Naah. All the same, she resolved to stop at the store on the way home and pick up some yogurt. If Dad was thinking about making dinner tonight, it would be good for putting out the fire when the chilies got too incendiary.

Megan swiveled the computer chair around into the right position. It took a moment to "remember" her favorite settings, raising her feet up a little, tilting back at the right angle. Megan lined up her implant with the computer's master interface box, and felt the familiar tiny shock of interconnection, like someone throwing a light switch down in your bones: switching the normal universe off, and another one on.

Megan knew that some people organized their personal virtual "works.p.a.ces" as just one more office full of file cabinets. She scorned such smallness of mind. When anything was possible in virtual reality, why didn't people do, well, anything anything? For the way they behaved, she had no answers. For herself, she now walked out into the middle of a gigantic stone amphitheater, the tiers and tiers of worn white limestone seating reaching up a couple of stories above her. Above the top tier of seats, black sky with fierce white stars burning in it reached up to the zenith. She looked over her shoulder, out past the "front" of the amphitheater, to see a long "downward" slope of dimly lit pink-stained ice and grit, dusted with bluish methane snow; and low above the horizon, fat and oblate and orange as an overripe peach, Saturn hung, his rings rakishly tilted to one side, the long shadow from the sunward side striping the planet's surface at a slewed and stylish diagonal. Light reflecting from the planet's surface dusted the surface of the moon Rhea with a pale golden bloom. Like Earth's moon, Rhea never turned this face away from her primary, but Megan knew that if she stood there long enough watching, Saturn would slowly start to wane, the rings would shift, and soon the sun would come up over Rhea's too-close little horizon and change the predominant color of the moon from soft gold to blazing ice-white, with a great shadow thrown over the amphitheater from the high edge of the nearby impact basin Tirawa.

Unfortunately, Megan had a lot of other things to do this morning besides planet-watch. "Chair," she said, and one provided itself behind her, a close duplicate of the one at home. She sat back and put her feet up, and said to the computer, "Mail, please?"

"Running mail," said the computer in a pleasant female voice, and started displaying a set of frozen, caption-tagged video-audio "thumbnails" of her waiting messages, without any fuss. Other people might want to personify their computer as a "secretary" that would talk to them in the shape of a person, offer to show them their correspondence, and so on, but Megan preferred to have a machine that simply did the work she told it to, when when she told it. She didn't care for chatty interfaces with overbearing personalities. she told it. She didn't care for chatty interfaces with overbearing personalities.

"That's because you've already got one of your own," Mike had said to her when she had mentioned this to him, some months back. Mike had complained about the ensuing bruises for some days thereafter. Served him right Served him right, Megan thought, smiling slightly at the memory. If he can't take the trouble to learn enough martial arts to keep his little sister from laying him out flat occasionally, well, it's hardly my problem If he can't take the trouble to learn enough martial arts to keep his little sister from laying him out flat occasionally, well, it's hardly my problem.

The mail was mostly nothing important. "First one," Megan said, and that small "thumbnail" picture suddenly swelled to full size and three dimensions and began speaking to her. The label underneath it identified it as having come from her high school guidance counselor. Mr. MacIlwain was sitting behind his desk, which rather resembled her parents'-covered with papers and disks and books and heaven knew what else. "This is a reminder that your run-through for the SAT III and SAT IV/NMSQT tests has been rescheduled for March 12th. If you've requested Advanced Placement Examinations as well, this run-through has been rescheduled for March 15th. The English Composition with Essay examination will be given nationally only in April, so make sure that you-"

"Yeah, yeah, stop, erase," Megan said. She had taken care of everything mentioned in the message, and was as ready for her SATs as she was ever going to be-though every time she looked at the Advanced Placements date she thought, The Ides of March, oh, great The Ides of March, oh, great...As if Shakespeare and Julius Caesar hadn't done enough to curse that date. Still, the real exam itself was a month and more away from that. Another month to spend twitching.... twitching.... "Next," she said. "Next," she said.

