"And did you?"

He turned back to the screen and started tapping at the keyboard again. "The spammer massacre. It was still going on at the time of this intercept. Fifty-two spammers were killed in the region covered by this dataset. Eight killings occurred in the relevant time range. I had Merritt get me the addresses from those eight individual case files, and I keyed them into a GIS program to obtain the approximate GPS coordinates of each address. Then I searched this intercepted data set for close matches."

She smiled slightly at him.

"I found a match." He tapped a key, and an aerial photograph of a suburban business park filled his screen. A close series of waypoints intersected in the center of the building, then parted. The longer set continued down through the building, concentrating its activity in one area.

"Merritt got me in touch with the building's architect. They sent me an AutoCAD file of the floor plates. I aligned that blueprint with the GPS grid. Bear in mind: three men were murdered here at the same time period covered by this GPS intercept. I marked the rough location where the bodies were found on this floor plan. Look at this, Nat."

He brought a detailed floor plan up onto the screen. The GPS waypoints tracked down the hall, then entered a suite labeled 1010and tracked to the site where each body was found, retraced steps back to two of the bodies, then exited down the hall.

Philips felt a tingle run down her spine. "My God. This is the Daemon's command system."

"I think it's more than that. This type of coordinate tracking system seemed familiar. Look…" Ross swiveled his chair to reach for a nearby workstation, nudging past her. He brought up a different 3-D floor plan in vector lines. "This is a game map for CyberStorm's Over the Rhine.I'm viewing this level in their map-editing tool, Anvil.Matthew Sobol wrote big parts of this program." Ross pointed at the screen. "See these dots? Those are sprites-bots, computer-controlled characters that react to players. These tracking lines indicate the coordinates those bots will follow in response to an event elsewhere in the system."

She leaned in to look closely at the screen. "It's just like the GPS dots."

"Exactly. In essence Sobol is using the GPS system to convert the Earth into one big game map. We're all in his game now."

Philips stared at the screen, still trying to decide whether this discovery was good or bad news. "It took the most powerful computer on Earth nearly a month to crack the encryption on this block of data, and the encryption changes every few minutes. We can't jam all the transmissions because the Daemon uses commercial spectrums." She turned to him. "How do we use this information, Jon?"

"By deducing the existence of certain things. For example, there must be some way for Daemon operatives to interact with this presentation layer. If my theory holds, then the Daemon must have created equipment that permits its operatives to 'see' into this extra-dimensional space so they can use it."

Philips nodded. "That could be why we've been unable to track Factions in the real world-because they're communicating with each other through this virtual space." She pondered the ramifications of this. "This could be a major breakthrough."

He shrugged. "We still need to prove the theory."

"But this is testable. We'll go through the captured equipment inventory."

"The devices we're looking for will most likely have biometric security-fingerprint scanners, things like that. If we can hack our way into one of these objects, we should be able to see into the Daemon's dimension. And that will be the first step in infiltrating it."

She stared at him for a few moments. "Excellent work. I'm impressed."

"I didn't think it was possible to impress you, Doctor."

"There's a first time for everything."

Ross glanced at the wreckage of the room. "I didn't mean for you to come back to this. I just heard about Sebeck an hour ago. I guess I snapped." He started picking up the papers strewn all over the place.

She moved to help him. "It's my fault. You've been cooped up in here for months. I'm trying to get them to loosen the restrictions."

They grabbed for the same toppled fanfold printout and stopped just short of knocking heads. Their faces were only inches apart, motionless in a sudden, uncomfortable silence.

Their gaze held for several more moments while Philips's heart raced. She suddenly pulled back and stood up. "I need to check my e-mail." She grabbed her blazer from the chair back, not bothering to roll down her sleeves as she pulled it on hurriedly. She grabbed her overnight bag.

Ross watched her. "You don't need to-"

"I'm a federal officer, Jon. You're a felon under my authority-a foreign national of dubious origin. Identity unknown." She faced him from across the table. "It's impossible. My responsibilities make it impossible."

"If I made you uncomfortable, I apologize. It won't happen again."

She took a deep breath, then looked at him with a softer expression. "No…you didn't make me uncomfortable. But…"

He nodded solemnly. "I understand." He paused. "I just hope there's some part of you they don't own."

She bristled. "I chooseto serve my country." She turned to leave again. "You don't know anything about me."

"Don't be so sure."

She stopped and turned to stare at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're not so difficult to decipher, Doctor."

" Really?Well, let's hear it…"

"Okay. Child prodigy-head and shoulders above everyone around you-never quite fit in. Your classmates were always far older than you, and so you never acquired the social skills that develop the strong bonds of friendship. You live an isolated existence defined by your ultra-top-secret work. Work that you will never be able to share with anyone-not even your coworkers."

This last comment made her fold her arms impatiently.

"Ah, your work-it's too important to risk intimacy. But isn't it closer to the truth that you intimidate men? Your intellect scares the hell out of them, doesn't it? Humor me: what's the cube root of 393,447?"

"All right, I got your point."

"Can't do it?"

"Seventy- three-point-two-seven-six."

"There we go. How many of your relationships failed because you couldn't hide your intelligence?"

"That's enough."

"You don't scare me, Nat."

She stared at him for several moments. "If you only knew what I've gone through to protect you. You can't assume it doesn't matter to me. I can't protect you if you don't trust me. What is your real name? Who areyou?"

Ross seriously contemplated this. He stared at the tabletop. He looked truly torn. After nearly a minute he finally stood and started gathering papers again. "Sorry about the mess."

"Goddamn you." She moved for the door.

He looked up, watching her leave. "I was twelve when they came for my father."

Philips stopped again.

"I remember my mother screaming downstairs. I ran out just as they put my father in a car. Our family driver held me back. My dad looked up at me from the backseat. And you know what he did? He winked at me, and he smiled."

Ross paused for a moment, savoring the memory. "I miss him so much, Nat. He went willingly in exchange for our lives. I try every day to be the man he'd have wanted me to be. The man he would have been proud to call his son." He looked up at Philips. "If there is anyone on this earth I want to share my name with, it's you. But I will never trust a government, Nat. They'll use my identity to get at the people I care about. And I won't put you in the position of having to choose between your future and me. We both know it will come to that. And I don't have a future."

Philips stood motionless for several moments. "Please don't think I was trying to-"