Spyware

Wednesday Afternoon, April 12th

… 100 Hours and Counting…

The gray van rolled up to the school crosswalk. Justin, who was just three days shy of his seventh birthday, didn’t look at it. He didn’t have to because he knew it was there. He had been watching it for a couple of days now. He was hoping the stranger inside wouldn’t offer him any candy or anything, because he would have to say no, and he didn’t want the stranger to get mad.

It was a warm spring afternoon in the college town of Davis, California. The hot, dusty days of summer were just around the corner. The sun burned in the blue sky, splattering white glare over the cars in the teachers’ parking lot of Birchlane Elementary School. As Justin left the school grounds, the sidewalks sprouted guardian ash trees that reminded him of marching soldiers. A breeze up from the Sacramento Delta softly pushed and pulled at the trees. Green leaves fluttered and insects buzzed. Justin reached out and ran one finger over the rough bark of each of the trees as he passed them.

He watched an orange-yellow bus pull out of the parking lot and rev up its smoky diesel engine. The kids inside all seemed to be yelling at once, their noise rising and falling with its own rhythm, completely apart from that of the engine. Justin wished he lived far enough away to take the bus home instead of walking. If he had been on the bus now like those other kids, he wouldn’t have to worry about the gray van.

He knew the van was probably no big deal. There were lots of other kids around, and the gray van was probably here every day to pick up some other kid. Despite this, down deep he felt that the van was watching him. He knew that none of the grown-ups would listen to him, because he had told too many fibs. He felt a pang of regret for having gone too far with his stories the past, like the ones about the alligator at school. After that, he was sure they wouldn’t buy anything he said. He had sworn off telling fibs now, and the van sounded too much like a fib. So he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone.

Justin reached the corner when something big rumbled up behind him. The brakes squealed, and the sound made the back of his neck feel hot and prickly. He couldn’t resist twisting around to take a look.

There was the gray van. It was one of the old, fat-looking ones with hardly any windows on the sides. He couldn’t see much of the driver-just his arm poked out into the sunlight from the dark depths of the cab. There were a lot of thick, ropy veins on the arm, and a silver ring on the thumb.

Then Justin was falling. For a panicky moment, he thought the gray van had gotten him somehow, maybe zapped him like the Super Smash-Brothers guys did on his Nintendo all the time. He pitched over and fell sprawling. His lunch box with the square yellow sponge character on it sprang open and sent a plastic baggie containing a half-eaten chocolate-chip cookie skittering across the sidewalk. He realized with hot embarrassment that he had not been looking where he was going and had tripped over his own feet. He scrambled up and looked back, breathing through his open mouth.

He half-expected to find the van had magically vanished, but it hadn’t. Instead it was closer. He watched with bulging eyes as it hopped the curb with a groaning noise of old, protesting shocks. It paused there-its big engine chugging-as if it wanted to roll forward and crush him while he was down and helpless.

The driver turned his thumb up. The silver ring glinted in the sunlight. “Good one, klutz,” the driver said with a gravelly chuckle. Then the front tires angled away from him and the van nosed back down into the street where it belonged, like the shark in Jaws reluctantly giving up on the men in the boat. Justin hadn’t liked that movie. His dad had let him watch it, calling it a “classic”, until his mom had chased him to bed. But not even Jaws hadn’t scared him as much as the van did. He watched as the van executed a sloppy U-turn, nudging up on the opposite curb as it labored in the narrow confines of the street.

Justin grabbed up his lunch box and ran. He didn’t stop until he had reached home. The half-eaten chocolate-chip cookie in the plastic baggie lay behind, forgotten.

… 88 Hours and Counting…

Computer networks and those who maintain them rarely sleep. The world’s largest network, the Internet, has many thousands of hubs, and many thousands of sleepless operators attend them. In the early morning hours of Thursday, two such people still worked on the main campus server for U. C. Davis.

“Who’s eating eleven gigs of my bandwidth?” demanded Brenda Hastings, the sysop. “It’s three fucking A.M.! We need to shut down the internet link for maintenance.”

Dr. Raymond Vance smiled to himself, his fingers clittering rapidly over the keyboard. Brenda always spoke to him (and everyone else) in a very informal fashion. People often assumed that she was his boss, not the other way around. He never made a big deal out of her cursing and her loud “suggestions” that often sounded like orders. That was just… Brenda.

A bluish light bathed his face, flashing in time with the screen. He used a net-sniffer utility to learn who the user was, although he already had a pretty good idea. “Just a sec,” he said.

Brenda pointed toward her monitor accusingly. “Twelve! They just cranked it up! Twelve gigs! Who’s sucking up all of my resources?”

The answer swam into being on Ray’s screen. “It’s Nog,” he said simply. “He’s probably just surfing.”

“Of course-surfing with twelve sessions at once. He’s probably running full audio on all of them and mixing it into his headphones too,” muttered Brenda, suddenly deflated. She flopped her bulky body back into her chair, which creaked in protest. She rubbed her forehead and made a wry face. “I’m sorry, Ray. I shouldn’t be yelling. Well, I suppose we could hold off on maintenance until four. Send him a warning note,” she told Ray with a sigh. She sucked in a breath and paused a moment. “Make it a polite note,” she added.

Ray nodded and smiled discreetly at his screen. His keyboard clicked and rattled as he e-mailed the note. No one wanted to screw with Nog unnecessarily. Not even Brenda, famous ass-chewer that she was. Nog was a self-made multi-millionaire that was heavily connected to the college and donated generously for research projects. Sure, he was a nerd and still in his twenties, but that didn’t mean anything. He didn’t talk much, but his money spoke volumes.

Ray’s smile faded as he recalled that he had “screwed with” Nog just last year. But he had deemed it necessary. Nog had taken his AI (Artificial Intelligence) class in the spring term and had never turned in his final project. Despite his acing the tests, Ray had seen fit to give him a B for the class.

Nog had been quietly furious with him ever since. To Ray’s knowledge, he had never gotten a B before. Never.

“Eighty-Seven percent is still a B,” Ray muttered to himself, “Money or not.”

“Are you talking to the keyboard again, Ray?” chuckled Brenda. “Maybe you should go home. There’s not much more you can do tonight.”

“Maybe you’re right,” sighed Ray, rubbing his eyes. “Lecturing tomorrow is going to be rough.”

“Balls!” shouted Brenda suddenly.

“I have to ask…” said Ray, smiling again. Brenda always made him smile.

“Oh, it’s nothing. I was just queuing up the overnight and noticed that the anti-virus sweep tested positive again. Second time this week that the server caught a bug.”

“Nothing that the anti-virus program can’t handle, I hope.”

“Nah. If it can detect it, it can clean it. I just hope it hasn’t ‘done it’s thing’ yet, whatever that might be.”

“I’m off, then,” Ray said, standing and stretching. The swivel chair groaned tiredly and bounced against the back of his knees. On the way home he yawned at least six times before he managed to steer his Ford Explorer into his driveway.

… 84 Hours and Counting…

6:30 A.M. glowed in electric blue on the clock radio. There was no buzzer, only sappy music and overly energetic deejays that laughed too much at their own weak jokes and hokey sound-effects. It was a family tradition to awaken to the most annoying morning show that could be found on the radio. The annoying ones kept you from going back to sleep.

Sarah groaned beside Ray, rustling the covers. Ray cracked his eyes open, feeling the mind-numbing shock of awakening long before the body is ready. Further shocking him, he found that his son was sitting on the bed beside him, quietly pushing a plastic bulldozer around, making white mounds of the ruffled sheets.

On the radio, the music shifted into high-gear-something with a lot of guitars and what sounded almost like yodeling.

Three hours, he thought. Three hours sleep and two technical lectures to give. He knew that he would burn today. His eyes would burn and his muscles would burn and the blood would seem to pound in his temples and cheeks and behind his eyes. He could fake it though. He was an old hand at that. He wasn’t so tired that he couldn’t function. He realized vaguely that he was exercising an old habit he had of calculating how much sleep he had gotten and then estimating what kind of shape he would be in for the day. He did it automatically, the way you might calculate how far you had to drive and how much gas you had left. Today, he didn’t have much gas, but it would have to do.

The music had cut out now and the deejays were playing kazoos to intro the helicopter-based traffic report.

“Turn it off,” croaked Sarah, her normally sweet voice sounding like the speech of the dead. No one moved toward the radio, but Justin, realizing that they were awake, lost all signs of mercy. He revved up his bulldozer, his lips buzzing for sound effects, and began ramming the orange plastic blade into Ray’s ribs.

Ray was too stunned by lingering sleep to respond at first. Disappointed, Justin stepped up the assault a notch, rolling the treads up his father’s side and over his bare chest. A hair or two was pulled.

“Is that your bulldozer?” asked Ray, his voice croaking with sleep.

“Nope. It’s a gray van daddy, and it’s commin’ to get you.”

“Whatever it is kid, knock it off,” rumbled Ray, closing his hand over his son’s small hand and the offending toy. He resisted the flash of anger that urged him to toss the toy across the room. He sighed and relaxed. It wasn’t Justin’s fault that his dad had had only three hours sleep.

Justin giggled and struggled free. He went back to lightly nudging Ray’s ribs. “I’m gettin’ you Daddy,” he said.

Ray knew what was expected. He grabbed his son in a bear hug and squeezed him, rubbing his knuckles in his blond hair and tickling him while he growled in his ear. “Outta here, kid.”

“No!”

“Go watch TV,” said Ray, feeling the instant pang of guilt all parents feel when they utter those words.

“No!”

Sarah mumbled something into her pillow. Ray slapped her rear lightly.

“What did you say?”

“Spongebob is on!” she said more intelligibly, raising her head from the pillow for a moment.

“All right!” said Justin, and he was gone in a flash.

Ray struggled out of bed. The bulldozer tumbled off the sheets and he found it again with his feet. “Ouch.”

He smiled at the shapely form of his wife in the sheets. Her dark hair flowed over her pillow in disarray. He thought of climbing back into bed and curling up to her, but there wasn’t time. With a sigh, he touched the snooze button on top of the clock radio to silence it for ten precious minutes as he headed for the shower.

Thursday had begun.

Sarah filled a bowl of cereal for Justin and managed to get most of his clothes on. His shoes were still off, however. Shoes were never easy to get onto Justin, it was always a careful negotiation. That was Ray’s job, as he didn’t have to be to work until nine for his office hours, while Sarah had to be in by eight.

“You’ve got to drop him off at school today,” said

Sarah, passing him in the hall on her way to shower. “I don’t think he should be walking this early, it looks like rain.”

“Yeah, daddy. I don’t want to walk,” chimed in Justin.

“No problem,” mumbled Ray, forcing a smile. He was determined not to let his true state show through. Sarah had been asleep when he came in last night and didn’t know just how late he had stayed at the lab. In truth, the shower had made him feel almost human, but now he was fading again fast. He knew he needed to eat, that would keep him going for awhile.

Sarah halted in the hallway and turned to look at him. She narrowed her eyes. “You sound like a toad in a well,” she remarked. “Are you sick?”

He shook his head, grinning weakly.

Her suspicions grew, and she came up to him, looking up at her tall husband critically. She laid a hand on his chest. “Just how late were you out last night?”

Ray shrugged, feeling like he’d been caught at something. “Uh, maybe midnight or so.”

“Or so? Maybe one-or two?”

Ray shrugged again, but made no denial.

“Hmm…” said Sarah, frowning now. “You don’t need to kill yourself to run that lab, you know, Ray. They only give you twenty percent release time for it and you spend eighty percent of your time there.”

“We had a problem. There was some weird activity on the net. We couldn’t shut down for maintenance,” said Ray. He kissed her on the top of the head and escaped to the refrigerator, where he got out the milk and poured himself some cereal in a paper bowl.

“You know,” said Sarah, following him. “If Brenda was more attractive, I’d be wondering about you two.”

“Yup,” said Ray around his spoon. “You know me, I’m a chubby-chaser.”

“Chubby-chaser! Ha!” shouted Justin, looking up from his half-eaten, half-spilled breakfast. Then the commercial ended and the cartoon pulled his attention back like a magnet.

“What kind of weird activity?” asked Sarah.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready, Babe?”

Sarah frowned and crossed her arms.

Inwardly, Ray groaned. When Sarah felt protective, she turned into a detective. “It was Nog. He was eating up twelve gigabits at once and FTPing all over the place.”

“ Twelve gigabits? You mean the Nog?”

“Yup, the very one that followed you around after night-classes in college and sent you all that e-mail.”

“Yuck,” said Sarah. “Does he still have a forked-tongue?”

“I imagine so. Old snake-man, they used to call him.”

“I never knew how that happened to him.”

“No?” asked Ray, smiling. “It’s his braces. He worries at them with his tongue while he’s coding, sort of a nervous habit. After getting the tip cut a thousand times, he’s developed that V-shaped wedge of missing flesh. You know, I don’t think he’s even had those braces looked at for years. They should have been removed ages ago.”

“Gross!” shouted Justin. Sarah made a face and shuddered. Walking fast, she headed down the hall to the bathroom. “Well, I don’t think you need to stay so late, not even for Brenda, and certainly not for Nog.”

Ray smiled blearily into his paper bowl, quickly tipping it up to drink the remainder of the milk while his wife was out of sight. For some reason it upset her when he did that. He looked over and noticed that Justin was doing the same thing for the same reasons. They grinned at each other.

Then he glanced at his watch. “Oh shit!” he whispered.

“Daddy said a bad word! ” shouted Justin.

They were all going to be late.

… 83 Hours and Counting…

John Nogatakei, known to most people as Nog, or The Nog, sat in the dark den of his apartment. The majority of the light in the apartment came from the combined screens of his four computers, all of which were running, even the notebook on his lap. The room glowed from many soft sources of light. Odd shadows shimmered on the walls when Nog or one of his screens shifted. Only one sliver of clear white light could be found in the apartment, a sliver which filtered through the cracked-open refrigerator in the apartment’s tiny kitchen. Nog had been in such a hurry to get back to his computers the last time he had taken a brief break he had left the door hanging open. The fridge hummed quietly to itself, attempting in vain to cool the entire apartment.

Nog didn’t like natural light. His pale skin was clear evidence of this. During the day, when Nog slept, offensive sunlight was kept at bay by layers of aluminum foil and duct tape, which covered every window, even the sliding glass doors.

All activity in the apartment centered around the living room, which had evolved into a combination of office and bedroom. Shelves climbed every wall to the ceiling, each tier overflowing with software boxes, video disks, manuals and magazines. The forgotten bedrooms at the back of the apartment were used as further storage. The kitchen, besides the ajar fridge, contained only a microwave, paper plates and cups and plastic utensils. If food couldn’t be microwaved on a paper plate, Nog didn’t eat it.

Unexpectedly, the largest of the monitors came to life. It spread over an entire wall and was paper-thin. The screen flickered wildly for a moment and somewhere a speaker chimed. The big screen paused, and then the notebook on his lap began to flicker. Someone was trying to get in touch with him using a chat utility over the net. Nog worked his tongue around in his mouth. Talking to unknown strangers, even over the net, made him nervous. He didn’t open a communications path right away, instead he got the userid of the person calling and checked it out. It was from a student account. Nog frowned and worried his tongue against his teeth. Why would a student contact him? Why tonight, of all nights?

He checked further. Something flashed by on the screen that caught his eye. He scrolled it back up and learned that the student had not logged in for months, in fact, the account had never apparently been used before now. Nog wriggled his tongue. There was a familiar twinge of pain and a tiny amount of blood oozed into his mouth. It tasted salty.

He opened a pathway.

Who is it? he typed.

The reply swam into being on the screen: It’s me.

Nog considered dropping the connection. He didn’t like people who fooled around and played coy with him on the net. He liked to do it himself, of course, but not when he wasn’t the one in control.

Identify yourself or be switched off.

It’s your own personal Santa Claus, you fool. The one who gets you the things you don’t know how to get yourself.

Nog chuckled to himself, and stopped lacerating his tongue. He relaxed back into his chair and switched over to his notebook for easier reach. Like what kind of things? he typed.

Things with panties and rubber sheets.

Nog laughed aloud, a croaking sound that the world rarely heard. He immediately felt a rush of arousal. Nog had long since tired of porn. He had been raised on it, but it had little effect on him these days. He had made million of dollars and he liked women, but they didn’t like Nog. Worse, he was too chicken to hunt for the ones who might hold their noses and cash his checks. He had finally found a fixer, someone who had fed him the women he wanted but didn’t have the guts to go find for himself. They would come to the door and knock discreetly. Usually, they be shocked at his wreck of an apartment and the grim realities of Nog himself. But they didn’t run screaming. They must have been briefed, Nog thought, by his benefactor.

Nog paid for these women himself, while his friend did what he didn’t have the guts to do, he arranged for their delivery. What his benefactor wanted in return was something quite different.

Why the secrecy? he typed.

I want no record of this conversation, not now.

Nog nodded to the screen. Okay, smart enough. Good move, using a student’s dead account. From now on, I’ll just use your handle: Santa.

Fine. Santa it is.

So what do you want tonight, Santa?

Status report.

Right on schedule and target. How about you?

Good. Everything is prepared. We won’t speak again unless we must.

Alright, but send me another lucky lady tonight.

There was a pause.

I think we should wait on that. This is the moment we’ve worked toward. I would prefer you stay on station and handle anything that comes up.

Nog sighed disappointedly. He didn’t really care about this special software job. He was in it for the women. But he didn’t want his source to dry up for him, so he decided to go along.

Agreed. Bye.

Bye. 8-)

And that was it. Nog touched a key to break the connection. He then went through several files to eradicate the text of the conversation as best he could. Not all traces could be eliminated, but it should all look innocent enough, if someone were to check up on it.

He began the final process to finish the night’s work. Nearly half an hour later, the main monitor flared into life again. “Download initiated. Upload Complete,” the computer said in a soft, feminine voice. The computer made the words sound almost human. Nog started the next step by activating an icon on the screen of his notebook with the tiny wireless mouse. He patted his notebook affectionately. It was smaller and less powerful than the others, but he was fond of it because he could take it with him on his quarterly trips to Japan. He felt it was the most loyal of his machines.

“This sure beats taking graduate classes,” Nog said aloud to himself and his humming computers. He chuckled, thinking about all the time he had wasted in school.

Nog had graduated from U. C. Davis with a degree in computer science, but had never finished his masters. He had made his first million-and his second and his third-writing hit video games. After that he found he had little time left for school.

As his electronic minions continued to work, Nog considered the rumpled sleeping bag on the couch that served as his bed. He rubbed his burning eyes and blinked. It had been a long time since he had last slept. What was it now, two days? Two days and this was the third night. He was exhausted, but everything was working as planned now, everything was moving ahead.

Nog patted his laptop absently. He was ugly and he knew it. People shunned him, but his machines never did. The acne that cratered his face, the belly that overflowed his pants, the thick lenses that covered his eyes and the odd V-shaped chip that was missing at the tip of his tongue, none of these things had ever bothered his computers.

Deciding it was time to rest, he set his notebook’s alarm clock software to awaken him when the transfers were complete. He rose with a grunt, aimed his backside at the couch and collapsed onto it. His notebook soon went into sleep-mode, causing images of a flapping pterodactyl to bounce around the screen in an endless, mindless fashion. Nog fell asleep thinking of flying pterodactyls. An exhausted smile played on his lips. Soon, people would regret shunning him.

