The CI Virtual Services complex was located in what was called the New North End of Burlington, though it was several kilometers south of the northern edge of Greater Burlington. The drive there from Joe's place in the middle of Milton gave me plenty of time to get nervous. Odd how that works. We'd planned this all afternoon, and it made me nervous, but neither the Matrix run of the night before or the attack in the garage before that had bothered me. Happened too fast, I guess.

I rubbed my sweaty palms on the legs of my jeans and looked over at Jack. She seemed to be at least as nervous as I was, which somehow gave me a perverse comfort. I was going to have to be calm to help Jack be calm. I reached over and squeezed her shoulder. She looked up at me, startled for a moment, then gave me a crooked smile. Neither of us seemed to be quite so nervous after that.

When we neared the outer perimeter of the CI complex, we slowed down and Max whispered back to us, "We're almost there." We nodded and slid down to lie on the floor of the cargo bay. Jack made some gestures with her hands and spoke some words that I didn't understand, then a soft glow formed around us. After a moment, it consolidated into an image of a stack of boxes, looking translucent and backwards from inside. I hoped it looked more solid from the other side.

The Tank picked up speed again, shortly rolling to a stop before the back gate of the complex. Two security guards, one human and one ork, emerged from the two gatehouses and approached the Tank, while two others (both human, as far as I could tell), kept us covered with heavy machine guns in the watch towers above. I began to feel that maybe we were in over our heads.

Max rolled down his window and spoke to the human guard. "Excuse me, sir," he said, displaying his pass, "I'm escorting this shipment of 804286 chips. We're expected."

The human took his pass and examined it while the ork circled the Tank, shining his flashlight in the windows. He didn't seem to see Jack or I, and apparently accepted the illusionary 804286 boxes as what they appeared to be. He went back and reported his findings to the human guard, who nodded and said, "We'll have to check your pass. Just a minute."

He went back into the gatehouse with the pass. My heart dropped as I realized that the pass wouldn't check and we'd be caught. I considered telling Joe to crash the gates, then remembered the machine gun towers. The Tank was tough, but she wasn't that tough.

At that moment the guard re-emerged. "Well, your pass checks out," he said. "We've turned off the minefield. Go on through."

The gates rattled open and we rolled through onto a yellow- striped stretch of pavement. I remembered the word "minefield" and shuddered. Joe followed Max's directions, guiding the Tank through the deactivated minefield and around into a spacious and currently abandoned unloading bay. Joe turned off the Tank's engine as Max unfolded himself from the front passenger's seat.

"Stay there," Max whispered to us, stopping me just as I began to sit up. I settled back down and waited. Max circled the Tank, then walked over to the wall and reached up, out of my line of sight, and did something. He came back over to the Tank and opened the tail doors, saying, "Okay, you can get out now."

Jack and I slid out of the vehicle; Jack's illusion faded away. I looked up to see what Max had done, and saw a security camera on a swivel mount. The mount was bent so that the camera pointed up at the ceiling. I realized that Max had just reached up and, with one hand, and without apparent effort, bent the steel bracket that held the camera. It was no wonder that some people were afraid of trolls.

Max turned, gesturing to us to follow, and headed up a flight of stairs to a steel door in the concrete wall. The door opened without difficulty and Max cautiously stepped through. Jack and I followed, with Joe bringing up the rear. Max led us down a short corridor and through a door labeled "Delivery Bay 3 Comptroller". "Is this what you need?" he asked quietly, indicating a cyberterminal on a desk in the corner.

I nodded and moved over to the desk, checking the terminal over before yanking its cable. The terminal was a mid-range model, and, even given the natural limitations of cyberterminals, it was probably faster than my deck. However, there's something to be said for sticking with what you know. I don't know what, but something. I sat down in the swivel-chair and plugged my deck into the now-empty socket, lifted the other end of the cable to my temple, and grinned at my friends. "Take good care of my body, now," I said, and jacked in.

I waited for reality to stop spinning, then opened my eyes. I was hovering in the center of a large, grey room. Black letters across the far wall read "STORAGE CONTROL 3". There was a row of data objects displayed as small crates floating in a neat row near the floor. I began to drift down to check them out, but something caught my attention. I turned in time to see the cybercat firm into full solidity.

Exasperated, I said, "What are you doing here, Jack?"

"Infiltrating a computer system. Why?" she replied, evenly.

"Because they're going to trace you right to us," I answered.

She shrugged. "Inside their own system is the last place they'll look. Besides, I get the feeling that this system is more than you can handle alone."

I growled to myself. "I ought to make you jack out..."

"You can't," Jack stated, flexing her hands, her long, steel claws slipping out. "But you're welcome to try."

