Free Virtually True by Adam L. Penenberg Page A

explosion.”
    “The explosive was your run-of-the-mill but highly effective TNT charge, carried in plastic explosive casing, the type you’d find at construction sites, mines, and in many weapons.”
    “How would I find the manufacturers of this explosive?”
    “I could walk outside my office and pick up enough of this explosive to blow up the White House. Might not be a bad idea either.”
    “The bomb was carried in a sophisticated missile, guided by software able to key in on a person’s DNA. Why equip a sophisticated piece of hardware like that with TNT?”
    “For the very reason we’re scratching our asses wondering why. Compressed TNT works: It’s reliable, so widespread that it’s impossible to trace, and cheap.”
    “What else did you find? Any traces of the missile?”
    “Well, the outer shell was probably plastic, but I can’t be sure.”
    True spots crumbs on de Bris’s shirt. His weight is going to yo-yo back up again soon. “Why not? Can’t you trace plastic?”
    “Not in this case. My guess is that it was a type of plastic designed to disintegrate in an explosion.”
    “Wouldn’t that make it unstable?”
    “Not unless the targeted DNA makes contact with it.”
    “What do you mean?” True leans hard into the door as the cab veers left.
    “I mean, this device was sophisticated in the sense of guidance system and trigger mechanisms. It wouldn’t go off, I assume, unless the DNA it’s programmed to come in contact with makes actual contact.”
    “So in other words, this missile could have collided with a house and wouldn’t have gone off.”
    “Or a car. Or another human, although the guidance system seems to have been sophisticated enough that the missile was able to miss everything except the intended target. I accessed your video file and mapped out its flight path. Smart little fucker. It bobbed and weaved like a heavyweight fighter.”
    “Or a Luzonian taxi,” True says, his head skimming roof. They skid to a pause, stall, then run Nerula’s lone traffic light, which nobody heeds anyway. Right of way goes to the biggest vehicle. “You see the missile on screen. Why can’t you tell me who made it?”
    De Bris scoffs. “Do you think somebody who has the resources and technology to commit a hit like this is going to leave a calling card? The shell doesn’t mean shit: It isn’t as if you’ll find a decal. You can’t judge a missile by its cover. As for the flight path, it could have been preprogrammed, could have been fired from twenty feet away or two thousand miles. Best way to avoid getting wiped out by one of these babies is to stay inside a well-fortified bunker. Better yet, don’t let anyone in on your DNA sequence.”
    “No idea as to its range?”
    “No.”
    True looks out the window, watches bruised clouds collide against the mountains. A single drop of rain on the windshield, but no others. “Shit.”
    “Who bought it?” de Bris asks.
    “A friend.”
    “Tough luck.”
    “A shanty girl too.”
    “Even the most sophisticated bomb guidance system doesn’t care who gets in the way at the moment it makes contact with the intended DNA sequence. One of them was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
    “That’s what I was thinking.”
    De Bris clears his throat. “Sorry. I hear about tragedies like this every day. You’re lucky you’re not here in New York. Things have really gone toxic. This morning four corporations boycotted their trial on conducting drug, virtual reality, and psychological experiments on unsuspecting citizens. Some of these people were driven to suicide. Others ended up in psych wards. Ugly shit. But you’d know all about that.”
    “Thanks, de Bris.” A twinge, that’s how True would describe it, in addition to his hospital-stay memories. There is something familiar about what de Bris is saying, something that stimulates True’s memory neurons, but he can’t place it. Isn’t sure he wants to know. Says, “You think