The First Billion

It was a lovely day outside: blue sky, a few clouds, temperature closing in on ninety. The Bullises had their Thoroughbreds roaming free in the pasture. He particularly liked the bay gelding and was certain it would have made an excellent charger. If he ever learned to ride, he might ask the Bullises to allow him to take the bay to the jousting tournament at the annual Renaissance Faire in College Park. He toyed with the idea for a few seconds, then discarded it. He'd never be able to find a decent suit of armor. Besides, before that, he'd have to learn how to drive.

Cracking his knuckles, Vann brought his chair close to his PC. It looked like Mr. Gavallan was going to make him earn his money today. Vann didn't like hacking into an ISP, but sometimes a carefully considered violation of an individual's or enterprise's privacy was necessary. If anyone had a problem with it, they could take it up with the FBI. Agent Fox Muldur would be pleased to assist in the matter. And whistling the theme from X-Files, he began banging code into his computer, working his way, step by laborious step, into BlueEarth.com's innermost sanctum: the customer address files where they guarded the names, phone numbers, and IPs of all their clients.

***

Three hours later, he was still working.

The sun was setting and the small room had grown hot and stuffy, the air as rank and cloying as a high school weight room's. Vann didn't notice. Head bowed, he banged line after line of code into the computer, waiting for the walls to fall. So far, every one of his ploys had failed. He couldn't find a back door. The firewall was impenetrable. And he couldn't keep hacking into the site much longer for fear of being spotted by BlueEarth's security programs.

A voice called from downstairs. "Jason, dinner's ready!"

"Just a second."

Vann tapped at the keys a few moments longer, then threw his hands up. He was beaten and he knew it. "Damn it all!" he muttered, sliding back from his desk and staring at the impotent keyboard.

"Jason!!"

Vann logged off the Net and stalked from his room. There were other ways of finding the Private Eye-PO. It might take a little longer, but in the end, he'd nab him just the same. These "messiah" types were all alike. They craved attention. The anonymous ones were the worst. They couldn't go a day without dropping into some chat room on the web or the IRC to learn what their public thought of them. And next time the Private Eye-PO did that, Jason Vann would be waiting for him. He just hoped it was soon. Vann wanted the fifty-thousand-dollar bonus.

"Coming, Mom," he called.

"And be sure to wash your hands and face."

Vann closed and locked the door behind him. Here he was, thirty-nine years old, and his mother was still telling him to scrub up before dinner. Maybe when he turned forty she would start treating him like an adult.

11

Ghosts in a frozen mist, they ran.

Twelve men. Bold apparitions clad in white, doggedly advancing to the same silent cadence, their breath erupting in violent, staccato bursts. Forward. Ever forward. Against the wind. Against the snow. Against themselves.

The cold seeped through their boots, clamping their toes and nipping at their heels with teeth as hungry as a bear trap's. The snow was deep here- two feet, at least- a soupy, devilish mixture of slush and dirt and the spores from the unyielding tundra. And this one week from midsummer's eve. A frantic wind howled around them, clawing at their eyes, scratching their cheeks, slyly slipping beneath the folds of their anoraks and burrowing through their sweaters, their fatigues, and their thermals, biting their skin like ice on fire.

The men's legs were strong, their muscles hard and conditioned, exquisitely calibered pistons willing to carry them over hill and dale hour after hour. Their arms swung by their sides, the dry, rhythmic chafing of the snowsuits sounding like sandpaper scraping velvet. Each man carried a pack, and in that pack a jumble of rocks and stones weighing twenty-five kilograms- fifty-five pounds. They leaned forward as one, their well-toned shoulders and tensed abdomens working in concert to distribute the load. Soon the packs would be filled with a different cargo- timers, fuses, detcord, and plastique, sophisticated devices as far evolved from stones as men were from apes.

The wind died. The icy curtain fell, and for a minute or two the men were permitted a view of the bleached panorama around them. It was a bleak vista, white hills rolling away to the east and west, an endless plain advancing before them. The sky hovered low and gray, a sweeping expanse of nothingness. It was a pale, barren land with no sign of animals, vegetation, or human habitation. Man did not belong here, so far north; his existence counted for nothing. As punishment for their intrusion, the wind picked up so abruptly as to slap the men across the face. They were not welcome here.