I started to make a arrogant reply, but thought better of it in time. Jack was right on at least one count - I couldn't make her leave. I doubted that I could convince the stubborn wench to jack out on her own. Anyway, I had been wondering how I was going to handle the security that this system undoubtedly had alone.

"Okay, okay," I replied, admitting defeat. "Let's get busy, then."

I drifted down to the row of data objects and quickly browsed through a couple of them. They seemed to be records of the arrival, unloading, and storage of various parts shipments. I didn't think they would be particularly useful, so I left them and turned to check out the rest of the node. There were datalines to the right and left, and another directly underneath the "STORAGE CONTROL 3" sign. I decided that the forward exit looked more promising, so I moved into it, with Jack following. We zoomed down a long, grey tunnel, then emerged into another node. This one appeared to be the bottom of a shaft, with three other datalines similar to the one we had just emerged from radiating out from the center. Above us, a white winged cat circled, evidently guarding the top of the shaft.

"What is it with cats in the Matrix?" I asked no one in particular.

"What do you mean?" Jack responded.

"Oh," I said. "Just that there's an awful lot of them. I mean, your persona has a feline image, and here's this flying cat, and UVM uses mostly catamounts for security, and this guy Glish I know uses a panther, and there are plenty of others."

"I don't know. I guess deckers are just cat people," Jack answered.

I shrugged and headed for the top of the shaft. As I neared it, the cat moved in, claws extended and fur bristling. My deception program flashed some fake passcodes at it and it backed off, purring. The dataline curved off horizontally from the shaft and terminated at another vertical shaft, this one much larger and higher. There were several other datalines leading out at the same level we were at, and the shaft itself extended out of sight above and below.

"Looks like the core of the system," Jack observed.

I nodded agreement. "Five nuyen says that higher and lower security levels correspond to higher and lower on the shaft."

"No bet," Jack replied. "So do we want to go up or down?"

"Up, I'd guess," I guessed. "Seems to me that the chief exec would be a higher security clearance than the comptroller's office."

Jack nodded and headed up. Another white cat swooped out of nowhere, bristling. She flashed fake passcodes at it and continued up. I followed her example. We came to another ring of datalines. There were fewer in this ring than in the one we had just left. Above us was a pair of winged cats perched on ledges, scanning the area below them. I flipped into combat mode for a moment and loaded a sensor program, checking the cats out without graphic distraction. The scan confirmed my suspicion. The cats were a pair of interlocked access ice - easy to deceive individually, but vastly more difficult as a pair. I stopped and switched back into normal mode. When graphic representations reformed around me, I noticed Jack looking at me.

"What was that for?" she asked.

"Hmm?" I inquired.

"You just switched into combat mode. Why?"

"Oh. I was just checking out our flying friends here."

"And?"

"They could be tricky. They're interlocked."

Jack considered the flying cats for a moment, then nodded. "Maybe we should check out this batch of datalines before we try getting past the cats," she suggested.

I nodded agreement, then thought of something else. I started up my analyzation program again, using it on the node we were in. The information came back, "Central Core, Executive Access Level". That sounded about right, so I selected the nearest dataline and moved in. There was another white cat guarding the dataline, but it seemed to accept our passcodes. We slid past and into another node.

The new node appeared as a long, shadowy hallway, with several datalines leading off to each side. I activated my analyzation program again, and received, "General Information Archives, Executive Access Level".

I turned to Jack. "General Information Archives?"

She considered for a moment, then shook her head. "I doubt that Rosemond would leave anything we could use lying around in a general access archive. We should keep it in mind, though."

I nodded agreement, checked the datalines to make sure that they led to datastores as they appeared to, and moved back into the central core. I selected another dataline at random and slipped into it. The white cat guarding this one appeared to be asleep. That stopped me for a second, and I dropped into combat mode and activated my analyzation program to get a more precise look. When the results came back, I understood. Access ice similar to the others had been installed here, but hadn't ever been activated. I switched back into normal mode and moved past the sleeping cat. Jack followed me, saying, "That's really odd."

I agreed. The node beyond the sleeping sentinel was a generic box, with datalines leading out to an I/O port and several datastores. One datastore was "defended" by another sleeping cat, the other two were wide open. I analyzed the node and received an answer with surprising speed. It appeared that this was "Personal Access, Ashley Bright". I moved into one of the undefended datastores. It was empty. I moved back out in time to meet Jack emerging from the other undefended datastore.

"Empty," I told her.

"Here too," she replied.

"I guess Ashley Bright doesn't use the Matrix much," I mused.

"Not at all, I'd say," Jack answered. "That's probably why none of the defenses are active. They've never been used."

I shrugged and slipped past the sleeping cat to the other datastore. This one was full of data packets. I quickly scanned through them. They seemed to be routine email memos, all marked "unread". There was another dataline leading out of the opposite side of the datastore. I noticed it, and something clicked in the back of my head. I slipped into the dataline, past another sleeping cat, and out into a cylindrical node. I cued my sensor programs, which confirmed my guess. "Mail Transport System, Executive Access Level".

