Psychotrope

09:57:49 PST

Seattle, UCAS

Deni charged around the squat, readying everything he would need to bust Pip outta the abandoned geothermal plant. He tossed the double-juiced stun baton into his nylon carry bag-that should frag up the Amerind kid with the weird aura but good-and made sure his Palm Pistol was ready to rock before shoving it into his boot top. He'd already rousted a grumbling Alfie from the sack with a bang on the door of her squat and told her to warm up her bike. Now he was tying the wolf-claw necklace that served as his shamanic fetish around his neck.

Kali, the dobie-lab cross that Deni had rescued from the junk yard ten years ago, watched his frantic preparations with wide brown eyes. The dog was missing its left front leg but could run like a jazzed turbo. Lean and strong, she'd easily be able to keep up with the bike. And her nose would help sniff out the worst of Hell's Kitchen's danger spots.

Sensing Deni's mood, the dog stood, tripod-still, the black fur along her spine bristling. Whatever went down today, she'd be there as backup.

Deni slung the nylon bag over his shoulder and was just reaching for the door when the flatscreen of Pip's Matrix-Pal computer deck suddenly lit up. Its tinny speaker let out a sharp ping! that stopped Deni in his tracks.

The high-pitched sound made Kali's head whip around. Her nose twitched, and then she began frantically barking at the screen as it filled with a familiar face.

"Pip!" Deni shouted. He leaped for the deck and seized it with both hands. "Chill!" he shouted over his shoulder at Kali. The dog immediately fell silent.

Pip's on-screen image opened its mouth and began to "talk," but the speaker remained silent. Watching the image, Deni realized that it was strobing back and forth between a digipic of Pip with her usual solemn look, and one of her laughing. The effect was spookin' and made Deni want to jerk the power cord. But then text scrolled across the bottom of the display. The block letters were crisp, neat. But the words were in Sprawlspeak, in the spellings that Deni had taught her in an effort to get her to open up to him by using written language. It hadn't worked-but his sister had learned to write. The "voice" of the text was all Pip.

HULO DENI. I CHAINGED MY MIND. THE PLACE MY FREND TOOK ME WUZ ONLY FUN A LITTLE WILE. THEN IT GOT SCARY. I WANNA COME HOME AND FROSTY SEZ ITS OK. HE SEZ HE'S SORRY THE RESONANTS DIDN WERK AN I CAN STILL BECUM AN OTAKU AN GET JACKED IF I CHAINGE MY

MINE LATER. FROSTY WILL EVEN LEMME TAKE ANY TOYS HOME I WANNA. WILLYA COME GET ME? PIPSQUEEK

PS DONT MESS UP FROSTY NONE, OHKAY? HE'S STILL MY FREND.

The image on screen stopped strobing and settled on the laughing digipic of Pip.

"Resonants?" Deni echoed. "What the frag did that wirehead do to her?" It had to have been something to do with computers. When Deni had seen Pip ten minutes ago, she was troded up and eyeball-deep in the Matrix. Something must have happened to her there.

Deni felt like turfing the MatrixPal on the floor and gutter-stomping it with the heel of his boot. Fraggin' thing. It was what had gotten Pip in trouble in the first place. But instead he gritted his teeth and stabbed out a reply with one finger. I'M COMIN PIP.

As he finished, he heard Alfie's bike rumble to a stop outside his door.

"Come on, Kali," he told the black dog. "We're gonna bring Pip home."