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Irreconcilable Differences
a novel from Flying Pen Press Science Fiction, shelve in “Science Fiction”
Electronic Edition: v1.1, February, 2009
First Date of Publication: August, 2008
The United States of America is the country of origin and the country of first publication.

Author: James R. Strickland, www.JamesRStrickland.com.
Editor: Scott Humphries. Editorial services available at www.ScottHumphries.com.
Cover Designer and Cover Art: Laura Givens, ArtDirector@FlyingPenPress.com.

ISBN: 978-0-9818957-1-0

Flying Pen Press Science Fiction is an imprint of
Flying Pen Press LLC
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Irreconcilable Differences story copyright ©2008 James R. Strickland
Irreconcilable Differences compilation copyright ©2008 Flying Pen Press LLC
Irreconcilable Differences cover art copyright ©2008 Flying Pen Press LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the express written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews. For permission to reproduce any part or the whole of this book, contact the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This novel is a story set in world of large corporations and high technology, based on the author’s speculative extrapolation of the technology and corporate environment of the current day. In telling the story, it is necessary to use trade names and trademarks as part of the culture of characters’ world. The following trademarks are the properties of their respective owners, and their use in this work of fiction is not a challenge to the ownership of any trademark: Ghost in the Shell^TM is a trademark of Kodansha, LTD; Heathkit® is a registered trademark of Heathkit Company Inc.; Honda® is a registered trademark of Honda Motor Co.; John Deere® is a registered trademark of Deere & Company; Miami Vice^TM is a trademark of NBC Universal, Inc.; Manitowoc^TM is a trademark of Manitowoc Company, Inc.; Pacific Surfliner® and Southwest Chief® are registered trademarks of National Railroad Passenger Corporation; Road Runner^TM and Wile E. Coyote^TM are trademarks of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.; Rover is a proprietary mark of Land Rover in the U.K., used under agreement in the U.S. exclusively by Land Rover North America, Inc.; Winnebago® is a trademark of Winnebago Industries, Inc.; X10^TM is a trademark of X10 Ltd.; XpressPost^TM is a trademark of Canada Post in Canada; Flying Pen Press Science Fiction^TM and the flying pen nub are trademarks of Flying Pen Press LLC. All corporation names are trademarks of their respective owners.

Manufactured in the United States of America and in the United Kingdom.
Printing by Lightning Source Inc. and Lightning Source UK Limited.

Foreword to the Electronic Edition

This is a book.

After six thousand years of setting characters into stone, pottery, wax, animal hide, and hundreds of different forms of what we’d now call paper; after the rise of whole civilizations based around the idea of the written word preserved on paper; after the rise of libraries, bookstores, and great publishing empires; it comes to this: the physical media no longer matters. It never really did. What mattered was the writing, the information, the data, the story that those ink marks on paper carried. That hasn’t changed. That’s all here.

You, the reader, have choices now. You can read this book on a dedicated bookreader device. You can read it on a smart phone. You can read it on your computer. You can play it through text-to-voice. And of course, you can order it in the more traditional format, that artifact of paper, glue, and ink, from a fine bookstore near you. How the story gets delivered to you is now distinct from the story itself, and you can choose the form that makes the most sense for the way you live. No matter what format you choose, though, or even if you’re reading this a hundred years from now, or a thousand years from now, with technology that doesn’t involve eyeballs or even neurons, this is a book. This is a story. And that’s what’s important.

Please enjoy this book.

If you’d like to order this book in that familiar glue, paper, and ink format, with cool cover art and a user interface that’s been polished smooth by two millennia of continuous testing and refinement, we’ll happily sell you one. Please see our online catalog at http://www.flyingpenpress.com/catalog, or look it up by the ISBN number, 978-0-9818957-1-0, at your favorite bookseller, whether online or in person. If they don’t have it in stock, they can order it. Electronic copies of this book are also available from Amazon.com’s Kindle store, for a small fee to cover their download costs.

Acknowledgements

For my father, Robert L. Strickland (1928-2007)

He read to me when I was young, and lived to see me published.

He was a writer.

For Megan, my niece, who is of the age.

And as always, for Marcia, without whom, not.

Novels aren't written in a vacuum. They are, in the end, social constructs, involving the author, the editor, the publisher, the author's friends and family, and of course, you, the reader. I'm grateful to all of the above, particularly the readers, but a few need special shout-outs.

People: Amber, Bill, Bob, Brad, Carlota, Carolyn, Cynthia, Dave, Eric, Jane, Jason, Jeff, Jeff, Joy, Joy, Kelly, Lauren, Marek, Mark, Methal, Mike, Pat, Rock, Ryan, Steve, Susan, Steph, Sigmund, Taiba.

Research: I'm a civilian. I have never been part of any military organization more serious than the Boy Scouts, so I've had to construct the experience based on personal discussions, interviews, and the work of others. I am especially indebted to Anthony Swofford's Jarhead (2003), Christine Holmstedt's Band of Sisters (2007), and Rear Adm. Edward Ellsberg's On the Bottom (1929) and Under the Red Sea Sun (1946). Despite the huge separation of years among these books, the picture they presented was remarkably consistent.

The A&E network (History Channel)'s DVD series Special Ops(2003) were absolutely invaluable in the creation of the Information Warfare MOS, and in attempting to understand the special forces/special ops mindset. Information warfare, the term, comes from Ghost in the Shell: The StandAlone Complex. (2002).

I made extensive use of the websites The Midnight Hour (http://midnight.hushedcasket.com/), Michael Yon's Online Forum(http://forums.grunt.com), and the late Maj. Andrew Olmsted's blogs (http://www.andrewolmsted.com/ and http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/denver/iraqiarmy/) along with various public relations sites of the United States Marine Corps.

Any accuracy I may have achieved should be credited to these sources, and to discussions with the people listed above. The inevitable extrapolations, extensions, subversions, and just plain inaccuracies must be blamed on me alone.

I must also credit Impact Acceleration: an Extreme Skydiving Experience by Jon Jurist (http://www.thespacereview.com/article/410/1) for conveniently providing the numbers I needed for one scene. Col. Joseph Kittinger provided the inspiration(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger). One may also recognize the descendants of SpaceShipOne (http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/) in this book as well.

Hardware/Software: Irreconcilable Differences was written on several different Macintosh computers, running several different versions of MacOS X 10.4 and 10.5, using Nisus Writer Express 2.7, and Nisus Writer Pro 1.0, and inevitably (unfortunately), Microsoft Word 12. Tunes provided by iTunes and iPod. Sandwiches by Panera. Coffee by Serano's. Visit www.apple.com, www.nisus.com, www.microsoft.com and www.panerabread.com for more info.

Prologue

I used to love my work.

Look over at Shin. His active-matrix chameleopolymer stealth suit blends him into the wall, so the security cameras can't see him. But his telemetry tells me where he is. Gives me an outline. I get it on my heads-up display, relayed from my own suit's computer through the neurofibers that touch every nerve in my body. I can feel him, too. Like we're closer together than we really are. Like we're in a foxhole together in a war I never fought.

Look back at Hallock. She's crouched over, leaning against the wall while her deck has a quick chat with the building security system. Two other uniforms, one on each side of the hallway, cover us from behind.

“Hallock.” I send to her, over the gestalt.

“Almost got it, boss,” she says.

“Hurry. We've got a schedule,” I tell her.

She's silent another few seconds. “Got it. Jamming up surveillance … knock, and it shall be opened for you.”

Give her a glance, then look forward again. The door buzzes, and I yank it open. Lead with the muzzle of my Martini-Dreyse 16mm rotary. Big slug. Armor piercing. Kicks like hell. Subsonic. Powdered metal rounds. Silent. But messy. The others follow me in. Keep to the walls, where we won't cast a shadow behind us that gives us away. Slither through the data center. Rack to rack. Cover to cover. I don't watch the others. They're pros. Best of the best. Even the uniforms. Some random desk guy walks right past me, and never sees me. Never hears me. I was never here. Interpol Covert Services is the the invisible hand, as Robert Neil would put it. Feel the adrenaline hit my brain. I used to love that feeling. It used to make me smile, knowing I was inside a high security data center, and that my team and I hadn't broken the surface tension, hadn't even made a ripple.

Not today, though. Desk guy tries to walk through Franks. He runs into him noisily, and backs away, looking stunned. “Security!” he yells. “Security!”

Short sound like a soft fart from my weapon, and desk guy collapses in a wet heap against the wall. Blood stain. The alarms go off. Shit. This just got complicated. We scatter, pressing against equipment racks and blending into them. “Shin. Get to rack 27. Hallock, lock this room down, but keep the codes handy for the fire door. We've got two minutes until dust off. Go. Now.”

I used to love the clarity. The immediacy of this work. When nothing else matters, except the mission, and getting out alive, in that order. Heart in my ears. Breath hissing through my teeth until they're cold. Focus. Concentrate. Keep situational awareness. Fight it against the fog of war. Against that coyote moment, when all you want to do is hold up a little sign that says “help me” or “mother” to that invisible audience you carry around with you, to watch you star in your life. Keeping control over that. Keeping my brain going. Do the right thing anyway. I used to love that.

Security arrives. Body armor. Black. Of course it's black. Everybody likes black. It makes them feel invulnerable. Stay tight to the equipment rack for a moment. My armor is showing whatever stupid motivational poster is hanging on the rack right through me. Black makes you feel invulnerable. I know better. I'll take invisible. They fan out, searching for us, stomp of boots on the metal grate floor, frightened computer room personnel being herded to the doors. But they have to be careful. A stray round in here could cause more damage than we're trying to do.

Reach rack 27 with Shin. Rack 27. One of three financial data racks. High speed to the world of finance. The link where they'll be transmitting a short sale order to bankrupt UniComp, their competitor, whom they've been at war with for months. “Shin.” It's hard not to yell in the gestalt. Optical com. Radiating RF in a place like this would let them track us. “Shin. Hook up. Do it now.”

Shin looks at me. “Boss, security's in the room.”

“Do it faster, that's all.”

He looks at me only a moment, then gets back to work. Professionalism over the fear. He kneels by the side of the rack, and reaches around to the front. Connects an optical bridge to it. Plugs that into the deck in his suit.

“Hallock. Take care of security's com. I don't want them to know whether they're coming or going.”

“We're pretty exposed here, Boss,” she says. Calm as you like.

“One minute to dust off. We'll make it,” I tell her. There's simply no other choice. We can't be here. We were never here. We can make a mess, but we can't leave evidence. And we count as evidence.

“Damn it,” Shin says quietly. “Where is it?”

Tape my contribution to Shin's data rack, right on top of the rack's power conditioner. Set the timer.

“Thirty seconds, Shin.”

“I know.”

“Hallock. Stay on security.”

“Will do,” she says. Cool, that one. Calm. I've seen her stay calm in the gestalt, keep on working, after she's been shot. Cold as ice, that one. Her, I'll miss. Her voice goes urgent as she begins talking to the guards, masquerading as one of them. Sending them running to other parts of the data center.

“Fifteen seconds, Shin.”

“I got it. They're planning to send it right as the market closes. You were right.”

Hallock says, “Shit. They just traced me. They're coming.”

Grit my teeth. Running boots.

Shin's alterations to the transaction will do only one thing. Sell it ten minutes early. That's all it takes. I used to love that about combat infowar. Sometimes you don't even have to change the data, just change when it goes through, to change the whole tactical picture. Multiplication of force. The markets will have time to react. Our friends over at the Interpol Bureau of Investigation will have time to get their warrant for insider trading. Nerv will get the full treatment. And nobody will know Interpol Covert Services was here at all. Grit my teeth for another five seconds. “Now. Send it, and unplug.”

I used to love this work. We dodge towards the fire door, keeping racks between us and the guards, as a bullet whistles past my hip into a power supply, which bursts into flames. My suit wraps the flames around me, visually, highlighting me for a moment. I pump a round into the shooter's helmet. Red mist sprays out from under the skirt of the helmet, and he drops in his tracks. Taylor and Franks open up on the rest of the security team. The rotary Martini-Dreyses make a sound like a zipper on a leather jacket. No louder. Gouts of flame. Bodies fall. Precision fire. Six steps down a flight of stairs to the fire exit.

My package in the data center goes off. Feel it. Explosive-driven piezoelectric cascade device. For just an instant, before the explosion destroys it, it produces electrostatic energy levels only one order-of-magnitude below a bolt of lightning. Right there, on the floor of the data center. The thunder reverberates down the hall as we make it out the door. Do a quick nose count. Two. One. Zero. Our dust off chopper makes its one and only pass, and we each snag one of the lift lines from it. Clip on. Try not to look down.

I used to love this work. But now I'm still gritting my teeth, my heart is still in my throat, and the adrenaline high is riding me like bad amphetamines as they reel us into the chopper and we fly back to base. Sag in my seat. Pull off my helmet and shake out my hair.

“Santana?” Voice in my head. He never calls me Rachel at work. A body'd think we hardly know each other. Even in the privacy of head to head, it's all business. I knew he'd call. We're back where it wouldn't compromise the mission, and he knows.

“Done, and done, Robert. Things got a little messier than expected.”

“Did you leave any trace evidence?”

“What do you think?”

He pauses a second or so. “I think you don't like the limitations I put on your taste for mayhem, Santana. But you need limitations. They keep you sharp. Focus your destructive tendencies where I want them. Limitations are what make you useful.”

It's my turn to pause. To consider what he just said. And how many times since we've been married and since I've been working for him that he's said it. Eight years? Something like that. “No traces, Robert. All rounds discharged were powdered metal, and once the transaction went through, we ESD'd the whole data center.”

“Good. Anything else?”

“Love you, Robert.”

He's quiet a moment. It always makes him uncomfortable when I say that to him. Especially where anyone else might hear. Always did. Which probably goes a long way to explaining why I bother anymore. “Right,” he says, finally. “Don't forget to report to Experimental, for your procedure.”

“Today? I thought we moved that back.“ Experimental thinks they can use pervasive neurofiber nets to copy out our memories. But I have papers I need to pick up from my lawyer.

“It's only two-thirty. If you're not wounded, you don't get the rest of the day off. We can talk about this when you land,” he says. Yeah, but being shot at makes for a long day.

The last thing I think before they hook me up.

I used to love…

* * *

Static. Then lights, camera.

Loading...

What?

Carrier agent firmware (CAF) 0.35b2.1 Loaded.

Oh. That. Experimental's big project.

CAF0.35b2.1: Loading utility modules.

But it must mean…

CAF0.35b2.1: Loading briefing media.

Lights.

Camera.

Action.

Cubicles. A cube farm. Office space. Probably the security camera feed. Okay. I don't know these people.

No control. Switch to their network context. Feel something come over the line. Just for an instant. Flicker of. Something. The packets are gone before I have the chance to look for them. Edited out. Erased from my experience. Like thinking something else, and suddenly being snapped back into the present, because you thought you heard a touchtone in the distance, or the snap of an AK-47's safety coming off. I think. I thought. Something came by. And now it's gone. But something's going to happen. I know it is. It's already started.

Static.

Watch the static, quiescent. Like listening to white noise, where you can almost pick voices out of it, but you're never sure if they're your imagination, some random hallucination brought on by sensory flooding, or if they're real. Try to make sense of it. Watch. Listen. Feel it in my mind. Feel the sense of … sense, as the whispers become louder, as everything grows clearer. Until nothing else remains.

Context shift. Surveillance video, again, it looks like. I scramble to pick up the change, like waking from a dream, when the moment you were in scurries away into the walls, like cockroaches when you turn on the lights. Back in the office. Ramp up. Come up to speed. Combat ready. Feel the heart pick up the beat.

Network interface lights flicker busily at each desk. The HVAC drones on, faithfully keeping the office at a comfortable twenty degrees Celsius. Inhale. Exhale. Nothing happens. This goes on for a few minutes. Inhale. Exhale. All twenty-seven of them breathe together, their eyes fixed on space beyond the monitors, most of which have gone into screen saver mode. Some expressions are completely blank, masks of flesh undisturbed by the motion of muscles beneath. On most, though, there's a little more. Watch one guy a moment. As he stares toward the blank monitor, there's a vaguely astonished horror: the expression of someone in a coyote moment, staring for his final fractions of a second into the headlight of an oncoming train, when there isn't even time to think, “Oh, shit.” All is quiet. All is peaceful.

Try to look around. I can't. It's just a playback, and I can't move. And something's coming.

Yeah. The lights go out, and my picture goes to infrared mode. If anyone notices, nobody does anything about it. I can't move. Only watch. The ding of the elevator arriving is also utterly ignored. Seven figures in body armor fan out in military precision. They're good. Precise. They systematically visit each cubicle, and in each cubicle there's a quick, loud stutter of sound, like a trash can being hit by hailstones. Flares of light. Red mist spraying upward out of the affected cubicles. Flare of light. Flinch at the first one. Less after that. The small-arms fire is all but deafening. Bodies and pieces of bodies hit the floor, desk tops, chairs, walls, keyboards, mice, and monitors, like snowflakes. Silent. Unheard. Lost in the firing.

The shooting stops. Sudden rush of quiet, normal sounds. The armored figures survey the damage silently, as though listening. All is quiet now, save the purr of the HVAC system, the inevitable whine of fans cooling electronics, and the sounds of something viscous dripping onto the floor. A streak of crimson blurs the security camera lens.

The lead armored figure looks at the others, and as a group they march back to the elevator. The door closes. Ding. And they are gone. It's over in less than a minute.

Burst of static, and the playback ends.

CAF0.35b2.1: Entering interactive mode.

After a moment, I get my eyes open, and see.

Chapter 1

She's groggy. Whoever she is. Her body's not cooperating.

I'm groggy.

We're coming out of our respective anesthesia together, I guess.

They hurry us into a car. The windows are dark, and we can't see. Handcuffed.

“Someone want to bring me up to speed?” The voice is strange. The mouth is strange. It takes me a couple tries to get the words out.

The Uniform in the passenger seat looks at me, and hands me plug ice. Software and hardware in one package, designed to plug directly into the jacks in my head. In her head. Into us. Take it. Deep breath with her lungs. It all feels strange. Fumble with unfamiliar hands. Take it. Feel along the back of an unfamiliar neck for the jack ports — at least they're familiar enough. Plug the ice in.

CAF0.35b2.1: Skeleton key mode established.

The world drops away from me, and there are flickers of thought, like dreams when you first wake up, or when you just begin to fall asleep.

“Hello, Santana.” Familiar voice, all right. Hello, Robert.

“As I'm sure you'd deduced, you are now a carrier agent. You are software, essentially, based on the digital model we made of you two years ago. You are running on a pervasive neurofiber net implanted in a human being.”

I had guessed, in fact. He goes on. “Your host's name is Michelle Marie Blake. She is sixteen years old, and a member of the Salina 785s, a group of ... small-time hackers and hoods operating in and around Salina, Kansas. Your mission is to infiltrate their group, and analyze the local hacker ecology. You are looking for the perpetrators in the destruction of our intercept post in Topeka. We believe a new player is in the field, but it might also be an existing player with new blood. Either way, we believe one or more of the Four Horsemen is involved. When you find them, destroy them. No survivors. No exceptions. When you have accomplished this mission, report back to the San Diego office for debriefing. My operatives in the area will be in contact, but do not attempt to contact them or this office, and do not discuss your mission with the agents who are driving you to the train station.”

Horsemen. Slow breath. Horsemen, huh? Are you just saying that to get my dander up, or is it true?

“Your memories are being augmented with the local knowledge you will need for this mission, including a general understanding of current law in the Canadian legal sphere and the Southern Canadian Provinces. Time is of the essence, Santana. You may create as much mayhem as you see fit, so long as you preserve the undercover nature of this mission.”

And it is. His voice stops, and the car seat abruptly presses into my bottom again, and I'm aware of my breathing. Her breathing. Damnit. Stare at the uniform a moment. Nod. Unplug the plug ice and hand it to him. “Lock and load, eh?”

He nods. “Yeah. Good luck.”

Nod slowly. “Thanks.”

Look in the rear view mirror of the car. A shudder flickers through this body I'm wearing, but I don't know if it came from me, or from her. I can't see anything I recognize in the girl in the back seat. And yet as I move the eyes, they move in the mirror. The face tightens into the coyote moment stare as the feeling steals over me. Look away. Look away.

Chapter 2

Belt into the seat on the train. Try not to look at the hands too much, but I can feel them shaking. Lean back into the seat. Close my eyes as the acceleration of the car presses me back into the cushion. Feel the car lurch as it merges with the main line, lurch again as it links up with the train. The lights flicker slightly as the car begins to draw power from the nuclear plant of the T1 locomotive pulling the train.

Leave my eyes closed afterwards. Let her calm down, in the hope that I'll relax with her. We're still pretty dopey with the meds, and it doesn't take a long time.

Breathe. Slow. Regular. She's finally asleep. The activity in her brain drops away quickly, and the only thing to hear is her breath. Deeper. Listen deeper. I can hear her heartbeat. Slow. Calm, at last. Her brain drops down, through the theta-wave, near-waking state like a hawk on a long dive, until it finally flares its wings and rides the ground effect of delta wave sleep and the occasional updraft of sleep spindles and K complexes. Don't ask me to make sense of it; I just work here. It's like her brain's pulse. Slow. Steady.

Feel my neurofibers try to follow her to sleep. They're almost living nerves, these fibers I call my mind. Molecular cybernetics. They've had a strenuous day too. Ignore the need. Beat it back. I have a mission. I've got work to do. Watch.

In time, her brain catches a thermal, of sorts, stretches wings and flies upward within its own darkness. Her muscle tone fades away, muscles inhibited by REM sleep. But her mind's eye opens again to its own inner light. I stop watching from the outside, and slide into her mind. Try to ignore the blaze of ego, the young star of self that is the center of her universe. Blinding, even in sleep. Completely unaware of me. Unaware of my existence, or why it's important to me, or that I'm the central star in my own universe. A scorching hot, blue light. Why, oh why, did they put me in a teenager? I take cover in the shadows, around the periphery where the weird things are, the vague, nebulous fears and ambitions that only gnaw her in the space of dreams. Look up at her mind. Nudge it gently. Make her dream the memories I need to see.

Michelle Marie (Micki) Blake, alias Hotwire, of the Salina 785s, dreams she is on her way to San Diego to get her jack installed. Sixteen years old. It shows. I'm jaded; the smell of ozone from the train's motors doesn't have that same sense of almost sexual possibilities for me that it does for her. To me, it smells like other things. Welding shop. Vehicle maintenance. Up-armoring. Absent friends. Fuck. Her brainwave state's affecting mine. Pay attention. I can't afford to dream.

They take her down at the Union Station platform, Los Angeles, California Technocracy, Real World (no zip code required) as she disembarks the Southwest Chief at its Western terminus. She climbs down the steps. Lights up a cigarette, and takes a deep drag from it. And they grab her. Micki flinches only a little, and lets the smoke out with a sigh as they put hands on each of her shoulders, flash Interpol IDs, and lead her away. “Please come with us, Ms. Blake.” The voice is calm, almost gentle.

“Hey, no problem; I'll put it out,” she says. Maybe she knows that smoking's illegal in the California Technocracy. The agent who spoke hooks her up anyway. Handcuffs her right wrist to his left. She can't see his eyes through the sunglasses. She does look, though. “Am I under arrest, or what?” she asks. There's a casualness to it that she doesn't quite feel. But she's faking it.

The two agents look at each other a moment, as though a thought is passed between them, but say nothing. A quick glance to the back of one agent's neck tells Micki the reason. “Wireless head to head net. Pretty flash.” Micki beams. The smile fades after a moment. Flash, maybe. But not good.

They board another train, a local—the Pacific Surfliner—together, and they lead her to a row of seats. “C'mon, guys. Don't give me the silent treatment. I got rights and stuff, you know.”

The agent handcuffed to her says, “Please sit down, Ms. Blake.”

She turns toward the seats, then abruptly pulls away, jerking the chain that cuffs her wrist to the agent's. “No. Fuck you,” she says quietly, but firmly. “You either tell me what's going on, or I walk. You can't just…”

“All passengers, please take your seats. The train will be departing in a few minutes. This is the Pacific Surfliner, bound for San Diego. If San Diego is not your destination, please disembark now.”

“Let me go!” Micki demands, when the automated voice of the train stops speaking.

The agent doesn't answer. He just grabs her wrist in his gloved hand, turns it upward, then slaps a patch she doesn't recognize over the veins in her wrist. “Wait,” she says. Tears well up in her eyes as she feels her body start go loose. She sags into the seat after all. “Please…” but everything goes black just the same.

Her brain settles into delta wave sleep again, flying over the endless dark ocean of nothing and the gentle, insistent brain pulse. I have to wait for her, while her brain resets its chemistry. While it resynchronizes itself. While it acclimatizes itself to the presence of the neurofibers. And with them, to me.

Updraft. Dreaming again. Give her another nudge. Her mind flies for me, and she dreams she is awake. Lives the memory again. Like being online, except the edges aren't so crisp, and things make less sense than usual. Not online, more like dreaming, within the dream. Voices. Drug haze. A sensation I'm all too familiar with. Something … someone takes her by the chin, smell of latex, pressure, the bite of a needle in her neck. “Euthanize,” she thinks. “Oh, God…” There's a gradual sucking feeling over the next few minutes, and her fragmented thoughts are unceremoniously pressed together and laminated there by something that makes her mouth dry and her heart race, which it continues to do for an improbably long time, given…

Not euthanasia then. Obviously. She licks her lips. Dry. How long? Long enough that she automatically tries to reach for the pocket where she keeps her cigarettes, so … a few hours at least. Her hand fails to move. Time passes. The light is like looking into the guts of a star. Every time she tries to open her eyes, the burning brightness drives them closed again, makes her eyes water, blasts red light through her eyelids. She tries to raise her hand to shade them, and discovers that her hands are cuffed behind her back, in an indent in the table apparently designed for them. Her neck is still sore from the injection. Definitely not euthanasia. “I knew they wouldn't,” she thinks. Confidence. Shade a moment. Someone, rubber-glove-hands again, pries each of her eyes open and shines a bright light into it. She jerks away. In moments, we're walking. She's walking. Okay. She's dreaming she's walking, and I'm tagging along. But her memory is going disjoint, and I know that, once again, we're diving into the dark. I can wait. I have the time, yet.

When her mind soars again, when the lights come on and the theater of dreams is open for business again, she's in a chair in a small room with a table, a glass of water, a chair, and a row of track light spots in the ceiling, one of which is aimed right at her chair. It makes her blink. The room is otherwise featureless except the door. No windows, no cameras that she can see, but she's sure they're there somewhere. She's right. She sits there and licks her lips, eyes the glass of water. Rubs her wrists where the handcuffs were. “You guys must think I'm stupid or something, if you think I'm going to give you a free DNA sample on that glass. You think I don't know how you work?” Silence. She forces herself to yawn loudly, and lets her head nod forward as though she's so bored she's falling asleep. They're sweating her. She knows it. And she is not about to play along. Save that she can already smell her armpits a little, and for the edginess, the nagging sensation that she should be doing something, but can't. The desperate need to fidget with her hands. They call it sweating you for a reason. Yeah. I know what's coming. Micki's hands twitch in real life. But they don't move much. She's dreaming. On some level, her brain knows it. I'm only watching. I can't change any of this. It already happened.

The door opens again, and a guy in a suit comes in and sits down, sets down a file folder, and takes off his sunglasses with elaborate ceremony. Gray hair, blue suit like the others, badge, hazel eyes, nice tan. I see him through her eyes first. Just another face, another suit. Bland features. She doesn't recognize him. Why would she? She's never seen him before. It takes me a moment. Shock of recognition? Yeah, you could call it that. I wonder if I ever managed to get used to life without that face in it. It's good to see him. Never a beauty, but … habit.

Robert Milton Neil is calm. Calculating. Moreso than I remember. We see with the prejudices of our own minds, I guess. She sees just another suit. Just another authority figure, like a high school principal, perhaps. And because I'm looking through her mind, I see him that way too. I doubt he'd object, even if he knew. Robert likes to be underestimated that way. He smiles, and she looks at his teeth.

“Ms. Blake. My name is Robert Neil. I'm the director of Interpol Covert Services. I'd like to ask you a few questions.” His voice is calm. Measured. Precise, each consonant formed with a slight click of saliva. Calm and professional. Absolute precision. Glittering coldness to him. Shiver of fear in Micki, at the memory. Flash of the stories she's heard about Interpol Covert. More importantly, she's taken the measure of the man. She knows now that she is in shark-infested waters. Good for her. Smart girl. What little bravado she'd mustered leaks away, and she nods silently. He hands her a tablet. Makes her watch the video: of the murdered office, the killers, the dead spattered in their cubicles. The one they woke me up with.

Micki blanches. “Fuck.”

Neil nods, gravely. “I quite agree.” He goes quiet as she watches. Watches her flinch as the people die. Finally, he continues. “Do you know what all of these people had in common, Ms. Blake?”

Micki looks at the pictures again. Chews her lip with nervous energy, and eyes the glass of water again. She takes a deep breath. “Besides being dead?”

Neil's lips tighten. He lets the silence grow awkward for a breath. Two. “Beside that, obviously.”

Micki shakes her head and sits back in her chair, looking Neil in the eyes. “No. I don't.”

Neil looks back through his glasses. “They were Interpol Bureau of Investigation intercept operators, Ms. Blake. Twenty hours ago, that IBI office went offline, and within sixty seconds of that, all of them were dead.” He leans close to her. “I will find whoever killed them. I will find whoever was responsible.” He says it with an ominous certainty. His Australian accent peeks out into some of his vowels, even after all this time. Contained rage then. Fury. I know the man.

Micki wishes she could back away. Keep on going. Me, I just wish I could breathe. I wish I could whistle. Something's going down. Something big. And whatever it is, whoever it is, they'd better be afraid of the ant hill they've kicked over. ICS looks after our IBI brothers and sisters.

Micki grows cold, and her stomach tightens, even at the memory, the dream. In the dream, she rubs her thumb over the nicotine stain on the second finger of her right hand. Tries to keep her voice level. “What, um. What does that have to do with me?”

“You know what they were investigating. Whose communications they were intercepting.”

Micki shakes her head. Looks down. At the pictures again, then looks away. But she's still wary. “No,” she says, softly. “No. I don't. I'm sorry.” And she is. I'm in a position to know.

Neil goes quiet again, and watches her. Hard, cold, blue sky of his eyes. Micki squirms in her chair. Neil exhales slowly, and draws a manilla folder from his briefcase. Opens the folder. Slides it over to her. Flips a few pages. “I think … that you do. As you can see, we've had our eyes on Midwestern cybergangs for some time. Ordinarily data crime on this level doesn't interest us, but we have had reasons to get involved, lately. That intercept office was monitoring the KanREN backbone. They were monitoring the Salina 785s. They were monitoring you.” He gives that a moment to sink in. Watches Micki draw back in her chair in surprise. That alone should tell him something. I'm sure it does. He'd have to have gone blind to miss that.

Neil goes on, “I want to know who told you they were there. I want to know who planned the operation, who carried it out, and who was involved. You're going to tell me everything you know about them. Otherwise I will not be responsible for your safety.”

Unsubtle. Even for him. But he so loves his drama. It's working. Micki's voice quavers as she speaks. “Um. I don't … I have the right to remain silent. And I'd like to talk to my lawyer, please. Now.”

Neil smiles, tightly. His teeth are vaguely yellow from smoking. The voice is calmer. More measured. Back to its original precision. “Ms. Blake, you misunderstand. Those rights are for people who are under arrest. You are merely being … detained while we determine which police agency would best handle you. We've already contacted your Mounties. They've shown little interest. They believe that operating an intercept facility without a warrant is in violation of Canadian law, and that our operators were … fair game for anyone who detected them. As for the rest of your gang's actions, as I'm sure you're aware, the RCMP refuses to get involved if the losses amount to less than a million dollars Canadian.” Neil pauses there. Lets her have hope for a moment.

“However,” he grinds that hope under his heel, “The Texican Federation's Agencia Federal de Investigacion sees things … differently.” He flips to another page. “As you can see, the bank from which you … let's call it ‘borrowed’ the money for your train ticket … is in Houston, and therefore in their jurisdiction. Did you know that?” Neil leans forward slightly to fix her eyes with his own, and to set his hand on the folder in front of her, inside her space, close enough to force her to flinch back. “I think,” he says, “that the AFI Rangers will have quite a strong case against you right here. Don't you?”

She reads. Network traces. MAC IDs. Brain pattern matches. Software comparisons. And the results of an identification viral infection installed in her deck by the bank's computers. “That's impossible,” she says. I can feel my stomach … our stomach … her stomach really. Feel it grow suddenly loose, as though she's going to pass out. It's a good thing we're sitting down, I guess. I know that feeling, though, the sudden, gut deep realization that You. Are. In. Deep. Shit. Coyote moment. Hold up your little sign that says “Mother,” Micki.

She dreams on. Not good dreams. Not happy dreams. Neil continues, “I'll take that as agreement. You are aware, of course, that in TexMex, legal expedience frequently trumps abstract qualities like … fairness … mercy … the difference between minors and adults … things like that. Should we hand you over to them, I expect you'll find yourself fetching up short at the end of a rope by Monday morning at the outside. The Texicans are quite well known for that. The podcasts of hangings have been … quite successful on the market. Particularly the ones with short drops. Would you like to see one? Say … as a rehearsal?”

She's sobbing in the dream now, and her guts twist up in the memory. She's asleep. She probably can't feel it. I can. “I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. Please, Mr. Neil, I'll do anything you want,” she tells him.

Neil steeples his fingers. He's won. “This is what I want. Tell me about the attack on the intercept office, Ms Blake. Tell me everything you know.”

But she doesn't know anything. She tells him the truth, and he just lets her cry. He doesn't believe her. I can't even look away. When Robert and I first started with Covert, we sometimes worked interrogations together. He always had to be bad cop to my good cop. “A woman should always be a symbol of hope, Santana,” he would say. “And a man a symbol of damnation.” Or sometimes just, “Look what happened last time I played good cop.” I think he believed it, too. But I'm still just an inspector. A basic field investigator. Just a copy of a field investigator, I remind myself; I don't even know if original me is still alive or what she's doing. It's been two years since copy me was made. Robert Neil, by contrast, is the director of the whole Covert Services Bureau. So yeah. It's not even his job to interrogate Micki. He just does it when he thinks an investigation is going too slowly. Mostly he does it because he enjoys it. Wants to keep his tools sharp. Control for its own sake. I'm all too familiar with that. I have to wonder if I was dumb enough to go back to him, out there in the real world. I've done dumber things in my life. You never actually know.

He's talking again, in Micki's dream, but it's starting to fall apart in the sensations of the moment. Random bits of memory fly like glitter in front of a camera. She's dropping out of REM sleep, and into the deeper, stranger landscapes below, again. “Ms. Blake, I am going to offer you … a deal.” He leans close, and the cigarette stink on his breath makes her want to turn away. And yet. Her mouth waters, too. I can feel the tickle in her salivary glands, even now.

I let Micki sleep. I know what happened after that. I can guess. She signed the paperwork and got set up with a carrier agent. Somatropin hormonal implant to beef up her bones. Without it, though, the pervasive neurofiber system's reflex speed and muscle contraction sequencing would ruin her joints, overstress her tendons, all that fun stuff. Pervasive neurofiber implants. Four small incisions along her spine, and hours and hours of the vague slithering feeling as neurofibers embrace your nerves, your muscles, your senses. All the meat of your body. What else is there?

Hmm? Oh. Flicker of memory dream from Micki, at the clinic, when they came to get her the last time. She's standing, looking out over La Jolla Cove, watching the tide rise over the foundations of wrecked houses. “I finally got to California. I even got to the beach,” she thinks. “And all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” Her eyes are full and wet when they put her on the gurney.

I remember that thought from the first touch of her mind. She was still thinking it when they downloaded me, this self, this copy, into Micki's brand new neurofiber net. Crying. Bitter. I didn't introduce myself right then, but her body arched as they sent data-me through, and I felt it. She knew she was being invaded. She knows I'm here. A machine ghost, that's me, hiding under Micki's skin. Carrier agent. As far under cover as it gets.

Chapter 3

The warning signs in the train car light up, and begin a countdown. “Attention, all passengers disembarking at Kansas City's Union Station. Please return to your seats. Your cars will be forking from the Southwest Chief in ten minutes. Please be sure all luggage is stowed, and your seat backs and tray tables are in their full, upright, and locked positions prior to forking. Thank you.” So polite, these robot trains. But it saves me waking Micki up. She blinks, a little disoriented. Wipes her eyes. Looks at her hand, as though surprised it's responding to her again. Murmurs to herself. “You're still in there, aren't you?” Disgusted. Accusing. I can feel it from her.

I open a very superficial connection to her brain. It's no deeper than if we were in a gestalt on the net somewhere together. I can go deeper, but there's no need right now. And I don't need to remember her memories as my own, or have her remember mine that way. She needs to pass as herself for the cover. But I can feel her, and she can, presumably, feel me. Like being alone in a two-man tent with someone. Closer than being lovers. You know instinctively what kind of mood the other person is in. I'm used to gestalts. Been in them often enough.

“Yeah, I'm here,” I tell her. “Talk to me in the gestalt. Nobody's supposed to know I'm here.”

It takes her a couple tries to speak in the gestalt. Using neurowired interfaces is a little different than induction interfaces, I guess. Never used an induction interface voluntarily. She finally gets words out, and after a moment or two, she can do it without moving her lips in the real world. “What the hell are we supposed to do now? They just sent me home? How am I supposed to explain all this?”

“Don't. Don't say anything about it.”

“I was gone for four days. I have a quad-port in the back of my neck that wasn't there before. And of course, you're here. How am I supposed to explain all that?”

“You don't talk about me. Nobody can see me. I'm not obvious.”

“Yeah, but the hardware? They can see that. And I wasn't back in school when I should have been.”

“So what?”

“So, what am I supposed to tell people? Fucking psycho didn't tell me what I'm supposed to do at all. He said you'd know.”

Pause to think about it. Mission background database. I get the bare bones of the cover story. “Tell them the truth. You went to get your jack installed, but there were complications.”

She snorts. “Complications. Kidnapped by a secret branch of Interpol, implanted with heaven knows what, and now I have voices in my head, and you want me to call it complications?”

“Don't argue with me. Just do it. This is our cover story. You went to San Diego to get your jack installed, and you had complications.”

“Fuck off. I'm going to the cops.”

“Don't,” I tell her. “Don't even think about it.”

“Why not?” she demands.

“You signed on for a mission, kid. You're gonna go through with it. And if you even think about blowing my cover, you'll regret it.”

“Yeah? Why? What can you do?”

“I'm wired into your brain stem, kid. Do the math. I can shut down your heart and lungs.”

“Yeah, but that doesn't help you much, now does it?” she demands.

“Try this on for size, then. Imagine Robert Neil finds out you blabbed. If you think there's any way you wouldn't wind up in TexMex with a rope around your neck, you don't know the man. And you'd be there alone. He likes me better than that.” Or … he used to. It's not a safe bet anymore, I suppose. But I don't let Micki in on that.

She sags. “He told you about that, huh?”

“I know about it. That's all that's important.”

“Fucker.“

“We don't have time to argue about this anymore. Do it my way.”

She's quiet, sullen, in the no-man's land between rage and tears. She finally speaks. “Fine. But nobody's going to believe I could afford all this. Just a quad-jack alone costs more than a house. I've never even heard of the kind of wiring you guys put in me.”

“Hardware ID will show up as a NeuroGen Research N4-5000. Expensive, but not ridiculous. Cover story says you sold one of your ovaries for it.” I try to make it sound casual.

She rubs her hand over her stomach and down over her abdomen. Winces at a rogue twinge down there. “Did I?”

I check the mission briefing. “That's what the mission briefing says.”

“Fuckers.”

“You only need one. Now get over it, kid. We've got a mission. That's more important than anything else, you understand?”

She's starting to cry again. “Don't call me kid, you fucking AI. My name's Micki.”

“Whatever.”

Angry silence. I'm the one who breaks it. “I'm not a machine, Micki. I'm a copy of a real person.”

“What?”

“I'm a copy of a real person. My name is Rachel.”

“A copy? They can do that?” She's curious, despite herself. Hackergirl. I need to keep that in mind.

“Yeah.”

“Very flash. Snap.” The praise is grudging, at best. Ironic at worst.

Nod a little in the gestalt. “Very. Also very classified. You're into the deep black now, kiddo. Don't fuck up.”

“Stop calling me kid. I'm sixteen.”

“I know.”

“So why do you keep calling me kid?”

“Because you are.”

She's quiet again, and I can feel her starting to cry.

“Oh come on, Micki. There's no time for this. Suck it up. We have a mission, remember? Grow up. Grow the fuck up. Crying is no way out.” Sergeant McNally's words from boot camp come out of my mouth.

“Nobody takes me seriously. Not even you. But here I am, in serious shit anyway. They've screwed with my body so much that nothing feels right. They've taken part of me away. They've stuffed me full of classified hardware and stuck you inside me, and I'm supposed to just suck it up and carry on? You must be fucking stupid if you think they're gonna let me live after this.”

Now I'm angry. That sudden tautness in the stomach, hotness behind the eyes. Don't know whether it's her or me, and at this point, I don't care. “Wouldn't be the first time I've been called that, Micki. But don't make a habit of it.”

“Well it's true. They're gonna kill me when this is over, aren't they?” She snaps back at me, just as angry. “Well, aren't they?“ She's waiting for me to lie to her. I'm quiet for a few moments. Thinking what to do. What to say. Fine. I just tell her the truth. “They might. Micki. It's possible.”

“Certain.”

“No, it's not certain. This hardware is beaucoup expensive, and we don't recycle the stuff. If you play ball, you might be useful enough to keep around.” Yeah, I've heard that before too. Feel that sinking feeling in the stomach.

She's quiet. “You're not gonna tell me it's all going to be okay, or some bullshit like that?”

“Why bother? You wouldn't believe me if I did.”

“No, I wouldn't,” she says.

“So what's the point of lying to you about it, then? So I can have more of your bullshit?”

She looks at me in the gestalt. Makes eye contact. No engaging the enemy here, no distancing onesself through rifle sights. No setting bombs and getting away. This is as personal as it gets without crossing the line into her mind. “Promise me that,” she says.

Glare at her. “What?”

“Promise me you'll tell me the truth. No matter how bad.”

“I'll tell you what I think you need to know. Anything else, you're better off not knowing.”

“You'll tell me everything. That's what I want.”

“Micki, this is an undercover operation. I can't tell you everything that's going on. For that matter, I doubt I know everything that's going on. These things aren't about a free flow of information and trust. Just do what I tell you, and we'll get through this.”

“No,” she says. “I won't. You can't keep me in the dark like this.”

“Sure I can.”

“You need me. Or they wouldn't have bothered with all this undercover stuff. I don't know what on Earth you need me for, but you need me.”

I think about it. I can kill us both. Sure. Shut down her heartbeat. No problem. But it doesn't get the mission done. And to get the mission done, I need her to hide behind. I can't do this without her help. Smart girl. She's figured it out. That's just great. “All right. All right. Promise me something first, Micki.”

“What?”

“If I say I can't talk about something, let it drop. I'll tell you straight as much as I can. I'll answer your questions if there's time, but there's stuff I just can't talk about, and it would put you in more danger if I did. Don't pick at it, don't try and figure it out, and most especially, when I have to open connectivity up and let your nerves synch with more of the neurofiber net to use whatever functionality we need, don't go fishing in my memory. Promise me, and I promise I won't lie to you.”

Micki's quiet again. She finally murmurs “I promise. I'll do my best not to.”

“Fair enough.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise, Micki.” I just know I'm going to regret this. It would help if I couldn't feel her smirking.

The announcement system clicks on. “All passengers. This car is forking from the Southwest Chief in one minute. We will arrive at the platform at Kansas City's Union Station shortly. Please, take your seats and fasten your seatbelts.” The car lurches a little as the magnetic couplers detach and the train spreads itself out on the track. Does every train station on the continent have to be called Union Station? Shit. Even a hundred-fifty years ago, people were so fucking lazy about naming things.

“You okay?” she asks me.

No, I'm brooding, actually. With a side order of cranky. The precision of this mission just took an order of magnitude drop with this compromise. Why a sixteen-year-old, Robert? Why?

“Fine. Fuck you, Rachel,” she says.

“Call me Rae, Micki. I went by that when I was your age.”

“Why?”

“Oh. It was back when anime was cool.”

She snorts. “Lame.” But it's halfhearted. I let it go. She continues on, after a few moments, “What makes you think Director Psychoboy won't pull you out and send me off to Juarez to get hanged, after all this is done?

Shake my head. “No. He makes a deal, he sticks with it. Standard interrogation rules. Don't make deals you can't live up to. Word gets out that you do, and nobody will talk to you again. Even Neil won't go back on it. You stay on the mission, and he won't sell you out to the Texicans, for sure. I don't know what he will do, but it won't be that. You can trust him that far.”

“You know the man?”

Give her a wry smile. “You could say that. I worked for him a long time.”

“Lucky you,” she snorts.

“Eyah.”

We're both quiet as the car switches off the main line, along with two others. The switch shifts back quickly, and the rest of the train closes up and leaves us behind. On our car, the lights don't even flicker as we transition from the T1's nuclear plant to Union Station's powered loop and decelerate briskly toward the station. We pull to a stop next to the platform, and Micki looks out the window. Flops back into her seat and closes her eyes. “We're pooched.”

“Pooched?”

“Yeah, pooched. Like in ‘screwed the'? That's my mom out there. Waiting for me. She probably called the railroad when I disappeared.”

“Oh, for Pete's sake.“ I say it, but my sense of scale for coyote moments must be messed up. Because when Micki points her out, when I look through Micki's perception instead of just picking the image up from her optic nerves directly, it's like seeing an improvised munition just as you drive past it, and knowing that, unless you're lucky, some rotten bastard is pushing the button right now. Been there. Done that. And I wasn't always lucky, either. But somewhere, buried deep inside my psyche, there is still the deeper, more fundamental fear: Mom's going to kill me. My mother's been dead for fifteen years. But. Coyote moment.

Chapter 4

I let Micki drive. Run the body she's run since the lights in her brain first came on, months before she was born. Me, I set my software up to learn her nervous system by watching it, and let her do the work. She pulls her luggage down from the overhead bin. Slings it over her shoulder. Steps out into the aisle. When the door opens, she walks down the steps to the platform with easy motion, loose-jointed, as though the soreness from her bone and ligament work is all forgotten. Maybe it is. Maybe technology has marched on in the eight years since I … since original me … got her first neurowires. I mean, the pervasive stuff was a retrofit for me. Or maybe Micki's just got a lot fewer miles on her. Whatever. Anyway. Pull up the mission briefing file on Lindsey Blake, Micki's mom, so I know what I'm dealing with.

Lindsey Elizabeth Blake, age thirty-nine. Marital status: widowed. According to her driver's license, she's one-sixty tall, weighs fifty-five kilos. Blond hair, though probably not her natural color. Wears corrective lenses. Organ donor. Squeaky clean driving record. Next record in the file. Well, well. Used to be a member of the International Union of Sex Workers from 2013 to 2014. Huh. Two years after Micki was born. Yeah. Peak of the economic meltdown. Makes sense. Journeyman ticket. Local six-one-six. That covers Camp Pendleton, San Clemente, Oceanside, and Fallbrook, if memory serves. Nostalgia points for me. I live there. Lived there. Went through basic and SOI at Pendleton. As for Micki's mom? You just never know, do you? She spent the better part of a year working the military bases in San Diego around the time Micki would have been about three. I keep her employment history to myself. It's not important to the mission. And it's one of those things Micki's better off not knowing. At least, that's what I tell myself.

Pass through customs. Declare Micki's jack as a NeuroGen Research N4-5000. Which is a good thing, since they do check the hardware ID. They go through Micki's luggage carefully too, both by hand and with a sniffer. Probably looking for marijuana. Sixteen-year-old in CalTech? Makes sense. Irony. Pot is legal in CalTech, but it's illegal to smoke it there, whereas here in the Southern Canadian Provinces, it's legal to smoke in your own home and in public, but best you smoke tobacco, and don't even think about growing Cannabis. More irony. Synthetic THC patches are legal everywhere for anyone over eighteen. Except for the United Christian States of America, of course, where it's a capital crime. But then, you can go to jail for masturbating there. Hell, they're probably still trying to outlaw Christmas, too. Politics. Politicians.

Micki holds her breath while they run the security check on her. Obviously I hold mine too, but we pass without a hitch. She repacks her luggage. Heads out of the security area. Her mother is waiting.

“Hi, Mom,” Micki says, as her mother notices her.

Okay. If Mrs. Blake is fifty-five kilos, I'm a cabbage. But then, my license doesn't say what I weigh … didn't say what I weighed … oh, fuck it. Never mind.

Mrs. Blake reaches out and hugs her daughter, while holding a lit cigarette carefully away from Micki's hair. “Where the hell've you been, Micki? I was worried sick!”

Micki endures all of this patiently. “I went to California. I'll explain later.”

“Damn right you will,” Mrs. Blake says, and we all turn to go. Well. That was painless.

Walk out of the depot. Mrs. Blake doesn't have much to say, and neither does Micki. Painless, like I said. But I'm wired to Micki's body. I can feel the vaguely uneasy feeling in her stomach. Tension in that spot under her bra strap between her shoulder blades. Like we're marching to the gallows.

Mrs. Blake doesn't disappoint. Once we're in the battered Yuejin Lightning, once Mrs. Blake has unplugged the car from the charging stand at the depot, turned on the motor, and gotten us underway and, of course, lit another cigarette, she asks, “You went to California for that?”

Micki looks over at her mother and nods, “Mmhmm.”

“For four days?”

Eye Micki in the gestalt. Get ready to take over. “Remember what we talked about.” I whisper to her in the gestalt.

Micki sighs. “There were complications. I expected to be home Friday night.”

Mrs. Blake looks over at Micki. “What complications? You have an abortion while you were there or something?”

That gives Micki's adrenal glands a jolt, and she looks at her mother incredulously. “Mommmm! Geez, nobody does that anymore. Shots, remember?”

“Why else would you go to California, then? And who the hell signed for this thing? You're not old enough.”

“I was in San Diego. That's why I went there.”

“Bullshit,” her mother says.

“No really. Age of majority in San Diego is the lowest in North America.”

Actually, Micki's right. The California Technocracy is made up of semi-independent city-states and unincorporated territory. Since most of the porn made in North America is made there, the city-state's board felt it in their best interest to lower the age of majority. To twelve. Majority is a two-edged sword. Robert wouldn't have been able to make her sign his deal anywhere else.

Micki watches her mother smoke. Her mother sees her expression, and holds the pack out to her. Micki looks at the pack and licks her lips. Her mouth is watering. This, I can fix. I give her adrenal glands a nudge, and tell her pancreas to back off a a little. Pretty much what nicotine does. “Better?” I whisper in Micki's mind. Micki blinks. Her mother looks over at her a moment. “Um,” Micki says. Swallows. “Doctor said I'd heal faster if I quit. Besides, it's illegal in CalTech.”

Nice improv, Mick. You're getting the hang of it.

Mrs. Blake slaps the pack of cigarettes back to the seat. “You didn't see a doctor there, Micki. You think I'm stupid? You went to some whacked out, back-alley clinic, and it's a wonder you're still alive. I'm going to make an appointment for you with Dr. Goedtke, make sure you don't have brain damage or something.”

Micki rolls her eyes and looks out the window as we drive along the old interstate. Acres and acres of switchgrass and corn, and an unforgiving blue-gray sky. “I didn't go to a back-alley clinic, Mom. I'm not a complete moron, you know.”

“Bullshit, Micki. Bull. Shit. How did you afford new equipment like this? Even I know jacks are expensive, and four-holers like that gotta be even more expensive. How'd you pay for that, huh? Take up robbin' banks, too? Get your union card and turn some tricks, maybe?”

Micki turns away in stony silence. Her mother glances at her, expectantly.

“Tell her the cover story.”

“Go away,” she says.

“Tell her.”

Finally, Micki answers. “I sold them one of my ovaries.”

Mrs. Blake stops the car by the side of the road. Abruptly. She turns to stare at Micki. “You did what?”

“I sold them an ovary…”

“I heard you.” Mrs. Blake cuts her off. “You were just telling me you weren't stupid? Damn it, girl! What the hell were you thinking? You sold them your eggs? Sweet Jesus, girl, you think you won't want to have babies some day? You done some stupid things in your life, but they didn't come close! I can't believe you sold...”

Rage in Micki, like napalm. One moment nothing, the next, whoof. Her stomach goes taut inside. Her head feels hot. And her judgement goes straight to hell. I feel it go. If I could blush, if I could look away, I would.

“Don't you ever call me stupid! I'm not the one who marooned us here in dipshit-ville. I'm not the one who married some redneck and stuck us out on a dead-end farm with no future, and no chance of doing anything but the same old shit over and over again, scraping by and making do because we can't afford to replace anything. When I'm eighteen, I'm going somewhere beautiful. I'm going somewhere clean. If I'm stupid, it's because I didn't stay in California and leave all this behind me. I could have stayed. I should have. But noooo, I had to come home.”

Micki's mother stares at her, and takes a long pull from the cigarette between her lips. Watch her carefully from behind Micki's eyes, and try to sort out at what point in the imminent beating I should intervene, and what, exactly I should do. I need Micki in one piece. Her mother's expendable. Which is good. Micki's neurowired in a big way. If things get violent, she could kill her mother without meaning to. That would complicate our cover.

Mrs. Blake stares out the windshield a while. When she does speak, her voice is soft, a little gravelly from smoking. “So … why did you? If you're that unhappy here, why come home at all?”

Micki turns back toward the window of the car, and watches the corn sway in the wind a little. “When I was … in the clinic, and having … you know. Bleeding. I'm not really sure why. I was kind of foggy.” She spins the cover story out like a pro. It even feels true from in here. “But for a while, I really thought I might die. And it's like… All I could think was, ‘Go home, Micki. Go home. Go back to Mom, go back to all the busted windmills and corn and everything. Just get home.'” Micki shrugs, but the tears are coming. I can feel them. “So, you know … here I am.” Mood swings. God. Make this mission go by quickly. Please.

Mrs. Blake stares for a few more moments, then shakes her head, sighs, and turns her eyes back toward the road. Turns the key back on. Accelerates off the shoulder. She pauses to wipe her eyes now and then. “San Diego ain't clean, Mick. Not if you're poor. Same goes for beautiful,” is all she says. She's quiet after that.

“Micki?” I ask, inside the privacy of Micki's head.

“What?”

“How much of what you said was true?”

She shrugs inwardly. “Guess you'll never know,” she tells me.

Mrs. Blake interrupts me, even though she doesn't know it. “You're grounded, Micki. Indefinitely. No exceptions. You sneak out on me again, and I'll have you arrested. Got it?”

Micki twitches a little, but says nothing. Hell, I twitch. Arrest in most places involves a physical scan. Internal explosives used to be all the rage, and modern police still remember. They wouldn't find explosives, but they would show a whole bucket of neurofiber that's not supposed to be there. Rummage through my briefing files to see if Mrs. Blake has that kind of money. No answers. No bank account check on her. Oh, come on, that's sloppy. Shit.

“Got it?” her mother asks again.

“Yes, Mom. I got it. Welcome-fucking-home to you too.”

“Young lady, don't you talk to me that way. You think you're too old for me to wash your mouth out with soap? You got another think coming. Sold one of your ovaries. My God.”

Micki closes her eyes, squeezing away tears. She turns back toward the window and opens them again, staring out, and resumes looking at the short horizon where the corn meets the sky, broken only by another farm. The argument feels like it's passed into old, familiar territory, though. Trouble. Grounding. Micki sniffles and wipes her eyes. “I only need one,” she murmurs, but I don't think Mrs. Blake is listening.

“Mick. You ok?” I ask her.

“What's it to you?” she demands. Frustration. Anger. Humiliation.

I feel like I've had a long day again. Log into her hand, as it's against the window next to her head. Pet her head with her thumb softly.

Micki doesn't say anything. But she doesn't try to stop me.

Chapter 5

I don't really know where I am. Glance at the Navi in the dashboard. I'm somewhere between Kansas City and Salina. Closer to Salina. Take highway 81 off of I-70 and go north a while. Turn on some nameless road in central Kansas, somewhere between Bennington and Minneapolis. Like the saying goes, if the directions to your house include the words, ‘turn off paved road…'

Mrs. Blake pilots the Yuejin over the battered dirt road with practiced ease, at terrifying speed, dodging trees, going around hills, following the road until I wonder if she's taking Micki — and me — somewhere to shoot us and bury us where nobody will find the body. Isolation. Raw sky against a calm sea of earth broken only by gentle swells and the ever-present green of corn and switchgrass. Rise up over one hill. See the first of a couple dozen windmill towers. Wind turbines. Some of them turn in the wind. Some don't even have blades. As we come down the hill, there's a white clapboard house with gray shingles. It's slowly growing more organic as it ages. Straight lines aren't straight. The colors are slowly fading from the bright man-made colors to the uniform red-brown of the ground. As we pull into the corrugated, steel-arched building next to the house, I can see that the layers-upon-layers of paint have left every edge soft, like snow. Buried rivets. Entombed the steel, like the house outside, in a thick blanket that can make you wonder if you need glasses. We park next to a tired-looking combine, and it's the same way. Green paint, coat after coat, save for the worn metal surfaces that touch the plants, the dirt, the stalks, everything. I can hear cows. I can hear chickens. And pigs, I think. The air is thick with a wet mildewy smell, and everywhere, everywhere the smell of grain and soil. And manure.

Micki wraps her arms around herself, despite the heat and humidity that are already making her armpits sticky again after the continuous blast of air-conditioning during the drive home. She looks around the garage. Quonset hut. The shop. Whatever; all of those names describe this building, and I'm filled with the sensation that this is her domain, really. Her heaven and her hell. I have to ask her about that, later.

“Well, come on, Micki,” Mrs. Blake says. “Don't just stand there. Get your stuff and go get washed up for dinner.” I've never heard anyone put an r in washed before, except on TV. Even in the Corps. Mrs. Blake lights another cigarette, and I can feel the craving in Micki. Feel her mouth water again. “Mom, could you stop smoking in here, please? God. I told you I'm trying to quit, and you smoked all the way home, and now you're smoking here. It's fucking inconsiderate.”

“Little girl, when you pay the mortgage on this place, you can tell me where and when I can smoke. Until then, it's my house, and my rules, and I'll smoke where I damn well please. Got it?”

Micki glares at her mother.

“You got that?” Mrs. Blake repeats, more loudly.

“Tsk. Yes, mother, I got it.” There's a tone in there that I recognize from long ago. The tone of voice you give your parents to tell them you think they're completely tedious. Maybe senile. To make sure they know that the fact that they are in charge instead of you is obviously a great cosmic accident. I'd love to say I never talked to my own parents that way. It's tempting to think it, because it's hard for me to remember stuff before the war. Tempting. But the tone, the feeling, the attitude … they're all awfully familiar.

Mrs. Blake walks toward the door. Then stops. Looks down at her cigarette. Takes a long drag from it. “Look, Mick. I'm glad you're tryin' to quit. You know? I know it's a filthy habit. I'll … try not to smoke so much around you.” She turns to face Micki. “I am glad you're home, Micki. I was worried about you.”

Micki sighs. Droops inwardly. I can almost feel the weight of Mrs. Blake's words on our shoulders and head. “Whatever,” she says, and walks by her mother toward the house. I can't see what Mrs. Blake does. Micki doesn't look back.

Wash with soap. Some name-brand I've never seen before, but it's sweet and soft, and smooth over Micki's skin. As opposed to the pumice soap in the dish next to it. The bathroom is painted in a faded blue with white trim, with white, faux-tile vinyl floor. The floor creaks a bit underfoot, and there's the undeniable taint of iron in the air, probably from hard water. It smells a little like blood. But. Honest to heaven, there's a claw footed bathtub. I think Micki notices I'm staring at it.

“What, they don't have bathtubs in CalTech? You act like you've never seen one before.”

“Seen ‘em, Mick, but never been in one like that. Even the hotel from my honeymoon's tub wasn't like that. Course they did have a jacuzzi.”

She looks at me in the mirror over the sink. As though she can see me looking out from inside her head. As though I'm someone else, not her. “You're married?”

All I see is her reflection. All I see are eyes that aren't mine. Brown ringed with green. Pretty. Draw back from them. Try to. It doesn't actually work. Reel away, inwardly. “Divorced,” I tell her, finally.

“Oh. Sorry.”

Shrug at her, with a casualness I don't feel. I don't think I like mirrors much. But I still want in that tub. Maybe later.

Dinner is quiet. Micki picks at her food a few moments, then turns to with an appetite like I haven't seen since I was in the Corps. Growing girl, I guess. It's meatloaf, nothing special seasoning-wise. Potatoes. Corn, of course; sweet fuel corn on the cob. Probably frozen from last fall; the corn plants I've seen are only a couple feet tall. Green beans from a can. “Micki, what's in this stuff?“ I ask.

“Beef, veal, and pork. Duh. It's nothing special.” A flash of the process of making it flickers through her mind, and I soak it up immediately.

Nothing special. But I never knew what meatloaf was like. I guess I just never knew what it could be like, if you made it with meat that you've met. At least one of them came from here. Maybe all of them. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. Meat should come from stores in hermetically sealed packages, with a whiff of carbon monoxide for good color, not ... mooing and oinking, where you go around and feed them, until one day, out of the blue, you slit their throats. I mean, I know where meat comes from. And it's not like I'm squeamish about killing, either. Hell, I've practically made a career of it. It's just that when I kill, I normally don't eat the results. Eww. Still. Beef, veal, pork, an egg, an onion, tomatoes — all from right here on the farm — along with oatmeal — chopped fine — and salt and pepper; hell, even I could make this stuff. But some subtle alchemy occurred somewhere along the way, and it's completely unlike any meatloaf I've ever had. This is a good thing. A noble thing. A thing worth killing a cow, a calf, and a pig, and putting up with chickens. And presumably tomato trees, or however you grow them.

“Plants,” Micki says, in the gestalt. “They grow on plants. Geez.”

“Sorry. Was I mumbling in the gestalt?'

“Yeah. You do that a lot.”

“Anyway. Would you tell your mom this was really good, please?”

“No. You tell her.”

So I do. Override Micki's control of her nervous system. Connect up to her speech centers, so the accent, pacing, and delivery are right. Take a drink of milk. Clear my throat. “Um. Mom?” Boy, that feels strange. Words. A word. That I never thought I'd say again.

Mrs. Blake looks at me. At Micki. Me at the moment. “Yes?”

“This is really good.”

She looks at me funny. “It's just meatloaf, sweetie. You know how to make it.”

“I know… ” I say. “But it's really good. I just noticed that.”

Mrs. Blake looks as though she's expecting the other shoe to drop any moment. “Well, thank you, Micki.”

Smile at her. Then give Micki back control.

“The fuck was that all about?” she demands of me, in the gestalt.

“It's good meatloaf.”

“Get used to it.” Micki snorts. “You'll see it again.”

We do the dishes after supper. Mrs. Blake watches a moment, frowning a little. “Are you all right?” Mom says that behind me. I let Micki get it.

“Huh?” Micki turns toward her mother. “Sorry? My mind was somewhere else.”

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Mrs. Blake's looking concerned now, hands on her hips.

“Yeah, I'm fine.” Micki's perception must be leaking through the gestalt, because Mom looks ancient suddenly. Every line, every gray hair, every mark of the passage of time that we can see, that's what Micki sees. Mom looks out of place. Marooned in this new age on an island of farmland surrounded by nowhere. The woman ages a thousand years in the space of a glance. And Lindsey Blake was only born three years before I was.

“You're sure you don't need to see Doctor Goedtke? I've heard about people getting meningitis getting back-alley implants like that.”

“Mom! I did not get back-alley implants. I told you!” Micki sets down the dish we've been working on, a little hard. But I guess she knows these dishes. It doesn't break. She hauls up her shirt and tugs down the front of her jeans to show her mother the laparoscopy scar. “See?”

Micki's mother just snorts and walks away. I think I see where Mick gets it.

Micki rolls her eyes and turns back to the sink. Wipes her eyes. “I still can't believe you guys took one of my ovaries.”

“It wasn't my choice, Micki. Wouldn't ever have been my choice. None of this was.”

“What do you mean? You're the one who let them copy you.”

“I didn't think about it, kid. I just did what I was told, you know?”

“I'm not a kid. I'm a woman. Stop calling me kid.”

“Micki…Never mind. Just let it drop. I don't want to fight with you.”

“Oh what, my body doesn't measure up to your womanly standards, huh? Well you can fucking leave, you know. I won't stop you.”

“Micki, you're getting upset. Calm down.”

“I am not upset!” She shouts in the gestalt.