… 82 Hours and Counting…

Classes had begun for Ray, and he was indeed burning.

His eyes and throat burned, even the skin on his back seemed to burn. As he had often pointed out to others who said things like: Well, teaching doesn’t pay much, but it sure beats working! the one catch about teaching was that you had to perform when it came time for class. In college, there weren’t even any substitutes. It was a live show, mostly improvised everyday, and there were rarely any rehearsals. You went to class and you performed, or there wasn’t a show. Everything you did was stared at and evaluated by many sets of eyes. A bad day for the professor was a bad day for everyone.

Today was a bad day. Students sat with their heads cradled in their hands, trying to keep them up. His tiredness had left them bored and fatigued, as if just watching him was somehow draining their energy. Students listlessly checked their email on their netbooks and slate computers. One young man in the back was asleep at his desk, his baseball cap pulled forward to block the harsh glare of the fluorescents overhead. Ray had sympathy for them, and tried to keep his energy up, but it was a losing battle.

Ray felt his armpits go slick and his face began to burn with a wave of embarrassment as he slurred his words and repeated himself. He was bombing and he knew it. He hated the feeling and wondered briefly if this was how it felt to be a comedian with a silent crowd. He paused for a moment, fumbled with his notes and tried to think.

Then he decided to switch topics to a sure-fire winner for this class. The long struggle he and Brenda had had with the system last night gave him the idea.

“Class,” he said suddenly. “Let’s talk about viruses.”

The effect was electric. Slumped students whom he’d long considered narcoleptic sat up blinking. Ray gave them a gratified smile. Setting aside his notes, he turned his full attention to the class. For the moment, he had theirs as well.

“Viruses are a major topic for this class, of course,” he began. “In years gone by, I would have assigned you all a final project in which you created your own virus for purposes of study.”

“All right,” muttered someone.

“I’m listening,” said a student who appeared to be sleeping in an upright position. Her name was Magic Avila and she normally spent every class with her eyes closed. She never took notes and rarely asked questions. True to her name, when it came time to take a test, she would get a perfect ‘A’ every time. Her effortless method of learning did seem like magic.

“Fortunately or unfortunately, those days have passed us,” Ray continued.

A collective groan of disappointment rose from the class.

Ray smiled and felt their attentiveness. He took a deep breath and pressed ahead.

“I know all too well why you want to hear about viruses. People are always fascinated by the dark side of their craft. Viruses represent power. They are destructive and illegal. Among software professionals, there is no greater crime than their creation. People who create and release software viruses are vandals, nothing more nor less. To us, they are what an arsonist is to a firefighter-what a biological warfare researcher is to a family doctor — what a heretic is to a cleric.

“I will not ask you to write one, but you will gain the knowledge nonetheless. I can’t help that, for in order to understand them you must surely be given the secrets of their creation. Who, after all, would make a better arsonist than a firefighter?”

There were scattered chuckles and the class leaned forward and settled in. He knew he had them now, they were ready for a good lecture. His head still burned, but he could push that aside now. He had a topic that he loved to lecture on and an interested audience. It was times like these that made teaching fun.

“Let us first define what we are talking about. When your computer is infected with a virus, it isn’t an organic thing, like one of the two hundred-odd variations of the rhinovirus we call the common cold. Computer viruses are software, programs, sets of instructions for computers to follow that someone has deliberately created and distributed in order to cause others annoyance, grief or financial loss. Unlike the common cold, which has been with us for millennium and was never purposefully created by humanity, viruses don’t occur naturally. They are specifically designed and ingeniously constructed by one of us. Most often, in fact, by one of you,” here he paused and swept an accusing finger and eye over the crowd. The students responded to his dramatics with smiles and side-glances to their friends. They knew his lecture style by now.

“Most viruses are written by graduate students in computer science. Many others are written by intelligence agencies, ours or those of foreign powers, for the express purpose of wreaking havoc among the computers of an enemy government.

“Why us?” interrupted Alicia, a female student who always sat in the front row. Ray turned to her and noticed that she seemed more surprised by her interruption than he was. She was the quiet type, who rarely spoke out of turn in class, unlike some of the other overly-bright hooligans that Ray had to contend with on a daily basis.

“Because,” sighed Ray, “you’re young, you have time on your hands, and most of all-” he paused, “-because you want to see if you can do it. You want the challenge.”

“But that’s awful,” said Alicia, her face pinched.

“Yes, possibly, but predictable. At this point in your careers, you have the time, and you know just enough to be dangerous. You are at the point in your lives that you are impressed by feats of beer consumption, last decade’s muscle cars and empty sexual conquests. If you’ve made it this far in the difficult field of computer science, then you are also impressed by original and creative coding.

“But let me tell you right now, class, that the creation of wantonly destructive software is a federal crime and that I would not hesitate to turn in any of you who created and distributed such a thing.

“You’d turn us in? Your own students?” questioned Magic. Her eyes were uncharacteristically open. There was a slight, pouting smile on her lips as she asked the question. She was an attractive girl, and the look on her face made Ray wonder if she had a crush on him.

“Just as surely as I’d turn you in for building a bomb or setting fire to the dorms,” replied Ray evenly.

“But it’s not the same thing,” protested Magic, “No one gets hurt.”

“While it’s true that viruses have yet to cause any known deaths-unless you count the viruses used to disable Iraqi air defense systems in the Gulf Wars, that is-it is only a matter of time until they do. Please realize that there are millions of chances a day for software to cause a death. Car ignition and braking systems are controlled by software. Pilots fly airliners in blinding conditions, trusting their intelligent instruments. If these systems become susceptible to attack, many lives are at risk.

“But let me backtrack a bit. In order to more thoroughly understand my position on this, we must examine the nature of viruses in greater detail. Classifying them in terms of behavior, viruses come in three primary flavors. One: the annoying virus. Built to sell something in most cases, rather than vandalize, the annoying virus is more of a prank than a felonious assault. One example I recall vividly. It simply caused a large image of a person’s hand to be drawn on your computer console every time you booted up your machine. The annoying part was that middle finger of this blue hand was extended upwards in a pose that we are all probably familiar with.”

The class laughed aloud.

Ray nodded to them, “Yes, well… Now, that was it for the virus. That’s all it did. If you hit any key, the image was gone and you could go on with your work for the day. Many of us found it mildly amusing and harmless and generally not worth the trouble of hunting down and erasing the carefully hidden files. The virus would of course attempt to spread itself to other machines whenever possible, so that soon everyone in the office was enjoying “Big Blue” as it came to be known.

“After a few weeks, however, the humor wore thin. People gradually realized that they didn’t enjoy being flipped off by Big Blue every morning. It took us a few days to eradicate it from every disk we had, but we finally did it one weekend, with only a minimum of overtime and downtime.”

“Do you still have a copy of that one on disk, Dr. Vance?”

“Ah, no Magic, I’m sorry. As I was saying, there are a fair number of oddballs like that one. I recall another that caused my word processor program to only print in foreign character sets. Umlauts, accents and the like were rampant until you could get it cleaned off. About seventy-five percent of viruses are sales viruses or search engine hijackers. They perform mild trick like that. Unfortunately, some viruses aren’t harmless pranks. The second behavioral type, the data-destructive virus, is fairly common. Approximately twenty percent plus of viruses come under this category and amount to vandalism. In general, these viruses go for the most valued element of any computer system, the hard disk. They use many approaches, from the brute force of a low-level reformat to a subtle jumbling of the file allocation table, but the result is always the loss of hours upon hours of work. Often, this sort of thing does more damage to individuals rather than to companies, as companies tend to more carefully back-up their data.

“Last on the list is the rarest and perhaps most feared type: the hardware destructive virus. These are indeed rare, but do exist.”

“How can a program damage hardware?” asked Magic. Her question was very serious, but her eyes were still closed. Ray took this in stride, he was used to her by now and no longer found it disturbing to answer questions from a student who listened closely while she looked asleep. He suspected her mental circuitry operated differently than it did for most people. Many computer people, when tested by experts, had odd brain behavioral patterns.

“In most cases it can only be done by someone who has specialized knowledge of the hardware, such as the chip-burning virus that irreparably damaged the motherboards of personal computers by repeatedly sending a signal to them until some of the integrated circuits actually burned out. More recently, viruses have been reported that will destroy the hard disk physically by simply causing the read/write head to seek from one end of the platter to the other, banging it back and forth as fast as it will go until the actuator arm breaks.”

“Jeez,” muttered another student. Ray always forgot his name and thought of him as the “guy with the baseball cap in the front row”.

“Indeed,” said Ray. “Viruses can be nasty things.”

“But how do they spread?” asked Alicia.

“Ah! Now therein lies the true genius in any virus. Only part of the code of any virus is dedicated to ‘doing its thing’. The rest is dedicated to spreading itself, generally by copying a file from place to place at some point. There are many schemes here. Some viruses rely on an immediate and devastating effect, such as the moment you run the infected program, it erases your hard disk. The problem with this one, of course, is that the victim is far less likely to transmit the virus to someone else’s machine after such a gross and fatal attack. Much like an organic virus that kills its host too soon, the computer virus that attacks prematurely will not have much of a chance to spread before it is eradicated.

“In fact, most viruses wait for a specific condition to attack, often waiting for weeks or even months before striking. This gives them a lot of time to spread before the threat can be realized. One classic example of this is the Michelangelo virus that was programmed to strike on February 17th, Michelangelo’s birthday. This type of virus is called the ‘time bomb’.

“Another type, known as the Trojan horse, starts off attached to a program such as a shareware game that users might want to give to their friends. Hidden within the game file is the virus, which will wait to act until the game program is executed.

“Commonly known as the Logic Bomb, a third scheme one encounters is a virus that is looking for a certain, specific event to occur before it attacks. This virus is often used by people seeking revenge. For example, a logic bomb might go off and delete the hard drive of a network server when a certain employee record is marked: terminated. That way, the employee gets instant revenge on the company that fired him or her.”

“But wouldn’t that be too obvious?” asked Magic. “I mean, wouldn’t they know that the anti-social programmer that they just fired had done it?”

“Possibly, but that is a far cry from catching the responsible party. In truth, perpetrators of software vandalism are rarely penalized for their actions.”

“But why not, Dr. Vance?” demanded Alicia, scandalized.

Ray rubbed his chin for a few moments before answering. “Several reasons. Firstly, the people in the legal establishment don’t really understand computers yet. New technology tends to change everything it touches, sometimes in a bad way. We create whole new businesses, but we also create new methods of crime at the same time. A fiftyish judge or legislator has probably had little understanding of the latest tech. Secondly, computer crimes are all but invisible and somewhat nebulous.”

He produced a flashdrive and held it up for them to examine. “A chip like this may contain a million dollar piece of industrial espionage. It might contain a million credit card records with matching social security numbers. It might contain a federal report, not yet released to Wall Street. It might even contain a fortune 500 company budget, or a secret formula for the next kind of rocket fuel.

“Or, it might be completely blank. The point is that to a white-haired judge, it looks the same either way. If you go out and burn down a one hundred million dollar building, or blow up an airliner, or steal a nice car, they will throw the book at you. Because they can see the damage and clearly measure it in their minds. Since the crime is obvious, they will respond appropriately. But with information crimes, the very hidden and nebulous nature of it tends to mask the magnitude of the damage done.”

“How much time would someone do for getting caught with the source code to a data-destructive virus, Dr. Vance?” asked Magic. Her eyes were still closed.

“If it was released and spread nationwide?”

“Yes.”

“Most likely in the neighborhood of zero to six months, depending on a variety of factors.”

Magic nodded silently.

Alicia shook her head. “Wow. Crime of the century and no price to pay!”

Magic spoke again. This time she opened her eyes. “Dr. Vance, I feel compelled to ask a serious question at this point.”

“Yes, Magic?”

“Have you ever written a virus, sir?”

Ray hesitated for a moment. He felt his face redden, just a shade as a wave of heat rose up his neck. “Well, I just said that I used to teach this class with a virus-writing contest of sorts, so of course I-”

“I’m sorry sir, let me rephrase the question,” interrupted Magic. “Have you ever written and released a virus of your own design?”

Again Ray hesitated. She stared at him, and somehow the fact that he rarely saw her eyes made them seem accusatory. He recalled the incident all too vividly, since he had actually been caught for creating a virus only twelve years earlier. As a graduate student, he reflected, he had been burdened with too much brainpower and not enough sense. His work had done no damage, but had spread itself virulently around the net and caused quite a stir.

He pondered a confession to the class, but felt that he had to hide the truth. As a role-model, the last thing he needed was that kind of reputation. Accordingly, he dissembled.

“I’ve actually created, handled, and released a number of viruses in controlled situations,” he said in his best matter-of-fact voice. Of course, he thought to himself, there had been that one incident where control of the experiment had been completely lost.

Magic pursed her lips. She closed her eyes again and looked vaguely amused. He could tell, without a doubt, that she knew the truth. Her intelligence intrigued him-and if the truth were to be known, her legs weren’t bad, either.

There was a moment of awkward silence as Ray tried to think of what to say next. Then Alicia spoke up. Ray felt an immediate wave of relief. “What was the worst virus ever recorded?” she asked.

“That would probably be the internet virus of 1992. It halted the majority of the internet for some time and cost in the neighborhood of 100 million dollars. The author of that particular gem was a graduate student at Cornell University and received only nominal punishment for it.”

“But wasn’t that virus really more properly termed a software worm, Dr. Vance?” asked Magic.

Ray breathed more easily. “Ah yes, which leads us to-”

At that point in the lecture the door flew open and things changed for everyone. Brenda rushed in. Her sides were heaving. Her cheeks were red and they glistened a bit. Ray blinked in shock and lost his grip on his laser pointer. He’d never seen Brenda run or cry. Never. His first thought was: who died? Fortunately, it never occurred to him that it could be bad news about his family. His mind was still a bit too hazy. He just waited for her to catch her breath and looked on with curiosity, as did his students.

“Could you come with me, Ray? We have of an emergency with the system.”

Ray opened his mouth automatically to protest that he was in the middle of class and it would have to wait, but the uncharacteristic tears, which Brenda was already wiping away, convinced him.

“Class is dismissed, everyone. I’ll see you next Tuesday, when we will continue our discussion. Don’t forget the quiz and read chapter eight.”

Out in the hall he followed Brenda with his long quick strides. She was almost trotting. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s a virus, Ray,” she whispered.

Ray threw up his arms. “So? We get them all the time.”

She shook her head rapidly. “No, this is different, Ray. I can’t stop it. I can’t even shut down, because I might lose all the files. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“But it’s loose Ray, it’s on the net. I’ve shut down the internet link, but I think it’s hitting other servers even now.”

“How? Any important hub has a firewall these days.”

“I don’t know,” said Brenda, gulping air as she hurried down the hall. “It’s some new kind of spoofing, maybe. All the servers seem to believe the data packets are from valid sources and they’re accepting the file transmissions like kids eating cookies. It’s spreading like wildfire, Ray.”

“We’ll stop it,” Ray repeated, but suddenly he wasn’t feeling so self-assured. If it was loose on the net, and it could go through defensive software firewalls, that was different. “Okay, so we caught a real killer virus from the internet. It’s happened before, and its cost millions of dollars to people all over the globe, but why the tears?”

She tossed him a glare for mentioning her tears. That reassured him. She looked like the old, self-confident, bossy Brenda that he knew so well. “You haven’t heard the worst part.”

“What?”

“I think it’s from here,” she hissed at him.

“From here?” he echoed vaguely. His reassuring attitude vanished as the implications sank in. “That means people from the National Security Agency and the FBI…”He trailed off, stunned. Could one of his students have done it? Had he himself trained a vandal of monumental proportions? If Brenda was right and the virus was from here and it was out on the net, the place would be crawling with agents soon.

“…listening to me, Ray?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t ever mention it again. Not to anyone.”

“What?”

“Don’t tell anyone that I cried. I’ll kill you.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t cry. It was just that I hated the idea that one of our students did this. It’s-you know-it’s like having one of your own kids go bad and tear up a church or something.”

“More like fifty churches, if it’s gotten out to more servers,” said Ray. “We’ll have to call the National Security Agency immediately.”

Then they pushed open the swinging doors that led into the computer lab where all hell was breaking loose.

… 81 Hours and Counting…

“It went for the instructors’ accounts right away, damn it,” Brenda said. A stray lock of her unkempt brown hair drifted down into her eyes. She blew it back out of the way with a puff of air from her pursed lips. Throughout the ritual her fingers never stopped clittering on the keyboard.

“That’s not all, it trashed the file access table on the primary disk,” said Ray grimly. He sat a few feet from her, and worked an X-windows environment with a half-dozen sessions up at once. “We should just power down.”

“We can’t! If we can just salvage the file access table out of RAM and store it somehow we can sort it out later. I’ve got the main back-up drive ready now. We have to ride it out until it’s done.”

Ray switched windows to watch a net-sniffer utility he had running, checking to see what programs were currently active. Three programs, arrogantly called V1, V2, and V3, appeared on the list, then vanished again by the next scan. A cold hand gripped his guts and squeezed. Something was going on in there, the virus was hard at work, but he had no idea what it was up to now. It was unnerving. He felt like an officer on a doomed ship, battling leaks and fires, all the while suspecting that his efforts were in vain, that they were going to sink anyway.

Brenda made an exasperated sound. She brought her fist down and gave the keyboard a smashing blow, something she often yelled at students for doing. “What is this? I’m locked up!”

Ray glanced over at her, then back to his own screen. Suddenly, one of his windows closed and vanished. Two more went down in quick succession. “What the hell… It’s killing our processes. Probably searching the process table for anything with super-user permissions and nailing it. I’ll try to lock that out…” His hands flew over the keys and he was able to hold onto three of his windows, although he couldn’t get any new ones to open.

“It’s doing something with VPN communications, Brenda. We have to bring it down,” he said, turning to her.

Brenda, for perhaps the first time in her life, was indecisive. “But the back-up isn’t finished yet. Everyone’s work is on that disk. Graduate projects, grades, even research projects by several professors…”

Ray nodded grimly. Some of his own work was on that disk, and he felt like he was deciding which of his fingers to cut off. “I know, but we can’t let this thing get out to anyone else. Whatever it is, it’s the worst I’ve ever seen.”

“Damn it! Viruses aren’t supposed to hit everything at once,” Brenda said, her voice cracking. “Files, the disks, the network lines, our own sysop processes…”

Ray blinked as a dark thought came over him. “I think it’s stalling us, Brenda.”

“What?”

But even as he considered how to explain, he realized that there was no time to explain. If he was right, he needed to act fast, there was no time to lose. He rose and headed for the Door That Was Always Locked. Fumbling with the keys, he searched for the illegitimate copy of a master he had that opened virtually all the doors on the campus. He had gotten it from one of the janitors that had gotten tired of opening doors for him two summers ago.

Rhonda Wells, the Dean of Instruction, chose that moment to make her appearance. “I understand that we have a problem down here, Brenda,” she announced. “I’ve been in contact with the school President, and various authorities have been in contact with him. The FBI’s San Francisco office is in on this now, and their agents will be here within forty minutes. We aren’t to touch anything more until they arrive.” Wells was a tall woman with a firm handshake and a broad smile. Ray disliked her. She treated the faculty and staff as one would children who needed a firm but understanding hand.

“Ray?” said Brenda.

Wells seemed to notice Ray for the first time. She frowned. One of the kids was out of his seat. “What’s up, Ray?” she asked.

