Trust Your Eyes by Linwood Barclay Read Free Book Online Page A

in smoke in seconds.
    I seriously had to think about that.
    Thomas was seated at his computer. He had one keyboard and three flat-screen monitors arrayed in front of him, each showing a different browser. On the screens were three images ofthe same street—left, middle, and right-side views. At the top of each screen was the Web site address: whirl360.com.
    I had to admit, it was a pretty amazing Web site. Ten years ago I couldn’t have imagined anything like this.
    Once you were there, you basically had the world at your fingertips. You picked a spot anywhere on the globe and initially viewed the location from above, either in a traditional map form, or in satellite mode, as though you were suspended in the sky. You could zero in right down to the roof vents on the skyscrapers.
    Cool enough.
    But it got so much better.
    You could click on a specific street, and see it. Really see it. Like you were standing there, right in the middle of it. With each click of the mouse you progressed several yards ahead. When you clicked and held, you could move to the left or right, or all the way around for a 360-degree view. If something in a store window or a restaurant caught your eye, you could zoom in on it. Read the daily special—“Liver and onions $5.99”—if you wanted.
    It was the kind of site I found myself on occasionally. The year before, on a trip to Toronto, I’d visited a friend from my college days who lived just south of Queen Street in the Beach, a trendy neighborhood in the city’s east end. In his e-mail, he told me to come by the house; then we’d head to an Italian restaurant that was only a short walk away.
    I went on Whirl360, did the walk from his place up to Queen, then explored a couple of blocks in each direction. Only found two restaurants. I looked them up online, found the one billing itself as Italian, studied their online menu, and knew before I got there I was going to have the lobster ravioli.
    So I could appreciate the fascination, understand how for someone like Thomas, the arrival of this kind of technology was a dream come true. Like a Star Trek fan waking up one morning to find out he was actually living on the USS Enterprise .
    The street Thomas was currently fixated on was unknown to me. It was narrow, just enough room for one lane of traffic, with cars parallel parked down the right side. I was guessing maybe someplace in Europe.
    I set the ice cream next to the phone. Thomas had his own line up here that our parents had put in back when Internet hookup was over the phone. Thomas spent so much time on the Net that our parents were missing calls and couldn’t place any, so installing a second line meant Thomas could be on as long as he wanted. Now, with Wi-Fi in the house, Thomas didn’t have much need for the phone, and about the only calls he got were from telemarketers.
    He glanced at the ice cream and said, “No chocolate sauce?”
    “We’re out,” I said. I hadn’t actually looked. “Where’s this?”
    “Salem Street.”
    “Salem Street where?”
    “Boston. In the North End.”
    “Oh, okay, yeah, of course. I thought you were spending all your time lately in Paris.”
    “I get around,” Thomas said. I didn’t know whether he meant to be amusing, but I laughed. “You see anything weird?” he asked.
    I looked. People, their faces blurred—that seemed to be a Whirl360 protocol, to blur faces that could be seen head-on, as well as license plates—were walking along the street. There were cars. Some street signs I couldn’t make out.
    “No,” I said.
    “See this silver SUV here?” He pointed. It was visible on the right screen, a profile shot.
    “Yeah, I see it.”
    “Look what he’s done. He’s backed into this car, this blue one. You can just see where he’s hit the blue car’s headlight.”
    “Can you magnify it?” I asked.
    Thomas clicked a couple of times. The image of the SUV’s rear bumper and the blue car’s front end got bigger, but