“Yes, Ms. Cerise?”
“I need you to set up a meeting for me with Brendan Rabin at Corvo, sometime this afternoon for preference. Will you do that, and get back to me as soon as possible?”
“No problem,” Massek said cheerfully, and his window vanished.
Cerise sighed, and turned her attention to her mail. As she’d expected, the largest file was Sirico’s report, and she flipped through it quickly. He had been as thorough as ever, and had come up with nothing—which means, she thought, whoever it is, this new Trouble’s had trouble selling whatever s/he got. And since that’s not likely, unless Rabin has something really unexpected to tell me, like they’re not working on anything at the moment, it should mean that s/he didn’t get anything at all. She touched keys, flipping quickly through the remaining files, then switched to a different program and tied herself into Sirico’s last reported position. There was a brief hesitation, and then another window opened on her screen, displaying Sirico’s icon, a samurai-armored head and shoulders that looked vaguely robotic.
“Cerise?”
“Who were you expecting?” Cerise began, and cut herself off. “You did a nice job on the report, Pol.”
“Thanks.” The icon’s expression could not change—Sirico didn’t have a brainworm, was too obedient a networker for that—but the voice sounded faintly smug. “I don’t think they got anything, boss. Somebody’d be buying, if they had.”
“I think you’re right,” Cerise said. “Tell me, what else have you heard about this Trouble?”
There was the faintest of hesitations before he answered, just enough to convince her that there was something more. “Just talk. Nothing real.”
“Such as?”
There was a longer silence, and then Sirico blurted, “Word is, you used to work with somebody called Trouble.”
“That’s right.” Cerise had been expecting the question for almost twenty hours now; she found herself remotely surprised that none of the others had brought it up before. Except, of course, Coigne. “We were partners. You knew I came out of the shadows, Pol. Everyone does.”
“So, what do you want us to do about this one? Go slow?”
Cerise blinked at the screen, startled and a little touched by the offer. “No. I want to stop any more problems before they get started—and besides, I don’t think it’s the Trouble I used to know.”
“There are people saying that,” Sirico said. “And there are a lot of people who are pretty pissed at this one. He/she’s been teasing the big names, and stirred up a lot of security in the process.”
Definitely not my Trouble, Cerise thought. “Any word on how to contact this Trouble?”
“What else?” Sirico asked, and the icon would have grinned it if could. “Seahaven.”
“Ah.” Cerise leaned back in her chair. She had expected nothing less, of course, would have been disappointed if she had gotten any other answer. Seahaven was the last and greatest of the virtual villages, the last survivor of a dozen similar spaces that had existed before Evans-Tindale. It was a virtual space run by and for its unknown architect, the Mayor, an unreal place policed, positioned, and created entirely at his whim. If you entered its influence, you agreed to abide by its rules, to subordinate whatever filters you used to interpret the net to its own system. It was a spectacular effect, and a dangerous one; there were always people who tried to beat the local system, force it to bend to their whim, and while they always failed, the fallout could be disastrous. It had always been a cracker’s haven; now it was one of the last remaining spaces where the shadow walkers could conduct their business. It was also one of the net’s greatest temptations, and home of its greatest dangers: Trouble had said once that if it were on any map, it would have to be labeled, quite literally, here be dragons.
“Do you have any idea where I’d look for Seahaven these days?”
Sirico’s icon shifted color, went yellow for a brief instant, the equivalent of a shrug. “New Hampshire?”