Ray made no reply. If he was right, it didn’t matter what the FBI wanted. The system had to be brought down. He finally had out the right key. He shoved it in the lock and twisted. The lock stuck for a moment, as the master key was a poor copy, but after a good bit of jiggling it popped open. He stepped into the darkened room full of the smell of ozone and flickering green, red and amber indicator lights. He began switching off systems, one after another. First the network switches, then the big routers that handled the feed to the internet and the grid, next the drives that were in the middle of the back-up.

“Ray? Ray!” said Wells from the doorway. She stepped inside and fumbled for the light switch. “Didn’t you hear me? We’re not supposed to touch anything!”

Ray found the main switch for the server’s CPU and flipped it. The effect was dramatic. The system made a dying, whirring sound, like a vacuum cleaner when it has pulled out its cord. Everything else died with it. He flipped several more switches. Glowing power lights dimmed and went out. Electric motors spun to a stop. Soon, the room was silent.

Wells had the lights on and now she stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips. She stared at Ray with a mixture of amazement and anger. “You killed it, didn’t you? Jesus, Ray, this isn’t like you.”

“It was stalling us,” said Ray weakly, suddenly feeling his tiredness and the stress of the day weighing him down all at once. He needed to sit down, but there weren’t any chairs in the room. Just dead hardware.

Wells shook her head. “How do you know what it was doing? It’s just a program some kid wrote, right?”

Ray shook his head. “No normal student wrote this monster,” he said, feeling out of breath. He didn’t have the energy to explain himself to Wells just now. He just hoped that he had acted in time.

“Probably one of your kids, I would guess. You teach all the graduate-level operating systems sections, don’t you? This is right up your alley.”

Ray was only half-listening. His head had decided to take this moment to start pounding and burning with a vengeance.

“You know, the FBI boys aren’t going to like this. They wanted to watch this thing in action, and you killed it. I think you really screwed the pooch this time, Ray,” Wells said. She frowned with a sudden thought. Her hand moved up to rub her face as she followed Ray out into the lab. “By the way, how did you get in here, anyway?”

Ray waved her off vaguely. He needed to sit. He needed some lunch and some coffee, too.

… 80 Hours and Counting…

“What did you do? What do you mean gone? ” demanded Dr. Abrams, his over-sized eyes bulging more than usual behind his heavy glasses. “You destroyed my work, Vance?”

Ray looked up, met the professor’s eyes briefly, then looked away and rubbed his face. “It was already destroyed. The virus deleted the instructor’s accounts immediately.”

Abrams’ face went a shade darker. It had started out red, and was moving in stages toward purple. A vein bulged in his neck to match his thrusting eyes. “You turned it off. You stopped the backup. Those files could have been recovered. I am not a stupid man, Vance. Why do you treat me as if I am stupid?”

“I’m not,” said Ray, a new flash of pain warmed the back of his head. He heard an odd singing sound inside his mind. He struggled to maintain focus. Part of him wanted to tell Abrams that it wasn’t exactly a virus. Technically it was a worm, because it actively tried to transmit itself across the net. But he knew that a correction in terminology would not be welcomed right now. Not by anyone. “I don’t think the virus would have allowed the backup to finish. It was stalling us for time, time to get out to more servers. I couldn’t let the virus out.”

“Conjecture, Vance. Pure conjecture. You speak as if the virus was thinking, alive. It is only a program, written by one of your graduate students-”

“We don’t know that,” interjected Brenda defensively.

Abrams didn’t even acknowledge her. He wasn’t through with Ray yet. “Your ideas are absurd. You destroyed my work.”

“Yes, but I felt I had to.”

“You admit it?” Abrams demanded suddenly, excitement and victory rising in his voice. “You admit that you did this thing?”

“It was necessary.”

Abrams nodded quickly, several times. It was a bird-like gesture. He looked away. “Very well. Very well.”

“Look, Dr. Abrams, many people lost their research. You only lost the last two or three months worth-”

“The best months, Vance. The gene strand was nearly complete. The breakthrough work-”

“But you can recover. You must have some of it on your computer.”

“The files were too large.”

“Viruses are never pleasant. We must guard against them continually.”

Abrams narrowed his eyes and looked at Ray with new interest. “What we must guard against are those who create them, Vance. So, this is the kind of thing you teach our students to create, eh? Very well.”

Ray opened his mouth to say more, but suddenly the man turned on his heel and marched out of the lab.

“Boy, he really worked you over,” said Dr. Ingles. He stepped up and pulled a cigarette from his sports coat. Brenda watched with apprehension as he put it in his mouth, produced a lighter, then, just as he was about to light up, paused. Holding the lighter and the cigarette up, one in each hand, he gestured with them as he spoke. “When are you up for tenure, Ray?”

“Huh?” said Ray. “Umm, this year, I guess, Jim.”

Dr. Ingles fondled his cigarette, putting it into his mouth and sort of chewing on it. The tension in Brenda was evident. She hated smoking, especially in her lab. Dr. Ingles was one of the worst offenders, always seeming to forget that the world had changed and cigarettes had lost favor during the change.

Ingles nodded. “Second time at bat, eh?”

Ray blinked, wondering where Ingles was going with this. The man was rarely direct. “Right.”

Ingles flicked open the lighter, toyed with the thumbwheel. Brenda tensed visibly. He closed the lighter with a snap. “‘Very well.’ Abrams kept saying. I wonder what he meant?”

Ray felt a jolt in his deadened mind. “He’s on the approval committee this year.”

“Eh? Which committee?”

“The tenure committee,” said Ray, realizing thoroughly that he had been led down the primrose path once again by Ingles to a point of logic. Ray wondered if his students hated that approach or loved it.

“Ah, yes,” said Ingles, as if just reaching the same conclusion himself. “About this virus, Ray…”

Ray looked at him warily, preparing for yet another mental assault. Sometimes dealing with the brilliant idiosyncrasies of the other faculty took a great deal of patience.

“It seems to me that it sounds too sophisticated for a student to create. Too much work, too many different functions… I wonder what the Feds will say.”

Ray blinked and frowned. This time he didn’t follow Ingles at all.

“Well, I’ve got to go see what backups I have myself. Is the system up again yet?” asked Ingles.

“Still rebooting,” answered Brenda. “Give us another half-hour. But we won’t be online again for user access for some time. We have to assess the damage and try to eradicate the virus. The FBI will probably slow things down, too.”

Ingles nodded and headed toward the exit. Standing half-in and half-out of the lab, he lit up his cigarette. Brenda’s face reddened as blue smoke wafted into her lab. On a U. C. campus, smoking anywhere was a huge sin.

“One last thing, Ray,” he said from the door. “Don’t skip anything with the Feds. Don’t leave something out that looks bad later.”

Ray frowned and opened his mouth to ask what he meant, but the doors were already swinging shut.

Ray barely had time to gulp down half a tuna sandwich and a paper cup of boiled coffee before the feds arrived. To his mild surprise, only one of them had a crew cut and neither wore sunglasses. Even more unexpected, one of them was a Hispanic woman. She was the mean one.

“Agent Johansen and Agent Vasquez,” gushed Rhonda Wells, leading them in. “This is the lab where the unfortunate incident occurred.”

“Correction, madam,” snapped Agent Vasquez. “The incident only began here. It is far from finished.”

Wells blinked, then recovered his composure. “Surely, this thing will soon be under control.”

“Possibly,” said Vasquez. “But it isn’t even known how many systems are infected yet. Many feeder systems have pulled off the internet, others have yet to get the word. We have no idea yet how many are infected. They can’t connect back up without knowing the net is clean, so the damage is continuing in any case.”

Wells nodded and blinked faster. Ray hid a smile. Wells was overly impressed by authority figures. He suspected that was why she had sought to work her way up as far as possible.

“This is Brenda Hastings, she is the director of our main computer science lab,” Wells continued as smoothly as possible. Her tone seemed to indicate that the agents were on a field trip rather than conducting a criminal investigation. “And this is Dr. Ray Vance, computer science faculty.”

The agents eyed him and he nodded back. No handshakes were offered. Ray was too tired and irritated to care.

They began an impressive series of questions, quickly isolating the events of the morning. Johansen, a stocky man of medium height, recorded everything with a hand-held voice recorder. Vasquez took occasional notes.

“So it was you, Dr. Vance, who shut down the system. Why?”

Ray had known this question would be coming, and he felt he was ready for it. “Because I believed that the virus was stalling us, making it look like we could recover if we allowed the disk backup to finish before shutting down. I believe that it was using the time to infect more systems.”

Vasquez raised her eyebrows a fraction. The silent Agent Johansen frowned and aimed his recorder at Ray. The red indicator light on the device glowed. “On what do you base this belief, Doctor?” asked Vasquez.

“First, the lines were all coming alive, showing a lot of activity on the ports that wasn’t our doing. Second, the virus was very sophisticated, and could have easily been devised to destroy the disk data thoroughly-but it didn’t. Instead, it disabled the Optical drive, messed up the disk, not completely mind you, just enough to panic us, then left us an out with the backup drive system.”

There was moment of quiet while everyone looked at Ray blankly. “Dr. Vance, are you aware that there is no record of any virus that would be so sophisticated?”

“Yes, I teach the operating systems classes here.”

“I see, so viruses are definitely in your field of expertise.”

Ray nodded. Uncontrollably, he yawned.

“Haven’t you been sleeping, Doctor?”

Ray shook his head. “We had trouble with the system last night. Brenda and I were working on it until three.”

Agent Vasquez nodded and made a note in her notebook. Ray began to wonder how long they would want to go over this. He had already cancelled his 1:00 PM class and planned to leave early to get some sleep before Justin came home and tackled him. To be sure, he would come in and spend the evening and much of the night in the lab again to try and isolate the virus files. Sarah was going to be pissed.

“How did you get into the room with the computer hardware, Doctor?”

Ray blinked. “I-ah, I have a copy of a master key. It works with most of the doors on campus. A lot of the faculty have them.” He felt a guilty heat rising in his neck. He looked around and noticed that everyone was staring at him seriously. No one was talking or smiling. Their lack of movement was disconcerting.

“Dr. Wells,” said Agent Vasquez, turning to face the dean. “Are you aware of an informal agreement among the faculty to have access to such a key?”

“Certainly not,” she said. She avoided Ray’s eyes.

“Wait a minute, here,” said Ray. “I think we’re getting a bit off track. Aren’t we supposed to be isolating the virus and finding out how to eradicate it?”

Agent Vasquez nodded in agreement. “There is another team coming up from Los Angeles tonight. They will work with the system all night until the virus is isolated and understood.”

“I’ve got it rebooting now,” said Brenda.

“Good,” Vasquez said. She turned her ever-serious gaze back to Ray. “Does that concern you, Dr. Vance?”

“No, not if we’ve cut out all the external lines.”

“So, if we keep the machine isolated, disconnected from the internet and from the outside lines, the virus can’t get out of the system?”

“Ah, no-wait,” Ray said, as things finally began to sink in. He flicked his red, burning eyes over the four of them. Only Johansen met his gaze. The man never stopped flatly staring at him, watching him, as if he expected him to do something at any moment…

His mind raced ahead. He had overreacted, they were right. All he had needed to do was pull all the external lines. If he had cut the connections to the outside world, he could have stopped the virus from damaging anything more than their local system. He had made a mistake. In a flash, he recalled Dr. Ingles’ words: Don’t leave something out that looks bad later. That cagey bastard. He had foreseen all of this.

“Okay, I see what you are driving at,” said Ray. “You have a point. I could have just cut the outside lines. I think I overreacted. But I just didn’t want it to get out. As a data-destructive virus, it had to be stopped before it trashed every other server it could reach.”

Vasquez turned to Johansen. “Are there any reports of data-destructive behavior outside of this lab?” she asked.

“No,” answered Johansen. He gazed coldly at Ray while he spoke, “The virus is spreading with frightening speed, but so far it hasn’t done any damage other than eating up resources. The only erased files we know of are right here.”

“Well,” said Ray, trying not to stammer. “I wasn’t even sure which of the peripherals back there controlled the external lines, so I killed them all to be safe. I just didn’t know what the thing was doing,” he finished lamely.

“A moment ago, you claimed to know exactly what it was doing, Doctor,” said Agent Vasquez. “I quote: ‘Second, the virus was very sophisticated, and could have easily been devised to destroy the disk data thoroughly-but it didn’t.’“

They were all looking at him again now, with a new coldness in their eyes. For the first time, he felt something more than embarrassment. For the first time, he felt alarmed.

“Whoa, hold on a minute here!” he said, laughing tightly. “I see where this is going. You people don’t actually believe that I would release a virus, do you?”

“That remains to be seen, Dr. Vance,” said Agent Vasquez.

… 78 Hours and Counting…

It was Wednesday and Justin’s school always let out at 1:30 PM on Wednesdays. When Justin left for home, he was glad that the gray van was nowhere in sight. He was in such a good mood that he walked on the edge of the curbs almost the entire way home-the whole three blocks-his Nikes slipping off into the gutter only twice. It was a personal record for him, and he felt that today would be a lucky day. He practiced his whistling, which he really couldn’t do yet, but he tried. As he walked he shaped and reshaped his mouth to make hissing and peeping sounds vaguely like cartoon theme songs.

When he reached home, he realized right away that no one was home. This was not the usual for a Thursday, as Daddy was generally home by this time, but it wasn’t unknown, either. What he was supposed to do was go to Billy’s grandma’s house and watch TV with Billy until his dad got home. But he didn’t want to do this, because Billy didn’t watch the same cartoons as he did in the afternoon and because Billy’s house and Billy’s grandma smelled kinda funny. So instead, he used his secret way in.

Going through the side gate and around to the back, he found the window into the guest bedroom that never shut right and pulled off the screen. Within a minute he was inside and climbing down off the bed. He began to whistle again, proud of himself, when he heard something.

There was a rattle and a thump. Something was in his parents’ bedroom; something was in the drawers. Justin thought of the bird that had flown into the living room last summer and had to be caught in his dad’s jacket and tossed outside. Or maybe it was the neighbor’s cat, who always seemed to be sneaking in and running around on the counters in the kitchen.

Then he heard the creak of floorboards. It was a person, a robber, almost certainly. Justin thought about climbing out the window again, but he was worried that the robber might hear him this time. There was no easy way out the front door, so Justin crept down the hallway to the study. He lifted the phone handset. In the dimly lit room, the glow of the keypad seemed bright and the drone of the dial tone seemed like the roar of an engine. With shaking fingers, he dialed 9-1-1, just as the kids always did on those real-life rescue shows.

He didn’t do anything else, however. He just put the phone down. He didn’t want to talk to anyone and he knew that just calling was enough to get the police to come there. He just suddenly knew he had to get out of there. If he talked, maybe the robber would hear him. Dialing 9-1-1 had brought it all home to Justin somehow. It changed things, it had made it all real. He shook with fright.

Even as he turned he realized that the sounds coming from his parents’ room had ceased. An odd quiet hung in the house. Only the humming of appliances and the tiny ticking of clocks could be heard.

There was a man standing in the doorway. For a few moments neither of them spoke. Justin froze, some primitive part of him telling him to hide, to pretend he was part of the air, part of the dim shadows of the study. Perhaps the predator would lose interest and go away.

“You did it, didn’t you? You little frigger,” whispered the robber.

Justin ran for it, right at the man’s legs. With a surprised grunt and a chuckle, the man stepped to one side, letting him pass. “Where are you going?” he asked in an amused tone.

Justin slipped passed him, smelling his dirty jeans as he brushed up against them. He headed not for the front door, nor the back door. He went into the guest bedroom and climbed up onto the bed. The window was still there, open, inviting.

There was a sound behind him as he reached the sill. Before he could get out, a long hairy arm circled his neck. Justin saw and felt the rows of scratchy scabs on the inside of the man’s arm as it curled around his throat. He saw the hand at the end of the arm, too. It had a doctor’s glove on it, one of those yellowy plastic ones that you could see through. Justin could see the man’s thumb inside the glove. A big silver ring encircled the thumb.

Justin knew the van man had him. He opened his mouth, sucking in air to scream. The other hand clamped itself over his mouth. It was also wearing a doctor’s glove. Justin tasted the dry rubber.

“Can’t have you falling and hurting yourself again, klutz,” whispered the van man. “You really should’ve gone to your friend’s house like you were supposed to.”

Justin tried to bite, but the Van Man just chuckled and slipped his fingers away. He ruffled Justin’s hair momentarily. “Look at all that blond fluff!” he said, his breath stinking of stale cigarettes. “You’re sure a cute kid, you know that? A damn, fine, good-looking kid.”

… 77 Hours and Counting…

Ray had spent the longest hours of his life in a small conference room next door to his own office. He wondered why they hadn’t taken him into custody yet. Perhaps it was because they didn’t want to leave the university until their back-up team got there from L.A. Agent Vasquez, whom he now had decided was a thorough bitch at heart, was seated across from him. Johansen manned the closed door, his recorder running on the tabletop in front of Ray. He had changed the batteries once. Ray hoped he would run out of batteries or memory space soon, just so he could see an expression of frustration on the man’s face. That would be gratifying. Unfortunately, the man’s supply of both seemed to be inexhaustible.

“Let’s go over it again, Dr. Vance-” she began.

“Yes, let’s,” answered Ray immediately. He was so tired and angry now that he didn’t care what happened. He was in survival mode, just plodding ahead, wanting to beat them at their own game of wearing him down through sheer determination. He actually looked forward to repeating his statement the thousandth time. He thought they must be getting as sick of it as he was, and the idea that he was causing them discomfort, in any small measure, made him feel good.

Vasquez didn’t bat an eye at his enthusiasm, but he thought it was getting to her a bit anyway. But she was a cool one, and she didn’t let it show. “First let’s discuss last night. You worked late. There was a lot of activity on the net, so you couldn’t bring down the system for maintenance.”

“Right, right,” nodded Ray, doing his best to seem eager, alive and interested. Vasquez glanced up from her notes at him without moving her head. She flicked her eyes back down. She looked slightly annoyed. Ray felt a rush of victory.

“Next, you-” she broke off as there came a persistent knocking at the door. Johansen looked at her. She nodded.

He opened the door and there stood Brenda, looking worried and a bit pissed. Ray found it reassuring that she wasn’t afraid of these agents any longer. It never took her long to lose her fear and respect for anyone.

“I think you people have gotten your statement from Dr. Vance. His wife is on the phone and she is very upset-”

“I’m sorry,” interrupted Agent Vasquez. “But we are conducting a very serious criminal investigation and we — ”

“Look,” said Brenda, taking a half-step into the room. “I know what you’re doing is important, even though I think you’re barking up the wrong tree entirely. In fact, I think you’re in the wrong forest. But this is an emergency. Sarah says there was an emergency 9-1-1 call from their house about an hour ago, and that Justin is nowhere to be found.”

Ray stood up. “What?”

Brenda nodded to him. “She hasn’t found him yet.”

“Where’s your phone, Brenda? Mine’s locked in the car. Have you got your cell in the building?”

Brenda stepped forward, holding up the phone. “It’s right here, and Sarah’s on it.”

Johansen moved to block her, but Agent Vasquez spoke up. “It’s all right. The testimony hasn’t changed remotely in the last ten passes.”

Ray couldn’t help but feel a flash of pleasure at the tone in her voice, but it was immediately washed away again as he took up the phone. “Sarah?”

“Ray? Ray, do you know where Justin is?”

