makes herself relax, but she can feel herself tense again as soon as her attention turns elsewhere. There is an ache behind her eyes, dull as black on silver, and she knows she will be sorry in the morning.
But she is effectively invisible in this guise, and most other netwalkers know nothing else; she can live with it for an hour or so, the time she needs to gather news. She turns toward the BBS—she slides along a thick black line, impervious to the data that she knows is flowing with her, past her, passes through a node like a great black gear, icons flickering above it to tell her who the parent users are, follows another, thicker line, and then a thinner, turning at right angles, always, from grid to grid, and then she’s on the floor of the BBS at last, a poor shadow of itself. Icons badge the air, offer other, smaller grids, or inner menu boards, and the view streams with brighter silver dots. She stops at one familiar display, where anyone can post a notice to the world. The board roils almost painfully in her sight, black print over silver-and-grey moire; a button hangs to her left, offering to clear the screen if she will log on, but she doesn’t, prefers to keep her anonymity even as she squints at the distorted letters. The system is old, from the first days of the net; whoever is manager here still keeps the doors open to the world. She skims through three pages, then flips through a dozen more pretty much at random: her challenge has traveled even here, well into the bright lights, and it’s made a lot of people nervous. Comment is divided, perhaps a third against and a third approving and a third deploring the situation altogether; perhaps half agree that newTrouble had no right to take her name. Pretty much what she’d expected, she thinks, and she slips away again, riding the first major line out of the BBS. It’s too crowded there, too painful to work without the brainworm to give depth and substance; she prefers the main net, the data highways, if she has to live without sensation.
She slides along a familiar gridline, watching for a starred intersection that will take her up another plane, deeper into the net. She reaches the intersection, makes the transfer, and codes flash before her eyes, icons and a stream of numbers warning her that another person, another icon, is overtaking her, signaling for her attention. She recognizes the main icon, and the contact code, sends codes of her own, and feels her secondary translator lock and mesh with the newcomer’s.
Hello, Trouble, Arabesque’s voice says, in her ear.
She frowns, wishing she had more to go on than just the sound—without the wire, all she has is the flat code that hangs in the air in front of her, black on silver. Hello, Rachelle, she answers, and knows she sounds less than enthusiastic.
I thought you might like to know, Arabesque says, and Trouble imagines she hears a hint of malice in her voice. *The Mayor’s not best pleased with you.*
The Mayor of Seahaven? she asks, for want of a better question, wanting time to think, and Arabesque laughs.
*Is there another? He’s saying—he floats it as a question, someone else’s name, but the word is he’s behind it. He says you should be the one to be shopped, not newTrouble—you’re not really one of us, he says, just another dyke on the wire, using it ’cause you’re not good enough to run the net bare.* There is contempt in her voice, and anger: this touches her, too.
*What’s the response?* Trouble asks, and is pleased to hear herself dispassionate, as though she didn’t really care.
Not a lot of support, Arabesque answers, and Trouble thinks she shrugged. Maybe ten percent of what I saw, certainly no more than that. There is a pause; Trouble waits, hating to be blind. *A lot of people were really shocked, Trouble, that’s the good thing. They expected the Mayor to back you up, since he’s always been so protective of his name.*
*What’s he so pissed off about?* Trouble says.
*You’ve been making pretty free with his boards,* Arabesque says, *you and Cerise. And you’ve never been appropriately thankful.*
Trouble grimaces, feels her lips twist, knows the gesture is invisible. *He’s never done anything to be thanked for.*
Whatever, Arabesque says. But I thought you ought to know what he was saying.
*What’s the name he’s using? Can I prove it’s him?*
*I doubt it. It’s posted under Sasquatch—I couldn’t prove it was the Mayor, but I’m morally certain it’s him.*
Trouble considers this for a heartbeat, marshalling her options. Thanks, Rachelle, she says at last, regretting again her lack of available expression. *I’ll keep on eye on this.*
No problem, Arabesque answers, and a codestring flashes as she breaks the connection. Trouble sees the code slide away, following a solid line, and turns away herself. There’s not much more she needs to do; better, she thinks, to return home—take a circuitous route, lurk in any chat fora that are open, see what’s being said—but still, return home, and wait for Blake to contact her.
Cerise finds the mailcode’s reference point, pauses in the dataflow to scan the area: a flat and featureless plane, like an empty dance floor. It’s not an ordinary node, that much is certain, and she steps out of the datastream expecting—something. As her foot touches the plane, color flares from that point of contact, shoots out across the virtual floor, turning it from a mere placeholder to squares of brick and stone and lush beds of flowers. They are blooming out of season, out of synch, chrysanthemums and crocuses sprouting together, beds of tulips set below roses in full riot, but that hardly seems to matter. The color, the image, spreads further, like dye in damp cloth, and a bench springs up, and then, beyond that, a fantastic steel and glass gazebo, bright as a birdcage against the illusory sky that wells up behind it. Cerise looks back over her shoulder, sees the air behind her shimmer like heat, reflecting the illusion like a trembling mirror: special-purpose IC(E), very sophisticated IC (E), triggered by the same routine that had set the image maker in motion. Was it my codes that triggered this, she thinks, or would anyone’s touch have done it? It doesn’t feel hostile—anyone who set a trap would hardly use this garden for a backdrop, she thinks, but she readies her defenses anyway, primary shield, dispersion routine copied from Trouble years before, the cutout that will drop her off the net if all else fails, and a voice sings from the gazebo.
Hello, Cerise.
It is the voice she knows as Silk’s, and she starts slowly toward it, waiting for an icon to appear behind the glass and steel. She tastes the program around her, sampling the constructed images: no one she recognizes, not even fully Silk, though it holds a flavor of the work she’d sampled at their one meeting. And then she sees the icon clearly, the same girl-shape, all curves and black leather, standing hipshot in the doorway, one arm against the wall above her head.
Hello, yourself, Cerise answers, but her tone is warmer than the words, more appreciative than she’d meant. She keeps walking, past beds of tulips and something else she doesn’t recognize, until she stands less than ten yards from the smiling icon.
You like my place? Silk asks, and Cerise hesitates, nods slowly at last.
*It’s very nice,* she says, and judges her moment. “Technically.*
The icon twitches, but the expression stays the same for a long moment. Then, slowly, Silk lifts one eyebrow. Only technically?
*You’re not a gardener,* Cerise answers, and allows herself a smile. There is a little pause, and then Silk returns the grin.
You want to come in?
What did you have in mind? Cerise asks, and keeps her distance. She lets the defensive programs fade from readiness, however, and Silk’s grin changes, becomes sexy, open invitation.
Come in and find out.
Cerise hesitates, admitting the appeal but wary of it, of the stranger behind the icon, and Silk says, Safe as houses.
And safer than real sex, Cerise thinks, automatically, and adds, but not as safe as staying here. Trouble would have laughed, and walked away—or agreed, if the fancy took her. Cerise allows herself a smile. The old days are back again, she’s stepping back into old habits as though there had never been a break—and that’s a little too much, too fast, now, she needs a break from it, from Trouble. She takes a few steps forward, and Silk pulls herself gracefully upright, leaving just enough room for Cerise to step past her. She knows perfectly
