The gateway icon returned to the center of the screen, a multibranched, ever-changing shape that seemed always on the verge of falling into a regular polygon but could never quite be defined. Trouble evoked the control program, touched the virtual levers, bringing the brainworm fully online, and heard the seashell rush, the traffic rumble of the net. The realworld hazed and faded, overwritten by the images transmitted directly to her brain.
She rides the fast datastream toward the BBS and the delta, slides away from it as the data slows around her, using her own separate momentum to carry her a little further into the swirling light, the bright icons of the advertisers and the punters and the users blending into a single shifting layer like the flow of a visible wind. She passes familiar stations, nodes and virtual spaces that are shops and meeting grounds and informal brokers of one thing or another, but no one seems to notice. No one sends her more than the usual glittering chaff, and she smiles at her conceit that made her expect more. It is probably just as well, this virtual anonymity, or discretion, but she doesn’t have to like it. She finds a mail drop, a red-and-blue glittering box, and, after only the slightest hesitation, steps within. Inside is the illusion of a post office, and the illusion of privacy; she invokes a routine that makes the latter real, and quickly shapes her message. Butch—I need your help to contact Dr. Huu, and a place to stay. Meet me at Mickey’s Wild Goose at—she glances sideways, checking realtime, and makes the calculation—5 a.m. tomorrow. Thanks. She adds the mailcode and dispatches it, through a tried-and-true cutout node. Smoke flares briefly, a stink and a flash of heat across her face, and she knows the system has erased the local copy. She smiles, and dismisses the program that gave her the moment’s protection from prying eyes.
She moves on through the shifting pattern of the virtual streets, spirals eddying within a greater spiral, following their shape rather than the outward image, and finds herself at last in front of a symbol she recognizes, an icon man-tall, X and I barring a shape like a full moon. She lifts her hand, knocks, and, a fraction late, feels wood beneath her knuckle. A heartbeat later, the icon fades a little, becomes pliable to the touch. She drifts through it, and feels the local interface seize her, drawing shadowy shapes around her. The walls of a store tower to either side, dark shelves crammed with dark and unimaginable objects that slink away from view when you try to see them clearly; a shapeless figure, a demon carved of light so white that she can’t see any detail, sits behind a high counter, waiting.
*You rang?* it says, deep voice stolen from an actor famous for horror films, and Trouble smiles to herself She gestures, overriding the local system, and calls into being her old icon, harlequin dancing, the one everyone remembers.
*I’m on the road for Seahaven,* she says, and ignores the faint intake of breath that betrays the human hand behind the demon.
There is a little pause. She feels the faint pulse of a probe, pressure, a tickle, against her skin, and then the stronger surge of her own kit repelling its interest, so that she appears to the other as an icon without a source, without the faint silver cord that ties most icons to their point of origin and makes the skies above the BBS a cat’s-cradle of glittering lines. The demon shape nods and gestures, creating a doorway out of nothing.
*Enter,* it says, in its most sepulchral voice, and Trouble touches hand to forehead in mock salute. The door opens at her approach, and she steps through into Seahaven.
It is Venice, today, or perhaps Amsterdam—Trouble has been to neither—all tall, narrow houses lining a canal that reflects trees made of light. She smiles, acknowledging its genuine beauty, and walks on into the image, ignoring the door that closes and vanishes behind her. Light glitters from the black water at her left hand; more lights glow in the windows of the houses to her right. Overhead, grey on black, clouds flow too fast across a starless night. She doesn’t recognize these buildings, but some things never change in Seahaven, and she starts walking, following the slow curve of the canal, until, just where she’d expected it, she finds a bridge. She crosses that, still walking alone, her footsteps ringing on the stone, striking sparks, no sign of other visitors, turns left, and emerges abruptly into a crowded plaza . At its far end looms a terraced pyramid like an Aztec temple, winged lions and eagles poised in combat on each corner: always the same symbol, always the same place, here at the heart of Seahaven: the Mayor’s palace. She strides through the crowd as though they don’t exist—and most of them are pale, compared to her, unwired—ignoring the occasional surprised murmur, just her name, *Trouble*, like distant thunder, and walks up the steps until she stands under the arch of the Mayor’s palace.
