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CHAPTER TWO: Whispered To My Captive

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The elevator opened right into her living room. Great for convenience, lousy for security. I hit the L button and listened to the elevator music for a minute, then walked past the glaring concierge, making sure to drop ashes from my cigarette onto the carpet. Hey, it's just code.

The Checkbox Club was trendy some years ago. Now it was a shell of its former self. A high-class hooker that had been ridden hard and put away wet one too many times. Hiding its wrinkles and age spots under a coat of paint. I had a drink there just to case the joint. (This is part of what "expenses" means.) The place had had remodeling done at some point. The slight rectangular bulges in the walls and ceilings cinched that. Sitting on the can I called my Operator and asked for the original blueprints. She came through like a champ.

I finished my scotch and wandered into the back alley. No heat, no gang members, the only bluepills around would tell themselves it was swamp gas... I hyperjumped to the roof and tickled the elevator shaft door's lock. I was safe enough, the elevator had been disabled years ago. Tedious climb however. At least the music was better in this one. Dripping water and rat squeaks. Reminded me of home.

Third floor. Time to code a prybar and get the elevator doors open. The place was dusty and as dark as it always is indoors, lights on or not. I couldn't see a single set of footprints. Then it hit me.

By which I mean, the blackjack-toting guy walking a foot above the floor hit me. I dropped like a DSL line in a rainstorm.

I came to in one of those ancient Barrens buildings that don't have elevators so you have to walk up the stairwell until you think you're on the mission floor. I was cuffed to the radiator.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty just woke up. Must have eaten the wrong apple, hurh hurh hurh." It was a walking lump of muscle, the kind of security program that gave the rest of them a bad name. No subtlety, just brute force.

"Hey, Stith Thompson, what you meant was 'pricked his finger on the wrong spindle.'" He wouldn't even begin to get the reference but he would get the tone in my voice. I got a steel-toed boot in the gut for my reward.

"Cut it out, Rocky, the boss wants him able to answer some questions." That came from a weaselly little man at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of joe. Stars were orbitting my head and I couldn't smell whether either of them was real, though I had my doubts.

Rocky stood still for a moment thinking about that. I risked a broken jaw to get some information. "Hey Dumbo, your memory swapping out to disk or something?" The bruiser started at me, but glanced at his friend, folded his arms, and stuck out his lantern jaw. So the little guy, or maybe the boss, held enough fear for him that he'd let a comment like that slide. That's useful to know. Plus I didn't get my teeth handed to me. That's always a bonus in my field.

"Your boss wanted to palaver, he could have sent me his business card."

The little program smirked. "We ARE his business card. The boss don't like leaving a paper trail." More data: They worked for a male. Weaselly didn't have the brainpower to swap genders in a possesive. The field narrowed down a little. Argon was my best bet at the moment, he employs trash talkers like these. I made myself as comfortable as possible on the hardwood floor, sliding my butt up against the radiator pipe. The little guy slurped down more cream of lentil soup.

"Sure, I'll have a few words with him. I bet he'd rather do it in his office though. More comfortable, capish? You got the drop on me, I'll be a good little boy on the ride. You know, using your own initiative might move you up in the ranks-- I'm just saying. How much of a trip would it be?" One of The Chessman's hirelings might consider that idea, weigh the options. Best case, I would get a distance and could highlight some neighborhoods.

Mister Coffee didn't take the bait. "The Master is... everywhere. And nowhere."

One thing's for sure, they didn't work for Mr. Po. That contact talks like a fortune cookie, sure, but that line would have made him cry. "Last time I heard that was 'Manos, the Hands of Fate.' Crappy movie. Not worth the popcorn."

"Don't make fun, meat. Once he gives us the high sign you'll wish you never came out of the pod."

Got it. There was only one Exile who referred to redpills as 'meat.' "What does Silver want with a Downtown sex surrogate program?"

Weaselly had the self-control to keep his face passive, but Rocky didn't. His eyes fairly popped out of his skull. "Eureka," I thought, and then "Bingo" for the sake of the hired goombah who might not understand the Greek.

