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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] We re coming with you, Trouble said, and pointed to the handset resting on the coffee table. Mabry picked it up, began punching numbers. Do you think that s wise? I thought you had a reputation to uphold. Cerise grinned at that, reached across the keyboard to close down the system. Oh, we have reputations, all right and I fully intend to keep mine, Trouble finished. Nobody crosses me, Mabry. Nobody. Suit yourself, Mabry answered, and turned away to speak softly into the handset. Cerise looked at Trouble, lowered her voice cautiously. You sure you re sure? Trouble nodded again, knowing the question she was being asked. After all this, Cerise was saying, after being dragged back into the shadows and finding out again that she had a taste for it, did she really want to throw herself irrevocably into the bright lights, turn herself into nothing more than a syscop? I m sure, she said, and Mabry tossed the handset onto the couch. Let s go, he said, and swept out of the room without looking back. Trouble followed, said over her shoulder, so softly Cerise wasn t for a second sure she had heard correctly, I want to be in at the kill. If I ve gone over to the enemy, I want to do it right. Cerise hesitated, shook her head, uncertain of her feelings, or at best sure only of one thing, that she would see this through to the end. She followed both of them down the emergency stairs and out into the lobby. Mabry had commandeered a car from the local cops, unmarked but with police equipment, sophisticated net monitors and local tie-ins. prominent on its control boards. There was a driver as well, a skinny, nondescript young man with pale brown hair and a recruit s flashes below The Willows insignia on his shoulder. He looked momentarily as though he might protest, seeing the two women, but Mabry said, You have the address? The young man swallowed whatever he had been going to say. Yes, sir. Then let s go. Mabry climbed into the front seat beside the driver, and Trouble and Cerise scrambled into the narrow passenger compartment. You notified Treasury as well? The driver put the car into gear, edged forward out of the driveway in front of Eastman House. Yes, sir. They re on their way. Good, Mabry said, and leaned back against his seat. Trouble looked at Cerise, saw the other woman s pale face intent on the road. Then Cerise looked at her, dark eyes wary, and they both heard the sound of sirens, distant now, but coming quickly closer. What the hell? Trouble said, softly, and Mabry leaned forward to query one of the systems plugged into the main board. hostage situation The voice blared from a speaker, and Mabry reached hastily for a datacord and plugged it in, cutting oft the voice. Who the hell can he be holding hostage? Cerise asked. Not Silk, surely. Who d care? Trouble agreed, her eyes on Mabry. The big man glanced back at her, his expression unreadable. He s tied into the city computers. Threatens to erase system software if he s attacked. Can he do it? Trouble nodded slowly, remembering the sheer scale of virtual Seahaven, of the power, hardware and software, that the Mayor needed to maintain the illusion. Turn that power on a city system, and no IC(E) would be sufficient; at that scale, brute force alone would be enough to shatter the city s coding, leave all the files, all the city systems, open and vulnerable. Does The Willows care? Cerise asked, with a smile that did not touch her eyes. Mabry s eyes flicked toward her, and then away again. The Willows is tied in to city services drainage, the pump system, sewers, traffic control, all that. If Novross crashes those, The Willows doesn t have sufficient backup power to keep things running. He turned back to the control board, running one hand along a sensor strip. Besides, the city systems contain the tax records. Ah. Cerise s smile widened into open contempt. The sirens were louder now as they crossed the Harbormouth bridge, and the local cops had set up a hasty road-block halfway down Ashworth Avenue. Other cops were fanning out from the roadblock, moving along the storefronts to shut down the businesses and force the citizens indoors. Out of harm s way, or, more likely, just out of their way, Cerise thought. Mabry extended his credentials to the waiting cop, a man in full armor under his coveralls, with a stunstick at his belt and a pellet gun slung across his shoulder. Where s Starling? The cop didn t answer at once, but studied the folder with its double ID carefully, checking both identification and warrant before he returned it to its owner. Down by the house, he said. He s directing the operation. Wonderful, Trouble muttered. Mabry said nothing, gestured to the driver. The young man pulled the car sharply around the end of the barricade, and started down the narrow street. The cops had removed some of the parked cars from this end of the road, though they d left others in place as makeshift barricades. Two fast-tanks were pulled into place across the street, one with its rear treads resting precariously on the soft ground that edged the Slough, the other blocking the roadway entirely. A trio of armored cops wearing state badges rather than The Willows insignia crouched in its shelter; a fourth man, equally armored, stepped out of its shadow and waved the car to the side of the road. The driver slowed obediently, and Mabry lowered his window to confer with the approaching officer. Cerise laughed sharply. You d think the man was a fucking terrorist. Look at all this. Mabry glanced back at her, then turned to hand his credentials to the armored man. Where s Starling? Mr. Mabry, the cop acknowledged, straightened slightly as though he would have saluted. Mr. Starling wants to see you right away. Down there, sir. He pointed toward a third, smaller car, recognizable as police only by the way it was parked, slewed deliberately across the road to provide protection behind its bulk. I want to see Mr. Starling, Mabry said, and levered himself out of the car. You two, wait here. Fine, Trouble said to his back. She watched him make his way down the street, broad-shouldered in his battered jacket, conspicuously casual among the armored and uniformed police huddling behind the cars. What the fuck do they think they re doing? Cerise demanded. He s a cracker, not a gunrunner. Trouble saw the driver s shoulders twitch, and a detached part of her admired the man s self-control. Yeah, she said, deliberately provocative, crackers don t generally go around shooting cops. Cerise shook her head, still furious. They got to be crazy, reacting like this. But that was Evans-Tindale for you: the laws had been written by people who feared the nets, and it was that same fear that made things escalate, spiraling out of control. Another siren sounded, a deeper note this time, and Trouble twisted in her seat to stare back the way they d come. A fire engine, one of the heavy tower trucks with a lift basket on the front and a massive ladder-and-hose station at the back, was making its way ponderously down the street. One of the armored cops shouted and waved, and the driver edged their car in closer to the curb to let the fire engine pass. There were more armored men clinging to its sides. All this for software? Trouble said. They ve got to have backups. The driver turned in his place, pale face very serious. We can t let him get away [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |