Cerise’s familiar icon stands beside a generic man-shape rough-clad in black, not quite matching the Mayor’s severity.
You little bastard, the Mayor says, voice flat again, the anger damped to a hint of sulphur. *When— How—?* And he stops, with what would have been the shake of a head if he’d himself been on the wire.
*I’m sorry* Silk/newTrouble says again, and sounds terribly young.
You cunt, the Mayor says, and the icon’s working hand convulses. Go home. The fabric of Seahaven warps again, twists and distorts and in an eyeblink wraps itself around Silk/newTrouble’s icon. Cerise swears, incoherent, lifts a hand to jerk short the leash, and the program kicks back, broken at the source. The section of image knots tighter, space stretching around it, painful to the eye, and then relaxes, smoothing out to restore the stark frontier town as though it had never changed. Silk/newTrouble is gone.
Cerise curses again, shakes a stinging hand, and Trouble swings back to face the Mayor. The ground roils under her feet, tipping her sideways, the air goes gluey, multileaved and flaking yellow-tinged as isinglass; she struggles for breath and balance, goes to her knees in the dust that rises to engulf her. Cerise calls something, but her voice is muffled, and Trouble closes her mind to it, concentrating on the space that has enfolded her. She closes her eyes as well, cutting off the visuals that threaten to override her system, feels the pressure on her lungs ease because she lacks the visual cue of dust to reinforce thick air. She could hit the panic button, drop off the net completely, she’d be safe then, but that would mean losing, admitting herself beaten. She reaches blindly into the spaces around her, groping spread-fingered for the hot spots, the control points that will allow her to break free of this program. She trips an emergency control, dangerous but necessary, kicks the brainworm to full power, full receptivity, and feels the heat and the thick air clog her lungs, illusion but dangerous, warning her of slower dangers. She ignores that, reaches out again, fingers trailing across illusory lumps and tingling wires, every touch magnified, and finally touches a hot spot, palms its burning circle in her left hand. She finds a second even as she analyzes the first, and cups them both, working through the system. The feeling is familiar beneath the generic heat, a system like systems she has used before. She shifts her left hand slightly, then her right, and feels the system controls wrap themselves around her fingers. She gestures—the old-style code, the old netwalker symbols—and feels some of the pressure ease from around her. She gestures again, with more confidence this time, and the wall of images unravels around her.
Cerise says, Christ, you gave me a scare. She lets her hands fall, lets another icepick flick back into obscurity.
Trouble takes a deep breath, ignoring the heat that lingers along with the fear, looks up at the Mayor’s palace. It turns a blank face to the rest of Seahaven, the usual windows and doors sealed with stone, even the battling statues vanished from the corners of the platforms. NewTrouble? she asks, and Cerise shrugs.
*Bounced him out of Seahaven—right off the nets, I think. Are you all right? *
Fine, Trouble says, sourly, not thinking, then looks at Cerise in apology. *I’m all right. But we have to do something about the Mayor.*
Yeah, but what? Cerise scowls, scanning the illusory space, empty now except for the icons. They have waited a long time, by the reckoning of the nets; the walls will be sealed tight, all the IC(E) in place and fully armed.
Go after him, Trouble says.
Cerise hesitates, her hands still stinging from the first wall of IC(E), knowing it would be smarter to take the draw and run, leave the Mayor to Mabry, to Treasury and the Eurocops. But that’s not either of their styles—and there is Silk to think about. He’s on the wire, one of them, doubly family, maybe, and she feels responsible. She nods slowly, works her hands again. The fingers that held the leash feel thick and clumsy, and worry stabs through her.
Are you OK? Trouble asks, her tone sharpening, and Cerise nods again.
Caught some IC(E) getting in here, she says, careful to keep her voice casual. Trouble looks at her, uncertain, searching, and she forces a smile. Stung my fingers a little, nothing more.
All right, Trouble says, and her tone is doubtful, but she starts toward the temple.
Wait, Cerise says, and reaches into her toolkit, triggers the iconage editor she had carried since she first went into the business. Trouble cocks her head to one side, but asks no questions; Cerise grins, and triggers a sequence, spinning an image into the air around them. Her touch is clumsy, but the shape that forms is recognizable enough: a gunfighter’s silhouette, battered ten-gallon hat and loose cap-shouldered duster, dark against the Mayor’s walls.
Trouble laughs softly. *Shouldn’t the hat be white?* she says, and makes the change. What brought this on?
Blame the Mayor, Cerise says, and gestures at the fading frontier town around him. *1 thought I’d beat him at his own game.*
After a moment Trouble nods, and reaches for the icon, drawing it over herself like a suit of clothes. Cerise spins a second copy for herself-—she keeps the black hat, but her kerchief is her own hot fuchsia, a single point of vivid contrast—and dons it, too.
He picked the game, Cerise says, and looks at Trouble remade, at an icon that seems suddenly more herself than the dancing harlequin had ever been. Trouble looks back at her as though she’d read the thought, and the icon’s wry mouth twists into a sudden smile.
When were we ever the good guys? she asks, and reaches for her toolkit.
Cerise doesn’t answer, moves to join her, to examine the featureless surface. Weren’t we always? she thinks, and runs one hand across the temple face, feeling sun-warmed stone beneath her palm. She finds a protruding bit of code, a defect, where the image has been corrupted—perhaps by collateral damage from the fight, perhaps just by wear and tear, by constant usage; whatever the cause, she catches hold of it, levers away the skin of the image. It comes away with a ripping sound, just a small patch of the illusion, perhaps as big as a man’s outspread hand. In that one spot, the codewall lies exposed, and she frowns, studying its pattern. Trouble moves up beside her, but she’s barely aware of the other’s presence, concentrating on the codes. It was made by the same hand that made the outer wall; there are similarities of style and shape, but otherwise it’s not much like that first barrier, a tighter, leaner code concealing a colder IC(E). She hesitates for an instant, thinking of the first wall, of her sore hands, then shakes herself, makes herself contemplate the exposed patterns.
Trouble reaches past the other icon’s shoulder, carrying the icon of a sleeper. She releases it beside the open patch of code, bends close to watch it apply itself to the codewall. For a moment it seems to make headway, and then the IC(E) reasserts itself. The sleeper slows, frozen, drops away to shatter against the illusory dirt.
*It shouldn’t’ve done that,* Trouble says, irrelevantly—she hates illusions that don’t quite work—and Cerise leans closer to the opening.
Try this, she says, and touches a probe to a single strand of code. She is still clumsy, a little less accurate than she needs to be, but the codewall sings under her touch, a deep bass note that reverberates through their bones. She’s found a hot spot within the wall of IC(E), a space that give access to a deeper layer of control, a structure more fundamental than the IC(E).
Careless, Trouble says, meaning the Mayor, and reaches for the same point, delicately brushes the same bit of code. The music answers again, true and deep as some great bell. She takes a breath, bracing herself for the necessary attack, the necessary risk, and Cerise touches her arm.
Let me, Cerise says.
Trouble hesitates, recognizing the logic—Cerise’s hands are already burned; she herself is unhurt, and should remain so, to deal with the Mayor—and in that instant Cerise reaches past her, deep into the maze of coded IC(E). Light flares, momentarily blinding, and Cerise winces at the numbing chill that wraps around her. The cold dims her tactile sense, masking those receptors, but she gropes anyway toward the faint heat of the control points. And then she has it, and the light fades, dims, and then vanishes completely, revealing a new world within the temple walls.
