Life as an Internet Policeman. 7,690 An Adventurer turns policeman. (standard:fantasy, 7213 words)
Author: Oscar A Rat	Added: Jun 15 2020	Views/Reads: 1492/1050	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Joey wanders the vast reaches of cyberspace with his imaginary camel, Tomas. Him rescuing a female policewoman, the two wander through purple plains until finding Little Joe at the Ponderosa ranch.

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lower limb came off completely.  He picked her up and hurried to the 
tent.  Toma had noticed her condition and was getting Joey's surgical 
supplies ready. 

One of the young man's skills was as a surgeon.  Actually not so young
at over two-hundred physical years, he started work on the woman while 
Toma went over to search for any other survivors.  There were no others 
on the vessel. 

*** 

"I suppose you want to know why I crashed?" she asked a few days later,
once she had regained consciousness.  Surgery was simpler in 
cyberspace, without any fears of infection.  It did take quite a bit of 
objective time to heal though, the same as in reality. 

It would be a few weeks before she could walk again.  Medical technology
made re-attaching the leg easy but healing its bruising and crushing 
took time.  Joey had kept her sedated through the worse of the pain. 

"Not particularly," he answered. "None of my business.  Right now, my
only concern with you is your health, and I don't like that either." 

"Well, I've got a good copy of myself back in the physical world, with a
good leg.  You just lend me your router and I'll get out of your hair." 


"Can't do it, missy.  Ain't got any router." 

"Then who the hell around here does?  I have a job to go back to and
haven't got time for this crap." 

"Damned if I know.  I am, or was, out here on my own.  Don't have any
idea where I am." 

"Nobody's that stupid."  She sneered.  "You an oddball or something?" 

"You could say that.  I just like to be alone.  Well, I do have a
fantasy camel named Toma.  You want a fantasy router?" 

"Funny, funny man." She thought a moment, finally asking, "You a doctor,
buddy?  That's a pretty good job on my leg." 

"I was for a while.  Thought I could be sort of a wandering surgeon. 
That didn't work out too well, so I dropped it.  Maybe some day, when I 
get tired of this life -- but don't count on it." He held out his hand. 
"And my name's Joey." 

"Terri, Terri Johnson, Internet Police sergeant."  She lay back in her
bedding, "looks like we're going to be together for awhile, don't it?" 

"No way out of it.  Maybe someone's around here somewhere?  Or until you
can walk again.  Could be a long time." 

"Damn." 

*** 

After salvaging everything she thought she needed from the wrecked
conveyance, he had to fantasize another camel for the woman.  While he 
was at it, he fantasized two horses for them to ride. 

"Why can't you make your own?"  Joey asked her. 

"I don't have much imagination.  If I tried it, I'd probably get one
with three legs.  That's one reason I joined the police.  We don't need 
imagination. All our equipment is made for us by expert programmers." 

They started their journey across the long almost endless purple
prairie.  Hopefully, they would find someone with a router she could 
use.  The landscape was a part of the Internet itself and not his 
construct, so he had no idea what lay over the horizon. 

After many hours or days, time had no real meaning in cyberspace, of
riding they came upon an email packet lying on the grass.  Somehow it 
had been lost in transit, containing a small amount of information.  
Not finding its destination, it had finally run down and fallen to the 
surface, lost to its recipient. 

The packet did provide a bit of shade on its leeward side, so they
decided to rest for a while.  Toma and the other camel wondered off to 
do whatever fantasy camels do, while Joey and butt-sore Terri rested in 
the welcoming shade. 

"How did you become a wanderer, Joey?  It doesn't seem like much of a
life.  You must have had ambition at one time.  You did go to medical 
school." 

"Yeah, at one time."  He stretched his legs, working the kinks out, "I
put a notice on the Usenet for a place in a straight community.  I 
wanted to continue forever as a young boy, which is what I was at that 
time in my physical state.  (Straight communities are replications of 
actual eras or places on the Real world. Oddball ones are strictly 
imaginative, having little to do with reality,) 

"I got together with an established family group in a straight
community.  Their actual daughter had decided to try the physical world 
for a while, stay with grandparents, and earn a few Ccredits.  That 
left an opening for her ten-year-old Internet body.  Being a curious 
young guy, filled with that old mystique about girls, I took the job. 

