Trouble and Her Friends

Chapter Nine

CERISE FLOATS THROUGH the streets of Seahaven, frozen in a premature winter, the buildings white on black, heaped with snow. Even with a counterroutine in place, she feels the Mayor’s cold, radiating up from the ice-rimed streets and the frozen canal that runs straight as a surveyor’s line beside her. The same cold, damp and unpleasant, realer than IC(E), radiates from the building to her left, from the snow-heavy roof and the icicle-hung windows. She imagines her counterroutine as a cloak of fur, fur whiter than snow, greyer than ice, all soft warmth she’s never really felt, and hugs it to her, cobbles a display and drapes her icon in barbaric luxury. She drifts on, wrapped in false fur, her feet not quite touching the slick-glazed surface, heading for the market plaza.

She slows as she gets closer, remembering the real Seahaven, remembering Trouble, Trouble giving her orders as though nothing had changed, as though she’d never walked out with all her worldly goods and left Cerise bewildered and angry, remembering, too, how good it had felt to be back together even just on the street, and wonders what she will do now. Find out what they are saying in the market about newTrouble, certainly; that she would do for herself, even if it weren’t what Trouble wanted. But afterwards… She fingers a code in memory, the mailcode Silk had left her, wrapped in a glittering, Christmas-wrapped bomb. After that, perhaps, perhaps she will follow that code, and see what Silk has to say for herself.

The market plaza is busy, and she is glad of it, lets herself drift through the crowd, not hiding her presence, but not advertising it, either. She hears fragments of gossip, sees a silver sphere spring up briefly around a pair of icons—sees too the watchdog lunge for them—but hears nothing that she doesn’t already know. Trouble—the original, her Trouble—is looking for the newTrouble, the one who usurped her name; the net is divided as to the rights of it, the snatches she hears uneasy, uncertain, but the lines are drawn. The only question left now is who will stand where. It is as she expected pretty much, and she turns along the message wall, readying a program she calls sticky fingers, lets it trawl past the gaudy surface. She feels it working, process translated as sensation, a vibration that becomes now and then a thump, as though she dragged a stick across an uneven surface. She is proud of this routine, of the quick-search, the codebreaker, that lets her scan the posted mail and steal quick-copies of those messages that match the search criteria. They will be imperfect, made on the fly, but she can reconstruct them later, and they will give her an idea of how the net is taking this.

She reaches the end of the wall, and feels the program shut itself down, slapping back into her hand, the stolen messages heavy in memory. She finds a departure node, lets herself out onto the net, hovers for an instant in the datastream, letting the bits pour past her like a river of gold. She should go home, or back to real-Seahaven, where she can study the data that hangs in memory, but she reaches instead for the mailcode she has carried with her since she met Silk, and follows it instead, turning down the lines of light toward the unreal space where Silk has said she can be found.

Trouble walks the net like the ghost of herself, brainworm turned off, presenting a generic icon to the general view. The net lies flat before her, black lines and dots on silver, black-and-grey symbols scribed across her sight as the net relays its messages. It is slow, painfully so, like wading through mud; she is deaf and numb swathed in the lack of sensation, and she feels her hands straining against the data gloves, muscles tightening as though, if she just works a little harder, she could feel again. She’s been through this before and makes herself relax, but she can feel herself tense again as soon as her attention turns elsewhere. There is an ache behind her eyes, dull as black on silver, and she knows she will be sorry in the morning.

But she is effectively invisible in this guise, and most other netwalkers know nothing else; she can live with it for an hour or so, the time she needs to gather news. She turns toward the BBS—she slides along a thick black line, impervious to the data that she knows is flowing with her, past her, passes through a node like a great black gear, icons flickering above it to tell her who the parent users are, follows another, thicker line, and then a thinner, turning at right angles, always, from grid to grid, and then she’s on the floor of the BBS at last, a poor shadow of itself. Icons badge the air, offer other, smaller grids, or inner menu boards, and the view streams with brighter silver dots. She stops at one familiar display, where anyone can post a notice to the world. The board roils almost painfully in her sight, black print over silver-and-grey moire; a button hangs to her left, offering to clear the screen if she will log on, but she doesn’t, prefers to keep her anonymity even as she squints at the distorted letters. The system is old, from the first days of the net; whoever is manager here still keeps the doors open to the world. She skims through three pages, then flips through a dozen more pretty much at random: her challenge has traveled even here, well into the bright lights, and it’s made a lot of people nervous. Comment is divided, perhaps a third against and a third approving and a third deploring the situation altogether; perhaps half agree that newTrouble had no right to take her name. Pretty much what she’d expected, she thinks, and she slips away again, riding the first major line out of the BBS. It’s too crowded there, too painful to work without the brainworm to give depth and substance; she prefers the main net, the data highways, if she has to live without sensation.

She slides along a familiar gridline, watching for a starred intersection that will take her up another plane, deeper into the net. She reaches the intersection, makes the transfer, and codes flash before her eyes, icons and a stream of numbers warning her that another person, another icon, is overtaking her, signaling for her attention. She recognizes the main icon, and the contact code, sends codes of her own, and feels her secondary translator lock and mesh with the newcomer’s.

Hello, Trouble, Arabesque’s voice says, in her ear.

She frowns, wishing she had more to go on than just the sound—without the wire, all she has is the flat code that hangs in the air in front of her, black on silver. Hello, Rachelle, she answers, and knows she sounds less than enthusiastic.

I thought you might like to know, Arabesque says, and Trouble imagines she hears a hint of malice in her voice. *The Mayor’s not best pleased with you.*

The Mayor of Seahaven? she asks, for want of a better question, wanting time to think, and Arabesque laughs.

*Is there another? He’s saying—he floats it as a question, someone else’s name, but the word is he’s behind it. He says you should be the one to be shopped, not newTrouble—you’re not really one of us, he says, just another dyke on the wire, using it ’cause you’re not good enough to run the net bare.* There is contempt in her voice, and anger: this touches her, too.

*What’s the response?* Trouble asks, and is pleased to hear herself dispassionate, as though she didn’t really care.

Not a lot of support, Arabesque answers, and Trouble thinks she shrugged. Maybe ten percent of what I saw, certainly no more than that. There is a pause; Trouble waits, hating to be blind. *A lot of people were really shocked, Trouble, that’s the good thing. They expected the Mayor to back you up, since he’s always been so protective of his name.*

*What’s he so pissed off about?* Trouble says.

*You’ve been making pretty free with his boards,* Arabesque says, *you and Cerise. And you’ve never been appropriately thankful.*

Trouble grimaces, feels her lips twist, knows the gesture is invisible. *He’s never done anything to be thanked for.*

Whatever, Arabesque says. But I thought you ought to know what he was saying.

*What’s the name he’s using? Can I prove it’s him?*

*I doubt it. It’s posted under Sasquatch—I couldn’t prove it was the Mayor, but I’m morally certain it’s him.*

Trouble considers this for a heartbeat, marshalling her options. Thanks, Rachelle, she says at last, regretting again her lack of available expression. *I’ll keep on eye on this.*

No problem, Arabesque answers, and a codestring flashes as she breaks the connection. Trouble sees the code slide away, following a solid line, and turns away herself. There’s not much more she needs to do; better, she thinks, to return home—take a circuitous route, lurk in any chat fora that are open, see what’s being said—but still, return home, and wait for Blake to contact her.

Cerise finds the mailcode’s reference point, pauses in the dataflow to scan the area: a flat and featureless plane, like an empty dance floor. It’s not an ordinary node, that much is certain, and she steps out of the datastream expecting—something. As her foot touches the plane, color flares from that point of contact, shoots out across the virtual floor, turning it from a mere placeholder to squares of brick and stone and lush beds of flowers. They are blooming out of season, out of synch, chrysanthemums and crocuses sprouting together, beds of tulips set below roses in full riot, but that hardly seems to matter. The color, the image, spreads further, like dye in damp cloth, and a bench springs up, and then, beyond that, a fantastic steel and glass gazebo, bright as a birdcage against the illusory sky that wells up behind it. Cerise looks back over her shoulder, sees the air behind her shimmer like heat, reflecting the illusion like a trembling mirror: special-purpose IC(E), very sophisticated IC(E), triggered by the same routine that had set the image maker in motion. Was it my codes that triggered this, she thinks, or would anyone’s touch have done it? It doesn’t feel hostile—anyone who set a trap would hardly use this garden for a backdrop, she thinks, but she readies her defenses anyway, primary shield, dispersion routine copied from Trouble years before, the cutout that will drop her off the net if all else fails, and a voice sings from the gazebo.

Hello, Cerise.

It is the voice she knows as Silk’s, and she starts slowly toward it, waiting for an icon to appear behind the glass and steel. She tastes the program around her, sampling the constructed images: no one she recognizes, not even fully Silk, though it holds a flavor of the work she’d sampled at their one meeting. And then she sees the icon clearly, the same girl-shape, all curves and black leather, standing hipshot in the doorway, one arm against the wall above her head.

Hello, yourself, Cerise answers, but her tone is warmer than the words, more appreciative than she’d meant. She keeps walking, past beds of tulips and something else she doesn’t recognize, until she stands less than ten yards from the smiling icon.

You like my place? Silk asks, and Cerise hesitates, nods slowly at last.

*It’s very nice,* she says, and judges her moment. “Technically.*

The icon twitches, but the expression stays the same for a long moment. Then, slowly, Silk lifts one eyebrow. Only technically?

*You’re not a gardener,* Cerise answers, and allows herself a smile. There is a little pause, and then Silk returns the grin.

You want to come in?

What did you have in mind? Cerise asks, and keeps her distance. She lets the defensive programs fade from readiness, however, and Silk’s grin changes, becomes sexy, open invitation.

Come in and find out.

Cerise hesitates, admitting the appeal but wary of it, of the stranger behind the icon, and Silk says, Safe as houses.

And safer than real sex, Cerise thinks, automatically, and adds, but not as safe as staying here. Trouble would have laughed, and walked away—or agreed, if the fancy took her. Cerise allows herself a smile. The old days are back again, she’s stepping back into old habits as though there had never been a break—and that’s a little too much, too fast, now, she needs a break from it, from Trouble. She takes a few steps forward, and Silk pulls herself gracefully upright, leaving just enough room for Cerise to step past her. She knows perfectly well what the mock-gazebo must contain, what she would consent to—the programs aren’t difficult to find, are simplicity to write when both parties are on the wire, no need for complex suits and gloves, just the brainworm turning suggested fantasy to direct, directed input. She brushes past Silk, deliberately trailing a hand across the girl-shape’s hip. She feels leather, cool and smooth as Silk’s name against her palm, and Silk laughs and follows her in, offers her hand and in it a key.

Cerise hesitates only for an instant, less than a heartbeat, though Silk will see it, calls the routine from the depths of her toolkit, extends her own hand offering her own key. They touch, and Cerise feels the play of raw sensation like water shivering through her as the programs speak and calibrate one to the other. And then she feels Silk’s hands on her breasts, delicate and possessive, reaches out to cup black leather hips and feels the shock of skin beneath her fingers. She closes her eyes—the programs have not matched, cannot match sight and touch—lets Silk’s hand slip back along her shoulder blades, so that they are pulled body to body, breasts, bellies, and thighs touching, only Silk’s hand against her breast dividing them. It’s been a long time since she’s played this game, a long time since there’s been a presence on the net that excited her, and she is startled once again when she feels the distant ache between her legs, her body waking to stimulus, lagging behind the unreal sensations.

And then the brainworm has overridden that distraction, and she feels only the touch of Silk’s hands, the whisper of Silk’s skin under her own fingers. She pulls Silk closer still, feels the other woman lean back, straddling her, knees tight along her ribs, pubic hair and the wet warmth of her crotch just brushing Cerise’s belly—there is no gravity, after all, no reference points, no reason to worry that she’s gone somehow without noticing from standing to flat on her back—and Cerise smiles blind, runs both hands along Silk’s thighs until her thumbs caress the inner pin of thigh and groin, teasing along the edge of the tight-curled hair. And then Silk backs away, evading the touch, easing down along and then between Cerise’s legs. Cerise tries to rise, to follow, but there is a hand on her breast and a hand on her belly, urging her down, and then a cheek against her own thigh and a tongue warm and eager between her legs. Cerise leans back, arching under hands and mouth, tangles her hands in Silk’s hair, guiding her to the right spots.

Greedy, Silk says, sounds approving, and Cerise moans at the touch of breath and the moving lips. Then the tongue is back, busy and demanding, and Cerise arches harder against it, pressing herself against the other woman’s mouth. She shudders, and then at last she’s coming, riding the crest of her delight until the brainworm’s trigger resets, and she shivers, unwillingly letting it end. She recovers slowly, body lagging behind her brain, and reaches for Silk, groping still with eyes closed, not wanting to end the illusion. There is nothing within her reach.

She opens her eyes, and gravity reasserts itself, she is standing again on the featureless plane, the IC(E) that walled it vanished, the illusion of a garden gone as well. She’s been had, in more ways than one, and she sets a watchdog searching, just in case Silk has left a trail. The program returns a moment later, empty-jawed. She swears and recovers it, stands still for a long moment, staring at the grid of the net around her. Distantly, at a distance, she can feel her body trembling still, muscles relaxing only slowly in the aftermath of orgasm, but the brainworm has already recovered for her. Whatever it was about—and she can’t be sure, it could be revenge on a syscop, revenge on a friend of Trouble’s, or just some new game invented by one more crazy—she will have to deal with consequences there are never no consequences from something so meticulously prepared and executed. Stupid, she tells herself, it was stupid to agree—and then she strangles the thought stillborn. Stupid it may be, stupid it was, but it’s done, and you’ll have to deal with it. Trouble will be amused.

She turns away from the plane, launches herself to the nearest datastream and lets it carry her, at the same time letting her senses stretch until the din of the nets is almost painful. She will see/hear/ feel Silk if she comes back, and recognize her, until then, she’ll put out a few discreet inquiries. Once she knows what this was all about, why it happened, beyond her own foolhardy choice, then she’ll know what has to be done about it. But the net is empty of significant data, and she lets the river of light carry her toward home.

The hotel room was very quiet, and her legs had cramped. Cerise grimaced, knowing perfectly well why, and uncoiled herself cautiously from the chair. She was wet, as well as stiff, and remembered all too well why she’d never much liked virtual sex. She called up a text-analysis routine, and set it to work on the contents of the file she’d pulled from the message wall in virtual-Seahaven, and went into the bathroom to take a shower. She took her time about it, letting the hot water relax her tensed muscles, and emerged to wrap herself in a yukata just as the screen went blank, signaling that the program had completed its run. She frowned, and crossed to the media center, touched keys to open and read the recreated file. Most of it was old news, people passing messages, rumors, and gossip, about one or both Troubles, and she unwound the towel from around her still-wet hair, ran her fingers through the short strands to ease it into shape, not wanting to bother getting a comb, while the program displayed message after message. Then a strange name caught her eye, and the message attached to it seemed to leap out at her.

THE OLD TROUBLE IS THE ONE WHO IS CAUSING ALL THE PROBLEMS RIGHT NOW, AND I THINK SHE’S THE ONE WHO SHOULD PAY FOR IT. SHE WAS OFF THE NETS FOR YEARS, NOW SHE’S COME BACK AND CLAIMS ITS STILL HER RIGHT TO USE THE NAME? COME ON! IF IT WEREN’T FOR HER, TREASURY WOULDN’T BE SO INTERESTED IN THE NEW TROUBLE. I SAY, IF ANYONE KNOWS WHERE SHE IS, REALWORLD, THEY SHOULD TELL TREASURY AND GET IT OVER WITH, THAT WAY WE CAN GET SOME PEACE AROUND HERE AGAIN.

It was signed SASQUATCH and an icon she didn’t recognize.

Cerise frowned, sat back down in front of the screen, drawing the yukata closed around her, typed in a series of commands that would retrieve all messages derived from Sasquatch’s. The sticky fingers routine had only picked up some of them—not all of them, apparently, had contained the trigger words she had selected—but she had gotten enough to get a feel for what Seahaven’s regulars were saying. Most, she was glad to see, disagreed, and she had gotten most of one long posting that pointed out just what the newTrouble had done, but there was a small but vocal minority who agreed with Sasquatch. And there was one final message from Sasquatch that made her frown even more deeply.

THE OLD TROUBLE IS STILL THE ONE CAUSING THE PROBLEMS, AND SHE’S STILL NOT REALLY ALL THAT GOOD, IF SHE HAS TO USE THE WIRE. SHE’S NOT ONE OF US, SHE’S A POLITICAL, SO WHY ARE WE PROTECTING HER?

Political was a familiar euphemism, one that had never failed to draw at least a sour smile. Translated, Cerise thought, Sasquatch is saying she’s a dyke and on the wire, and we don’t have to take care of her. Wonderful. She flipped quickly through the rest of the file—Sasquatch was not gathering much more support for his views, but at least one of them was a name she recognized as local, metropolitan area if not actually based in Seahaven. And that one was really all Treasury would need to give them Trouble’s approximate location. She shut down the program, saving the file in protected memory, and switched back into the communications net, tied herself in to Multiplane’s files. Sasquatch was new to her, but one of her people might have encountered him before; she left the question in Baeyen’s working volume, with a red flag attached to it marking it as urgent, and flipped out again into the main phone system. She should warn Trouble, too, though it was better not to contact her directly. She hesitated again, considering her options, then plugged herself back into the net, launched herself into the local system.

She races through the spirals of light, finds the phone system and the hole that someone left in the stranded IC(E). This is a well-known trapdoor, at least in the shadows; she eases through it, still cautious, finds herself at last at the boards she wanted. She composes her message—SOMEONE NAMED SASQUATCH WANTS TO SELL YOU TO TREASURY; CONTACT ME ASAP—and lets a pocket routine translate it into voicemail. The next time Trouble picks up her phone, she will receive that message; Cerise smiles, a little wryly, thinking of Trouble’s laughter when she hears about Silk, and turns again for home.

