The Hub stood in the middle of a plaza. It was deceptively plain, just a two-story building with white casecrete walls. Muted lamps lit the area even this late at night. A featureless door offered entry. When I pressed my fingers into its lock, a scanner read my prints and the door slid open, revealing a cubicle that resembled an airlock. Except instead of air, this lock kept in secrets.
After I stepped inside, the outer door closed. The walls glowed with just enough light to let me see a psiphon resting in a cradle by the inner door. I plugged it into my wrist and waited while its security system scanned my brain.
The inner door slid open.
A corridor with glass walls stretched before me, lined with offices on both sides, each with one person inside. Telops. They wore full exoskeletons plugged in at the wrists, spine, and neck, with visors over their eyes or even helmets. Most sat still, though a man on my right was slowly rocking his head back and forth. They didn't need to move. Just think. In one office, a woman without a visor was leaning back in her chair, watching holos rotate above her console with views of the Hub.
Security menu, I thought. Personnel files, Security telops, Hub, current.
The face of a woman with grey hair and lean features formed in my mind. Stats appeared under her: name, age, security clearances, other pertinent data from her ISC files.
Simultaneous displays, I thought.
Her image shrunk to an eighth of my mindscape. Seven more faces appeared, all the telops who monitored security here. As I walked down the hall, my node matched the faces to the men and women in the offices, giving me stats on each. Although I had learned to deal with the "double exposure" created when my mindscape produced images at the same time I was looking at something, it was still disorienting to see the telops in my mind and these offices at the same time.
The corridor ended in another security airlock. This time when I plugged in its psiphon, a metallic thought entered my mind.
Name?
Sauscony Valdoria, Primary.
Purpose?
I kept my mind as smooth as the surface of a lake on a windless day. To recode T12.
The inner door opened.
I walked into a circular lobby with white walls and a blue carpet. Blue chairs stood against the walls. In the center of the room, a white metal staircase spiraled up to the ceiling. The carpet muffled my footsteps as I crossed to the stairs. As I climbed, around and around, even the clink of my boots on the metal sounded subdued. At the top, I faced a blank wall with nothing but a psiphon cradle breaking the flat expanse. I plugged its psiphon into my wrist socket.
A new voice entered my mind, cool and impersonal. I have no record of your assignment to work on T12.
Override and open. I stood relaxed, using programmed routines to control my muscles so they wouldn't tense. The lobby below, the white walls, the stairs—I knew what hid within their innocuous surfaces. Monitors were checking everything from my breathing rate to my brain waves. Any questionable reaction would sound the alarm. Hell, it might sound anyway. This door opened only to users on an access list provided by Kurj. Sometimes I was on the list, sometimes not. My node calculated a 76 percent probability he had me on it now, in case I needed to come here while I prepared for Jaibriol's interrogation. But I couldn't be sure.
I waited.
And waited.
Sweat started to form on my brow, which wasn't good. But then the wall opened, revealing a tunnel about a meter long. I ducked my head to enter, then straightened and walked through the tunnel. It exited into another white room with blue carpet. Behind me, the wall closed into a featureless surface.
This room had no furniture. Nothing but mesh nodes. Each stood in its designated place, some isolated, some connected by hardware. The acoustics muted the hum of their operation the same way the lobby downstairs had muted my footsteps.
The network dedicated to Imperial Space Command was spread across the Imperialate, with built-in redundancy and multiple back-ups, increasing its resistance to compromise. This location had ten nodes—including EM16, a cylinder of black glassplex near the center of the room. It stood two meters high, had a diameter of one meter, and the thickness of a finger. Lights glowed within it, and an opening in one side offered entry into its interior. I stepped through the entrance into a cylindrical cavity with a domed roof and a bench running around its perimeter.
Moving quickly, I stripped off my boots, jumpsuit, and underwear, leaving my skin bare to the cool air. Then I stood in the center of the cylinder on a weight-activated circle. A tube rose around me, higher and higher, until it locked into the dome above my head. Its silvery walls were just translucent enough to let me see my clothes as a shadowed lump on the bench.
