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real world, you could also overcome some of the protocols that governed movement inside the Network. Youcould not only pass laterally, but also ascend or descend to other levels, piggyback yourself to other flyers, go
through
buildings as opposed to around them, enter utility shafts, or drop down into the assembler-code corridors that sustained the grid itself.
    Tech and Bios7 did all these things as they jinked and juked toward the Peerless Castle. In Tech's headphones the earsplitting chords of Thunder Cracker mixed with the resounding encouragement of spectators parked along the course.
    Neck and neck and resolved to disable each other, they hurled commands over their audio link. Bios7 tried for a force skid while Tech was writhing through a dense cluster of frequent flyers, but Tech managed to regain control of his ripped racer and counter with a low-fuel command. The maneuver cost Bios7 precious seconds while he rushed to refresh his ruby saucer by drawing from the power cells of a surprised lurker, and Tech shot into the lead.
    At the base of the Peerless Castle, the Ribbon divided into three lanes. The two outer lanes encircled the virtual construct, clock- and counter-clockwise, while the middle lane coursed over a broad moat and led directly to the castle's portcullis—its principal gate.
    All three lanes were heavily patrolled by security craft, but the central one was also reinforced by antiviral and barrier programs that protected Peerless from acts of cyberterrorism. Peerless was the big kid on the block, but its authority was often being challenged by one start-up company or another. A flyer could find him or herself in deep strife for even venturing too close to Peerless, let alone for trying to outwit the speed filters to race around the castle at top speed.
    The plan called for Tech and Bios7 to take the counterclockwise lane and complete one lap around the craggy mountain from which the castle rose. The first to arrive back at the Ribbon would be declared the winner.
    Taking advantage of his small lead, Tech whipped the Venom to the right. But just short of the divide, and making it appear as if he had succumbed to one of Bios7's force-head wind commands, he allowed Bios7's saucer to edge alongside him on the inside.
    Tech watched his visor displays, waiting for his opponent to accelerate; then, when the two ships were almost even, Tech slipped into the saucer's data drag. At the same time, he nudged Bios7 into the center lane, and shouted, “Force steering lock!”
    For a moment, it seemed as if Bios7 had been caught off guard and would have no choice but to shoot across the castle's drawbridge and wrestle with the security patrols stationed there. But at the last instant, the saucer slewed effortlessly back into the right lane and again pulled alongside Tech.
    “Nice try, kid,” he said, “but you've used that trick once too often.”
    With a staggering surge of power, the saucer cut diagonally across the blunt nose of the Venom to recapture the lead. Flat out, the two ships tore into the banked curve.
    Behind the turreted castle, the grid all but disappeared into a featureless black abyss.
    The Escarpment, as it was called, was equivalent to a ten-thousand-foot sheer drop into nothingness. It had been engineered by a group of renegade hackers who had been Peerless's competitors in giving form to the Virtual Network. Peerless had tried on numerous occasions to delete, move, or bridge the abyss, but the company's cybertechnicians had been unable to break the code the hackers had used in creating it.
    Had Peerless been successful, the Network would have been able to expand into the Wilds, which lay to the south, far below the castle. But as it was, the Wilds remained a fringe outlaw zone with sites seldom visited by the tourists and shoppers who patronized the Ribbon.
    A few daredevil flyers had tried to bridge the abyss in their own fashion by soaring over the edge at top speed. But none were known to