“You’d have to have some way of directing the spirit. Otherwise, it would wipe out every file it passed through along the way. Maybe if you got it to home in on a keyword…”
“That’s it!” Carla said. “The spirit showed up in the research lab node of the Mitsuhama system as soon as you decrypted the name on the project file. It’s also wiped datastores at a theology school and a televangelist network, and keeps attacking a woman by the name of Luci Ferraro each time she tries to access any cormputer or telecom unit that’s linked to the Matrix. What do these four things have in common?” She smiled, pleased with herself for putting the pieces together and waiting for Corwin to do the same.
Corwin frowned, puzzled. Then he broke into wide, snag-toothed grin. “The word Lucifer.”
“There’s your keyword,” Carla concluded.
Corwin shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense,” he countered. “You say this spirit was developed at the Mitsuhama research lab. Why would they target their own facility?”
“As a test, maybe?”
Corwin snorted with laughter. “A test capable of wiping out their entire data-storage system? No way!”
“No, not a test,” Carla agreed. Then the answer hit her. “The spirit is trying to wipe out the files on itself. In the process, it’s erasing a lot of unrelated data-any file that contains the word Lucifer. But why does it feel the need to do that? It’s already killed the man who conjured it and become a free spirit. Even if it was once under someone’s control, nobody’s controlling it now.”
Corwin reached for his deck. “This is totally wacked. I’d better warn my chummers about-”
“Don’t!” Carla grabbed the ork’s hand. “Keep this to yourself, O.K.? At least until I’ve completed my story. That run you just did was on KKRU time and as an employee of this station, you have to honor your confidentiality oath. Agreed?”
Corwin sighed heavily. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Good.” She left him staring morosely at his deck and hurried back into the newsroom.
15
Pita sat in the basement room, stroking the white cat. She stared at the ray of sunlight that slanted through the broken window, trying to ignore the hunger that gnawed at her belly. She listened instead to the sounds of people moving through the store above her, to the traffic outside, to the purring of the cat in her lap. Without meaning to do so, she began to hum a ballad she’d heard on one of the muzak stations last week. She’d laughed at it when she first heard it; the song was some mushy thing, not a bit like the scream-rock she usually listened to. But humming it now somehow made her feel better.
She stroked the cat’s soft fur, concentrating on its texture in an effort to focus her thoughts. She was beginning to feel light-headed, dizzy. As her mind drifted, her body felt thinner, less substantial. All that existed was the dust motes, the sunlight the rumbling purr of the cat. Or was that the sound of her humming? The two had blended together in a gentle harmony.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the floor drifted away. Pita was floating, bobbing like a dust mote in the air. With a sense of wonder, she unfolded her legs from their crossed position and placed her feet on the floor. Through her legs, which had become translucent, she could see her body, still seated and leaning back against the wall. Her eyes had closed and her head hung to one side, mouth open. Her chest was still; it didn’t look as though she was breathing.
Amazingly, the sight did not frighten her. It seemed natural, right. This detached perspective was better, somehow, than confronting her own face in a mirror. From this angle, her wide face, jutting teeth, and broad shoulders seemed perfectly proportioned. She reached out to touch herself but overshot her mark, and her hand passed through the wall. Amazed, she drew it back. She could pass through man-made objects as if they were not there.
She looked down at her body once more. The cat, still curled in her lap, climbed out of its own body. Its ghostly form stepped delicately aside, extending each of its back legs in a spine-lengthening stretch. And then it began to change. It grew larger, sleeker, more supple. Its fur took on the pattern of a tabby cat, but with stripes the color of a rainbow. Its eyes began to glow, to turn into molten pools of gold. And its whiskers began to hum with a strange electric force, When the transformation was complete, it looked up at her and gave a faint, ghostly mrrow.
For the space of a few heartbeats, Pita was unable o speak. At last she was able to utter a single word: “Cat?”
The animal nodded. Then it turned and leaped gracefully onto a box, and from there to the window ledge.
Pita felt no fear-only a burning curiosity to see where this magical creature was going. She followed it, climbing up and through the wall as if it were not there. She had a brief moment of disorientation as her form flowed through the cement; she saw every grain, every particle. Then she was standing in the alley, beside Cat The animal gave a quick backward glance, then trotted around a trash can and into another wall.
Pita followed, her mind bubbling with laughter as she explored her newfound perceptions. She could walk through walls, or across a busy street while cars zoomed through her ghostly form. She was jostled once, when a passenger in one of the cars made contact with her, and found that trees felt equally solid. But she could, if she chose, climb a flight of stairs, her feet never once touching them. Or she could wade chest-deep through a floor, as if it were made of water. The only things that presented a barrier to her were those that were alive-people, plants, and the earth itself.
And the things she could see! Magical energies swirled and eddied about her like colored mists. In some spots she could sense strong emotional residues-here, in this intersection, someone had suffered great pain. There, in that room, was a bright sunburst of joy. The streets were alive with odd-looking, magical creatures. Some were the size of mice, with multiple heads and shimmering fur. They scuttled up the street or peeked out of drain holes. Other presences were more natural-and more alien. When Pita walked through a park, the trees, grass, and earth pulsed with life, with emotion.
Drifting along a busy sidewalk, she could clearly see the violet aura that clung to one of the men in the crowd. Looking closely at him as she passed, she saw his true form-not human at all, but a hideous, misshapen beast with reptilian scales and cloven feet. It exuded a miasma of hatred and anger. Pita circled warily around the creature, but it seemed as oblivious to her presence as any of the others she passed.
She followed Cat for sometime. She had no idea what streets they followed; she could see the signs, but the words on them were meaningless symbols. Some were angled scribbles, others were asymmetrical patterns of circles, triangles, and squares. She was able to roughly gauge her progress by keeping an eye on the Renraku and Aztechnology complexes. But although she could pass through walls with ease, she could not see through them. Much of the time, the buildings blocked her view.
Eventually Cat led her to an old, wood-frame building on the corner of a quiet residential street. It looked as if it had once been a Stuffer Shack; the sign over the front door was the right shape, even if Pita couldn’t read it. The windows were boarded up and the door secured with a chain and padlock. At some point in the past, a vehicle had collided with a corner of the building; large sheets of chipboard covered a gaping, splintered hole. Cat stopped in front of this boarded-up wall, looked back at Pita, then disappeared inside.