Hex Read Online Free Page B

I’m here,” she added, chasing a grain of rice with her chopsticks. “I might come with you the next time you visit the Countess, Wraith.”
    â€œI told her you were a hacker,” Wraith said diffidently. “She might offer you work.”
    â€œThat’s not a problem.” Raven shrugged. “I could use the credits.”
    â€œAre you going to log on again now?” Wraith asked as Raven got up from the table.
    â€œLater,” she told him. “I’ve got to get some rest first.” She unlaced her large black army boots and lay down on the bed fully dressed. She was asleep in under a minute and Kez looked at Wraith in surprise.
    â€œShe’s a heavy sleeper,” he explained. “Don’t worry, you won’t wake her.” He got up and headed toward the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower—don’t steal anything.”
    â€œHey!” Kez began, but Wraith had already left. He grimaced at the closed door. Wraith had obviously decided that he wasn’t to be trusted without even knowing about his attempt to make off with the flitter and despite the fact that Kez had returned the cred card. Sullenly he pulled a chair in front of the computer unit and idly punched buttons to operate the vidscreen. He could get only a few channels and he flipped through them several times before switching the unit off again. Raven was still out of it and Kez decided to follow her example. He didn’t bother to take off his boots, crawling under the covers and wrapping himself tightly in the thin blankets. By the time Wraith returned from the bathroom Kez was already half asleep.

2
PROPHETIC GREETING
    Raven had slept dreamlessly for two hours when the sound of an alarm going off somewhere outside jerked her awake. Kez and Wraith were still fast asleep, the boy wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, Wraith tossing uneasily on top of his bed. Raven got out of bed and crossed to the computer unit. The alarm had already ceased its wail but since she was awake she might as well take the opportunity to hack in privately. She wasn’t solitary by nature, although she knew that was what her brother believed, but she was wary about being observed in the symbiotic connection she had with computers. No one could mistake Raven for an ordinary hacker when she was working for real. She could, if she chose, act like an ordinary user, her fingers flying soundlessly across the keypad to perform the necessary operations. But she found it a tedious and distasteful method. Now she let her hands rest lightly on the keypad and closed her eyes as her consciousness entered the computer.
    This was where Raven was now, speeding down data pathways in a microsecond. No system was closed to her and she extended tendrils of her consciousness in all directions, searching always for a mention of Rachel. Her perception of the net was not something she could describe, the way the circuitry resolved itself in her mind into shapes and colors, tastes, textures, sounds, and smells. Every sense was wrapped up in the experience so that she could not explain how she knew something, only that she knew it. That was how she realized something was different when she ran into something new at the end of a data pathway.
    Instantly all her tendrils of consciousness were concentrated in one place, wrapping around the strangeness to identify it. Incredibly there was resistance and Raven knew suddenly with a flash of insight that this was more than a program. It was another personality in the net. An amateur undoubtedly. The other was suffused with fear and in its disorientation betrayed its inexperience.
    > relax < Raven commanded, whether in words or thoughts she didn’t know, holding the stranger firmly in place. > who/what are you? < She was aware of another struggle to be free and added impatiently: > i am not part of the security services or the cps. if i were, could i do/ feel/be this? <
    > let me go! <