Altered Carbon

She opened her mouth, then shut it again. Her face went dreamy, and I guessed she was reviewing a previous Dipping episode from memory. After a few moments she snapped back and nodded as if she might be trying to convince herself.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “It can be done, but not in real time. This isn’t like rewriting your fightdrome friends’ security system, or even downloading into that AI core. This makes what we did to the AI look like a systems check. To do this, to even attempt this, I’ve got to have a virtual forum.”

“That’s not a problem. Anything else?”

“That depends on what counter-intrusion systems Head in the Clouds is ru

“Very,” said Ortega.

Elliott’s feelings went back underground. “Then I’ll have to run some checks. That’ll take time.”

“How much time?” Ortega wanted to know.

“Well, I can do it two ways.” Professional scorn surfaced in her voice, scarring over the emotion that had been there before. “I can do a fast scan and maybe ring every alarm aboard this prick in the sky. Or I can do it right, which’ll take a couple of days. Your choice. We’re ru

“Take your time,” I suggested, with a warning glance at Ortega. “Now what about wiring me for sight and sound. You know anyone who can do that discreetly?”

“Yeah, we got people here can do that. But you can forget a telemetry system. You try and transmit out of there, you will bring the house down. No pun intended.” She moved to the arm-mounted terminal and punched up a general access screen. “I’ll see if Reese can dig you up a grab-and-stash mike. Shielded microstack, you’ll be able to record a couple of hundred hours high res and we can retrieve it here later.”

“Good enough. This going to be expensive?”

Elliott turned back to us, eyebrows hoisted. “Talk to Reese. She’ll probably have to buy the parts in, but maybe you can get her to do the surgery on a retrospective federal basis. She could use the juice at UN level.”

I glanced at Ortega, who shrugged exasperatedly.

“I guess,” she said ungraciously, as Elliott busied herself with the screen. I stood up and turned to the policewoman.

“Ortega,” I muttered into her ear, abruptly aware that in the new sleeve I was completely unmoved by her scent. “It isn’t my fault we’re short of funds. The JacSol account’s gone, evaporated, and if I start drawing on Bancroft’s credit for stuff like this, it’s going to look fucking odd. Now get a grip.”

“It isn’t that,” she hissed back.

“Then what is it?”

She looked at me, at our brutally casual proximity. “You know goddamn well what it is.”

I drew a deep breath and closed my eyes to avoid having to meet her gaze. “Did you sort out that hardware for me?”

“Yeah.” She stepped back, voice returning to normal volume and empty of tone. “The stungun from the Fell Street tackle room, no one’ll miss it. The rest is coming out of NYPD confiscated weapon stocks. I’m flying out to pick it up tomorrow personally. Material transaction, no records. I called in a couple of favours.”

“Good. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Her tone was savagely ironic. “Oh, by the way, they had a hell of a time getting hold of the spider venom load. I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me what that’s all about, would you?”

“It’s a personal thing.”

Elliott got someone on the screen. A serious-looking woman in a late fifties African sleeve.

“Hey, Reese,” she said cheerfully. “Got a customer for you.”

Despite the pessimistic estimate, Irene Elliott finished her preliminary scan a day later. I was down by the lake, recovering from Reese’s simple microsurgery and skimming stones with a girl of about six who seemed to have adopted me. Ortega was still in New York, the chill between us not really resolved.

Elliott emerged from the encampment and yelled out the news of her successful covert scan without bothering to come down to the water’s edge. I winced as the echoes floated out across the water. The open atmosphere of the little settlement took some getting used to, and how it fitted in with successful data piracy I still couldn’t see. I handed my stone to the girl and rubbed reflexively at the tiny soreness under one eye where Reese had gone in and implanted the recording system.

“Here. See if you can do it with this one.”

“Your stones are heavy.” she said plaintively.

“Well, try anyway. I got nine skips out of the last one.” She squinted up at me. “You’re wired for it. I’m only six.”

“True. On both counts.” I placed a hand on her head. “But you’ve got to work with what you’ve got.”

“When I’m big I’m going to be wired like Auntie Reese.”

I felt a small sadness well up on the cleanly swept floor of my Khumalo neurachem brain. “Good for you. Look, I’ve got to go. Don’t go too close to the water, right?”

She looked at me exasperatedly. “I can swim.”

“So can I, but it looks cold, don’t you think?”

“Ye-e-es…”

“There you are then.” I ruffled her hair and set off up the beach. At the first bubblefab I looked back. She was hefting the big flat stone at the lake as if the water were an enemy.

Elliott was in the expansive, post-mission mood that most datarats seem to hit after a long spell cruising the stacks.

“I’ve been doing a little historical digging,” she said, swinging the terminal arm outward from its resting place. Her hands danced across the terminal deck and the screen flared into life, shedding colours on her face. “How’s the implant?”

I touched my lower eyelid again. “Fine. Tapped straight into the same system that runs the timechip. Reese could have made a living doing this.”

“She used to,” said Elliott shortly. “Till they busted her for anti-Protectorate literature. When this is all over, you make sure that someone puts in a word for her at federal level, because she sure as shit needs it.”

“Yeah, she said.” I peered over her shoulder at the screen. “What have you got there?”

“Head in the Clouds. Tampa aeroyard blueprints. Hull specs, the works. This stuff is centuries old. I’m amazed they still keep it on stack at all. Anyway, seems she was originally commissioned as part of the Caribbean storm management flotilla, back before SkySystems orbital weather net put them all out of business. A lot of the long-range sca

I nodded, unsurprised. “Ways in?”

She shrugged. “Hundreds. Ventilation ducts, maintenance crawlways. Take your pick.”

“I’ll need to have another look at what Miller told my construct. But assume I’m going in from the top. Body heat’s the only real problem?”

“Yeah, but those sensors are looking for anything over a square millimetre of temperature differential. A stealth suit won’t cover you. Christ, even the breath coming out of your lungs will probably trip them. And it doesn’t stop there.” Elliott nodded sombrely at the screen. “They must have liked the system a lot, because when they refitted they ran it through the whole ship. Room temperature monitors on every corridor and walkway.”

“Yeah, Miller said something about a heat signature tag.”

“That’s it. Incoming guests get it on boarding and their codes are incorporated into the system. Anyone else walks down a corridor uninvited, or goes somewhere their tag says they can’t, they set off every alarm in the hull. Simple, and very effective. And I don’t think I can cut in there and write you a welcome code. Too much security.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”