Trouble and Her Friends

damp street and the forlorn neon, remembering her Seahaven. There were tiny gardens there, wedged in between the candy-colored houses, with raised boxes of store-bought dirt to fight the sand and the encroaching chemicals from the beach. There were triple and quadruple-deckers, porches jutting off at odd angles, and families crowded into low bungalows never meant to stand the winter, and tidy capes where someone still cared enough to paint and clean and sweep the sand from the concrete before the doorways. She had had a flat on the top floor of what had been a tall vacation house, two rooms and a bath, but with a balcony from which she could see the ocean. It had been hot, even with fans running and all the windows open, and she had slept on the roof with the rest of the housemates more than once, but at least it had been warm through the interminable grey winter.

The runabout slowed and tilted, turning, and Cerise opened her eyes to see the low buildings of Eastman House looming out of the fog. She glanced once to her right, to see the guardhouse at the end of the smaller causeway that led to The Willows, and then looked back toward the doorway, mustering a smile for the uniformed man who appeared to greet her. She touched the interior lock, and he opened the runabout’s door for her, smiling with apparently genuine welcome.

“Ms. Cerise. Can I take your luggage?”

Cerise nodded, touched the controls a final time to open the storage compartment, and levered herself out of the driver’s seat while the doorman collected her single bag. She pulled the hardware case from its place behind the seat, waving the doorman away when he offered to take it from her, and followed him into the lobby. It was dimly lit, warm amber light, and music drifted gently from the bar beyond a screen of broad-leafed plants— someone singing the blues, Cerise recognized, the sort of music Trouble had liked, in her more mellow moods. She turned to the woman who waited behind the all-but-hidden counter.

“Ms. Cerise?” the woman said, making it a question even though the town grid had signaled Cerise’s arrival, and Cerise nodded. “If you’ll just look over our form, make sure everything is as requested…”

Cerise took the flashprinted form, scanned it quickly—single room, full media suite and net ties, unlimited signing privileges, courtesy of Multiplane’s account—and scrawled her name where indicated. The woman took it back, smiling her thanks. She had perfect teeth, like all The Willows’ employees, very white against the deep red lipstick.

“Thank you, ma’am.” She reached beneath the counter to retrieve a glittering disk of iridescent plastic and a sensor board. Recognizing the system, Cerise laid her hand against the board, and waited while the woman recorded palm and fingerprint and the heat pattern and recorded them on the disk itself. It was a double-check system, the prints recorded both in the disk that served as a key, so that only the registered guest could use it, and in the lock itself. It wasn’t impossible to defeat, Cerise knew—she’d done it herself—but it did take more time and equipment and a knack for social engineering that not every cracker possessed.

“You’re all set,” the woman said, and Cerise slipped the proffered disk into her pocket. “George will take you up, bring anything you need to get settled.”

“Thanks,” Cerise said, and let the doorman lead her through the lobby to the double elevator. They rode up in silence, and Cerise followed him down the short hall to her room. It was on the end of one of the three wings, she realized as the doorman unlocked the door and held it for her, then followed her inside. In daylight, she would have a clear view of the slough and The Willows itself. She tipped the doorman automatically, declined his offer of a drink from the bar or a late dinner, and let the door close behind him.

There was a kitchen console, coffee machine and hot-water dispenser above a little cabinet of supplies, set into the wall of the main room, and she started a pot of coffee before she turned her attention to the net console. It was pretty much the same setup that she had remembered from her first visit to The Willows, and, at least at first glance, she was certain she carried the right programs to deflect any lurkers in the system. She hesitated a moment, wondering if she should wait until she’d had some sleep, wait until morning before venturing onto the net, then reached for her hardware carrier. She would stick to the local net, take a quick look around tonight, when the local crackers would be out in force, and tomorrow she would look in earnest for Trouble. She put together her system, then poured herself a cup of coffee before coming back to settle herself in front of the console. As she had expected, the management did not provide chairs that would be comfortable for netwalking. She wriggled against the too-tilted chair back, then brought the pillows from the bed to prop herself more comfortably into position. She slipped the jack into the dollie-slot, and dropped easily onto the local net.

