"That was me," Mary acknowledged. "A simple controlling manipulation. By that time I kind of understood what was going down.

"But then you manifested on the physical, didn't you?" she went on. "You made yourself visible to her, and you spoke to her. Didn't you?"

He nodded. "Shamans can do that, though, right?"

"Yes, but . . . drek, Falcon, they've got to learn to be able to do it. Everything you did tonight . . . It's like, it's no big fragging deal to ride a bike, but what you did- it's like some guy who's never ridden before swinging onto a combat bike and doing trick riding stunts!" She shook her head in amazement. "We've got to talk about this."

"Later." He jumped to his feet. "Sly went down. We've got to find her. Where the frag was that?"

Mary paused for a moment. "That place we saw-Cheyenne Chain and Wire. I know it. It's south of town, near I-80. Industrial area."

"Take me there," he said flatly, heading for the door.

Mary hesitated for a moment, then, with a shrug, followed him out.

Falcon didn't know how Mary had sweet-talked the bartender-Cahill, she said his name was-into lending her his bike, and right then he didn't care. He sat on the back of the rumbling hog, his arms locked tight around the shaman's waist.

She was a good driver, not aggressive, not into high speeds or anything flashy, but stable and steady. Safe. Right now Falcon would probably have wanted to trade a little safety for some more speed. He knew enough, though, not to be a back-seat driver.

It took only a few minutes to reach the industrial area. The feel of the place-abandoned buildings, industrial trash, scavengers in the alleys-was right, even though he didn't recognize anything directly. Then Mary was cruising slowly past the front of Cheyenne Chain and Wire.

"She started off into the alley behind this building," Mary said.

"Which way did she go?" Falcon asked. "And how far?"

Mary shrugged. "I don't know. We'll just have to search." She turned the bike down the next street, cut into the alley behind the foundry.

A few minutes later-the minutes feeling like hours to Falcon-they found her. Face-down in a pile of refuse, a rat the size of a malnourished beagle sniffing at her. As Falcon ran up, the rat seemed to consider taking him on to protect what had to be enough food to last a month. But then the creature apparently decided discretion was the better part of valor, and made itself scarce.

Falcon crouched beside Sly, grabbed her wrist, felt for a pulse. It was there-fast, but not strong. Mary squatted next to him, laid a hand on the fallen woman's shoulder. "How is she?" Falcon demanded.

"You could probably find out yourself," Mary said cryptically. But then she closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. After a moment she looked up. "Not good. Alive, but drek-kicked."

"Can you help her? Shamans can heal, can't they?"

"I can help her," Mary acknowledged. She glanced around. "But this ain't the best place." She hesitated. "We can carry three on the bike-just-but we can't go fast and we can't go far. Where do you want to take her?"

It was Falcon's turn to pause. The motel was too far and perhaps too dangerous, but what other choice did he have? If Sly still wanted to go through with this drek about cracking into Zurich-Orbital-a.s.suming she didn't flatline, of course-she'd need her deck. Which was back at the motel. And the motel was much too far to take a wounded woman three-up on a bike.

"Can you wait here with her?" he asked. "I'll take the bike and go get the car."

Mary nodded.

"They might come looking for her."

The shaman smiled. "If they do, they'll find more than they bargained for. I'll summon a city spirit. It can conceal and protect us while you're gone."

"Good," Falcon said. "I'll be back quick as I can." As he swung aboard the bike and peeled out of there, he heard Mary begin to sing a strange, rhythmic song.

He was expecting some kind of trouble. Somebody trying to stop him from returning with the car, loading Sly into it, and cruising back to the motel. h.e.l.l, he was almost looking forward to it. He was cranked up, out on the pointy end, ready to kick some hoop. His machine pistol was locked and loaded on the seat next to him, and he found himself humming the song of Wolf through his clenched teeth.

But n.o.body tried to slot with them. In fact n.o.body paid them the slightest heed. Even when he carried the limp figure of Sly from the car into the motel room. Somebody was walking through the parking lot during the whole procedure, but the slag didn't even look their way. Falcon wondered if maybe Mary's city spirit was still looking out for them. He set Sly gently down on the bed, while Mary locked the door behind them.