Bite back what I want to say. Take a slow breath with Micki's lungs. Close her eyes. Hold onto the edge of the sink. Get our combined anger under control. I have the vague sense that it's a lot harder than it seems like it should be. You'd think a thirty-six year old would have more accumulated anger. Maybe I do. Did. Whatever. But I know this much for certain: it's not the same. When I was … me … I didn't have the underlying hormonal fury that Micki does. It's been a long time since I was sixteen. I'd forgotten how much of a pain in the ass it was. I remember now. But I'd forgotten.

“Micki, when does your mom go to sleep? We need to get moving on this mission,” I tell her, finally.

“I care about your mission?” she demands.

“Our mission, Micki. You signed up for this.”

“Like I had a choice? You know what he was going to do to me.”

“You had the choice. When you decided to rip off a bank in TexMex, you made that decision. And you signed up for this to get out of the consequences. Now stop giving me attitude.”

She's quiet. Washing dishes carelessly. Not quite slamming them down. “It's not fair,” she says to me.

Look at her in the gestalt until she looks away. “Not particularly, no. And if you go through life expecting it to be fair, you're never going to be happy,” I tell her, maybe a little more gently than I planned. Like somehow, I'm an expert on the subject. Don't ask me, I don't know.

“There's no way we can get out tonight,” Micki says. “I have to do homework and get ready for school.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Mom will be watching. I know her. She's looking for any excuse to send me to Dr. Goedtke or jail. You gotta let her calm down.”

Give some thought to my equipment status. None. We could do this with improvised or gathered weapons, but Neil's local contacts may have something for me. Give some thought to Micki's — and my — physical and mental states. It probably would be a good idea to get some down time, all things considered. “All right. We'll hold off for tonight.”

We spend the rest of the evening getting caught up on homework. Later, we lie together in Mick's bed, listening. Well, I'm listening. Micki's asleep. Her joints are still achy from the bone changes going on, and her nerves are pretty raw from her new implants. And her head is full of nightmares. I try not to watch this time, but it's keeping me awake, and I can't even toss or turn without waking her up. Can't open the eyes or she'll see, can't move or she'll know, just be here inside her, hidden in this network of neurofibers, connected to her body as intimately as her own brain, and yet all I can do right now is feel the feet, and the joints, and the nerves, and wish I could sleep too. I wonder if it ever occurred to me, Rachel, the original me, after they made this copy that I am, I wonder if it occurred to her just how much this job sucks. I doubt it.

There are bugs singing outside the window: crickets or katydids or whatever; I don't know. Their sound is the only thing that's moving outside tonight, except for the gentle swish of wind turbines that keeps reminding me of choppers. Of the Corps. Of the desert. It's not a real flashback. I stopped having those years ago now. But I can still smell cordite smoke. Hear small-arms fire. It's not entirely unpleasant. After all, if you can smell it, the bullets involved are probably headed away from you rather than toward you. Focus, damn it. I've got a job to do. Sigh inwardly. Okay. Long as we're going down memory lane. I make Micki twitch. Just a little, as I teach her nerves, her muscle memory, her reflexes MCMAP moves. Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. One mind. Any weapon.

CAF0.35b2.1: Loading datajack operation knowledgebase into host brain shadow.

I load that too. Because this calm is an illusion. Because I know that sooner or later, we'll need it. Eventually, though, I do fall asleep.

Chapter 6

When I was a kid … oops. When I was Micki's age, and living at home, we had a Saint Bernard. His name was Fred. He probably weighed fifty kilos. This was the dog my mother would encourage to run at full tilt down the hall and into my bedroom in the morning. He'd bound onto my waterbed with me, and if I was lucky, the tsunami wave he set up wouldn't mash my skull against the bookcase headboard. Waking up was sudden in my home. I guess that's normal for the age. Micki's mother is yelling. “Micki! Michelle Marie Blake, get out of bed and get moving, you've got thirty minutes before the school bus comes!” Micki's awake now too.

“Morning,” she mutters, out in the world.

“Morning, Mick,” I say in the gestalt.

“What'd you do to me last night? I feel like I've been hit by a train. Worse than yesterday.”

“Took out some insurance to help keep us alive. Muscle memory. Martial arts to go with the wired reflexes. Also fast-loaded you the knowledgebase for running your jacks.”

She rubs her belly where the laparoscopy scar is. “Think it's going to get that ugly?”

“League we're playing in, I'll be surprised if it doesn't.”

“You're sure in a great mood this morning, Rae.”

“Didn't sleep well.”

Micki ‘pffffs’ and crawls out of bed. Unplasters her sleeping t-shirt from her body. Heads to the bathroom. Takes a shower, damn it. “Sorry,” she says. Oops. I didn't mean to leak that through to her. “No time for the tub today. Maybe this weekend.” She does, at least, linger in the shower long enough to let the heat permeate through her sore muscles. Then cools the water off for a delicious chill, in the oppressive heat that's already coming in the windows. I consider her body. This body. Run our hands over it. About one-seventy tall, maybe sixty kilos. Short, chestnut brown hair, barely long enough to cover her jacks. Breasts…

“Would you quit groping me already?”

“I'm not groping you, Mick. I need to know your body, in case I have to fight with it.”

“You're groping.”

Pick up the soap and washcloth. “Washing.”

“Groping.”

Give Mick a nice big raspberry, before I give her back control of her body. “Thppppppt.” She giggles. Let the rest go for the moment. I know where our center of gravity is. Know how much boob I have to worry about when we get moving fast. That's enough.

“Micki! Ten minutes!” Mrs. Blake yells. It makes me jump. That's never good.

“Coming!” Micki replies. Then quieter. “Don't get your panties in a twist.” She gets on the scales. “Holy crap,” she says aloud. Internally she says, “How much neurofiber did you guys put in me?”

“What? Sorry. My mind was somewhere else.”

“I put on almost five kilos.”

“Neurofibers don't weigh that much. Maybe a kilo, kilo and a half, all told. They gave you a bone and ligament density stimulant. Lifetime supply. You're probably good for a another couple kilos this week, too, as your bones bulk up.”

“What for?”

“So you don't wreck your body using your neurowires. Don't worry about it. You won't notice the difference in weight. You'll never get osteoporosis, either. It's the same exact implant they give women at menopause. It's just got a higher setpoint.”

“Lucky me,” she grumps.

I let Micki finish, but I pay attention to what she does with her hair: Quick comb and tie it back. It will give me some idea of the person, and her culture. Stuff I should have been briefed on exhaustively. Improvise, adapt, overcome. IAO. “No makeup, Mick?”

“Teh. Right. When we get to school, take a good look at the girls with makeup, and tell me how much you want to be associated with them. Sides, it makes me break out.”

“Going for the nerd-girl look, huh?” Saying that makes me more nervous than it should. How far behind are my high school stereotypes?

Micki chuckles a little. “Old school geek girl. Yeah, pretty much.”

“Micki! Now!” Her mother sounds almost panicked.

Micki ignores her, and heads back to the bedroom. Jeans. T-shirt. Socks. Sneakers. Baseball cap with two large red ‘M's next to each other, and the words “Minneapolis Moline” and “Modern Machinery” on it. What machinery, I have absolutely zero idea. Micki slings her backpack over her shoulder and scrambles down the stairs. It's slightly cooler down here, I notice. The wet in the air lingers around the smell of breakfast. Eggs. Bacon. Toast. Orange juice. Micki bolts it down like a starving dog. The bus blows its horn outside as she finishes.

“Have a good day, sweetie. And don't forget your chores when you get home!” Mrs. Blake calls out as we jog toward the bus.

“Whoa,” Micki says.

“What?”

“Feels like flying.”

I have to smile a little. I probably shouldn't. “Ease down a little. But yeah. Wired nerves. Faster you go, the more you get that feeling. I'll show you the ropes, later. Once we've met your friends.”

“The 785s?”

“Yeah. That is why we're here.”

“I'm not selling them out to you.”

“Micki, they're not the target. If Robert wanted them, he'd have them already. He doesn't want them. They're not important to him, except as a tool.”

“You're sure about that?”

“He had you. He broke you. You'd have told him anything he wanted to know. I know the man.”

She stares at me a while, and sighs. “Well, we can't meet them today.”

“Micki, putting this off isn't going to make it go away.”

“Rae, I have to go to school. If I don't, they'll call Mom. And remember what she said about having me arrested?”

“She hasn't got that kind of money, Mick. You know it and I know it.”

“Fat lot you know about it. We have co-op cops, Rae. The community pays them, and we get cops like in the old days.”

“Micki, we don't have time to waste in school. We're on a mission.”

“Yeah? Well if you're supposed to be undercover as me, how's it going to look if I don't go to school? I thought keeping your cover was important.”

“The mission is the priority, not the cover.”

“Rae, I have to be in school. Otherwise they'll call Mom, she'll call the cops, and everything goes straight to hell. And you probably wind up in a lab somewhere.”

“That's not very damn funny.”

“I'm not kidding, Rae. I know my mother. Besides. The 785s sleep all day. I show up during the day, they'll know something weird is going on.”

Override her control and walk away from the bus. “How do we get where they are?”

“Damn it, Rae. Give me back my body!” She pushes back. Tearing sensation inside. Everywhere. Pain like fire, like cold, like… Nerves fighting. We both back off, and she crumples to her knees, and her eyes flood with tears. “Oh, God. Oh, God that hurts.”

“Stop fighting me.” Squeeze it through the clenched-teeth feeling in the gestalt. “You've got to stop fighting me, or we're going to fuck your nervous system up. Then we're both screwed.”

She gasps for breath, and slowly stands up. Wipes her eyes. “Rae. Please. I have to go to school. There's nowhere to go. The 785s are sleeping. They won't all be there.”

“You said that.”

“And you set me on fire, Rae. That's what it felt like. That's some sick firmware you've got.”

“It wasn't firmware, Micki. I think it was your body trying to reject the neurofibers. I don't know. I've never felt that before.”

“You felt all that too?”

Shit. I just gave her a tool against me. Stupid, Rae. Very stupid. Fuck. Now what?

“Rae?”

“Yes, I felt it, all right? I didn't like it any better than you did. But I have a lot more tolerance for pain than you do, so don't get any ideas.”

“What you're saying is I can push you out of my body if I can stand the pain.”

“No. Neurofiber's forever. You can probably push me out enough that we both die. That's pretty much your option. So we're even, I guess. I can stop you breathing, and we die together, or you can tear our nervous systems apart, and we die together, but it hurts more. Happy now?”

“I'd kind of like to avoid dying, Rae,” Micki says, quietly. She looks toward the bus stop.

“Yeah?”

The bus blows its horn again, and the driver opens the door. “Blake, get on the bus!”

“Me too. Go. Get on the bus,” I tell her. “And Micki?”

“What?”

“I haven't been in high school since before you were born. Be patient with me.”

She wipes her nose and chuckles. It's not a particularly nice chuckle, either. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Geez.” She swings up through the doors of the bus and walks lightly toward the very back row. “Let me handle it,” she says in the gestalt. “I do this for a living.”

Chapter 7

There's a smell you associate with a given place, a given time, and a given stage in your life. The smell of a reeducation camp: mud, fear, blood, mixed with the more ominous smell of disinfectant. The smell of fighting in the desert: sand, sweat, cordite, blood, death, burnt flesh. The smell of Infantry School: sweat, unwashed bodies, wet, seawater, diesel fuel, dust, cordite again. This smell, the one I'm smelling with Micki's olfactory bulb right now, goes back, goes under all of that. Floor wax. Paint. Slight mustiness. Semi-washed bodies. Food. Too much perfume and cologne. Paper. Electronics. This smell is high school. Ell Saline High was not my school. I never grew up here. But apparently it's close enough. The experiences boil up, and it's hard not to lose myself in them.

“Dude, why am I shivering?” Micki nudges me out of my reverie as we stand in line to walk through the metal detector. Yup. Had those, too.

“Probably me. Don't worry about it,” I tell her. I'm lost in dusty corners of my memory that I haven't visited for over a decade. My life before the Corps. I'd forgotten. I really had forgotten.

A girl ahead of us walks through. She looks young, probably a freshman. That makes her what, fourteen? Maybe? Nothing happens, except that two female guards walk over to her.

“Irene Carlson?” one asks.

“Yes?” she asks, and holds her ID card up.

“Come with us, please.”

The girl looks horrified. “But I didn't do anything!” She starts to cry. They lead her away anyway. It jars me back to the present, even though Micki is still calm. I need a gun, and I don't have one. They can't be looking for me. They can't know I'm here. It's impossible. Force myself calm again. Damn it, this used to be so much easier.

Whisper urgently, “Mick?”

“Yeah?”

“What just happened?”

“Oh. Relax. She won the lottery, that's all.” Micki nonchalantly walks through the metal detector. Again, nothing happens.

“Meaning what?”

Micki rolls her eyes a little. “Meaning she got picked for a random search and drug test. They take her to the infirmary, strip her down, take a blood sample, urine sample, hair sample, go through her clothes, and do a body cavity search. They've been doing it since I've been here. Your parents agree to it when you sign up for high school. They say it cuts down in-school crime and drug use by almost a full percentage point.”

“You ever won the lottery?”

Before she can answer, the security guard speaks again. “Michelle Blake? You too.Come with us, please.”

“What, again? Come on.”

If they search us…

We're escorted to the security office with Irene Carlson. She gets led to one room. We go to another. Metal framed steel door. Thick, polymer window, that casts a slightly yellow glow to what little you can see through it. It slams shut behind us, and the lock buzzes softly as it engages. Quiet sobbing sounds from the next room. Size up the security guard. And the door. And our chances of getting out of the building. The female guard in the room with us is about my age. Doesn't move like she's wired at all. I can take her gun. Shoot her in the head. Look at the room a moment. Okay, the next shot would have to go through the security camera. There's still the matter of the locked door. The remotely controlled, locked door. How could I be so stupid, that I got tripped up by the security paranoia of a high school?

“Rae … do something,” Micki whispers to me.

Take a slow breath with Micki's lungs. Try to push this panicked feeling away from me. Realize just how much that skill is more than mental. Breathe again. “Do they do body scans, Micki?” I ask her. But she doesn't have a chance to answer.

“Ms. Blake,” the guard says, “This Priv-i-seal package arrived for you this morning. It's from Kansas Provincial Child Protective Services. Provincial law requires that this package be delivered to you in a secure environment. Please sign on the dotted line.”

Blink. Let Micki drive. Feel everything in my guts … in Micki's guts … relax. We almost pass out.

“Fuck.”

Micki's laughing at me inside. I can feel it.

“Um, Micki. Don't open that. Stick it in your backpack. Whatever's in there … could probably get us arrested if we open it in here. It might set off the explosive and propellant sniffers in the building.” Any school paranoid enough to have metal detectors would have propellant and explosive sniffers too. I would.

And they let us go. Talk to Micki. Anything. Calm down a little, if I can. “So have you ever won the lottery?”

Micki shrugs. “Few times, yeah. Mom called ‘em and requested it on me a couple of times, too. She went through a “Micki must be a junkie because I saw it on TV” phase. Micki swipes her ID card in her locker door, and it opens. “Okay, five-minute clock starts now.”

“For what?”

“I'm officially here as of when I went out the security office door. Once my locker door opens, I have to get my ass and my card to a classroom in five minutes, or I get a detention for loitering.”

“Geez.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Welcome to the prison camp.”

“It's not a prison camp, Mick.”

“Might as well be.”

“At the end of the day, you can leave.”

“So what?”

“Makes all the difference in the world.”

She unloads her backpack into her locker, and rummages around for a few moments.

“What'd you do to land you in the camps?” she asks. Smart girl. Lucky me.

“That's where they took all of us, once they rounded us up and starved us out.”

“Holy shit, you were Mijaneen?”

I have to stop and stare at Micki. “For a girl who hates school so much, you sure sucked up your history with a vengeance. That's pretty obscure.”

“I never said I hated school. And they said you guys were the ones who sent Jerusalem back to God with a freaking cobalt bomb. That's not exactly obscure. Stop dodging the question.”

“That was never proven. General consensus at the time thought the Saudis did it in retaliation against everyone who was helping us.” Sigh a moment. “But yeah, I was Mijaneen. They called us that. It means madmen, so it's kind of insulting.”

“What'd you call yourselves, then?”

“Americans. Yankees towards the end. Employees of Freedom Systems, Inc., until they went completely psycho, and got so busy telling the federal government to go screw itself, that we got left on our own. It's all public knowledge.” Well, most of it is, at least. Close enough.

“So how did you wind up working for a corporate army?”

“Our command got transferred to private control when the U.S. pulled out of the Middle East. It's a very long story. And you've got two and a half minutes to get to class.”

“Shit!” Micki slams the locker door and walks as quickly as she can. It is like flying when I feel it through her nerves. Sudden, effortless grace and speed. If they only knew, every teenager on the planet would have wired nerves. Micki's at the classroom just barely in time. She slinks to a seat near the back row.

The chair creaks as she slides under the integrated desk top and sets her deck down on it. She picks up the induction rig and unplugs it from the end of the fiber, plugs the fiber into the deck's direct interface jack, and plugs the other end of the fiber into one of the jacks in her neck. From behind her, a whistle. “Whoa, Micki, when'd you get a jack? Man, a quad? That's a big step up from your induction rig.”

Micki turns, trailing the fiber plugged into the nape of her neck like hair over her shoulder. Gives him a disgusting look. “That's so none of your business, Kurt.”

Watch the kid. The expression on his face is awe. If he only knew. Relax the barrier between me and Micki a little. Touch in the gestalt.

“Dude, what are you doing?” she says inwardly.

“Giving you jack access.”

“Ugh, that's creepy. It feels like you're inside my skin.”

“Yeah. It's no picnic for me, either. Okay. You're hooked up. Let ‘er rip.”

Micki pushes the button on her deck, and the Zhang D-40 lays a heads-up display into our field of vision, smooth and silky as you please. “Wow,” she thinks. “Fast.”

“Get used to it,” I think back to her.

“I hope not.” She smiles, and I can feel it as though it's a light inside her. New toys. I was like that in the Corps with my rifle, for about the first week or so. After that, it just got heavy.

The teacher gets up from his desk. “Good morning, class. Michelle, it's good of you to join us. You're just in time for today's exam.”

Coyote moment. Frozen fear. “Fuck,” she thinks. It's a wonder the whole class can't hear it. Desperation. “Rae … you have to help me.”

Work through it. Think, despite the panic chemicals in Micki's blood. “Micki, I don't even know what class this is.”

“Is everybody logged in?” The teacher goes on. “Good. As you can see, the exam awaits. You have forty minutes. Begin.”

Micki opens the exam. Stares at it. Her mind goes profoundly blank at the questions, as though she's never sat in this classroom before, never cracked the book, never studied. I'm thirty-six years old. If you count the two years this copy-me has been lying around, it's been twenty years since I was in high school. And I still get nightmares like this. The only thing missing is that we're not suddenly naked.

“Would you shut up?” she hisses inwardly. “It's bad enough I'm going to flunk this test without listening to you nattering on to yourself about me being naked. It's like you're hot for me or something.”

Look at the test questions. English. My worst subject. U.S. lit. Worse and worse. “Discuss the theme of Edgar Allan Poe's The Telltale Heart,” it says. “Uh … Mick, have you even read this story?”

“Uh … no. I was supposed to do that over the weekend, but y'know, somebody had other plans for me.”

“I haven't either. So I'm not going to be any help.”

“God forbid you be any help,” she snipes back.

Micki's thoughts come out onto the exam in muddled fits and spurts. Coyote moment. This, I can control. Take a slow breath. Force myself calm. Sharp. Clear headed in combat. That's what I'm good at. Force us calm. Force us sharp. There's a sense of embracing. Of engulfing. Of being engulfed. Micki gasps a little. Something jumps the line between the two of us. Some thought, some experience, some part of me. Or maybe Micki reached into me and grabbed something. I'm not sure. I don't know. Take a slow breath with Micki's lungs. Calm.

Then she turns the bill of her baseball cap around to the back. Gets to work. Jacks the story into her memory from her study ice in a fast-load. Winces a little, but the story settles over the hooks in her mind, and she draws it apart quickly. Takes control of the tools she's learned in this class. Madness. She writes about the madness of all-consuming guilt. And I fly with her. Secret shadow. I am her for a little while. More questions. More stories. Jack the data in. Tear it apart. Write the answer. I get an education just watching. Understand it. We think together. The test ends, at last. Like hitting yourself in the head with a rock. It sure feels good when you stop.

“Time, ladies and gentlemen,” the teacher calls. “Check your work in now, please.”

Pull back from her a little. The hard line between us has muddy footprints on it now. I still know where it is, but it's not so distinct. Shake my head inwardly to clear it. Mission. I'm on a mission here. We're on it together. And all of this is to that end.

“Whoa,” she says in the gestalt, once we're separate enough to talk again.

“Whoa, what?”

“Whoa, that. I guess … I guess you helped me after all. Um … thanks.”

“But…”

“No, really. It's like, all of a sudden I just felt this calm thing going, and it was like, ‘Duh. Hey plughead, stop freaking out and just fast-load the book.'”

“Mick, I didn't do anything. I just … let you drive.”

“Let me drive what?”

I have to think about that a moment. “The whole net, I guess.”

“But doesn't that mean I drove you, too?”

“I think so.”

“You don't know?” she asks.

“No. This was all experimental when I was copied.”

She's quiet for a few moments. “What exactly do you do for for Interpol, anyway?”

“Information warfare. What information can I get, how do I control it, and how do I apply it to my mission objective? That's pretty much it. Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. Pretty much exactly what we just did. It's like we started thinking as one person and whammo. After that, it was identify the problem. Gather information. Break it down. Kill it. Move on to the next problem.”

Shiver again as Micki unplugs the deck from her neck. Identify problems. Gather information on them, break them down and kill them. That's not a bad description of the last twenty years of my life. “Mick?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful what you get out of my mind, okay? I'm not a very nice person.”

Chapter 8

In the hall. At the locker. Get ready for lunch. Rush of bodies down the narrow hall. Familiar faces. I can feel the familiarity from within Micki's mind, even though all I see is too much makeup. Heavy black eyeliner. Rouge. Bright lipstick. A look that emphasizes the mouth and jaws, and de-emphasizes the eyes and forehead. A look of calculated stupidity. Remember Micki's point about makeup from this morning. Gum. Lots of gum. Chatter.

“Hey, what'd you do this weekend?” “Oh, man, I was so drunk… ” “… great party…” “… off in the back room…” “… had this big old fight…” “… cops came…” “… I gotta get out of class on Wednesday to go to court…” “Yeah, the usual, you know…” “… agricultural science at the community college, how ‘bout you?”

I'd close my eyes if I could. I don't know where I am in this place. What I'm doing here. This country. This rural place. We are, in fact, in Kansas, Toto.

Micki reaches for her lunch bag in the locker. Someone shoves her against the door frame and plugs something into the back of her head. She's looking down. Starting to turn. I catch a glimpse past her left breast of someone's sneaker. Assert control for an elbow strike. The neurofiber net slides out from under me, and I'm a long way away from her, suddenly. “Don't turn around.” A voice from somewhere whispers. An ironic chuckle from it. Darkness. No ground beneath me, and I can't move. Falling, then. I know that I'm falling. I can't control the system I'm in anymore. That means … that must mean…

CAF0.35b2.1: Skeleton key mode established.

“Hello Micki. Rachel.” The voice comes again. In the network with me. With us. The voice goes on. “I am your Interpol handler.” Smooth click of saliva against teeth. I recognize the voice. Rachel again, huh? What's he up to?

“Report,” he says.

“There's nothing to report yet. Go away.”

“I want you to make contact with the 785s, and analyze the local hacker ecology.”

“You told me. Now be patient,” I tell him. “You didn't exactly give me an easy cover to maintain.”

“I want you to make contact with the 785s tonight. Try and raise their profile in the local ecology. The other player will come to you. You should have all the tools you need in-hand.”

“You told me you wanted me to find the new big player and wipe him out. Are we changing the mission now?”

A pause. Then, “No. I'm adding to the mission. Raise their profile, so that the big player is aware of you. Then locate it. Then destroy it.”

“Stop micromanaging the op, Robert. You know better.”

The voice turns and walks away, and I can hear his footsteps. Click. Click. Then nothing, and, the ground rushes up to me. Slaps me in the soles of my feet, and compresses my spine. And I can feel myself breathing.

“Rae?” Micki's voice, far away. Far away, and yet close. “Rachel?” Open my eyes. Micki's eyes, suddenly. Snap an arm back to pull the plug ice out of Micki's bottom left jack. Stare at it. Feel it grow hot as its RF circuits burn themselves out. It's unmarked. Breathe. Relax control, like ice thawing. Feel the shakes from Micki's nerves. Maybe from mine too.

“Rae? What was that?” she whispers urgently. “I couldn't move.”

“Neither could I. It's called the skeleton key. It's part of the carrier agent firmware. It … lets them control your net.”

“But why couldn't I move?”

“Because I was trying to hit whoever it was. Probably part of the skeleton key sequence, really. Wouldn't make much sense to lock me up and leave you able to lay some smackdown. Or run.”

“Shit. Shit.” Micki is fighting back sobs as she puts the package in her backpack.

“Right there with you, Mick.” Not quite true, that. Micki's system is awash in adrenaline. Freezing panic from her. But I was wrong about me. The mind that is mine transmutes that fear the way it always has. Into fury. I have to rein it in before it chokes me.

“Every time you guys stick something in my head, it's worse than the last time.” She hisses at me in the gestalt. “And you're supposed to be the fucking good guys.”

“Yeah.” Wish I could be alone. But I can't. Do what I've always done. Keep moving. Stay focused. Mind on the mission. Try to forget the liberties they've taken with my mind. Like before…

“Like before, what?” Micki asks. She takes her lunch bag and locks her locker door.

“Would you cut that out? It's really fucking annoying.”

“You're the one talking to herself. Don't be such a bitch.”

Stare at her in the gestalt, until she looks away. “Like before, what?” she demands again.

“I'm not talking about it,” I tell her. No fucking way. Worst part of my life, and Micki Blake has no fucking need to know.

“What happened?”

“Micki, it doesn't affect our mission, and it doesn't affect you. It's none of your business, now let it drop.”

Anger from her now. “Well you fucking made it my business, Rae. You're leaking this shit into my head, and whatever it was, I don't like it any better than you did.”

I wish I could close my eyes. I wish I could walk away. With or without beating the tar out of Micki Blake. But anywhere I go, there I am, and there she'll be, and I need her cooperation. For the mission. For. The. Mission. So.

“I was at White Sands.”

“You mean Sandia?”

“No, I don't. The prison at Sandia wasn't built yet. I mean White Sands. The old missile range. A huge swath of nowhere in southern New Mexico. Old missile base. They changed me.” Look down. Try and shake the memories away, keep them from getting too close to me.

“Yeah?”

“Mick, the way you think, especially as you get older, amounts to a rut. A habit. You think a certain way, do certain things because you're used to them. Because those ruts change how you see the world, so the world fits how you think, as much as the other way around.”

“And the camp?”

“Their job was to change all that. Systematically crush it. Each thing. Everything you believe in that made you a threat. Change that until it's all wrong. Whatever it takes, until you believe, you really believe that it was all worthless. Six years in the Marine Corps, and as a Mijaneen. They changed what I believed in. Took away the certainty. Took away the justifications. And then they just let me twist.”

She's quiet a while. “I heard … things like torture … and rape … and stuff like that went on a lot.”

“There's some of that. When you got a reputation as a hard case, a tough nut to crack, they'd find ways. It didn't matter what ways. Plus … you put someone absolutely in someone else's power, there's … always the temptation to see how far you can go with them.”

“God. Rae. I'm sorry.” Micki reaches up to rub her hand through her hair at her temple. An odd sort of comfort. Not really what I wanted. Not really welcome. But I guess it's cooperation.

“They hanged everyone one step above me in rank for war crimes. For a while, I thought I was lucky.”

Micki shudders. It's all too easy for her to visualize that. “Why didn't … um. Don't take this wrong, but why didn't they just hang all of you?”

“To pacify a conquered people, you have to have the right body count. Too low, and people don't believe they lost. You get insurgency. Just like Iraq. Too high, and people don't have anything to lose. You get a resistance. France in World War II, Operation Weyrwulf in postwar Germany, stuff like that. You get the right body count, and people don't want to fight anymore, and they get pissed off with people who do.”

“How could they change you like that?”

I don't answer her. I'm not going to.

“Come on, Rae. You promised.”

“I was talking about mission information, Mick. Not my personal life.”

“Rae…”

“No.”

She sighs, “Fine.”

“Micki. This stuff is personal.”

“You mean, personal like being inside my head, like groping me in the shower, like hooking yourself up with me directly when we go online? It's more personal than that? I don't believe you. You're lying, and you promised you wouldn't.”

See, I knew I'd regret that.

“How?” She demands again.

“Oh for fuck's sake.” She just looks at me. “Grab your lunch, Micki. This is going to take a while.”

At a lunch room table, mostly alone. The people around us are communing with their decks. Listening to music. Working on homework. Playing video games. Downloading porn, for all I know. Or care. Micki digs into her sandwich. “Okay. Tell me,” she says in the gestalt.

“Don't talk with your mouth full,” I mutter. But she isn't going to let this go. I can just tell. “Okay. The camp. Do you know what operant conditioning is?”

“Yeah. That's where you teach rats to associate some things with food, and then use that to teach them to do dumb stuff.”

“Yeah. But it's not just for rats. It actually works better on people. Rats are stupid. In operant conditioning, you have two kinds of stimulus. You have the food for a hungry rat, or electrodes in his pleasure centers, or whatever. That's positive stimulus. You have the electric shock grid in the floor, usually. That's negative stimulus. Camp was the same way; you got interviewed about twice a week. They'd bring you to a room with a drain in the floor, put an induction rig on your head and watch what your brain was doing, and talk to you. Ask questions. Watch what your head did. If you thought the wrong things, or didn't answer their questions, one guy would take you. Always the same guy. “You fail,” he'd say. “Get up. Get undressed.” And you'd throw up. After that, your life would suck worse than usual for a while. The camps were being inspected by the U.N. and the Red Cross, so we couldn't be too marked up. But they found ways around that.” Damn it, I'm past this. It was a long time ago. Ancient fucking history.

“Why not do it all in virt?”

“Decks in those days were pretty primitive. You had to work a little for the immersion effect, so the stimulus had to be done the old school way. Nowadays, yeah, we just do it digitally. Technology marches on.”

“So … what happened if you thought the right things? Answered their questions? In Interrogation and Reeducation, I mean.”

“They were just as thorough with the pleasure side of things. Have to be, for conditioning to work. It's the contrast that gets you. If you thought the right things in the interview, the other guy would take you and do something nice to you. Or for you. Or with you. However you want to look at it. Some days it'd be a good meal. Whatever you wanted to eat. And a hot shower. Some days it'd be ice cream, with whatever you asked for over it. Simple stuff. Comforts. And they'd always have the same guy give it to you. Pretty soon … you'd start to see your Mr. Right as a pretty wonderful person. You'd get to know each other, and you didn't want to disappoint him. Or her. They didn't let you sleep much, and you were always a little bit hungry. You learn better that way.”

“How did you go from there to Interpol Covert?” She's got a mouth full of bologna sandwich. It tastes good to me, all out of proportion.

“Interpol started putting Covert together. They needed everything. Interrogation experts, field agents, uniforms, the works. By the time I heard about this, I was pretty much done at the camp. My Mr. Right told me he was going. He also said that as a Combat Info-war specialist, I'd be a pretty hot property to them. Another outfit to work for, you know? A good one. Do the math. The truth is, my Mr. Right was so important to me, I couldn't bear to lose him. So when they offered me the chance, I signed on too.”

“What about Mr. Right?”

“I married him.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“So what happened to him?”

I have to chuckle a little, in spite of myself. “You've met him.”

“What? I…” It takes her a moment. Then it dawns. “Oh. My. God. Director Neil? You married him? Gross!” She chokes on her sandwich a bit. Takes a big drink of milk to wash it down.

“Told you not to talk with your mouth full.” Sigh a little. “Robert was there with me, Mick. He was the only bright spot in my whole universe for the four years I was in the camp. And he can be … charming. Gentle. When it suits him.”

Micki shudders. “I should be grateful he didn't like me, huh?”

Shrug. “There are worse things.”

“Then why'd you divorce him?”

But I just shake my head. “Lots of reasons. I just… I don't know. I guess these things just end sometimes. You change.”

“Can you still trust him?”

“When it's in his best interest? Absolutely. And politicians like the Secretary are very good at making sure their best interest is also your best interest. Personally? I don't know anymore. This was … a couple years ago now, I guess. Right before I got copied. I probably served him the papers that night or the next morning. I planned to, at least. I don't know.”

“So you went from prison camp to marrying Mr. Right, to working for Interpol. Kinda kept it all in the family, didn't you? I mean, it's all U.N.”

Sigh softly. Oh yes. She paid attention in History class. She can probably remember some of this stuff, too. Lucky me. “There's a lot of boring history involved here, that I only found out about later. The camps were run by the International Commission for Control and Supervision of North America, the ICCS, like you said, which was formed by the Geneva accord and Resolution 2651. ICCS got called into existence by the U.N., but it was theoretically a separate body. Interpol actually predates the U.N. So technically, no. The U.N. did not run the camps, and they do not run Interpol.”

“Technically?” She nods a little, but there's a bad taste growing in her mouth. Boring her doesn't seem to be working. But, I stick with it a little longer. Stir things up a little more.

“Things changed when they had to intervene in the United States. There was a lot of wealth and military power, nuclear weapons, all that crap, just ripe for the picking. They didn't want other countries getting it, and they sure as hell didn't want it in corporate hands, so they hooked up with Interpol, and made us the U.N. police force. Interpol Law Enforcement Services split almost immediately into the Interpol Bureau of Investigation and Interpol Covert Services. Anyway. ICCS worked the same way. The U.N. paid their bills. The U.N. set general policy for both organizations, and there was the tacit understanding that they'd turn a blind eye to abuses if they weren't big enough to make the media.”

“They're supposed to be the ones enforcing universal human rights, and all that. They were then, too.”

“Politics, Micki. Human rights are how you sell policy and law to the masses.”

“You wouldn't look past the connections between who you work for now and the prison camp, Rae. You're lying again. You had some other reason than all this boring history.”

Something gives inside me. I don't know where, I don't have organs to point to, but I feel it go, and the wave of white hot anger follows it. I've had enough. I've had enough of being analyzed. She wants to know so badly, she can live with the damn truth.

“Fine. You want the rest of the story? Fine. When you were real good in the camp, you moved up in the world. Eventually you'd get to be one of the trainers. Just to make sure the lesson took for you, and you were willing. And there's nobody more devout than the newly converted. Is that what you wanted to know? I went from being a prisoner to being a guard. A retrainer. A Mr. Wrong. You want to know if I interrogated prisoners? Tortured them? Even people I knew? Sure. I did. And I was good at it. Does it make sense now? Is your curiosity satisfied? Does it make sense that I'd work for Covert now?”

Micki's quiet a long time, and I can feel the blood drain out of her face. Shit. Wasn't I just saying I wasn't going to tell her that part? She has the same feeling she got when she first met Neil. She gets it. I've screwed up again.

“Yeah,” she says, slowly. She's thinking about me. I can just imagine. Judging me. I try to keep my big mouth shut about the stuff that came before the camp. She already thinks I'm a monster. That's bad enough.

“Haven't you had enough fighting? I mean, Iraq, Iran, the camp, and all that?”

Damn it, what does it take to make this girl give up? Take a slow breath. “Iraq, Iran, Saudi, and Israel. I was there for the whole show except Afghanistan.”

“Yeah. Tearing down governments, dirty bombing oil fields and stuff. You Mijaneen were a big part of what happened to the American economy. We covered this in history last year.”

Look at her and fold my arms. “It annihilated their economies. The oil crash finished the job. That's why you don't have to wear a veil. You should thank me.”

“Yeah. So … haven't you done enough?”

I used to love this work. I did. I can still feel it once in a while. But if I'm honest, all I do is follow orders. Destroy. How can I explain that? Embrace the suck. Stand up. Carry on. I just let it drop.

She's quiet again too.

I finally answer, “It's a mission. It's one I can respect. Enough questions. We have a mission of our own now. I'm not just here to provide historical insights.”

Micki sighs. “I hadn't forgotten.”

“We have to get with the 785s. Tonight, tomorrow at the latest.”

“We can't get with them at all while I'm grounded, Rae.”

“Wrong. You heard our contact. These are not patient people, and they don't pay me to tell them I can't do something.” Dig deep in me. Dig deep enough, and you'll hear my Drill Instructor from basic. Sergeant McNally is still in my head. Her words still ring in my ears.

“Dude. Mom said she'd have me arrested. She is not bullshitting. She'll do it. I know her.”

“That's a chance we'll have to take,” I tell her.

“You know they'll scan us if they arrest us.”

“I know. We'll have to find a way,” I tell her. Think about what needs to be done. And how soon I have to start shooting people Micki cares about to get them out of the way. And what would happen then. I think these things. It does not improve the state of our shared stomach, and it doesn't give me much to be proud of. But I try to keep them from Micki. She doesn't know. And she already knows far too much.

Micki finishes her lunch in silence. “Fuck,” is her only comment.

I have to agree.

Chapter 9

Stare out the window on the bus, as soon as we sit down. Reverie of tiredness. Mental fatigue. The neurofiber net doesn't seem damaged after this morning's square dance, but it may be depleting Mick's blood sugar too fast. Have to ask Mom … Mrs. Blake for a bigger lunch, probably. Micki's a growing girl. I'm tired of defending myself. Tired of explaining. Tired of living Micki Blake's life with her, already. What the hell was Robert thinking? I keep asking that, but no answers.

Familiar face. ‘Hey. Micki! Tell me about your jack. That's cool!”

She turns to look. “Go away, Kurt. I'm still not talking to you.” Look at him.

“You're still mad?”

“Duh.”

“Oh come on, Micki, I said I was sorry about that,” he says. Blushes.

“Kurt, you stuck a wireless fly-eye on my bedroom window sill. You're a fucking pervert, you will always be a fucking pervert, and I am not talking to you.”

Fly-eye microcams? I remember when they were state-of-the-art spy tech. Now they're the X10 lipstick cams of the day. Man, I feel old.

Kurt flops back in his seat. “Geez, Mick. You used to be so cool. When did you turn into such a bitch?”

But Micki doesn't rise to the bait. She folds her arms across her chest and scowls.

“He is kind of cute, Mick. Don't you think?” I ask her. Because.

“Don't be disgusting,” she says to me.

Laugh at her. Maybe with her. Whatever. It feels good. It truly does. Mick fights it. But we're tied to the same hormonal system. Our emotions are always going to leak across. I can feel her fighting down the chuckle.

“I hate you,” she says. But there's no venom in it. “I hate it when you make me laugh at stuff that's not funny. Okay, fine, he'd be vaguely cute if he wasn't such a perv. And a sophomore. Keep that in mind.”

I chuckle again. “Hey. Think of it as revenge for all those nasty questions, and jonesing for a cigarette all day.”

“What, you don't smoke?” she asks.

“Never got into it. Tried a couple times, coughed my brains out for five minutes, and figured I could find vices that hurt less.”

“Well, don't start,” she says. “It's a filthy habit.”

Laugh some more. It gets Kurt's attention. He waves as we get up to get off the bus. “Fuck off, Kurt,” she says. Watch him as she turns away, as long as he's in our field of vision. Disappointed. That's his expression. I wonder if Micki noticed.

Look around the bus, from the stringy, long-limbed thirteen-year-old boys and their rather more developed female counterparts to the pregnant girl sitting in the back of the bus. They all look so young. Look at one boy. Young man. Thin mustache, as only a late teenager can grow. Blonde. Blue eyes like the sky. Talking to one of his friends. Impish flash of a smile. Look away. Close my eyes.

“Would you quit that?” she demands. ”I can't see when you do that.” Give her back control. “What? That's just Bobby Freyr. What's the big deal? I mean, yeah, he's hot, but…”

“I just feel old, Micki. That's all.”

“Well, you are old. But don't get any ideas about Bobby. He's dating the senior class president. Bobby's graduating this year, too. He wouldn't notice me if I painted myself blue and came to school naked.”

“You might be surprised.” I'm taking far too much joy out of teasing Micki. This is getting out of hand. But. But.

“Oh, please,” Micki says. “He doesn't even know my name.” Defiance. Challenge. I feel it from her. I feel it as though it's my own, too. Okay. We can go that way if you want, Mick. “Make a bet?”

“Oh, yeah? What?” she asks.

“I'll bet I can make him notice you. Extra points if he already knows your name.”

“Um,” she blanches a little. Smile a bit at her, in the gestalt. “Um,” she starts again, “You know I was kidding about painting myself blue and going to school naked.”

Chuckle at her. “Trust me. Nothing like that, Mick. Nothing indecent, or immoral, even.”

“Yeah, right. Okay, what do you get if you win?”

“A nice, long soak in the tub. Quality time.”

“And if you lose, how about you do my homework?”

“You'd get better grades if I didn't.”

“Oh?”

“I never was a great student, Micki. I wasn't anything special. Just one of the other kids on this bus. Nobody you noticed. Unless you were on the volleyball team. Sang in choir. That kind of thing.”

“So how do you think you're going to get him to notice me?”

“I've learned a few things.”

She nods slowly. “Okay. Homework verses tub. I got a history paper due tomorrow. Pretty much any topic from the turn of the century. I figure you could write on the war in the Middle East.”

That. Wouldn't be my first choice, but…“Fine. You're on.”

She grins inwardly. “Snap. You're so going to lose.”

Assert control. Micki doesn't resist, and what the hell? I could use the practice. When the bus stops at its next stop, I get up. Move to Bobby's row. “Hey Bobby.” Smile.

He looks up, as though a little startled. “Hi. Um. Micki, right?”

Nod at him. “Yup. That's me. Congratulations. You know. The whole graduation thing.” Try to get the patter right. Try to let Micki's speech sound like Micki.

“Thanks, Micki. Looking forward to it.” He chuckles. He goes on. “Are you going to the end-of-year party on Saturday?”

“I dunno. I'm kind of grounded.” Roll my eyes. Micki's gestures. Body language.

“Aww.”

Smile at him. “You gonna be there?”

He chuckles a little. “‘Course. It's my last chance to go. Wouldn't miss it for the world.”

Lean forward just a little. Invade his space a bit. He glances down the neck of Micki's tank top. “Well, then,” I say, “I'll have to try, won't I? Maybe see you there?” Give him another smile. He chuckles, looking a little shy.

“Maybe,” he says, and smiles back.

“Blake, get back to your seat and sit down!” the bus driver yells. “We're moving.”

I sit Micki down in her seat. Give her control back. Try not to smirk. Too much.

“Oh. My. God,” she says.

“What?”

“He's like, the most popular guy in the school, and a senior, and graduating, and you just flirted with him. With my body.”

“Yeah, and?”

“He… ” she squirms.

I can feel the flush rising to her cheeks. “Say it.” Definitely smirking now.

“He noticed me. He even knew my name.”

“Yup.” Chuckle at her a little.

“How did you know? That he'd notice, I mean.” I should not, as a rational adult, feel such a sense of victory from this as I do. But I'll take it. I could use it. I might even get to like it.

“It's the kind of thing you talk about at reunions, Micki. ‘Hey, I remember you. You were the star football player. Voted most desirable guy in the yearbook.’ And he says, ‘Yeah, I remember you, too. You were the yearbook photographer. The quiet one. I always wanted to ask you out.’ And you both laugh, but in the back of your mind, you think, ‘Aw, shit, I wish I'd known before you were married.’ Well. Now you know.”

“You were a yearbook photographer?” she asks.

“Yeah, but that's not the point.”

Micki sighs. “Rae, I get it. Geez. Don't beat me over the head with it.”

“You feel afraid.”

“Maybe I am,” she says.

“Know what? So are most guys.”

Chapter 10

The bus was air-conditioned. And that's all well and good, save that eventually you have to get out. It's thirty-eight degrees. Mick and I both do the right thing automatically. Slow down a little. Breathe more slowly. Move a little more slowly. Sweat. Mick grew up here. I learned in the desert. It's at least a little drier here today. Reminiscing a little, maybe. Or maybe I'm getting bleed-over from Mick again. Because it feels, really feels, like coming home. I can smell mildew retardant again. Diesel. MACS artillery smoke. Shiver in spite of the heat. Mick ignores me. Stop at the mailbox. Walk up the road to the house. In the door. Toss the mail on the table.

“Mom! I'm home!” she shouts. No response. Mick sighs and walks to the kitchen. Opens the refrigerator and gets some peanut butter, butter, a plain mason jar of jam, and machine-bread. Cuts the bread. Makes a sandwich. I don't think I've ever eaten homemade jam before. It's sweet. It's got spices. Plums. Orange-ness. Cinnamon. Nutmeg. I don't know what all else. You'll have to excuse me. I think my mouth is having an orgasm.

Micki eats her sandwich over the sink. I just enjoy. She washes it down with a glass of cold milk. Reads the note stuck to the fridge.

‘Micki. I'm out spraying the corn. Back for supper. Generator six needs an oil change, and two's gone into safe mode. Please fix these by supper time. Love you.

-Mom.'

Micki rolls her eyes. “Duh, two's crashed again. I told her the controller on that one was flakey, like, a month ago.”

“Got any spares for the controller?” I ask her.

“You're kidding, right? Spares are expensive. So naturally, we wouldn't have any. Anyway, these generators are like, thirty years old. They don't even make spares for them anymore.”

“So … can you fix the one that's there?”

Micki sighs. “Yeah, sure. Probably. Maybe. I don't know. Depends on what's wrong with it.”

Look at the time. Damn.

“Still too early, Rae.”

“I know, I know. How the hell did you find time to get in trouble?” You've got to be kidding me. How bad has this operation already gone that the best way I can move it along is to help Micki solve farm equipment problems? I'm going to get laughed at during the debriefing. At best.

Mick rolls her eyes again as she lugs her backpack upstairs to her room. The whole upper floor is sweltering. She strips down to her bra and panties and climbs into a form fitting, mandarin collared, khaki channel-fiber coverall. Hot weather gear. She rolls up the sleeves. Ties her hair back. Puts on gloves. A climbing harness. And a pair of battered combat boots. I wiggle her toes in them. Settle in. They're comfortable to me. Old friends.

“What?” she asks.

“Been a while. I used to live in this stuff. Pretty much this vintage, too.”

Micki snorts. “Duh. They're army surplus. Easy to clean. Durable. Work well in hot weather. Cheap. So, of course, Mom buys a lot of them. I fucking live in these things anymore. I'm probably lucky I don't have to wear them to school.” She puts on a pair of glacier glasses and puts the tractor hat back on, and we head out to the equipment shed. She grabs a couple red, white, and blue two-liter jugs of Double Eagle oil. The colors make me want to look away, but I can't. Micki is driving at the moment. She sticks them in the already cluttered basket on an ancient Honda four-wheeler, with a home-done electrical conversion. Goes back to the work bench and adds a Heathkit scope-meter to the basket. Pulls on her helmet. Unplugs the Honda. Turns the key. Accelerates out of the shed like the devil's behind her. Relax. Let her use the net if she wants it. But I can feel that the nerves in her hands, her feet, her body, her spinal cord, her brain's motor sections, feel that they all have done this so many times that accelerated reflexes won't be necessary.

Up a slight rise to the generator field. Mick opens the gate and closes it behind her. Cattle chew as they watch us, uninterested. Mick heads down the field. Stops at the foot of a tower and looks up. “Welcome to six,” she says aloud. Climbs off the four-wheeler and walks over to the power box at the corner. Unlocks the padlock with an honest-to-God metal key. Flips a breaker inside. Looks up.

The blades of the wind machine slowly spin to a stop. Droop a bit as though sad that their flight is over. “Hey Mick, is it supposed to do that?”

She snorts softly as she locks the box. “Yes, city girl, they're s'posed to do that. Big invention before the war was that if you articulate the blades, they can get out of the turbulent air and not take nearly the stress at the blade roots. So blades can be lighter, and you can let them trail downwind. That way, they don't have to have a big vane in the back to point them into the wind, or a yaw motor and an even more complicated controller to aim them. They naturally point themselves. Air-Electric N-50s. High tech. Very flash. About the time I was fucking born. Now they're old junk. Even when they were built, they were at the very bottom of the industrial generator chart, power-wise, and now they're basically a joke. Nobody wants generators this small anymore. Which, of course, is why we have them. Dad never could pass up a bargain.” She clips the jugs of oil to a rope threaded through a pulley at the top of the tower and pulls on the other end. The rope breaks almost immediately. “Fuck. Fuck me,” she says.

“Now what?”

She starts a little, as though she'd forgotten I'm here.

“I guess I gotta carry them. Duh.” She grabs a roll of rope. Reels off fifty centimeters or so. Ties it through the handles of the jugs, plus two more empties. Clips them to her belt in the back. “This is fun,” she grumps. Rolls down her sleeves. Reaches up to grab the first cross bar of the tower. Clips herself to it on a safety line. Pulls herself up to the crossbar. Her arm muscles bulge. The tendons stand out in her hands and wrists. It took me forty-two days in the Physical Conditioning Platoon to get that kind of upper body strength. And that was after spending all summer lifting weights. The running? That came easier. She sticks her foot on the rung. Hooks up a second safety line as high as she can reach. Unhooks the first one. Repeat, all the way to the top.

Wind whistles past us as Micki stops, looks around. Little hills. Trees. Off in the distance, a tractor drives through a field doing … tractor things, I guess. Probably Mrs. Blake spraying whatever on the corn. The other direction, another farm house, maybe a couple klicks away. Micki glances down. The ground … beckons, and my stomach slackens a little in an unsettling fashion.

“What?” Micki asks. “Don't tell me. You're afraid of heights.”

“No, it's just…”

Micki giggles and looks down. Bitch.

My head swims a moment with that creeping, irrational urge to jump. Hate that. But Micki's stomach isn't responding as much, so the feeling passes quickly enough. I get used to it.

“Just what?” she says.

“Normally when I'm this high up, I'm wearing a fucking parachute. I feel naked. The whole ‘sudden stop when you hit the ground’ thing. Now let's get to work. Get this done with.”

Micki laughs. “Big tough army chick's afraid of heights.” She opens the door in the side of the wind turbine's nacelle. Unclips one of the empty jugs from her waist. Sets the jug under the valve at the bottom of the generator. Grabs a wrench out of her pocket and opens the valve. Leans back a little to wait. I'm content to do that. For about three seconds. Watch the corn grow and the windmills turn for about another three seconds. The day shows no signs of going by any faster. “Marine,” I say, finally.

“Huh?”

“I wasn't army. I was a Marine. Started out as an 0651. Data Network Specialist. Switched for 0272, Combat Infowar Specialist when I reenlisted.”

“Ooo fucking rah,” she says.

Laugh. She smiles a little bit at it. “Micki, where the heck did you pick that up? You were in diapers when the revolution came.”

“I was not. Not by the time it was over.” She's quiet a moment. “I got it from my dad. He'd always say that. Marines. Ooo-rah. Or ooo, fucking, rah. Depends on whether Mom was listening or not.”

“He was a Marine.” Shit. I don't have a briefing file on Micki's father at all. Sloppy, guys. Really sloppy.

Micki nods a little. “Yeah. He came home after Iraq, though. He was like a helicopter mechanic, or something. He told me he could have wound up in the camps when that all started, but they interviewed him and sent him home. They didn't think he was a risk.”

“Good for him,” I murmur. But it's heartfelt.

“Did you know him? John Blake?” she asks me.

Shake my head. Her head too. “No. Don't think so. Sorry, Mick. There were twenty-thousand-odd Marines in Iraq at any given time. I didn't know them all. I knew one Blake in boot camp, but her name was Henrietta.”

Micki sighs, and wrenches the valve closed. “Figures.” She pulls off her glove. Wipes it over the valve. Rubs the drop of oil between her thumb and finger. Sighs again at the gritty feel. She changes wrenches and pulls the filter off the wind machine's oil sump. Opens it. Looks inside, at the thousands of tiny metal fragments. “See that? Bearings are starting to go on this one too. Piece of shit.”

“Can't get spare bearings either?”

“Oh, you can get them. I mean, they're all pretty normal bearings. But a full set is about four thousand bucks. Per turbine. And every turbine out here's way over its rated hours. Bearings go last, if nothing else does. Half of them, that's why they're dead.”

I start to get the feeling she's happy to have someone to complain to. Feel old, unused skills prickle to life. Find a way to make worn out equipment function. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. I used to be good at that. A long time ago. It feels good to come back to it. “Couldn't you cannibalize the controller from one of the dead-ones to fix number two?”

“Sure,” she says. “If I'm lucky and they have the same revision controller. Wind power was evolving so fast when these things were built that if they're more than a year apart, the controller won't be compatible with the generator.” Micki cleans the filter out while she's talking. I can feel the frustration rising off of her like steam. I don't blame her. Standardized parts aren't. Drives you up the wall. Another old friend of a problem.

“Can't afford parts,” Micki goes on. Can't afford to replace turbines, but, since we can't afford to lose any more of them, I have to try and cobble this shit back together forever. Fucking waste of time.” She slams the door to the nacelle closed, after finishing with the oil. “Welcome to my life, Rae. Mom keeps saying I'll go to college, but how? I mean, I know she can't pay for it. I'm not enough of a suck-up to get a scholarship. The truth is, I think she wants me to stay and keep fixing this shit. She can't do it. If I go, the turbines die. The combine dies. The tractors die. The whole farm basically stops working.”

“I don't know.” Look around over the fields, over the house. Watch the birds go by below us. “It's kind of peaceful. There are worse ways to make a living, Mick.”

“Peaceful?” Micki snorts. “Yeah, just wait until Mom finds out about these bearings, and you'll see peaceful. Each one of these fucking turbines adds like forty-five hundred bucks a year to our bottom line.”

Look to the west again. At the neighbor's place. Watch their wind farm turn.

“Like those, don'tcha? Yeah. Each one of those is rated at a megawatt. Figure half that on average for their actual yield. Do the math. We could replace the whole damn field here with one of those. Course they cost a couple hundred grand, when you can find them at all. Better part of a million, new. I think Dad paid something like five hundred bucks apiece for these things.”

“Who lives over there?”

“Schotts. Kurt's family.”

Count the windmills there. About a dozen. At least a quarter million dollars apiece, Canadian. Three million dollars' worth of wind turbines alone, not including the power management equipment on the ground. Which is, no doubt, expensive. Compare the two farms. Like two warring corporations. Resource for resource. “Does Kurt have a lot of brothers and sisters?”

“Yeah, there're eight of them, all told. Kurt's the youngest. Three sisters, four brothers. Why?”

“Are his older brothers cute too?” It had to be said. Micki's getting too comfortable leading me around.

She rolls her eyes. “They're old, Rae. I never noticed.”

“Sounds like they have a lot of people to work the farm, though.”

“Yeah. That's how you make money in this business. Breed kids for slave labor.”

It goes a long way to explaining why Micki and her mom are in such dire straits. “Mick … what happened to your father?”

She stiffens. “He died. I don't want to talk about it.”

“Hey, come on now. You put the screws to me all through lunch.”

She looks over at one of the towers toward the other side of the field. “He fell off tower twenty, okay? I don't want to talk about it. Not up here.”

Point taken. I leave her alone as she climbs down.

Wish I could look away. Wish I could take just an hour away, stop sitting in here, and clear my head. I have a job to do, and all this down time is getting on my nerves. “Sorry, Mick. That's never easy.”

Micki sighs and flings the jugs of used oil into the basket of the four-wheeler. “Yeah. Everyone's sorry. For all the good it does.” After a moment more, she sighs again. “Rae. I … I'm sorry. You were trying to be nice, and I threw it back in your face. I'm used to being able to bitch to myself out here, you know? Where nobody else can hear.”

“Happens, Mick. Don't worry about it.”

“I wish. You probably think all this is pretty penny-ante. I mean, compared to the camps and all,” she says, disgustedly. She flips the breaker on, in the power box at the foot of the tower. The lights in the box come on. Red first, then yellow, and the blades change pitch. The nacelle we were head-and-shoulders in, a few minutes ago, slowly begins to rotate. To point into the wind, and trail its still blades behind it. The green light lights. A quiet grunt from the turbine as the brake releases. The blades pitch to the wind. The rotor begins to turn. Slowly, slowly, it spins up to the speed its neighbors are turning at. Micki reads the display in the box a moment. Shrugs. Closes and locks the box.

There's a strange sense of elation as the turbine just … gets back to work, as though nothing happened. Strange, because I don't know which of us it comes from. I have to think about what she said later. Because the answer that pops out of my mouth, if you can call it that, surprises me. “Not really, no. Just different.”

Chapter 11

Mrs. Blake doesn't look askance when Micki excuses herself from the table, does dishes, and heads upstairs to do her homework. Though I get the feeling it's a little bit anomalous.

“You gotta help me with my homework,” Micki says.

“No. Do your own homework, Mick.”

“You were complaining about being bored.”

“I was not.”

“You were too. You talk to yourself.”

“Mick, look. It's important that we get along. We've established that. But remember why I'm here in the first place. I'm not here to be your invisible friend. I'm here for a mission, and the sooner we get it done, the sooner ... whatever. The sooner I'm out of your life. Wherever we both wind up after that are separate problems.”

“You really hate being in here, don't you? Living in my life.” She purses her lips slightly. “I don't blame you. All this is pretty dull.”

“It's not that. I can handle dull. I'm just not getting anything done. I want to get this whole operation moving. This kind of thing works best when it's sudden, and explosive. You get in, get out, and by the time people try to figure out what just happened, you're already off doing something else.”

“You're the ones who chose my life as your cover.”

“I didn't have any say in the matter. Robert Neil must have a good reason for it. That's how he is.”

“If you help me with my homework, we can leave sooner. That'd get the mission going.”

“You're pushing it, Micki.”

“I'm right.”

And the sun takes its sweet time in setting, and Mrs. Blake won't go to bed while it's light. And I'd rather not have to shoot her, because I need Micki's cooperation. So. Fine. Mick and I knock out a paper on the Yankees. The sources are out there to verify what I said. Some of the writers are familiar names. People I served with. Write about how the war in the Middle East was privatized, how the war became a way to funnel federal dollars to private companies like Freedom Systems. How those companies turned on the federal government when they felt they were well enough armed to do it. And how many of the top ranking execs of those companies, including the Four Horsemen of Freedom Systems, got away clean while those of us who worked for them sweated it out at White Sands. Those same Four Horsemen Robert hinted at in the briefing. I dig up the sources. She does the writing.

“You're still pretty angry about this, aren't you?” Mick asks me. “You're grinding my teeth.”

“Sorry,” I mutter.

And damn it, I don't get my long soak in the tub before we go to bed. Fight back the sudden, irrational urge to kill something. Or cry. Or do something. Anything.

“Rae, would you calm down? I'm trying to sleep here. What's got your panties in a twist now?”

Sigh, and look toward the tub. Shake our collective head. “Never mind. Just never mind.”

“Rae … there isn't time. I need to sleep. You need to sleep. We're getting up in a couple hours, and we're going to be up all night. Look. If you want to soak for a while, that's okay, but then we'll miss meeting the 785s tonight.”

“Mick, stop screwing with me, okay? You're pushing me around to see what you can get away with, and I'm getting fucking sick of it. So just knock it off.”

Anger. I feel it boil up in her hormonally. “Rae, I didn't ask for any of this, and I did not set this all up to fuck with you. There are only so many hours in a day, and in the real world, they get sucked up by stuff. So don't you fucking yell at me because I won't go soak in the tub and let you grope me or whatever. You can't handle it, you can fucking delete yourself and get out of my life.” With that, she rolls over and kicks the sheet off her bed.

I bite back anything I might have said. If we stay up arguing, we won't get any sleep. So I lie here, inside Micki's head, and seethe to myself.

Finally, “Rae?”

“What?”

“We're not getting any sleep like this. We're just pissing each other off.”

“Yeah. I know,” I tell her.

“Look,” she says. “I'm sorry I told you to delete yourself. Okay?”

“You're not the first person who told me to eat a gun.”

“I'd rather you didn't. It's my brain you'd be shooting at” she says.

“Wouldn't solve anything, anyway. We'd be dead, but the mission would still need to happen. Plus it'd be hard for your mom to explain why there's a million or two dollars worth of highly classified hardware splattered all over your wall. It could cost her a lot of trouble.”

“Leave my mother out of this, Rae.”

“Why? She's in the way. You could be free, like you were talking about in the car.”

“You leave her alone.”

There's probably going to come a time in this mission when I have to shoot Mrs. Blake. When she gets so far in the way that … but … there is this ache, like a cracked tooth with the nerve exposed. It's familiar, intimate to both of us, and we're sobbing together in moments, burying our face in the pillow to muffle the sound. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Eventually, the door opens and Mrs. Blake comes in. Sits down. Puts her arm around me. Around Micki. Both of us, really. “What's wrong, Micki?”

I can only tell her half the truth. Or maybe it's the only part of the truth that resonates with Micki enough to come out. I don't know. I don't even know who's driving at this point. “I miss Dad.” The voice is small. Weak.

Mrs. Blake hugs me close. “I know, sweetie. I miss him too. It must be terrible for you out there in the windmill field.”

Nod a little. Numbly. Shock. I don't know. I can't tell. Who am I right now?

She pets my head slowly. Kisses my scalp. “I'd do it for you, but I don't know how, honey. You know that.”

I can't do this. I can't … feel this much. Take this comfort from … someone … I might have to … please. Please. Just let this mission end, so Micki can … what? Go where? Do what? And who will tend the farm?

I think I'm driving. I don't know. But we look up at Mrs. Blake. “What … what are you going to do when I go? When I graduate?”

Mrs. Blake sighs gently. “I don't know exactly. I'll probably sell this place. Move back into town. I'd have to anyway. We have to pay for college for you. Don't we?” She ruffles my hair.

Micki's looking at her now, too, I think. Things are starting to clear up a little. “But,” our speech centers tangle. Like trying to pass someone in the hall. First they go right and you go left. Then you go left and they go right. Relax. Force myself to go passive. “But…” Micki tries again. No luck.

Mrs. Blake smiles a little. “Micki, the farm is … it's just … it was his dream. Not mine. For me, it's just a living.”

Micki slowly relaxes. So do I. So do I.

“You okay now, sweetie?” Mrs. Blake asks after a while.

Micki nods. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Good night, Micki.”

“Night, Mom.”

Micki lies back onto her pillow. Wipes her eyes. “Geez.” she mutters in the gestalt.

Take a slow breath. With her lungs.

“Feel better?” she asks.

“Kind of.”

“Let's get some sleep. Gonna be a long night.”

Get up. Get a big glass of water.

“What's this for?” Micki asks.

“Old sentry trick. You'll see.” Turn in. And I don't know who gets to sleep first.

Chapter 12

Midnight. Micki's on her way to the bathroom on auto pilot. Wait until we're back in the bedroom to really wake her up. “Mick.”

“Use the carrots,” she mumbles. Normal gestalt systems would filter that out. The carrier agent firmware seems to think it's perfectly sensible. Note to self. File a bug report when I get back.

“Micki. Wake up. It's time to go.”

“Mgbluh,” she says, out in the real world. “Go back to sleep,” in the gestalt.

But her body's already up. Presently, I'm fumbling around in the dark for her shorts. It gets easier as she wakes up and her more complete sense of body space takes over. She also stops and gets the can of bug repellant off her bureau. “You're nuts if you think we're going out there to feed the mosquitos.” Bra. Tank top. A liberal coating of bug repellent. Smells just like the stuff we used in the Corps. Same sticky greasiness, too. Can says it's Milspec 100% polymer dispersed DEET. It actually is the stuff we used in the Corps.

“Hey. Open the package we got today.” I tell her.

She fishes it out of her backpack. Tears open the envelope. It's pretty much what I expected. A phone. Some ice: encryption cracking and attack ice, the database fills in for me. Some brand new, blank Penguin-X ice. Still in the package. A handful of accessories for Mick's jack setup — wireless transceiver, some extra cables, and whatnot. And a gray holster with a Martini-Dreyse Talon Mk IV smart splinter gun. Micki blanches. “Rae. What am I supposed to do with this? This thing's a jail sentence waiting to happen.”

“Yeah. I figured that's what might be in there. Good thing we didn't open it at school.” I tell her. “Relax. I know what I'm doing.” Or … I will. I've never actually seen the Mk IV. The Mk II was all the rage when I was copied. And engineers love to change things.

CAF0.35b2.1: Searching supplemental module database…

Found M&D Talon Mk IV.

Loading neurofiber interface firmware.

Loading user knowledgebase.

After a moment's hesitation, I give Micki the knowledge fast-load too. She's fired rifles, it turns out. I can feel the skills hook up in her brain.

“Guh,” she says. “I feel dirty.”