The next "thumbnail" blew itself up into the shape of Carrie Henderson, another junior at her high school. "Megan, hi! Look, I know you said you weren't really interested in the dance committee, but we could really really really really use a-" use a-"

"Stop," Megan said, "save." I really really really don't want to be involved in this, let someone else do it. If I just ignore this for a while, she'll probably find someone else to do it anyway I really really really don't want to be involved in this, let someone else do it. If I just ignore this for a while, she'll probably find someone else to do it anyway. "Next."

The third thumbnail blew itself up into a man in a suit and tie holding up a sample of carpet, and standing on a seemingly unending acreage of the stuff, in a horrendous paisley pattern that ran up against the edge of Megan's amphitheater and mercifully vanished there. "Dear systems user," the man said excitedly, "your address has been especially chosen as that of one of an elite group of users who will be able to appreciate the value of-"

"Stop, erase!" Megan moaned. Cyberspam...there must be some way to stop it Cyberspam...there must be some way to stop it. She found herself wondering whether any of the anti-cyberspam initiatives that Net Force was presently backing were ever ever going to make it successfully through Congress. The problem was that the "spam" lobbies were so powerful...and as soon as the government found a way to stop one kind, another sprang up. It meant that her mailbox, as well as that of nearly everybody else she knew, kept getting cluttered with ads she didn't want. At least the carpet ad had been fairly innocuous. Some of the ads that wound up in her mailbox were so annoying or insistent that she wanted to start practicing thrust-kicks on the computer, or better still, the people who sent the ads.... going to make it successfully through Congress. The problem was that the "spam" lobbies were so powerful...and as soon as the government found a way to stop one kind, another sprang up. It meant that her mailbox, as well as that of nearly everybody else she knew, kept getting cluttered with ads she didn't want. At least the carpet ad had been fairly innocuous. Some of the ads that wound up in her mailbox were so annoying or insistent that she wanted to start practicing thrust-kicks on the computer, or better still, the people who sent the ads....

The water must almost be boiling, she thought, glancing at the remaining few thumbnails' captions. There's nothing really important here, these can wait- There's nothing really important here, these can wait- An abrupt soft chime sounded in the air all around her, and Megan looked around her in surprise. Someone was trying to reach her for live chat. At this hour? At this hour? "Who is it?" she said to the computer. "Who is it?" she said to the computer.

"Message ID shows James Winters," the computer said.

"Really? Wow," Megan said. "Accept."

Off to one side of the amphitheater there suddenly appeared an office somewhat tidier than her father's and mother's. Early morning sun was streaming through the venetian blinds in its windows, and lay in broad stripes on the big desk in the foreground of the office. Behind the desk, which was empty at the moment except for a few printouts and letters and a few stacked disks, sat the big broad-shouldered form of James Winters, an active-duty officer in the Net Force, and the senior contact for the Net Force Explorers. He pushed aside the piece of paper he had been glancing at, and gazed "out" at Megan, looking for the moment, in his suit, very much like some harried businessman, except for the Marine haircut and the lazy eyes. Those eyes might be all netted with smile lines, but there was a toughness in them that most businessmen could only wish to achieve.

"Megan? I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time."

"No, I was getting ready to go to cla.s.s, but that's not for a few minutes yet." But you would have known that But you would have known that, she thought, getting interested. Winters was intimately knowledgeable about all the Net Force Explorers' schedules. Something's up! Something's up!

He nodded, looking past her briefly. "Hey, nice view."

Megan smiled slightly. "Yeah, it's summer 'here.' For about the next six hours anyway, if you can really call it a summer when the axis tilts by only a third of a degree. How can I help you?"

He looked at her thoughtfully. "Megan, just check me on something. Your profile shows you as being a Sarxos player."

Her eyebrows went up. "I drop in there every now and then."

"More than every couple of weeks, say?"

She thought. "Yeah, I'd say so. Maybe once a week on the average, though sometimes more often if something exciting starts happening. But it's a good place to just wander around in, even when there's not a war or a feud between wizards going on. Interesting people there...and Rodrigues did a good job on the game. It 'feels' realer than a lot of virtual games do."

