him, beside Kira, in the body of a teenage boy.

“He wasn’t? Then… what the hell did he do?”

“He augmented the built-in thaumaturgic animation with an

animation spell of his own, ” replied Modred.

“What, you mean he just waggled his fingers at this thing and

said hocus-pocus?”

“Something like that, ” said Modred with a smile. “This was his

personal computer.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. ” Pirate shook his head wonderingly. “I’m

impressed as hell. There’s no way this little unit is supposed to do

what it can do. It’s a real little sleeper. I’ve never seen anything

like it.”

“See what you can get it to do with these, ” said Modred, handing

him a small package bearing the label of Yamako Industries, in

both English and Japanese. It had taken a lot of string pulling, but

he’d had it flown in direct from Tokyo the previous night.

Pirate saw the label and glanced at him questioningly, then

opened the package.

“Ho-ly shit, ” he said softly. He took out the plastic-wrapped

components, handling them with reverence. “YTM Mark 50s! I’m

not even gonna ask where you got these.”

“Actually, I bought them.”

“You bought them?” He whistled. “Boy, when you said unlimited

resources, you weren’t kidding, were you? These things cost a

goddamn fortune. I’d kill for some of these!”

“There’s another package just like it, ” Modred said. “You get us

that backup program from General Hyperdynamics and they’re

yours.”

Pirate’s jaw dropped. “Mister, you just gave me the keys to

Heaven!” He patted Archimedes. “Little guy, you’re about to grow

up into the baddest motherfucker on the block.”

“How long will it take you to install them?” Kira asked.

“Come back tomorrow. I could probably get it done tonight, but

you don’t want to rush with these puppies. Jesus, I never thought