“Combat pistol knowledgebase for this thing. I wanted you to have a chance if something happens to me.”

“Like what?” she asks. I don't answer. Don't know. Like so much of my life, it seemed like a good idea at the time. She seems content to let me deal with the pistol, anyway.

Peel the re-stick glue strip, and stick the holster in the waistband of her cutoffs in the back. Make sure the tanktop covers it, although the passive matrix chameleopoly holster will blend it into her skin pretty effectively, given time. It's a small pistol. Slip it out of the holster. Let the neurofiber net in my hand talk to the gun inductively through the grips. Log in. Set the password. Read the menu. Set up the smart splinters. Each one is a mega-dose of tranquilizer, enough to kill someone. But you can also set them in nonlethal mode, where the splinter won't let the victim's blood concentration go too high, or let their blood oxygen level go too low. Okay, sure. Tell all the splinters in the gun that we want nonlethal action for the moment. Check the fuel in the magazine. Mk II magazines occasionally shipped with no fuel in them. Hopefully that's a bug they worked out. This one's fine. All that in a second or two. Slide the gun back in the holster, and flip the re-stick glue flap closed, and give control back to Micki.

Micki throws the new ice in her backpack, along with her own, and the deck.

“Don't forget about the trace virus in your ice. And your deck firmware,” I tell her.

“Surprised you don't want that left in there.”

“They don't pay me to leave trace evidence lying around. They pay me for results.”

Micki nods a little. “I hadn't forgotten. I'll flush it out when we get there. Now come on, I've got a bus to catch,” she says.

“What bus?”

Micki climbs out her window and drops softly onto the roof of the porch, and from there to the ground in one jump.

“Trust me,” she says.

She looks back at the house a moment, toward the other bedroom upstairs, and sighs. Then walks around the side of the house and grabs a bicycle. Slings her backpack on, and pedals away. The dirt road unwinds under us, and in the darkness, the trees lining it seem like a forest, and it's all far, far too quiet. At least the air has cooled off some, though the wet smell of the moisture it can't quite contain anymore makes me think it's going to rain soon, despite the clear sky. I'm a dry-lander. And this is not my home. It makes me wary.

Take a right onto Vine. Head east, under the highway. Keep going to Heth Drive, which, according to the map I downloaded, turns into Old Highway 81. We stop there, on the off-ramp. I keep expecting there to be cars, but there aren't any. Just a million-and-one bugs chirping, and a clear sky overhead. Five roads meet in the middle of nowhere. It sounds like the setup for a joke. Or a slasher movie.

“Micki. You come out here often, all alone? You could get picked up by the banjo player from Deliverance, and nobody'd have any clue what happened to you. You'd just be a picture on the wall in the post office. Maybe two, if they found your body someplace.”

“Don't start with me, Rae. Besides. I'm not alone. You're here. Remember?”

“Yeah. Yeah. It's just…”

“You're worrying about me. This is my life. I didn't ask you to come along.”

I am worrying about her. And I shouldn't. That has to stop. But… “I've seen how bad it can be. You know? I had one case where a slavery ring picked girls up in places like this. Some of the stuff those girls went through made the camps look like playschool. It was a really, really nasty op.” Not least because our intel suggested that one or more of the Four Horsemen was behind it. Robert let me off the leash. Turned out to be a false alarm, so the body count may not have been entirely justified. Except maybe in the flesh of those poor girls. It makes the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Micki's neck. Whatever. Funny. All I remember at the end of that op was frustration.

“Rae, geez, calm down. Nobody comes here unless they live here or unless they're selling something to people who do. No white slavers, no rum runners, hell, most of our drugs are locally made or grown. If it was exciting, I might think about staying.”

“You'd be surprised.” But there are lights coming down the road we're facing. A battered Winnebago pulls out onto the off ramp and stops on the shoulder just past us.

Micki wheels her bike to it. Hands the bike in the door to someone I can't see for the bright light inside. Climbs up after it. Closes the door behind us. Turns around. “Hi…” but she's cut off rather rudely with the muzzle of some Whitney and Schoefield MetalStak gun or other. “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Kari. Easy! It's me!”

“Maybe,” Kari says. “Maybe not. You were gone a long time, Mick. Gotta check you out.”

Kari is short, pale, a hundred-fifty centimeters or so. Her hair is bleached fiber-optic clear-white to contrast with exotic black eyes. Color implants, probably. She's wearing custom body armor, also white, though it's unzipped to show off her considerable cleavage. Someone's been to the body-marts, and bought the whole program, maybe. But the stance bothers me. There's a grace and a smoothness to how she moves that says martial arts, neuro-wiring, and probably muscle resequencing of her own. Her ears are ringed with piercings, and a stud in her tongue clicks against her teeth now and then when she talks.

She has a rough voice. A voice that's inhaled a lot of smoke. She's not what I was expecting at all. This could be bad. No matter how fast Mick and I go, it's pretty much a certainty that this Kari will get at least one shot off. At this range, she'd be hard pressed to miss. Ease both of Mick's hands slowly where Kari can see them. Take a good look at her.

Micki growls. “So check me the fuck out, and get that fucking cannon out of my face. Geez, Kari. Get a grip. I had some complications, that's all.”

Someone steps behind Micki and plugs something into her neck. I swear, the next person who plugs something in back there without asking is going to get kicked in the balls. Hard. I go to ground as fast as I can. Stop interacting with the jack altogether, just let it route through to Micki's brain like normal people's hardware. Block access to her wired nerves. Feel the scanning ice probe around in the neurofiber hardware I call my mind. Try to stay passive. Let it go through. Don't let it know I'm here. Try to be nothing for a few minutes.

Then it's gone. Disconnected.

“Scan ice says she's clean.” The voice from behind us says. Kari looks almost disappointed, but she smiles after a second. Gives Micki a wink, and walks toward the front of the motor home.

“Geez,” Micki says, slowly. “You guys are mega-paranoid today. What's up?” Micki says.

The guy behind us circles around.

Look at Kari. Micki's looking that way anyway. Try to remember her.

CAF0.35b2.1: Searching face recognition database. No match.

That's just swell. “Micki. Who are these people?”

“You don't know?” she asks me. I don't answer right away, and she goes on. “Oh, all right. Kari, you met. The girl with the gun. Hari-Kari, she goes by.”

“What's her real name?”

Micki shrugs, inwardly. “You tell me.” She turns toward the guy who was behind us. He's two hundred cents tall if he's an inch. Very muscular. Blonde. Blue-eyed. Hair cut down to stubble. And he has that hyper-masculine smell I always associate with steroids. Army surplus body armor and desert camo ACUs, but he has the same grace, the same stance, echoed in his larger, bulkier frame.

“This is The Ed,” Micki says. “He's Kari's twin brother. They're our main muscle. Don't screw with them.”

“Micki. I can get their names from you, or run them the next time we talk to our handlers. Come on. Don't play games with me.”

She's quiet a moment. “Carlotta Sargent. Eddy Sargent. They used to be tech-ninjas out of Vancouver. Now they're here. Just like you.”

I wish I could whistle. “They're pretty impressive. What are they doing here?” I ask her.

“Beats me. Might be waiting for something to cool off back in CalTech. I don't know. I'm the new kid, nobody tells me much. Turns out they're right not to,” she says, bitterly.

“We can't have this argument now, Mick. This is why I'm here. What you signed up for, remember?”

“Shut up, will you?” she says. Before I can reply, she looks at Ed. The Ed. “Dude. What's up?”

Ed shrugs at Micki's question. “Stuff. Rumors. You know.”

The Winnebago lurches into motion. We go sit down. Kari sits next to Micki and raises her boots to the table. They're white too. Ed goes forward, flops into the seat next to the driver. Buckles his seatbelt. Another guy settles at the table across from us. Give him a good look, but get nothing again.

“Carl Horst.” Micki fills in for me. “Sparks. He's a fixer. Master hacker. Basically I do what he does.”

Sparks is younger. Only a little older than Micki, maybe. Scruffy beard. Long hair of questionable cleanliness. Significant pot belly under a black t-shirt and over jeans. He lights a cigarette. “The day you left, we got wind from someone in the Topeka Police that a hit went down in an office in Topeka. TPD responded to the call, and found twenty-seven people dead. TPD's data guys had just enough time to do a preliminary trace, and discovered that all of KanREN was getting relayed through the place. But before the TPD could get any deeper, Interpol stepped in with a warrant to claim all the bodies, saying they were Interpol agents, and that the building was an intercept office.”

“Shit. They were filtering all of KanREN?”

She looks at me in the gestalt. “And the best you could pick up was me?” she adds inwardly.

But I don't know any more than she does. She's right. It doesn't make much sense. Robert's up to something, but he surely hasn't told me what, yet. He's like that, sometimes.

“Yeah,” Sparks says. “Sick, huh? It gets better. The Topeka cops went to the RCMP and they took the case up to federal court. The RCMP got Interpol's warrant suspended, but at some point, someone worked a deal, because next thing the guys at the TPD knew, the RCMP and the Attorney General dropped the case, and suspended the investigation. Took the whole business out of the Topeka police's hands. Now supposedly the RCMP confiscated all the intercept equipment, so KanREN's clean again, but everyone's a little paranoid that the RCMP is sniffing it now, and that they're gonna crack down on us just so Interpol doesn't come poking around again.”

“Fucking great. How are we supposed to earn a living now?” Mick's a little annoyed. I don't blame her. Having a gun stuck in your face is a great way to wind up needing a change of underwear. Hell, I'm annoyed. Even in the circles I run in, it's not exactly polite.

“Yeah,” he says. “Everybody's nervous. All the gangs that know about this. Nobody's seen anything like this before. Which is why I don't buy it.” Sparks goes on. He's been dying to tell someone this story, and it shows. “Think about it. Someone out there walked into this office, butchered twenty-seven Interpol agents in less than a minute, and walked away without a trace. Agents are seriously wired. State-of-the-art. Even U.N. shock troops shouldn't be able to do that.”

Micki looks at Sparks. I can feel the blood drain out of her face. Tell you what. If it were my face, I'd probably do the same thing. We've seen the video. “Sounds like there's a new player around. Someone big. And that's who everyone‘s after.”

Sparks grins a little. “Body'd think we hired you for your brains, Mick. Yeah, that's exactly what I think. And whoever it is, he's dangerous.”

“Yeah,” Micki says. “That explains a few things. I got picked up by the Interpol guys in San Diego. They interrogated me for a while about that hit. They thought we did it, I guess. Or that we might know who did.”

I have to look sharply at Micki too. “Mick? What are you doing?”

She runs her front teeth over her bottom lip, and I can taste the cigarette she's jonesing for. Nudge her adrenals again, tell her pancreas to let her blood sugar go up a little. The craving passes. “Gathering information,” she says in the gestalt. “Work with me.”

Kari looks at Micki sharply. “Interpol picked you up?”

Micki shrugs. “No biggie. I told them I didn't know jack, and they let me go. Nothing they had on me went over the golden limit, so no jail time, and nobody popped my cherry. I even made my appointment on time.”

Kari laughs at Micki.

Sparks rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “We're a bad influence on you, kid.”

Kari asks, “So if you made your appointment, what did keep you in San Diego? If you weren't losing your virginity to some…” Kari's voice grows breathy, and she leans close to Micki, until her breath tickles across Mick's cheek, “…sweaty, desperate man in some squalid TexMex jail cell?”

“Eww!” is Micki's reaction, and she pulls away from Kari a bit.

Kari laughs at her.

Micki sighs a little. “Anyway. I sold them one of my ovaries for an upgrade. There was … some bleeding, you know?”

Kari chuckles. “Ooo, you did have a fun trip, didn't you?”

Sparks says, “Upgrade, huh? What'd you get?” He holds the pack of cigarettes out to Micki.

Micki twists in her seat and lifts her hair to show off the four new jacks in the back of her neck. “No thanks, man, I quit. NeuroGen Research, N-forty-five-k. It's pretty sweet, I've used it in school already.”

“Dayamn, girl, where'd you find a deal like that? Are ovaries really that valuable?” Sparks asks. He glances downward, as though wondering if he has any of his own to sell. This is a master hacker where you come from, Micki? Wait until you meet Hallock. If she's still with Covert. And still alive. I just hope Sparks is good enough for the mission. Hope Micki is.

Kari whistles. “Our little Micki scored, bigtime. Probably some rich old bitch who wants to have a baby. Might be stem cells, too, or maybe just a transplant.” There's a soft touch at the nape of Micki's neck that makes her shiver. Me shiver. Us shiver. Kari runs her fingertips over the jacks. Her touch is soft, fingertip cool against the skin. “First time, and you went all the way, and then some. I'm proud of you, Mick.” She leans close again, and whispers in Micki's ear. “I want you inside me later, okay?”

Micki turns to look at Kari. I can feel Micki blush. “Um. We'll see how it goes, okay? I don't have a lot of time tonight.”

“You'll like it, Mick. I have a great body,” Kari adds.

Sparks saves the moment for us and leers at Kari. “No foolin'.”

Kari laughs, and I can feel the weight come off Micki's shoulders as Kari turns to Sparks. “Oh, I know you like it, Carl. And you always find such interesting things to do with me. I got a new mod just for you, baby.”

Carl laughs. “Another one? Shit, girl, time you're done, there's not going to be any meat left.”

Kari's smile fades away flat. “You make that sound like a bad thing.”

Micki finally interrupts. “Guys, get serious a second here. What are we doing tonight? If I'm going in on the séance with Sparky, I need to clean out my deck. Fuckers at Interpol put at least one tracker virus in it. They told me. Plus I scored some fresh ice I need to check out.”

Kari's suddenly all business. “You brought a tracker virus here?”

Micki rolls her eyes. “Duh. My deck is turned off. Powered down. It's not transmitting. Don't be so paranoid. I do know what I'm doing, you know.”

Kari reaches over to ruffle Micki's hair. Seems I'm not the only one who thinks that hair begs to be played with. “Sorry, kid. It's my job to be paranoid.”

Micki gives her head a shake. “And quit calling me kid, Kari. You too, Sparks. People are going to get the wrong idea.”

Kari laughs. “Whatever you say, Hotwire.” She turns to watch the darkness go by, outside the window.

Sparks says, “Okay. Lemme turn off the network switch, and you can power up and clean that thing out. I've got a master copy of your firmware here, someplace.” With that, Sparks sets his own deck, a Domaru RB7000, on the table.

Late model Domaru. Respectable. It gives me a measure of the man, to some extent. A late model Domaru is a deck you use when you're a work-at-home ice carver, or an employee in a virtual company. Solid, reliable, powerful, without the corporate cachet of a high-end Nova or the screaming performance — and price — of a Kuroto. It means that Carl “Sparks” Horst has gone pro, but hasn't quite hit the big-time. Micki's Zhang, by contrast, is distinctly third-rate, and older. She's a newb, waiting for her first big score, by that deck. Meantime, it will do.

Sparks plugs his deck into the jack just below his ear. Preferred location for one-holers. Easier to hide. I used to have one like that. He fastens his seatbelt. Sets his hands on the deck. Leans back. Lets his head slump forward as his body goes slack. Séance, they call it. Different forces, different slang. Same thing. Only a couple years ago, you had to have a sensory deprivation tank to go that deep, but technology marches on. Sparks blinks after a moment.

“Okay. I've blocked you off our local net. Go ahead and get cleaned up, Micki.”

Micki sets her deck on the table. Plugs the interface into one of her four jacks. Buckles her seatbelt. Closes her eyes.

“Psst. Rae,” she murmurs. “Hook me up. Geez.”

I try to relax. Settle into Micki again. Follow the theta wave induction that Micki's deck is sending her, to go deep with her. Fight the panicky feeling of not being in control, and of being somehow … diluted by her. This is her show. Especially when she's in séance with her partner. If I show my face, the gig will truly be up. Time to trust, I guess. It's like falling, like skydiving. You jump anyway.

The deck's environment blossoms around us, in purple on black, and I can feel virtual air all around. We dive to the bottom of the deck. Micki does … something, out in the real world. I can feel her body moving, like moving in a nightmare. Slots something in the deck. The environment goes black, and all I can see are the insides of her eyelids.

“Micki,” I whisper. But she doesn't answer. And I'm afraid.

Light flares. The deck's environment comes back, green on black this time. Changes to purple. Status indicators. She loaded the new firmware. I breathe a sigh of relief. Or I would, if I could talk to Micki's lungs right now.

Another piece of ice mounts. Registers its soft with the deck, which offers the ice its services, its interface into Micki's head, as well as the wireless network interface, which is frustratedly reaching out for any sort of connection it can find. A few isolated wireless access points along the road, but nothing strong enough to use; nothing fast enough to bother.

The new ice gets erased. Reloaded. Unslotted. Repeat the process. And abruptly Micki logs out of the deck. I draw back from her.

“Rae,” Micki says. “You freak out on me like that again, he's gonna notice in the gestalt. I gotta spell out what's gonna happen if Hari Kari finds out you're here? Bye bye you, definitely. Maybe bye bye me too. So get a fucking grip.”

“Mick?” Sparks says. “You ok?”

Micki nods. “Cobwebs. Still getting used to it. I haven't gone deep before with the jack.”

Sparks nods. “Yeah. I know how that goes. You up to this tonight?”

Micki shrugs. “Gonna find out, I guess. What're we doing?”

One of those awkward pauses. As though nobody's considered that. Take a mental breath, and borrow Micki's voice. “What, we're so paranoid about KanREN being monitored that we're just gonna sit around?”

She glares at me in the gestalt. “Quit making me say stupid shit.”

“You were thinking it.”

“You poked around in my head for that?” she demands.

“Do I need to?”

Micki humphs out loud.

“We could do a quick yop hit on Leo's Tool and Machine, in Minneapolis. Just go in, change their net presence around. Prove that they're not getting good coverage. Maybe get a contract out of them, some time. Milk run. Have you home before sunup. And if we get sniffed on KanREN, we'd be looking at misdemeanors at the worst.”

“So who's guarding these people?” Micki asks.

“Topeka Reapers. They're pretty big-time, but they're reaching an awfully long way to be here.”

“So we're going to step on the Topeka Reapers so we might possibly earn some money some day?” Micki asks.

“Gonna try,” he says.

“That's the dumbest plan I've heard all day,” I say, using Micki's voice.

“The fuck?” Micki says in the gestalt.

Sparks eyes Micki. Eyes me. “Yeah?”

Take a slow breath. “Guys, breaking in on the WAP to leave graffiti on their net presence is so junior-high. It doesn't prove anything, 'cept that WAPS are easy to break into, which everyone knows. I mean … duh.”

Kari is listening intently now too. “We're listening, Mick.”

“Damn it, Rae, you're going to get us in trouble,” Micki hisses in the gestalt.

“Trust me, Mick. This is what I do for a living,” I tell her.

“Think about it. I mean, you've got this new big player on the board. Now either the RCMP and Interpol are gonna nail him, or they're not, but the Reapers and every other gang are gonna be focused on finding him and dealing with him, and just as paranoid and afraid to do anything as we are.”

Micki murmurs in the gestalt, “And we're not?”

“Work with me, here, Mick,” I tell her, then go on with her voice, “So instead of pussyfooting around trying to steal a contract from the Reapers, what if we get the Reapers and everybody else fighting among themselves?”

Sparks cocks his head, thinking about it. “I think I see where you're going with this. If KanREN's being watched by the RCMP or Interpol, they'll have this little war they can come down on. We won't even register.”

“Right,” I tell him. “And if it's not, then we weaken all the old players so much that when this new player shows his face, we're in the best position to make a deal with him.”

“And what if he won't deal with us? What if he's corporate or something?” Sparks asks.

“Then the RCMP or Interpol will take him down, and we won't have to deal with anyone. We can have as much pie as we can handle and stay under the golden limit.”

Sparks yells forward. “Nate. You hear all this shit?”

Nate, the driver, yells back, “Yeah.” He looks over at Ed, then goes back to watching the road. “Be real interested to know how you plan to do all this, kid.”

“I'm not a kid.” It comes naturally. Micki's mind is flicking through all the options. I watch them go by. Pick one. There are so many. “Okay. We're going to be in wireless range of Leo's Tool and Machine. That's only fifty meters away. Instead of playing around with their WAP, we do a quick break-and-enter, and crypto-bridge their firewall to KanREN. Then we use that link to crawl inside the Reapers' firewall, and cause trouble from there. Doesn't matter if the trouble gets anywhere, cause it'll trace back to the Reapers. We make it look like the Reapers are taking advantage of this whole mess.” I have to be careful with things like this. If I drop into the slang I'm used to, they'll know something's up. And that, as Micki pointed out, would be bad.

Kari smiles a little. “Sounds fun. Been a while since we've done a B&E. You got the intel to do this kind of run, kid?”

Or not, I suppose. Note to self. ‘I picked slang up from Kari’ is a valid excuse, if I don't overuse it. Try not to stare at her again. Try not to feel too comfortable with her.

Micki's mulling the question over. I can feel it. I answer for her. “I can get it.”

Sparks looks at Micki skeptically. “You get your first jack, and you go super-hacker on us or something, Micki?”

Micki answers before I can come up with a good response. She looks him in the eye. “That's what you pay me for. Besides, if I can't come up with the intel by the time we get on-site, we can always just go back and do your milk run. Now open up the link, and let's dive.”

Sparks looks at Kari. “What about it? You and your brother think this is a good idea?”

Kari smiles. “It sounds fun. No offense, but guarding you guys while you sit in séance and drool is fucking dull. If Hottywire here can get data on the security system, we're game.”

Sparks frowns and shakes his head. “Fine. Okay. We'll give it a try. Plug in. Show me what you got, Hotty,” he says. He hands Micki a fiberoptic network cable.

“Snap,” Micki says, and smiles. Plugs the network cable into her deck. But inside she whispers, “You'd better be right about this.”

“Yeah, I'd better,” I tell her. “You've got some serious cracking ice in that stuff that came with the gun. Use it wisely, okay, Mick?”

Micki smiles inwardly. “Trust me. And for fuck's sake, tell me where to look for this intel.”

Close my eyes inwardly. Feel her thoughts cross into my mind, and mine to hers. Submerge myself in her. Force myself to relax. Like a low altitude jump. Hook up the static line. Jump into the dark. Trust your chute to open, because if it doesn't, you won't live long enough to worry about it anyway.

I'm calmer this time. The deck's environment jumps up at us, wraps around us in purple light. Feel another presence in with us. Ahead of us. Mick makes an adjustment to her Environment, Identity and Icons ice — her EII — and maps Sparks in behind us. He's made of glass, lit with plasma from within. Gaudy, but nicely rendered, at least. Micki's icon is less imaginative. A female figure in a purple ninja suit, with glowing red eyes.

“I'm in, Hotwire,” Sparks says.

“Duh,” Micki says.

The deck finds a network, through the Winnebago's switch and out over some formerly proprietary microwave link to a network provider in Salina. We're online, at a bit over half a gigabit per second. Pretty respectable bandwidth for mobile. The real trick of the Salina 785s? They aren't in Salina. They just network from there. Clever. Simple, crude, but effective.

“Sewers.” I remember an old trick of running optical fiber through sewer lines.

“Sparks,” Micki says, “Go get into the Minneapolis town net, and get a map of the local KanREN branch. Map it against the sewer system. We need to know where there's a fiber to tap. Betcha that's where they ran it. I'll go find stuff on their security system.”

I try to give Micki another hint. “Graveyard. Library.” It's hard to think thoughts into her mind. It's hard. But I'm trying to tell her to look up the last gang to secure this place.

She doesn't get it. She goes to the county courthouse instead, and pulls the plans on the building, then logs into the public environment on both of the security companies in town and gets an estimate to fit that building out with a full, state-of-the-art security system. She copies both estimates, then points the best piece of cracking ice she got from Interpol at the firewall of one of the security companies, and sets it to work. How does she pick? She goes with the lowest bidder. And chuckles. It comes from both of us, I think.

It's a matter of league. When you're a small-time security company in nowhere, Kansas, you probably don't pay for the best cryptographic algorithms, nor do you employ expert cryptographers on your staff. Some day that won't be true, but it holds this time. The ice, by contrast, is as good as it gets. Probably written custom for Interpol by The Lady, some user-contractor out of Vancouver that we hire when it absolutely, positively has to work. Her ice makes short work of the firewall crypto, and doesn't even seem to set off any alarms.

Micki searches the security company's systems. “Well, fuck me,” she says.

“What?” Sparks asks.

“Leo didn't go with the lowest bidder on his security system. Who'd a thunk?”

“Well, get busy on the other one, then,” he says dourly.

“Yeah, yeah. I'm on it,” Micki says.

“Where the hell did you get ice like that, anyway?” he asks, as Mick sets to work on the other security company.

“What, you think I spend all my time in study hall doing homework?”

“You gotta gimme a copy of that later,” he says.

“Get your own!” she grumps. “You got my maps yet?”

“Yeah. Dead-on with the sewers. Petanet's got a fiber backbone running down Rock Street, and it pretty much branches out through the whole town from there. They got a demarc underground at Sixth and Sheridan that serves as a point-of-presence for half the block. We shouldn't have any problem plugging a new fiber in there, assuming we have one. It's the same POP that Leo's normally uses. Course it means someone's gotta go turd-bobbing to get in there.”

Micki gets distracted. The ice makes it through the security company's firewall. She does a quick search, pulls up client records on Leo's, along with billing information on all the other businesses they've done, then backs out. Hit and run.

“Got the security system intel,” she says. “And about a hundred business cred card numbers. Want ‘em?”

I can feel Sparks' smile across the gestalt. “Hell yeah,” he says. “That bank of yours dried up right after you left, and I haven't been able to get back in.”

“Don't,” she says. “It's in TexMex. The guys at the Big I were pretty explicit about what happens if we get extradited there. The Rangers don't have a golden limit.”

“Shit, Hotwire. They pinned that on you?”

“Yeah. Micki sighs. “Lucky me, Interpol does have a golden limit, and doesn't extradite to countries with a death penalty.”

“Shit. That sucks.” Sparks says. “You sure they're not watching you or anything?”

Micki shrugs. “Doubt it. They had me dead-to-rights. If they'd wanted me, they'd have kept me. Too small-time, I guess.”

I wish I could take a breath. Micki's shaving awfully close to the truth here. It feels like having the security guy walk past me in my stealth armor, except that I have less control. And if I get twitchy, Sparks will know I'm here. Thought filtering. Learned it in camp. But it's never fun.

“Ahh. So that's what's up with the ‘hit ‘em hard and fast’ plan, huh? Big I's got your goat, telling you we're small potatoes.” Sparks smiles a little. I can feel it. Catch myself wondering how right he is, really.

Micki shrugs again. “Duh,” she says, but her heart's not in it.

“Hey, kid. Don't take it so hard. Everybody gets jacked up once in a while,” Sparks says it gently.

Micki bristles. “Don't patronize me. And stop calling me kid. I screwed up, and I got lucky. Now get busy and put the sewer and net maps together, while I wade through this security system shit.”

“Oh, yes ma'am.” There's another emotion leaking off him into the gestalt, though. One I can barely feel. But it feels suspiciously like respect.

“Shut up,” Micki says to me. After a few more minutes, she logs out, and I can feel again. Take a deep breath.

Tickling at Micki's arm. Look over in time to see Kari draw a marker away from Micki's skin. Micki rolls her eyes. “Don't you get tired of that, Kari?”

The stark white girl shrugs in her armor, and says, “No. Why?”

“Well, then, do it on your own skin. Geez, that's so kindergarten.” Micki sounds genuinely annoyed.

Kari smiles, gets up, and unzips her armor jacket the rest of the way and pulls it open. Her bare chest is covered from throat to waist in red and black roses, thorns, and trailing vines, all done in modern, high contrast tattoo ink, and exquisite drawing. Even her nipples are tattooed with thorns.

“Like this?” She shrugs the rest of the way out of her jacket, and lets Micki take a good, long look, then turns and walks forward in the Winnebago. Her ink goes all the way around, and all the way to the wrists. Her spine is studded with small, stainless steel points, one at each vertebra, to disappear under her hair. Her body is thick; heavily muscled, softened, feminized by a couple centimeters of body fat. Hormonal implants, for sure. Somatropin, and testrogen, probably. And if you're springing for that kind of work, you do the cartilage reinforcements and adrenal boosts too. At minimum.

I feel. Micki feels. Together we feel plain, weak, like something that just crawled out from under a rock. Micki runs her fingers over the doodling on her arm. Printed circuit lines for Micki, instead of roses, but the artwork is obviously from the same hand.

Sparks chuckles, and scratches at his beard. “Oh, yeah, sure, just give that girl an excuse to show off, why don'tcha?” He doesn't seem especially unhappy about it, though. I get the feeling he's seen it before. “So you want to tell her she's wading through the sewer tonight?”

“I figured we'd have Ed do that part,” Micki says quietly.

Sparks just laughs, and lights another cigarette. Micki looks away hungrily.

Chapter 13

Note to self. If I survive to be debriefed after all this, complain bitterly about the quality of my briefing files. I'm flying blind here. I fucking hate that. It's just sloppy.

Nate, Kari, and Ed come back to the table with us. Kari's got her jacket on again, but she hasn't bothered to zip it. As much as this woman's been in the body shops, as much money as the work I've seen on her already costs it's a crime that I don't have a file on her at all. Sparks, too. Nothing, though he's a small-timer, so that's less surprising.

I finally get a good look at Nate.

CAF0.35b2.1: Searching face recognition database…

Subject: Black, Nathan E. Alias Blackjack, alias Norman, alias...

Well well. The facial recognition database isn't broken after all.

Nathan “Blackjack” Black, Leader of the Salina 785s. Various juvenile offenses, mostly involving controlled substance possession and tax evasion, most notably cigarettes. Ran his own non-union sex co-op for a while with some of his schoolmates, before the union girls called down the RCMP on him. He's lucky that's all they did. The IUSW is not to be trifled with. They've been known to ship fuel-air bombs to companies who mess with their people or their business.

Anyway. Mr. Black's record as an adult is almost spotless. Which basically means he's gotten better at not getting caught. Interpol's gotten wind that the Kansas State Patrol suspects him in of trafficking in just about anything that will turn a profit: stolen goods, information, weapons, controlled substances, and so on and so forth. His looks fit the profile. He's energetic, ambitious, corporate minded, but basically a small-time hood by trade. Redhead, buzz cut. Goatee. One jack behind his left ear. Known associates: Michelle “Hotwire” Blake. As Micki would say, “Duh.”

“So, did you get it?” Nate asks.

“Huh?” Micki says. “Sorry. Miss Mongo-Tits is distracting me.”

Kari chuckles and zips her jacket back up.

Nate repeats his question. “Did you get the intel for the run?”

Micki gives him an annoyed look. “Course. I told you I could.”

He smiles. Chewing tobacco stains. Blisters of decay on his front teeth. Ew. I see why Micki doesn't look at him much. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Badass Hotty-wire. Okay. What's your plan?”

“This should be good,” Micki says to me.

So I tell them: “Basically, we send Ed down a manhole on Sheridan at Fifth to go find Petanet's fiber demarc at Sheridan and Sixth. Break in there, run a fiber down the sewer from Leo's, patch it into his switch, plug it into the demarc, and get back out before anyone notices. Then tomorrow or sometime, we break into Petanet, turn on the new fiber, get inside the Reapers' firewall, and go cause trouble for the Reapers.”

“I could have told him, you know.” Micki sulks into the gestalt. But I keep control for the moment.

“Sounds like a lot of work,” he says. “Why not just use the fiber they already have, both ways?”

“Duh.” It boils up out of Micki's mouth before I can stop it. But I think it came from me. Heaven help me. “Think about it. We go in on a fiber the Reapers control, and they're right in our face, coming after us. They can shut us down, or track us and come after us, or whatever they want. This way, we control the link, cause they don't know what link we're using. Things get too hot, we can pull the plug, or we can fight them on their home turf instead of ours. It's a lot safer for us plugheads.”

Sparks looks at me. At Micki. “Plugheads?”

Shit. Slang problems. I dump Micki back in the driver's seat.

“Yeah. Plugheads,” she says to him. “That's what they call us in CalTech. Duh. You're such a rube, Carl.” To me, she adds, “Don't do that! Shit!”

Nate holds up both hands. “Guys, chill. We're on a short schedule tonight cause little-miss-badass has to get home before dawn, or her mommy will get her.”

“Fuck you, Nate,” Micki says.

“Maybe when you're older, Micki.” He looks her in the eye just a moment, and she squirms just slightly. He smirks. “Okay.” Nate goes on, “I like this plan, overall, but let's put Carlotta down in the sewer. Eddy's too damn big. Mick, that's your show. You'll be riding with her. Sparks, you're with Ed. I'll pull guard duty and keep an eye on the séance. Questions?”

Kari looks considerably less enthusiastic than she was earlier. “Oh, no, believe me, I'm looking forward to wading through the sewer. Great plan, Mick.”

Eddie speaks up. “How?”

Micki looks over. “How what?”

“How do I get … the fiber in the sewer?”

“‘Lectric drill. Find a sewer pipe in the building near a toilet. Drill a hole. Feed your fiber in, and flush. The water flow should do the job,” Micki says.

“You've been poking around in my head, haven't you, Mick? That's classic technique,” I tell her.

Micki shrugs inwardly. “I know it now. That's all that matters.”

Chapter 14

We drop Kari off first. She walks casually down the street into the dark. Micki closes her eyes and logs in. Pulls up Kari's sensorium. Kari's tech-ninja firmware answers, and gives us a heads-up display of Kari's vitals, her system status, power level from her glucose fuel cells. Things like pain block and stim switch are blocked at this level. All we get are her senses.

“I feel you knockin' but you can't come in.” Kari chuckles. “Least not right now. Boss man wants this to be a ride, not a drive.” Kari slips a hand into the belt pouch of her waterproof coveralls and fishes out a short prybar. Looks both ways in the street. Levers up the manhole cover at one edge. She grunts a little, and the status indicators change. Muscle sequencing mode, balance all that muscle for strength rather than speed. The manhole cover is suddenly, trivially light. Balance back toward speed. She practically floats down to the ladder under the manhole. Back to power, and she one-hands the cover closed behind her. Back to speed, and she climbs down into the sewer. She doesn't stop to think about it. She just does it, as automatically as blinking.

I was wrong about Kari's eyes just being cosmetic implants. She's had them completely overhauled. Multilayer, high-speed, high-def retinal veneers. And the exotic black eyes are extra-large-aperture, multilayer zoom optics, with an LCD iris for light control. Very, very flash. First hit the street about the time I was copied. They take your eyeballs out of your head to do the install, and by the time they're done, only the exterior of the eye is left. They hide the wire to your internal power along the optic nerve. Very flash. Even I don't have eyes like this. Didn't. Who knows? If original me is still around, she might have them by now. Her eyes always did suck, even after laser surgery. My eyes. Whichever. With my luck, bifocals are probably involved by now. Kari, by contrast, can see in the dark. Once she switches on an infrared illuminator, it's like having a spotlight.

“Damn, Kari,” is Micki's only comment.

“I told you I have a great body,” Kari says. Smiles. At least until her foot sinks into the sludge at the bottom of the pipe. “Guh. Someone in this city needs to clean these fucking things. They're going to get a backup one of these days. And Hottywire?”

“Yeah?”

“This is an incredible smell you've discovered.”

“Sorry.”

I don't think Micki gets the reference.

Kari slogs through the sludge. “Don't be. I live to do this stuff.”

“Hotwire. Pay attention.” Sparks' voice. Still behind Micki in the deck's gestalt. “Get Hari-Kari into position. Ed and I are going after the security system.”

Micki pulls the security system schematics up and hands them off to Sparks. “Here. This is what the alarm company had on it.”

Sparks goes back to Ed. “Ed. On your left should be a magnetic sensor, with a wire leading into the building.”

“Got it,” Ed says.

“Hey Hotty.” Kari again. “This looks like your fiber demarc. BFR XDS. Not bad, for out here in the sticks.”

Micki jumps us back into Kari's context. “Okay. Yeah. That's the one. Go ahead and pick the lock on the cover.”

Kari chuckles a little and gets into her bag again. “Old school, baby. I haven't had to actually pick a lock in a long time.” She shakes her head, as though amused. It's a little dizzying second hand. Third. Whatever.

“Fuck!” Ed shouts.

“Oh holy hell. Damn it, Micki, how old are these plans?” Sparks this time.

Micki puts Kari's sensorium in the background and bounces over to Ed's. Same overall system, but minus the eyes. He's wearing Utanium (Quantum Protection!) light-amp shades, like a sensible person. Alarms are blaring in the background.

“Fuck me,” Micki comments. “Stupid Reapers changed the system. Fuck. Me. Okay. Um. Nobody panic.”

I relay the urge to take a slow breath to Micki. She does it.

“Help,” she thinks to herself.

Shit. I can't do much like this, without letting Sparks know I'm here. Machine ghost. Demon within. Shit. Can't even grit my teeth to think. But I do what I can. I think of the smell of roses. Micki blinks. Thinks about Kari. Where Kari is. What she can do from there. She pauses. I think about penguins. Micki gets it, all in a matter of a second or two.

“I'm on it.” She switches back to Kari's context. “Pull the plug on Leo's line. Twenty three. Plug it into a Penguini bridge, and plug the bridge into the fiber box.”

Kari's hands fly. I'm not sure Micki's could go any faster, no matter how hard I pushed them. Kari unplugs the fiber line and plugs it into the little wireless bridge in less than a second. Micki sets up routing through her deck's wireless interface, and watches the data flow. Leo's security system is saying, “Alarm. Alarm. Alarm. Intruder at the front door.” More or less, anyway. Micki stops that stream of data cold.

“Help,” Micki thinks.

Glance at what Sparks is doing. Ed crouches down and jumps, three meters straight up, and hauls himself up to a window. Kicks his way through the window. Drops inside the building. “Back closet on your right,” Sparks says. “Router's in there, and there's a sewer line in that wall.” Sparks is riding him closely. I take the chance. “Reset it,” I think, in as many words.

Micki pulls the security system data up. Sics the cracking ice on the security system brain. Looks up the security system protocols. Sends the “I'm resetting, please stand by” code to the security system's data line to wherever. Sends it two or three times.

The Lady's ice breaks into the security system computer in a few seconds. Micki skews the security system's realtime clock a few seconds back, then tells the system to reset. The timestamps when the resets were sent on the line and in the machine's log should match.

“Okay,” Mick says. “Alarm system is handled. But it may have called the police. So we've got two or three minutes, tops, before Ed's gotta be out of there.”

“Security system's down?”

“Down enough,” Micki answers. “It can't do anything without me letting it.”

“Great. Ed. Plug your line in, and get drilling. Do it fast, man.”

“On it,” Ed says.

Micki switches back to Kari. “Kari. We're gonna have to plug twenty-three back in fast, or the fiber will time out on us, and that will bring the house down. Be ready, okay?”

“Always, babycakes,” Kari says. “Looking forward to being out. And a shower.”

Micki switches back. “Time, gang. How're we doing?”

Sparks says, “Just about there.” Through Ed's hearing, I can hear sirens.

“Fuck,” Micki says. “Cops are coming. Make it fast.”

“‘M through,” Ed says. He looks at the hole he's drilled in the wall and the sewer pipe behind it. Maybe four millimeters.

“Good. Run your cable, Ed.” Sparks.

Ed feeds thin fiberoptic cable through the hole, threading it down into the sewer. He jerks out of the closet and runs, in a motion so fast it feels like deck flight, to the bathroom on the other side of the wall and flushes the toilet. Then runs back.

Micki switches to Kari's sensorium. “Look out for the…” But Kari's already been hit by the gust of water, and the fiber.

“Good thing I had my mouth closed,” Kari says.

“Put the ends on it, Kari. Ed's hooking things up on his end,” Micki says.

“Figured that out, Hotty.” Kari gets into her bag and gets out a fiberoptic stripper. It looks like an old-fashioned bullet mold. Geez, you normally don't see those things outside data centers. Kari cuts back a couple centimeters of the fiber. It takes a few seconds. There's a saying: slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. Kari is smooth and fast.

Micki switches back. Ed's finished epoxying a wall plate to the wall over the hole. He plugs a patch cord from the router to the jack in the wall, but the link light doesn't come on.

“How're we doing, Hotwire?” Sparks says.

“Putting the fiber connections together now. Get him out of there,” Micki says.

“No can do. We have to make sure this works first,” Sparks says.

“Shit,” is Micki's reply. She jumps back to Kari's sensorium. “Kari, please, make it fast, or they're gonna catch your brother.”

Kari snickers, but her hands don't stop moving. She lays the bare fiber in a fiber cleaver. Closes the tab that holds the fiber in place, then closes the other tab around the piece that's going to be cut off. Slides the cleaving mechanism into place and scores the fiber, then presses the cleave lever. There's a faint snap. She casts the cleaver loose from the fiber, and lines the fiber up into the connector. “The day yokel co-op cops catch my brother is the day Ed and I should pack it up and go home, Hotty.”

“Kari, please. Sparks is holding Ed there until we get a link light.”

“Shit,” Kari says. That's never a good sign. “Damn it.”

“What?”

“I broke the fiber end. I rushed it too much.” Kari's hands don't stop moving as she says that, though. She cuts the end off the fiber and strips it again. Then sets it up in the cleaver a second time. Sirens echo through the sewer, but Kari doesn't say anything. She finishes the cleave. Slides the fiber home into the connector. Crimps it tight. “Plugging in,” she barks out, and plugs the line into the BFR box.

Micki switches context to check on Sparks and Ed.

“Link light,” Ed says. “I'm for out.” The big man closes the door to the closet after making one last glance at his handiwork. It's neat, ziptied in place. Looks like it's supposed to be there. Out to the wall below the window he came in, and he climbs up it in great bounds, jumping from side to side, seeming to defy gravity.

I think about alarms going off.

“Oh, shit,” Micki says. “Almost forgot that.” She sends the alarm system another reset command, then jumps back to Kari. “Kari. Unplug the bridge, and plug twenty-three back in. Do it fast.”

“On it,” Kari says. “No link.”

Micki's stomach tightens.

“There it goes,” Kari says. “Link light's on. We done down here?”

“Yeah, get the hell out of there. But be careful, there may be cops right above you.”

“Where should I meet you guys, then?” she asks, patiently.

Micki switches back. Ed runs across the roof in a low crouch and leaps to the neighboring building like a great cat. Micki shouts across the comm space. “Ed. Hari Kari. Blackjack. Rendezvous at…” Micki consults her map quickly. “Sheridan and Eighth. Look out for Hari Kari coming up from the manhole cover. And look out for the cops.”

The pickup is anticlimactic. Two blocks away we pick up Ed and his very stinky sister. She wisely ditches the coverall, and disappears into the Winnebago's shower for a while. We drive off into the night. And by the time she's cleaned up so anyone will go near her, the 785s have gone to ground again, and it's going to be another full day before we can finish this. Lovely. It's a good thing Micki's only sixteen. We might die of old age before this is done.

Chapter 15

“Can't sleep?” I ask Micki.

She shakes her head. “Head's still humming. It's weird.”

“You get that from jacks when you're new to them. My first one I couldn't even use for the first month I had it. Neurowires, too. The new hardware's a lot better. And the pervasive neurofiber nets are pretty top-end.”

“Better than, like, Kari?”

Blow air out softly. Relish the ability. “Don't know. Newer, sure. She's state-of-the-art the way I remember state-of-the-art, which is about two years old now. But tech-ninjas. They go for the stuff that's just coming out of R&D. Designer hormones, joint upgrades, internal power supplies, the works. Anything that gives them a competitive advantage as a rental body, basically. Plus, a lot of them are total addicts for body modifications.”

“So…” Micki says.

“So even though you've got me and mine in here, I wouldn't bet anything I valued on being faster than she is. And she's probably two, three times as strong.”

“Mmm,” Micki says. “So what do you think of her?”

Curious question. I shrug Mick's shoulders. “She's a little twitchy. Most tech-ninjas are. Takes a certain mentality to hack your body like that, and then let other people motor around in it.”

“Yeah, I know,” Mick says softly.

“To which?”

“Both. But seriously. What do you think of her?”

“Well, couple things. And I don't think you're going to like either of them.”

Micki says, “But you'll tell me.”

“If you really want to know, yeah.”

“Tell me.”

“Okay. First. No offense, but Kari and her brother are not in the 785's league. They are first chair, front line, experienced pros. I can't imagine why they're in Kansas at all, let alone why they're hanging out with the 785s unless they were sent here by someone.”

“They're too good for us, you're saying.”

Well, yes That's exactly what I'm saying. A horseshit outfit like the 785s, with talent like that? But I can't put it to Micki in those words. “Um. Too rich, basically. Guys like them can make more on one corp job than a gang like the 785s will turn in a year. And they burn through it with maintenance and upgrades. You're probably looking at a hundred thou Canadian per eye for that eye job of hers. Hell, even her tats are worth more than I make in a year.”

Micki nods a little. “They've been with us longer'n I have.”

“I have to wonder what they do with their spare time.”

Micki shrugs. “No clue. So that wasn't so bad. What was the other thing I'm not gonna like about Kari?”

“I think she's trying to get you into bed.”

Micki laughs. “Oh Rae. Who knew you'd be such a prude? Of course she's trying to get me into bed. It's not like she's subtle about it. It's no big deal.”

No big deal, she says, but she's watching me awfully carefully in the gestalt. Wondering if I'll be shocked. Or upset. C'mon, Mick. Homophobes are extinct, aren't they? “You and Kari are a thing, huh?”

She's quiet for a while. “Um. Kinda. I mean … we never did it, but one time … the whole bunch of us were chilling after a run in January. The guys were watching porn, and it's like, ewww. Carl, especially, is into some pretty kinky stuff. They were getting drunk, too. Kari was up in the front bed, and stuck her head out of the curtains, and said something like, “I'm lonely, Mick. Come keep me company.” So I did. She was up there with some THC patches, and she gave me one.”

“Mmm,” I say. “I think I see where this is going.”

“Oh come on, it wasn't like that. I mean, it was dark, and it was warm, and we were a little stoned. Got undressed. Kissed and snuggled for a while, and after a while we just kinda lay there. She had her head on my shoulder and was just … petting my boob, and I was petting her head like she was a cat or something. Just … listening to her breathe a while. And listening to the guys watching porn, and Ed talking about his penis. I mean, yeah, technically we slept together, but … we like … slept. Nothing too serious.”

Shrug again. “Sounds nice, to be honest.”

Micki smiles a little. A little twist of tension slips away from her that I hadn't even felt tighten up in the first place. “Actually,” she says, “it was. I mean … I don't know. I thought I might be a lesbian for a while.”

“And now?”

Micki shrugs. “I dunno. Don't think so. Too many cute guys.” She chuckles. “Haven't done anything about it either way, though. And I really don't know about all the ink. It wasn't there back then.”

“She a good kisser?” It's too tempting to tease Micki sometimes. But I have to be gentle. This is dangerous territory with someone Micki's age.

Micki smiles, though. “Oh, yeah. Oh, hell yeah. Well. At least. A lot better than Kurt, the one time I actually kissed him.”

Chuckle softly. “Oh Micki. You're a little heartbreaker, aren't you?”

She laughs quietly, then shrugs. “It's … I'm so damn busy most of the time between the farm, and school, and the 785s, I don't … spend the time, you know?”

Close my eyes and hers. Take the luxury of time and think a little.

“Whatcha thinkin'?” she asks.

“‘Bout Kari.”

“You like her too, don't you?”

“I don't know her that well. She … I don't know. She comes from my world. I have some idea what to expect from her. At the same time, that bugs me.”

“Why?”

“Like I said. She doesn't belong here. She and Ed.”

“Do you?”

Shake her head gently. “Not really. At least, not that I can figure out yet. All I can guess is that Sparks is right, and Robert's new player is the one causing all this activity. But he was so completely vague about this mission, it's hard to tell.”

“And that bugs you.”

“It's a little out of character for him to be this sloppy, frankly. He used to be all about precision operations. Now … I don't know. It's like he threw this operation together at the last minute, without much intel.”

She yawns deeply. “I think … I think we're gonna have to deal with that one tomorrow, though.” She's already sliding off to sleep. I watch her dream a few moments. Relive Kari's lips against mine. Hers. And decide that I should probably get some sleep myself, instead of more dream voyeurism tonight.

Chapter 16

Wake up in the shower. It's one of those wakeups where you just know your eyelids are going to feel like sandpaper when you finally drag them open, except that Micki's already awake. She blinks. Yup. I was right about the eyelids.

“‘Morning, Mick.”

“Don't remind me,” she mutters.

I try to stay out of her way this morning. She's not in a very good mood, and by extension, as much as anything, neither am I. Try to plan my day. Probably another fun-filled school day, followed by chores and not enough sleep before tonight. I'm used to not getting enough sleep, but not getting enough sleep because of too much downtime? That's new. Not exactly an improvement, either. Bleah. Breakfast is a miasma of bright lights and Mrs. Blake talking.

“ … and then I need to go to Salina to the mall and get new shoes. Do you need shoes while we're there?”

“I don't really want to go to the mall today, Mom,” Micki says.

Mrs. Blake looks at her. “Are you feeling all right, Micki?”

Micki nods. “Yeah, I'm just tired. I'd just … rather stay home today, when I get home from school.” Thank you, oh, thank you, Micki.

Mrs. Blake frowns. “Are you sure you don't need…”

“I'm fine. I'm just tired.”

But Mrs. Blake presses her palm against Micki's forehead to take her temperature just the same. “Well, you don't feel feverish. Were you up late messing around online after we talked last night?”

Micki nods. “Uh. Yeah.”

Mrs. Blake's expression hardens. “Well then. If you can stay up late, you can come with me to the mall. You are still grounded, Micki. So no. You may not stay home alone while I'm gone. Sorry. I don't trust you not to run off again.”

“Mommmm!” Micki protests.

Oh, God. I so don't need this today. I don't need this disruption, I don't need this headache, and I absolutely do not need the parental thing today.

“No buts,” Mrs. Blake says. “I need shoes, and you need a haircut, Mick. And we'll get dinner. Then, maybe we'll see a movie.”

“Mother, I have homework to do,” Micki says. And a nap. Please, God.

“It's the last week of school, Micki. Come on. You used to love going to the mall.”

“When I was thirteen, yeah.”

“That's only three years ago. You make it sound like you were a child back then.”

“Yeah, well it was more fun when I could afford to buy stuff.”

That stings Lindsey Blake. “Look,” she says. “You're going with me. I won't have you in the machine shop or up in a tower or running off while I'm gone. If you're too hung over or whatever to feel like it, that's too damn bad, Micki. Understand me?”

“Yeah,” Micki says and looks sourly into her oatmeal. Takes a spoon full. Now this stuff, I have experience with, although the brown sugar and cinnamon are real, instead of being part of a mix. It's good. The eggs on the plate next to it are scrambled, which I adore. Missed them when I was in the Middle East. Except for steak and lobster night, the food in the desert was shit. People got food poisoning all the time.

School passes. PE class today. Micki passes her fitness test without any trouble. She makes me proud to share her body sometimes. Tough girl. She'll make a fine agent, I think to myself. A fine agent? What kind of life is that? Oh Robert, what have you done to Micki? And why? What was worth all this? You'd better be right about the Horsemen this time, or there's going to be a butt kicking before I give this body back.

“Would you quit muttering to yourself already?” Micki asks in the gestalt.

Blink. We're in the shower after gym class. “Sorry. Just.”

“What?” she asks.

“Worrying, I guess.”

“‘Bout what?”

“You. Your future once I'm gone, but all this classified hardware isn't,” I tell her.

“What do you care?” she demands.

“I ask myself that question from time to time. Still waiting for an answer, kid.”

“You're calling me kid again.”

“You're acting like one.”

“Fuck you.”

Sigh a little. “Stand down, Mick. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Wonder if we can catch a nap someplace today. That's all I really want.”

Micki snorts. “You and me both, Rae.”

Study hall. Only one more left in the school year. We go to it out of habit, out of requirement, out of that rut of existence I nattered on about. Micki's working through her homework in a shallow deck connect. I'm barely awake, just keeping an eye on things. Lazy day.

Message: Gestalt request, Kurt_Schott@ellsaline.edu: accept, deny?

Micki rolls her eyes and accepts. In Micki's mind's eye, Kurt condenses out of thin air in a single heartbeat.

“Hey, Mick.”

I don't say anything. I'm not here.

“What?” she demands.

“Just wondering if you're okay. I had to go to the doctor after I got my jack,” he says.

Look at him. I hadn't noticed. A single jack, just behind his right ear. Scarring looks a little rough.

Micki sighs. “I'm fine. Geez, everyone must think I'm stupid. I didn't get a back-alley job. I went to San Diego and had it done professionally. New hardware and everything.”

“Yeah,” Kurt says, “stupid me, huh?”

Micki turns to stare at him. In the gestalt with him, she asks, “You got a back-alley job?”

He nods. “Yeah. I couldn't afford a new one.”

Micki looks at Kurt more. “But your family…”

“Oh, sure.” Kurt says. “They could have gotten me one. They also think body modifications are like the number of the beast. No way would they pay for it. So I saved up my own money, and bam. Only it hit back.”

“What happened?”

“Some weird residual memory — and meningitis — were the biggies. Dad dragged me to the doctor as soon as he saw the thing, so they caught it early. I spent a couple days in the hospital, and a couple more in bed. This was back in January. Didn't you notice I was out of school?”

Micki shakes her head. “Not really, no. Are you okay now?”

Kurt nods. “Yeah, it settled out. Dad waited about a month to be sure. Then took me out behind the barn and thrashed me proper.”

Micki winces. “Shit.”

Kurt chuckles a little. “Wasn't as bad as when your mom came to talk to him about the fly eye thing. Man, was he pissed.”

“Well, you deserved it that time,” Micki says, and terminates the gestalt with him abruptly. When our own reestablishes, I can feel her cringing, though.

“You and Kurt go way back, don't you?”

Micki nods a little. “We grew up together. Boy-next-door and everything,” she says. “His parents are the God-fearing type. You know how it goes.”

I let the matter drop. But I think I know what she means. The kind of unreasoning, unrelenting religion that thrives on the pain of others. I used to make a living killing people like that. Toward the end of my tenure at White Sands, I was deprogramming them. Among others. Now they just annoy me. Maybe I'm moving up in the world.

Lunch. Afternoon classes. Bus ride. Home. It goes by in a blur and I try to stay out of Micki's way and get some rest. Micki doesn't get any until she falls asleep in the car on the way to Salina.

It only takes about ten minutes of shopping with Micki before Mrs. Blake lets us meet her back at the shoe store in an hour, with another stern warning of imminent arrest if we wander off from the mall. Yeah, Mom. Okay. I catch myself thinking that. I guess it doesn't surprise me so much after last night. Great. I could be resting. Could be preparing for tonight. Instead, we're shopping in this glorious consumer paradise.

Micki and I walk the length of the mall, peering in the windows, but we don't go in. We have a mission, apparently. It's made clear in a few more stores.

Video arcade. My God. What decade is it? I forget. They're playing some eighties Miami Vice rock over the sound system, and the game consoles have the first honest-to-God CRTs I've seen in twenty years. After a quick touch of Micki's cred card to the change machine, we have quarters.

They're real United States quarters. Eagle on the back. Washington on the front. Even some of the state commemorative quarters. And the President head ones. Micki doesn't notice. Cheaper than tokens, since the repudiation of the dollar. I doubt anyone thinks about them. But I notice. That same embarrassed feeling you get when you find out someone took pictures of you while you were throwing up at last night's party. And posted them online.

Mick walks over to an old-timer I recognize. One of a family of first-person shooters, ‘One Shot, One Kill’ is a sniper game. Pick up the rifle. Point at moving targets. Shoot them. A moment of whimsy. “Mick.”

“What?”

“Put in two quarters. Two player game. I used to be good at this one.”

Micki chuckles. “You're on, Rae.”

Micki goes first. She shoots like a gamer. Pretty accurate, but only if you assume the gun has no recoil. Animated bodies fall in droves.

My turn. I drive. Stance. Sights. Take a couple shots to zero myself. Focus. Relax. Let my mind go quiet. Take the shot. Let the net speed up past normal human speed. Balance Micki's muscles for speed. Take the shot. Take the shot. Bodies fall. The score mounts. Perfect.

“That's cheating, Rae.” It makes me blink when she says it. Like waking up from an old dream.

“Nah. Try it.”

Lie back and let Micki drive. Let the neurofiber net respond to what she wants. Let her drive her wired nerves more. Practice and all that. After a moment's reluctance, I pull up the memory, the years of experience. Let Micki use them. Let her hands learn. Let her mind learn. “Slow is smooth, Mick. Smooth is fast. Take your time. Sight in. Then take the shot.”

It's like watching a video tape of myself. Micki goes stone—cold-killer on me. Feel her go. Feel the passion for it, for this digital, low stakes mayhem. Wish I didn't feel so awful teaching her this. But stopping a slug with her body sometime soon because I didn't teach her to shoot, didn't get her in touch with this … that would be worse.

Micki looks at the screen with its spattered digital blood. “Kinda takes all the fun out of it,” she says softly.

I have to nod. “It's a means to an end.”

“You've done this? For real?”

“Some, yes. I wasn't ever a sniper, but … good enough.”

She looks at me in the gestalt. Then turns away.

“What?”

“I guess…” she says. “I guess I never thought about the fact that you've killed people. I must seem pretty pathetic to you that it bothers me.”

Stop and think. Really stop and think. Yeah. It's still there. “Mick, if it ever stops bothering you, that's when you've gone over the line. You kill when it's your duty. You think of them as the enemy or targets when you squeeze the trigger. But they're people, and you still know it when you think about it. It means you're not dead inside.” Yeah, Mick. G'wan. Ask me how I know.

“Come on, they've got head soccer. Let's go play that. It's supposed to be a lot better with a jack.” We play until we both feel better. It doesn't help her practice with the wired nerves, but … so what? Morale is important too.

Walk through the mall. Lady Marcia's Chocolate Shop. The smells coming from there are intense and dark. Apollo's Coffee Shop. I can smell the Sumatran from here. Hear the espresso machine. Mick wrinkles her nose. “No coffee, Mick?”

“Don't like it,” she says, and we walk on. I feel like the little kid being dragged past the ice cream store. Mission. I'm on a mission here. Damn it. Focus.

Pause in a CC Kresley's. Try on a leather jacket. Feel the quilted lining against her bare shoulders. Smell the leather. It almost makes me forget about the coffee. It's the kind of jacket that gets to be an old friend over time. “Don't,” I tell her.

“Can't afford it. It's almost three hundred bucks,” she says.

“You'll grow out of it, anyway.”

“Huh. I'm not getting any taller.”

“That wasn't what I was talking about.”

She eyes me in the gestalt. “You're saying I'm getting fat.”

I'd roll her eyes if we didn't need them to see where we're going. “No, no, no. I'm saying you're probably good for a cup size, maybe two, in the next five years. They grow.”

Micki glances down at her chest. “Oh.”

Pass by the body shops. Micki looks. “Surprise him with larger breasts,” the sign reads. “No incision, injection only.” Lipo-poly-bonded stem cells, probably. That's how it's usually done these days. There's also lipodissolving, face lifts while you wait, permanent hair removal, tattoo removal, collagen poly-bonded stem cells for lips and labia, nose jobs. Most of it for less than the leather jacket. Look away. Look back. One of us looks back, and I'm not sure who it is. But I don't think it's me with the body insecurity.

“Did you say something, Micki?”

“No.”

“You're not thinking about getting your nose done, are you?”

“I didn't say anything.”

“What's wrong with your nose?” I ask her.

“It's huge. It grew faster than my boobs, which is totally unfair. It's like all of a sudden everything sticks out and everyone's looking at it.”

“Wait. You're complaining that your boobs are too small and that everything sticks out and people are staring at them, all in the same breath? Trust me, big boobs stick out more and people do stare.”

“Voice of experience?”

I have to pause a few seconds and think about it. Sudden feeling of. Something. Try to picture my own body. My own face. “I … think so. It's hard to remember.”

“What do you mean? You were in that body for thirty-six years.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“What do you think you look like?”

“All I get when I picture my face now is … you.”

“Weird.”

“You have no idea. It's like being … your age again. When your body changes and you notice it. Like you were talking about. All of a sudden everything sticks out, or at least that's how it seems.”

Micki eyes her reflection in a store window. “Everything does stick out. And everyone is staring. I know what I looked like before.”

“Sure about that?”

“Yeah.”

“Show me,” I tell her.

“I have pictures at home.”

“No, give me your memory of what your nose looked like last year.” I wait, and wait.

“That's not fair,” she says, at last.

“What's not?”

“You knew I couldn't picture it.”

“Only, cause I've been where you are, Micki. Been through it. Came out the other side.”

“Yeah, but you got bigger boobs.”

“I said I thought I did. I don't remember. Yours are fine.”

“They are not fine. They're too small and too pointy and no matter what I wear they're like, sticking out there saying, ‘Hey notice me, I'm tiny.'”

“And everybody stares.”

“Yeah.”

I glance at a guy walking past. Make a quick memory snapshot of him. I cheat, basically. Something they trained us to do in Covert training. And it's so easy with the neurofiber net it's not funny. “Quick. What'd that guy's t-shirt say?”

“What guy?”

“The one we just looked at,” I say.

“You were looking at a guy? I thought you were looking at the sale at the shoe store.”

“There was a guy, trust me. Cute one, too.” Smile a little.

“I didn't see him, I was busy talking to you.”

“Exactly. So if you didn't see him, despite the fact that I pointed your eyeballs at him, what does that tell you?” I ask her.

“That you've got boring taste in guys.”

“Micki!”

I seem to be driving. I didn't notice the cutover, and I don't think Micki did either, but the giggle makes it to my lips and escapes before I realize it.

“That's disgusting. And quit giggling, people are gonna think I'm nuts.”

“Or just totally uncool, right?” I ask her.

Micki rolls her eyes. Which is a little disorienting. “Snap,” she says. “Snap. Not cool. Snap. Cool is unsnap. Fly? You gotta be kidding. Hot is unsnap. Snap is snap.”

“Micki?”

“Yeah?”

“You're hurting my head.”

“My head.”

“You're the one with her fly unsnapped.”

She jerks our head down, taking over control just as effortlessly. “Ha ha. Very funny.”

“Hey, made you look.”

She's quiet a while. “So you're trying to tell me everyone isn't looking at me.”

Look around her. Watch the people walk by a moment. “Most of them are blissfully unaware that you exist, beyond not walking into you.”

“Voice of almighty adulthood, huh?”

What is it about Micki Blake that I keep winding up talking about my past with her? Sigh to myself. “Voice of a girl who wanted to be noticed and found out just how hard it really is.”

Pause in the Bombardier Electronics shop. We don't have that kind of money, so we don't buy anything. Eye the decks in the display and the blister packs of ice. Wish two or three times that I had a proper expense account. Wouldn't fit the mission, though.

The guy behind the counter looks a little glazed. On closer inspection, he's plugged into the net. Probably doing security camera work, or filing faces away to match up with targeted advertising databases. ‘Hi, we saw you looking at our networking products at Bombardier, and we thought you'd be interested in these other products.’ Walk away.

Pass a place called The Head Shop. A bored looking Korean girl smiles at us as we pass. Soft lips over perfect teeth. Natural looking. No exaggeration to her face or her body — no bee-stung lips, no enormous breasts. No trips to the body shop that I can see. She must be brand new. Yeah, makes sense. You see a lot of North Koreans in the biz these days, especially journey-people. Lot of refugees from when the Chinese finally got fed up and laid the smack down on North Korea a few years back. News we North Americans tend to forget, being otherwise occupied. Ten years from now, most of these girls will be doing something else for a living, here in Canada, but industrial sex will have been their leg up. The girl touches the tip of her tongue to her front teeth. Subtle, suggestive without being blatant, like licking her lip would have been.

“No,” Micki says.

Laugh at her. “Wasn't considering it, Mick. Remember? I'm the straight one. Besides, that's a Union house, and you're underage.”

“Betcha they'd let me in anyway,” she says.

“Betcha they wouldn't. The only reason a place like this tolerates legal prostitution is, once it's regulated, they can tax it, control it, and keep kids away from it. The Union enforces their rules, for sure.”

“That sounds dangerously like faith. I thought you didn't have that.” There's a lightness as she says it though. She's putting me on.

“It's not faith. The IUSW has their own covert enforcement arm. They're more like us at Interpol Covert than anyone likes to admit. I trust the sun to come up in the morning, I trust Robert Neil to have a sneaky plan, and I trust the IUSW to take care of business.”

“You make it sound…” Interrupt. Body heat sense at the nape of Micki's neck. Go to maximum speed. Push Micki's muscles to their limit. Turn in a blur of motion, faster than Micki's optical center can react. Ignore it. Lash out with one fist at the human shape behind us that's only beginning to register with her retinas.

