Lisa Smedman - The Lucifer desk

“Let me see Pita, or I won’t do your dirty work for you.”

Chang sighed, exchanging his polite mask for a weary frown. “We really do wish to bring the spirit to heel, Ms. Harris. It has the potential to become an enormous economic liability to us. It is completely unsuited for the task for which it was originally conjured. If Wilks had listened to his researchers, all of this unpleasantness might have been avoided. He’s just lucky that he came up with that trideo footage in time, proving that the spirit could be controlled. Otherwise…

“What trideo footage?” Carla asked.

“The shots that Mr. Fader took of himself calling the spirit. He tried to pretend that he had bound the spirit to himself, and that his little demonstration in the Chrysanthemum Tower had been entirely his own work. But he did a clumsy job of editing the girl-Pita-out of the footage he shot as 'proof' of his power over the spirit. Our deckers were able to salvage pictures of her from an unwiped memory sector, and we determined that she was the one we really wanted. It was then just a matter of using the right lure and picking her up. And once again, I assure you that she is unharmed.”

Carla blinked. Pita was the one who’d sent the spirit to kill the hell hound? But Aziz had said… No. Aziz had lied to her, all along. He’d sold the kid out-and now he’d been cut out of the loop. Mitsuhama had probably paid him a small finder’s fee for the girl, then sent him on his way.

“I still insist upon seeing Pita,” she said. She forced a smile. “What harm could it do? If she really is safe.”

Chang sighed. He considered for a moment before answering. “Very well,” he said at last. “It might prove useful, after all. She’s somewhat… reluctant… to assist us. Perhaps you can talk her into it.”

He gave Carla a stern look. “If you try any tricks, it will be your credibility on the line-and on the air. Just keep that in mind when you talk to her.”

Pita sat on a padded chair, gripping its cushioned arms. She could smell the plastic hood that was wrapped tightly around her head and face, and the lingering perfume of one of the people who had come into the room earlier. And she could feel the warm stream of air from a beat vent overhead. But otherwise, her senses were completely blocked. The hood covered her eyes, and soft pads over her ears delivered a steady white-noise hiss. The sound made it impossible to think, let alone hear anything.

This must be the magemask that the other prisoners had warned her about, back when Pita had been in jail. She could see now why the cops used it. She felt completely disoriented, cut off. There was no way she could call to Cat, or hear Cat’s comforting purr. Her world had shrunk to a few tactile sensations and a dark, static hiss.

They hadn’t tied her up this time. They’d simply hustled her into this office, put the hood on her head, and shut the door. She’d explored the room by feel, gradually navigating her way around its table, chair, and couch, and trying the locked door. She’d even tried to remove the hood-only to find that each time she tugged on it, the static in her ears cranked up suddenly, making her dizzy and weak, if she let it alone, the sound returned to a bearable level. And so she sat in the empty room, trying to calm her breathing and slow her racing heart.

She didn’t know where she was, but she could guess. They’d driven across the Intercity 90 bridge to Bellevue, then to a two-story building whose walls were completely covered in ivy. She’d been hustled in past some heavy-duty security at the front door, through a series of hallways, and past a large room whose floor and walls were covered in strange symbols. This had to be a magical research laboratory of some sort. One owned by Mitsuhama, the corporation whose goons had been on her case since the beginning of this thing.

From time to time, people came into the room. They would turn down the noise generated by the hood and fire questions at Pita. They seemed to know everything that had happened the night before last. About how Aziz had attracted the attention of the spirit, and how Pita had directed its actions, They were even able to describe the motions the two had gone through and the hermetic circle in the abandoned convenience store, They’d found the burned hell hound in the Mitsuhama office tower, and had figured out that Pita had ordered the spirit to do the job. Odd, how they kept referring to this as a “demonstration” rather than the rescue mission it had actually been.

But the people questioning Pita didn’t seem to understand exactly how she had used the spirit’s true name-despite the fact that they knew it was burned into her arm. Hell, that was something Pita herself didn’t understand. Somehow, she had watched as the spirit flashed its way across the city, and had directed it against the cops who had killed her friends. But she certainly wasn’t going to volunteer that information. Not to the mages who kept questioning her. She was in a tight enough spot as it was, without admitting to assaulting two cops.

The mages wanted her to summon the spirit and give it a different command this time. She was to order it to stay away from the Matrix. But even if Pita had the guts to face the spirit again, she wasn’t sure she would be able to do what the corporate suits wanted. The Matrix was a complicated thing for someone like her-a high school drop-out-to describe. All she knew was that it was a bunch of computers that were somehow linked to one another; she’d flunked out of Basic Tech and didn’t even really understand how a telecom worked. But no matter how many times she tried to tell them this, they weren’t willing to listen. They wanted her to do it right now, today, as soon as possible. And they promised her that if she tried to turn the spirit against them, she’d be dead. No matter how many of its employees she fried, Mitsuhama would get her in the end. The corporation was huge, with connections in every city and plenty of magic and money to back it up. Cross Mitsuhama, and she’d be dead meat. She could count on it.

Pita lifted her head as the door opened. She knew better than to charge toward the doorway; the last time she’d tried, a pair of thick arms had wrapped around her, forcing her back into the chair. Then her nose caught a whiff of perfume. Where had she smelled that fragrance before?

Hands fumbled at the plastic hood that covered her face. The white noise died away, and then the hood was tugged free. Pita blinked, unable to focus in the brightly lit room. Footsteps receded, and the door clicked shut But someone was still in the room with her.

“Pita? Are you all right?”

Pita gasped as she recognized the person. “Carla!” she croaked. “What are you doing here? Did they capture you too?”

The reporter crossed the room and sat down in the chair next to Pita’s. She didn’t look as though anyone had roughed her up. Her tailored jacket and skirt were unwrinkled, and her dark hair was held back in a neat braid. Her makeup hadn’t even smudged, and her face held a composed smile. But that was hardly unusual. The only time Pita had seen Carla looking even slightly flustered was after the yaks had gunned Yao down and were chasing after Masaki’s car. And even then her clothes hadn’t been mussed. At least, not much.

“I’m here because I asked to see you, Pita,” Carla said. “1 wanted to talk to you.”

Pita squinted at the reporter. The glare of light from the white walls still hurt her eyes. She was finding it difficult to concentrate, but the reporter didn’t resist her and she was able to insert a catlike claw and tease out what was uppermost in Carla’s thoughts. What she found there startled and angered her. “So you’re working for Mitsuhama now, huh? Then why the frag should I talk to you?”