Now I am a magician, just not the kind who throws around spells and travels in astral space. I’m a magician for the twenty-first century. The Age of the Machine. The Age of the Matrix. Programs are my spells, and my servants rise up from the digital depths at my command. I work my electron sorcery on the essential stuff of cyberspace. I’m a technomancer, spirit of the net, ghost in the machine. I think it’s one of the reasons I did so well in school, because I treat decking as more than just a science or a job. It sounds lame, but it’s more like a religion to me. It’s a way of life. One of my teachers said it was the mark of a really great programmer. That it was all more than just numbers and cold silicon to me. It was alive . I think it’s one of the reasons the company picked me for this job.