The Lucifer desk

14

Carla sat at one of the data terminals in the KKRU newsroom, scanning the files the computer had flagged for her. She’d set it to automatically download anything to do with Mitsuhama, and in just one day the file was already enormous. She tapped the icon at the bottom of the screen, rapidly flipping through the articles. It looked like nothing but noise-PR blurbs about corp executive appointments, announcements about the openings of new plants in Osaka and London, business articles analyzing MCT stock performance, a ridiculous “consumer bulletin” on a customer who claimed that his MCT neural interface was the cause of his marital problems, puff pieces on a new robotic mini-drone that the company had developed, a story about CEO Toshiro Mitsuhama taking tea with the crown prince of Japan…

Carla sighed. Going through all this drek made her eyes ache. Maybe she should limit the search to articles with a Seattle dateline.

She leaned back in her chair, glancing toward Greer’s office. Officially, her Mitsuhama story was dead, spiked. But that didn't prevent her from trying, in her spare moments, to pick up a lead that would bring the story back on line again. She wasn’t getting anywhere, however, with this passive search. Maybe it was time for her investigation to take a more active direction.

Officially, she was working today on a story about the Matrix. A number of system access nodes in the Seattle telecommunications grid had been experiencing problems over the past few days. Names were getting scrambled, passcodes and retinal scans weren’t being recognized, and Matrix traffic had to be rerouted through alternative servers. Elsewhere in the Matrix, entire systems had shut down; one of the most recent casualties was the one serving the theological college at the University of Washington. The telecom providers were scrambling to assure their customers that all was well, that this was a minor, localized problem. But the systems experts Carla had contacted that morning were speculating that a powerful new virus was on the loose. The more nervous among them had drawn comparisons to the Crash of 2029, which had started in a similar fashion.

That had been a great interview, one destined to put the fear into deckers everywhere when it aired at six o’clock. But it was pure speculation. When you boiled it right down to the facts, the story didn’t really have much bite to it. Who really cared if the datastores of an obscure university department were hopelessly corrupted? Carla had to admit that the eventual crash of the theology department’s computer system made for some great puns about the virus being an “act of God.” The deckers had even come up with a cute name for the virus: Holy Ghost. It had also struck the databanks of a televangelist network in Denver.

Carla had managed to inject some life into the story by including a take from the interview she’d done with a woman who seemed to draw the virus to her like a magnet. No matter which computer Luci Ferraro logged on from, the virus found her. She’d burned out her own telecom, six public terminals, and the one at the dental office where she worked as a receptionist. The interview had been great comic relief, especially Luci’s comment that her son had locked her out of his room to prevent her from touching his hologame set. It gave the story just the edge it needed to become the lead piece in tonight’s Metro news slot. It was just as well. The only other news item of note was yet another demand by the Ork Rights Committee to meet with the governor. That one was stale a week ago.

Carla wound her way through the busy newsroom, heading for the station’s research department. It was a room next to the studio, removed from the noise and bustle, that contained a Formfit recliner and a fully equipped kitchen. A private washroom, off to one side, ensured that the researchers didn’t need to waste precious seconds waiting for the restroom, like everyone else.

The three young deckers who made up this “department” were technically on call at all times for the reporters, but typically only one hung out here “in the meat,” playing simsense games or writing utility programs to pass the time. The other two clocked in from remote work stations at home.

Today the decker on duty was Corwin Schofeld, a young ork barely out of his teens. In person he looked big, slow, and stupid. But Carla knew that, inside the Matrix, his persona was as quick and slippery as they came.

Corwin looked up as Carla entered the room. He was just preparing to jack in, and sat with his deck across his legs, a datacord snugged into his temple. “Hoi, there, Carla,” he said with a big smile. “How’s it scannin’, snoop? Wus’up?”

Carla smiled at Corwin’s streeter slang. She knew he’d grown up in Rosemount Beach, an upper-class suburb of Bellevue. The affected speech was as much a part of his image as his synthleather T-shirt, high-top sneakers, and torn denims. Normally she’d tease him about it. But today she couldn’t be bothered.

“I want you to do a run for me, Corwin,” she told him. “Wiz.” The ork nodded his head eagerly. “Jus’ name your node.”

“It’s a tough one. Corporate research files. There’ll definitely be ice. Maybe even black ice.”

“Yeah? So?” He gave her a lazy, cocksure look. “What’s the scan?”