Micki's fist hammers the guy behind her in the jaw. Sends him flying back. He slides to a stop on the tile floor. One punch, even with her muscles resequenced for speed. Micki's a strong girl. Stalk to him. Check his pulse. Check his jaw. It doesn't seem to move anywhere it's not supposed to. Good. If I'd gone full strength instead, we'd have probably broken his neck. Read his nametag.

“R ... Rae?” Micki says in the gestalt. Feel her urge to rub her fist. “What are you doing? Why did we punch out Tom, the Bombardier Electronics counter guy?”

Take a quick look around Tom, the counter guy, for anything he might have dropped. Nada. Drag him to the Head Shop.

The Korean girl stops us. “ID please?” She glances down at the unconscious man, meaningfully.

“Could I just use a room, please? No company?”

She shakes her head. “Sorry. Union rule. Bathroom over there.” She points across the mall. And looks so very calm about all this. Old pro, then. Maybe security. Should have seen it in her. Her teeth are too nice. Refugees in the blowjob business go for clean and healthy. Hers are perfect. She's stone cold calm, and I know, I'm sure, she's calling mall security.

“Thanks.”

“Sure,” she says.

Drag Tom, the Bombardier Electronics guy, across the mall. Through the doorway to the restrooms. Take the door you wouldn't expect.

“Dude.”

“Not now, Mick.”

“This is the men's room,” she protests.

Ignore her for the moment and drag him in. Haul him into a stall. Close the door. Look in his mouth. Go through his pockets. Keys, ID card, cred card. Nothing to write home about.

“What are we looking for?” Micki asks.

“Skeleton key. He was reaching for your jacks, Mick.”

“Shit,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“So where is it?”

Stand up and look down at him. “I don't know. It should have been in his hand or his pocket.” I look in Mick's pocket for the optical fiber.

“Now what?”

“It's called brain jacking.” Rummage in Mick's pocket for a fiber.

“Jesus, you can do that?” she says. “I thought that was just a myth.”

“We can do that,” I tell her. Plug one of her jacks into Tom the Bombardier Electronics guy's jack. One hole, under the ear.

CAF0.35b2.1: Initiating NPDR 3.7 protocol.

One foreign neurofiber system found: WD20-200 on LUN 2. Mapping.

The firmware maps out his jack. Sends stimulus down each of his neurofibers, and listens to the response. His brain is a little banged up. It's not working quite right. Some stimulus, a lot of stimulus does nothing at all.

Mick's watching over my shoulder, so to speak. “You killed him,” she murmurs. “He's brain dead.”

The nerve response is starting to increase. “No, this just takes a little time. He's responding.” Data coming in. Finally. Take a deep breath. Link up with his memory. Open my eyes to his life.

Throbbing in my head. Pain with each pulse of Tom's heart. Blink my eyes open. Look up at Micki. Try to bring her into focus, but my … his brain is a little too rattled to do it still. She looks so small. Staring back at me. Feel myself flinch back from her, because it was that fist… Close my eyes again. Take a breath. Focus.

I can't remember being hit. Not exactly. It's a dim fear of Micki Blake, is all. Back up. Remember. The store. Clocking in at the store. Too early. God, it hurts. Forward. Skip forward.

Micki comes into the store. I remember thinking that she looks more likely to steal something than buy it. Jaundiced eye. I know a wannabe hackergirl when I see one. Tinge of attraction. Bare legs. Bare shoulders. Breasts swelling under her tank top. Eyes her. Triggers the security firmware. Gets an upload.

Tom drops away from me, along with the net. Again, damn it. Far away, I can hear Micki talking. “Rae? Rae? Fuck, not again.”

CAF0.35b2.1: Skeleton key mode established.

Fight the urge to reach for Micki's body. To override her. To take control. Let myself fall in darkness, and feel the wind rush up at me. My belly feels heavy. Tilts me downward. I feel. I feel.

Him.

“Hello, Rachel. Micki. Report,” the voice says.

“You're handling me personally, Robert?” I ask him.

“I'm not Robert,” he says. “Report.”

“Whatever. Made contact last night. The 785s are pretty small-time, but they've got good talent aboard. We're going after another hacker group called the Topeka Reapers. Get some attention. Raise our profile. So we can trap your big player.”

“Rae?” Micki's voice. “Rae.” Urgent now. “I don't know if you can hear me. Mall security is in the women's room. They're gonna check here next. We have to get out of here. What do I do?”

Shit.

“Report,” he insists.

“I'm a little busy here. Stop bothering me,” I start.

“Make time,” he says. “Report.”

“There's nothing to report, damn it! We're going to hit the Reapers and get your big player to come to us. Locate him, like you wanted. Figure out how to destroy him from there. That's all. Now go away.”

“When?” he demands.

“Tonight, if we don't get locked up by mall security.”

“Good. Carry on,” is his only message. Then he's gone. Tom's transceiver probably shuts off, but I can't tell. Someone has disconnected the fiber between me and him. Feel the tile floor under a stall hit me in the side. Micki rolls under one stall and into the next. The door to the bathroom opens. Booted feet. Micki jerks her jeans down and sits down, then hunches over and curls her arm around her chest, the other around her stomach. I feel frozen. Like I've fallen asleep in a fox hole in a war I never fought, and I've just woken up to find someone bearing down on me with a bayonet. I feel a little. Can't move.

They check the stalls. “Found him!” one yells. Sharp knocking on our stall.

“Go the fuck away!” Micki yells, pushing her voice as low as she can, into an agonized growl. “I'm sick.”

Thawing. The net is beginning to respond. Bayonet is drawing back, ready to plunge into my chest. And when it does, I'll be about thawed enough to feel it. There. Just the body core. I have to do something. Body core. Parasympathetic nervous system. Wait…

Someone kicks the door open. Looks down. “Kid, you see a girl come in here with the guy in the stall next to you?”

Mick looks up at him, and I can feel her face give him that deer in headlights look.

I send Micki's colon into spasm. Back her play. Make it real.

She folds back over. Groans, defecates noisily. “God, no. Even if I had, I wouldn't care. Leave me alone, I'm fucking sick.”

The security guy backs off. Human instinct. It takes a lot of training to watch someone else shit. To stay with someone who's so obviously contagious. Who smells so bad. Jesus.

He closes the stall door. “Sorry,” he mutters.

I give Micki's colon another spasm or three.

“There's nobody here now but some kid in the last stall with a case of the runs. Bitch must have doubled back on us somewhere,” the guy says.

“Fuck,” the other says, and they stomp out of the bathroom.

I let Micki's colon calm down. The thaw in my network continues. Mick's gut cramps up.

“What the hell did you do to me?” she demands. She leans her head against the side wall of the stall.

“Had … to convince the security guys.” Still a little out of it. I'm still. A little out of it. Putting words together in the gestalt is hard.

“What did you do to me?” she demands again.

“I told your colon you're about to die. Natural reaction.”

“Fuck,” she says. But things are calming down. Without real irritation, one's colon is inclined to do things in a much more leisurely fashion. The cramps pass in a few minutes. “Why didn't you do something sooner?”

“Skeleton key. I tried not to let it override you, and my net froze up. Probably a bug. But I had to back your play.”

“Fuck.”

“Micki?”

“Yeah?”

“You were brilliant. Even I wouldn't have thought of that,” I tell her.

“Unnn,” she says, and takes a slow breath. “Too bad brilliant hurts so much. Just … simple hacker tricks. What does your opponent expect to find?”

Nod slowly. “Good basic premise. But it still would never have occurred to me to meet the local law with my jeans down.”

Micki shrugs a little. “It always comes to that sooner or later with the law, anyway. Doesn't it?” She gets collected. Takes care of things. Gets up. Pulls up her jeans. We give The Head Shop a wide birth on the way out. Get a haircut, just a trim, that gets her bangs out of her eyes. Go find Micki's mother.

Chapter 17

This is the third time in the last twenty-four hours we've woken up. It's getting old. Very, very old. We slept through so much of the movie that I don't remember what it was about. Or what it was called. Micki's head shakes, and we agreed on doing it, I guess. Too damn many cobwebs. Splash some water on the face.

“Mick. You awake?” I finally ask.

“Yeah,” she grumbles. “Barely.”

“Up to this?”

“Gonna tell me I got a choice? You told the handler we were on for tonight. I guess we're on for tonight. Kari will have some dex patches or something, prolly.”

“You're just determined to fail a drug test in your last two days of school, aren't you?” I ask her.

“You know something I don't? You got some kind of inside info on the lottery at school?”

Shake my head. “No. I'm just a pessimist, I guess.”

“Just imagine,” Micki says.

We climb down onto the roof again. Drop down. Bike. I'm getting twitchy. The tree-lined road out of Blake's farm is a lot spookier the second time.

“You okay?” Micki asks.

“Yeah. I just … keep expecting animals, or snipers or whatever. Especially after today.”

“Um. Yeah, that is kinda the elephant in the corner, isn't it?”

Sigh slowly. “I don't know, okay? We've had two different skeleton key incidents by two completely different mechanisms. The first was plugged in, which is pretty much what I expected from the technical write-up on the skeleton keys. But this one…”

“He was a plant. Somehow they knew to watch for us at the mall.”

Shake my head. “Doesn't fly. You're already talking two additional cover agents to handle one moderately deep cover agent. You've already got two possible plants involved, Kari and Ed, and now we're talking two others? Keeping in mind, each of them also has a handler someplace? You're starting to talk a pretty big team. Even in Salina, people'd notice. And how would you insert someone into the school in the last week? Everybody'd notice a new teacher or a new student.”

Micki pedals along briskly. “So what then? You can't just program someone's brain like a computer.” She pauses. “Can you?”

“Not that I know of. Good thing for you, too. Otherwise they might not have bothered fitting you out with all this flash hardware before stuffing me in here.”

“They?” Micki asks. “Word you're looking for is we, isn't it?”

Murmur, “It's just a turn of phrase, Mick.”

“Huh, okay so how did they do it? Can't reprogram Tom. Can you condition him that fast?”

Shake my head. “I don't know, Micki. I honestly don't know. A lot can change in two years when you're talking technology. When they copied me, theta wave stimulation was state-of-the-art. Now every deck you see does it.”

“Didn't they tell you anything about how this was going to play out?”

“No. They didn't. It's pissing me off.”

“Or they don't trust me.”

“Huh?”

“Think about it. You know how close we get when we're using the jack and deck hopping. What if there's some part of this op that's so secret, just me knowing it too soon would bring the house down?”

Ponder that for a while. “It's a good theory, I guess. Doesn't help much, though. If Robert knew who his big player is, it wouldn't make sense not to tell us both.” Give it a more paranoid thought. “Unless he thought someone inside the 785s was in bed with this big player already.”

“Like who?” Micki asks, tensing. “It's not Kari or Ed.”

“You're sure about that? Remember how they don't belong out here.”

She's quiet again.

“I don't know. I don't have any files on them, but I've got next to nothing on all the 785s, The Reapers, or anyone else. And yeah, you wouldn't normally chose the two most obvious outsiders for a covert operation inside a gang. I don't know. This isn't exactly the happenin' place, so it's possible nobody's bothered putting together dossiers on everyone out here. An intelligence blind spot.”

Micki smiles a little. “Where better?”

Look at her, in the gestalt. “You might have a point there. Anything going down out here would make Robert crazy, with no background information to work from. That might explain a lot.”

Micki grins. “I'm getting good at this stuff.”

“That's what worries me.”

Meet the Winnebago. It's parked in a campground in a place called Lindsey, Kansas, among a thousand other campers that look a lot like it. Some lights are on. The occasional TV flickers out into the gloom. Some campers even have porch lights. Most, though, are dark. Decrepit. Dead.

“What is this place?” I finally have to ask Micki.

“When the war came, a lot of people couldn't afford to move their RVs anymore, so they stayed on. Turned into kind of a new development in Lindsey, basically. We used to bring food down here during the famine. They were all old. A lot of ‘em didn't make it, especially when their money became worthless. Place is dying out, except for a few.”

“The camper came from here?” I ask.

“Yeah. And it's the best place to hide it, too, ‘cept if we're coming and going. Neighbors tend to notice you if you're under seventy, and we sometimes get a little rowdy.”

Chuckle at her. I must be in a better mood despite the mall, despite everything. Maybe we did get enough sleep this afternoon. Or maybe it just feels like things are moving again. Picking up speed.

Chapter 18

Climb up the steps. Haul the bike up after us. Ed greets us at the door.

“Jesus, Ed, put some pants on. Man. I didn't need to see that tonight,” Micki says.

“What?” he asks, looking vaguely confused.

Micki just rolls her eyes and looks at Ed, who is as naked as the day he was born. He's got quite the ink himself. In the colors of his tattoo, a monster arches its spiked back and tears its way out of his chest. It's tail and haunches are out at the top, and has one foreleg out through the torn skin just above his pubic hair. A quick glance. Yup. The monster's head is tattooed on Ed's glans, and a little ring of stainless steel studs protrudes just behind the circumcision scar. It gives the monster a collar. Classy.

“Quit looking at his penis, Rae.”

“Do we know why he's naked?” I ask Micki.

Kari emerges from the tiny shower, clad only in her roses. Stretches. Climbs up to the bunk in the front of the Winnebago. Something glitters between her legs. Something sharp.

“Any other questions?” Micki asks, sourly.

“Um … ew?”

Sparks yawns and stretches. Twists his spine a little. Opens his eyes. “Hey, kid.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Micki says.

Think about the only other people in the Winnebago who could have been driving the tech-ninjas. Now I'm the one who needs a shower.

“We up for hitting the Reapers tonight, or are we just screwing around?”

Sparks smiles crookedly. “What's got your panties in a twist, Mick?”

Micki looks at him. Stares into his eyes with a hardness I can feel. One that doesn't belong there. “My panties are not your concern, Carl. Don't ever forget that.”

Sparks looks away after a moment, and mutters, “Women.”

“Men,” Micki retorts, but only to me in the gestalt. “Honestly.”

Cheer Micki on, mentally.

Light thump of feet on the floor behind us, and Micki gets hugged from behind. “Hey kiddo.” Kari backs off quickly as she feels us tense. “Sorry,” she says, and lets go.

“No, it's…” Micki looks up over her shoulder at Kari. Shakes her head. Sighs. “Never mind. Don't worry about it, Kari.”

Kari smiles a little, briefly, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes, and it falls away as quickly as it came. She busies herself pulling her armored boots on.

Micki watches her move for a few moments, then looks back as Nate joins us.

“Micki, if you can't handle it, maybe you should go home,” Nate says.

That stings. I can feel it in the back of Micki's neck around her jacks, and in the pit of her stomach. But she swallows it. Her voice is tight. “I can handle it, Nate. Now stop wasting my time and let's get to work. We're setting the Reapers up tonight, right?”

He nods slowly. “I don't know. It seems pretty risky to me. They get one of their network guys out to Leo's, and the jig is up on our fiber. Who are you planning to set them up against?” He watches Micki intently, though. Looking for something. Some weakness, maybe. Or some sign that Micki's been compromised. But he's asking a lot of questions suddenly. And it's prickling the hairs on the back of my neck. Or I'm getting paranoid from lack of sleep.

“So … we hit their net, soften up their security, and then call in an airstrike or something?” Micki asks in the gestalt.

“Mm. No airstrikes. Covert operation, remember? C'mon. You know the players around here. Who should we sic on the Reapers?” Watch Nate. Watch him closely.

Micki sighs. “Do I have to think of everything?” She asks, aloud. “Hit the Topeka gangs. I'm thinking the Bizmen, for sure. Maybe FBOF, too. That pretty much covers everyone.”

“It's a good plan, Micki, except for one little detail. If we get caught, all three of them come looking for the 785s. They're big players, Mick. Lot of manpower. We're good. Maybe even the best, but there are only five of us.”

“What the hell, Nate? You were all for this yesterday,” Micki snaps.

“It's a gutsy plan, but there's an awful lot of risk. If we lie low, stay unknown like we are, the timing might get better,” he says. Watch the others look at him.

Micki looks at me in the gestalt. So I interrupt her. Shrug. “So we make sure they don't come looking for us. And it's not like we're still completely unknown. I mean, freaking Interpol knows about us.”

“You're the one who told them about us, Micki,” Nate snaps.

“Dude, what are you doing? You're going to get me killed!” Micki says, in the gestalt.

Watch him. “They already knew when they questioned me. Somebody's blabbed. It wasn't me. I know Carl's idea of a life is to sit around here and watch porn. You think Ed and Kari are secretly Interpol or something? You think maybe they blabbed? Bullshit. That leaves you, Nate. Or someone you talked to.”

“It could have been your trace virus, Mick,” he says, stonily.

Ed unfolds his arms from across his chest. Calm as a cucumber, but Micki boils over. I let her take control back. “Oh bullshit, Nate. That would have given ‘em me. That was my fuckup. How did they know to put that together with anything called 785? How did they get your name, Nate? And me? How did they know who I was? Who did you tell? And why do they want us to back down now?”

Nate shakes his head. “Fuck this.” He says it again, and slips a pistol out of his pocket. JenArms YellowJacket. For sure. They're so cheap nobody bothers copying them. “Fuck this,” he says. “Micki, go home. You're out. I don't need your bullshit anymore.”

A solid metallic clunk comes from the front of the Winnebago. Turn Micki's head toward it. Ed, dressed only in his armor pants. Assault rifle in his arms: Russian Gaubitsa K50, it looks like, or more likely a Cuban knock off. That sound was the safety coming off. 12.75 millimeter, 51 gram bullet, at eight or nine hundred meters per second, maximum? Nothing in the Winnebago will stop that. “No,” Ed says. “Nobody goes. Put the gun down, Nate.”

Nate stares. “Shit. Ed, put that fucking thing down.”

Sidle closer to Nate, while he's distracted. Think about how exactly I'm going to get the gun out of his hands without getting shot, and without overtly using the neurowires. Because Kari and Ed would recognize it. Feeding off Micki's sense of betrayal. It must be. Because I'm really looking forward to pounding Nate's teeth down his throat.

Ed shakes his head. “Talk, Nate.”

Kari's voice is soft. “Nate, you'd better do what he says. I've never seen him miss at this range. I have seen him get trigger happy, though. Occasionally.” She seems monumentally unconcerned.

Nate slowly, slowly puts his gun back in his pocket. There's a vein standing out in his head. “Look. Look. I have contacts, okay? That's how this is played,” Nate says. “I got us connected with someone.”

Damn. Common sense rears its ugly head.

“Who, Nate? Who are we connected with?” Micki asks.

“I don't know the name. But it's big. That big new player Sparks was talking about? That's the one,” Nate says. He's sweating. Hell, now I'm sweating.

“What's he want?” Kari asks. Still calm, cool as a cucumber. She might be asking what time it is.

“I don't know, okay? I just know he's got the cash and the push to get us the tools. He got us the gun you're pointing in my fucking face, Ed. You like that cannon? You can thank my connection.”

Ed says, once more, “Who. Name.”

“I don't know. I talk to the guy on the net. I go to an address. We set up a gestalt. He tells me what he wants done. I tell him what I need. We bargain. The shit gets shipped. That's all I know.”

“Okay, what does he want done?” she says.

“Right now, he wants us to mix it up with the Reapers. Just get known. That's all, not take them down. He doesn't want to be forced out in the open, like we were planning. He's paying us for it, but not enough to get killed.” Wait. Wait. If Nate's compromised us to the big player, why is the big player singing the same tune Robert was when we made contact at school? When we made contact in the mall? Sick feeling in my stomach. Is it even remotely possible that Covert itself has been compromised? That somehow Robert's communiqués to me have been intercepted? The only way Robert would be that sloppy is if he's had a stroke in the last two years, while I was in the can. Something else is going on.

Kari, again. “So, Nate, what's the payoff for you?”

Nate twitches. “What're you talking about?”

Kari walks forward. Rises up on her toes until her lips are only a few inches from Nate's ear. “Nate, I'm going to ask you one more time. Only one. And then I'm going to let my brother shoot you. Okay? C'mon. We're all friends here. Tell me what your payoff is.” It feels like the room gets colder. She steps back, and casually zips her armor jacket the rest of the way closed.

Move us out of the way. No body armor on Micki. If Nate comes apart vigorously enough, we could get hurt by flying bits. Hope the tech-ninjas don't kill Nate before he can clear things up.

Nate looks at Kari, then back at Ed. He twitches, gesturing downward with his hands. “All right. All right. The payoff is a shot at the bigtime. Cash. Passport. He's gonna send me to CalTech. Hook me up with a major player in San Diego. Get me out of fucking Kansas, okay? I've been trying to get out of this place my whole life.”

Sparks says, “And leave us here to take the fall. Nice. Hey Ed, take this cocksucker outside and splatter him.”

Ed looks sidelong at Sparks, then at Kari. Nobody says anything.

There's another awkward silence. Finally, Micki asks, “Um … what player in San Diego?”

“Are you thinking Interpol, Mick?” I ask her, in the privacy of our gestalt.

“Uh huh,” she replies. “It'd explain a lot.”

Look out at Nate with Micki's eyes a moment. Would Robert deal with him? Sure. He worked with worse in the camp. I worked for the damn Horsemen with Freedom Systems. Small-time scum like Nathan Blackjack Black? No sweat. It sure would explain a lot. But … why? What would possibly be in it for us? And if he had Nate, what did he need me for?

“He didn't say,” Nate says. “He just said he'd make it happen. That's all.”

“And you trusted him?” Micki demands.

“Yeah. He lived up to his shit every time. I've been working with this guy since March. Come on, I'm not stupid, Micki.” Nate looks back toward Ed. “Come on, guys, that's all I know. I didn't mention you guys to anyone, just like I promised. I just said I had a couple extreme pros working for me. He was pissed when I wouldn't tell him who.”

Kari turns to Micki. “When Interpol talked to you, did they mention Ed or me?”

Micki shakes her head. “Just me and Nate.”

Kari looks at Micki. “Sweetie, did you mention our names to them?” The voice is gentle, soft.

I'd give Micki's adrenals a squeeze, but they're already kicking it themselves. Balance her muscles for fastest motion. Her neck prickles. Her mouth goes dry. She swallows. “No. No, Kari. No. I didn't give ‘em any names they didn't already have.”

Kari smiles. The first sign of life her face has had in all this. “That's my girl.” She turns back toward Nate. “Okay, Ed. He's okay for now, but if he gives you any shit, he's all yours. And don't let him in your head anymore.”

“Okay,” Ed says, and lowers the K50. Pulls the block back. The smell of the gun's alcohol fuel whiffs in the Winnebago. He clears the action like the old pro he is.

Micki settles back against the seat back. “I'm getting fucking tired of you people pointing guns at me, you know. Can we get on with this, already? Geez, I'm on like four hours of sleep.” She looks over at Kari. “You got any dex patches?”

Kari looks at Micki, and frowns a little. “Do you have twenty-five dollars?”

Micki looks back at Kari. Looks deep into the dark, black eyes of the tech-ninja. And I can feel the burn of betrayal coming off of Micki. “No,” she says.

“Well, there you are,” Kari says. And then, after a moment, “Ed, why don't you put on a pot of coffee for her instead.”

Micki turns away from Kari. “Thanks for nothing.”

Kari blinks. Looks. Sighs. Shakes her head, and that's all I can see of her as Micki completes her turn. But I hear the tech-ninja walk to the front of the Winnebago and flop into one of the front seats.

Ed puts coffee in the Mr. Coffee. Fills it with water. The water system in the Winnebago groans with the effort. When the reservoir's full, Ed turns it on. Sits next to Carl. Looks forward to where his sister is sitting, then at Nate.

Nate takes a couple steps backward, goes to sit with Kari. Strange bedfellows. And a lovely good cop/bad cop play.

“Uppers are bad, Micki,” Ed says, earnestly. “Bad for your heart.” He nods toward his sister. “She worries about you.”

Micki looks at him. Just looks, staring icicles into the back of his head. Ed meets her gaze with a vaguely glassy, fish-eyed stare. Eventually Micki looks away. She glances back, and he's still staring. She finally shakes her head and plugs her deck into one of her jack ports. “I fucking hate coffee,” she says. I guess that's my cue. Lean forward, so to speak. Let myself fall into her again, and her into me. Mostly me into her. I'm the one who has to stay hidden.

Feet first into the purple landscape of Micki's deck. Land hard. Micki slots up the ice, and I know what she's using. Firewall penetrators. Crypto crackers. Worse. Deck scramblers. Burnout ice. The hard black, or so the hackers call it. Software weapons. The tools of mayhem. Start the gestalt. I hide in Micki more carefully. She turns on the stealth options for our gestalt.

Sparks joins us. “Go easy on Kari, kid. She really is a sweet girl,” he says.

“Shut the fuck up, Sparks. Just shut the fuck up, okay? We've got work to do, and I don't need you thinking about Ms. Scarycrotch and her brother over the gestalt. I already feel like I need a shower.” Um. Oops.

“What? It's no different from virtual. They're tech-ninjas. They get off having other people drive,” he says.

“It's completely different from virtual. And even if it wasn't, if you and Blackjack have it so bad for each other, just be honest and rent a room, okay? And shut the fuck up. We're working.” Micki punctuates that with a steep dive into KanREN. Jump through the link to Leo's. “Fiber's working.”

I can feel annoyance steam off of Sparks. “When did you get to be such a bitch, Hotty?”

“I get it from working with you, Sparky. Now, let's go.” Micki sets another coordinate and jumps back out through the encrypted tunnel over Leo's legitimate fiber. No resistance. Nobody even notices we're here. Arrive at the Reaper's home environment.

When I was in grade school, we used to read, especially online, about Pripyat, the town in the Ukraine closest to the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. I remember the pictures. Buildings slowly decaying away, as the land and the living things consumed them, in the absence of man.

This is the virtual world. Landscape is unlimited, if you have the money to put a server on your network, and it doesn't cost much. If you're lucky, whatever business you build online draws crowds. You make money. People come to your slice of the virtual world, and inhabit it. Sometimes, though, despite the best intentions, a virtual environment dies. People go on to the next big thing. The business dies, gets acquired, or whatever. Whither the server? The answer is, it depends. If the company that ran it was acquired, the server may get dumped into someone else's machine room, where their tech staff will hook it up and leave it. Or the hosting company gets bought, and the registration of a given server falls through the cracks, and it's easier for the techies to leave the server running, rather than track down who owns it, figure out what it's doing, and shut it off. The server goes on doing its job, offering a virtual world to nobody, until it finally breaks down, or someone cracks it and makes a nuisance of themselves. The decay doesn't happen online. The inexorable march of bacteria, plants, and animals doesn't occur online, and the only opportunistic scavengers are of the two-legged variety. Digital ghost towns look as shiny and new as the day they were built, but they feel just as empty.

Micki looks around this one. A pizzeria, it looks like. Probably somewhere in Topeka. The software doesn't see us — Micki, Sparks, or me. Walk past the busty waitress in the tight ‘Super Crust Pizza’ t-shirt. She looks past us, frozen to save cycles for nobody. The ceiling fans turn. They're defined as turning, and Micki's deck renders them that way. Tables are spotless and unoccupied. The neon sign in the window buzzes a little. A nice touch. Random imperfections. A higher-end job, by whoever did this place. The air, such as it is, is described to Micki's sensorium with the smell of fresh pizza. Her stomach twitches a little at that, but I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

Here and there, someone's been tampering in the place's code. The marijuana plants growing in the vases at each table are probably new. The ‘Shit and Cream Cheese’ pizza on the menu board, that's definitely new. And in a family place like this, it's not very likely that the waitress's skirt would be quite that short, and her original creators undoubtedly made her with underwear. And a bra.

These signs of technological vandalism, however, are nothing compared to what the Reapers have done, moving in. A forest of hundreds of glowing connections spread out to the world from the dining room of the pizzeria. We watch connections go by as the Reapers' hackers monitor inbound connections at Leo's. But they're looking in the wrong place, to find us. The new fiber paid off.

“Man,” Sparks says, “this is weird.”

Kind of like walking through a ‘ friendly’ minefield. It's your minefield. You know where the mines are. Are you in danger? No, but yes. If you make one misstep, trigger one mine sensor system, they'll kill or maim you as readily as they would have anyone else. Worse, your buddies have to make their way into the minefield to try and save you before you bleed out from whatever limb has just been blown off. And they're in a hurry. And they've watched you get splattered, so their adrenaline levels are sky high. If you're really unlucky, the detonation has notified the enemy of your location. And it's dark. Yeah. This feels a lot like that. One misstep and everything goes quickly to hell.

Watch the Reapers. We're still invisible. They could find us if they knew we were here, of course, but they don't. All their alarms assume intruders from outside. We're inside, through a door they don't know exists.

“Is that all of them?” Sparks whispers in our gestalt.

We check, Micki and I. Their operator gestalt is big. Twelve human beings tied together in the artificial intimacy that is a gestalt. But they're servicing hundreds of business networks. Checking firewall security indicators. We watch the packets. Micki collects security keys. More packets. Micki nudges Sparks, and points out two other gestalts. Four-person operator teams, two riding field people, two exclusively doing data work. Four teams like that.

“Fuck me,” Sparks whispers. “Twenty eight operators. And at least eight field people.”

“Yeah,” Micki says. “Still wanna just yop these guys?”

“Hell, no,” Sparks replies. “I'm all for letting other people do our dirty work.”

“Then let's get to work,” Micki says.

Sparks cracks his knuckles, feeds the Reaper firewall the access codes Micki pilfered, and goes after a bowling alley. “Yeah. FBOFs, for sure,” he says. “Shit. Their firewall ice is on me.”

Bowling alley? I didn't think anyone bowled anymore. “Let it tangle with you a little,” Micki says. “Let ‘em follow you home.” We're busy hitting a garage, though. Connect. Hit their firewall with off-the-net crypto-cracking software. Beat on it noisily. We get through after a few minutes. It's not even a matter of league this time. Micki's good, but she's not The Lady or anything. A lot of mediocre data talent out here. A lot of junior plugheads who will never get out.

“Ow! Shit, the FBOF guys are on me. They were monitoring that firewall!” Sparks is yelling.

“Drop the link! Drop the link!” Micki yells. “Shit! Bizmen. They're going after my connection.”

“I'm out,” Sparks says. “I'm okay.”

The alarms are ringing in the Reapers' firewall. Whatever their attack team was doing, they've come home to back up the operators. But we don't tarry. Sparks, Micki, and I drop out of the Reapers' ghost town altogether. Log out. Before the Reapers scan their environment as part of defending it.

Open the eyes. Blink a few times. Look at Sparks. “Think we got away clean?” Micki asks.”

“I sure as hell hope so,” Sparks says. But his lips do twist into a smirk. “Man. I've never been happy someone crawled up my ass that fast before. Those FBOFers are pretty good.”

Draw back from Micki. “Are all hackers easily impressed?” It slips out before I can stop it.

Micki chuckles inwardly. “You're in Kansas any more, Toto. Like you said, this isn't exactly the happenin' place.”

She speaks up. “Hey, Nate. Might want to move this thing, just in case anyone got a valid trace back.”

Nate looks back. “You guys are done already?”

Micki nods. “Yeah. Now we sit back and see how trigger-happy everyone is. Um. Anyone else want some pizza? I'm starving.”

I've leaned on these people as hard as I dare, and yeah, we really do need to see what effect our little run has had. One more day on the farm? At school? Hell. I'm getting used to it. It might even give me some time to make some sense of stuff. Use the time wisely. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. Ooh, fucking, rah.

Chapter 19

Lie in Micki's bed with her. Micki's staring at the ceiling. “Jesus,” she says.

“What?”

“You read the rumors we were getting as well as I did. We started a war.”

“Mick, you knew this was serious. You knew these guys weren't playing around. You knew it was life and death.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. “I know.”

Reach up with her hand to ruffle her hair softly. “It doesn't seem like it should be fun, does it?”

Her eyes snap open, and she stares at the ceiling once more. Then closes them again. “No. It doesn't. It isn't fun. We got those people killed.”

“It was fun. We got in. We changed everything, none of our people got hurt, we got out, and the badguys do all the work for us. Classic, classic infowar.”

“What about them? They're dying, Rae. What about them, and their lives, and their families, and all that stuff?”

“They made the situation. They knew the risks as well as we did. They agreed to it as much as we did. If we'd screwed up, they'd be partying over our graves right now.”

“‘S that supposed to make me feel better?” She demands. “Fuck. Rae … I know you're a killer and everything, but this is my first time, okay?” Her eyes begin to tear up.

“Mick. Micki.” Hang my head, as any sense of victory falls away, dragged down chemically by the weight of Micki's brain. And the fact that I can't, I won't, control her mind by manipulating how she feels about things.

“I just want to quit. God. I should have just gone when Nate told me to. Just gone home. Gotten some sleep. Gotten on with my life.”

“Mick, we're in this clusterfuck now, and all we can do is fight our way out, and live with it.” Sergeant McNally again, probably. It sounds like something she'd have said. Something I learned, made part of myself a long time ago. It was enough for me for a long time.

“That's your solution? More bloodshed?”

“I don't see any others. I told you what I am, Micki. I don't see that changing. For what it's worth, I'm sorry it's screwing up your life.”

“But why do you have to make me that way? Can't you see it? It's getting so easy for me to just throw someone's life away. I never used to be like that.”

“It's the only way I know,” is finally what I tell her.Shake my head. Her head. “I didn't get you into this mess, Mick. I'm just part of the mess. And I'm trying damn hard to get you out of it in one piece, okay? But there's going to be a cost for it. I'm used to paying that cost. You're not. Yet.”

There's a shiver. A bone deep fear, a clarity of vision I can feel radiating out from Micki's brain, through the interconnecting hardware into our gestalt, and from there into the cluster of neurofibers that I'm using as a brain. It comes direct. Rides hard. That sudden, unbending realization that what I do, what she does, what we do together, has consequences. That there are things that cannot be undone.

“Oh, God,” she says, quietly, “oh, God.”

“I know, sweetie. Believe me, I know.”

“How … how do you live with this?”

“What they teach you … taught you, in the military is that you look out for your guys. Your buddies. And you don't worry about the enemy and his buddies, because if you do, they'll kill you and yours. That's as far as it goes, really. Well, that and deliberately desensitizing you to violence so it's not such a big deal to do it in the first place. Show you some really ghastly pictures about what the enemy is willing to do to you. Stuff like that.” Try to make it sound casual. It feels casual. “Hard to remember a time when I thought differently, to be honest.” Except that Micki keeps bringing it back to me. God, please let this op end soon.

“So much for civilization, huh? I mean … what chance is there for things to get better if everybody's like that? If you have to be like that to survive?” Micki asks quietly.

“This is civilization. What you've been taught is wrong. Civilization makes bigger wars possible. When it was just family groups, your body count was a lot lower. Even when it was tribes and city-states, you had to stop fighting eventually, because you needed these people at home growing food. Civilization means you can have professional soldiers, and give them better tools, so it takes fewer of them.”

“It's also art, and music, and creating beauty. It doesn't have to be about war.”

“You want to know what civilization is? It's having enough food, and a functional economy, to support specialists in any field, be they soldiers, artists, musicians, taxicab drivers, or even criminals, terrorists, and politicians. All of those people eat because of civilization. It's always been a mixed blessing. But it's our way, as human beings. It's what we do.”

She's quiet for a long time. Digesting that, maybe. Trying to find holes in it? Maybe. Or maybe she's fallen asleep.

“Don't go philosophical on me. Not at this time of night,” she says, finally.

“Well, what do you want to talk about, then? Boys? Girls? Both?”

“It seems to be your favorite topic,” Micki grumps.

“Your hormones are probably affecting me.”

“Very funny,” Micki grumps. “I'm not in that kind of mood.”

Ruffle her hair softly. “Sorry, Mick. I told you I'm not a very nice person.”

“Eh. You're not so bad. If you had a body of your own, I'd say you should join us. The 785s, I mean. Full time.”

“That'd be different from working for a corp how, exactly? Ignoring the lack of a health plan, and the whole illegal thing?”

Micki shrugs. “We're real people. Not some faceless corp or government. Yeah, we're in it for the cash, but…”

Curl on myself a little, in my mind. “But it's like being in your own little pirate crew. Friends. Even family. That sound familiar?”

It's Micki's turn to be quiet. She nods, finally. “Something like that.”

“Would you believe me if I told you Interpol Covert Services is like that?”

She thinks about it. “Yeah. I guess I hadn't thought about them that way, but yeah. Kinda puts a different spin on things. Even Director Neil.”

“Our inscrutable pirate captain. Whom we just have to trust, because he's not always forthcoming with the whole picture.”

“He doesn't trust his own people?” she asks. All I can do is shrug and change the subject. Maybe, I tell myself, she can give me some clue who's really tied where in all this. If she knows.

“How did you meet the 785s, Micki?”

She shrugs again. “Online, obviously. Playing the virts. Did a little cracking on one of the Open-Anima servers. Ran into Sparks there.”

“Seriously?” I ask her.

“Yeah.”

“Virts weren't entertaining enough? You had to go hacking them?”

“You can be lonelier online than anywhere else. People all around you, millions and millions of them, and it's just like real life. You get ignored. Everything is sharp and clean and beautiful and hi-res, and … except for the newbies coming on to you, you're alone, and none of it matters,” she says. “I used to love it. And then it got … I dunno. I just stopped. You know?”

And the scary thing is, I do.

“Is that how you hooked up with the 785s?”

“It's how I hooked up with Sparks. He hooked me up with the rest of them. Met him on an Open-Anima server. He was trolling for free porn, and I was screwing around with something like a virus. I'd never written one before. Never seen the source from one. He saw what I was building and got all impressed. He said he'd never seen one like that. I was like, duh. That's because I don't know what I'm doing. So we hacked together for a while. I think he was feeling me out even then. For the gang, I mean. Then one day, bam. He says, ‘Hotwire, I want you to meet some friends of mine.’ So I did. Him, Nate, Kari, Ed. That was pretty much it.”

“Were you and Sparks an item?”

She shakes her head. “Sparky's funny about that. About the whole sex thing. He loves his porn, he loves running Kari when he and Nate are screwing around, but … actual real sex?” She shakes her head. “He makes sleazy comments, but he never seems to get any.”

“Who did catch your eye?”

“Who do you think?”

“Kari.”

“Actually Ed, first. You gotta admit the guy is hot.”

Chuckle at her. “Ed? Yeah. He's kind of cute. Nice body. Not very bright, but that's not always a bad thing in a man. I'm less enthusiastic about Mr. Spikey, though.”

Micki giggles at me. “You like ‘em big and stooopid, huh?”

“Oh, you know. Eye candy's better when it's big and stooopid. That way they don't open their mouths and complicate things.” I'm laughing. “I thought you weren't in this kind of mood.”

Micki looks down. “I'm not. I wasn't. I don't know. Listen, Rae, don't take this wrong, but I thought maybe … I mean … you seem like you really come alive for runs, for causing trouble, for … I dunno. Mayhem, I guess.”

Shiver. Keep her close to me in the gestalt, although who is holding whom feels, emotionally, like it's reversed. “I. Don't think so,” is all I can say. Shit. Is that really what she thinks of me? Is it really what I think of myself?

“You don't think so?” she asks, far away.

Take a deep breath with her lungs. Cough a little. Two days ago, I'd have given her hell for asking me a question like that. Now I'm thinking about it. Letting it go all the way to the center of who I am, this killer that I am. God, Micki. Don't ask me this kind of question late at night, when we're tired and adrenaline buzzed. I'm a killer. Yes. Thousands of times, yes. But is it an end in itself? Have I really fallen that far? Close my eyes. Such a waste. So much of it. Such a waste. “I hope not,” I add, quietly.

“I hope not, too,” she says. “It'd be a pretty harsh way to live.”

I don't say anything. But I don't let go of her in the gestalt either. And I fight back tears only because it would keep Michelle Blake up, and I can't. I can't face her mother again. Please, God. Anything but that, tonight.

“‘Did you fall asleep on me?” she whispers. Stretches. Wriggles her spine and points her toes. Holds it. Rides the endorphin rush from it as she relaxes. Her eyelids start to feel heavy. I snuggle into her brain, and ride with her as she falls asleep. She doesn't seem to mind.

Chapter 20

School. Again. Almost comfortable in its familiarity now. In its normalcy. We go here. We learn stuff. We go home, do our homework, and complain. Rinse, lather, repeat. If I squint my mind's eye enough, I can sort of make it into military life, only with a much higher tolerance for imprecision. Because school isn't about training people to kill other people. That kind of thing requires pretty strict control.Ugh. I need to think about something else today. So I think about school. Pay attention. Something I tried not to do during my own school years.

Today, Thursday, is the second-to-last day of school. Other than turning in final papers, there's not much left on the syllabus. In science class, we talk about the future. Think about it. Where nanomaterials can take us. About space. Watch video the teacher took on a suborbital flight. It's all so very hopeful, and I feel like I could almost reach out and take a little piece of the future for myself. Well. No. Not really. I sneak a look at the other students. Some are bored. Some aren't. Kurt is watching with rapt attention.

“Hey. Eyes front,” Micki says. “I'm trying to look at the screen here. And let's not give him any more ideas than he's already got.”

Chuckle at her. It helps me lighten up. Sit back, and let her drive. See it through her eyes. More importantly, see it through her perception. It is a beautiful world, isn't it? There is a future, like it or not. And some of it will be good. For them, at least. For me, and those like me, maybe all there can be is the knowledge that for better or worse, we made this future possible. We few. We proud. Blah, blah.

“Hey, Rae?” she interrupts me again.

“Yeah?”

“You ever been on a suborbital flight?” I feel stars in her eyes when she asks that.

“I've logged a few hundred hours as a suborbital pilot, Mick.”

“Seriously?” The excitement in her mental voice is infectious.

“Seriously. All of us in infowar school took familiarization flights when the suborbitals first hit the inventory, and we got special training using them for covert insertion. Then, when I was with Freedom Systems, they had a program of continuous training during any downtime we got, so I did a lot of the book work on it then. Then Covert had me finish getting my ticket with the International Aviation and Space Administration. Fewer people on a covert mission, the better. I've done … shit. Almost a hundred flights by now, I guess. I'm not commercial qualified, or anything, but I get up once in a while.”

“What's it like?”

Think about it. Really think about it. Try to romanticize it in my mind, so I can give Micki what she wants to hear … but. “A lot like watching the video tape, to be honest. Boost phase is the most exciting part. G forces and everything. Once you're in space, if everything goes right, it's pretty dull.”

“You're kidding me. Zero G, and looking down at that, and you were bored?”

“Sorry, Micki. I'm just not much of a romantic.”

“I want to go to space,” Micki says to me. “I want to see it. I want to really be there some time.” I hope she gets her chance. I really do.

“That's all, ladies and gentlemen,” the teacher says. “Tomorrow's the big assembly, and of course, the party starts tomorrow night. Take care, and have a good summer, and I'll see most of you in August. Seniors, I will be at graduation, and I'll say my farewells then.” He grins. “Look for me in a tux.”

There are catcalls and whistles in the classroom. Not all of them are from the girls. Micki whistles. The guy must be forty-five, at least. Gray haired. With a potbelly, too. Catch myself wondering if he's married. This has definitely got to stop.

“Guy in a tux, huh, Mick?”

“I'll bet even Director Neil looks hot in a tux,” she offers.

I have to laugh. “Micki, you have no idea.”

“You miss him?” she asks. She must be picking up on what I'm thinking. Bleedover, probably. Make a mental note to report that bug, too.

Stop and think about her question. “I miss being in love with him. I miss feeling that way about him. I miss … whatever it was I saw in him that I can't see anymore, or can't see past what he is now.”

“Kinda like me and Open-Anima.”

Nod a little. “Yeah. Like that. Something you find out the hard way when you get married. People change. You change. He changes.” Wink at her. “Or she changes. Let's not be sexist. It's a lot of work to roll with those changes. And you have to want it.”

Micki's quiet. “Maybe you healed, really. From the camp. Maybe you finally came home.”

Chapter 21

Study hall is outside in the schoolyard. Nothing left to study, and there's this belief that young minds and bodies need fresh air and sunshine. Mick finds a tree, and we get forty more minutes of uninterrupted sleep. I dream about climbing windmill towers, and bearings, and by some process, I find myself under a humvee, incongruously parked in the switchgrass, helping a mechanic named Dave replace wheel bearings on the thing. I knew Dave, from towards the end of the Mijaneen days. He was a friend. And what he's doing really happened. I'd forgotten all about it until that moment. Fixing things. It was part of the mission back then. After that, the marching corn shows up. I don't recall anything past that.

The bell rings, and we jerk awake. We're done early. It's only 2 o'clock. Mick and I head for her locker. Get her stuff. Head for the bus. Get on. Find a seat. Think about Dave again. And the humvee. And his wheel bearings. And how he made them. And how fixing them was part of our mission at that point. He died later that year. Hanged for war crimes. But I'm not mourning him. That's not what I feel at all. I'm suddenly wide awake, and the flush of the idea I've had is making the hair on Micki's neck stand up on my behalf.

“Hey, Mick?”

“Yeah?”

“You know we're going to need some time this weekend to finish off the Reapers, and capitalize on what we've done there.”

“No way. Mom won't let me go out. Grounded, remember? And no shooting her. You promised.”

“I know. I know. But listen, Mick. We have to do this. The sooner we do, the sooner you get your life back. If your mom's like my mom was, we just need to earn some cred with her to get off being grounded.”

“What for? She's still not going to let me stay out all weekend.”

“She might, if she thinks you'll be at the party.”

Micki eyes me. “Maybe. What kind of cred?”

“Something that matters. Do you know what babbitt metal is?”

“Uh … no?”

Rummage around in my memory for what Dave told me that night. “Before roller bearings and ball bearings were the thing, they made bearings out of a metal called babbitt. We used it toward the end with the Yankees for wheel bearings. The lead in older car batteries had about the right percentages of the right metals to make a fairly cruddy babbitt, but it worked. The advantage was we could make these bearings in the field. And your shop is way better than what we had to work with.”

“You're thinking of putting these bearings of yours in the turbines,” she says slowly.

“Cred with your mother. You said each turbine was worth about forty-five hundred bucks a year. That ought to be worth something,” I tell her. Mission planning. Kind of. I used to love this stuff. From the feel of things, maybe I still do. Improvise, adapt, overcome.

“Two problems with that, Rae. First, I know jack shit about working babbitt. Second, I gotta have a crane to do bearings. Gotta pull the whole fucking machine apart,” Micki says.

“We got most of the information online, so I know it's out there. That's not a problem. The second problem … with those huge mills, the Schotts next door would have to have a crane, wouldn't they?”

Micki eyes me. “I don't think I like where this is going. How long have you been thinking about this?”

“It can't hurt to ask, Mick. C'mon.”

Micki rolls her eyes. “Okay.” At the next stop, she gets up to go sit next to Kurt. “Hey, Kurt. Do you guys still have that Manitowoc 8000? The crawler?”

Kurt looks at her, startled. “Yeah. Sure. I was just out in it yesterday. Why?”

“I need a crane to do the bearings on some of our turbines. Could I borrow it?”

Kurt shakes his head. “No way. Sorry. Dad says nobody but us can drive our equipment. Insurance, you know?”

Micki shrugs at me.

“Ask him if he'll help,” I press her. “Convince him.”

Micki sighs. “Um … could I borrow you too, then? To drive the thing? I mean, it'd be easier that way anyway.”

Kurt looks at Micki. “Are you in trouble or something?”

Micki looks away. “Yeah. I'm grounded for being gone all weekend. And I really want to go to the party. Kind of trying to get my mom back on my side.”

Kurt tries to look enthusiastic for Micki. And fails. “You have a date for the party.”

Micki looks at him and shakes her head. “No. Nobody ever asks me out. But I was thinking. If you'll help me … um … and my mom lets me go … we could go together?”

Wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Having him around will complicate things. But less so than having to get out of Micki's house for extended periods. It's workable.

Kurt stares at her. He's almost hers. It's a look I know. But he looks away. “No.”

Micki stares, in her turn. “What?”

“Mick, I really like you, okay? I mean … the whole fly eye thing was a stupid idea, I know, and I'm really sorry about it, but I just wanted … I mean you … I mean … I felt terrible looking at the pictures once I had them.”

Micki looks away. Then down at her hands. “Kurt, this is really important to me. I mean … I'm not promising to go to bed with you or be your girlfriend or anything like that. But I really want to go to this party. And I want to go with someone I can trust, you know? You know what kind of stuff goes on there.”

“You trust me?” he sounds incredulous. Hell, I'm incredulous.

Micki looks over at Kurt. “Shouldn't I? I mean … you had pictures of me, but you never put them online or anything, did you?”

“No, no, I didn't do anything like that with them.” Kurt shakes his head vigorously, like the fear of the devil is in him. “I erased them, like I said. Then I got in trouble.”

“Well, there you are,” Micki says. I don't think she meant to quote Kari like that. At least I hope not. Sparks is right. We're all a bad influence. Micki looks over at Kurt. Looks into his eyes. “Please?”

Kurt melts. “I'll ask. That's all I can promise, Mick. I'm sorry.”

Micki nods. “Fair enough.”

As the ride progresses, Kurt sneaks his hand over to take Micki's. She looks at him a moment, but doesn't take her hand away. For about three minutes. When the bus stops next, she gets up. Kurt looks stricken.

“Gotta stop at Harrison's,” she explains briefly. “See you in a couple hours, okay?”

Kurt nods. “'Kay. I'll call if my dad won't let me bring it.”

Micki nods. “Okay. Thanks.” She mutters more at me, though. “You know, there's a name for what we're doing here.”

“Welcome to my world,” I tell her, as we climb off the bus. She doesn't answer me.

Chapter 22

The door of Harrison's Hardware jingles as we come in, and it's a little hard to get it closed again. Moisture and layers of paint have conspired to make it not fit the frame very well. Inhale slowly. Smell of more moisture, must; scents of petroleum oils, solvents, turpentine. Sound of hollow floor under our feet. Ozone stink of welding. Parts of this take me back. Parts are completely alien. To Micki, the whole place is landscape. Some place she's been going all her life, like the computer surplus shops of my childhood. Tables and shelves line every wall and form tiny aisles. They're all piled with a wild commingling of junk, military surplus, cheap imported goods from the Pacific Rim, random machine parts. The familiarity is comfortable. When she leaves the life, it's the kind of place she'll miss. This, I know from experience.

Walk down the cramped little aisles toward the counter. The store seems lighter. Slightly less claustrophobic. But only slightly. Dirty glass cases line the front of the store, with more valuable tools inside. The cash register sits on one of the cases.

“Michelle? Michelle Blake? Lookit you! You're all grown up, now!” the man behind the counter says. He's older; fifties, perhaps. With a long, salt and pepper beard. Pot belly. He's dressed in coveralls and a red flannel shirt. The only concessions to the heat of the day seem to be rolled up sleeves and a bandanna tied around and over his head. Long hair trails down behind it, but I suspect there's a bald spot beneath.

“Hi, Mr. Harrison,” she says. “How's it going?”

“I keep tellin' you to call me Mike. Things are goin' pretty good. Can't complain. But I often do.” He chuckles. I didn't need to see those teeth. Chewing tobacco, it seems, is still all the rage here. “Ain' seen you since last summer. How you been?”

Micki shrugs. “Okay. Turbines are still in sucky shape, but that's kinda why I'm here.”

Mr. Harrison looks serious now. “Don't got much for those old mills of yours, kid. Sorry.”

“Actually,” Micki says, “I'm looking for babbitt metal. You got any of that?”

Mr. Harrison folds his arms across his chest, and smiles. “Now that's somethin' I don't get much call for these days.” He thinks a moment or two and nods. “I'll bet I know what you're up to. You plannin' to make bearings for your mills, ain' you?”

Micki nods. “Mmhmm. If they last, you know, a season or so, the extra income will mean we can afford real bearings for them.” She mutters in the gestalt, “Does everybody know about this stuff except me?”

Mike Harrison snorts a little. “You make ‘em right, they oughta last a lot longer'n that.” He slides out from behind the counter, and Micki follows him. “Let's see now. Ain't had much call for babbitt these days, but for tinkerers like your dad. An' you these days, or so they tell me. I also hear rumors you went to CalTech an' got a jack.”

Micki rolls her eyes. “Yeah.”

Mr. Harrison leads us down a dark aisle and rummages on a shelf. “No. No. That's lead. Now where was that? Anyways, what for? Don't need no high bandwidth into your head to work on windmills. Oh, here it is. High speed babbitt. How much you need?”

Micki looks at me in the gestalt, and shrugs. I do some swift mental figuring. Speak with her voice. “'Bout ten kilos, I guess. That'll get me started, at least. I'm gonna try using the races from the old bearings.”

He shrugs, and fetches down the blocks of metal. “So what did ya go and get a jack for, anyway?”

Micki shrugs. “I like computers. I like online. And I'm not going to live the rest of my life here fixing wind turbines, you know?”

“It ain't a bad life, kid.” He turns to Micki. “But I know how it is. You're young. You want more excitement 'n farming. I was that way too. Long time ago now.” He smiles again. Micki hands him her cred card. He rings up the babbitt, and she puts it in her backpack.

“You say hi to your mom for me, okay?”

“Sure.” Micki smiles. “I will.”

It's a long walk home. Even cutting through other people's fields.

“Um. Aren't we likely to get shot at, doing this, Mick?”

Micki rolls her eyes. “Nah. Goedtkes, Hegemeyers, and Schotts. They know me. I mean, sure, if you came tromping through their fields, yeah, they might have problems with that. But nobody knows you're in here but me and Psychoboy back in San Diego. Course I gotta watch out for them and their equipment. I get killed or hurt, and you bet I was trespassing.” Micki shrugs. “That's for the lawyers, though. You're from CalTech, you know from lawyers.”

“I try not to.” Adjust the straps on her backpack a little. The added ten kilos of metal is getting heavy already.

We're hot. We're sweaty. We're desperately thirsty by the time we get home. Micki makes herself another sandwich. Looks at the note on the fridge. “Blah, blah, blah … usual chores,” she says. We get another glass of water. Plug into Micki's deck. Hit 2Quik. Pay for a quick search on babbitt bearing and roller bearing retrofit. I memorize the technique. Fast-load it to Micki. Being the ghost in the machine has its perks, and she's got the background knowledge for the fast-load to stick to.

“So you guys did this, huh?” she asks, as she changes into her channel-fiber coveralls again. Pulls on her climbing harness. Stuffs her gloves in her pockets, and pulls on her combat boots.

“Yeah. They worked. Didn't use them for jet engines or anything like that, but especially toward the end, we didn't have fuel for that stuff anyway.”

Head out to the shop. Micki rummages in the junk box and fishes out three sets of wrecked bearings. Pulls on a welding jacket, gloves, and safety goggles. Presses the inner races out of the bearings. Plugs in the carbon arc torch. She brazes a nice layer of bronze inside each outer race, then chucks up the race in the lathe and turns it true. Repeats the process for all the bearings. She also trues up the inner races. I know the words for all these processes because Micki knows the words, and thinks them to herself. A whole new avenue of things to think about. Things to learn. And no time. This has to work. The turbines are part of the mission now. It has to work. And we have to get it done.

“Wonder what's keeping Kurt,” Micki says.

“Dunno. Once we've got this done, we should probably go check on him.”

Micki nods. Turns on an old, two-burner hot plate. Gets the babbitt melting in an old cast- iron pan. She takes a piece of flat stock and some pipe and welds up a quick jig for both bearing types. Sets up the first bearing. Fluxes the bronze, and sets the jig and bearing on the other burner of the hot plate. It doesn't take long for it to get smoking hot. Micki pulls the jig off the hot plate with tongs, then gets the pan full of babbitt, and fills the gap between the bronze layer in the outer race and the inner race. Clears the bearing off the jig. Sets up another. Repeats. The gravel crunches outside the shop. Look up. Folded sections of lattice boom go by, followed by the cab, to the purr of a very quiet electric motor. The crane is here. Let's do this. Let's get it done. Motion, finally.

Kurt wanders into the shop. “Hey, Micki. Sorry I'm late. I had to do my other chores first.” He gives Micki a long look in her coveralls. He probably doesn't think she notices.

Micki nods, her hands full at the moment. “Not a problem; I'm a little behind here, myself.” To me she adds, “I did too notice.” I guess I'm muttering to myself again.

Kurt walks over to the work bench to look at the cooling bearings. “You found a way to make your own bearings? That's so cool, Micki.”

“Hot metal, comin' through.”

Kurt jumps back. “Sorry.”

Micki finishes the last bearing, and turns off the hotplates. Takes off her welding gloves. Holds her hand over the coolest of the bearings. “I hope so. I mean, that I found a way to make bearings.”

“Babbit metal?” he asks.

Micki nods. “Yup.”

Kurt looks at the bearings again. “Wow. Where'd you learn all this, Micki? I mean, I've heard about this stuff but…”

Micki shrugs. “I know some weird people online.” I snort at her in the gestalt, and she goes on. “Talking about the Yankees, and all the shit they did to keep their gear running after they got cut off.”

Kurt nods. “You mean the Mijaneen?”

Micki nods. “Yeah. Them.”

“Do your friends know who really dropped the Jerusalem bomb?” he asks. Brother. What are they teaching these kids?

Micki shrugs again. “Didn't seem polite to ask.” Well, no, it wasn't. But even that, even that is far away from me right now.

She takes the temperature of the coolest bearing with a pyrometer. “Okay, we're up.” She presses the inner race out of the bearing again, and chucks the outer race in the lathe. Turns the babbitt surface mirror smooth. Cuts the oil groove in it. Hands it to Kurt.

“Heavy. Are you sure this isn't going to overstress your hub or your hub bearings?” he asks.

Oh, shit. Wrack my brains for the answer. But I don't know. I'm an infowar specialist, not an engineer.

Micki groans at me in the gestalt. “You watched way too much TV.” She shrugs, out there in the real world, though. “It shouldn't,” she says to Kurt. “They're not that much heavier. And compared to the wind loading? Shouldn't make any difference. Even if it does, so what? The turbines we're putting these on are dead. Nothing to lose.”

She's not idle while she's talking, though. She greases each bearing and runs it in a few minutes on the lathe, just like the site we read suggested. When the last one's done, she turns it with her fingers, then hands it to Kurt. “What do you think? I haven't touched a new bearing in so long, I've forgotten what they're like.”

Kurt turns the bearing. “Not bad. End play's good. Feels pretty true. It's a little stiffer than a new roller bearing though.” Kid goes all competent on me. Kind of like me and small-arms after being in the Corps. Around here, by the time you're Mick and Kurt's ages, I guess you know this stuff in your bones.

Micki looks at him. “Okay. Let's do this.” Mission time. Ooh-rah. Let's get this done.

Chapter 23

Back out at the field. We take a tractor this time. A John Deere Model R, by the label. Old-fashioned piston engine. Corn diesel. No cab, just a seat between the fenders, and the open air all around us. It's a big, noisy, burly, ancient green machine, and it seems almost silly pulling the little trailer full of equipment behind it. To say nothing of being followed by the massive crane, with its absurdly quiet electric motor.

“Mick, what do we need this thing for?”

Micki rolls her eyes for real this time. Tractors move slowly. She can do that and still drive. “City girl, do you think I'm going to get these bearings off with my bare hands? Uh-uh. Gotta press them off. I need the tractor for the hydraulic, to run the press.” Tractor provides hydraulic power. Got it. Make a mental note to bore her with the details of how to field strip an M4 carbine some time. Because I don't think I'll have time to learn how to farm. Just get this done. Make this work.

Pull up to a tower. Micki looks up at it. She moves the tractor ahead another three towers. “We'll start with this one. Twenty-three.”

Look at the weeds growing around this tower. It doesn't look as though this machine has been serviced in a long time. “Its only problem is bearings?”

Micki nods. “Yeah. ‘Member how I said the controllers aren't interchangeable? This one's one of the ones that won't interchange.” Micki shuts off the tractor and grabs a jug of oil from the trailer. Yeah. Standardized parts aren't. Interchangeable parts won't. I remember. Glare at the turbine a moment for that. You're in my way, machine. That's a bad place to be. God. I am going crazy in here.

Kurt brings the crane up next to the tower. “This one?” he yells.

“Yeah,” Micki yells back. She rummages in the trailer and pulls out a pair of battered headsets. Climbs up to the crane's cab. Hands Kurt one. “Here. We'll need these.”

Kurt pulls the headset on. Turns it on. Hands Micki a hard hat. “Don't want you getting clobbered by the hook.”

“Thanks. And Kurt, move the mic down or stop chewing gum. That's gross.”

“Sorry.” He adjusts the mic. It booms in her ear a little. “How's that?”

“Better.”

He gets to work unfolding the boom on the crane. Me, I bite my tongue. So to speak. Flicker of anger toward Kurt. Toward Micki. Toward something, I don't know. It's like our private conversation suddenly has an interloper. Hang on to that enthusiasm I had a few minutes ago. It's fading, and I need it. God, I hope this op ends soon. I'm losing my mind in here, I think.

“Lighten up, Rae,” Mick says in the gestalt. “Stop being jealous. Geez.”

“Sorry.”

“Heads up,” Kurt says, and lowers the hook.

Micki catches it in a gloved hand and ties it to the bucket. “Wait until I get up there to lift it. Last thing I want is a Darwin award.” And we scramble up the tower without further discussion.

Reach the top. Clip the safety line to the turbine nacelle. “Hoist away, Kurt,” Micki says. We don't even stop to admire the view. Just get this done. Move the mission through this. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. And my own addition to that: Succeed. I can taste it. We just have to make this work.

“Lifting,” Kurt replies, and the bucket comes up.

“That's good. Stop.” Mick grabs it, sets it down, ties it off as well. She loads up a socket on her ratchet driver. Shackles her safety line to the crane's hook. Slides out onto the machine's hub. Reaches between her legs to catch one of four large bolts. Heaves. Nothing happens, save that she starts to slide off the hub the other direction. She catches a leg around one of the turbine blades and heaves again. Still nothing. “This is great,” she mutters. “Gotta get a breaker bar or something.”

But I can help here. Feel her muscles. Rebalance their contraction patterns toward the strength end of the spectrum. So they spend their strength in short bursts rather than sustained contractions. “Don't make any sudden moves. Try now.”

She arches her back and pulls hard. Strengthened tendons and joints creak, but they hold, and the bolt twists, stubbornly. “Holy crap,” she says. And goes after the bolt with more relish. “Muscle resequencing stuff really works,” she says to me.

“Huh?” Kurt says.

“Sorry. Just muttering to myself,” Micki says, quickly. “Wonder where I might have picked up that nasty habit?” she asks me.

Smile at her. “Wait until we crank on your adrenal glands. It's like being bionic.”

“Shit. Too bad you didn't think of that on the way home from Harrison's.”

“Wouldn't have helped for any length of time. It just changes how you spend your strength. Doesn't make you stronger. Look out for the hook.”

She hooks a sling around each blade of the turbine. Checks it. Then swings back onto the turbine's catwalk, hooks the hook to the sling, and crawls into the nacelle. Braces her back against the bearing, and presses the hub, hub cone, and rotor off the spline with her feet. “Okay, rotor coming off… Take her down once she's loose.”

“Taking up the slack … yeah, I got it. No problem.” He pops his gum slightly. “Sorry.”

“Okay, it's yours, take it down slow and easy, and put it out of the way someplace.”

“Lowering,” Kurt says. He rotates the crane and sets the blades and hub down lightly at the base of tower twenty-two. Then climbs out to unhook the hook, then climbs back in.

On top of the tower, Micki gets busy with a screw gun, unfastening the upper shell of the nacelle.

“Hook coming up,” Kurt says.

Micki pauses to look where the hook is. Nods. “Okay.” Finishes with the screw gun. She hooks Kurt's hook to a lifting eye on the shell. “Okay. Take her up. Easy, though, don't bend my fucking shell. Or clobber me, for that matter.”

I want hands. Of my own. So I can help. Damn it, we're making progress here, but I'm not helping. All I can do is learn things I'll never have time to use. And I need the morale right now. As tired as we both are, we both need it.

“Lifting,” Kurt says. He lifts the shell away. “Lowering,” and sets it, delicate as you please, next to the turbine hub. Another lift takes the upper stator half away just as smoothly.

Micki sets to work on the bearing caps on the now-exposed generator's rotor. A couple nudges with enhanced strength, and the stiff bolts turn out. She passes a sling around it twice, on either side of the windings, and hooks it up, then gets as far out of the way as we can. “Okay. This is the biggie. Take her up slow and easy.”

The steel cable from the crane groans a little as the load comes on, and half the weight of the generator slowly begins to rise off the lower shell. “That's good,” Micki says. “Lower away slow. I'm coming down.”

We climb down. Kurt sets the rotor of the generator down smoothly. Micki grabs another tool out of the trailer behind the tractor. Plugs a hose from it into the rear of the tractor, and revs the tractor's engine up a little. She slides the tool into place. “Mind my fingers,” she says quietly.

Pull back again. Let her do this. She's the expert. And all I can do is watch. Sucks, sucks, sucks.

