Cybermancy Read Online Free PDF

dive in zero vis would be about as much fun on film as shoving the camera into a mudbank and letting it roll. I sighed through my regulator, letting off a trail of bubbles. In the current of the thick black not-quite-water, they slid slowly up and to my left. I turned my head in that direction and blew a bunch more bubbles. This time they moved directly away from me as they rose. I realized I could use them to tell the direction of the current and up from down. It might not make for pinpoint navigation, but it should get me across the river.
     
By sheer dumb luck I surfaced less than ten feet from Charon’s dock. Since he was apparently off picking up a fare, I was able to slide underneath, strip off my scuba gear, and rope it to a piling. I checked my watch—1:20, so Cerberus would be solidly into his afternoon nap. The big insomniac might have trouble getting twenty winks at night, but from one until three he went down like Morpheus on tranquilizers. It was one of the many useful things I’d learned over the months of our acquaintance. I felt bad about exploiting our friendship, but not bad enough to leave Shara on the wrong side of Hades’ gate.
    When the barge returned, it was carrying four crisp-looking Russian Spetsnaz carrying AK-47s and about two dozen Japanese tourists who didn’t seem to have a real solid grasp of their situation—they were taking pictures and talking excitedly among themselves. I pulled myself up on the dock and, inasmuch as it was possible, blended in with the group headed for the gate.
    A series of velvet ropes stood to one side to allow the area in front of the gates to be divided into a zigzag queue for high traffic. At the moment, it was a straight shot from the ferry to the place where a couple of obviously bored dead souls in Hades Security Administration uniforms were standing by something very like a metal detector. I was a little worried about that until the heavily armed Spetsnaz got through without the HSA boys so much as blinking their huge and vacant eyes.
    When my turn came, I made sure Cerberus wasn’t about to make an appearance, then boldly stepped through. The alarm went off like a harpy with its tail caught in a blender. The security detail stopped looking bored and started looking like the damned souls they were.
    I yelped and started to run.
    I say started because I didn’t really understand what running meant until I heard the dreadful hungry baying of the oldest and most dangerous hound ever born. Cerberus was coming. I had thirty feet to cover from checkpoint to open gate. He had a half mile or more. The hot breath on my neck as I crossed the last yard was my only warning. I dived forward. If he’d really wanted to, he could have had me then. But those mighty jaws closed on air instead of me, and the pile-driver force of his striking head tossed me through the gate.
    I landed hard, even by demigod standards, and emptied my lungs in a great whoosh. Why do I always end up taking on entities higher up the ladder of divinity than myself? Just once I’d like to go toe-to-toe with somebody from a lower weight class. It took me a good minute to get up the will to stand and another after that actually to manage the job. I was just glad to find that my bad knee hadn’t taken too much of the impact. It was much better than it used to be—witness my sprint—but it still occasionally went out if I misused it.
    When I looked back, all I could see was bristling hellhound. He filled the gate from top to bottom and edge to edge, or a bit more than that on the sides. He’d really have to squeeze if he wanted to get through. By looking between his big, bowed legs, I could see that the security checkpoint had been reduced to kindling in his charge.
    “We told you not to try it,” said the three heads in that one terrible voice. “We told you; you aren’t Orpheus. But you wouldn’t listen. Go on. Find the one you came for, but remember that we’ll be here when you come