Gary clears his throat, and pulls a fistful of notecards out of his pocket. "Today we reach the end of another academic year," he begins, in a voice too strident. "For the Academy, this has been a year of dynamic change and restructuring. For many of you, this has been a year of important personal growth and improvement as well." I lock in on the notecards; it looks like there's a lot of them. I start to zone out again.

A year of improvement? Only if your internal lexicon defines personal growth as "a form of cancer." For me, personal, this year has been a lot like drinking shots of battery acid.215 Not that it's been without humor. For example, there was the month the academy was infested with paleopunks. That's what we cadets called 'em, anyway: twenty paunchy, middle-aged guys in mohawks and raggy leather who spent their days hunting each other with splatguns. Had all the subtle penetration skills of your average 5-ton truck; I could have taken the lot of them out with a half-dozen Grade Twos. Watching the leather boys in action was a real scream.

But that was about it for laughs, though. Mostly the year was a big b.u.mmer, with primary cause being the staff's rapid adjustment to the new order. Math professor Schmidt was the only one who actually resigned. Even Feinberg changed his tune after he got a big raise and a promotion to dean. Most of us Grade Fives got pretty d.a.m.n disgusted, and in November, when the Koreans lobbed a few Silkworms at Hiroshima and the Nipponese started contracting for Peace Enforcement again, about half my cla.s.s dropped out to enlist. (Too bad Clausewitz isn't alive today. He'd have coined a new dictum, just for the Nipponists: War is only business conducted by other means.) The cadets who quit were more than replaced by a flood of eager young n.a.z.is with shaky transcripts and middle-aged paramils who brought their own guns, though, and the last I saw of Payne, he was running a bunch of grownup clowns in Mohler-style camouflage through the new Fully Automatic Weapons seminar. (Funny, but even Jewbaiters like to fondle Uzis). I popped by the range one day to ask him a question and wound up watching them a few minutes, feeling sicker by the round. Lots of wild firing from the hip. Spent bra.s.s spraying everywhere. I guess the theory is if you waste enough bullets you don't need to actually aim, but I felt a small tremor in the earth from the Colonel doing somersaults in his grave.

Yup, definitely a new order in place. As my attention wanders across the faces on the reviewing stand-across the weasels, the bootlickers, the addled old fools-I make eye contact with Deke Luger, and for one last time we glare at each other with naked hatred. Yeah, Dougie Boy, I telepath, after six years I still hate your slimey guts, too. Most of us216 surviving Grade Fives despise Generalissimo Gary, but a few real twonks have flourished, and Douglas Kemuel Luger is undisputably top twonk. I flash him a smile that's really a bared-fangs challenge, and beam off another telepath: If I'd known back in ComSurEx that you were going to end up cla.s.s valedectorian, I would have cut your throat.

His receptors must be down. Luger gives me a little disgusted snort, then turns and locks eyes on Gary.

"-break with tradition," Gary is saying. I snap back from the zone and go into full alert mode. "Before the usual valedictory address," Gary continues, "I would like to take this opportunity to recognize a graduating cadet whose unique gifts have made the academy a better place for all concerned. Cadet Captain Michael A. Harris, front and center!"

Huh? This isn't in the script. I start to flash into a nervous smile, then shut it off. Looking confident going in is half of any battle. Derzky, calm, I break ranks and mount the stairs to the reviewing stand. Already, I'm mapping out fantasy tactical. If Gary's got something weird cooking I just give him a shakoken palm-heel strike to the nose, draw my blade, and take the old wheeze hostage. Then... Then...

Aw, p.i.s.s on it. I'll improvise.

Gary's beaming at me as I snap to and salute next to him. (Nagare, I'm thinking, let the action flow. Salute flows to kitenken hand-edge strike flows to shikanken punch with my left fist...) Gary returns the salute, then leans across the podium so his words go into the microphone. "Cadet Harris," he says, "on behalf of the students and staff of the Von Schlager Military Academy, I would like to present you with this small token of our appreciation." He straightens up and hands me a book; I cop a glance at the cover. Combat Theology, allegedly by Commandant Gary Von Schlager.

I know this book. I helped Gary plagiarize it.

"Open it," he prompts. (Uh oh, I think, he found my "improvements"

and now he's gonna take revenge in front of...) Hesitant, I open the book, to find a short, sappy dedication and an autograph. That's it. Geez,217 he wasn't kidding when he said the token was small.

"Thank you sir," I say, demure, and shake his hand.

The a.s.sembly applauds. Gary steps away from the microphone and leans in close to me, crossing my reaction perimeter. (This is it! I think.

Nagare! Nagare!) "I hate to keep rehashing a dead horse-"

(Oh, so that's what last night's dinner was!) "-but are you sure you don't want to stay on as staff?"

