kit. When she opened her eyes her pupils were dilated, but Sam wasn't sure if it was because of the drugs or the rigger-loop feedback. Willie's words were slurred.
'What happened? Where's everybody?'
'Hart and I are here, Willie. You're going to be okay.'
'Others get out?'
'Haven't heard from Estios and his crew since they took off after the druids. Nice of them to leave us with that slime thing.'
Willie started to shake. Sam reached out to steady her.
'It's okay. Hart got it. It's gone, Willie.'
'Sure?'
'Sure.'
'I hate magic.'
Me too, Sam wanted to say. He thought it more useful to stay positive. 'Raid's over now. We must have done something right, we survived.'
'What was that furry thing?' Willie asked.
'Looked like a sasquatch to me,' Sam said.
'More likely was a wendigo,' Hart opined.
'Though the two look a lot alike. Can't always tell even from the aura.'
'Why do you think it was aa151what did you call it?'
'Wendigo,' Hart replied. 'The flesh angle. A wendigo is a pananormal thing that eats human flesh. The Circle was probably stripping the corpses to keep it fed. Nasty business.'
'Well, it's gonna be hungry for a long time now that its mouth don't connect to its stomach. I stitched the head clean off the furball.'
Willie's smile stayed plastered on her face as her eyes sank closed and she began to snore.
It had been three microseconds since the activity monitor had registered data manipulation. A long time. Dodger considered the merits of opening the bubble that sealed his persona within the masked credit file he had uncovered in Glover's ATT discretionary funds. The number of manipulations the shunt bubble had passed through had been high, much higher than a legitimate or even an ordinary illegal transfer of funds. The bubble had traveled far, perhaps as far as the druids' innermost computer system. He knew he should wait longer. The operator who had called for the data he had piggybacked on might not be out of the system. Tired of waiting, he was ready for action. While it was a risk breaking out now, remaining encapsuled could be a greater one. He cancelled the program, restoring his ordinary Matrix persona and functionality. The ebon boy stretched as if awakening from sleep,
then froze. There was no swirl of glitter around him. His dazzling cloak was gone, replaced with another kind of shine. His arms were encased in gleaming metal that was articulated in the style of antique armor. More than just his arms, his entire body was armored. The construct imagery was superb, but not his style at all. Dodger hit the reformat key, but the construct remained. He tapped out a routine to alter the imagery, and still got no result. A diagnostic on the cyberdeck registered nominal, which meant that the persona construct imagery was being imposed by the host system. Such an effect required a powerful system.
A look around told him just how powerful. Most systems, even imposed imagery systems, had a hint of the electron reality about them. Even the best virtual recompositers didn't always provide a truly realistic image, and they only supplied the specific translations to their slaved deck; other users still perceived the basic interface illusion. But this place was beyond the ordinary. Had he not known that magic was impossible in the Matrix, he would have thought the landscape touched with enchantment.
All around him lay a green and pleasant land. He stood at the edge of a forest looking out on rolling hills lush with croplands and scattered copses of woods. The forest behind him, a beautiful climax system, stretched away to the horizon in either direction. It was lush and burgeoning with woodland life. The sight, sound, and smell of it filled him with wonder. If it were real…
Dodger turned away and stared once more across the open vista. He could not afford to lose himself in amazement. For the moment, the forest was only a distraction. Perhaps when he had done what needed doing and seen what needed seeing, he would comeback to explore this marvelous construct. For now, he had to be about his work.
A careful visual search revealed no signs of habitation beyond the fields. Given the imagery, he thought it likely that any datastores or other useful computer nodes would appear as man-made structures. Given the girdling forest and the lack of buildings, he felt sure that he was on the fringes of the system. He would need to get deeper to find out anything.
Obstructed somehow by the interface, his standard programs failed to move him through the architecture at a reasonable pace. He tapped keys, improvising variations in a search for a compatible set of parameters. Frustrating minutes later, he finally realized that many of his tricks were inappropriate. Passwords and subroutines here would be strongly influenced by the imagery. Symbolically, not literally, for nothing was literal in the Matrix. He suspected that many programs in this system would have strategic orientations that could only be expressed in such a way as to manifest an appropriate construct imagery. A clever, if convoluted protection system. Any decker unwilling to accept the parameters of the imposed imagery would be paralyzed. But, as he had told uncounted admirers, he was not just any decker.
His fingers flew across the keyboard, searching out the avenues of correspondence with self-contained routines. Having grasped one of the master program's constraining strategies, he was able to formulate more appropriate responses and begin to manipulate the system. Successes began to accumulate, culminating in a soft whicker. He turned to pat the destrier that stood by his side. The horse nuzzled his hand and bumped his shoulder with its snout. Like a proper steed, it was eager for adventure. He mounted the milk-white stallion and settled into the high-can tied saddle. Then they were off, the horse's alabaster mane and tail streaming back in the wind.
The destrier's stride was steady and strong. The countryside rolled past. Despite deviations into likely valleys and detours to check out farmed land, Dodger found nothing more elaborate than thatch-roofed sod huts. Such were certainly nodes, but unlikely to hold anything of import. This system's imagery pattern demanded that what was important look important. He rode on until at last he glimpsed golden spires on the distant horizon. Turning the horse's head toward the structure, he spurred the beast forward.
The destrier climbed the last rise between them and their destination as swiftly as it had climbed the first. The road they had followed for the last several apparent miles led down the gentle slope to a bridge that spanned the valley's wide river. Beyond the water, the road climbed a well-grassed knoll and disappeared through the gates of the structure Dodger sought. The magnificent castle spread over the crown of the hill and its nacreous walls shown in the sunlight. Bright pennons fluttered on the conical peaks of dozens of subsidiary towers, but the spire of the great central tower flew a single flag. There a red banner with the three golden leopards of Britain flapped boldly in the breeze.
Was this the computer system of the English crown? There was one way to find out. Dodger urged the horse forward.
The destrier's hooves thundered on the wood of the bridge, the noise of them jangling Dodger's nerves. Stealth and the roundabout way were his preferred approach. The bridge seemed to go on and on, its span stretching far further than it had appeared to do. Dodger's suspicions were only beginning to rise when the black knight appeared at the far end. The knight's midnight steed reared slightly as it began its charge.
Clattering steel and the ringing of iron-shod hooves filled Dodger's ears. Ah, a countermeasure at last. The need for action released his tension. Dodger's fingers flew across the keys of his cyberdeck, priming his attack and defensive programs and tweaking them to suit the imposed imagery. The ebon boy in the mirror-polished armor held out his gauntleted hand and a crystal lance appeared in it. A shield as reflective as his armor came into being on his left arm. He lowered his weapon into the slot on the shield, using the resting point to steady his grip as he spurred forward.
'Have at thee, Sir Ice.'
The two charging chevaliers met in a crash. The black knight's weapon was longer and he struck first. Dodger felt the lance point slam into his shield. For a terrifying instant it hung, pressing him back against his saddle's cantle and threatening to unhorse him. But then the point slid free and slithered along the curve of the shield and
