Slave to Sensation

“Hawke went in.” Clay’s eyes said it all. “He didn’t find a scent but he believes the juvenile. Kid’s not the kind to make things up.”

Staring at the computer panel built into a desk they were standing near, Lucas made a decision. “I’ll work the computers, too.” It’d give him something to do instead of standing by helplessly while Sascha put her life on the line. “Tell Hawke I’ll let him know if I get anything.”

Clay left without questioning Lucas’s plan. Both of them believed in knowing the enemy. In the case of the Psy, that meant knowing computer systems inside out. The psychic race depended upon computers for everything. It was one of their only physical weaknesses.

But before doing anything else, both man and beast needed to make sure Sascha was safe. He pulled out his phone and punched in her code.

Her cool tones came on the line at once. “Mr. Hunter. What can I do for you?”

“You know the details I asked you to look over? Perhaps you’d better hold off on them.”

“Why? Didn’t you say you needed an answer ASAP?”

“We’ve had indications that there might be a leak in your team. We’d like to change certain elements to ensure commercial security.” He didn’t want her risking herself if the killer was nearby.

“I assure you, our security is foolproof.” She wasn’t backing down. “Please don’t worry about your designs.”

“It’s in my nature to worry. Be careful.” He wanted to reach through the phone and drag her to safety, wanted to keep her within the panther’s protective embrace.

“Always.”

He swore as the phone clicked off. Attempting to hack into the Duncan mainframe didn’t make him forget what Sascha was doing, but it helped keep his mind busy. Unfortunately, he had a feeling that that was precisely what this was-busywork.

The answers to their questions weren’t in any normal computer but in the inaccessible vaults of the PsyNet.

* * *

Sascha wondered if she’d understood Lucas correctly. Had he been warning her to back off because the killer might be in the Duncan building? It should’ve scared her but it didn’t. Where she was going, physical distance mattered little and death could come far more swiftly than a murderer’s slicing blade.

For the first time in her life, she was going to try to hack the PsyNet, quite possibly the biggest information archive in the world. Every Psy automatically linked into the PsyNet at the moment of birth. There was no way to escape it. However, because the Psy were viciously practical businesspeople, they were all taught how to put up firewalls to hold off unwanted intrusions.

The firewalls kept the gigantic PsyNet at bay by isolating the Psy’s mind. However, all Psy fed data into the Net and some chose to live with complete openness to it. These individuals were considered extreme. It wasn’t practical or efficient to live with information constantly filtering into your mind.

By the same token, tough firewalls were considered a sign of Psy strength. No one had raised a brow when, as a child, Sascha had begun building the strongest firewalls anyone had ever seen. As she’d grown, her firewalls had become ever more sophisticated.

It was the one thing she’d always excelled at, as if shielding skills had been imprinted upon her before birth. Other Psy had even come to her for training. She’d taught them many things but had kept back a few secrets, which, if discovered, might get her hauled before the Psy Council.

Though privacy was allowed and even encouraged, the NetMind was always aware of each and every individual in the Net. If a mind dropped out, the Psy was physically located and, in 100 percent of cases, was found to have either died or been damaged so badly that their mind had withdrawn as a prelude to death. Those were the only acceptable ways to leave.

Sascha hadn’t figured out any other way. But she had discovered how to mask her presence, how to move within the Net without alerting the NetMind. As a child she’d played the mental game instinctively-perhaps she’d already known that one day she’d need to hide or lose her life. Back then she’d gone nowhere a child wouldn’t go, so even if she’d been caught, no one would’ve thought to punish her. They would’ve simply put it down to a developing cardinal’s somewhat erratic powers.

The older she’d grown, the better she’d become at “ghosting.” The trick involved shadowing another mind, thereby gaining entrance to the mental rooms of information the shadowed mind had clearance for. No hacking of the shadowed mind was required.

Ever since she’d realized she was close to the edge, she’d been shadowing people who might have access to the sealed records of the Center. It had been an attempt to fight the nightmare she’d glimpsed in her childhood. She’d wanted to prove to herself that her child’s mind had exaggerated the awfulness of the place. What she’d discovered had so horrified her, she’d started to look for minds who might know how to escape the Net and survive.

And had found nothing.