The story so far... ******************************************************************* Who's there? Whoever's looking down on me via this interface had better be careful. I'm the boss in here. At least in this sector. Well, maybe in only one segment. Yeah, OK; in reality I'm a prisoner. A prisoner in Broadspace. Hey Groop! Put your HMD straight and take a good look! What do you see? A monster with tentacles? A metal vehicle? I have absolutely no idea what my humble data looks like on your display. And don't get too close. Leave the MeltSensor alone. Otherwise you'll end up in here as well. Looks like a prison cell, doesn't it? Metal walls all round; you wouldn't believe you were stuck inside a computer. But sometimes everything changes around here: mist swirls over the virtual floor and stars appear in the sky. It's all just simulation. Sometimes towers shoot up out of the floor and transmit signals that I don't understand. And I run around the towers and try to throw myself off the battlements. But there's no point! There's no such thing as suicide in cyber space. VICTOR MARAZZO! ACTIVATE THE EXIT CONSOLE AND GET OUT! What? Who's there? Nobody's talked to me for three years! VICTOR MARAZZO! ACTIVATE THE EXIT CONSOLE AND GET OUT! Yes, OK! Since when has that been active? FOR 12 SECONDS! Oh, I see! I'll press the button. Wow! I'm going home! When I came round, the world was full of flashing lights. It only took me a few seconds to work out where I was: it was one of the most modern wards in the Western hemisphere, the dreaded coma clinic; it was made almost entirely of glass and steel. But strangely enough, it was unusually dark. A freckled nurse pulled a number of tubes out of the various apertures of my body; a really bloody awful feeling. Her dark-skinned colleague removed the contacts from my body, rubbed my chest with a pretty potent cream and gave me a friendly pat on my left cheek. "Hey comie! Back amongst the living?" "I don't really know. Why is it so dark?" "Emergency lighting, comie. Would the gentleman perhaps like bright sunshine?" She grinned. She looked stunning. But she should stop calling me comie. I was after all conscious. And why emergency lighting? "Try to get up Marazzo!" There was that commanding voice from Broadspace again! But it wasn't talking in block capitals this time. As I turned my head, I saw a skinny man with thin lips and horn-rimmed glasses. Light darted back and forth over the supersmooth surface of the lens: reflections of the apparatus all round. He was about as humorous as a tub of barbiturate. "So you're the network anarchist from cyberspace" he said without the slightest hint of friendliness. "When you are finished here, report to corridor 42, laboratory ZeroEight. And get a move on!" He stomped off and left a flat-faced bodyguard who stared at me silently. The two nurses helped me out of my stretcher. "Let's get you something proper to eat first" exclaimed the lady with freckles. It was supposed to sound cheerful but there was a worried undertone. It didn't sound like unpaid bills, but more like the voice of a woman who was trying to do her job with a hurricane going on outside. They bolstered me left and right and we stumbled to the canteen, the body-g at the rear. In the neighboring room, a comie was having fits on a bed. He was wired up like the cockpit of a space shuttle. "What's the matter with him?" I asked quietly. "That him's a her" answered the pretty nurse in a husky voice. "She was on duty in Broadspace. And that's where it got her." "What?" I stared at this picture of misery whilst the nurses kept on dragging me. The woman's eyes penetrated a nameless nothing above the room ceiling. Her hands were shaking as if they were trying to protect the creased up body from something. And the lines on the screen flimmered like some kind of insane tribal dance. The body-g led me through the metal corridors of the firm. I couldn't help feeling that there was some invisible threat lurking there. Something was wrong. My footsteps sounded hollow and muffled, and all you could see out of the porthole windows was gray mist. My guide stopped outside of laboratory ZeroEight. A seemingly unimportant door strengthened with metal braces. And behind it, infinity. He pressed the code switch and the pneumatic system hissed like an antiquated decompression chamber. The room behind it was only lit by the device control lamps and was as narrow as a submarine. I saw monitors on which curves flashed in zigzags. To the right of the door, or rather the entry hatch, there was a spinning hologram of a strange, black and yellow striped vehicle under a green ray of light. It looked like a cross between a bulldozer and an armored tank. In the middle was a cyber chair like the ones I knew. The HMD was hanging over the arm of the chair like a drying hood in a hairdressing salon. And the narrow arms were full of thin cables. The only thing that was new to me were the foot pedals. To the left of the door was old Whitecoat from before, sitting at a subduely lit control desk. When he saw me, he stood up and laconically extended his hand and I shook it. It felt damp and cold like a dog's nose. "Do you know what to expect?" I shook my head. And then he smiled again. It was far more the clone of a smile. "Did you see the woman in the clinic?" I nodded. "Viruses" he said calmly. "Aha," I returned. "These damned viruses can realy get to you. My