“It’s okay,” said Jayjay squeezing her tighter. “We’re outta here. We’ll teleport. Go in the orphidnet and look at the Merz Boat. And be looking at this alley with your eyes.”

Thuy followed Jayjay’s link to the gently rocking deck of the bargelike Merz Boat with its central cabin like an oversized loaf of bread. She had a moment of double vision: water waves flowed across the alley walls. And now Jayjay linked her to a striped, silk-spinning caterpillar that crawled all over the Merz Boat scene, smoothing over the all-but-imperceptible gaps in the remotely viewed image, interpolating among the orphid-based data points. No orphidnet image had ever looked this real.

Next Jayjay showed Thuy how to weave her thoughts from scene to scene, binding the alley and the seascape together. Thuy’s mind spread out. She was neither here nor there. All of her particles were in synch with each other, temporarily free of the outside world. She felt very tiny, she was falling—where? With a thump, Thuy and Jayjay landed on the soft deck of—

“Welcome to the Merz Boat,” whispered Jayjay. “You and me, Thuy, forever.”

Chapter 9

The Attack Shoons

The bay’s riffles were faintly lit by the San Francisco lights, the reflections roughened by the endless rain. The soft plastic scow flexed with the water’s gentle chop. Double-jointed mounds of Craigor’s art projects stood heaped beside his little workshop at the boat’s stern. Amidships, the glowing windows of a long cabin illuminated fishing nets and a big glass tank of cuttlefish. In the bow, a group of Jil’s shoons chattered among themselves and called soft greetings.

“How—” began Thuy, but now one of the cabin doors opened and here came Jil Zonder. Although the night was dark, Thuy could see Jil clearly via the orphidnet: perfect bob of dark hair, straight nose and great cheekbones, almond eyes and crisply cut mouth. Thuy had always admired Jil, and even now she wanted to like her.

“You made it, Thuy!” exclaimed Jil. Seen up close, her face was tired and worn. The sudocoke was dragging her down. “I watched Jayjay watching your reading,” said Jil. “I caught the part about Topping’s office having that grill connection to the ExaExa labs.” She rubbed at her temples distractedly. “Um, if you can swear you saw Luty there, I know this cop who can get a search warrant. Bim Brown, the San Francisco Chief of Police—he’s a Founders fan. He’s ready to launch a surprise raid on Exa-Exa tomorrow—last chance before Inauguration Day.”

“Aren’t you giving away the surprise, talking about it out loud?” said Thuy.

“I hardly know what I’m saying anymore,” said Jil, suddenly on the point of tears. “Nobody cares about me anymore. I don’t matter.”

“Do you mind that I’m here?” said Thuy uncertainly. She felt naïve and plain and stupidly perky before this suffering older woman.