"Of course I had never been a girl before and had to suffer through
quite a bit of on-the-job training.  I never realized being one could 
be so complicated.  And that didn't even encompass the puberty issues, 
and that was part of the contract -- to grow up normally with them.  In 
that particular community the entire family was supposed to age 
normally.  They wanted to keep it completely 'Old World' but without 
the diseases and infirmities found in reality. 

"No fantasizing by individuals was allowed.  My father was named Peter
and mother Audrey and both worked for a living.  Me and my sister, 
Margie, a sixteen-year-old, were required to live off their salaries.  
All play acting, of course. 

"So I went from an eighteen-year-old boy to a ten-year-old girl,
virtually overnight.  It wouldn't have been so bad except that both of 
the females wanted to really convert me to that image.  They kept 
telling me all that girl stuff, which didn't interest me at all.  But I 
knew I would have to learn it sooner or later. 

"Now, the puberty thing was gross.  I don't know how you stand it, PMS
and all that stuff.  What bothered me most was that I had to get a 
boyfriend.  Not right then, but in a few years.  I just didn't feel 
right about that stage.  Having been a boy in the physical world, I was 
interested in girls, not in being one completely. 

"The thought of dating and even having sex with a boy turned me off. 
And, of course, the being in one place thing with its routine 
eventually got to me.  Life in an approximation of Earth 
nineteen-fifties can get boring. 

"I soon regretted my decision.  I was under contract, though.  Being an
police officer you must know about that?  It would be illegal to break 
the contract, which was for ten years physical time.  I should have 
done more investigating first. 

"I had no choice.  Biting my tongue, so to speak, I went through with
it.  The last year or so, with a boyfriend, was really difficult.  I 
don't want to talk, or even think, about it.  No more being female for 
me.  I learned my lesson and haven't had sex since.  It did give me an 
insight into female psychology, and I had to have a female body for the 
job.  So I decided to go back to school and learn to be a doctor. 

"The schooling was hard, but I could always get away by myself and
didn't have to anchor to the school.  I would come to these prairies to 
do my homework, sitting alone under my favorite tree.  Coordinates 
19T55Q20R832-386T978VV119.  I still have the address in my memory.  I 
created Toma and he stayed by the tree while I was at school.  Toma 
became a friend and companion. 

"After that contract ended, I went back to another straight community,
thinking I could still flit back and forth from doctoring work to my 
tree on the prairie. 

"It was nice in concept but, after a few years, I started spending less
time at work and more time here.  Since I rarely spent unnecessarily, 
my surgeon skills did build up a huge amount of Ccredits. 

"Eventually, I closed up my office and moved here completely.  I've been
traveling these grassy slopes for almost two-hundred years now." 

Joey noticed Terri looking at him in a strange way, as though he were a
bug on an insect specimen board.  It made him feel sort of queasy. 

"What's wrong?  Hey, we all have a right to live our own lives, you
know?" Joey was feeling defensive. 

"You mean you never slept with a woman?" Terri asked, seriously, "Not in
over two-hundred years?" 

"Well, no, actually.  I've been one, but never actually did, you know,
do it with one." 

"Come here." She grabbed him around the neck. "We'll take care of that
right now." 

*** 

"Oh, what I've been missing," Joey mumbled, head between her bare
breasts. "What's wrong with me?  All this time.  I thought I knew, but 
didn't know anything." 

"You're too clinical.  All that medical training, honey."  She bent down
to nibble on his ear. 

"Now your turn, sugar."  He tried to push his head into her chest. "How
did you become a cop?" 

"I feel something bigger happening, Joey honey. Let's get that out of
the way first." Her hand was lying in his crotch.  Another couple of 
hours went by before she started her story. 

"Unlike you, I was popular as a kid in the physical world," she told
him. "I had a lot of friends and few enemies.  When I graduated, I 
tried being an oddball, coming here to Cyberspace and creating my own 
world. 