Trouble walked back along the road that led to the Parcade, a twist of soft, greasy pretzel hot in her hand. She ate cautiously, trying not to spill either the butter or the mustard on herself, and watched the crowds out of the corner of her eye. It was getting dark, the sun just down behind the trees that edged the slough, the sky to the west flaming yellow and orange and red almost to the zenith. To the east, the stars were visible, and a sliver of moon, rising out of the ocean, cast a thin streak of light across the waves. The avenue was busy even on this side of the bridge, music spilling from the open doors of the two clubs—one playing intertech, the other playing speed, so that the bass lines met in a heavy, syncopated beat—and the food vendors were busy, their carts clustered around the public power points. She hadn’t found much since she left the nets, hadn’t had time to find much, but she was enjoying the return to Seahaven, to the crowds and the shops and the heavy salt air. And that, she told herself, was beside the point. She had bought her dinner—that had been her excuse for going out; it was time she went back to her room and waited for Blake, or any of the others, to call. She looked north anyway, toward the bridge at Harbormouth, wondering what Cerise was doing, if she were busy, if she wanted to come out on the town, but curbed that thought. It was too dangerous—and besides, she told herself, she was pissed at you when she left. Better let her calm down—better let us both calm down, let things cool down a little between us—before we try again. It was easy, too easy, to fall back into the old routines; the trouble is, she thought, I’m not sure I don’t want to do just that.

“ ’Cuse me?”

Trouble turned to face the speaker, automatically checking to make sure she hadn’t somehow walked too close to the beach, and found herself facing a skinny black kid, hair carved into a tight cap. He was wearing a Net-God T-shirt, gold stylized chip design bright against black cotton, and the cuff of a VR glove protruded slightly from the pocket of his denim vest.

A cracker or a wannabe? she wondered, and said, “Yeah?” She kept her voice neutral, and was pleased when the kid didn’t blink.

“You’re Trouble?”

“That’s right.” There was no point hiding her name, she thought, not after she’d spent the morning making sure everyone knew she was back.

“I’ve got a message for you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Trouble kept her voice and face expressionless, but inwardly felt herself snap to attention. “Who from?”

“Butch. Van Liesvelt.”

Trouble nodded. “All right.”

“Butch says Treasury’s on to you. They know you’re in Seahaven, so if you’ve put your name on anything, stay away from it.” The kid took a deep breath, visibly recalling a memorized message. “He says he’ll do what he can, but that isn’t much. You’re on your own.”

“Shit.” Trouble bit back the rest of the comment, thinking of the hardware left in her rooms—and it would have to be abandoned, she didn’t dare go back—and managed a nod for the kid. “Thanks—tell Butch I appreciate the warning.”

The kid grinned suddenly. “He also sent a call-card.” He held out the silver rectangle, and Trouble took it, nodding slowly.

“Thanks,” she said again, and meant it: the cards were as good as cash to gain access to the dataphone system; if she’d been given a card like that, at that age, she would have been sorely tempted to keep it. The kid’s grin widened, as though he’d read the thought, and he slipped his hand out of the pocket of his jacket.

“I get a gold card as payment.”

Trouble laughed. “Tell Butch thanks,” she said again, and the kid nodded.

“I’ll do that,” he said, and turned away into the crowd.

Trouble watched him go, losing himself expertly among the strolling pedestrians and the knots of shoppers that eddied in front of the tiny storefronts, tried to think what she should do next. Try to retrieve her hardware, if she could: that was the obvious first step, probably too obvious. But she couldn’t afford to lose the equipment without a struggle. She jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans, started slowly back along the avenue toward the streets that led to the hostel. She stayed with the crowds most of the way, calling up old skills to hover always at the edge of a large group, so that at first glance she seemed to be part of it. A block from the hostel she turned down an alley that led between two fry-shops, stepping carefully over the broken boxes and the rotted vegetables that slimed the pavement. It was a narrow space, narrowed further by the heaped trash, so that there was barely a clear path between the buildings. She walked carefully, letting her eyes adjust to the sudden darkness, and paused at the end of the alley to survey the street. The alley did not quite meet the end of Marcy Street, where the hostel stood, but came in at an angle to the cross street; the continuation of Marcy formed a dogleg in the opposite direction. From the mouth of the alley, she could just see the hostel’s entrance and the runabout parked illegally across from it. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought there were people sitting in the runabout, slumped low in their seats—even if there weren’t, its very location betrayed it as a cop car. A good deal of the town’s income came from parking fines; no local would be stupid enough to wait there, in a blatant no-stopping zone, without a guarantee of immunity.

She retraced her steps, wondering if she could get into the hostel through the back lots. It wasn’t likely, but she had to try. She threaded her way along a residential street crowded with parked runabouts—all with bright-orange resident’s stickers prominently displayed—and found a doorway at the end of the street, the alcove lamp not yet lit. She stepped into the shadows, pretending to examine the address board, and let her eyes travel beyond it to the street. From the alcove she could just see the wall that surrounded the hostel’s small backyard—just sand, really, and brick paving—and, above the wall, the windows of the back rooms. Only a couple were occupied, the curtains drawn closed, light showing just at the edges of the rectangle, but she waited anyway, frowning into the dark. The stairway that ran from the yard to the main floor was dimly lit, as always, a single weak bulb burning behind amber glass, and she fixed her eyes on that, waiting. For a long time nothing moved, and then, quite suddenly, a head appeared, vanished again, as though someone had stepped up onto the bottom stair, and then stepped down again. Trouble swore under her breath, turned out of the alcove, and headed back down the narrow street, keeping close under the shadow of the houses. It could just be a resident of the hostel, out for a last smoke or a drink or waiting for a connection before the dealers stopped making deliveries, but this was not the time to take that chance. She would have to abandon the hardware, at least for now.

And that didn’t leave her many options at all. She smoothed her frown with an effort, walked back down Ashworth toward the Parcade and the bank of phones that stood beside the palace, opposite the Ferris wheel. That was taking a risk, too, but Tinati didn’t like the cops, used his influence to keep them off the Parcade as a matter of principle. She didn’t think he would abandon that for her—she wasn’t worth it, it wasn’t worth it to him to meddle in what was, still, the net’s affair. With the call-card and the telepad she carried in her pocket, she could contact Cerise, get her to help—unless it was Cerise who’d sold her.

She stumbled over a board that had worked itself loose from the walk, swore as much at the thought of betrayal as at the pain in her toe. But Cerise wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t shop her to Treasury; no matter how angry she was, no matter how long she’d worked for Multiplane, she was still loyal to the shadows, and this was shadow business. She would settle it on the net, and personally, not through the law. Trouble made herself keep walking, through the patches of light and shadow that swept across the sandy street in front of the palace, joined the crowd that hovered beside the bank of phones, forming a ragged queue. She took her place at the end, jammed her hands back into her pockets, running her fingers over the smooth, case of the telepad. It was a busy night, maybe a dozen people waiting, another dozen hanging out, looking for work or just waiting for something to happen. She looked toward the palace, and saw Aimoto waiting in the shadow of the doorway: Tinati wasn’t having any trouble tonight, that much was clear.

The line moved slowly, as it always did. A street vendor came by, selling cones of fried vegetables; she bought one and ate its contents piece by piece, feeling the greasy paper disintegrate under her fingers. Then at last she was at the head of the line and a phone came free, and she moved toward it without haste, crumpling the paper cone in one hand. She set the wadded paper on the ledge beneath the phone, tugged the cord to draw the baffles down into place, and reached for the telepad. She plugged it in, checking automatically for visible bugs, and touched a key to run a quick scan from the pad itself. It came up clean—she had expected nothing else; Tinati would make sure that the obvious bugs were dealt with, and anything else would be in the main system anyway—and she fed the call-card into the access slot. The miniscreen at the top of the phone lit, displaying a series of branching menus; at the same time, the image in the telepad’s display shifted, showing a new series of codes and options. Trouble took a deep breath, and touched keys to route herself into the main phone system.

She found the subexchange she wanted quickly enough, for working blind, off the wire, and set her call chasing itself through the system, hoping to tangle any lurkers, before she typed in the codes that would give her access to The Willows and to Cerise’s phone. Her screen flashed white instead of the expected green, and she felt a heartbeat’s panic before she recognized what had happened. The white screen shifted, displayed voicemail codes, and she lifted the handset to hear the words.

“—named Sasquatch wants to sell you to Treasury, contact me ASAP.”

The mechanical voice was unrecognizable, just a construct of the system, but the codes at the end of the message were perfectly familiar. Cerise, Trouble thought, and was surprised by the strength of her own relief. She had been almost certain that Cerise wouldn’t sell her out, but it was good to know for sure. Then the other name hit her: if Arabesque was to be believed, “Sasquatch” was the Mayor, acting through another icon, another identity—and why the hell would he want to shop me? Trouble wondered. Not being respectful— that’s not enough, not unless he’s really crazy. I’ve got enough friends on the net who’ll act for me, make his life miserable once they know it’s him—and if Rachelle knows, the rest of the shadows will know soon enough.

The screen went green suddenly, her routine complete, contact made, no tracers sighted, and she lifted the handset again to hear the buzz of a hotel teleset.

Cerise answered on the fourth ring. “Yes?”

“Cerise,” Trouble said, and didn’t bother to hide the relief in her voice.

“Tr—” Cerise broke off before the word was even formed, said, smoothly, “There you are. I was hoping you’d call tonight.”

“I got your message,” Trouble said. “I’m afraid it came a little late.”

“Did it, now?” Cerise was silent for a moment. “Do you need a ride, then?”

“And a place to stay,” Trouble said.

“I figured.”

There was another long pause, and Trouble looked uneasily at the telepad’s screen. So far she didn’t show any tracers, or any tap routines, but the telepad wasn’t sophisticated enough to pick up anything more complicated than an active search. Passive monitors were slow, took a while to return the information they had gathered, but she would never know if one had been on her line.

“Right,” Cerise said abruptly, and Trouble jerked herself back to attention. “I’ve got a couple of things to take care of first, but then I’ll meet you—say by Joe’s on the beachfront?”

Trouble frowned—Joe’s was long gone, had been just a recent memory when she and Cerise had first come to Seahaven—and hoped she was getting it right. “I’ll be there. When?”

“Give me an hour,” Cerise said, sounding grim, and cut the connection.

Trouble shut down her system, more slowly, trying to give herself time enough to think. She would go to the storefront where Joe’s had been—it was as good a code as they could hope to come up with, on short notice—in an hour, and hope Cerise showed up. Or, more precisely, she thought, folding cables into a neat package, I’ll hope I understood. Cerise will be there; that I can count on. All I have to do is stay out of sight for an hour.

She tucked the telepad and the call-card back into her pocket, and stepped out from under the baffles. The Parcade was still busy, would stay busy until well after midnight; she could lose herself in the crowds here. She walked slowly away from the bank of phones, turned into a video garden where the heavy music warred with the arrhythmic beep and jangle of game consoles. She found a table in the central space where she could watch the door, and settled herself to wait.

Cerise runs the net like a bloodhound, head down on the scent of her own tracker. She sees it spark ahead of her, flickering red against the black-and-silver sky, follows its course along the datastreams. It was a good routine to begin with, and she has customized it, and knows her target intimately on top of that: it signals success within minutes, and she sweeps down to join it, sees Helling’s icon on the horizon.

Max, she says, and the icon shifts, turns to face her. She throws a sphere around them, shutting out the net and his protests, overriding him with casual force. There’s no time to be subtle, or even polite, and she seals the sphere against his reflexive attempt to break it. *I need Vess Mabry’s realworld codes.*

What? Helling stops then, icebreaker half ready.

*I need to talk to Mabry—I need his help, it’s urgent.*

Trouble, Helling says, with absolute certainty, and dismisses the icebreaker.

*How’d you guess?* Cerise takes a breath. I need those codes, Max.

I heard there was trouble from Seahaven, someone talking Treasury. Helling says.

*Someone’s shopped her,* Cerise says, and bites her tongue to keep from saying more. Helling will help in his own good time, or not at all; she’s already pushing him as far as she dares.

Do you really think Vess can help? Helling asks, and Cerise takes a breath, controls her response with an effort, clamping down on the brainworm’s output.

*I hope so. I want to make it Interpol’s case, if I can—I’ve got some authority, through Multiplane.* I hope, she adds silently, I hope it will be enough. But Mabry doesn’t like Starling: she holds to that, and waits.

Shit, Helling says, half under his breath, and the icon gestures as though to dispel a lurking watchdog. Do you know who did it, shopped her, I mean?

*The codes, Max—* Cerise stops herself abruptly, answers, Maybe. There was someone called Sasquatch who was advocating it. I imagine he or one of his friends went through with it.

Helling shakes his head. *I don’t know the name.*

The codes.

All right. Helling takes a deep breath, audible even over the net, reaches into memory to come out with a series of mail and phone codes displayed as a plain white square. Cerise accepts them, feels the numbers fizz against her fingers as she slides them into her own memory.

*There’s business codes there,* Helling says, *and the home code. At this hour—* he glances sideways, conjuring an internal display, *—try home first. Tell him I told you to.*

Thanks, Cerise says, and lifts her hand to dismiss the sphere.

Hang on, Helling says, and she stops, routine not yet invoked.

If you want, Helling goes on, I can check out this Sasquatch. If he shopped her, I can put the word out.

Trouble is not universally loved, Cerise says, and hears herself bitter: the same dislike is turned against her often enough. Do you think it would help?

There’s a lot of people who think she’s right, this time,* Helling answers, and this time Cerise nods.

Thanks, Max, she says. I appreciate it She lifts her hand again, dismisses the sphere, but to her surprise Helling does not immediately speed away.

Just like the old days, he says, and she can’t tell, in the darkness of his thunderstorm, whether he is amused or angered by the thought. And then he’s gone, icon snatched away on the datastream, and Cerise turns her attention to the codes he’s given her.

The on-line address isn’t far away, by common net reckoning. She sends a query, searching for him in the open pool, and is not surprised when the routine returns unanswered. Helling had said he would be at home, and he should know; better to try that address, offline, and she turns up and into the nearest datastream, lets it carry her home.

The codes were waiting on her screen as she straightened in her chair and reached to detach the dollie-cord. She blinked at them, and switched out of the interface mode, running through files until she found the program she wanted. It was military in origin, grey-market in provenance, and very effective, would disguise the source of her call and give her a readout on anyone who tried to track her. She set it running, and found a cable to plug into the phoneset’s i/o jack, then touched keys to route the call through the program. She pulled the yukata tighter around her, suddenly aware of the environmental system’s chill, and ran one hand through her hair, vaguely startled to find that it had dried already. But there had been ample time for that; she had lost track of time on the net and worrying about Trouble. Numbers shifted on the screen—the program was having difficulty tying into the main trunk lines, was switching to a secondary system—and she wondered if she had time to dress.

A new icon appeared at that instant, and the handset beeped, signaling that her call had connected. She picked it up, feeling the sudden adrenaline surge tighten the muscles of her belly, and heard Mabry’s voice saying, “Yes? Max, is that you?”

“It’s Cerise,” Cerise said. “Max gave me this number.”

“Cerise.” There was a little silence, and Cerise imagined the big man sitting up in bed, blinking and reaching for the light. Then Mabry laughed, not without humor, and said, “I don’t suppose this has anything to do with a certain Treasury operation that’s going down tonight.”

Cerise revised her mental image, erased the bedroom, replaced it with office space, then killed that as well. “I don’t suppose you’re involved in that operation, Mr. Mabry?”

There was another, shorter pause, and Mabry said, “In point of fact, I’m not. My input was refused, with thanks.”

Cerise drew a deep breath. If the Eurocops had been cut out of Treasury’s plan, she might be able to use that old rivalry to her—and Trouble’s—advantage. “Are you still interested in finding Trouble, then?”

“It depends on which one,” Mabry said, dryly. “After all, you were pretty convincing that your Trouble wasn’t the one causing the disturbances.”

“Not—” Cerise bit off the rest of her comment—not my Trouble, she would have said, and that was beginning not to be true anymore, if it ever had been—and said instead, “But my Trouble knows where your Trouble is.”

“Does she.” Mabry’s voice was flat, not quite openly skeptical.

“Close enough,” Cerise answered, and crossed her fingers against her thigh, grateful for the blind connection.

“What’s the deal?”

Cerise took another deep breath. “Trouble—my Trouble— is willing to deal with you, give you what she knows, since she knows you’ll find out it wasn’t her causing all the trouble, and she can walk away clean.”

“The statute of limitations hasn’t run out on your earlier activities,” Mabry said. “Didn’t you know that was what this was about?”

“What?” Cerise made a face into the handset, annoyed that she’d betrayed her ignorance.

Mabry said, as though he’d expected her surprise, “Three years isn’t long enough to reach limitations, Cerise, and Evans-Tindale didn’t offer any amnesties. You—both of you—are still liable for—well, for quite a lot of things, if Treasury speaks true. Starling thinks he’s got proof of a couple of them. Or someone gave him proof.”

“What we did wasn’t exactly illegal then,” Cerise said. “The courts have ruled against retrofitting the laws.”

She could hear Mabry shrug. “John Starling seems to think he can make it stick.”

“Fuck him.” Cerise made a face, regretting the betrayal, and Mabry laughed shortly.

“No, thank you. What do you want from me, Cerise?”

“I’m offering you a deal,” Cerise said, as calmly as she could. “All you have to do is keep Trouble—my Trouble— out of Treasury’s hands. You can have newTrouble. Even the Conventions give you plenty to charge him with.”

“Can you deliver?” Mabry asked. “You said before, you and Trouble didn’t part on the best of terms—not friendly, I think you said.”