"Alright, so you know half the story." A well-modulated voice came out of the darkness of the adjoining room, and then an Exile stepped into the flickering flourescent light.

"So at last we meet." I stressed the last word.

"You have been a bad little lump of tissue, Snide. The Matrix is a place for programs, not humans as you call them. It is our turf and you are the invader. Like a disease."

"Except that it's HPUs that you run on, code-boy." He didn't know what to say. Most people and programs still fall for the official line, the one about bioelectricity. "Looks like you don't know **bleep** about your own virtual world."

"I know enough," he snarled. "What I don't know is why you're trying to get my couriers in bed. But we can figure that out easily enough." He motioned to the fieldhands. Rocky gave a cartoon windup and popped me in the face. I turned my head and spit blood. Some of it landed on Silver.

"You disgusting piece of rotting flesh!" he roared. Weaselly pulled out a .45 Government issue. "No, put that down. Flatlined, he's of no use." He put on a latex glove and held my head up by the hair. "But he must pay for dirtying his superior. The eyes, I think. Humans value their eyesight. And if you do it right, the psychological shock of it may even carry over to his corporeal form. We can always hope." He placed a minicassette recorder on the table next to the gun, then motioned Rocky to accompany him and exited to the hallway.

The little program had, in the meantime, drawn a heavy green fluid into a syringe the size of a bicycle pump. "You may feel a little pinch," he quipped, giggling. This was obviously his raison d'etre. I suspected he was a medic program gone corrupted. He approached me from the side, staying out of the kicking range of my feet.

But not out of the grabbing range of my hands. Before the needle could find my optic nerve, I grabbed him by his pencil-thin neck and squeezed. Doc's cheeks puffed out and his eyes bulged. He tried stabbing me with the hypo but I knocked it out of his hand with my left fist.

I stood up, still holding the little program by the throat. I applied enough pressure to keep him docile, not enough to make him unconscious. But I did pick up the lockpick that I had coded during our conversation-- a good PI always keeps a code structure of one, with a full 15 charges, in his Code Storage. "Your lucky day, little friend," I whispered to my captive. "You're going to live. I never kill my informants."

---

CHAPTER THREE: All Three Died

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The doctor unfortunately didn't know much. I had to snap his neck to keep him from being more trouble in the future. No pangs of guilt. He was a program, not a real person. Besides, I just didn't like him.

"Why does the porridge bird lay its egg in the air?" I told the recorder before shutting it off. Supposedly that phrase freaked out the parsing routines of some programs. I never met one that it worked on, but I remain hopeful. I don't know where the sentence came from. The Sparkle told it to me in one of his few good moods.

Back at the office I instantiated my secretary. His model is that of a boy of twenty or so, I based him guts on a standard filing system, but copied his image from that Megacity Idol winner a few years back. I mean, I'm queer, sure, but he's queeeeeeer.

"Ooooh! You're hur-urt!" he lisped a second after I hit RETURN.

"Never mind that, Burton. Take some notes." Burton Ernie, that's his filename. Being a proper program, he obeys humans. He minced over to the desk, a Martinelli typewriter appeared in front of him in a shower of green glyphs. I'm old-fashioned that way.

The filing cabinet third from the left. "Silver owns Kitten, or at least employs her as a courier. Question. Is Kitten aware of this situation. Answer. If she was and the watchers were Silver's, standard operating protocol, no reason she would be worried. If she was and they worked for a rival gang, there would be other people or programs that could deal with it more efficiently than an outsider. No reason to employ a PI in either scenario. If she is unaware then either could be the case but she would look for help. Conclusion. Most likely Kitten does not know of her status. Attempt to trap me or set me up also possible but many easier ways to go about it."

I pull the aging leather case out of the second drawer. "Note. Some programs, specifically Silver's enforcers, are taking advantage of the skybox discon." By that I meant the way my attacker hovered above the dusty floor and left no footprints. "Watch out for this in future." More and more discontinuities were cropping up despite Administrator attempts to stabilize them. I think the Matrix is unravelling but what do I know.