“Very funny.” Cerise frowned at the screen. Seahaven was also a town on the New Hampshire coast, maybe ninety-five kilometers to the north. It had once been a summer resort and a fishing town, but as the beaches became dangerous, racked with high UV sunlight, eaten away by pollution and the shifting tide-line, other businesses had dwindled, until the entire population was dependent on the secure hotel built just outside the town on pilings driven into the salt marsh. The hotel was highly rated among the multinationals who needed absolute security for their negotiations—there had never been a successful raid, virtual or real, on the facility, and only a handful of attempts—and the lack of other work in the area kept its prices lower than most. Seahaven, the off-line Seahaven, existed now only to service the hotel, and the hotel and the town government worked hand in glove to keep it that way. Cerise had lived there for an interminable eight months after Evans-Tindale—the old beachfront Parcade was one of the best sources along the East Coast for black- and grey-market ware, and she had been desperate for new hardware—and had hated it. The ghost of a town, worse still, the ghost of a virtual town, hopeless and dying, with nothing to do but serve the hotel and throw rocks and bottles at straying strangers: live free or die, Cerise thought, only they can’t seem to do either. She shook away the flash of memory, salt air and the smell of oil smoke drifting along the beachfront, said aloud, “The Seahaven that matters, Pol. Any ideas?”
“I don’t know. The last I heard, if you wanted to go to Seahaven, take a walk through the Bazaar. But that was a week ago.”
Cerise sighed. “Right, thanks. Keep an eye out for any sale from this intrusion, will you?”
“How long do you want me to watch?” Sirico asked.
“Give it another thirty-two hours,” Cerise answered. “If we haven’t seen anything by then, we’re not going to.”
“OK.”
“Thanks, Pol,” Cerise said, and cut the connection. She stared at the screen for a moment, then touched keys to sound the net. The system flashed an instant list of everyone’s position on-line. The simplest thing would be to post a general message, but traveling to net-Seahaven was still something a little questionable, a long step toward the shadows; for her people’s sake, it would be better to ask them individually. She studied the list, then blanked the screen. None of the duty operators were likely to admit knowing the road, even if they did know it, which wasn’t terribly likely; better to hit the net herself, head for the BBS and the Bazaar that lay at its heart, and find her own way from there. And, she admitted, with a wry smile at her own frailties, it would be more fun to do it herself.
Before she could tie in, a chime sounded, and Massek’s face appeared in the corner of her screen. “I’ve set up an appointment with Mr. Rabin, Ms. Cerise. Is two-thirty all right with you?”
Cerise made a face. “Can you make it any later, Landy?”
“Sorry. Mr. Rabin’s got a meeting at three as it is, and he expects to be there the rest of the day.”
“All right,” Cerise said, and knew she sounded irritable. “Two-thirty it is.”
“Thanks. I’ll tell Mr. Rabin.” Massek vanished.
That changed the parameters somewhat. Cerise pushed herself up from her desk and went to the door of the office. “Jensey. I’m going out on the net for the next few hours. I’ll be back by two—it’s to do with the incident yesterday, if anyone asks.” She meant Coigne, and Baeyen knew it.
“I’ll tell him,” the dark woman answered. “Do you want me to sound a recall for you?”
“I’ll set one,” Cerise answered, and turned away. She returned to her seat, adjusting the chair controls to a more comfortable setting, one that wouldn’t leave her crippled after a few hours. She checked the toolkits and the standbys already displayed on the screen, and touched keys to have the system warn her when it was time to go home. Then she took a deep breath, and launched herself out onto the net.
She is flying now, bursting like a rocket through the company IC(E), exploding onto the ne
t like a firework. Overhead, a light gleams like a moon, full and brilliant: an open conference, and she hesitates, tempted, but makes herself turn away. The lines of the nets expand before her, roads and rivers of data like glowing highways; she chooses one, not quite at random, and lets it carry her down toward the BBS.
