But this was my Dad, and he was putting the heavy clamp on me, and all my input and output interrupts were colliding and the words in my head were turning into a truly enormous mess. I locked up solid-like I always do when Dad starts yelling.32 "Honey," Mom said, "aren't you being a bit hasty? I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation."

"Sweetheart, Bob was looking over some programs that Georgie and Mikhail put in his computer. He says he thinks they're doing something illegal. He says it looks like they are tampering with a bank."

"Our Mikey? I'm sorry, David, but this must be some kind of bad joke."

Dad locked a glare on her. That vein on the side of his forehead started throbbing again. His face shifted down to that deep red beet-look, and he took a deep, deep breath.

I saw my opening and started to slide for the door.

"Sherri, you airheaded nitwit, this is serious!" He spun, lunged, grabbed me by the back of the collar. Didn't think the old guy could move that fast. "Mikhail Arthur Harris! What have you been doing with that computer? What was that program in Hansen's system? Answer me!

What have you been doing?"

My eyes felt hot, teary. My face muscles went all tight and twisty and I pouted so hard it hurt. "It's none of your business!" I screamed.

"Keep your nose out of things you'll never understand, you obsolete old relic!" The tears felt like hot burning blood pouring down my cheeks.

"That does it," Dad said, his voice as cold and calm as death. "I don't know what's wrong with this d.a.m.n kid of yours, but I know that thing upstairs sure as h.e.l.l isn't helping." I blinked the tears out of my eyes long enough to see he was building up to a boiling thunderhead, but before I could get control enough to move he broke loose and went storming up to my room. I tried to get ahead of him all the way up the stairs and just got my hands stepped on. Mom came fluttering up behind as he was yanking the power cables on my Miko-Gyoja.

"Now honey," Mom said. "Don't you think you're being a bit harsh?

He needs that for his homework, don't you, Mikey?"

Dad's voice was a low, gruff thing that barely got out through clenched teeth. "I'm tired of hearing you make excuses for your son, Sherri. I mean it." He unplugged the CityLink.33 "But honey, he's just a boy. I'm sure it was just a prank."

With a grunt, Dad picked up all of MoJo, ripping the Death Cannon fiber right out of its socket. "Somehow Audrey managed to raise three kids without any pranks like this."

Incredible. For the first time in my entire life, I saw fire flash in my Mom's eyes. "Audrey?" You could practically see her hackles go up and the claws come out. "Audrey? Look here, honey, I am sick unto G.o.ddam death of being compared to Audrey! Ever since the day we got married it's been 'Audrey did this' and 'Audrey could do that.' If she was so G.o.ddam perfect why did you ever leave her for me?"

Dad froze. Rigid. Furious. For a mo there I thought sure he was going to break MoJo in half right over Mom's head.

The moment pa.s.sed. Cussing silent, Dad shouldered past her and started clomping down the steps. "I mean it!" he yelled up the stairwell.

"This d.a.m.ned thing goes in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and tomorrow I'm calling CityNet and getting his private line ripped out! If he has any schoolwork he needs to do on computer he can d.a.m.n well use the one in the den, where I can watch him!"

I locked eyes on Mom. She was looking down at her hands, her face screwed in a tight knot, tears leaking in slow trickles down the sides of her cheeks. C'mon, Mom. Look up. Look at me. This'd be a good time to give your son some true backup, mom.

She broke, turned, went chasing Dad down the steps. "Honey?" she called out, all plaintive little girl. "Honey, I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me. Maybe you're right."

Oh, fritzing terrific. Good show, Mom. I slammed my bedroom door and locked it. "Go ahead and sulk!" I heard Dad's shout come filtering up from the bas.e.m.e.nt. "It won't do you any good!"

One last flash of anger: I crushed the model Saturn V like the paper tube it was, and threw some pillows around 'til I didn't feel like breaking anything else. Then I picked up my CityLink box from where from where Dad had thrown it, spliced together a working NetLine fiber from the pieces on the floor, and went to the closet and hauled out my34 Starfire.

I'd watched over Dad's shoulders often enough to know his account numbers and access codes. It usually took a few days for the links to break apart after one of our fun runs. I didn't really need OurNet; most of the trojan horses would still be active. I jacked in, got on line, and got down to business. It took about half an hour.

My HouseFiber was out-in pieces all over the floor, to be honest- but I could backlink to Dad's computer through CityNet. Like I expected, he was down in the den, using his computer to scan my school records.

Fine. He wouldn't find out anything. Rayno'd showed us how to fix school records, oh, five-six months ago, at least. I gave Dad a minute to flounder around, then crashed in and sent a new message to his vid display.

"Dad," it said, "there's going to be some changes around here."

It took a few seconds to sink in. I got up and made sure the door was locked real solid, but I still got almost half a scare when he came thudding up the stairs. The old relic sounded like a fritzing herd of elephants.