“No, Sarah I — ”

“Why didn’t you pick him up? Why didn’t you call if you couldn’t make it?” demanded Sarah, her voice cracking. It was the tone more than her words that scared Ray. Sarah was always level-headed, she almost never became unglued over anything. Anything except for Justin, that was.

“Sarah, I’m sorry, never mind about that now. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Justin is gone, Ray. I think he’s really gone,” she paused here to sob. Remotely, distantly, Ray felt a piece of his world crumble and fall away. He felt one step closer to the abyss.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice flat.

“He left school at two-thirty, no one was home so he should have gone to the Trumble’s house, but he didn’t.”

Ray felt a glimmer of relief. “Well, Babe, what if he just went off home with some other friend?”

“But that’s not all, Ray. There was an emergency call from our house. A 9-1-1 call, right about when he would have made it home. The police responded but found no one there, nothing wrong, except that a back window was open and the screen was off.”

“The one he likes to climb into?”

“Right.”

“Who made the call?”

“They don’t know, the caller said nothing. They got the address from the computer and checked it out and called me.”

Ray looked up from the phone to the others in the room, who were all watching him.

“I’ve got to go home,” he said.

… 76 Hours and Counting…

“What did she say, Ray?” asked Brenda. “Is there any word about Justin?”

Ray shook his head. He sank down into his chair. An overwhelming rush of emotions flooded over him. Moments ago, he had just been tired and beleaguered, faced with at worst a threat to his career. Now his son was gone. Perhaps forever. He thought of his boy’s mischievous smile. Was he dead right now? Was he somewhere screaming for his daddy?

“…Dr. Vance. Dr. Vance?” repeated Vasquez.

Ray looked up vaguely. He shook his head and blinked rapidly. He had to think, to act. If his son was in trouble, he had to move fast if he was to help. He had to search while the trail was hot. Somehow he never really tried to deny that his son was gone. He simply skipped over denial entirely and went right on into shock, fear and anger. Today had been so bad already that he was more than ready to believe anything.

“You must allow me to leave. Am I under arrest? Are you charging me with anything?”

“No,” said Vasquez. “Not yet. But we have the right to conduct an investigation-”

“Fuck your investigation,” said Ray calmly. “If you want me to confess right now to anything, I will, if you will let me go after my son.”

This was the first statement that seemed to surprise them. Vasquez’s eyebrows shot up, and even Johansen looked quizzical. She motioned Johansen into the hall. The door swung shut behind them. “Give us one minute, Dr. Vance.”

Ray stood up and paced. He could see them through the glass and the mini-blinds. The conversation seemed intense. They were arguing quietly.

“They have to let you go, don’t they?” asked Brenda. “The bastards.”

Ray shushed her with a gesture and moved to the door. It wasn’t quite latched. He strained to hear them.

He heard Johansen’s rumbling voice. “…bullshit. It’s all part of the scheme…”

“No…” responded Vasquez. “…doesn’t feel right…” she said. He couldn’t make out the rest.

Johansen had his back to him. He had a wild thought about slamming into the stocky agent and making a break for it. Vasquez gave him pause, though. He felt sure that she had a gun on her and that she would not hesitate to shoot him. In the leg, maybe. Then what good would he be to Justin?

Instead, he pulled the door open and leaned out. “Well?”

They looked at him. It was good to see them look a bit ruffled.

Vasquez pulled out her cell phone. Her finger moved on the keypad and the phone beeped in response. She turned away and seemed to speak to several people in rapid succession. Ray fidgeted with impatience. His fingers rubbed against each other nervously and his burning eyes blinked rapidly. He noticed that Johansen was watching him closely. The man looked pissed-off, but Ray was too distracted now to care.

Vasquez turned around. “I checked out your story. There was a 9-1-1 call and your son has been reported missing. Under the circumstances, I’ve decided not to formally charge you at this time. You are a suspect, however, in a federal felony-Dr. Vance?”

But she was talking to his back. Ray and Brenda were headed out into the main hall at a trot. When he got out into the open hall, Ray began to run for side doors that let out onto the parking lot.

Behind him Vasquez was shouting. “Don’t leave the area, Dr. Vance. We will be in touch with you soon.”

“What’s wrong Dr. Vance?” asked a thin female student as he rounded a corner, grabbing the walls for support as he went. He recalled vaguely that her name was Valerie-something. He ignored her and charged the doors. He straight-armed the panic bar and burst out into the sunlight.

Ray reached his car and for an awful moment he thought that he had left his keys behind, or worse, that he had lost them. Then the bulge in his back pocket that his fumbling hands had missed the first time was out and a bright key flashed in the sun. He shoved the key into the lock and all but twisted it off getting the door open.

“Good luck, Ray!” shouted Brenda from the steps. Ray realized that she must have run after him. She said something else, but the engine of his Ford Taurus was roaring now as he backed out and threw the transmission into drive. She waved and he raised a hand back to her.

As he headed out of the parking lot, skirting a slow car and jumping a curb in the process, he realized that Brenda had shining tears on her cheeks again. Crying and running again. Twice in one day, and he had never seen her do either before.

… 75 Hours and Counting…

The trip home was hellish. Traffic had never been more frustrating. He wanted to break all the rules and he did break most of them. He drove around cars that were stopped at lights in order to run a red. Twice he jumped the curb so that two wheels were on the sidewalk briefly. His tires squealed at every corner. Fortunately, he had never wanted a long commute and the way home was not heavily-traveled at this time of day. Still, even the slightest delay all but drove him mad. He sat hunched over the wheel, sweating, shouting and beating at the wheel. His thumb was sore from pressing relentlessly on the horn button, using far more pressure than was required.

He drove at the limits of safety and just beyond, moving fast and illegally, skirting every delay, but not quite recklessly enough to get himself hit. Fortunately, there were no cops on the route to stop him. If there had been, he wondered what he would have done.

When he came skidding around the corner, he was disturbed to see only one cop car out in front of the house. Didn’t they care more than that? Vaguely, it occurred to him that most of the police should be out cruising around looking for signs of Justin, but somehow he wanted more response than this.

He jumped the curb and stopped the car on the lawn, heedless of the black swathes he cut in his well-groomed grass. The door opened as he got to the steps.

“Ray!” said Sarah, reaching out for him. He hugged her and bent down over her small body, pressing it up against him. He didn’t ask if they had found Justin yet. It was obvious that they hadn’t. He knew she didn’t want to say anything. It was a connection the two of them had always had, knowing when the other wanted to talk and when all that was needed was a hug or a light, supportive touch.

A black man in a clean-cut, but not expensive, brown sports jacket followed Sarah out of the house more slowly. He had a notepad and a pen in his hand, reminding Ray of the FBI agents back at the university. He hoped the man wasn’t FBI. He had had quite enough of them already today.

The man nodded to Ray. “Afternoon, Dr. Vance. I’m Detective Waterson.”

Ray put his chin down on Sarah’s head. He smelled her perfume. It brought back a flash of good memories. Then he looked up and faced the Detective.

“Have you turned up anything?”

“No sir, but we are searching and we are hopeful. Oftentimes these things turn out to be nothing more than a misunderstanding. Can I ask you some questions?”

Ray smiled weakly. He had been questioned to death by people in suits all day. “Shoot.”

Waterson nodded. “We’ve already talked to the teachers and staff at the school where he was last seen. Apparently, no one noticed anything out of the ordinary. You were the one to drop him off this morning, correct?”

“Yes.”

“You haven’t seen him since?”

“No.”

“Did he seem upset?”

“Only about his shoes,” said Ray. Suddenly, his voice choked up.

“What? His shoes?”

Ray shook his head, unable to answer for a moment. Sarah’s arms squeezed him around the middle, feeling his emotion.

“He never likes to put on his shoes in the morning. It’s a ritual battle we have to fight every day.”

Waterson frowned and made a note. “I see.”

Ray realized that Waterson probably didn’t have kids, and that he didn’t see at all. Why would the police have someone without kids on this case? It seemed wrong somehow. Everything seemed wrong today.

“Did you punish him this morning, or last night? Is there any reason that he might run away?”

Ray shook his head. “No special reason. Do you think he might have?”

Waterson shrugged. “It’s hard to say. It’s rare for a six-year-old to take off on his own for long, but not unheard of. Dr. Vance, you were the one who was supposed to pick him up, weren’t you?”

“Yes, but… I was detained. He’s supposed to go next door if I’m not back from the university yet. We have an arrangement.”

“With the Trumbles, yes, I understand that. Do you have any relatives or friends who might have picked him up since there was no one home to meet him?”

“No, I don’t think so. Look, I think I should be out looking for him instead of answering all these questions. If we knew anything, then we would be trying these possibilities.”

“In times of stress, Dr. Vance, we sometimes forget or overlook things. It’s my job to make sure that we cover everything.”

“But I should be out looking for him.”

Detective Waterson looked at him. “Where would you look, Dr. Vance?”

Ray opened his mouth and blinked. He realized he didn’t know where to start. He thought of the park and the school grounds, but that was no good if he had been kidnapped. He thought of all the highways and houses and orchards and quiet fields in the area. Where would he begin? Was Justin tied up and on his way to L.A.? Was he somewhere in the central valley right now? It was maddening to think that if he only knew exactly where his son was right then, he could go and get him. For the lack of that single fact, he was helpless.

He dropped his chin down again to rest atop Sarah’s fresh-smelling hair. He closed his eyes and tried not to cry himself.

… 74 Hours and Counting…

Justin reached out a shaky hand and grabbed the thin steel bars of the cage. They were almost too thin to call bars, but were definitely too thick to call wire, because they wouldn’t bend. They looked about like the bars of a shopping cart, all shiny and crisscrossed in small squares.

The Van Man had told him not to mess with the cage-well, actually, the man had used the F-word, but Justin avoided even thinking that bad word. Mom always said that bad things happened to boys with dirty mouths, and he certainly didn’t need any more bad things to happen to him now. He dared to touch the bars now because he figured there was no way that the van man could see him.

The inside of the van was gross. Dirt and grease caked everything. The torn-up parts of what looked like a motorcycle lay everywhere on the scratched metal floor. Coffee-cans overflowed with cigarette butts and the whole place stank of sweat and pee.

Justin strained to see the Van Man. He was up there, past a short dirty curtain that swayed and fluttered in the breeze that came in from the open driver side window. Occasionally, when the curtain flapped the right way, Justin could see the Van Man’s head and shoulders. He was smoking again. He seemed to smoke continuously. Through the dirty windshield, Justin could just make out that they were on the highway. From the roar of the engine and road noises, he could have figured out that much anyway.

Justin looked around his cage speculatively. It was welded to the side of the van so that only three sides were actually barred. The top opened, he knew that because that’s how the Van Man had shoved him down into it.

Looking at the cage, Justin thought of a story his father had told him about a chimpanzee in a cage. A group of pyscho-ologists (as his father had called them) had specially built the cage with sixteen ways to escape, depending on what the chimp did. There were blocks to stack, ropes to climb and pull, all sorts of things. All the psycho-ologists had watched closely with a TV camera, and the chimp had indeed escaped, but he had used the seventeenth way, the way that none of them had even thought of.

Justin grabbed the shiny bars and gave them a shake. He needed just one way out of this cage.

The van slowed. Justin lurched against the bars as it made a sweeping turn. He knew that feeling, the van was exiting the highway. Justin huddled back against the wheel well that served as a bench in the makeshift cage. His eyes grew wide with terror. Somehow, the Van Man must have seen him shake the cage. He clasped his hands together, stuck them between his knees and squeezed them tightly. He sucked at his lower lip and shivered, even though it was very hot in the sun-baked van.

… 73 Hours and Counting…

Casey Spurlock swung off I-80 and pulled the van to a stop at a Circle-K convenience store in Fairfield. After checking the kid, who looked scared enough to piss himself, he dug out one of those prepaid cell phones he had lifted and stockpiled for just this occasion. These phones had only so many minutes on them, and you had to buy more minutes on cards to use them again. This was a perfect arrangement for Spurlock, who wasn’t exactly a ‘resident’ who paid ‘bills’. As an added benefit, the phones were cheap, disposable and pretty much untraceable as long as you kept getting new ones. He bought minutes at the counter in the convenience store, the smallest denomination possible, then headed out into the parking lot to make his call.

He had picked this store because the area was noisy. If the kid tried something, it would be unlikely that anyone would hear. Soon though, he would have to tie him up and gag him. He couldn’t very well make it through a fast-food drive-thru if the kid took to screaming in the back.

Spurlock dug the cheap plastic phone out of that infernal plastic that things came wrapped up in these days. He knew they wrapped them up so tightly to make it harder to steal stuff. Didn’t anyone trust anyone anymore? He noticed that his hand shook as he cut the plastic with a jack knife. It was just a slight tremor, but he knew what it meant. He needed to find the cure for it soon, and that meant money. Lots of money. Otherwise the headaches would start, and then maybe he would get the shits. He needed his money now.

Spurlock dug a quarter out of his filthy jeans and scratched at the phone card to reveal the pin number. The phone clicked and droned obediently. He typed a stream of digits into the phone, he forgot the area code the first time, cursed, then got it right the second time.

The phone rang six times before it was picked up. He wanted to throw it into the street. He hated waiting for bullshit stuff like answering machines and lame housewives who didn’t know when their husbands would be home.

“Hello?” came the voice.

“It’s me,” Spurlock rumbled. His voice was distinctly deep and rough from cigarettes and frequent yelling.

“It’s about time. Did you do it?”

“I planted what you wanted. Give me the number of the locker.”

“There are a few details to discuss. What about the kid?”

“What about him?”

There was a hesitation. Spurlock scowled. He could tell that his evasion wasn’t going to work. This asshole who called himself Santa was sharp, he had to give him that. Santa knew he had taken the kid. He was just pretending that he didn’t to see what he could get out of it. The guys in the joint called it ‘fishing’.

There was a pained tone in the voice now. “Tell me, please, that you didn’t do anything incredibly stupid.”

“Fuck you.”

“Where’s the kid?”

“Where’s my money?

“It’s with the kid,” said Santa.

“Don’t shit me. He’s in the fucking van, alright? He’s fine. Don’t shit me, man. I want my money.”

“Do you realize that you’ve blown everything? Who’s going to believe the plant now that the kid is gone at the same time it appears? You’ve given Vance the shadow of a doubt he needs.”

“The cops don’t know that it wasn’t there all along,” said Spurlock. He had to fight to control his temper. This Santa-bastard wasn’t going to rat-fuck him out of his ten grand. He swore to himself never to work with anyone again that he couldn’t meet face-to-face and lay his hands on.

“True, but I assume that the kid saw what you were doing, didn’t he?”

Spurlock didn’t answer. Instead he growled and punched the rickety gas-price sign that was in reach. It creaked in protest at the abuse.

“Why else would you have grabbed him?” Santa continued.

“He didn’t see me plant it.”

“But he saw and heard enough. The gloves, the thumping of drawers, the rattling of papers. You did wear the gloves as I suggested, didn’t you?”

“No, I’m just an asshole,” Spurlock replied.

“Good. Now, here is what I want you to do: First, you will remove your rear license plate, just in case the child reads it and remembers things well. You will drop the kid off near the highway, under an overpass in a dark and quiet spot and then get back onto the highway going east. You will then pull off the very next exit, replace the license and get back on the highway going back west. When you get to the station in San Francisco, call me and if the kid has been recovered, I’ll give you your money.”

Spurlock was silent for a second. All through the explicit directions, he had been grinding his teeth. This guy always talked to him like he was some kind of overgrown dangerous baby. He took several deep breaths and wished desperately for beer. A twelve-pack of it.

“Look, Santa-frigger, don’t sweat the kid. I’ve got a plan for him. It’s all taken care of. Just give me the locker number.”

“Let him go. I’m not going to be an accessory to any such thing.”

Spurlock shook his head violently. “Can’t you see, man? I can’t do that. He can ID me, sure as shit. I’ve got a contact down in L.A. I’ll take him there and he’ll disappear. End of story.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I mean: no money.”

Spurlock finally lost it. He dropped the phone, grabbed the gas sign with his left hand and beat the thing with his right, growling while he did it. After several smashing blows, he picked up the trash cell again and pressed his lips to it.

“I say: FUCK YOU, MAN!” he shouted. Then his voice lowered to a growl. “I’m dumping this kid the way I want to, then I’m calling back for the locker number. If you don’t come across, I’ll hunt you down and beat your fat guts in until you shit blood.”

Spurlock closed the phone and climbed back into his van. He could hear the kid, quietly crying in his cage. Maybe he’d heard some of the conversation.

“SHUT UP!” Spurlock roared into the back, just the way his stepdaddy had always done before a beating.

The van’s engine rumbled into life and soon rolled up the onramp.

… 71 Hours and Counting…

It was almost eight o’clock when the fingerprint crew left, taking with them six copies of Justin’s school photos. Sarah went to the bathroom to wash her face. After drying off, she opened up the hamper and felt silent tears run down her cheeks. She ignored them, letting them slide down to her chin and grow cold before they fell and splattered her bare feet.

The bathroom had the classic look of any California tract home from the last century. Wallpaper depicted baskets of unlikely-looking flowers of blue and pink on a background of beige. The chromed towel rack was of the cheap-motel variety, and tended to fall off the wall at inopportune times. There were signs of Justin’s passing everywhere, plainly evident to the trained eye. Sarah noted the splattered droplets of toothpaste on the mirror. Of the four towels in the bathroom, only one of them was in its place, and that one hung oddly, as if it had been grabbed and yanked upon, but not quite firmly enough to pull it down. Two others lay in wads of blue terry cloth on the checkerboard vinyl floor. The fourth she held in her hand.

But none of these things had brought on her tears. It was when she opened the hamper, which overflowed with underwear, socks, shorts and t-shirts, that she saw the sweatshirt. There, stuffed in among a dozen dirty items, was the red sweatshirt that she had insisted that he take with him this morning in his backpack. He had ditched it, stuffing it in the hamper rather than carrying it all day. It was ironic, she thought, that only this morning her biggest concern had been Justin’s sweatshirt.

She closed the hamper and padded down the hall. As she walked through the house, it seemed as though she was a stranger here, or rather that this house was one that she had lived in long ago. She stepped into the sunken living room/dining room combination. She recalled that when they had bought the house, the original floor plan had called it the ‘great room’.

“I’ve got to do something,” said Ray, talking to the coffee table. He sat on an off-white leather couch with his elbows on his knees and his hands pressed up into his cheeks. He took up a cork disk that served as a coaster.

Sarah watched him for a moment and recalled how much trouble she had gone through to train Justin to use them. Ray tossed the coaster away and leaned back on the cool soft leather cushions. Sarah silently joined him, trying to force herself to relax. That backfired immediately. The couch, too, reminded her of Justin. He loved nothing better than to jump from the loveseat to the sofa and back again. Numerous scoldings and punishments had only taught him to be more discreet about it.

Leaning forward again with a sigh, Ray grabbed up the TV controller flipped and it on. The screen flashed, dimmed, then slowly brightened. It was Nickelodeon. Sarah wondered if Justin had had time to watch a cartoon this afternoon before-before whatever happened-or if it had just been left there from this morning.

Ray flipped to CNN Headlines and together they watched without seeing and listened without hearing. TV was good for that sort of thing, she thought. Sometimes it served to empty your head and numb your mind. When she was sick she always watched a lot of TV as it took her mind off of all the painful toxins that the bacteria were generating in her body.

Sarah broke the silence. “Have they called yet?”

