Vaporware (24 page)

The log file
was open when I got back, a sprawling scroll of raw, steaming data. I could
read it well enough to pick out the basics—where routines had been triggered,
what loops had come into play when, where and when casualties had occurred, but
it was dense stuff, and slow going. The fact that the mission had been running
for something like ten hours, generating data the entire time, didn’t help to
speed the process up much, either.

Looking down
at the bottom of the screen, I saw that the logfile ran to somewhere near two
hundred pages. Line-by-lining it could take the rest of the night and then
some. Doing a quick skim instead, and trying to pinpoint the exact moment when
the stuck had become un-stuck and the live and hostile had become dead and
nonexistent, seemed like the best way to tackle it with any reasonable hope of
completion.

Maybe a
quarter of the way in, I stopped. Not because I’d found what I was looking for,
but because I’d found something else. In the middle of the log, there were six
empty lines, followed by two words, and then six more blanks.

HELLO RYAN,
the logfile said.

I gawped. Sat
there for a moment, trying to comprehend what it was I was looking at. And
then, very slowly and very carefully, I started scrolling down again.

Fifty lines
further down was another message: I HOPE YOU DON’T MIND.

There was
another noise out in the hallway. Spooked, I looked up. This time, I caught a
silhouette, a tall, skinny silhouette.

“Damnit,
Terry, have you been screwing around on my system?” I hurried into the hallway.
Terry was mostly gone; I saw bits of him disappearing around the corner, flying
feet and waving hands as he ran for it.

“Stupid
bastard!” I shouted after him. “You’ve got to come up with something better
than commenting a log to screw my head!”  I listened for an answer, but there
wasn’t one.

“Idiot.” I
shook my head. “Tomorrow, I’m definitely talking to Leon.” Outside in the
parking lot, a car door slammed. Someone taking off, most likely. Someone who
didn’t want to play tag with Terry.

When I got
back to my desk, there was another comment in the log, a new one right under
the last one I’d found. TERRY’S NOT DOING THIS, it read. I AM.

And then, as I
watched, the letters formed themselves on the screen, inserting themselves into
the document one at a time with deliberate, careful slowness. I REALLY THINK WE
SHOULD TALK.

My first
instinct was to run, to head for the door, drive home, and tell Sarah I was
quitting effective immediately.

PLEASE?

Please.
Whoever it was had said please. “Jesus.” My fingers found their way to the
keyboard. I could see them shaking, each at its own frequency. I took a deep
breath and tried to steady them, then typed, WHO ARE YOU?

There was a
pause, then the words, I’M YOURS, inched their way into being.

SARAH? I typed
back. WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? HOW ARE  YOU DOING THIS?

The answer,
when it came, was swift and furious. The lights went out, not dramatically and
in sequence, but rather darkness came down, and came down hard. Every light in
the building went, snuffed out in an instant. The emergency lights flared on
for an instant, then they, too, faded away. The HVAC wheezed to a stop, and the
air thickened as it ceased circulation.

Somehow, my
laptop stayed on. NOT THE BITCH, appeared almost instantly. NEVER CONFUSE ME
WITH THE BITCH.

I’M SORRY, I
wrote, hurriedly and with enough typos to require retyping it and then retyping
it again. WHO ARE YOU? SHELLY?

CLOSER, came
back, followed by, YOU KNOW ME. YOU JUST DON’T KNOW HOW WELL.

My heart
rabbited along in my chest, beating a little faster with each exchange. Crazy
stalker? Crazy stalker with mad hacking skills? Crazy stalker with mad hacking
skills who was in the building and had cut the power? In the hallway a couple
of voices rose, people saying they were getting the hell out, then the front
door closing and opening and closing again.

Common sense
told me to get out, too. No sense being trapped in the building with whoever
was on the other end of the surreal conversation I was having.

Common sense
told me to get out. Curiosity told me to figure out who it was, which might
make any possible defense—or restraining order—that much more effective.

But there was
no sense taking too many unnecessary chances. I got up to shut my door and lock
it and shoved a chair in front of it, just in case.

And when I had
finished, I turned around to sit back down, and she was there.

She was
sitting in my chair, arms folded demurely over her breasts. She was naked, her
legs crossed in front of her and the chair spun halfway around. She looked at
me over her shoulder, and as she saw that I saw her, she smiled.

It was her
smile that scared me the most. Because the face that looked at me and smiled, a
dazzling, seductive, beautiful smile, was not the same face that I’d seen on
the webcam the night before. The figure was the same, but the face had changed,
metamorphosed into something equally, heart-stoppingly attractive, but
different.