A metal framework rose out of the floor, whirring as it closed bands around my ankles and snapped psiphons into the sockets. When the framework reached my torso, a belt locked around my waist, its psiphon snicking into the socket at the base of my spine. Bracelets closed my wrists, inserting psiphons. The framework rose higher and a collar fastened around my neck, plugging a psiphon into the base of my brain stem. I fought down my fear of being trapped inside a coffin sized tube. I had to hide it. Anyone with a valid reason for linking into EM16 had no cause to feel threatened by a cage designed to imprison intruders. If I gave it cause for suspicion, it would refuse to release me until the authorities came.
The room faded from my awareness. I seeped darkly into EM16, sliding along the potential hills and valleys of psiberspace like a ghost drifting over virtual countryside.
SYSTEM PRIVILEGES, EM16 thought.
My relief flared, but I kept my face impassive. My gamble had paid off. Only two ways existed to gain system privileges on the Kyle-Mesh. One was to be in the Triad. The other was to use one of the Hubs. I had just entered the Mesh with the highest clearance available to a non-Triad telop.
The network appeared in my mindscape as a grid of translucent fibers flashing with iridescent sparks. Psiware stretched across grid squares like filmy lace that sparkled each time a user accessed it. Those sparkles were too faint for most users to detect, including Kurj, but I saw them clearly.
I didn't feel the immense flux of power Kurj generated in the mesh. He had been here earlier; his operations left a potent signature. He was probably sleeping now, alone with his security systems and bodyguards. Although my EI had claimed Kurj was staying at the palace, that had to be a cover; until Kurj finished with Jaibriol, he would remain in his city tower, close to his center of operations.
The danger here wasn't Kurj. A subtler mind permeated the web, one always present, even now when its owner wasn't in the system—my aunt, the ranking member of the Triad. Her operations had an unparalleled delicacy; had I not known to look, I would have missed her signature. Kurj rumbled like a giant trawler through Kyle space, and my father was the ocean that supported it, but it was my aunt who had woven that mesh into the far-reaching web of power it had become.
She had security monitors everywhere. As soon as EM16 acknowledged me, one of my aunt's watchers had recorded that information and stored it in a security cache. I saw it happen; the words Systems Privileges sparkled in a grid square, caught like a moth in the lace, and then vanished.
I wrapped a security cloak around my mind, creating a silence that was the mental equivalent of standing motionless. Then I concentrated on the square that had registered my intrusion. It swelled in size while the grid streamed past me in a tunnel of filaments. When it reached me, I saw the data about my entry lodged in a cell within the grid, under a film of lace, trapped in that location of memory. I slid into the cell, taking care to disturb none of the filmy psiware that floated lazily around me like sealace under water. Then I wiped the memory clean. My passage back out was so smooth, not one spark revealed my progress.
I next erased all record of my entrance into the Hub. Then I brought up my file of the telops downstairs and used it to find them in the Mesh. By manipulating the grid, I created false memories so they would forget my visit. It was harder to erase memory in telops than in conventional nodes, but I set it up so that unless they specifically searched for tampering, they probably wouldn't detect it. Had my aunt rigged EM16 to look for me, I doubt I could have hidden, but she had no reason to suspect I would do anything as illogical as skulking around here with the deliberate intent to violate security.
Sauscony?
I froze. That was my father. The mesh warmed, and I had an odd sense the strands smiled. Nothing on the grid moved, but the sense persisted.
My father was the last person I had expected. He and my mother were at home on Lyshriol, visiting the multitude of grandchildren they kept reminding me I had yet to contribute to. It had never occurred to me that he would link up from there. He had to use the console room in our house, which he intensely disliked. Although Kyle space fascinated him, he was wary of machines, even those that allowed him to access to the Mesh. He used them when necessary, but that certainly didn't include visits to his grandchildren. However, he was definitely here. I hadn't noticed before because he filled Kyle space, surrounding every strand and film and sparkle. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought he was on Diesha, linked in through one of the central nodes used by the Triad.