A rubber strap drops out of the satchel. I roll up my left shirtsleeve. "Note. Checkbox Club belongs to Silver despite its location in Zia. Silver trying to take over that neighborhood? Property happened to fall into his lap? Tell Zion, take no further action. A dead end."

Slap, slap, slap. Two fingers against my forearm in various places. Getting harder to find a vein. Finally one rises to the surface. "Question. Why did Silver capture me? Asked 'why you're trying to get my couriers in bed.' Silver screwing Kitten? Jealousy? Low probability with McDaniels also screwing her. Silver known to have few sexual habits, some of the other elements consider him pretty much **bleep**. Side note: Kitten might be Silver's spy in film industry, reason unknown."

Zippo lighter touches flame to alcohol lamp wick. Spoon held just inside blue part to avoid unsightly soot buildup. "Question. What is Kitten carrying. How is she carrying it. Who is it to be delivered to. Silver used plural; what other couriers have I had contact with. Flag these questions for immediate investigation." Fluid drawn into syringe. I blow on it to cool it down, too much pain to wait for laws of thermodynamics unassisted.

Radio Free Zion plays in the background. Burton likes listening as he types. Long elegant fingers glide over the keys. They are playing a Hendrix song and he is singing along. "Scuse me while I kiss this guy..."

Suddenly it falls into place for me, just as the needle finds its mark. Tomorrow. There will be time to follow up tomorrow tomorrow

"Self-substantiates need it special." It wasn't their fault-- the three Zion operatives-- they tried. Gave their lives trying, in fact. I visit their graves in the hard world every month or so.

Blizzard, an old fellow with snow white hair, even his eyebrows. His RSI was precisely like his corp, no deception, no need for it. The man was in peak shape physically and mentally. He was of Nordic stock, strong hands, stronger spirit. Referred to everyone as "warrior." The freeborn kids loved it when he called them that. So I'm told at least.

Iggy was a punk kid, extracted by Morpheus. A bundle of nerves who could patch together disparate systems like he had information from the future. Unlike Blizzard, he did fake his RSI, which was an olive skinned, cleft-chinned Adonis. Could never get the voice right, though, always had this nasal quality like he had in the real. So I'm told at least.

Camper was their newest crew member. She almost never spoke but when she did it was vitally important. Twelve years old, in her bloop days she had worked in one of Argon's whorehouses, and the scars ran deep. She would only jack in when Blizzard accompanied her. She had just reached the point where she didn't cry herself to sleep. So I'm told at least.

Machine interference was light and predictable. The three extractors almost had a routine down to deal with the Agents. No, they didn't relax their guard; by the time they reached the capseru hoteru where I was slowly going insane, they had left those programs in the dust.

A trap was sprung around them. Assassins posing as sneaker and incense vendors drew guns from under their makeshift tables. A ninja materialized on a telephone pole and hit each with a poisoned knife, one, two, three. Blizzard held his ground, shielding the youngsters with his own body, ordering them to flee. It was no use. There were too many of them, Merovingian Exiles. This was before the Truce and the emergency jackout droud. All three died.

I knew nothing of the events of that morning. I was asleep, or as asleep as the revelation dreams would allow. In the afternoon a kindly program introduced me to a friend of a friend, who sold small glassine packets of heroin. It stopped the world from attacking me. For a time. By the time another extraction was made I was stone cold hooked.

It's just code, of course. There are cures, of course. None are very good and all take time. Time that I don't have. But when I find the Exile who set up these heroes the bomb, I am going to slowly delete him. I will leave his kernel intact until the last second so that he can savor the process. I don't care if it's the Merovingian himself, or one of his flunkies. He will die screaming. I promise you this, Blizzard, Iggy, Camper.

I love you all.

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CHAPTER FOUR: Tuesdays And Fridays

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Green-tinged dawn came, and with it coffee made by Burton, who I had forgotten to turn off. I was already dressed, which saved time. Some roll-on deodorant, don't even have to take the shirt off, just undo a couple of buttons and reach through; a little pomade and I'm ready to face the day.