There were dozens of datalines leading out in all directions from the node, most of them defended by very alert white cats. One of them had to lead to Rosemond's mailbox, but I had no way of knowing which one. However, the mail transport system had to know. Jack caught up with me while I was busy creating my solution.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Watch." I put the finishing touches on the data object I'd just created and tossed it out into the dataflow. The mail transport picked it up, checked the header on it, and routed it towards Rosemond's mailbox. It quickly vanished into a guarded dataline, leaving a trail of markers behind it. "Come on," I called to Jack, diving into the dataline my forged message had just taken. I flashed faked access codes at the guardian program and began to move past it. It turned and hissed at me, claws out and wings spread, almost certainly raising an alarm. Before I could react to it, Jack hit it from behind and it dissolved into a cloud of bits, which quickly faded from view.

"I think it had time to raise an alert," Jack said.

I nodded agreement and continued up the dataline. We emerged into a datastore, empty save for my file sitting contentedly in the middle of the node. I erased it - no sense in leaving evidence lying around - and slipped out of the node. We passed a cat guarding the dataline we emerged from, but it evidently wasn't interested in traffic headed our direction. I scanned the node, received "Personal Access, Sidney Rosemond" for an answer, and was satisfied. I began to turn towards one of the datastores when Jack stopped me.

"Wait," she said. "I think the I/O port is active."

I turned back towards the I/O port. Sure enough, where there should have been an empty node, a small pyramid, representative of an active cyberterminal, floated in its center. I groaned, then thought of something. "If this is Rosemond's personal access, then that I/O port is probably in Rosemond's office. Who'd be jacked in in Rosemond's office besides Rosemond?"

A slow grin came over Jack's feline features. "Maybe we ought to pay him a visit in person," she said.

"Maybe first we ought to get out of here before he decides to come back."

Jack looked startled, then nodded tersely, heading for the dataline we'd just come in on.

"No, this way," I directed her. She stopped, turned, and followed me out the line to the central core, which was, as I had guessed, undefended from this direction - the cat at the mouth ignored us, anyway. I moved into the undefended entrance to Ashley Bright's access, with Jack following. Once there I decided it was safe to stop and talk, so I did. "What do we do now?" I asked Jack.

"Jack out and go find Rosemond?" she suggested.

"Do you know where his office is?"

Jack shook her head.

"Neither do I. I think if Max did, he would have told us. This is a big building. We'd be discovered long before we found it if we tried to search the place."

"So we need a map," Jack replied.

"There's an idea," I responded. "Where are we going to find one?"

"There must be one somewhere in the system," she mused.

"The CPU?" I suggested.

"No," she replied. "We could get a diagram of the system from there, but not of the physical building."

"Oh. Right."

"Of course," Jack continued, "security for the building is probably mostly computer-controlled, and you'd expect security to have a map."

"That's true," I agreed. "Now where do we find security?"

"Up, probably," Jack guessed. "There's something farther up the core than executive access, and you'd expect security to have the highest access level."

"Logical," I said.

"Well, you know what they say," Jack said.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence," she quoted.

"Oh. Comforting," I replied, not at all comforted. "We'd best get moving."

I ducked back out into the central core and looked up at the pair of winged cats, lurking like gargoyles above us. I took a deep breath and floated upwards, flashing fake passcodes at the cats. They both checked my codes, accepted them, then looked at each other for a long moment. I tensed, then relaxed as they settled back, satisfied. Jack followed, flashing her own faked codes at the pair of guardians. The first one accepted them, then the second, then they compared results. Suddenly they began to caterwaul. Glowing barriers sprang up across the shaft above and below us, sealing us onto the level we were on.

"Fraggit! Active alert!" I cursed.

A grey winged cat materialized in the center of the shaft just above us. I loaded my attack program and prepared to drop into combat mode. As I was doing so, the cat turned, locking its gaze on Jack. She lunged for it. Even as it took the blow, its eyes flashed and an image of them shot towards Jack. The glowing green cat-eyes struck her, passed through, and spiraled downwards along the path we had taken coming up. The cat itself soared through the barrier and up the shaft, quickly passing out of observation range. I stopped with the command to activate combat mode half-formed, recognizing that it would be futile to chase the cat.

"Drek. Trace ice," Jack growled.

"Hope it isn't trace and burn," I said. "I don't think we can catch the thing."

"You're right," Jack acknowledged. "We'd better hurry."

I attempted to check the identity of the node with my analyzation program, but got no response. I told Jack that, and she quickly fired off one of her own sensor programs.

"Well, it says we're on the security level," Jack relayed.

