No, Sam thought, I am demonstrating a remarkable amount of faith. Your feathers only seem to get ruffled when you’re bluffing about how good you are. “You’ll not keep a copy to use on another run?”

“Sir Corp. you wound me. Of course not. Expediency is the goad that forced me to this pass. A decker of my skill opens what he will, at will.”

“Glad to hear it, Dodger,” Sam answered. That probably means you can’t do it. “I’ll put it in.”

While Sam entered his code into the datastation, Kham pulled Sally aside. They returned with four pairs of Renraku work coveralls and matching hardhats from the locker room. As the runners started to put them on, Sam just stood there, holding the set Sally had handed him.

“This isn’t going to work, you know,” he told them. “Sally and I might pass, but you two are obviously not Renraku.”

“S’matter, Raku not an equal opportunity employer?” the Ork rumbled.

“Not if they can avoid it.”

“Just put the stuff on, paleface. Sally’ll take care of it.”

With little other choice, Sam complied. “What do you means Sally will take care of it?” he asked, sealing the white suit over the black one they had given him.

“An illusion spell,” she said. “The guards will see what they expect to see.”

“If you can do that, why bother with the coveralls?”

“It’s easier this way. The less I have to twist to make them see what I want them to see, the easier it is to make them see it.”

“If you could do this, why didn’t we just walk in the front door?”

“Trid,” she said. “Now be quiet for a minute and let me concentrate.”

She closed her eyes and put her left hand on the hilt of her magesword where it poked through the slit pocket. Her right hand contorted through a series of gestures as she moved it slowly back and forth in front of her. Sam saw, or thought he saw, a vague glow shimmer briefly into existence, trailing the path of her mystic passes.

It was too strange. He turned away in time to catch an expression of nervousness on Ghost’s face. Was something going wrong? He turned to the Ork and found Kham staring in fascination at Sally. His ugly face showed a mixture of awe and lust. The Ork’s elbow gouged Sam in the chest.

“I love it when she does that,” he whispered.

Sally’s eyes snapped open and the spell was done. She directed them to gather tool boxes to hide their weapons. That accomplished, they boarded a shuttle cart and rode to the elevators.

The guard at alpha level received them incuriously. Handing over the passcards, he barely looked at the little group. Sam thought it just as well because Kham stuck his thumb up one nostril and waggled his fingers at the guard as he stuck out his paw to receive the card supposed to be his. Unbelievably, the guard failed to react.

As soon as they were safely inside another elevator car for the ride to higher levels, Sam leaned over and whispered

in Sally’s ear.

“Kham’s antics were hardly the expected behavior of a workman. Why didn’t the guard react?”

She chuckled softly. “I’m used to Kham. I just work extra hard on his part of the spell.”

When the car sighed to a halt, they exited onto a promenade. It was mostly empty. The few late-night strollers ignored them, just as they would a legitimate work crew. The same way, Sam realized, that he had always ignored work crews. He wondered if Sally’s spell was even necessary here. They soon came to another guard station, and Sam was glad of the spell’s effectiveness as Kham stuck out a deep purple tongue in the direction of the woman behind the counter. She only wished them good luck in an uninterested way before returning her attention back to the trid set squawking softly from below eye level.

Three more elevators and two guard stations later, they reached the Computer Systems Research office. They passed the guard there with no more trouble than before. Once inside, a quick check with the Elf got an all-quiet signal.

“It’s been too smooth,” Ghost declared. He pulled his Ingrams out of the toolbox, slipping one into his belt and keeping the other ready in his hand. Kham and Sally grabbed their own guns. They seemed to trust the samurai’s intuition more readily than the Elf’s report on the security conditions.

“Safety first, paleface,” the Amerindian said when Sam made no move to reclaim the weapon they had given him. “You won’t have time to come back for it if we get hosed.”

Reluctantly, Sam picked up the slivergun.

“Let’s be quick,” Sally said, passing out the containers of counteragent that Castillano’s biotech had supplied. “Spread it around. We don’t know how much and exactly where the stuff’s been used. I’ll clean whatever’s left of Seretech’s dirty toys out of the closet.”

They split up.

Sam was starting to spray his third room, a large work area for the system developers, when Sally joined them.

“Got them all,” she said before starting to spray the far side of the room with counteragent.

A minute later, a red-clad guard appeared. The man might have been making an unscheduled patrol, or he might have been on his way to the head. He didn’t appear to be in a hurry, and that encouraged Sam. After so many successes, he was almost comfortable with the completeness of Sally’s spell. He felt almost safe. With Sally in the room with him, little could go wrong. Her spell would keep them from discovery.

As the guard passed him, Sam raised the hand holding the gun and waved. The man waved back and continued on his way. The guard was halfway through the door when he stopped and turned around, his eyes going wide.

“Watch yourself, lady,” the guard shouted at Sally as he reached for his weapon. “Armed infiltrator!”

“N… No,” Sam stuttered, raising the slivergun.

The guard ignored him, clearing his holster and dropping into firing stance.

Sam’s finger tightened on the trigger of the slivergun. The weapon bucked as it unleashed a steady stream of plastic fiechettes. Closely grouped needles traveling at slightly subsonic speed stitched a crimson line across the guard’s chest and right shoulder. He tumbled backward, bright blood spraying from his mouth, landing sprawled and still. His gun struck the floor, its metal ringing with a clear note that seemed obscenely pure in the sudden gory disarray.

Sam’s own gun dropped to the floor with a harsh clatter. The sound of Sam’s shot brought Ghost and Kham running.

“Aw, drek! What happened?” the Ork barked.

“Guard must have caught a flaw in the spell,” Sally answered.