And it wasn’t just Louis. Just about every decker she knew practiced some special ritual or wore one talisman or other to bring good luck on Matrix runs. (Sly’s right hand strayed to the pouch on her belt where she kept her rabbit’s foot—a real rabbit’s foot, not something patched together from synthetic fur—that she’d always carried on shadowruns for luck. She felt a momentary twinge of guilt for being judgmental. But this is different, she thought. Isn’t it?)