Jammer slumped back in his chair when Bobby was finished. You wanna try it? he asked. He sounded tired.
Try it?
The deck. I think you might wanna try it Its something about the way you keep rubbing your ass on the chair. Either you wanna try it or you gotta piss bad
Shit yeah. I mean, yeah, thanks, yeah, I would...
Why not? No way for anybody to know its you and not me, right? Why dont you jack in with him, Jackie? Kinda keep track. He opened a desk drawer and took out two trode sets. But dont do anything, right? I mean, just buzz on out and spin. Dont try to run any numbers I owe Beauvoir and Lucas a favor, and it looks like how Im paying it back is by helping keep you intact. He handed one set of trodes to Jackie, the other to Bobby. He stood up, grabbed handles on either side of the black console, and spun it around so it faced Bobby. Go on. Youll cream your jeans. Things ten years old and itll still wipe ass on most anything. Guy name of Automatic Jack built it straight up from scratch He was Bobby Quines hardware artist, once. The two of em burnt the Blue Lights together, but that was probably before you were born.
Bobby already had his trodes on. Now he looked at Jackie You ever jack tandem before?
He shook his head.
Okay. Well jack, but Ill hang off your left shoulder. I say jack out, jack out. You see anything funny. Itll be because Im with you, understand?
He nodded.
She undid a pair of long, silver-headed pins at the rear of her fedora and took it off, putting it down on the desk beside Jammers deck. She slid the trodes on over the orange silk headscarf and smoothed the contacts against her forehead.
Lets go, she said.
Now and ever was, fast forward, Jammers deck jacked up so high above the neon hotcores, a topography of data he didnt know. Big stuff, mountain-high, sharp and corporate in the nonplace that was cyberspace. Slow it down, Bobby. Jackies voice low and sweet, beside him in the void.
Jesus Christ, this things slick!
Yeah, but damp it down. The rush isnt any good for us. You want to cruise. Keep us up here and slow it down.
He eased off on forward until they seemed to coast along. He turned to the left, expecting to see her there, but there was nothing.
Im here, she said, dont worry
Who was Quine?
Quine? Some cowboy Jammer knew. He knew em all, in his day.
He took a right-angle left at random, pivoting smoothly at the grid intersection, testing the deck for response. It was amazing, totally unlike anything hed felt before in cyberspace. Holy shit. This thing makes an Ono-Sendai look like a kids toy.
Its probably got O-S circuitry in it. Thats what they used to use, Jammer says. Takes us up a little more...
They rose effortlessly through the grid, the data receding below them There isnt a hell of a lot to see up here, he complained.
Wrong. You see some interesting stuff, you hang out long enough in the blank parts...
The fabric of the matrix seemed to shiver, directly in front of them...
Uh, Jackie...
Stop here. Hold it. Its okay. Trust me.
Somewhere, far away, his hands moving over the unfamiliar keyboard configuration He held them steady now, while a section of cyberspace blurred, grew milky. What is -
Danbala ap monte I, the voice said, harsh in his head, and in his mouth a taste like blood. Danbala is nding her. He knew, somehow, what the words meant, but the voice was iron in his head The milky fabric divided, seemed to bubble, became two patches of shifting gray.
Legba, she said, Legba and Ougou Feray, god of war. Papa Ougou St. Jacques Majeur! Viv Ia Vyj!
Iron laughter filled the matrix, sawing through Bobbys head.
Map kite tout miz ak tout giyon, said another voice, fluid and quicksilver and cold. See, Papa, she has come here to throw away her bad luck! And then that one laughed as well, and Bobby fought down a wave of sheer hysteria as the silver laughter rose through him like bubbles.
Has she bad luck, the horse of Danbala? boomed the iron voice of Ougou Feray, and for an instant Bobby thought he saw a figure flicker in the gray fog. The voice hooted its terrible laughter. Indeed! Indeed! But she knows it not! She is not my horse, no, else I would cure her luck! Bobby wanted to cry, to die, anything to escape the voices, the utterly impossible wind that had started to blow out of the gray warps, a hot damp wind that smelled of things he couldnt identify. And she calls praise on the Virgin! Hear me, little sister! La Vyj draws close indeed!
Yes, said the other, she moves through my province now, I who rule the roads, the highways.
But I, Ougou Feray, tell you that your enemies draw near as well! To the gates, sister, and beware
And then the gray areas faded, dwindled, shrank...
Jack us out, she said her voice small and distant And then she said, Lucas is dead.
Jammer took a bottle of Scotch from his desk drawer and carefully poured six centimeters of the stuff into a plastic highball glass. You look like shit, he said to Jackie, and Bobby was startled by the gentleness in the mans voice Theyd been jacked out for at least ten minutes and nobody had said anything at all. Jackie looked crushed and kept gnawing at her lower lip. Jammer looked either unhappy or angry, Bobby wasnt sure.
How come you said Lucas was dead? Bobby ventured, because it seemed to him that the silence was silting up in Jammers cramped office like something that could choke you.
Jackie looked at him but didnt seem to focus. They wouldnt come to me like that if Lucas were alive, she said. There are pacts, agreements. Legba is always invoked first, but he should have come with Danbala. His personality depends on the ba he manifests with. Lucas must be dead.
Jammer pushed the glass of whiskey across the desk, but Jackie shook her head, the trode set still riding her forehead, chrome and black nylon. He made a disgusted face, pulled the glass back, and downed it himself. What a load of shit Things made a lot more sense before you people started screwing around with them.
We didnt bring them here, Jammer, she said. They were just there, and they found us because we understood them!
Same load of shit, Jammer said, wearily. Whatever they are, wherever they came from, they just shaped them-selves to what a bunch of crazed spades wanted to see. You follow me? Theres no way in hell thered be anything out there that you had to talk to in fucking bush Haitian! You and your voodoo cult, they just saw that and they saw a setup, and Beauvoir and Lucas and the rest, theyre businessmen first. And those Goddamn things know how to make deals!
Its a natural! He tightened the cap on his bottle and put it back in the drawer. You know, hon. it could just be that somebody very big, with a lot of muscle on the grid, theyre just taking you for a ride. Projecting those things, all that shit... And you know its possible, dont you? Dont you, Jackie?
No way, Jackie said, her voice cold and even. But how I know thats not anything I can explain...
Jammer took a black slab of plastic from his pocket and began to shave. Sure, he said. The razor hummed as he worked on the line of his jaw. I lived in cyberspace for eight years, right? Well, I know there wasnt anything out there, not then... Anyway, you want me to phone Lucas, set your mind at ease one way or the other? You got the phone number for that Rolls of his?
No, Jackie said, dont bother Best we lay low till Beauvoir turns up. She stood, pulling off the trodes and picking up her hat. Im going to lie down, try to sleep. You keep an eye on Bobby. She turned and walked to the office door. She looked as though she were sleepwalking, all the energy gone out of her.