Come and Find Me Read Free Page A

said.
    Diana closed the office door. She crossed the room and tapped Ashley on the shoulder. “You mind?”
    “Sorry.” Ashley relinquished the mouse and stood. She leaned forward, staring at the screen, her long blond hair falling almost to the keyboard. “OtherWorld?” she read aloud. “So what is this, some kind of game?”
    “Game?” Diana choked on a laugh. “No. It’s—” She paused, searching for the word. “Just like the name says, it’s another world. There are stores and other offices here. You can go to parks and hear concerts. I meet with clients.”
    “Wow. Video conferencing with cartoon characters.” Ashley snickered.
    Diana massaged her forehead. “Sort of. But I don’t get paid in Monopoly money.” She edged Ashley aside and slipped into the chair. “And the cartoon characters are real people.”
    “You’re sure about that?”
    “Reasonably so.”
    Ashley gave her an astonished look. “This, from a woman who trusts no one?”
    “No one but you, my dear.”
    Diana noticed the timer: minus two minutes, thirty seconds. She was officially late. She eyed the message-waiting flag on Skype. Probably Jake, trying to raise a response out of her.
    With a few clicks, she transformed Nadia’s hair from short, spiky blond to conservative brown done up in a French braid.
    “Meet Nadia,” Diana said as she exchanged her avatar’s leather jacket, jeans, and boots for a dark tailored suit jacket, a short skirt, and ballerina flats. “She’s my alter ego in-world. And this is Gamelan Security’s in-world headquarters. Her office. You can think of it as my very own 3-D MySpace.”
    “Or Rapunzel’s virtual tower?” Ashley said.
    Diana remembered the green cover of the book of Grimm’s fairy tales, its spine peeled away. Rapunzel had been their favorite. Over and over they’d play out the story, taking turns at being the princess who lets down her long hair so that a wicked enchantress, and later a handsome prince, can climb up to her tower prison.
    “Except Nadia doesn’t need rescuing,” Diana said. “Business is booming. And she’s late for her meeting.”
    Clients had been lining up ever since Gamelan exposed a young medical student as the mastermind behind the breach of a prominent health insurer. They uncovered a massive theft of patient and physician medical records, though unfortunately not before the hacker’s customers abroad had used the information to manufacture thousands of counterfeit health insurance ID cards and generate thousands of phony prescriptions. After the story hit national and international papers, Diana and Jake had more work than they could handle.
    Diana dragged the red cap and wraparound sunglasses back to her inventory. The gold charms that her avatar wore around her neck—just like the real pair of gold D s that Diana often wore around her own—were barely visible.
    “Okay. Here we go.” She swiveled toward Ashley and put her finger to her lips. “Remember”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“you’re a mouse.”
    “Where do you want me?” Ashley squeaked.
    Diana pointed to a chair. Ashley held her hands like paws in front of her, minced over to the chair, and sat.

Chapter Three
    D iana toggled a switch. The computer monitor went blank, and the image of the virtual room that had been on the screen reappeared, projected across the upper half of the blank wall opposite them.
    Ashley’s mouth fell open. “Wow.”
    “Shh,” Diana said, suppressing a smile. She felt a little like the first time she had ridden a two-wheeler, zooming past Ashley, who watched from astride her Hot Wheels. Her glee had been short-lived. A week later, Ashley was riding a two-wheeler, too, self-taught.
    Diana hooked on her earpiece and typed in some coordinates. Moments later the image of her office dissolved, replaced by MedLogic’s chrome-and-glass corporate building. A box appeared in the corner of the screen and she typed in the pass code, then swiped her