He nodded. "What have you heard about players being 'bounced'?"

Megan blinked at that. "You mean, people's satchel codes being wiped out? Viruses, and characters being sabotaged, that kind of thing? I've heard that it does happen, sometimes. Revenge, supposedly. Someone taking things too seriously...."

"Someone, if it's just someone, is taking things a lot too seriously lately. There have been something like twelve people 'bounced' in the last year."

That came as news to Megan. "One a month...but there are hundreds of thousands of players in Sarxos. It doesn't seem like much." came as news to Megan. "One a month...but there are hundreds of thousands of players in Sarxos. It doesn't seem like much."

"It wouldn't to me either, unless I knew there hadn't been any any 'bounces' for the eight years ending a year and a half ago. Something's going on, and the companies which sponsor Sarxos are getting twitchy. They would hate to have to shut the server down." 'bounces' for the eight years ending a year and a half ago. Something's going on, and the companies which sponsor Sarxos are getting twitchy. They would hate to have to shut the server down."

"I just bet," Megan said, somewhat dryly. Sarxos players paid by the session or in a yearly "subscription" flat fee. Either way, there would be a lot of money involved, probably, potentially, millions and millions of dollars over any given year.

"Well, we just had a particularly emphatic 'bounce,'" Winters said. "I'm not going to identify the player by real name, obviously, but a fellow who went by the character-name 'Shel Lookbehind.'"

"Jeez, Shel Shel?" Megan said, astonished.

"Did you know him?"

"A little, yeah," Megan said. "I ran across him while he was campaigning about a year ago. A lot of people got interested in those skirmishes he was having with the Queens of the Mordiri. There weren't any protocols for one person taking over another's territory before it had officially been declared abandoned, and everyone else wanted to see if any precedents were going to be set. I went down to Talairn to see what was going on there. Shel seemed like a good player, like a really nice guy. At least, his character did."

"Well, the character is in limbo now, as you might expect," said Winters, "until the guy running him manages to get his pa.s.sword reissued. And this has been the most physically violent of the 'bounces' so far, which is why it came to our attention. Most of them, as you said, have been caused by 'a person or persons unknown' infecting the victim's system with a Trojan or virus of one kind or another. Additionally, there was at least one theft of a home system which may or may not have been a bounce. The evidence isn't conclusive. But in Shel's case, somebody broke into his apartment, wrecked the place, wiped his primary storage, and pretty much destroyed his system."

Megan shook her head. "And n.o.body has any idea of who it was?"

"Nothing that the local police department's forensics have been able to turn up, anyway. But I was hoping that you might be able to help out a little."

"You want me to go into Sarxos and 'ask a few questions,'" Megan said.

"You'd be good for the job. You have a pre-established ident.i.ty-which is handy. Any new character who came in and suddenly started asking about the bounces would attract attention and suspicion immediately. But not just you. I think it would be smart, under the circ.u.mstances, to have someone working with you. Another viewpoint could be helpful...and Sarxos is, after all, a very big place. There's a lot of ground to cover."

Megan chewed her lip thoughtfully. "Someone else in the Net Force Explorers?"

"Preferably."

She thought about that for a few moments. "I have to confess I'm not sure which of the Net Force Explorers I know might be 'players.' You don't usually ask."

"Well," Winters said, "I know of at least one other Explorer with an established ident.i.ty who's expressed an interest, and doesn't mind if other Explorers know he's playing. Do you know Leif Anderson?"

Megan was caught by surprise one more time. "You mean the Leif Anderson who lives in New York? The redheaded guy with all the languages? He's He's in Sarxos?" in Sarxos?"

"Yes. He plays a..." Winters stopped and looked down at the paper he was holding, and chuckled. "A 'hedge-wizard,' it says here. I'm a.s.suming that isn't someone who works on your garden using magic."