Sly looked like drek-face pale and drawn, skin almost yellow. While carrying her, he'd felt tremors shooting through her muscles. And her flesh was cold. Like Nightwalker when he died. With an effort, Falcon forced that memory away.

He turned to Mary. "Fix her up," he said gruffly. Then, more tentatively, "Please?"

He tried to watch and learn as Mary sat cross-legged on the bed beside Sly, ran her small hands gently over his chummer's body, and began to sing.

But he couldn't. He couldn't sit still. He was filled with energy-energy to burn-and nothing to burn it on. So he paced and he fumed. He pictured Knife-Edge's face twisting in agony as he pumped bullet after bullet into the Amerindian runner's belly. Pictured him engulfed in flame, screaming as he burned like the woman in the torture room. Pictured him moaning in fear as his lifeblood ran into the gutter and he bled himself dry.

He couldn't bear to look at his chummer's pale face. She looked so young, so helpless, lying there. And that was perhaps the biggest crime of all that Knife-Edge had to atone for. He'd taken a confident, competent woman and turned her into this.

Why does it matter so much? he asked himself. I didn't know her from squat a week ago. She shouldn't mean anything to me.

But she did, of course. They were working together toward the same goal. They trusted each other, depended on each other. She is of my pack, he'd told Wolf. And that was the truth, simple and plain. He sat on the other bed, facing away from Mary and Sly. The Dog shaman's song filled his ears, and dire imaginings filled his mind.

Finally Mary's song faded away. He was scared to turn, to look. But he had to.

Sly still lay unmoving, but her color had returned to normal. Sitting next to her, Mary looked tired, her face sheened with sweat.

"Is she ...?" Falcon couldn't finish the question.

Mary just nodded.

Falcon came over and sat on the edge of the bed beside his chummers. He reached out, brushed a lock of hair back from Sly's face. "Sly," he said softly.

And her eyes opened. For a moment they darted about wildly, clouded with terror. Then they fixed on his face.

She smiled. A tired, worn smile, but a smile just the same. "It was you," she said weakly. "It was real."

He didn't trust himself to speak, just nodded. His eyes were watering, and he scuffed the back of his hand across them. It's all this blasting around when I should be sleeping, he told himself.

"How are you feeling?" Mary asked.

Sly smiled up at the young woman. "Good," she said. "Better than I have any right to expect." She paused. "You were there too, weren't you? I felt you." Mary nodded. Sly turned to Falcon. "How?"

It was Mary who answered. "Your chummer's walking the path of the shamans," she said quietly. "He sings the song of Wolf."

Falcon saw Sly's eyes widen, full of unspoken questions. Then she smiled. "Hidden depths, Falcon," she said. "Hidden depths." Cautiously, she pushed herself upright. "Anything else happen that I should know about?"

31.

0521 hours, November 16, 2053 At the suggestion of the young woman whose name Sly learned was Mary Windsong, they picked up and moved. Sly was pretty sure she hadn't said anything to her torturers about the motel-if she had, the three of them would already have been blown to drek-but it didn't make sense to take any chances they could avoid. Mary led the way, riding a hog much too big for her, her long braid trailing back in the wind. Falcon had driven the Callaway, Sly sitting in the pa.s.senger seat, her cyberdeck clutched protectively in her lap. They'd gone to some little tavern with the improbable name of The Buffalo Jump, then installed themselves in the tiny back room.

Sly was feeling better-almost back to normal, she had to admit. Sometimes she still felt tremors in her muscles, and sometimes when she shut her eyes-even if just for a moment-images from the simsense torture came back and she'd have to smother a scream. What would happen when she went to sleep? she wondered.

Both Falcon and Mary had been solicitous about her health. Maybe a little too solicitous, Sly thought at first, a tad grumpily. But then she realized that their concern wasn't misplaced. She had gone through a frag of a lot, and still felt like a wet bag of drek, despite help from the Dog shaman's magical attentions.

