The otaku—the Netwalkers don’t call them that, they call them "technoshamans"—they’re these kids who can just slot into a Matrix jack and they’re off doing some of the most incredible programming I’ve ever seen. No deck, no mainframe system, nothing but the ASIST converter in their datajacks and their bare brains. I always believed the otaku were nothing more than legends, but then I suppose people thought the same thing about magic before Howling Coyote and his followers called up the Ghost Dance, shook the Earth, and brought down a nation. I think part of me didn’t want to believe. Part of me stopped believing in magic when I was twelve, but that’s what the Netwalkers have, magic.