"Before long I noticed it was almost the same as when I was physical. 
Oh, I kept only one fantasy enemy around to humiliate.  But the rest of 
the characters were copies of when I was a kid.  Even the background 
was that of a school like my real one.  With nothing changed, it became 
pretty boring.  That's where I realized I didn't have the imagination 
to go it alone.  I needed real people around me that I couldn't 
predict. 

"So I tried a straight community.  I stayed a girl though, about my real
age.  Unfortunately I craved excitement and knew I couldn't be a 
successful adventurer without imagination. 

"So I went back to the physical world.  Not being very intelligent
either, I had to work at a menial job filing paperwork at a 
construction company.  Eventually quiting, I found one changing and 
duplicating education-disks on college subjects I could never 
understand myself.  Like a fool, I thought I could absorb an education 
that way, by listening to the disks.  No such luck.  I had no 
excitement outside social infighting and men trying to get into my 
pants. 

"Since men liked me, I tried being a real prostitute for a few months. 
Plenty of excitement, but I  found that in real life you could ruin 
yourself with all those drugs and alcohol.  In cyberspace, you just 
wish yourself sober -- and you are.  Before long, I could feel myself 
slipping into a useless commonplace life. 

"That was when I met Shane, an IP.  He took turning me around as a
project, along with free sex of course.  Hearing him talk about his 
work, I thought I'd try it.  After all, being a policewoman doesn't 
call for much imagination. 

"It did mean training, though.  I needed to learn rules, laws, and
procedures, taking most of the remaining imagination out of the job.  
And, well, that's where I am now. 

"There must have been a bug of some kind in my autoprobe, because it
just stopped and fell, for no reason at all.  I thought I'd be killed, 
there and then. 

"Of course, after I didn't come back for awhile, they would have simply
made another copy of me.  I think I would have missed this one though. 
I've been me for a long time now." 

Before they left, they listened to the crashed e-mail packet.  Since it
was between two schoolboys, it wasn't very interesting -- only a 
fragment talking about homework and girls.  It did give them a few 
laughs, though. 

On their way again, the two traveled along for many sleeps and sexual
romps, crossing endless grassy slopes. 

Eventually, they came upon a herd of cattle. 

"Can any of you talk?" Joey asked a steer. 

"Me, I can talk.  These others are only fantasy,"  one of the cattle
replied.  "I'm studying Old Time History and spending time as a steer 
to see how they lived." 

"Doesn't sound too interesting.  Is this your world?"  Terri asked. 

"Na.  It's a group project.  I start as a steer and work my way up to
cowboy.  Then, if my grades are good, I get to be Mr. Horse for awhile. 
 Maybe even Hop Sing the cook, or eventually Mr. Cartwright himself.  
That's my ambition, to play him and run the Ponderosa,"  the steer told 
them.  "Sorry, my name's Ben.   Quite a coincidence isn't it?" 

"Sounds good, Ben.  Hope you make it.  Can you show us how to get to the
ranch?  My name's Joey and this is Terri.  We have to borrow a router.  
She has to get back to work in the physical world." 

"Nope, pardner.  As a steer, I have to stay with the herd and eat grass.
 Don't like it much, but you gotta do what you gotta do.  At least, as 
a steer I'm castrated and don't have to screw the cows, hee-hee.  
That's a joke." 

"Sort of an animistic humor, uh?  You can 'steer' us that way, can't
you?"  Joey forced a laugh. 

The animal gave a loud "Mooooo" and jerked its head to its left. 

"That way. Come back and visit in a few years. By that time I should be
human again."  Ben went back to eating grass while they rode in the 
direction indicated. 

After a while, they saw smoke in the distance, then a chimney,
eventually the Ponderosa Ranch itself.  They were met by Little Joe 
Cartright, sitting on the front porch, a drink in his hand. 

"Howdy, hombres.  You don't look like you belong to the ranch." 

They explained who they were and what they needed.  Little Joe, real
name Tom, invited them into the house and insisted in showing them 
around. 

"Just like the original.  The professor studied every episode for ten
years before setting this up. Once you finish being a steer and then a 
horse it's a lot of fun.  Most beginners don't make it that far.  After 
a few years of eating grass, they give it up."  Tom finally showed them 
to the ranch's router, then went back to his position on the porch.  He 
was waiting for his father to bring a couple of cattle rustlers in for 
a scene from episode sixty-two. 