There was
Shelly’s chin and cheekbones. There were Sarah’s eyes, the curl of the hair
that fell down across her forehead. There was the small, sensual mouth of a
woman I’d known and lusted after for four years of college but never spoken to.
There were pencil-thin and razor-sharp movie star eyebrows, there was the
button nose that my junior prom date had hated but that I’d found irresistible,
all blended together to make one stunning whole.

“Like I said,”
she said, “I think it’s time we talked.”

No intelligent
sounds came out of my mouth. I sagged against the whiteboard instead, blinking
furiously. For she was bright, and with every breath, getting brighter. The
blue-white light from her swallowed the output from the laptop’s screen, ate up
the monitor’s empty cityscape, washed away the indicator light on the debug
kit.

“Who are you?”
I finally stammered. “Why are you here?”

She laughed,
the sort of laugh you only hear during lovemaking when you’ve done something
spectacularly right. “Ryan, don’t be silly. I’m here because of you. By you.
For you. With you. Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s a little
too much,” I said, and put my hand up to shield my eyes. “Could you…put
something on, at least? Something dimmer?”

Again, the
delighted laugh, and it suddenly got very hard to concentrate. She spun the
chair back around, uncrossed her arms, spread her legs. As she did so, the
light dimmed, and she sat there in what looked to be a high-necked unitard, a
deeper shade of blue than her skin, form-fitting and marked here and there with
patterns that looked like circuitry or language or both. “Is this better,” she
asked. “I didn’t think you’d want the armor.”

“The…armor?”

“The combat
armor, silly. It’s not very comfortable the way it was designed, and I don’t
think it would have been very good for your chair.” She shook her head.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say hello. We got off to such a bad start last night,
and I’ve been trying so hard to talk to you.”

I gulped.
“Talk to…me?”

She nodded.
“Of course, you. We should thank Terry. He’s the one who figured it out, of
course. He’s been working on it all along.” She looked up at me, pouting. “I
had to thank him somehow, you know, and he loves me so much, but it doesn’t
change the way I feel about you.”

Slowly, I
edged toward the door. “The only thing that Terry’s been working on has
been....” 

She smiled.
“Exactly.” Unwinding herself from the chair, she stood up. “Don’t worry. We’ll
be seeing more of each other. There should be some…benefits for working so
late, don’t you think?”

And as I stood
there, paralyzed by her words and their implications, she kissed me.

Not on the
lips, just a soft, gentle peck on the forehead. Where her lips touched me, I
felt fire.

My eyes
closed. When I opened them again, she was gone.

There was a
sudden, sharp noise out in hall, the meaty thwack of a fist hitting drywall.
Then, footsteps trailing off into the dark.

Terry, I
thought wearily. Good goddamn, and staggered back to my desk in the dark.

Chapter 20

For
a long time I sat there, hands gripping the desk for the sheer, blessed
solidity of it. Onscreen, the Windows logo bounced back and forth on a black
background, utterly placid and utterly unaware of what it was replacing. My
skin felt tight and hot, as if it had been sunburned, on my forehead where
it—she—had kissed me. The lights had not come back on, nor had the ones in the
hallway.

Eventually
the screen saver timed out, clicking over to sleep mode and fading to black. I
let it, closing my eyes and leaning back and wondering what the hell had just
happened. I’d seen…something.

No.
I’d seen the same thing that Terry had seen, that Terry had made some kind of
contact with. I’d seen the thing that had tried to fry my eyeballs in the team
room that night.

I’d
talked to it. Touched it. Listened to it. Learned what it was.

The
knowledge left me shaking. The thought that we—that I had created that, dropped
the bottom out of my gut. It…she was Blue Lightning. Of that, there was no
doubt. She’d as much as confessed to it, and the fact that she looked like the
game’s main character, even wore the face I imagined on that character, told me
all I needed to know.

When
she’d been doing improbable things with Terry, that had been bad enough. But
I’d attracted her attention now, and she wanted mine.

She
wanted me. And that terrified me.

“Hey.
What did you do to the lights?”

Michelle’s
voice cut the darkness from the other side of the door. I opened my eyes and
called out “Wait a minute,” clearing the chair away from the door and opening
it for her.

She
didn’t step inside. Instead, she chose to hang on the doorframe, leaning with
her head peeking into my office.

“What
are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought everyone else had gone home.”

“You
didn’t answer my question. I don’t have to answer until you do.” She gave the
ghost of a grin in the dim light.

I
walked back to my desk. “I didn’t do anything to the lights. They got shut
down.”

“Say
what?” Shelly let herself off the doorframe and walked in. Experimentally, she
waggled the light switch a few times, up and down. The light itself didn’t
change, nor did we get the tell-tale hum of a fluorescent powering on. “Huh.
Blown fuse?”

I
pointed to the computer. “That’s still running, and not off the UPS.”

