*Passive system?* Cerise says from behind her, and Trouble shrugs.
*This program’s supposed to catch those as well,* she answers, but they both know that it’s hard to simulate the output of a brainworm, the usual trigger for passive IC(E). A watchdog, even a complex one, is still only a limited program, and therefore, inevitably, imperfect.
Cerise makes a noise that is almost a laugh, short and angry, but says nothing. Trouble starts walking again, her best defensive routines invoked ready, trembling in her hands. She feels a tremor beneath her feet, a shudder different from the passage of the wavelets of light, and fixes her eyes on the hulking stone. It stays precisely as it is, releases nothing, no program or IC(E), just the blue-grey bulk of it beside the brighter grey of the path. Trouble hesitates, still watching, then starts to step past it, along the path that turns sharply left around it.
Her foot reaches out, but in the wrong direction, sliding somehow off the edge of the path. She staggers, trying to correct, but, though she can see the path plainly, can feel it still solid under one foot, she still reaches in the wrong direction, throwing herself even more off-balance. She can feel herself falling, flails backward, back toward the security of the walkway, and then she feels Cerise’s hands tight on her shoulders, dragging her back and down, so that they both stumble heavily, Cerise collapsing backward into a sitting position, Trouble in her lap. Cerise grabs for the edge of the path—it’s wide here, but nothing’s wide enough, not at that moment—and swears again as she cuts her fingers, grabbing a raw program edge.
*Jesus Christ,* Trouble says, splays her own hands firmly on the path, grateful for the solidity beneath her touch. *What the hell was that?* So this is what the other crackers had tried to describe, the ones who’d tried to crack Seahaven, what they meant when they said the architecture of the Mayor’s space defended itself, without IC(E)—without anything except a cracker’s overconfidence and fear to help it along.
Cerise untangles herself from the other woman’s icon, shaking her right hand—it feels bruised only, this time, but the accumulated aches are beginning to amount to a constant pain, warning her to be more careful. *What happened?*
*I—don’t know,* Trouble answers, and sounds almost surprised. She studies the path, still turning sharply to the left, and levers herself up onto hands and knees. For a moment she feels distinctly silly—crackers, real crackers, do not crawl through the architecture they are exploring—but dismisses the thought, focusing on the walkway in front of her. She reaches out again, feels Cerise’s hands close with reassuring strength on her ankles, and reaches again to the left. Her hand goes right, against her will, against all common sense; she frowns, concentrating, tries to bring her hand to the walk, and finds her hand jigging back and forth, unable to obey.
*IC(E)?* Cerise asks, but her tone says she already knows it isn’t.
Trouble answers anyway, *Not like any I’ve ever seen.* She reaches out again, and again she misses, but this time she’s closer. She grits her teeth, lays her hand flat against the surface of the walk, and slides it forward, following the path. Silver ripples fan out ahead of her, teasing, showing her the way she should go, but her hand obstinately refuses to obey, slips from side to side, advancing in fits and starts that bring her closer and closer to the right-hand edge of the walk. She is almost at the end of her reach, braces herself on that hand and shuffles forward, Cerise still clinging to her ankles, then reaches out again. There is something familiar about this, the halting progress, the way her eyes and her senses do not match—
*It’s a mirror,* Cerise says. *God damn.*
*That’s it,* Trouble says, and the illusive memory appears: a child’s toy, a puzzle, a box with a hidden mirror and a series of figures to trace. You reached in from the side, and looked through the plate in the top, not realizing that you were looking not at your hand but at its mirror image. She had fought with the thing for hours, her finger jittering from side to side as she tried to figure out how to do what she could so plainly see, her shoulders tightening with sheer frustration, until at last she’d mastered it. The problem was, she couldn’t quite remember how she’d done it. She inches forward another few dozen centimeters, her hand still flat on the walkway’s surface, reaches out again and slides suddenly off the edge of the plane. She falls forward, catches herself clumsily, and hears Cerise swearing again behind her.
