An ebon boy in a glittering cloak of silver danced along the electron pathways, but the pattern faltered. A whirling measure would abruptly end in a few stumbling steps. The dancer was eager, but his steps were constrained as though the dance floor was slippery. In every direction there were datapaths in all of their myriad multitudes, but none offered what he sought. Following any one only led to frustration, the dance halting as the pathway expanded into a diffuse and indistinct mass of branches. Each branch was a trail of connections that vanished, becoming an array of untraceable links. The only ones that stayed solid led to unbreakable ice or mundane and unimportant data.