Megan snickered. "No. It's a cla.s.sification that means you're concentrating on doing small wizardries instead of the big dangerous ones. It can either mean that you prefer to work close to the land and the 'common people,' or that you're not very good at what you do and you're trying to cover yourself. Hedge-wizards are supposed to be a little on the incompetent side."

Winters looked bemused. "Right. Well, will it be a good cover, do you think?"

"It should be," Megan said, considering it. "Hedge-wizards are always traveling around looking for rare herbs and weird spells and deeds to do. They usually get to know a lot of people. My character does the same kind of thing, but for different reasons...so it should work."

"Should I have him get in touch with you, then?"

"Sure," Megan said. "Can it wait until tonight? Life around here is a little busy today."

"No problem. Take this at your own pace. I would much rather you two take your time; rushing in and digging around too earnestly is likely to make the 'person or persons' responsible go quiet...and you don't want that."

"Nope. I'll need a list of the other characters who've been bounced," Megan said.

"Right here," said Winters. With another soft chime, a small slowly rotating pyramid, the symbol for a file waiting to be opened, appeared in Megan's works.p.a.ce, hovering in the air near her. "If you have any other questions, if there's anything else you need, get in touch."

"Right, Mr. Winters. Thanks!"

He and his office vanished. Megan sat there, beginning to feel much more excited than was good for her with what now looked like an interminably long school day still to come. It was one thing to know you were a Net Force Explorer, affiliated (however loosely) with people doing work that could be about the most exciting there was. It was something else entirely to actually be on an a.s.signment, with the people that you hoped you might someday work with watching you...interested and confident enough in your performance to give you a job and see what you did with it.

This, Megan thought, is gonna be a blast! is gonna be a blast!

She got up out of the chair and told the computer, "Break interface-"

-and found herself sitting in the chair in the den, with an unearthly shriek echoing around her. It came from the kitchen. Her mother's favorite kettle, the one with the train whistle in its spout, was now banging and clattering and whistling as if it was about to explode; and Megan's ride was outside, honking her horn.

Megan tore out into the kitchen to get the kettle off the stove before it burned its bottom out. No tea No tea, she thought, but as she turned the stove off, and grabbed her computer pad and books and disks and house keycards off the kitchen table and dashed for the door, she was grinning with sheer exaltation.

Sarxos, here I come!

2.

VIRTUAL DOMINION OF SARXOS:.

GREENMONTH 23, YEAR OF THE DRAGON-IN-THE-RAIN.

The tavern had only one room, and its roof was leaking. The rain, which was falling softly and steadily outside, was coming in through a bare place in the thatch, dripping morosely on the cracked slate hearth of the fireplace, and hissing and steaming where it hit. Smoke from the badly vented fireplace was rolling around, blue as smog, underneath the blackened rafters. A few sputtering lamps hung from those rafters, their light swimming in the smoke, some of the light actually making its way down to the ancient, ma.s.sive, knife-scarred wooden tables underneath.

At those tables sat a motley a.s.sortment of people, eating and drinking: peasant farmers in from the fields, n.o.bles ostentatiously sitting on their folded-up cloaks so that they wouldn't have to physically touch the benches, mercenary soldiers in scarred leather armor, well-dressed foreign merchants talking animatedly among themselves about the Sarxonian investment markets and how the present wars would affect them; in other words, the usual Moons-day night crowd at the Pheasant and Firkin, everyone swilling down herbdraft or gahfeh gahfeh or the host's watered (but fortunately unleaded) wine, eyeing one another suspiciously and having a good time. or the host's watered (but fortunately unleaded) wine, eyeing one another suspiciously and having a good time.

In the chimney-corner there was even the obligatory dark, hooded stranger with his feet up on one ma.s.sive firedog, smoking a long pipe, his eyes glittering from under the hood as he watched the company. A large dingy-white cat with ragged ears and one eye gone milky-blind walked past the stranger, glancing at him, said, "Huh. You You again..." and kept on walking. again..." and kept on walking.