I hid from him, pulling on security routines like a black cloak. As he searched for me, the grid rippled with his efforts like a net in the ocean rocking with the swells. Gradually his certainty that he had detected me faded to doubt, then to embarrassment that he could have made such a mistake. Finally his attention turned elsewhere.
I moved on, careful to avoid him while I sought out the data I had come to find. But it didn't appear. I found no path, no pipeline, no hint leading to information about our capture of Jaibriol.
I did, however, discover an inconsistency. It was one psicon among hundreds grouped in a section of the grid dedicated to our trade agreements with the Allieds. Each psicon represented a world. Set innocuously in with them was the colorful image of an island on Earth, a place called Delos.
At first glance, it looked reasonable. We used that symbol for the planet Delos—except we had no trade agreement with them. I was one the few people who knew Kurj had dissolved the treaty because his disliked their policy of giving asylum to Imperialate citizens. He kept his actions a secret to avoid igniting a controversy should people find out he had acted to block his own citizens from seeking sanctuary.
I concentrated on the Delos psicon, and the island grew until every detail showed, from grey and brown rocks jutting along its shore to the turquoise waters of the Aegean sea lapping its beaches.
Open, I thought.
The island split down the middle and opened like a pair of doors. The smell of salt and sealace tickled my nose, accompanied by the murmur of breakers. A menu of psicons appeared, indicating what functions I could use while I worked with the Delos records. One showed a small scroll tied with red ribbon.
List files, I thought. Written records only. Although it was easier to view the files using an interactive simulation, it required more system resources, which increased the chance it would draw attention to my actions. Relying only on written records was like using swords for combat when battle cruisers were available—but swords were far less conspicuous than battle cruisers.
The ribbon whisked off the scroll, and the parchment unrolled in a crackle of old paper, filling my view with a list of files. It was written in my aunt's script, with well formed letters and just enough flourish to please the eye. Then the font changed into the amber text I preferred.
Damn. EM16 might as well have turned on a speaker blaring my presence to the next person who opened the file. Undo font change, I thought.
The list reformed with my aunt's font.
Psicon, I thought.
The display winked out, leaving me in the grid. The island psicon waited in the lower corner of my mindscape, a green dot glowing on it to show it was active. I went deeper into the mesh, and strands of light streamed past, sparkling, glimmering, changing hue and color and texture. Even the smells varied: metallic, sharp, sweet, acrid. Finally I reached the inner layer I sought. Master psicons waited here, each dedicated to a function of the programs that ran the grid environment. I picked out the one that showed a doctor holding a surgical laser . . .and my mind went black: no images, words, sounds, smells, tastes, textures.
SPECIFY MEMORY LOCATION, EM16 thought.
Delos psicon, most recent font change, I answered.
A string of numbers and letters appeared, white on black. SPECIFY CHANGE.
Replace the third A with an 0.
The A changed into 0, erasing all record of the fact that EM16 had altered the font when I opened the Delos file.
CHANGES COMPLETE, EM16 thought.
Delete record. I followed my command with the password EM16 required to execute it.
The mesh reappeared. In the process of returning me to it, EM16 deleted all record that I had doctored its memory. My aunt had installed the delete record option so she could interact with EM16 and leave no trace. I knew about it because she had asked me to reprogram Hub security last year—and she didn't trust anyone else enough to give them that much access to the system.
I returned back up to the trade files. As I reopened the Delos psicon, waves broke against an invisible shore, and a cool wind blew against my cheeks. I remained "silent," simply reading the list of file names. They looked exactly like what they claimed to be, a record of trade negotiations with Delos. I opened A.Secretary-S and found a letter from the Allied Trade Secretary trying to convince our Trade Secretary to re-establish relations. I closed the file and scrolled through the list. What to look for? Opening every file would take too long. Kurj rarely spent more than a few hours sleeping, and I had to be out of EM16 by the time he awoke.