*Mr. Mayor.* She is playing to the crowd as well as to the presence that made the city, and enjoys it, enjoys their leashed interest, the pretense of indifference that deceives no one. There is a pause, and she wonders if the Mayor is going to make her wait, punish her for her presumption, and she resolves to rip a hole in the wall before she lets him do that to her. But then the arch lights, slowly, and a ghostly shape takes shape within it, wraith-thin, wraith-pale even without the black drapery, crowned in black and the pale blue-silver of stars.
*So,* the voice says, too soft to be heard beyond the portico, and an instant later she feels the air congeal as the Mayor seals the space behind them, surrounding them with a cool sphere of opal light. *It is you. I heard you were dead.*
Hoped, maybe, Trouble thinks—they were not enemies, but were never friends; she was wary of Seahaven, respectful but not adulatory, and the Mayor has always preferred something close to worship. She says, *It’s me.*
*And what does Trouble want here?* the Mayor asks.*I’m not at all sure we want trouble.* He isn’t wired, or his icon would have smiled; still, his tone points up the double meaning, childish though it may be.
*I have business,* Trouble says,*and as a courtesy, I thought I’d give you notice.*
*Fair warning?* the Mayor murmurs.
*If you like. Someone’s been using my name, causing me problems—Treasury’s down on me, from the old days, and I’m not happy. Maybe this new Trouble thinks I’m dead, thinks the name’s free for use, maybe it’s just stupid, I don’t know. But I want my name back. No one uses my name for the kind of shit this new Trouble’s been pulling.* She stops, pulling back from the anger, continues more calmly. *This is fair warning, and I want to make sure this punk sees it. I’m back, I’m the only Trouble there is, and I don’t take kindly to impostors.*
There is another silence, the Mayor’s icon looking down at her with the same faint, unchanging, superior smile she remembers with annoyance, and then he says, *Why come here?*
He wants his tribute, and she gives it, grudging: *Because Seahaven’s still the center of the business—always has been, probably always will be. Because I know everyone who’s anyone will come through here, in time. This—new Trouble—will get my message if I leave it here.”
The icon bends its head in regal thanks, complex display for someone not on the wire. Showoff, Trouble thinks, says nothing. The Mayor says, *I’ll post it myself, red-line warning, if you’d like.*
Trouble lifts her head, surprised—it’s not like the Mayor to offer anything, much less something actively useful, and least of all to her—and the icon gestures stiffly with its working hand.
*The new Trouble, as you call it, has been attracting too much attention. I’ve had to shut down for a couple of days myself—I’m only just up again. It’s time it was warned to behave.*
*I’d appreciate it,* Trouble says.
*Then give me a name-sign.*
Trouble reaches into her toolkit for the seal she hasn’t used in three years, wakes the program and waits while it churns a tiny image out onto the net. It is her icon, the dancing harlequin; imbedded in the image are more fragments of code that by their presence identify it as hers alone and by their absence betray any attempt to tamper. She hangs it in the air in front of her. The Mayor waves his hand, and it shrinks; he makes a gesture like putting it into hi
s pocket, and the shimmering image vanishes.
*I’ll post that message,* he says, and Trouble answers, *Thank you.*
The opal sphere dissolves. She steps back through the last wisps of it—they cling to her for an instant, cold and damp as fog, then curl away—and sees the others watching, openly now, as she walks back across the square. She doesn’t recognize many of the icons—it’s been three years since she’s walked the shadows, and three years is long enough for most of her peers to have vanished, the hands behind the icons retired, imprisoned, or dead—but they know hers, and they make way for her, no one quite daring to question. She walks back out of the crowd, out of the plaza, feeling the old joy singing in her, the old delight at her mastery, and turns left across another illusory canal. A few of the icons follow, slipping discreetly after her; she grins to herself, readying a program of her own—just let them try to follow me home—and gestures, looking for the nearest outbound node. It has always been easier to leave Seahaven than to enter it: a door appears almost at once, and she opens it, steps back out into the hubbub of the BBS. Two icons follow, with an attempt at stealth. She laughs and makes no attempt to conceal it, sets her program free, and in the same instant cuts her connection, letting the prepared retrieval snatch her home.