"MIKHAIL!" He slammed into the door. "Open this! Now!"

"No."

"If you don't open this door before I count to ten, I'm going to break it down! One!"

"Before you do that-"

"Two!"

"Better call your bank."

"Three!"

"H320-5127-01R." That was his checking account access code. He went silent for a couple seconds.

"Young man, I don't know what you're trying to pull-"

"I'm not trying anything. It's done already."

Mom came padding tentative up the stairs and asked, soft, "What's going on, honey?"35 "Shut up, Sherri." His voice dropped down to a strained normal/quiet. "What did you do, Mikhail?"

"Outlooped you. Disappeared you. Buried you."

"You mean, you got into the bank computer and erased my checking account?"

"Savings and mortgage on the house, too."

"Oh my G.o.d ... "

Mom said, "He's just angry, David. Give him time to cool off.

Mikey, you wouldn't really do that to us, would you?"

"Then I accessed Fuji-DynaRand," I said. "Wiped your job. Your pension. I got into your plastic, too."

"He couldn't have, David. Could he?"

"Mikhail!" He hit the door. I jumped back; I'd definitely heard wood splinter around the lock. "I am going to wring your scrawny neck!"

"Wait!" I shouted back. "I copied all your files before I purged!

There is a way to recover!"

He let up hammering on the door, and struggled to talk calm. "Give me the copies right now and I'll just forget that this ever happened."

"I can't. I mean, I did backups into other systems. And I encrypted the files and hid them where only I know how to access."

There was quiet. No, in a nano I realized it wasn't quiet, it was Mom and Dad talking real soft. I eared up to the door but all I caught was Mom saying 'why not?' and Dad saying, 'but what if he is telling the truth?'

"Okay, Mikhail," Dad said at last, "what do you want?"

I locked up. It was an embara.s.ser; what did I want? I hadn't thought that far ahead. Me, caught without a program! I dropped half a laugh, then tried to think. I mean, there was nothing they could get me I couldn't get myself, or with Rayno's help. Rayno! I wanted to get in touch with him, is what I wanted. I'd pulled this whole thing off without Rayno!

I decided then it'd probably be better if my Dad didn't know about the Starfire, so I told him the first thing I wanted was my Miko-Gyoja36 back. It took a long time for him to clump down to the bas.e.m.e.nt and get it. He stopped at his term in the den, first, to scan if I'd really purged him.

He was real subdued when he brought MoJo back up.

I kept processing, but by the time he got back I still hadn't come up with anything more than I wanted them to leave me alone and stop telling me what to do. I got MoJo back into my room without being pulped, locked the door, and got my system more or less back together.

Then I booted up, got on line, and gave Dad his job back.

Next I tried to log into OurNet, but Georgie's old man had taken the no-style approach to shutting us down. The line was radio silence dead.

Fine. There were other bulletin boards we sometimes used. I left flags and messages all over the place for Rayno and Georgie to call me, then stayed up half the night playing the Battle of Peshawar just to make sure Dad didn't try anything. My mind wasn't on the game, though. The towelheads were winning this time, so I had to withdraw my surviving T-72s and nuke the city.37

Chapter 0/ 5.

"...mmmmf mmm mmmumble mumble mmf. --crackle- mumble oh-seven-hundred -pssht- and you are go for throttle up."

Dim, slow, somewhere back in the vacant gray chasms of my minds.p.a.ce, I flagged it was morning. That, and I'd had a rough night: wasn't sure quite how, though. The memories were swimming around all vague and elusive like ornamental crystal cybercarp in a black garden pond. Every now and then one got near the surface and I caught the murky flash of light off green gla.s.s scales...

Oh yeah, that's right. I remembered now. It was the giant radioactive spiders again. The mutant tarantulas of Arachnus had escaped from their part.i.tion, crawled into my Battle of Peshawar folder. The Indian 3rd Armoured tangled with them just outside of Amritsar-which was great, took a lot of pressure off my eastern front-but the last thing I remembered, I'd just parked my T-72 in front of Martin's Micros and was getting out to feed the parking meter when I got jumped by a Vijayanta main battle tank with eight legs and spinnerets. Now I was all trussed up in giant cobwebs and lying on a shelf in the Spider King's larder...

Okay Mikey, no problem. We've gotten out of this trap before. Just need to focus, is all. I allocated another mo for resting up, then rubbed my magic ring twice, took a few quick breaths and- Mmph! Good, I felt the webbing give a little on my left side.

Another try before the spell fades? Right; one, two- Urgh! My left hand broke free. Slow, clumsy, I dragged it up to my face and starting brushing at the sticky silk and gunk that covered my eyes.

Bad news. There weren't any cobwebs. There wasn't anything in my face at all, 'side from blankets and my own hair. Which meant the whole38 bit about the giant spider attack was all just a dream.