"Well, guess this is goodbye," Terri's eyes were damp with a tear
forming in each. "It's been fun, but I have to get back."  She hugged 
Joey tightly, then released him and reached for the router, disguised 
as an old-time telephone.  Joey looked at her, making a difficult 
decision. 

"Wait. I'm coming with you." He shrugged his shoulders.  "I am starting
to get bored with all the loneliness.  Maybe I can join the Internet 
Police too -- at least try it for awhile?" 

A few seconds later, Toma watched him leave, then started the long trek
back to Coordinates 19T55Q20R832-386T978VV119 to wait. 

*** 

Eventually, Joey Edwards graduated from the Internet Police Training
Academy.  It wasn't easy for him since, in order to do it, he had to 
attend school in the physical world. 

Joey didn't like to stay in one place that long.  It took three entire
months, most of it plugged into a learning machine.  At least physical 
training wasn't needed.  In cyberspace, you could be whatever age and 
physical condition you desired.  Real world conditioning or physical 
handicaps meant nothing. 

"Now what?" he asked his instructors, none of whom had any idea.  He had
only been one of thousands in the school, most taking courses in other 
subjects needed in the physical and cyber worlds. 

Asking around, the new policeman found he was to report to the nearest
IP barracks; that they would assign him to a duty station.  IP Station 
#687 was only a few blocks away.  Joey walked over and went up to the 
desk sergeant. 

"So, I finished school today.  Who do I see next?"  he asked the
disinterested personage. 

"Let me see here.  I remember your name from somewhere."  The sergeant
looked through several books, finding nothing. "You ain't wanted for 
anything, are you?" He looked slyly at Joey. It had happened before. 

"Nope, not that I know of.  I've been in cyberspace for the last
couple-hundred years, all by myself.  Couldn't have done nothing 
wrong." 

The sergeant shrugged and checked his computer files. In a few seconds
he had a hit. 

"Ah, here it is," he told Joey. "You already got yourself a tutor for
on-the-job-training.  I remember now, all the guys here were jealous 
when we heard it.  We'd give our left arm to partner with her, but 
Sergeant Johnson asked for you." 

"Terri?  Terri asked for me?" Joey was surprised but pleased. He had
saved her life in cyberspace when her autoprobe crashed near him. 
"Damn.  What'a I do now?" 

"I'll text her, she's out on patrol.  Guess you just hang around until
she answers.  If you need a place to flop, we have extra bunks out 
back."  The desk sergeant told him, motioning at a doorway behind him. 

It only took a couple of hours for Terri to get to him. Her physical
body was in a stasis machine in another police building in the same 
city.  Joey was watching a holovision show when she arrived.  By then, 
he had been issued a uniform and a flash disk holding specialized 
uniforms and equipment, all in the form of computer programming. 

"Joey, honey.  Glad to see you made it through training." 

He tried to hug her, but she pushed him away. "Not now, I'm in uniform
and there are people watching," she fairly purred.  "Come on.  I 
cleared it with the boss.  He's saved a good case for us.  One that'll 
show you one of the worse sides of the job." 

In a taxi on the way to her, their, base station, she explained the
case.  An unfortunate but necessary part of police work in cyberspace. 

"It seems that about four-hundred years back, when we were still trying
to find ways to live in cyberspace, a rogue scientist made some 
unsanctioned tries on his own," she explained to Joey. "He tried to 
splice human DNA into a pattern that would exist there.  In other words 
to digitalis human DNA. 

"It was against procedure, law, and common sense.  But it worked.  While
the others were restricted to human rights, keeping human bodies in 
stasis and accounting for each person, this renegade was secretly 
converting them to a 100% Internet existence, leaving no physical 
bodies behind." She shook her head in wonder. “There was no way to keep 
track of them on Real Earth.” 

Joey shrugged. "So?  It sounds better than what we have now." 

"You have to remember, honey.  The reason we moved into cyberspace in
the first place was because of overpopulation.  If people could have 
children there, it would eventually become as overpopulated as the 
Earth itself.  We'd have the same problems as before.  As it is, we now 
have total control of birth.  We can screw all we want in cyberspace, 
without fear of birth, disease, or other problems. 

