Base Metal (The Sword Book 2)

went down his spine, a half-formed hunch he dared not voice. He asked, "Lauren? I want you to pull up a record of the probe test I ran for Professor Singh, and emulate it against the artifact."
She tilted her head, puzzled. "That was a standard ping, without hardjack emulation. It will not return any useful data."
"I know. Run it."
A phantom record of Firenze appeared and inserted a key into the sphere. There was no response.
Firenze felt his throat close, his suspicion taking form. He said, "Pass me the test. I'm gonna run it with an active probe." The key appeared in his hand, and Firenze stepped closer to the sphere. The surface rippled as he approached, pulled away as if to welcome him. He reached towards the silver, and it pulled away, exposed ever-deeper realms. "Are you reading this?" He asked.
"Yes." She said. He felt her hand grab his shoulder, squeeze for reassurance. Another tic. She asked, "Why would Zeta design a lock which required a hardjack? The hardware is rare and restricted, and it could endanger their contracts. This is illogical."
The peeled-open surface grew brighter. The chime had returned, swelling slowly through the room. Firenze answered her question, but his gaze was locked onto the ever-shrinking space between his key and the retreating surface, "You know they have toys they don't like to share." The key struck the surface, and silver splashed over his glove. A data spike erupted in his code-view. He observed, "It appears to change when I attempt to interact, but it drops the handshake. I think this requires direct connection to get further."
"That will expose us to a trace."
"I'll need you to keep the link scrambled."
"This is not advisable."
"I know. I know. But we're only going to get one crack at this. We either go in now or walk away." He glanced at her, the silver light-ripples washing over her face. In the swirling radiance, she almost looked frightened. He asked, "Can it be done?"
She stepped closer, and the fear-hint vanished, replaced by absolute confidence. "Of course." She replied. "But we'll need full integration. Are you ready?"
He pulled in a final breath, both in this world and the other, braced himself against the storm. "Yes." He breathed.
She pressed against him, fingers entwined, a weight on his mind like he was pushing through a drunken haze. He smelled perfume, felt her heat against his chest. He clutched her-
The world unfurled. He became more. Blood thundered through his veins, every one a unique sensation, total and realized. Code pulsed in time to his heart. The assist box kicked into high gear, its myriad processors chained to his will. A whim, and thought executed. He could see himself, feel himself, slumped on his filthy mattress, the dig of every misshapen foam blister clear. He could see himself, standing before the sphere, radiant and unified with the mask. Old math and chemical commands entwined in harmony. Man and mask moved as one.
They touched the sphere, and it responded.
Access codes flashed before him, and tumblers toppled into place. Security gates, encryption, and passcodes dissolved. Their will, their command, 'open', pulsed through the net, called up a thousand unnameable programs. One lock fell. A second followed. The third gate resisted, but they adapted. A wrench became a hammer, became a scalpel, and the final barrier yielded.
They stood in the sphere host, in a Zeta vault in the North African Hub. They ghosted through servers and read the naked source. They stared down from high orbitals and measured the green-amid-brown of the gleaming desert campus. They turned their gaze through a pivoting camera in the maintenance access hallway and watched the maintenance man push his rickety cart. They were Argos All-Seeing, a hundred hungry eyes fixed upon all the world. They were Grant Firenze, laying helpless in filth and squalor. They were an emulation of the ancient, molded to their user, five years beyond the purge limit.
This was why the hardjack was illegal: not because it was bad, but because it was good. It might have been God. They were not programming, not anymore; they were not merely acting upon the world. They conducted a symphony of will. They moved, and the ocean crashed over the Zeta firewalls. A wall of pure, brilliant logic battered aside the defenses. The sphere lay open. They entered, and the seas followed.
They rode the tide, intent and actualization in harmony.
The sphere crashed down around them, tried to seal them within. A hundred ICE programs hunted, sharks in the sea. The waters thickened, attempted to turn to stone, and lock their location. Their counters were reflexive and absolute: block, shield, spike. They unleashed spoofers, schools of pseudofish which pulled away the sharks.
There, at the heart of the sea, crystal lay shimmering in the depths. They descended, and the water turned to acid. Their skin blackened, peeled flesh from bone. In the torrent, they knew the threat: burner viruses, the most dangerous, illegal sort of anti-wetware intrusion countermeasures. Burners directly targeted hardjacks, tried to jump the machine-mind barrier, and cook the gray matter. They were too deep to withdraw, too close to turn back.
In a far-away world, a young man convulsed on a mattress. This was not important.
They reached for the crystal, and a thousand hands reached with them, mirrors and shells which burned away to shield them from the attack. A false mask disintegrated. Another. A dozen imaginary hardjacks snapped, a dozen imaginary people died, and with each, the burner would retreat, announce success to its master, then discover it had been spoofed, and return. Each iteration bought them time.
Fingers closed over stone, and the crystal melted away, loaded into their conscious.
They snapped back from the server, from the sphere.
They were no longer in orbit, in the hallway camera, or ghosting through the server. They were no longer one.
Firenze staggered back and gasped in two worlds. His mind was rubber, his vision doubled. The expanse faded, bliss and perfection slid from his grasp like memories of a