(5)  Lefty

Channa let herself into the RV, found Duende sitting on the back seat,
staring out the window.  He didn't seem to react to her presence, though
she was certain he'd noticed her, probably before she ever touched the
door.

"I think I know why Jayhawk died," she said without preamble.  "Do you 
remember when Lefty kidnapped her, and we rescued her?  And everyone
was worried because it seemed ridiculously easy, so I mindprobed her and
found she'd been tampered with, but couldn't make out what the commands
were supposed to do?"

"She set them off later, in the Osiris CPU, and melted down most of the
University net.  I remember."

"Afterwards we tried to figure out what they were...."

**

"I realize this will be difficult," said Channa, "but try to relax, clear
your mind of extraneous thoughts."

To her surprise, Jayhawk nodded confidently, settled back into the cushions,
closed her eyes, and in the space of three deliberate breaths seemed almost
to go into a trance.  Eyes still closed, she said quietly, "First thing a
matrix-runner learns.  Go ahead."

Cursing the injuries that would not let her use magic to aid Jayhawk's 
recollection, Channa questioned her, stepping through the sequence of actions 
that had destroyed Osiris, watching for anything that would suggest the buried 
material peeking out.  There was nothing.  Memories up to a point, and 
then--blankness.

"Not a flicker," said Jayhawk, her voice expressionless.  "Channa, I
thought hypnosis couldn't make you do something against your will."

"Usually," said Channa.  "I thought you couldn't damage hardware from
software."

"I see your point.  What now?"

"We try again.  Remember what you did, focus on that, describe it in detail.
Don't concern yourself with me.  Basically you're talking to yourself, 
explaining to yourself what you're doing.  Start with testing the node for,
um, usage level."

She listened to Jayhawk's recitation, nudging her along when she faltered
but otherwise trying not to interfere.  She could understand almost none
of it.

"....and set off the internal alert."  Jayhawk's voice trailed off; Channa
looked up sharply, saw her go limp as a rag, not breathing visibly at all.
"Jay!"  She shook the decker, gently at first, then harder.  "Jayhawk!
*Caroline!*  Wake up!"

For a moment Jay's head lolled bonelessly; then she stiffened, drew in an
unsteady breath, said aggrievedly, "Why'd you wake me up?  I almost had it."

Channa held her shoulders for a moment, dizzy with relief--it had been 
all too reminiscent of the death of Wired Lightning's decker.  "Go too deep
and you won't remember any of it--that's useless.  We can always try again.
What happened?"

Jayhawk stared off into space for a moment, then said, "I was clearing
everything out of Osiris and pulling in a lot of power, in preparation for
loading a new OS which was going to extensively--this is crazy--extensively
reconfigure the hardware.  I was waiting on a transmission from...outside...
with software and specs, I'd sent a message requesting them, that must have
been what Duende saw.  We were--I was going to pull the whole system 
together, single-user, and dedicate it to...this is hard to explain."  She
launched into a flood of technicalities.

"Whoah," said Channa.  "Speak English, Jay.  I'm missing every other word."

"You've been in my *mind*," said Jayhawk with annoyance, "but you can't
understand what I'm saying?"  She glared at the older woman.

"I'm not probing you now, I can't, it hurts too much; and I haven't got
the background to understand a lot of what I picked up earlier.  I don't
know anything about the Matrix, and eight hours is hardly time to learn."

"Got it."  Jayhawk seemed relieved.  "In English?  Alive...."

"Alive?"

"Something like that.  Coherent, very complex, autonomous.  *Awakened*,
that's a good word.  We were going to Awaken Osiris."  She whistled.
"I can't help thinking it would have worked, too."

"'We?'" said Channa softly.  "Why would they want *you* to do this, Jay, why
not do it themselves?  Because it kills the decker who implements it?"

Jayhawk glanced down, shrugged.  "I wouldn't be surprised."  Her tone was
somewhere between guilt and anger.  "Sure did a job on my machine."

**

"We never did disentangle all of the commands in there, it was very skill-
fully done and we were too busy.  Jay felt, and I'm afraid I agreed with
her, that she could probably resist them now that she knew they were there.
But in retrospect....It was keyed to go off when she found herself in
control of a CPU; and that's what she was trying for at the Hidden Fortress."

Duende nodded thoughtfully.  "At Osiris it drew enough power to burn out
every transformer on campus.  Fortress was a much larger system, and probably
had a substantial power plant of its own.  The code may not have been
configured to deal with that, leading to the explosion.  I think you're
right, Channa."

"I should have realized sooner."

"I regret losing Jayhawk, but I expected to lose someone in that attack.
It appears that Lefty may inadvertantly have done us a favor."

Channa bit her lip, choked back the angry response she wanted to make.
After two months with Duende, she should have known better than to expect
sympathy from him.  She contented herself with one barb, over her shoulder
as she left:  "Makes our 'destruction of the Hidden Fortress' look pretty damn
accidental, doesn't it?"

She had never found it easy to read his expression.  There was nothing there
now, nothing at all.

--

(c) 1991 Mary K. Kuhner