Chapter 8

By Saturday afternoon things had gone way beyond ridiculous. Suzanne was still at the Construct offices, and the people there didn't seem to have any idea where in the Construct she was. That was intolerable. The whole Construct is a program. It runs on computers. Every point in memory is addressable. They had to know where she was.

"Is there anything you can tell us," Father asked during our Saturday morning breakfast.

I shook my head. "It's a computer, but you experience everything as if it was in person."

Father nodded and went back to his phones. Mother continued to wring her hands. "I just heard that Bob, that boy you said she was seeing, is in the hospital. His parents said he was in the Construct when he had a major coronary event." Her mouth twitched. "Their words, not mine, and too antiseptic."

I went back to my room and did some serious thinking. Your body reacted to what happened in the Construct. Bob had had a heart attack. He was Suzanne's age and in good health. There was no way that could have happened. I logged on and started doing some digging.

After an hour I had my answer. In some modules a person can be 'killed', but they snap to their body in the instant before it really happens. Those modules are set up for that sort of thing. Mostly they're military ones, but if it happens in other modules, especially those set up for the senses, such as Claiborne, one possible outcome is a myocardial infarction, doctor-speak for a heart attack. Fortunately, these days, if medical help is handy, that isn't necessarily fatal. Necessarily. It can still kill you without life support.

This meant Bob had been 'killed' in the Construct. Was it an accident? I should think that, but after all of the ways we had to mind our security, I had to believe it was deliberate.

I had access that my parents didn't. I did some checking. Suzanne was alive, but the monitors showed that she was suffering distress.

"Torture." Mother's voice was flat. "Somebody took her, and they're torturing her."

"They did that to you, didn't they."

"They started to," she said. Her face crumpled slightly. The phone rang, and the mask slipped into place. She was a Southern Woman. She would not give her enemies the slightest comfort from her pain.

"That was the Construct," she said when she hung up. "They're trying to link up with wherever Suzanne is. Apparently there are some security protocols that are slowing them down."

She'd put down the phone. Now she started crying. I tried to comfort her, but she shrugged me off. She knew I was trying to help, but she was going to get through this first on her own. I knew what that meant. Woe to whoever had touched Suzanne. Father would coldly take away everything they had. Mother would get personal. She'd ship them to some Third World hellhole and hire someone to make their torment as long as possible. And she'd be there at the end so her cold, angry face, would be the last thing they'd see. And she'd let them know that Father had taken away everything of value that they and all of their relatives and friends valued. They would pay like no one ever had before.

I went back to room. This meant that deep in their hearts they'd written Suzanne off. I could see that. Kidnappings are resolved quickly, or you get pieces back. People in this country weren't like in certain parts of South America. There it was a business, and everyone respected the rules. In the US it was a major crime, and the kidnappers knew that almost regardless of what they did, their life expectancy would be almost zero.

There wasn't much for me to do. Or was there? I thought about that. The Construct had all sorts of security that would keep people from doing things. But I didn't. I could probably find her by using Claiborne, a highly secured place, to track her down. And then I'd call in the world.

I couldn't do this by myself. That would be some kind of stupid. But trying to brief and acclimate our security people would take too much time. I'd have to use some resources that I had available.

I logged on and put out a call. I needed someone who was used to the Construct, and had fantasy role-playing experience. It would preferably be a girl—a guy might try to be macho and heroic—and she should be about my age so she wouldn't try to dominate me by being 'older'.

I got three responses in the first 10 minutes. After a quick chat I selected one who played an assassin/thief in one of the fantasy modules, and went to Claiborne. Then I contacted our Security people.

"Reality check," our Security Chief said. "Is this a good idea?"

"I'm familiar with the Construct," I said. "I'm there every day. You have to think a certain way to work there. I'm sure you have people who are very good. But I'm there all of the time. I'm used to it. It would take time for them to acquire the same set of skills."

"But don't you run the same risk as your sister?"

I did, but I wasn't going to say that. "Bring a team," I told him. "Have it on stand-by. I have access that isn't governed by procedures. I'm a private individual, and as long as I don't do something to violate someone's civil rights, I can pretty much do what I please. And if I'm sightseeing in the Construct, well, I'm allowed to. Bottom line, though: I think I can find out where they took her. And if I can, we can call in the world."

He looked doubtful, but finally nodded. "As long as it's only recon. You are not to engage in any sort of activity."

