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from
illegal drugs—and believe me, those points will be punched home—will
be dragged before the viewing public. So will all the statistics that certify
the War on Drugs as unwinnable. The facts are on my side, John.”
    “But the people
aren’t.”
    “They will be. They’ll
see that there’ll always be a sizable segmen of humanity that wants drugs
and will find ways to get them. We have millions of them in this
country—twelve million occasional marijuana users alone. They’re
here and they’re not going away. Passing laws won’t change them.
And we sure as hell can’t lock up all of them.”
    “I can’t see the
average American citizen surrendering to the druggies.”
    “Changing tactics is not
surrender. Look, we have millions of Americans who want to dose themselves with
various chemicals. Mostly they’re only hurting themselves, and if they
happen to hurt somebody else while under the influence, we already have laws on
the books for people who do damage while intoxicated. Let’s deal with
them as people with a hang-up, not criminals.” Tom radiated sincerity and
conviction. He was a mesmerizing speaker and a master of mass media. And he
truly believed.
    “You know,” John said
slowly, “you just might bring this off.”
    “I am going to bring this
off. I may not get complete legalization, but I know I can get marijuana
decriminalized. That’s a foot in the door. And once that door is open,
it’s just a matter of time.” John was beginning to believe him.
    And then the phone was ringing
again. Tom answered, listened, then turned to John.
    “I need to get back down to
the offices. Heather’s getting ready to leave for the talk-show circuit
and I have to speak to her. Want to hang around?”
    John shook his head.
“I’ve got to head over to my own office. I’m sure HHS will be
neck deep in this before the day is out. But I want to come back and check your
pressure again before you head for the drug summit.”
    “Good idea. But you still
haven’t answered me: Are you with me on this?”
    “Publicly, I’ll stand
with you, of course. But privately I’m not there yet, Tom.”
    “You will be,” Tom said
with that crooked smile. “I know I can count on you.” John
didn’t argue. He was nowhere near as sure as Tom.
     
9
     
    Snake hovered over his keyboard,
staring at the monitor as he wove through the now familiar memory banks of the
C&P Telephone mainframes.
    He’d been inside every day
this week, smoothing the way to the switching programs, finding the path of
least resistance, the one that left the fewest traces. And that was rarely the
most direct path.
    He’d spent the last two weeks
probing the system until it felt like home. Like old times, reminding him of
his high school days as a phreaker when he’d pull all-nighters with his
Apple II+, hacking into phone companies, banks, and universities all over the
country, free in cyberspace, hunting the electronic grail of system mastery,
suffused with the sheer joy of the doing. He’d never stolen, never
destroyed data. Never even left taunting electronic graffiti like some of his
jerkier brother hackers. He wasn’t looking for attention; he was looking
to see how far he could go, how many barriers he could overcome, how deep he
could get. The idea was to conquer the hacked system, defeat all its security,
open all its doors, declare victory, and move on.
    Snake felt an echo of that old
thrill even now. He smiled. Mikey MacLaglen had been such an idealist. Such a
nerdy purist. Such an asshole. So awed with the novelty and grandeur and
immensity of cyberspace that he’d missed out on endless opportunities to
exploit his power.
    Truth was, he hadn’t even
realized he had power. Just as well. If he had he wouldn’t have been able
to resist exploiting it, probably would have been caught, and would even now be
on the FBI’s hacker list. No thanks.
    He could have been nabbed in
college too. He’d been heading for an engineering degree