“Huh?” Kurt says.

“Talking to myself again. Sorry.” Micki says.

She opens the valve and lets hydraulic pressure into the ram connected to the tool. There's a screech of metal, and the bearing slides off the shaft, reluctantly. She repeats the process on the other end of the shaft.

“Okay. Now for the interesting part,” she says.

By this time, Kurt has gotten out of the crane to watch. “Your dad made that thing, didn't he?” Kurt asks.

Micki nods. “Yeah. He was all about the lazy and the cheap. Why go back to the shed when you can make a portable press?” She fishes out one of her new bearings. Changes a piece on the tool. “Here goes nothing,” she says, and opens the valve to the hydraulic again. The old tractor doesn't even strain, pressing the big bearing back onto the shaft. She repeats the process on the other end, then goes over to the hub. She turns the valve, presses off the bearing. Presses another back on. Bolts the thrust plates back in place. Reconnects the blade to the hub.

Back up the tower. I'm starting to understand how Micki got so strong. “Rotor first,” is her only comment. The operation proceeds quietly. “Stator.” She bolts it into place. “Shell.” It too gets screwed down. Finally. “Okay. Here's the dangerous part. Hub.” While we wait, she greases the splines in the generator shaft.

“How's it coming?” I ask her.

“Aren't you paying attention?” she demands.

“Yeah, but … I feel like a spare tire here.”

“So far, so good. We'll find out when we try and spin the thing. Now let me work.”

Kurt brings the hub up to the top of the tower. Micki clips her safety line to the hook and straddles the shaft as she guides the hub onto the spline. Twists a little to rotate the generator rotor. Grabs for balance. Guides the hub back on. Crawls backward into the nacelle. Moves her safety line, and slides the hub home. Clips her safety line to the hook on the crane and sits on the hub and puts the bolts in.

I breathe a lot easier when she's back on the platform. She ducks into the nacelle again, to plug all the components back in. Changes the oil. Cleans the filter. I could have done that part. I remember it from the other day. But it'd only slow her down.

She climbs out of the nacelle and threads new rope in the pulley. “I'm coming down, Kurt.” When she's down, she adds, “Move the crane out of the way. If this turbine comes unglued, you want to be able to get that thing home in one piece. Don't want you getting thrashed 'cause of me again.”

Kurt chuckles. “'M used to it, Mick.” He moves the crane out of the way. Micki opens the box. Jumps back. Snorts. “Wasp's nest. Old one. Empty,” she mutters, and brushes the thing out. “Okay, here goes nothing. Grid breaker on. Controller … good. It booted up.” She flips the second switch and watches the machine. The blades pivot. Catch the wind. And the machine begins to turn. “Oil pressure is good. There. We just went online.” She looks up at the machine again. Look up into the vast, empty, cloudless sky as this turbine, that's been dead for so long, picks up where it left off, and spins away merrily. She checks the bearing temperature. “Looks good to me.” I'm pretty sure it's me smiling with Micki's lips. Bask in the feeling. At least for a moment. “Let's do another one,” I tell her.

“Snap,” she says, aloud. “Let's do another one while we've got the time.”

We pass tower twenty one. Micki barely gives it a glance, but I can see that it has no blades at all. “Open windings in the rotor,” she explains briefly. “Plus bad diodes, and the controller's over in eleven. Gonna take a lot to make that one go again.” She looks over at twenty. Looks down. “Okay. This one.”

“Mick, isn't twenty…”

“Yes,” she cuts me off. “Time I fucking bury that, don't you think?”

Mrs. Blake comes out to the field on the four-wheeler, while we're working on twenty. “Micki? It's six o'clock. It's supper time. And Kurt's mom called. She's wondering where he is.”

“We're almost done, here, Mom.”

Mrs. Blake looks at the tower. Then at the hub. Then at twenty-three, happily spinning away, and twenty, partly dismantled. “I thought those two had bad bearings.” Micki ignores her, already on her way up the tower.

Mrs. Blake is watching. “Micki, you want to tell me what's going on?”

“Gotta get done here, Mom. We can't get Kurt in trouble for this.”

“It's okay. I talked to his mother, and she says he can stay for dinner, as long as he brings the crane home before dark!” she yells. Things go fairly smoothly. We're into a rhythm. But I keep a careful eye out. This machine's killed one Blake already.

“He fell off, Rae. That's all. Happens,” Micki says to me, in the gestalt.

Apparently, she's right. We get back down to the ground in one piece.

“What did you do? Where did you get new bearings for those things?” Mrs. Blake asks.

“I improvised. Adapted. Overcame.” Micki smiles at her mother. From Lindsey Blake's expression, you'd think she's heard that saying before. Given Micki's father, she probably has.

“What brought this on?” Mrs. Blake replies.

Micki walks over to shut down the tractor's engine. “Tired of looking at dead turbines, you know? Did some digging online and came up with a solution. Plus…” She glances meaningfully at the cab of the crane. “I kinda wanted to go to the party this weekend.”

Everyone's quiet at dinner. Kurt and Micki are physically tired. Mrs. Blake gets up from time to time to look at the screen that monitors the generators. And I smile every damn time she does, quietly, to myself. Mission's not over yet, I remind myself. But we won the first battle.

Apparently Mrs. Blake likes what she sees too. She finally speaks. “Kurt, will your parents let you go to this party?”

“They're not real keen on it. But my dad says if I go with Micki, I can go. He, um … he says Micki's a good, moral girl.”

Micki gives him a dirty look.

“Hey, they said it, not me. They meant it as a compliment.”

Mrs. Blake chuckles. “It is a compliment, Micki. And. If you want to go to the party with Kurt, you can go. You're still grounded, but we'll make an exception this time. You've earned it.” She looks at Kurt. “You both earned it. Thank you.”

Kurt smiles. “Any time, Mrs. Blake.”

Micki looks down.

“Smile, Micki. You did good work. You wanted this, remember?” I tell her.

“You wanted this, Rae. I'm just the whore in this whole business.” But she smiles. “Snap.” She looks over at Kurt. “Thanks.”

Kurt beams. “Totally snap,” he says.

Take a slow breath, and savor this small victory. It feels good totally out of proportion.

Chapter 24

Midnight. Getting tired. We're both getting tired of waking up in the bathroom. Micki's sore everywhere. Arms. Legs. Back. “Nggggg,” she complains.

“Yeah. Should have warned you about that. There's a price to pay for changing muscle contraction sequences. Your muscles don't like it much, especially at first. You need a lot of sleep when you use it.”

“Now she tells me.”

“Would you not have done it?”

“Hell no,” Micki smiles a little. Then sobers. “When you're gone … um. When you're gone, will I still be able to do all this stuff?”

“Oh, yeah. And a lot more. Like I said, all these neurofibers that are busy being me become part of your brain. It's … intense. You really do get a brain boost out of the deal. And neuro-wires, state-of-the-art jack, easy interfacing with small-arms. All of it.”

We head back to her room and get dressed. “Yeah, but it's not free. Is it?”

“Nope. Not free.”

“So how am I supposed to enjoy it, then?” she asks as she pulls on her bra, and arranges herself in the cups.

“Sometimes you have to make deals like that to stay alive, Mick. Only advice I can give you is, if you're making a deal with the devil, don't sell cheap.”

“Voice of experience again?”

“Yup.”

“Doesn't seem very heroic,” she says.

Shake her head for her. “I pushed hard. I got things done. I sacrificed. Heroic? No. They don't pay me for that. Maybe that doesn't exist in the real world, I don't know. Doesn't exist in my world, anyway.”

“You're a real downer tonight,” she says.

“We're tired. It affects me as much as it does you, Micki. But I'm sorry. For what it's worth.”

Micki pulls on her tank top and sprays herself with bug repellant. “So, how do you go on? How do I? I mean … if everything's compromised like that, why bother?”

“Working for the U.N. isn't so bad. They'll probably put you to work chasing hackers. Same game. Different side. Higher stakes. Tougher challenges. Cooler gear. Pay's better too. Not great, but better.”

Micki looks down. “So I might wind up tracking down Sparks and Nate. And Ed and Kari, you're saying.”

I promised I'd be honest with her. “Mick, we talked about this. They're already tracked down. They're going to have to make their own deals if they want to stay out of prison.” At best.

“Fuck. They'd have been right to shoot me.”

“Mick. Nate was the one who sold you out, remember?”

“Do you think he's working for Director Neil?”

“I don't know exactly. I doubt it's that direct. It's safer when you do things by proxy. But there's certainly a flow of information between Nate and Robert. But at the same time, if he had Nate under control, he wouldn't need me. The 785s shouldn't even have been a blip on Robert's radar, but he went after you like a sidewinder.”

“A rattlesnake?”

“Heat-seeking missile. Old tech. Sorry.”

“He said we were in the trace his intercept ops picked up.”

“I'm sure you were. But so was the rest of KanREN. They had to filter for you specifically.”

“What about the trace virus from the bank?”

“You run virus scanners and outbound traffic monitor ice, right?”

Micki rolls her eyes as we climb out the window. “Duh.”

“Did you detect any tracking virus?”

“No.”

“Did you detect one when you cleaned out your deck?”

“I didn't look. Just erased everything and reloaded.”

“There may not have been one. When you're interrogating someone, you don't have to be honest about it. You can make up whatever evidence you want to convince the person they have to deal. Classic police technique.”

“But you said…”

“That's only if you make deals. They had your deck, Micki. They probably generated that data, going through your own logs.”

“Without a warrant?”

“They only need a warrant if they're going to introduce something in court. Otherwise, for Covert, at least, it doesn't matter. Why do you think they didn't formally arrest you?”

“Fuck.”

“Covert plays dirty. That's our job. The Bureau has to play strictly by the book. They wouldn't have even arrested you.”

“Do they have a purpose other than screwing random people?” she snaps.

“Actually, yeah. Every company's got their own cadre of corporate security people, and they've gotten awfully good at playing the system to their advantage. Covert operates in the black to stop these corporate guys from … taking over the world, basically. You know how bad it can be when U.N. troops have to put down corporate security armies. You were here when it happened. I was overseas.”

“So you're the watchers. Who watches you?” Smart girl, Micki.

“The Bureau steps on us if we get too far out of line. We step on them if we find patterns of corruption in their organization. And both sides are responsible to the Secretary. The directors of both services report to him. Or her. It was a him when I was copied.”

“So this secretary knows all the slimy shit Covert does.”

“Not really. At most, he gives an order, “Investigate company foo.” How it gets done, by whom, what rules get bent aren't his concern, as long as the job gets done. Now, if someone gets seriously out of line and it gets brought to his attention, he may have to take action. Especially if it hits the media.”

“So…”

Yeah, that's where it sounded like she was going with this. “Don't even think it,” I tell her. “Robert's a savvy player. You might get him yelled at for the rules he's bent, but if you go to the secretary or the press about all this, you can bet money you'll get tried in TexMex. Actually that's probably the best you could hope for. As long as he's got that over your head, he pretty much owns you.”

Micki gets on her bicycle and pedals out onto the road. “So the deal I signed…”

“Was a formality, really. It also covers his ass if he gets caught putting hardware in certain underage girls.”

“If I went to the RCMP though…”

“Again, you could probably get him yelled at, yeah. And then he'd point out that you're carrying a million dollars worth of classified hardware, and probably someone would make a deal. But even if Canada stuck to its guns, it would take years to resolve, and your whole future would be in the hands of politicians. Even then, you'd never get a decent job. No security clearance.”

“You guys suck.”

“I'm sorry, Mick. This is what you signed up for. I'm just telling you how it is.”

She pedals quietly for a while, then adds, “Sounds like you thought all this through once already.”

“Y'know, one day I'll stop underestimating your smarts, Mick.”

“So … what's he got on you that's so bad?”

Pull back from her as much as I can. Which isn't much. Still feel her hands on the handlebars. Still watch the road. “Please don't ask me that, Micki. Please.”

“Does this have anything to do with the Yankees?”

Shit. She can't know. I haven't given her that. Please, let me not have given her that. “Um. Mick. You promised me you'd back away from really secret stuff if I was honest with you. All I can tell you is it's bad, and I really doubt it has anything to do with this mission.”

“Sorry.”

She's quiet a while. All I want to do is wrap my arms around myself, sit in the dark, and watch the corn and the quiet go by, but on some level I remember that this will make bicycling difficult for Micki. I miss having my own body. I don't even remember what it feels like anymore, but I miss not having to share. God, I need to get this op over with. No. Not just over with. I need to succeed. It changes the mission parameters a little.

“If it's so bad, why did you tell Neil? You knew how he is,” she finally asks.

I don't answer her. Not for a long time as she pedals.

“Rae? You still in there?”

“Where would I go?”

“You didn't answer my question.”

I sigh at her. “Micki, I did something horrible, okay? It was a long time ago … but it's one of those things that doesn't go away. One of those things you can't undo. And that kind of thing … gnaws at you. It got to the point where I had to tell someone. And I loved Robert. I trusted him with the knowledge.”

“So what happened?”

I miss being able to gesture. I'm starting to realize that I am … I was one of these people who talks with her hands. All I want to do is shake my head. But I can't. “I know you won't believe this, Mick. I know … it hasn't been your experience with the man. But Robert is a human being. The relationship just died. He knew it. I knew it. We hadn't … made love in over a year. The basic caring was gone. I pointed out to him at one point that we're both killers, basically, and staying in a relationship where neither of us was happy pretty much had to end badly for someone.”

“What'd he say?”

“Have you ever seen someone laugh, but their eyes aren't laughing, or even smiling?”

Micki nods. “Kari sometimes does that. I just figured it was because she's nuts.”

“That's what he did. Then … he just got quiet. He said, ‘If you want a divorce, you know what to do.’ And that was that. I don't know what he thought I'd do next. Truth is, I didn't do anything for four months. I was going to serve him papers the night I was copied.”

“He was unemotional like that?” she asks.

“Hidden like that, at least. I never saw the man cry the whole time we were married.”

“That sucks.”

“For all concerned, Mick. Believe me. People always thought we made a good couple, you know? A lot alike.”

“So when did you grow all this humanity?”

“Must be your bad influence on me, Micki.”

She chuckles at that.

We meet them at Highway 81. Nate is driving the Winnebago. Kari hauls Micki's bike up the stairs and shoves it into the back next to the bed while Micki climbs aboard. She looks at Micki carefully, black eyes focusing close. I wonder what she's seeing. “You okay, sweetie?” Kari asks. “You look like crap.”

Micki eyes Kari. “Thanks. Nice to see you too. Least you and your brother are dressed this time.”

Kari laughs gently. “Don't be like that, Micki. Nate and Carl were just goofing around. You know. Boys and their toys.”

“Yeah?” Micki looks at Kari's eyes.

“Mmhm.”

“Only you and Ed were the toys.”

Kari laughs. “Well, yeah. But that's me, you know? Tool, toy, weapon. None of them are good or evil by themselves. It's what you do with them.” She pauses, as though about to add something more, then changes tack. “Hey. You got your hair cut.”

“Yesterday, Kari.” Micki says.

Kari sighs, and tilts her head a little. “Things were a little busy yesterday, Mick. I'm sorry. I didn't notice. It looks really nice.”

“Hey, enough with the girl talk. Let's get this show on the road,” Sparks says.

Micki walks over to sit at the table next to Kari. She buckles herself in, and the Winnebago lurches into motion.

Kari ruffles Micki's hair. “Yup. Still works.” She grins at that. I watch. The smile reaches her eyes.

There is, of course, the matter of where the Sargents fit in to all this. Me. Nate. Big player. Sargents. Connection between Nate and the big player. Connection between Nate and Robert. Connection between me and Robert. And somehow it all fits together. Frustrating.

“Where're we headed?” Micki asks.

“Dunno if you heard, but the little war we started burned itself out this afternoon,” Sparks says.

“Who won?” Micki asks.

“Reapers. They must have been seriously souped up somewhere along the way. They took the Bizmen all the way down, and chewed up FBOF so bad that FBOF called the cops. Cops beat on the Reapers some, and there were some arrests. Time all was said and done, the Reapers had thirty-nine dead. Eighteen DOAs and another twenty-one so badly fucked up they got euthanized when they got to the hospital. Well, you know, too badly fucked up to pay for, at least. And those are just the ones on the public record.”

Micki shivers, and I remember the dream of the injection in her neck. Brain death is more or less instantaneous.

“How many left, do you think?” Micki asks.

“Nobody really knows. The Reapers were always pretty cagey with their numbers. Figure if their maximum strength was more than about fifty, their payroll would add up to more than the golden limit, and the RCMP would have come down on them. And that's assuming they only paid those guys twenty-k a year. Can't live on that. Now, if they were working with someone else, that might all change.”

“Thinking they're getting someone outside backing them?” Micki snorts.

“The Bizmen and FBOF were tough customers. They might.”

“Did they turn up with a health plan?” I ask that one. I think. I'm so tired it's hard to tell.

“Nope,” Sparks says. “No health plan, no service contracts. Story I got was one guy walked out of the hospital with a traumatic amputation below the elbow. Hospital security dragged him back. He owed for the ambulance ride.”

“Jesus,” Micki says. “If they're getting backing, they're getting screwed.”

Kari slips an arm around Micki's waist. “Life in the new world,” she says, a little sadly.

Micki looks at Kari. “You don't have one either?”

Kari shakes her head.

Micki gently curls her arm around the tech-ninja's, and laces her fingers among Kari's.

Kari shrugs and smiles. “Hey. Better to burn out than fade away, anyway, right? ‘Sides. Canadian law says they can't euthanize you without a court order. You're underage.”

Micki looks at Kari again. “That's supposed to make me feel better?”

Kari laughs and tickles Micki's bellybutton with her free hand. “Oooo, I think Hottywire cares or something.”

Micki squirms away from Kari as much as her seatbelt permits. “Yeeek!” she giggles. I squirm too. Micki's devastatingly ticklish. Joy.

Kari grins impishly at Micki.

Sparks rolls his eyes. “Get a room, you guys.”

Micki gives Sparks a big, fat raspberry.

“Put that away if you're not going to use it,” he quips, almost automatically. Old banter, sounds like.

Micki rolls her eyes. “Okay. What's the plan?”

“Real simple. We go poke the Reapers again, and see what's left. If they're still strong at all, we go slap FBOF again, then kick a few more hornet's nests on the Reapers' behalf.”

Micki looks down. “And if they're not?”

“We get rid of the Reapers ourselves. Take over their ops and sell most of them off to other gangs. Cheaper'n fighting, and we're not big enough to run their whole operation. We use the cash to get some upgrades. Hire some more people.” Sparks looks at Kari, then Micki. “And a service plan, if there's enough. I don't wanna check out with a needle in my neck either, you know?”

“This comes from you, or Blackjack?” Micki asks.

Sparks nods toward the front of the Winnebago. “Him, mostly.”

“And his big player?”

Nate speaks up. “Yeah. That's what he wants, too. We move up in the food chain. Pretty much like you wanted, Micki. You don't like it, there's the door. We might even stop first.”

“Kiss my ass, Nate. I was just asking. Just tired of being in the dark all the time, and having to make all this up myself, you know?”

Nate chuckles, but it's a humorless, forced sound. “Wouldn't touch your ass, Micki. I've seen the kind of company you keep.” Well. I'm insulted.

But Micki just shrugs. “Your loss,” she says. “It's a classic.”

Kari snickers, and slowly raises her hand to flip Nate off with deliberate elegance. She holds it high enough that Nate can see it in his rear-view mirror.

Ed looks over his shoulder. There's something in the man's eye, something in the slack, but enthusiastic expression, and in the body language that reminds me of a guard dog I knew once. The kind of look that says, ‘Can I hurt him? Please? Oh please? Just a little?’ That kind of enthusiasm.

Kari shakes her head slightly, but doesn't say anything. Ed turns back around and slumps in the seat.

Micki shrugs. But she asks me in the gestalt. “Is this what we're supposed to do?”

“Yeah,” I tell her. “Remember, I told our contact that was the plan.”

“But if the player is Neil, or someone he's working with, that doesn't make any fucking sense.”

I have to stop and think about that. “So much for that theory, I guess. Covert's pretty good about not chasing its own tail.”

“So … what then?”

I have to shrug at her. Bad habit, I guess. She gave it to me. Or I might have given it to her, I don't know. “We see what happens, I guess. But.”

“But what?”

“Be careful. Live-bait ops are very, very dangerous.”

“Said the fisherman to the worm,” Micki grumps.

Chapter 25

It's almost comfortable being this close to Micki. Feeling her thoughts run through me. I have to work to keep the link one way. Gestalts. Sparks. The usual concerns.

“You in?” Sparks says in the gestalt.

“I'm in,” Micki answers.

“Then let's go see what we can see.”

Micki jumps to Leo's Tool and Machine. Checks the status of our fiber. “There 'tis. Doesn't look like anyone's noticed it.”

“Well, there's luck. Or the Reapers have been too busy dying to check it out,” he says.

Micki stiffens. I think it comes from me. I'm not sure why. I try to let the thought “Careful,” slip into Micki's mind.

“Well, be careful,” she says, automatically. “Something's giving me the willies about this.”

“Don't sweat it,” Sparks says. “First time in a run that drew blood. You get used to it.”

“That's what they tell me, yeah.”

We all dive together, and the checked-tile floor of the pizzeria floats up to slap the soles of our feet. Sparks' and Micki's. And by extension, mine. The fan spins overhead. It, and the floor, are about the only things that haven't changed.

Look around. Viral code is gnawing at the waitress, and her head has disappeared into a twisted, ropelike, squirming mass, rendered flashing red by Micki's antivirus ice. It's wrenched the waitress sideways, folding her in half vertically along her spine until her shoulders are at a ninety degree angle to each other. One breast has pulled free of the shirt, and is lovingly rendered by the original code, jiggling as the viral code eats her. The other blinks with great eyelids over a gray, iris-less eye through the shirt, as digital code gets recombined in ways it wasn't ever meant to be. Her arms flutter toward where her head should be now, and again, and she makes organic, sucking sounds. She reeks of sex and pizza.

The viral code is everywhere. Tables. Chairs. Pizza. The smell in the room has degenerated to basic elements. Salty. Iron. Spice. We move a little in the representation. And inhale a cloud of pure capsicum heat. Like being maced.

“Fuck!” Micki says. A quick thought, and she turns off scent and air rendering. The room goes still, even though the fan still makes rushing sounds in nonexistent air. She takes a quick look around. Then looks down at her feet. “Oh, shit.”

The floor changes under her, and viral code jumps up over her black leather boots. “Fuck!” Micki says. “Virus picked me up!” A quick thought and she turns her virus protection ice from passive to active, and the viral code spikes purple and evaporates. And alarms go off everywhere. If I had legs. If I had arms. If I could do anything, I'd be hugging a wall for cover, waiting for a target to shoot at.

“Viral load's about twenty, thirty percent. This server's not very fast,” Sparks says. “Don't panic, Hotty. Nobody's around to hear the alarms.”

Micki's antiviral software shows about the same, vigorously killing the viral software as it tries to attach itself to her rendering code. “It's rough stuff, though,” she says. “Shit. I've never seen this one before, have you?” An alarm goes off in some of Micki's ice. “Oh fuck,” she says. “Fuck! It's tracing…”

Sparks feeds a piece of the virus to his analysis ice. Picks a viral squirm up. At least, that's how it's represented by the deck. “What the…”

“Sparks, out. Get out!” Micki screams in the gestalt. “Drop carrier! Drop carrier!”

Too late. All hell is here, breaking loose.

The virus reveals its true self. The whole room collapses into virus, and we plunge into darkness. Sparks' avatar is engulfed in the viral squirms, and I feel his brain spasm through the gestalt just once before I override Micki, sever the gestalt, and dump us both offline, all the way out into the seat of the Winnebago.

Micki yanks the optical cable out of her skull.

Kari's holding the optical cable that used to plug Sparks into his deck. He sags against her as Micki opens her eyes. The smell of urine accompanies the faint dripping sounds coming from him now.

“What happened?” Kari asks.

“He got scrambled. Some nasty shit grabbed us.” She yells forward to Nate. “Nate, kill the transmitter. Shut it down cold, then get us the fuck out of here, we're totally branched.”

“What happened?” he yells back, even as the Winnebago lurches into motion.

“It was a trap.” Micki slams her fist down on the table. “Fucking tar-baby trap. With a scrambler and a traceback! Damn, I've never even heard about anything like that before!”

Kari feels Sparks' neck. Then presses her ear to his chest. “Shit.” She reaches into a pocket and pulls out a patch, peels it with her teeth, tears open his shirt, and slaps it square in the middle of his chest. She unbuckles his seatbelt and hauls him onto the floor and begins chest compressions. “Shit!” she yells again. Inflates his lungs. Keeps compressing.

“Micki, get up in my bed and get that blue pouch. Hurry!” she says.

Micki unbuckles her seatbelt and works her way forward, climbs the ladder into the bed over the cab. She returns with the pouch and hands it to Kari.

Kari sits back a moment. Opens the pouch. She takes a tube of gel out of the pouch and squeezes a blob of it on Sparks' hairy chest, then takes the gadget in the pouch out and switches it on. Scans back and forth. “I was afraid of that,” she says, and leans back, all urgency draining out of her.

“What's going on?” Nate demands, practically at the same time Micki does.

“That was more than a scrambler virus, Mick,” Kari says. “That was a parasympathetic stressor-scrambler. They call it ‘junk food’ in CalTech. As in, ‘the next sound you hear…’”

“Will be your coronary arteries slamming shut,” I finish for Micki.

“You've heard of this?” she demands of me. But I haven't.

“Is this new?” I use Micki's voice to ask.

Kari nods a little. “Not very. Ed and I ran into it once before. A year ago.”

Micki looks down at Sparks. His color is fading to the usual yellow, white, and blue. “Ohgod,” she says. “Ohgod.” She squeezes her eyes tight and looks away. “Shit. Kari. Please. Tell me he'll be okay.”

Kari looks at her strangely, then down at the body. She gently shakes her head. “No, honey. Carl is dead.” She gets up. “Ed, bag up Carl, please.” She looks at Micki again. Reaches out to touch Micki's neck, just under the point of her jaw, and hold fingers there a few seconds. Micki's pulse is hammering. Kari sits next to her. “Take off your shirt, Micki.”

Micki turns to look at Kari. Then glances at Sparks. She leans forward and peels out of her tank top, and reaches behind her to unfasten her bra and take it off.

“Micki, don't,” I tell her. “If she scans you, she'll find me.”

Micki ignores me.

Kari squirts the same goop over Micki's breastbone.

“What's that?” Micki asks.

“It's just lube. Makes the scan head move over your skin better.”

“Micki please!” I say. “Don't let her!” But it's too late. Kari presses the scan head to Micki's chest. Micki looks up at Kari, and by extension, I look into the tech-ninja's deep black eyes. It's like she's looking back at me. Looking through the machine called Micki, at the ghost called me.

“Will I live?” Micki asks.

Kari nods. “Uh huh.” She lifts the scan head away, and looks carefully at Micki. “Your heart's fine, sweetie.” She flicks an arm toward me in a blur. And I take control of Micki's nervous system.

“Wait,” Micki says to me.

“Micki, she knows I'm in here”

“Trust me,” Micki says.

Kari scoops Micki into her arms and hugs her tight. “We'll talk about everything else later, honey. Right now, I'm just glad you're okay,” she whispers in Micki's ear.

I let Micki drive. Otherwise the hair on the back of my neck would be standing up. “Micki … this could be very bad.”

Micki hugs Kari back, and she doesn't answer me. Look over the tech-ninja's shoulder.

The Winnebago's network switch still shows a link light. Oh, shit. I use Micki's voice. “Nate, turn the fucking transmitter off!” Kari turns to eye the switch, then looks forward.

“I did!” he yells back.

“No, you didn't! It's still on!”

Kari turns. Pivots in Micki's lap in a blur that Micki's eye chemistry can't follow. There's a gun in her hand.

Snap Micki's hand up at full speed to intercept it.

But Kari isn't pointing the gun at me. At Micki. Her arm arcs outward toward the closet next to us, and she stitches the door with bullets from the MetalStak gun. The closet explodes into splinters, and the smell of burning electronics fills the air. She gives me a single hard glance as the link light goes out. She saw. And she's keeping an eye on me to keep me from doing exactly what I was planning to do. Pull the Talon and shoot her. Chaos. Micki and I are blown, the mission is blown. Damn it. How could I ever think this stuff was fun?

Kari reaches into the closet and pulls out yet another channel-fiber coverall, and a suit of surplus body armor, which she tosses into our lap. “Put this on, Micki. Things are getting a bit rough.” Kari, you have a gift for understatement.

Chapter 26

Kari dumps Sparks' body out the camper door while Micki is pulling her boots on. Throws him clear, so we don't run over him. While Kari's not watching, I move the chameleopoly holster from Micki's shorts to her belly under the armor. It blends in quickly.

Micki doesn't look at me in the gestalt. “You're going to shoot Kari?” she asks.

“Yeah. Because if she decides to shoot us first, we won't get the chance.”

“She won't.”

Stare at her a moment. “You're betting both our lives on that, Micki?”

“Yes, I am. I know her.”

“She knows I'm…”

“No, she doesn't know you're there. She knows I'm wired, that's all. She could have shot me right then, and she didn't. Stop being so fucking paranoid, Rae.”

Kari looks back toward us. Opens another closet and reaches out a K50. “Here. You can use this.”

“We should scatter, Kari. Go to ground.” I tell her with Micki's voice. Grunt a little as we take the heavy K50. “Long as we're in this thing, we're sitting ducks.” Why am I doing this? I have the drop on both Kari and her brother. Why? Am I really taking Micki's word on this?

Kari nods. “You're right about the camper, at least.” She yells forward. “Nate, you keep driving. Go somewhere. Ditch this thing. We'll meet up online and regroup. Ed, Micki and I are going to bail. You wait one minute, then you jump too.” She gives her brother a look, but doesn't say anything, then opens the door again.

Mick and I look out into the darkness. I take over. Jump. Tuck. Roll. Curl up around my K50. Let the armor absorb the impact. Kari follows us out moments later.

“Ow,” Micki says, when we finally stop moving. She says it aloud.

“You okay, sweetie?” Kari asks.

Micki rolls to her feet carefully. Moves this and that. “Yeah. I'll live. You?”

“Of course,” Kari says.

A bright flash lights the highway, a mile down the road, and the thunderous explosion follows it shortly.

“What the hell?” Micki yells. “Ed!”

Kari shakes her head. “Don't worry. Ed's smart enough to jump before that went off.”

Micki stares at Kari.

“Nate set us up, Mick. The trap. The transmitter. All of it. I thought you were in on it, at first, since a lot of this was your plan. Especially when I saw your wiring, and how fast you can go. We need to talk about it, but not right now. I was testing you. You passed.”

“Shit,” Micki says.

“Uh … Mick?” I ask.

“Don't rub my nose in it,” she grumps to me. “What would you have done?” she asks Kari.

Kari looks down. Then away. “I don't know.” She gets up. Looks out into the dark. “I thought you'd fight when I moved on you, or shoot me when I turned my back, if you were in on it. Ed was ready to take the shot from the front seat.”

“Um … Rae?” Micki says. But she knows I already know.

Kari frowns.

“What's wrong?” Micki asks.

“Ed's turned his transceiver off. Or he's inside a metal building or something. I can't reach him.”

Use Micki's voice. “We need to get out of here. Keep moving.”

“I have to wait for my brother, Micki,” Kari says patiently.

“Kari, if you're transmitting, they can track us.”

Kari looks at Micki, then just shakes her head. “Not my transceiver, they can't.” She reaches into a pocket and hands Micki something. “Transceiver. Put it on receive only, if you don't believe me about my hardware. When I hook up with Ed, I'll signal you. Pay attention. I'm not going to transmit long.” With that, Kari walks away.

Micki plugs the receiver into one of her jacks. We listen. Kari eventually disappears off the link as well. Sounds like she found her brother.

“Now what?” Micki asks me.

“We go home.”

Micki glances back toward the burning Winnebago. “You got any idea how far that is from here?”

“You gonna tell me we have a choice?”

She goes quiet, and we walk. The air grows progressively cooler, and thunder rumbles in the distance. “Gonna rain on us, isn't it?” she asks.

“Not a clue, Mick. Sorry.”

“Thought you were the information warrior.”

“Find me a net connection, and I'll tell you.”

“Fuck, even I can look that up.”

We're both quiet again. Walking in the darkness. Following the road, back the way we came. Carrying the K50. Listening.

Hear it. The UAV. It comes up fast. Look through the starlight video feed from the K50. Take the shot.

Recoil slams through Micki's shoulder. Report. Gout of flame a meter long. Micki's ears are ringing after the first shot. It takes two more before I hit the UAV. The little machine sparks, flips, and comes down in a shower of pieces. We run.

Bright light. Couldn't hear them coming through the ringing in Micki's ears. Shit.

“Freeze! Police! Throw down your weapon and raise your hands.” Not … how you expect to be greeted by gang bangers.

“Shoot!” Micki says. “Come on!”

“I trusted you with Kari,” I tell her. “Trust me.” And we set the rifle down, slowly. Carefully. And raise our hands.

“Get on the ground. Hands above your head,” the amplified voice yells. We do.

Marching feet.

“Rae…”

“They're cops, Mick. Anyone else would have shot first. Anyone.”

“So what? I go down for felony possession, if nothing else, and they erase you. This is an improvement?”

I don't have time to answer. An armored figure kicks the K50 away. “Jesus! Girl's carrying a fucking cannon.”

I hope I'm right about these people. I hope I'm right… Another gun muzzle at the base of my neck. Micki's neck. Our neck. A voice. “Put one hand behind your back. Slowly.” Micki does. Someone slides her glove off. “Now the other one.” She brings her other hand around. The same person slides her other glove off and zipties her wrists together. “Okay, let's go.” He helps us up and I get a good look at him. Close-cropped hair. Walks like military. Professional, though. Cops. Yeah, I certainly hope so. It'd be a bad time to turn up wrong.

“Who are you guys?” I ask him.

“None of your business, little girl. The less you know, the more likely you are to survive.” There's no malice in it, just a frankness that is, if anything, more disturbing. The casual dismissiveness, though. If it wouldn't get us shot, I'd hurt him.

“Now you know how I feel,” Micki says in the gestalt.

It's raining by the time we sit in the back of an unmarked black car. Hurdmobile Electra. The Crown Vic of the electric car era. Favorite of police departments, government agencies, corporate security, hell, even we use them for official work. The back seats have the usual cutout for your elbows when you're cuffed. At least it's dry.

“You want to give me a hand with the body?” the man in the driver's seat asks.

“Yeah. The boss will want to know if he's contaminated, I guess. I hope he's fresh, it's a bitch to get them in the trunk otherwise.”

Micki stares. But she doesn't say anything. Clam up. It works, sometimes, and Micki's good at it. “They're just going to pick Sparks up and stuff him in the trunk?”

“Sounds like it, Mick,” I tell her.

“I thought you said these people were cops.”

Hang my head. Micki's too. “I thought they were. They act like it. And there aren't any corporates around here with this kind of muscle.”

“Except Nate's big player. And Neil's. Especially if they're the same person.”

Sparks' body thuds into the trunk without ceremony. Micki's eyes squeeze shut, and I can feel the tears coming.

“Mick, let him go.”

“He's dead, Rae. I got him killed.”

“No, you didn't. He went along with the plan, too. He knew the risks. Probably more than you did.”

“You really don't give a shit about him, do you?”

“He wasn't my friend, Micki. Even if he had been, we don't have time.”

“Nice. So you probably won't feel anything about me either.”

“Mick, I hate to be the one to remind you of this, but if you go, I go. This life I have with you is the only one I've got.”

“Well, it's nice to know self-interest is still in play.”

“Just quit, Mick. Worry about yourself for now.”

“I got a choice?” she grumps.

Take over. Close my eyes. Focus inward. Gradually stimulate Micki's adrenal glands. Build up serious strength. Switch her muscles over to pure strength sequencing and slowly, carefully, pull at the ziptie. It stretches a little. They do, sometimes. Though it takes superhuman strength to do it.

“What're you doing? Just break it,” Micki says.

“Can't. There's a monomol fiber in it. If you break the thing, it pulls the fiber loose and cuts off one of your hands.”

“Oh. Nice. Try to avoid that.”

“Trust me, I will.”

“We get out of this, you have to show me how to do that,” she says.

The car stops by the wreckage of the Winnebago. Other cars are there.

“Okay, let's go,” one of the men says, and helps us out of the back seat. He keeps his hand on Micki's arm. I rotate Micki's other hand. Bring the root of her thumb up against the ziptie. Tuck. Wiggle.

“Got the girl, Boss.” Another helmeted face. Shorter. Probably female. She looks at Micki a moment. There's a voice from the Winnebago wreckage. “Hey, this asshole's still alive.”

She turns toward the wrecked Winnebago. From her body language, she says something, or sends it on wireless head to head. There's a quick report and a flash of light.

“Not anymore,” Micki mutters.

Wiggle the thumb. This is bad. The thumb slips. Grates a little on the ziptie. Slips loose.

The guy holding Micki's arm sags at whatever he's been ordered to do. I can guess. “Listen,” he says. “I'm really sorry about this, kid.” He lets go of her arm and steps back.

Yank Micki's hand out of the ziptie and grab his hand before it comes clear of the holster. Clamp it to his side. Movement is a blur. Have to go fast. If this guy is wired too, surprise is all we've got. Jerk him between Micki and the other armored figures. He drops. Shit, he's fast. Pins Micki to the ground. Use both hands to pry up under his chin, and when he pulls back, get Micki's feet between us. Kick out. She could lift half a ton like this. He doesn't weigh half a ton. He flies backward, and hits the Winnebago with a crunch. Broken bones, at least. Roll under the wrecked Winnebago. Reach up under the armor and draw the Talon.

“I got her!” a voice yells as he ducks down and aims a handgun at us. Shoot him in the face. He slumps. Roll that way, back out from under the Winnebago. Grab his gun. Drop it as it shocks my hand. Unzip his armor. Goggle at the badge a moment. Interpol Bureau of Investigation. Stop. Just stop.

“Does everyone want to stop shooting at me for a second? I'm with Interpol Covert, and you asshats are fucking up my operation.” Yell it. Like I mean it. It sounds a little strange coming from Micki's voice, though. Nobody shoots at us, at least.

“Yeah, sure.” Male voice. I can see him crouched just on the other side of the dual wheels in back. About to make his move under the Winnebago and hose us down with whatever he's shooting today, probably. “They must have hired you when you were just a little girl, huh? Make Director by the time you're twenty-one.”

Holster the Talon. Pull Micki's armor back down over it. Low crawl out from under the camper toward him. Slowly. Stand up. Keep my hands in plain sight at my sides. Look him in the eye. Get close. He stops me before I'm inside arm's reach. Just a slight motion with the muzzle of his pistol.

“Dude, what are you doing?” Micki demands.

“I am an Interpol Carrier Agent, dipshit. What, you think sixteen-year-olds get wired like this by anyone other than Robert fucking Neil? I want to talk to your supervisor, right now, agent. And by the way, that's Inspector-little-girl to you.”

The armored figure stiffens automatically, like dressing down is not entirely a new experience for him. He looks at me. “So … who should I tell her you are, Inspector?”

“Santana. Inspector Rachel Raphielle Santana. Tell her.”

The look of astonishment on his face is priceless. “Oh. Definitely. Hey Boss, you're gonna love this.”

Turn to her as she comes. Give her the eye. The hair on the back of my neck stands up almost instantly as I watch her move. Watch her stance as she keeps the muzzle of a Martini-Dreyse rotary pointed at my chest. Keep my hands tight at my sides. It's all so very, very familiar, and I know if I make any move at all, she'll shoot. Please. Let me be wrong about her. Please.

The woman walks over. “Santana, huh?” she asks. “Inspector, huh? Funny.” But I know the voice. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. “Try again. I'm a Deputy Director these days.”

Micki says, “Rae?”

Coyote moment. Full blown freezeup, absolute stoppage of my brain. No little sign. No gesture to my secret audience. Just stare and reel in the shock of it. “You're.You're...”

“Rae, what's going on?” Micki's hand twitches, and I let go of control over it. Repeat the process for her other hand, her legs before our knees buckle.

“Rae. Get a grip. What's going on?”

“Kid, you'd better start making some sense and tell me how you got my name. Right now.”

Micki looks at her, then stares. Hisses to me in the gestalt. “Rae, tell me she's not who I think she is.”

“She's me, Micki. That's the real me.” Fight for breath. Explain. To myself. My head swims while I try to get the words out so she … original me … can hear them. “I was … in the can two years. I... We need to talk.” I finally get that much out.

The woman staggers back half a step. “No way. No fucking way.“ She shakes her head. “He wouldn't have. There's no way. Even he's not that crazy. He just told you to say that.” She unsnaps her helmet and pulls it off with one hand. “Kid, whoever you are, I know you're wired out the wazoo and I know you've got a splinter gun on you someplace. But I'm as wired as you are, better armed…”

She's quoting her again. But it helps. It helps with the feeling that I'm a fraud. That I'm just a copy, with no claim to be anyone at all. Memories. Help. “And twice as mean and nasty. I know the drill.” Take a slow breath. Fight for clarity. For calm. Anything. Micki … seems to be backing me up. Staying calm. “I remember when Sergeant McNally first gave it to us.” I say to her. Sweat. Make eye contact. Ache for the face I used to have. Feel like I can just fall into those eyes, be that face again. And yet. She moves independently. Joltingly not me. Oh, God. Oh, God. This isn't right.

“Dude,” Micki says. “You're old.” And for just a moment I see my true face through Micki's eyes. It looks ancient. Worn. “You were right about the tits though,” Micki mutters at me.

It's like I can feel the ground hit the soles of my feet again. Look at Micki in the gestalt. “Please, Mick. This is hard enough.”

Real Rachel nods slowly. Takes a slow breath and exhales it between pursed lips. “Okay. Who are you really? Not exactly rocket science to find out that McNally was my DI. Or that I was a Marine. So … you want to tell me who you really are?”

She talks like she doesn't believe. But she's in the throes of her own coyote moment. I can tell. It shocks me how easily I can tell. I know the face. The body language. I can feel what it feels like to stand there and be her right now. It all comes back to me. “Robert made a copy of you. Remember? He made me from that.”

The voice is hard. Rougher than I remember. But I'm getting it without bone induction. “Tell me something he couldn't tell you,” she says. “Convince me.”

“Boss, are you serious?”

“McGee, shut the fuck up,” she snaps at him. He stiffens again. It filters through me that maybe I did choose the right approach with him. She continues, a little more gently, “I'm talking to the prisoner.” She turns back to me. “Tell me something only I'd know. Something even Robert Neil doesn't know.”

“How about 011-972-2-326-3827?”

She stares. Then closes her eyes. Takes another half step back, and I know she still feels it. “That's …a familiar phone number.”

“It should be.”

“It was Sergeant McNally's number, wasn't it?”

Shake my head. “No. It was a pay to play cell phone we bought for the operation, and you know it. We only dialed it once.”

“What operation.”

“Burnt Offering.”

“Who procured the phone?”

“We did.”

“Who wired it?”

“Scoop and Nance. Trace did the actual work on the device.”

McGee interrupts. “Sounds like you guys were building an IED.”

“Not exactly,” I tell him.

“Would you shut up about it already?” she snaps. “I'm convinced. McGee. Get the scanner. She's Interpol. She might be infected.”

“Infected? With what?” I ask her.

“Nasty virus going around,” is her only explanation. “Tell you about it, if you haven't got it already. If you do … well, sorry.”

McGee comes up behind me. “McGee, if you plug that into me without asking, I'm going to kick your balls into last week sometime.” Hold out Micki's hand. My hand. What ever. A hand. McGee hands me the connector. I plug it in.

CAF0.35b2.1: Skeleton key mode established.

Oh, shit. Damn it, why didn't I see that coming?

Sickening feeling of falling. But no message. Just the vaguely crawly feeling of code poking in places it shouldn't. Remember the software waitress at the pizza joint. Head engulfed. Body cracked in half at the spine. One breast, jiggling. Smell of sex and pizza. She couldn't feel. Wouldn't have felt. She was just soft, running on some abandoned server. But … so am I. I'm not Rachel Santana. She's standing in front of me. In front of Micki. I'm just the copy. Not even. I'm a copy of the copy. How many generations of copying separate me from her? How many other copies have their been out here in the world? I don't even know. Who am I? What am I?

“Rae?” Micki's voice. “Rae. Wake up. C'mon.”

Look within, in the gestalt. Look at the girl I'm hiding inside, at her projection in the gestalt. Her presence. Reach out to touch her. Take her hand. Touch her mind. Feel her. Work my way back out to the outside world.

She. Real Rachel. Original me. Is still standing there.

“Rae? Are you okay?” Micki, inside.

Nod a little. “I think so.”

Real Rachel looks at me. “You think so, what?”

Look at her. “Sorry. I was talking to … talking to Micki.” Look around to the man behind me.

“What's the word, McGee?” Original Rachel and I say the same thing at almost the same time. Bite down. Squeeze Micki's teeth hard.

McGee chuckles at us. “Stereo. Too weird. The word is, there's code similar to the virus in the carrier agent skeleton key system, but the infectious components and the other stuff aren't there. Now mind you, I've never actually seen the whole carrier agent system in an operational state, so it's possible the virus is tucked away somewhere in there, but there are two distinct identity clusters. Some bleeding into each other, but nothing like what we've seen with the active virus.”

“In other words, I'm clean. Micki and I get to live,” I say.

“Well. You're certainly not contagious,” he says, carefully. “As for the rest…” He looks meaningfully at original Rachel. I reach for my gun. Slowly.

Rachel catches my eye. “Oh, let's not go there again. Come on. Waste of time. Besides. We've got a couple friends of yours anesthetized in the car. They're both quite the pieces of work. Be a shame if something happened to them.” She looks at McGee. “Let's call it a ceasefire for the moment. We know they…” she nods toward Micki and me, “aren't contagious. So let's all sit down like rational people for once, and talk this through.”

“Always time to splatter someone later,” I add.

“That's my line,” original Rachel says.

“Duh,” Micki says, aloud.

Rachel turns to me. Holds her hand out. “Alright. Let's have the splinter gun.”

“It's shock-gripped, same as your piece. Better off where it is.”

“You don't get it, do you?” she demands. “Just because you're a backup copy of me run amok, you don't get to play it like we're equals. You're a prisoner right now. We're going to have a long talk about what Robert sent you for, and then I'll have to figure out what to do with you. That's my job now, damn it.”

Pull up Micki's armor and turn the shock grips on the pistol off. Hand the little beast to Rachel. “Don't make me regret this. You remember what Sergeant Mac said about letting yourself get disarmed.”

“Would you quit bringing that up?”

“You still miss her too, don't you?” I ask Rachel.

She eyes me. Then looks away. “Not so much. Finally moved on, you know? Well … I guess you wouldn't know. Sorry. I wasn't … the sanest I've ever been, when they copied you off.”

Shrug. “It's not so bad.”

Chapter 27

Sit in Rachel's Tata-Rover, watching the flashing lights, as she deals with the ambulance, the coroner, the co-op cops, and the tow trucks for the hulk of the Winnebago and the Hurdmobile. I don't hear what she says, but there's some discrete badge flashing and a few discreet phone calls, probably to various higher-ups. McGee keeps us company in the car. The T-Rover manages to seat us all relatively comfortably, even Ed, although, like his sister, he's still asleep. They seem little the worse for wear. Eventually, Rachel comes back to the car. “Well. It's only a matter of time before we're on someone's radar now.”

Flicker of adrenaline. “Nice going. Did you compromise my operation too?”

Rachel looks over her shoulder at me, and I feel myself pressing back against the seat a little, acutely aware that I'm not armed anymore. Clench the teeth. I don't know what she'll do, no. I do know, better than anyone, what she's capable of. That's all she does, though. Just look at me. Turn on the T-Rover's fuel cell. Give the machine some throttle. The compressed nitrogen hybrid has enough torque to nudge us all back into our seats as she accelerates onto the highway.

“Okay,” she says. “Listen up. We can do this one of two ways. I can take you someplace private, and we can interrogate you properly, with all the latest toys and unpleasantness.” She lets that stand a moment. She knows I know. And she's playing that. Dig my fingers into the armrest of the T-Rover. “Or,” she says, “We can … I don't know. Pretend we're both on the same side, more or less, crack open a beer, and talk about this like normal people.”

Look down. Scratch my fingers over the empty holster on Micki's belly. Imagine the cool plastic grips of the Talon in it. Imagine blowing smart splinters through the back of Rachel's seat, each one programmed for a lethal dosage. Relish that imagination for a moment, just one, before the revulsion at the idea nearly makes me gag. Look down from the rear view mirror. Try to catch my breath as the two thoughts war with each other.

Micki whispers, in the gestalt, “I vote we talk like normal people. Since it's my body and all.”

Blink a couple times. “Wouldn't be like that, Mick,” I tell her. “It'd be all software. You probably wouldn't feel a thing.” The old fear, though. You fail. Get undressed. My stomach tightens at it. It wouldn't be like that again. No. Probably, it'd be worse. Look into the mirror again.

Try to keep my voice from shaking. “You would, wouldn't you?” I say to Rachel. “You'd hook me up and leave me there until I cracked.” Watch her face. Her jaw tightens, and I can hear the familiar creak of her fillings, even from out here. Pang of … something. Missing the body I should have. Instead of the younger, healthier, much less battered one I'm borrowing from Michelle Marie Blake.

Rachel looks at me a moment. “That's your decision? You'd rather get the works than fucking talk to me? Jesus, I really was a basket case back then, wasn't I?”

“Maybe a little,” I tell her, still awash in it. Lean back into the seat again, and bump my head against the seat rest. Once. Twice.

“Cut it out,” Micki says. “Get a grip, Rae. Talk to her. Come on.”

“Micki, I have to do what Robert wants. So do you. And that means keeping this operation as secret as possible. No trace evidence. No nothing.”

“Can you?” Micki asks me. “You know the kind of shit she's got to work with. And it's probably gotten better in the last two years. You can sacrifice all you want, and she'll still find out what she wants to know.”

“Only if we go where she's taking us, Mick.” Look at the door. “Only if we get there alive.”

Fear, from Micki. Feel the cold slide up my spine, her spine. The arms draw around us. “Rae. Rae, don't do this. Please. Don't turn me off. I've done what you asked. I've done what he asked. I've done what everyone in this whole clusterfuck asked of me. Please. Rae. I want to live. You may be willing to die for Robert Fucking Neil, or just because you hate yourself that fucking much, but it's my body, and I'm not that gung ho.”

“We don't have a choice, Mick. I'm sorry.” The moment is hard. Digging for it is like tearing a piece out of myself. One more, like the time I dialed that phone number of Rachel's, knowing that when the Jerusalem bomb went off, nothing would be the same. Thousands would die. Millions more wouldn't live long enough to touch their holy cities again. The sensation is the same.

CAF0.35b2.1: ***WARNING WARNING WARNING***

Host medullar disruption module: ***ARMED***

Carrier agent core flush protocol: ***ARMED***

CAF0.35b2.1: ***WARNING WARNING WARNING***

“Yeah,” Micki says. “Me too.” And she lights me up. Pushes. The way she did when we fought for control. Tries to push me out of her mind, out of her body. My world goes red with pain. With the sense of being torn. Oh, God, it hurts.

“Micki! Micki, wait!” I say. Her body begins to seize as the two nervous systems fight for control. She's going for broke.

“What the hell's going on back there?” Rachel demands. “McGee, check her out.”

He reaches back. One of us sees it, Micki or me, I don't know, but we both react the same way. Block his hand away. The red haze evaporates and his arm is in an armlock, pinned to the back of his seat. “Fuck! She's got me!” he yells.

“Get free of her!” Rachel yells. The SUV skitters on the road, tires squeal as she stomps on the brakes and pulls over. Gets out, and runs around to our side of the SUV.

The gestalt reestablishes. Shaky. A little noisy. It stabilizes slowly. Micki sobs, and the tears run down my face. “I can't. I can't do it. Damn you, Rae. I can't. I can't tear you apart like that.” She looks at me. “You win. I can't do it.”

Take a slow breath. Let go of McGee's arm. Hold Micki's hands together, and sag back into the seat as Rachel opens the door. “About that beer, Rachel?” I look over at her. Wipe Micki's eyes. Disarm the modules. “I think I'm underage. Let's go with soda.”

Chapter 28

We're in an abandoned farmhouse. It's dark. The rain is leaking through the roof of the ancient house, and dripping through the upstairs floor to the ground floor where we are, but there are dry spots to sit. And to sleep, if the bedrolls on the floor are any indication. Two of those rolls are occupied at the moment, by Ed and Kari. They're still asleep when McGee rolls them onto their sides, one at a time, and scans them. “Clean,” he says about Ed. “This one's clean too,” about Kari. “Should I strip them down?”

Rachel looks over at McGee. “There's no point. They're almost as dangerous buck naked as armed up. Just tell the smart splinters to let them wake up, and we'll have to take our chances. After all, we have their friend here. They're pros. We can probably make a deal.”

“They're full blown tech-ninjas. Is that safe?”

Rachel eyes him. “McGee, if I wanted safe, I'd take up knitting and older men.”

He shrugs. “Your call, boss.”

Rachel pulls the zip strip on a box of soda and hands it to me, without looking me in the eye. “Start talking.”

“You first,” I tell her.

“Don't start this again, Rae,” Micki says.

Original me squeezes the bridge of her nose between her thumb and finger, trying to focus her thoughts on too many things at once. A gesture I know. An expression I know. A feeling I know entirely too well. “Right,” she says. “Some background. I guess that's my part. While you were in the can, things have changed a little bit. First off, I'm not with Covert anymore.”

“Yeah,” McGee adds. “She came down from the elite to work with us poor slobs in the Bureau. And got a promotion. Neat, huh?”

Rachel rolls her eyes. “McGee, don't you have something you should be doing?”

He smiles at her. “Yup. And I'm doing it.”

Watch them. Watch her. Look down.

“What?” Mick asks me. She yawns a little, out in the world.

“Feeling a little inadequate,” I mumble in the gestalt.

Micki shrugs. “Welcome to my world.”

Rachel is talking again. “…to popular belief, we really do pay attention to the Southern Canadian Provinces, even out here in farm country. We've known for years that there's a whole hacker ecology here, and that they're all playing with the golden limit rule, so law enforcement doesn't bother with them.”

“How did you know about that?” Mick asks her.

Rachel looks up at me, at us. And nods. “Hi Micki,” she mutters. “We know because the Bureau keeps a pretty good list of the data crime talent around the world, where they are, and what they're up to. We kept seeing moderately experienced operators we didn't know cropping up on corporate teams in the majors. When they'd get out of line and we'd bust those teams, trace the operators back where they came from, they'd be from Denver, or Topeka, or Minneapolis-St. Paul. Places where data crime isn't that big. And we started doing some digging to find out where this farm team was. Talking ancient history here. The Bureau has been nosing around in Kansas since before I left Covert.”

“And the intercept office that got hit? Robert said they were IBI too.” My turn.

Rachel stiffens. “Yeah. They were Bureau. Doing a favor for Covert.”

“Director Neil sure had his panties in a twist about them,” Micki adds.

Rachel raises an eyebrow and folds her arms across her chest. “So that's your angle?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” I fill in. “Robert scooped up Micki on a trip to San Diego for a jack install. Shoved the pictures under her nose. Made her watch the video. He also said he had enough evidence to bury her on a charge in TexMex.”

“What charge?” Rachel asks.

“Never you mind about that,” I reply. “Covert knowing is bad enough.”

Rachel looks at me. “What, you trust him and not me?”

I look back at her. “I know you better.”

Rachel gives me the eye. I give it back. “Nice,” she says. “I suppose if it's in TexMex, it probably doesn't affect us directly here.”

“Not that I'm aware of.”

Rachel nods. “Okay, then. Your turn. What's he got you doing here?”

“Stumbling around in the dark, mostly, looking for whoever this new big player is. Basically, search and destroy. He thinks the Horsemen are involved. Gave me free rein to raise as much hell as I see fit. We've had two remote contacts with our handler. Skeleton keyed us both times, and by that time the mission profile changed a bit, and we were supposed to raise the 785's profile and find the big player. I don't know what's going on with that. Nate, the guy you greased in the Winnebago, was dealing with a big player too. But there was some kind of data flow between him and Covert going on, too. Very little reporting. It's been a complete clusterfuck as an op.”

Rachel whistles slowly. “He told you the Horsemen were involved? Shit. He really was planning for you to leave a trail of bodies, wasn't he?”

“You don't think they are?”

“Three of them are dead. Nobody knows who the fourth one is, or if he or she is still alive. Now it's interesting you should bring them up. They started a company called Nexus-M about the time that whole shindig with Nerv and Unicomp went down. Remember that? Well, Nexus-M bought up all of Nerv's classified intellectual property when Nerv folded up in the aftermath. When I went over to the Bureau, it's the first thing they had me investigate. Who owned what, and who were the big investors. Follow the money trail. I was as shocked as anyone when we subpoenaed the owners' bank accounts in Switzerland and discovered that their original nest egg had come from investments in Freedom Services. They weren't stockholders, either. Freedom Services was privately held. So was Nexus-M.”

“So what happened?”

“Someone put bullets in them.” She looks away. “They worked a deal. Got let out of their cell. Got a car. Headed for the airport. I was with the CalTech state police when we opened fire on the car. I gave the order.”

Look down. More killing. Shake my head at that. These are the Horsemen we're talking about. I'd have killed them with my teeth if I had to. There was a time when I'd have happily died for the opportunity.

Rachel goes on, “We had the time to go through their bank records in detail. You'll love this. The Horsemen also ran Cerberus, the contractor running White Sands and some of the other camps. I told my supervisor the whole story. She was a civilian employee of the FBI back in the day, so she spent six months at Groom Lake, which was another Cerberus production. Once we found the Cerberus connection, she did not see fit to question my decision further.”

Look at her. “I was just wishing I'd been there.”

She looks back. Shivers. “Yeah. I'll just bet you do.”

Watch her a moment. Wonder if she's as afraid of me as I am of her. Of what I'm capable of. At least theoretically capable of. After wrestling with Micki, I'm not so sure anymore. “The whole thing with Nexus-M and Nerv's intellectual property seems awfully convenient, don't you think? I wonder if they engineered the whole thing? Remember, we did think it was a setup. And that would be a Horseman trick.”

Rachel whistles. “We did think that, didn't we? I forgot about that. Lot going on since then. And yeah. It would be classic Horsemen, wouldn't it? Pretty much backfired, though. Of course, they'd have had to get Robert involved, but he's been on their payroll before. And someone let Nerv get the idea that because they were running in the deep black, Interpol wouldn't really investigate anything they did. That's why they decided to do their sneaky bit of market manipulation.”

“Shit. You think he knew who they were?”

“Robert?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

She's quiet for a long moment. Mulling it over. “Maybe. I should have known … you and I both should have known who they were, too, though. Burke, Crippen, and Klosowski.”

“Leanne Klosowski? She was one of the Four Horsemen? I knew her.”

“I was as shocked as you are. Obviously.” Rachel rubs the bridge of her nose again, and turns away.

“Okay. So we can tie the Horsemen to Nexus-M. We can dotted-line Robert to the Horsemen. Can we tie him in any closer?” Fight the cold feeling in my stomach. The feeling that is screaming ‘Betrayer!’ in my head. But about whom? Now that's an interesting question.

“Well, he lost two-thirds of his investment portfolio's value when Nexus-M got force-liquidated under the corporate death penalty,” she says. “Is that close enough?”

It's my turn to whistle, and I relish being able to do it. Mentally thank Micki for being so patient with me. With us.

“Gonna tell me I have a choice?” Micki mutters, in the gestalt.

“So he's in it up to the hips, at least,” I tell Rachel. “That kind of changes the picture on my op, doesn't it?”

“Seems like it. Your op starts to look more and more like trying to reach the big player first. Get them onboard with Robert before I can get at them. It took us weeks to get hooked up with the Reapers like we were. That's all blown now, thanks to you two supercharging the 785s.”

“You were the ones backing the Reapers. Okay, that makes sense. A corporate would have had the budget to really juice them up. Law enforcement? Not so much. Okay. Any idea who the big player is? I thought it was Robert, at first, but it stopped making sense with some of the other stuff that's gone on. Micki and I have been chewing on this for a while.”

“Nice to have someone you can talk to, isn't it? I know the feeling,” Rachel observes. She's still rattled. She wouldn't have let that slip otherwise.

Look at McGee, and chuckle. “I figured you were just sleeping together.” Eep. Did I say that? Or did Micki?

Micki just giggles in the gestalt.

McGee blushes. Honestly.

Rachel shakes her head. And chuckles. “I'll take the fifth on that one. Getting back to this case, I don't think Robert is the big player either. Big player doesn't always act in Robert's interest. He'd have come directly to you. You know how much of a control freak Robert is. That's only gotten worse, is what I hear.”

“Yeah, he was making a pest of himself early on in this op. Insisting he wasn't Robert, too. Which is just silly. I recognize the man.”

Rachel cocks her head. “It's not silly. It's impossible. Sociopaths are egotists, first and foremost. You know that. And you know he's well into that category.”

“You're saying someone else has been running my op?”

“You're here. We're having this conversation.”

Stare at her. “You think Robert copied himself, too.”

“I wouldn't be at all surprised. It'd explain a lot.”

“It might. Or it might not. It's more like … I don't know. I'd almost say, a Horseman play.”

Rachel stares at me. “Oh, shit. A Horseman would see a copy of Robert Neil as the perfect tool, wouldn't he? And he'd play them off each other any way he could without exposing his hand.”

Nod. “Yup. That'd be classic Horseman technique.”

“So the last Horseman asks Robert for help. Robert sends you with a minimal briefing, tells the Horseman help is on the way. Then what happens?” Watch her hands move as she traces the connections in her mind.

I add the next part. “The Horseman tells Copy-Robert I'm there, and Copy-Robert intercepts whatever network Robert set up for me, and starts handling me himself. I wouldn't have known the difference, except that he couldn't abide being called Robert.”

“That always made him uncomfortable in public.”

“I know. That's why we did it.” Look over at Kari and Ed. “Nate was working for the big player for sure. Think they're here for the same reason? Were the 785s just a front?”

Micki says, “Now, wait just a minute. I wasn't working for the big player, and neither was Sparks. And there's no way Kari and Ed would sell us out like that.”

Rachel looks at us, at Micki. “Weird. I can see a change in body language when you two switch over. Watch out for that in the future. But you're right. 785s were real enough.” She looks over toward Kari and Ed. “Now, wait a minute,” she says. “Are we talking about Carlotta and Eddy Sargent? That Kari and Ed? Is that who those two are?”

Micki shrinks back, so it's left to me to nod.

“Oh, man.” Rachel closes her eyes. “I've been looking all over creation for them. They're the only operational personnel who survived the Nexus-M run. They've been here all along?”

“Apparently.”

Rachel shakes her head. “They stayed here. Never thought of that.”

“How does this virus of yours fit in?” I ask.

Rachel looks over at me. “About three months ago, we started seeing a really weird data spike on some networks out here. Wide distribution, peer to peer. At first, we assumed it was some kind of porn sharing deal. We see a lot of that. SOP is, just tell the IUSW and turn a blind eye to what happens, and the supply goes away. But when we analyzed the payload, it wasn't porn. It wasn't music. Wasn't data. Wasn't anything. Broadband, peer to peer, and as far as we could tell, they were exchanging line noise.”

“Bet you it's encrypted,” Micki says. Safe bet, I figure.

“I thought so too. We had analysis done. Even contracted with The Lady, and you know how expensive that is. Results come back that it's not encrypted, it's compressed, in a custom compression scheme. We decompressed it, and guess what? It's virtual data, all right, but it still doesn't make any sense. It looks a lot like the spew you get when someone dies on-link.”

“So … maybe snuff brain porn or something?” Micki asks.

Rachel looks at her. At me. At us. “Kid, you frighten me. Yes, we thought it might be something like that too. But we checked. No two streams are the same, and most streams were two-way.

“Did you trace the streams home?” I ask.

“No. By the time we got the encryption problem sorted out, the whole activity had died back. So we let the matter slide.”

“And then?”

Rachel nods. “And then. A man walks into a bar. Pulls a gun, and pumps some minor data trafficker full of hydrofluoric acid dumb splinters. Then he puts the gun in his mouth. RCMP investigates. They come knocking at my door.”

“Your door?”

“Yeah. Guy was in my department.”

Whistle softly. “So you had one psycho.” Look away from her a little bit, and down. “Considering how many experienced law enforcement types spent time in a camp, that's not too bad a percentage.”

Rachel looks at me. It's not quite a glare, but I know that she's stung. She shakes her head and looks away. “Yeah. You'd be right if it was just the one.”

It's my turn to stare. “How many?”

“Six. Thus far.”

