by Mel Odom
Is0bel glanced at the terminal. “Give me a chance to hack into that. Maybe I can save us some time looking for those books.”
I nodded, and she set to work.
Chapter 42
Cyber Rider
Sitting cross-legged, Is0bel quickly set up her desk, patching cables into her unit. She looked up at me. “Have you ever been inside the Matrix?”
I shrugged. “Sensies. Stuff like that. I’m not a fan of BTL chips.”
She grinned. “You don’t know what you’re missing. Of course, you gotta know your limitations. Just like with anything else. Cyberware. Magic. Alcohol. And chem stims. The reason I asked is that I’d like another set of eyes backing me up while I’m in there.”
“In the Matrix?” I shook my head. “Get Gobbet to go.”
“I’m not going,” Gobbet said. “My magic doesn’t agree with the Matrix. Even if I could get in with her, which I doubt, I’d make us an even bigger target for ice.”
I looked at Duncan, and he snorted in disgust. “Not me,” he said. “You want me out here, looking out for you.”
I frowned and studied Is0bel. “You can do this by yourself.”
“I could, but together we could do it faster.” She held up a wireless rig like some of those I’d used for sensies. I didn’t reach for it.
“We want to get in and out fast, right?” Is0bel shook the rig at me. “This is how we can save some time.”
Duncan nodded at me. “Do it. I got this.”
Cursing, I sat on the ground with my back to the wall by the terminal. It was one thing to slip into the Matrix for a game or a social event, but something else to break in knowing ice was waiting for you. I didn’t know how deckers had the nerve to do that, but most of the hardcore ones I’d met lived to do exactly that.
I slipped the rig onto my temples and took a deep breath.
Is0bel smiled at me. “I got you. Don’t worry about it. Just keep your—”
“—eyes open.”
I wasn’t even aware of sliding into the Matrix. One minute we’d been in the catacombs, in the next I was standing in a world that looked like an x-ray negative, filled with bright lights and darkness.
“You there?” Is0bel’s voice sounded different, more melodic and confident than I’d ever heard it.
“Yeah.” I tried to move and couldn’t, though I could turn my head and look around. “Why is everything black and white?”
“There are shades of blue, too.” Is0bel took a step forward, and I moved with her, realizing then that my vision was my own, but all movement was going to come from her. “This is just how the Matrix appears to me. You talk to different deckers, you get a different opinion on what it looks like in here.” She shrugged, and I felt my shoulders lift, too. “It’s just how it is. While you’re here, keep an eye out and let me know if you see any ice.”
“How am I going to recognize that?”
“Trust me—you’ll know it when you see it.” Is0bel moved forward, negotiating a maze of walls that led us deeper into the heart of wherever we were.
I’d listened to deckers talk about their experiences in the Matrix, and all of them had the opinion that cyberspace generally mimicked the real world on some level. People who use magic said the same thing. I’d never under understood any of that. Nemeth, one of the guys I’d run with back in the day who’d handled our decking needs, told me he’d never truly seen the world till he was in the Matrix.
Is0bel froze and leaned into a nearby wall. “That,” she whispered, “is ice.”
Looking forward, I stared at the floating orb with short tentacles.
“Watcher ice,” Is0bel whispered. “It monitors unwanted programming.”
“Like a break-in?”
“Definitely like a break-in. We’ll watch it, see what its pattern is. Usually they’re on a lockstep track and, if you’re patient and observant, you can avoid them.”
“Avoiding is good.” I’d heard about dumpshock, when deckers got tossed out of the Matrix. Even when it wasn’t lethal, it could mess a person up pretty good. I wasn’t quite sure if I could be affected by just hitching a ride, but I didn’t want to end up with my brain scrambled regardless.
Is0bel made dodging the Watcher ice—and there were multiple units—look easy. I knew it wasn’t. People with skills always make things look easy.
Unfortunately, whoever had put the intrusion countermeasures into the system had been good, too. Is0bel stepped out around a wall and got lit up. The Watcher ice froze and locked onto us. Panic raced through me, and I wanted out before something bad happened because I knew I wouldn’t understand any of it.
“Null sheen, omae. I can take care of this.” Is0bel gestured, and a blocky, man-shaped thing twice as tall as she was appeared before us. “Extra Shield Protection. ESP program. We’re good to go.”
A second later, she launched a three-dimensional shape that glittered and spun as it sped toward the Watcher ice. “That’s a Killer 2.0,” she said. “Wrote it myself.”
The Watcher ice shivered for a moment, then went inert and disappeared.
“We’re safe?” I asked.
“Not entirely.” She moved on, skating between the barriers and seeking cover from the other Watcher ice zipping around us. “The system has caught a glimpse of us. It doesn’t see us right now, but we’re going to be easier for it to find.”
I wanted to suggest heading back, but I knew from the way Is0bel was moving that she wouldn’t be willing to do that. So I stayed quiet in the back of her mind and only told her when I spotted the Watcher ice circling the area. She was fluid, though, flowing like rainwater through strata, until she reached a spinning circle that seemed to hang in the air in front of us. We’d taken so many twists and turns, I was lost.