A strange dynamic seemed to exist between Falcon and the Cheyenne woman, Sly had noticed. At first she thought it was s.e.xual attraction-the ganger was handsome in an unpolished kind of way, and the diminutive girl cute the way Sly had always wanted to be as a kid. But then she recognized that there was more to it, maybe much more. They had something important in common, something that underlaid their entire lives. Sly wondered if it was because Falcon was now "walking the path of the shaman"-whatever that meant.

"What do you need?" Mary asked her as soon as they reached the tavern.

Sly's first impulse had been to say something flippant like a liter of synthahol and thirty-six hours of sleep. But she put that thought aside at once. Knife-Edge was still after her. He'd gotten her once, and had no reason to stop trying. Holing up and waiting it out would be just plain dumb, she decided, particularly after Falcon told her what he'd learned about the Amerindian runner. The Office of Military Intelligence-no drek. That meant they were playing with the Sioux government, the military- maybe even the fragging Wildcats. No, holing up was not a good idea. This wasn't going to just blow over. She had to do something, right now.

And, no matter how much it terrified her, she knew what that something was. Zurich-Orbital again. Sly had to try, even if it killed her. But then, of course, there was the problem of cyberdeck utilities. If she was feeling really militant, she could go "naked" into the Matrix, depending on her skills to whip up the programs she needed on the fly. Five years ago she might have considered it.

Now? No fragging way. Her conversation with Moonhawk- the fragging double-crossing drek-eater-had convinced her that she was too out of date for that. Phase loop recoursers-PLRs-wouldn't do squat against modern ice. What other unpleasant changes had she missed?

No, what she needed was all the edge she could get. And that meant up-to-the-minute varsity-league utilities.

Fortunately-and to her surprise-Mary had come to her aid when she'd mentioned the problem. The little shaman had some connections with the Cheyenne shadow community-including, it turned out, a couple of programmers and deckers. Mary took off with a list of the utilities and hardware Sly needed, returning less than an hour later with a collection of optical chips in a plastic chip carrier.

Frag, Sly thought as she loaded the last utility into the deck's...o...b..ard memory, why couldn't Falcon have met her a couple of hours sooner?

She set aside the last program chip, ran the deck through a quick self-diagnostic. The processor was having no problem running the utility code. The utilities themselves were almost implausibly sophisticated-at least, in comparison to what Sly had used five years ago. According to the deck's internal bench marks, most clocked in at a hair over rating seven. One read out at nine, and one peaked at an unheard-of eleven. (What's all this going to cost me? she wondered, then put the worry aside. Mary had given the stuff to her on credit, so if Sly got herself geeked, she wouldn't have to sweat it. And if she made it, any price would be cheap.) With the speed increases Smeland had wired into the circuitry, the combination of wiz utilities plus beefy processor turned the deck into a real ice pick.

Satisfied, Sly sat back.

Falcon had been pacing nervously. Now he came to perch beside her, concern written all over his face. "Are you up to this, Sly?" he asked quietly. "You don't want to wait? Like, give yourself some time to bounce back?"

She smiled at him, appreciating his apprehension on her behalf. She squeezed his arm rea.s.suringly. "I'm up for it," she told him. "I'm ready." As ready as she would ever be. But how ready was that? "What other choices do we have?"

She watched him struggle with that, reviewing their options-sadly limited-in his mind. Eventually his shoulders slumped and he nodded. She knew how he was feeling. Helpless, impotent. There was nothing he could do to help Sly directly. She squeezed his arm again, trying to communicate a determination and confidence she really didn't feel. Maybe this is it. She couldn't force the thought from her mind. Sly used to think that the next time she faced black ice, she'd get flatlined. And now she was going up against the best. And maybe a military-cla.s.s decker too. Would Jurgensen be waiting for her when she decked in? Count on it, she told herself.

Sly turned to Mary Windsong. "Can you watch me?" she asked. "Monitor me magically, or something? If you see something strange happening to my body ..."

"If you start T-and-F-ing, you mean?" the young woman asked.

"T-and-What-ing?" Falcon demanded.

"Twitching and foaming," Mary explained. "Like if a decker hits some bad ice. Yeah, sure. You hit trouble, I'll jack you out. I've covered for deckers before." She turned to Falcon. "It's like watching a shaman's meat body when he's gone astral. Yeah, null persp, Sly. I'll move fast."

