Free Cybermancy by Kelly McCullough Page B

shifted shape so fast in my life—burned my nose pretty badly, too, what with the cable being on fire—but it was the only thing I could think of. You got lucky then. Once it got into the cable, it was hot and nasty, but slow. I was able to rip it free of the athame before it nailed you. I’m not sure why it didn’t move faster.”
    “Maybe destroying the line as it went degraded the transmission rate?”
    “Maybe,” said Melchior. “Whatever the reason, you’d better thank whatever high-ranking cousin of yours is the patron of hackers.”
    “Eris,” I interjected.
    He nodded. “Of course. I must be feeling more scrambled than I thought. Maybe you should send her some flowers or chocolate or something.”
    “Tomorrow, if I’m still alive.” Not that Discord actually ever intervened to help people, but hey, it couldn’t hurt. “What happened to the cable after you pulled it?”
    “Consumed.” He pointed at the floor, where a broken circle had burned itself into the linoleum.
    “So much for my damage deposit,” I said.
    “There’s a surprise.” Cerice’s sleepy voice came through the arch into the hall. “Have you ever gotten a deposit back?”
    “What’s your point?” I asked.
    “Only that you’re a bit closer to Eris in nature than you are by blood. Chaos and discord follow in your wake. Clotho was right to call you a dark bird.”
    I let it pass. This might be my last day on the right side of Hades’ gate, and I didn’t want to spend it fighting with Cerice.
    “Feeling a little crabby, are we?” I asked.
    She smiled sadly. “A little, perhaps. It has something to do with being wakened from a sound sleep by a swearing webgoblin and the smell of my boyfriend’s charred flesh.”
    “Hey!” I said. “I’m only a little burned.” I held my hand to my nose. “You can’t even smell it close-up.”
    “My mistake, then. Care to tell me what happened?”
    “In a moment,” I answered. “First, I need to see to Mel’s injuries. Come here, you.” I lifted him out of the sink and into my lap.
    “Melchior, Root Access. Please.”
    “Root Access granted,” he replied, his face going a little dreamy.
    “Righthand/allfingers/fingertips.source,” I said, “Terminate Signal. Initiate Recovery Cycle. Run Command, Run Command. Nose/networkingport.source Terminate Signal. Initiate Recovery Cycle. Run Command, Run Command. Root Exit.”
    “Exiting Root,” he responded. I’d just shut down the pain sensors in the affected areas and initiated a regeneration program for the damage. “Oh, that’s much better. I should have thought of it myself.”
    “Good,” I said. “Why don’t you go fetch Cerice breakfast while I fill her in on what happened. ”
    “Sure,” said Melchior. “That way I get to skip the safety lecture, too.” Cerice shot him a sharp look but didn’t say anything. He bowed low and winked. “What do you want, my lady? Murray’s Hall just put in a computerized ordering system.”
    She grinned and asked for a breakfast every bit as big and elaborate as mine. With another bow, he was gone. While we waited, I told Cerice about our little misadventure.
    “Interesting,” she said, when I’d finished. “Remind me not to try to hack any of Necessity’s equipment. So what now?”
    “Now we check your e-mail and hope that Shara’s come in while we were napping. I can’t really see past that at the moment. The idea that I went through my little encounter with Cerberus just to buy a day pass out of the underworld is a bit too much for me to get around.”
    “For you to get around?” asked Melchior, returning with Cerice’s breakfast. “What about me? If you get nailed by the Furies, I’m going to have to break in a new employer. And in case you hadn’t noticed, most of your extended family thinks the solution to free will and the AI is an electronic lobotomy.”
    I wanted to laugh—he was making wise to cheer me up—I just couldn’t manage it. I tried instead for