"That's one piece of luck," I observed. "No clues, so..." I moved into a dataline chosen at random. We emerged into another node. I didn't have time to check out the details, because there was a grey cat leaping at us. It became a grey diamond - killer ice - as I dropped into combat mode and attacked. My attack destroyed sections of code at the same time its attack struck home, reducing the integrity of my persona program. The ice adjusted its execution to avoid the code sections I'd ruined and lashed out again, ineffectively. Just then, Jack hit it with something, corrupting a main loop. The ice transmitted a burst of garbage. I hit it again and it crashed.

I resumed normal mode in time to see the last bits of feathers and fur fade into nothingness. I checked my persona program and grimaced. That single attack had hit hard. I quickly did what I could to patch the program, decided that it wasn't about to crash and dump me, and looked around.

The node was a round tunnel, apparently part of a doughnut that encircled the main shaft. That caused me to shake my head about people who designed system images to be architecturally plausible when they had no need to be. Directly ahead of us was a dataline. I shrugged and entered. Jack followed, cautiously. The new node had a dozen or more datalines leading out. Several of them seemed to lead to slave nodes, the rest to datastores. I didn't see any clues to tell me what this part of the system was for. I invoked my sensor program, with no luck.

I'd just turned to Jack to ask her to try when she forestalled me by saying, "Security Checkpoint Control."

"Any use to us?" I asked.

"I don't think so," Jack replied. "Not unless we want to forge some more security passes."

"Could be useful," I commented, "but I don't think we have time."

Jack nodded, and we both turned and moved back out into the node where we'd fought the killer ice. It was empty now, so I decided to go counterclockwise around the torus. We'd made perhaps a quarter turn and moved into a new node, I think (it was hard to tell - whoever'd decorated the system did an excellent job of blending the nodes together), when we ran into another grey winged cat. Again, I switched into combat mode and attacked. My attack failed, and it hit me hard. My data displays lost rationality for a moment before I tweaked some pieces of code to re-enable them.

Jack, meanwhile, was hitting the ice with a series of minor attacks. She did only a little damage to it each time, but the repeated assaults quickly added up. The ice turned on Jack, so I pounded it with the heaviest attack I could muster while its limited attention was focused on her. The ice lashed out at Jack, lightly damaging her persona program. Then, in a startlingly elegant move, Jack took advantage of all the minor openings produced by her previous attacks to drive home a massive assault that shattered the ice's remaining coherency.

As its remaining shreds of code were cleaned up by the system's maintenance routines, I did my best to patch my tattered persona program, then shifted back into normal mode and moved into the radial dataline the grey cat had been guarding. My sensor program worked in the new node, for a pleasant change, telling me, "Building Security Camera Control". I decided that the array of slave nodes that the majority of the node's datalines led to must control the cameras themselves. However, there was a single datastore off to the side. I slipped into the datastore. It was visualized as a long, dark room, with row upon row of data objects, each appearing as an old-fashioned videocassette, lined up against the walls. There was another object floating off to the side, but I ignored it for the moment. I checked one of the cassette-files. It was a clip of completely uninteresting camera footage showing an empty hallway.

"Tom!" Jack called. I turned back to see her checking over the solitary data object. "I think I've found what we need."

"You sure?" I asked.

"A complex multi-layer visual... it looks architectural to me," she confirmed.

"Good enough... oh, drek." This last remark was caused by my glancing back towards the dataline entry and noticing that we were no longer alone.

"What?" Jack asked, then looked up and saw our visitors. "Oh, drek," she echoed.

There were four more winged cats emerging from the dataline, each of them glistening black with glowing yellow eyes. It only took me a moment to make the connection between black cat and black ice. Fragging four of them. Jack turned away from the map and swung an arm towards the cats, chanting a couple of syllables as she did so. A wave of nothing lashed out at them, struck them, and faded. One of them veered off, striking at empty cyberspace as if confused. The other three kept coming.

"Jack! Get the file!" I yelled. "I'll hold them off!"

She turned her back on the cats and began downloading the file, showing a trust of me that I hoped I deserved. Hold them off. Yeah, right, Tom. How're you going to do that?

I charged them, began to bring up a shield program before I realized that it would be useless, and loaded my mirrors program instead. As I lashed out with my broadsword at the nearest ice, I activated the mirrors program. Suddenly there were a dozen armored knights harrying the cats. I slashed with my broadsword again, then stepped back before they could attack me. They went after my duplicates instead. The images vanished when attacked, but they distracted the cats long enough for me to land another good blow with my sword and still remain unhurt.

The cats shattered the last of my mirror images and turned on me. Just then the confused cat careened in from the side, clawing at one of my assailants. The two rolled away, a hissing, clawing mass of cat and bird parts.

