Hood shot Stoll a look, then ducked toward the screen. "Hold on," he said, He read the date. "Tell Deirdre or Nat to get me more information on that company. Quickly."

Stoll nodded, cleared the screen, and rang up "The Keepers of the Kraken," as he called them. He E-mailed for more information on Demain, then sat back, folded his arms, and waited.

The wait was not a long one. Deirdre sent over a short article from the June 1980 issue of a magazine called Videogaming Illustrated. It read:

GAMES OF TOMORROW

Are you Asteroid-ed out?

Have you been Space Invader-ed to death?

Even if you still love yesterday's hits, a new star in the video-game firmament, the French company Demain, which means "tomorrow," has developed a different kind of cartridge to play on your Atari, Intellivision, and Odyssey home systems. Their first cartridge, the quest game A Knight to Remember, will be in stores this month. It is the first game which will be made available for the three leading video-game systems.

In a press release, company research and development head Jean-Michel Horne says, "Thanks to a revolutionary and powerful new chip we have developed, graphics and gameplay will be more detailed and exciting than in any previous game."

A Knight to Remember will sell for $34.00 and will be packaged with a discount coupon for the company's next release, the superhero game Ooberman.

Hood took a moment to contemplate the article and weigh the implications. It helped to put together some pieces.

Nancy stole plans for a new chip and sold them to a company, possibly-- no, probably-- this Demain. Gerard, a racist, makes a fortune manufacturing video games. On the sly, he puts money into hate games.

But why? As a hobby? Certainly not. Little doses of hate like that would be too small and unsatisfying for a man like the one Richard Hausen described.

Assume he did make hate games, though, Hood thought. Charlie Squires's kid surfed into one. What if that were Dominique's? Could Gerard be using the Internet to send them around the world?

Again, Hood thought, assume yes. Why do that? Not just to make money. From what Hausen said, Dominique has enough of that.

He would have to have something bigger in mind, Hood thought. Hate games appearing on the Internet. Confident threats to Hausen. Were they timed to coincide with Chaos Days?

It all seemed to be going nowhere. Too many pieces were missing, and there was one person who might be able-- but willing?-- to tell him what that could be.

"Herr Hausen," Hood said, "would you mind if I borrowed your driver for a short while?"

"Not at all," Hausen said. "Do you need anything else?"

"Not at the moment, thanks," Hood replied. "Matt, please send this article to General Rodgers. Tell him that this Dominique may be our hate-game peddler. If there's any more background to be had--"

"We'll get it," Stoll said. "Your wish is my command."