The rivers move more slowly here, where talk is free and the lines are overburdened. She disciplines herself to that meandering pace, drifts silently from node to node. The Bazaar is the great center of the BBS, the link of traders’ nodes where anything and everything is bought and sold. Lights flare around her as she drifts closer, bursts of compressed iconage like the cries of a street hawker, and the air smells of burnt cinnamon. She bats the most persistent symbols idly away, feeling them break like bubbles against her hand: familiar advertising, most of them, some of them not, new names and faces, new services, strangers on the net. She drifts past, not bothering to make any reply, her own icon dimmed and ghostly in the midst of all that brilliance, seeking the sellers that lie behind the walls of light, behind the barriers of the obvious. She tests the virtual winds, tasting the data, but finds none of the familiar markers that hint at the road to Seahaven. At the Polar Flare, where there is always news of the shadows, she catches the ball of light that is flung at her, unwraps the spinning advertisement without bothering to read the icons: there is nothing at its center, and she frowns, and tosses the glittering shards like confetti back onto the net. There are other nodes; she crosses them, finds at last a familiar symbol, and touches it. The shape within becomes a presence, a scent and then a swirl of light, a hand-icon inviting her inside. She reaches into her own toolkit, finds the right shape to answer it. Their icons merge, weaving together into a sphere that will provide at least the illusion of privacy, and the familiar presence speaks.
*Haven’t seen you in a while, Cerise. Are you buying or selling?*
He knows perfectly well she’s gone legit, gotten a real job, a legal job, and Cerise smiles, letting the brainworm display the expression for all to see.
*Neither, Max. As you should know. I’m trying to get to Seahaven.*
As she expects, that stops him, and there is a little pause, the light flickering around her like a silent fire. She hangs in its warmth like a salamander, happy in her element, and hears a faint intake of breath.
*The road’s closed today, or so I hear. Come back tomorrow.*
*Trouble?*
She makes the question ambiguous, and hears Max Helling laugh.
*I thought you left her.*
He knows better than that, he was there, and Cerise keeps her tone cold and level. *If it’s her—and she left me.*
*If—?* There is another little silence, and then Helling laughs again. *So that’s the way you’re playing it. I heard this Trouble got into Multiplane.*
*That’s the way it is. Or so I hear.* Her echo of his words is malicious, and she hears it strike home.
*I’ve retired, too, Cerise. Don’t push me.*
That is news, and Cerise lifts an eyebrow, knowing the brainworm will relay the gesture, asking without speech whatever happened to Aledort. She says nothing direct, however, waits, lapped in the golden light. She waits, and it is Helling who speaks again.
*Like I said, the road’s down today. Try tomorrow—through Eleven’s Moon.*
He flips away, shattering the sphere that encloses them into a thousand shards like flying knives. Cerise ducks in spite of herself, in spite of knowing she should have expected it, and Helling is gone. But he’s told her what she wanted, what she needs to know; there’s nothing more she wants from him, not for now. She smiles, delighting in the glittering air, the crush and bother of the advertising, the slow and complex rhythm of the data tides that lie beneath the BBS, and turns along a curve of blue-green light, taking the long way home.
4
Trouble plays Jigsaw well, even by the standards of the nets. The crystals dance through the playing sphere, flickering from blue to green to yellow, racing up and down the spectrum in an unpredictable pattern, and she reaches for the red ones, catches them just as they blush from orange into red, and slings them into their place in the growing structure. The twisted sculpture, a fantastic, spiraling tower like a mad single-branched candelabra, shivers under a sudden shower of pieces, her own and her last opponent’s, flickering like a flame between blue and red. Around the inner surface of the sphere, the eliminated players cluster in ones and threes, bright icons at the corners of her vision, redetermining the playing area. She smiles, fierce behind the mask of her playing piece, the brainworm turned up full, so that she feels every unreal motion, and launches a crystal—already red, too late in its cycle to use—toward an icon who’s drifted too close, a silver shape like a Scottie dog. She turns away before she sees it hit or parried, to catch another drift of crystals. A few are shading toward red; she catches three in quick succession, tosses them, slowly, not with all her strength, so that as they approach the twisted tower they are just turning red. Her opponent, a wedge of iridescent silver like a fighter plane, knocks the first away with a well-placed crystal of her own, but the second and the third sink home, and the tower shades imperceptibly closer to the true red that would mean Trouble’s victory. Trouble smiles behind the masking icon, and launches herself up and over the wavering structure—it sways even wider, but she has timed it perfectly—and finds a rich field of crystals on the far side, all ripening toward the red she needs. The iridescent fighter swoops sideways, swinging wide around the structure, gathering crystals of her own, but Trouble is ahead of her. She slings the last five crystals into place, banking them off the nearest part of the sphere to snap into the lattice at the bottom of the tower, the hardest of all shots to execute but the most certain, done right. The tower flares scarlet, flashes victory; victory flares around her own icon, bathing her in sheer delight, direct pleasure, and she gasps inside the encircling field of color. The other icons, the glittering fighter, the Scottie dog, a stylized Ferrari, and all the rest, drop slowly to the common plane of the net, and the playing sphere fades around them.