One cup of black coffee, seven sugars, that's breakfast. As I gave the place a once-over Burton looked up at me with his special tilted-head big puppy-dog eyes pose he reserves for asking favors. "Cle-em..."

"What is it, kid?"

"Can you leave me on today? Pleeeeeease?"

Maybe he has a date, maybe there's something he wants to watch on TV. "Sure." I'm a real softy when it comes down to it. "Want Robot Monster for company?"

He made an awful face. "Sweet creamy butter, no. I don't know what you see in that icky program." Answer: It's a good guard algorithm and it amuses the hell out of me. But it was the second time in as many days that someone had refused a guard. I wasn't too swift.

I had really wanted to start before sunup but when you're on junk time you can't always do that. It was early enough. A couple of laughing kids ran up the stairs as I walked down. They disappeared into the third-floor apartment door. As it opened, an elderly light-skinned Black woman peered out. My downstairs neighbor.

"Morning Mrs. O."

"Good morning, Mr. Snide. You're going to come home safely today." She never sounds like she's asking a question.

"Always hope to, Mrs. O." I held out my pack of Luckies and she accepted one. She offered me in turn a cookie from the batch she had just made, I could smell the aroma when I left my office. We made small talk for a few minutes while I crunched and she puffed. Nice lady. I never have told her much about what I do. I'm not sure she'd understand anyway.

On the Red line I had to plug a nutcase, started screaming about how I was using up all the oxygen in the subway car then pulled out a Nishiki Fury. Probably an environmental control program for a section of pods. They corrupt easily. No hand-to-hand combat skills to speak of, so it was an easy kill with my load-in. A Precise Blow job, you know.

I didn't think the desk clerk would let me in the Tyson and I didn't ask. There's a balcony on the sixty-fourth floor. I had to hyperjump off two other buildings and avoid some gang members who would slow me down. Or kill me. Getting deathed up would slow me down and I didn't need that. The balcony door was locked and no compiled lockpick is that good. But there's another way, a discon inherent in outside doors, requires a shoulder roll at just the right angle and just the right moment. On the third try I was in.

The elevator took me to the penthouse, and I used Kitten's PIN to open the doors; I had shoulder-surfed as she was entering it yesterday. The only one there was a big lug with a ten thousand $info eye tuck. Yes, Johnny McDaniels used to be Asian but that type wasn't selling when he got his big break.

"You!" he snarled. "What have you done with Joan?" So that was her filename. I preferred 'Kitten.' "So help me, if you've harmed a hair on her head..." He struck a dramatic pose. I doubted he had any real emotion left after faking it for so long. Actors.

"Calm down, brother." Bloodpath was a redpill, technically at least. "I'm a detective. She hired me. Thought people were watching her."

"Of course people are watching her, she's with me."

"Not like that, Mr. McDaniels." Ego clown. "I take it you don't know where she is?"

"I don't." Dramatic pause. "But you might." He grabbed the lapel of my trenchcoat. This is the place in all of his movies where the two protagonists fight briefly before some kind of infodump reveals that they're on the same side and they take off with some forgettable pop song playing in the background.

This wasn't his movie, though. It was real life or as close as you can get inside a computer simulation. I know a trick, taught to me by an Indian practitioner, a special nerve pinch that can make a Lupine release its claws and Johnny was nowhere near that strong. I overlooked the intrusion into my personal space. "Did they leave a note? Anything that might help."

"I just got home." Good lad, he decided I wasn't the enemy. Only took him twice as long as your average redpill. "But I can't find anything out of order. It wasn't like in Bloodpath 3, where I--"

"Save it for the fanzines." No interaction is traceless, Locard's Exchange Principle works in the Matrix as well as in the real world. When two objects come in contact with each other they exchange trace evidence. First place I checked was the elevator, fingerprints on the keypad. There were dozens of course, but only three had the seven digits (five unique) exclusively. I know mine by sight, my Operator confirmed McDaniels' and said she'd work on Kitten's. I said never mind and asked her to try tracing Kitten's data signature. It was a longshot, too easy to conceal a .sig, but sometimes the bad guys slip up.