"With plenty of open space, if you don't like your neighbor, or a local
law or custom, you just use a router and move away.  Those are the 
advantages of excess space.  In an overpopulated environment, more and 
more laws are needed, and many restrictions on individuals." 

"Yeah, I think I get it." Joey was thinking of his own preference for
the wild open purple prairies of his favorite section of cyberspace, 
where he had spent over 200 years wondering alone, except for his 
fantasy camel.  It was where he first met Terri when she crashed. 

"When he learned the police were onto him, the scientist quickly
released his creations into cyberspace. 

"We didn't find out until an IP happened to visit a straight community
and talked to some of the kids.  He found out they had been born there, 
and had no memory of the real world. 

"It caused a legal battle, most of it as to whether they had a right to
live or not.  On one hand they were created with human DNA.  On the 
other, they were a future threat to our very existence. 

"They had already almost taken over that community, were over 80% of
that population, and had branched out into other areas.  Those people 
were studied and found to be unable to project fantasies like normal 
people. True children of the Internet, they were, in reality, another 
race.  And a threat to human existence. 

"With their lack of imagination, they couldn't create their own worlds
or survive outside certain straight communities. 

"We didn't know how to deal with them.  They were, in many respects,
like a cancer or virus.  Some humans wanted them to be restricted to 
one place to be studied, living among their own kind.  But that 
wouldn't solve anything.  Being able to procreate, In time they would 
have to expand.  And there was always the chance that some would escape 
into other areas.  It was an inevitable disaster, waiting to happen. 
Basically the same as when the old US tried restricting native 
Americans to reservations. 

"They were finally classed as viruses.  The IPs surrounded the town and
scrambled* the whole bunch.  It took years to sort out real humans, but 
was done.  The virus was killed.  We thought we found all of them." (*A 
scrambler is a hand-held device. When aimed at something in cyberspace, 
it will sorta suck it in to store as a .zip file on an internal flash 
drive. It's one way to confine criminals.) 

"That sounds pretty heartless." Joey was shocked. He had never heard of
the issue. It wasn't common knowledge. "What.... What are we supposed 
to do?" 

"A couple of suspect families have been found.  Our job, yours and mine,
is to check them out." She paused. "... And do whatever we have to." 

The rest of the trip was made in silence, both alone with their
thoughts.  Joey was thinking that this must be a sort of testing period 
for him, to see how he reacted. 

Terri knew it was so, a test case all new IPs went through.  It tested
loyalty, intelligence, and thinking processes. She would rather test 
him herself than wait and worry about how he would perform under 
another tutor. 

When they arrived at IP Station #734, Terri paused to slide her Ccredit
card through a pay slot in the back of the front seat of the taxi. They 
walked into the station. 

Terri seemed popular there. Most of the IPs greeted her by name and
pretty much ignored Joey. In a whirlwind manner, she introduced him to 
friends, had him issued a locker for his gear and took him directly to 
a room filled with stasis machines. 

"Hi, Terri, back so soon?" A woman in a white robe greeted them. "You
only been gone a couple of hours." The woman sighed. "I wish my 
enlistment here were up.  I got me a nice world I share. The money's 
good, but while here in reality I'm getting to be an old woman.  There 
I stay a perpetual twenty-years old. Is the money worth it?" 

"It wouldn't be my choice, Joanne," Terri commiserated with her. "I
spend as much time in hyperspace as I can. Here, this is Joey.  He's my 
new partner. We got a virus to beat." 

"Oh, another one of those, uh?" Joanne nodded wisely, giving Joey a
strange look and a smile. "How do you do, Joey, and watch yourself, you 
hear?  Things aren't always what they seem." 

Joey looked over at Terri, who seemed to be glaring at the other woman. 

"We need a couple of machines, Joanne." 

Joey was slightly confused, but Terri hurried him to two stasis machines
sitting side by side, both had their lids raised as though inviting 
occupancy. 

"Lets get on to your first case as a police officer," she told him,
climbing into a machine.  Joey entered the other and waited for Joanne 
to close the lid. 

*** 

The two found themselves in a small antechamber, an autoprobe waiting
outside.  Remembering, Joey dressed in a new hard-programmed uniform 
before joining Terri inside the vehicle. 