I retaliate with a countergrin. "I haven't been home in six years, sir."

Gary nods. "I understand. Still, promise me you'll think it over this summer, okay?"

"Yessir. I certainly will." We exchange salutes, and I wheel and head for the stairs. I'll think about it, all right; on a cold, cold, cold day in h.e.l.l.

But then, just for a moment and completely in spite of myself, I pause at the top of the stairs and turn thoughtful anyway. Looking out at all those eager young faces, looking one last time around the quad: A lot's changed, these last six years. New faces, new buildings, new att.i.tudes.

New ghosts.

This kid Harris has changed, too. He's older now: tough as blue steel, chill and calm as a deep stream. He lives in a bigger world now, and if you didn't know better, you'd swear he was a deep-dyed militaroid.

That's what you'd think. But you'd be forgetting that there are two constants in the universe: I'm still Mikey Harris. And Olders still don't know jack squat about computers.

I snap out of it, and start down the stairs. There's one last job I've got to do.218 END OF FILE: FF.

The beauty of a well-designed network-like, for example, the one that permeates every bunkhouse, cla.s.sroom, and office in this Academy-is that the physical devices don't have to be anywhere near each other. As long as they can talk to each other once in a while, the hardware can be anywhere. Say, inside a dummy box-beam in the rafters of bunkhouse "D." Or behind a sheet of drywall on the second floor of the science lab. Or even, say, inside a hollow concrete cinder block, in the foundation of the new wing of the Admin Building.

I glance over my shoulder to make sure my office door is closed.

Then I rest my fingers lightly on my terminal keyboard -hesitate, for just a mo-and key in one word: ARMED.

Throughout the system, little bits of mole code begin burying themselves. Incriminating files get erased. Audit logs disappear. I lean back in my chair, relax, watch the show.

There's a knock at the door. I blank the screen, swivel around.

"Enter."

It's Payne. "Well Harris, I guess this is it." He hangs there in the doorway, looking a little sheepish. I stand up, chop off a perfect salute.

"Goodbye, Mr. Payne."

He returns the salute, and offers me a handshake. "Goodbye, Mister Harris." The handshake is firm, strong; the respect is real. "We're going to miss you around here."

I smile, demure. "Don't worry." I lay a hand on the console terminal, pat it lovingly. "You've got my baby. In a way, as long as this system is still running, I'm still around."

In a very literal way.

Of course I left myself a back door. Hey, a cyberpunk designed this219 system. There's a custom circuit board buried deep in the inmost guts of the SatLink: slathered in black epoxy so no one can tell what it does; welded in place, so you'd have to junk the entire SatLink system to get rid of it.

Yes, Gary, I can link into the Academy network and wipe you out any day of the week. From any network node in the entire G.o.ddam world.

But that's just the contigency plan. The real plan is a lot more subtle, a lot more refined. Almost bulletproof: even if Gary hires a bootlicking weasel to replace me-and hey, he will, he's Gary-even if he finds another cyberpunk, there's not a thing he can do. I didn't just hack around with code objects and exec scripts; I got into the operating system primitives. Right down to the BIOS and PROMs, this baby is mine. And my baby can defend itself.

Bare-metal programming. You'd have been proud of me, Mr.

Lewellyn.

Payne shuffles his feet, clears his throat. "I'm, uh, taking the Tupelov down to Seattle tonight, to pick up a new load of summer boys, and I was thinking, if you didn't already have travel plans..."

I smile. "Sure." That'll give me some time. There were a few things I was wondering how I was going to tell Payne about. Like the bomb in the racial screening program that blows open a door for anyone named Washington, Jackson, or *berg. (Fudges their transcript, too; makes 'em look like G.o.ddam Aryan geniuses!) And the secret trapdoor that will let Payne browse through all of Gary's confidential email.

Payne nods, affirmative. "Right. See you at the strip at 1700, then."

He nods again, walks away.

I watch him leave, and smile. There are some things he needs to know, but I don't think I'll tell him about SLOW_BLEED just yet.

That's the leech I put in the financials. Nothing obvious; nothing indiscrete. I've gotten a lot better at timing since my cyberpunk days.

I've learned about patience.

Two years. In two years, Gary will be bankrupt, and the Academy220 will be owned lock, stock, and barrel by the Ernst Von Schlager Memorial Trust. Eventually I'll have to tell Payne that he's the trust fund administrator.

Some day. But not today. I've got a lot of loose ends left to wrap up: Dad. My mother. Rayno. Georgie. Some day I've got to find out what happened to all of them.

But I can worry about all of that tomorrow. For today, for right now, this is Cadet Captain Michael Arthur Harris, logging out and powering down.

Mission complete, Colonel.