“Thanks, I think.” Sam looked taken aback. “I guess we did O.K., huh? At least I no longer have to worry that Renraku is after me and I don’t feel guilty that the other guy took something out, making me an accessory to his theft. Like you said before we decked, if there had been a theft, the whole system would have been on alert.”

“Be not so sure that it wasn’t.”

Sam frowned, then offered a tentative smile. “Why not? I used to work there. Remember? There was no alert.”

“Then you can tell me what those mirrors were all about.”

“No, but I can tell that them were some glitches in the system. Stuff like the fuzziness in the medical datastore. You know, resolution problems. The mirrors were probably some kind of diagnostic subroutine.”

Dodger didn’t buy it, but there was no point in saying so. The phenomenon was obviously well beyond Sam’s appreciation as a decker. Sam also didn’t appreciate Dodger’s concern.

“Whatever was going on there won’t matter. I don’t think we’ll have to go back. What we learned tells me that the murderers are somewhere outside Renraku. That’s where we’ll have to do the rest of our looking.”

“First,” Dodger said firmly, “we get some sleep. You may take the first shift in the bed, Sir Twist, for I have some thinking to do.”

Actually, he had some worrying to do. Not just about the puzzle of the mirrors or the riddle of the murderers. Sam’s reaction to the Matrix wasn’t normal. Dodger had gotten a look at his datajack when he was checking Sam out on the Allegiance. The port cover had the maker’s signature: Soriyama. That name proclaimed it as one of the most expensive pieces of tech Dodger had ever seen. No street doc or hack corporate implanter had done that job. It had been put in by the best, a real cutting-edge cybertechie and there should have been a flawless man-machine interlace. Sam’s headaches were anomalous, strange enough even without the limping icon. Could the two be connected?

There was more to Samuel Verner than met the eye, cyber or otherwise.

23

“Sherman, take a look at this!”

Cliber’s shout brought Huang running to stare at her console screen. His eyes widened with excitement.

“Signal conductivity and virtual memory increases simultaneous with multi-tasking crashes, Huang muttered. “Where were the crashes?”

Cliber touched a key and highlighted the locales on the architecture construct.

“Hmmm. Intrusions in progress?”

“None on report. I’ll run a check,” said Cliber, even as she applied herself to the keyboard.

Hutten crowded in to view the display.

“What do you make of it, Konrad?”

The systems engineer looked perplexed. “OMDRs operating beyond spec. A full three banks of 77206 chips at maximum capacity, but the Haas biochip’s barely above maintenance cycle activity.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t match any of the expected parameters.”

“Exactly.” Huang beamed. His infectious grin spread to the other two. “We’ll need to confirm it.”

“I’ll start a full diagnostic.” Hutten returned to his own station and jacked in.

From her position at the door of the research lab, Crenshaw watched and heard all. The technical details meant nothing to her, but the excitement of the researchers communicated quite a bit. She had picked a lucky time to pass through the lab on her daily observation tour. If something significant had happened, she would report it to Sato immediately. Perhaps she could claim that her intervention had motivated the laggard team, thereby improving her standing with the Kansayaku.

“A breakthrough, doctors?”

Huang and Cliber looked up, seeming stunned by her presence. “No,” Huang said tentatively, in accompaniment to Cliber’s head shake. More forcefully, he added, “Just a glitch. A hardware problem in one of the nodes.”

Crenshaw nodded and said nothing. Their suddenly sober faces told her that they were lying, that they obviously wished she were not present. She decided to accept their explanation until she knew not only what had really happened but just how to use the information to her own advantage.

24

Sam awoke to find Dodger seated at the foot of the bed, staring at him. The Elf’s eyes were bloodshot and the unkempt appearance of his clothes was the result of extended wear more than an artful fashion sense. He had obviously been awake for a long time, which meant that Sam had been sleeping a long time.

“You were supposed to wake me.”

The Elf shrugged. “You needed the sleep.”

That had been true enough, but Sam felt rested now. “How long?”

“All night and most of the day.”

“What about you?”

“I needed the time.”

“You needed the sleep. You look like you’ve ridden a nightmare. I thought you Elves were supposed to be bundles of energy, day after day,”

“Guess I’m not old enough,” Dodger said flatly.

The Elf’s mood was too serious for Sam’s feeble jocularity to shake it. Dodger had even abandoned the archaic speaking patterns that he favored. Sam had only noticed that before when the Elf was seriously stressed or deep in technical details.

“Has something gone wrong?”

Dodger shook his head. “I want you to see a certain person.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“I think he can be of help.”

“Dodger, you’re not answering my questions.”

The Elf tilted his head back, eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling. He sighed. “I do not have any answers. Only questions.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You”

Sam was already confused and now the Elf was making him more so. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“Your headaches are part of the issue.” Dodger leaned forward and stared directly into Sam’s eyes. “The pain and disorientation you feel when decking are not normal. Your implant is the best. The cyberware you’ve been using is flawless. Your thought processes are ordered and logical. In short, you have all the makings of a superb Matrix dancer, but for some reason, your icon limps. I suspect the answer lies within your psyche, but I am not qualified to deal with that. You need help with this problem, and I know someone who might be willing.

“You have set yourself a daunting task. Your enemies are ruthless, as you have already seen. To succeed, you must be able to rely without question on your own abilities. Therefore, you cannot afford to be less than perfect in mind.”