"First, we have to inspect the probe. You do it while I watch. A small
thing but necessary before a trip." Terri told him, sitting back in one 
of the seats. 

He found a checklist on a clipboard attached to the dashboard. It was a
simple matter to check off the items. The vehicle contained four bunks 
and an equal number of seats.  Both could be folded into the walls and 
floor. Although designed for one, it was an all purpose transportation 
vehicle, sometimes carrying passengers. 

Joey wasn't used to having real programs to work with.  They were more
permanent than fantasies, more on the order of heavy-duty items, and 
couldn't be altered at will. "Hard coded," would be the terminology. 

Programs were real, and could only be used by real people, any real
people who had them.  It was an important requirement in police work.  
A person could order a fantasy person to steal a police scrambler, but 
the fantasy couldn't use it.  A fantasy scrambler would also be useless 
for the same reasons. It wouldn't work on a real person. 

A stolen police autoprobe wouldn't do a fantasy person any good. They
couldn't drive it. In addition, all IP programs were designed to be 
used by only IPs.  That was done by using a specific matrix in IP 
stasis machines matching one in the programs. 

"I'll drive," Terri told him, reminding the new officer that she was in
charge. "No hurry, so we'll drive around a while and let you get 
acquainted with your new authority." 

Their first stop was an S&M world.  Those had been known to go overboard
on occasion, kidnapping or luring real victims.  This one had never 
violated any laws but Terri figured it would be a good experience for 
the new officer. 

Using the router built into their ship, it took only moments to get
there, to an imposing gate in a heavy stone wall.  Ignoring gate guards 
naked except for chastity belts, nipple clips, and holding spears, they 
drove right in, parking in front of a small castle.  As they got out, 
Joey could hear someone inside screaming in pain.  Terri only gave him 
a sickly smile and ignored it. 

"Those are either willing real victims or unwilling fantasy ones.  The
real ones have every right to be tortured and beaten if they want, and 
the fantasy ones have no rights at all,"  Terri reminded him. "We make 
an appearance every once in a while to keep the owner from getting out 
of hand,"  she told him.  "Any violation at all and we close them down. 
They're aware of that, and usually keep to the law." 

The two IPs were met at the door by a large fat man in his fifties.  He
wore a white toga and grinned at them. 

"Sergeant, and a new man, uh?"  Haven't seen you for ages.   Come on in.
You want a tour?"  He seemed proud of his fantasy world. 

"Not now.  Don't have time, George.  I could use a drink though.  It's
been a hard day."  Terri told him. 

"Sure. Got anything you can imagine, ha, ha."  He waddled ahead of them
to a sumptuous living room.  It was empty except for an old 
white-haired man scrubbing the floor with a worn brush. 

George went over and kicked the man in the side, hard, bowling him, his
brush and a pail of dirty water over and into a fancy couch. 

"Get us some wine, Alfred.  And hurry up,"  George ordered.  The man
started to crawl across the floor toward a door.  George laughed, 
walked over, and kicked him in the butt, forcing him to crawl faster. 

"Old Alfred.  You remember him, don't you, sergeant?"  George showed
them to comfortable seats. "he's real, you know?" 

"Sure, George.  And I know he wants to be here.  How are things going?" 

"You'd be surprised.  I get more converts every day.  This place has
become popular lately."  He smiled at both of them.  "Do you think you 
could get any IP prisoners assigned to me?  My sadists would love it, 
they would." 

Terri laughed with him.  "Not a chance, George.  Just keep them
voluntary, is all.  You don't want to break any laws, now do you?" 

"Heavens no.  I only have a handful of fantasies, as a matter of fact,
and don't really need that many." He looked down at the floor. "Some of 
my sadists like really gross things, you know?  It's not my fault or my 
wishes, but they pay for the atmosphere." 

"I know you, George.  You're really a gentle person,"  she lied with a
straight face.  That was the time Alfred picked to walk in with a tray 
of drinks, setting them down on a little table in front of them, he got 
back to his knees and picked up his brush. 

"Did I give you permission to stand, Alfred?"  George smiled as he
addressed his slave. "I don't remember giving it." 