*I’m OK,* she says, and tries to pull her hand back. For a moment she can’t do it; the movement that should work just leaves her flailing in nothingness, and then, quite suddenly, she has it, and slides forward another meter, two meters, crawling, scrambling on hands and knees to get as far as she can before she loses the knack of it. Cerise follows, clumsily, a reassuring weight on her legs and ankles. Then at last they’ve turned the corner and the intangible pressure vanishes, as though the mirror is behind them and they are once again looking at the walkway itself.
*Through the looking glass,* Cerise says, and releases her hold on Trouble’s ankles.
*Yeah,* Trouble says, and pushes herself cautiously to her feet. *But what happens when we hit IC(E)?*
Cerise looks at her and doesn’t answer, stands up more slowly, scanning the volume around them. There is still no hint of IC(E), none of the metallic taste to the wind. *You don’t suppose there isn’t any.*
*No,* Trouble says, and Cerise smiles.
*Neither do I. But we’ll have to deal with it when we find it, won’t we?*
Trouble grins back, acknowledging the too-obvious logic of the other’s answer. It hides real concern, and real danger, and they both know it—but, as Cerise said, there’s no point in trying to anticipate it. Ahead, the walkway stretches empty, the silver ripples running ahead of their footsteps, travels perhaps fifteen, twenty virtual meters before it zigs again to skirt an encroaching plane. Trouble eyes that distant monolith warily, but starts walking toward it, feeling the walkway steady again underfoot.
She slows as she comes up on. the turn, takes the time to check for IC(E)—there’s no sense in taking any risks, not here, not now—and, as she’d expected, finds nothing. She slides a foot forward, testing the path, takes five cautious, shuffling steps before she finds the point where the image reverses. She makes a sound, a sharp intake of breath, and Cerise’s hands close reassuringly tight around her waist.
*How do you want to work it?* Cerise asks.
Trouble doesn’t answer, but eases her foot forward, manages to take a step without going too far wrong, drifting too far to the left and the path’s edge. She takes a second step, Cerise braced behind her, ready to save them both, and then a third, and a fourth. It’s easier this time, something about the reflection is simpler, so that she passes through the backward space still standing, and draws Cerise after her onto the new straightaway.
*Nice,* Cerise says. She works her shoulders, loosening tight muscles, looks ahead toward the next pillar, and the monolith beyond that, where the path begins to zig back and forth at irregular and ever-decreasing intervals. *That, however—*
*Yeah,* Trouble answers. *I see it.* And she can smell something, too, they both can, the first faint whiff of IC(E) in the wind. For an instant she wonders if it’s worth it, if there’s anything real to be gained in this pursuit—after all, even if she, they, win, defeat the Mayor, the nets will turn a blind eye, say it’s because she was on the wire, or because there were two of them, anything to pretend it wasn’t a defeat, not of their hero—but she’s come too far to turn back now. She wants to win, to prove to herself if to no one else that she is better than the Mayor, and there’s newTrouble to consider as well. He is on the wire, family in that sense if not the other, and she owes him, as she would owe van Liesvelt or Arabesque, or, better example, Fate. For me, then, she thinks, and maybe for the kid, too.
*It’s still a long way off,* Cerise says. She stands in the center of the walkway, eyes fixed on the middle distance, on nothing in particular, tasting the wind . This is something she’s good at, better than T
rouble, better than anyone they know, and she takes her time, teasing all the information she can out of the hint of a flavor. *Stationary, too, but powerful. I don’t recognize the style from here, but that may change as we get closer.*
Trouble nods, grateful for the insight—she can taste only the presence of the distant IC(E), not the subtle shifts and delicate differences—makes herself say, *You don’t have to come.*
Cerise looks at her blankly for an instant. *Don’t be stupid.*
Trouble hasn’t expected any other answer, but she’s momentarily startled by the intensity of her relief, grins because she can’t find the words. Cerise smiles back, touches her shoulder once, gently, the gesture carried through the brainworm, then looks ahead.
