Tom Clancy's Net Force: Death Match (Net Force YA, Band 18) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

A little more than thirty years ago Tom Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. Years before, he had been an English major at Baltimore’s Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, The Hunt for Red October, sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it “the perfect yarn.” From that day forward, Clancy established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense. He passed away in October 2013.

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VIRTUAL CRIME. REAL PUNISHMENT. TOM CLANCY’S NET FORCE®

Don’t miss any of these exciting adventures starring the teens of Net Force…

VIRTUAL VANDALS

The Net Force Explorers go head-to-head with a group of teenage pranksters on-line—and find out firsthand that virtual bullets can kill you!

THE DEADLIEST GAME

The virtual Dominion of Sarxos is the most popular wargame on the Net. But someone is taking the game too seriously…

ONE IS THE LONELIEST NUMBER

The Net Force Explorers have exiled Roddy—who sabotaged one program too many. But Roddy’s created a new “playroom” to blow them away…

THE ULTIMATE ESCAPE

Net Force Explorer pilot Julio Cortez and his family are being held hostage. And if the proper authorities refuse to help, it’ll be Net Force Explorers to the rescue!

THE GREAT RACE

A virtual space race against teams from other countries will be a blast for the Net Force Explorers. But someone will go to any extreme to sabotage the race—even murder…

END GAME

An exclusive resort is suffering Net thefts, and Net Force Explorer Megan O’Malley is ready to take the thief down. But the criminal has a plan to put her out of commission—permanently…

CYBERSPY

A “wearable computer” permits a mysterious hacker access to a person’s most private thoughts. It’s up to Net Force Explorer David Gray to convince his friends of the danger—before secrets are revealed to unknown spies…

SHADOW OF HONOR

Was Net Force Explorer Andy Moore’s deceased father a South African war hero or the perpetrator of a massacre? Andy’s search for the truth puts every one of his fellow students at risk…

PRIVATE LIVES

The Net Force Explorers must delve into the secrets of their commander’s life—to prove him innocent of murder…

SAFE HOUSE

To save a prominent scientist and his son, the Net Force Explorers embark on a terrifying virtual hunt for their enemies—before it’s too late…

GAMEPREY

A gamer’s convention turns deadly when virtual reality monsters escape their confines—and start tracking down the Net Force Explorers!

DUEL IDENTITY

A member of a fencing group lures the Net Force Explorers to his historical simulation site—where his dream of ruling a virtual nation is about to come true, but only at the cost of their lives…

DEATHWORLD

When suicides are blamed on a punk/rock/morbo website, Net Force Explorer Charlie Davis goes onto the site undercover—and unaware of its real danger…

HIGH WIRE

The only ring Net Force Explorer Andy Moore finds in a virtual circus is a black market ring—in high-tech weapons software and hardware…

COLD CASE

Playing detective in a mystery simulation, Net Force Explorer Matt Hunter becomes the target of a flesh-and-blood killer…

RUNAWAYS

Tracking down a runaway friend, Net Force Explorer Megan O’Malley discovers that the web is just as fraught with danger as the streets…

CLOAK AND DAGGER

A game of hide-and-seek on the web pits the Net Force Explorers against the CIA…

TOM CLANCY’S NET FORCE® DEATH MATCH

CREATED BY Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik

Written By Diane Duane

BERKLEY JAM BOOKS,NEW YORK

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the assistance of Martin H. Greenberg, Larry Segriff, Denise Little, John Helfers, Brittiany Koren, Lowell Bowen, Esq., Robert Youdelman, Esq., Danielle Forte, Esq., Dianne Jude and Tom Colgan, our editor. But most important, it is for you, our readers, to determine how successful our collective endeavor has been.

—TOM CLANCY AND STEVE PIECZENIK

1

The score was tied all around, it was four minutes until the end of the third half, and Catie Murray was sitting literally on the edge of her seat, her fists clenched, staring into the gamesphere. All around her, arranged in concentric, nested spheres, hanging in what seemed like floodlit darkness, were the virtual “seemings” of about fifty thousand other people. Most of them were yelling with excitement, though some of them were silent and rigid with tension, and to Catie’s amazement, one of these silent ones, sitting next to her, was her brother, Hal, whom she had last noticed being silent sometime in 2009, just before he started learning to talk.

The sphere was transparent, and of full tournament size—ninety meters in diameter. Away down at what was presently the red goal “end,” seventeen people were gathered, floating just outside of the safe zone, jostling one another gently as they jockeyed for the best positions or tried to steal a little impetus from one another. They wore shorts and socks and T-shirt “tunics” in their team colors. One group of six wore a truly astonishing lime green with a blue horizontal stripe, another group white with a red chevron, a third group yellow with a pair of black circles emblazoned on each shirt, front and back, like eyes.

Five of the team wearing yellow were currently floating in front of the red “end” zone, marked out in the space by a red hexagonal gridwork of holographic lines, as the other goals were by hexes of green and yellow, at 180 degree angles to this one. The sixth player in yellow was hanging in midair not too far from the wall of the transparent sphere, holding a fluorescent orange ball, slightly smaller than a soccer ball, in both hands. As Catie watched, he let go of it. It hung in the air in front of him, wobbling only slightly. There was a sudden slight burst of pushing and shoving from the players not dressed in yellow as they boosted themselves off one another and toward the man in the end zone—

In a flash the man bent himself almost double, it seemed to Catie, planted his feet against the wall, and hit the ball with his head. Despite the best efforts of all the players of the other teams, it somehow managed to squirt straight through them, though their arms and legs flailed out in an attempt to stop it. There was a roar of satisfaction from parts of the crowd, and much waving of yellow objects, some of them resembling giant inflatable bananas. Still using the impetus from his push, the player who had made the throwback went after it as his teammates also used the curve of the nearby walls to launch themselves in various directions, but not, Catie noticed, at the ball. The other teams were left to chase that for the moment—

“Where are they going?” she whispered. Her brother didn’t say a word. Catie glanced at him, but got no response. He was sitting there tensely crouched over with his arms folded, all his attention fixed on a spot around ninety degrees around the sphere from where the team captain had taken the ball out for the throwback. In the center of the sphere, players from all three teams were now tangled up in what to Catie looked like a rugby “scrum”—a shapeless-seeming mess of people trying with all their might either to get at the ball, or to keep others away from it while passing it to another friendly team member. For a moment it was lost among them, invisible in the huddle of bodies and tangle of legs, as people strove for purchase in the near-zero gravity, trying to exploit what acceleration they had leftover from the energy of their last push against the wall,...