Code Zero by Jonathan Maberry Page B

you beat it?”
    “Yes, and it taught me a lot about making assumptions.” She paused. “Excuse me, but are we really going to dissect every single game I ever played? I mean, is there a point to this?”
    Instead of answering directly, he said, “Do you have any practical experience with game design?”
    “Some.”
    “It’s not in your résumé.”
    “It was just for fun.”
    “‘Fun’?”
    “Well, for the challenge. I, um, hacked into the game programs for Halo, Battletoads, and Gears of War and wrote new levels.”
    “Why?”
    “Like I said—”
    Hu shook his head. “I want the real answer.”
    Miss Bliss took a moment, stalling by adjusting her clothes and shifting to find a more comfortable position on the bench seat. “I … have a few friends who are gamers.”
    “Gamers of your caliber?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “And—?”
    “I wanted to see if I could create game levels that they couldn’t beat.”
    “Could they beat them?”
    “The first few, sure. But the more recent ones? No.”
    “Can those levels, in fact, be beaten?”
    “Sure. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a game.”
    Hu smiled.
    “What?” she asked.
    “I think you’ll enjoy where I’m taking you.”
    “Meaning—what?”
    Hu threw a different line into the water. “What do you hope to accomplish?”
    She didn’t turn. “Specifically—?”
    “In life,” he said. “With your career.”
    Her response was casual, with no trace of defensiveness. “I don’t know. I’m keeping my options open.”
    “And yet you applied for a job with us.”
    “Sure, I applied for a job because the job description, though necessarily vague, was designed to hook someone like me. You dangled the bait of this being either under the DARPA umbrella or connected to it in some way. That’s where I want to be.”
    Hu nodded. “And you think you’d flourish in a DARPA setting?”
    She cut him a quick look as if she’d caught something in the way he’d inflected that question. Her eyes searched his for a long moment before she answered.
    “DARPA … or something like it,” she said carefully.
    Dr. Hu smiled as the Escalade drove through an opening in a rusted chain link fence. Frowning, Miss Bliss looked out at the building embowered by that old fence. It was a massive airplane hangar of the kind built seventy or eighty years ago. Many of the glass panes were busted out and the gray skin was peeling and long in need of fresh paint.
    Miss Bliss began to ask, but Hu held up a finger.
    “Wait,” he said.
    The Escalade curved around and entered through a small side entrance just big enough for the SUV. Once inside, a door slid shut behind them and for a moment the vehicle was in total darkness. Then there was a shudder beneath the vehicle. The kind of tremble elevators gave. Even through the closed windows there was the sound of heavy hydraulics.
    Lights blossomed around the vehicle and Miss Bliss stared in shock as the Escalade descended into what seemed like another world. Bright lights filled a vast chamber that was easily three times the size of the gigantic hangar. Where the structure above looked decrepit and abandoned, down here everything was new. Metal gleamed, computer screens glittered like jewels, hundreds of people moved here and there, many of them in white lab coats but others in blue or orange jumpsuits, green coveralls, the crisp gray of security uniforms, and even ordinary street clothes. Rank upon rank of the latest generation of Titan supercomputers ran the length of the room, their precious drives encased in reinforced glass.
    The Escalade reached the bottom and the hydraulic hiss faded into silence.
    Miss Bliss gaped at the room around her. Even from a distance any scientist could tell that everything here was cutting edge. Bleeding edge. Billions of dollars’ worth.
    After several breathless moments, Miss Bliss turned to stare at Dr. Hu.
    “I don’t … I don’t…” She stopped and gulped in a breath to steady herself.