Net Force - Tom Clancy [26]
Around the next curve, the mountain road turned suddenly into an autobahn, with traffic zooming past at speeds in excess of 160 kilometers per hour. He tromped the Viper accelerator, laid rubber-first second even in third-upshifted when the engine peaked in fourth, then fifth gears, achieved sixth as he merged with the flow of cars and trucks barreling along.
James Bonds old Aston-Martin, and in the later movies the BMW, would never have kept up with the Viper. It had a top speed of around 260 kilometers per hour, with an eight-liter, ten-cylinder engine that would get one to that top speed with unbelievable rapidity. It was a rocket with wheels.
He was in the netstream now, his program running smoothly. He liked the freeway image, but he could, if he wished, switch to a more leisurely hike along a stream, or a bicycle tour of France, although that kind of sudden program change did tend to jar one somewhat.
Ahead was an exit sign: CyberNation.
Gridley frowned. There had been a lot of infospew lately about CyberNation, a VR country that was accepting not only tourists, but residents. They-whoever the programmers were whod created the VRland-were offering a whole bunch of computer perks if you were willing to emigrate to their creation-if you were willing to give up your electronic citizenship in your own country for theirs, a thing that seemed unlikely. He hadnt checked into it himself, but it was an interesting idea. Some day, in his copious spare time, hed have to see what all the fuss was about.
He glanced at the analog clock inset into the cars dashboard-no digital gauges for this beast.
A sleek Jaguar passed the Viper, and Gridley smiled at it. Oh, yeah?
He goosed the Viper, felt the jolt of acceleration even in sixth gear as the car surged forward and began to gain on the Jag as if it were standing still. He flew past, seeing the frowning drivers face. Gridley grinned. The Jag didnt have any more, and the Viper wasnt even close to redlining the tach. So long, pal!
He was still feeling pretty full of himself when he saw the wreck about half a mile ahead of him. A big semi had flipped and turned onto its side, the trailer now blocked all the lanes on his side of the freeway. Traffic was lined up for a quarter mile, and the line was getting longer fast.
Damn!
Gridley hit the brakes-carefully, they were top-of-the-line disk but not little-old-granny ABS-and started downshifting. Fortunately, the Viper was as good at stopping as it was at going. He pulled to a halt behind a big Mercedes full of men in hats, then checked his rearview mirror to see that the Jag was also slowing to a stop behind him.
What the virtual image meant was that someone had bollixed the system link he was using. Whether by accident or on purpose, he couldnt say.
A European-style siren dopplered and hee-haw-hee-hawed toward the wreck on the other side of the Autobahn, blue lights flashing. That would be the cops-or the diagnostics-coming to see what was what.
Traffic was now at a standstill on his side of the highway. Gridley vaulted over the Vipers low door; fortunately the tux had plenty of stretch. Hed just mosey over to the cops and see if he could find out what was going on. Surely an Americanized Thai in a tuxedo could get a few answers, especially in his Bond persona
Tyrone Howard rode the net, wind blasting his bare face-well, bare except for the old-style aviator goggles he wore. These were the only protection he had on the big Harley Davidson XLCH that rumbled along at more than a hundred miles an hour. A classic bike, they didnt make them any-more, and one he was still several years away from being old enough to drive even if he could find or afford one. The thing with VR was that you could do stuff you couldnt do in RW-the real world.
He was in L.A., had just skirted a fender bender that blocked most of the Hollywood Freeway going north, hauling butt toward the valley when the reminder vox hed set up warned him of the time. His