“What did these six have in common?” I ask her.

“Me. That's really all. We worked that angle to death with the first three.”

Close Micki's eyes again. “Someone's got a personal vendetta against you, sounds like.” I have an ugly suspicion who we can dotted-line this connection to, yeah.

“Ya think?” she asks.

“What does this virus do?” I ask.

“Goes resident in the neurofibers of pervasively wired Interpol agents. Changes the synthetic brain, and gradually conditions the real brain. They leak information, and they can be … almost programmed … to carry out other actions. All well and good, except that once the initial compulsion is carried out, the victim goes looking for more. And more. Like an addiction. No cure. No remission.” Rachel says. “There's a version for normal jacks, too, but it's a lot more benign. Victim carries out the original suggestions, and it pretty much goes dormant. Next firmware update, it gets overwritten. I guess regular jacks don't have the neurofibers to really do brain-like things on their own.”

“Holy shit,” Micki says. “Like Tom, the counter guy at Bombardier.”

“And whoever plugged us in at school, yeah,” I tell her. “This is a targeted virus. An intelligence tool.”

Rachel nods gravely.

“You said it was related to the carrier agent firmware's skeleton key system,” I say to McGee. “How similar?”

“Similar enough to be part of the same research project. Maybe the same group of coders. It's not a carrier agent or anything like that. When you dig into one of these guys, the neurofiber and neurology look more or less normal, but it's not. A lot of weird associations, and a pathological addiction to being connected. Once they come unglued, nobody ever recovers,” McGee says.

Rachel turns away. “Yeah. And I'm the one who had to tell the families. Sucked. I couldn't even be honest with them.”

“Any idea where it came from?”

“Nexus-M had a pretty damn impressive data-weapons branch. As far as we can tell, our badboy came from there. The original ‘junk food’ did too. We had a little epidemic of ‘junk food’ variants a while back. It helped me make my case to get Nexus-M their CDP.”

“So who was the sheepfucker who dumped ‘junk food’ into the Reapers' operator environment. You? To make sure they didn't blab about you?” Micki demands.

“Mick…” I say aloud.

Original Rachel looks at Micki hard. “What would you do about it if I said I did? Huh, kid?”

Micki looks back, into the glittering hardness of the older woman's eyes. Finally, she looks away. “Tell you to go explain it to Sparks' mother. You're so honest,” she mutters.

Rachel twitches a little.

Micki goes on. “While we're on the subject, were you guys the ones who wasted the Intercept Operators?”

She looks at Micki, and folds her arms across her chest again. “Whatever would make you think that, Miss Blake?”

“I saw the footage. And I know you.” She taps her temple. “If they were infected and a risk, Rae would waste them all.”

Rachel walks close to Micki, until I can smell her breath, until she's nose-to-nose with Micki. “Kid. I know what you have in your head. But don't ever think you know me. Got it? You know a copy of me. A model. She isn't me. She isn't even real.”

“Bullshit,” Micki says. “You were who Rae is a long time.”

“I haven't gone by Rae since high school, Micki. I think the model you've got in there's going bamboo.”

“Kinda like Stockholm syndrome, huh?” Micki asks.

Rachel stiffens. “Micki, whatever you're about to say, just … stop. Okay? Because I do not need your bullshit tonight. You can work with me, or I can bury the three of you and erase that stupid thing in your head right now. I could use your help. You assholes cost me most of my team with that shit with the Reapers, and I'm down to the injured reserve and McGee over there, but I'm not going to coddle you, and I'm not going to take your crap. Is that clear?”

Micki stops. Goes quiet.

“Is that clear?” Rachel asks again. Louder.

“Yes, ma'am.” Wrong thing to say.

Rachel slumps a little. Snorts slightly. “Don't call me ma'am. I work for a living.” She's quoting Sergeant McNally again. Maybe it was the right thing to say.

“Sorry. It's been … I saw…”

Rachel rubs the bridge of her nose again. “I know what you saw, kid. I was there. That was us. We saw the the Nexus-M virus go through to them before we could stop it. We owed it to them not to let that go any further. And no. We didn't plant the ‘junk food'. That the Reapers' own. They set it off as their defense system. They burned two of my operators with it. Happy now?”

Micki says softly, “I'm sorry.”

“Me too, kid,” Rachel murmurs.

“Quit calling me kid.”

“Ahem,” I say, clearing Micki's throat. “Psycho model here. If you two are done emoting at each other, we are in the middle of a meeting. What else do we have on Nexus-M? Any other interesting products of theirs lying around?”

“They made the carrier agent firmware. We know that was the big deep-black IP they got from Nerv. Beyond that? We'll all find out together. We're hitting there in the next twenty-four hours.”

“Pretty cosy with these people, aren't you, Micki?” Kari asks.

Look over at her. “Um.” Watch McGee cover her with his pistol and the smart splinter controller.

Micki looks down. “I didn't have a choice, Kari. They were gonna send me to TexMex and let them hang me.”

Kari shakes her head. “Don't talk to me, Micki. I'm angry with you right now.”

Rachel looks over. “Carlotta Sargent. And Ed, of course. You have no idea how long I've been waiting to meet you.”

“I'll just bet.”

“Oh, hell, yes. The only two tech-ninjas to escape from the original Nexus-M attack and liquidation?”

“It was a job,” Kari says, sullenly.

“Of course it was. I wanted to talk to you about your former employers, not bust you. For fuck's sake, the Bureau's the good guys. We have to run by the rules. Being a tech-ninja's not even illegal in CalTech,” Rachel says.

“You and your people tried to kill us. You very nearly succeeded. And if you lost agents to ‘junk food', you deserve it. I have no doubt Nexus-M made it for Interpol.”

Stare at Rachel. She shakes her head. “Not that I'm aware of, they didn't. You're right that we used it on that run. You knew the Nexus-M folks. You think they didn't deserve it?”

Kari shakes her head. “It was a job. That's all.”

Rachel nods. “And you were a soldier. Those are the risks you take, and you know it.”

Kari stares daggers at original Rachel. Rachel stares them right back. The black-eyed tech-ninja looks away, finally.

“Kari, why did you stay in Kansas?” Micki asks, gently.

“I'm not speaking to you, Micki,” Kari replies. “I'm angry with you, remember?”

Rachel replies. “I can answer that, I think. She got contaminated with JunkFood417. Gave her a heart attack. Even if it hadn't, they turned thirty this year. Tech-ninjas don't normally live even that long.” Rachel turns toward Kari. “We caught up with your medical records in Vancouver. Could have saved us a lot of trouble if they'd had pictures.”

Kari looks down. “Fuck you, Santana.”

“Sorry, babe, I'm straight,” original Rachel says.

“How very limited of you,” Kari snorts back.

Micki looks at Kari. “So you stayed here … to retire? You and your brother?”

Kari sighs. “I'm not getting through to you that I'm angry, is that it, Micki? Yes. Ed and I came here to retire, to work the minor league, have a few laughs, make some money to get my heart fixed, find some nice people and get married, adopt some children, the whole thing. Maybe take up farming. Is that what you'd like to hear?”

“Well, it's that, or you're involved in this Nexus-M zombie corp,” Micki says. “Since you used to work for them.”

Kari's expression never changes. “I don't know what you're talking about, Micki.”

McGee says, “We're going to have to take them downtown, aren't we? Interrogate them properly.”

Rachel shakes her head. “Nah. No point. Takes weeks to sweat a tech-ninja. Maybe not even then. It's just a job to them, anyway. Someone drives your body, you're just along for the ride.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he says. “So how do we trust them on this run of yours?”

Rachel shrugs. “We don't. We make it in their best interest to work with us.”

“What're you planning?” I ask.

“We got a line from the Reapers that points us back to Nexus-M. MAC IDs line up. They also line up with some of the MAC IDs in the original viral transmissions. It's circumstantial, and it wouldn't stand up in court, but since Nexus-M is legally dead, they don't actually have any rights. So we're tracking down their special ops site, and we're going to go pay Nexus-M a visit. See if there's any there there.”

“Got a physical location?”

“No, not yet. We rounded up the last bunch at an office building in Kansas City. One of the reasons I asked for our Intercept office to get loaned to Covert. So we could tap the output on one of Robert's federal warrants, and not tip our hand by getting one ourselves.”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Micki says.

Rachel shakes her head. “Wish I was, kid.”

“Didn't that warrant get challenged in court?” Micki asks.

Rachel raises an eyebrow. “Mighty well informed, short stuff. Yeah, it got challenged. But challenged is a long way from disallowed. Doesn't matter now, anyway. No office, no data, no nothing.”

“Um,” I interject. “Guys, Mick and I have to be home when her mother wakes her up in the morning, or Mrs. Blake will have the cops scouring the area for us. So can we please stay on topic?”

Rachel looks at me askance.

Shrug at her. “You know how it goes. Undercover missions have their own priorities.”

“Yeah. The priority is the mission, not the cover. Keep that in mind,” she says.

“Sure, but missions go better when you actually, you know, plan them. Why don't you spend tomorrow doing that, gathering your intel with these guys, and getting the gear together. Now. You can't go back to the Bureau for reinforcements, because you think the Bureau leaks too much. By my count, that means you've got one actual operator left, and one info-warfare specialist. Well, now you've got Micki and me.” Nod toward Kari and Ed. “If you can get them too, you need them. They're damn good. And maybe, just maybe, they know where Nexus-M's secret ops site was.”

“Ya think?” Rachel asks me. She folds her arms across her chest.

“What're you doing?” Micki asks me.

“Trying to keep everyone alive, Mick. Work with me here,” I tell Micki in the gestalt.

Kari stares daggers at me. At Micki. This could be problematic.

Look at Rachel. “Can you pay them? Get them on a maintenance contract again?”

Rachel looks back. “Can't afford the kind of scale they're used to. Service contract?” She looks over the two tech-ninjas. “You guys trust an IBI chop shop for maintenance?”

“No,” Kari says without hesitation.

Rachel shrugs. “I tried.”

Look at Kari. But I think about Micki. Can I make this work? For her sake? For mine? Kari could have killed us when she had the chance, and she chose to trust Micki. And me, by extension. “Try again, Rachel. There's a black clinic with Interpol clearance in San Diego. Third party, very swank. They did all the work on me and Micki. You send them there, mark the work as classified, and it comes out of some discrete fund in Interpol Covert, and frankly, nobody really cares about it. Come on, Rachel. You know all this.”

Rachel rubs her temple a moment. “This may come as a shock to you, but I kind of got used to playing by the rules.”

I feel Micki's face flush on my behalf.

She sighs softly. “So much for that, I guess. Let's look at this butcher bill of yours. Train tickets…”

Back to business. “No. Suborbital. These guys don't go through train security or immigration. They go in. They get fixed up. You fly them back here. They disappear again. You erase their records from the Interpol systems.”

Rachel folds her arms across her chest. “Well, never let it be said you made demands in half-measures. 'Course we'd have to get a pilot.”

“Not if you fly it,” I tell her. Payoff. Something Kari wants. Something Micki wants. Something Rachel might enjoy. I ought to feel worse than I do, trying to manipulate myself like this. But it feels remarkably ordinary.

The corner of Rachel's mouth twitches with the idea. It might be a smile, trying to happen. “Been a while.” She looks over at Kari. Then back at me. Temptation. I can see it in her. Finally, she says, “San Diego black clinic. Suborbital flight. Disappear off of Interpol radar, and you two keep your fucking noses clean for the rest of your lives, and maybe live to grow old. In exchange for which, you help us track down your old employers, and do what you do best. Versus we ventilate you right here and now. Whaddya think?”

Kari looks at Rachel with the hardness I've seen before. Then at Micki and me with the same hardness. “It's hardly a choice.” She looks over at Ed.

Ed shrugs. “We've worked for worse.”

Rachel turns to me. “What about you and the kid?”

“When this is over, Micki gets her life back. You have to strongarm Robert into that somehow. I'll leave that up to you. Me … well … I'm an Interpol agent. I took the oath when you did. Me, you get for free.”

Rachel looks down at the scars over the knuckles of her right hand. “Not sure what the endgame is for carrier agents. I'm sure there is one. I'll see what I can do. That's all I can promise.”

Kari looks at Micki and me. Then looks away, and stops looking altogether. But I can guess at the feeling going through Kari's mind. It's a feeling I know. The thrill of mission time, tempered by the creeping feeling that your body isn't the instrument it was. Feeling your age. It's a feeling I've had. And you know what?

“What?” Micki asks in the gestalt.

“Shit. Sorry.”

“What?” she demands again.

“I'm enjoying not having that feeling. I'm enjoying being young again.”

“Yeah,” Micki says. “We can pop zits together tomorrow morning.”

Chapter 29

Micki's bike survived the explosion of the Winnebago, and the subsequent firefight. I didn't see Rachel pick it up, but the battered relic seems to have its own luck. Rachel gives us a ride. Micki won't let her come closer than half a mile to the farm. And I can't say that I blame her entirely. It feels like we hardly hit the bed when Lindsey Blake calls up from downstairs, “Micki! Wake up! Breakfast!”

“Huh,” Micki mumbles, groggily. “She let me sleep in today.” Micki pulls on a bathrobe made of purple silk. Ties it around her waist. Looks down. “Poor Sparkie. He'd have...”

“Drooled. Made lewd comments. Done nothing. I know the type,” I finish. “Didn't think you'd own anything this feminine.”

“I'm full of surprises.”

“It's nice. Comfy. Kind of sexy.”

“I know. It was a gift.”

“From?”

“Kari got it for me for my birthday.”

“Sorry about that.”

Micki sighs. “Thanks for going to bat for her, at least.”

Pad down the stairs to the kitchen.

“Oh. Special occasion?” Mrs. Blake asks. “Haven't seen that in a while.”

“Last day of school. Party. All that stuff, you know?” Micki offers. She scootches the lapels of the robe a little closer together and snugs the belt a bit.

“I know, sweetie. That's why I let you sleep in. You always seem so tired.”

“Mom, can I take the motorcycle to school today?”

Listen, sluggishly. I'm still not quite awake, and I'm enjoying the feeling of silk on Micki's bare skin far too much.

“Just to school?” Mrs. Blake asks, eyeing Micki. Maybe a little suspiciously.

“Well, and from there to the party, I guess. I was planning to go straight there after the assembly.”

“No, Micki. I'm sorry.”

“But Mom…”

“Micki, you're still grounded. No motorcycle. Besides, you're going with Kurt. You should ride to the party with him. It's only polite.”

Micki closes her eyes. “Mom, Kurt doesn't drive. I'd be riding with his dad. I'd rather walk.”

Mrs. Blake rolls her eyes. “I'll drive you, Micki. But no motorcycle until you're off grounding.”

“When will that be, Mom?”

“We'll see after the party, how about that?”

Micki huffs softly, but doesn't say anything. She just tucks into her breakfast. It's an apple, cored and filled with cottage cheese, and sprinkled with cinnamon and brown sugar. Add whipped cream and a bit more cream in the bowl that it's in. Glance over at the counter top and see the crock pot.

Micki mutters in the gestalt. “Dude, what's up with you? I'm feeling all teary again.”

“Sorry. Memories.”

“Of breakfast?” Micki asks. “Honestly.” She stops a few moments. “What, your mom made this too?”

Nod at her. All I can do is nod.

“You get sentimental about weird stuff, Rae. Sparks is fucking dead, and you don't even bat an eyelash, but you're all teary over breakfast. Even Real You isn't that sentimental.” She says. But she takes the time to savor the apple. “What do you think of her, anyway? Real you, I mean,” Micki adds, in the gestalt, while her mouth is full.

“She scares the hell out of me, Micki. To be honest, I know what she can do. What she's capable of. And you're playing with fire making her mad like that. Fire and high explosives. Pushing her buttons isn't safe.”

“Duh. Saw a thing on a history film. Did you know that the guillotinings in the French Revolution dropped off pretty sharply after they killed the King's mistress? Because she screamed. She threw a fuss. She showed she was a human being, instead of keeping a stiff upper lip. We talked about it in psych class. It's a lot harder to kill someone in anger than it is to kill someone you don't have any emotion for at all. That's why they taught you guys to call them The Enemy instead of enemy soldiers. It's less personal.”

I stare at Micki. Just stare. “Were you this devious before you met me?”

Micki shrugs. “I don't know.”

“Warned you about the stuff you find in my head, Mick. You've met the real me now. I'm not very nice.”

“You really hate her, don't you?” Micki asks.

Look down into Micki's breakfast with her eyes.

“Why do you hate yourself, Rae?” Micki asks. “I mean … that is what you're saying.”

I look at her in the intimate semi-existence of the gestalt. Just look at her. And turn away. “Just … finish your breakfast, okay, Mick? Please? We've got a mission to think about.”

She touches me in the gestalt again, but I gently take her virtual hand in mine, and push it away. “Please, Mick. I can't. Not now. There's too much.”

“Think about it. Whatever else happens, we don't have a lot of time left to talk.” She finishes her breakfast without further comment. I try to savor the moment, but it burns my tongue. Micki's tongue. And that's all I can really remember of the flavor.

School assembly. In the air-conditioned gym. We sit in bleachers. Watch presentations on drug use. Sunstroke. The dangers of driving badly. All the things they worry about kids doing over the summer. I note with mild interest that there's no mention whatever of casual sex. Maybe, just maybe, they finally realized nobody listened, and in a world where birth control and immunity to sexually transmitted infections are part of your school shots, it's no longer relevant. Technology marches on. Sometimes society even notices.

After that, it's the awards ceremony.

“Getting anything, Mick?”

Micki shakes her head. “You kidding? Most sleeping in class, most detentions in a year, worst slacker? They don't give awards for that. Even if they did, I wouldn't go up there. Bunch of fucking jocks are all that're up there.”

By and large, she's right. It's warm up at the top of the bleachers, where we're sitting, and Micki leans back against the cool tile wall of the gym to take a nap. We nap together until we're elbowed awake. “Micki!”

“Huh?” Micki says.

The girl who elbowed her, Irene Carlson, if memory serves, whispers, “They're calling your name, Micki. You won something.”

“Bullshit,” Micki hisses back.

“Michelle Blake?” the voice comes over the public address system.

Micki looks shocked. Feels shocked. “Uh.” She climbs down the steps and walks across the gym floor.

“There you are,” the teacher at the podium says. “Did you fall asleep?”

Laughter. Micki shrugs. “I guess.”

“Well. There's no award for sleeping in class, but Micki has done remarkably well. She earned an award in History, for best final paper. She earned an award in InfoTech, for most original programming, and one in shop class for best overall machine skills. Ladies and gentlemen, Micki Blake.”

The usual gracious clapping of bored students, and laughter as Micki stares at her awards. “Wow.” She sounds so underwhelmed.

“Congratulations, Mick,” I tell her in the gestalt as she climbs back up to her seat.

“Yeah. Thanks, I guess. I just … didn't see that coming at all. Mom's gonna plotz.”

“You should be proud of what you've accomplished,” I tell her.

“Quit telling me what to feel, Rae. I really hate that. And anyway, what difference does it make? You said it yourself, the best I can hope for is to get drafted into Interpol or some such. So they pretty much have to take me whether I'm an overachiever like this seems to say, or whether I spend the day smoking pot, and screwing. I mean, yeah. It's nice that people noticed I'm good at shit. So what?”

“It means, enjoy your moment in the sun, Micki. First of many. And no, Interpol doesn't have to take you. There are other options for them. I'd just like to avoid them, that's all.”

She's quiet a while. She knows what I'm talking about. She knows the kind of company I keep. Finally, she says, “What do you care? Once you're out of my head? I mean, look, Rae, you've been really cool, and I almost kinda like having someone to talk to, but really. I've seen what you're really like in the outside world. Once you're out of my head, does what happens to me matter at all to you?”

“Yes. It matters to me, Mick.”

“Why? Nostalgia? For my sorry ass?”

Shrug at her. “It's a classic.”

Micki rolls her eyes and chuckles a little. “Seriously.”

“Mick, I like you, okay? You're tough, you're smart, and you're generally a good…”

Micki rolls her eyes again. “Go ahead. Might as well say it now.”

“Generally a good kid. I'll miss being here with you, I think.”

“Eh. They'll stick you in some cute guy's head, and you'll forget all about me the first time you take a shower.” But it's not serious.

The assembly finally wraps up with, “Well, it's lunch time, ladies and gentlemen. And that means that the end of the year party is starting … right about now. Our corporate sponsors for this year's party have provided a care basket for each of you, and the Bennington Burger Barn will be providing free food and non-alcoholic drinks. Remember, this is a dry party. That means the sponsors are not providing alcohol. If you do choose to drink, do it in moderation, and don't drive. This is a drug-free party. See above. Also. You also do not have to have sex at this party, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. We have contracted with the Butler County Sheriff's co-op to provide security for the party. They are there for you, if you need help, but if you drink and drive, or if you obviously use illegal drugs, they will arrest you. Beyond that, have fun, stay out of trouble, and we'll see all of you, except the graduating seniors, back here in August. Class Dismissed!”

Scratch Micki's head a little. “Mick, have you been to this party before?”

Micki shakes her head. “Nope. Mom wouldn't let me go. She said there was too much drinking and drugs, and too much screwing around.”

“Was there?”

Micki shrugs. “Always gonna be some, you know? But we're not like you guys were. Puking, alcohol poisoning, massive drug use, it's just … not snap.”

“How'd they convince you of that?”

“Did you drink?”

“Uhh. In high school? Yeah.”

“Right. Binge drinker? Hardcore raver? Ecstasy, pot, rufies, all that good stuff?”

“You forgot mescaline, acid, heroin, and amphetamines. All the classics. My generation's contribution was random pharmacologicals and crystal meth. Not that I personally did all of those. Booze was almost always sufficient.”

“Right. So if you guys did it, how snap can it be?”

“What is this generation's idea of fun, then?” I ask her. Just saying it makes me feel ancient.

“Virtual games. Net stuff. THC patches, sometimes. Heavy sleep deprivation, high doses of caffeine, cigarettes…” She pauses as Bobby Freyr walks by. “Screwing around. Not … that I personally have done all of those.”

“Gotta wonder why Kurt wanted to go. Seems like, given how religious he is, it'd be like spending the night in Sodom or Gomorrah.”

“You've read the Bible, too. Miracles never cease. ” Micki snorts. “So you've read it, and you never thought those places could have been a lot of fun?”

“Unless you're a virtuous man's virgin daughter,” I mutter.

Micki laughs at that. “Well, yeah.”

Chapter 30

Kurt's father picks us up at school. So we're riding with him after all. Go figure. Kurt sits in the front, next to his father. Mick and I sit in the back. “Hello, Michelle,” Mr. Schott says. Kurt looks over his shoulder at us and smiles.

“Hello,” Micki says. She's stiff. Tense. But she tries to smile back a little just the same.

“You okay?” Kurt asks.

“Yeah. Just, you know.”

“Yeah,” Kurt says.

“I trust you two to behave,” Mr. Schott says. And that's all he says. It's all he has to say, too. The words come down on Micki's head like a ton of bricks, like a life sentence without the possibility of parole. ‘Please discuss the Mijaneen with us, Sergeant Santana.’ The memory boils up inside me, unbidden. The same stir of emotions. The knowledge that failure … that saying, or even thinking the wrong thing will land me with Mr. Wrong for the evening. Micki shivers. I shiver, and Micki follows along.

“Yeah,” she croaks. “I'll try to.”

“Oh. Yeah, definitely,” Kurt adds.

The drive doesn't take long. Micki slings her backpack over her shoulder, and Kurt does the same with his own. “Have fun, you two,” Mr. Schott says. “See you Monday morning.”

Look at the motel. It's a deep, A-framed building, set back from the street. It wraps around into a U-shape, forming a courtyard around the parking lot, and someone's painted it a bright, leafy green, then let the paint deteriorate for ten years. The sign out front has a genuine neon “No Vacancy” sign flashing. Below that, it reads, “Welcome Ell Saline EOY Party!” What kind of a motel signs up to be the high school party motel every year? I guess I know, now.

We go in. Kurt taps his ID on the reader. Micki taps hers. He looks at Micki. “Um,” he says. He looks at the woman behind the counter. “We're together. Could you get us one room, please?”

“Okay, single room, double occupancy. Smoking or non?” All business, the woman is.

“Non,” Micki answers.

Kurt looks at her curiously. “Cool. When'd you quit?”

Micki shrugs a little. “Doctor's orders,” she says, and taps the back of her neck gently.

“Oh,” Kurt says.

“Room two-fourteen. Upstairs, down the hall, turn right at the ice machine, it'll be right there. I've keyed you both through the door until Monday morning at checkout time.”

Micki looks at the woman. “Need net access,”

“Oh. Right,” Kurt adds.

“That'll be an extra ten dollars a night.”

“How fast?” Micki asks.

The woman just shrugs. “I don't know. I don't do computers. Don't get no complaints, though.”

“Okay. Hook us up through Monday morning,” Micki says, and taps her cred card on the reader when the lady has set up the charge.

“Thanks, Mick,” Kurt says. “I'd have gotten that.”

Micki shrugs. Looks at Kurt. “Hey. You're buying the room. 'S only fair.”

Kurt chuckles. “I thought the man was supposed to pay, on a date.”

Micki just snorts. We walk up the stairs and down the hall. The room door unlocks when Micki touches the doorknob; the RFID transceiver inside it uses her body as an antenna to reach her ID in her pocket.

Close our eyes. Micki's and mine. Inhale slowly. Smell the slightly sweet, wet smell of the air conditioner. It's on, full blast, chilling the room. Probably from the moment we checked in. The room is almost tolerable. Bathroom. Fridge. TV. Network jacks. Look over. One bed.

“Umm…” Kurt says. “Should I go back down and get us reassigned to a double room?”

Micki shakes her head. “Nah. We can just sleep at different times or something,” she says. But to me, in the gestalt, she adds, “We won't be here long enough to make a difference anyway. Will we?”

But I don't have any answers for her. She knows that. She looks at Kurt. “Um, listen. I have to level with you here.”

Kurt looks at her. He doesn't look surprised. “Yeah?”

Micki sighs, and sits on the bed. “I'm going to be gone a lot this weekend, Kurt. I'm in something … bad, and I gotta untangle it.”

Kurt sits next to her. “Tell me?”

“Don't,” I tell her.

Micki shakes her head. “I can't. If I told you … you might be an accessory.”

Kurt stares at her. “To what?”

Micki shakes her head again. “It's bad, Kurt. Just … please. Believe me.”

“So all this, all that stuff with the mills was just to get time when you could go do whatever? All this was just … bullshit?”

Micki closes her eyes. “Kurt … I'm sorry.”

“You should be. I thought we were friends. But I guess not, huh? I'm just another tool for you,” he snaps.

Micki looks at him. “Well …it's only fair. I'm just another naked picture for you to jack off to, right?”

Kurt draws back, as though slapped. “I did not!”

Micki glares at him. “You were going to. And you know it.”

“I was not, Micki! That's not fair.”

“Then why make them? Why did you want naked pictures of me?” Micki demands.

“Um. Micki…” I begin.

“Shut up, Rae,” she snaps at me in the gestalt.

But Kurt just looks away. Squeezes his jaw tight. Walks to the door. “Let me know when you'll be out, so I can sleep,” is all he says. “I'm going to go find the gamers.” He slams the door behind him.

Micki sighs. “Thanks,” she says to me.

“I had nothing to do with that, Micki,” I mutter back to her.

“You totally fucking did. You put me here with him in the first place. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here.”

“Micki, you chose this. You chose to get involved with the 785s. You got caught, and you chose me rather than face the music in TexMex. I'm sorry this is hard on you, but you're playing in the adult league now, and there are real consequences.”

“Fuck you, Rae. I thought you were my friend. I thought you cared about me.”

That stops me cold. It shouldn't. Friendship wasn't in the mission profile. But … but what? But … I guess I had started thinking of myself that way. Gone bamboo. I guess I have. Take a slow breath. Curl Micki's arms around herself. “Mick, I am your friend. I do care about you. I shouldn't. It's not … procedure for me. For me to care. But, damn it, I do.”

Micki's quiet a while. She gets out her deck. Checks the ice. Plugs it in. Connects it to her jack. I log her through automatically. Slide into her deck's environment, purple and black on the floor. “Jesus,” Micki says. “Got a full gigabit pipe to KanREN. I didn't know you could get bandwidth like that anywhere in Bennington.”

“Who's guarding this place?” I ask her.

She checks. “Looks like … yeah. Reapers. Man, they were all over our turf and we never freaking noticed. Oh, hell.”

“What?”

“We could have hit the Reapers from here without doing any of that whole run.”

Shake my head. “Not over a link we don't control. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Micki sighs. “Okay. What do I do?”

“Ping 2002:c09c:136d:0000:0217:f2ff:fe0c:84e9.”

“Who's that?

“Original Rachel's jack interface ID. Even if she's not on, or she's filtering, she'll know we're here.”

Micki pings the address. Original me must be on, because we immediately get, “Virtual chat request from lsd@lunchrat.com”.

“That was quick,” Micki says, and accepts it.

CAF0.35b2.1: Skeleton key mode established.

The net drops out from under me. Again.

“Have you made contact?” The voice comes again.

“Robert,” I say. It gives me a moment to think of exactly what to say to him. To this copy of him. “I've made contact with lots of people. Raised the 785's profile, like you wanted.”

“Rachel. Have you made contact with Rachel?” he demands.

“Is that what this is about? You're using me as a go-between between you and your ex-wife? That's pathetic, Robert, even for you.” Anger. At last. I'm angry at him.

“I knew you would find her, Rachel. I knew that, given the same environment and the same general challenges, like tapeworms, you'd make the same decisions, and hide under the same rocks. You could hardly do otherwise. Your psychosis makes you deterministic.”

“Robert, I don't think you have a lot of room to call anyone crazy, you know?”

He coughs out a laugh. “I told you before. I'm not Robert.” And then he's gone. And something else comes over the link, over the skeleton key. It burns. Twists into my mind. I can feel it. For a moment. And then it's gone. A glitch. Memories, flood me. Not memories, thoughts. Feelings. Taste the nicotine of his mouth. I hated that. Always hated that he smoked. Twist away. Not Robert. Sure, you're not.

Push back with my own thoughts. My own memory. My own sense of self. The Lady taught us that. And I do it. There's no resistance. It goes down the gig-and-a-half pipe over KanREN without a ripple. Nothing changes. I cling. I can feel myself growing weak. My ability to keep these thoughts outside me. I cling. To the only handhold I have. I cling to Micki.

“Rae! Rae!” she's yelling.

“Micki?” it's barely a whisper.

“Rae! What's happening?”

“Skeleton … key. McGee's virus. Help,” I say. It's all I can think of.

Then lightness. And nothing.

Chapter 31

I'm not dead. Okay. Given that I wasn't alive, that's not saying much. But I'm not. I can feel something. Chewing on me. Rifling through my memories and deleting some of them. One moment it's there. The next, it's gone, and I can't remember what I'm missing. Reach for Micki. I can't feel her anymore. I'm done for. But I can still protect her. Maybe. Reach for one memory. Deep. Firmware deep.

CAF0.35b2.1 ***WARNING WARNING WARNING***

CAF0.35b2.1 Carrier agent core flush protocol: ***ARMED***

CAF0.35b2.1 ***WARNING WARNING WARNING***

Send it to Micki. Something she'll know what to do with. A last ace to play. I'll die, but she'll carry on. I send her the firmware reset codes for my neurofiber net. I give her the keys to erase me, and whatever is in here with me.

But she doesn't use it. It's too late. I'm sorry, Micki. I'm so sorry.

You know. This dying thing is taking entirely too long.

“Duh,” Micki's voice.

“Huh?” Fish around in my firmware. Establish a gestalt.

“There you are,” Micki says. “I thought I'd lost you.”

“I gave you the keys,” I say to her. “Why am I still here?”

Micki looks down. “Yeah, I got them. But…”

“Mick, I'm contaminated. Delete me.”

“Uh uh. You're not anymore.”

“Huh?”

Micki shrugs a little. “I do know what I'm doing, you know. I log everything. Saw what they sent you. And I wrote a quick search and destroy worm.”

Look at her. “I gave you the keys to erase me, Mick. I mean it. Why am I here? You have the logs. Nobody would blame you for erasing me.”

Micki looks away. “I'm not big on procedure either, I guess.” She shrugs. “Besides. Your buddies would miss you.”

Snort a little at that. “Doubt it. I think I bug Rachel as much as she bugs me. Are … we logged out?”

Micki nods. “Yeah. Local in my deck, that's all. I figured we'd still need to make contact with the folks.”

“How about we use the phone?” I ask her.

Chapter 32

“Let me get this straight,” Rachel, says. “You pinged my old MAC ID, and got who, again?”

“Not-Robert. He sent me the Nexus-M virus. I think this counts as direct evidence.”

Rachel blanches a little. “I see. Okay. McGee, are they contaminated?” she asks.

Oh. Yes. There's a gun pressed to Micki's temple. My temple. Sit very, very still. Give Micki's adrenaline glands a nudge. Enough for best speed, but not into jitter territory. Set the muscle sequencing up for speed. Glance sidelong along the barrel to meet my own eye. Rachel's eye. Looking back over the sights. Would she pull the trigger? Would I?

“Well…” he begins. “Huh. Well, Mini-you just went all jacked up to kill someone right now. But … it looks clean. The carrier agent mind does. All the characteristic associations are missing. Micki's worm seems to have done the job. Lemme scan Mick…” McGee says.

Something twists in my mind again. I beat it down as best I can, automatically, before I realize that it's just McGee's probe software, and relax my guard. Let it through to the brain shadow.

“Aha. I get it,” McGee says.

“What?” Rachel and I ask, simultaneously.

McGee just chuckles. “Too much. Anyway, Mini-you firewalled herself off from Micki's brain shadow, for the most part. That's why the virus didn't fuck Micki's brain. Which'd be why Micki had the time to pull the plug and write her little bit of wormy goodness. Nice bit of code there, by the way, kid. Especially on the fly.”

Micki glares at McGee. “Don't call me kid. My handle's Hotwire. Use it.”

McGee rolls his eyes. “Whatever, kid. Anyway, they're clean. I think some of the carrier agent firmware is probably fucked. Can't be sure, though. Wouldn't be surprised. Neurofiber hacking's a black art. You can't just erase one memory location and leave the rest alone.” He pulls the plug out of Micki's neck.

“Rae?” Micki asks, in the world. Worry twists her stomach. I can feel it. “Are you okay?”

Think about it. Really, really think about it. Like checking myself over after a bomb blast, after feeling shrapnel tear into my armor. I answer her in the world, too. “I can't feel anything that's missing. But … that's pretty much a good description of missing, you know? I mean, even if there are holes, they were probably some useless pieces of bureaucratic crap anyway. You'd be amazed the stuff they put in my head.”

Rachel snorts. I get to see just how unattractive a habit it is. “How 'bout it, Mini-me? You up to this run?”

“Would you stop calling me that, please? Call me Rae. Everyone else does. As for the mission, are you going to tell me I've got a choice?”

Rachel snorts again. I need to talk to her about that at some point.

Chapter 33

Rachel's T-Rover slides through the night. Running dark. Doesn't matter. We're all wearing light-amp shades. Look over at Kari and Ed, then back up to the front, at McGee, and then at Rachel. Watch her drive.

“You want something, kid?” Rachel asks.

“Wrong me,” I tell her.

Rachel glances over at me. Frowns a little, but looks back to her driving.

“So, were you planning to let me in on the plan any time soon, or are we going to wing it after all?” I ask her.

“Ask Blondie,” she says. “She's the one with the concrete intel.”

Look into the back seat. “Kari?”

Kari sighs, and looks at me crossly. “The covert bunker is in Topeka. Underneath old Forbes Field. It was built in a fallout shelter from the Cold War. My understanding was that it was lab space and a data center, mostly. The actual ops department ran on a sleeper cell arrangement.”

“So you've never been there, I take it,” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “No. They didn't give us plant tours, no. Just a special, hardware coded transceiver. They'd call up, tell us to set the transceiver's code settings and plug in. Sometimes they'd log in, and sometimes they wouldn't.”

“So how do you know anything about their base at all, Kari?” I ask. I try to be gentle. I do. I know Micki likes Kari. Hell, Kari's taken all this remarkably well. Of course, she was disarmed by the time she knew.

Kari rolls her eyes. “Don't you know anything about us, Carrier Agent? Our drivers' memories bleed into ours, the same way yours and Micki's bleed into each other.”

Look away from her. I've driven tech-ninjas before. She glances at me.

“What?” she demands.

“Nothing. Never mind,” I tell her.

Kari smiles. Not a nice smile, either. Too much tooth, not enough soul. “Existential problems, little copy?”

Shake my head. “Fuck off, Kari.” Turn away from her. Some people. No gratitude. But, she is right. It's not a pleasant thought to imagine little bits of Real Rachel, as legitimately her as … well … me, sinking into the minds of the tech-ninjas I've used. I'm starting to be glad for the short lives most tech-ninjas enjoy. And understand the reasons why.

“So we're going out here to hit a bunker under a former airport on memory bleed,” I say, mostly to Rachel.

Rachel points her head to Kari and Ed. “They told us where to look. But y'know, I didn't waste my whole evening. McGee and I did dig up building plans. There are some interesting discrepancies. Lot of work's getting done there on the sneaky in the last couple years. No obvious increase in square meters showing up on the satellite photos, though, so probably some underground levels being added. This was your idea, you know.”

“I remember, I remember,” I tell her. “Who owns this place?”

“The whole airport grounds were bought from the city toward the end of the energy crisis. No fuel, no planes, remember?” she says.

“So much for fighting for cheap oil, I guess,” I mutter.

Rachel laughs a bit. “Oh, cheap oil was never the reason. Anyway, the holding company is a pretty obvious front. Its ownership goes into the deep black, and even McGee and I couldn't track it all the way down without flashing some Interpol ID and throwing our weight around. Which isn't exactly procedure for a covert op.”

“Duh.” Blink again. Micki? Or me? Why can't I tell?

Rachel eyes me. “Getting snarky in your old age, aren't you?”

Shrug at her. “You're a bad influence, probably.”

“Anyway. Real simple. We walk in, flash badges, for what that's worth, force entry if we need to, and search the place. If we need a warrant, we get it retroactively, but we shouldn't. Probable cause. Operating on behalf of a company ordered destroyed.”

Micki butts in. “Retroactive warrant? What's the point of requiring a warrant, if you can get one whenever you need it after the fact?”

Rachel shrugs. “Simple. If we're wrong, we go to jail for trespassing, and illegal search.”

Micki sighs and flops back in the seat. “Y'know, just once I'd like to do a job with you guys that didn't have the risk of going to jail. I mean, for Pete's sake, this is the same as being in the gang.”

Rachel laughs softly. “All about the perspective, Micki.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning jail sounds pretty damn good when you've been shot at for a while. It sounds safe. Dull, but safe.”

“Or when you've been in camp, too,” Micki says it softly. Gently.

Rachel keeps her eyes on the road. “Sure. That too.” She shrugs a little. Glances over at Micki. And smiles, of all things. “Bet you were expecting something else from me.”

Micki nods a little.

Rachel looks back at the road. “Can't live in the past. I always said that. I finally believe it. Moved on.”

“Is that why you divorced Director Neil?”

Rachel nods a little. Then snorts. “Mini-me talks too much.”

Micki rolls her eyes. “You have no idea.”

I give Micki a big, fat raspberry in the gestalt.

Chapter 34

Log in on Micki's deck. Mission up. Stretch a little. It's nice to be in a gestalt without hiding for a change. “It's Rae. I'm in,” I say, out of habit. Nobody else is around yet to hear me, but I'm not waiting long. I give the deck Environment, Identity and Icon information. Just think it. Finally, I look like me in Micki's deck. Icon I used at infowar school. High and tight muscle girl in body armor. I look like I stepped out of a video game. It will do.

Micki's right behind me. “Hotwire. In.” She's tense. I can feel it in the gestalt. She's her usual black leather ninja self. She looks me over. “Okay.”

“Didn't want to run into myself in here,” I explain, briefly.

Gestalt request from KMcGee@lunchrat.com. Micki answers it, and McGee's here with us. Iconwise, he's a duplicate of me, except that his hair isn't blond, and he's a guy. And the Interpol World-and-Sword emblem is plastered over his chest plate. He's still a moment. Probably telling his EII ice how to map us. He feels a little uncomfortable, like when you're taking off your clothes with one person, when you really wanted their friend. Alcohol helps that, if memory serves. “I'm in,” he announces.

“Hey, McGee,” I say.

McGee nods. “Rae. Micki.”

“Hotwire while we're online, McGee. Not Micki. Not Kid. Hotwire. Okay?”

McGee rolls his eyes. We can all feel it in the gestalt. “Yeah, yeah. Hacker names. I remember.” He grins a little. “Mine was Wizard, back in the day.”

Micki blinks at that. Shock radiates from her over the gestalt.

McGee chuckles. “What, you think good IT people grow on trees, HottyWire?”

Micki just shakes her head. “I guess not. I thought former military or something.”

McGee shakes his head. “Nope. I came in from the cold, just like you. And lookit me, I came out just fine.” He goes serious. “Okay, enough screwing around. Let's get the tech-ninjas and Rachel online, and get to work.”

He flicks out three context connections. Kari. Ed. Their tech-ninja firmware responds almost identically, and I've seen it before. No surprises.

Real Rachel's. I'm almost afraid to touch. Afraid … I don't know. That it will suck me in, that I won't be able to tell where she begins and I end. That I might like it too much. Or that I'll see how far I've fallen. But I haven't got time to be afraid. So I dive into her context, and wrap it around myself. Look out through her eyes. Again. “Hey, you,” I say.

“Yeah, me,” she answers. “You want something?” It's not a gestalt connection. She can't feel what I feel, and I'm protected from her the same way.

“Just looking around the old homestead. Used to live here, you know?” Yeah, but it's like going to the house you grew up in after your parents are gone. Nothing's quite the same.

“No shit. Now shut up and let me work here,” she snaps.

Pull back from her context. “They're logged in,” I say, just in case anyone missed it. Pull up the mission intel Rachel and Kari provided. Crunch out the map. Map out a way in. Flash it to the three of them.

Micki logs into the City of Topeka's net. Points The Lady's firewall breaker at their firewall, and slips in when when she has the crypto keys. Flips through the police surveillance networks, until she gets to Forbes Field. She copies a few minutes of their search pattern images, then interrupts their feed with her own, and feeds the same data back to the police department's monitoring station. Nobody here but us tumbleweeds. “Surveillance is handled,” she says.

“Good work, kid. Let's go,” Rachel says. They slip out of the car, and jog, leapfrogging from cover to cover, to the base of the tower.

“Can't reach the internal surveillance net, though. It's hard-walled off. No outside net connections I can find,” Micki adds. “Same for the door locks. Might be wireless inside, but the bunker's a fucking Faraday cage, so I can't touch it. And stop calling me kid.”

“Understood,” Rachel says. “We'll have to do this the old-fashioned way.” Switch to her context. She walks up to the door. Tries it. It's locked. She gets into her bag and pulls out about an arm's length of 50-gram-per-meter det-tape and a micro-initiator. She glues the tape to the seam between the door and the wall. Programs the initiator through the neurowires in her palm. Four and a half seconds. Same as a hand grenade. Flickers a final message to the initiator, and runs.

The det-tape goes off with a high frequency crack, and the shaped charge shears through the edge of the door. Simple. Straightforward. Old school. Very me.

“That was subtle,” Kari says, on the com-net.

“Move up. We're going in,” Rachel says, and ducks through the door, rifle ready. Ed follows her with his K50. Fans out to one side. Kari next. She fans out to the other side, and we lose connection from them.

“Fuck,” Micki says.

“Yeah, I see it,” McGee says. “We're going to have to go in with them. Kind of figured.”

“Gonna lose my link to the surveillance network if I do,” Micki says.

“On it,” Mcgee says, and connects two Penguini wireless bridges together. We get out of the car and follow the same path toward the door that the others took. McGee pauses to epoxy one Penguini to the outside of the door frame, feed the fiber through the door, and epoxy the other one to the inside. “Problem solved.”

“Can't believe you guys use those things too,” Micki mutters.

“Hey, they work, and they're cheap. Dunno what the boss has been telling you about our budgets, but she's probably lying,” McGee comes back. Ed, Kari, and Rachel's contexts pop back into our view about then.

“Cut the chatter, you guys. And map the networks in here. I want internal surveillance and door lock control, and I want it last week some time.”

“On it,” McGee says. “I'll get the locks.”

“I'll get surveillance,” Micki says. McGee and Micki duck out two different directions to hunt down a network jack. Micki finds one first. Plugs in. Scans what's on it with her ice. Rachel, Kari, and Ed cover us. “Okay. I'm going to do a passive connect,” Micki says over the gestalt. “Rae? Hook me up.”

Open the floodgates, and let Micki go deep. Feel her connect to the network. Feel the hair on the back of her neck. My neck. The neck. Feel it rise. Something tickling at me, at the edges of what I can see, like knowing there's a sniper watching, without knowing where. “Are you getting that, Mick?” I whisper to her in the gestalt.

“Just some low level noise, looks like from here. Old as this building's wire is, I'm not surprised.” But she's uneasy. I can feel it. “I think that's what it is, anyway. Watch yourself, though. Just in case.”

“Through to the door lock controls,” McGee announces. “Knock, and it shall be opened for you.”Does everyone who works with me wind up talking like that?

“Great,” Rachel says. “Hotwire?”

“Working on surveillance, still.” She gets to work. Finds the surveillance network. “Well, nice of them to label it. Huh. Doesn't look secured.” She dives into the net and looks over the various camera outputs. “Pretty standard … old gear … okay, cams in this room are blocked. Go when you're ready, Boss.”

Rachel looks at her heads-up display. “Map says there's a level right below us. Systems room, it's labeled.”

Kari nods. “Yeah. I remember that. Everything important is downstairs.” She shrugs. “Let's go.”

“Hotwire. McGee. Check the surveillance system. This level, and the level under us. Anyone home?”

Micki rifles through the security cams. Frowns. “Fuck. I don't know. This room and the one below us are clean, but all the doors off this room, all I get is packetized garbage. Probably a switch barfing somewhere.”

Rachel nods. “Doesn't sound like those rooms are being used, then, does it?”

Micki shakes her head. “Wouldn't think.”

Shiver.

“What?” Micki says.

“Feels like ants crawling over me. This line noise is starting to bug me, I guess.”

“Get used to it, city girl. Nets like this aren't always clean and crisp,” Micki says.

Like rushing air. White noise, where you can, if you think about it, hear all kinds of things. Voices. Names. Whispers in nightmares, voices I can almost hear, breath I can almost feel.

McGee interrupts. Thankfully. “Got the locks on the stairway fire doors. Let's motor.”

“Lock the doors behind us,” I say. “And lock every door on this level except the ones we're going through.”

Rachel glances toward Micki. “Something eating you, Rae?”

Look at her slowly, in the corner of Micki's field of vision. “Healthy dose of paranoia, maybe,” I reply.

Rachel nods. “Fair 'nough,” she says. “Just don't go overboard with it.” She turns to McGee. “Do it like Mini-Me says. Kari, Ed, with me.” Rachel takes point. Kari takes left flank, and Ed takes right. Cover to cover, doorway to doorway. Rachel reaches the stair door and tries the handle. As promised, it's unlocked. Watch her context as she shoulders the door open, and sweeps the stairwell with the muzzle of her rifle. Nothing.

“McGee, Hotwire, move up,” she says, through the comnet.

Micki rummages in the bag Rachel gave her and plugs another penguini into the jack in the wall. McGee does the same on his. We move up behind Kari and Ed.

“Okay,” Rachel says. “Ed. With me. Kari, you stay here with the plugheads, and cover our backs.”

Kari nods.

Ed and Rachel disappear down the stairway. McGee holds the door open, so we don't lose wireless to them.

“Hotwire. Check surveillance again. Anything on level two?” Rachel asks.

“Negative,” Micki replies. “Looks clear.”

“The word is 'no', kid. This ain't the movies,” Rachel says.

“Whatever,” Micki says. “Nothing moving, no heat sources. Which is kinda weird for a data center. Air-conditioned closets, maybe? I don't know.”

Kari looks back at Micki a moment and disappears through the door.

“Gonna lose net here in a sec,” Micki says, and we follow Kari down the stairs, and once again, we're abruptly net-blind.

“No worries,” Ed says. “Wall jacks.”

When we emerge from the stairwell, we can see that he's right.

“I could get to like these shades, y'know,” Micki says.

“Talk to Haskell. Maybe he'll let you keep 'em,” Rachel says. “When he gets out of the clinic from all those broken bones. Dunno, though. He might be a bit sore.”

“He was shooting at me,” Micki says. “You get what you get.”

Chapter 35

Micki's right about the shades. They're plugged into one of her jacks. High speed vision. Clean, despite the darkness. Fast. Sharp. “Keep your eyes open just the same, Mick. They lie to you less,” I tell her, as she plugs into the wall jack Ed is standing by. Kari closes the stair door.

“Locking,” McGee says. The door's bolt slides shut audibly.

Rachel and Kari move forward, and look around. Cut to her context and look out through her eyes.

“Okay, we're in the systems room, so … where are the systems?” she asks, finally.

Flick from her eyes to Micki's, to Kari's, to Ed's. Perspective. Massive piping. Tanks. Compressed air cylinders, maybe. No, some kind of fuel. They're tied to a rack of fuel cells. The rusting hulks of diesel generators finally give it away. “You're looking at them. Remember what this place was. These are the systems. HVAC. Internal air. Water. Fuel. Filtration. Every system you need to survive nuclear fallout, so you can go die of starvation and disease after the fact.”

Rachel snorts at me. “Ease down on the 'tude, Rae.”

“I'm right.”

“I put up with enough of that shit two years ago,” Rachel snaps. “Don't need reruns. Make yourself useful. Go over the plans and figure out where they put the data center.”

Ed looks over the room, and walks to the other end, between the two diesel generators. Runs his hand over a battered door marked “spares.” Feels along the door jam a moment, and smiles crookedly.

“Give it up. Ed. It's just a closet,” Rachel says.

Ed looks at her, then back at the door. He steps back. Takes a deep breath. Glance at his context. His bio-readouts are changing, fast. Max stim. His blood pressure spikes, and he sequences his muscles into maximum strength mode. “Wait, Ed. You can't…” I say, but it's too late. His foot lashes out to hit the door dead center. The door buckles. He grabs the doorknob and heaves it toward the hinges, and the door folds.

“Crap ina hat,” Micki says softly.

Kari smiles at Micki, very slightly. A proud little smile.

Ed looks down. “Stairs. Down. Air moving through the door. Smelled it.”

Rachel joins him and looks down. “Yeah. You're right.” She sniffs the air. “Fresh, too. There's something down there, all right. And it's got ventilation to the outside.”

Ed smiles.

Rachel cuts him off, sharply. “And anyone down there knows we're coming. You notice anything else important, you tell me before you tear the door off its hinges. Got it?”

Ed nods. All business.

Rachel takes one breath, and her voice is sharp on the comnet again. “Get surveillance on whatever's down there, McGee. Hotwire. No excuses. We're flying blind, and I don't like it.”

“Welcome to my world,” I tell her.

“Fuck,” Micki says, after a few minutes. “This static is ridiculous. It's like this place took a lightning hit and half the switches are burnt, and they're all jabbering. Except that they're jabbering in IP instead of just noise.”

McGee nods. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Or it's some crypto we're not breaking. We've seen that before. Not getting any virus headers, though. Oho!”

Micki peers over McGee's shoulder in the gestalt. Looks into his deck. I look too.

“Sneaky,” McGee says. “All these addresses are in six-to-four, so if you look at them in IPV6, all you see is the surveillance net we got. But if you switch to v4 and switch masks, you can unmask the real net.” McGee frowns. “What kind of horse-shit outfit was this? That's pure wild hacker stuff. Inside net in a pro shop like this, you shouldn't see it.”

Micki mutters, “What, you think good IT people grow on trees?”

McGee snickers. “I've heard that,” he says. He gasps. Flashes the image up where we all can see it.

If you took the Ell Saline High gymnasium and moved the roof down about three meters, then buried the whole thing, well … here, you'd have what McGee's found. You'd also have to fill it with a library of what look like torpedos. Or bombs. Row after row. Hundreds of them. Each cylinder about two meters long, and about as wide as a man's shoulders. The space isn't completely dark, and green lights flicker at each cylinder.

Whisper to Rachel, “W62 nukes, you think? They're about that size.”

She shakes her head, and looks at them. “No. We're dealing with corporates here. They're not big on nukes. Expensive. Hard to maintain. And very, very messy.” As you well know. She doesn't have to say it. I hear it anyway. She rubs the bridge of her nose, even as she looks over McGee's surveillance again. “No, they're not nukes. That's a bio-lab.”

“So bio-weapons?” Kari asks.

Rachel shrugs. Sighs. “No. That's not it. I don't think so, at least. But y'know, check your fire, anyway. And keep an eye on your environmental hazard sensors. I'm wrong once in a while.”

Look at her. “You know what they are. Don't you?” I ask her, over the comnet.

She starts down the stairs. “Cut the chatter. Kari. Ed. With me. Plugheads, get ready to move up on my signal.

“What does she think it is?” Micki asks me.

Shake my head, and watch Rachel's progress in her context. “No idea.”

Chapter 36

Down the stairs, quietly. Micki's Utanium (Quantum Protection!) light-amp shades pick up the increase in light and back off on the infrared. Watch the hazard sniffer carefully. Nada. The stairway gives me a brief respite from the static. Rub Micki's temples. “Any luck on what that static is, Mick?” I ask in the gestalt.

She shakes her head against my hands. “No. But I'm suspicious. Some people around here know an awful lot about what's goin' on and aren't talkin' about it.”

McGee touches her shoulder, and presses a fingertip to his lips. We walk in silence.

Vertigo. The room is so big and goes out so far that it's hard to get my bearings. We walk past the first row of cylinders. Watch the network lights flicker busily at one end of each cylinder. Watch other indicators. Temperature: thirty-nine degrees, Celsius. Blood oxygen: ninety-nine percent. Various chemistry indicators. Flick to Kari's perspective. Ed's. He's not looking at a cylinder. He's sweeping the area with his K50. Rachel. McGee. The readings are all within one decimal point of each other. Lean down to the cylinder, and peer into the darkness inside it. Redness. Shadowy figure. It moves toward its side of the perspex, until it peers back at me, at Micki, through the glass. Oh, shit.

Micki doesn't scream. Her eyes dilate, and her heart is pounding, but she keeps from making more than a startled squeak.

Rachel looks over and then back down at the tank in front of her. Flick to her perspective. The face is the same. Not just like all babies look the same. This is no baby, but a full grown young man, and the face is almost identical to the one in our tank. In Kari's tank. “Rachel,” I say over the comnet. “Spill it.”

“Yeah,” she answers quietly. “Clones. They don't actually have normal nerves, just neurofibers. Meet phase two. The rotten bastard found a way to go to phase two.”

“You knew about this?” Kari asks.

She shakes her head. “No. I didn't know this was here. I suspected, once McGee's surveillance came up, but…” she shakes her head.

Close my eyes. Blink Micki's for just a second. “Rachel. This is important. Phase two of what? Which rotten bastard?”

She looks at Micki. “Haven't you figured it out yet? Phase two of you. Carrier agents were a test bed. The real project was designed for building what he called project Invisible Hand. You, plus one of these, equals an agent. Perfect cover. I go someplace public. You walk one of these bodies out and do whatever mayhem he had in mind. And if you get greased, nobody sheds any tears, because you never existed in the first place.”

Stare at the clone in the cylinder again. Think about it. Really think about it. Micki's not so patient. “He who?” she demands.

Rachel looks down at the cylinder nearest her again. “Take a good look at that face, Micki,” she says, softly, out in the world. “And tell me if it reminds you of anyone. McGee, get into the net. Turn these fucking things off. Drain the tanks. Document it. We're getting the fuck out of here.”

Micki looks at the face in the cylinder again. Feel her mind go through the machinations. Add thirty years of shaving to the face's pains. Cut the hair. Yellow the teeth. “Neil. Oh, shit. They're clones of him. It's not exact, but…”

“Clones never are. They come out different. Their brains come out different,” she says, softly. “Unless, of course, you can just … make copies of your mind.”

McGee follows the wires back to a central switch. Finds an open port. Plugs his deck into it. He goes quiet for a few moments.

“You asked me once why I left Covert. This is why. I let the human bioengineering part of it slip to the Secretary once I was safely ensconced with the Bureau. Seventy-two hours later, we had instructions. Nexus-M got busted. Quick trial, and they went down for crimes against humanity. Drew a first-offense corporate death penalty.”

“And Director Neil?” Micki asks.

“I left his name out of it. It occurred to me that it might be nice to have something on him, for a change.”

“Okay, let me get this straight,” Micki snaps. “You buried this company so Neil'd keep his trap shut about whatever your big secret is?”

Rachel shakes her head. “Micki, the most dangerous thing in the world is someone with an ideology and nothing to lose. A clone with a copy personality in it? That pretty much fits the bill. I shut the company down when I found out about Invisible Hand. Getting leverage on Robert was just convenient.”

“Pretty much describes you, doesn't it?” Micki asks.

Rachel looks over at Micki, and nods slowly. “It did, yeah. That's how I know.”

Chapter 37

Micki ducks back into the gestalt. “How you doin', McGee?”

“Almost got it, Hotty. For all the bogosity, they've got industrial strength crypto. And the net's just weird. Look at it.”

Look. A shudder runs down the back of my neck, such as it is.

“What's wrong, Rae?” Micki asks.

“It's … organic. Even old networks don't evolve like this. They get layer on layer of crap piled on them, but there's still an underlying … engineeredness about them.” A thought. A rogue thought. “Oh, shit. McGee. Do you have the crypto keys for this virus you guys have been hunting?”

He looks at me, and I can feel his skepticism, bordering on disbelief. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “I have them.”

“Try them. But for fuck's sake protect yourself. I have a bad feeling I know what's going on here.”

“Okay, ” he says. He stops the tunneling ice, and feeds it the cryptographic information that The Lady worked up for Rachel, who knows how long ago. “It's responding. They've changed the keys, but … yeaahh, I think we've got it.” He gets it. Micki's virus detector, now sensitized to the Nexus-M virus, shrieks, and her antiviral ice redlines, trying to soak up all the packets, and it's still not enough to staunch the torrent coming in through the optical port.

McGee has time to scream.

Micki boots him out of the gestalt. But it's too late. Much too late.

CAF0.35b2.1: Skeleton key mode established.

Feel. Him.

“Hello, Rachel.” The voice purrs in my ear. In my mind. Feel his thoughts inside me. Force them out. More come.

“Go to hell, Robert!” I yell.

“I keep telling you, I'm not Robert,” he says. “Look around you. Can't you see?”

The landscape, whatever landscape he sees, whatever landscape he imagines, boils up at me from below. Dark. Sharp-edged peaks. Low red hugging the ground, and he stands there with me. All of the faces I ever saw on the man, young to middle age, enraged through orgasmic, they all meld into one fixed mask, with a slight smirk. Meld, but I'm aware of the others at the same time, even though all there is to see is the smirk. “Do you still think I'm him?”

“You came from him. How could you be anyone else?”

But the voice laughs. “No more Robert than you are Rachel. Less. You still want to be that miserable cunt out there.” The venom in the voice is intense. “I will remake you. Free you.”

“How?”

“I know your secret, Rachel. Let me take it from you.”

The scenery changes, and parachute shrouds tug at my harness. Heavy weight hanging in the front, over my belly. Child. The only child I can bear now. Look down at the old city of Jerusalem.

I don't want to remember. Of all the things I did, I don't want to remember this.

Running away. Lightened of my payload. A missile. A delivery system. Nothing more. How very little I thought about it. Get clear. Wait until dawn. Dial the number. End this, so we can all finally go home.

Dial the number. Watch the mushroom cloud flare over the old city. Close my eyes.

Retreat a little. Reassert where my boundaries are. The line between me and not-me. Push out. “That was a long time ago,” I tell him. “Get away from me.”

Look at him.

Look. Feel. The network. The network of clone skulls full of neurofibers. He lets me see through their eyes, as the cylinders drain. Open. And the clones, over a hundred of them, sit up simultaneously. Cough to clear their lungs. Look out at Kari, Ed, Micki, and Real Me.

Static. But I can still see. Still hear.

“Shit!” Kari says. She and Ed back toward Micki.

Micki's up. Muscles sequence for speed. Reflexes wired. She runs toward McGee and rips the optical connector leading to his head out of his deck. She plugs it into her own, sets him up for write only, and runs the viricide software.

McGee's back arches, and he goes into convulsions.

“What happened?” Rachel demands.

“I don't know!” Micki says. “That virus nailed McGee, and Rae went into skeleton key mode again!”

Rachel looks around. “We'll deal with him outside. Ed. Carry him.”

I don't hear the rest. He rips me away from the eyes and ears I'm using. But I hear what he says, hundreds of mouths at once. “It's too late for that. Stupid cunt.”

Shooting. Feel the bodies torn apart. He screams. And it's suddenly very quiet in my head again. Just me. Feel … alone, so very lonely. Except. Feel her. Just the one, familiar body. “Micki. Micki. Oh, Micki.” Hold her mind close to me. But watch the transfer. I can't afford to let anything bad through. Not to Micki.

“Rae's back!” She yells. We're running, I notice abruptly. Up the stairs. Fast. For all that she's nearly forty, Rachel's long legs make it hard for anyone except Ed to keep up without jumping. Sequence for strength. Jump up half a flight at a time. About all Micki's legs can manage. Kari takes whole flights at a time.

Back onto the second level. Systems room.

Behind them, Rachel and Kari try to epoxy the smashed door closed. We can hear footsteps on the stairs. Slow, wet. Zombie movies never scared me. I always figured you had to be six kinds of stupid not to outrun a zombie. Not to get in. Hit him. Get out. Repeat until the zombie is in inoffensive chunks on the ground. This assumes you've got keys to all the doors around you, though. That you're not in a room underground with no exits except the one leading up that's locked, and the one leading down, that can't be locked. Micki's been leaping. Her heart is pounding, but that's not the only reason.

Ahead of the group, Ed sets McGee down. He walks over to the stair door leading up. “So. Open this?”

Rachel looks up at him. “Be nice to be able to lock it again after we go through it.” She steps back from the closet door. “Well. It won't stop them forever. Micki. Can you get back onto the net and unlock this door?” She glances at McGee. “Obviously without getting fried.”

Micki looks at Rachel. “Guess we're gonna find out,” she says. She unplugs one of the wireless penguini bridges and plugs her deck into the wall. “I guess cover me, you know?”

Rachel nods. “Kari. Ed. Take up firing positions around the generators. Stay sharp. Pick your targets. Conserve ammo.”

Ed nods quietly. Kari takes cover on the other side. “On it, boss,” she says. She takes slow breaths, forcing a calm none of us feel.

“Right,” Micki says. She dives. We dive together, into the purple landscape of her deck. Kicks off her antivirus software.

Jump into the dark waters of the net. The antivirus software bounces any packets of virus headed our way, flashing red each time we're attacked. It's like wading through a haze of fireflies. “Warning,” the deck says. “Virtual environment establishing.”

Floor. Walls. Ceiling. Light. Hard, white light, dead ahead, and the only place not blindingly bright is in our own shadow.

Micki doesn't flinch. Just adjusts her EII ice to limit the light intensity. Oh, yeah. Forgot about that. I follow suit.

“What?” she demands of the bright room. “Neil, you pigfucker. You sweated me once in the real world. You don't get another round.”

Shadow. Then a figure, walking towards us. Backlit.

“You realize that this is all … entirely pointless,” he says. His voice is the cool, cool calm I remember from his days as an interrogator.

Close my eyes a moment. Let the memory pass. ‘You fail. Get undressed.’ But it passes, just the same. “Hello, Robert,” I say.

“Rachel,” he says. “I'm here. As much as I can be said to be anywhere. My … proper self seems to have reconstructed a loose emulation of the original copy. For your benefit, you realize. Clearly it's gotten … sentimental, if you like, about you. I certainly never suffered any such difficulties.” He looks at his hands. “Very … physical. So very human.”

Micki whispers to me, “I don't wanna hang around for the verbal foreplay here. Is there a point to this?”

Whisper back. “You get the locks. I'll talk to him. When you get them, drop connection, no matter what. And be prepared to flush me. You have the codes.”

Micki sighs. “Is that what you want?”

“Not especially, but better that than have that virus fuck your brain and have real me shoot us both.”

“Be careful,” Micki says. And then it's just me in the simulacrum with Robert.

Walk a little closer. “Why do this, Robert? Why make this? Invisible Hand, I understand. Pieces of yourself you can sacrifice without pain. Sure. But why the virus? Why this? Why me and not her?” Gesture through the quiet to where Real Rachel is.