Leif Anderson, sitting at the far side of the tavern, alone at a small table near the door, looked around the tavern and thought absently that, in a way, it was the kind of place his mother had always warned him about. The problem was that, in her more protective moods, she was worried that he might stumble into a place like this in the real world, and he very much doubted that there were any: at least, not where he was likely to run into them, in New York or D.C. Outer Mongolia, possibly, or the Outer Hebrides, or the Yukon maybe. He smiled slightly. It always amused him when someone as tough as his mother, who had danced for years for the New York City Ballet, and therefore had a physique like spring steel and a tongue like a razor, got all worried about her "little boy"-as if he had not inherited any of that toughness himself.

The innkeeper loomed over him suddenly. "You using that other chair?" he said. He was an archetype, just as much as the guy by the fireplace: fat, balding, wearing an ap.r.o.n that had apparently last been washed before the present Dragon cycle began, and in perpetually foul temper.

Leif looked up. "I'm waiting for someone," he said.

"Great," the innkeeper said, grabbing the spare chair with one hand. "When he turns up, you can have another chair. I need this for the paying paying customers." customers."

Leif picked up the tankard of herbdraft he had been nursing and waved it meaningfully at the innkeeper.

"Tough," the innkeeper said. "You want another chair, you pay for another drink." He started to laugh at his own alleged wit, exhibiting teeth like something from a dentist's horror novel.

"It is unwise," Leif said, "to insult a wizard."

The innkeeper looked him over with a sneer, plainly unimpressed by what he saw-a slender young man in a somewhat ragged robe decorated with faded and obscure alchemical and magical symbols. "You're nothing but a hedgie," the innkeeper scoffed. "What're you going to do? Not leave a tip?"

"No," Leif said mildly, "I'll give you a tip." He pulled off his hat, fumbled around in it for a moment, and then came up with what he had been looking for. He threw it at the innkeeper, and said one word under his breath.

The innkeeper caught it by reflex-stared, for a moment, at what looked like a piece of rag tied up with string-and then got a startled expression. From nowhere, a puff of smoke appeared and wrapped itself around him. All around the inn, heads turned.

The smoke slowly cleared. Where the innkeeper had been standing, there was now a small white mouse sitting on the floor, looking around it in shock.

Leif leaned down and picked up the wrapped-up talisman from beside it. "Even hedge-wizards," he said, "know some spells. That a good enough tip?" And he glanced under the next table before looking back at the mouse. "Have a nice day."

The mouse turned to see what had caught Leif's attention...and saw the beat-up white cat walking toward him with an expression that suggested it was ready for a predinner snack.

The mouse ran off across the cracked and worn flagstones of the floor, with the cat heading after it, not really hurrying, just enjoying the prospect of its hors d'oeuvre hors d'oeuvre.

The other patrons of the inn turned away, not too concerned about this, since the innkeeper's daughter, totally unconcerned, had begun making the rounds and taking drink orders. Leif tucked his talisman away and sat back with his drink again, his attention distracted once more by the sound of the foreign merchants discussing the futures markets.

Here as in the real world, there was a hot trade among the merchants in hog-belly futures, and Leif had no trouble imagining his father sitting right here with these guys and talking margins and short-sells until the cows, or the hogs, came home.

I really should try to get him in here sometime, Leif thought idly. We might be able to make some "money." We might be able to make some "money." His father's talent with investments, though, kept him hopping all over the planet, physically as well as virtually: so much so that he pretty much refused to spend his scarce leisure time anywhere virtual, or doing anything that sounded even slightly like "talking shop." His father's talent with investments, though, kept him hopping all over the planet, physically as well as virtually: so much so that he pretty much refused to spend his scarce leisure time anywhere virtual, or doing anything that sounded even slightly like "talking shop." If I could get him in here, he'd probably much rather be some kind of berserk warrior in a loincloth. Anything to get out of a suit.... If I could get him in here, he'd probably much rather be some kind of berserk warrior in a loincloth. Anything to get out of a suit....

