“Well, isn’t that special?” Zoe muttered as she gazed down at the purity church’s site. Her eyes shifted and she spotted something else. “Fuck me!”

“What is it, Zoe?” Zane asked. He was no coder, slicer, or even network admin, but the nurse had gotten Zoe to agree to talk to him about what she saw in real time since she didn’t have any tactical training.

“The church’s network looks like a picturesque old white country church sitting on a hill. It has long narrow stained-glass windows, white painted walls, a black roof, and tall steeple or bell tower. I’m not getting any closer to see which,” Zoe answered.

“Why not?”

“The hill is in an inner Castle’s yard surrounded by a Citadel,” Zoe replied.

“That’s unexpected and concerning, but Sonya and you can work around that,” Zane assured her.

“That’s not what has me concerned.”

“What, do they have a dragon too?” Zane laughed.

“Bingo.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“Fuck me too then,” Zane swore.

“Exactly.”

“You’re not going to try to probe their defenses, are you?” Zane asked.

“No. I expected the church to have improved their defenses since my earlier actions, but nothing like this,” Zoe replied.

“Alright. Log out and we’ll talk with the rest of the team,” Zane said.

“Ok. Be there in a second or two,” Zoe replied. She blinked and her eyes focused on the wall in front of her. Zoe blinked a couple more times. “Going in and out of VR takes some getting used to.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Zane said.

“That’s another thing I like about MR, there is no getting used to it. It’s just there,” Zoe replied.

“That’s just laziness talking,” Zane said while giving Zoe a turd eating grin.

“Ha-ha.”

“I thought it was funny, you slacker,” Zane said as he stood up and walked to the door. “Let’s go. The others are in the kitchen.”

*

Sonya insisted on seeing the church’s defenses for herself, so she and Zoe visited the site once more.

“You haven’t said anything,” Zoe pointed out after a couple of minutes. “Is it that impressive?”

“It’s overkill,” Sonya replied. “And yeah, it’s impressive for what is supposed to be a bunch of backwoods hicks. Most corps have better defenses though.”

“Ah,” Zoe muttered.

“Hmmm. They have a Nian circling above us too,” Sonya said. Zoe looked up but didn’t see anything.

“How do you know?” Zoe asked.

“Watch the ground and Citadel walls,” Sonya replied. Zoe did as her companion instructed and her eyes widened slightly as she finally noticed the shadow the daemon cast as it flew its patrol pattern.

“The shadow,” Zoe said. Sonya nodded in agreement.

“No, we don’t cast shadows too,” Sonya said as Zoe looked at her feet.

“Why not?” Zoe asked.

“Mostly because the VR cyberspace designers and coders didn’t want to overload servers with all the math that would be required to make shadows of millions of users and even more daemons,” Sonya answered.

“Then why do the daemons cast shadows?”

“Didn’t it scare you when you noticed the shadow?” Sonya asked instead of answering.

“Yeah.”

“There you go,” Sonya replied. “That and it could warn people that paid attention instead of just relying on their Angels or other guardians for proximity warnings.”

“I guess that means the designers and coders decided to make fights in VR cyberspace like a game,” Zoe said. Sonya nodded in agreement. “MR does the same.”

“True,” Sonya agreed. “Come on, I’ve seen enough.”

“What do you think?” Zoe asked.

“We’re going to need more help to crack this nut,” Sonya replied.

*

“The church’s defenses are good enough that we need help,” Sonya told the others. “They have the latest versions of Citadel and Castle. They also have a Nian and Dragon guarding their network in addition to Hounds and the like.”

“I could use Kunoichi and Aperture to pierce the ICE, but it would take time I don’t have because the Nian or Dragon would find me before I could finish slicing into the network even with Sonya providing a distraction for one or the other,” Zoe said.

“We could call in some personal favors,” Bill suggested.

“Hold off on that thought,” Claire said. She turned her attention to Zoe. “Are you sure that the church’s network really holds information about their less than legal activities and that this isn’t some personal revenge scheme?”

Zoe started to say something and snapped her mouth shut. The others noticed that she looked unsure and worried.

“Are you unsure or are you worried about incriminating yourself?” Zane asked.

“The latter,” Zoe replied.

“Don’t worry about that,” Claire said, giving Zoe a reassuring smile. “We know about your past. Answer my question.”

“There is information about the church’s past actions and crimes,” Zoe replied. “Unless it has been moved, I know right where to find the files too.”

“Helped store the data?” Sonya asked. Zoe nodded in agreement.

“Alright. Give me an hour or two and I’ll make sure we have the help you need to steal the data and nuke their network,” Claire said.