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and leaves it sleeping, less of a presence on the net than Mabry s invisible
non-icon, and turns her attention to the IC(E).
Under other circumstances she would take her time, thread the glittering
razors maze of it, but she s already betrayed her presence by neutralizing the first
array of traps. She selects the best icebreaker she owns. She didn t write the main
structure, but she has modified it until it fits her hand, her style, like a velvet glove.
She draws it on, feeling the power surge through it as the program wakes and
tests the IC(E), then sweeps her hand across the first bright coil of program. The
shock of it jolts her to her elbow, numb tingling as though she d hit a nerve; she
grimaces, calls more power. She touches it again, and this time the IC(E) cracks
and shatters under her touch, falling away in chunks like broken glass. At the
edges of the breach, the broken ends of the matrix flare, and then fade, like embers
in the wind. She reaches out again, seizes another handful of the brittle glittering
IC(E), enjoying the feeling as it cracks and falls like dust at her feet. Once more,
and she is through, emerging into the echoing silence of an empty node.
She has expected that, predicted the emptiness when there was no counter to
her first assault on the volume s defenses, but she checks anyway, letting her own
countersecurity programs survey the area. There is nothing more than the routine
maintenance programs, anonymous and mainstream, nothing to betray their
owner s hand, and she steps out into the empty space. It is flat, featureless, grey
floor, white dome/ceiling, all standard, not even a hot-spot to trigger a new
environment or a private stash of files. Which is all pretty much as she has
expected: she scans anyway, and this time finds the button, dulled almost to
invisibility. She checks for links to IC(E), finds none, but readies a defensive
program anyway before she triggers whatever lies behind the routine.
Grass sprouts underfoot, and a pavilion shimmers into place: the scene of her
earlier seduction. She makes a face, but lets the program run, until the stage is
complete, if empty, no sign of Silk behind the clever trappings. She scans again,
ignoring the demanding memory better to have Trouble, in spite of
everything finds a storage cache and a single file. She studies the guard
program carefully, selects a tool, and freezes the lock into immobility. It can
neither close nor destroy its contents; she pries it gently open, and scans the file. It
is a working draft of a program, a model for iconage, and she seals a copy
carefully into her working memory. It could be bait, a poison trap that carries
some unpleasant virus, and she doesn t have the time to risk that now.
There is nothing else she needs, not here, and the mere fact that she s been here
is message enough for Silk. She hesitates, contemplating a message, and at last
tosses a copy of her icon out into the empty space. It hangs in the air, the cartoon
shape glowing against the blank walls: if Silk knows what s good for her, she ll
contact me, Cerise thinks, and turns away. And if she doesn t there s always the
watchdog. She walks out through the shattered IC(E), feels the ghostly touch of
the watchdog, warm against her ankle, reassuring her of its presence. Mabry, too,
is still with her, but she ignores him, and turns again for home.
Trouble sat cross-legged on her chair, left hand still nursing the elbow that stung
and tingled from the feedback of the IC(E) surrounding The Willows databases.
Voices spilled in through the open window, kids shouts high and clear as they
played basketball in the lot behind the Chinese restaurant, mixing with the periodic
drone of runabouts engines, but she ignored them all, staring at the numbers that
filled her display screen. It was bad enough that she hadn t been able to break
through the IC(E) on-line not only did her elbow hurt, but the same
pins-and-needles sensation trembled through her hands, slowing her fingers on the
keyboard and controls. The numbers did not change, and she glared at them a
moment longer before moving on to the next screen. The news was no better there:
most of the Headlands apartments were controlled by The Willows, and the
information on tenants names and rents and who actually paid the bills was buried in
The Willows most secure databases. She had already proved that she couldn t
break that IC(E) almost unconsciously, she ran her hand over her sore elbow,
imagining a bruise beneath the skin even though she knew perfectly well that the
tingling was in her nerves, in the brainworm itself which left her only the slow,
unreliable road through the city records. And that wasn t even cracking, she thought,
bitterly; it was more like panning for gold, sifting huge amounts of raw information
through a datasieve in the hopes first that the information you wanted was actually
there, and then that you d built the sieve correctly to catch it. Most crackers didn t
have the patience for the technique hell, she wasn t sure she had the patience for it
anymore but she d already exhausted all the other options.
She made a face at the screen, dumped the information back to the disk, then
called up another file. This one contained the latest access codes for most of the
East Coast city databases it was one of those things the wannabes cracked out of
the systems and posted, just to prove they could do it and, as she had hoped, the
Seahaven/Southbrook/Sands joint administrative district computer was on the list,
less than twenty hours old. The codes indicated that it was an older machine, without
the additional security packages that most of the larger cities had installed in the past
year. She lifted an eyebrow at that she would have expected The Willows either to
provide the program or at least to insist that the town governments install it but
experience had taught her to be grateful for small mercies. She copied the code, and
went looking for her datasieve. She found it at last, on a subsidiary disk, and brought
it into working memory, opened it, then stared at the matrix, considering the
parameters. This was something that Cerise was particularly good at, designing
search routines, and she stood up abruptly, reached for the handset before she could
change her mind. There was no point in not contacting Cerise, not now, but she still
felt oddly embarrassed by the sudden strength of her need to work with the other
woman. She punched in the numbers with more force than necessary, steeling herself
for the buzzing of an empty line, and was startled when Cerise herself answered.
 Yes?
 It s me.
 Figures, Cerise said.
Trouble could hear her relax, and imagined her sudden smile.  I need your help
with something, she said, and Cerise laughed softly.
 Do you want to talk about it?
 Not on the phone, no, Trouble answered.
 Ah. Well, I have some news for you, too, Cerise said.  Shall I come to you?
Trouble looked around the little room, reminded again that Treasury had been
there the night before. She had swept for bugs and taps again as soon as she
returned, with no result, but Treasury was good. There was no reason to take
unnecessary chances.  Probably not, she said, with some reluctance.  Why don t I
meet you back at your place?
 I ll be expecting you, Cerise answered, and the line went dead.
Trouble walked back across the bridge into Seahaven proper, her portable system
and the disk-bound toolkit heavy on her shoulder, and threaded her way through the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]