Sam Bourne - The Last Testament

Her avatar had now landed in the scrubbed streets of virtual Geneva. She began walking down Rue des Etuves, turning into Rue Vallin. There was hardly anyone about, save for a couple of rabbit-headed avatars on a street corner. Maggie headed down Rue du Temple to avoid them.

‘I can’t believe this,’ murmured Uri. ‘You’re saying my dad came to this…place?’

‘Geneva, but not the city everyone knows. That’s what he said. Kishon went to the wrong Geneva. What your father had was hidden here somewhere.’

‘But you’re just wandering down streets. What are we looking for exactly?’

‘Right now, I don’t know. It could be a map, maybe directions. Something that will tell us where he left the tablet. We’ll have to work it out.’

She reached into her pocket, looking again at the Post-it note. I have put it somewhere safe, somewhere only you and my brother could know . If only she understood what the hell that meant. She read on. I need you to remember the good times, like that trip we took together for your Bar Mitzvah. What did we do on that trip, Uri? I hope you remember that. I can tell you only that this search begins in Geneva …

‘What did you do on the trip, Uri? Think.’

‘I told you. We went to Crete. We talked a bit. I got bored. I’m sorry, Maggie. I just can’t think of anything.’

‘All right. We’ll just have to see if Geneva has some Greek museum or something.’

‘Minoan.’

‘What?’

‘Crete is Minoan.’

Maggie gave Uri a glare. ‘Thank you, Professor.’ She tried to see if there was a directory of buildings, even a detailed map, of this virtual Geneva. Nothing. She decided to fly, to see if any large structures caught her eye. Perhaps there would be a large museum with a Minoan department. Maybe Shimon Guttman had left this vital clue to the tablet’s location in there.

‘The funny thing is,’ Uri was saying, more to himself than to Maggie, ‘the only really strong memory I have of that trip is the flight; it was the first time I had ever been on a plane. That’s what really stuck in my mind. I told my father that, probably hurt his feelings. But it was true. We sat together, by the window seat, and I found it amazing, looking down at this beautiful blue water, while he pointed out the different islands below. That was the highlight, really. From then on-’

Maggie suddenly turned to look at him. She could hear Shimon Guttman’s voice: What did we do on that trip, Uri? I hope you remember that .

‘He wants us to do the same thing here,’ she said, hitting the arrow keys with new vigour. ‘He wants us to fly over Lake Geneva, looking for islands.’

The avatar was hovering above the virtual city, as Maggie directed it first west, then east. She had no idea of the geography of Geneva. She had been there once, for some UN thing, but it had been the usual international diplomacy experience: airport, car, meeting room, car, airport. So she relied on the crudest method possible: looking for a big patch of blue.

Once she had found the shoreline, she slowed down so that her avatar could fly low and close, with time to see what was below.

‘There’s one!’ said Uri, pointing in the bottom left of the screen. Clumsily, Maggie turned herself around and came as close as she could, hovering over what looked like a cartoon depiction of a desert island. It was round with a single flag planted in the yellow sand: it announced times for a weekly poetry discussion group. Maggie hit the Up arrow.

There were several islands in the lake, some used as venues for virtual events-Maggie saw signs advertising a concert and a press conference for a software company-some no more than simple plots of land for private owners. None seemed to have any connection to Shimon Guttman. Maggie was growing anxious; this was their only lead.

‘Come on,’ said Uri. ‘Keep flying. If it’s here, we’ll find it.’

Maggie kept it up, looping and dipping over the blue of Second Life’s version of Lake Geneva. For nearly a minute she did that, silently, so that it was as if the pair of them were in a glider, floating through the cloudless, midday skies above a real city, instead of here in this dark, soulless room in the dead of a Jerusalem night.

She was concentrating hard. It wasn’t easy to stay at the right altitude: too high and the islands were just dots, too low and they had no sense of perspective. If Uri was right, they needed to recreate the childhood experience he had had in that plane, spotting the islands below.

‘Hey, what’s that?’ said Uri, pointing at a small patch of land below. Maggie had to double back, steering Lola round. When she saw it, she hovered, then steadily lowered herself.

‘I don’t believe it,’ Uri said, shaking his head. ‘Even here.’

‘What is it, Uri? What?’

‘Look at that. Can you see the shape of that island? Look at the shape.’ He was pointing at the yellow pixels on the screen.

Maggie could see that it was unusual. Not the rough-edged, vaguely circular blob favoured by the owners of most of Second Life’s private islands, but a series of wobbling lines, with a large square protruding from the right. It was a deliberate design of some kind. But it meant nothing to Maggie.

‘Uri, what is it?’

‘See that on the left? That’s Israel. And that big bulge? That’s Jordan. This is the map of Eretz Yisrael , the complete Land of Israel, according to the right-wing fanatics who worship Jabotinsky. People like my father. They have this shape on their T-shirts. The women wear it as a pendant. Shtei gadot , they call it. It means two banks. They even have a song: “The River Jordan has two banks, both of them ours”.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I knew this shape before I knew my alphabet, Maggie. I grew up with it. Believe me, my father did this.’

Maggie clicked to stop flying, landing splashily on the water lapping against the island’s shore. She walked forward, but was pushed back. A red line, like a laser beam girdling the island, materialized each time the avatar got too near, effectively bouncing her away. When you looked closely, you could see it was made up of words: NO ENTRY NO ENTRY NO ENTRY. It was an electronic border fence. A small message appeared on screen: ‘Cannot enter parcel-not member of the group.’

‘Damn. It’s locked somehow.’ Her avatar was static. Maggie looked at the bottom of the screen, trying to find a box for keying in a password.

‘Hey, Maggie. Who’s this?’

She looked up and felt a chill run through her. Two avatars were hovering close by. They had the same, eerie bunny heads she had seen just before, but now both were clad in black. She remembered the men in the alley, the black ski-masks, the hot breath.

Maggie looked up at Uri. ‘They’re following us. They’re trying to get whatever information your father stored here before we do. What should I do?’

‘Can you talk to them?’

Maggie stared hard at the screen. They were still lingering at her side. She hit Chat and typed into the window, trying hard to stay in character. hey guys, what’s up?

She waited for a reply. Three seconds, four, five. She waited till the Second Life clock in the corner of the screen turned a minute. Nothing.

‘They’re waiting for us to make a move. They know only what they pick up from us.’ With that, Maggie had one more attempt at breaking through the laser cordon that appeared around the island every time she got close. Cannot enter parcel-not member of the group .

The rabbit-heads remained close by, unmoving. They were shut outside the cordon too, but something about their stillness unsettled Maggie. She imagined their operators, whoever they were, hammering their way through complex algorithms, running serious de-encryption programmes, working out how they could smash through Guttman’s little barrier. If these people were clever enough to have followed Maggie, or Lola Hepburn, to this spot within Second Life, they would hardly let one piffling cordon stand in their way.