“Things change,” Cerise said, with more confidence than she felt. She could deliver Trouble. Trouble wasn’t stupid; better to make a deal with Mabry than face Treasury. The question was, could they deliver newTrouble? She put the thought aside, said, “I can deliver, Mabry. Are you interested?”

“Maybe.” There was a little pause, and then she heard Mabry sigh. “All right, yes, I’m interested. You say you can give me your Trouble, and newTrouble through her— precisely what does this entail?”

“You’ll have to get Treasury off her—our—backs,” Cerise answered, and did her best to keep the elation out of her voice. “How—that’s your business, you’d know best. But do that and we’ll give you everything we’ve got.”

There was another, longer silence, and at last Mabry said, “All right, I can do that. You’re in Seahaven, I presume?”

“Yes.”

“It’s going to take time to get there,” Mabry said. “And to get some necessary paperwork taken care of. Can you keep Trouble out of Treasury’s hands for another, say, twelve hours?”

“I can try,” Cerise said.

“I can’t get there any faster,” Mabry said, and for the first time Cerise heard annoyance in his voice. “You’ll have to do it.”

“I’ll try,” Cerise said again. “That’s the best I can promise, too.”

“All right,” Mabry said. “I will meet you in Seahaven—I will be at, what’s it called, Eastman House? The hotel that isn’t The Willows—”

“Eastman House,” Cerise said.

“Eastman House,” Mabry repeated. “I’ll be there from ten A.M. on.”

“We’ll be there at ten,” Cerise said.

“I’ll expect you,” Mabry said. “And, Cerise—thanks. I want this new Trouble very badly.”

“So does John Starling,” Cerise said, in spite of herself.

“But I really don’t like to lose,” Mabry answered. “I’ll see you in Seahaven, Cerise.” He broke the connection before she could think of a reply.

Cerise sat for a long moment, staring at the screen, while the program ran through its complicated disconnect routing. She would need the runabout, and all her hardware; Trouble was almost certainly without her equipment, or she would have made contact on the net. Money, too, and false ID, both of which she had, the money in a thin stack of bearer cards, the ID—several sets—tucked into protected memory. The machine beeped at her, signaling that the program had finished its run, and she bent over the keyboard to type the nonsense password that gave access to her most sensitive storage. The machine beeped again, flashed a warning, and she made a face and reached to disconnect it from the hotel systems. Not that I expect anyone to be watching, she thought, but it’s better to be safe. She had set the program to force that choice—it was too easy to get careless otherwise— and a moment later, as the system acknowledged that it was isolated again, she typed the password a second time. This time, the space windowed, displaying a preliminary menu. She selected the IDs she wanted, and hit the series of commands that would dump the first to a standard datadisk. She waited until she was sure the transfer had begun, ID, work cards, health certificates, all the rest of the information that one accumulated over the years, and went into the bedroom to get dressed again.

The machine beeped at her before she had finished, and she went back out into the main room to give it another disk, buttoning her shirt as she went. It was a night for practical clothes, not display; she had chosen jeans and a plain shirt and a man-styled jacket, nothing to mark her either as a cracker or as law, just another of Seahaven’s residents out for the evening. She inspected herself in the mirror, one eye still on the whirring transfer drive, and nodded to herself: she would pass.

The machine beeped again, and she fed it the final disk, then went back into the bedroom to collect her money. All things considered, it was likely to be an expensive evening—

Trouble always had been an expensive date. Cerise smiled to herself, remembering an evening that had begun with dinner and ended in the emergency room, with nearly five hundred citiscrip scattered to the winds in between. That had been the first time she’d fully appreciated that Trouble had earned her name off the nets as well as on… The machine beeped a final time, and she returned to the media console, collected the last disk and began breaking the system down into components that she could carry in a single inconspicuous bag. She left some of the heavier pieces—the diskwriter and the printer/recorder, as well as the secondary memory box— slung the bag easily over her shoulder, and reached for the handset to call for her runabout to be brought up to the door.

Trouble leaned back in her chair, staring into the dregs of her drink, and wondered if she could avoid ordering another. It was a virgin drink, sweet and sickly, getting you high with sugar rather than alcohol, but she’d had more than enough of it. She glanced at the clock, displayed in a box that hung above the garden like a stadium Scoreboard, slung from a network of poles and wires. Still twenty minutes before she could leave to meet Cerise. She looked away, avoiding the waiter’s eye, and saw a movement in the doorway, a shift of the light as though someone very big had entered. She turned her head to see more clearly, and saw Aimoto threading his way between the tables, broad face drawn into a faint, fastidious frown. Maybe it’s not for me, she thought, without hope, but was not surprised when Aimoto stopped beside her table, leaning down slightly to be sure he saw her face.

Trouble gestured politely to the empty chair, was equally unsurprised when he shook his head.

“Not a social call, I’m afraid,” he said. “Mr. Tinati sent me.”

“Of course,” Trouble said.

“He’s had word that Treasury will be taking a look-see down the Parcade real soon now,” Aimoto went on, “and he would prefer that you not be found here.”

“That’s good of him,” Trouble said, and allowed the irony to color her voice. Tinati wouldn’t care about her, whether or not Treasury found her; but any arrests here, on the Parcade, would polarize the net, and the last thing Tinati wanted was upheaval in the shadows that gave him most of his livelihood. The last time the shadows had been divided over an issue—and that had been years ago, back when the brainworm was first made reliable, and crackers on the wire had started to take jobs away from the old school—the fallout had brought down half a dozen crooked securities dealers and a Mob-run credit card ring, all shopped to the cops by crackers out to hurt on-line enemies.

“Mr. Tinati would appreciate your cooperation,” Aimoto said, and lifted a hand to signal the waiter.

There wasn’t much point in fighting, Trouble thought, at least not now. She said, “We’re even, then. I appreciate the warning.”

The waiter came bustling over, slip in hand, and Aimoto said, “She’ll be leaving now.”

The waiter’s eyes went wide, but he controlled himself instantly, reached for the touchpad slung at his waist. “That’s five even.”

Trouble reached into her pocket, pulled out a folder of citiscrip, but Aimoto frowned and waved it away.

“Mr. Tinati insists,” he said, and handed the waiter a royal blue foil. “That’s all set.”

“Thanks,” the waiter said, eyes widening even further— the foil was worth more than twice the bill—and backed away.

Aimoto was still waiting with outward patience, and Trouble pushed herself slowly to her feet.

“I’ll see you out,” Aimoto said.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“I insist.”

Which meant, Trouble thought, that Tinati insisted. “Suit yourself,” she said, and started for the exit. Aimoto followed easily through the maze of tables.

“I have a last errand to run,” she said, and Aimoto shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Trouble made a face.

“Fine.”

She stepped out onto the sand-streaked pavement, Aimoto still at her elbow. The Ferris wheel sent neon shadows chasing along the length of the street, clashing with the bright lights in the shopfronts. She walked through the patches of light and shadow, Aimoto matching her step for step, and was aware of the faces watching discreetly from the doorways. It was a conspicuous expulsion, the sheriff walking the gunslinger right out of town, and she didn’t quite know if she was amused or infuriated by it. In its own way it was a compliment, an acknowledgment of her importance; and besides, she was grateful for the warning.

She stopped at the head of the Parcade, where the seawall loomed ahead and the main street ran left back into Seahaven, and right toward the lesser towns and the dead beaches of the Plantation. Aimoto stopped half a pace behind her, hands in the pockets of his jacket, standing wide-legged in the exact center of the road. Trouble looked back at him, the night air cold on her face and bared forearms, said, “Tell Tinati I’ll remember this.” She kept her voice absolutely neutral, let the meaning lie ambiguous, and Aimoto inclined his head politely.

“I’ll tell him.”

Trouble nodded back, and turned left, walking down into the shadows that lay between the mouth of the Parcade and the bars and food shops still open along the avenue. Out of sight of the Parcade, she let herself shiver—the land breeze was still up, but the air was autumn cold—and rolled her sleeves down. It was still early to go to Joe’s—or to the empty storefront that had been Joe’s years before—but she started toward it anyway, keeping close under the shadow of the darkened stores.

The streets were nearly empty here, between the Parcade and the busy part of the avenue, no other pedestrians in sight and only a few parked cars. A black runabout swept past, lights blazing, and she had to make an effort to keep from looking after it, to see if it would turn down the Parcade. She hesitated as she approached the avenue, torn between risking the occasional mugger or druggie in the dark side streets and taking the chance of being recognized in the bright lights of the avenue. Treasury was more of a danger: better to chance the muggers, she decided, and turned down the first side street, working her way toward the beachfront stores. The streetlights were dimmed here, to save on the town’s electricity, and she walked carefully, making sure she had room to run. Not that it would make much difference, not in Seahaven where guns were cheap and the natives made a game of evading the federal restrictions, but it made her feel better. Still, she was glad to reach the knot of stores and food shops that still survived on the beachfront.

The stores were closed by now, of course, heavy grilles drawn over the display screens and doorways, but the food shops were still fairly active. Most of the customers here were fishermen or midshift workers—cleaners and waiters, mostly, on their way home from The Willows or Eastman House—gathered in knots along white-topped counters. Trouble glanced casually at them as she passed, was aware of the hard stares that watched her. The vest—the jeans too, with the man-style shirt, but mostly the vest—marked her as a cracker, part of the crowd from the Parcade, and they were wary of her presence. Not hostile, not yet—it would take more than just walking past to make them willing to risk the net’s anger, especially when most of them would be living on the edge, their credit too vulnerable already—but she kept her pace steady, did not even think of stopping.

She passed under the last of the brighter streetlights, moved out into the shadows where the lights were dimmed and the storefronts were covered with sheets of plywood instead of the grilles and barriers of a healthy business. Joe’s— Cowboy Joe’s, it had been, and then Geisha Jo’s before it was just Joe’s—had been five or six storefronts down, toward the barricaded pier that led out to the ruins of the Pavilion Bandstand. She slowed her steps, glancing cautiously into the dark doorways, saw only a single hunched shape, possibly male, drunk or drugged in the corner of the boarded-over door to a store that, she vaguely remembered, had once sold jewelry. Joe’s had been two doors further down, and she looked over her shoulder, checking for surveillance or ordinary lurkers, before she stopped outside the graffiti-covered shell of the building.

The door itself had been removed, and the sheet of plywood that covered the entrance was reinforced by three heavier boards nailed haphazardly across the doorway. The entrance was slightly recessed, like most of the shopfronts along the beachfront, and she stepped back into its shadows, planting her back against the crumbling stone, one shoulder against the rough wood of the barricading boards. Sand from the beach grated underfoot, and she shifted her feet until she found safer footing on the worn concrete. In the distance she could hear the whine of a siren, moving toward the Parcade, and she wished again that she’d had a chance to talk to one of the dealers on the Parcade. Not that a gun would do her much good, not against Treasury; it was good only against the hopeless druggies, if then, and she shook the thought away. In the distance she heard a runabout’s engine, faintly at first, and then more strongly, coming closer along the beachfront. She froze for an instant—too soon for it to be Cerise, and too high-powered; more likely to be a cop, either local or from the hotel—and then began frantically to strip out of the vest. She wadded it behind her, heedless of the expensive fabrics and Konstenten’s complex work, let herself slide down the wall until she was huddled in the corner, knees up, head down on her folded arms. She slowed her breathing as the car came closer, heard the engine whine as the driver shifted into a lower gear, and then the distant crackle of a two-way radio turned low. Only the hopeless came here, and she could fake it, the sodden slump, mercifully oblivious; there were always a few homeless sleeping in doorways, even in Seahaven.

The runabout was coming closer now, engine loud and stressed, and the light of a searchlight played across the doorway, brilliant even to closed eyes. Trouble held her pose with an effort that made her shoulders tremble against the concrete, the light flaring red behind her eyelids, kept her forehead pressed against her knees and arms. The light played across her, across to the other corner of the doorway, then fixed again on her for a moment longer before it swept away. She made herself keep breathing, slow and snoring, and was not too surprised when the light suddenly flared again. She stayed still, and at last the light swung away. A moment later, the engine noise strengthened, and the runabout pulled away. She stayed as she was, counting slowly to a hundred, and then to a hundred again, before she dared lift her head.

The street was empty, only the sound of the waves beyond the seawall and the faint counterpoint of music drifting down from the few still-open shops to disturb the sudden quiet. Then, in the distance, she heard a runabout’s engine, lighter-toned than the first, and coming from Seahaven proper. She cocked her head to one side, trying to judge the sound, but couldn’t be sure. She stayed where she was, lowered her head to her arms, torn between fear and the irrational conviction that, this time, it had to be Cerise, and heard the runabout pull steadily closer, heard the chunk of gears as the driver slowed still further. She braced herself for the flare of a searchlight, heard the runabout slide to a stop opposite the doorway. Trouble lifted her head warily, to see a dark-blue runabout and a single figure at the controls, a vague shape behind the thick glass. Then the driver reached forward, touched controls, and a light came on over the driver’s station, throwing a dim blue light across Cerise’s face. Trouble drew a deep sigh of relief, and scrambled to her feet, dragging the vest from behind her back. She shrugged it on as she moved out of the alcove, and Cerise leaned across the seat to unlock the passenger door. Trouble ducked into the runabout, grateful for its warmth, and pulled the door closed behind her. Cerise flicked off the overhead light, and eased the runabout back into motion, saying, “You do know how to liven up an evening.”

Chapter Ten

“I TRY,” TROUBLE ANSWERED, and let herself relax against the seat cushions. Cerise slanted a glance in her direction, her face little more than a pale blur in the dark, but Trouble could hear the amusement in her voice, translated it to one of her quirky smiles. “You succeed, believe me.”

“Thanks.” Trouble slumped further down in her seat.

Cerise glanced over her shoulder, checking for other cars, and swung south onto Ashworth Avenue. Trouble sat up again, startled, and Cerise said, “Treasury’s got a cop watching the bridge. I didn’t want to chance it. I’ve made us a deal, Trouble, but we’re going to have to stay out of the way until tomorrow morning.”

“What sort of deal?” Trouble asked. “And what makes you think Treasury won’t be watching on the way out of town?”

Cerise grinned again, the expression vivid in the flash of neon from one of the still-open bars. “They’re relying on the checkpoint a little too heavily. Their man put a note on the transponder, saying there was only one person in the car. I jimmied it, so it says two people. Since they really don’t expect you to get legitimate help—”

“Since when were you legitimate?”

“Since I quit you,” Cerise answered. “But since Treasury doesn’t expect you to get help, I doubt they’ll be checking corporate cars too closely. They should be concentrating on the Parcade and the hostels.”

“You hope,” Trouble murmured, and saw the smaller woman shrug.

“It seemed a reasonable risk.”

Trouble nodded, watching the neon circle of the Ferris wheel looming ahead. If Treasury was willing to risk trouble on the Parcade, risk the net rallying against them and behind her, then surely their security would be tighter, here at the edge of town—but Treasury had always been blind to the nuances of possibility on the nets, despite recruiting these days from among the netwalkers. And besides, she thought, with a fleeting, wry grin, there wasn’t that much reason to think that the nets would rally to her. She was still a little outre, a little outside the rules; it was even odds what would happen in the fallout from a real raid. And if Treasury played it even halfway cool, there were a lot of people who would be glad of the excuse not to act.

The runabout slowed, and Trouble held herself motionless. Ahead, an orange-and-white barrier ran halfway across the avenue, its markings ambiguous, either police or road crew. A single figure stood in the funnel of light from a street lantern, the runabout’s headlights reflecting from his orange-and-white vest, but, glancing sideways, Trouble could just see the nose of a police van waiting in the shadows of a side street.

“I see it,” Cerise said, almost cheerfully, and slowed still further. Trouble held herself motionless as light flashed briefly across her window—more than just light, she knew, probably a quick-scan as well, checking for additional bodies. The transponder beeped softly, lights flickering briefly in the heads-up display, and Cerise gave a sigh of relief. The man standing by the barrier waved them forward, and Cerise opened the throttle slowly, easing the runabout past the end of the barrier. Trouble looked back, toward the Parcade, and caught a quick glimpse of blue-suited figures moving down the center of the street, while the Parcade’s denizens scrambled to get out of the way, scurrying for cover.

Cerise swung the runabout back into its proper lane, and opened the throttle. The engine sounded briefly louder, but the baffling cut out the worst of the noise. Trouble let herself relax again, and said, “So where to?”

“Ah.” Cerise kept her eyes on the road, watching for trouble on the badly lit side streets and potholes in the roadway. The people who lived in the Sands weren’t precisely fond of the crackers and the suits who came to Seahaven, and didn’t make much distinction between them. “That’s a little bit of a problem. The deal I made, we can’t meet Mabry until tomorrow morning, and I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to show up at Eastman House before then. Or at any of the hostels. My thought was, we head out to the flyway, head north to the first truck stop, sleep over in a capsule there.”

Trouble shook her head. “There’s a new cop-shop right at the head of the access road, there at the rotary. I’d bet anything they’ll have them watching for me, too. Maybe a roadblock.”

Cerise hesitated, swerved without thinking to avoid a pothole, and reached for the miniature keypad that controlled the communications system. She tuned it to the police channels, let the voices mumble in the speaker and the code strings stream through the data display at the base of the windscreen, to the right of the main grid display. “You’re probably right—I’m seeing talk from a roadblock, anyway, and it looks to be in the right place. That doesn’t leave much of an option, though.”

“The Plantation,” Trouble agreed.

“The glass is bulletproof,” Cerise said, thoughtfully. “If any of the drug gangs are crazy enough to risk the beaches. Users are mostly jackals; if we stay alert we shouldn’t have any problems with them. And if we can follow some of the old paving, we should be all right as far as chem-sands go.”

“Great,” Trouble said. “If the has-beens don’t get us, the ecology will.”

