Count Zero

�Man,� Beauvoir said to Bobby, �get it on. I gotta get back to the door...�

Bobby jacked.

He followed Jammer�s instructions, secretly grateful that he could feel Jackie beside him as they plunged down into the workaday depths of cyberspace, the glowing Basketball dwindling above them. The deck was quick, superslick, and it made him feel fast and strong. He wondered how Jammer had come to have the Yakuza owing him a favor, one he�d never bothered to collect, and a part of him was busily constructing scenarios when they hit the ice.

�Jesus...� And Jackie was gone. Something had come down between them, something he felt as cold and silence and a shutting off of breath. �But there wasn�t anything there, Goddamn it!� He was frozen, somehow, locked steady He could still see the matrix, but he couldn�t feel his hands.

�Why the hell anybody plug the likes of you into a deck like that? Thing ought to be in a museum, you ought to be in grade school.�

�Jackie!� The cry was reflex.

�Man,� said the voice, �I dunno. It�s been a long few days I haven�t slept, but you sure don�t look like what I was set to catch when you came out of there... How old are you?�

�Fuck off!� Bobby said. It was all he could think of to say.

The voice began to laugh. �Ramirez would split his sides at this, you know? He had him a fine sense of the ridiculous. That�s one of the things I miss.�

�Who�s Ramirez?�

�My partner. Ex. Dead. Very. I was thinking maybe you could tell me how he got that way.�

�Never heard of him,� Bobby said. �Where�s Jackie?�

�Sittin� cold-cocked in cyberspace while you answer my questions, wilson. What�s your name?�

�B� Count Zero.�

�Sure. Your name!�

�Bobby, Bobby Newmark.�

Silence. Then: �Well. Hey. Does make a little sense, then. That was your mother�s place I watched those Maas spooks use the rocket on, wasn�t it? But I guess you weren�t there, or you wouldn�t be here Hold on a sec...�

A square of cyberspace directly in front of him flipped sickeningly and he found himself in a pale blue graphic that seemed to represent a very spacious apartment, low shapes of furniture sketched in hair-fine lines of blue neon. A woman stood in front of him, a sort of glowing cartoon squiggle of a woman, the face a brown smudge. �I�m Slide,� the figure said, hands on its hips, �Jaylene. You don�t fuck with me. Nobody in L.A. � � she gestured, a window suddenly snapping into existence behind her � �fucks with me. You got that?�

�Right,� Bobby said. �What is this? I mean, if you could sort of explain...� He still couldn�t move The �window� showed a blue-gray video view of palm trees and old buildings.

�How do you mean?�

�This sort of drawing. And you. And that old picture...�

�Hey, man, I paid a designer an arm and a leg to punch this up for me. This is my space, my construct. This is L.A., boy. People here don�t do anything without jacking. This is where I entertain!�

�Oh,� Bobby said, still baffled.

�Your turn. Who�s back there, in that sleaze-ass dancehall?�

�Jammer�s? Me, Jackie, Beauvoir, Jammer.�

�And where were you headed when I grabbed you?�

Bobby hesitated. �The Yakuza. Jammer has a code -�

�What for?� The figure moved forward, an animated sensuous brush-sketch.�

�Help.�

�Shit You�re probably telling the truth...�

�I am, I am, swear to God.�

�Well, you ain�t what I need, Bobby Zero. I been out cruising cyberspace, all up and down, trying to find out who killed my man. I thought it was Maas, because we were taking one of theirs for Hosaka, so I hunted up a spook team of theirs. First thing I saw was what they did to your mom-ma�s condo. Then I saw three of them drop in on a man they call the Finn, but those three never came back out...�

�Finn killed �em,� Bobby said. �I saw �em. Dead.�

�You did? Well, then, could be we do have things to talk about. After that, I watched the other three use that same launcher on a pimpmobile...�

�That was Lucas,� he said.

�But no sooner had they done it than a copter overflew �em and fried all three with a laser. You know anything about that?�

�No.�

�You think you can tell me your story. Bobby Zero? Make it quick!�

�I was gonna do this run, see? And I�d got this icebreaker off Two-a-Day, from up the Projects, and I...�

When he finished, she was silent. The slinky cartoon figure stood by the window, as though she were studying the television trees.

�I got an idea,� he ventured. �Maybe you can help us -�

�No,� she said.

�But maybe it�ll help you find out what you want...�

�No. I just want to kill the motherfucker who killed Ramirez.�

�But we�re trapped in there, they�re gonna kill us. It�s Maas, the people you were following around in the matrix! They hired a bunch of Kasuals and Gothicks -�

�That�s not Maas,� she said �That�s a bunch of Euros over on Park Avenue. Ice on �em a mile deep.�

Bobby took that in �They the ones in the copter, the ones killed the other Maas guys?�

�No. I couldn�t get a fix on that copter, and they flew south. Lost �em. I have a hunch, though... Anyway, I�m sending you back. You want to try that Yak code, go ahead.�

�But, lady, we need help.�

�No percentage in help, Bobby Zero,� she said, and then he was sitting in front of Jammer�s deck, the muscles in his neck and back aching. It took him a while before he could get his eyes to focus, so it was nearly a minute before he saw that there were strangers in the room.

The man was tall, maybe taller than Lucas, but rangier, narrower at the hips. He wore a kind of baggy combat jacket that hung around him in folds, with giant pockets, and his chest was bare except for a horizontal black strap. His eyes looked bruised and feverish, and he held the biggest handgun Bobby had ever seen, a kind of distended revolver with some weird fixture molded under the barrel, a thing like a cobra�s head. Beside him, swaying, stood a girl who might have been Bobby�s age, with the same bruised eyes � though hers were dark � and lank brown hair that needed to be washed. She wore a black sweatshirt, several sizes too large, and jeans. The man reached out with his left hand and steadied her.

Bobby stared, then gaped as the memory hit him

Girlvoice, brownhair, darkeyes, the ice eating into him, his teeth burring, her voice, the big thing leaning in...�

�Viv la Vy�j,� Jackie said, beside him, rapt, her hand gripping his shoulder hard, �the Virgin of Miracles. She�s come, Bobby. Danbala has sent her!�

�You were under a while, kid,� the tall man said to Bobby. �What happened?�

Bobby blinked, glanced frantically around, found Jammer�s eyes, glazed with drugs and pain.

�Tell him,� Jammer said.

�I couldn�t get to the Yak. Somebody grabbed me, I don�t know how.�

�Who?� The tall man had his arm around the girl now.

�She said her name was Slide, From Los Angeles.�

�Jaylene,� the man said

The phone on Jammer�s desk began to chime.

�Answer it,� the man said.

Bobby turned as Jackie reached over and tapped the call-bar below the square screen. The screen lit, flickered, and showed them a man�s face, broad and very pale, the eyes hooded and sleepy-looking. His hair was bleached nearly white, and brushed straight back. He had the meanest mouth Bobby had ever seen.

�Turner.� the man said, �we�d better talk now. You haven�t got a lot of time left. I think you should get those people out of the room, for starts.�

29 BOXMAKER

THE KNOTTED LINE stretched on and on. At times they came to angles, forks of the tunnel. Here the line would be wrapped around a strut or secured with a fat transparent gob of epoxy.

The air was as stale, but colder. When they stopped to rest in a cylindrical chamber, where the shaft widened before a triple branching, Marly asked Jones for the flat little work light he wore across his forehead on a gray elastic strap. Holding it in one of the red suit�s gauntlets, she played it over the chamber�s wail. The surface was etched with patterns, microscopically fine lines.