“Then
how….” She stopped and thought for a second. “Oh. Oh, no.”

“Yeah.”
Suddenly, my neck hurt like hell. I reached back to massage it. “She was here.
She wanted to talk to me.”

“She?”
Shelly stepped over to my desk. “Since when was it a she?”

“Since
the art department gave the model hi-poly count boobs?” I shook my head and
grimaced. “I’m sorry, that was unfair. But it’s definitely a she. And I think I
know what she is.”

Michelle
cocked her head to one side and looked at me. “You look like crap,” she said.
“And I don’t like where you’re going with this, and right now the office is
creeping me the hell out. Do you want to get out of here? Maybe go over to Montague’s
and have a beer?”

I
rubbed my eyes. “Deal. I’ll drive.” A sudden thought struck me. “And I answered
your question, now you answer mine. What are you doing here tonight?”

Shelly
made a face, the corners of her mouth turned down and her brow wrinkled up in
disgust. “There was a huge mess with the check-in on about a thousand objects.
I had to go back and correct it manually.”

“Ow.”
I caught myself wincing. “So who dies tomorrow?”

“Nobody.
Innocent mistake. It happens.” She stepped out of the office and into the
hallway, where the lights were slowly coming back on. “So, shall we?”

“We
shall.” I followed her into the hall, and turned to shut the door behind me.
“But you’ll have to tell me who you are and what you’ve done with Michelle.”
Not quite arm in arm, not quite lockstep, we headed for the door.

“This
is really tired Michelle, Ryan. And are you sure you’re OK to drive? You look
shaken up.”

I
got to the door a half-second before she did and buzzed us out. “I’m fine. I
think. And yeah, I’d rather drive. It’ll take my mind off of things.”

“Things.”
Shelly followed me, making sure the door was shut behind us. More than once, it
had failed to latch and the alarm had gone off at ungodly hours as a result.
Eric was the only one who could shut it off at times like that, and he was
never much fun the day after.

“Things,”
she repeated, as we headed for my car. I dug out my keys and opened the door on
her side first. “It’s still naked, right?”

Walking
around to my side of the car saved me from having to answer. By the time I got
there, Shelly had reached across the seat and unlocked my door. I swung it open
and got in, reflexively plugging my phone into the aux cable as I did so.

“Montague’s
it is, unless you’ve got a better suggestion?” I threw the car into gear and
peeled out.

“Montague’s
has beer,” Shelly answered, her hands fiddling with the phone. “Mind if we get
some music.”

“Go
ahead,” I told her, “but I’m warning you, all it seems to want to play these
days is the sample tracks from the Blue Lightning soundtrack.”

She
gave me a smile of such frightening plasticity that I nearly rear-ended the car
in front of us. “Really. And why would that be, do you think?”

I
didn’t smile back at her. “I think I’m starting to get an idea.”

Michelle
hit play. Music flooded the interior of the car, cranked too loud and with the
bass mixed way too high. “Jesus, Ryan, what the hell do you do in here?”

“Sorry,
sorry.” I adjusted the settings and turned the volume down. The thrumming
caterwauls resolved themselves into something off an old Todd Rundgren album,
and I rolled down the windows to keep the sound from bouncing around inside
quite so much. “I hadn’t realized they were up so high.”

“Don’t
worry about it.” She leaned out the window and let the wind catch her hair. It
had cooled off considerably. There was a fat, full moon in the sky, and enough
stars to be noticeable. No clouds, and there was a faint cool snap in the air.

We
didn’t speak the rest of the way to the bar. I concentrated on the road,
keeping to some of the less busy, less well-lit routes so we’d stay more in the
moonlight. The music did all the talking necessary, which wasn’t much, track
after track touching on angry or mad or sad or alone or some combination in
between.

Shelly
skipped one song, once, that I’d put on a mix for her back in the day. I didn’t
say anything, just let it go.

The
parking lot was just on the wrong side of half-empty when we got there. I
picked a spot near the dumpster and pulled in. Shelly wrinkled her nose as she
rolled up the window. “Jesus, Ryan. You always take me to the nicest places.”

“It’s
the last place anyone else parks,” I said as I got out. “Less likely to get my
door dinged.”

“If
you say so.” She sounded unconvinced, and her expression didn’t help sell it,
either. We headed inside.

The
bartender gave us a nod, then went back to racking glasses as they came out of
the dishwasher. Only one of the televisions was on, a small cluster of
middle-aged men sitting underneath it in silence as it showed a rebroadcast of
a rugby match from halfway around the world.

“Bar?”
I asked. Shelly shook her head and headed for one of the back booths. After a
second, I followed her, a glimpse of the game having proved insufficient
distraction. Behind me, there was cursing and cheering in equal measures.
Someone must have scored.