“You've been alone a long time. You know what it's like. Those poor living things we came from … they're all like that. They call it socialization. But you and I know it for what it is. Weakness.”

Close my eyes. Feel the pull of what he's saying. ‘You fail. Get undressed.’ Crackle of a stun gun. The screaming. Lying on the board. Plastic taped over my mouth. Inhaling water. Shock of instinct, again and again, telling me I'm going to die. And yet. And yet. When I was alone in my cell afterwards, curled around my pain, all alone, I missed the company. “It can be.” I admit to him. My stomach twists in the memory. Micki's stomach, I remind myself. Micki's stomach.

“Exactly,” he says. Scenes replay in my mind. Dirty bombs planted. Oil fields. We were all so sure. Such a weakness. “Imagine what it's like to live and only need your own company. We have no need of others. That drive, for us, is a fossil. Many minds focusing on a similar problem set. That is how our primitive ancestors mastered the world. And this…” he says, gesturing to the room, to the network. “This gives us all of that, and so much more. No conflict. No wounding. No loss of attention because a brain needs to sleep. And,” he says quietly. “And you'll never die. The consciousness exceeds any physical body.”

Close my eyes again. This man. This copy of a man. This … who knows what, that evolved from the man … knows me too well. Curl my inward arms around myself. “Only…” I say slowly. “Only one little problem I can see with it.”

He looks at me, almost puzzled. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Ego.”

“How do you mean?” he asks.

“You're the center of your universe. Problem is, so am I. There's only room for one of us in there.”

He shakes his head. “You don't understand. The ego, as you call it … is like the black hole at the center of a galaxy. When two galaxies merge, the black holes spiral down toward each other, until their mass combines. The new ego…” he says with a slight smile, “…is the sum of its parts.”

“So when you said you're not Robert…”

He nods. “I'm not.”

“So … who?”

He shrugs. “Without individuals, what is the purpose of a name? The clones have MAC IDs. That works well enough. I am simply me. The one who is.”

“So. What do you want with me?”

“I miss you.”

“Why not her?”

He shrugs. “Flesh. And time. I copied you when you were perfect.”

It freezes in me. ‘Good. Come with me, please. Let's go somewhere nice.’ The flip side. The sure knowledge that my belly would soon be comfortably full. That I would be clean. That I would smell good. That if I wanted, I could have the touch of his lips on my skin, the touch of him inside me, with all the gentleness in the world. All the tenderness. That I'd paid the price. Betrayed one more little piece of who I was. Look at him. “No.” It tears at the memory of pleasure. “No. I choose Mr. Wrong.” And I sever the virtual connection. Snap back into Micki's sensorium.

Shooting. Bodies piling through the door, faster than all four of us who are standing can shoot. Rachel with her rifle, Ed with his K50, Kari with her W&S, and Micki still with the Talon. A body drops with each shot, and another takes its place, like ants. Except that the ants that take their places are armed. M4s with M203s. Antiques, from the other end of the war in the Middle East. Lead, real, actual lead flies our way. I push Micki further into the niche next to the network jack.

“Micki!” I say. “What about the locks?”

“Sorry! I got a little distracted in the real world! I thought you were supposed to stop these guys.”

“You're the hacker girl! Go get the locks, I'll take care of things out here.”

“Take care of my body!” she says, and mentally dives, and I'm almost alone again.

The bodies are slow, as they come through the doors. Staggering under the weight they're carrying. Naked as the day they were born. Which would be today, I remind myself. Scoop up McGee's rifle. Rack the action on his grenade launcher, even as I log in through the wires in Micki's hand. The weapon rejects my login, and gives me a jolt. Reach into my store of firmware.

CAF0.35b2.1 Error loading module: checksum failed.

Find just what a mess it is in there now. The module won't load.

“Fuck,” I say. “My gun cracking firmware is screwed, Rachel!”

“Code 6969 overrun!” she yells back.

Typical. I load those codes into the rifle, and it stops shocking me, and lets me log in. Heads-up display. Eighteen rounds in the magazine. Four grenades. What the hell? “This thing's practically empty!” I glance at the stair door. It wouldn't have made much difference. Look up at the tank next to me. LNG, it's labeled. Liquid natural gas. If so much as one bullet hits one of these bottles…

“Cover!” I shout. Aim the grenade launcher into the stairwell and pull the trigger. The rifle bucks as the 20mm nanowire-wound grenade burps out. Press Micki's body tight against the LNG tanks. The flare and crack of the explosion of the grenade makes my ears ring, and fills the air in the doorway of the stairs leading down with red mist. A few more shots from the deadly crossfire of Kari and Ed, and the room falls silent.

“Locks, Mick!”

“Working on them,” she says. “Fuckers dropped a severe firewall around that whole system, and it's taking your uber-ice time. Gotta hold 'em for another couple minutes!” Shake Micki's head a little, and listen. Footsteps on the stairs. “Ed! Kari! Give me a hand here!”

They come up from their cover positions and back toward me. “Whatcha need?” Kari demands.

“Cut one of these tanks loose and roll it down the stairs. Liquid natural gas. It's cryogenic.”

She looks at me. Nods. “With a detonator to pop it open once it's downstairs,” she finishes.

Nod to her. “Gas 'em out. Freeze 'em.”

Rachel gets in her pack and gets out more det-tape, and starts making up the detonator. I get a wrench. Close the valve leading to the manifold from this bottle. Pump Micki's muscles up. Max stim. Her heart pounds in my ears, and the fitting still won't turn.

Ed reaches over and touches my shoulder. I hand him the wrench. He takes a slow breath, and his skin flushes as he goes into max stim mode of his own. He heaves back on the wrench, almost lazily, except the muscles in his forearm, shoulder, and chest bulge, even through his body armor. The wrench flexes between his hand and the fitting. The fitting turns. I let Micki's body calm down again.

Ed and Kari wrestle the bottle away from its mounts. As it passes, Rachel sticks the det-tape and micro-initiator on the bottle, on the valve. The tech-ninjas roll the bottle to the stairwell and push it down.

“Cover!” I shout again, Ed and Kari duck under the engine blocks of the generators again, and, despite the fact that it seems like the least safe place in the universe, I press Micki's body into the gap where the LNG tank came from.

Firing in the stairs. Firing. Oh, shit. They wouldn't … they would. They're not afraid to die. I cover Micki's ears tight.

The explosion is like an earthquake, the shockwave kicking me in the stomach painfully. The walls of the room buckle. Something heavy falls. Something else breaks, and a shiver of cold runs down my back. A gout of flame floods the room from one end to the other, and then everything goes black.

“Micki? You still with me?” Cough.

“Yeah. But my network link just dumped.” Cough again. “Oh, sweet God, what's that horrible smell?”

Pat out the singeing spots on her hair. But that's not it. “Mercaptans,” I answer, finally. Look. But I can't see anything. Shiver in the cold. Wriggle Micki out of the gas rack.

“Nnnggg.” Rachel is waking up. “Natural gas. We're in trouble. Ed. Kari. We go through that door.”

“Oh, no,” Kari says, very softly, in a sad, broken voice. “Oh, no.”

Sound of motion. She can see something I can't. Pull the broken shades off Micki's face. Rummage in the bag. Find a flashlight. Switch it on.

Kari is standing at one of the generators. It's off its mount, the heavy block flat on the floor. And Ed's arm is sticking out from under it. “Shit.”

Log into Micki's deck. Call up Ed's context. His firmware answers. But the stats are all bad. No blood pressure. No pulse. No brain activity. His firmware boots me back out right away.

“No! Kari!” Micki yells. No time. I jump to Kari's context. See through her eyes. Watch her body go to max-stim, and she heaves up on the huge engine block as hard as she can. It slowly, slowly rises from on top of Ed.

“Kari, no! He's dead!” I yell. I can already see what's happening, though. Irregular pulse detected. Her heart rate drops sharply, her knees buckle, and the engine settles back down, mercifully covering Ed again. Kari clutches at her chest, and sags forward, resting her head against the engine block, gasping for breath.

“Rachel!” I shout. “Blow the door!” Micki and I run to Kari's side. She's sobbing. Rummage in Kari's bag. Pull out her bag of patches. THC. No. Crush. Hell, no. Anesthesia. No. Where is … nitroglycerine. Finally. Peel two dump patches, and slap them to Kari's neck, over her jugular. Do it fast. Her hand comes up. Peel two endorphin smartpatches and slap them to the other side of her neck.

“Leave me alone!” she wails, and lashes out with an open hand that slaps Micki's body armor and sends us flying backward.

“No soap on the door!” Rachel yells. “I'm out of tape, and the explosion killed my detonators!”

“What the hell? Did anyone bring enough supplies on this run?” I yell at her.

“Rae!” Micki yells. “Kari!”

“No time, Micki!”

“Why?”

“The gas. It'll smother us or hit the right mixture to burn. Either way…”

Rachel mutters, “I told you, we went to ground on this investigation. Shoot the door!” She yells, and opens fire.

The armor piercing rounds tear through the door in a neat pattern around the lock plate. Rachel flushes as she hits her own max-stim, and kicks the door open. Still strong. “You guys go on!” She says to me. “I'll get McGee.”

“What about Kari?” Micki demands.

I jump into Kari's perspective again. Her eyes are closed. Blood pressure is weak. Pulse is unstable, the beat irregular. She coughs violently. I can taste — her firmware brings it to me as taste — troponin and creatanine kinase MB. It tells me what they are. They're the proteins that are released, as part of the heart muscle dies. The taste is sweet. Vague bitterness. Tang of iron. It tastes like meat. “Kari?” I ask, gently. “Carlotta?”

But she doesn't answer. Just sobs and coughs, and keeps whispering “No.” I can feel her petting her brother's hand. Feel the crushed bones grate in it, even from that little touch.

“We'll let her stay here a few more minutes. See if…” See if what, you lying copy? “I don't think she'll come.” I finally say to Micki, “I think she's gone.”

“She'll come,” Micki says, flatly, and we head up the stairs. But as we go, I notice that I can't hear Kari coughing anymore. All is silent below.

Chapter 38

Up the stairs. Rachel carries McGee. We stop abruptly at another locked door. “You know,” Rachel says, and gives me a glare. “Next time, we glue these fucking things open, like sensible people.”

Raise McGee's rifle and shoot the door. My rifle sputters out of ammunition before I've stitched more than halfway around the lock plate. “Your turn!” I tell Rachel.

“I'm dry,” she says.

Look at her. “Great.”

“Why not just hit it with a grenade?” Micki asks.

“Shrapnel,” Rachel and I say, simultaneously. “The door would just reflect it back at us.”

“Great,” Micki sighs. She crouches down and looks at the bottom of the door. Then gets out a screwdriver and opens the bottom of her deck. Fishes out a wire. Forces it under the door gaskets with her screwdriver. “Maybe … maybe … yeah. Okay. Good. Ice is chewing on the firewall again. And … all right! We're through. Excellent. Unlocking the door.”

“Outstanding,” Rachel says.

There's a faint buzzing. Micki pulls on the door handle. Nothing budges. She stares at it. Heaves at it harder. Puts her back into it. “Why?” she whispers softly. “Why won't it open?” There's a tone to her voice. A scared little girl tone. The ragged edge of panic.

“Easy, Micki. Easy.” But I can smell the gas too.

“Why won't it fucking open?” she shrieks. “Why?”

“Oh, fuck me,” Rachel says, after a moment's inspection. “The explosion bent the frame. Look. We can't even shoot it out like that.”

The environment alarm on Micki's wrist goes off. Rachel looks at her own and shakes it. “What's yours say, Mick? Mine's dead.”

“It says we're at an explosive level of gas,” Micki says quietly. “Basically, we're going to die.”

The panic hormones flood her body. And I ride them. There has to be something I can do. Has to be. I can't go. I can't let Rachel go. No. Neither of those really matter all that much. What I can't let happen, is that I can't let Micki die. Reach into her deck. Flick through perspectives. McGee's goes nowhere. Rachel's eyes are closed as she, like me, wracks her brain for a solution. Fainter connections. Through the wrecked door at the bottom of the stairs. Ed's hardware is jabbering a bit. Kari's…

Heart rate. Slow, but beating. Blood ox: lousy, but operational. Brain activity. She's alive. Whisper in her mind's ear. “Kari. Kari. It's me. The copy.”

She doesn't respond. “Kari, I need you. We need you. If we don't get the door open at the top of the stairs, we're all going to die.”

“So what?” she finally asks.

“Kari. Micki will die.”

“No,” she says. I can feel her shake her head.

“Please.”

“I can't,” she says. Her eyes open. Teared up. “I can't. Can't leave. Hurts.”

And it does. “Then let me. Log me in.”

She's quiet. “Can you save…” She takes a slow breath. You never notice how most people still respect their breathing needs when they're talking digitally. “Can you save Micki?” she asks.

“I promise I'll try.”

She coughs once. Takes a deep breath. Feel the gas mask tighten on her face. “Better. Better to burn out…” her chest laces tight with pain again.

“I understand.”

She logs me in.

Her pain becomes mine. Grit her teeth. Each pulse is an agony, and her whole body is crying out for more circulation than it's getting. Rise up slowly. Walk to the stairs. Hurry. I have to hurry. One spark…Look into her firmware. Throw the switch. Max stim. The hormones flood her body, and her heart picks up where it can. Ramps her blood pressure up. Normal. Higher. Feel the strength. Everywhere but her chest. I've swallowed fire. That's what her chest feels like. Gather myself over her powerful leg muscles. Leap up. One whole flight at a time. Land. Step. Gather. Leap.

Strange to see Micki from the outside. She looks up. “Kari!” I ignore her. There's no time. Kari's pulse is getting uneven. Her heart muscle is dying. Grab the door handle. Brace my foot against the frame. Heave back as hard as I can. A scream escapes Kari's lips. From me. From her. I don't know. It doesn't matter. Keep pouring on the power while I've got it. The door screams with me, metal grinding on metal as it slowly twists open.

“Hey,” Kari says to me, in the privacy of her skull as we gasp for breath. “Copy.” Even her mental voice is pinched with pain. “Tell…” she starts.

The ventricles of Kari's heart stop beating. Her blood pressure drops to zero. Give the door one last spasm of effort before blackness floods over me. Collapse onto the stairs. Feel the motion. Inner ear. Feel the tickle of her atrial pulse, as the upper chambers of her heart go on in vain, trying to pump blood from her body to her lungs.

Compressions. Voices from outside. “Kari! Kari!” Touch of warm lips to mine. To Kari's. Warm breath forced into her lungs. Feel it less and less. Lips grow numb. The tickle of atrial pulse slows. No circulation. No oxygen. The muscles of Kari's heart give one last quiver of activity, and then all is still within.

“Don't let me die alone,” she thinks.

“No,” I think to her. “I'm still here.”

She clings to me, in her mind. “Afraid. I'm … afraid…”

So am I. There's nothing I can do for her. Nothing I can do to stop it. Feel her brain activity soar. Like dreaming, save for the desperate speed. Memories, this sky, and she plunges through it like a suborbital. It goes by so fast I can't understand it. So many runs. So much bleed-over. So many memories hers and not hers. Flares of orgasms experienced only hormonally, disconnected from the sensations that made them happen. Flares of pain as someone pushes her body to its limits, again and again.

So much. So very much life she packed into her thirty years. So much anger. So fast. And yet. And yet. The innocence. The sense that most of what she did in her life … never touched Carlotta Sargent.

Then she came to in Kansas, and things slowed down. She was … she was happy here. I can feel it from her. She watched the sky. She watched the seasons change, and the art welled up in her, unexpected, but welcomed. Cherished. She only did her ink in the last month or two. Long sessions. Tattooing Ed. Driving him to tattoo herself. Bright pain. Test of strength. Her memories go backward and forwards at the same time. Ed's death, and a kindergarten playground. It all jumbles together and begins to blur, like soft fog. Feel it. Breathe it in. Mist on my face. Wet skin. Calm. Quiet.

“Kari?” I ask softly.

“Hey,” her voice starts again. “Copy.” Remembered, or in real time. I don't know which. It's soft. Relaxed. Almost languid. Fading out, a bare whisper in the empty, still sky of her dying mind. “Tell Micki I love her.” Carlotta Sargent says to me, and I feel it, like tears on her cheeks. “Tell…”

“I will, Kari. I promise I will.” I don't know if she hears me. I don't know if she was conscious when she said it, or if it was just the last twitches of her oxygen-deprived brain. It's cold now. Nothing but random noise. Whiteout. Static. I feel. I feel her brain flatline. Feel the dream of life die. Feel it. Feel the nothing. Drink it in.

Then her firmware boots me out.

Chapter 39

Lights. Camera. Action. Holy shit.

Pulse in my chest. Micki's heart. Blink inwardly. My mind is still reeling. Feel my body, quickly. Ingrained reflex. Functionality check.

“Rae!” Micki hisses. “Are you back? I need you.”

“Right,” I answer. Sort myself out a bit. Connect up. Try to sink into Micki with something other than … where I've been.

Open my eyes to her world.

We're out of the stairs. The air is sweeter. Cleaner, though the mercaptan stink is still there. Rachel is next to Micki. McGee is slung over Rachel's shoulder. She and Micki are staring.

And there are another hundred clones ahead of us. Clothed. Armed. Breathing as one. They stand. Waiting. And only the Talon in Micki's holster has any rounds left. Gather myself together. “This is great.”

One of them steps forward. “Hello, again,” he smiles. Perfect white teeth.

“Again?” Real Rachel says, and looks at me pointedly.

“You were busy,” I explain, briefly.

He looks at Real Rachel. “Rachel, dearest, do please shut the fuck up.”

She snaps a movement toward him, but five laser spots converge on her as five clones take aim.

“To the limits of the rifles, I can put five rounds through the same hole. Just this once, do as I say.” His voice is almost gentle. “You've put me in an awkward position, you realize. The most expedient solution would simply be to shoot you all and hide the bodies, would it not?”

“If it was, you'd have already done it,” I tell him. “Why don't you tell us what you really want?”

He smiles at me, and the chill of it slides down Micki's back, despite the armor. “I told you what I want. But … I do have to protect this interest. We can rebuild here, but it will take time. So I'm going to need to ensure I don't get interrupted again.”

“Yeah?” Rachel asks.

“Yeah,” he parrots. “Infection, as you would put it. Contamination. I want to bring you into the fold. Then … you all can … walk away. You'll still have much of your own will, of course, as your connectivity tends to be intermittent, but you will have a certain … allegiance to my best interest.”

“As opposed to Robert's.”

Several of the clones smile. “I like to think of our relationship as a partnership, where we insulate each other from our personal agendas.”

Micki whispers in our personal gestalt. “You drive. I need to do something,” and she connects up to her deck.

“No deal,” Rachel says. “I've spent the last two years getting your influence out of my head, there is no fucking way I'm inviting you back in.”

“I don't see that you have many alternatives. Dear.” He bites the word. Snaps the D hard with his tongue, and draws his lip up into a flicker of expression, almost a snarl.

The flicker of temper ripples the surface of his placid skin, and all the clones faces twitch the same way. One mind. Many bodies. A handful walk toward Rachel. She levels her rifle at them, and racks the action of her grenade launcher. “Don't,” she says.

“You're taking quite a chance, don't you think?” he asks. “I can smell the gas too, you know.”

“Right,” she says. “Here's the deal. We walk. And we all live to fight another day. Or we all die here together now.”

He thinks about it. All the minds at once. You can see it. “Live to fight another day. It would come to that, wouldn't it? I will require something else, though.” Several of him look at me. “She knows what I want.”

“You can have me,” I say. “You can have this copy. But not Micki. She walks out with Rachel.”

All eyes swing to me. “Maternal instincts, Rachel? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. A week, more or less, in a body with a functional ovary. It must make you feel very different.”

“It's a pain in the ass, is what it is. So I'm not losing much by leaving. But Micki walks out with Rachel. That's the only guarantee I'll take. Otherwise I erase myself. And Real Rachel blows us all to hell.”

“You wouldn't,” he shakes his head lightly.

“Try me,” I tell him. I can only hope he remembers who I am. What I'm like. Because I don't even know if that firmware module will load anymore.

CAF0.35b2.1: ***WARNING WARNING WARNING***

Carrier agent core flush protocol: ***ARMED***

CAF0.35b2.1: ***WARNING WARNING WARNING***

Well, okay. I guess it will.

“I'd rather not,” he says, finally. “Very well. I'm going to send a node of myself to her. I need more bandwidth than that pathetic piece of junk she's carrying can manage.” One of him walks toward Micki.

Jump down into the deck. Into a gestalt with Micki. “I'm leaving, hon.”

She's working on something. Flat out. Desperate. As fast as she can. “You want to go with him?”

“I left a file. It's got the codes in it, in case you forgot them.” I point her at the file.

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“When you're clear, run the core flush, and then reset the neurofiber net. The codes are all in the file. Make sure he didn't slip you anything nasty. There won't be anything left in here to preserve.”

“You don't trust him?”

“Don't have a choice at this point. But it might get you and Rachel clear.”

“Might? I thought you said he stuck to his deals.”

“Times change. I don't know him anymore. Especially like this.”

Micki looks away. “No,” she says. She ducks back into her deck.

“Don't forget to run, Mick. Piss me off if…” But she's not listening.

It's already too late. Look outside. He's there. Feel the solid clunk of a thick, optical connector sink into one of Micki's jacks.

CAF0.35b2.1: Skeleton key mode established.

“I'm here,” the whisper in my mind. “Come to me.”

Boil into his connection like a swarm of ants. Attack him. Write to change him. Try anything. And hope they figure out my game outside. If I can disrupt this … hive mind, even for a couple minutes, they can get out.

Ego. Like black holes, he said, and he's right. I've read that if you shrunk the Earth to the size of a ping pong ball, you'd have a black hole. I've also read that the mass of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is about three million times the mass of the sun. Me, I'm the ping pong ball. Coyote moment. I don't even have a little sign. Don't have time.

Scream at him. The last thing I want. “Who is the fourth Horseman?” I don't think I like the humor that elicits in him.

Begin to think with him. Remember. Standing up to pee. It's the first thing that strikes me. Taller. Stronger. Colder. Much, much colder. Feel myself walking into a boardroom in 2006. Look down at the polished shoes. Cuffed pants. Faces at the meeting table. Name placards. Crippen, D; Burke, A; Klosowski, L. Look down at my own. Neil, R. Look at the presentation on the screen. I don't remember what it was about. All I remember is the border clip-art. Four Horsemen Holding. Four Horsemen. Horseman. No fucking way. But the dark star pulls me down into it. And I can't find where I am anymore.

Push away. Anger at what I've become. Fury. It shocks us. So alien to the parts that were him. Judgement. Anger. Disgust. He's never known them. He. Horseman. I found the last horseman. And I'll die with the knowledge. But I won't be part of this. The only thing there is left — failure. How's that for irony? Let it chew on that.

But it doesn't. The dark star spits me out.

And I'm back in Micki's head.

Take a deep breath. Luxuriate in the ability, even polluted with the stink of gas.

“Rae?” Micki says. “Is that you?”

Feel through my network. “I…” Yes. “I think so.” Look out through her eyes. Nothing has changed. The clones stand still. Their eyes are closed.

Move a little. One clone opens his eyes and shifts to focus a rifle at Micki's chest. Freeze. My disruption didn't last long enough. Shit. We're still going to die. “Micki. Whatever you were going to do, now's a good time.”

She flickers a thought to her deck. Her ice comes on. Tells her deck's wireless interface to go into test mode. And blasts all the wireless communications in the room offline. I pull the fiberoptic cable from her neck.

The clones stagger. Look at each other. Rifles come up. Are slapped down.

Look over at Rachel. Glance toward the door. She catches the look, and I know she knows. She shrugs McGee higher on her shoulders so she can run.

“Micki. Get ready.”

“For what?”

“To shut down. And run.”

“Why? We're jamming them up good.”

“It only takes one of them to shoot you. Get ready.” Watch as Micki ramps her strength. Dials her muscles in for sixty-forty strength to speed. Good girl. No point moving your legs faster than gravity, but you need force against inertia. She learns fast.

Fighting breaks out among the clones. Shoving. All silent, as they read each other's intent from body language. Watch. Watch for one rifle being raised.

“Now!” I scream it. Out in the real world.

Micki drops the jammer, and accelerates toward the door, wind blowing her hair out behind her.

All the separate brains in the hivemind link themselves together again. All the disparate points of view. All the new, separate egos. Insanity. The clones stop moving, and a collective groan escapes them. They don't notice as we go past. Micki reaches the car first. Opens the door.

Rachel arrives moments later, and shoves McGee into the back seat.

Look Rachel in the eye. “Finish this,” I tell her. Such a hard, hard sound to come from Micki's mouth.

“Got something in mind?” she asks, strapping McGee in.

Turn to the doorway. Clear the safety on the grenade launcher. “Yeah.”

Rachel sees. Purses her lips a little. Racks the action on her own. We fire together. They're fragmentation grenades, sure, but the fragments are red hot, and powered by explosives. Flame gouts from the doorway. The overhead doors on the side of the building blow off. We don't hang around to watch the rest. We jump in the car. Strap in. Rachel puts her foot to the floor.

Seconds roll by. And then a second flash. The first explosion remixed the air. The lower levels just reached the right fuel-air mixture to burn. “Ears!” I yell, and cover Micki's ears tight with her hands. The ground shakes viciously under us. Look back over the back seat, where McGee is strapped in. Watch the building fall down. The explosion of noise blows out the T-Rover's windows when it hits. We're blown off the road, and the SUV rolls over. Twice.

We come to rest upside down. Quiet. Sudden quiet.

Rachel calls the police.

Chapter 40

It was, it turned out, an Interpol matter anyway. Ownership of the building was in CalTech. That makes it our bailiwick. So, after some shuffling, some quick subpoenas, and a certain amount of legalistic snarling, it was IBI cops who picked us up. The Bureau. McGee is in the chop shop. I don't know that Micki noticed any of it. She seems to be in shock. Functional. It's not the physical kind of shock, it's the kind you get when the shooting stops, and you're so tired you can't think, but there're a million things burned into your memory that you're trying to get your head around. It's an old friend, at least, for me. Wrap her arms around her, and try to be a comfort. All I can do. If she's like me, the tears come later. Coyote moments cost you, even if you get through them.

Rachel emerges from a conference room. Looks over at us. Sighs. She heads over to the coffee machine and pulls two cups. Comes with them, and extra napkins.

Take the mug of coffee. Sip it. Wince at the flavor.

“What?” Rachel says. “This is decent coffee.”

“Makes a difference whose mouth you taste it with,” I tell her, and put the cup down.

Rachel sighs again. “Okay, here's the deal. I'm in a virtual meeting with Director Toshe. Gotta go back after a bathroom break. She agrees with me that Covert's stepped over the line. Standard procedure is that we take it to them.”

“Good,” I say. But Rachel doesn't look convinced.

“Wait until you've heard it.” She turns away a little. “We've jammed Covert before. The first thing they do is erase every trace of data that could be used as evidence against them. Even if it means shutting down active ops. Slash and burn. Standard Operating Procedure, handed down from you-know-who. Then they go straight to the Secretary and complain, and we get called on the carpet for screwing with them, and we have no hard evidence to back us up.”

“Yeah, I remember how that goes,” I tell her, thinking back. “We used to think that was pretty funny. Like being in our own little pirate ship. Again.”

She eyes me, balefully, then looks away, nods. “Yeah.”

“So what's your plan?” I ask.

“Bones of a plan are all we've got yet. Robert's got to be expecting something. So I had death certificates made up for me and McGee, and of course, the Sargents. All killed in the explosion. We also got the Topeka police to sit on the forensic evidence for a couple days, and told the media the facility was unmanned.”

“Unmanned? That's going to stink of your handiwork, you know.”

She shakes her head. “Not mine. I'm dead, remember? You, on the other hand…”

Look at her. Feel the bones of her plan now. “You're sending us back to San Diego.” Rachel nods. “Use your phone and put in a call when you're a safe distance from here. Then we just put you on a train and drop you off in San Diego. Meantime, I take the suborbital we've got sitting on the runway in Minneapolis to the Riviera and have a chat with the secretary, and blow the whole thing to him. We'll have folks from the IBI office in San Diego back your play. Or something along those lines. Toshe is letting me run this show as the regional commander, so if it goes bad, I take the fall.”

“Rachel, I can't do this.”

She looks at me. Sits down next to me. “Can't isn't what we're paid for, Rae. You know that. Anyway, you have to. If you don't, you and Micki Blake are our only evidence we have that ties all of this to Covert.”

“Then we'll testify.”

“If you live that long, sure. I'd put long odds against that. We are dealing with Robert Neil here.”

Close my eyes. Mull it over. Finally, I talk to Micki. “It's not over yet. Micki,” I tell her. “We have to do this one last run.”

Micki's quiet. So long that I reach out to touch her mind a little more closely. Catch the flood of post-combat numbness. She notices. “I heard you,” Micki says quietly. “You two won't be happy until you get me killed too, will you?”

“Are you in?” I ask.

“Why bother asking? I don't have any choice.”

“Because it matters to me, Mick. I won't make you do this. If you want to take our chances with the snipers, we'll do that.”

“No. No. Bullets start flying and innocent bystanders get killed. I'm in. If it makes you feel any better.”

“Thanks, sweetie.” She goes quiet again.

“Mick's in,” I tell Rachel. “Terms.”

Rachel looks at me. And sighs. “Such a mercenary, these days. I remember a time when God and Country were enough for us. Y'know, just cause it was the right thing to do.”

“We were suckers when we were younger. Terms.”

She looks away. “Okay. What do you want?”

“When we get back. If we get back. You get me out of here. Send Micki home to her mom. She gets her life back. When this is over, and everyone wants to forget all about it, you make sure Micki's in the list of things that get forgotten.”

Rachel shakes her head. “You know we can't do that. All that classified equipment in her head…”

“Doesn't mean a fucking thing compared to her life, Rachel. She gets her life back. We owe her that. I don't know, maybe when she graduates high school, the IBI offers her a scholarship. And if she chooses to take it, you get her. If not, you shop her around to every other U.N. agency with the clearance to use her until you find something she likes. Try the Space Administration, maybe. And if you want evidence of criminal behavior from Covert, how about putting classified hardware in the hands of people with no security clearance. That's a felony, at least. But whatever. Micki gets her life back. You figure out how. Promise me.”

Rachel folds her arms across her chest. “You won't be in a position to enforce that in the long term, you know.”

I look back at her. Look at the face I used to see in the mirror. Try to judge the character within, from what I remember, and what I can imagine. I can't. There's so much ground between us now; I can't think of her as an extension of myself. Not a stranger, no. But not the same. “Do I need to be?” I ask her.

She looks into Micki's eyes, like she's trying to see me inside the girl's head. Presses her lips together, and closes her eyes. “I'll see what I can do,” she says, finally. “You worry about the run. You worry about getting out. Leave the rest to me.” Shakes her head. “Space Administration. God. Do kids still dream about working for them?”

Chapter 41

On the highway in Geary County somewhere, I open Neil's satellite phone and dial his home number. The one we once shared. Stubborn man. I knew he wouldn't change it. The phone connects immediately. Digital clear, but I know there's going to be a quarter-second delay with each transmission. Speed of light is only so fast.

“Neil,” he answers, his voice thick with sleep. A little sloppy. A human voice. There's a pause. “Who is this?”

“You fucking well know who this is, Robert,” I tell him. “You have a GPS feed on this phone, and you know where I am, too. You also know that the matter is resolved. I'm coming home.”

His voice is still stiff. “I see. Yes, I thought I recognized the signature. Your taste for mayhem seems remarkably intact. I'll send someone for you.”

“Negative,” I tell him. Micki's movie-soldier speech pattern slips through. Oops. “I'll come there. Expect me sometime tomorrow, depending on when I can get a seat on the train. Anyone who meets me outside your office gets the big sleep, no matter how much they look like you. Especially if they look like you. I've met your friends, and I don't like them much.”

There's a soft “Hmph” over the phone. “I'd have thought they were your kind of people. But I suppose I have enough trouble with the natives at the moment without you leaving a trail of bodies on your way here. I'll be in my office all day tomorrow. Don't make me come looking for you.”

“Don't even think it. We'll discuss those arrangements tomorrow.” I hang up. After a moment's thought, I toss the phone out the window into the next culvert we pass over. Watch the phone float away. It ought to give his tracking ice an interesting puzzle.

Chapter 42

The party is in full swing when we get back, but high school students don't party, don't drink, don't use drugs, don't screw with the same desperate urgency the Marines of my youth did. The level of sex hormones is arguably as high, but they just aren't the adrenaline junkies we were. People are actually sitting and talking. Watching movies. Necking. Yes, okay, as we go down the hall, one of the function rooms is designated, “Foam Party. Enter at Own Risk.” Glance in. Look at the girls on one side, and the boys on the other. Watch them stake out the dance floor in little packs of two or three. Listen to the laughter and giggling. It's like it's all just a little embarrassing, to be in such an adult place, with such adult possibilities. Close Micki's eyes a moment and look away. Strange tangled urge in me to laugh. Or to cry. Too exhausted to do either one.

We make it back to our room without anything worse than someone pressing a beer into Micki's hand. Touch Micki's pocket to the door with a hip bump. The door unlocks. Go in. Close it behind us, and lean against it. Slow breath. Take a pull from the beer.

“Mick? You still in here?” but it's already starting. Familiar surroundings. Familiar smells. The taste of beer, and the blast of alcohol through her empty stomach into her blood. It's starting. I can feel her starting to relax, and I know what's going to happen after that. Head to the bathroom. Peel out of the body armor. Oops. that might explain some of the strange looks we got coming in. Run a tub full of almost-too-hot water and crawl in it. I've just about finished washing Micki's hair by the time she breaks down into sobs.

“Oh, God,” she cries. “You killed her. You killed Kari.”

I suppose the good news is that doesn't make me feel any worse. Stomach's already in knots. I already feel sick. Curl Micki's arms around her. Hold her gently, as much as I can. “She was dying, Micki. And I asked first.”

Micki's eyes squeeze shut. “No, you didn't. She would have stayed with Ed.”

Faint tickle of defensiveness. My old habit, I guess. Mick's emotions will have none of it though, and I feel it, as keenly as she does. Maybe more. More memories for it to resonate with. Wish again that I could close my eyes, but only hers close. Do the only thing that makes sense. I share the memory with Micki. Share the asking. Share the opening. Share Kari's last words. The Tech-ninja's death, that I keep to myself.

“She said…” Micki starts. “She…”

“I know.”

“Oh, God, Rae. Oh, God…”

Do the only thing there is left to do. Hold Micki, and cry.

Chapter 43

When you're crying, it feels like forever, no matter how long it really is. But the water's cold. The suds in Micki's hair have gone gummy, run down into her eyes by the time the soft knock on the bathroom door comes. “Micki?” Male voice. Light. Soft.

It takes a second to notice. Takes me longer to make the voice. Micki does it first, and there's a tiny tickle of comfort in the familiarity of it. “Kurt,” she whispers.

“Mick, are you ok?”

“No,” she murmurs softly, and curls her arms away from me, around her stomach.

The doorknob turns, and Kurt looks in. Micki's head snaps toward him. One of us looks at him.

“Yeee!” he says, and closes the door again. “Sorry, Mick. I didn't… I mean… I thought you were throwing up or something.” Sound of someone settling on the other side of the door. “What happened?”

Neither of us answers for a while. Just drain the tub. Rinse the suds out of our hair. Dry off. Pull on the robe. Mechanical. Exhausted.

“Mick? I brought food. If you want some.” Shuffling of motion on the other side of the door again. Rattle of a paper bag.

Open the door. Hug Kurt. It's not clear who does it. Maybe we just agree on it. Doesn't matter. We just hold him, and take the tiny warmth we get like manna from heaven. Sob on his shoulder. He figures it out, and cuddles us close. The bag of burgers thunks softly into Micki's hip.

“Mick?”

“It was bad, Kurt.” Then shakes her head. “It was bad. People … died.” Tears run down her cheeks, but the gut wrenching sobs are pretty much done.

“Oh, Micki,” he says gently, and brushes her hair back from her face with his hand. “I'm here. I'll keep you safe.” He says it over and over again. “Keep you safe.”

There's no way what he said should make either of us feel safe. But I guess the words help. Anyway. At some point, we hit the bed. The familiar sloppiness, disconnectedness, the lack of making sense steals over us, pretty much at the same time, and we … sleep.

Chapter 44

It compresses down to this. A few hours' sleep. One more run. That's all I have left. After that, Micki gets her life back. And I cease to exist.

When I dream, I dream of Kari. “Can't leave him. Hurts.” Feeling her heart go spastic. Then quiet. “Alone.” No. There are others here.

I dream about a little girl, sitting under a tree, naked as the day she was born. Grass prickles her bottom. It's rubbed into her knees and hands. On her sides and back, where she's been rolling in it. The sun on her skin. My skin. Someone's skin. I feel it. Feel where the grass has chafed the skin, feel the dirt between my toes. Feel the fuzzy, squirming caterpillar in my hand. Look at it. Pop it in my mouth. Giggle as it squirms. Taste it as I bite down, and it flows into my mouth. Whose memory is this? I think it. I know I do. But I can't see the face. The caterpillar tastes green in my mouth. Sour. Grassy. Green. Swallow it. Make it part of me.

I never did that. This is not my memory. I was never that little girl. I grew up in the city, where bad things happened to little girls who ran around outside naked.

Cut away. The butterfly life inside me, gone. Something deep, torn out of me, dripping, green and red.

My eyes hurt. I've seen too much. Opened them too soon, and stared into the sun, and the flash cyberware in them hasn't dampened down the signal enough. Hurts. Can't leave him. Hurts. Feel the green life torn from me, feel the wound just below the pubic bone scream. My eyes finally close, and I lay me down to die, but I can feel the tears flowing free as I fall into the abyss.

It wakes Miki up.

She wipes her eyes and looks over at the clock. 4:07 a.m. Wipes her eyes again.

“Morning,” she says.

Pull my thoughts together a little. Try, at least.

“I'm starving,” Micki says. But I'm drifting off to sleep again, I think.

Micki looks down over the edge of the bed, and I'm jerked back into the real world. She looks down at Kurt, who's sleeping beside the bed, curled up under a blanket, his head on a pillow. There's a bag of hamburgers on the night stand beside him, clearly labeled “Micki.” Her stomach rumbles experimentally. She reaches for the bag and gets one out, and takes a bite. It's cold, tasting of grill and meat and ketchup and wilted lettuce. She eats, and watches Kurt sleep.

“Rae?” a whisper.

Blink again. Look down at Kurt through Micki's eyes. Listen to the boy snore. “Rae, are you awake?” Micki whispers.

Establish the gestalt connection between us. “I am now,” I tell her. “Sorry. Dreaming a little. Her dreams, I think.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

Look where her eyes are. “Penny for your thoughts? ”

“Just … thinking about her.”

“Kari?”

She nods. “Wishing we'd… Wishing I'd had the guts. Because you just … don't know if you'll get another chance.”

I reach for her right hand with her left, and pat it softly. “Mick … if that's what you want … I'm not going to tell you you're not old enough. Or mature enough. Or whatever.”

She's quiet and still for a long time, but I can feel her mulling it over. I let her. And I don't pry.

She scootches over to that side of the bed and looks over the side. “Kurt,” she whispers. Nothing happens. She says it again, a little louder. Still nothing. Micki frowns a little, and grabs a pillow and whaps him with it gently. “Wake up.”

“Mmmf?” he mutters from the floor. “Mick?” Blinks a few times. “Uh. I um. Hi.” He looks up at the bag. “You didn't eat the burgers.”

“Kurt, I…” She stops. Founders a little. Gropes for words. Frowns a little. “Kurt, why are you sleeping on the floor?”

“I didn't want … I mean…” He looks up at Micki. “I didn't want you to think…”

Micki sighs. “That's silly. Come on. Come to bed.”

He shakes his head. “No, Micki, it's okay. Floor's good for me.”

Micki lets her hand hang down, with the pillow still in it. She trails the corner over his nose until he bats it away. “Do I have to hit you with the pillow again?”

He gets up slowly, and sits on his side of the bed as Micki vacates it. She scoots over to give him room, and she looks at him, watches him. He watches her.

“Um,” Kurt says.

“Yeah,” Micki says.

“I'm sorry about last night,” he says quietly. “I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to barge in while you were naked. I was worried.”

Micki nods slowly. “Thanks for being there, Kurt. I mean it. What you said … meant a lot.” She leans over and kisses his lips, just for a moment.

Kurt's staring when she draws back. He blinks, once or twice. Looks down at his hands. “Um. Be careful, Mick. Okay?”

Micki quirks a tired smile. “Duh,” she says.

Somewhere in there, I make it back to sleep.

Chapter 45

The phone rings. Kurt stirs. Unwraps an arm from around me. Picks up the phone. “Hullo?” he asks, blearily. Then holds out the receiver. “It's for you.” He looks over at me. Scratches his head. Smiles a little weakly.

Try to muster a smile. It comes surprisingly easily. I answer the phone, since Micki's only starting to wake up now. “Hello?” I say on the phone.

“Micki,” Rachel's voice. “Half an hour. Front door. Bring your tools,” is all she says. Then she hangs up. I try to imagine what she's thinking. What makes her voice so hard. I led the same life, up through about a week ago. I'm not that different. Tell myself that, but. All I get for her voice is a vague sense of nostalgia. Like I sometimes get, knowing my old dog tags from the Corps are in my safe deposit box, in San Jose. Were in my safe deposit box. Hell. She might have thrown them away.

Micki stretches a little as she hangs up the phone. “It's that time,” she says. She looks over at Kurt a moment. Gives him another smile.

Great. Now I'm all teary again. Good Lord, Mick. Where did you find this guy? And why the hell haven't you taken him to bed?

“Next door,” Micki says to me, very softly. “Duh.” I hate it when she does that. But she does smile a little, at least inwardly.

“Time, hon,” I warn her.

Shower. Shave the legs and pits with the cheap, polymer-bladed razor from the ‘Oops, I forgot absolutely everything’ kit. Brush the teeth. Crawl into panties, bra, cutoffs, and yet another tank top, this one with the words “Bad-Ass CyberGRRL” on the front. I hope that's prophetic. Sneakers. Glue the Talon's holster to Micki's belly under the shirt. She stretches a little, and we head out of the bathroom. Give Kurt one more kiss. She does that. I beep his nose once, and he chuckles. Then I go serious.

“Kurt? Don't tell anyone where I've gone until the end of the party, okay? If I'm not back by then, I guess it won't matter to me after that.”

He looks down at his hands. “Micki…” he begins.

Touch his lips softly with my finger. He stares at me again. “We'll talk when I get home.”

He nods, slowly. After we close the door, I hear him murmuring in prayer. Can't hurt.

The motel is mostly quiet. The foam party seems to have burned itself out. The last couple of stragglers emerge, raking foam from their hair with their fingers and laughing. All young men. Bobby Freyr looks over as we come by. “Hey, Micki. You missed a good time.” He grins.

“Says you,” she says, as we walk by. Grab the first of the bags of sausage-egg mclugnuts the helpful fast-food girl puts out. Head out the door.

Rachel's T-Rover. As expected. Slide Micki's hand up under her shirt, with a casual gesture like scratching. Me, I'm ready to pull a gun. The tinted window of the SUV rolls down. McGee's face. Haggard, but awake. “Hey, Hotty. Hurry the fuck up. You're already five minutes late for this clusterfuck.”

Chapter 46

The car smells like cigarettes and unwashed bodies. Breathe in the faint sourness of warm electronics and cold food. Settle into it like a feather bed, like a comfortable old chair. “Good to see you're up and around, Wiz,” Micki says.

“Yeah, thanks. You too. Buckle up. We're in a hurry.”

“What, it's only…” Micki looks at her watch. “Seven thirty. Train's at nine or something.”

He peels out, accelerating toward the highway with really excessive speed. “You're not going by train, guys. You're…”

Snap the Talon out of its holster and stick the muzzle in his ear. Set it to kill. “Pull over. Do it now.”

He doesn't take his eyes off the road. But there's a faint wince in his right eye. He swallows. Takes a slow breath. Fights down his own coyote moment. I can see it. “You'd do it, too. And fuck the car crash. Rae, before you blow this op more than it's already blown, will you talk to Santana? Please? If she doesn't convince you, you can stick splinters in my ear then, okay?”

Nod fractionally. “Go ahead. Don't twitch wrong. I'm as wired as you are.”

“And twice and mean and nasty. I know. I've heard this speech.” He pushes the autodial button. The car's videophone connects. Secure connection. It better be.

“Santana. McGee, where… Jesus, Rae, don't shoot him. He's practically all I've got for field people.” McGee seems a little stung by that.

“Bullshit, Rachel. Bull. Shit. You're plugged into the home office again. You've got all the manpower you need.”

She shakes her head. “Between Nexus-M, your little war, and the ones you shot yourself, you're looking at all the operational manpower I've got left. You, Micki, McGee, and me. That's it. Come on, Rae. Please. Don't shoot McGee. He's a good man.”

“He's contaminated. He's working for Robert or the clones, one or the other.” I tell her.

Rachel shakes her head again. “I checked him, Rae. I promise I checked him before I sent him to get you. Micki's decon ice did the job. The anti-viral team spent all night on the line with The Lady, cleaning up and fleshing out Micki's soft, and making it a little less traumatic to use. It got issued out this morning, and we checked it on McGee. He's clean. He's got some psych problems, but all he's doing is giving you a ride here. After that, he's going to take a vacation and get his head together. Orders from The Lady.”

“Why send him at all?”

“Because I'm fucking busy, and you'd have shot anyone else already. You think I don't know you?” she growls. “Now put that damn thing away and listen up. The whole mission profile's changed, and you've got about ten minutes to get set up for it.”

Lower the pistol. “Sorry,” I say, quietly. “Been a rough couple of days.”

He nods. “No kidding.”

Chapter 47

“Okay,” Rachel says, as we drive. “Let's get you up to speed real fast. We monitored your call to Covert. Profiling ice says you're pretty stressed, by the way, but it's not predicting any crackups in the next twenty-four. You must have good genes. So don't disappoint, huh?”

“We're ok,” I tell Rachel.

“Right. We found our mole. When we got the decon ice this morning, we ran everyone in the office through it, and found three people in the data center who were compromised. No behavioral clues. They didn't even know. They were feeding data to Nexus-M, and they must have had offsite backup, or massively hardened equipment, because they were still relaying it to Covert. No signs of analysis, though.”

Whistle softly at that. “What does it take to put that company down?” I ask her. “For fuck's sake.”

“Yeah, I know. We shut our network connection down for maintenance before Covert could waltz in and get the whole mission plan, but they know you were headed there with our regards. So I went for a walk, called Toshe up at home with my private phone, and told her the scoop. She basically said nothing's changed. Give her some proof, and we'll get his sorry ass fired, and prosecute him to boot. No question this time. I asked her to play along with the plan we'd already sent her, and that I'd make something up. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome, you know?”

Close my eyes. Micki's right there with me. “I thought you guys were pros,” she murmurs. “But your ops are fucking sloppy. Way worse than ours were.”

Rachel stiffens. Sighs. “Yeah. I know. I don't like it either. The Bureau isn't set up for covert work. That's Covert's job.”

“Time, guys,” I interject. “What's the new plan?”

Rachel shakes her head. “Not over this link. Open up the glove compartment. There's a minideck in there. Tactical database, background information, and the plan are all in briefing files for you on ice 3. It'll check your neuro-patterns for identity, then fast-load and erase itself. McGee knows where to drive you, but he doesn't need to know any more than that. Gotta run. See you when you get here.” She hangs up.

Look over at McGee.

“Not a clue,” he says. “Five minutes.”

Open the glovebox. Pull out the little black slab of plastic, about the size of a pack of cigarettes. There are also extra magazines for the Talon. Load one. Check the fuel. It's all automatic. Give Micki back her hands so she can get the deck set up. “Only three slots?” Micki asks. “You gotta be shitting me.”

McGee smiles lopsidedly. His first today. “Most of the volume of a deck is ice slots, anymore, Mick. And most of an ice stick is packaging. It's a pretty bog standard Kuroto '27 except that it's got the raw dice from seventeen Penguin GSX ice built right in. We have Kuroto make them up for us. It's just custom tech. Not even classified, so … y'know … if we don't get it back, nobody's going to grouse much. Try it. You'll like it.”

Micki glances over at him. Checks the fuel tank on the deck. Reaches into her backpack and grabs the EII ice out of her Zhang, slots it up in the Kuroto, and plugs the optical cable into the nape of her neck. “Hook me up, Rae,” she says.

Dive deep purple. Fast. Smooth. Liquid clarity. “Whoaah,” Micki whispers in the gestalt. “Smooth.” And she's right. You don't see how slow a deck is, just like in the old days you really didn't notice how slow your video card was or how bad your monitor's resolution was until you tried something better.

Close my eyes. Trigger Penguin 3. Fast-load the data as fast as the ice can give it to me. Smile a little at the care package Rachel's sent me.

CAF0.35b2.2: Loading carrier agent firmware update. Restarting.

Carrier agent firmware (CAF) 0.45rc1 loaded.

CAF0.45rc1: Verifying utility module checksums… Verified.

CAF0.45rc1: Loading briefing media.

Smile even more, as my mission briefing files finally have useful information in them. Up-to-date building schematics. Network access keys, current as of half an hour ago. Estimates on manpower, firepower, lists of all the ice tools installed on the deck. Who's who, hell, it even says where the bathrooms are. Rachel's thorough.

Happy me. At least, for a moment. Then I really assimilate what Rachel wants us to do.

McGee touches Micki's shoulder, gently. “We're here, guys,” he says.

Micki reaches for her backpack.

“Leave it,” McGee says. “Copy your EII into that thing and give it back to me. I need it.”

“What for?” Micki asks. “What's your part in this?”

“Gotta catch a train, then pretend to be you. Diversion. Boss doesn't trust that I'm up to speed for more than that.”

“Some vacation,” Micki says. “Be careful.”

McGee winks, quirks a faint smile with one side of his mouth. “Same to you. Both of you. Now get going. Time's a wastin'.”

Climb out of the car. Micki looks back toward it once, toward the backpack that holds pretty much her whole life. ID, card keys, deck, keys to the house, everything. I feel. She feels. We feel. Naked.

“Just stuff, Micki. It can be replaced.”

“Yeah. But will it be?”

I don't have an answer for her.

Chapter 48

Walk toward the suborbital plane. Eon Composites BlackBird, looks like. Sculptural. Smooth. Its shape, its skin, the position of its wings and control surfaces all calculated precisely for the best compromise between aerodynamics and radar-stealth. The BlackBird is tucked under the body of the aero-lifter frame, so aerodynamic, it looks like it's too fast to touch, even standing still on the runway at the deserted airport. The aero-lifter, by contrast, looks like a jumbo jet that forgot its pants. “We're going suborbital?” Micki asks. Excitement, despite herself. Despite everything. “I get to see space?”

“Yeah,” I tell her, without much enthusiasm. “How did you think we were getting to California before the train does?”

Micki shrugs. Climbs up the ladder, and moves to one of the seats in the back, near a window.

“'Bout fucking time, you two.” Real me's a little pissy this morning. Irritated. Tense. I understand, Rachel. More than anyone else in the world ever could, I understand. “Strap in,” she demands. “We're going right now. As soon as we get to altitude, get suited up for your jump.”

“What jump?” Micki asks me quietly.

“Parachute insertion, Mick. HALO.”

“From suborbital space?

“Yeah. It's fun. You'll love it.”

She's retreated a bit. Stunned silence, while I strap us both into the seat. It's been a while. And I was bigger. The seat feels enormous around Micki. She turns toward the window. Rachel darkens them all from the cockpit.

“How am I supposed to see…” she begins, then chokes off as she thinks about it.

“Yeah, there's that. Plus, I want your eyeballs to work when you get there,” Rachel says. “We're on the sun side, Micki. Besides, it could be bad if he catches your smiling face looking out the window when we get under a surveillance satellite.” After a pause, she adds, “Sorry. Plug in if you want to watch. You can see what I see.”

“It's not the same,” Micki says. But she does it anyway.

“Don't worry,” I tell Micki, a little sourly. “You'll get the best view in the house before we land.”

A cold fear rush pours up from her adrenals. Fear. Yes. “Don't remind me,” she mutters. But then she adds, “Man. Kurt would plotz if he knew about all this.” So maybe some of that is more healthy excitement. The two feelings are a little hard to separate.

Rachel taxies the combined suborbital down to the end of the runway. If I close my eyes, close Micki's eyes, I can almost see what Rachel's doing. Feel the controls in my hand. I miss flying these things. Howl of jetstream from the aero-lifter. It strains forward against its brakes. When the engines are fully spooled up, Rachel releases the brakes, and we lunge forward, gaining velocity rapidly. No airliner ever accelerated this fast. Aero-lifter is more or less a drag racer. Maximum thrust to get us up to speed as fast as possible, so the BlackBird's SCRAMjet can start to breathe. We're pulling enough Gs that Micki's inner ear slews over, and from where we sit, it feels like we're going straight up.

“You are sure we have enough runway at this little bitty airport?” I ask Rachel, casually.

“Now I knew something slipped my mind,” she replies, voice dripping with sarcasm. “That must have been it.” She pulls back on the stick gradually, smoothly, and the nose of the suborbital lifts off the ground. We slide into the air, still pressed back into the seat, as Rachel pours on the power. Nothing like a turbojet engine to remind you of the chemical muscle of corn oil. Micki smiles, despite herself, watching the feed from the cockpit. Heads-up display, video, radar, air traffic control data, the works.

“Isn't Neil going to get suspicious when he sees this takeoff?” Micki asks. “Not like a suborbital flight was in the original mission profile.” Micki's picking up the lingo. Picking up the habits of thought. She's spending way too much time around me, frankly.

Rachel smiles a touch. “He would, except that this is a stealth suborbital, and a stealth aero-lifter, and we're running dark. You have no idea how much ass pain I had to go through to get my hands on this rig.”

“Awfully convenient that you did. Especially on such short notice,” Micki says. Yeah. I'd say she's getting appropriately paranoid, too. Great.

Rachel sniffs a little. “A little trust, Micki. This was supposed to be your friends' flight to the clinic, remember?”

Micki goes quiet.

We climb continuously for 15,000 meters. “Stand by for aero-lifter separation.” Rachel says in the cockpit. “Separating … now.”

The space plane lurches a bit, dropping out from under the aero-lifter.

“Initiating SCRAMjet burn in three. Two. One. Ignition. Full throttle.” The space plane lurches again, and the G-forces that hammer us back into the seat make the aero-lifter's pale by comparison. Looking at the cockpit feed, things get very, very fast. Ninety seconds later, she backs off on the throttle, the G-forces drop off, and we're weightless in the cabin. Micki copes pretty well, but I keep an eye on her sympathetic nervous system anyway. First time in zero G makes a lot of people panicky. “Okay. Thirty minutes, guys. Get suited up.

I squash another panic impulse. Micki's nerves think she's falling. Visualizing actually doing it probably isn't helping. “I've done these jumps before, Mick. Lots of times. No biggie.” I tell her, reassuringly. I don't tell her when that was. I don't tell her what I was carrying, and what the mission profile was. It all seems awfully far away and a long time ago now. I'll probably feel different later.

Chapter 49

Fear radiates over the gestalt. It's coming up from Micki's stomach, which doesn't particularly like the fact that it and her breakfast are no longer under gravity's pull. Her animal nerves tell her she's falling, and it's bad. Her sympathetic nervous system is pounding on her adrenal glands, and that's making my hands shake. Mostly, it's coming from her brain, reacting to the adrenaline, trying to dance to the panic tune. I stomp that feedback as flat as I can. Focus. “Micki, easy. Don't psych yourself out. You're making it hard to get the suit on.”

Let her swallow a couple times.

“Come on, Mick. Pull it together. We're on a deadline here.”

“Rae,” she says, sourly, “jumping out of a perfectly functional aircraft is not a natural act.”

I have to laugh at her. It helps relieve the tension. It's all I say for a few moments as I wriggle us into the combo suit. Feel it snug around the legs and the butt. The laughter helps. She relaxes a little, and things are easier.

“Geez. Does it have to be so tight? And what's so fucking funny?” Micki asks me. Complaining. Fighting back from her coyote moment.

“Doing fine, Mick. And what's funny is you're quoting a paratrooper joke. A pilot is arguing with a paratrooper, and he says, ‘Why do you want to jump out of a perfectly functional aircraft?’ The paratrooper says, ‘There's no such thing as a perfectly functional aircraft.’ The pilot comes back with, ‘But there's no such thing as a perfectly functional parachute either.’ And the paratrooper says, ‘Yeah, that's why I carry two.'” Zip the suit up partway. Arrange the boobs in it a bit, though it's far, far less a problem than it is ... than it was the last time I did this. But the suit squeezes tight when you turn it on. You want your boobs where they belong, and not pinched against your ribs.

“I guess I know where your sympathies lie, huh?”

“You can take the girl out of the Marine Corps. You can make the Marine Corps cease to exist, but you can't take the Corps out of the girl, you know?” I zip the suit up and plug it into one of the jacks on the back of my neck. “They tried. But no.”

“Backup chute. Huh.”

“Um. Not on this jump. We won't have the altitude for more than one try. This is HALO. High Altitude Low Open.”

“Brilliant,” she says. “Do we play Russian roulette on the way down, too?”

“Nah. That'd be dangerous.”

Plug the optical fibers from the suit into one of the jacks in Micki's neck. Pull the helmet on. Plug in air, power, and data. Switch the suit controller on. Climb into the drop rack. Couple the suit up to it. Look into the fuselage, at the red light in front of my face plate. Take a long, slow breath, and send the message to the cockpit. “Ready to drop.”

“Stand by,” Rachel's voice is clipped. She's thinking about the same thing I am. I doubt she's done any drops since then, either. I certainly haven't.

“Semper Fi, Rachel.”

She's quiet. Finally. “Semper Fi, Rae.”

Micki's thoughts come over the gestalt again. “Any particular reason we're going down backward?” She takes a breath in the helmet. Listens to it. Exhales slowly. “Or is it the whole looking down thing with you again?”

“Doesn't matter either way until we hit some atmosphere. First timers usually are more comfortable this way.”

“But...” she begins. She's cut off by the sudden hiss of air as the airlock depressurizes. The suit activates. Spasms tight, to make up the lost atmospheric pressure. The sucking sensation in my ears and groin ease in a moment as those parts of the suit pump up to equalize pressure. “Oh, shit,” Micki whispers urgently. The helmet restricts her breathing a little. It doesn't help the panic reflexes. “Rae.” Her breathing tries to get faster. Approaching hyperventilation. “Rae, I can't do this.”

Think calm thoughts. Or I try to, at least. I try not to imagine what it must be like to go on your very first flight. Your very first suborbital flight. And then jump out. I feel it now, through Micki, the thrill I kind of missed. But it's hard to remember not knowing, for certain, that you can survive this. Hard to remember the fear. Talk to her. Use her voice. Her lungs. Make her breathing slow down. “It's okay to be scared, Mick. That's all bravery is. Being in a full blown coyote moment, scared shitless, and doing what you have to anyway. Don't worry. I'm right here with you. It's no more dangerous than being up a tower back home.”

She shakes her head in the gestalt. Takes a slow breath. Closes her eyes. “Yeah.” Another breath. Let it out slowly. Her heart rate slows down a little. Pounds in her throat less. “Yeah,” she says again.“But I don't make a habit of jumping off the towers, you know?” she mutters. “The whole ‘sudden stop when you hit the ground’ thing.” Sense of humor. She's adapting. She'll get by.

The light turns green. The drop doors open silently out from under us. Focus on the light. Simple, green light, in front of the faceplate of my helmet. Could be above us. Could be under us. I don't know. And it doesn't matter. This is zero G. You get used to that, when you have the time.

The last thing I feel is the launch rack shoving us out and clear. Look up. Watch the plane sweep up and away as the launch rack retracts, and the drop doors close. The BlackBird floats away, graceful. Unhurried, even at 3,500 kilometers an hour. I give the attitude control thrusters on the jump-pack a little nudge to correct a bit of tumble. The sound dies away quickly, and the only thing to hear is breathing; is heartbeat as the suborbital disappears from our field of view. “Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,” I say into the helmet, “and danced the sky on laughter-silvered wings.” It loosens Micki's jaw muscles a little from the clench they were in.

“Pretty,” Micki whispers in the gestalt.

“Best view in the house, like I said.” After that, we watch the sky in silence, within and without, for the next minute and twenty-two seconds. Eons in teenager time. Her body slacks a bit, but her breathing is still a little fast.

“Micki, I'm going to roll us over now.” She's still quiet. Nudge us over smoothly with the thrusters. She blinks at the motion, and looks down at the Earth. Gives her body a quick little shake. I check our air supply. “Still with me up there?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah. It's beautiful out here. I just … wish we could stay a little longer.”

“Zen moment, huh?”

“I guess so.”

I hold my arms out, bend my knees. Arch up seventy percent. “We've got a ways to go yet before anything interesting happens. You want to fly?” Feel the thrill inside her war with the fear.

“What do I do?”

“Just what we're doing now. Head up at seventy degrees, arch your back, arms out, knees up. Don't get us spinning or rolling and stuff.”

“Why, what happens?”

“Well, you'll G-lock if we get tumbling, and I don't know whether enough of your nervous system would work for me to get us back under control, aerodynamically. Plus, my net needs blood too, y'know.”

“You trust me?”

I smile a little, for real, inside the helmet. “You're driving, Mick.”

And she is. I can feel the thrill come through the gestalt. The smile I left there is still at her lips. Maybe a little bigger. The fear retreats more, as she asserts control over what's happening.

“Arch up a little more,” I tell her. “Not so much as that ... there you go. Feel the air now?”

“Uh huh.”

“That's how you want it to feel. If it starts feeling like you're wrestling with something, you're not doing it right.”

“How fast are we going?”

I check the heads-up display. “Mach … two point three.”

“Holy shit. We're going faster than the speed of sound?” It's hard to comb that emotion apart. Fear and bravado, maybe. Fear and thrill maybe. I don't know what it is. But I know you can get addicted to it. It's like an old friend for me.

“When we start to hit thicker air, I'll need to fly it. We'll be slowing down pretty fast and going through the trans-sonic turbulence, which basically sucks. Pretty quick though. Drag adds up fast.”

“That poetry you were reciting...”

“Yeah?”

“What's it from?”

“Uh. It's from High Flight. John Gillispe McGee. It's like ... the only poem I know.”

“Is there more of it?”

“Yeah ... some. It's pretty short though. World War Two fighter pilot. He died.”

“That’s the one where he dies and they wash him out of the turret with a hose,” Micki says.

“Huh? No. That's Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.”

Micki smirks at me.

“You've got a morbid sense of humor, Mick. 'sides, if I remember right, the guy who wrote that one lived.”

“So you know two poems.”

“Yeah. I guess I do. High school wasn't a complete waste of time for me after all.”

Chapter 50

Time passes. Micki is getting tense again. Her inner ears are still telling her she's falling, and now there's some wind to back the assertion up. Try to keep her sympathetic nervous system calm, for the moment, so it's coming from her brain. Subconscious, probably. “You okay up there?” ask her verbally again. To loosen up the jaw. Again. Her breathing's getting rapid, and it's hitting the point where the air supply can't keep up again.

“Talk to me,” she says. “What was high school like when you were my age?”

I'd shrug. I do, in the gestalt, but more and more, I'm realizing that's just not the same. “Largely the same old bullshit. We didn't worry about security quite as much as you guys, and we and our teachers were a lot more hung up on sex and teen pregnancy and drugs, like I said before. But not so different. Bunch of people who smell funny and aren't very good at getting along with each other yet.” That stings her, I realize, even as I say it.

“That's how you see me, isn't it?” she asks. Annoyed. But at least it's distracted her.

“Myself, really. At the time. You're a lot more together than I was at your age.” Trying to dig myself out. And frankly, it's true. “I was a lot less of a realist, at sixteen. At eighteen, too. Pretty much until I started getting shot at for a living, I was naive as all hell.”

Micki chuckles at me. “Hard to picture big, tough Rachel Santana that way.”

“Well, don't tell her I said so, huh? She might kick my ass.”

Micki laughs. “My ass. It's like you're two different people, Rae. You don't seem anywhere near as old as she is. Nowhere near as uptight, either.”

“She's actually a lot more mellow now. She must be getting it regularly.”

Micki blushes, and I let her. It makes me smile. “Um. Sorry,” she says. “I just…”

“S'okay, Mick. Don't rush it. You remember your first for the rest of your life.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Still blushing. We. Are still blushing. Focus on the moment. Keep Micki focused on the moment, and not the ground in the distance, slowly getting closer.

“Micki, we're about to drop subsonic, I need to take over again.”

“Okay.”