And the part about erasing Dad was the reality.

Okay Mikey, too late to try for an undo. May as well boot up and see where we saved the game last night. I got my eyes open-first the right one, then the left one, then both at the same time-and took a look out the window. At gray skies. Clouds hanging low and threatening rain. A couple depressed little sparrows, feathers all puffed up and necks pulled short, clinging tight to the dwarf maple branches like the borderline drizzle had them too b.u.mmed to fly.

Bleah.

Rolling over, I got a solid locate on my feet, finished kicking them free from the blankets, migrated them down to the floor. Sitting up, I started with the rubbing eyes and I-could-swallow-an-ostrich-egg-whole yawns.

By and by, my brain came back online and I looked across the room.

MoJo was alive, bright, awake. The Gyoja Gerbil was standing there onscreen, stupid little rat-toothed smile on his face, next to a shimmering, vibrating, silent yellow gong. Oh, that's right, I'd forgotten, I'd turned the sound down last night, right about the time I'd thrown my last eight Backfire bombers against the Indian infantry. That cl.u.s.ter bomb sound effect did tend to get noisy. One last yawn, and then I got out of bed and shuffled over to my desk.

Parts of the boot script keyed off the keyboard interrupt. I spun the volume up, laid hands upon MoJo, and the Gyoja Gerbil broke out of his wait loop. "Good morning, Mikhail Harris," he said as he bowed deep.

"Now checking CityNet mail for you." He closed his eyes, like he was concentrating. There were definite times when I wished the Miko-Gyoja 260/0/ /ex used a plain dumb ticking-timebomb icon, like normal hardware.

The gerbil frowned, and froze. A flashing red-border dialog box popped open: Warning! Possible buffer contamination!

Idiot machine. Of course there's buffer contamination. There's always buffer contamination. This is CityNet, for chrissakes; the day I39 don't have a virus in the flytrap is the day I start to worry, 'cause it means I've caught something that knows how to bypa.s.s a flytrap.

I tapped the flush b.u.t.ton. The gerbil bowed again, then spoke. "I have found these messages waiting for you, Honorable Harris-san." He opened a window between his hands, like he was pulling open a scroll.

I scanned down the list. Hmm. Junk mail. More junk mail. Uh oh, a message from CityNet Admin about-scratch that, just some real official-looking junkmail. Today's fashion forecast: Gritty 2nd Cla.s.ser Realism in the morning changing to candy-coated Nineties Nostalgia by late afternoon. A couple notes from the Battle of Peshawar SIG; these I piped to a temporary folder and flagged for later reference.

Nothing even slightly like a mention of the Big One, which was a good sign. But also nothing from Georgie or Rayno, which could be bad.

Real bad.

Nervous, I banged out of the mail program, slipped out to CityNet proper, and rode the stream up to the Northside repeater and started poking around the bulletin boards.

Nothing. No new postings from Georgie. No new messages from Rayno. Not even a howdy-do from Nanker Phelge, the pseudonym we used when we were breaking into other people's threads and being either subtle, funny, or devil's-lawyer annoying.

I decided to hope the deadzone quiet just meant it was still too early in the morning for Georgie and Rayno, and logged out.

For a mo I gave some serious thought to changing my socks and underwear, but nah, I'd have to take off my blue spatterzag jumpsuit to do that, and the jumpsuit was just starting to get that good wrinkled 'n'

baggy look. So I pulled on my blitz yellow hightops-didn't even bother to tie 'em-and clumped over to the stairs.

Mom and Dad were still in the kitchen, talking real low. Soon's they heard my feet coming down the stairs they clammed. I plodded down the stairs, did the bleary trudge into the kitchen, flashed around a big yawning smile as I dropped into my chair. "G'morning, Mom." No response. "G'morning, Dad." Dad lifted his faxsheet a little higher,40 blocking off eye contact.

Okay, I could play this game as long as they could. "Great weather, innit?" No response. And now that I flagged it, no plate on the table for me, either. "Geez, a day like this, a growing boy needs a good breakfast, y'know?" I heard a slurp from behind the faxsheet, then the clink of cup landing on saucer.

I looked at Mom.

She looked down at her watch.

I smiled at Mom.

She took a bite out of her sweetroll and followed it with a gulp of caffix.

Hmm. This was turning out to be a tougher crack than I expected.

Still, if my experience with the nets counted for anything, it showed that the bigger the stonewall, the more likely it was there was a back door.

Provided, of course, that I was willing to try something stupid enough to find it.

I turned to the self-supporting faxsheet at the right end of the table, allocated a mo to studying the fingers that peeked around the edges.

Yep, I had 95-percent confidence those were Dad's fingers. The big, heavy, gold wedding ring looked kind of familiar.