Marcus Tenser clearly loved?

The pieces were coming together. He didn’t quite know what the game was yet. But Savoy Blanks was a quick study.

Wolfgang hadn’t earned his degrees, nor his position, by being slow on the uptake. He caught the wine glass before it could roll off the table, thankful he’d already near-emptied it.

“He’s in the building? How do you know? Where?”

Marybeth winced. “I’m not one hundred percent sure,” she said. “But I think he’s got to have a programming position, because he’s got unlogged access to the central server. And the archives.”

Wolfgang leaned back warily. He wanted to explode with questions, but he was, after all, a careful listener. Marybeth was clearly already spooked about the possible consequences of delaying this information. Now was not the time to grill her. “And how,” he asked, aiming for a neutrally interested tone, “did you figure that out?”

“The brick,” Marybeth answered promptly. “You were right, there was full data on it, but all of it dated back to the original authoring of the software for that detail zone. Years ago. But when I chipped off that piece and brought it out for analysis, the server created a new archive file which it appended to the brick’s representational data set.”

“Go on.”

She gulped nervously at her wine. “Umm. When I looked at the access dates, there was a file change note. The data was moved from a storage block in the company archives to the active central server the day of the rollout.”

“Why would that be significant? We knew that the shadow data for Tenser’s game was added to the servers over the last few weeks.”

“But those storage blocks are connected to the house intranet.”

“And?”

“
Only
the house intranet.”

Wolfgang sat back, suddenly wishing he had a lot more wine in front of him. “I see. No net access. And there’s no coding – at least, no
apparent
coding – for such access. Damn. Marcus had to be in the building to upload his data to the server. He’s probably been there for weeks, setting this up.”

“But I don’t understand
how
he could...”

Wolfgang waved his hand carelessly. “Trivial details. Remember Marcus was working with national security databases. Manufacturing a fake identity, or even using one they had on file, would be easy for him. And there’s a lot of turnover in the media industry, even at an old-school place like Archimago. And we’re a twenty-four hour a day outfit. If he had access to the payroll system – and you can bet he does – he could find a schedule which would avoid anyone who knew him, back when he worked here.”

As if by magic, a waiter appeared at Wolfgang’s elbow and refilled his wine glass. Sometimes the universe gives you what you ask for.

“But he’d have to get interviewed, get hired,” Marybeth protested.

Wolfgang shook his head. “Not really. Who questions when a new face shows up at the cubicle across from yours? When you’re rushing towards a rollout deadline, do you check the work history of the guy who happens to show up to help you out? And we’ve been flooded with these new employees from Vital Enterprises. Nobody would question an unfamiliar person. They’d just assume he was supposed to be there. That’s part of what it means to be a big corporation. You’re a cog. Functional, replaceable. And cogs don’t question other cogs.”

They sipped their wine in silence. Both of them knew the question that was hovering, unspoken, over the table. Finally, glass empty, Wolfgang asked it.

“Why didn’t you tell me at the office? Why here?”

Marybeth set down her glass. “I could say that it was because of security concerns. We know Tenser has access to the intercoms and the house network.”

Wolfgang shook his head. “But you also know there are safe places, like the hall, or the garage for that matter, where we could avoid eavesdroppers.”

“Yes.” Marybeth nodded carefully.

“So?”

“So. I had two reasons. In the first place, I didn’t know how you might react.”

“How did you think I might react?”

She shrugged. “You might run back into the building, opening closets, searching high and low, dragging everybody out by their lapels in order to find him.”

“Does that seem like the sort of thing I’d do?” They were dancing very tenuously around some deep hole, he knew, and he wasn’t sure if the gravity pulling them towards it was something he should resist or not.

“No,” Marybeth shook her head quickly. “You’re more...careful than that.”

“So?”

“So. I thought you might want to go back to your office and figure out some sneaky way to discover Tenser’s identity at the company. Where he’s hiding.”

“Ah.” In fact, Wolfgang had already figured out two ways. But he wasn’t about to mention that. “Why would that be bad?”

Marybeth looked at him helplessly. “I’m not sure. But I think...I think part of me believes him when he says that he isn’t out to hurt anybody.”

“Which part?”

“The gamer part, I guess. It’s the intuitive thing. I was always the logical one in my family. Going off to college, getting a degree in application design...I’ve always been the sensible one. My family and friends expect it. Even I expect it. But when I’m playing, as Amitra, or any game, I can turn that expectation off a little, and I feel like I don’t have to justify my decisions. Tenser’s speech back in the conference room just
sounded
true. I was afraid if we stopped him at once, we might actually be creating a new problem. I’m not sure why. So I wanted to make sure we were well enough away that we’d at least be forced to think about it before calling the Feds.”

