And assuming that the Al was still sane and on-line, he also had friends in high places…

Winston unplugged the fiber-optic cable from his cyber-deck, plugged it directly into his datajack, and entered the Matrix to begin his search for his missing son.

(02:57:15 GST) Tenochtitlan, Aztlan

Yograj spent several minutes in a dreamlike state, half in and half out of consciousness. At last his eyes fluttered open. He glanced right, and saw the shattered remains of the robotic cleaning drone-glanced left, and saw the teenage rebel with the Ares Viper pistol. For a moment he was disoriented. Was he still in the Matrix-still Bloodyguts? Or was he in his hotel room in Tenochtitlan, having just completed the weirdest Matrix run of his life?

He sniffed, and smelled gunpowder. Reality, then. No wait. The ultra-violet system he'd just been accessing had contained smells, tastes, textures-it stimulated all of the five senses. Frag. He felt like it did when he'd messed up slotting BTL. As unable to tell reality from illusion as…

The rebel who leaned over him had one hand on the fiber-optic cable that connected Yograj to his fried deck. Yograj shook his head weakly. "Don't unjack me," he croaked. Then he gritted his teeth and closed his eyes.

Suddenly his conscious mind was hurled back into the

Matrix. Another decker's persona approached-an undulating worm that inched toward him on a multitude of feet. Its voice whispered in his ear.

"Be chill, man. I've come with a message from the Great Being."

"The what?"

"You know it by another name: Psychotrope."

"Oh." The pieces started to slot into place. The decker that Bloodyguts was talking to was otaku. He stared at the worm persona with open curiosity. There was so much more he wanted to know. "How do you-?"

The worm ignored the question. "The Great Being is grateful to you for helping to save its life. It sensed that you were having difficulty adjusting to your new-existence- and sent me to help you. It also wishes me to tell you that it approves of your fight against the BTL dealers. My brothers and sisters will help with your next mission if you like."

Yograj felt his meat-world bod grin, exposing his curving canine teeth. "I like," he told the worm.

He couldn't believe it. Only a few seconds had passed since he'd escaped from the pocket universe inhabited by the Al, and already the cavalry was here? These kids were really wiz. He'd be happy to have even one on his team. And there seemed to be more than one. "Brothers and sisters" the worm had said. They were just kids, yeah. But with the processing power of an Al to back them up.

Those BTL dealers had better watch their backs.

09:57:49 PST

Seattle, UCAS

Deni charged around the squat, readying everything he would need to bust Pip outta the abandoned geothermal plant. He tossed the double-juiced stun baton into his nylon carry bag-that should frag up the Amerind kid with the weird aura but good-and made sure his Palm Pistol was ready to rock before shoving it into his boot top. He'd already rousted a grumbling Alfie from the sack with a bang on the door of her squat and told her to warm up her bike. Now he was tying the wolf-claw necklace that served as his shamanic fetish around his neck.

Kali, the dobie-lab cross that Deni had rescued from the junk yard ten years ago, watched his frantic preparations with wide brown eyes. The dog was missing its left front leg but could run like a jazzed turbo. Lean and strong, she'd easily be able to keep up with the bike. And her nose would help sniff out the worst of Hell's Kitchen's danger spots.

Sensing Deni's mood, the dog stood, tripod-still, the black fur along her spine bristling. Whatever went down today, she'd be there as backup.

Deni slung the nylon bag over his shoulder and was just reaching for the door when the flatscreen of Pip's Matrix-Pal computer deck suddenly lit up. Its tinny speaker let out a sharp ping! that stopped Deni in his tracks.

The high-pitched sound made Kali's head whip around. Her nose twitched, and then she began frantically barking at the screen as it filled with a familiar face.

"Pip!" Deni shouted. He leaped for the deck and seized it with both hands. "Chill!" he shouted over his shoulder at Kali. The dog immediately fell silent.