"No sir."  Alfred mumbled, eyes down and brush shaking in his hand. 
George shook his head, ringing a little bell that brought a huge female 
slave in, a short bullwhip coiled in her hand.   The woman, topless 
with part of a large dildo extending from her rear, sank to hers knee 
with a grimace and bowed to George. 

"Janet.  Alfred has been a bad boy ... again,"  George said in a
sorrowful voice. "Please give him twenty lashes." 

The two IPs had to sit through it while George drank and made small
talk, Joey almost sick at the sight.  They finally took their leave and 
he could stumble back to the autoprobe. 

Terri drove back out the gate and reached for the router switch. 

"Let's try a straight community next,"  she told him. "By the way, how
did you like that place?"   Looking at an obviously discombobulated 
Joey, she laughed.  "Oh, in case you didn't figure it out,  Alfred is 
the owner, Fat George his fantasy."  She had to laugh at Joey's 
astonishment. 

They materialized in a park.  Joey could tell that much from his own
long wandering.  He had been in many of them.  The mown purple grass, 
carefully chosen trees and manicured bushes gave that much away.  He 
didn't recognize the community, though.  That wasn't surprising, since 
there were millions of them in cyberspace. 

Most followed the same basic pattern.  That of Old Earth before the
cyberworld was created.  Government by the inhabitants, a few factories 
making products to sell to other communities and worlds, and square 
blocks or miles of tract houses built mostly of community imagined 
fiberboard or wood. 

Terri drove to the Community Center.  It was standard practice to check
in with local authorities.  Either police, if they had them, or the 
local government itself.  Most of these towns or cities were law 
abiding peaceful places for the average citizen to live. 

Of course, others were autocratic in some form or another, the people
not caring to be involved in government.  Kings and Emperors abounded.  
There weren't many evil dictators, though, since if you didn't like the 
way it was run, you simply went somewhere else. 

They all had criminals, those unique to the community itself, which
normally meant enforced local laws and edicts. 

"This is a typical one, I imagine you've lived in some like it."  Terri
reminded him.  It does seem to contain the virus.  The locals don't 
know that, though, and we'll try to keep them from finding out." 

"Why will we say we're here, then?"  Joey asked, looking back at curious
citizens.  An IP vehicle was obviously not a common sight to them.  
Word being spread, they saw more and more citizens watching and 
standing on the curbs as they sailed by.  Some were waving and others 
cheering.  Joey waved back, a smile on his face. 

"Routine.  We make a practice of being seen, wherever we go.  It reminds
them that they're not alone and helps keep them law abiding.  Most will 
think we're here to help in local problems, but we aren't.  It would 
take too large an IP force to police every little town in cyberspace. 

"You mean they're on their own?  Is that it?" 

"Well, not entirely.  If the city government would ask, we could maybe
help out in some cases.  Mostly, in case of major trouble disgruntled 
residents simply go somewhere else to live.  That encourages local 
officials to keep the peace in order to keep the town active. 

"One of us was here a few months ago and stopped at the school.  He
asked the teachers to give a fake quiz to the students, asking about 
their experiences in the real world before coming here.  A simple test. 
 A few seemed to have no such experiences, which they wouldn't if born 
here. 

"Now we have to question the kids more thoroughly and find out if it's
true or not.  Then do what we have to do." 

"You mean kill them and their families, don't you?" 

Terri shrugged and continued driving. 

They had a short conversation with the local mayor and police chief, not
mentioning their real mission just that they would look around at the 
sights before leaving.  Both had to sign a book for the police chief, a 
local custom. 

"Let me show you something, Joey.  I've been here before and know a nice
spot on the river." 

"You're driving, sergeant.  Wherever you want." 

They drove over a bridge, then down an embankment next to it.  The
vehicle floated, and she let it drift for awhile, idly passing three 
kids fishing.  The children waved and watched their vehicle as it 
passed. 

Terri found an empty spot a mile farther on and pulled the vehicle to
the bank. 

"Now, let's get reacquainted,"  she told him, folding one of the bunks
down and shedding clothing. 

They made love on the narrow bunk, the autoprobe shaking gently in the
river flow.  It was the first time they had done so since before he 
started IP school.  After finishing and a short nap together, they 
dressed and continued. 

