into the bank I’m using, I can give it sequential, real time memory?”
“Guess so,” said the construct.
“Okay, Dix. You are a ROM construct. Got me?”
“If you say so,” said the construct. “Who are you?”
“Case.”
“Miami,” said the voice, “joeboy, quick study.”
“Right. And for starts, Dix, you and me, we’re gonna sleaze over to London grid and
access a little data. You game for that?”
“You gonna tell me I got a choice, boy?”
SIX
“Y OU WANT YOU a paradise,” the Flatline advised, when Case had explained his situation. “Check
Copenhagen, fringes of the university section.” The voice recited coordinates as he
punched.
They found their paradise, a “pirate’s paradise,” on the jumbled border of a low-security
academic grid. At first glance it resembled the kind of graffiti student operators
sometimes left at the junctions of grid lines, faint glyphs of colored light that
shimmered against the confused outlines of a dozen arts faculties.
“There,” said the Flatline, “the blue one. Make it out? That’s an entry code for Bell
Europa. Fresh, too. Bell’ll get in here soon and read the whole damn board, change
any codes they find posted. Kids’ll steal the new ones tomorrow.”
Case tapped his way into Bell Europa and switched to a standard phone code. With the
Flatline’s help, he connected with the London data base that Molly claimed was Armitage’s.
“Here,” said the voice, “I’ll do it for you.” The Flatline began to chant a series
of digits, Case keying them on his deck, trying to catch the pauses the construct
used to indicate timing. It took three tries.
“Big deal,” said the Flatline. “No ice at all.”
“Scan this shit,” Case told the Hosaka. “Sift for owner’s personal history.”
The neuroelectronic scrawls of the paradise vanished, replaced by a simple lozenge
of white light. “Contents are primarily video recordings of postwar military trials,”
said the distant voice of the Hosaka. “Central figure is Colonel Willis Corto.”
“Show it already,” Case said.
A man’s face filled the screen. The eyes were Armitage’s.
T WO HOURS LATER , Case fell beside Molly on the slab and let the temperfoam mold itself against him.
“You find anything?” she asked, her voice fuzzy with sleep and drugs.
“Tell you later,” he said, “I’m wrecked.” He was hungover and confused. He lay there,
eyes closed, and tried to sort the various parts of a story about a man called Corto.
The Hosaka had sorted a thin store of data and assembled a precis, but it was full
of gaps. Some of the material had been print records, reeling smoothly down the screen,
too quickly, and Case had had to ask the computer to read them for him. Other segments
were audio recordings of the Screaming Fist hearing.
Willis Corto, Colonel, had plummeted through a blind spot in the Russian defenses
over Kirensk. The shuttles had created the hole with pulse bombs, and Corto’s team
had dropped in in Nightwing microlights, their wings snapping taut in moonlight, reflected
in jags of silver along the rivers Angara and Podhamennaya, the last light Corto would
see for fifteen months. Case tried to imagine the microlights blossoming out of their
launch capsules, high above a frozen steppe.
“They sure as hell did shaft you, boss,” Case said, and Molly stirred beside him.
The microlights had been unarmed, stripped to compensate for the weight of a console
operator, a prototype deck, and a virus program called Mole IX, the first true virus
in the history of cybernetics. Corto and his team had been training for the run for
three years. They were through the ice, ready to inject Mole IX, when the emps went
off. TheRussian pulse guns threw the jockeys into electronic darkness; the Nightwings suffered
systems crash, flight circuitry wiped clean.
Then the lasers opened up, aiming on infrared, taking out the fragile,
“Guess so,” said the construct.
“Okay, Dix. You are a ROM construct. Got me?”
“If you say so,” said the construct. “Who are you?”
“Case.”
“Miami,” said the voice, “joeboy, quick study.”
“Right. And for starts, Dix, you and me, we’re gonna sleaze over to London grid and
access a little data. You game for that?”
“You gonna tell me I got a choice, boy?”
SIX
“Y OU WANT YOU a paradise,” the Flatline advised, when Case had explained his situation. “Check
Copenhagen, fringes of the university section.” The voice recited coordinates as he
punched.
They found their paradise, a “pirate’s paradise,” on the jumbled border of a low-security
academic grid. At first glance it resembled the kind of graffiti student operators
sometimes left at the junctions of grid lines, faint glyphs of colored light that
shimmered against the confused outlines of a dozen arts faculties.
“There,” said the Flatline, “the blue one. Make it out? That’s an entry code for Bell
Europa. Fresh, too. Bell’ll get in here soon and read the whole damn board, change
any codes they find posted. Kids’ll steal the new ones tomorrow.”
Case tapped his way into Bell Europa and switched to a standard phone code. With the
Flatline’s help, he connected with the London data base that Molly claimed was Armitage’s.
“Here,” said the voice, “I’ll do it for you.” The Flatline began to chant a series
of digits, Case keying them on his deck, trying to catch the pauses the construct
used to indicate timing. It took three tries.
“Big deal,” said the Flatline. “No ice at all.”
“Scan this shit,” Case told the Hosaka. “Sift for owner’s personal history.”
The neuroelectronic scrawls of the paradise vanished, replaced by a simple lozenge
of white light. “Contents are primarily video recordings of postwar military trials,”
said the distant voice of the Hosaka. “Central figure is Colonel Willis Corto.”
“Show it already,” Case said.
A man’s face filled the screen. The eyes were Armitage’s.
T WO HOURS LATER , Case fell beside Molly on the slab and let the temperfoam mold itself against him.
“You find anything?” she asked, her voice fuzzy with sleep and drugs.
“Tell you later,” he said, “I’m wrecked.” He was hungover and confused. He lay there,
eyes closed, and tried to sort the various parts of a story about a man called Corto.
The Hosaka had sorted a thin store of data and assembled a precis, but it was full
of gaps. Some of the material had been print records, reeling smoothly down the screen,
too quickly, and Case had had to ask the computer to read them for him. Other segments
were audio recordings of the Screaming Fist hearing.
Willis Corto, Colonel, had plummeted through a blind spot in the Russian defenses
over Kirensk. The shuttles had created the hole with pulse bombs, and Corto’s team
had dropped in in Nightwing microlights, their wings snapping taut in moonlight, reflected
in jags of silver along the rivers Angara and Podhamennaya, the last light Corto would
see for fifteen months. Case tried to imagine the microlights blossoming out of their
launch capsules, high above a frozen steppe.
“They sure as hell did shaft you, boss,” Case said, and Molly stirred beside him.
The microlights had been unarmed, stripped to compensate for the weight of a console
operator, a prototype deck, and a virus program called Mole IX, the first true virus
in the history of cybernetics. Corto and his team had been training for the run for
three years. They were through the ice, ready to inject Mole IX, when the emps went
off. TheRussian pulse guns threw the jockeys into electronic darkness; the Nightwings suffered
systems crash, flight circuitry wiped clean.
Then the lasers opened up, aiming on infrared, taking out the fragile,
Similar Books
