Television-telephone-telex. Tape recorder-VCR-laser disk.

Broadcast tower linked to microwave dish linked to satellite.

Phone line, cable TV, fiber-optic cords hissing out words and pictures in torrents of pure light. All netted together in a web over the world, a global nervous system, an octopus of data.

There'd been plenty of hype about it. It was easy to make it sound transcendently incredible.

She'd been more into it when she'd been setting it up.

Right now it seemed vastly more remarkable that Loretta was sitting up much straighter in her lap. "Looook at you, Lo- retta! Look how straight you can hold your head! Look at you, sweetie-face... . Wooga woog-woog-woog ... "

The Net was a lot, like television, another former wonder of the age. The Net was a vast glass mirror. It reflected what it was shown. Mostly human banality.

Laura zoomed one-handed through her electronic junk mail.

Shop-by-wire catalogs. City Council campaigns. Charities.

Health insurance.

Laura erased the garbage and got down to business. A

message was waiting from Emily Donato.

Emily was Laura's prime news source for the backstage action in Rizome's Central Committee. Emily Donato was a first-term committee member.

Laura's alliance with Emily was twelve years old. They'd met in college at an international business class. Their shared backgrounds made friendship easy. Laura, a "diplobrat," had lived in Japan as an embassy kid. For Emily, childhood meant the massive industrial projects of Kuwait and Abu

Dhabi. The two of them had shared a room in college.

After graduation, they'd examined their recruiting offers and decided together on Rizome Industries Group. Rizome looked modern, it looked open, it had ideas. It was big enough for muscle and loose enough for speed.

The two of them had been double-teaming the company ever since.