“Nothing yet. I’m sure they’ll pick him up soon,” Ray told her with all the confidence he could muster in his voice.

“It’s getting dark,” she said in a hushed voice. “He didn’t take his sweatshirt. It’s still here.”

“The night is a warm one, Sarah,” said Ray, but she could tell that it was almost more than he could do to keep his voice from cracking. “He’ll be fine.”

Sarah went to the front window and gazed out at the darkening streets.

“Did you pick up his room?” asked Ray.

“No, I changed my mind. He’ll do it himself when he comes home. I don’t want you to touch a thing in there, either.”

“Okay.”

For a time the only sound was that of the TV. A commercial came on selling diet soda. Next there was a car ad that told a funny story about animals but seemed to have little to do with cars. Sarah wondered vaguely if such ads sold cars, or if the ad men were just running out of fresh ideas.

A sudden, sharp knock at the door made them look at each other. It was an almost musical series of knocks, a rythmic rap-rap-RAP-rap-rap. Sarah and Ray glanced at each other. It was the kind of a knock that a friend would use to let you know who it was.

“I’ll get it,” said Ray, heading for the door. Sarah followed him, hoping, but trying not to, that it would be a smiling policeman with their sheepish son at his side.

Ray threw open the door with Sarah right behind him. They both blinked in confusion. An attractive woman in a red business dress greeted them. Her hair and nails were perfect. Her nail polish matched the red of her dress as exactly as her white teeth matched each other.

“Dr. and Ms. Vance, I’m Susan Cohen,” she said.

Ray and Sarah just stared at the woman without responding. Sarah blinked in confusion. Where was Justin? Then she saw the wire running up from the woman’s collar to the earplug. Her eyes followed the wires down to the microphone that she held nonchalantly at her side. Then she saw the men coming up behind her with camera equipment. One man with a boom-mike was shrugging on his jacket and slamming the door of their van. CHANNEL 7 NEWS blazed across the side of the van with the seven stylized as a jagged lightning bolt. Sarah’s frown grew as she realized that they had even had the gall to park in their driveway.

“Dr. Vance, we would like to interview you. We want to know if there is anything to the rumor that you are the man who released the virus that is even now raging across the internet?”

“No, we don’t have anything to say about that,” replied Ray.

“Are you aware sir, that according to my sources you are the FBI’s primary suspect?”

“What’s this about a virus?” demanded Sarah. “Don’t you people know anything about my son?”

Susan gave them each a calculating glance and smoothly switched tactics. The microphone came up to her lips and the cameras flipped on. Ray and Sarah blinked in the sudden glare of the portable floods. The man with the boom-mike had gotten his jacket on now and managed to thrust the instrument over everyone’s heads.

“Your son? Tell me more,” said the woman, waving the guy with the mike in a bit closer. The camera swung to zero in on Sarah. She could feel the heat from the bright lights on her cheeks. Out on the street she heard the squeal of brakes. Past the news crew, she could see another team unloading quickly onto her lawn. The second group came running. It was then that she realized that they really could smell blood.

“No, we haven’t — ” began Ray.

Sarah stopped him with her hand. “Yes, we do want to talk to you. Wait here one moment.”

Sarah closed the door most of the way, but left it ajar. Through the crack came a gush of shifting white light. She thought crazily for a moment of an X-files episode and of brilliantly lit alien silhouettes. It did indeed feel as if her house were being invaded.

Running to the hall, she pulled a large 8x10 photograph from the wall. The picture was hung on a nail, which pulled until she ripped it loose. It came away from the sheetrock with a tearing sound. A piece of the baskets-and-flowers wallpaper sagged down. She barely noticed. The picture was of Justin, wearing a sweater and smiling for his school portrait just six months ago. When she got back the hall she discovered that a newsman had poked his head into the house and was talking very quickly to her husband.

Her first instinct was to bash him with the picture, but she restrained herself. She told herself that she needed these creatures. She pulled the door open wide over Ray’s protests and held the picture of her son up closely to the cameras. Outside, a third and fourth truck had disgorged more media people onto their property. The reporters backed away from her, the front rank hunkering down so as not to interfere with the camera angles. Closer still, crouched light and microphone men moved in circles at her feet with an odd humping gait. The image of a flock of vultures feasting on a fallen carcass came unbidden to her mind.

She kept her hands as steady as she could as she explained Justin’s disappearance. She made it sound as if the boy had been dragged from the house screaming all the while making a desperate 911 call for help as he had been taught in school. And for all she knew, that was exactly what had happened.

The cameras ate it up. She summoned up tears, wanting to keep the cameras on her. It wasn’t difficult. All the while she talked, she tried to keep Justin’s picture close to her face to give him maximum exposure. There was no knowing how many fleeting seconds their story would get on the evening news. She wanted every second she could get.

More crews kept rolling in from Sacramento, which was only a twenty-five minute drive to the East. Clearly, someone on the local police force had broken the story to the press. Sarah told herself that if it meant she would get Justin back faster, then she thanked them all. Some of the crews knew about Justin, others about the virus, but once they realized that both stories came from the same household, a feeling of real excitement swept over the flock. Sarah heard several times from many lips: “This will go national-”The thought both pleased and sickened her. She hated the idea of plastering her family across the nation, of losing their privacy to an army of newshounds armed with telephoto lenses and parabolic mikes. How long might it go on?

Ray was more reluctant to talk about the virus. He described the virus and the investigation, but without much enthusiasm. He had long ago divined Sarah’s plan, she could tell. She could tell too, that he didn’t want them to give him much airtime. He tried as best he could to keep turning the discussion back to their missing son, but the reporters were relentless.

Sarah felt as if she were learning of her husband’s doings on live TV. She watched as if from a distance, not really able to take it all in. It seemed impossible that there could be another threat to her family on this dark day. Her mind refused to fully grasp the possibility that her husband was suspected of criminal behavior.

Finally, Ray struck upon the perfect tact to shut down the cameras. He got technical about it. “Most likely, the virus operates by spoofing the servers with each packet. Masquerading as legitimate, the virus passes either as e-mail or using a FTP-that’s file transfer protocol, by the way, then causes the new host to run an executable that will repeat the process. I’m not sure how it’s by-passing the firewalls, however, but I’m sure we’ll understand it better after further investigation.”

There was a lot more like that, but soon even Sarah had tuned it out. Cameras and lights were switching off everywhere to save batteries. Soon, they managed to shut the door again, refusing further interviews until they knew something new. Reluctantly, the press released their carrion, but only for the moment.

Sarah leaned with her back against the door, and closed her eyes. What had it been? Perhaps twenty minutes? She felt as if she had been drained by a pack of vampires.

“Ray?” she said, rolling open her eyelids again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shook his head and hugged her. “I thought you had enough to worry about.”

She nodded in agreement and collapsed on the couch.

Ray got them both a can of root beer from the fridge and they sat in front of the TV again. The phone began to ring again, and they let the machine get it. It was Ed Samuels from Valley Life, a Sacramento magazine, requesting an interview.

The news was just wrapping up the local report when they realized that they were the wrap-up story. The story was vague, but included two snippets of Sarah, holding up Justin’s picture and sobbing, and one of Ray, looking haggard and besieged. Sarah noticed that they had cut out his techie speech and replaced it with a voiceover that explained viruses in layman’s terms. She smiled grimly.

“They cut out your voice, but left me in because I sounded emotional,” said Sarah. “Dear God, I only hope that someone sees the picture and finds our baby.”

Then she began to cry, and Ray held her. His face was wet as well. At the end of the broadcast she was gratified and horrified to see her son’s face in a clear still on the news. Somehow, seeing that made it all certain, her baby was truly gone.

… 70 Hours and Counting…

CNN broke the story at 9:00 PM. It caught Ray and Sarah by surprise as they were in the middle of chewing their way through dinner. The white cartons of microwaved Chinese takeout had been haunting the fridge for three or four days now. Somehow, it still tasted good, if a bit soggy. Ray didn’t really feel much like eating, but knew that they should keep up their strength and alertness. He felt he wanted to be ready for anything. They couldn’t be much use to Justin if they were exhausted and starved. As he ate, however, he couldn’t help but wonder if Justin were hungry right now, and what, if anything, he might be eating. The thought made the almond chicken stick in his throat.

The CNN story began with a damage report concerning the virus. It was worse than Ray had feared. Far worse.

An attractive black anchorwoman with carefully coiffed hair gazed into the camera and read to the world with great seriousness. “Google, Apple and even the all-powerful Microsoft have reported that their servers are currently infected with the worst virus to hit the internet in history. The FBI reports that the virus first struck at around six AM. Eastern Standard Time at the University of California Campus in Davis, California. Since then it has moved with lightning speed throughout the internet, infecting millions of computers and slowing the world’s greatest network with a traffic jam. Net response times are sixty percent slower and dropping.

“Some critical servers, such as public online banking systems, are staying off-line for fear that they might be infected. This means that the internet has been effectively disrupted world-wide. Slowing down the recovery effort, investigators say, are those servers that are still up and running without countermeasures. Those servers are providing a refuge for the virus, as they continually spread the virus to any fixed system as soon as it comes back online. It has proven very difficult to alert each of the internet’s two billion users.”

The image flashed to a clip of a governmental briefing room. An NSA representative addressed a crowd of reporters. “An emergency communication path for a disaster of this kind simply doesn’t exist across international borders,” she explained. She was a blocky woman with glasses and a haircut that suggested that whenever a lock grew long enough bother her, she lopped it off with the kitchen scissors. “This virus seems to only be slowed down a few minutes by a firewall, and is definitely one of the most sophisticated we’ve ever seen. It makes many copies of itself all over every system it infects and the filenames, sizes and behaviors all seem to change frequently. It’s hard to put into words, but it almost seems to react somehow to our efforts at stopping it.”

He leaned forward, his mind churning. “That’s what I saw. It seemed very smart. A new kind of beast entirely.”

He glanced at his wife, who was looking at him from two sunken eyes of worry. “Sarah,” he said. “I had nothing to do with releasing it, if that’s what you’re wondering. Unless, of course, I unwittingly taught its creator.”

“I know you didn’t do it, Babe,” she said, taking his hand. “I just hope that they don’t try to pin it on you because it’s an easy out for them.”

“Well, right now it might be helping us. It gave us a chance to put Justin’s face and name on every TV very quickly.”

She nodded and they turned back to the broadcast. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that she frequently glanced out the front window and at the phone. Every time it rang it was a reporter, but he could see her tense-up each time anyway. Would it be the police? Would they tell her they had found Justin? Would he be dead when they found him?

The camera was on the pretty anchorwoman again. “Internet-related stocks are expected to take a beating tomorrow morning when the exchange opens. Investors and economists both believe that this slump could possibly signal the beginning of a new recession, given the shaky reports from the high-tech industry in general that has been a leading profit area for investors in recent years. Claiming that many of these stocks have long been overrated against their real records of performance, economists predict a drop in stock prices across all the hi-tech industries.”

“And some bastard did this for fun,” he snorted. “Unbelievable.”

The story finally got around to their family. There he was, shouting his technical explanations to the crowd, except his words were unintelligible under the narration. He was described as a suspect and then Sarah was shown, sobbing with Justin’s picture held aloft. The anchor reported that whether or not there was any connection between the virus and the boy’s disappearance was unknown.

“We look like a couple of freaks caught up in some tabloid tragedy,” said Sarah. “Who would kidnap Justin because you released a virus?”

He shot her a glance and pondered her words. He had been so deep in shock today that he hadn’t considered the possibility of a connection between his two fantastic strokes of misfortune. He recalled that Arthur Conan Doyle had once written about fantastic coincidences in the guise of Sherlock Holmes. The gist had been that uncommon events occurred fairly often, but rarely did chance play two unusual cards at the same time-unless the dealer was a card shark.

He turned that over in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that there had to be a connection of some kind. He stood accused of a crime he did not commit, and his son had been kidnapped. All of this had happened in a single day. Assuming that the same party was responsible, who could it be? He simply couldn’t come up with anyone who wanted to destroy him. He had a few people that were enemies, he supposed, such as Abrams. But the furthest he could imagine Abrams going would be to attempt to block his tenure approval. Criminal frame-ups and felony kidnapping seemed far beyond his scope. Still, there had to be something. He felt sure of it.

He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. His fingers slowly gripped his hair and pulled. The sensation on his scalp felt good somehow. He needed to figure this out. He had to get Justin back, and he had to do it fast. But how?

She put a reassuring hand on the back of his neck. He didn’t move. He decided a good first move would be to replay the events of the day carefully through his mind.

Before he could begin, however, there came a knock at the door. This knock was different somehow from the knock of the countless reporters. It was louder, more authoritative. It was a heavy knock that demanded to be answered immediately.

Ray and Sarah glanced at each other. Her eyes were haunted, and he felt something snap inside him. He felt anger and decisiveness overtake him. He had sat around long enough while someone else’s virus was assigned to him and some half-interested stranger searched for his missing son. They didn’t have a peephole, so he rose and moved quickly to the kitchen window. The kitchen nook thrust outward from the house in the front and offered a better view of the porch. Besides, it was nice and dark in the kitchen. It was dark on the porch too, but he instantly recognized the silhouette of agent Vasquez and the bulkier outline of agent Johansen. Agent Vasquez had a sheath of papers in her hands. Out on the street, he saw a squad car pull up and two sheriff’s deputies climbed out. He knew in his heart that they weren’t coming just to question him this time.

Quietly, he slipped back out of the kitchen and into the living room. Sarah met him in the front hall, her face apprehensive. He raised a finger to his lips and kissed her on the forehead. She looked at him for a second and then flung herself on him.

“You’re leaving,” she whispered hoarsely in his ear.

He nodded, for a moment beyond speech. He held her shoulders and when he found his voice he spoke into her ear. “I have to try to help Justin. If I’m sitting in jail, I can’t do anything.”

She hugged him harder and made an odd sound of anguish. She didn’t argue aloud, they both knew there was nothing to say. The doorbell rang loudly then, and both of them jumped. He glanced at the door and gently pried her from his chest.

“I’ll be okay,” he said. “I’ll use Mrs. Trumble to communicate when I can. Also, try accessing my school account if they get the system up again. I’ll send e-mail. Delay them all you can, say I walked to the store an hour ago, say anything.”

Then he kissed her again and headed down the hall. His heart thumped so loudly in his chest that he wondered if the agents would hear it. His mind raced. He didn’t own a gun, and it probably would have been a bad idea to take one anyway. He had around a hundred bucks on him, and there was no time to pack anything. He snatched up his notebook computer from his desk. Fortunately, it was still packed up in its carrying case, the way he had brought it home from the lab last night. He hadn’t bothered to take it to work today as he was tired and had planned to come home as early as possible.

The hammering at the door grew more pressing. “Dr. Vance,” he heard Vasquez call out from the porch. “Open the door.”

He slung the black leather strap over his neck, feeling like a high tech thief on the run. The entire idea was insane. Then reality set back in and his smirk vanished. He went to the sliding glass door that led from the master bedroom into the backyard. His car was out front and hopelessly beyond reach. Stepping out into the night air, he was suddenly aware of every sound he made. Although it was nearly silent, the swish of the slider behind him seemed to roar out his presence to the world at large. He paused, breathing through his open mouth so that his whistling nostrils didn’t give him away. He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. He couldn’t do Justin any good if he panicked and froze like a deer caught in a pickup truck’s headlights.

He considered the back gate and the alley beyond, then rejected the idea. For all he knew there was another squad car out there waiting for him. He listened for an idling engine, but heard nothing. He forced himself to trot to the fence separating his yard from the Trumbles and vaulted it. He would have had trouble getting over the five-foot tall fence any other day, but tonight adrenalin was dribbling into his bloodstream at top output. He knew the Trumbles didn’t have a dog and rarely ventured into the backyard except to keep it immaculately well-trimmed. His own was an overgrown jungle by comparison. He trotted across the lawn and moved to their side gate. Their house was on the corner, so they had easy access to the street. The gate clicked and stuck for a maddening moment, then squealed open on unoiled hinges. Irrationally, he cursed the Trumbles for shoddy maintenance, although the lord only knew the last time he had oiled anything on his property.

Once on the street, he headed across to the other side and walked swiftly into the nearest open alleyway. He knew the neighborhood well and it only took him minutes to get to an all-night gas station and used his wife’s cell phone. He hoped they weren’t tracing that one yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. He called Brenda’s cell phone, got no answer, then called her house.

While he was waiting for her to call back, he saw two squad cars pull up to the stop sign fifty feet away. He tried to shrink into the shadows. Fortunately, the closest streetlight was out and left him a comforting pool of shadow to stand in.

It took long seconds for the squad cars to move on. Immediately after them, a featureless blue sedan pulled up that had government plates. Agent Vasquez sat at the wheel. She crashed the stop sign and headed for the I-80 onramp.

Soon after they were gone, the phone rang in his hand.

“Brenda?” he asked.

“Who’s this?” she barked back suspiciously. Ray felt a wave of relief to hear her voice.

“Brenda, I need your help.”

“Ray?”

“Dammit, Brenda,” he said.

“Oh, sorry. Right. Well, Nameless One, no shit you need my help.”

Ray smiled and frowned at the same time. “Do you believe I’m innocent, Brenda?”

“Of course I do!” she exclaimed, sounding offended that he should ask. “Fucking feds are wasting precious resources on you while they could be solving two serious crimes.”

“Can you pick me up?”

“Name it.”

“The Wendy’s on-the one we hate to go to.”

“Right. Give me twenty minutes. Make it fifteen.”

“Brenda?”

“What?”

“Thanks.”

“Remember me at Christmas,” she said.

Ray took the time to buy a new prepaid phone at the first shop he passed. The whole shock of the idea that he was a fugitive from the law and on the run began to set in. He looked at everyone in the store as if they were about to perform a citizen’s arrest. Wasting no more time, he headed for Wendy’s-the one on Burgandy Avenue that sold burgers which Brenda always complained weren’t ‘fresh enough’.

… 69 Hours and Counting…

Between Stockton and Fresno I-5 was one of the loneliest stretches of highway in California. Signs read things like 40 MILES TO NEXT GAS and REST AREA 17 MILES. The moonless night was broken only by the neon shimmer of a mega-truck stop. The truck stop was a great, black island of tarmac surrounded by a gently rolling sea of foxtails. Spurlock’s van sat in a deserted corner of this dark continent. An electric glare of pink and green hues filtered through the windshield and past the dirty curtains to illuminate Spurlock’s hand. His silver thumb ring shone in the alien light.

Spurlock fed the kid another hotdog out of a plastic pack. Faintly pink, watery hotdog-juice ran down his hand and felt cold on his track marks. His hand trembled a bit as he pushed another hotdog between the bars of the cage, and he knew he was going to have to have a fix soon. He forced the thought away so he could enjoy himself.

“Here boy,” he chuckled, waggling the hotdog at the kid. “Come on, eat it!”

The kid had his hands tied behind his back now, but Spurlock had pulled his gag down so he could eat. The gag hung around his neck like a scarf. Tears rolled down the kid’s face as he came up and took a bite from the waggling hotdog.

“There we go!” Spurlock exclaimed. He laughed happily. “Good dog! Hungry doggie!”

Spurlock had always enjoyed this game with the runaways he had picked up before. He felt that it prepared them for their futures, that it was a preliminary to the training they would receive from the pros in L.A. Of course, then they wouldn’t be allowed to bite. He chuckled to himself at the thought and felt just a bit of arousal, which surprised him, because he rarely became aroused without a great deal of chemical help.