*Let’s go.*
They make their way along the elevated pathway, slowing each time they come to a mirror reflection of a turn. Trouble is getting the knack of them now, as she learned to read the distorted reflection in the childhood toy, and she moves with more confidence, making her way around the corners now with only the occasional misstep. To either side, the black fog rises higher, though it’s impossible to tell if that’s because the floor, whatever, wherever, that may be, is rising too. It isn’t IC(E), however, and Trouble ignores it, concentrating on the maze ahead of them as the turns come closer together, offering less and less chance to recover from the effort of the previous corner. At least once, she thinks, they must have crossed their own path, but the mirror-display, the mirrored perception, makes it impossible for her to be certain. Cerise follows grimly, holding tight to Trouble’s icon, fighting an unexpected nausea. The abrupt shifts in perception, the effort of changing her point of view almost as soon as she’s settled on one, is overloading her system; her inner ear can’t quite keep up with the brainworm’s transmissions, and the pain in her hands is a nagging distraction.
*Hang on,* she says at last, and Trouble stops, looking back over her shoulder, eyebrows rising in question. Cerise ignores it, concentrates on her own system, and resets the brainworm, lowering the intensity of its display.
*You all right?* Trouble asks, and Cerise nods, impatient with herself.
*I needed to reset,* she says. *I’m OK now.*
Trouble hesitates, remembering—almost too late, she thinks—that Cerise has had troubles before with rapidly shifting perceptual fields, something like vertigo when her brainworm is set at its higher levels, but knows, too, that she has to trust Cerise. She nods back, starts again toward the next obstacle, three turns in quick succession that seem almost to loop the path back on itself, and feels the touch of a vagrant breeze on her face, cool against her skin. With that warning breeze, like the first soft breeze that comes before a storm, comes the smell of IC(E), damp metal, the tang of copper like the taste of fear.
*Shit,* she says, half to herself
Cerise says, *The center, there, at that loop.* She sounds a little better, freed from the full intensity of the brainworm’s input; her tone is detached, analytical, too calm to be afraid.
Trouble considers the apparently empty space, the source of the vagrant wind, of the scent of IC(E), and the loop of walkway that seems to circle around it. She can only see so far, trace a portion of the line, before she loses her place, as though it is some kind of Möbius strip, or, worse yet, derived from one of the etchings beloved of crackers, where perspective twists and impossibly separate things are in fact intimately connected—where the waterfall is its own source and figures climb both sides of a stairway. It’s no wonder no one’s ever beaten the Mayor, she thinks, on the wire or not, then puts the fear aside. This has to be the Mayor’s inner sanctum, and she refuses to allow that it might not be—even the Mayor has technical limits, storage limits, she thinks, no matter how much time and space he’s liberated from other sources, and this has to be it. And if it isn’t, she thinks, well, I’ll keep going.
*Any sense of what it is?* To her, the IC(E) is just inchoate IC(E), the indistinguishable unspecific taste that means poison, danger.
Cerise tilts her head to one side, considers. *The Mayor’s work,* she says, and Trouble snorts.
*Tell me something I don’t know.*
*The Mayor’s work,* Cerise goes on, placidly, as though the other hasn’t spoken, *very like the outer walls, only woven tighter—reminds me a bit of my own work at Multiplane, too, but I can’t quite tell you how.*
*You should be flattered,* Trouble says.
*If it’s mine,* Cerise answers. *It could be an illusion, trying to sucker us in.*
*That’s a nasty thought,* Trouble says, and Cerise shrugs.
*I’ve some mirrors of my own—to make you think my IC(E) is set like yours, not the kind we’ve been playing with—in our inner walls. It tends to confuse people.*
That would be an understatement, Trouble thinks, trying to imagine reaching for what should be a familiar program and feeling the jolt of hard IC(E). She says, *I’ll watch it, then,* and she keeps walking, on toward the place where the fabric of the Mayor’s world shimmers and turns back on itself. Underfoot, the silver ripples are brighter, and she catches an occasional glimpse of their light toward the end of the walkway, as though all the wavelets that they have set dancing have collected there beneath the surface of the walk.