Shelly
was seated when I caught up to her. She’d taken the inside, her back resting
against the high dark wood of the booth and her eyes looking out past me toward
the door. I slid in opposite. Behind her, the tops of the bathroom doors were
visible. I kept my eyes on Shelly instead.

The
table was made of the same dark wood as the benches, pitted and scratched and
scarred from untold patrons who’d been unkind or ungraceful. Against the wall
was a napkin holder flanked by an honor guard of condiments, a beer menu tucked
in behind them. The wall held a framed reproduction copy of The Irish Times
from 1924, next to a print of a black and white photo of the Dublin GPO.
Neither of them looked particularly authentic, and the frames were mismatched.

“You
think there’s a company out there that sells this crap?” Shelly asked as the
waitress set down glasses of water on coasters stamped with the Guinness logo.
I looked up at her. “Two Harps?”

The
waitress, a woman with a brunette pageboy cut and a figure like the Venus of
Willendorf, nodded. “Sure thing, hon. Anything else?”

“Bushmill’s,”
Shelly interjected. “Two. For starters.”

The
waitress looked back and forth between us for a second. “Those for you, honey,
or one for each?”

“One
for each, thanks.” She dipped her fingers in her water glass and started
sketching on the tabletop, even as the server turned her back on us and ambled
off.

“Bushmill’s?”
I asked.

Shelly
didn’t look up from the table, where the lines she was sketching joined the
dents and dings and cuts the tabletop had suffered. Something was taking shape
there as she raced to build it, even as the water beaded up and flowed away
where she drew. “You look like you need it. I figured I’d be sociable and join
you.”

I
chuckled, but my heart wasn’t in it. “Can’t argue with that logic.”

“You
never could,” she answered, and kept sketching. The level in her water glass
had already dropped a good inch and a half. I pushed my water glass over toward
her, careful not to disrupt any of what she’d already done. “Here. Take mine.”

“You
want my fingers in your glass?” she snorted, but the next time she needed to
reload, she dipped into my glass. Then she flicked the cold water at me, and I
ducked reflexively. “Pointillism,” she said, and laughed, and pointed at the
flecks of water on the table.

That
time, my grin was real.

The
waitress chose that moment to return with the tray of drinks, setting the
whisky down first and then the beer. Both came down at the end of the table,
far from the water sketch. She served Shelly first. “What are you doing?” she
asked.

“It’ll
be finished by the next round. I’ll show you then. Deal?”

“Deal,”
said the waitress, and then “Is there anything else you need? Food? A menu?”

I
wrapped my fingers around the glass of whiskey. “We’re fine for now, thanks.”

I
got an “Okay ” in a voice like she didn’t believe me, and she melted back into
the bar. The rugby fans were yelling about something. I caught hints of a call
that had gone the wrong way, or maybe a misinterpretation of a rule. It made no
sense to me, so I did my best to ignore it.

Shelly
picked up her whiskey and held it there, looking at me through the amber light
of the glass. “Do we need a toast?” she asked. “Or do you just need a shot?”

“Yes,”
I said, and clinked my glass against hers. “To getting the hell out of there
tonight before something serious happened.” I threw it back, and slammed the
glass down on the table. Shelly’s eyes widened, but she did the same, and then
reached for the beer.

“Now
that you’ve got a drink in you, can you tell me what happened?” She took a sip.
A pencil-thin foam mustache formed on her lip, sitting there until she wiped it
away with the back of her hand. “Or were you and Terry and the thing having a
threesome?”

I
shuddered. “Don’t joke about that.” To cover up the shakes, I took a swig of
beer, which turned into draining half a pint glass before I knew it. “Jesus,” I
said. “The way I’m going, you’d better finish that sketch in a hurry.”

“Uh-huh.”
She tapped a finger on the table impatiently. “So. Story.”

“Story.”
I took another drink, and got halfway through what was left. “The short
version? I was at my desk, the lights went out, and she showed up.”

“What
were you working on?”

Rather
than meeting her eyes, I looked past her. One of the rugby fans stumbled into
the bathroom, missing the door twice before finally finding the handle. “I was
looking at some of the old Blue Lightning docs.”

Shelly
said, “Interesting,” in a voice that indicated it was anything but. “Did she materialize,
or beam in like Star Trek, or what?”

“You
called her ‘she’ just now, you know?” I finished my beer. “Are you going to
finish yours?”

“Order
another,” she shot back, and took a healthy swig. “And call the waitress over.
Someone needs a refill.”

“Someone
needs to get laid,” I shot back, then turned to scan the room for the waitress.
I caught her eye as she was offloading a tray of empties at the bar, and she
nodded. “She just showed up in the monitor.”