No signs of a struggle, scuff marks on the marble floor, body drag marks across the carpet, dents in the drywall. "When does the cleaning lady come?"

"Tuesdays and Fridays." Two days in either direction. Trash cans had nothing that wasn't real trash, under the tables and sofas nothing useful. In fact nothing was there that shouldn't have been. But when trying to figure out what happened to someone, what's there is only half the story. The rest is told by what's not there but should be.

McDaniels discovered that his petty cash stash, a wallet in the nightstand drawer with a few thousand $info, was missing. (It wasn't me. I had missed the nightstand.) However the expensive and easily pocketed art-like crap was still there so I knew it wasn't a burglary. On a hunch I peeked into her lingerie drawer. "Hey, that's private," Johnny protested.

"That's alright," I replied, "I'm a private **bleep**." There was a chunk taken out of the array of neatly folded panties and carefully rolled stockings. Under the staircase, in that little triangular space that's always used for luggage, another gap shone through-- a medium-sized bag was missing. I turned to actor-boy.

"I can find her. I get fift-- five hundred $info a day plus expenses." No reason not to double dip.

He nodded. "Just find her, Snide. I-- I can't live without her." The manly tear that trickled down from the corner of his eye was a simulation. Cosmetic code. People, real people, cry real tears from the inside corners of their eyes but that isn't caught very well by the camera in most cases. Johnny was an empty vessel.

Silver was a good place to start. Silver is also well-guarded and has several reasons to take me off his buddy list. I had to plan a way to meet that wouldn't leave me jacked out and aching. Back at my office, I yelled for Burton to find the yellow pages. But the database program was missing. I thought it must have been as I suspected, a date, he was probably in some leatherbar bathtub getting urinated on at that very moment, like I said he's gayer than Oscar Wilde. My collection of matchbooks had to suffice.

The Night Hawks diner was just what I needed. It was in a section of the Slums that's always dark, I wasn't sure what was up with the sun code and I didn't much care. It's a good place for a cup of joe and a chat with an eighty-year-old waitress who calls you "hon" and flirts with you if you tip her well. The patrons are famous for not seeing anything at any time. Occasionally Elvis or Chewbacca or Marilyn Monroe drop in, but only when some hacker catches the reference to Edward Hopper and changes the textures.

I dialed the front business for Silver's enterprises, it's a contracting company that never does any work but buys and sells a lot of supplies. The answering machine picked up on the third ring. "You got some nerve calling here, Snide. The boss says you owe him for dry-cleaning and for a medic program."

"Press 2 to suck my **bleep**. I have something he wants, he has something I want. Tell him to meet me in half an hour, the Night Hawks diner." Click. The diner was near my office so I had some home field advantage. Half an hour wouldn't give him the time to set up a trap. I hoped.

I surveyed the corner booth, the one nearest the screen door, and slipped the counterman a double dixie. "Might break some china, that's a deposit, I'm good for the rest." He nodded and felt around under the pie display where I know he keeps a Harlick 363.

"Just in case," he assured me. I'm a regular and I tip well. Special services are available. Flo carries a Boromov GL-35 assault rifle, a real manly slab of Russian iron, and I have no idea where she hides it while waiting tables. Across the street was a newsagent and I pretended to be interested in the rollerball scores.

I waited for the last bluepill to leave before I entered. Silver was on time but I had wanted to be late anyway. They were seated at the booth I had asked for. No one had taken their orders and they were getting antsy. One of them doodled on a napkin. "White doughs the poor rich burr lazy leg in the ire. Wade ooze they pair ridge Baudelaise it sagging day year. Whey duffs..."