A file caught my attention. Artemis. The name came from Allied mythology. Artemis was a goddess born on the island Delos with her brother Apollo. It was a reasonable name to find here; these were, after all, files about the planet Delos. But only I knew that Artemis had special meaning to Kurj. Earth's mythology fascinated him, particularly the Greek tales: the Iliad and Odyssey. Hercules, Medea, Agamemnon. Oedipus. During one of his rare visits to Lyshriol, when I was a child, he had seen me riding in the woods, a fourteen-year-old girl practicing with a bow and arrow. He told me later he never forgot that sight, the wild, bare-legged girl shooting at trees. He called me Artemis, after the goddess of the hunt.
Open Artemis, I thought.
The scroll vanished, replaced by a holoscript of my arrest on Delos. Pah. This was the last thing I wanted. Close, I thought.
CLOSED, EM16 answered.
I continued going over the files. Nothing looked unusual. Finally I thought, Close Delos.
CLOS—
No! Wait. Why put a file about my arrest here? Yes, sure, if a highly placed Imperial officer alienated the Delos government, it could damage our already shaky relationship with them. But the behavior—or misbehavior—of military officers was Kurj's concern, and he was unremittingly literal with his organization. He would put the file on my arrest in the same place where he put all his other files about arrests of highly placed officers who could damage negotiations with the Allieds.
My aunt must have made this copy. I could see why she might want a notation of the incident here. But the complete record? Whatever for?
Open Artemis, I thought.
The holoscript activated, recreating the police station on Delos so vividly that I felt as if I were there. Again. I went through the entire mortifying file. It contained every last detail, even the fact that Blackstar, the computer on my ship, had intercepted a satellite transmission about my arrest that the Delos police sent to ISC. The file was exactly what it claimed; a report of my unplanned visit with the Allied police.
Something kept tugging my mind. A small point . . .Taas? Yes, I remembered. When Blackstar dumped that satellite transmission into my mindscape, it had spilled into the node on Taas's ship. He tried to stop the spillover, but—what? He used the wrong commands. That was it. He used every one he could think of and none worked. My spinal node still had the list he had tried: stop, cancel, break, quit, exit, bye, system, chop, stomp, flush, dump, and curse. I told him—what? To use erase. Yes, erase had done the trick.
Huh. This file should include the spillover. But it wasn't here. I went over the record detail by detail, but found no mention of it. I had come looking for data and instead discovered its lack. It couldn't have disappeared by accident; all the fighters in my squad had recorded it, and I found it hard to believe the same omission would occur in all four reports. I couldn't imagine Kurj deleting it. In his view of the universe, such an omission would be sloppiness, which he avoided to the point of obsession.
It had to be my aunt. Why would she remove such trivial data? She was too smart to do it by accident. She was too damned smart, period. Trying to follow her mental processes often left me feeling as if my brain worked with the speed of a slug.
I closed the Artemis file and searched the other Delos records, looking for anything related to Taas. Nothing even marginally promising came up. I was running out of time, and I knew nothing more than when I had started. Taas. Artemis. Delos. Satellite. Spillover. What?
The psicon. After Taas used the erase command, he sent me an image of his erase psicon, a scantily dressed woman with a big bosom whose scraps of clothing disappeared as she painted them. She disappeared whenever she appeared. Of course! What better way to hide data than to make it self-vanishing, so that the act of calling it up erased it. It was exactly the kind of solution that would appeal to my aunt.
Now I knew where she had hidden Jaibriol's files. It wasn't in EM16. She had left Kurj a pointer here as a precaution, in case he came looking for the files. It was an effective method; only someone who knew those facts were missing would realize the pointer existed. The information, however, existed in another place: it was on the key to the cyberlock in her brain.