“You got a better idea?”

Trouble shook her head. “Not offhand.”

Cerise smiled. “The Plantation is it, then.”

Trouble nodded, smiled reluctantly. It was an eerie place, dangerous, and she shivered, remembering a video she had seen. An old man had walked along a beach, suited to the waist against the reeking sands and the seaweeds that smoldered sullenly under the low sun. The beach was absolutely empty, which had not seemed strange—beaches were always empty, in her memory—until she listened to the species that the old man—he had been a marine biologist, she remembered—had remembered studying there, back before the Hundred-Year Winter. A few, he had said, a few were still around, it was still possible to find specimens, but every year, there were fewer and fewer. They were dying before his eyes, and there seemed to be nothing anyone could do. Since the beaches had become increasingly poisonous, the normal tourists had—with good reason—taken their business elsewhere; that left only the drug gangs, who sometimes risked landing a smaller cargo along the chemical-laced shores, and the people who had absolutely nowhere else to go. The beaches, and the Plantation in particular, were a favorite spot for double suicide. She scowled, turned her head to watch the houses sliding past outside the runabout’s window. The streetlights gave only a thin illumination, the houses mostly dark now: it was getting late, and the people who still lived here worked long hours to try to get out. Beyond the houses, she could just see faint glow of fog over the marsh, fog lit by the phosphorescent algae that choked the channels.

“What is this deal?” she asked, and looked determinedly away from the scarred land.

“I’ll tell you when we get to the Plantation,” Cerise answered.

“That good.”

Cerise grinned. “You’ll like it. It’s certainly better than the alternative.”

“What alternative?” Trouble said, but smiled.

“Precisely.”

Trouble let the silence fall between them, the old, companionable quiet, tilted her head again to see out through the runabout’s windows. Ahead, the road was empty, unlit except for the sweep of the headlights; the seawall, a piled heap of rock and sand, loomed to the left of the road, and here and there the rocks were stained as though with oil or burning. The last town had ended some way back, and the only sign of human settlement was the road itself. To the right of the pavement, the land dropped steeply into the marsh. In the distance, just at the edge of the headlights’ reach, she could see the first glimmer of the sign that marked the turnoff that led back to Southbrook. It loomed quickly, vivid green and white in the runabout’s headlights, and Cerise slowed slightly, scanning her display for any signs of surveillance. Trouble saw the same codes, nodded her appreciation of Multiplane’s equipment.

“Nice package.”

“I installed it,” Cerise answered. “It had better be.”

Ahead, the road was sand-drifted, the tire tracks that swept off to the right, drawing a curved clear line through the grit, making the general traffic pattern obvious. Cerise slowed the runabout, switched her lights to their maximum beam, and reached across to trigger a security package under the dash.

“You want me to keep an eye on that?” Trouble asked.

“Yeah, thanks,” Cerise said, and switched the display to the passenger’s side of the windshield. “You’ve got IR, broadcast scanner, gross motion detectors—those won’t be much good until we stop, though.”

Trouble nodded, watching codes and symbols flicker across the screen, pale blue against the dark. Beyond the windscreen, the headlights swept across sand etched into low hills bound by clumps of straggling, sickly-looking grass. A broken barrel, the metal rotted into rusty lace where it had touched the sand, lay in the center of the drifted roadway, and Cerise swerved to avoid it. The beam swept across more grass and sand, and the foundation of a tourist pavilion, but nothing seemed to be moving in the shadows. “There’s a turnoff ahead,” Trouble said, more to break the silence than anything else. “Used to be one of the parking lots.”

“I see it,” Cerise answered, and a moment later swung the runabout off the main road.

The sand was deeper here, loud under the wheels, and Trouble said, “How’re your tires rated?”

“They’re supposed to stand chem-sand,” Cerise answered. “I’m not getting out to sweep, though.”

“Probably wise.”

Cerise nodded, preoccupied, and swung the runabout through a half-circle on the invisible paving, looking for a landmark. She found it almost at once, the remains of another shack that had once been a parking attendant’s booth. There was more left here, or at least the collapse had left a stub of one wall standing. A sheet of metal that had been the roof rested against that wall. The metal was rotting from the ground up, like any metal left too long in contact with the sand, but the cracked asphalt of the parking lot had protected it from the worst of the damage.

“Getting anything?” Cerise asked, and Trouble shook her head, eyes fixed on the readouts at the base of the windscreen.

“Not as far as I can tell. Nothing on IR, anyway.”

“Right,” Cerise said, and eased the runabout forward again, swinging around the ruin to slide the vehicle neatly into its protective shadow. Trouble caught a quick glimpse of trash, food wrappers, and half a bright beer can before Cerise killed the lights.

“Popular spot,” she said, and Cerise shrugged.

“Probably courting. Or else cops or Coast Guard.”

“There’s a happy thought.”

Cerise shrugged again, shutting down the runabout’s primary systems. “If they were here recently, they probably won’t be back—or at least not this late in the evening.” She left the motor running on standby—there was enough fuel in the cells to last, and she wanted the option of a quick getaway if they needed it—and leaned back in the driver’s seat. She had left the security systems running as well, and letters and code symbols danced in staccato patterns along the base of the windscreen. She watched the familiar movements, feeling the tiredness set in, tugging at her back and shoulders—less exhaustion, maybe, than the sheer release of tension. Not that it was over yet, she reminded herself. They still had to get back to Seahaven in time to meet Mabry.

“So,” Trouble said. “What’s this deal you’ve made?”

Cerise smiled wryly, grateful for the darkness. “Ah. I figured the main thing was to get Treasury off your back, right?”

“Right,” Trouble said, after a moment.

“So I went to Vess Mabry—the guy from Interpol. I told you about him.” Cerise took a deep breath. “He’s looking for newTrouble, too, and I said if he’d get Treasury off your back, we’d give him newTrouble.”

There was a long silence then, and Cerise wondered if she’d gone too far. She looked sideways, away from the flickering codes of the heads-up display, but couldn’t read the expression on the other woman’s face. Trouble said, at last, “It’s a nice thought, Cerise, but we don’t have newTrouble.”

Cerise let out an almost soundless sigh and said, “But we’re more likely to get him than Treasury, so far. Or Interpol.”

“True enough.” Trouble did not move, staring through the ghostly displays that signaled monotonously. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark; she could make out the shadows of the distant trees, a horizon faintly darker than the sky, and a few low hillocks that must be the remains of beach buildings. Some of the brightest stars were visible through the thin clouds, but she did not bother to crane her neck to find the few constellations that she knew. She could give Interpol newTrouble, she was sure of that. The only question was, would she? She smiled faintly, very aware of Cerise’s silent presence in the seat beside her. Cerise hadn’t left her much choice—Cerise was always thorough—but in this case she was also right, however much it might annoy Trouble to admit it. Mabry was the only person who could get Treasury off their backs long enough to track down newTrouble. And it would be one in Treasury’s eye.

“So what next?” she asked, and heard Cerise stir against the seat cushions, as though she had finally relaxed. The sound was obscurely comforting—it was nice not to be taken completely for granted—and Trouble shifted so that she was leaning half against the locked door. From that angle, she could see Cerise as well as the flickering band of security readings. The pale face was just a blur, the expression unreadable, but Trouble could hear a certain renewed ease in the other woman’s voice.

“Next we meet Mabry,” Cerise said.

“Which may be harder than it looks.”

“Possibly,” Cerise admitted. “He’ll be at Eastman House by ten tomorrow morning.”

“And what are we supposed to do with ourselves in the meantime?” The moment the words were spoken, Trouble wished she could recall them. In the old days, there would have been no question about Cerise’s answer, no matter what they ended up doing—which probably wouldn’t have been fucking; sex on the ruined beach, even in the car, was probably a stupid thing even to think about. Now, however, she felt an odd, unexpected constraint.

It was almost a minute before Cerise answered, and the same restraint was very audible in her voice as well. “Have you heard from Mollie yet?”

“Not yet,” Trouble answered, grateful for the diversion. “I didn’t expect to so soon. Did you find anything on the net?”

Cerise laughed, barely a breath of sound. “Not a lot. How about you?”

“The major news,” Trouble said sourly, “seemed to be that a few people don’t like me.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Cerise murmured, but with only a touch of her usual teasing note. “No sign of newTrouble?”

“No.” Trouble looked more closely at her, hearing something not quite right in the other woman’s voice, but unable, quite, to recognize it. It sounded almost as though she were amused, but not quite. The last time Cerise had sounded like that had been the time she’d tumbled into and out of an affair with a man. “He seems to have gone to ground.”

“That shows more sense than I’d’ve expected,” Cerise said. She took a deep breath, well aware of Trouble’s reaction. “I’ve met someone who might be able to help us there.”

“You didn’t,” Trouble said, and her own laughter was very close to the surface.

Cerise glared at her, didn’t pretend not to understand. “Yes, I did, yes, I got hustled, and yes, she was very good. But she’s of newTrouble’s generation, and from something she said, I think she may know him.”

“Who is she?”

“She calls herself Silk.” In spite of herself, Cerise felt a flash of memory, pure sensation stabbing through her as though the name tripped something in the brainworm.

“I don’t know her,” Trouble said, shaking her head. “On the wire, I assume?”

“Do you think someone off the wire could hustle me?” There was arrogance in the answer, as well as a certain defensiveness.

Trouble shrugged. “You never know. Your tastes could’ve changed. A text-only interface is supposed to be fun—or so they tell me.”

“Fuck you.”

“Do you think this Silk would help you?” Trouble asked, ignoring the insult.

“That I don’t know,” Cerise answered. “She—was out to hustle me from the beginning, I’m sure of it, but I don’t know if I was a trophy or just for fun.”

“But you think it’s worth a try,” Trouble said, and suddenly wasn’t sure if she wanted Cerise to approach Silk after all. Before it wouldn’t have mattered, any more than the sex had mattered—and it doesn’t matter now, she told herself firmly. Their affair was over, had been over for years. But it didn’t feel as though it was over, felt more as though it had never ended, as though the time in between had been a suspension of reality, less than a dream. To be sitting here, in a car parked on the ruined paving of the old Plantation, discussing with Cerise how to sell another cracker to Treasury— to be in the shadows again, with Cerise. That was where she had always belonged, should always have been. Except that the shadows weren’t what they had been, any more than either of them had remained entirely the same.

“It’s always worth a try,” Cerise said, and Trouble dragged her attention back to the present, annoyed that she’d let her own exhaustion distract her so far. “Besides, even if she doesn’t help, she may lead us to newTrouble anyway.”

“You said she was good?”

“We’re better.”

Trouble shifted again against the door, searching for a more comfortable angle, and failed to find one. She hunched her shoulders and let her head rest against the chill glass, said, “So, how do we get back into Seahaven tomorrow morning?”

“Ah.”

“You haven’t worked that out yet,” Trouble said, with sudden certainty. She remembered that tone from the old days, the false confidence, and knew enough to dread it.

“I was more worried about keeping you away from Treasury tonight,” Cerise said. She took a deep breath. “I thought we could probably slip in with the morning rush—there seem to be a lot of people who live in the other towns who come in to work. Besides, the last thing they’d expect is for you to come back after you’ve got away.”

“True,” Trouble said, mostly appeased. It would probably work—would have to work, she amended silently, and smiled.

“What are you grinning at?” Cerise asked.

“Nothing,” Trouble said, and even in the darkness could see Cerise’s quick frown. “I just don’t believe we’re doing this, that’s all.”

Cerise paused, still frowning, and then, slowly, her expression eased. “Me neither, sweetheart.” She had spoken without thought, the casual endearment easy on her tongue, and for a heartbeat she didn’t realize what she had done. Then Trouble stirred, shifting against the padding, and Cerise made a face, looked away as though she could find some apology in the dark outside the car. The security crawl stayed monotonously clear, offering no change of subject, and the silence stretched between them.

“Do you know, I’ve fucking missed you?” Trouble said, and sounded at once surprised and annoyed by the thought.

Cerise looked back at her, surprised into laughter and the truth. “Well, I’ve missed you, too. Even if you did walk out on me.”

“I screwed up,” Trouble said, quite seriously. “And I know I screwed up. I’m sorry.”

And that, Cerise thought, was one thing you had to say for Trouble. She could make even the most inarticulate of apologies sound better than sincere. “It’s OK,” she said, vaguely, and thought almost that it might be.

“How is Multiplane to work for?” Trouble said, after a moment.

Cerise shrugged, even though the gesture would be all but invisible in the darkness. “The company’s all right, they let me handle the net pretty much the way I want. My immediate boss is a bit of a bastard, though. He’s got a real problem with this intrusion, and I don’t know why. He really wants you, or newTrouble; he doesn’t really care which.”

Trouble frowned. “But since I didn’t do it—”

“He doesn’t seem to care,” Cerise said. “And I still don’t know why.”

Trouble said, slowly, “I don’t mean to be naive, not being corporate myself, but setting me up for this would seem to be counterproductive. Word’s bound to get around that he got the wrong person, and that’ll only make him look like a fool on the nets.”

“Make me look like a neo, too,” Cerise agreed. Could that be it? she wondered. To get rid of me? It didn’t sound like Coigne—for one thing, she was still useful, and it wasn’t like Coigne to waste any resources—but it was the best, the only, explanation she’d been able to come up with so far. Not that there was anyone currently in Multiplane’s security division who could replace her… Or was it Trouble he was really after, not so much as a cracker, but as the symbol she had been in the old days, the time before Evans-Tindale, of the worm and its carriers? Or, maybe even more, of the symbol she was becoming, of the net acting to police itself? No, she thought, that couldn’t be right, Coigne had wanted Trouble caught before all this started.

“You think that’s the point, getting rid of you?” Trouble asked, and Cerise shrugged again.

“It could be, I suppose. But, let’s face it, I’d be hard to replace.”

“God, you’re arrogant.”

“But truthful,” Cerise answered, and saw Trouble grin, baring white teeth. “I suppose it could really be you he’s after,” she went on. “You’re making quite a stir these days, got the nets cooperating again, almost.”

“The timing’s off,” Trouble answered. “So, other than your boss maybe trying to get rid of you, you like working in the light?”

“Other than that, it’s a great job,” Cerise said, and stifled a sudden yawn. “How was life among the artists?”

“All right.” Trouble felt her own face stiffen as she fought to suppress an answering yawn, and gave up, stretching awkwardly against the seat and the door of the car. “I spent a lot of time fiddling with printer drivers.”

“So what did they do, these artists?” Cerise asked, after a moment’s sleepy hesitation.

“Lot of different things,” Trouble answered. “A lot of printmakers, graphic artists—one fractalist. Then there were a bunch of potters and a quiltmaker, a couple of writers, too.”

“Must have been interesting.”

Trouble shrugged, wondering if she would be able to explain. It had been, well, dull, but that wasn’t quite the word, either. More that she’d missed whatever it was she’d had in the shadows, whatever it was she’d had with Cerise—and that, she realized suddenly, was the real problem. She had missed Cerise, not just the work, the netwalking, though they had been good at that, but also the time offline, the sex and the shared living. There had been nothing, or more precisely, no one, not even Konstenten, who had been able to provide her with that necessary partnership. She realized abruptly that Cerise was watching her through the dark, her posture more alert, and said, “Interesting enough, some of the time. There was a lot of politics.”

“There always is,” Cerise said. “Still, I bet you found someone to keep you company.” In spite of her attempt to sound cheerful and offhand, the words came out charged with a vague jealousy she hadn’t known existed.

Trouble glanced warily at her, wondering if she’d heard correctly, said, “A few dates here and there, nothing serious. Nothing even close to serious.” There was a bitterness in her own voice that startled her, even as she watched sidelong for Cerise’s reaction. “How about you?”

Cerise felt her own half-admitted uncertainty fade slightly. “Corporate life doesn’t exactly make it easy for queers.”

Trouble made a skeptical noise, and Cerise said, hearing herself defensive, “You know what I mean. Marriage or nothing, that’s what they want—somebody they can check out, make sure is reliable.”

Trouble nodded. There didn’t seem to be much else to say, and she glanced at the security display—still nothing moving, except the random flicker of wind in the straggling shrubs at the edge of the pavement—and then at the sky. It was still very dark, no sign of even false dawn, and she suppressed another yawn. “You should maybe try to get some sleep,” she said.

Cerise looked at her, sounded surprised when she answered. “I suppose I ought.”

“Even an hour or two might help,” Trouble said, and could see the movement of Cerise’s head that meant the other woman had made a face at her.

“I know you’re right,” Cerise said, after a moment. “And I’m just tired enough to be annoyed about it.”

Trouble smiled in spite of herself, in spite of her own exhaustion and the still-present tension. Cerise had never been very good about rest, had always been unbearable without enough sleep… She said, “Get some sleep,” and heard rather than saw Cerise shift again, so that she hunched down further in the driver’s seat. There was a brief silence, and then Cerise twisted sideways, struggling to reach the catch that controlled the seat. She found it at last, fingertips just able to hook around the slick metal of the lever, lowered the seat back until it stood at a near-forty-five degree angle. She hesitated then, wanting to lower it completely—the runabout, bought on a corporate account, had the expensive seats that could convert to an uncomfortable sleeping platform as needed—but decided that it would mean taking too much of a risk. If there was trouble, if anyone challenged them, here in the Plantation, she would need to be able to drive out instantly. She could drive with the seat at this angle, but not with it stretched out into a sort of bed. She settled herself more comfortably, turning herself half toward Trouble, and let her eyes close. She had been more tired than she had realized, could already feel herself drifting into sleep, and stirred half in protest.

“Easy,” Trouble said, and reached across the gearbox to touch Cerise’s outflung hand. “Don’t worry, just get some sleep.” She ran her hand lightly along the other woman’s arm. Cerise smiled, not fully sure if she was dreaming, the gentle touch the product of her own imagination, but let herself be reassured. There would be time enough to worry later, to sort out her own feelings, if there was anything that needed to be sorted out; for now, she needed to sleep.