Leif's attention was momentarily attracted by another of the patrons across the room, a tall, lean, intent young man in a dark jerkin who was methodically checking and clearing a gun, some kind of semiautomatic with a Glock in its ancestry. Normally one might have expected this to cause some stir, but the Pheasant and Firkin was located in the little princedom of Elendra, and Elendra was one of the places in Sarxos where gunpowder didn't work. It didn't work in most most places in Sarxos, actually. The creator of the game had been making his alternate world mostly for those who preferred strictly mechanical weapons, preferably the kind that meant you and your enemy had to get up close and personal to kill one another. places in Sarxos, actually. The creator of the game had been making his alternate world mostly for those who preferred strictly mechanical weapons, preferably the kind that meant you and your enemy had to get up close and personal to kill one another.

But Chris Rodrigues had also apparently suspected that there would always be those for whom life would not be complete without weapons that went BANG BANG, the more frequently and the more loudly the better, and for them, Sarxos had the adjacent countries of Arstan and Lidios, where explosives and other chemical-based weaponry were enabled. They were noisy places, featuring frequent wars with high body counts. Many Sarxonians made it a point to avoid Arstan and Lidios entirely, reasoning that it was better to let the boys and girls who were inclined that way just get on with what made them happy, and not distract or upset them with annoying visions of a world where people did business differently.

Apparently these visions did did bother some players a little, for there were frequent attempts to find some explosive or gunpowder-a.n.a.logue that would work in the rest of Sarxos as well, despite the game creator's insistence that there was no such substance, nor would there be. Some players-aspiring alchemists, or would-be weapons dealers-would occasionally spend prolonged periods trying to invent such a substance. They tended to have accidents that were hard to explain except by an old Sarxonian saying: "The Rules take care of themselves." bother some players a little, for there were frequent attempts to find some explosive or gunpowder-a.n.a.logue that would work in the rest of Sarxos as well, despite the game creator's insistence that there was no such substance, nor would there be. Some players-aspiring alchemists, or would-be weapons dealers-would occasionally spend prolonged periods trying to invent such a substance. They tended to have accidents that were hard to explain except by an old Sarxonian saying: "The Rules take care of themselves."

The black cast-iron handle of the door near Leif turned. The door creaked open, swinging toward him and hiding his view. The patrons stopped what they were doing and stared-they would always do that, even if the person coming in was someone they knew. But it plainly wasn't, this time. They kept on staring.

The person who had come in now turned and shut the door. Medium height, slim build, long brown hair tied back tight and braided up around her head: dark clothes, all somber colors-brown tunic, black breeches and boots, a tight dark-brown leather jerkin over it all, dark-brown leather bands cross-binding the breeches, a dark brown robe over it all, divided up the back for riding, and a brown leather pack. If she was armed, Leif couldn't see where...not that that that meant anything. meant anything.

She looked around long enough to complete her part of the staring game-for it was was a game. You had to meet the crowd's eyes, let them know that you had as much right to be here as they did...otherwise there would be trouble, trouble that you might or might not start, but would definitely finish. The patrons of the Pheasant and Firkin, perceiving this, became elaborately uninterested in the new arrival. a game. You had to meet the crowd's eyes, let them know that you had as much right to be here as they did...otherwise there would be trouble, trouble that you might or might not start, but would definitely finish. The patrons of the Pheasant and Firkin, perceiving this, became elaborately uninterested in the new arrival.

She looked over at Leif. He lifted his hat again, enough to let her see the red hair.

She smiled and came over, sat down in the other chair, and looked around her with a wry expression.

"You come here often?" she said.

Leif rolled his eyes at the tired old line.

"No, I mean it seriously. This place is an utter dive. How'd you find it?"

Leif chuckled. "I stumbled in last year, during the wars. It has a certain rural charm, don't you think?"

"It has mice mice," Megan said, pulling her feet back a little and looking under the table at something that ran by. "Oh, well, it doesn't matter, here comes the cat...."

Leif chuckled. "You want something to drink? The tea's not bad."