5
Trouble straightened slowly, shrugging her shoulders against the inevitable stiffness. One foot had gone to sleep, despite her precautions; she made a face, working her ankle until the pins-and-needles faded to a distant buzz. Then she unplugged herself from the system and began breaking down the machines. The euphoria was fading rapidly, curdling to melancholy, an inevitable reaction. The coffee in the thermos was still warm, and she drank it in gulps, more for the liquid and the caffeine than for the taste. It was late, but she still had time and to spare to make her rendezvous with van Liesvelt. If he gets the message, a voice whispered in her brain, but she pushed the thought aside. You could rely on Butch—she could rely on Butch; that had been demonstrated a dozen times in the past, and the fact that he’d come up to the co-op to warn her only proved that nothing important had changed. But of course it had: all the important things had changed. She wasn’t with Cerise anymore, wasn’t even legal anymore, despite her best efforts, and Carlie was dead and David was in jail and the survivors, the old gang, all van Liesvelt’s and her friends, Cerise and Helling and Aledort and Arabesque and Dewildah, scattered God knows where— She shook the memories away, angry with herself now for indulging her mood, the down side of her net triumph. Better to stay angry, she thought, and slung the bag of components up onto her shoulder, leaving the thermos and the cup for someone else to deal with.
As promised, Jesse had the trike ready for her in the back lot, complete with temporary registration and jane-doe ID chip, and a secondhand helmet that carried a heads-up display and a datacord. She loaded her bag into the cargo box slung between the rear wheels and pulled on the helmet, plugging herself in to the machine’s limited control system. Lights flashed green, and she felt the faint buzz of pleasure that confirmed the diagnostic’s report. For a moment she hesitated, wondering if she should try to make the drive tonight, but she was still tense and angry from her conversation with the committee—and besides, she told herself, you made a deal with Butch. Might as well use the adrenaline. She kicked the trike to life, and swung it out of the crowded lot before she could change her mind. It was a heavy machine, stiff in the steering, but reasonably powerful, and she knew she had the hang of it by the time she’d worked her way through the tangled streets to the entrance to the main flyway. Lights flashed in the helmet display, warning her that the flyways were under grid control and urging her to tie herself in as well. She hesitated for an instant—jane-does, temporary registration, were just that, temporary, and could set off alarms; on the other hand, the surest way to get stopped by a traffic patrol was to stay off the grid—and touched the yes/no pad under her thumb. The machine steadied under her as she picked up speed, and the lines of the grid gleamed in her helmet screen. She leaned forward, letting the noise and the wind carry away the worst of her anger.
She reached the outskirts of the city a little after three, as the class-two bars were closing and the after-hours clubs were opening for business, rode the flyway in over the darkened suburbs, spiraling down the ramp at the Park exit as the gridlines vanished from her helmet. McElwee Park was as apparently deserted as always, but she gave it a careful berth anyway, knowing that the shadows hid a small army of dealers. The Park District was less busy than usual, only a few smaller trucks stopped outside an occasional shop, tired-looking crews slinging boxes down through the sidewalk hatches in the orange glare of the loading lights, but she drove cautiously anyway, paralleling the arch of the flyway. Most of the old landmarks were still there, though there was just the raw scar of a foundation where the Teleos Theater had been, and at last she turned onto the side street that ran into the shadow of the flyway. The club was there, just where it had always been, tucked into the shadow of one of the massive supporting pillars; she wondered, not for the first time, how Mickey had managed to bribe or beat the gangs away from his door. The business lamp was lit, casting a sickly yellow light onto the pavement. The street to either side was crowded with vehicles, inexpensive runabouts and cycles sharing space with bigger, meaner machines that glittered with security: Mickey’s Wild Goose was, unmistakably, still in business.
