Baa, baa, black sheep. Chapter 4

4

So I was looking at that black sheep, and Johnny Lancelot was behind me. Actually, he was bigger than me, so it’s better to put it like this: I was in front of him.
A bot or not a bot?
You could ask me why I didn’t use my stunner. Well, if it was a bot using any weapon could be dangerous. You see, all those bots are computer programs written by people. And that is the easiest way to set a trap. A good programmer could write a bot with many dangerous functions. For example, if somebody tried to use a stunner, some bots could activate a lot of bad things. They could start a process which will be using more and more of the computer memory. And then, when there was no memory for the game to go on, a lot of bad things could happen.
Suddenly the black sheep moved. It came to me slowly and looked at me. The eyes were blue and clever. I didn’t like it.
‘Hello to a stranger!
If you are in danger,
You know or know you not?’ said the sheep.
Now I knew it was a bot. So I was right not to use the stunner.
Digital detectives work in teams. You can’t be alone, not in this business. Sometimes it’s a big team. Sometimes, only two people – one inside the game and one outside. We are a team of three. Me, Alex Railey, my partner Andrew Saunders and our digital doctor Sam Vickers. Sam usually goes to the place where the gamer in trouble came into the game. Sometimes it’s his house or apartment. Now and then it’s a gamer club. But gamer clubs usually have their own digital security, so we don’t work there very often.
We have a thin line of connection with each other. My side of it looks like an ordinary PDA. Actually it’s a chat window which only I can see. Andrew sees my messages on his master screen. He usually has three screens – one master screen where he can see the game running, one screen with a visual from Doc Vickers and one for coding, disassembling and so on. All screens are 4-D Holographic Screens, of course.
Andrew sees the games, hears all the sounds, but he doesn’t wear a C-suit. When I have to give him a message, I can send him a number. One means…I hope I never think-send one to Andrew. Three means “scan its binary code and disassemble”. I think-sent “three” to Andrew. Now I had to wait. I needed two or three minutes before I could get a message from Andrew.