THEY WALK THE nets like the echoes of a dream, icons oddly twinned, disparate but somehow matched. The roads of light glow before them, around them, the datastreams coursing across the black and midnight sweep that is the net itself. The patterns are somewhat different this night, as every night, different in the details, the intersections and nodes where the information is traded, created, recreated, but the greater shape remains much the same. The highspeed lines swirl past, rigid geometry walled in strands of IC(E); corporate preserves loom out of nothing, their public spaces open, deliberately inviting, while discreet IC(E) walls them round, keeping secrets in. It’s a strange feeling, to be together again with no job in hand, just the desire to be out on the nets, and Trouble lets Cerise take the lead for now, walking them down the fields of light. They pass familiar walls, junction nodes they know, that every netwalker knows, from the shadows or the light, and Trouble half turns, expecting them to head down a primary lead, down toward the BBS and the doors that lead to Seahaven.
Instead, Cerise turns a different way, toward a node shrouded in IC(E), and Trouble has to scramble to keep up with her. Cerise pauses, waits, and passes them both through together. There is something familiar about the IC(E), Trouble thinks, but Cerise is already flickering ahead of her, and she has to hurry again to catch up. Cerise’s hand? she wonders. Cerise’s work? But Cerise is in no mood to talk, not now, and Trouble follows, close behind. The IC(E) is tight here, sharp geometry edged with sparks of light, clear and dangerous, and it’s only Cerise’s company that takes them through unscathed. Not that I couldn’t break it, Trouble thinks, even so deep in it, I could break free—but it wouldn’t be easy, and it wouldn’t be elegant. And, most of all, it would be more than obvious.
They are inside a preliminary wall, she realizes, at the edge of a major system. This is the space that you could reach most easily from the outside world, where the daily exchange of business takes place; no one cares much about that, and she catches herself looking ahead, toward the central core, a tall cylinder walled in with IC(E) so tight it looks like seamless glass. Light refracts from it, the core of the codewall invisible within the dazzle, only a thin line of purple, close to the base, to indicate that there is access at all. It is even more familiar, there is something about it, about the look of it, the taste of steel in the wind, even the brightness that flares back from it, that catches in her memory. It feels a bit like Cerise’s work, she thinks, but then there’s something more.
This is Multiplane, she says aloud, and sees icon-Cerise nod its cartoon head.
I need to pick up something, she says, and turns away. Trouble feels her invoke a mail routine, sees the packet flash from her hand and vanish against the cylinder, absorbed through its gleaming skin. She feels the IC(E) respond, too, and this time she knows what it is. It’s been remade, more than once, but this is the wall, the design that first caught Cerise’s eye. She hadn’t bothered to find out, then, whose IC(E) it was that Cerise wanted to crack; it hadn’t mattered, not after Evans-Tindale passed. But this was it, or its granddaughter program: Multiplane’s IC(E), Multiplane’s security, and that explained, more clearly than any words, how Cerise had come to work for Multiplane, and why.
She opens her mouth to say something, anything, she’s not sure what, just something to say, I know, I’m sorry—to say once again, I let you down. I screwed it up—but the IC(E) flickers again, and there is something in icon-Cerise’s hand, briefly visible before she stows it again in her toolkit. And the time for words is past, at least for now. Trouble sighs, and follows Cerise, close enough that their icons make a single shadow, back out of the IC(E) to the main roads of the net.
Outside Multiplane’s enclave—dim to the eye, here on the outside, unexpectedly discreet, now that she knows what, who, lies within—Cerise hesitates for the first time, turns to face her, the cartoon-woman shading to pink against the neon-streaked sky.
Where away?
Trouble shrugs, sees and feels the mock-uncertainty appear on the net, carried by the brainworm. The BBS? Or shall we try Seahaven?
The cartoon-woman grins, pale shadow of Cerise’s smile. Seahaven sounds like fun she says, and her voice is sharp and feral.
She has always liked a challenge, Trouble thinks, maybe even more than me. But the Mayor’s mine. She doesn’t say it—doesn’t need to say it, she thinks, but knows it’s more that she doesn’t dare, for fear Cerise will claim him too. She swings away without speaking, finds a line of light and lets herself fall into the datastream, carried away in its embrace. Cerise moves with her, less than a heartbeat behind, and they are carried together down toward the BBS.
As the streams slow, joining together, the competing flow and press of data filling every available channel, Trouble lets herself slide free, dropping down into the main plane of the Bazaar. She feels the virtual floor beneath her feet, and in the same instant the filters cut in and she is standing among the icon-shops, a swirl of adverteasing winding around her body. Cerise is there in the same moment, batting idly at a too- importunate image. It bursts in a shower of chaff, black and white confetti-shapes spelling out a manufacturer’s name, and Cerise brushes them away as well.
Where was it last? Trouble asks, delighting in the old ease, that she doesn’t have to be specific, and Cerise slants a smile to her, the icon-face sweeter than the tone of her voice.
*I went through Maggie-May’s. But I doubt he’ll let us in.*
We could be subtle, Trouble says, and lets her tone carry her preference. Try to fake him out. Or we could force it.
*Subtlety’s wasted on the Mayor,* Cerise answers. *Besides, you’ve never been subtle in your life.*
*So let’s go and see if he’ll let us in,* Trouble says.
They move along the corridors of the Bazaar, past glowing tents and boards where messages, images and text and sound, each overlaid with an icon or a name-sign, bloom like flowers against light-less walls. Trouble feels her muscles tense, relaxes with an effort, working her shoulders against the constraints of a chair she cannot truly feel. She sees Cerise’s image flicker, and guesses she is doing the same. The Mayor’s IC(E) is always good, some of the best; as she told Mabry, there are places where the interface alone, the structure of his dictated reality, is enough protection. To think of cracking it is maybe crazy, but it’s every cracker’s dream.
And then again, she thinks, it may not be necessary. The Mayor may still let them in, at least to the main volume; the point, she supposes, is to prove that she, that they, she and Cerise together, are still the best, are back better than before. They reach Maggie-May’s together, to find the space dark and empty, a hole in the illusion where the shop icon had been. There is no notice, just the haze of black-and-silver static, but Cerise turns, circling, calls to an icon Trouble doesn’t recognize. She directs her message, shutting out other ears, and Trouble bridles, but then the stranger answers, uneasy, flicks away as soon as icon-Cerise nods.
She had some trouble with Treasury, Cerise says, and Trouble imagines the twist of her smile.
So any word on a doorway?
The usual suspects, Cerise begins, and then the air opens in front of them, through the hole where Maggie-May’s had been. Through the oval, bright as a window, they can see the streets of Seahaven—a dry place today, bathed in a hot, hard light.
A dare? Cerise murmurs, and the icon cannot match the hunting note in her voice.