Anyone could have a cyberlock implanted. They didn't need to be a psion. That was why we called it cyber instead of psiber. Every member of my family who had a biomech web also had a cyberlock. The Assembly insisted on it. That was why I had recognized the rainbows around Jaibriol's mansion on Delos, the almost invisible veil of colors that warned of an active cyberlock.
None of us liked them. The field disrupted brain function and could cause damage if used too often. To operate mine, I needed my psiberchip, a card with neural tracings created from my brain cells. For most people, such a chip was useless. Only psions could activate them. If I linked to the card through psiberspace, it became a functioning part of my brain. If another psion tried to link to it, the chip would know it wasn't me the same way I would know if an intruder began thinking in my mind.
We kept the keys to our cyberlocks on psiberchips because implanting the keys in our brains was too risky. A head injury could damage it. Separating the key and the lock made it easier to steal the key, but using psiberchips solved that problem. A chip that recognized its owner's brain could be set to erase if a foreign mind accessed it. What better place for my aunt to hide the data about Jaibriol than on her psiberchips? If someone tried to access the data, the chip would erase. It was an ingenious warning system, too, because if her chips erased it would trigger an alarm in her spinal node.
Unfortunately, it also meant I couldn't access the data. But then, neither could Kurj. Why leave him a pointer to a place he couldn't go?
Wait. Maybe the information wasn't on her chips. Maybe she put it on his. But how? They were also protected. They would erase if she fiddled with them.
The Kyle-Mesh. Of course. Boosted by the Triad psilink, she and Kurj could meld their minds even more closely than Jaibriol and I had done on Delos. With their minds blended into one, she could access his chips. I doubted he could do the reverse; it required too much delicacy. Only my aunt had the necessary knowledge, finesse, power, and mesh privileges. Knowing her, she could probably manage it without Kurj even noticing. However, that still did me no good. I couldn't join the Triad link. The flux of power it generated increased exponentially with each Rhon telepath. Two minds posed no danger. Three worked only if the minds weren't too much alike. A fourth would overload the Mesh in one giant, star-spanning short circuit.
So now what?
A thought came to me. Kurj had access to my psiberchips. He claimed it was for my protection, but I knew better. He wanted control over my cyberlock, another of his precautions to minimize the chance one of his heirs would turn on him. My chips included neural tracings cultured from his brain to ensure my keys wouldn't erase if he accessed them. Could I link to my chip, merge with that piece of his brain, and fool his chips into thinking I was him? He wouldn't notice my meddling unless he happened to access the chip at the same time. And right now he was asleep.
I shuddered. The risk of being detected wasn't what disturbed me most about the idea. What if I couldn't dissociate from his mind when I finished my work? The prospect of being imprisoned in Kurj's rigidly controlled paradigm of existence scared the hell out of me.
I closed the Delos files and deleted all record of my visit. After setting the Hub monitors so they wouldn't record my departure, I withdrew from the Mesh. Then I stood in the dark, waiting for the psiphon cage to release me.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Sweat beaded on my temple. No, I couldn't show fear. That, more than anything I had done so far, would give me away.
Suddenly the psiphon restraints snapped away from my body. The tube that had surrounded me slid back into the ground, letting cool air waft across my bare skin.
I took a breath. Then I put on my clothes and left.
The psiberchip lay in my hand, a square the size of my palm. I sat at the console in my bedroom and stared at the chip. Taking it out of the safe here had been easy, but I couldn't go any further.
Alive. This card was alive. Nanomeds tended the neural tracings, keeping them ready to link with my brain. I had ten chips, two in a vault in my father's house, three on Forshires, four at Headquarters, and this one in my apartment.
The console waited. I had only to insert the card. My node calculated a 94 percent probability that I could merge with the microscopic piece of Kurj's brain on the chip. Whether or not that would let me access his chips was another story, but I wouldn't find out until I tried. If I tried. If I could force myself to become Kurj.