"Look and scoot," I said. "I have someone I know who's going to accompany me. She and I go to school together. She's sort of experienced in this sort of thing.

"That's even better. We'll need a way to keep in touch with you."

He took me down to the Construct offices, and arranged for a SWAT (Construct Style) team to be at my beck and call. Blair showed up about then. She was slender, with short dark hair. "Front lobby?" she asked after we talked.

"That should be fine." I went next door, entered my pass code, and pulled the VR hood down. Things went gray...

... and I was walking up the drive at Claiborne, the one the buses used. Blair was waiting for me in the lobby.

"What's next?"

It was Saturday, but there was an avatar in the offices. "Follow me."

She stared at my chest. "Lose the rack."

"What? Oh." I still had my monster boobs. They most definitely wouldn't do. Still, it gave me an idea.

I led her into the office. I pulled a pair of Change Request forms over. "Write down what you want to look and be like," I said. I gave mine some thought. First, the Quadruple-J boobs were out. They were great for seducing a guy, but were only practical if you were flat on your back. But they could be a good distraction. What if any guys we met perceived them? What if he saw me as his absolute sex fantasy, and could only think of jumping my bones? That could be a great way to get close to someone without alerting them to anything. And then Blair could do her thing. There'd be sentries, or at least if I was doing this I'd have them, and we were going to have to deal with them.

"We need a way to stay in touch with people," I told the avatar in the office. "What do you suggest?"

He, or it, or whatever, looked blank for a few seconds. "We can track your e-tablet."

"What if I lose it?" I told it about my tracking unit. It nodded.

"Now what if I want to change something? I don't want to have to come back here to request one."

More blankness. Finally— "The proper form and protocols have been entered on both of your e-tablets. Enter the request, and step through something to implement it. At the end, return here, and permissions will be revoked."

'Permissions will be revoked'. I knew what that meant. I was being given the equivalent of Administrator Access. That was unprecedented, and I said so.

"We have a directive to try everything. This is part of everything."

You had to love the literalness of computers. I turned to Blair. "Ready?"

"Any time."

We went to one of the doors to the rest of the Construct. I could feel the change when we stepped out and back. My boobs were back to 'normal', or at least what I had at home. That affects your posture, and I could straighten up. And when I walked I didn't have to 'throw' my boobs in the direction I was moving. I'm not sure there are any words to express how good that felt.

Blair was ... Something had happened to her. I couldn't see her, and started looking around.

"I'm here," Blair said, and she sort of faded into view. "It's part of my thief/assassin talent." Her skin was dusky, her hair really short, and she was dressed in supple black leather that somehow looked sexy and menacing at the same time.

"So you're invisible?"

"Mostly. Say or think the word 'ruby' and I'll be visible to you. It's better if you think it. If you say it out loud, people will wonder what's going on."

"Fair enough. I'll distract 'em, you cold-cock 'em." She looked like she could, too. There were a few sharp things at her waist ... I decided I didn't need to know any more. She was an assassin, after all.

I entered a request on my e-tablet that Suzanne's track would be visible. Another trip in and out of another module, and I could see a faint violet trace in the air. It was just a track. If Suzanne hadn't used scripts, I could have had some idea of how she'd gotten into this fix.

The track led us to two doors. The first was the forest I'd heard about. The place was quiet, except for the sound of rain on the trees. There was a gravel path to a cabin surrounded by trees. The track moved around the room slightly before settling on the bed. That told me how she'd avoided the big orgy. An earlier me would have been slightly embarrassed by the revelation that my sister had spent a considerable amount of time in bed with a guy. The 'me' that had nearly a month of Claiborne just noted it in passing.

I loved the cabin, and if we were ever allowed to have sex again, I wouldn't mind coming here. We returned through the door, and Blair nudged me.

"Time compression, maybe 5:1."

"And we're already in compression."

"One thing that bothers me," Blair said. "If we can follow her trace, why can't someone else?"

"It's because of how these doors work," I said. "They fix things."

"Fix?"

"Something I was reading about yesterday. Addresses are virtual in the Construct, and it fixes them at the moment you access them." I half-laughed. "There's a program that manages the memory, and it spends all of its time pointing at indices of where the data is. But that data location moves constantly to optimize the system. It's also a form of security. The System Administrator who's teaching a class I'm taking said the Construct doesn't get hacked in large part because it's harder to hit a moving target."