Trouble watched her burrow deeper into the unyielding padding, heard her breathing shift almost at once toward sleep. Cerise’s skin was cool under her touch, the fingers almost cold, and she ran her hand back up toward the other woman’s elbow. Cerise did not stir, not even when Trouble ran one finger lightly over the other’s forearm, feeling for the lump where the bone had been broken and grown back thicker than before. The once-familiar bump was there, oddly reassuring, and Trouble ran her thumb along the other side of Cerise’s arm, feeling for the other bone beneath the skin. She could barely feel the bone, couldn’t find the second lump that she knew must be there—Cerise had broken both bones that night, when the runabout finally missed a turn— and Cerise shifted uneasily under her touch, mumbling an incoherent protest. Trouble released her, but did not take her hand away completely. The feeling of Cerise’s skin beneath her fingers was too pleasant, too comforting, to be lightly given up. Cerise shifted again, this time with a noise that might almost have been pleasure, and stretched her arm out along the gearbox. Trouble ran her fingers lightly along the offered arm, wished with sudden intensity that she could do more. This was not the time for sex, she knew that perfectly well, wasn’t even sure it was sex she wanted, more like some way just to hold her, lie with her, feel the whole length of their bodies wound together, like in the old days after a job had gone wrong, or well, or they hadn’t had work at all… And if they had been somewhere safe, Trouble admitted, they would have made love. She wanted it even now, distinctly, memory as well as the sensation of Cerise’s skin beneath her fingers arousing her, wet warmth spreading between her legs. She closed her eyes for an instant, remembering the touch of Cerise’s lips—the simple, deceptively chaste kiss, just the touch of lips against her own that never failed to send her, send both of them, wild. I want her back, she acknowledged silently, and shook her head at the inadequacy of those words. It’s not just that I want her back, I want her to want me back, too. I want what we had, the old days, when we were perfectly matched and the world knew it. When no one could challenge us, and we’d never challenge each other.

She shook the thought away, annoyed that she was getting maudlin in her old age, made herself look back at the security readouts. Nothing had changed, nothing was moving outside the car, though the sky was growing faintly lighter, back toward the ocean, but she made herself watch three cycles through, concentrating on the readings. Then she looked deliberately away from Cerise, made herself concentrate on the deal with Mabry. It wasn’t impossible, at least not on the face of it: she could probably give him newTrouble without too much hassle, especially if people like Helling and van Liesvelt and Arabesque, and even Fate and Nova, backed her up on the nets. Most of the net would simply be glad that someone had solved the problem, however it was done; the important people in the shadows would know that she was right, the newTrouble was the real danger—taking someone’s name and programs, cracking for the sheer joy of it, without thought of profit or consequences, running viruses, too, if Mabry was right—and would let Fate and Butch convince them of it, no matter how much they might dislike her. And maybe, just maybe, she could use even that grudged agreement to make a new place for herself on the changed nets, in the bright lights.

The only question that remained, then, was whether she could do it. And that would be no problem, she admitted silently. Maybe once she would have had regrets, but not now. It wasn’t just that it was him or her, not even a question of revenge, really, though she was angry enough still to look forward to seeing him fall. It wasn’t even that she resented him dragging her back into the business, though God knew she ought to be; if anything, she was grateful, glad in spite of herself, in spite of everything, to be back in the shadows, back with Cerise for however long. It was more—it was simply that newTrouble was a danger, not just to her but to the shadows, and, in the end, to all the nets. There were still too many people who were afraid of a technology that eluded them, still more who would never have access and resented and feared it in equal measures. Mobilize those groups just once, find a demagogue who could lead them—and there were always demagogues—and the nets would find themselves destroyed. Given enough incentive, the nets could be regulated, access deliberately slowed and stifled, checkpoints at every intersection. The hardware existed; it would be expensive, monumentally expensive, but if enough people could be frightened badly enough, it would seem cheap in the end. If the net did not police itself, did not, in the end, declare that there were limits, things that were by definition unacceptable, the rest of the world would do it for them, and that would be the beginning of the end. Evans-Tindale had been a step toward outside control. It was time that the nets created a standard of their own—the Amsterdam Conventions had been of the nets, not just about them.

And listen to you, she chided, and managed a crooked smile. You’ve been out in the bright lights too long, sweetie, taken your syscop’s license entirely too seriously. At the very least, you’re more tired than you ever thought, to be thinking like that. But the quirked smile faded almost as quickly as it had appeared. You had to draw lines, and that choice was in itself dangerous; all boundaries had a double edge, were like swords that could always be turned against you in the end. But you still had to choose.

She made a face again, annoyed at her own pomposity, more angry at her fear. There were no other choices; Cerise and the Treasury between them had seen to that. More than that, newTrouble himself had guaranteed it. She looked again at the readouts crawling along the base of the windscreen, watched a full cycle without really seeing the flickering symbols, then looked back to the east where the first signs of dawn were beginning to appear. Whatever else happened, she’d made her choice.

What was left of the night passed without incident. Trouble fought to stay awake, and lost, caught herself more than once dropping toward full sleep, but managed to keep half alert, slipping only into an eyes-open drowse. As the eastern horizon grew lighter, waking grew easier, and she was aware, belatedly, that she was hungry. She turned stiffly in the seat to see if there was food in the back seats, but found nothing. Beside her, Cerise shifted slightly, settled again to sleep. There was no point in waking her yet; it would be hours before they could leave the Plantation—before there would be enough traffic on the roads to cover their departure—but Trouble suppressed the urge to reach for her hand again. Then Cerise opened her eyes, smiled sleepily, and reached out to take Trouble’s hand in her own. Before Trouble could move toward her or away, she was asleep again. Obscurely comforted, and perversely more awake, Trouble settled back to her watch.

She woke Cerise when the runabout’s chronometer read six o’clock, waited patiently while Cerise stretched and grumbled, rubbing at puffy eyes. Trouble let her complain for a few minutes, listening to the semicoherent muttering, said at last, “Yeah, well, I’m hungry, too, sweetheart, and I need to pee, which is something I really don’t want to try here, given what happens when ammonia hits chem-sand. So, when do you think we can get moving?”

Cerise reached down to adjust the seat, brought it back to a normal driving position. “Switch on the radio, will you? Find something with traffic reports.”

Trouble did as she was told, trying to ignore the pressure in her bladder, fiddled with the communications console until she found a local radio station. Traffic reports were already being broadcast—light traffic on the access roads, getting heavy on the flyways, no serious delays at the border tolls or the bridge tolls into the city—and Cerise nodded thoughtfully.

“I think we can chance it.”

She touched the switch that brought the runabout’s motor off standby, eased the machine into gear. The low sun glared through a thin haze of cloud, starting a headache behind her eyes; she made a face, and swung the runabout out from the shadow of the ruined building. She needed sleep, she knew, and a shower, wondered briefly if she could pass any remaining roadblocks in this state. She would simply have to, though: there weren’t any other options. Hopefully, the traffic would be heavy enough to hide one more runabout—and it should be, she thought. The locals who worked in the city, people from the Sands and Southbrook and all the other little towns along the coast, not just Seahaven, would have to leave now if they were to make the usual eight-thirty starting time. There should be plenty of traffic to obscure their presence. You hope, she added silently, and carefully did not smile. Trouble would not, in her current mood, be much amused.

At the entrance to the Plantation, Cerise slowed the car, checking the line of traffic feeding toward her. As the radio had promised, it wasn’t too heavy as yet; there were breaks in the line of runabouts and light trucks, and she slid her own runabout into a gap, matching the general speed with practiced ease.

“I wonder what they think we’re doing?” Trouble muttered.

“More like what they think we’ve been doing,” Cerise answered, her attention on the controls. “People do go to the Plantation, you know.”

“Yeah, for sex, drugs, and suicide,” Trouble answered.

“Well, we weren’t killing ourselves,” Cerise said, and to her surprise, Trouble grinned.

“And nobody much cares about the rest, yeah, I know. Except maybe the cops.”

“They shouldn’t be worrying about commuters,” Cerise said, with more confidence than she felt. “After last night, they should be too short on manpower to worry about commuters.”

“You hope,” Trouble said, and shifted uncomfortably against the seat.

“Yeah,” Cerise said, and opened the throttle as the line of runabouts picked up speed.

They crossed the causeway through the marsh in silence, only the inconsequential babble of the radio rising above the noise of the runabout’s engine. As they approached the rotary, Trouble held her breath, but the fast-tank parked outside the cop-shop stayed motionless, only the revolving blue light at the top of its carapace to remind drivers that it was manned and ready. Cerise took the runabout through the rotary at an unexpectedly decorous pace, did not pick up speed again until they were on the main road that led back to the flyway. She stopped at the first truck plaza they came to, this one just outside Southbrook proper, where they paid for the use of shower and toilets. Clean again, Cerise refused to eat there, claiming that there was a better plaza further along the flyway, and Trouble was too tired to argue. To her surprise, however, Cerise was right: the Eight-Ball Cafe, built on a median set between the two lanes of the flyway, proved to be both clean and relatively friendly. The food was good, too, as was the coffee, and Trouble gorged in silence. It was trucker food, thick and greasy sausage and fried bread, fried eggs and potatoes, unhealthy and enormously satisfying; she looked up at last, dredging the last slice of toast through the runnels of egg yolk, to find Cerise grinning at her.

“Feel better?”

“Some,” Trouble admitted, and added, with cheerful malice, “I didn’t get any sleep last night, remember?”

“Someone had to keep watch,” Cerise said, without apparent guilt.

“So now what?”

Cerise shrugged. “Kill some time, I suppose—you could always eat another breakfast—until we can head back to Seahaven.”

Trouble refused the offer of food, and Cerise paid their bill without complaint. After that, they found themselves in the deserted game room, and spent ten in citiscrip learning the Super-Lyrior table. Once they’d figured out the rules— imperfectly explained on the casing display and in the single help screen—they spent another five in citiscrip before they’d mastered the system, and embarked on a series of free games that lasted until the manager, free of the breakfast rush, arrived to suggest they move on. It was past nine by then; Cerise accepted the order meekly enough, and Trouble followed her back out onto the paving. The lot was all but empty now, a couple of big rigs parked to one side, windows opaqued to let the drivers sleep; the sun, finally free of the early morning fog, was startlingly warm. In the distance, on the western horizon, the trees glowed red and orange against the sky. Trouble glanced back once, looking east, and saw the sea like a wide blue line beyond the housetops. From here it looked pristine, the pale rim of the beach bleached by distance, and she looked away again, made uncomfortable by the knowledge that it was all illusion.

It was not a difficult journey to Seahaven after all. Cerise got them back onto the flyway without incident—it was a left entrance and a long ramp that wasn’t always long enough, from the look of the dark stains on the concrete barriers where the ramp ended—and then dawdled in the slow lane, driving on manual just a few kilometers above the local minimum, until they reached the Seahaven turnoff. She switched to grid control then—no use annoying the local authorities or drawing attention to themselves before they had to—and let the grid take them back down to Eastman House.

They arrived a little after ten, turned the runabout over to the man on duty at the door—Cerise hesitated, just a little, but knew better than to do anything out of the ordinary— and made their way into the lobby. Trouble caught her breath, recognizing the man slumped on one of the low couches under the disapproving eyes of the staff, glanced instinctively backwards to see Bennet Levy emerging from the bellman’s cubicle beside the door.

“Cerise,” she said, and Cerise said, loudly, “Hello, Mabry.”

A big man, broad-shouldered and heavy-bodied, with a mass of greying, disreputable curls, turned away from the main desk and smiled, showing teeth. “Hello, Cerise. And this must be your—former partner.”

“Christ,” Levy said, not quite under his breath, and Starling, who had levered himself up off the low couch with unexpected grace, said gently, “I’m sorry, Vess, this is Treasury business.”

“I’m afraid not,” Mabry said. “I have authority in this country to make arrests, and I’m taking Ms.—Trouble—into custody as a material witness.” He eyed the Treasury agent shrewdly, added, “I’m sorry, John, but you’re chasing the wrong one.”

“You’ve made a deal,” Starling said, and Mabry nodded. Trouble, watching, couldn’t quite read the Treasury agent’s expression, thought for a moment she almost saw relief mingling with the chagrin.

“That’s right. And you can take it up with your superiors if you have any questions,” Mabry said. The words could have been hostile, but his relaxed tone and easy stance robbed them of much of the offense.

“You know we’ll have to, Vess,” Starling said.

“I know. But can we call a truce until you’ve settled it?”

“And you know I can’t do that, either.” Starling sighed, looked past Trouble to his partner. It was a speaking look, and Trouble barely restrained herself from turning to see Levy’s expression. “Give me your word you won’t leave the hotel until I’ve got my bosses’ reading, and I’ll let you get breakfast.”

“Done,” Mabry said, and, as Starling stared at him expectantly, added, “You have my word.”

It was all, in the end, unexpectedly civilized. Starling vanished into one of the shielded communications cubicles to call his superiors, while Levy, his face set into a stony mask of disapproval, followed them upstairs to Mabry’s room. There, Mabry ordered breakfast for them all, over Cerise’s polite and Trouble’s more definite protests, and they sat in silence, eating and drinking the near-infinite pots of coffee until at last Starling reappeared.

“Is it all arranged?” Mabry asked, and Starling shrugged.

“My bosses would appreciate some help with the eventual prosecutions—you understand, they don’t want to cause you trouble over jurisdictions, but this has been a stateside problem as well…”

He let his voice trail off suggestively, and Mabry nodded in perfect understanding. “My bosses are well aware of the value of international cooperation, John. I’m positive there will be no objection to my sharing any data I receive with you. Just so long as we are able to prosecute as well. One of the—incidents—comes under Singapore’s jurisdiction, you understand.”

In spite of herself, Trouble had to bite back the urge to whistle, and knew her eyebrows rose. Singapore’s cracker laws were some of the most stringent in the notoriously strict Asian Circle; trying a case there, with the kind of evidence Mabry already had—not to mention what she herself could supply—practically guaranteed not only a conviction but a definite prison term.

Levy made a noise that might have been approving, and Starling gave an appreciative nod. “We weren’t aware that Singapore had jurisdiction in any of the cases.”

Mabry smiled. “We only got the ruling thirty hours ago ourselves.”

“Good enough,” Starling said, suddenly brisk. “Then we’ll leave you to it, Vess. Good hunting.”

“Thank you,” Mabry said, and shut the door firmly behind them.

“Singapore,” Cerise said, after a moment. “Who’s the complainant?”

Mabry smiled placidly at her, poured himself another cup of coffee. “KMS.”

“That won’t hold,” Cerise said.

“Probably not,” Mabry agreed. “But it would be nice if it did.”

Trouble watched them warily, not sure she liked the coldblooded discussion—it was a fellow cracker they were talking about, and, no matter how dangerous newTrouble had become, personally and generally across the nets, it was still unnerving to hear them plotting his effective demise.

“So you’re Trouble,” Mabry said, after a moment. “I’m Vesselin Mabry.”

“So I gathered.” Trouble kept her voice neutral, was remotely pleased with the effect.

Mabry smiled. “So. You’ve agreed to help me find newTrouble. Can I ask why?”

“Does it matter?” Trouble answered, and managed a smile to take the sting from the words.

“Probably not,” Mabry agreed, still placid. “As long as I get him.”

Trouble frowned again, and Cerise said hastily, “I assume we’re free to do as we please now, Vess?”

“Do you have the information I want?” Mabry asked.

Trouble did not bother to hide her sneer.

Cerise said, “Ah. You wouldn’t be threatening me, would you, Vess?”

“No threat,” Mabry said, and contrived to sound hurt by the accusation. “But I would like to know.”

Trouble glanced at Cerise, saw the other woman’s head tilt in an all-but-imperceptible nod. “We’re waiting to get it.”

“When?” Mabry asked.

“That I can’t say,” Trouble answered. “We have a bunch of inquiries out, and it just depends on who talks to us first.”

“Treasury may have made some people a little wary,” Mabry said, not without bitterness.

“Or pissed off enough to talk,” Cerise said.

“One would hope so,” Mabry said.

“The first thing that I want to do,” Trouble said, “is get some clean clothes—I assume my belongings are still back at the hostel?”

Mabry shrugged.

“If not,” Cerise said, with a sudden, malicious grin, “we can have some serious fun getting them back.”

Trouble smiled in spite of herself. “Speak for yourself. But then I can check in with some people.”

“And I can talk to the nets,” Cerise agreed.

Trouble’s grin widened. “Going to go looking for Silk?”

“Not for that,” Cerise said, and sounded suddenly grim.

“Silk,” Mabry said, and there was something in his voice that made both women look curiously at him. “What do you know about Silk?”

“Cerise knows a lot more than I do,” Trouble said.

Cerise shrugged, frowning at the sudden intensity of Mabry’s stare. “I—met Silk on the net a while back. She and I had an extremely brief fling. But I think she knows newTrouble, and I owe her a bad turn, so… I thought I’d make some hard inquiries into her connections.”

“‘Her’?” Mabry said, and laughed suddenly, without humor. “The Silk I knew—know of—was a boy.”

Cerise quirked a smile at him, trying to choose her words carefully beneath the careless tone. “So you got hustled, too.”

“Not me,” Mabry said, still with a tight, unfriendly smile. “Max did.”

“So which is it, I wonder?” Cerise said. There was no use in being embarrassed; sex and gender confusion was one of the hazards of the nets, something a few people enjoyed exploiting while most of the net tried to minimize the inevitable mistakes. Even so, she felt a brief, unwanted flash of something between annoyance and shame: bad enough to be hustled, she thought, but by a boy?