I slashed at the third cat, scoring a good hit on it. It struck back, and I danced away. The fourth cat... where was the fourth cat? I began to turn, too late. I heard a scream behind me. I finished turning. The fourth cat had slipped by me and attacked Jack. She was stubbornly continuing her download, completely open to attack. I leaped forward, bringing my blade down on the cat's back. It bit deeply, sending furry bits of code flying. The cat turned. It and the one behind me struck in unison. I could feel their viciously hooked claws inside my flesh. My nerves were on fire. I felt, rather than heard, my scream. It hurt too.

I rolled away from them, instinctively activating whatever program was second on my stack. When the finishing attack didn't come, I looked around. When I saw the cats stalking the fake knights, I remembered that I'd had my mirrors program loaded. I decided to take advantage of their distraction, and leaped at the nearest one. It probably wasn't the brightest idea, but I wasn't thinking clearly just then. I brought my sword down on the cat, then stepped behind one of the counterfeit knights. The ice took the bait, striking at the image instead of at me. Another cat came at me from the side, and I realized that the third ice was back in the fight, having finished off the one that Jack had ensorcelled. I struck out at it, ineffectually, retreating as fast as I could.

Then I heard Jack cry, "Endoffile! End of file, damn it!"

I saw her begin to fade from existence. Terror gripped me for a moment before what she had said sank in. Back at my body, my fingers groped for my datajack. Three pairs of cruel, yellow eyes lined up before me and prepared to pounce. My fingers found the cable and tugged.

The universe spun and resolved into a flat surface, which rose to smack me in the face. I fought down the urge to vomit and attempted to take stock of my surroundings. The first thing I realized was that every bone in my body hurt. Then I realized that I was lying on my face on the floor. I took a deep, painful breath and fought my way to my knees. A small, rough hand grasped my shoulder and steadied me.

"Here, clean off your face." a gruff voice said. After a moment I identified it as Joe's. He was pressing a cloth - handkerchief or something - into my hand. I looked around. Joe stood in front of me with a concerned look on his face, which was about level with mine. Max loomed over me, bent over a slender, black-clad figure collapsed on a chair. Jack!

I staggered to my feet and lurched over to Jack. She was sprawled limply on the chair. Her eyes were closed, and her complexion seemed paler than normal. Blood trickled from her nose, shockingly dark red against her pallid skin. I leaned over her, swayed, and would have fallen if Max hadn't steadied me with one of his great paws.

"Jack? Are you all right?"

For a moment, there was no response. Then her eyes flickered open. She looked through me for a second, then managed to focus on my face.

"Tom," she said. "Your nose is bleeding."

"So's yours," I replied, relieved. I wiped the blood from my face with Joe's handkerchief, then handed it to her. "Did you get it?"

She nodded as she cleaned the blood off herself with shaking hands. I looked around the room again, and, for the first time, noticed a figure sprawled on the floor near the door. It was a male elf with a brush cut, dressed in the uniform of CI Security.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"Oh," Max answered. "He attempted to gain entry to the room while you two were... gone. He seemed quite surprised to see us."

"Is he dead?" I asked.

"Oh, no," Max replied. "He's quite alive, though he'll have a devil of a headache when he awakens."

"Good," I stated. "At least I won't be the only one."

"Don't worry," Jack groaned. "You won't be." She extended a hand, and I grasped it and helped her to her feet. She leaned against me for a moment, then said, "We ought to get moving. If that ice made its trace, there's going to be security all over us."

"Oh. I'd forgotten about that one," I said.

Max opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, motioning for us to follow. Jack and I trailed behind him, leaning on each other for support, and Joe brought up the rear. Max picked a direction, and we began moving slowly down the hallway. Jack fumbled around in her sack until she found a data reader, which she plugged into her deck. She fiddled with the controls until she brought the map onto its tiny screen.

"I think we're here," she said, pointing. "And we need to be here."

"Looks like a long way," I replied, watching over her shoulder.

"Not really," she said, considering the map. "Two lefts, a right, then up twenty-one levels on the elevator."

"Doesn't sound so bad," I agreed.

Two lefts and a right later, we were standing in front of the elevator doors. Max pushed the call button, but it wouldn't open. After waiting for a minute, he sighed, dug his fingertips into the seam of the door, and pulled. It opened with a groan. He got his shoulder into the opening and braced his arm against the doorframe, forcing it open far enough for a person to get past him through the gap. Fortunately, the car was at our level. Max made a dramatic flourish, indicating that we should board. We bowed and stepped into the elevator. When we were all in, he released the door, which promptly slammed shut behind him. Jack punched the button marked "23". The little display on the panel flashed "Security lock in effect". She tried again, with the same effect.

I groaned, then had an idea. I smacked the panel on its bottom edge, and it popped up, revealing the electronics beneath. I fished out a certain connector and disconnected it, then plugged my deck into the newly disconnected cable. I jacked in.