mother died of one." He wiped the smile off his face. "You don't understand. I'm talking about computer viruses." "Computer viruses?" I must have looked completely goggle-eyed because he sat back down behind his control desk and fiddled with a few buttons. Network structures and statistical block graphics appeared on the monitors in front of him. "As you no doubt know, Marazzo, our energy supplies, food production, air cleansing system etc, all depend on the perfect functioning of the data paths. If one of our mainframes goes down, it's not terribly serious. But if the network software goes haywire, then we have massive malfunctions on our hands. Look!" He pointed to a diagram of lines and patterns on a monitor. "These are the energy supply lines in our region. The red lines are clean. Normally 96% of the lines should be like this. The blue and green lines are faulty lines or lines which are not carrying the correct voltage. At the moment 50% of our lines are in this state. Do you know what that means? Hospitals are without electricity, lifts are stuck, freezer compartments are down, food is going off. And what's worse: if the big freezer storage systems start thawing out, the supply network for the entire region is under threat. Do you know what famine is? Here, take a look at this screen." He pointed to a monitor that was divided into different-col ored fragments. "Hereyou can see the different control sectors of the transport teledisposition. Goods are being transported the wrong way. Railway points are being reprogrammed. Plane and spaceship autopilots are becoming totally unpredictable! Marazzo, do you understand what kind of situation we're in?" I swallowed hard. "And what is the cause of this chaos?" He leaned back and gave a short, hard laugh. "Computer viruses. That's old hat. But now we're dealing with mutant forms. They can cripple the energy supply, destroy the administration programs and are haunting the whole network. They are really a threat to our existence! Josie was one of our network agents and she is the second one to have caught one of these viruses when she was in melt mode. Her brain looks like a boiled marshmallow. Can you imagine what will happen if none of our agents want to go into the network because he has to accept that at any time he can end up with a mental debility?" "Damn!" "You, Victor Marazzo, are going into Broadspace to kill the viruses." "I'm going back in there? No way!" Whitecoat's expression froze like a mask. "Marazzo. We incarcerated you in Broadspace because you penetrated our network without authorization - you are ......you were - a spy!" "Oh come on! The only crime I ever committed was to break your code. Everything else was completely harmless. Just a bit of fun! The practices of the firm are about as legal as the taking of protection money." "The firm did feed you artificially for three years though," he countered sarcastically. "Oh well thanks a bunch. I'll recommend you to everyone I know!" "Are you going to cooperate or are you going to sit there and watch our civilization go to ruin because you are chicken?" I fell silent defiantly. Then I nodded. He sighed audibly. Then he said, in a much quieter, calmer tone of voice: "OK, fine - but this time you are not defenseless. And you have access to all the sectors. You have a virtual vehicle at your disposal - a Skaphander. Do you know what a Skaphander is?" I shook my head. He pointed to the hologram with a laser pen. "A Skaphander is a protective case. But our Skaphander is more than that. It is something like a virus eradicator, a magnetic sledge and a tank. And we have tried to channel as many protective programs as possible into the system. These programs have implemented a number of energy stations and repair workshops. They have deposited weapons, ammunition and special equipment for your Skaphander at strategic places. Your task is simple: eradicate all viruses and repair as much of the damage they have caused as possible. We will beam you directly into the main system computer. This is the center of all the simulations. The Queen has got to be somewhere in the heart of the system. You've got to eliminate her - somehow!" "What other kinds of tools have we got, Doc?" "Since you are dealing with programs, you also have program tools as part of your equipment. But they look like mines and time bombs. You sometimes have to shoot your way through walls and sometimes it's a good idea to submerge in Matma. But only if you're really sure." "What is Matma?" "Matma is an energetic defluctor. A type of liquid, pretty corrosive. Your Skaphander can only cope with it for so long." "Now I understand. I have to cross barriers and make new connections, that kind of stuff, is that right?" He nodded coolly. "That kind of stuff. Exactly. And one other thing." "Yes?" "These viruses mean business. We can only revive you a few times. After that, you'll have permanent brain damage. You might still be capable of tying your own shoe laces but I wouldn't count on it!" I thought about Josie. Dr. Whitecoat stood up, sat me down on the clumsy-looking chair and started to wire me up. As the HMD was thrust onto my head, everything went dark. Then I saw the firm's emblem: a two-headed, red snake on a black background. "Press ENTER a few times!" I felt for the control knobs. And then: COOL!! Drop-in! ************** Original story by Reinhard Rael Wissdorf *******************