Jak Koke - Stranger souls

Grind was along as his personal bodyguard, and Lethe was the item. Or at least he was supposed to make the mundane African sculpture that McFaren carried look like ancient magic.

Jane hoped it worked. McFaren had asked for asylum from IOND, claiming the powerful magical order would gather a group of initiates to kill him by ritual magic. The AF facility was the only place he knew whose members might be able to create a hermetic circle powerful enough to protect him.

Through Grind's headcam link, Jane could see that he and McFaren waited inside a huge circle of painted Sperethiel and chalk powder symbols. Three resident research mages

were inspecting the item in the corner of the larger chamber, and so far, so good.

Besides the mages, there were only two guards with them. Lethe only had to convince them that the item was magical until Axler and Ryan got on site. A few more minutes. All feeds were strong. Time for a little Matrix run.

Jane slipped down through her virtual gateway and into the electronic skies of the Lake Louise private grid. She paused briefly to stretch her virtual muscles, then blasted out through her special datalines, and into the heart of the Tir Tairngire Matrix without a hiccup. She'd been here before, had a legit front as an investment property manager, though her host operated as a virtual machine on a powerful mainframe that was operated by a Eugene-based company called Synerman Technologies.

It was a cheap and easy way to avoid decking through the Tir's defenses every time she needed to break into the country's electronic landscape. Which was getting to be all the fragging time.

Jane popped out of her virtual host and into the Eugene LTG. Most of the structures were still standard UMS iconology-octahedrons and planar explosions of data colored blue and purple. The power company-Eugene Water and Electric-looked like a large elven hand holding two bolts of lightning in a closed fist. The lightning flashed alternately yellow and blue, but under the facade, everything was the standard geometries.

Jane logged on as a request for a billing update, a standard octahedral datapacket. She moved in past the probe IC without hitch, then she changed tactics. Using her analyze utility, she scanned the universe of databanks and subproces-sors hanging in front of her. One of the SPUs was the one she wanted.

She sleazed her way in past the tar baby IC and assumed control of the subprocessor. This SPU wasn't heavily guarded because it didn't need to be. It only monitored systems; it didn't control anything. Jane smiled. That was the beauty of her plan. She would minimize the lethality by making several seemingly innocuous penetrations that would work synergistically. Each move was easier than a direct

penetration of the host, and the results would hopefully be the same.

Jane spooled out a smartframe she had programmed for this run; it would sit dormant until the time was right. Then it would trigger the system, making it look like one of the power substations was failing. If the smart frame didn't work, her next job would be much harder.

Jane sneaked out of the host, gracefully logging off, and back through the Eugene LTG to look at the research park construct. It was a windowless fortress tower made of white ivory that stretched up into the sky like a virtual needle. There was a single door at the base.

The tower construct held the security hosts for several buildings, including the AF structure. Jane knew she could get into the Atlantean Foundation host through their central system in Atlanta, but she was sure that would be harder than this. That corridor was clogged with ice and might take too long for her to punch through. Besides, she didn't need access to any interior data; she just wanted a look at their security for a few CPU cycles. Also, she suspected that this ivory tower sculpture was less formidable than it appeared. Merely a facade to scare off newbie deckers.

At least she hoped so as she moved up to the entrance. She released a huge net and intercepted a datapacket that was headed for the single door, then had her deck analyze it before letting it go. She repeated this a few times; she still had a few minutes before her dormant smartframe came out of its coma. After six tries her deck found one with the right destination code-headed for the AF security subsystem.

She kept her standard octahedral facade, but used the data-packet's destination as she approached the door and tried to log on. The system asked for a passcode and a validation, which Jane's deception algorithm provided. After a long pause, the door slid upward and let her inside.

Inside, the iconology changed and Jane followed suit. The theme was an office building, not the most original metaphor to be wasted on such a vast amount of computing power. But that didn't concern Jane in the least. She merely changed her persona to match, becoming a floating memo-one of the ancient kind written on actual paper.

She located the AF structure and surveyed it. Getting into

the central host would be difficult, though not impossible for Jane. Just potentially ugly.

She had no intention of things getting ugly, however. She didn't need to access the central host, merely the subsystem that fed data to the closed-circuit security rigger. If there was no rigger and the drones were on autorecognition-unlikely, but possible-Jane's job would be even easier.

She positioned herself, and was ready when her smart frame triggered the false alarm. A simple matter of tricking the power company's subsystem to register a faulty reading. The EWEC system sent out a standard warning message.

"A power loss has been detected in the substation that feeds electricity to your building. One of the transformers is out and will have to be repaired. Meanwhile, power will be rerouted to the auxiliary substation. There should be no interruption of service, but a slight power surge is possible. The Eugene Water and Electric Company takes no responsibility for any damage that occurs to electronic devices during this transition. Thank you."

Perfect. Jane rushed into the midst of the priority messages and data instructions that came along with the message, and sleazed her way past some hefty-looking black ice, showing in the carpeted hallway like paper shredders. But they didn't sift the incoming data closely enough; the priority status fooled them. So far, so fragging good, and now Jane felt a rush of emotion. This run was just starting to test her, though it was still far easier than her run against Roxborough's system.

So far, she reminded herself. Don't get overconfident now.

As if on cue, she felt the burning sensation over her skin just then. That feeling of being watched again. Alice again? Or just paranoia?

Jane ignored the feeling. If it was Alice, she'd talk to her after the run. If it wasn't, then Jane would have to recook all her chips to get the ghost feeling out of her deck.

Then she was in the security subsystem. It took only a microsecond to set up a delayed power surge in three cameras and one drone. The power to the electric fence would also cut out for few minutes. She had set up a blind spot in the defenses, to become active exactly when the power company switched to the new substation. It would look like a power surge had burned out the electronics.

Once the smartframe was planted, Jane instigated a full retreat, as fast as possible. She had one more stop to make before she left the Matrix. The fire station was going to be an easy target. First, however, she wanted to get back to her box and check on the run's progress.

She was almost out when Alice manifested in front of her. Then Jane was no longer in the Eugene LTG, she was no longer in the Matrix at all. She was walking on a rain-slick black road in the mirrored canyon of Wonderland City. Alice stood under a street lamp, looking up as she pulled a cigarette from her mouth.