I was in the slave node that controlled the elevator. "Up!" I commanded it. It went up. I remained there until the elevator reached the twenty-third floor, though every second made me more nervous, because I knew that somewhere in that very same system were at least three black ice after my head. When the elevator reached 23, I stopped it, opened the doors, and jacked out.

I was dizzy for a minute, and all of the aches and pains the black cat squad had awarded me came back with a vengeance. When things began to return to normal, I saw that Max was holding the door for me. Jack had just finished putting the elevator control panel back together.

I stepped out of the elevator into a sort of an antechamber. There was a door directly in front of us, with a brass plaque on it that said "Rosemond".

Max coordinated us all with hand signals. When we were all in position against the wall on either side of the door, he turned the doorknob and pushed the door open, keeping his body behind the wall. Nothing happened. Joe, with his revolver out, went through the door first, operating under the assumption that anyone waiting with a gun leveled at the doorway would fire over his head. Still, nothing happened. Max followed him, his shotgun at the ready. Jack and I followed.

The room was dark, and there didn't seem to be anyone home. There was a desk at the far side, in front of a wall of plate glass that overlooked the lake. The high-backed chair behind it was turned to face away from us, and a single track-light shone on it. Dramatic sonofabitch, that Rosemond. I glanced at my friends and moved towards the chair, expecting it to turn and reveal Rosemond in the beam of the spotlight. My friends fanned out to the sides, ready to leap to my defense. My hand went under the back of my coat and grasped the hilt of my short sword. I drew it as I came within arm's reach of the desk. I stretched my arm out, carefully turning the chair with the point of my blade.

It was empty.

There was a click behind me, the unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked, and a cool, metal object pressed against the base of my skull. A deep, quiet voice said, "Welcome, Mr. Cameron, Ms. LeFae, and friends."

I considered trying something like the suit had done to me in the garage, but I knew I wasn't fast enough to get away with it. I let my blade drop and sort of sagged in place. The person behind me moved around front, circling the desk, all the while keeping his gun leveled at me. When he reached the chair, he sat down and put his feet up on the desk.

He was an old man - human - probably seventy or more. His hair had receded to a white fringe at the back and sides of his head, and he wore it pulled back into a long, if somewhat meager, ponytail. His mustache and goatee were white, as well. His frame was thin and looked almost brittle, though that was belied by the quiet grace and dignity with which he moved. He wore a blue garment that was almost a cross between a sweatshirt and a tunic, and carried a cane that appeared to be ebony adorned with silver. I noted that he had a datajack in his temple.

He laid his gun down on the desk and leaned back in the chair. "So," he said. "Tell me what brings you here."

I hesitated for a moment, and in that moment, I realized that if I was fast, I could have my blade at his throat before he could get his hand on the gun. He must have read my intentions from my face, or something, because in a single, impossibly fast motion, he drew a long, slender blade from his cane and placed the point against my chest.

"Don't try it," he advised. "I was a blade master before you were born." He glanced up, over my shoulder. "And put the shotgun away, please."

I realized that Max had his weapon leveled over my shoulder at the old man. I also realized that the four of us had the advantage in the current situation, even on his home turf. Which meant that he was willing to risk himself to talk to us. I didn't know what that meant, but I wanted to find out. I took a deliberate step backwards and sheathed my sword.

"Thank you," the man behind the desk said. He sheathed his own blade and leaned back in the chair again. Max hesitated for a second, then lowered his shotgun, but didn't put it away.

At that moment, Jack strode up to the desk and leaned over it, palms flat on the desktop and teeth bared.

"Look here, Mr. Rosemond," she began, angrily.

"Wrong," the old man interjected, calmly.

That threw her for a second. "What do you mean?" she asked, in a calmer tone of voice.

He shrugged. "I'm not Rosemond."

"Oh." Jack seemed taken aback. "Who are you, then?"

"I'm Rosemond's boss," he replied. "Call me Mr. C. I'm glad that you've finally arrived, because I have some questions for you."

"You have questions for us? What could you possibly want to ask us?" Jack questioned, her voice rising in pitch.

"Just this," he answered. "Something weird is going on. It involves this division of my company. Whatever it is, it seems to revolve around you, young lady. I'd like you to tell me what you know about it. Or what you think you know about it, anyway."

"What do you mean, `what we think we know'?" I asked.

"And whaddya mean by `we've finally arrived', anyway?" Joe asked.

The old man glanced at Joe. "I've been expecting you, Mr. Aleshire." He looked back at me. "I suspect that you think that CI is behind that bomb in your room... and whatever else may have happened to you over the last couple of days."

"Wait. How do you know about the bomb?" I demanded.

He raised an eyebrow. "It was in the news-files. It popped out when I scanned by your roommate's name."