“This is one of the interfaces that will take us deeper into the Matrix links for the computer here,” Is0bel said.
“Sure,” I said. If we’d been in the physical world, I’d have been sweating bullets. I’d never been interested in decking. Not once. And after tonight, I never wanted to do it again.
Is0bel stepped through the interface and that level winked out of existence, leaving us facing another maze of barriers and floating Watcher ice. The sec had tightened up here, and I felt my mouth go dry.
“Just keep watch,” Is0bel said. “I’ll handle the rest of this.”
And she did, sliding through the black and white world like she was on a tightrope, gliding effortlessly between the ice. In a matter of minutes, we stood in front of what looked like a safe with a rotating dial.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“This is where the secrets are hidden.” Is0bel held her hands up.
“You’re just going to reach in and take them?”
“No. I’ve got to get through the Blocker ice. No one leaves this stuff unprotected.”
“You can do that?” Massive and thick, the Blocker ice looked like it would be as tough to get through as a titanium vault.
“I can either smash through or hack the locks.”
“Got a favorite?”
Is0bel grinned, and I felt it on my face. “Smashing through is a last resort. No matter what I do, we’ll register on the ice, bring it down on us. I’d rather finesse things if I can.”
“All right.”
She waved her hands again, and the vault changed into a number keypad. “You see the keypad?”
“Yeah.”
“A number sequence will flash. I need to replicate it, so help me keep up with the order.”
“All right.”
She hit a button and the keypad flashed in rapid sequence. I worked to remember the numbers, but it was difficult. She had them before I did, and the lock released, flashing toward another screen filled with symbols.
“These symbols are like progression,” Is0bel said. “Harder to remember than numbers, but you have to remember the symbols and the places where they show up.”
We both blew one of the sequences, but she got thro
ugh on the next try. The vault went to pieces and revealed a datachip floating in the air behind it. When Is0bel touched the chip, it disappeared.
“What happened?” I looked around, thinking we’d been caught.
“Nothing. I got the data. Looks like we might be able to sell this, so bonus to us.”
“Anything about where the second book is?”
“No. Looks like we’re on our own for that.” She walked back the way we’d come, dodging the Watcher ice.
“What now?”
“There’s one more vault.”
“The longer we stay in here, the bigger the risk of getting caught.” I didn’t want to get caught in here, get yanked back into my meat body just to find it had been shot full of holes.
“We’re wiz. Trust me. This is cake. And that second vault might have what we’re looking for.”
I shut up and went along with her, because I really didn’t have a choice. Together, we took down the second vault, and this time I remembered one of the sequences she couldn’t recall.
“Nice,” Is0bel said. “I could teach you how to do this.”
“I could teach you how to kill a troll with a toothpick.”
“Not interested.”
“Same here.”
“I suppose we each have our strengths.” She reached in and plucked out a spinning datachip.
“That’s what makes us good together. What’d we get?”
Is0bel was silent for a moment. “Looks like some kind of incantation. Gobbet will know.”
“Will it lead us to the second book?”
“I don’t think so.”
I took a breath. “Now what?”
“We get out.”
“You’re just going to jack out?”
“Can’t. That would cause dumpshock. We gotta go back the same way we got in.”
I thought about the gauntlet of Watcher ice we’d come through.
Is0bel laughed at me. “Null sheen, chummer. I can do this with my eyes closed.” True to her word, she raced back the way we’d come.
Chapter 43
Tomb Crawlers
I didn’t really know if Is0bel made her way back through the Matrix with her eyes closed. I didn’t. I kept mine wide open, and tried not to offer any distractions. When everything went black, I thought we’d been caught, then I opened my eyes and saw I was back in the catacombs.
Duncan glanced at me. “You okay?”
“I’ve been better,” I admitted.
“You can rest later. Let’s get what we came for and get out of here.”
He offered me a hand up, and I took it. Is0bel looked no worse for the wear, and even kind of jazzed by the experience. She gathered up her deck and talked to Gobbet about the astral file she’d recovered.
I took the lead, flanked by Gobbet’s rat patrol, and we went forward, heading back to the way we’d entered the catacombs in a roundabout fashion. I stayed wired, but I thought most of it was from being inside the Matrix.
Following the corridors, we reached a large cave that showed signs of recent digging. Piles of stone shared space with workstations, Klieg lights, and artifacts. None of the artifacts were books.
“Here,” Gobbet whispered. She pointed to an opening to another cave to our left. “It’s in there.”
“Okay,” I said, and started heading in that direction.
She frowned and shook her head. “Wait. There’s something else there, too. Something bad.” She gestured, and a few of the rats headed for the new cave, but stopped just as quickly, squeaked nervously, and ran back to disappear in the folds of their mistress’s clothing.
“If the rats won’t go there, I’m thinking we shouldn’t either,” Duncan said.
“That’s where the book is, though. It’s just…not alone.”
I lifted the Ingram and readied extra magazines for the weapon. “Slowly, then, and spread out so we don’t interfere with each other.”
“Copy that,” Duncan said as he drifted out to the right, holding his shotgun level and snugged into his shoulder.
I walked forward, and spotted a winged shadow standing in the darkness. For a moment I thought it was a statue, something dreamed up from that ancient world.