He nodded. “I see. I even understand. Maybe because I did work with Marcus for a while, maybe because I was a gamer too, but I see what you’re saying. We can’t sit on this for long though, Marybeth. Maybe just long enough for us to figure out, to our satisfaction, what it is he’s really up to. But you’ve put us into a place where we have to make a decision: do we turn this info over to the Feds? If they find out he’s in the building, they don’t need to trace his connection. They’ll just turn the place inside out and stop him. And we don’t know yet whether that would be a bad thing.”

She nodded, clearly relieved. “You don’t think that was too impulsive? I don’t think of myself that way, but when I kind of let myself go, even when I’m programming...”

“No, I don’t think so. It may have prevented me being too impulsive, actually.”

She gulped the last of her wine. They were dancing closer to the brink, and it was pulling at them harder.

“But...,” Wolfgang began

She tensed again, and Wolfgang felt the treacherous draft from the pit, the thing they’d been dancing around. pulling him closer.

“...you said you had
two
reasons.”

“Umm. Yes. I did.”

The invisible pit was very near now.

“What was the second?”

“I wanted to have dinner with you.”

He could see the hole now. Or holes. There they were, two of them, a mellow, dark brown which he was surprised he could make out in the dimly lit restaurant, watching him intently for any reaction.

“And you don’t think that qualifies as...impulsive?”

“Do you?” Marybeth’s voice was very muted. It was a good thing the restaurant was so quiet.

“Not really.” He checked once more inside himself, made sure he was telling the truth. “No. I don’t. I think that’s...wonderful.”

Marybeth’s eyes widened even further, if that were possible. Wolfgang leaned forward, whistling a little tune of his own creation.

Chapter Seventeen – Cops and Robbers

Someday, thought Andrew, I’m going to look back on this and laugh. Assuming he lived through the experience, of course.

After all, it wasn’t every day the FBI came calling. Andrew’s mother, in typical fashion, had offered them cocoa.

“So let me get this straight,” asked Andrew’s father for the third time. “You have a criminal mastermind, only he’s not actually a criminal yet...”

“Mr. Tenser is what we call a ‘person of interest,’” Agent Sharps supplied helpfully.”

“Ri-ight,” Andrew’s father nodded. “So anyway, you have this ‘interesting’ person, who hasn’t actually committed any crime other than apparently running some kind of game inside the game my son plays, and while you’ve chased him that far, you want my son – my twenty-year-old son, with no law enforcement experience at all...”

“Jacob,” Andrew’s mother chimed in warningly.

“...to shadow this guy and report on him? Are you people serious?”

“Completely serious, Mr. Hunter,” said Agent Blanks. He’d kept silent throughout most of this morning’s explanations, preferring as always to let the investigation proceed naturally. But he needed to catch a shuttle in a few hours, and he hadn’t counted on dealing with Hunter’s parents. Gods they were protective! No wonder the kid still lived at home.

“I don’t think I can really allow...” Jacob began.

“However, it’s not really up to you to allow or not,” Blanks interjected. “Andrew is over the age of eighteen, and is legally entitled to make his own decision in this case.”

Time to cut through the fog. He turned to Andrew, who had sat quietly throughout most of the proceedings, apparently content to hear out the two FBI agents and then to watch his parents’ protective act. He was a good-looking kid, on the whole. Clean cut, short hair, no mysterious computer implants or signs of drug use like so many of the teens Blanks saw these days. But he had a haunted look shared by addicts everywhere, and Blanks had already figured out that it was tied to the game which was causing him so much trouble. It wasn’t an uncommon pattern at all, particularly for the children of that protective generation which had grown to adulthood during the troubled last years of the previous century. They tended to shelter their offspring with almost fierce devotion, with the result that a lot of them sought escape. Some in drugs, others in more dangerous pursuits, but a great many of them in the virtual worlds which were so much more manageable then their real existences.

“Mr. Hunter,” he said, carefully assigning the adult form of address to Andrew rather than to his father. “You understand that I’m not asking you to do anything physically dangerous. I’m not an idiot. We have plenty of agents for that sort of thing. All I’m asking is that you play the game as you’ve been doing, as I suspect you would anyway if we hadn’t shown up to speak with you. Just keep playing, but report back to me if you are asked to do anything out of the ordinary.”

“What do you mean by that,” Andrew asked.

“Downloading files, ferrying data to another address – anything which doesn’t seem to fit into the context of the game.”

“Why couldn’t you just tap in and observe all this from the server?”

Blanks nodded, smiling. It was a good question, and suggested both that Andrew Hunter knew more than a lot of consumers about the computer services he used and, more importantly, that he was paying close attention to what
wasn’t
being said. Both were useful traits in this particular case.

“We’d like to, but we can’t. Mr. Tenser has mounted all of his additional material in hidden files within the server, and has implanted a number of security routines which have kept the Archimago technicians from adequately observing or controlling his activities.”

“Well why can’t they shut the whole thing down then,” Andrew’s mother asked.