Mabry shrugged. “I admit, I don’t really know. Except that he—she?—is an accomplished bitch, any way you care to name. I should like to have words with him—her.”

Trouble looked at Cerise, wondering just what Mabry meant, how much of a threat he intended. Cerise looked back, lifted one shoulder in a fractional shrug. Who knows? her expression said, and Trouble repressed a sigh. The last thing they needed was for some personal vendetta of Mabry’s to screw up what already promised to be a very tricky deal.

Mabry said, “The trouble with Silk wasn’t just that he likes being an obsession, or that Max was well and truly obsessed there for a week or so. But he talked Max into doing him a favor Max shouldn’t even have listened to, and very nearly got Max involved in some very dirty security work. Which came close to costing Max his license—the license that I put my neck on the line to get for him.”

“Ah,” Cerise said, and looked at Trouble. “Max has gone into security work, consulting. I didn’t know if you’d heard.”

“I’d heard something,” Trouble said. That explained a lot, right there: if Silk had hustled Helling, and then used him to get codes or other information—well, she thought, if it had been my lover, I’d want to see his ass kicked, all right. I can’t blame Mabry. And if his reputation is on the line as well…

“So, Cerise,” Mabry said, and forced a smile that looked more like a grimace, “if you can get Silk to give you anything, especially if you can make him—her, whatever—look like the bitch it is, I would personally enjoy seeing it. But I’d be very careful.”

“I intend to be,” Cerise said. “I certainly intend to be.”

Chapter Eleven

SOMEWHAT TO TROUBLE’S surprise, her room was still available, and Valentine was not nearly as hostile as Trouble herself would have been, faced with Treasury on her doorstep. The room had been searched, of course— there had been at least a hint of a warrant, Valentine said, shrugging—but nothing seemed to be missing, for which Trouble, at least, was grateful. She took a second shower and found fresh clothes, then checked the machine setup. She ran the programs she had left set mostly as a matter of habit, checking for searches in her own working volumes. Nothing showed, which meant only that Starling, at least, was good at his job. The thought was depressing; she shoved it away, and crossed to the window to stare out into the dusty street. Seahaven looked pretty much as usual, though she wondered what the Parcade would be like, if Treasury had been its usual self the night before. She stood for a moment, watching a trio of older women making their way along the sidewalk, jackets with The Willows’ logo slung over their shoulders. They looked tired, moved as though they had been working all night, feet in low-heeled shoes scuffing against the paving.

Trouble sighed, went back into the bathroom for her medical kit. She carried stimulants—what cracker didn’t, for the long nights on the net, designer drugs that didn’t interfere with perception—and she found the tube after a few moments’ search, swallowed two of the tiny pink pills, and washed it down with the dregs of her coffee. Then she collected her keys and the important components of her machine—she wasn’t leaving that behind, not again, no matter how much protection Mabry had promised—and started down the stairs, heading for the Parcade.

The Parcade was quieter even than she had anticipated, half the storefronts still metal-shuttered even though opening time had come and gone. There were fewer people than usual loitering in the arcade doorways or waiting under the shadow of the boardwalks’ awnings, and most of them, Trouble guessed, would belong to Tinati’s goon squad. One of them stared after her for a long moment, and she braced herself, waiting to be thrown out again, but the man said nothing, in the end. Trouble kept walking, feeling the stare between her shoulder blades, was glad when she reached the entrance to Blake’s shop. It was open—it was hard to intimidate Mollie Blake—but the girl behind the counter had been reinforced by a tall, skinny black man. He didn’t move as Trouble came into the showroom, but his attention sharpened visibly. Trouble nodded politely, careful to include both of them in the gesture, and said, “Is Mollie around?”

The girl said, in a colorless voice, “Just a minute.” She reached under the counter, touched controls, and reached for the thin wire of the mike, bringing it in front of her mouth. “Boss? Trouble’s here.”

The response was inaudible, of course, but the girl grinned suddenly. She controlled herself in an instant, but there was still a certain amusement in her voice as she went on. “Boss says you should go straight up.”

The guard moved silently to open the door, and Trouble saw the sudden bulge of muscles under his skin. Blake didn’t skimp on her security, she decided, and was grateful that he hadn’t been ordered to toss her out on her ear. She started up the stairs, heard the second door open above her, and looked up to see Nova silhouetted in the doorway.

“You sure live up to your name,” she said, and moved back out of the way.

Trouble stepped past her, into the sudden pleasant light of Blake’s loft. The worktable was lit this time, and there was a device eviscerated on the working platform, sectioned into neat, unrecognizable pieces. Blake looked up, stood, stretching.

“So,” she said. “Was this your way of convincing me I ought to hurry?”

“Not likely,” Trouble said, electing to take the question at face value. “Caused me more trouble than that’s worth, and probably annoyed Tinati on top of it. I don’t need that grief, too.”

“Nobody needs that kind of grief,” Nova said from the doorway. “We had to hire his security this morning, just to prove our goodwill.”

Blake ignored her. “I’m surprised you’re still walking around this morning.”

Trouble took a deep breath. “I made a deal,” she said flatly. “Not with Treasury.”

“Oh?”

That was Nova again, and Blake said, “Shut up, will you? Or say something useful.”

Trouble went on as though there had been no interruption. “This is a multinational problem, Mollie. Interpol has an interest, and their guy has a good name—Cerise knows him, for one, and Max Helling. And he deals with it under the Conventions, not Evans-Tinsdale.”

Blake nodded. “What exactly is the deal?”

“I give him newTrouble, he gets Treasury off my back,” Trouble said. “And before you say anything, Mollie, remember, I asked the nets. And off the nets, too. And I’m not going to go down for the sake of some punk kid who’s a stranger to me and most of the net.”

“I know you did,” Blake said.

Nova said, “It’s been a little weird on the nets. When were you last on?”

Trouble glanced at her, unable to read the odd smile on her broad face, and shrugged. “It’s been, what, fifteen hours? Maybe twenty.”

Nova’s smile widened. “You’ve got friends coming out of the woodwork, sunshine, and not just the worms, either. A lot of people were real pissed that it was you got shopped, and not the kid. That Sasquatch, whoever he is, he’s lying low, and there hasn’t been a whiff of newTrouble.”

“I’m flattered,” Trouble said. “But I could’ve used that help a little earlier.”

Nova shrugged, still grinning, and Blake said, “Be that as it may—” She stopped abruptly, tried again. “I am not particularly pleased with the situation, either. It’s—you might say it’s very bad for business, in more ways than one, and the sooner the Mayor realizes that, the better for him. So: you were right, Trouble, I have done business with your pretender. Walk-in business—he lives around here somewhere. The word is, he lives in one of the secure complexes up north of the highway interchange, I don’t know which one. But I’m sure you can find that out easily enough.”

Trouble nodded, her thoughts already racing ahead. “The ones on the headland, you mean?”

“Those are the ones,” Blake agreed.

“Fucking expensive place to live,” Trouble said. The kind of security, electronic and real, that those slim buildings provided for their tenants didn’t come cheaply; when you coupled that with luxury flats, full services, and proximity to The Willows and its direct air link to most of the coast, and then added in a very limited number of available spaces— rents would be in the thousands-per-month, and buy-in would be in the millions.

“I know,” Blake said. “And no, I don’t know where he gets the money.”

Nova gave a nasty laugh, and Blake glared at her. Nova subsided, and Blake looked back at Trouble. “What my partner is trying to say is, he’s a kid—newTrouble, I mean. Really a kid, maybe seventeen, eighteen, something like that. And he is very pretty, if you like them sweet-faced and skinny.”

“Sounds like a chicken-hawk’s dream,” Trouble said.

“That could be it,” Blake agreed, “someone paying to keep him, and him cracking on the side.”

“No other way he could afford it,” Nova muttered, and when Blake turned on her, she spread her hands. “Look, Moll, there’s no way he could afford that, even cracking— even if he was selling what he steals. Just no way. Someone’s got to be paying his bills.”

Blake shook her head. “Your mind’s in the gutter—”

“Except when it comes out to feed,” Nova said.

Blake looked back at Trouble. “He doesn’t feel like a hustler. He’s a cocky punk, but not in that style. And no, before you ask, I don’t know how else he could afford a Headlands apartment. But he doesn’t act like a hustler.”

“Thanks,” Trouble said, turned her head to include Nova in the glance. “I appreciate your help.”

“You and yours didn’t leave us much choice,” Blake said, but she was smiling. “Good luck.”

“I hope you get the little bastard,” Nova said, sweetly, and held open the door.

“So do I,” Trouble said, and went back down the stairs to the shop, and out into the sunlight of the Parcade.

Cerise strides the patterns of the Bazaar, knee-deep in a fog of images. She has always been noticeable, now more than ever, and she wades through a stream of messages, bioware selectively deaf, ignoring all but the very few names she has chosen to recognize. It does not impede her progress, this glittering chaff that ebbs and flows, her illusory movement cutting illusory eddies in its broken-mirror surface—she’s too good for that—but it is a nuisance, makes it hard to spot the thing she knows is there. Person, she corrects herself, but it’s hard still to see that spot of nothing, that negative icon, as the person she knows it to be. Mabry—as she supposes she should have, could have guessed, had she thought about it—is following her as discreetly as he’s able. She considers the question as she winds through the alleys of the Bazaar, idly brushing away the occasional bit of advertising that flies too close. She could be rid of him, if she wanted; it wouldn’t be easy, but she’s good enough, and she very nearly takes the first step toward the funhouse hidden behind the deceptively plain Willander icon, before she thinks again. It might be better, in the long run, to let him follow, let him shadow her—let him find Silk and contrive his own revenge.

She changes her step, turns instead for a confection like a tent, low swooping walls and draped ceiling all of a light that shimmers like iridescent satin. She sees the walls sway toward her, feels the touch of an identity check like a warm hand at her pulse points, and the door rises for her: an expensive effect, but effective enough. She steps inside, wondering what Mabry will do, and feels her shadow hesitate and then retreat into the crowd of users, where even her best passive surveyors can’t find him against the background noise. He will be waiting when she returns, however; that is more certain than taxes, and she hides a smile at the thought, moving into rose-scented shadow.

Inside, the light has the same tint of roses, overlaid on the silver haze of a security sphere. She looks around once, noting the visible icons and the one that is invisible, blanked out, lurking behind a screen of light, and then nods to the shape that bows stiffly in her general direction.

Cerise, it says, a shape like a man made out of steel pipes, and Cerise answers, Tin Man. She is more interested in the invisible icon, but the amenities have to be observed.

You have been a busy girl, the Tin Man observes. Tell me, does the course of true love still run smooth?

*I’ve been busy,* Cerise agrees, and the rest is none of your business.

The Tin Man achieves something like a leer, an accomplishment for someone not on the wire. *Oh, come now, I’ve always been very fond of Trouble.*

*I doubt it’s mutual.* There is no point in subtlety with him. Cerise looks at him without expression, allows the contempt to spill like acid into the air between them, then looks past him, fixing her eyes on the spot where the invisible icon is lurking. *It’s not you I came to talk with.”

*Sorry?* The Tin Man sounds genuinely surprised, and a part of her admires the act.

*I didn’t come to talk to you,* Cerise said, with infinite patience. *Where’s Dorothy?*

The Tin Man’s icon doesn’t change—he’s not wired, any more than the invisible one is wired—but Cerise can hear the sudden anger in his voice. The Tin Man’s proud of being straight, resents the insinuation, and Cerise hides a smile.

*Don’t know any Dorothy,* he says, and Cerise allows the smile to show. *If it’s herself you want to talk to, I’ll see if she’s willing.*

She’ll be willing, Cerise thinks, but judges she’s pushed hard enough already. The Tin Man’s icon vanishes, though she can feel his presence, this faint tingle of electricity against her skin, and she looks around the rose-lit room again. The shimmering silver walls have closed in, sealing her off from the rest of the nets: a necessary precaution, but one that always makes her uneasy, at least when she doesn’t control the program. She controls herself instead—she can break this program if she has to, has ice-cutters in her toolkit that will destroy better security than this—and resigns herself to wait in patience.

At last the Tin Man reappears, bowing so that his silver-tubing fingers brush the rose-scented floor. This way, he says, and a blackness opens beside him, an oval doorway into nothing.

Cerise lifts an eyebrow—it was a cheap effect, and they both know it—and steps through into emptiness.

For a long moment the light doesn’t appear, no light, no sound, no sense, and Cerise frowns, readying a program to strip the disguise from within the sphere of the security. She counts to ten, slowly, then reaches into the toolkit for the routine. As she had expected, light returns, dull, white light like the light in an office, and with it the rest of the illusion. She is standing in a featureless white sphere, and at the center of it hangs a plaintext symbol, blue reversed crescent and a blue disk like a planet trapped between its horns. The edges of the symbol flicker faintly, fizzing red. Cerise regards it without affection, picturing the woman behind the symbol: thin and bony, iron-grey hair cut close to the skull, face scraped clean of makeup while her body is constrained by the drab jeans-and-T-shirt of a mainline cracker. Ms. Cool has been around for years, from before the brainworm, and she’s made a place for herself on the nets, but she’s not fond of anyone, and especially not of women, at least not women on the wire.

Cerise, she says, in a voice electronically distorted to a timbre like scraping wire. What do you want?

Cerise grits her teeth behind the mask of her cartoon-icon, hopes that the brainworm has not translated the fleeting emotion, dislike, and intimidation, or something very like it. *Word is, you know everyone’s location on the nets. I’m looking for Silk.*

Word is, Ms. Cool says, the electric voice nasty, you already have a mailcode.

Had, Cerise corrects, and keeps her own voice level only with an effort. The space defined by Silk’s code had been empty, as she’d expected, the trail long cold; she has wasted minutes searching, she and her watchdogs, before she’d admitted defeat and the necessity of bargaining with Ms. Cool.

The icon hanging opposite her does not change, not even a shift of color, but Cerise imagines that the other woman would have smiled had she been able. *If Silk’s dumped you, it’s not my business to put the two of you back together. Besides, what would Trouble say?*

I manage my own sex life, thanks, Cerise says. This is business. She hesitates, gauging the insult. *I didn’t think Silk was one to pass up business—any more than you.*

Ms. Cool ignores her, doesn’t answer for a long moment, just the icon hanging blind in the blank white space. Cerise keeps a grip on herself, masters her impatience, and waits unmoving. At last, without the flicker of anything to anticipate the response, Ms. Cool says, *I have a code. But there’s a price.*

There always is. Cerise speaks without thinking, sees no reason to regret the words.

*Multiplane’s security is good,* Ms. Cool says. And I need information.

Cerise laughs aloud. *My security’s good, you mean. And it’s no deal.*

You might want to hear the full offer, Ms. Cool says, and Cerise gestures for her to continue. *And don’t think I can’t break your IC(E), girl, but I have other fish to fry.*

That is almost certainly a lie and they both know it, but Cerise gives no sign, and Ms. Cool goes on without a breath.

*And I’m not after trade secrets, you’d be surprised how little market there is for them. What I want is personnel information, nothing more. Just a simple file, not even the classified version. On a man named Derrick Coigne. *

Coigne. Cerise barely stops herself from speaking the name aloud, feels the surprise congeal around her, the sensation doubly vivid in the blank room. That was different, Coigne was different, it might even help her to pass that information on to Ms. Cool—and this was probably just what Ms. Cool wanted her to think. Ms. Cool’s favors are rarely simple, simply given or simply achieved; besides, even a general-access internal file contained information that outsiders were not supposed to see. Multiplane has more secrets than she knows, more enmities and rivalries and obscure alliances than even she can monitor, even watching the internal nets as she does—but there’s no choice this time, she tells herself. She needs Silk’s codes, some location, and she needs them now or she would never have come to Ms. Cool, because if she doesn’t get them, if she and Trouble don’t find newTrouble, and soon, the whole messy business with Treasury will begin all over again. And that she, they, cannot afford; she will not risk it, risk losing Trouble, not again.

She has made the decision almost before she’s realized it, as though there was no decision to be made, no choice at all. The only question left is whether she will keep her bargain, get Ms. Cool the files she wants, or, more precisely, how she will go about keeping both the bargain and her job. And if she loses the job, she thinks, it will be worth it—and that is a thought she doesn’t want and can’t right now afford, and she puts it aside without even the acknowledgment of a frown. Coigne, she says, aloud this time, still playing for time. *Why would anyone want Coigne’s files?*

*Don’t be stupid, girl,* Ms. Cool says. *Anyway, the whys don’t matter. It’s a straight deal, my code for his file. Are you willing?*

*I’m interested,* Cerise corrects. *But I’m not—in the office right now. You’d have to take it on trust.*

*I don’t do business that way.*

*In this case, you don’t have a choice.* Cerise stops, takes a deep breath, makes her tone ever so faintly conciliatory—anything more would be suspicious. *Even I don’t have access from outside.*

There is another silence, another of Ms. Cool’s periods of inattention, and Cerise finds herself holding her breath. She hides a frown, and makes herself breathe, counting heartbeats; she reaches a hundred, an eternity, before Ms. Cool speaks. *All right. We’ll do it your way. But if you cross me, Cerise…*

Cerise doesn’t answer, because there’s nothing she can say. They stand silent for another moment, and then Ms. Cool says again, All right. The icon flickers and a mailcode appears; Cerise plucks it out of the air, feeling the numbers tingle against her fingers. She tucks it into her toolkit, carefully compartmentalizing just in case, and looks back at the icon.

You owe me, Ms. Cool says, softly, and Cerise nods.

I owe you, she agrees, and closes her mind to the consequences.

The blank sphere splits open around her, and the icon vanishes. Cerise steps backward, and is abruptly in the center of the rose-colored tent. The Tin Man sneers at her from a corner.

Get what you wanted?