Trouble found a parking place between the streetlamps and set the unfamiliar security fields, then slung her bags over her shoulder and started toward the door. She was more tired than she had realized; the anger had worn off somewhere on the long drive, and the exhilaration of the drive itself was fading. She could feel a dull stiffness in her shoulders and down her back from the trike’s steering, and knew she would be sore in the morning. She sighed, laying her hand over the tiny call-plate, and waited, feeling the night chill creep over her, until the panel that covered the bulletproof peephole slid open.
“Private club.” The voice came from a speaker below the peephole. The panel started to slide closed again, but Trouble caught it, exerting all her strength to keep it open.
“I’m a member.”
“Yeah?” The voice was frankly incredulous. “Let’s see some ID.”
Trouble bit back a curse and reached into her pocket, came up with a silver disk engraved with her dancing harlequin. She had thought, before, that it had been stupid to keep it. She smiled, bitterly amused by her own assumptions, and held it in front of the peephole. There was a little silence, and then the voice spoke.
“Well, fuck me like a dog. I guess you better come in.”
The door opened, and a wave of smoke and sound came with it, so that she blinked and nearly stumbled on the high threshold. The main room was unexpectedly crowded, two dozen men, maybe more, gathered around the little tables, and all of the data towers along the walls were occupied: a very busy night, she thought, or else Mickey was running a promotion. Van Liesvelt was not among them. She made her way toward the massive bar at the center of the room, very aware that she was the only woman present, and the only person not wearing the cracker’s elaborate regalia, chains and leather or silk and suit. She could see herself in the dull gold mirror behind the bar: a tall woman, broad shoulders made even wider by the army surplus trenchcoat she wore over jeans and jacket, her silhouette made even more bulky by the bags slung over her shoulder. Her face looked pale in the uncertain light, pale and grim. She had forgotten, until just now, how much she had always disliked Mickey’s Wild Goose.
The senior bartender ignored her as she leaned against the bar, but the junior, a stocky woman with a worn, rawboned face, came sliding down to meet her. Trouble controlled her annoyance at the slight, but heard her voice rough and irritable anyway. “Get me a cup of coffee, please. And I’ll want to use a phone.”
The woman nodded, but made no move to reach for the coffee urn. “There’s a five-dollar minimum now,” she said, and glanced up, meeting Trouble’s eyes in brief
, woman-to-woman apology. “Excluding services.”
Trouble looked at her for a long moment, but knew it would do no good to confront her. She could hear the silence behind her, the conversations not quite picked up where they had been left, the whispered speculation. “Is the kitchen still open?” She didn’t dare drink, not as tired as she was, but food could only help, might keep her awake until van Liesvelt arrived.
“Yeah,” the bartender said, and touched a hidden pressure point. A menu lit beneath the bar’s surface, displaying a dozen different items.
“Fine.” Trouble scanned it quickly: junk food, the kind of thing the shadows seemed to thrive on. “Give me a double burger with everything, fries, and the coffee. And I’ll still want to use the phone.”
The bartender nodded, her fingers moving on a hidden touchpad, and Trouble heard a snort of laughter at her shoulder. She turned, not fast, and saw a forty-something man in a decent business suit standing beside her. He had braced himself against the bar, and she could smell the gin on him.
“You’re not watching your weight, I guess.”
Trouble lifted an eyebrow at him, and his face changed, as though he’d realized that she might be someone, after all.
“Not that you need to, of course.”
“And not that it’s any of your business,” Trouble said, quite gently, and laid her ID disk on the counter for the bartender, icon-drawing upwards. The man’s eyes flicked from it to her and back again, widening slightly in recognition.
Trouble and her Friends Page 12