The original Cowboy squadron was made up of two veterans and ten of us newbies from all over the northern United States. Pennsylvania, Dixie, Texas, the Indian Nations, Hawaii, and Minnesota, they all sent their sons and daughters to fight. So did California. That’s where Alice came from. Kinda. She was born in Texas like all of our cybers at the time, but she was unique in her own way. She formed herself in the image of a real living woman. Well…formerly living at least. The Shang bombardment killed a lot of people, you know. Alice chose to become one of them when she was born. She combed every database and every picture she could find on the networks, and built a personality and a body that matched that dead woman so well that if they’d been standing side by side, I don’t think anyone could have picked out the differences. Maybe Peter could have, but I wouldn’t have put money on that.

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