I slid in beside a spike-haired security program. "Try the blueberry pie. Stains your teeth but it's better than the pie they serve in Heaven." The moment my butt hit the leatherette Flo placed a slice in front of me as well as a cup of coffee to wash it down. It didn't help their mood. Silver made a face. It wasn't an improvement over the one he usually has.

"Can it, skinbag. The only deal on the table is 'you return Joan,' and you can either agree to it or die right here. Yeah, I know, it's not permenant but see, we do you every time you jack in, suddenly you got a year's worth of deathiness built up. The timer never expires. I've done it to fleshies before."

"I bet you have." Even the crust is sublime, flaky dough with just a little crunch of sugar. My compliments to the programmer. "But I also know that the clock is ticking for you too. Or more precisely for the message she carries." Silver hadn't said "my couriers in bed," he had said "my courier's embed." Kitten was carrying a package she didn't know she had, woven into her personality objects. It was a very secure way to move data. Usually at least.

"Message, huh? So you haven't tried extracting it yet."

"Drat. I shouldn't have let that slip." Properly done, sarcasm is very hard to detect. "I ought to tell you that I had a very tempting offer from an Exile who will remain anonymous."

"Is it Mercury? I bet it's that little research calibrator. Or Molly B, maybe with Anti M, those lezbos always work together." He was guessing, looking for a reaction, My face remained passive, easy since I had no idea who really had her. Unfortunately I wasn't getting the information I needed so I pressed.

"I'll give you a clue. The ones who had been watching her while she was carrying your embed." As I said it the jukebox stopped playing Sinatra's "My Kind of Town Chicago Is" in the middle and started on on "Runaway" by Del Shannon, right in the middle where the organ solo starts. It was an RAF and I tensed, preparing some special moves.

There is a second of silence, then Silver draws a pair of submachine guns. His guard programs aren't far behind. Whoops. I had made a mistake somehow. The watchers, they had been Silver's men after all. He had just realized that I didn't know anything, may not have Kitten at all, and there was no reason not to kill me.

The burst hangs in the air in front of me. My legs extend and I vault over the back of the seat, moving through air as thick as corn syrup. Everything is shifted in color toward the short wavelengths of the spectrum. Flo drops a tray and it takes two minutes to hit the floor, sandwich breaking apart as it descends, water exploding in a concentric ring from a glass as it strikes the linoleum.

I let the bullets pass through the booth's seat back padding, little arrows of burnt foam rubber tracing smoky paths before I tuck and roll, hitting the ground between clusters. Before the next one can leave the gun I swivel ninety degrees, build up speed and hit the door. Inertia makes the screen bulge as I barrel into it, the wire mesh pops out of its housing before the hinges can open the thing as a whole.

Bullet Time wore off a half block away. I risked a glance behind me. Points of light flashed in the ruined doorway and I heard the distinctive sound of a Boromov and a Harlick. Good, Flo and the counterman hadn't been caught in the crossfire. The goons were after me, but I was out of range of their weapons, and right around the corner-- A hardline.

/jackout

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CHAPTER FIVE: Very likely but there's no time

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"Eat something, Bill. You've been on the drip for four days."

Nutrient IVs sustain corporeal life but too long without something to digest and your intestines adhere, all the way to the rectum, requiring the use of an apple corer or the surgical equivalent thereof. My Operator had a tube of warm broth ready, little flecks of soy protein floating in it. I slurped it down. One of the HvCft Ah Pook's several cats jumped into my lap. They're trained not to do that while I'm jacked in but when in the hard world Daddy's lap is fair game.

"I've got to go back."

"How soon? Shouldn't you get some exercise and real sleep?"

"Very likely but there's no time." She knew better than to argue and handed me another tube of soup. Fifteen minutes later I was jacked in again.

An hour had passed in the Matrix. I wanted to see how much damage the shootout had caused the diner but chose a hardline near my office instead. Very carefully I observed the building from every angle. There were some Slashers lurking around but the corpselights from many others led me to conclude that the Silver Bullets had made short work of them. Digger's an OK program, and no fan of Silver.

