Skater and Archangel backed away. While Trey attacked the wall with the drill, Skater checked in with the other half of the team holding steady in the drainage pipe, letting them know what was going on.

The drill bit chewed into the thin wall and expelled a cloud of gray dust in the light cones given off by the flashes. Skater had his adjusted to its widest aperture and aimed at the ceiling so it partially lit up the room. Archangel kept hers directed at the spot where Trey was drilling.

Without warning, the keening of the drill changed pitches.

Trey, standing tightly muscled behind the tool, suddenly surged forward, then cut the power. He pushed his goggles up on his face and wiped away dust and plascrete chips. Stepping back, he pulled the bit out of the three-centimeter hole. "I'm through."

Archangel moved forward and peered through the hole. The flash beam was bigger than the drill bit had been, and the residual light bounced back over her face. "I see it."

When she moved back to the gear she'd brought, Skater shone his flash through the drilled hole. He could barely see the thick cable trunk to his right, only three or four centimeters away. From what he could make of the room on the other side of the wall, it was an electronics sublet. Banks of service computers filled two of the walls. A desk and a chair sat in front of the third wall, but no one was there.

Skater turned to Trey. "You didn't say there was an office."

"Those are just back-up and relay stations. There's no reason anyone would come down here much." Archangel held a probe device with a flexible end in her hand. A small monitor on the other end above a waldo flickered to life when she turned it on. "Arthoscope. I should be able to implant a tap into the circuitry." She flexed her hand, and the long probe wiggled in response.

Skater peered over her shoulder as she inserted the probe into the hole. The monitor was rendered in gray tones and showed the thick trunk of the cable. It swelled until it filled the whole screen.

Archangel worked the controls and a humming became an undercurrent running through the room. On the small screen, a tube restricted the camera eye's view and sank into the trunk. The end of the tube was jagged, cut at an angle and filled with sawteeth. There was a buzz, then a circular section of the outer shell of the trunk about the size of a shirt button tumbled inside.

Adjusting the focus of the camera. Archangel brought the wiring inside into view. She worked quickly and confidently. The tap looked like an ovoid insect with six stumpy legs. A heartbeat later, the legs wrapped around one of the wires.

"That should get me into their system." Archangel said. She fed a datajack with attached line through the scope and linked up. The other end slotted into her deck, then she jacked into the unit.

Skater moved toward the deck and activated the floppy-screened display Wheeler had set up so he could monitor Archangel's progression through the NuGene system, in case things went really bad for her, he could attempt to manually pull her out. Dealing with dump shock beat certain death from black or gray killer IC.

Archangel formed on the screen, a lambent green version of herself with feathered wings almost a meter longer than she was tall. The setup usually only showed the decker's point of view, but Archangel had modified it to also show the persona icon she used to maneuver in the Matrix by creating a double-image that shadowed her moves. The words I'M HERE typed across the bottom of the screen as she used the one-way communications link.

Then icon flapped its wings and the world of cyberspace came to life around her.

Archangel flew through multicolored flares of data pulsing through NuGene's system. The System Access Node was the first to challenge her. A gray gargoyle of a thing with amputated leathery wings and a face full of scars, it rose from the asteroid that blocked the path Archangel wanted to take. Broken silver chains hung from its thick wrists.

She paused and plucked a feather from her wings. She held it in her open palm and blew it at the fist-waving gargoyle. When the green feather touched the SAN, the feather popped, then the gargoyle calmed and sat back down on his prison of rock. A pucker opened in the rock and Archangel swooped toward it, her wings tightly closed around her.

FAKED PASSCODE WORKED. Archangel transmitted as the world went black around her.

Skater felt tense, counting the seconds that she'd disappeared. Then the Matrix appeared again, becoming a shimmering waterfall that represented NuGene's central switching office.

Archangel exploded through the rainbow-colored spray, her wings spread. It looked like a hundred different tunnels were stacked on the river's surface ahead of her. IF THIS BROWSE PROGRAM WORKS, ONE OF THE TUNNELS SHOULD-

One of the tunnels darkened. Archangel swooped toward it, almost out of control. I'M IN. NOW IF THE DECEPTION AND SLEAZE UTILITIES WORK, I SHOULD BE AT THE CPU IN SECONDS.

Skater knew Archangel had set up her icon to resemble a preventive maintenance program that was used primarily in elven computer systems. Whether it would get her into the heart of the security encoded CPU was another matter.

Suddenly, the tunnel she was in widened and became a hexagon, then just as quickly shifted into a museum wall of niches filled with precious artifacts. NEED TO FIGURE OUT WHICH ONE WE WANT.

Archangel stood in the center of the room. A glow surrounded her, golden and full. Jagged scarlet threads unfurled from her fingers and snaked out toward the various artifacts. In just a few seconds, a porcelain cup formed from a casting of a leaping dolphin pulsed with white-hot energy. She walked toward it. GOT IT!

Before she could touch it, a green cloud swirled into the room, and a gnarled elf formed only a few meters away. He was rail-thin and hunch-backed, with pince-nez sitting on his blade of a nose. He demanded that Archangel identify herself.

ITS NOT BUYING THE PREV-MAINT DISGUISE, she transmitted. I'M BOOTING IN A RELOCATE UTILITY. MAYBE IT WON'T KNOW WE'RE INSIDE THE BUILDING.

Skater watched in tense silence. He'd never seen Archangel do her work before. He didn't like the helpless feeling it left him with,

I'M GOING TO TRY TO GET THE FILE AND DOWNLOAD IT. SINCE I'M NOT TAKING ANYTHING OR CRASHING ANYTHING, MAYBE THE DISGUISE WILL HOLD. The winged creature reached for the cup, her fingers barely touching the surface. The deck hummed against Skater's palm, downloading the information.

Then the wizened elf exploded, becoming a humanoid figure that looked like it was made of obsidian. Fires shifted beneath its glassy skin as it closed on Archangel.

Her wings unfurled, Archangel stepped away from the cup as she assumed a defensive posture. She plucked another feather from her wings and threw it like a dart at the obsidian elf. The feather struck and was absorbed. Immediately, the killer IC slowed in its approach. I'VE GOT A SLOW UTILITY TAGGED TO IT, FOLLOWING UP WITH ATTACK UTILITIES. The figure reeled under the attack. Then it threw a complex multi-colored cube at Archangel. Before it reached her, a mirrored barrier rose around her. The cube struck sparks from it, and the colors clung to the shiny surface, whirling madly within it. TAGGED ME. THOSE VIRUSES ARE EATING AWAY AT MY DEFENSES. I'M GOING FOR IT. She stepped from the protective barrier and grabbed the cup as the obsidian figure threw itself at her, its scarred face twisted in rage.

NO WAY TO BE QUIET ABOUT THIS NOW, Archangel transmitted. She shattered the cup against the stone floor and breathed in all the cinnamon-brown vapors that came up from it. The obsidian figure was almost on top of her when she wrapped her wings around herself and disappeared. JACKING OUT! The screen went blank. Alarms shuddered to life within the building. Skater activated the commlink.