Then it stepped out into the light.
I’d heard of gargoyles, but I’d never seen one before. This one was so white and gaunt that it looked like it had been carved out of alabaster. It even moved heavy, and I guessed the wings were decorative and wouldn’t provide any lift.
As I neared the entrance, I spotted another book lying on a table. It looked a lot like the one Gobbet had picked up.
“That’s the book,” she whispered over my shoulder.
“Yeah, well it looks like this one wasn’t left unguarded,” I said.
“I’m thinking we found the reason for those mysterious deaths Drake told us about,” Is0bel added.
As I stepped toward the book, the gargoyle flapped its wings and came at me too fast to dodge. I tried to roll away, succeeded, and ended up getting tagged by a fist from a shambling human figure wrapped in rags that looked like it had been dead for centuries.
I blanked out for a moment, and when I opened my eyes again, I was in another cavern. All alone. I hauled up the Ingram and opened fire. The bullets rocked the thing back on its heels for a moment, knocking dead flesh and dust away in puffy clouds that floated around it.
When it recovered, it came at me again, and the silence it maintained was eerie. I dodged and ducked, staying just ahead of it as I burned through a full magazine and slapped in another. The wrappings sloughed off the mummy and it fell in pieces to the cavern floor.
Just as I looked around to get my bearings, searching for Duncan and my team, my vision blinked out again, and I was back in the big cave. Only this time I stood in a far corner of the cave that held the book, on the other side of the gargoyle and the group of mummies that had staggered into view.
Duncan’s shotgun roared again and again, and Gobbet summoned an earth spirit that sprang up from the cave floor in a jumble of broken rocks that took on a humanoid shape.
The earth spirit launched itself at the gargoyle, taking out one of the mummies on the way with a powerful backhand that reduced it into a dust cloud that swirled around it and the gargoyle.
The jackhammer crack of rock meeting rock filled the cavern with thunder as pieces of the gargoyle and the earth spirit surrendered to the power of the blows. Both fought in a frenzy, almost too fast for the eye to follow.
Shadows peeled out of the darkness behind Duncan and the others. I fired at one of the mummies, drawing its attention and causing it charge at me. I kept firing and it blew into dust before it reached me.
“Behind you!” I shouted as the undead reinforcements and a second gargoyle closed in on my team.
Duncan wheeled and unleashed two blasts of double-aught buckshot into the nearest mummy’s head. It came apart, dropping into dust.
The earth spirit beat the gargoyle into pebbles that collapsed into a pile at its feet. At the same time, a noxious green gas cloud rose up from the gargoyle’s remains and spread across several meters around it.
“That’s poison!” Gobbet warned. “Get back!”
If our attacker had used long-range weapons, getting away from them and the poison cloud would have been harder. As it was, we had the reach. Duncan and I focused on the second gargoyle while Gobbet and Is0bel fired on the mummies. The earth spirit waded into the middle of them and flailed away with its unforgiving boulder fists.
By the time the last mummy fell to the cavern floor and the green, gassy remnants of the other gargoyle dispersed, the area looked like a battlefield, with bullet holes scarring the rock and earthen walls.
Gobbet retrieved the book, verified it was what she’d claimed, and returned to us.
The commlink crackled in my hearing as Duncan and I walked back the way we’d come.
“You’ve got the books,” Drake said excitedly.
“Yeah,” I said. “We
did.” I didn’t point out that he took on none of the risk. “How do we get out of here?”
“Head upstairs so I can wipe the security data. Then you’re home free.”
Duncan looked at me, swore, and shook his head.
I didn’t believe it either. “You saw those creatures?”
“Yes,” Drake replied.
“Did you know they were here?”
“No.” He sounded more solemn. “I planned this run down to the last detail, but those monsters were a happy accident.”
“Happy accident?” Duncan exploded. “Those things tried to kill us!”
“They also killed all the researchers, preventing these books from being catalogued,” Drake replied. “Finding them would have been a lot harder had these creatures not come along.”
I knew Duncan was ready to explode. I shook my head at him and pointed ahead. I was going to worry more about getting us all out safe than assigning guilt right now. We weren’t in a position to push back much anyway.
“Now,” Drake said, “time’s wasting. Security room’s at the top of the stairs leading back into the museum floor. Get in there so we can get you out of this place safely.” He clicked off, gone again.
“I really hate that guy,” Duncan said.
“Yeah, but we need to stay on point here.” I headed back to the room where the stairs were.
As I crossed the threshold, a red fog that reminded me of the green poison gas appeared, making me step back. I leveled my Ingram at the center of the swirling mass.
Chapter 44
Dealing with Death
Although the thing that took shape looked human, like the other mummies we’d faced, it was better dressed, and didn’t quite look as dead. Unless you looked twice.
As my finger touched the trigger, ready to take up slack, it held up a hand.
“Stop,” it rasped in a hollow voice that echoed around the room.
I held up. The other mummies hadn’t spoken, and Gobbet touched my shoulder gently.
“Let it speak,” she suggested.
I waited.
“It seems you can move freely through this realm,” the thing said. “Coming and going. Taking what is not yours.”