I stared at the card. One minute passed. Three. Five. The few precious hours I had to work with while Kurj slept were leaking away.
I took a breath. Then I slid the card into the console and logged into my personal account, the one I used for private rather than military matters. I entered the optical network anyone could use, but from there I accessed Kyle space, or psiberspace as many of us called that eerie universe. My mind expanded onto the four nodes that served the relatively small civilian arm of the Dieshan mesh. They worked together, swapping among themselves according to whichever happened to be free when a user entered a command.
I started on Alto. Its subgrid was subdued, a faint gold color. No sign showed of my father. The whole mesh changed when he withdrew, becoming less vibrant. Nor did I pick up the delicate sparkles of my aunt's presence or the immense flux of Kurj's power. Right now Alto just felt like Alto, one of four simple voices singing together with no Triad soloists to jazz up the tune.
Greetings, Soz, Alto thought.
Greetings. Connect me with my psiberchip.
Chip accessed.
I felt nothing. No reason I should have, given that it was part of my brain. Locate Imperator Skolia's neural tracings.
It was Soprano that answered. Located.
Match my brain activity with his. I had no idea if that command would work; no formalized procedures existed for doing this.
Attempting match, Soprano thought.
I waited, watching the mesh flicker. It was lovely, with an eerie beauty that never appeared the same twice. The infinite gold network hung in a shimmering atmosphere, one more liquid than gas, pale and sparkling. It undulated. The sounds of the civilian nodes were gentler than in the Hub, sweet melodies that rippled like ocean swells. Its smells were honey-corn and spice.
Soprano? I thought. Is anything happening?
Tenor answered. Your brain resists.
That was no surprise. I had shared enough thoughts with Kurj to know that our mental processes were basically foreign.
Keep trying, I thought.
I continued to wait. Although the grid exhibited a well ordered pattern of squares, it showed many defects. Those discontinuities came from poorly maintained connections and negligent users. Fluctuations appeared in its environment, concentrations of color and light in asymmetric patches. Civilians were inefficient. Our organization of the military grids was far more ordered.
What is the status of matching procedure? I asked.
Bass answered. Matching complete.
What difference exists between my brain activity and that of Imperator Skolia, as determined by his tracings on my chip?
1.6 percent, Bass answered.
I felt nothing. That I perceived no difference didn't prove its absence. However, a 1.6 percent discrepancy wasn't negligible. The possibility still existed that his chip would erase if I tried to access it, leaving irrefutable evidence I had been in violation of security procedures.
I needed to rethink the risks of tampering with Kurj's strategy for the Qox interrogation. Here on Diesha, Qox was too close to the power centers of the Kyle-Mesh. If he escaped, he could carry out exactly the function he had been bred to execute. He could gain access to the link and overload the Triad. If he managed it without killing himself, he would be perfectly positioned to take over the functions of the three people he had murdered. It would put him in control of the Mesh and ISC.
Bass, stop matching, I thought.
Stopped, Bass thought.
I withdrew from the meshes in proper format, rising through its levels. Then I considered my next move. If I told Kurj what I knew about Jaibriol, I risked execution for the treason I committed by hiding the truth for so long. But Kurj needed the information. Instead, I could interrogate Qox, break his barriers, and inform Kurj that the Highton Heir was Rhon. I would present the information as if I were learning it for the first time. That way, I protected both myself and the Imperialate.
I would have to be careful when I broke Jaibriol's barriers, though, so I didn't hurt him.
I rubbed my eyes, drained from my work. And now I was about to make Jaibriol's suicide attempt into reality.
Suicide. Suicide. Why had I forgotten that? What blazes was wrong with me, thinking Jaibriol had come here to kill us?
I got up and paced out of the room, trying to clear my head. A moment ago I had been thinking with what I believed was perfect clarity. Yet now I felt as if a stranger had been in my head. My intention was to free Jaibriol, not betray him to Kurj. How could I get the information I needed to locate Jaibriol, if the process of finding it made me betray him?
