SURFNETKIDS.COM TEEN BOOK CLUB
NET FORCE: Virtual Vandals by Tom Clancy
(Part 4 of 5 for Thursday, June 21, 2001)
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========================TODAY'S BOOK========================

NET FORCE
Virtual Vandals
by Tom Clancy
(fiction)

Published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin
Putnam, Inc.
Copyright (c) 1999 by Netco Partners
(chapters are used by permission of publishers and authors)

To reference this email: Virtual (Part 4 of 5)

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(continued from Wednesday)

"The local police contacted us as soon as they realized the Net was
involved," he said. "And I hopped in the chopper as soon as I heard
some of my people were involved."

Matt grinned into the receiver. That was the captain all over--the
Net Force Explorers were "his people."

"I want you and the others to hold yourselves in readiness to
cooperate with the Baltimore police." Winters said. "They'll be glad
to have an account of this incident from some trained observers."

That was the captain all over, too, Matt thought. He expected the
best effort from his people.

"Yes, sir," Matt said into the phone.

"I expect to be landing in a couple of minutes. We'll rendezvous at
whatever police precinct where you'll be giving your statements."

"I'll pass the word, sir."

"Good. Winters out."

The connection cut off. Matt passed along what the captain had said.
Even as he was explaining their orders, the phone rang again.

"Lucky I didn't switch configurations," he thought.

"Matthew Hunter?" an official-sounding voice crackled in his ear.
"I'm Sergeant Den Burgess, Baltimore PD. We've been informed that
you're with a contingent of the Net Force Explorers here in the
stadium. Could you please indicate where you are?"

"We're still in the bleachers." Matt put a hand over his phone's
pickup and turned to his remaining buddies. "Let's get up on our
seats and wave our arms."

He got back on the phone. "Sergeant? If you can spot a small group
standing on their seats and waving, you'll have found us."

"Got you," the voice in his ear said. "Expect me in a couple of
minutes." Again, the connection cut off. Matt replaced his wallet.

The police had mainly been working to clear away the crowd and
trying to identify the injured holoforms still in the stadium. Now a
small contingent of uniformed officers made their way through the
bleachers to Matt and his friends. In the lead was a tall, black,
competent-looking man with sergeant's stripes on his short-sleeved
shirt. "I'm Burgess," he said. "Which of you is Hunter?"

"I am," Matt said, stepping forward.

"Looks like your group came through all right."

Matt shook his head. "Several of us were here in holoform. One got
hit by a virtual bullet."

Burgess looked around in concern. "Is he--?"

"I hope he's all right," Matt said with a stab of worry. "He's in
New York. I called Emergency Services there--it was the best I could
do. Everybody else in our group cut out safely." He glanced at the
sergeant. "I've never seen anything like this happen before."

Burgess simply shook his head. "Neither have I, son. Neither have I."

The sergeant took Matt and his friends to the nearest police
precinct, where they each gave a statement, describing what happened
as best they could. Matt had actually missed a lot of the action
while he'd been trying to take care of Leif. Sergeant Burgess nodded
at the description of the shock symptoms. "That's what happened to
everyone in virtual who got hit," he said.

"I've heard that implant shock could happen to people," Matt said.
"But I thought it only occurred in small-scale, intense sims, where
you begin to lose track of what's real and what's virtual."

"Belief plays a larger factor in virtual injuries than many people
realize," a familiar voice said.

Matt turned to see Captain Winters step up to the sergeant's desk.
He held out his Net Force ID to Burgess. "I've been upstairs in the
operations center you folks have set up. We'll be coptering in
additional tech and medical people."

Burgess looked relieved. "We can use all the help we can get."

"Are you finished with my people here?"

"Yes, sir," the sergeant replied. "At least we have a pretty clear
idea of what went down." He shrugged. "Whether we can catch whoever
was responsible...."

Winters nodded. "That'll be a headache for all of us." He beckoned
Matt along. "They gave me an office upstairs." A sour expression
crossed his face. "Not that there's much I'll be able to do here."

"I still don't understand how it ever happened, Captain," Matt said.
"With large-scale sims, aren't there supposed to be safety
interlocks to turn off the system before people get injured?"

"There are supposed to be," Winters admitted grimly. "But it seems
some unsung genius has managed a programming miracle that hoodwinks
the safety coding. The only bright side so far is that it's not
being used by terrorists or criminals."

Matt halted, staring, as Winters climbed the stairs. "You don't
think what happened this afternoon was criminal?"

"Oh, no," Winter said, still climbing. "This was big-time
lawbreaking. It just wasn't done by career criminals. It was done by
kids."

"Kids?" Matt echoed, starting to climb after Winters.

"Teenagers," the captain went on. "Four of them. They've been
trashing veeyars all around the Washington, D.C., area. Taking over
systems remotely, wrecking whatever setups they're running, business
or entertainment, blowing the computers out--and injuring whoever
happens to be hooked in at the time. The victims ended up in shock,
like Leif Anderson."