Since Aporkalypse lived in a cabin up in the hills, she was coming to get me at the Santa Fe Grill. I lounged in a plush highchair at the bar, sucking on a big orange juice and chatting lazily with Lo Rentz, the bass and bongo artist in my band back home. His pixellated face rippled across the lo-res screen of my PDA, like a swarm of ballet fleas.

I was strung out from the trip, and smelled of kerosene from my haul in the tanker truck. I hadn't slept in 30 hours, and was reaching the edge. In front of me, an ad woman flirted hopelessly with the married barkeep. Another figure emerged from the darkness behind them, coming towards me. It was Aporkalypse. But she was smaller - much MUCH smaller than she had ever looked on my vid screen. At least 200 kilos smaller. This Aporkalypse stood before me, a wavy blonde in petite form, laughing at me with her eyes. "Hey stranger, can I take you for a ride?"

A wavy blonde, laughing at me with her eyes

Sure, it's common on the net for people to appear in made-up viz. Designer costume programmers were a booming industry. But Aporkalypse had been fooling me for as long as I'd known her. On the way to her base, she explained the viz in simple terms.

A fey in a boy's world

"It's still a boy's world, y'know. And some gens still can't see brains and good looks in the same person - if a fey." Ok, I could understand that. I also found her extremely attractive. She looked very different, yet familiar; it gave me an odd feeling that I couldn't quite place.

At the cabin, Porky's serf made ice teas while she showed me around. Aporkcalypse had a very advanced setup. Being a government contractor gave her access to a choice set of tools and networks. And she was using this tech to sleuth a vast web of anonymous remailers on behalf of the missing Bernley.