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*Go after him,* Trouble says.
Cerise hesitates, her hands still stinging from the first wall of IC(E), knowing it
would be smarter to take the draw and run, leave the Mayor to Mabry, to
Treasury and the Eurocops. But that s not either of their styles and there is Silk
to think about. He s on the wire, one of them, doubly family, maybe, and she feels
responsible. She nods slowly, works her hands again. The fingers that held the
leash feel thick and clumsy, and worry stabs through her.
*Are you OK?* Trouble asks, her tone sharpening, and Cerise nods again.
*Caught some IC(E) getting in here,* she says, careful to keep her voice
casual. Trouble looks at her, uncertain, searching, and she forces a smile. *Stung
my fingers a little, nothing more.*
*All right,* Trouble says, and her tone is doubtful, but she starts toward the
temple.
*Wait,* Cerise says, and reaches into her toolkit, triggers the iconage editor she
had carried since she first went into the business. Trouble cocks her head to one
side, but asks no questions; Cerise grins, and triggers a sequence, spinning an
image into the air around them. Her touch is clumsy, but the shape that forms is
recognizable enough: a gunfighter s silhouette, battered ten-gallon hat and loose
cap-shouldered duster, dark against the Mayor s walls.
Trouble laughs softly. *Shouldn t the hat be white?* she says, and makes the
change. *What brought this on?*
*Blame the Mayor,* Cerise says, and gestures at the fading frontier town
around him. *1 thought I d beat him at his own game.*
After a moment Trouble nods, and reaches for the icon, drawing it over herself
like a suit of clothes. Cerise spins a second copy for herself- she keeps the black
hat, but her kerchief is her own hot fuchsia, a single point of vivid contrast and
dons it, too.
*He picked the game,* Cerise says, and looks at Trouble remade, at an icon
that seems suddenly more herself than the dancing harlequin had ever been.
Trouble looks back at her as though she d read the thought, and the icon s wry
mouth twists into a sudden smile.
*When were we ever the good guys?* she asks, and reaches for her toolkit.
Cerise doesn t answer, moves to join her, to examine the featureless surface.
Weren t we always? she thinks, and runs one hand across the temple face, feeling
sun-warmed stone beneath her palm. She finds a protruding bit of code, a defect,
where the image has been corrupted perhaps by collateral damage from the
fight, perhaps just by wear and tear, by constant usage; whatever the cause, she
catches hold of it, levers away the skin of the image. It comes away with a ripping
sound, just a small patch of the illusion, perhaps as big as a man s outspread
hand. In that one spot, the code-wall lies exposed, and she frowns, studying its
pattern. Trouble moves up beside her, but she s barely aware of the other s
presence, concentrating on the codes. It was made by the same hand that made
the outer wall; there are similarities of style and shape, but otherwise it s not much
like that first barrier, a tighter, leaner code concealing a colder IC(E). She
hesitates for an instant, thinking of the first wall, of her sore hands, then shakes
herself, makes herself contemplate the exposed patterns.
Trouble reaches past the other icon s shoulder, carrying the icon of a sleeper.
She releases it beside the open patch of code, bends close to watch it apply itself to
the codewall. For a moment it seems to make headway, and then the IC(E)
reasserts itself. The sleeper slows, frozen, drops away to shatter against the illusory
dirt.
*It shouldn t ve done that,* Trouble says, irrelevantly she hates illusions that
don t quite work and Cerise leans closer to the opening.
*Try this,* she says, and touches a probe to a single strand of code. She is still
clumsy, a little less accurate than she needs to be, but the codewall sings under
her touch, a deep bass note that reverberates through their bones. She s found a
hot spot within the wall of IC(E), a space that give access to a deeper layer of
control, a structure more fundamental than the IC(E).
*Careless,* Trouble says, meaning the Mayor, and reaches for the same point,
delicately brushes the same bit of code. The music answers again, true and deep
as some great bell. She takes a breath, bracing herself for the necessary attack, the
necessary risk, and Cerise touches her arm.
*Let me,* Cerise says.
Trouble hesitates, recognizing the logic Cerise s hands are already burned;
she herself is unhurt, and should remain so, to deal with the Mayor and in that
instant Cerise reaches past her, deep into the maze of coded IC(E). Light flares,
momentarily blinding, and Cerise winces at the numbing chill that wraps around
her. The cold dims her tactile sense, masking those receptors, but she gropes
anyway toward the faint heat of the control points. And then she has it, and the
light fades, dims, and then vanishes completely, revealing a new world within the
temple walls.
*Nice,* Trouble says, and Cerise smiles, rubbing her hands to warm them. For
a moment she thinks it s nothing more than cold, nothing more than an illusion of
the brainworm, but then she feels something beneath the cool, a faint, distant
ache, all the more worrisome because she s sure it s real.
*Let s get on with it* she says, and Trouble looks more closely at her.
*You all right?*
*Yeah,* Cerise answers, and, when Trouble says nothing, just keeps looking.
*I m OK. Let s go*
*OK,* Trouble agrees, not entirely certain, but closes off her concern, and steps
through the opening.
She catches her breath as the new illusion takes hold of her, spins her
perspective, and then she has compensated, steadies herself against the
brainworm s insistence that she is upside down and sideways. She closes her eyes,
lets herself go limp, and the brain-worm and the temple-space together turn her
right, so that when she opens her eyes she is standing perpendicular to the
opening Cerise made, looking out at a world that hangs at a bizarre angle.
Cerise s icon performs the same maneuver, spinning against the bright opening
until it s oriented with the strict and sober geometry, drab black and a grey that
isn t even close to silver, that makes up the Mayor s private space. Satisfied that
Cerise is with her, Trouble turns, scanning the net around her for traps and
watchdogs. She sees nothing, the brainworm finds nothing it can translate to
sound or smell or taste, not even the wet-steel tang of IC(E).
*Weird,* Cerise says, and Trouble nods, knowing exactly what is meant.
A pattern, a line like a road, brighter grey than the planes that wall in this
entrance space, stretches away from them, edged with thinner lines of black. It
zigzags through the irregular slabs that rise like trees, like the stones of
Stonehenge, disappears into an illusory far distance: the temple, like most virtual
spaces, is bigger on the inside than the outside, and even with the brainworm s
assistance, sight fails before the road ends. A shiver of light, like a dusting of stars,
runs beneath the bright surface, shooting away into the interior, flickering in and
out of sight between the irregularly spaced planes. Trouble catches her breath,
looking instantly for watchdogs, for attacking programs, but there s still nothing,
just the pure still sense of the code itself in the air around her.
*I suppose that s an invitation,* Cerise says.
Trouble nods again, still searching for IC(E), grateful that her brainworm is
still tuned high. *I feel like Dorothy,* she says, and steps out onto the path.
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