I picked up a paper and wrote: It's not your mind. If you listen, you will regret it. Get the data.
The maze of halls under the ISC Records complex went on for kilometers. Its stark lines and dim lighting had earned it the name Catacombs. My psiberchips were in a Catacombs vault secured a beta scanner, which analyzed retinal patterns, fingerprints, voice, height, weight, body chemistry, skeletal structure, and brainwaves. It opened only to me or Kurj, who also kept one of his chips there. That vault stood inside a larger vault secured with a beta scanner, inside a room secured with a beta, at the end of a hall secured by a beta. It was the best security the Imperialate had to offer. Breaking in was impossible—unless you happened to be the person it was meant to protect.
Every lock opened for me. Within the innermost vault, I found our chips in a molded box on a shelf. I sat at a console by the wall and clicked my card into the psiberchip slot. This time Bass gave me a 1.2% match to Kurj's brain. I picked up Kurj's card—
—and stopped.
I was about to commit an act that could destroy my family and the Imperialate. I was a fool. I had been operating within an emotional mindset that damaged my ability to think clearly.
I looked at the paper in my hand. It's not your mind.
Incorrect. It was imprecise to state that merging with Kurj's brain made my mind his. It altered my mental processes, giving me insights I otherwise lacked. My mind remained my own.
If you listen, you will regret it.
No. The only source of regret I would find in these actions were the actions themselves. It was time I stopped this treason.
Get the data.
No data was available to me. My aunt had protected it with her customary brilliance; even if someone came this close, they would go no further because in the process of reaching it they came to understand why it must not be reached.
It's not your mind.
My mind had been strained. Tager had made this clear in my talks with him.
Seeing Tager had been a weakness.
No!
I clenched the console so tightly my knuckles turned white. The paper crumpled in my hand, its edges sticking out of my fist. Seeing Tager had not been a weakness. My mind was sound. If I had written these words on this paper, they were sound.
I picked up Kurj's card and placed it in the slot. His chip resisted me, like a human body rejecting a transplanted organ. I tensed, waiting for that sense of deletion that would come when it wiped itself blank.
Instead I felt a curious relaxation. Then I remembered where to find Jaibriol.
I entered EM16 as before, cloaking my operations. This time I went straight to the security subgrid. When I toggled visual mode, the net blinked out of existence, replaced by the desert. Parched land surrounded me for thousands of kilometers, red and mottled with upjutting rocks that cut the landscape in angular fingers. Prickly grey stubs of dustbite poked out of the sand. Only far in the north, where the plains rose into a haze of mountains, did the view soften. The sky above me stretched in a blue stone tablet washed clean of clouds.
No one lived here. ISC had other purposes for this desert. We had honeycombed it with installations, including Block Three, a complex hidden under the desert.
Psicon, I thought.
The desert retreated like a cloth backdrop yanked away by a giant hand, shrinking as it receded, until it was no more than an icon glittering within a square of the Kyle-Mesh. I accessed the file in my node with the data I had stolen from Kurj's psiberchip. Guards: three units watched Jaibriol's cell, six guards per unit. Each unit knew the location of one other unit. I reprogrammed EM16 so that on the next shift, units one and three knew about each other and unit two knew about itself. I reassigned unit two to a new area so its original location appeared to be another unit. At the original location, a hole now gaped in the security cage around Jaibriol.
I reprogrammed the Block Three defense systems to ignore certain input at a certain time. I reset the medical monitors that watched Jaibriol's cell to watch the guard outside the Block Three cafeteria. I switched the monitors to the holography darkroom, and I changed work shifts to clear workers out of certain areas. I reset the robot mice that scurried around, supposedly cleaning the base while they spied on people. Then I set up a program that would, minutes after my changes went into effect, undo every one of them, reset every system to its original state, wipe out the record of my changes, destroy itself, and delete the record of my deletions.
There were going to be a lot of confused people in the morning.