As she slides a cautious foot into the first turn, she finds herself reaching once again in the wrong direction, tries to pull back as she has done before, and finds herself suddenly trapped, her outstretched leg jogging back and forth without making any progress. Cerise reaches to steady her, a comfortable weight, hands rock solid on her shoulder and waist, and Trouble struggles to bring herself into alignment with the walkway. Her foot obstinately refuses to move the way she wants it; instead, she slides closer in spite of herself to the edge of the walk.
*Easy,* Cerise says, her own voice strained, and Trouble feels the hand on her shoulder move to her waist, Cerise’s weight thrown backward to anchor them both.
Trouble doesn’t answer, tries again, and again stands frustrated, muscles knotting as she tries to bring her foot back to the left. It’s worse than any force field, because she knows there’s nothing there, nothing really blocking her way—but then, none of it’s real. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and edges her foot forward a dozen centimeters, opens her eyes again to see that she has gone in the right direction, has actually taken a step the way she wants to go. And that gives her the answer.
*We’ll have to crawl,* she says, and Cerise releases her.
*You’re going to have to guide me,* she says, and Trouble nods.
*I can do it.* She drops to her knees without waiting for an answer, and Cerise copies her, wraps a hand tightly in the skirt of the icon’s long coat. Trouble nods, grateful for the protection—one good thing about iconage, you don’t have to worry about your clothes being ripped away when they should protect you; they’re an integral part of any image—then reaches forward, eyes open, and sees her hand stray to the edge of the walk. She flattens her hand against it, careful not to put her weight on it, to avoid the jagged edge of the unfinished program, then closes her eyes and runs her hand forward, keeping the edge centered in her palm. She brings her hand in again, until she can just feel the edge of the walk against the edge of her hand, and draws her body up to meet it, Cerise’s weight heavy on her legs and hips. She opens her eyes again, half afraid to look, half afraid that in spite of the evidence of her senses she will be off the path and falling, careening down into the black fog, and finds herself perhaps half a meter further along the walk, not quite past the turn. She closes her eyes again, reaches out, the program edge scratching along her palm, draws her body after, and checks her position. Still safe, still making progress, though without dignity or grace, and she manages a breathless laugh before she starts again. She reaches out again, repeats the process, and this time she’s through the perceptual mirror, Cerise still clinging to her coat. Trouble turns back, grabs the hand that is clinging to the icon-coat, and pulls her through. Cerise, eyes closed
tight, accepts the help, comes scrambling through, silver light radiating from her.
*What the hell were you laughing about?* she demands, scowling, pushes herself up onto one knee.
*Us,* Trouble says,*how we must look.*
Cerise gives her a sour look. *Yeah, I bet the Mayor thinks it’s funny, too.*
That stings, and Trouble has a sudden vision of how they must look from outside, two cowboy-hatted icons crawling, more clumsy than children, on a grey-and-silver bridge through a black-and-grey geometric universe. It is silly, and she hates looking foolish—and then she laughs again, acknowledging the absurdity. It may look stupid, they may look like clowns, unskilled mimes trying to act out some strange disaster, but they’ve come further into the Mayor’s world than anyone else has, than anyone she’s ever known or heard about in all the years she’s been on the net. *I don’t think he’s laughing,* she says, and knows absolutely that it’s true.
Cerise looks sour for a heartbeat longer, then, slowly, returns the smile. She pushes herself upright, holds out her hand to help Trouble to her feet. *He better not be,* she says, and looks left, off the edge of the walkway. The smell of IC(E) is stronger now, and she can feel its dank weight, but no corresponding icon stands visible. She considers probing it, trying to force some image to emerge, but decides against it. There are still two more turns to the walk, and logically it will eventually lead to the wall of IC(E), and whatever it is the IC(E) protects: she’ll wait until then to try her probes.
The next turn is much the same, the distortion perhaps a little more complex, and Trouble feels her way along the walk with her hand. Cerise follows, eyes closed tight, letting the other woman pull her along through the mismatch of vision and sense that leaves her seasick, and then, as she crawls, dragged at Trouble’s heels, she catches a first faint sound, the rustle and stir of watchdogs, search-and-destroy programs moving somewhere in the distance.
Trouble and her Friends Page 36