Trouble and Her Friends Melissa Scott

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

There are people saying that, Sirico said. And there are a lot of people who
are pretty pissed at this one. He/she s been teasing the big names, and stirred up a
lot of security in the process.
Definitely not my Trouble, Cerise thought. Any word on how to contact this
Trouble?
What else? Sirico asked, and the icon would have grinned if it could.
Seahaven.
Ah. Cerise leaned back in her chair. She had expected nothing less, of course,
would have been disappointed if she had gotten any other answer. Seahaven was the
last and greatest of the virtual villages, the last survivor of a dozen similar spaces that
had existed before Evans-Tindale. It was a virtual space run by and for its unknown
architect, the Mayor, an unreal place policed, positioned, and created entirely at his
whim. If you entered its influence, you agreed to abide by its rules, to subordinate
whatever filters you used to interpret the net to its own system. It was a spectacular
effect, and a dangerous one; there were always people who tried to beat the local
system, force it to bend to their whim, and while they always failed, the fallout could
be disastrous. It had always been a cracker s haven; now it was one of the last
remaining spaces where the shadow walkers could conduct their business. It was
also one of the net s greatest temptations, and home of its greatest dangers: Trouble
had said once that if it were on any map, it would have to be labeled, quite literally,
HERE BE DRAGONS.
Do you have any idea where I d look for Seahaven these days?
Sirico s icon shifted color, went yellow for a brief instant, the equivalent of a
shrug. New Hampshire?
Very funny. Cerise frowned at the screen. Seahaven was also a town on the
New Hampshire coast, maybe ninety-five kilometers to the north. It had once been a
summer resort and a fishing town, but as the beaches became dangerous, racked
with high UV sunlight, eaten away by pollution and the shifting tide-line, other
businesses had dwindled, until the entire population was dependent on the secure
hotel built just outside the town on pilings driven into the salt marsh. The hotel was
highly rated among the multinationals who needed absolute security for their
negotiations there had never been a successful raid, virtual or real, on the facility,
and only a handful of attempts and the lack of other work in the area kept its prices
lower than most. Seahaven, the off-line Seahaven, existed now only to service the
hotel, and the hotel and the town government worked hand in glove to keep it that
way. Cerise had lived there for an interminable eight months after
Evans-Tindale the old beachfront Parcade was one of the best sources along the
East Coast for black- and grey-market ware, and she had been desperate for new
hardware and had hated it. The ghost of a town, worse still, the ghost of a virtual
town, hopeless and dying, with nothing to do but serve the hotel and throw rocks
and bottles at straying strangers: live free or die, Cerise thought, only they can t
seem to do either. She shook away the flash of memory, salt air and the smell of oil
smoke drifting along the beachfront, said aloud, The Seahaven that matters, Pol.
Any ideas?
I don t know. The last I heard, if you wanted to go to Seahaven, take a walk
through the Bazaar. But that was a week ago.
Cerise sighed. Right, thanks. Keep an eye out for any sale from this intrusion,
will you?
How long do you want me to watch? Sirico asked.
Give it another thirty-two hours, Cerise answered. If we haven t seen anything
by then, we re not going to.
OK.
Thanks, Pol, Cerise said, and cut the connection. She stared at the screen for a
moment, then touched keys to sound the net. The system flashed an instant list of
everyone s position on-line. The simplest thing would be to post a general message,
but traveling to net-Seahaven was still something a little questionable, a long step
toward the shadows; for her people s sake, it would be better to ask them
individually. She studied the list, then blanked the screen. None of the duty operators
were likely to admit knowing the road, even if they did know it, which wasn t terribly
likely; better to hit the net herself, head for the BBS and the Bazaar that lay at its
heart, and find her own way from there. And, she admitted, with a wry smile at her
own frailties, it would be more fun to do it herself.
Before she could tie in, a chime sounded, and Massek s face appeared in the
corner of her screen. I ve set up an appointment with Mr. Rabin, Ms. Cerise. Is
two-thirty all right with you?
Cerise made a face. Can you make it any later, Landy?
Sorry. Mr. Rabin s got a meeting at three as it is, and he expects to be there the
rest of the day.
All right, Cerise said, and knew she sounded irritable. Two-thirty it is.
Thanks. I ll tell Mr. Rabin. Massek vanished.
That changed the parameters somewhat. Cerise pushed herself up from her desk
and went to the door of the office. Jensey. I m going out on the net for the next few
hours. I ll be back by two it s to do with the incident yesterday, if anyone asks.
She meant Coigne, and Baeyen knew it.
I ll tell him, the dark woman answered. Do you want me to sound a recall for
you?
I ll set one, Cerise answered, and turned away. She returned to her seat,
adjusting the chair controls to a more comfortable setting, one that wouldn t leave
her crippled after a few hours. She checked the toolkits and the standbys already
displayed on the screen, and touched keys to have the system warn her when it was
time to go home. Then she took a deep breath, and launched herself out onto the
net.
She is flying now, bursting like a rocket through the company IC(E), exploding
onto the net like a firework. Overhead, a light gleams like a moon, full and
brilliant an open conference, and she hesitates, tempted, but makes herself turn
away. The lines of the nets expand before her, roads and rivers of data like
glowing highways, she chooses one, not quite at random, and lets it carry her
down toward the BBS.
The rivers move more slowly here, where talk is free and the lines are
overburdened. She disciplines herself to that meandering pace, drifts silently from
node to node. The Bazaar is the great center of the BBS, the link of traders nodes
where anything and everything is bought and sold. Lights flare around her as she
drifts closer, bursts of compressed iconage like the cries of a street hawker, and the
air smells of burnt cinnamon. She bats the most persistent symbols idly away,
feeling them break like bubbles against her hand, familiar advertising, most of
them, some of them not, new names and faces, new services, strangers on the net.
She drifts past, not bothering to make any reply, her own icon dimmed and ghostly
in the midst of all that brilliance, seeking the sellers that lay behind the walls of
light, behind the barriers of the obvious. She tests the virtual winds, tasting the
data, but finds none of the familiar markers that hint at the road to Seahaven. At
the Polar Flare, where there is always news of the shadows, she catches the ball of
light that is flung at her, unwraps the spinning advertisement without bothering to
read the icons, there is nothing at its center, and she frowns, and tosses the
glittering shards like confetti back onto the net. There are other nodes, she crosses
them, finds at last a familiar symbol, and touches it. The shape within becomes a
presence, a scent and then a swirl of light, a hand-icon inviting her inside. She [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Pokrewne