*** 

The school was expecting them.  Terri had told the mayor they were going
there.  The children they wanted to question were being held in the 
principals office, though not told why. 

"Two families," Terri told her partner, "a brother and a sister from
one, and a boy from the other." 

"We gave them the test you requested, along with all the others,"  The
principal, a woman named Grace Malloy told them. "These three didn't 
mind, since it got them out of an advanced territorial geometry test 
for it.  Not our most popular class for the kids.  Very boring." 

"It wasn't mine either."  Terri laughed. "Well, just send them in one at
a time.  Then back to class when we're finished with them,"  Terri 
instructed the principal. 

* 

"How do you like being a ten-year-old again, Kenny?"  Terri asked as
Joey took notes and watched. "What were you doing in the real world 
before you came here?" 

"Uh,"  he seemed to be thinking, "I was a cowboy in New York City. 
Rustled beef."  He laughed nervously. "I even recognized one of my 
cans, with my brand on the bottom, at the supermarket here.  Ain't that 
a coincidence?" 

The kid knew a lot of answers, as though he had been briefed, but
screwed up others.  Some, like where the bathrooms were in the schools 
in the real world, were answered correctly, but not where the furnace 
rooms were located.   Of course they were different in each school, but 
any kid would know the location of their own without pausing to reflect 
on it. 

The other two were the same.  As though they had been briefed but had no
personal knowledge of the real world.  The kids did look familiar to 
Joey.  Maybe he just remembered some like them from another occasion, 
his own school days? he thought. 

"What do you think, partner?"  Terri asked him. 

"Strange, is what I think.  They were nervous and missed several key
questions.  Any kid from an earth climate would know what a winter coat 
looked like, for instance.  The weather here in the internet is 
constant, no coats needed or sold in the shops.  I don't even remember 
seeing them on holovision." 

"Do you think they're viruses?  That's what I mean?" 

"You mean, should we kill them and their families?" 

"However you want to take it." 

"Let's go visit the families first,"  he stated, nervously. 

"If they see us coming, they might use a router and leave.  In my
experience, these viruses keep a sharp lookout.  If they are viruses, 
they're probably nervous right now, simply because we're here – in 
town,"  Terri told him. "When they talk to the kids today after school 
they'll probably pack up and run to the nearest router."  She gave him 
a meaningful look. "If we do it, we'll have to do it quickly, before 
they can talk to their kids." 

Joey returned to the autoprobe to think.  It was a tough decision, but
he didn't know what else to do.  This was one hell of a job for an IP  
... for anyone, he thought.   He wasn't used to making life or death 
decisions in a world where death was normally a distant probability. 

Terri gave him an hour or so, talking to the school officials and
teachers, simply to kill time.  It would be his decision, one of many 
he would have to make as an Internet Policeman. 

She finally came out, once classes were over.  The kids were with her,
now even more nervous.  In fact, they were all uneasy as Terri drove to 
the children's homes. 

She stopped at the first house, hovering over the street outside. 

"Well, Joey?"  she urged him in an emotionless tone, "do we have to go
in?  Your decision?" 

"Let them go,"  he told her.  "They're not viruses." 

"How do you know?" 

"They're not real, fantasies,"  Joey told her, gaining confidence as he
spoke. "The real kids are skipping school.  I thought I saw them 
before, and I did, fishing in the river.  They made these fantasies to 
take their place at school.  Probably been doing it a lot too, even the 
day of the math test." 

"Are you sure?  You have to be?  Viruses are very dangerous, likable or
not?" 

"We can find out.  Wait for awhile and see if the real ones show up.  If
not, we can go in tonight and check."  about that time two kids, 
looking exactly like two of those in back of their autoprobe, came into 
sight at the end of the block.  They tried to look casual as they 
turned around and walked away. 

"I have a better idea."  Terri asked him, grinning, "Why not go in and
have a beer or something?" 

"What are you talking about?" 

"These are all IP employees.  It was a test every new officer goes
through.  All of them, the mayor, the people at the school and the 
kids, go through this routine about once a week."  She laughed.  "You 
passed." 

The End.


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