Do you care? Cerise asks, with a grin, and adds, Ask your boss, if you really want to know. She walks past him without another word, brushes through illusory curtains that hum for an instant under her touch as though they held a swarm of bees. She steps out into the gaudy light and noise of the Bazaar, follows the meandering path between the heaped icons and the crude-drawn storefronts that lie behind the piles of advertising, and is aware again of the negative icon following her. Mabry is still with her. She keeps walking, wondering if she should try to lose him, but perhaps, she thinks, a witness would be advisable. She finds a sheltered spot, checks the mailcode Ms. Cool has given her—an unfamiliar string, an unfamiliar part of the net—and calls a new routine, lets it absorb the mailcode, and follows it as it runs.

The tracer leads her back out into the main highways of the net, as she had expected. She lets herself absorb the new perspective, the rivers of neon fire, streams and falls of light, here and there a flurry of white and red, lights tossed like water over rapids, then strides out into the nearest node, lets the force of the traffic carry her away. She can see, and feel, the tracer ahead of her, sorting through the junctions for her, follows its path that glows green to the eye and warm to the touch, and at the fourth node calls a halt. The tracer whines in protest—it, they, are nearing the end of its programmed road, and it seems almost eager to finish its work—but Cerise waits anyway, listening, sniffing, for a hint of the negative icon. It is there, as she had known it would be: Mabry, still with her, following at a distance just discreet enough. She sighs then, and steps from mainstream to local net, follows the tracer down the last wide road of light, until they emerge together at the mailcode’s volume. The tracer vanishes, and Cerise is left alone, except for the ghost of the invisible icon lurking in the distance.

There is IC(E), of course, both obvious spikes and coils of it, walling off all but a staging area, and subtler strands of it, hair-thin tripwires and delicate poison darts. She frowns for an instant, considering the problem, then evokes a routine from her toolkit. It spreads, slow and thick, meaningless codes and numbers oozing like molasses, clogging the more delicate traps, overloading the fine triggers until one by one the traps fire or fizzle, releasing payloads that are lost at once in the sea of garbage. Cerise watches carefully, recording the pattern of the traps— there’s always something to be learned from even amateur work, and this is good, better than a mere amateur—then steps across to the main barrier. She studies it for a moment—the same hand built it that forged the subtler traps—considering how to proceed. She has two choices, discreet and overt, and after only an instant’s thought chooses the obvious approach. Silk needs to know she’s pursued, that she has not acted, cannot act, with impunity—and besides, Cerise thinks, and smiles, she herself has watchdogs in her toolkit that can follow anyone. If Silk panics, and runs, the watchdog will follow, and with any luck Silk will run to newTrouble. She evokes the watchdog then, sets its chameleon routine and leaves it sleeping, less of a presence on the net than Mabry’s invisible non-icon, and turns her attention to the IC(E).

Under other circumstances she would take her time, thread the glittering razors’ maze of it, but she’s already betrayed her presence by neutralizing the first array of traps. She selects the best icebreaker she owns. She didn’t write the main structure, but she has modified it until it fits her hand, her style, like a velvet glove. She draws it on, feeling the power surge through it as the program wakes and tests the IC(E), then sweeps her hand across the first bright coil of program. The shock of it jolts her to her elbow, numb tingling as though she’d hit a nerve; she grimaces, calls more power. She touches it again, and this time the IC(E) cracks and shatters under her touch, falling away in chunks like broken glass. At the edges of the breach, the broken ends of the matrix flare, and then fade, like embers in the wind. She reaches out again, seizes another handful of the brittle glittering IC(E), enjoying the feeling as it cracks and falls like dust at her feet. Once more, and she is through, emerging into the echoing silence of an empty node.

She has expected that, predicted the emptiness when there was no counter to her first assault on the volume’s defenses, but she checks anyway, letting her own countersecurity programs survey the area. There is nothing more than the routine maintenance programs, anonymous and mainstream, nothing to betray their owner’s hand, and she steps out into the empty space. It is flat, featureless, grey floor, white dome/ceiling, all standard, not even a hot-spot to trigger a new environment or a private stash of files. Which is all pretty much as she has expected: she scans anyway, and this time finds the button, dulled almost to invisibility. She checks for links to IC(E), finds none, but readies a defensive program anyway before she triggers whatever lies behind the routine.

Grass sprouts underfoot, and a pavilion shimmers into place: the scene of her earlier seduction. She makes a face, but lets the program run, until the stage is complete, if empty, no sign of Silk behind the clever trappings. She scans again, ignoring the demanding memory—better to have Trouble, in spite of everything—finds a storage cache and a single file. She studies the guard program carefully, selects a tool, and freezes the lock into immobility. It can neither close nor destroy its contents; she pries it gently open, and scans the file. It is a working draft of a program, a model for iconage, and she seals a copy carefully into her working memory. It could be bait, a poison trap that carries some unpleasant virus, and she doesn’t have the time to risk that now.

There is nothing else she needs, not here, and the mere fact that she’s been here is message enough for Silk. She hesitates, contemplating a message, and at last tosses a copy of her icon out into the empty space. It hangs in the air, the cartoon shape glowing against the blank walls: if Silk knows what’s good for her, she’ll contact me, Cerise thinks, and turns away. And if she doesn’t—there’s always the watchdog. She walks out through the shattered IC(E), feels the ghostly touch of the watchdog, warm against her ankle, reassuring her of its presence. Mabry, too, is still with her, but she ignores him, and turns again for home.

Trouble sat cross-legged on her chair, left hand still nursing the elbow that stung and tingled from the feedback of the IC(E) surrounding The Willows’ databases. Voices spilled in through the open window, kids’ shouts high and clear as they played basketball in the lot behind the Chinese restaurant, mixing with the periodic drone of runabouts’ engines, but she ignored them all, staring at the numbers that filled her display screen. It was bad enough that she hadn’t been able to break through the IC(E) on-line—not only did her elbow hurt, but the same pins-and-needles sensation trembled through her hands, slowing her fingers on the keyboard and controls. The numbers did not change, and she glared at them a moment longer before moving on to the next screen. The news was no better there: most of the Headlands apartments were controlled by The Willows, and the information on tenants’ names and rents and who actually paid the bills was buried in The Willows’ most secure databases. She had already proved that she couldn’t break that IC(E)—almost unconsciously, she ran her hand over her sore elbow, imagining a bruise beneath the skin even though she knew perfectly well that the tingling was in her nerves, in the brainworm itself—which left her only the slow, unreliable road through the city records. And that wasn’t even cracking, she thought, bitterly; it was more like panning for gold, sifting huge amounts of raw information through a datasieve in the hopes first that the information you wanted was actually there, and then that you’d built the sieve correctly to catch it. Most crackers didn’t have the patience for the technique—hell, she wasn’t sure she had the patience for it anymore—but she’d already exhausted all the other options.

She made a face at the screen, dumped the information back to the disk, then called up another file. This one contained the latest access codes for most of the East Coast city databases—it was one of those things the wannabes cracked out of the systems and posted, just to prove they could do it—and, as she had hoped, the Seahaven/Southbrook/Sands joint administrative district computer was on the list, less than twenty hours old. The codes indicated that it was an older machine, without the additional security packages that most of the larger cities had installed in the past year. She lifted an eyebrow at that—she would have expected The Willows either to provide the program or at least to insist that the town governments install it—but experience had taught her to be grateful for small mercies. She copied the code, and went looking for her datasieve. She found it at last, on a subsidiary disk, and brought it into working memory, opened it, then stared at the matrix, considering the parameters. This was something that Cerise was particularly good at, designing search routines, and she stood up abruptly, reached for the handset before she could change her mind. There was no point in not contacting Cerise, not now, but she still felt oddly embarrassed by the sudden strength of her need to work with the other woman. She punched in the numbers with more force than necessary, steeling herself for the buzzing of an empty line, and was startled when Cerise herself answered.

“Yes?”

“It’s me.”

“Figures,” Cerise said.

Trouble could hear her relax, and imagined her sudden smile. “I need your help with something,” she said, and Cerise laughed softly.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not on the phone, no,” Trouble answered.

“Ah. Well, I have some news for you, too,” Cerise said. “Shall I come to you?”

Trouble looked around the little room, reminded again that Treasury had been there the night before. She had swept for bugs and taps again as soon as she returned, with no result, but Treasury was good. There was no reason to take unnecessary chances. “Probably not,” she said, with some reluctance. “Why don’t I meet you back at your place?”

“I’ll be expecting you,” Cerise answered, and the line went dead.

Trouble walked back across the bridge into Seahaven proper, her portable system and the disk-bound toolkit heavy on her shoulder, and threaded her way through the crowd of shoppers along Ashworth Avenue. They were mostly corporate, out on holiday, mixed with a few of the richer locals, and she was glad when she reached the entrance to Eastman House. Cerise had left word at the desk; the attendant, another young woman, sallow and thin, not flattered by the deep red uniform jacket, motioned for Trouble to take the elevator. Trouble nodded her thanks, and went through into the lobby. The elevator came quickly enough—Eastman House didn’t seem to be particularly busy at the moment—and she found herself hurrying down the hallway toward Cerise’s room. She made a face, but did not slow her step until she was right outside the door. She knocked, and was obscurely pleased when Cerise answered instantly.

“So what’s up?” she asked, and stepped back out of the doorway.

Trouble followed her in, impressed again by the expensive furniture and the view of the slough and the trees through the enormous window. The sunlight spilled across the carpet, and the tide waters gleamed like steel in the channels of the marsh; the trees were red and gold and green against the sky. Cerise closed the door, and Trouble turned again to look at her, as slim and expensive as the furniture and the view, vivid against the decorous cream walls. She bit down the sudden flood of desire, said, “I’ve got a line on newTrouble.”

“Have you now?” Cerise said, soft-voiced, and grinned suddenly. “I didn’t find Silk. I left a watchdog, though, that may help.”

“Mine’s in the real world,” Trouble said. “Mollie says he lives in one of the Headlands apartments.”

“The fancy towers?” Cerise asked. “How the hell does he afford that?”

“That’s what I’ve been wondering, and so have Mollie and Nova,” Trouble answered. “Mollie says she doesn’t think he’s hustling.”

“And he’s not selling what he takes off the nets,” Cerise said, her eyebrows drawing down into a faint, unconscious frown. “I’d trust Blake to know a hustler when she sees one.”

“Exactly.”

Cerise nodded, looked back at Trouble. “So what did you want, sweetheart?”

Trouble grinned. “I already tried The Willows’ IC(E)— they own the Headlands, did you know that? I didn’t.”

“I might’ve guessed,” Cerise muttered. “How’s your head?”

“It’s not my head that hurts, it’s my elbow,” Trouble said, with perfect truth. “I didn’t get very far—I didn’t think it would be smart to push it.”

Cerise nodded again. “So how do you want to play it?”

Trouble felt a brief thrill of pleasure. It was flattering for Cerise to assume that if Trouble couldn’t break that IC(E), neither could she; more than that, it was like the old days, the casual trust, making it easier to ask. “I think we’re going to have to go through the city database, and that was always your specialty. You want to help me program the sieve?”

“God,” Cerise said, “that takes me back. I don’t think I own one anymore, certainly not in this memory.” She gestured vaguely toward her system, snugged up against the main media console.

“Working in the light’s got you spoiled,” Trouble said. “As it happens…” She let her voice trail off, and slipped the heavy bag from her shoulder.

“Help yourself,” Cerise said, and went to the console, typed in codes to open the system. After a moment’s search, Trouble found the disk she wanted, and fed it into the drive Cerise indicated. A light flickered on, and Cerise typed the run codes before Trouble could recite them.

‘“Your memory’s good,” she said, startled, and Cerise looked up at her, eyes hooded.

“You better believe it, darling.”

That sounded promising, looked promising. Trouble shivered in spite of herself, said quickly, “The code’s already in there, I downloaded it an hour or so ago. It was eighteen hours old then, so it should still be all right.”

Cerise nodded. “They usually change every twenty-four hours up here,” she said absently, her fingers already busy on the keys, calling up the main program and the search routine. “So. What do we know about this newTrouble?”

“He’s young,” Trouble answered promptly.

“How young?”

Trouble shrugged one shoulder, thinking. “Under twenty-five, would be my guess, probably younger. Mollie said he looked sixteen, seventeen.”

“Can I bring it down to twenty, do you think?” Cerise asked, her hands poised over the keyboard. Trouble came to stand behind her, staring at the search screen.

“Make it twenty-one,” she said, after a moment. “I’ve just got a feeling he isn’t legal yet.”

Cerise nodded, entered the number in the correct box. “I wonder if he lives alone?”

“Alone or with one other person,” Trouble said.

“Yeah, that would be my thought, too,” Cerise said. “Should I be looking for a keeper, maybe put an age restriction on the household?”

Trouble hesitated, tempted—despite what Blake had said, she had to think that someone was paying newTrouble’s bills—but shook her head. “I have to trust Mollie,” she said. “And she says he’s not a hustler.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s not being kept,” Cerise argued, but moved on to the next field. “Profession or professions?”

“God, I don’t know.”

“Well, what would you tell the IRS?”

“As little as possible,” Trouble said. “I don’t know, consultant, maybe? Technical trades/miscellaneous?”

“You know, I’m inclined to leave it blank for now,” Cerise said. “I’ll use that to sort the results later.”

“You’re the wizard at this,” Trouble said, with perfect truth, and Cerise smiled up at her.

“I know.”

“And modest, too,” Trouble said, not quite under her breath. Cerise laughed, and turned her attention back to the screen. She worked quickly now, pausing only to ask a quick question now and then. Trouble did her best to answer, but knew that her responses were less than adequate. When at last Cerise was finished, she leaned back in her chair, shaking her head.

“I’m going to get at least thirty names out of this, even restricting it by location, maybe as many as fifty. How’re we going to sort it out?”

“I don’t know,” Trouble admitted. “I liked your idea of sorting by profession—”

“Assuming that newTrouble lists himself as something technie,” Cerise said. “What do you call yourself, sweetie?”

“A syscop,” Trouble answered.

“Before, I meant.”

“I know.” Trouble looked away from the screen. In the old days, she had described herself on the government forms as a clerk-typist, freelance; Cerise had called herself a grade-three secretary, Trouble remembered, and not for the first time wondered if the other woman had actually trained as office staff. She said, “There must be a way we could check it out— or we could just hand it over to Mabry as is, I suppose.”

“You don’t sound any more eager than I am,” Cerise said.

“Well, I wouldn’t feel like I was living up to my part of the bargain,” Trouble said. “And I really don’t want him to think that way.”

“Yes,” Cerise said. She frowned at the screen, touched more keys to dump her responses into the main search matrix. “Let me start this running, then we can talk.”

Trouble nodded, stayed leaning over the other woman’s shoulder to watch as Cerise keyed in the first series of access codes. The regional database prompts appeared after a moment, and she keyed in the next codes. Even working off the wire, completely outside the nets’ virtual space, her work was precise and efficient, and Trouble caught herself watching again in fascination. Cerise found the main search program almost at once, and touched more keys to insinuate her own program, replacing the preset parameters with her own datasieve. There was a momentary hesitation, and then the system accepted her override. The screen went blank, the prompts replaced with a holding pattern. Trouble eyed it warily—she distrusted anything that tied up a machine long enough for the authorities to complete a trace, no matter how necessary she knew it to be—and Cerise pushed her chair away.

“This is going to take a while,” she said. “You want a drink?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Trouble watched her move to the low cabinet, touch her thumb to the cheap lock and open the main compartment. “Wine?”

Cerise turned back to her, already holding two half-sized bottles. “The glasses are in the bathroom.”

“How elegant,” Trouble said, but went to collect the tumblers. The sinkboard was cluttered with familiar items, brush, toothbrush, a dozen black-lacquer containers of makeup, all the same expensive brand Cerise had always used. Some things don’t change, she thought, and brought the glasses back out into the main room. Cerise handed her one of the bottles, accepted a glass, and they poured the wine in companionable silence.

“Well,” Cerise said, after a moment, and held up her glass in silent toast.

Trouble matched the gesture, old habit, tasted the wine cautiously. It was better than they had ever been able to afford—better than she had been able to afford on her syscop’s salary—and she took a longer swallow, savoring it.

“Expense accounts are a wonderful thing,” Cerise said, with a rather bitter smile.

“Useful, certainly,” Trouble said. “Is Multiplane really going to pay for all this?”

“It’s on their account,” Cerise answered.

The silence returned, broken only by the occasional whirring of the machine’s main drive as it accessed some other part of the program. Cerise turned to look at the screen, grateful for the interruption, saw that the holding screen had been replaced by something else, and went to see to it. Trouble trailed behind her, still holding her glass of wine, watched over the other’s shoulder while she stored the file—a massive one, Trouble saw without surprise—and extricated herself from the system. Cerise didn’t look up when she had finished, but recalled the main program and set up a second search routine.

“Sorting by profession?” Trouble asked after a moment, wanting to break the silence. Cerise nodded, preoccupied, fingers busy on the keys, and Trouble resigned herself to wait. To her surprise, however, Cerise touched a final sequence that dumped the new file into the sort queue, and pushed herself back from the machine.

“Yeah. I’ve set it up to break the list down by job listing, technie stuff at the top, and so on, but then we’ll have to go over it by hand.”

Trouble nodded. “Fun.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Trouble stared for a moment longer at the screen, its numbers now replaced by a mindless swirl of color. “How long, do you think?”

Cerise shrugged. “I don’t know. Fifteen, twenty minutes?”

“That long.”

“It’s a complicated file, and a complicated search,” Cerise said, annoyed.

“Sorry.”

The silence was less amiable this time. Trouble turned away from the media center, frowning slightly, found Cerise scowling back at her from across the room. Trouble felt her own frown deepening, temper rising in response to Cerise’s irritation, wondered suddenly what had happened to the ease they had felt—was it only that morning? I’m not letting this happen again, she thought, smoothed her expression with an effort. She took another swallow of the wine, said, “I did miss you.”