In any case my office was seldom visited with trouble for some reason. It did seem to be a convenient landing field for hyperjumpers; I get plaster dust from the ceiling every time someone drops in. Maybe that was it. A tall bald Black man in a quilt-stitched trenchcoat took off as I watched through binoculars. Nifty pattern, have to get one from the Seamstress.

Using back alleys and after a few gunfights I made it into my building. A blue rubber ball rolled down the steps at me as I climb. I tossed it to one of Mrs. O's kids. "Thanks mister. Isn't the lady with you?"

"The one who was here yesterday? Nope."

"Oh, was she here yesterday too? I didn't see her then. She smells nice."

The hairs on the back of my neck started to become erect. "So she was here today?"

He nodded. "Uh huh. Twice. Once really really early. And just now she went out with the boy who lives with you." Another child appeared from around the corner, tilted her head, and the ball jetted out of the boy's hands. Both of them ran off in chase.

From the mouths of babes... Kitten had been here while I er um slept. Later in the day she had left with Burton. A whole new box of questions opened up, and I knew that whatever the answers were I wouldn't like them.

I only knew that Kitten was away on a trip that would last several days, or that she imagined would last that long. She could stand to wear the same clothes but few people or programs enjoyed reusing underwear. She had gone back to Johnny's pad knowing that she would be away. Had she come here looking for me? Why didn't Burton tell me that she had been here while I was nodding? What was I missing?

The Martinelli was set up as Burton had left it last night, when he was typing up my notes. I looked for them and found them stacked neatly in the IN box. The last sheet had a curl to it, the way paper does when it's clamped into a roller for a while. So it had been left until this morning and removed for some reason. To type another memo? No discarded paper, but--

I turned the desk lamp on and angled it up toward the ceiling. The typewriter's hood popped off with a little effort and I extracted the ribbon. My eyes teared as I held the strip of cloth in front of the bulb and peered at the fabric. Ink was worn off certain areas of it. Image of negative words. "used plural; what other couriers"-- skip ahead. "immediate investigation.http://www.becomingreal.org/velveteen" I entered the last part into the browser and got an error message, page not found, but poking around the site showed me it was a nutcase religious cult, one of those that tries to turn gays into straights.

I didn't believe for a nanosecond that Burton Ernie was trying to become straight. There were no secret links in their dreary little website so I turned back to the tale of the tape. "rabbit perry oskov" I didn't know the first name, but the second and third had been in the Zion news recently, reverse-engineering specialists. They had been playing around with Agent subobjects, trying to replicate the code insertion capability or something like that, and had been terminated in the real by Machine operatives. Since they had been working for the Merovingian I wasn't real sorry.

Their place of business was a few minutes away by subway. It was worth a look. Silver's forces had withdrawn. They had taken too much damage to maintain a seige. He's a vindictive program to be sure, but he's got enough accountant in his code to realize when a vendetta is costing too much. And he was looking for Kitten as well.

Yellow police tape and padlocks are effective only against the bloops, low-level Exiles, and the newly Awakened, The padlock was already popped however. I drew my best handgun and crept silently inside. Faint laughter came from a room on the second floor of the townhouse.

Slowly. Ninja silence as I climbed the steps one by one, placing my feet near the risers to avoid squeaking boards. Bizarre mechanisms cast macabre shadows on the walls. Upstairs one room and one room alone had a sliver of light spraying out from the gap at its bottom. I turned the knob slowly, keeping my body shielded by the door frame.

Kitten and Ernie were there, all right. It was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. They were naked, writing about on the bare mattress, screaming with hysterical laughter, embracing each other out of some mad lust. Their features were melted and coated with a transparent slime. Mushroom-like pustules erupted spontaneously from their bodies, sending bluish powder drifting down into the gel. One of Burton's eyes independently swiveled toward me. The programs both burbled in unison. "Like you. Like you."

It took eight bullets to kill them both, my hands were shaking so badly. I found a can of gasoline in the basement and doused the bodies and the rest of the rowhome from top to bottom. Torched it. Walked backwards away from the glow, all Halloween orange and chimney red.