This chicken was younger than usual, but it all seemed like the same game to Spurlock. Usually, they had been hitch-hiking boys and girls in the twelve to fifteen year-old range. Occasionally, Spurlock had let them out of the cage and had popped them right there, when the mood had struck him, on the rusted metal ribs of the van’s floor. He had to have a fix for that sort of thing to occur, of course.

After the kid had finished two-thirds of the dangling hotdogs, Spurlock opened the top of the cage and reseated the gag. He gave the kid all the usual threats about making a sound, then resealed the top and climbed out of the van. After locking up he headed toward the truck stop diner. It was quite a trip, as he had parked way out on the very outer edge of the giant tarmac parking lot, where even the sleepy truckers rarely ventured. Spurlock walked at least fifty yards before he passed the first dark semi. The odds were that some cowboy trucker slept off the beer and the road in there, but Spurlock wasn’t really worried. It was rare that a chicken made any noise. He was always surprised that they didn’t just kick the side of the van and make whatever sound they could, but generally, they didn’t. Fear paralyzed most of them, and the few who did try something, he quickly straightened out with what his stepdaddy would have called: ‘a good, ole time, whuppin ’.

Whistling to himself, Spurlock ignored the tremors in his arms as he stepped into the diner and sat down at the counter. He pulled a ten from his grime-coated jeans and stretched it out beside a forgotten water glass. The enormous waitress soon sailed up to him. She was a fiftyish bleached-blonde with an ass wider than Mack truck’s grille. She gave Spurlock a quick, up-down glance and frowned in disapproval.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

Spurlock chuckled. “You don’t want to know, mamma,” he said, “you don’t want to know.”

She put her hands on her swollen hips and glared at him. “Just order up, punk.”

At the edge of his vision, Spurlock noted that a few cowboy hats had already turned in his direction. Without looking around, he locked gazes with the glaring waitress and slowly licked his lips. She snorted and pulled out her order pad.

Spurlock smiled and indicated the crinkled ten on the counter. “Bring me as much coffee and biscuits with sausage gravy that this will buy. I don’t want nuthin’ else, missy.”

She shoved the notepad back into her voluminous apron and sailed away. Soon the coffee and a plate of biscuits with milky gray gravy appeared. It was just the way he liked it, with chunks of unidentifiable meat and soggy biscuits sopping up the grease. Spurlock dug in, but was soon distracted by the TV that was suspended at an angle over the far end of the counter. A CNN live report had just begun. A dark red line ran across the bottom of the screen, below it was the caption: Internet Virus Investigation. A woman’s face came into view. Spurlock stopped chewing when he recognized the scene in the background. It was Vance’s house.

He watched the broadcast in mild shock. The kid from the back of his van was right there, plastered all over the screen for minutes. That pretty bitch of a wife Vance had was waving the kid’s picture around for all she was worth, which wasn’t one twice-used rubber in Spurlock’s book. Then they were prattling on about some computer virus-thing that Vance was supposed to have released, and Spurlock was left wondering if they had found his plants yet. He squinted at the screen, and his mouth fell open as they reviewed the nationwide effects of this virus. What the hell had this Santa-bastard gotten him into?

A sudden, cold hand of fear gripped him as the broadcast continued. Would it end with his mugshot displayed for all the world to see like that fucking America’s Most Wanted bullshit show? Was it possible that the feds were on the ball this time-that he had already been fingered? He sipped his coffee and slid his eyes over the other patrons of the diner. Already, he suspected them all. Was there an undercover pig right here, right now, sizing him up for a collar when he went to take a piss or make a phone call?

None of the runaways he had picked up before had even made the local evening news. The problem was, he thought, this kid was too young, and this computer-thing was getting the press into an orgasmic state. You could just see and hear how they were eating it up. Nothing truly newsworthy had happened for nearly a week. To fill that daily twenty-four hour long void they had trotted out every heart-warming animal story and elementary school event they had, and now the newsboys were getting desperate for something, for anything to happen. Finally, it had happened, and it had happened to Thomas Bartholomew Spurlock.

Spurlock eyed the glass door. A little bell hung from the top on a spring and a paperclip so that anyone entering would sound a tiny scraping, jingling alarm. He hated those things. He stood up and walked toward it, seeing if anyone took notice or made a move on him. No one did. Mercifully, the broadcast ended even as he placed his hand on the scratched, black and gold word: PUSH. Spurlock felt a wave of relief. They hadn’t plastered his face on the fucking TV. At least not yet.

Spurlock paused and looked back at his plate. He hated to leave good food behind when he was so short on cash. Pursing his lips, he returned to the counter and took another bite. It had grown cool, but he ate it anyway.

The waitress floated by and gave him a cold, questioning glance. He leered at her unspoken question.

“Had to fart,” he said, “so I went over there.”

Impossibly, the waitress screwed her face into an expression that exuded even more disgust than before. Spurlock nodded to her and took another bite of soggy biscuit. Looking down, he frowned to himself.

There was no way the L.A. boys were going to cash him out for the kid now, this chicken was way too hot. So what the fuck was he going to do? He had been screwed. That Santa-bastard, Vance and the kid, they had all screwed him out of his money.

By the time he left, he was shaking with rage. The waitress said something to him, but it didn’t get through. When he straight-armed the door, the tiny bell scraped and jingled on the glass over his head. He reached up on impulse and yanked it loose, throwing it into the smog-choked juniper bushes outside.

“Hey!” he heard someone shout behind him.

Spurlock stalked off across the huge black parking lot. The heat of the day still emanated up from it. He wondered vaguely if one of the red necks would come after him. He really didn’t care if they did. Maybe a few cuts and bruises would make him feel better.

#

Brenda’s Honda pulled up twenty minutes after his phone call. He hadn’t even made it to Wendy’s yet. Ray slipped into the passenger side and heaved a sigh.

“Where to, Robin Hood?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

“You mean you don’t have a fantastic plan? Then why did you run?”she barked. “Do you understand that I’m aiding and abetting a suspected felon here, and now I’m an accomplice, or an accessory or conspirator or whatever the lawyers call you when you’re fucked by association?”

Ray looked at her. Her face was stretched and pale. She sat hunched forward and her hand gripped the stick shift tightly.

“This was a mistake,” he said, climbing out of the car.

“Ray?”

He looked back into the window. “What?”

“I’m sorry. Get back in.”

After a moment he did. She put the car in gear and lurched out onto the road. She turned left, heading for I-80.

“I shouldn’t have gotten you involved in this thing,” he said.

“Bull. I’ve been involved since we first found the frigging bug last night. The only reason the feds don’t think I did it is because they don’t think I’m smart enough.”

He chuckled. “Lucky you.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I need cash. Credit is too easy to trace.”

“Don’t I know it,” she said. “Which ATM?”

“There’s one on Market that takes almost any kind of plastic. I just hope they haven’t had time to freeze my accounts yet.”

She snorted. “It takes a while to do that kind of thing.”

“Yes, but these are special circumstances.”

“You’re right about that,” she said. “If they really think you created this thing, they’ll want you to help them stop it.”

“Help them stop it? Don’t you think they can just clean it off the disks like any other bug?”

She shook her head. “This isn’t just any bug. It keeps changing. I’ve been watching it come and go on the net and every time I think I’ve got its signature, it changes the handwriting, and I lose it again.”

“You mean it changes the filenames it uses?”

She laughed. “That’s just for starters. It changes where it goes in memory, how it moves over the net, how long it waits, even what it does to the disk.”

Ray slumped back against the Honda’s headrest. He had to reach back and pull it up to its fullest extension to be comfortable. His eyes closed, but he continued speaking.

“It must be big then, to do so much.”

“Yeah,” agreed Brenda. “It’s usually about ten megs on the disk, but bigger in memory.”

“Usually?”

“Like I said, it changes everything, even its size.”

“Bigger in memory… That might mean it uses dynamic memory allocation.”

“Weird for a virus,” she said.

Ray shook his head. “I’ve been going over a mental list of my students who might put such a thing together. It keeps getting smaller the more I hear of its sophistication.”

“You’re right. It sounds to me like this is professional work, perhaps even the product of a team of professionals.”

“Or the work of one twisted genius. In software, one such mind can outperform an army of competent engineers.”

“This type of programming is a black art,” she agreed.

“Exactly,” he said, lifting his head from the headrest and opening his eyes again. “It is that black art element of programming that doesn’t exist in any other science, the ability to fabricate these-these frozen pieces of thought, and actually make them do something. The power of it is intoxicating. You could never create a killer physical robot that would do much damage, people would just blow it up. But software is invisible, uncontrollable. It can instantly make perfect copies of itself. It’s not confined by physical realities. In a way, the entire World Wide Web doesn’t exist. It has almost no physical reality. That makes it easy to change or destroy very quickly.”

She gave him a sidelong glance. “Hearing you talk like that won’t help your case with the feds, you know, Ray.”

“Well, I’m trying to get into the mind of the perpetrator. He or she is out there, not too far from here, and I think they know what happened to Justin.”

“Ah,” she said.

“What?”

“That’s why you ran from the feds.”

“Yes,” he admitted. “Perhaps I’m fooling myself, thinking I can do something about Justin’s disappearance. But I’ve got to try. If I don’t, I’ll always wonder if I could have changed things.”

She patted his shoulder awkwardly. The Honda dipped and jostled them as it swung into a parking lot. They rattled and lurched over a speed bump then pulled up to a dimly lit ATM. No one was near.

Ray looked around the car and found a candy wrapper on the floor. He scooped it up. “Got a stick of gum?” he asked.

She gave him a funny look, but dug one out of her purse. “This doesn’t seem like an appropriate moment to make jokes about my eating habits,” she chuckled, thumping her ample belly.

Ray snorted and climbed out of the car. The gum snapped in his working jaws. “I’ve got a James Bond plan. Be right back,” he muttered.

Holding his hand up to his face, he approached the ATM machine. These things always had cameras built into them, so he put his hand on it as soon as he reached the machine and found it. He took the gum out of his mouth, stuck the candy wrapper to it and then slapped the sticky side on the mirrored plastic dome that hid the camera.

He smiled to himself as he withdrew his limit in cash on all of his credit cards and his bank accounts. He felt lucky that the thing didn’t run out of cash on him. When he was done he had amassed a little over thirteen hundred dollars in twenties.

As he climbed back into the Honda, she looked at him strangely, “Gum and a candy wrapper? Did you do what I think you did?”

“Yup. I kind of always wanted to do something like that. It was that or flip them off. Either way, the feds are bound to check this video to see if it was me at some point so I wanted them to feel they got a show out of it.”

She shook her head. “You always joke around at the oddest times.”

“It’s an occupational hazard. Programmers all have goofy senses of humor,” he replied. “Besides, it relieves stress.”

He stuffed the cash into his wallet. It was so fat he could hardly fold it over and shove it into his pocket.

“Brenda, I need an active account on the net,” he said. “Let me still use some of the dead student accounts. If you see something happening there, just ignore it.”

“Can do. Where to now?”

“I need some food, a few necessities and at least a change of underwear. Then I suppose you can drop me at a cheap motel somewhere.”

“Well, I can do you for the food and stuff, but skivvies are going to be hard to find after 10:00 PM in Davis,” she laughed. She was quiet for a moment. “You know, you’ll need a car if you’re actually going to get something done.”

“No, Brenda,” he said, “I can’t accept. You’ve done enough already.”

“You can’t rent one, you would have to use a credit card, then the fed computers would trip on it.”

“Well yes, I suppose that would be too easy to trace.”

“And you can’t steal one, because that would kind of complicate the mission of proving your innocence.”

He sighed. “But Brenda, you said you didn’t want to get any more involved in all this.”

“Ahem,” she said, taking on the air of one reading a prepared statement. “You came to me and told me you wanted to borrow my car because you heard Justin had been sighted in San Francisco, and your own car had broken down. What could I do? I was overwhelmed by compassion and handed over the keys.”

He thought about it and realized she was right. He didn’t like getting her involved, but he felt he had to take her offer if it could possibly help Justin. He wondered about her kindness for a moment. They had known each other for two years now, and had the bond that grows between techies who labor together late at night. Did she have a thing for him? He had to suspect it. His female students did often enough. He grimaced. Somehow, that made it all worse. He felt he was taking advantage of her. For Justin’s sake he could do it, but not without regrets. He hoped that after this was all over he could make amends.

“Okay, you’re right. I need your car. How are we going to do this?”

… 67 Hours and Counting…

The Motel 8 was so close to the highway that it seemed like part of it, like a watchtower overlooking the endless stream of white and red lights. As a hideaway, it was far too obvious for Ray’s comfort. He all but expected the FBI to be doing a room-by-room search of the place in the predawn hours. But with Brenda’s name on the registry and her credit card on the bill, it would serve well enough to conserve his cash and provide him shelter to think and act. The room itself had that cookie-cutter look of all the roadside, fifty-dollar-a-night flophouses that dotted the nation’s highways. Headless, unstealable coathangers hung in the closet. A battered box with curled-up, unreadable directions pasted on top sat bolted to the TV. A TV remote matched the pay-per-view box, bolted firmly onto the nightstand. Brass-plated reading lamps on swinging stalks hovered over each of the incredibly hard-mattressed beds.

None of these things interested Ray. Finding the room typically devoid of outlets, he had unplugged the TV and the box atop it in order to power his computer. He plugged his notebook into the wall to preserve the batteries. The motel had wireless internet service, but of course it was not free. It came up and asked for a credit card number. Ray didn’t mind paying, but he couldn’t use a credit card that would get him pinpointed on every fed map in the state. So he ran a few programs and hacked his way past the router.

Sitting in his underwear, he sipped a cup of fake coffee as he pecked at the keys and worked the mouse. He worked at the letter desk, staring intently at the flat screen of his notebook computer. The mouse he had attached to the port in the back. He had never been able to get used to those tiny, infernal touchpads.

Clicking the mouse again, he noticed it took far longer than it should have to connect to the university servers. The internet had indeed slowed down. Logging in as Rita Hapgood, he slipped into the system unannounced. Rita was someone who had enrolled in one of his classes this semester, but who had never attended. The system had automatically created an account for her which had never been used and would be automatically deleted at the end of the semester.

The password he would normally have given to Rita the first day of class worked like a charm. He allowed himself a sip of coffee and a grim half-smile. He was in.

Clicking with the mouse and typing in occasional codes, he quickly gained operator permissions, which allowed him to do things that students normally couldn’t do. One of them included reading other people’s electronic mail. He also was able to identify programs that others had executed recently, and review conversations they had had via the computer system with one another. Most people didn’t realize how public their private matters could be when they used electronic media for communications.

What he found in the files wasn’t anything incriminating. It was what he didn’t find that was interesting to him. Certain things seemed to be missing, or incomplete. He knew the system well, and knew what it tracked and didn’t track. Some of the tracks weren’t there when they should have been. To him, this was a clear sign of tampering.

He sat back with this information and cogitated. He tapped his lips with a finger for perhaps a minute. Then he leaned forward again and searched the listing of accounts. Soon enough, he found a group of unfamiliar ones. Super-users that he had never heard of before. Only one was currently logged in, someone who had a login name of: HUNTRESS. He chewed his tongue, fairly certain who that someone was.

“Very cagey, Agent Vasquez,” he said aloud. “My tax dollars aren’t wasted on you.”

There she was, he felt sure, not out cruising the streets for him, but rather lying in wait for him where he was most likely to show up. He envisioned a lioness, choosing a shady spot to stakeout the waterhole. He considered initiating a conversation, but held himself back. Just such antics always seemed to get people caught, people who were too impressed with their own cleverness.

He hoped, in fact, that he hadn’t already been spotted. His tracks were now as indelibly recorded upon the muddy electronic landscape as anyone’s. A few quick checks on Rita Hapgood’s account would instantly look suspicious. The commands he had been initiating simply didn’t belong in the realm of a student account, and certainly not one that had never been used and was supposedly dead anyway.

For a moment his heart rate shifted up into high gear. Had they detected him already? A droplet of sweat tickled his armpits. Just the fact that the huntress was there, waiting for him, gave him pause. He envisioned her sniffing him out on the net and ordering his IP traced.

He rubbed his chin. It had become stubbly. How long would he have before they sniffed him out? Difficult to say. He decided to get on with things and disconnect as quickly as possible. Typing fast, he set up a delayed, anonymous e-mail message and addressed it to HUNTRESS. In the message, he related his leads concerning Justin and the virus. Perhaps if he failed, they might be able to do something with his work. Then he logged off.

He stood there in his underwear, hands on his hips, frowning at his computer. Had they managed to trace him? Were they as on-the-ball as that?

The idea kept growing on him. He knew computer hardware very well, but it was hard to know what special gizmos the FBI had for such situations. Something that he had never read about in Wired Magazine. He decided he couldn’t take any chances. Moving around the room, he disconnected his equipment, dressed and gathered his few belongings together into the Walmart shopping bag that Brenda had left him with. Flipping off the lights on his way out, he left the room keys on the dresser behind him.

As he walked across the parking lot, he realized that eventually he would be caught, or Justin would be dead and then nothing mattered anymore. He had to act quickly on whatever leads he had. The time for action was now. Breathing hard, he climbed into the Honda and revved the engine. Within minutes he was back on I-80. He headed west, toward the University part of town.

… 66 Hours and Counting…

“The connection is gone,” Vasquez said with a sigh. “I’m not sure what the IP trace will give us.”

“What do you think? Was it him, Letti?” asked Johansen.

A frown flickered across Leticia Vasquez’s attractive face. Johansen was her partner, but she didn’t really approve of his using her first name, much less her nickname. It didn’t seem professional for Bureau agents. Especially since she had noted that he only did it when they were alone.

“I don’t know,” she responded. She moved the mouse, double-clicked on an icon to initiate a new utility, then typed a query into the system. They had been watching each arrival into the system for an hour, hoping that one of them would be Vance. There had been an annoyingly heavy level of traffic, six hundred and fifty-seven logins since they started, and she had feared that they couldn’t monitor them all. Even though the internet connection was slow, the University community could still connect with the system and interact with each other, and they did so with gusto. When one of the student accounts had jumped up its own access priorities so smoothly and dramatically, she had all but missed it in the hum of activity on the net. Girlfriends chatted with boyfriends, then with other girlfriends, comparing notes. Instructors entered, fired a flurry of e-mails, probably test results and responses to questions, then popped off almost before she could check them out. Initially, she had expected Vance to come in using another instructor’s account, possibly even Brenda Hasting’s account. The student account ruse had thrown her off until it was almost too late.

Once Vasquez had isolated the rogue student, she had probed the database about her. Rita Hapgood’s address and phone number had flashed up almost instantly, as had the fact that she had dropped out of school entirely in late March. She had never attended the class that entitled her to this account, and, as far as Vasquez could determine, she had never even logged in prior to tonight.

She had pulled up the IP list to get the right provider. She should have him located in minutes, despite the slow response of the net. She hoped Vance would hang around too long for his own good. Assuming, of course, that it was Vance and not just some midnight hacker using Rita’s account.

“I bet it was him,” said Johansen over her shoulder. “I really think he’s our man. The stuff we dug up at his house and office looks too real to me.”

“Too bad he didn’t leave the source code for this frigging virus behind,” she replied, rubbing her eyes briefly. “Is the L.A. team any closer to cracking the binary files that we got?”

