Zoe went onto the net with Bug Zapper installed. It eliminated most of the ads, but not quite all of them. The least intrusive ads were left, and Zoe took pleasure in zapping a few while she went to the Church’s secure site so she could download her Bastion ICE. Bastion was built for desktop PCs, not frames. Zoe wasn’t sure how well it would work with her Allegro and was sure it would need some modification, but she wanted it. The little ICE program was still the favorite thing she had written.

Zoe hadn’t lied to Claire, Jimmy, and the others when she told them she had given up gymnastic competitions because of implant advantages, that the Church taught her only what she needed, and that she read a lot. What she hadn’t admitted was that reading had turned her onto coding since she was 10 when she had given up competitive gymnastics. That had led to the Purity Church turning her onto slicing when she was 13 after displaying that she had a knack for coding.

Zoe’s favorite job she had done while a member of the Church had been running security while the Church’s team of slicers sliced a bank two years ago. Bastion had repelled several Battering Ram and tomahawk attempts before the team got out with a couple of million credits.

What turned Zoe off the Church was watching those credits go to enriching certain high-ranking leaders of the Purity Church instead of going to help the general population or even going to fund attacks on the corrupt corporations in addition to those same self-serving leaders starting to look at Zoe as a piece of meat while she ran or practiced gymnastics for exercise and fun.

So, she spent a few months carefully refusing dating and marriage requests to her parents’ displeasure and sliced off enough funds for a bus ticket and to pay off one of the guys with access to a truck to take her the nearest bus stop. And here she was. Zoe shook off thoughts of the past after thinking about how she should stop capitalizing Church in her mind. She wasn’t a member anymore and with her access revoked, their secure site made a great testbed for her intrusion daemons.

Zoe decided to give Aperture a go. It was supposed to be the best of the intrusion daemons, so she was eager to see what it could do. Zoe had Illusion grab a few profiles from nearby sites while Grave Robber pulled in some records of the deceased. She quickly made up a profile for Cloak too. Zoe double checked to make sure her Angel was active and nodded to herself. Taking a deep breath, she activated Aperture.

Zoe laughed around the last of her chicken. Aperture had taken seconds to slice through the secure site’s mail protocol ICE. “There is no telling who has been reading the Church’s mail.”

“What’s that Zoe?” Bill asked.

“Oh, nothing. Just testing some software.”

“Testing Kunoichi?”

“Aperture,” Zoe replied shaking her head.

“Be careful,” the nurse said as he took the tray and traded it for one loaded up with bowl of ice cream. “Doc doesn’t want any unwanted attention.”

“I know and I’ll be careful,” Zoe promised. She caught sight of the full bowl of vanilla ice cream. “Hey Bill!”

“Yeah?” the nurse asked from the doorway.

“I thought you said I would only get a scoop.”

“There were about 10 scoops left in the container and I didn’t want to eat them all myself.”

“Thanks again!” Zoe called to his retreating back. She took a slow bite of the ice cream. “Hmmm! So good. Ok little Squirrel, go find me a nut or two while I go get my Bastion,” Zoe said releasing the sniffer daemon into the secure site. She ate another bite of ice cream, dropped the spoon, and rubbed her temples. “I wonder if there is an implant that gets rid of brain freeze.”

*

“Hey Doc,” Bill greeted his boss after answering her call.

“Hi Bill. How’s our patient?”

“Testing out her daemons. And yes, I’m monitoring to make sure she doesn’t get into trouble through the Tower of Mordor, er, I mean the Eye.”

“Which one is Zoe testing and against what system?” Claire asked ignoring the Lord of the Rings reference. It was an apt reference since that is what the coders had envisioned when writing the program.

“Aperture and it’s an unnamed site. Going off the traffic patterns the Eye is picking up, I’d say it’s a Purity Church secure site,” Bill answered.

“That should be alright and not bring the wrong sort of attention our way. Those yokels don’t have the reach to get us or Zoe here even if they discover her.”

“I have Fortress primed to shut down all outside communications just in case,” Bill assured Claire. Zoe was using the clinic’s Wi-Fi since frames were designed to use a building’s wireless connection since it was cheaper than providing antennas that could penetrate a building.

“That’s probably a rookie mistake,” Zane added as he finally spoke. “She must have forgotten to switch the setting to keep using her service.”

“Or she could be clever enough to use our network to help mask herself,” Bill mused. In truth, Zoe had forgotten to flip the switch as it were.

“True,” Zane conceded. “Keep us informed if anything changes.”

“Will do,” Bill replied. “Hey Doc?”

“Yes Bill?”

“Isn’t there a regulation against fraternization that you two are breaking?”

“Bill!” Zane growled.

“Nope,” Claire replied. “We’re not a military outfit and we’re not inviting you into a threesome.” She disconnected the call.

“One of these days,” Bill muttered returning to his tasks.