Carla pulled up a chair beside the Formfit couch on which Corwin was sprawled. “Mitsuhama Corporation’s magical research lab,” she said. “It could be dangerous.” She hoped Corwin was up to it. She didn’t relish facing Greer with the news that one of his pet deckers had burned out station equipment on an unauthorized data snoop. The producer would chew her head off, then demote her to the sports-entertainment beat and make her cover the urban brawl matches, just to watch her squirm.

Corwin let out a long, slow whistle. “Mitsuhama you say? Sure, it’s a tough system. But I’m rezzed for it. What’s the scan?”

“I’m looking for information on a high-level research project Mitsuhama’s been working on,” Carla explained. “I want you to deck into the project files, searching for anything connected to the words light, spirit, or the name Farazad Samji. The project was a current one, so hopefully you won’t have to spend too long scanning through old records.”

“Mitsuhama Computer Technologies, huh? This story you’re working on got anything to do with their new deck hardware or ASIST interfaces? I heard from a decker in Kobe that MCT’s developing a new co-processor that will exponentially boost the response time of a MPCP chip.” Corwin had slipped out of street speech in his excitement.

“As far as I know, the research project has nothing to do with computers,” Carla said, shaking her head. “If anything, it’s probably connected with Mitsuhama’s defense contracts.”

“Oh” Corwin’s hand hovered above the toggle that would power up the deck. “Black ice for sure, then. Well, it may scope out to be a high-rez jolt jump just the same. See you in a few millisecs.”

“Wait.” Carla laid a hand on Corwin’s thick arm. “I’m coming along.”

“Uh-uh,” Corwin shook his head. “This cowboy rides alone.”

Carla slotted one end of a datacord into the hitcher jack on Corwin’s deck and twirled the other end in her hand. “Not if he wants this run authorized by a reporter, he doesn’t.”

“Black ice doesn’t scare you?” Corwin asked. “It can fry your brain, you know.”

Carla smiled. “It doesn’t scare me. How about you? Are you sure you’re not looking for an excuse not to make this run?”

Corwin gave her along, level look. Then he returned smile. “O.K., cowgirl. Jack in.”

Carla jacked the other end of the cord into her temple and closed her eyes. The next instant she was inside a brilliant landscape of flickering neon colors, intricate grids, and floating, three-dimensional icons. Corwin’s icon in the Matrix seemed to hover a meter away from her. It was a gray and white cartoon rabbit with white doves, big floppy ears, and a mischievous expression. It turned and winked at Carla. “Wus’up. Doc?”

Carla could only see portions of her own “body” as It appeared in the Matrix. When she held out a hand, it was a glowing, slightly blocky imitation of a human one. Her legs were tapering cylinders that ended in rounded stumps. Obviously Corwin hadn’t put as much work into designing a persona program for his hitchers. Carla tried to speak, but found she didn’t have a mouth. She would be an observer, only, on this run.

“Heeeere we go!” Corwin gleefully quipped.

His rabbit icon stretched out a hand along one of the bars of neon blue light that made up the grid that surounded them. The arm lengthened like a rubber band, then snapped back to its original size. As it contracted, Carla found herself rushing through space, pulled along behind the rabbit like a balloon tied to a string. Grid patterns whizzed overhead impossibly fast as they raced through a landscape of shifting geometric forms, they changed direction several times as Corwin routed them through a confusing combination of local and regional telecommunications grids. It was a standard decker’s tactic, designed to hide their point of origin.

They paused for a moment at the end of one of the tubelike lines, as the rabbit stabbed a finger at an icon shaped like a silver coin. Again they rushed through space, this time through a red field punctuated with a spangling of what looked like three-dimensional corporate logos that hung in the distance like stars. Ahead loomed a huge pagoda surrounded by halos of glowing light, apparently made out of coiled fiber-optic cables that bristled with datajacks. The stuff looked like barbed wire. They rushed toward the pagoda, then stopped abruptly at its base. The rabbit paused, brought its palms together in front of its chest, and did an elegant swan dive that carried it between two strands of wire.

Carla’s perspective suddenly did a flip-flop. Now they were inside what looked like a reception area, Walls, floor, and ceiling were made of chrome. Behind a desk made of a slab of frosted glass, a robotic head hung in mid-air. Its eyes were whirling kaleidoscopes, its mouth a dark oval. Words scrolled across the front of the desk: YOU HAVE ENTERED THE MITSUHAMA COMPUTER TECHNOLOGIES SYSTEM PLEASE ENTER IDENTIFICATION CODE.

The rabbit pulled a key out of its pocket and tossed it at the robotic head. The key slotted neatly into its mouth, turned, and the head dissolved in a sparkle of green light.