"What makes you think that we think that..." I stopped and considered what I'd just said. I decided that it was right, so I continued, "...that you were behind it?"

"You're here."

"But you were waiting for us," I objected. "How could you have known that we'd be here? Unless you really were behind this mess," I concluded in triumph.

"Because I'm good," the old man said, quite matter-of- factly. "I knew some things, found out quite a bit more, and," he admitted, with a shrug, "I guessed at a few things. I want to know what you know, so that I can confirm my guesses."

"First tell us what you know," Jack demanded.

Mr. C hesitated. "Okay. Several thousand nuyen of my company's money has vanished. Someone is being traced through my chunk of the Grid by someone else. The person being traced pulled a dataraid on the National Bank of Vermont. The raided files seem to tell where my missing money went. Now it's your turn. What do you know about that money? Why are there people tracing you?"

Jack paused. "Okay. So you're saying that that hundred thou was stolen."

C nodded. "Stolen, redirected, whatever. No one in my company authorized any of it."

"Then..." Jack wavered in indecision for a moment. "Okay. As far as I can tell, that was a payment for someone to snatch me. We traced it back to the originating bank, and their records claimed that the money came from CI."

"It did. Not by any legitimate means, though." Mr. C made a half-smile, one corner of his mouth lifting. "Not bad. Paying your muscle with stolen funds. Cuts down on expenses and throws off the trail. Kill two birds with one stone." He shook his head. "Okay, so why were they trying to snatch you?"

Jack clammed up, shaking her head.

"Why should we trust ya?" Joe asked, suspiciously.

"Because," the old man replied, "I could have had you all killed. The fact that I didn't should say something about my intentions."

"Yeah," Jack shot back. "But if you kill us, you can't find out anything about my deck..." she broke off, flushing, as she realized what she had given away.

Mr. C raised an eyebrow. "Your deck, is it? I wouldn't have pegged you for a cybertechnician. Except for the datajack, you look more like a mage..." he trailed off, comprehension suddenly dawning in his eyes. They were bright blue, I noticed. I'd thought that they were grey. "Oh," he said. "Oh, that's just lovely."

"I suppose you're going to be after it now, even if you weren't before," Jack stated, grimly.

"What? Oh, no. I don't do business that way," Mr. C replied. "If you ever want to market the... the technology, I guess, you know where to find us."

Jack looked surprised, as if the idea of marketing her deck hadn't crossed her mind before.

Mr. C continued, almost absently, "I don't suppose there'd be much market... not many people combine the disciplines... but the potential..." He shook his head and looked back up at us. "Well, I see your problem now. I hope you see mine as well."

I nodded just as Jack said, "Your stolen cash?"

Mr. C nodded.

From behind me, Max's deep, rumbling voice inquired, "What's the deal?"

"Deal?" the old man replied, innocently.

"Yes. Deal. I know you must have one in mind," Max answered. He put his shotgun away and crossed his arms across his chest.

"Well, now that you mention it," Mr. C said, glancing up at the ceiling, "you may notice that I'm in a situation that calls for hiring a good team of 'runners. As it happens, I've got one at least good enough to break through my security standing in front of me. I want you to help me with my little problem."

I was surprised for a minute to hear us referred to as "shadowrunners", and looked around at my friends. Jack was surprised for a second, then looked thoughtful. Joe looked thoughtful, then shrugged. Max remained impassive. I looked back to Mr. C.

"So you want us to find your missing hundred thou in exchange for...?" Jack said, questioningly.

"If you find it, you can keep it," Mr. C said. "I also want you to deal with the people who stole it. Though I expect you were going to do that anyway."

"Ya still haven't said why we should trust ya," Joe remarked.

"While Ms. LeFae is right - you can't interrogate corpses - I could easily have had you all tranqed and imprisoned. After that... well, it's amazing what a deep mind probe can do."

"He's right," Jack admitted.

"Of course," Mr. C replied. "I'm always right."

"As it happens," I informed him, "we already have that hundred thousand nuyen - most of it, anyway, so we're not really getting anything out of this deal."

"I'm not really getting anything, either," he replied. "You were already planning on doing what I'm asking you to, weren't you?" We didn't answer. "Anyway," he continued, "you're getting more than just cash."

"Oh?" I said.

"Yes. You're getting the backing of a real corp, which you're probably going to need in order to convince your... our real opponent to back down, and you can have what information I can give you in order to help you."

Jack nodded slowly. I glanced back. Max shrugged; Joe remained impassive.

"So, can I help you with anything?" Mr. C asked.

I keyed my internal memory, bringing up the files we'd taken from the bank. "Yeah," I said. "Sometime between 17:50 and 17:57 last night someone placed a call into the Burlington area. You run the Grid here; can you tell us where that call came from?"

Mr. C frowned. "Could you be a little more specific? Seven minutes makes for an awful lot of calls in a city this size."