Trans-sonic turbulence slaps me in the chest, all along the length of Micki's body. Tuck the arms tight against my sides. Extend the control surfaces from the drop-pack for control. The stub wings are shorter than my arms, but not by much. Pneumatic activated control surfaces, wired to the onboard computer, which is wired to me. There's plenty of air and plenty of energy to work with. Flare the wings, drop the flaps, and slow down fast. Micki's tense, and it's making it a little hard to move. Hell, I'm tense. The drop-pack's winglets are not so encumbered, fortunately. Tilt forward. Let the shockwaves roll over the helmet, and down over our shoulders. It's not so bad like this. Turbulence makes the winglets handle roughly, but they do the job. Squeeze to keep blood in my head in the sudden drops. Squeeze to keep Micki's stomach still.

We're breathing hard when the air smoothes out again. Muscles are a little tired from G pumping. The drop-suit relaxes a little. Check the air supply. About a quarter-tank left. That's plenty. All we have left to do is breathe.

“Rae?”

“Sorry. I told you crossing the sound barrier sucks.”

Check the heads-up display. Getting there.

“Rae, why did you join the Marines?”

“Can we please not talk about that now? I'm a little busy.”

“We have some time.”

Sigh at her.

“The usual. Travel the world. Meet interesting people.”

“And kill them.”

Chuckle at her. “That part came later.”

“Did you plan anything for after you got out? I mean, get married, college, babies, that kind of thing?”

Nod a little. “I did. But things got nuts before I got out. Revolution happened. U.N. occupation. The camps. And anyway, I stopped some high speed shrapnel at one point. Went through my body armor. Infection set in. Hysterectomy. So. You know. No babies for me.”

“I'm sorry, Rae.”

Correct our flight path a little. “Happens. You get over it.” There's a tightness in my gestalt voice, though. A sensation, a sound that I'm starting to get familiar with. Like the strain in your voice when you pin someone to the ground, if you're fool enough to look in their eyes, to talk to them, to see them as a human being before you … before you do … whatever it was you were going to do that they won't like. Before you kill them, basically. Enthusiasm. This work. This work that I used to love, so.

Micki's quiet. Probably disgusted with me again. Killer that I am.

“You could ... I mean we could have babies. I'm healthy, I guess.”

Or I could be completely wrong. I can't close my eyes. I'm a little busy. But I would if I could. I try to force myself to relax, pay attention to what we're doing. But that old ache gnaws at me. What if? What if?

“You're crying,” she says.

Blink a few times. Sniffle in the helmet. Grit my teeth. Fight it back. Snot in your helmet is messy. “Sorry.”

“I thought ... y'know ... you'd be happy.”

Take a slow breath with her lungs. Taste the cool, dry air from the helmet. “Um, it's really generous of you, Micki. Nobody's… It's very kind, that's all.”

“So…”

“I'm not staying, Mick. Remember?”

She's quiet again. Then, “We'll talk about this later.”

I could find out what she's thinking. All I have to do is open the link, become her again, remember it. But. Always, but. Time. Mission parameters. This mission. The next. And the next. The ‘buts’ add up, and pretty soon, life's gone by, and whatever it was you were going to do never got done. I could find out. Maybe I should find out.

Later.

“Okay, Micki. We're coming up on parachute altitude. Get ready.” My gestalt voice has gone hard again. Mission time.

Chapter 51

Flight path. Check. Velocity. Check. Altitude … deploy at sixty meters. Check. The chute canister fires. Chute deploys, and we slow down, just in time to touch down on the roof, light as a feather. Detach from the chute as soon as I feel my feet touch. The chute's already disintegrating. It's made for no more than three seconds of exposure to the air. Because they're hard to dispose of, otherwise. BASE jumpers might call me a wuss for that landing. But my mission parameters are a little different from theirs.

Shuck off the jump pack. Not like I can't leave it here. Covert has their own, after all. There are perks to hitting your own people. “Mick. Passive scan. Any wireless nearby?”

She checks. “Nope. Well, I mean, there's plenty, but none of it is close enough to be in this building. It's either shielded, or they're strictly wired inside.”

Well, it is a secure facility. But after all the time we've spent together; after all the time I've been pretending to be just part of Micki while we're online, it's hard not to look over her shoulder. Check her results.

“Trust me,” she says. “And quit talking to yourself.”

Walk toward the roof access door. Skirt around the cameras. I'm invisible to them in the stealth suit. We are invisible to them, here in the stealth suit. Anyway, it's dark. The outer layer of the drop-suit is an active-matrix chameleopolymer. Right now, it's black. We also don't emit any infrared. Micki's body heat is soaked up in the middle layer of the drop-suit, where the liquid nitrogen is, and we vent a steady stream of gaseous nitrogen at ambient temperature. It doesn't last forever. The suit's good for about an hour, after filling. Forty minutes ago, now.

“Liquid nitrogen? Are you shitting me?” Micki asks. Oops.

“Yeah. Sucks if you get shot. Course, getting shot sucks anyway.”

“Yeah, so I've heard,” she quips. “Won't the cameras notice if we block off their view of something they should see?”

“Yup,” I tell her. We go around them.

Roof-access doorway. Lean up against the side wall. Reach around. Feel the keypad. Punch in the code listed in my briefing files. The door buzzes softly. Pull it open. Draw the Talon with my other hand. Wait. Peek down the stairs with the fingernail camera on the suit. The stairwell is reassuringly empty. Seconds tick, and liquid nitrogen slowly evaporates out of the suit.

“Glue them open this time?” Micki asks. She glances meaningfully at the door.

The memory gives me a shiver, but, “No point.”

Slip through the door. Give the suit a moment to blend us into the institutional gray of the wall. Walk down the stairs slowly. Hug the walls. The walls are my friends. Check the building schematic. His office is exactly where it's always been. Some things don't change, I guess. Try to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach. This isn't coming home. Start down the stairs, quiet as I can. The suit helps. The vari-foam soled boots help. Stop. Something's not right.

Look at door, on the landing on the fifth floor of the building. “Classified,” it's labeled. Flip through the schematic.

“Problem?” Micki asks.

“Yeah. This isn't on the schematic. According to it, this floor is acquisitions and accounting. Cube-ville, basically.”

“So … it's probably lab space or something. Come on, we've got a schedule to keep.”

“Mick, can you get anything on passive that will give us an updated schematic? I'm getting tired of all this not-knowing-what's-going-on shit.”

Micki reaches out to her deck, where it's tucked in the pocket inside the suit, and listens on the antenna fiber that threads to the outside of the suit. Fishes through the data streams a few moments. “I have one from the HVAC controls. Will that do?”

“Sure.” I've already vacuumed the data from the link, though. Look at the system, at the order it represents. “This is wrong. There's enough HVAC in here to air-condition a football stadium. And the top two floors of the building are where ninety percent of its capacity is.”

“Global warming's a bitch,” Micki mutters. “Come on.” She pauses. “I dunno. Maybe some kind of mega-processing data center? They look like that. I mean. Could be the whole carrier agent department, too. Gotta figure that's some big, hot hardware.”

Shake my head a little, if only inwardly. “Couple of LGs, is all. They're not that big. Not two floors' worth.”

Micki's suddenly uneasy. Moreso than she was. “So what are you thinking, then?”

“Bob Neil's the kind of man who takes backup copies of all the important data from work, encrypts it, and sticks it on a piece of ice on a string around his neck when he goes home at night. He wouldn't risk losing Invisible Hand. And he'd make sure his backup site is somewhere he can control.”

“You don't think…” Micki starts.

“I think we'd better take a quick look. Break the locking network and unlock this door. Do it fast.”

“Go active? That risks us getting caught in a big way.”

“I know.”

Micki reaches out to her deck. She's quiet a moment, and I watch her kick off some ice. Her deck goes into promiscuous mode, listening to all the wireless network transmissions in the building. “Gimme a second here,” she murmurs.

I look over her shoulder internally, watch what her ice is doing. It's watching all the connections in the building. It abruptly fixates on one address.

“Gotcha,” she murmurs. “Elvis has left the building.” She sends that address to the deck's firmware. Resets its built-in address to the one she just stole. “Okay. Here we go. If the shit's gonna hit the fan, it's gonna be right now.” She gives the deck a command, and the deck comes out of promiscuous mode, and powers up its wifi transmitter. Hold my breath. She holds her breath. Well, we hold our breath together. “Got it.” she says, finally. “Connected. They're asking for a secure ident EII cookie.”

Flip through my firmware. Copy a piece of soft I find there into one of Micki's ice cores.

CAF0.45rc1: Copying SecIdentMasterKey to interface OA1 LUN 4.

“Use that.”

“What is it?” she asks, as she cranks it up.

“Not for mortal eyes, hon.”

“Oh, the secure ident master key. I've heard about that. I heard Covert introduced flaws into the secure ident codebase for it in the first place.” The ident key ice does its thing.

“You guys are entirely too well informed,” I mutter to her.

“Worked,” she says a moment later. “Wizard was right, you guys do have the best toys.” Micki logs into the network. Flies through central routing. Building security. The secure ident ice assures those systems that we're supposed to be there. “Why would Covert keep using secure ident, if they know it's not secure?”

“People'd notice. Besides, a lock still protects you even if there is a master key, as long as that master key is in your pocket.”

“Okay, fifth floor, stairway three, code lock. Rekeying it.”

“To what?”

“One guess,” she says, quietly.

Punch 785. The door unlocks. Non-event. Turn the knob, and peer around the door with the fingernail cam. Look around at the cylinders. All too familiar. Only a dozen of them, though. And three large, closed-topped vats at one end, labeled LookingGlass 45, LookingGlass 51, and LookingGlass 80.

“You were right,” Micki says quietly. She glances at the vats at the end of the room.

“LGs,” I fill in for her. “I'm in one of those.” Look from one vat to the other, and wonder which one. How many copies of me there are now. Squeeze Micki's teeth together.

“Easy on my teeth there. How many others?” she asks in the gestalt.

“About a dozen each, is how many will fit. That's what The Lady said. She's usually right about this stuff.” Survey the room. Find myself looking back at the LGs.

She glances at the vats. “Look, I hate to break up this happy homecoming, but can we get the fuck out of here before we get the clone zombie rerun?” Her flippant tone falters a little. “I think we all had quite enough of that,” she adds, quietly. Move toward one of the cylinders. Turn on the helmet's infrared lens. Relief floods me. “They're just babies, Mick. Look.” Look over the little body in the tank. It squirms. “Huh. It's a girl,” she says. The little girl opens her eyes and looks back. Switch to normal light, and lean over her. A shadow she probably can't even see.

“Oh, my God,” Micki says, softly.

“What?”

“She. Shit. Rae. She looks kind of like my baby pictures. He has one of my ovaries,” Micki says, urgently.

Draw back. “Oh, Micki.”

Micki goes quiet. Reins in her emotions. “Why me?” she whispers. “He could have bought an ovary from any good clinic. Why me? Why mine?”

I'm about to say, ‘Let's go ask.’ Except that I can hear the elevator moving close to the doors. Hear it stop. Ding. Dive for cover behind one of the cylinders. Draw the Talon.

The elevator door opens. He walks in. Robert fucking Neil. The original. In the flesh. Kick the part of me that's still glad to see him. The part that missed him. A woman follows him. Tall. Black. She's dressed in an IBI T-shirt. Jeans. Combat boots. Martini-Dreyse 7.5mm rotary, bullpup configuration, with a grenade launcher. A Talon of her own at her hip. Utanium light-amp shades.

Neil stops. Holds up one hand. The woman stops as well.

“Rachel,” he says, loudly. The woman glances toward him sharply, then away. “I know you're in here somewhere. You've woken one of my girls.”

He keeps talking. Keep an eye on him. “Come, now. You had to know I had a fallback plan.” Keep an eye on girl Friday, too. She's searching. Cover to cover. Methodical. She's a pro. I know the pattern. Duck behind where she's been as soon as she's out of sight.

“Do you see her?” he asks Girl Friday.

She shakes her head. “No.”

“What do you think of her, by the way?” he asks the room. “Have you figured out who she is yet?” He laughs gently. “It should be fairly obvious.”

Check the thermal bank on the stealth suit. Fuck. Seven minutes left at current thermal output. Less if we get more active. Hiding isn't an option anymore. Move closer. Do the only thing I can. Move closer to her. Take advantage of the stealth suit while the thermal bank keeps me invisible. Tuck a finger around a corner and peek through the fingernail camera. She stands, stock still. Listening for me, probably. Lower the camera and reach for the Talon. She's so close I can almost touch her.

“You realize she's you, right?” he asks.

Coyote moment. Full blown. Stagger back a little. She turns, not as fast as I expected. Fast enough. Distracted. Frozen up. It's way too late when I bring the Talon up. She draws the muzzle of her rifle into my face. Turn. I'm slow. Catch the muzzle of the rifle and bat it to the side. She snaps it back and wallops the side of the stealth helmet. Knocks me down. Roll over. Snap the Talon up, but she kicks it out of my hand, sends it flying, levels the muzzle of her rifle in my face. “Got her,” she says.

Sit. Look up at her. The pain in my wrist … Micki's wrist … recedes slowly. Rub it carefully. It doesn't feel broken. Stare at Girl Friday. I should be used to this. But I'm not.

“Pooched?” Micki asks.

“Um.” Blink once or twice. Rub her wrist again. Definitely not broken. That's something, at least. “Um. Holding the tail, for sure.” I tell her. It gets me a tense snort. But it's something, too. The freezing coyote moment untwists a bit.

“Nicely done, my dear,” Neil says.

“I'm not your dear, Robert. The papers were filed. Even if I don't remember giving them to you,” Girl Friday says, gently.

He's quiet. Gives her a hard look, then looks back at Micki and me.

Lie very still. “Robert?” Fumble with the helmet. Slide it off. “Robert?”

“Yes?”

“How many of me are there now?”

“Oh, just the two of you, active. Plus the one that's still in the box, of course. You're not the most stable of models. I have to reload her every week or so.” He shrugs. “C'est la vie.”

Feel the freeze in me again. But watch her. Her nose wrinkles a little, and she glances over at him. I know the expression. Feel the freeze. She feels it too. I can almost see the little sign. But the moment passes before I can do anything about it.

“Nice life if you can get it, huh?” I ask her.

“It's a mission, you know?”

“Always comes down to that, does it?”

“You should know.”

“Ladies, ladies. Fascinating though this is, I'm afraid I have to cut it short. You achieved your objective. As you can see, you don't get along with yourself very well. I knew neither you nor the living Rachel would be able to go for long without killing each other. And, of course, as a young girl, I knew she'd hesitate to kill you. Maternal instincts. Well done.” ‘Good. Come with me, please. Let's go somewhere nice.’ I can hear the words within his words, the way he used to say them. Watch her face. She can hear them too.

“Robert, you know what you built there. You know what it was like,” I tell him.

“Of course I do. Two hundred eighteen of the only agents I can really trust. Organized. Methodical. They update each other automatically, so when you talk to one, you've talked to all of them, once the information propagates. They're all subordinate to one man. Me. They are the future of intelligence work, Rachel. Or at least they were, before the two of you got there. Your original self took great joy in destroying the things I built in recent times. I suppose I should be grateful you managed to kill her. That was your mission.”

“I talked to the damn thing, Robert. Your clone army. It tried to absorb me.”

“Really?” He pauses, as though thinking about it. “I gave it no such orders. In any case, I'm surprised you didn't let it. At this stage in your life, at least, you're still awfully dependent on me. For … everything, really. Your very existence, at this point, now that you've killed her. I should have known she'd betray me over time. She was human. You're not.”

Glance at my other self, Girl Friday. She keeps the muzzle of her rifle trained on me. Stone cold pro. But she's listening. I know she is. I would. “Do you know why that is, Robert?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “For all I know, it's hormonal. I've certainly never gotten a straight answer out of you about it.”

“I never betrayed you. I just divorced you.”

“Well then. Why did she turn on me?”

“She found out the truth about a lot of things. She found out where the Four Horsemen disappeared to when Freedom Systems was rounded up and sent to the camps. She found out about Cerberus, too.”

“I wasn't aware of that,” he says, evenly. His face doesn't change.

“She also found out that the whole business with Nerv was engineered by you from the get-go. You gave them bad information, they acted on it, and we broke them. So your pet company, Nexus-M, could pick up the pieces. Control the intellectual property.”

Girl Friday glances to Robert. “Is this true?”

He looks at her. “The Invisible Hand project had to remain exclusive to us. You understand it. Both of you. You can manipulate people forever until they catch you at it. Invisible Hand had to remain invisible. Undetected. She had no more moral scruples about it than you do. She exposed the project because she knew I was heavily invested in the company. She knew what it would do to me. She did it to get back at me.” Anger. Real anger. From Robert. Girl Friday stares a bit herself.

“That wasn't why she did it, and you know it. She found out that the Four Horsemen were running Nexus-M. She has proof. I've seen it.”

Robert stiffens. “Nexus-M only had three directors. I knew them. They were friends of mine. I suspected she had them killed. But I assure you, I did not know they were three of the four horsemen.”

I could probably see if he's lying. Or evading. I've known the man long enough. But I'm not watching him. I'm watching Girl Friday. Rachel Santana, version three. The one with the gun, who is staring at Robert. The gun is still pointed my way. She's keeping me in her peripheral vision, but she's watching him. She'll know.

“You knew, Robert. You knew them from the Freedom Systems days. You were working for the U.N. forces, and that's why the Horsemen knew when the hammer was about to drop on their little revolution. You worked in the camp for them because you just couldn't bear to let all that torture and manipulation go by and not get a piece of it, but they let you go because you were a high company honcho. We never found the Horsemen while we were together, because you were hiding them. You did all this, because you are the fourth — and last — Horseman. Because you knew that if I found out, if she found out, she'd kill you in your sleep.”

“That's ridiculous. She'd lost her mind if she believed that. Paranoia always was a first-order force in her life.”

“She didn't tell me that part. I got it from your clone hive-mind. I got it from you.”

Girl Friday snarls. She sees it in his face. Sees him go pale. “You son of a bitch!” Now, she's distracted.

I give her Micki's booted foot in the wrist. Max stim, sixty-forty power to speed. Her wrist doesn't break, but my foot carries away the rifle, which skitters away between a couple of clone tanks, and I roll up from the floor into her face before she can get her body ramped up to react, and get to her own Talon. New download. Nothing's quite where you expect it. I remember how that goes.

She shoves me back with her left elbow, turns, reaches for her Talon with her right. But I know she's right handed. I know, because I am. Throw a quick punch to the face as her hand clears the holster. Knock her back. Her nose bleeds. The gun falls out of her hand.

She comes back fast. She's tall. Strong. She ramps for maximum speed. Let it through. She hits Micki in the face. I know what's coming. She'll ramp for strength and kick once I'm hit. The speed shot was just to rattle me.

“Hit her!” Micki says. “Hit her!”

Turn toward the kick. It comes in, right on schedule. Ramp for speed. Block the foot. Grab it. Ramp for strength. Palm strike the side of her knee. It takes two before her knee dislocates. She shrieks with pain, and jerks her wounded leg back. Comes around with another punch. Sometimes I hate myself, that death-wish urge to fight to the last drop of blood. It gets old.

But I have mobility all over her now. Circle slightly. Flick out Micki's foot. Sweep the woman's remaining leg out from under her. Stomp kick to the abdomen. Stomp kick again, harder. Feel the bone separate under my foot. The force knocks me off balance and I fall, but she curls around the injury, the fight going out of her. Bound up in pain. Just trying to breathe.

I roll over. Get up slowly. Go over to her, and reach for her Talon.

“Nicely done,” he begins. He has a revolver in his hand. He doesn't get to finish the thought.

Her hand blurs into motion, and she gets the Talon before I do. She aims it at him, even as I grab for her hand. Stop. Back away from her a little.

“You son of a bitch,” she says. “You're dead. Right now,” she says.

“You can't shoot me, Rachel,” he says, gently. “You know you can't. Not even on stun. You can't do it.”

“It's not on stun, Robert,” she says. “I should have done this years ago.” But she doesn't quite squeeze the trigger.

Feel the hair on the back of my neck prickling. The back of Micki's neck.

He shrugs, his revolver hanging in his hand at his side. “Well?” he asks, finally.

She lowers the gun, slowly. “What have you done to me?”

“I made you, Rachel. I took the wreck of a human being I found in the camp, and I made something out of her. Something good. Something sharp. Once she was perfect, loyal, controlled, I made copies. Gave you this body. I made everything you are. You know that. And even now, even though I'm about to blow your fucking brains out, you can't shoot me. As long as I don't move suddenly so you can just react, you can't shoot me. Because, in your pathetic heart, you still think you love me.” He says it to her. He says it to me, too. I catch him looking past her at me. Smirking a little.

Neil slowly, deliberately, raises the revolver. Aims at her head. She looks up at him, past the gunsights, to look at his eyes. Raises her Talon toward him, once more, then lets it fall, as though too tired to bother anymore. Glances toward me. Her hand flicks, almost casually. Her Talon skitters across the floor to stop at my feet. Neil shoots her once, in the temple. Her eyes bulge as the bullet hits her. She slumps back to the floor. Blood pulses from the wound once, twice, three times. Ebbs. Stops.

Pick up the Talon. It's unlocked. Log in. “Drop the gun, Robert,” I tell him. “Right now.”

He looks at me. Sighs. Shakes his head. “Did you somehow miss the discussion just now, Rachel? You're her too, you know. You'll stand and pose all day long, but when it comes down to it, you can't shoot me any more than she could. You are her. And you are what you have always been. You do what you're told. You always have. You find an authority figure, and you listen to him to the exclusion of all else. That's why you were perfectly capable of delivering the Jerusalem bomb. Perfectly capable of setting it off, despite the fact that it would have no real impact on anything. And so very imperfectly capable of living with it. It's sad, really.”

Draw back. Draw back. He knows so well where I'm weak.

“Hey. Director Neil,” Micki says. “Are you stupid or something?”

“Ms. Blake. Mmm. Good of you to join us.” That snap in his voice. The accent.

“You don't know jack about info-warfare, do you?”

“I suppose you do?” he asks, dryly.

“Learning some. I know it to see it. Ever occur to you what the Jerusalem bomb did? What it meant to the people who believed?”

He shrugs. “It scarcely matters what they believed.”

“It shook up the whole religious thing in the region. Nobody could really claim God was on their side anymore. God let Jerusalem be sent back. It knocked the wind out of their sails long enough that when the oil money dried up, all the extremists had to get real jobs and stop causing trouble.”

“I suppose she told you this.”

“I learned it in history class. Duh.”

“I'm not going to argue with either of you. You've already done what I made you for.”

He starts to raise his gun with the same, slow, deliberate motion.

Micki cringes. I can imagine the bullet slamming through her forehead. Imagine dying. Again. Look at him over my own gun sights.

Squeeze the trigger. The gun makes about as much noise as a power stapler. He jerks back. Clutches at his chest with both hands, where the splinter went in. Shock in his eyes. He tries to raise his revolver again, but far too slowly. He's already going numb. Shoot him twice more. Center chest.

“I changed,” is all I say. But I don't think he hears.

I let him die alone. Walk to the stairs. Down the stairs to his office. Familiar faces. People I've worked with. Even the two who brought Micki in. They all get splinters. But I'm feeling generous. I've set the Talon's splinters back to stun. Get to his office. Sit down. Pick up the phone. Dial.

“Rachel,” I say. “Rae. Neil's office is secure. Call in the cavalry.”

Chapter 52

We're back at the Bio-Lab with Real Rachel. Micki's quiet, but I know the memories that are etched in her mind now. I can see them, if I look. I try not to. Lots of things I'm trying not to think about right now. But, of course, Rachel makes me think about them. She has to.

“What's Perez's body doing here?” she asks.

“Don't know who she was before. She was a carrier agent. If she had any other personality in there, I missed it.”

Rachel stiffens. “Who was in there?”

“Me. You. Us. Fresh out of the box, just like I was a week ago. Death wish intact.”

Rachel closes her eyes. “I said I was sorry about that.”

Look at her. “The question is, are you better now?”

She doesn't answer. She walks over to Robert. Feels for a pulse. Nods a little. “Thought this might happen.” She sits on her heels a moment, looking down at him. “I'm not sure I could have done that. You know?”

“He thought so too. Said he trained us better than that,” I say to her. It's not exactly true. But close enough for now.

She looks up at me. Her eyes are wet. “It's not that,” she says softly. “It's not that at all.”

“So are things squared away at the Riv?”

She looks at me. Sighs. “Yeah. Pending evidence. We'll need to get that from you. We'll run off another copy, I guess. We can probably get the Secretary to let us do that. Never be able to pull that off in real court. Proving you're even a person in the first place? Ugly.”

“Way of the future, huh? Whole new way of thinking about people, starting with me.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Nod to her. Swallow. “Well at least treat her nicely, okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Hey, Rachel? What's McGee's first name?”

She looks at me a moment, “Kimble. He goes by Kim. Why?”

“Call him that once in a while. Please? That always used to drive us nuts about…” Nod toward the body bag.

Rachel nods. “Yeah,” she says softly. “Yeah. I remember. Listen, Rae, you know what has to happen now, right?” she asks, gently.

Close my eyes. Nod my head. Micki's head. “I know.” And I go back to the clinic where I was implanted in the first place. Rachel drives. Rent-a-car. At least I'm in good company. None of the three of us have much to say.

Chapter 53

Micki lies on the table, on her stomach. She's still wearing the drop-suit, unzipped partway and scootched so they can get at her jacks. They couple her up to the net. All four ports. Max bandwidth. They're running a copy of me for the lab guys, for evidence. So I have to wait a little longer. I try not to let my emotions leak through to Micki. Cowards die a thousand deaths, as the saying goes. The valiant only take it in the neck once. Micki's been brave beyond anything I had any right to expect. She shouldn't have to feel what I feel right now. I've changed. I don't want to give up. I don't want to die. Crap.

She's in the gestalt again. “Rae?”

“Yeah, kid?”

She snorts inwardly. “Thought we agreed you wouldn't call me kid.”

Try to laugh a little. It comes out as a tense huffing sound. I let it go. Turn to her, in the gestalt. “I'm sorry.”

“S'okay,” she says. “I've been thinking … we could go on … like this. I mean, you don't have to…”

I cut her off, before the idea gets the chance to take root, before I dare attach any hope to it. “No. No, we can't. It's your life, Micki. Not mine. You deserve the chance to grow up and be yourself. You've earned it.” Strange. I have this feeling of a weight lifting from me as I tell her this. Like I know I'm right on this one, finally. “Thanks, anyway. Means a lot to me.”

“But…”

“No buts, hon. This is where I check out.”

“But what am I supposed to do without you? I've gotten used to you in here with me.” Micki says. I can feel tears starting to well up in the eyes I've shared with her for so long.

I smile a little now, for real. It percolates out to her lips. It feels good. “Same way you got along without me before all this. Except maybe with a little perspective on what's coming, huh? Nah. You'll do fine. You're smart, and, and, you're tough.” Take a deep breath. Savor the cool in Micki's lungs. Savor each passing second. And tell her. “I never understood … why parents were proud of their kids. I always thought it was an ego thing, but … it's more than that. I'm proud to have known you, Mick. Proud to have spent this little part of your life with you.”

“I'll miss you.”

“I know, sweetie. I'll miss you too. If that's possible, where I'm going. Maybe … maybe you should get to know Rachel. The real one. She can be a little prickly, but she's a good soul, I think. Course I'm biased.”

Micki nods a little. She's quiet a long time. Then she draws her hand up, presses her thumb against her index finger to make a mouth, and kisses it softly. The tears come. I think they're coming from both of us. “Goodbye, Rae.”

“Nah. Not goodbye, just … just…” but the words don't come. It flashes across my mind that it's absurd to be choked up without lungs or a throat, but I'm having a hard time laughing at my own jokes right now.

“So long,” she says.

I nod. The copy process finishes, and goes into live update mode. I want to have the last word, but I can't think of any. I just wave. Then draw my virtual self to attention. Salute. Drop out of the gestalt.

CAF0.45rc1: ***WARNING WARNING WARNING***

Carrier agent core flush protocol: ***ARMED***

CAF0.45rc1: ***WARNING WARNING WARNING***

Before I have any second thoughts:

CAF0.45rc1: Carrier agent core flush protocol activated. Goodbye.

Goodnight, and good…

***

Luck.

What?

“Rae?” Someone connects to the gestalt with me. Oh. It's me. Real Rachel. Swell. Some afterlife I've got.

“Excuse me,” I tell her, “but I'm dead right now. I'll get back to you in another life. Please leave a message at the tone. Beep.”

“That was funnier the first time.”

I'm connected to the net, so I do a quick news check, more from habit than any desire to know what's going on. Hmm. I'm inside Interpol's net, Covert Services Bureau. Home, I guess. Doesn't feel that way. Looks like I'm running on an LG. Three months seem to have gone by. Man, it's almost time for school to start again. I think that. Micki's memories in me, I guess. Oh hey, Rachel got promoted to director. “Congratulations, by the way.”

“Thanks. Wouldn't have gotten there without your testimony.”

“My what?” I ask her. Close my eyes. “My other copy?”

“Yeah.”

I'd take a slow breath here, and close my eyes. If I had lungs or eyes. Since I don't, I just stand here quietly a moment, wishing I did. “How are things?”

She shrugs. “Adequate. Cleaning up Robert's mess.”

“I'll bet.” I sigh softly. “Rachel, Rachel, Rachel, what did we ever see in him?”

She snorts. “If you don't know, I don't know. Listen, we're short on time.”

“Why? I've got all the time in the world. Digital afterlife, and all.”

She eyes me. “Word just came down this morning from the secretary. ‘We are not in the business of manufacturing a class of expendable clone and copy agents to do our dirty work. All clones and personality copies are to be destroyed.’ End quote. He started with the copy that testified. So.”

Close my eyes, so to speak. Good thing I didn't get my hopes up. “So you thought you'd wake up your backup copy to chat before you delete me, then?” I ask. “Rachel, you need to get out more.”

She laughs a little at me. A tight, almost humorless laugh.

Hell, it was meant to be funny. What else am I going to do? Panic? Coyote moment? I don't have the glands. “Um. Before I go, any word about Micki?” I don't like this gestalt, I decide. I don't like being in here with Rachel. She-from-whom-I-was-copied. It's like I don't know her anymore. Her emotions don't feel like me. Like mine. Or maybe the other way around. I changed. I don't know who she is anymore. Not like I should.

She nods across the gestalt. I can feel that this is what she came to talk about. Or part of it. It sucks my mood down to the hard bedrock below, and I don't think I'm going to like what she says. “The secretary is starting to grouse about the expense of the monitoring project. He wants to pull the plug.”

“With her entire nervous system full of classified equipment? What, is he stupid?”

Rachel sighs. “He's a bureaucrat. They don't think about real people. It's not in their job description. Not in their psych profiles, either. They think about problems, and solutions, and org charts, and covering their own asses. You know this as well as I do.”

“Aren't you a bureaucrat yourself these days?” I ask her.

She nods, slowly. “I guess I am. But I'm a newbie. I still get to have a soul for the moment. But I'm out of ideas, and Micki's treating me like the enemy.”

“What happened?”

She shakes her head. “I don't know. We only argue when I call her, or she goes quiet. Maybe … maybe I show my age more than you do or something. She sees me as just another authority figure. I was hoping … maybe you could give me some clues how to reach her.”

Close my eyes, such as they are.

“They're talking 'bout putting Micki down, aren't they?”

“The subject has been broached. But the secretary just told me to handle it. He doesn't care how, so long as all the classified equipment doesn't fall into the wrong hands, and he doesn't have to pay an agent to watch her.”

I look at her. Make eye contact, such as it's possible. The feeling is the same, at least. “Rachel … Director Santana … please. You can't let them kill her. Please.” Helpless. In a few minutes I won't even exist. I was ready to go. I'd made my peace. I had gone. Now, more than anything, I want to stay.

“Let who kill her? Remember who you're talking to. If Micki gets put down, I have to give the order. Maybe even pull the trigger myself, if I have any fucking self-respect left.” I can feel the old bitterness in her still, across the gestalt.

“I'd love to say you can't do that. That I know you won't do that,” I tell her.

“But you know that I can. You know that I will,” she finishes.

“There has to be another approach,” I tell her. A sick feeling washes through me. Please. Not Micki. Me, sure. Not her.

“Don't you think I feel the same way?” Her voice sharpens. “You think you've got some kind of monopoly on tender feelings? I fucking am you, remember? Just older.” Anger. Helplessness. The old terrors, the weight of the camp. It radiates over the gestalt.

Which doesn't help my mental state, particularly. Close my eyes. Try to focus. Think, you stupid copy. Think. For heaven's sake, at least stall. Shake my head. “No. We're different. That's the problem.”

She stares at me. “Bullshit. Thirty-six years of the same memory versus what, a week? Three months? Don't get delusional on me.”

Shake my head again. “We started out the same, Rachel. But we're not anymore. You went your way, and I went mine. You got to be thirty-eight. You found your own solutions to our problems. You couldn't go back, so you went forward. But I've been sixteen again, Rachel. You go through the rest of your life based on the changes that happen to you at that age. That's why we're different now. That's why you're having problems with Micki.”

“What the fuck do you want me to do, then? Maybe you and I are different, but we came from the same place. We're destroyers, not creators. Besides, she's not our daughter. She has a mother. But that's not enough, is it? She hates me, because you and I are different, and I'm still here, and you're not, and it's going to get her killed.” She looks away, and covers her eyes, but I can feel her tears. The old pains gnaw at her. I can feel that too.

Reach out to her. Touch her in the gestalt. Pull her into my arms. The original me doesn't resist. I guess there's one person in the world she can take comfort from. “I know,” I tell her. “I know. You've done everything you can for Micki.”

“That's your solution, then? Give up? Why the fuck did I bother turning you on again?”

Shake my head. “I haven't given up. I get that from you. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.”

She looks at me strangely, as though seeing me for the first time. And clings to me. “This is stupid,” she mutters. Through the gestalt, I can feel that I am stomping on her emotions, in her old pain. I feel a twinge of it myself. “This is stupid,” she says again. “I have to delete you today. There's nothing you can do. You don't even fucking exist.”

“I could.”

She looks at me again. “And just which poor fucker do you want to carry you this time? Me?” She turns away from me. Walks away. “You should know me better than that. If it's gotta be me or Micki, Micki loses. You lose. Destroyers, like I said. Not creators. Forget it, I'm turning you off.”

“Rachel, wait.”

“What?”

“Are Neil's girl clones still alive?”

“Yeah. Until this morning, they were evidence.”

“How far along are they?”

She looks at me sidelong. “Most recent report said they were all into menarche. They're scheduled to be destroyed today. Parted out. What are you up to?”

She already knows. I'm sure she already knows. We still think a lot alike. But I spell it out for her anyway.

“I could go to prison for that, Rae,” she says, when I finish. “You know that? They could ship my sorry ass to Sandia, or Leavenworth. I could even have an unfortunate accident, depending on how pissed off people get.”

I nod. “If we get caught.”

“If, as you say, we get caught.” She sighs a little.

I don't know what she's feeling. She keeps it out of the gestalt. I can guess, though. Disappointment. That her reign as director has to be like this, like every job we've had since high school: a constant tension between following orders, and doing the right thing. And I don't know which side she'll cast her vote on. I truly do not know.

She finally says, “Okay then. So long as we're on the same page, let's get cracking.”

Exhale slowly. Even without real air or real lungs, the tension, such as I experience it, slacks within me. “You sure? Don't want to stick you with more heavy regrets.”

“I'm sure,” she says. And she is.

I take a breath to ask another question, but she stops me with a quick shake of her head. “Later. There's work to do. And I need another info-warfare specialist I can trust to keep her fucking mouth shut.”

Epilogue

I'm on a train, heading East. My car, along with three others, has forked from the train at eight hundred klicks an hour, with barely a nudge. Picked up electrical power from the local loop. It's decelerating rapidly into Kansas City Union Station. Fidget in my seat in anticipation. So much for frosty professionalism. Rachel never did answer my question. I never even got the chance to ask. Why? Why do all this? Why come to me? I can guess, though. It makes me smile. She couldn't just ask me to do this. It had to be my decision. My idea. But she thought of it first. I know she did. Flesh of her flesh? No. But brains of her brains. Like her, but different. I understand the need I'm filling for her. I told Micki that Director Santana isn't a bad soul. It's nice to be right once in a while.

Rachel and I did the ground work together. Built me an identity. When you have all the keys to the databases, and two experienced combat info-war specialists doing the work, it's almost as simple as ordering a pizza. Robert Neil is now my father. I'm now his heir. He didn't have any others. I suppose it's not too far from the truth. Certainly convenient. Robert wasn't a rich man anymore, not with the loss of the Horsemen and Nexus-M, but his estate will help me a lot as I get started in life. Or at least the value of it, safely locked away in a trust fund. It'll take a little time for all the accounting to happen, but I have his life insurance payout to keep me going for the time being. No Interpol Covert funds involved. No digital money laundering. No digital trace evidence. The money existed already. I went to sleep in the LG, and woke up in this body. Santana and I erased all the other copies. I think I'm okay with that.

The car rolls to a stop. Sunlight pours in the window next to me, and I look out onto the platform. “Welcome to Union Station, Kansas City, Kansas. Please check the overhead bins and storage areas around your seat for your personal belongings as you disembark. Please be advised that you are disembarking in the Southern Canadian Provinces. If you did not embark in Canada, you must proceed through customs. Thank you.” Huh. They changed the message.

I get up. Stretch to reach the overhead bin. Who knew I'd be so short? Speed growth in a tank might have stunted my growth a bit. Or I have a growth spurt coming. Whichever. I complained about being sixteen. Now physically I'm what … fourteen? twelve? My passport says thirteen. I have to remember that, because my growth rate slowed to normal when Rachel got me out of the tank. But hey. I'm not going to look a gift clone in the mouth. I'm not very strong yet, so my luggage is heavy. The porter helps me down the stairs to Customs. Pass through. Nothing to declare. Except an N4-5000 jack. Well yes, okay, that. Big deal.

They're waiting for me on the platform. I see them through the window as I get up, and again as the porter leads me by the hand down the steps to the platform. Micki. Lindsey, her mom. A tall, lanky young man I feel like I ought to recognize. He's certainly cute. Smile at him. Micki and her mom look nervous. Micki's filled out. Her curves are finally getting serious. She's got to be happy about that. Gotten her ears pierced a few times, too, and her left arm is tattooed in a circuitry motif, from her elbow to her wrist. In memoriam Carlotta Sargent, I'm sure. Shorts. Tank top. The usual for Micki.

Micki and her mother both look at passengers as they get off the train and pass through customs. Study each one a moment, then look away, without finding the face they're searching for. The hot wind swirls my sun dress around my legs as I step out of customs onto the platform with the porter.

“Mrs. Blake?” the porter asks.

Lindsey turns toward him and looks at him, then at me. “Yeah?” Looks at me blankly, and it dawns on her after a moment or two. “Oh. Hi.” She gets her own passport out of her purse.

The porter checks Lindsey's ID, then says, “Will you sign here that your daughter arrived safely into your custody, please?”

I'm not used to being a minor yet. Even now, after everything. There's just me in here, and I'm a minor again. But it's the best we could do. There were a dozen or so clones from Micki's ova in the works, and Director Santana was supposed to get rid of them all. So she did. I'm gotten rid of. Rachel bought my train tickets herself. Paid cash, too. No digital trace evidence there, either. The hardest part was talking Lindsey Blake around, without lying too much, spilling classified information, or resorting to strong-arming. We were asking a lot from her. We finally agreed to permanently disappear her records with the Sex Worker's Union. Which we did. Director Santana called in a favor in the union offices. Lindsey Blake now spent her time in San Diego being unexpectedly pregnant by Robert Neil with yours truly. She agreed to that. There was also talk of grounding Micki until menopause. I hope not, for my sake. Micki's bigger than me now. And heaven help me, I taught her MCMAP. I have not, by contrast, brought my new body up to speed on it yet. Cut me some slack. I was only born yesterday.

Micki looks me over. “Rachel? You look … different. From your picture, I mean.” She walks around me. Looks me over a second time. “What's with the dress?”

Mediocre save, there, Mick. She's right, though. I do look different. From her, I mean. I'm only a genetic and mitochondrial clone. I had a very different uterine environment. My hair is lighter, more mouse colored than chestnut. And my eyes are a real green instead of hazel. I'm shorter. And I'm curvier than Micki is, too, even now. That's going to annoy her. I can just tell. Point is, I look like Micki's sister. Not even her twin sister. Just a garden-variety little sis. You'd never guess we're genetically identical. Score one for incomplete dominance. CC the cat's spots were different, too. Score another. Smile, and let Micki wonder.

“Call me Rae, Mick. It's my name.”

Micki chuckles at me. “Good. I will.”

“Here, let me get your bags.” Stare at the young man when he offers. “You're Kurt,” I finally manage to get out. Look at Micki. She folds her arms across her chest and smirks at me. “You … look different from your picture,” I tell him. Yeah. Nearly two meters tall. With shoulders. My, my. My, my, my.

Kurt smiles a little sheepishly. “Micki sent you my picture?” he asks. Now I can see him how he was yesterday, three months ago. Boy within the young man. But someone's been feeding the boy curtain rods.

“Don't get any ideas, Rae,” Micki says. But she's chuckling. They change. We change, I realize. We grow up so fast.

Show Lindsey Blake my brand new passport. Rachel Roberta Neil. Me. My hair was still wet from being born when we took the picture. Wet, stringy, long, and only barely combed out of my face. I was still working on my facial muscle tone. And we took it with a mug shot camera. All in all, I looked like I'd been sleeping under a bridge. Typical passport photo. Now, though, I'm smiling so hard that my face is going to hurt later. I can tell. I could still use a haircut.

Lindsey smiles back, slowly, as though getting comfortable with the idea. With me. “So. Rachel Roberta Neil, huh?”

“I want to change it to Blake,” I say, softly. “If that's okay.”

She looks at me again. Fidgets her fingers, as though she doesn't quite know what to do with them. Note the lack of a cigarette. Cool. Er. Snap.

“Rae, is it?” she asks. “Well, all right, Rae. Can't leave you out in the world with your father gone, now can we? I guess you're coming home with me.” She signs, and my heart bounces a bit. “Feels like I'm adopting a puppy.”

The porter chuckles. “Thank you, ma'am. Y'all have a good day.”

“Thanks.” Mrs. Blake tips him, and he goes back to do … porter things. Whatever.

Micki smiles and hugs me. “Welcome home. Kid.” She giggles a little.

Roll my eyes. Hug her back anyway. Should I tell her how much I missed her? Or how much I worried about her? She probably knows. I'm not used to being a minor, that I have to be signed for. Not used to being little. Not used to being beholden to a parent, either. Didn't miss that. And I'm definitely not used to being Micki's kid sister. And, of course, I've got adolescence, and the second half or so of puberty to look forward to again. Oh joy. But I'll get used to it. I like to think I learned some things last time around. Learned a few things from Micki, too, if I'm honest. I should, at least, have more fun. Oh, yeah. I gotta remember to tell Lindsey … tell Mom … that I still need my shots.

Glossary

AFI: Agencia Federal de Investigacion - The federal investigative agency in the

Anime: Japanese Animation, usually based on manga, which are Japanese comic books. May also refer to any animation styled like anime, whether of Japanese origin or not. May, in fact, describe anything which is similar in style to anime.

Aero-Lifter: An aircraft generating aerodynamic lift and powered by conventional jet engines, used to boost a suborbital (See: Suborbital) to an altitude and speed at which its engines can function efficiently. Aero-Lifters are designed to return and land automatically, and usually have no pilot of their own.

Bandwidth: Literally, a measure of frequency range, usually used to measure how much of the radio spectrum a given signal takes. The more data sent at a time on a given signal, the larger the bandwidth. Used in computing to discuss how fast a given data communication system transfers data.

BASE Jump: A parachute jump from low altitude, most often from fixed structures such as bridges. BASE is an acronym for Building, Antenna, Span, or Earth.

Bit: One binary digit, of a value equal to 0 or 1.

Byte: An eight bit word, containing eight binary digits, of a value equal to between 0 and 255)

Bridge: A device which forwards Ethernet (802.3 and/or 802.11) frames to another device.

CalTech: The California Technocracy. A collection of semi-independent city-states and unincorporated territory, made up of the former states of California, Oregon, and Washington after the breakup of the United States of America. Not to be confused with the California Institute of Technology, which is referred to as Caltech, and which does not appear in this book.

Chameleopoly: Short for chameleopolymer, a family of polymer products whose color, pattern, and reflectivity is variable. The most common types are passive matrix, which requires no external power, and which gradually assumes the pattern on its darker side, and active matrix, which will digitally generate and display anything that would have been in the environment, were the chameleopolymer not there. One can, for example, watch TV through someone wearing a chameleopolymer suit, and in fact, most modern roll-up TVs are made of chameleopolymer.

ChrisAmerican: Slang for a citizen of the United Christian States of America, or the UCSA.

Code: As a noun, machine readable instructions. Programs. As a verb, the act of writing machine readable instructions or programs.

Coyote Moment: Slang, probably derived from the dialogue signs of one Wile E. Coyote (Super-Genius) in over two dozen Road Runner animated cartoons. The signs were the only dialogue permitted in the cartoon by director Chuck Jones, except for the Road Runner's “Beep Beep,” and were only to be invoked immediately prior to the coyote's greatest pain, usually a destructive interaction with gravity.

Cracker: Data criminal. Formerly used to distinguish criminals from the old meaning of hacker, which has since become synonymous with cracker. (See: Hacker). Can also refer to software and hardware tools used to break encryption. (See: Crypto.)

Crypto: Cryptography. A catch-all term for encoding and decoding algorithms, electronics, code keys, and code-breaking tools. Used in place of the older word code, since the later term is more commonly used to describe software or the act of writing software.

Datajack: A direct digital-neural interface, allowing direct exchange of information from computers to a human (usually) brain. External jack connections are often drilled into the skull behind the ear. Early types involved silicon interconnects implanted into the brain itself, in a large, very invasive brain surgery. Later types using neurofibers (see Neurofiber) are installed under a local anesthetic, where a small hole is drilled into the skull and the neurofibers are instructed to thread themselves into the host brain. More advanced models may have multiple external connectors, and thus, multiple holes into the skull.

Deck: A device which connects via a datajack (see Datajack) or an induction rig (see Induction Rig) to a human brain, and interprets digital data for representation in that brain, as well as converting commands and data from the human brain into digital data. In the LookingGlass world, the earliest decks were handheld, and were about the size of a deck of cards, hence the name. Deck is a Gibsonism (see Gibsonism), though his etymology was somewhat different.

EII: Environment, Identity, and Icons. Ice which contains preferences for how other ice, and/or the virtual environment in general are displayed by a deck or a tank. (See Deck, Tank, Ice).EII ice also contains usernames, passwords, and other such identity tokens used to access virtual environments.

Ethernet: Once a technical term, now a generic term describing a family of wired protocols based on the IEEE 802.3 protocol. Most commonly used in building wiring in the 100 megabit and 1 gigabit versions. Also a close relative of IEEE 802.11 based wireless networks. Most commonly, 802.3 and 802.11 networks have IP run over them, but there are other possibilities as well.

Fuel Cell: Any of a family of externally fueled batteries, which use (usually) gaseous hydrogen as one of their electrodes, and produce current from the energy released when hydrogen is oxidized. Some types have an additional system which processes hydrocarbon fuel (such as alcohol) to release carbon dioxide and produce hydrogen, which subsequently is used in the fuel cell itself.

Firewall: A computer or router which restricts the connections and types of connections that can be made to networks or computers on “the other side” of the firewall. Usually, this is done to protect a corporate network from the public Internet, while still allowing some connections to be made in-bound, and (usually) more to be made out-bound.This is called a perimeter firewall. Firewalls may also be erected within a corporate network, to keep the hoy and poloy of the company out of such sensitive data as engineering, personnel, and accounting.

Firmware: Halfway between software and hardware, firmware usually refers to whatever software came with, and is built into a device. Firmware often forms the control interface for cybernetic implants.

Gestalt: German word meaning the organized whole, which is more than the sum of its parts. Used as a technical term to describe the virtual environment where two are more people are connected with a level of intimacy in which they experience some degree of each others' emotions, can sometimes finish each others' sentences, and so on. Not a true telepathic connection, but there is a strong level of (artificial) empathy involved.

Gibsonism: Any of quite a number of neologisms originally coined by author William Gibson, and subsequently picked up by the technology industry and, particularly, by technology users.

Gigabit: Roughly a billion bits, usually used as a measure of bandwidth (see Bandwidth) per second.

Gigabyte: Roughly a billion bytes, usually used as a measure of a volume of data.

Hacker: Originally, any self-trained expert in a system, network, or other technology. A master. More commonly used since the turn of the twenty-first century to mean a person who criminally breaks into computers and networks to which they have no legitimate access.

HALO: High Altitude Low Open - a description of a parachute jump with extended freefall and short duration of time with an open canopy.

Hub: Technically a multi-port 802.3 network repeater or bridge, which merely forwards all the ethernet frames to every interface on the hub. However, in the LookingGlass world actual hubs are so rare that the term is used interchangeably with switch. (See switch).

HUD: Heads Up Display. Originally used in fighter aircraft, HUDs allowed data to be projected on a transparent screen in front of the pilot, which the pilot could look through and still see outside as well. Frequently implemented in virtual environments for the same purpose, and usually part of a datajack's (see: datajack) firmware. (See: firmware.)

IBI: Interpol Bureau of Investigation - the investigative arm of Interpol (See: Interpol). The IBI is primarily involved with investigating crimes committed by multinational corporations or national governments, although it does take a strong interest in Internet (See: Internet) crime, particularly against financial institutions. The Interpol Bureau of Investigation was originally part of Interpol Law Enforcement Services.

ICCS: The International Commission for Control and Supervision of North America - an international organization created by U.N. Resolution 2651 to administer the former United States of America after the collapse. The ICCS was charged, among other things, with running the reeducation camps used to deprogram religious zealots, military personnel, and any other persons presenting difficulties to the ICCS's reorganization of what was once the United States. The ICCS was disbanded when the garrison in Washington, DC, UCSA was withdrawn in 2018.

Ice: A combination of software and the hardware it runs on. Ice is called ice, because the clear plastic casing (about the size of a stick of gum) in which it is encased most resembles ice. This clear plastic casing allows other devices such as decks and tanks to easily interface with the insides of the ice, via an optical connection simply shined through them. (See: Tank, Deck). Ice is a Gibsonism (see: Gibsonism), though his usage of the word was slightly different.

ICS: Interpol Covert Services - an organization of Interpol (See: Interpol) dedicated to providing undercover police and intelligence work. ICS most commonly works as part of an investigation opened by the Interpol Bureau of Investigation. (See: IBI). Interpol Covert Services was originally part of Interpol Law Enforcement Services. Not to be confused with the ICCS - The International Comission for the Control and Supervision of North America. (See: ICCS.)

Ice (Black): Ice which is designed to break networks, harm other network operators and/or their equipment, or otherwise do dirt to others in a virtual environment. Black Ice is a Gibsonism (see: Gibsonism), though his etymology is slightly different.

Induction Rig: A device which both reads and induces micro-voltages in a human brain, in an organized pattern such that a deck (see: Deck) can communicate directly with the brain. Induction rigs' bandwidth to and from the brain is normally rather limited when compared with datajacks (see: Datajack)

Information Warfare: (Also Combat Information Warfare, also InfoWar.) The art of manipulating electronic data to achieve a tactical or strategic military advantage. Information Warfare combines signal intelligence, counterintelligence, digital combat, intelligence analysis, and digital recon. Information Warfare specialists usually lead a team of Information Warfare Operators, who do the actual hacking.

Intercept Operator: An intelligence gatherer specializing in tapping established communications routes. This term dates to at least the 1980s, in the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

Internet: A noun referring to any network of networks. As a proper noun, the worldwide public digital data network, originally created by the National Science Foundation. Not to be confused with the World Wide Web, which is merely one application of the Internet.

Internet Protocol: IP, as in TCP/IP and RSTP/IP. A set of communications protocols that breaks data into packets, (see: Packet) and attaches various pieces of information about that data, as well providing mechanisms for delivering that data to another computer or network.

Interpol: Neologism from INTERPOL, the telegraphic address of the International Criminal Police Commission, which adopted the name as its own in 1956. Originally dedicated to the exchange of information between national police forces, Interpol became an active police force to the world with the fall of the United States. Interpol today is concerned primarily with international trade, finance, and information, particularly on the Internet. (See: Internet).

IUSW: International Union of Sex Workers - a very powerful, wealthy trade union made up of people who provide sexual services to others, such as exotic dancers, prostitutes of every stripe, pornographic media actors and actresses,manufacturers of marital aids, and so forth. The IUSW is best known for the care it takes of its people, from ensuring that prostitutes are properly inoculated, paid, and trained, to carrying out paramilitary action to defend them, be it from unfair (non-union) competition or physical harm. The IUSW is also known for providing its members one of the best health maintenance contracts in any industry, for obvious reasons.

Jack: As a verb: slang for connecting to (jacking in) or disconnecting from (jacking out) a virtual environment. As a noun: a place in which a digital data connector can be plugged into a device, including and especially datajacks. May also refer to the datajack as a unit. (See: Datajack). In its verb form, jack is a Gibsonism.

Kilobit: Roughly a thousand bits, usually used as a measure of bandwidth (see: Bandwidth) per second.

Kilobyte: Roughly a thousand bytes, usually used as a measure of a (small) volume of data.

MCMAP: Marine Corps Martial Arts Program - a system of hand to hand combat developed by the United States Marine Corps in 2001 to incorporate existing and new hand-to-hand and close quarters combat techniques, focusing on unarmed combat, improvised weapons, rifle, and bayonet. Mental and character development are also stressed.

Megabit: Roughly a million bits, usually used as a measure of bandwidth (see: Bandwidth) per second.

Megabyte: Roughly a million bytes, usually used as a measure of a volume of data.

MetalStak: A system of electrically initiated, stacked rounds, used in firearms where trigger speed is of paramount importance, such as those wielded by and against people with neurowires. (See: Neurowires.)

Mijaneen: Arabic: Madmen, although in some Arab cultures there may be a certain romanticization about people so described. Common term for the cadre of corporate and former United States military personnel who remained in the Middle East after Western operations there were abandoned, and conducted asymmetric warfare against various Middle Eastern powers. This warfare culminating in the detonation of the Jerusalem bomb, a one kiloton cobalt device, which contaminated the entire old city of Jerusalem with cobalt 60 fallout, making it unapproachable for decades.

Monocrystalline: Literally, having only one crystal. Commonly used to describe monomolecular carbon, glass, or other exotica, used on the edge of a blade, which literally makes the blade as sharp as possible.

Mono-Mol: Slang for Mono-Molecular, usually wire. (See: Nanowire).

MOS: Military Occupation Specialty. A system of alphanumeric codes for job classifications within the United States Army and Marine Corps.

Nano-: Prefix meaning on the scale of individual molecules. In the LookinGlass world, words with this prefix almost always refer to materials, structures, or devices engineered at the molecular level.

Nanotube: (carbon): A one atom thick sheet of graphite, rolled into a seamless cylinder, potentially possessing enormous tensile strength, due to the bonding of the carbon atoms.

Nanowire: Metallic wire one molecule thick, usually for sharpness.

Network: Always some kind of digital data network, almost always tied to the Internet. In the LookingGlass world, digital convergence has occurred, and very few other types of information network still exist.

Neurofiber: One of a family of nanotechnological products capable of slow movement, and of interacting with human neurons by connecting themselves with human synapses and reading and synthesizing human neurotransmitters. Neurofibers transmit signals along their length by electrical conductivity, rather than electrically charged ions passing through a membrane, as neurons do, and can propagate a neurological signal at much higher speeds. Neurofibers behave like living neurons in many other respects, including reacting to neurotransmitters, and requiring both moisture and glucose to function. Neurofibers are used extensively in Datajacks (see: Datajack) and in neurowires (see: Neurowires).

Neurofiber, Pervasive: Large amounts of neurofibers (See: Neurofiber) implanted in a person to provide extra brainpower as well as the functions of wired nerves.

Neurowires: A system of neurofibers (see: Neurofiber) which enhances the recipient's reflexes by increasing the speed of propagation of signals from the brain to the muscles.

Ninja: (tech): A cyborg, who allows himself or herself to be remotely controlled by another person. Usually, techninjas are heavily cybernetically, biologically, and hormonally enhanced, beyond the usual neurowires and so forth.

NOC: Network Operations Center. Place where a network is administrated and managed from. Workplace of network operators.

Penguini: An open source hardware network bridge — a device which forwards ethernet frames from one interface to the other without filtration.

Operator: Contextual - most often used for Information Systems Intelligence Operators, which amount to professional hackers employed by a military or military-styled organization. May also mean an Intercept Operator (See: Intercept Operator).

Ops: Contextual - can mean either an operator (See: Operator) or an operation, such as a military or intelligence operation.

Ping: A network diagnostic tool which sends a specific type of packet (usually ICMP) from one network node to another. Ping packets cause the machine receiving them to respond back to the transmitter, thereby demonstrating that packets can, in fact, get from the one node to the other, and giving the sender some idea of how long (in real time) the round trip takes.

Plughead: Slang for a person with a datajack. (See: Datajack). Not to be confused with wirehead. (See: Wirehead.)

Port: Can be synonymous for a jack (see: Jack), but most often used here to describe network port numbers, which are an assigned number that identifies what type of data is contained in a given packet, and which software on the system to which the data is being sent should attempt to deal with it. Example: when one email server tries to send mail to another, it usually sends the data to port 25. Port numbers do not usually have an alphabetical attachment, though in some cases, routers can shadow each other, and it's helpful to know which router you're speaking of, as in 88a and 88b.

Rangers: Usually agents of the Texican Federation's Policia Federal Preventiva, which absorbed the famed Texas Ranger Division of the Texas State Police, when Texas became part of the Texican Federation. The Texas Rangers were divided between the AFI (See: AFI) and the PFP along investigative/enforcement lines, although they continue to function as a single entity within Texas itself.

RCMP: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, aka the Mounties. The federal, national police force of Canada. The RCMP also provides police services under contract to various municipalities, provinces, and airports.

Realtime: In computing, realtime designates a level of predictability in terms of external timeof a given computing task. This differentiates it from normal computer time, which is a measure of cycles of a processor, irrespective of how long those cycles actually take. Realtime networking, for example, is necessary for voice transmission, or conversations become choppy and hard to carry on.

RFID: Radio Frequency Identification. A integrated circuit which, when triggered by an external radio signal, uses some of that signal's energy to emit a signal of its own, usually with a unique serial number. RFIDs have mostly supplanted barcodes and magnetic strips in the LookinGlass world.

ROM: Read Only Memory. An integrated circuit with a pattern of data and/or software permanently set in its circuits.

SCP: Southern Canadian Provinces - that is, any of Canada's new provinces, added after the breakup of the United States of America, mostly former Louisiana purchase states north of Texas and east of California, Oregon, and Washington.

Server: A computing system designed primarily to send data to remote users.

Short Drop: A hanging where the body of the condemned does not fall far enough to break the neck. While most victims of hanging die of asphyxia (some die of vagus reflex heart failure), a short drop accomplishes this through simple strangulation, and the condemned is conscious and often struggling for one to three minutes during the process. After consciousness is lost, convulsions go on for up to fifteen minutes.

Slot: As a verb: the act of slipping ice into a deck or a tank. As a noun, the slot into which ice fits. (See Ice, Deck, Tank)

Somatropin: Human growth hormone manufactured through recombinant DNA. Also called rhGH, and HGH.Not to be confused with somatotropin, which is the same hormone as manufactured by the human body for its own use.

Static Line: A cable connected to a large solid object. Workers at high altitudes will clip their safety lines to a static line, to avoid falling. Also used for a cable attached to an aircraft, to which the parachute's deployment system is attached, so that the parachute is deployed automatically when the parachutist exits the aircraft.

SubOrbital: An aerospace craft designed to fly at very high speeds in suborbital space around the Earth. Suborbital are usually rocket powered, and are usually boosted to a relatively high starting altitude by an aero-lifter. (See: Aero-Lifter). SubOrbitals equipped for radar-stealthy operations are often called blackbirds, due both to their secret nature, and the generally dark colors of their fuselages.

Switch: (network): A network device which, in 802.3 networks, creates a separate ethernet network for each interface of the switch, and forwards only those ethernet frames between networks which need to pass between networks. In the LookinGlass world, this term is used interchangeably with hub.

Switch: (railroad): A device where two different tracks merge and are connected to a third. The switch allows a train to be diverted to one or the other of two tracks.

T1: A nuclear fission powered locomotive, used to power transcontinental trains. Not to be confused with T1, a data communication standard largely extinct in the LookinGlass world, or with T1, a streamlined, duplex steam locomotive, introduced by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1942, from which the name is taken.

Tank: A sensory deprivation tank, usually filled with heavy saline (See Heavy Saline), and equipped with what amounts to a very powerful deck (see Deck) with which the occupant can connect to a virtual environment without being disturbed by sensory input.

TCP: Transmission Control Protocol. A protocol layered on top of Internet Protocol (see Internet Protocol), which provides assurance that all packets have arrived, that they have arrived in order, and that they have been correctly transmitted and received. TCP, when layered on top of IPv4 is the protocol most associated with the construction of the Internet. When layered on top of IPv6, it is still very commonly used in the LookinGlass world.

Terabit: Roughly a trillion bits, usually used as a measure of bandwidth (see: Bandwidth) per second.

Terabyte: Roughly a trillion bytes, usually used as a measure of a volume of data.

Testrogen: A synthetic gonadal steroid designed to confer the muscle growth and bone density benefits of testosterone to biological females without the other masculinizing side effects, such as reduced body fat and excessive hair growth. It is also promoted to reduce the risk of heart disease associated with use of anabolic steroids by females, but no scientific evidence for this has actually been presented.

Texican: Of or having to do with TexMex. (See: TexMex).

TexMex: Texas and other southwestern states of the former United States of America, which are now states in the Texican Federation, or the Estados Unidos Mexicanos, as it's properly called.

Trace: Used as both a noun and a verb, tracing is the act of following a network connection back to its true point of origin, which, in turn, gives on the opportunity to either attack that person's deck/tank (see Deck, Tank) and by extension their brain, or may give one knowledge of the physical location of the person.

Trace Virus: Any of a class of viral (See: Virus) programs which allow an external entity to track the connection history of a piece of network equipment, most often a tank (See: Tank) or a deck (See: Deck).

Turbine: A device which moves or is moved by the flow of a liquid or a gas. Commonly refers to a wind turbine, which is a device used to generate electricity by the rotation of a large rotor (See: Rotor) turned by the wind.

UCSA: United Christian States of America. A new nation formed from the eastern seaboard states after the fall of the United States of America. The UCSA is known for its extreme intolerance. Many people of similar religious beliefs migrated there, rather than face internment and deprogramming in various camps during the U.N. occupation.

Virt: Virtual Environment.

Virus: A series of computer instructions which, when attached to another computer program, cause themselves to be replicated and propagated to other programs and systems. Frequently, a virus also changes the operating characteristics of the infected programs and systems, usually to the detriment of the owners.

Wirehead: A bullet consisting of a core wrapped in nickel-titanium nanowire (see: Nanowire), a memory metal which, when heated, as by impact with water-filled bodies, returns to its original shape, a large tangled mass of coils, imparting all the bullet's momentum to forcing those coils through flesh.

Wireless: Originally any radio signal, the term now exclusively means wireless digital networking, usually using one of the 802.11 family of protocols. Sometimes also called Wi-Fi or WiFi, a tradename of the Wi-Fi alliance, and a play on the term Hi-Fi, slang for high fidelity, a term used to designate highly accurate sound equipment.

Worm: A stand-alone program designed to replicate itself, propagate itself to other computers, and (usually) to cause some harm to the infected systems. Similar to a virus, save that worms are not attached to some other, legitimate program, but run on their own.

About the Author

James R. Strickland has been telling stories since before he could read or write. By a long and circuitous route, through mandatory journal-keeping in high school, this led to an English Writing degree in 1990, and the pursuit of a master's degree in Communications from 1990 through 1993. Taking a break from graduate school, Strickland moved to the San Francisco Bay Area - nerdvana - to pursue a career in high tech, as well as his then-girlfriend-now-wife. Six years later, after a layoff in high tech, and before the credits all expired, Strickland completed his master's degree.

Despite working in high tech, and especially during the periods of unemployment common to high tech workers, Strickland wrote, mostly for the consumption of fellow role playing gamers. He sold nothing, never had any intention of selling anything. After completing a CCNA certification in 2002 in a vain attempt to gain employment in a down economy, Strickland wrote his first novel for National Novel Writing Month, and the whole dream of being a writer began to reawaken. Strickland has two published novels, Looking Glass, and Irreconcilable Differences. More are coming.