Sly nodded. There was no more anyone could do to help. Maybe, if Mary was as quick as she thought she was, and if she was watching closely enough, she could jack Sly out before any black ice had time to fry her brain or stop her heart. But how much faster did black ice react these days? How long did it take killer ice to set up a lethal biofeedback loop?

She looked down at the deck, the plug-tipped fiberoptic lead coiled like a snake ready to strike. No more excuses, she told herself, no more procrastination. If I'm going, go. She picked up the brain plug, snugged it into her datajack. Felt the familiar tingling that told her the deck was on-line, ready to rock and roll.

She glanced up into Falcon's worried eyes. Gave him and Mary a rea.s.suring smile. "Well," she said softly, "here goes nothing." She checked the deck's memory- utilities loaded, interfacing well with the MPCP and the persona programs. Ran another quick diagnostic, got a green board. No glitches, no anomalies. No more excuses.

"See you soon," she whispered, hitting the Go key with a sharp little tap.

She blew through the Cheyenne Matrix, danced across the datalines until she saw the LTG node high above the surreal city below her. Rocketed toward it, into it. Then the jump to the RTG, the universe folding around itself like an origami figure.

And, all too soon, she was hurtling toward the satellite link, the blue radio telescope construct on the dark plane. Instinctively, she looked around her for Theresa Smeland's armadillo icon. Laughed wryly at her reaction. I'm alone this time, she reminded herself. No back-up. Just me.

She saw the beads of ice sliding back and forth along the structural members of the satlink construct. Saw them pick up their tempo as she approached. Okay, she thought, let's see how wiz these utilities really are. . . .

Her samurai icon reached into a pouch on his belt, pulled out a tiny mask-like a harlequin's mask-and slapped it to her face. A tingle went through her virtual body as the masking utility activated. For an instant she thought it had worked. The beads slowed down again, back to their normal level of activity. But then, as she came within contact range of the satlink construct, the beads flashed again to high-speed, alert mode. Before she had time to try another utility, a dozen of the beads burst free from the construct, slamming into her icon. Nothingness engulfed her.

And then she was in the office once more, the perfectly rendered corner of the Matrix created by the UCAS military. No doubt some node running on hideously powerful military mainframes.

Jurgensen the decker was sitting at the desk. He looked up with an expression of surprise as her icon materialized in front of him.

"Waiting for me, Jurgensen?" she asked. And then she hit the army decker with everything she had. Triggered a frame-an autonomous program construct-and hurled it at him. In keeping with her own icon, it was a low-resolution j.a.panese ronin, armed with a tetsubo glowing the brilliant red of a C02 laser. As the frame leaped forward, swinging its studded mace, she triggered a "hog" virus-appearing in this node like a viciously barbed dart. She tossed it underhand at Jurgensen.

The army decker had responded quickly to the frame-too quickly!-holding a macroplast riot shield up before him, blocking the ronin's tetsubo blow. But that meant his attention wasn't focused on Sly herself for a critical instant. The virus dart flew true, slipped past the riot shield, bit deep into the icon's chest. Jurgensen howled in outrage as the virus code began to replicate in his cyberdeck, allocating the deck's operating memory to itself, preventing it from being used for anything else. Unless the decker didn't act fast to eliminate the virus, soon it would take over all unused memory, then start on the memory containing his own utilities, flushing them from the deck and eventually dumping him.

Of course, she knew, Jurgensen would act fast. She couldn't trust to something as simple as a hog utility to take him down. But, at least, for a couple of clock ticks he'd be occupied. Clock ticks she could use herself.

She fired up her first attack utility, and a heavy crossbow appeared in the samurai's hand. Aiming carefully, she triggered the bow, watched the bolt whistle past her autonomous frame, saw it slam into Jurgensen's chest. A frag of a good hit. For an instant, the decker's icon quivered, losing resolution. Keep on him, she told himself, don't give him a chance to use a medic program. And don't let him deal with the hog. The crossbow re-c.o.c.ked itself, and she pumped another bolt into her opponent. Again his icon lost some of its resolution, but this time it didn't return to its previous, pristine state. Hurt you bad! she crowed inwardly.