“They know the files are those used to build the virus program, but they haven’t been able to come up with a good defense yet. They say it’s very complex. But, it’s enough for a conviction, if you ask me. And that means our end of things will be wrapped up if we can just collar Vance.”

“Call in and check out Rita Hapgood’s address,” said Vasquez, her tone making it a suggestion rather than an order. “For all we know, she’s Vance’s side dish.”

Johansen nodded and pulled out his cell. She glanced at him briefly, then looked away. She did appreciate the way he accepted her leadership and greater experience. She had been worried initially when she had been assigned this hulking Norwegian-blooded young male for a partner that he wouldn’t take to the ideas of a small, bossy Hispanic woman. But, except for his occasional over familiarities, he had comported himself as a professional agent should. He had, in fact, taken on sort of a protective-bulldog attitude around her, which she found endearing. In fact, when all was said and done, he wasn’t a bad-looking guy. She was in her early thirties now, and his late twenties looked very good indeed. But, she told herself, such a relationship would interfere too much with her work.

She straightened in her chair and glared back at the glaring screen. She chided herself for allowing her mind to wander while one of the biggest perps on the loose in the nation was even now escaping her grasp.

Besides, she told herself, he was too tall. Way too tall for her five-foot-one stature. The last thing she needed, even while breaking established Bureau policy concerning such fraternization, would be to appear ridiculous at the same time.

The trace came back moments later. “Vance is at the Motel-8 on I-80, not even five miles from here.”

Vasquez smiled grimly. “Let’s go.”

One of the world-wide-web’s more accomplished spiders, Nog was watching the hunters even as they watched for Vance. A smile, taking the form of an odd, lop-sided leer, flickered across his features. He had gotten hold of a digital image of this Agent Vasquez and her dour partner which some of the local hackers had gotten from one of the university paper stills. They had spread across the school system like wildfire. He had done a bit of cropping and enhancing with La Placian transforms, and ended up with a nice portrait of the FBI’s finest pinned up over his computers with the others. Johansen, of course, had been edited out of his version of the picture. He had also made her image into a “wallpaper” mosaic on the background of two of his computer screens. Vasquez was quite pretty, he thought, in a butch sort of way. She had dark hair and big, almond-shaped brown eyes. The idea that she toted a gun about in her purse aroused him almost as much as her image did.

The other image that haunted his computer screens, of course, was that of Sarah Vance. He worried at his tongue a bit until it twinged, paused, then continued fraying the tip until the stinging sensation grew too intense and forced him to stop. With a giggle that seemed out of place, he tackled the mouse and created a new mosaic, one which contained both Sarah Vance and Agent Vasquez. When he was done, he sat back and admired his artwork, popping open a green tennis-ball-like tube of sour cream and onion chips. He ate the chips, munching on six at a time.

Staring at both these women, he thought it ironic that both of them wanted him very badly indeed. Not in a good way, unfortunately. They just didn’t know it was he that they wanted yet. Hopefully, they never would know who the man pulling the levers behind the curtain truly was.

The thought that these women both sought him, no matter for what purpose, suddenly aroused him. He shifted uncomfortably in his swivel chair, and finally was forced to reach past his ample belly and into his dank undergarments to straighten his bent erection. Ah, much better. Once his hand was down there, of course, it lingered. He took a more purposeful hold upon himself and grinned at the two grainy images. He had never been able to get a nude of either of them, not yet, but at least in Sarah’s shot she was in a bikini. His eyes flicked back to Vasquez, and she seemed even more hotly alluring. Her hard, pretty features and serious expression played a wonderful opposite to Sarah’s unaware smile.

As he worked himself harder, his mouth fell open and he grunted. A puff of pressed potato crumbs sprayed his chin and tee-shirt.

There was a scraping sound behind him. Startled, he jumped and craned his neck around, eyes bulging. The sound came from the balcony outside the sliding glass door. He lived on the second floor, which meant that his apartment had been blessed with a tiny balcony as opposed to a postage-stamp fenced-in cement slab. Other tenants kept plants on their balconies, or had barbecues out there, sometimes even lawn chairs to sit on and converse with their neighbors. He never used his for anything. He had long ago used a whole roll of aluminum foil and half a roll of duct tape to block it off forever. The scraping sound had come from out there, on the balcony.

“Ha,” he said aloud. “Fucking cats.” That was it, of course. The whole complex was crawling with cats. Cats were against the rules, of course. But that didn’t stop anyone from having them. Apartment cats soon became masters of jumping up onto balconies, and now one of them was fooling around on his. He felt it was quite unfair for one of the furry bastards to interrupt such an intimate moment for him.

He sighed and turned back to the computer screen, trying to get back into the mood. But another, louder sound came from the balcony. His blood froze and his erection turned to putty in seconds. Someone was forcing the lock on the slider. Someone was breaking in.

Ray shoved the tire iron more deeply into the crack between the door and the latch, then levered it over. The soft aluminum doorframe bent and scarred, showing a glint of silvery metal beneath the paint.

The latch popped suddenly. Not hesitating, he threw open the slider and flipped on the big double D-cell halogen flashlight he had in the other hand. In a second, he had transfixed the shocked Nog, who squirmed like a toad in the unfamiliar light. His belly slopped over his open pants and his hand still rested on his half-dead penis. Ray’s first reaction was to snort with amusement, but then the warm, stale smell of the place wrinkled his expression into one of disgust. Finally, only a bare second later, his expression shifted to anger when he saw the image of his smiling wife on the fat pervert’s computer screen.

He stalked into the room. This galvanized Nog into action, he reached for his desk and scrambled about for his cell phone. Plastic CD cases clattered and half-empty snack-bags showered the carpet with peanuts, chips and M amp;Ms.

“Looking for this, Nog?” asked Ray, lifting up the cell phone from the top of the TV and waggling it in front of the flashlight. He reached back and sent the door gliding shut. He turned back to Nog, replaced the cell phone on the TV and hefted the tire iron.

Nog gave a strangled whoop and heaved himself out of his chair. His cut-offs, still wide open at the fly, were kept from slipping to his chubby knees only by the bulk of his thighs.

“Sit back down,” ordered Ray, slapping the tire iron in his palm meaningfully. “I want to talk to you, Nog.”

Nog sank back down, blinking into the glare of the flashlight. “Vance?” he asked, shading his eyes.

“Dr. Vance to you, boy.”

“You scared the shit out of me, you asshole.”

“And I’m not done yet.”

Nog snorted. “Going to lower another of my grades a notch in the old roll book, eh, teacher-man?”

“We’ve got more to talk about than grades this time Nog, my man.”

Nog reached out and fumbled for the light switch. He rarely used it, but it still worked. The room was dimly illuminated by a 60-watt, dead-bug-coated light bulb.

“So, Vance, are you out to expand upon your recent crime-spree?”

“Listen, you fat fuck,” said Vance, advancing a step. “I know you wrote that virus. You wrote it, you set me up for the scapegoat, then you loosed it on the world. But this isn’t the worst of your crimes.”

Nog tried to look cool, but he shrank several inches into his chair. “It sounds like you’re trying to make me into your scapegoat, Vance. I suppose this image of your wife is getting to you. Well, it’s public property, Vance. It’s lifted right from faculty picnic pictures taken two years ago and posted in a public place.”

“I’m not talking about the virus or the picture. Frankly, I don’t give much of a shit about either one right now. What I want to know is what you have to do with my son’s kidnapping.”

Nog frowned. His mouth opened, then closed. It was clear that he was taken aback. This disappointed Ray, who watched closely for a guilty response. He had watched students lie a thousand times in his class and office. Most people were lousy liars. They hesitated before they lied, they looked away and pursed their lips. All he saw in Nog’s misshapen face was a moment of real confusion. He doubted Nog could fake it so well. Part of the reason for his direct approach was to shock Nog, who, like most nerds, lacked social skills.

“What are you talking about?” Nog asked.

“My kid, Justin, is missing. There was a 9-1-1 call from my house this afternoon. The house had been broken into and Justin was gone.”

Nog blinked behind his coke-bottle lenses. He nodded, as if piecing things together. “So, now I get the uncharacteristic tough-guy stuff. I didn’t know anything about this.”

“It’s all over the news, man.”

Nog snorted. “I don’t watch the news. I’ve been watching the investigation from the inside, on the net. You know, with eavesdropping utilities and shit.”

“But you know something, don’t you?” demanded Ray.

“Look man, I don’t know what happened to your kid. He probably went to the park and got lost somewhere.”

Ray shook his head. “No, Nog. A virus hits and my kid vanishes in the same day? These two events are linked somehow. And you know something.”

“Sorry.”

Blood rushed up Ray’s neck and he felt heat in his face and arms. He lifted the tire iron and flashed it down. Nog instinctively lifted his flabby arms to protect his face. The spiked end of the tire iron punched through one of Nog’s keyboards and bit deeply into the desktop below.

Ray breathed hard for a moment, regaining control of himself with difficulty. “Look man, I’m asking you, I’m begging you and I’m threatening your life all at once. Tell me whatever you know.”

Nog had difficulty breathing. His hands had balled themselves into fists, but he kept them at his sides. He shook his head.

Ray stepped away, toward the door. His mind raced and his sides heaved. “So, this is your place? You make two million, and you live in the same off-campus place and still never date and still have no life. Your mind is festering in here, Nog. You built a virus to get even with the world when the world has never harmed you.”

“Three million, and you don’t know what you’re talking about, teacher-man.”

Ray nodded his head to himself, vigorously. “Yes, yes I think I do. You probably dream of stalking women too, but you don’t have the guts to do it, do you?”

Nog chuckled. “I’ve had more women than your sorry ass ever will.”

Ray glanced at him, then at the door. “You’re right about one thing, Nog. I’m a criminal now, and it seems to my criminal mind that you’re an easy man to get to.”As he spoke, he touched the sliding glass door. He opened it. “I would have thought your place would have an alarm, Nog.”

Nog grinned. “I never said it didn’t, fool.”

Vance looked at him. He pondered, for a hard moment, beating the shit out of Nog. He pondered it coldly, with the walnut-sized reptilian layer of his brain which had now been awakened as it perhaps never had been in his life. His child had been taken, and at this moment all his instincts sang, turning his nerves into steel wires.

Nog looked at him and must have seen something in his eyes. He blinked, then swiveled in his chair. As an afterthought, he covered his exposed penis. Ray thought he had rarely seen anything more pathetic.

“It’s a silent alarm. The cops will be here any minute, Vance,” he said. He paused for a moment, Ray could tell he was thinking. When he went on, he sounded as if he spoke to himself. “You have to pay extra for that hook-up, you know. You have to pay the sheriff’s office, the phone company, and the alarm boys for that one.”

Ray nodded his head. He recalled a similar arrangement that protected the school datacenter when no one was present.

Nog ran a finger over the tire iron that pinioned his keyboard like a staked vampire. Ray walked out onto the balcony feeling stunned and deflated. He couldn’t quite attack Nog. He wondered if that made him an inferior creature, one that deserved to lose his only son. If he only understood Nog’s role, he told himself, violence would come easily. But without any real evidence… Looking out at the parking lot, he saw a squad car pull into the drive. The car’s lights were off. He shook his head, Nog hadn’t been shitting him about the alarm. He threw one leg over the railing.

“Vance,” he heard a voice call behind him. He glanced back into the dank room. The lights had been turned off again, leaving only the blue glow of the computer screens to silhouette Nog’s toad-like form.

“Log onto ‘No Carrier’, Vance. Look for someone with the handle: Santa.”

Ray breathed deeply, nodded over his shoulder, then dropped off the balcony.

… 61 Hours and Counting…

6:00 A. M. said the cool green digits. Vasquez struggled to reach the top of the alarm clock. She was betrayed by her short arms, struggled with the blankets, and finally managed to hammer the snooze button with her fist. The buzzing ceased and silence blissfully prevailed.

Sitting up, she automatically gathered the stiff, white hotel sheets against her breasts. Outside, the sun was shining. She always left the blackout curtains open, as having sunlight in the room seemed to help her wake up. She wasn’t a morning person, and she needed all the help she could get.

When her eyes could focus, she saw the blinking screen of her notebook, set up on the letter desk in much the same spot that Vance had set his. They had ransacked that room, but come up with nothing useful. They did know that it was Vance, the night clerk was pretty definite on identifying his photo. They also knew from the rearrangement of the room that he had a computer with him, which heightened the odds greatly that Hapgood’s account had been used by him. But that was it. He had checked in, used a computer, then disappeared. They’d waited until two for him, then put a squad car with two uniforms in the parking lot, but there was no sign of him.

She wondered if their anonymous tipper had had a fit of remorse and also tipped Vance. Sometimes that happened. The truth was that all police work, even that of the Bureau with all its the fantastic resources, relied largely on informants. The police forces simply couldn’t cover all the bases, they couldn’t be there at every crime scene. But very often, someone was. Somewhere, somehow, a pair of quiet eyes witnessed most crimes. For an agent on the job, the informant was usually faceless, a disembodied, hushed voice on the phone. Of course, you never knew if you could rely on the information or not, particularly if the source was a paid one. It was a frustrating way to solve crimes.

The message blinking on her computer said that she had e-mail. She allowed herself a trip to the bathroom where she peed and fired up one of those dinky one-cup pots of coffee. Still in her underwear, she sat at the letter desk. Her machine had gone into sleep mode. She roused her machine by nudging the mouse.

She had mail, explained a cheerful, rotating icon. She had the volume on the sound card turned down or it would have told her aloud as well. The computer was still attached to the HUNTRESS account. She clicked twice and the message came up.

Agent Vasquez,

I’m sending you this to help you find my son. Whether you believe the case of the virus and my son are related or not, please take my input seriously. I believe the virus was written and released by John Nogatakei. His motives are fairly clear: he hates me and has a thing for my wife. I don’t know who took Justin yet, but I am doing my best to find out. I’m sure it wasn’t Nog who did the kidnapping, it isn’t his style, he has never been a direct, physical person. This indicates an accomplice, as yet unidentified.

P.S. Don’t bother to stake out this system. I won’t be using it or this account again. Use your time to find my son.

The system data at the end of the message indicated it was from an anonymous local address. The timestamp read: 12:31 A. M. He had sent it with a delayed delivery option, it had only arrived at five this morning.

Vasquez hammered her fist on her bare thigh. “Dammit!”She had blown it by grandstanding on the system and calling herself HUNTRESS of all things. She had stupidly underestimated Vance. She swore she wouldn’t do it again.

She got up to get her single cup of instant. Pouring it into the provided Styrofoam cup, she immediately started another brewing. Sipping and burning her lips intermittently, she reread the message several times. She thought about it while she showered and dressed. As usual, she received her strongest ideas in the morning shower.

When she was ready, she called Johansen for breakfast.

“Already had mine,” he said. “But I’ll sit with you.”

She frowned. He was the only partner she’d ever gone on a field assignment with who was always up and fully alert before she could even function. Doesn’t the man ever sleep? she wondered. She chalked it up as one more exhibit in the mounting evidence that proved their incompatibility.

She used her portable fax machine to make a hardcopy of the e-mail message and took it with her to breakfast. John Nogatakei. She supposed they would have to check it out, but it annoyed her to be getting tips from her prime suspect. What could be less reliable than that?

… 60 Hours and Counting…

“Another tip came in last night,” said Vasquez, handing a slip of paper to Johansen. “He’s driving Brenda Hastings’ car around. I’ve got the plates and the make here. Could you call the local station and put out a bulletin?”

“Sure thing,” said Johansen, “Brenda took a chance on an accessory charge by doing that.”

“Well, at least he has friends that believe in him,” she said.

Johansen reached over the breakfast table to take the note from her. As he took it from her, he touched her hand for a lingering moment. It was just a light touch, but it went on for just a half-second longer than necessary. She felt a flash of heat across her face, then the contact ended. Without raising her head, she slid her eyes up to look at him. He appeared intent upon the note. She frowned and briefly wondered if he was trying something new, something more subtle. She forced such thoughts from her mind and tried to focus on the situation at hand. She forked the last sausage on her grand-slam plate.

The restaurant had the haunting and somehow reassuring familiarity of that every Denny’s possessed. Overhead, sputnik-like lamps that dated from the seventies hung suspended from a ceiling that was plated with beige acoustic tiles. Booths lined the windows and the counter was manned by an army of truckers and cops. On every table the napkin-dispenser huddled-up with its team of condiments.

“I received some interesting e-mail this morning,” she began. She quickly told him about the message from Vance. She was gratified that he didn’t laugh at her for getting caught by her own game.

“Hmph,” he said, munching on one of her pieces of diagonally-cut white toast. “Sounds like he spotted us first.”

“Exactly.”

“So what’s our next move?”

“I think we should press the wife for her help. Maybe she can talk him into giving himself up before he sinks himself more deeply into this. After all, if he’s innocent, he should give himself up.”

“It’ll only work if she thinks that we’re doing a good job of finding her kid,” said Johansen, “I get the impression that neither of them care about anything else right now.”

“Naturally enough,” she said, “but I think I can convince her.”

“Right. In any case, it’s better than just waiting around for one of the uniforms to pick him up by chance.”

She glanced at him again. He didn’t sound overly confident in her persuasiveness. “We’ll get her to come around, it might just take a few days.”

“Right,” he repeated. “In the meantime, what about this Nogatakei guy?”

“I suppose we’ll have to check it out.”

“Huh,” he said, “so our fugitive suspect is now feeding us leads. He’s typing them, no less.”

“The irony isn’t lost on me.”

“But is this tip just a red herring? Something to keep us busy while he works his own plans?”

“That’s what we’re paid to find out,” she said, sliding out of the booth.

Johansen stood up with her and picked up the check. On the way out the waitress, a gum-snapper in her twenties, gave them an up-down glance. Vasquez grimaced, having seen it before. Everyone automatically assumed they were a couple, and invariably people thought it odd to see that one of them was a good fourteen inches taller than the other. Not to mention a good deal more pale in complexion. At least the waitress had the good grace not to smile in amusement at them.

By a long-standing agreement between the two of them, Johansen always picked up the tab when they ate together. He said it was to keep a low profile as a couple, but she always suspected that he wanted to play the male role. Recently, she had begun to suspect he wanted more of that role than she had realized.

Following his towering form through the glass doors, she recalled his light touch. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant memory.

… 59 Hours and Counting…

Sarah hardly knew she was dropping tears into her breakfast until the doorbell rang. She blinked awake and dabbed her eyes. She glanced down at her cereal. The milk had sat too long in the bowl and turned rice squares to swollen mush. Then the doorbell rang again, and she got up to answer it. Her newly installed peephole revealed Mrs. Trumble’s permanently worried face. She opened the door.

“Mrs. Trumble?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, dear,” said the old woman. She wore slippers and a quilted housecoat.

“What is it?”

“I have a message for you, I got a call from Ray quite early this morning.”

Sarah’s mouth sagged open, then shut again. “When?”

“Oh, about six. Abner answered the phone, you see, and he’s so hard of hearing now that it took a few minutes before he knew who it was. Then he handed it to me.”

“Six?” snapped Sarah, “Why did you wait so long to tell me? It’s after eight.”