Pip's on-screen image opened its mouth and began to "talk," but the speaker remained silent. Watching the image, Deni realized that it was strobing back and forth between a digipic of Pip with her usual solemn look, and one of her laughing. The effect was spookin' and made Deni want to jerk the power cord. But then text scrolled across the bottom of the display. The block letters were crisp, neat. But the words were in Sprawlspeak, in the spellings that Deni had taught her in an effort to get her to open up to him by using written language. It hadn't worked-but his sister had learned to write. The "voice" of the text was all Pip.

HULO DENI. I CHAINGED MY MIND. THE PLACE MY FREND TOOK ME WUZ ONLY FUN A LITTLE WILE. THEN IT GOT SCARY. I WANNA COME HOME AND FROSTY SEZ ITS OK. HE SEZ HE'S SORRY THE RESONANTS DIDN WERK AN I CAN STILL BECUM AN OTAKU AN GET JACKED IF I CHAINGE MY

MINE LATER. FROSTY WILL EVEN LEMME TAKE ANY TOYS HOME I WANNA. WILLYA COME GET ME? PIPSQUEEK

PS DONT MESS UP FROSTY NONE, OHKAY? HE'S STILL MY FREND.

The image on screen stopped strobing and settled on the laughing digipic of Pip.

"Resonants?" Deni echoed. "What the frag did that wirehead do to her?" It had to have been something to do with computers. When Deni had seen Pip ten minutes ago, she was troded up and eyeball-deep in the Matrix. Something must have happened to her there.

Deni felt like turfing the MatrixPal on the floor and gutter-stomping it with the heel of his boot. Fraggin' thing. It was what had gotten Pip in trouble in the first place. But instead he gritted his teeth and stabbed out a reply with one finger. I'M COMIN PIP.

As he finished, he heard Alfie's bike rumble to a stop outside his door.

"Come on, Kali," he told the black dog. "We're gonna bring Pip home."

Epilogue

›»(Hmph. Well, that was a waste of time. I can't see anything wrong in there. Whatever the glitch was, it seems to have disappeared as soon as I accessed the Seattle RTG.)‹«

– Captain Chaos (09:57:05/03-19-60)

›»(CAP! WELCOME BACK, MAN! WE WAS FREAKIN'!!!)‹«-Angus (09:57:12/03-19-60)

›»(What the frag you shouting for, Slater?)‹«-Captain Chaos (09:57:21/03-19-60)

›»(You disappeared, Chaos. For more than eight minutes.)‹«-Mom on the Run (09:57:38/03-19-60)

›»(! what? Just a sec' while I check my datalog.)«‹«-Captain Chaos (09:57:52/03-19-60)

›»(It's true, CC. I entered the Seattle RTG thirty-three seconds after you did, and have a great big hole in my log where the details of the run should be. Someone or something wiped my deck, starting at the precise instant I entered that RTG and ending at 09:57:01. Even worse, they also wiped my memory. MY memory, not the one on my deck. And as you and I both know, memory is all I've got, chummer.)‹«

– Renny (09:58:26/03-19-60)

›»(Sounds like someone fragged you. And not in a fun way, neither. Uh-huh.)‹«-Pervo (09:58:30/03-19-60)

›»(Are you back in our shadowfiles AGAIN, you git? Go on back to your sleaze sites.)‹«-Mom on the Run (09:58:42/03-19-60) »XSounds like you got iced, chummer. Sounds like a LOT of people got hit with IC. I can't say where I'm working at the moment, but let's just say it's a LARGE corporation. 'Round about 09:48 PST-and never mind what the local time was-our deckers started to come down with the screams and shakes, one by one. Took me a while to scan the fact that the one thing they had in common was that they were all accessing the Seattle RTG. The suits upstairs panicked- they were worried that maybe a second arcology had gone into meltdown and was going to glitch up the whole system. But everything was cool. Except for the poor fragger we jacked out. I'll always be haunted by his screams…)‹«