Jurgensen snarled in anger. His riot shield vanished, a snub-nosed submachine gun taking its place in his hands. He triggered a burst into the frame that was still attacking him, blowing gaping holes through the ronin. The frame attacked again, slamming its tetsubo into the decker's head. But then, with a despairing, electronic screech, it pixelated and vanished. The SMG muzzle swung toward Sly.

She flung herself aside as bullets st.i.tched the wall behind her. Simultaneously triggered one of the highest-rated utilities in her deck-a cutting-edge mirrors utility. As the code executed, her icon split in two-two identical samurai. The new icon-the mirror image-jinked right, while she flung herself low into the shelter of Jurgensen's own desk.

The army decker hesitated for a tick, trying to guess which was the real icon and which the image. Guessed wrong, and sprayed a long burst into the mirror construct. Giving Sly time to pop up and blast another crossbow bolt into him at point-blank range. Jurgensen howled, his icon pixelating like the frame ronin. Then he vanished-jacked out or dumped, Sly neither knew nor cared. She caught her breath, tried to slow her racing heart.

Just for an instant. And then what she'd been dreading-but, deep down, expecting-happened. Two nightmare figures, night-black and twisted out of true, loomed over her.

The golems. Golem-cla.s.s black IC-according to Jurgensen, driven by a high-level expert system code. Smart-maybe as smart as a decker-fast and lethal. With brain-splitting roars, they lunged at her.

Sly backpedaled wildly. Her mirror image was still visible, but the golems were ignoring it, converging on her from two directions. She brought up her crossbow, pumped a bolt into the belly of the closest monster. No visible reaction.

What the frag do I do now? her mind gibbered wildly. Jack out, while I've got the chance? Give it up as a bad job? But that wasn't even an option, was it? If she ever wanted a normal life, she had to win now, once and for all.

She danced back another step as the nearest golem swung at her with a fist bigger than her head. So sophisticated was the ice code that she "felt" the wind of the fist's pa.s.sage a centimeter from her face.

Another step back. Trigger a utility. Another step. Another utility.

The first-a modified "smoke" utility-filled the room with coruscating blue-white light, sheets and curtains of it, like heat lightning. Sly could still see the advancing golems clearly, but knew that the display was interfering with their perception of her. Not much help against something this sophisticated, but a whole lot better than nothing. The second utility surrounded her icon with another construct-a full suit of late-medieval plate mail.

And not an instant too soon. The golems were quicker than they looked. One had managed to close with her, slamming a ma.s.sive fist into her chest. In the real world, the impact would have collapsed her rib cage, ruptured internal organs, possibly smashed her spine. But here, in the virtual reality of the Matrix, the blow crashed into her armor, making the metal ring like a gong. Still, the force was enough to stagger her, make her head ring like the armor. In the real world, she knew, her body had probably spasmed as the IC code had momentarily overridden control of her cyberdeck, dumping a damaging over-voltage through her datajack. Would Mary jack her out, or would she judge the damage minor and let Sly be?

The office didn't vanish from around her, so Mary had obviously decided to hang back. One of the golems was confused by the "smoke" display, swinging wildly at the sheets of light that surrounded it. Not so the second. It advanced on Sly, more slowly now, as though taking time to a.n.a.lyze her armor and find its weak spots. She tried to dodge to the left, but a sweeping arm blocked that move. She backed up again, felt the office wall behind her. No more retreat. No more options.

There was only one thing she could do. A big risk- but what part of this run wasn't a risk? She still had one utility left-a rating-eleven attack program. Maybe beefy enough to crash the golems, maybe not. But even pulling it out was a terrifying risk. It was experimental code, Mary had told her, nowhere near as "plug-and-play" as the other programs Sly had used up till now. Not only did it need almost all her deck's resources-so much so that she'd have to abort everything she was already running to give the program what it needed-but she'd have to do some on-the-fly programming to tailor the code to its target and "lock it on." Which meant she wouldn't even have the option of maneuvering, of dodging the golems' blows; she'd just have to hang tough and take it.

And she wouldn't have the option of jacking out if things got nasty.

An all-or-nothing play. Did she have the guts to go through with it?