Melissa Scott - Trouble and Her Friends

“Cerise?” Trouble said from behind her. “Ah, your hands.”

“Yours aren’t in great shape, either,” Cerise said, and Trouble looked down as though surprised to see the thin cuts that crisscrossed her palms and ran up the sides of her hands.

“It’s the glass,” she began, and Cerise said, “I was there, I know.”

“I know.” Trouble looked past her, toward the end of the street where the fog was thickest. “I wanted—I need to talk to you. Before I agree to this, there are some things I need to settle.”

“Such as?” In spite of herself, Cerise heard the old bitterness, the old anger, in her voice, and Trouble grimaced.

“Look, how many times do I have to say I fucked up? I don’t want to do it again, Cerise, I don’t want to leave, or for you to leave me, OK? If I take Seahaven, will you run it with me?

“And if I won’t?”

Trouble spread her hands. “Then—whatever. Is Multiplane hiring?”

Cerise stared at her for a long moment, not sure she had heard correctly, then, slowly, she began to laugh. “I don’t believe you said that.”

“What’s so goddamn funny?” Trouble glared at her, and Cerise got herself under control with an effort.

“I’m sorry. It’s just—you giving up Seahaven? To work for Multiplane? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Will you run it with me?” Trouble asked.

Cerise nodded, slowly. “It’s kind of a dumb question, sweetheart. Is there anybody who doesn’t want Seahaven?”

Trouble nodded back, reached out, careful of Cerise’s hands, touched first her shoulder and then her cheek. “It’s not going to be the same.”

“It never is,” Cerise answered. She forced a smile, and a lighter tone, knowing perfectly well what Trouble meant: the old days were long gone, and there was no going back, no matter what the regrets. “You’ll just have to bring the law in, Marshal, that’s all.”

“Thanks,” Trouble said, sour-voiced, but she was smiling. They stood close together against the chilling fog, the sky grey as glass above them, waiting for Mabry to return.

T ROUBLE STANDS IN the heart of Seahaven, her Seahaven now, on the patch of nothing, black and slick as glass, where the Mayor’s palace once stood. She has kept the rest of the space the way he had it that last day, the dusty street and the false-fronted buildings, the heat and the sun and the dust, and she’s kept the icon Cerise made for them, the dark gunfighter’s shadow against the virtual sun. The control points, the space itself, eddy around her body like the kiss of the wind: a new sensation, still, the full power of the interface filtered through the brainworm, as though she has no skin, as though she walks naked through the system. It is a strange feeling, vulnerable and powerful all at once: she is getting used to it, and without it Seahaven would be less than it was. And that she cannot, will not, allow: she’s come too far, risked too much, to let this space be anything but more than it was under the Mayor’s rule .

Ahead of her, the street is busy, icons clustering by the wall, wood now, not stone, where the artists work and messages are posted, others clustering by the door to the saloon where the real business is done. She built that herself, borrowing from the memory of Miss Kitty’s years before, and is pleased. Cerise is in there now— she can feel Cerise’s presence even through the swirl of signals, the constant rumble along her nerves. There are plenty of others, too, and she stops, mostly because she can, the novelty not yet worn off, lets the brainworm and the fabric of Seahaven itself tell her who is talking there. Dargon is there; triumph enough in itself, that he’ll still come to Seahaven even though he doesn’t think, isn’t sure, she’s earned the right to it. Arabesque, too, like a taste of salt, and Helling, and a dozen others she sees as flickers of an icon, an eyeblink image in her mind. The shadows still come to Seahaven, and she doesn’t, won’t stop them, but she welcomes the bright lights as well .

That in itself has been enough to drive off some of the shadows, the ones who are deep enough in the shadows that they have their own outside system, their own network of protectors and enemies in the realworld. Of all of them, only Fate has ventured into Seahaven more than twice, and he hasn’t brought his business with him. That brings a flicker of regret, but she quells that sternly. She can’t afford it—more than that, she isn’t the Mayor, this isn’t his Seahaven anymore, and she will live by the rules she’s made, not by his .

She sees the sky thin on the fringes of the townscape, where she sketched the echo of desert to blend into the artificial distance, feels in the same moment the slap of a door opening, like the sting of sand against her skin. She doesn’t move, looks up instead, not recognizing the hand behind the flurry of code, and sees a shape like the silver sketch of a bird, brighter even than the heat of the sky. She has been more than half expecting him, but she waits, lets the icon fall to her own plane, before she moves to meet him. Her shadow goes before her, falling across him like a chill wind, and she feels him turn, feels the dispersal routine ready in his hand.

Hello, Starling, she says, and for the first time she thinks he might be afraid.

Trouble, Starling’s voice is as it always was, the same easy tone, but Trouble feels the tension surrounding him, the tension of readied programs, carried on the live air of her Seahaven, and she has to hide her own elation.

Welcome to Seahaven, she says, and lets her shadow fade a little.

We need to talk, Starling says. *My bosses aren’t exactly pleased with what you’re doing.*

Really? Trouble doesn’t bother to sound convincing. She feels a flicker in the air, doesn’t have to look back to know that Cerise has come to the doorway of the saloon, stands looking out into the dusty street. *I don’t know why not, they got what they wanted. Seahaven’s not a refuge space anymore.*

They expected a bit more cooperation,* Starling says. Under the circumstances.

Trouble shrugs, enjoying the easy play of her icon. *I’ve done what I can, under law. But I have a direct-drop open node on the Euronets that puts this space under the Conventions, not Evans-Tindale. I have to abide by those rules. *

And, she doesn’t say, doesn’t have to say, the Conventions protect the nets as much as they protect the realworld. It’s not the clearest situation, and she knows it—there have been rulings for and against her open-node argument—but Starling knows it, too, and knows that the nets will be solidly behind her. Trouble can feel the quiver in the air that means that icons are gathering, the other netwalkers coming out to see what’s going on, what Starling wants. She doesn’t look back, but she can tell they fill the false windows of the saloon and gather on the boardwalks to either side of the street .

Starling says, *That argument’s been overruled before. It won’t hold up in court.*

Maybe not, Trouble says, *but maybe it will. Charge me and we’ll see what the judges say.*

There is a little pause, and she feels Starling withdraw a little, preparing his retreat. *Give me half a chance. We’ll be watching, believe me. Every transaction, every payday, every single packet of data that comes out of here—oh, yeah, we’ll be watching.*

Go ahead, Trouble says. *I’ve nothing to hide. But I hope you plan to get warrants for all that.*

Oh, yeah, Starling says, grim-voiced. I play by the rules, Trouble, remember that.