*Nice game,* the fighter says, gruffly, and Trouble smiles again.
*Thanks.*
*I didn’t catch your name,* the Ferrari says.
Trouble pauses, savoring the moment she had known would come—she had planned for it, came out to play in order to provoke it, and now she intends to enjoy it. *Trouble,* she says at last. *The original,* and before they can react, before they can do more than absorb the words, she’s launched herself for the nearest node, leaving only the shell of the icon behind her. The cutouts flare as she drops through the node, and she vanishes from the net in a shower of smoke and flame that obscures her trail beyond recovery.
Trouble lay back in her chair, jolted by the drop from virtuality, let herself sit for a moment, until her heartbeat slowed to normal. She had spent the last three days tracking the person who called themself Trouble through the net, and had gotten nowhere, found nothing except a file full of crackers’ gossip. And Treasury was still too interested in her system to make it possible for her to chase down the rumors. She checked the main screen automatically, saw Starling’s watchdog still patiently chasing its tail, and touched the keys that released the crude muzzle. The program unfolded itself, sent a burst of codes across her screen, found nothing, and went dormant again, momentarily satisfied. Trouble eyed it uncertainly—she couldn’t be sure that it hadn’t spotted her interference, working with a three-year-old muzzle—but there was nothing she could do about it if it had. The worst it could do was testify that she had a brainworm—bad, but not an unbeatable charge. At least it could not, by itself, prove that she was Trouble.
And she had made a good start. Trouble smiled slowly, savoring the memory of the Jigsaw game. It had been fun to play again, to play at her own top capacity; it had been even more fun to name herself, and watch the panic set in. Once she was known to be back, she herself, the original, the only Trouble, someone would tell her who this pretende
r really was. And then she could deal with it, either by shopping the pretender to the cops—she had no obligations there, after the stranger had stolen her name, her style—or by revealing the pretense on the wider nets. The latter was probably the more satisfying option, though selling out the pretender was safer, and she allowed herself a grin, contemplating the possibilities.
Her fingers were cramping inside the tight shell of the metal-bound glove. She winced, working her hand against servos gone suddenly stiff and unresponsive, and sat up enough to unplug the glove. The pain eased, and she stretched cautiously, opening and closing her hand, until she was certain the cramps would not return. Then she snapped open the catches, and eased the glove away from her fingers. Trouble’s return—the return of the real Trouble, she amended silently—would be the talk of the nets within half an hour. All she had to do was back it up.
Fortunately, that wouldn’t be hard. But before she could go much further, she needed a new toolkit, and probably a new implant to manage data transfer to the brainworm. After three years, the old chip was outclassed, and while she could make or steal much of the software and bioware that she needed, it would be quicker and more efficient—and safer, too, in the long run—to buy what she needed from one of the shadow dealers who infested the coast. She had the money for it, a little more than five thousand in a mix of citiscrip, bearer cards, and an ugly grey-green wad of oldmoney; and besides, she told herself, buying a new kit would be one more way of announcing her return.
A chime sounded from the intercom, and she jumped before she realized what it was.
“India?” A female voice too distorted to recognize paused briefly, static singing through the speaker. “India, are you down there?”
Trouble touched the answer button, her heart still racing painfully. “I’m here. What is it?”
Trouble and her Friends Page 9