"I didn't hear anybody asking." Rebeckah stopped suddenly and turned to face me. "And, I'm not taking any argument. We're backing you up, Deidre McMannus. You're going to owe us, big-time, but you're not traipsing off to your little rendezvous without our firepower covering your fugitive ass. You can just forget any ideas of Lone Ranger heroics. We're going in with you. End of discussion."

It was. My mouth hung open, and I couldn't formulate any coherent or rational objection.

"Good." She pivoted and headed down the hallway. "I've got my people working out a location for the meeting," Rebeckah continued, her voice matter-of-fact. "We need something defendable, out of the way, and not too close to the glass city. I want to have a safe place to retreat to if something goes wrong." She looked over her shoulder to make sure I was following both her and the conversation. "You, get in touch with Mouse. Sharron is capable of running the LINK end of things, but I'd rather keep her sig file off this operation. I'm supporting you as a friend, not as part of the cause. You understand?" I nodded. "When you call Mouse, make it quick. Even with the armor's built-in loop, I don't want to give the authorities any trail they could follow."

"Agreed," I said, because there wasn't much else to say when Rebeckah was in command mode. Absently, I groped for the filament in the hood. "I'll meet you in the dining room in – what? An hour?"

"Give us two."

By way of agreement, I stopped moving. Rebeckah's powerful strides carried her off, moving deeper into the apartment complex until her blue uniform was swallowed by the cavernous darkness. I turned back in the direction of the stairwell, intending to make my way upstairs to the mess hall.

My fingers found the thin connection wire. Still moist, the pad stuck easily to my receiver. I jacked in. This time, I carefully monitored the routing patterns scrolling past my vision: through Detroit to the Vancouver node, from there to Juneau. The signal never stayed with any one node for longer than a microsecond. Satisfied with the process, I reached for Mouse's address.

The page appeared in the uniform's LINK window at the upper right corner of my vision. The image assumed receptionist mode, being little more than a headshot and sporting an old-fashioned telephone headset. Mouse's house, Mouse speaking.

Hey, 'home,' I recited, and smiled to myself, never failing to find our old joke funny even after all this time.

Solid handshake, Dee. Sweet system. I see we jettisoned the bucket of rust. Good call. The page smiled broadly. The eager smile made him look even younger than usual. Man, you move fast. Yesterday it was a slow surf on a mundane phone line, then you blow the top off the LINK, and now you've got me chasing you through sophisticated LINK hops. You never cease to impress, girl.

Thanks, Mouse, but before you get all excited, the hardware is on loan. Listen, I'm sorry but I can't hang long. Reaching the stairwell, I began to pull myself up toward the mess hall. I nodded politely to two Gorgons who were galloping down the steps. Where's your alter ego? I thought he had a line dedicated to me.

We do, but he's on a plane, marooned in real time. Eight hours, poor guy. But, don't diss me, Deidre. With a shake of his head, the receptionist headgear disappeared, winking out of virtual existence. The page metamorphed his shirt and tie into a more streetwise costume of a leather jacket and black tee shirt. The change of clothes made the page look remarkably more like his real-time alter ego. I've got full authority to run all the operations until he can get back on. Only thing I can't do for you is hardware work.

Mouse is on a plane? Where's he going?

Somewhere eight hours away. How should I know? I don't care where the body goes.

Mouse ... I said, while stopping on a landing to catch my breath. Though ten times more comfortable and more maneuverable than Eion's vestments, the armored uniform weighed twice as much.

Deidre. No. I'm not trailing my own credit line just to tell you where the body has run off to. That's like spying on myself. Anyway, it's nothing to flake out about. We've been off-lining a lot lately, on business trips. I figure it's best not to know what the left hand is up to, you know?

Despite his breezy manner, the space between the page's eyebrows creased. It was strange to see an unconscious, human gesture on a construct, even an AI as sophisticated as Mouse's page.

A passing soldier frowned at my apparent inability to walk and LINK, so I started up the stairs again. Listen, I can't stay out here much longer. Do you have any secure place we could go?

Why are you so worried about time? Your system's loops are hard for me to keep up with. I doubt the cops are running anything more sophisticated than mouse.net.

I smiled at Mouse's bravado. Though I'd never seen the hardware mouse.net ran on, Mouse had always impressed me as the cobbled system in the basement of Mom's place type.

Right, I sent. You Uberphreeking on mey boy?

Mouse frowned at my jibe. You'd be surprised at the tech we can pull off. Speaking of, and since you're so wigged about tails, why don't you follow me to our main address.

I'm honored, I said, and this time I meant it. The hub of mousenet, like Xanadu or Camelot, was a place out of legend. Theories about it raged in the LINK-cop community. Most doubted its very existence. How many jumps away is it?

The page shook his head, as if disappointed that I hadn't guessed his secret. Close, but so far away. One, Dee. It's only ever one jump away.

One? The LINK, though in practice more like radio waves, used power nodes to boost the bioware's ability to store and send information. I'd always assumed that Mouse's closest power center was Cairo, and that was at least twenty jumps from New York's central address. Where is it?

Well, it's not exactly a where. Getting you there is going to take a change in mind-set, girl. Maybe you should sit down – literally.

Okay. I'd reached the party suite. I spied an empty seat on a couch at the far wall.

Ready? The page asked. It's going to blow your mind.

I plopped down on the couch. In preparation; I squeezed my eyes shut. Hit it.

Despite Mouse's warning, I still expected to be raced along a series of connections in electronic space at the speed of thought. Instead, I felt something far more disturbing. Following his lead, my LINK consciousness expanded in all directions at once.

My real-time stomach dropped, giving me a phantom feeling of falling through the floor. Tightening my grip on the arms of the couch, I tried to remind my body that I was safely sitting in the mess hall.

The sensation of moving all at once like that, like the blast ring of a Medusa bomb, had my internal processors struggling to make sense of the shifting waves of information. Thousands of images flipped through my mind as I extended farther out. Unable to completely abandon linear thought, my mind groped to make sense of snippets and pieces and parts. Twenty percent chance of rain tonight ... Il ya une I, ..." Holo-visuals of the entertainment frequency flashed through personal conversations and meshed with Traffic Control. Coordinates: 55 degrees latitude, by ... Oh, Trent, I can't live without you ... Wei. Joe sun! ... your very own, buy now! The jumble of voices and images threatened to overwhelm me. ¿Quien sabe? ... first level ... oh yeah? ... set alarm for ... I felt my real-time stomach tighten at the prospect of becoming indistinct within the greater universe of the LINK.