Water Dictatorship Part 9

They went to a computer sitting by itself on a table. Uhura popped her data disk into the computer and then hit the reset b.u.t.ton. The computer reset itself and tried to boot from Uhura's corrupted disk. Soon it announced that there was no bootable disk present. Uhura took her disk out of the drive. "It's as dead as a door nail, now."

The Spiky haired virus expert snorted and turned the computer off. Then he turned it back on. The computer refused to start up. Then he took a protected disk from his supplies and repeated the process. The computer refused to start up. Shaking his head grimly, the spiky haired expert tried the disk in another computer, only to kill that one.

"Okay." He said. "Now we will introduce the virus to The Beast."

"The Beast?" Uhura sounded amused.

"The Beast is the fastest PC available running the latest version of our software with every virus protection I can find. A couple of them I had to write myself." He said proudly.

"And The Beast will survive this thing?" Uhura asked.

"It will survive and conquer. Once the virus is no longer running, we can take it apart and find out how it killed lesser machines."

"Good luck." Uhura said.

With a confident smirk the man put the contaminated disk into a huge black machine running near the front of the room. The machine considered the disk thoughtfully. Then it ran for a while, chewing things over. Then with a plaintive beep it put a message up on its screen. "Warning! Data Disk Severely Corrupted!" Then The Beast died. No amount of electronic resuscitation could revive it.

"Houston, we have a problem." The Spiky haired man said.

"I told you so." Uhura said sweetly.

"All right. What's the nature of this here virus?" Wild Bill Dornan was a big man. He was about as tall as Angelo but weighed half again as much. He seemed to over ride and dominate every room that he entered. He was wearing a pastel blue suit cut in a "western" style, cowboy boots and an ornate ten gallon hat. His face and hands s.h.i.+ned with the kind of care that half a billion dollars can buy.

"This is not good, Bill, not good at all." Spiky Hair said. "How long to whip up a fix and release it on the net?" Wild Bill demanded.

"This is more complicated than that, Bill." Spiky Hair

"How? And don't talk down to me G.o.d d.a.m.n it! I'm the guy that coded Pac-Man for the Atari PC so I think I know a little whereof I speak!" Bill thundered.

"This virus attacks the basic kernel of our system. The only way to defend it is to rewrite the kernel completely." Spiky Hair reported.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it to h.e.l.l in a flower basket, man! That kernel is the core of the d.a.m.ned program! Without that, Geos ain't Geos anymore!" Bill hollered.

"Yes, Sir." Spiky Hair said. "You got it."

"Tarnation! How widely spread is this thing!" Bill yelled. Angelo wondered if he ever spoke quietly.

"Not too far. It's only attacked our system." Uhura said.

"Who in tarnation are you?" Bill demanded.

"Uhura Young, Ph.D. in Computer science, Brigham Young University, 1989." Uhura introduced.

"And it's your system that's been hit with this monster?" Bill said.

"Yes, Sir. The Vista City Police Department computer network is history." Uhura said.

"Can we reinstall Geos and get these people back on line?"

"No, Sir. The only way I can even access the computers here anymore is with OS/4." Spiky Hair admitted.

"Do my ears deceive me!? Is one of my Chief Researchers using an Enemy Product in MY lab!?!"

"Now, he told you it was bad, Bill." George Cunningham said.

"What in the Sam Hill are you doing here, George!? Is this more of that conspiracy-theory c.r.a.p you were trying to sell me last month?" Dornan yelled.

"Well it doesn't look like c.r.a.p, now, does it Bill? If I took that contaminated disk and popped it into my desk station, the whole network would cras.h.!.+ Tell me I'm blowing smoke now!" George yelled.

"Jesus Christ, what's the spread rate on this thing?" Wild Bill looked wild in a desperate sort of way, now.

"Zero." Spiky Hair reported. "The computers die before the infection can spread."

"Well that's something, anyways. G.o.d Bless stupid hackers."

"Don't count your chickens, yet, Wild Bill." Uhura said.

"What's that mean?" Wild Bill had an idea what was coming and didn't want to hear it.

"I could modify this thing to lie dormant for a few days, and pa.s.s itself on to every system that ours had contact with. When it finally went off, it'd take down half the net." Uhura said.

"Did you write this thing? Is that your game? Are you tryin' to shake me down, young lady!?" Wild Bill roared.

"Don't be dumb. Would I be standing here talking to you if I did this?" Uhura said.

"I won't be spoken to like that on my own spread, little lady!" Wild Bill shouted.

"Could Shane Chee have written this?" Angelo asked George Cunningham.

Cunningham looked at Angelo pointedly. "Possibly. Randi forwarded some code to me that looked a little like this. She said that something smelled funny. She wanted me to hold her evidence until she could put together a better case."

"Do you know how she died?" Angelo asked him.

"The report on the net said she went off the road while under the influence of drugs." George said.

"Do you think she found what she was looking for?" Angelo asked.

"And then had an accident?" George shook his head grimly. "It sounds like a bad conspiracy theory. Isn't paranoia a symptom of drug abuse?"

At that point the shouting match between Uhura Young and Wild Bill Dornan reached a crescendo. Wild Bill took off his coat and struck a bad boxing pose, all the while demanding a posse to remove these people from his "spread."

Uhura was cursing vilely in Swahili, sounding like a spitting cat.

"Mr. Dornan, you have a big problem. I think that Shane Chee and John Marlowe are responsible. If you don't take quick action, you and your organization might be severely damaged." Angelo warned the magnate.

"Aw to h.e.l.l with you and your dopey conspiracy! Just get yourself and your dumbs.h.i.+t dummied up virus out of my sight before I call some real cops in here to bust your a.s.s!!" Wild Bill shouted.

"But, Bill! This thing could murder us in the market place!" Spiky Hair cried.

"You watch your mouth around me punk, or you'll be back out on the street selling hacked Nintendo cartridges before you know what hit you! Now I've said my piece, get 'em the h.e.l.l out!" He rounded on Angelo and Uhura "And thanks for the warnin'! If you try to palm that d.a.m.ned fake virus off on the net, me and my lawyers'll be around and you'll both wind up on the streets, I make sure of it!" With that he turned and stomped out of the lab.