I checked my memory again. "Near wherever bus 17 would have been at 18:25."

Mr. C touched Rosemond's desk. A series of glowing lines appeared on its black glass surface. After a moment I recognized it as a computer monitor and virtual keyboard projected on the glass. "How near?" Mr. C asked.

"Near enough that it would have been the closest bus stop," I replied.

"You don't believe in making things simple," the old man observed as his fingers flew over the keyboard with astonishing speed. A pattern of green lines appeared on the computer screen. After a moment, I recognized it as a Burlington street map. By that time, he had brought up a series of yellow lines, which consolidated themselves into yellow dots. Blue dots appeared, scattered across the maps, then circles appeared around each of them. A single dot turned red, and all the others faded out. The map zoomed in on the dot. "There's your call," Mr. C stated. "To NA/UCAS-NE-0852147159."

"I don't think I could have done that faster with a deck," Jack said, awed.

Mr. C glanced up at her, amused. "I was a hacker for fifty years before you were even born," he replied. "I have a lot of practice doing this the old-fashioned way." He turned back to his keyboard and entered some more commands. "It looks like part of the local grid node's records have been deleted. I can't tell you anything about the caller. The telecom itself may have something in memory, though."

"Do you have a physical address for that telecom?" I asked.

Mr. C did something with his computer. "Let's see... it's at 42 King Street. There are four telecoms at that address - it's most likely an apartment building." He looked up at us. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"I don't think so," I said. Jack shook her head.

"In that case," he said, doing something at the keyboard, "the security lock on the elevators has been disabled. You know where you left your truck. Email me if you need my help."

We looked at each other, then slowly started towards the door. Mr. C turned his chair to face out the window. As we went through the door and began to close it behind us, Joe muttered, "I still don't trust that bastard." I thought I heard a snort of laughter just as the door closed.

The elevator was, indeed, unlocked, and we rode it back down to the second floor, then made our way cautiously through the corridors back to the loading bay where we'd left the Tank. We all piled back into the vehicle. As Joe attached his rigger cables, Jack asked, "Do you think it's safe to let security see Tom and I on the way out?"

"Possibly," Max replied, "but I wouldn't risk it."

Jack sighed. "I was afraid of that," she said. She grasped a quartz crystal that hung around her neck and muttered a few words. Suddenly, she was gone. I blinked at the spot where she had been. It must be neat to be a mage and be able to disappear at will. I heard the seat-springs creak as Jack shifted her weight, then felt a finger softly touch my cheek. Jack's voice muttered again, the same words, I think, and I was invisible, too. I felt a weight on my shoulder, and heard Jack's voice next to my ear. From this evidence, I assumed that she'd put her head on my shoulder. "Between the drain and the ice, I've got the worst fragging headache of my life," she said.

I put an arm around her and stroked her hair. "I know what you mean," I replied. "I feel like my head's been split in half." It was true. I'd been able to forget about the headache while we were negotiating with Mr. C, but now it was back with a vengeance. We sat in silence as Joe backed the Tank out of the loading bay and rolled back to the gate. The human guard gave the Tank a cursory inspection and waved us through. We rolled out onto North Avenue and turned towards the city center and the route back to the interstate.

"We gonna check out that address the ol' man gave ya t'night?" Joe asked.

"Oh, Lord, no," Jack moaned. "We're going to go home and I'm going to pass out for a week."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," I agreed.

Joe shrugged and turned off North Avenue, headed back to the interstate. When we were well out of sight of the CI complex, Jack let us fade back into visibility. I'm not sure whether at that point it was a decision or simply that her concentration lapsed when she dozed off. If she hadn't yet fallen asleep when we became visible, she did shortly afterwards. I must have decided that she had the right idea, because the next thing I remember is the Tank coming to a stop in Joe's garage.

Max opened my door and said, "Come on, get out. I don't want to have to carry you."

Yawning, I shook my head in an attempt to clear it of sleep and crawled out of the truck. That woke Jack, and she followed, protesting sleepily. Max supported each of us with one arm, guiding us up the steps into the living room. I made it as far as the couch before I collapsed. It felt like there were little guys inside my head with ball-peen hammers. Max let Jack settle down onto the couch beside me. I don't think she was really awake yet; she curled up, laying her head in my lap.

"Um... we have a guest room," Max offered.

"No, I'm fine," Jack responded. At least that's what I think she said - it actually sounded more like "nimfin". She then proceeded to zonk out completely - in my lap, so I couldn't move.

Max looked at me, uncertainly. I made a halfhearted attempt to get up - I couldn't manage better in my condition - then gave up. Jack seemed to be like a cat - she weighed four times as much when she was sleeping. "Whatever," I mumbled, and curled up in the corner of the couch as well as I could without disturbing Jack. Max shrugged and left us there.