She tunes the brainworm low, enough to feel but inconspicuous to others, and begins to wander, following the spiral curves of the local net. It’s a plain system, heavily controlled—she sees watchdogs everywhere, some sleeping and benign, others ranging purposefully, one or two guarding specific gateways, and she marks those last for later investigation. Not that there’s anything she wants from behind those IC(E)-walled doors, but the challenge intrigues her.

The local trade-net lies ahead, a chain of BBS, a spiral within the spiral, an eddy curling in opposition to the main system that becomes a series of spherical spaces like beads on a string or the chambers of a nautilus. She considers it for an instant, then lets herself drift down to that plane: it is here, if anywhere, that she will find either Trouble. Her feet touch solid ground, or its illusion, and she walks along a road whimsically marked with yellow bricks.

The BBS surround her, the first sphere filled with gaudy advertising, the icons fizzing against her skin, dancing around her like a cloud of insects. She ignores it—this is a trade space; she recognizes most of the product, and knows this is not worth her while—and the images fade as she leaves that chamber. The next space is brighter still, badged with neon shapes stolen from the Parcade, and she doesn’t bother to hide her sneer. This is for the tourists, the ones who want the illusion of the shadows without the danger, a place that plays at being the grey market. She looks close, and sees the watchdogs and the trackers, the silent IC(E) woven into the very fabric of the images, all to protect the people the market is designed to cheat. They have the feel of The Willows, of the security she has already tasted from a distance, and she quickens her pace, knowing this is not a place to linger.

Beyond it lie cocktail spaces, crowded with icons not all of whom represent netwalkers—the local system believes in the illusion above all—and she slows, scanning the space for likely trapdoors. There are fewer watchdogs here, and most of those are focused on the obvious flashpoints, where the BBS intersects most directly with the abstract plane. She walks past, searching for familiar symbols, and finds an icon that she recognizes, painted by a well-known hand, a touch like a whisper of perfume against the air. She smiles, approaches, and the icon rotates toward her as though there were a live hand behind it. She can feel that fake, however, the chill unreality radiating from it, and doesn’t bother to answer the preprogrammed greeting.

Libera, she says, the old password, and the icon fades slightly, disclosing the trapdoor. She glances behind her once, unfolding her scan, and sees/feels nothing untoward, no particular attention from the watchdogs. She gestures then, furling her programs, and steps through the nebulous doorway.

She emerges into a new space, green-walled, floor of jagged emerald grass imprisoned beneath an invisible surface, so that she walks above the apparent surface of the ground. It is a lot of effort for a shadow board, and she looks sharply sideways, letting the scans unfurl around her, but there is nothing untoward, no tang of unexpected security. The watchdogs are bred from the shadows, and she recognizes at least the pedigree if not the hand that made them—and in any case, they are turned toward the walls, watching for intruders, not for the people who use the space. It is less crowded here—no need for the illusion of a crowd, to bolster the ego—and she can feel the faint current, gentle feedback, a hint of emotion, that signifies another brainworm, or maybe more than one. Definitely the right place, she thinks, and lets herself stroll toward the source of that sensation, walking, almost floating, over the top of the gleaming grass.

At the center of the space, by the message pole that runs from floor to arched ceiling, she sees a familiar icon—Mario, his name is, and he once tried to crack her IC(E), though he was good enough to get away once she’d jumped him. This is neutral ground, however, and she gives him a careful distance, feeling his surprise and quickly controlled anger feed back into the net. He’s on the wire, too, unusually, and she doesn’t want trouble from him.

And then she feels it, the familiar warmth, a whisper of sensation that’s like a well-known voice. She quickens her step in spite of herself, in spite of knowing better, and sees, around the pole, the shape of a harlequin, dancing, pipes in hand.

Trouble, she says aloud, and the word comes out exultant, and she doesn’t quite know