Cerise’s eyebrows flicked upward in surprise. It was on the tip of her tongue to remind Trouble that she had been the one who left—but she’d said that before, and Trouble had apologized, too. “Well,” she said. “I missed you, too.”

It was her turn to sound unreasonably annoyed, and Trouble laughed softly. Cerise stared at her for a moment, then, reluctantly, smiled back. “So now what?” she asked, and Trouble put her glass down, took a step toward her.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Ah,” Cerise said, and put her own glass aside. “Well.”

“Back rub?” Trouble asked, too brightly, and Cerise grinned.

“No. Come here.”

Trouble held out her arms instead, and Cerise moved toward her as though hypnotized, caught Trouble in a firm embrace. Trouble returned the hug, awkwardly, hampered by the other woman’s hold, and was very aware that Cerise was staring up at her, still grinning, daring her to pull away. They were close in height, but Trouble was the taller; she clung to that illusion of advantage as Cerise worked one arm free, reached up to tilt the other woman’s face down to meet her own lips. Her kiss was momentarily chaste, lips closed and cool, deliberately so, and she smiled again as Trouble’s eyes flickered closed.

Trouble caught her breath, pulled away for an instant, a familiar ache beginning between her legs, set one hand deliberately on Cerise’s breast, feeling the nipple hard beneath her palm, distinct even through the fabric of her shirt and bra. The bra was a surprise—Cerise had never used to wear one before, but then, they had both filled out since the old days, gotten older, gotten better—but the rest was startlingly familiar. They made their way into the bedroom somehow, locked in a stumbling embrace, still competing to end up on top because that was what had always turned them on, rumbled with shirts and jeans until at last Cerise sprawled back against the pillows. She was naked to the waist, shirt discarded somewhere on the floor, bra tangled under her, jeans half unbuttoned already, and Trouble sat back on her heels, too caught by the swell of breast and belly for a moment to even think of shrugging out of her own clothes. She had forgotten, somehow—had always forgotten, had always relearned, each time she saw Cerise naked—just how fine her body was, the alabaster skin and the dark brown-pink aureoles, the sleek black hair now tousled around her face.

“Come here, then,” Cerise said, and reached for the taller woman, drawing her down against her own embrace. Trouble came to her willingly, wrapping arms and legs around her, grunted in surprise as Cerise rolled deftly, so that she straddled Trouble’s hips.

“My turn,” Cerise said, and Trouble let herself be peeled out of the tangle of shirt and bra. Cerise slid her fingers under the waistband of Trouble’s jeans, fingers cool against hot skin, then, suddenly impatient, tugged the zipper open, dragged jeans and underwear down around Trouble’s hips. Trouble arched upward, ready to cooperate, but Cerise left the material where it was, tangled just below Trouble’s crotch, and leaned forward, drawing her breasts down the other woman’s body. Trouble whimpered softly—it had been a long time, too long—and she should know better, should stop now, but Cerise’s touch dissolved all thoughts of safety. She pulled Cerise down hard against her. Cerise grinned—Trouble could feel the movement of her mouth against her breast—and slid her hand down between Trouble’s legs. Trouble closed her eyes, giving herself up to the sensations, the too-slow touch, easing between her labia, thumb circling her clit while a finger pressed and entered her. Cerise mumbled something, sounded approving, tongue busy on Trouble’s right nipple, and Trouble whimpered again, wriggling to try to get the busy fingers just where she needed them. For a moment, it seemed as though Cerise would ignore her, worse, had forgotten, but then her hand shifted, fingers settling to a familiar rhythm, and Trouble let herself be carried away, shuddering to her climax against Cerise’s hand.

Trouble lay still for a long moment, savoring the slow relaxation, the warmth of Cerise’s hand still cupped against her vulva, the weight of the other woman’s body sprawled half across her, head tucked comfortably just above her breast. She ran her hand down Cerise’s spine, felt the other woman shift slightly, as though she would have purred. And then the handset beside the bed beeped gently, echoed an instant later by a louder buzz from the media console.

“Fuck,” Cerise said, her mouth still against Trouble’s breast.

“We just did that,” Trouble said, unable to resist.

“You may have done,” Cerise said, and twisted free of Trouble’s embrace, reaching for the handset.

“So don’t answer,” Trouble said.

Cerise glared at her, and lifted the handset. “Yes?”

Trouble rolled onto her side, automatically pulling up her jeans, and grimaced at the soggy fabric between her legs. She had been stupid, and the knowledge of it chilled her to the bone. She didn’t believe in taking chances, not when she knew the odds, not even with Cerise. “Who is it?” she asked, and Cerise mouthed, Mabry. Trouble groaned softly, and reached for her shirt, began disentangling it from her vest. What they’d done was relatively safe, but gloves would’ve been safer, and she found herself staring at Cerise’s delicate hands, looking for cuts. Three years was a long time, long enough for anything to happen.

Cerise said aloud, “Yes, we have some of the information you were looking for.” She stopped, listening, and made a face. “Yeah, why don’t you come on up?” She listened again, nodded, and said, “All right.” Trouble rolled her eyes, and Cerise put the headset down with exquisite care.

“Hell, Cerise,” Trouble said.

“You think you’re disappointed?” Cerise said, and reached for her clothes. “You owe me, sweetheart.”

“No problem,” Trouble said, and meant it. “When’s he coming?”

“He’s on his way,” Cerise said, and gave a rueful smile. “Timing is everything.”

They managed to dress before Mabry knocked at the door, but only just. Trouble ran her fingers through her hair, well aware that it was even more disheveled than usual, and Cerise gave herself a disapproving look in the mirror as she went to answer the door.

“You said you had something for us?” she asked even before Mabry was fully into the room.

Mabry looked around once, eyebrows lifting in what might have been amusement. Trouble glared at him, daring him to say anything, and the big man looked away.

“You wanted to see more examples of newTrouble’s work,” he said. “I brought some. You said you had something for me?”

“It’s just finishing,” Trouble said, without looking at the screen.

“We have a rough address,” Cerise said. “It’s just a matter of narrowing it down.”

“That’s very good,” Mabry said, in what seemed to be genuine surprise. “I’m impressed.”

“It’s nice to have friends,” Trouble said.

“So,” Cerise said. “What have we got?” She crossed to the media center and leaned over the screen, frowning slightly. Trouble moved to join her, saw the list of names now neatly sorted by probabilities, and looked back at Mabry.

“Can I see your disk?”

Mabry handed it to her silently, and she stooped to collect her own carryall, discarded on the floor by the media center. She seated herself on the couch, stretching to reach a power node, and hastily rigged a working system. She slipped the disk into a drive, flipped through the files. Most of them were Treasury or Eurocop dissections of viruses or intrusion techniques, but a couple were straight transcripts of intrusion and pursuit. Those she paged through more slowly, frowning more deeply now. She was only dimly aware of the click of keys as Cerise worked her way through the list, or of Mabry still standing by the main door, hands shoved deep into his pockets. There was something familiar about the hand in the files, something familiar about the way the programs were constructed and the way newTrouble approached a job—not just that he had stolen from her work, that she could see and discount, torn between annoyance and flattery. But there was something about the stranger, about one exchange between newTrouble and a pursuing syscop— the flare of an icon, an exchange of insults, and then the quick and contemptuous disappearance—that reminded her of something, someone, she could not quite place. She ran her fingers through her hair, flipped back to an earlier file, looking for a file that dissected one of newTrouble’s icebreakers. The autopsy was well done, more sophisticated than the usual run of cops’ work, and she went through it slowly, line by line. This was familiar, too, though not quite in the same way as the intrusion she had been tracing; this time, at least, she could put a name to the model.

“This is the Mayor’s work,” she said aloud, and was startled when Mabry answered.

“The Mayor? Of Seahaven?”

“It can’t be the Mayor’s,” Cerise said, ignoring Mabry. “He’d never give anything of his to newTrouble.”

“It’s still the Mayor’s work,” Trouble said.

“Surely he—newTrouble—could have stolen it?” Mabry asked.

Trouble shook her head as Cerise came to join her, leaning down over her shoulder to study the little screen. “You don’t steal from the Mayor,” she said. “First, he’d never forgive you, would hunt you to the day you died—”

“Which wouldn’t be very far off,” Cerise said.

“—and, second, you’d have to break his IC(E) to do it.” Trouble shook her head again. “The Mayor—virtual-Seahaven’s his own private fortress. There are parts where he doesn’t need IC(E), the programming is so idiosyncratic. Nobody’s ever stolen anything from him. Not anything important.”

“That is the Mayor’s hand,” Cerise said, leaned further forward so that her arm was resting on Trouble’s shoulder. Trouble was briefly aware of the scent of her, sex and sweat and perfume.

“Take a look at this one,” she said, and touched the controls to recall the first file. “It looks like the Mayor, too, a little, but there’s something else…”

“It reminds me of Silk,” Cerise said.

“Silk?” That was Mabry again, moving in from the doorway.

Cerise brushed past him to retrieve a disk from the media center. “Take a look at this,” she said, and handed it to Trouble.

Trouble took it, fed it into the secondary drive, and waited while the machine absorbed the contents. There was a lock on the main file, and Cerise leaned past her, breast nudging against her shoulder, to touch the codes that released it. Trouble nodded her thanks, and opened the file. It was a work-in-progress, blocks of as-yet-unwritten code replaced with cryptically labeled placeholders, but the basic intent was clear enough. It was a display program, mostly iconage, but married to the bones of a decent-looking icepick: a show-off program, Trouble thought, the sort of thing kids wrote, to prove what they could do. It would work its way through someone’s IC(E)—probably without alerting security; even in the skeletal state, she could see that it was a pick, not a hammer—and then, in the heart of a supposedly secure system, unfurl its iconage. And probably something else, too, she realized suddenly, looking at the missing pieces of code. There was certainly a place for a viral payload.

“It’s a clever piece of work,” she said aloud. “And it looks like newTrouble, all right. What’s good is brilliant, but there’s some sloppy work around the edges.”

“He’s added code he didn’t write,” Mabry said. “See, there and there, those timers—and he hasn’t bothered to integrate it.”

“I got this,” Cerise said, deliberately, “out of Silk’s space. Silk’s work.”

“You think they’re the same person?” Trouble asked.

Cerise closed her eyes, trying to recapture the feeling of the first intrusion, her sense of that hand, compared it to the sense she’d had of Silk, in their two meetings. Bearing in mind that Silk had meant to hustle her, had overlaid her— his?—program with deliberate seduction, while the intruder had been after other game—yes, there had been a hint of Trouble, her own Trouble and the imposter’s version of that hand, in Silk’s approach. It was, she acknowledged, one reason she had fallen for it so easily. “Yeah,” she said aloud. “Yes, I think so.”

“And there’s a connection to the Mayor as well?” Mabry asked. His voice was tight, controlled, and Cerise looked warily at him.

Trouble said, still looking at the screen, “If he’s using the Mayor’s routines, the Mayor sold or gave them to him. I’m sure of that.”

Cerise nodded, but her eyes were still on Mabry. Mabry smiled, turned away from the couch, and leaned in over the screen set up below the media center. “How is your list set up?” he asked.

Cerise followed him, frowning now. “By profession, technie stuff first, then by age and number in household within each category.”

“Run me a search, will you?” Mabry asked. “By co-lessor or primary leaseholder, probably the leaseholder. The name is Eytan Novross.”

Cerise lifted an eyebrow, but did as he asked, saying, “Who’s Novross?”

Mabry smiled, not pleasantly. “Eytan Novross is the Mayor of Seahaven.”

Trouble set her machine aside and came to join them, resting one hand on the back of Cerise’s chair. “I thought nobody knew who the Mayor was, realworld.”

“We’ve known for years,” Mabry said. “We just couldn’t—can’t—prove anything against him. The space that Novross runs is perfectly clean, or has been every time we’ve gained access. But it is Seahaven, and he’s the Mayor, there’s no question about it.”

“Do you think he’d be stupid enough to have an obvious connection with newTrouble?” Trouble asked.

“It’s worth a try, at any rate,” Mabry said, and there was something in his voice that made Trouble look sharply at him. He knew something, all right, something that he wasn’t telling—

“Got it, by God,” Cerise said. “Look there.”

The record filled the screen, drawn perhaps from census, perhaps from the tax forms, the record of owner and inhabitants of one of the Headlands apartments. Not the most expensive of the buildings, Trouble saw without surprise, but not the cheapest, either. And even the cheapest of those flats were worth more than she could afford. Eytan Novross was listed as the owner, a further screen indicating that he paid taxes and mortgage promptly and without complaint; the occupant, however, was listed as James Tilsen, student. “He’s seventeen,” she said aloud, and Mabry shrugged.

“We figured he was young.”

Not that young, I didn’t, Trouble thought, not really, and bit back the words because they weren’t—quite—true. She had been seventeen when she first made a name for herself in the shadows. It was more that she had forgotten, as she herself had gotten older, just how young the competition would always be. It was hard not to feel a little guilty when you slapped down a rival, if you thought too much about their age…

“You really think this is newTrouble?” Cerise asked.

Mabry nodded again. “Yes. I’m sure of it.”

It was there again, in his voice, the certainty. “You knew this,” Trouble said aloud. “You knew there was a connection.”

Mabry looked at her, heavy face empty of emotion, and Cerise said, “Ah. I think you’re right, Trouble.” Her voice hardened. “Give, Mabry.”

Mabry hesitated a moment longer, grimaced. “We knew that Novross—the Mayor—was paying to house and feed this kid, a kid, anyway. We looked into it pretty thoroughly, of course—the boy was well underage—but everything was scrupulously aboveboard. Novross lives elsewhere—he’s on the move a lot, but he rents in Harborside or by the Parcade, anyplace he can get power for the hardware—and does not, absolutely does not, sleep with the kid.”

Cerise lifted an eyebrow at that, and Mabry scowled, looked fleetingly ashamed. “Do you think that wasn’t the first thing Treasury—and us, too—checked out? They thought—it would have been a good arrest. Tilsen was fifteen when he moved in.”

Trouble looked away, torn. Fifteen was too damn young, most of the time, ninety percent of the time, but she resented the certainty that it would have been the queer relationship that made a conviction certain. If newTrouble had been a girl—if it had been me, she thought, with a sudden chill—it would have been a different matter.

“You mean he’s just being paternal?” Cerise asked, and the disbelief was plain in her voice. “The Mayor?”

Mabry shrugged, looked even more uncomfortable. “There was a sting set up, too, nice young-looking guy. He said Novross nearly panicked when he said he’d sleep with him, told him no in no uncertain terms. Said he was above all that, above sex, but our man thought he was too scared to do it. So, paternal or not, I don’t think he’s sleeping with the kid.”

Trouble looked at him without affection. This was the part of a syscop’s work that she disliked—but that, she told herself, was pure sentiment. NewTrouble, whatever his age, whatever his relationship with the Mayor, had done his best to destroy her and steal her name and reputation. That, in the end, was all that mattered. Still, at the moment, her victory felt a little hollow.

“What happens now?” she asked, and Mabry shrugged again.

“I get a warrant, and go see Tilsen,” he said. “With any luck, he brings down the Mayor as well.”

That wasn’t in the bargain, Trouble thought, but Cerise’s eyes were on her, and she said nothing.

“Do you think that’s likely?” Cerise asked, and heard the ambivalence in her own voice.

“Look,” Mabry said, “the Mayor is the source of half of what’s illegal in this sector of the nets—on the nets in general. Seahaven, his Seahaven, is worse than the City of London for data laundering. Do you have a problem with shutting him down?”

The two women looked at each other, each one knowing better than to speak for the other, and then Cerise gestured impatiently. Trouble said, “I suppose not. But it’ll be a weird world without Seahaven.”

Cerise nodded.

“Maybe,” Mabry said. He turned away from the media center, stopped again with his hand on the door controls. “One thing, though. If you screw up this arrest, the deal is off.”

“You don’t need to threaten me,” Cerise said.

“It wasn’t you I was talking to,” Mabry answered, and was gone.

When the door had closed behind him, Cerise looked back at Trouble, one eyebrow rising in question. “You weren’t thinking of warning him, were you? NewTrouble, I mean.”

“No, not really,” Trouble said. She sighed, and walked back to the couch, began shutting down the system there. “It’s just—it makes a difference, knowing his name.”

Cerise nodded. “I know.”

“And I never wanted to close down Seahaven,” Trouble said.

“Christ, no.” Cerise took a deep breath. “Except I never liked the Mayor…”

Trouble smiled. “No more do I. But—” She broke off, shaking her head, coiled an errant cable around her fingers. “Damn it, I don’t like the way the net’s changing. I don’t trust these guys who come in out of the bright lights and plan to fix everything, clean up the mess—who knows what they’re going to shut down next, the arts links?”

“You’re overreacting,” Cerise said, and made herself sound certain because she wasn’t sure at all that Trouble wasn’t right.

“You don’t think so.”

“No,” Cerise admitted, after a moment. “But it’s already changed. It changed when the law did, back when you said, when you had the sense to leave. This is just mopping up.”

Trouble nodded, slowly, looked down at the components strewn beside her on the couch to hide the old, still-fierce pain. Cerise was right, of course: that had been why she herself had left the nets, left Cerise, because the virtual frontier had closed, its shadows bounded and mapped by the new web of laws that allowed the realworld to exert its authority. Once, there had been a chance that the nets, the virtual world, might expand to contain and control the real, but that had ended. All that was left for them was to try to preserve the good things of the nets within the confines of the realworld. “So what do we do now?” she asked, meaning afterwards, and Cerise smiled, deliberately misunderstanding.

“What about a last walk on the wild side?” she asked, and Trouble smiled back, grateful to have her question deflected. “Care for a trip to Seahaven?”