“Oh, my stars, I’m sorry! I thought that I shouldn’t wake you. What with Justin gone missing and all… I thought you could use your sleep. I’m sorry if it’s important. Abner said that I should come over right away, but I didn’t — ”

Sarah fluttered her hands in exasperation. Normally, she could put up with hours of Mrs. Trumble’s ramblings before she got to the point, but today wasn’t like any other day. “Please. What’s the message?”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Trumble, seeming put out, “he just asked that you get hold of a person called: ‘Magic Avila’ and ask them to meet Ray for lunch at, um, dot-com somewhere.”

Sarah closed her eyes and restrained herself from grabbing the woman’s sleeve. “Do you know the exact address?”

“Address?” asked Mrs. Trumble in bewilderment. “You mean the address of the restaurant?”

“The restaurant?”

“Well, I assume that’s where they’d be meeting,” she said.

“No, no,” said Sarah, “dot-com is part of an internet address. He wants this person, Magic, to meet him on the net, not in person.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Trumble blankly.

“Dot-com is only part of the address, and a very common part indeed. Do you have the rest?”

“Well, I don’t see how you can meet for lunch and not be in the same room, but I suppose I’ve heard everything else. Now, let’s see…” said Mrs. Trumble, digging in her purse. “Abner told me I should write it down, so I think I did. Yes.”

She produced a scrap of paper. On it was scrawled the internet address: NO CARRIER DOT-COM. Sarah automatically translated it in her mind to the internet form: nocarrier. com.

Now all she had to do was figure out who and where Magic Avila was.

Nogatakei’s apartment was horrific. Vasquez, who loved nothing more than a clean house, was speechless. Stuff was everywhere, disks, magazines, unwashed clothing, half-eaten food in various states of decay and just plain dirt. It was impossible to walk two feet without stepping on something disgusting. Bizarre toys of rubber and springs squeaked and hopped by themselves when they were nudged. A cobweb caught her full in the face as she tried to make it to the kitchen.

“Yaah!” she cried out in annoyance.

“You said it,” said Johansen, “I’ve seen nicer looking murder scenes.”

From the door way the landlady called in, “I told you. I always knew the boy was wrecking the place, but when I complained he just doubled the deposit. Paid me cash, too. After he doubled it twice, I stopped bothering him. And if he’s skipped out or headed for jail, I’m gonna keep it all, let me tell you.”She rattled a thick ring of keys, and haunted the hallway, but was reluctant to enter. Vasquez didn’t blame her.

“If this is his place, I’m going to love meeting the man himself,” she said. The fridge was zoological exhibit of microbial flora and fauna.

“Ah, here’s evidence of Vance, I’ll bet,” said Johansen. He pointed to a tire iron that had skewered a keyboard neatly. Vasquez made her way back to the living room and had to stand on her tiptoes to see past a bank of dusty computer monitors.

“Take a few shots of it,” she suggested. “Are there any other signs of a struggle?”

“Who can tell in this place? If they had a fight in here, I’m not sure I could tell the difference. At least I don’t see any bloodstains,” said Johansen. He pulled out a digital camera and went to work. “I’ll bet you this tool came from the trunk of a Honda Civic.”

“I’ll bet you’re right, and I’m almost sorry we found it. Now we’ll have to get a warrant to really search the place.”

“No warrant?” squawked the landlady. Evidently, she had been quietly listening out on the doorstep. “You people are crazy.”

“We just asked you to let us in for a look around, ma’am,” called Johansen, “just following up a lead.”

“You think you’re on TV?” laughed the landlady. Vasquez was reminded ever more distinctly of an unpleasant, squawking bird. “When the cops get here, they’re going to be pissed.”

“Cops?” asked Johansen. The two agents exchanged glances.

“This place is alarmed to the hilt and bugged, too. I thought you were legit, otherwise I wouldn’t have let you in,” she squawked.

Vasquez ground her teeth and they both struggled through the junk to the door. Outside, they blinked in the sunlight. She imagined that Nog rarely came out by day.

Johansen pointed out to the parking lot where a squad car was pulling up, lights off. “This will cost us two hours, I’d say.”

“Davis is a small town,” said Vasquez, “I’d guess three.”

… 57 Hours and Counting…

Spurlock awakened groggily. He owned no alarm clock, and birdsongs had no effect upon him. It was the sun that had finally ended his slumber. Beaming in the cracks of his cardboard fan-fold sun visor, it tickled his face with tiny hot streaks and assaulted his optic nerves behind his closed eyelids.

“Oh shit,” he sighed. He heard a movement in the back. The kid. It had to be the kid. He heaved himself around.

“What are you up to, you little rat-bastard?” he asked the gloomy interior of the van. It was about ten, he figured, and the van was getting hot already. He tried to climb out of his ripped-vinyl seat. He failed on the first attempt, betrayed by a nerveless left leg.

He collapsed back into his seat and cursed while massaging the prickling leg back to life. He craned his neck around and thought to see movement back there.

“You’d better not be out of your cage,” he chuckled, shaking his head, “or they’ll be hell to pay, little bastard.”

After that, there was silence behind him. He finally got up and managed to limp into the back. The kid was still there, locked in his cage. His eyes were big and round with fear, which caused Spurlock to grunt in approval. But something appeared odd about his gag. He opened the top of the cage and reached down to grab the kid by the neck. Checking the gag, he found it had been damaged, and now only hung there by a thread.

“Oh, now you’ve done it, boy!” he roared. “This is gonna be good!”

He resecured the gag, this time cruelly tight. He reached in and lifted the kid by his neck, but the little shit struggled and wriggled free, dropping to the bottom of the cage. Spurlock growled and took hold of his hair.

Outside came the sound of an engine, then the crunch of tires on gravel. Spurlock froze. A door crumped. Someone approached the van.

He scrambled back to the driver’s seat and looked into the side mirror. A California Highway Patrolman approached. Spurlock could see the black and white parked behind him. He could hear its engine idling.

Immediately, his mind went to the cheap. 22 he kept under his seat. He pulled it out and slipped it under his right leg. It looked like a black squirt-gun. It wasn’t much; the barrel was so short that he couldn’t hit a beer can with it at five feet. Still, he knew a quick spray of bullets at close range would drop anyone.

The patrolman came up to his window slowly, taking his time. Spurlock thought about faking sleep, but rejected the idea. Just as the patrolman came even with his window, he reached over and dug around in his glove compartment box for his registration. He had once saw one of those cop shows in which of the smug pigs explained he always suspected trouble when a driver wasn’t moving. Most people, he explained, were digging about for their license, proof of insurance and car registration when they were pulled over. Those who were waiting to blast you didn’t bother.

“You’ll probably be wanting my ID, sir,” he said over his shoulder. “I know my papers are somewhere in here.”

The cop didn’t say anything, he just frowned and ran his eyes around the interior of the van. Spurlock could feel those eyes, burrowing into his back. There was no way to miss the curtains. He knew all too well how a cop’s mind worked. What was behind them? Drugs? Smuggled parrots from Brazil? A cage full of kids? Any pig would be dying to know. He hoped desperately that this fucker didn’t have to die to find out.

“Got it right here, sir,” he said, passing a handful of paper out the window. He prayed the cop hadn’t bothered to type his license number into his computer yet. His record would do nothing to improve the pig’s mood.

The cop eyed the papers dubiously. “Is the van broken down?”

“No sir,” said Spurlock, shaking his head emphatically. “I was just about to get on my way up to Redding. I’ve been driving all night up from L.A., sir and I stopped to take a nap.”

The cop continued to stare at the papers and didn’t appear to have heard him. Perhaps a half-minute passed. Spurlock smiled on the outside, but inside he was a screaming wreck. Why did this fucking cop have to find me? Why doesn’t the little rat-bastard kid just kick the wall already and get it over with? Just one kick, and it’s all over. The cop’s dead, I’m probably dead, the kid is definitely dead and it’s all over with. WHY DOESN’T ONE OF THESE TWO ASSHOLES DO SOMETHING?

“Looks good,” said the pig, giving a tiny smile that looked more like he was relieving himself rather than actually pleased. “I just saw you parked over here my last two or three passes down this stretch. Even though you’re off the highway system, abandoned cars always get my attention. Wouldn’t want your property stripped. We get a lot of that around South Sac.”

Air whistled out of Spurlock’s locked lungs. “Yes sir, thanks for the thought, officer.”He reached out for his papers.

The cop looked up and made as if to hand over the papers, but halted. For the first time, their eyes met. The cop was balding, tall and slim with broad shoulders. His face was long and looked fortyish. He wore a neat brown mustache that look as though he trimmed it with tweezers.

Then Spurlock saw it in his eyes: alarm bells had been triggered. Some fucking pig-instinct had just been tripped, and the cop smelled something, something he didn’t like.

“I would like to take a look in the back, if you don’t mind,” he said.

Spurlock forced a smile. That was it, then. His face felt dead and rubbery. There was nothing he could do now. He would climb out, hopefully behind him, then pull the. 22 and spray every bullet he had into him. He realized numbly that it would be his first Murder One. He had often wondered when it would come.

“It’s locked, sir, I’ll just have to open it for you,” he said. He reached down to the door latch and popped it open. The cop back up a step automatically.

“Don’t forget your keys,” said the cop.

“Huh? Oh, right,” Spurlock said, giving a little nervous laugh. He turned back to grab the keys dangling in the ignition. Squirt-squirt-squirt, he thought, that’s all there was to it. He knew he would have to do it right away, without hesitating or hoping to get out of it. He turned back with the keys and sure enough, the cop had his back turned. He was talking into the radio mike that he kept clipped to his shoulder.

The little steel squirt gun was so tiny Spurlock could hide it neatly in his palm. He did so now as he closed the van door behind him. The cop was walking away, and Spurlock felt a moment of panic; he wanted to be at point-blank range.

Suddenly, the cop stopped speaking into his radio and turned back to Spurlock. “I’ve got an assistance call,” he said, “drive safe.”

And it was over, just like that. He trotted back to his black-and-white and drove off. Spurlock was left rubbing his fingers nervously along the barrel of his little black squirt gun.

“I’ve got to get rid of this kid,” he said to no one.

… 55 Hours and Counting…

Ray spotted Magic in a crowded cafe. He signaled her quietly, asking for a private conversation. Magic hesitated, then touched the mouse and the connection was made. The two of them conversed not in a physical environment, but rather in a chatroom. Nocarrier was a social networking site full of chatrooms, blogs and message boards, now slowed down by the choked internet, but still active. The name of the site caused many to smile when they read it. An inside joke, NoCarrier was the error message one used to get all too often when your personal computer tried to connect across the phone system to another computer and failed. He had found the boards that specialized in university socializing, figuring that Nog had recommended the site for this reason. Someone at the university had to know something.

Physically, Ray sat in a quiet corner of a hotel lobby. He had finally found one that had unprotected free wireless service. His greatest fear was that someone would recognize him. As a college professor in a college town, he was someone that was easily recognized by a lot of people. He had decided to set up camp in the stuffiest, most expensive hotel in town because students, as a general rule, didn’t have the money or the inclination to go there. Elderly couples, bent on golfing their way through retirement and business people who checked their watches constantly were the only patrons in sight. Hotels often had outlets as well. He’d spent the morning setting up in a quiet conference alcove of the Red Lyon Inn’s lobby. Using his prepaid cellular for the internet connection, he felt he had the perfect spot for his work. He had purchased one of the all-you-can-eat for a month phone cards.

Ray couldn’t help but smile at the number of users logged onto NoCarrier. Clearly, the slowdown of the internet hadn’t caused people to stop chatting and ranting. They were all addicted to the web and would keep playing until the Titanic hit the bottom, he supposed.

As the connection came up, he saw that Magic was typing already.

You don’t fool around, do you Dr. Vance? appeared on his screen.

What do you mean? he typed.

The virus, sir! came the reply. Just look at the news! Company stocks are tanking. Websites are shutting down. All because you personally killed the internet. I’m impressed.

Don’t be. I didn’t do it.

\(*o*)/ Of course not. As you say, sir.

Ray sighed to himself. He supposed he was an obvious suspect. Nog had done his work well.

Look, he typed, I didn’t do it and what’s more I know who did.

Okay, okay, I’ll suspend my disbelief and hero worship for the moment. Why did you ask to talk to me? Just to give me the thrill of a net conversation with a fugitive felon?

First, let me ask you this: have you ever put together a virus?

Not a fair question!

It’s totally fair. You asked me the same thing in class, remember?

There was a pause. Ray wondered what kind of squirming was going on at the other end of the line.

Wait a minute. Don’t tell me you’ve got the feds there and now you’re fishing for a confession! I’m just a grad-student, remember.

Exactly, typed Ray. You’re a computer science grad-student. Suspect number One-A. And be serious, there aren’t any feds in the country that could sit still while I type away online to prove my innocence. I think they’d all sooner break my fingers.

There was another pause, then, Sure, so I’ve dabbled in the black arts. Can I still be a jedi?

Ray breathed deeply. He had contacted the right woman. He needed a hacker in his corner. The truth about technology was that the older, more experienced individual wasn’t the best. Computer scientists were more like gymnasts than normal, staid engineering-types. An older person could still be hot and produce solid work, but it was part of the nature of humans that you stopped wanting to learn a thousand new things every day about when you turned thirty. Families, daily pursuits, just having a life, all these things prevented older people from being the best techies. The true stars were almost always young, usually in their early twenties. Unattached people with too much in the way of brains and curiosity seemed to do the best. They lived on the net, poked into every forgotten crevice of their machines, were fascinated and excited by every newly developed gizmo. Ray had lost that edge about five years ago, and he knew it.

As long as you repent, Leia, you will be anointed, he typed.

So, what would you need from this newly unveiled amateur hacker?

First, I need a better handle on this system. I’m in as an unqualified user right now, and the sysop will probably take a week or two to knock me up to getting my own signature on the boards. I want full permissions. I want to run the place.

Hmm. A tough one with the current demand, but I happen to know one of the superuser account names: foghorn.

All lower case?

Yes.

What’s the password?

I’ll give you three guesses…

Ray frowned for a moment, then smiled. Leghorn? he typed.

You got it in one! came the reply. I guess I was never really good at security. Can I do anything else for you?

I want to eavesdrop. I want to be a fly on an electronic wall.

Ah, I have just the thing for you.

Even as he watched, the data began to flow across the wires to be copied down onto his hard disk. Something came up to confirm he wanted to install it. He did. Within a minute Ray had downloaded a chunk of software that was illegal to possess, create or transmit.

“Chalk up a few more felonies for my side,” he muttered aloud.

When the transmission ended, the screen shifted back to chat mode.

Thanks, Magic, he typed.

You’re welcome. I hope you find your kid.

You know about that?

All the hackers out here are rooting for you… At least, those who don’t make you out as the anti-christ, that is. You’re a hot topic in every working chat room, Vance. I’m something of a celebrity just by being associated with you.

I had no idea. I’ve got to go now.

By the way, Ray, what’s going to happen to my grade in your class if you’re in the back of a squad car?

Ray snorted.

Your A is so solid it won’t matter if I go to the chair.

The last thing she typed was just one word:

Careful.

Then she broke the connection. Ray sat staring at the screen for a moment, then he blinked and roused himself to action. He had a lot of work to do.

… 54 Hours and Counting…

Agents Vasquez and Johansen drove up and parked in front of the Vance residence. She looked at the house and thought about what had happened to this perfectly normal-looking family over the last few days.

“You know, if Vance is innocent, life’s been giving him a pretty hard time lately.”

“Second thoughts?” asked Johansen. His hands still gripped the steering wheel. By unspoken tradition, she almost always let him drive. It was similar to the paying at restaurants thing, a sensible move that made them less conspicuous and simultaneously saved his masculinity.

She sighed. “No, we’ve got to give her both barrels. The sooner Vance gives up the better, whether he’s guilty or not.”

He nodded and popped the door latch. Together they climbed out and approached the house. Neither of them asked the question that hung in the air: if he was innocent, how did it help little Justin’s chances to have his dad sitting in jail until the authorities finally decided to believe him? Vasquez knew from experience that there was no real answer to questions like that. In this business, you couldn’t let it get personal, especially if you really didn’t know the facts. In those cases, you followed the book. That way, you could still live with yourself if things went sour later. There was always the book to blame then.

The door opened before she could knock on it.

“What do you know?” asked Sarah. She looked like she had slept on the couch, or maybe hadn’t slept at all. Her hair, normally worked on for a half-hour or more in the bathroom, looked like an inverted bird’s nest. Gripped in her hand was a cordless phone.

“There’s no news about Justin, Mrs. Vance,” said Vasquez.

“Why are you here then?” she demanded, flicking her eyes from one to the other of them. “Is it about my husband?”

“Yes, Mrs. Vance. May we come in?”

There was a long moment of hesitation. Vasquez knew right away that this wasn’t going to go smoothly. The woman looked at her as one might look at a stray Rottweiler in the park.

“All right. Come in and talk to me.” She walked away into the living room, leaving the door hanging open behind her.

They followed her and Vasquez sat on the couch. Johansen stayed back, looking as if he would rather stand. Vasquez gave him a quick stare. He got the hint and took his spot beside her on the couch.

Sarah flopped into an armchair and fiddled with the TV remote. She didn’t turn it on. In her other hand she still gripped the phone. Vasquez got the immediate impression that she had spent the night in exactly that pose.

“I know this must be a difficult time for you, Mrs. Vance-” Vasquez began.

“Save it,” Sarah interrupted. “What do you want?”

“We want to help your husband.”

Sarah snorted. “Then find Justin. And find the real author of that virus. Have you been following CNN? It’s all over the world now. It’s tearing up files across the globe. All the online stocks are plummeting. Everyone on Wall Street is pissing themselves.”

“Yes, the situation is very serious,” agreed Vasquez. While they had been talking their way past the local sheriff’s office, the National Security Exchange Commission had called them. They were getting involved now as well. They weren’t content to let the FBI and the NSA handle it alone. All of that worried and annoyed Vasquez, who knew that for every additional agency involved, as Johansen had put it earlier, ‘a fresh load of shit would be left on her doorstep every morning’.

“But you know,” said Sarah. “I could care less. All I really want is the family I had a few days ago.”

“I’m hoping we could help you in that arena,” said Vasquez.

“All right,” sighed Sarah. “I’m listening.”

“You’re husband is a fugitive at this point, Mrs. Vance. There is a federal warrant for his arrest-”

“Yes, you showed it to me last night,” Sarah interrupted.

“And we have received information that shall quickly lead to his arrest,” continued Vasquez.

Sarah sat up and frowned at them. “What information? From whom?”

“We almost got him last night, Mrs. Vance. And we have the make and license plate of the car he’s driving,” said Vasquez, watching her reaction closely. She was disappointed by her look of confusion.

“He didn’t have a car last night,” she said. “Did he rent one?” she asked, then stopped quickly.

Johansen stood up suddenly. “Could I use your restroom, ma’m?” he asked Sarah. “We’ve been in the car all day.”

Sarah waved him down the hall and turned her attention back to Vasquez.

“It doesn’t matter,” Vasquez told her. “But what does matter is that we are about to catch him. I’m assuming here that your husband is innocent, Mrs. Vance.”

“And he is.”

“That will be determined, Mrs. Vance. However, I must point out that if he openly runs from capture at that point, it will look very bad for his case.”

Sarah frowned, but said nothing. She went back to massaging the remote and clenching the phone. There, thought Agent Vasquez, the hook is planted. She decided to go for broke.

“Of course, if you could help us in any way-”

“No!” said Sarah, turning on them. “No way. You people can pay your informants and catch him if you can, but I’m not going to help you find him. Why don’t you people find my son instead of bothering us about a piece of software?”