The Blue Nowhere

and walked into the room, shook his hand.
    “This’s Patricia Nolan, the consultant I was telling you about. She’s with the security department of Horizon On-Line.”
    Horizon was the biggest commercial Internet service provider in the world, larger even than America Online. Since there were tens of millions of registered subscribers and since every one of them could have up to eight different usernames for friends or family members it was likely that, at any given time, a large percentage of the world was checking stock quotes, lying to people in chat rooms, reading Hollywood gossip, buying things, finding out the weather, reading and sending e-mails and downloading soft-core porn via Horizon On-Line.
    Nolan kept her eyes on Gillette’s face for a moment. She glanced at the palm tree tattoo. Then at his fingers, keying compulsively in the air.
    Anderson explained, “Horizon called us when they heard the victim was a customer and volunteered to send somebody to help out.”
    The detective introduced her to the team and now Gillette examined her. The trendy designer eyeglasses, probably bought on impulse, didn’t do much to make her masculine, plain face any less plain. But the striking green eyes behind them were piercing and very quick—Gillette could see that she too was amused to find herself in an antiquated dinosaur pen. Nolan’s complexion was loose and doughy andobscured with thick makeup that would have been stylish—if excessive—in the 1970s. Her brunette hair was very thick and unruly and tended to fall into her face.
    After hands were shaken and introductions made she returned immediately to Gillette. She twined a mass of hair around her fingers and, not caring who heard, said bluntly, “I saw the way you looked at me when you heard I worked for Horizon.”
    Like all big commercial Internet service providers—AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy and the others—Horizon On-Line was held in contempt by true hackers. Computer wizards used telnet programs to jump directly from their computers to others’ and they roamed the Blue Nowhere with customized Web browsers built for interstellar travel. They wouldn’t think of using simple-minded, low-horsepower Internet providers like Horizon, which was geared for family entertainment.
    Subscribers to Horizon On-Line were known as HOLamers or HOLosers. Or, echoing Gillette’s current address, just plain HOs.
    Nolan continued, speaking to Gillette. “Just so we get everything on the table, I went to MIT undergrad and Princeton for my masters and doctorate—both in computer science.”
    “AI?” Gillette asked. “In New Jersey?”
    Princeton’s artificial intelligence lab was one of the top in the country. Nolan nodded. “That’s right. And I’ve done my share of hacking too.”
    Gillette was amused that she was justifying herself to him, the one felon in the crowd, and not to the police. He could hear an edgy tone in her voice and the delivery sounded rehearsed. He supposed this was because she was a woman; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission doesn’t have jurisdiction to stop the relentless prejudice against women trying to make their way in the Blue Nowhere. Not only are they hounded out of chat rooms and off bulletin boards but they’re often blatantly insulted and even threatened. Teenage girls who want to hack need to be smarter and ten times tougher than their male counterparts.
    “What were you saying about Univac?” Tony Mott asked.
    Nolan filled in, “March 31, 1951. The first Univac was delivered to the Census Bureau for regular operations.”
    “What was it?” Bob Shelton asked.
    “It stands for Universal Automatic Computer.”
    Gillette said, “Acronyms’re real popular in the Machine World.”
    Nolan said, “Univac was one of the first modern mainframe computers, as we know them. It took up a room as big as this one. Of course nowadays you can buy laptops that’re faster and do a hundred times more.”
    Anderson mused, “The date? Think it’s a coincidence?”
    Nolan shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    “Maybe our perp’s got a theme of some kind,” Mott suggested. “I mean, a milestone computer date and a motiveless killing right in the heart of Silicon Valley.”
    “Let’s follow up on it,” Anderson said. “Find out if there’re any recent unsolved killings in other high-tech areas that fit this M.O. Try Seattle, Portland—they have the Silicon Forest there. Chicago’s got the Silicon Prairie. Route 128