'I guess Swan cottoned on to it before they could do anything,' I said. 'Boy, would I like to talk to her.'

Trina laughed as I made puppy eyes at her. 'Come on, Chick.'

'Give me a present for your birthday, pretty lady.'

'My birthday isn't until tomorrow. And there's no way Swan wants this to get out.'

'It's already got out!'

'Yeah, but I'm deep background,' said Trina. 'I guess you could ask to interview Swan, though. She likes to talk about herself. Just don't get me involved.'

'Don't worry' I said, eating the last of the potatoes. 'I know her reputation. I'll bet she knows mine!'

Not only had Swan heard of me, she'd read my stuff, and she knew right away I might be able to help solve her little mystery. She didn't ask how I'd heard about the intruders: she just ushered me into the plasticky litde staff lounge at the centre of the TLA building. It was more like she was interviewing me than the other way around.

'Everything I tell you is strictly off the record.'

'Not a problem, Miss Swan.'

'If you use what I tell you in a story, TLA's ident.i.ty will be deeply buried.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

Swan nodded. She sat back for a moment, looking me up and down with her X-ray vision. 'You've heard the whole story,' she said at last. 'Who do you know that might try something like that?'

'My first guess would be an ex-employee someone with a grudge, or with a money-making plan. Maybe by blackmailing you after planting a logic bomb in your system, or maybe just by fooling with your payroll program.'

'We can forget about former employees,' said Swan. 'I've already checked.'

'What do you have that someone might want to steal?

Anything new or unusual?'

Swan made a chopping motion with one hand, cutting off that line of conversation. 'The police were useless,' she said.

'They'd never heard of a crime like this one they weren't even sure it was a crime. I'm sorry, but I don't care about any of that. I want these people. And I'm going to get them, never mind the police.'

'It sounds like you have your own procedure in mind, Miss Swan.'

Swan considered me. I could see that the two sides of her hacker personality were at war in that instant: the cool and businesslike side that knew better than to show off, and the enthusiastic side that loved nothing better than boasting and bragging.

'Strictly off the record,' Swan said.

We drove to Swan's house in McLean in her Ford LTD, a station wagon with faux wood panelling. It was a lot of car for one person; I guessed she ferried computer equipment to and fro in the s.p.a.cious back. We stopped en route for j.a.panese takeout.

The house was also big for one person. Swan explained she was renting until she found something she really liked.

The neighbourhood was quiet and wooded, denuded trees reaching into a grey sky. I got a glimpse of a big back-yard inch-deep in new snow. The driveway was clear, thanks to neighbourhood kids in need of video game quarters. Swan pressed the big b.u.t.ton for the door remote and parked the station wagon in the empty garage.

Swan only seemed to live in three rooms of the house kitchen, living room, study. The other rooms were empty, or contained boxes of electronic equipment. One room was a jumble of phones of various vintages. There was an unzipped sleeping bag scrunched up on the sofa; I a.s.sume that's where she slept.

We sat at the table, balancing our takeaway on top of wires and papers. Swan had ordered for both of us: plastic bowls of soup with about two dozen baby octopuses floating amongst the noodles. I gingerly made a pile of them next to my plate.

Swan stared at me as I ferried ex-octopuses with my chopsticks. 'I'm no good with sushi.'

'We're top of the food chain, Mr Peters, she told me, slurping up one of the soft little b.a.l.l.s. 'We eat everything, and nothing eats us. That's the way we're made.' It was more the thought of tiny octopus guts that had put me off, but I kept my mouth shut.

Swan sat down in front of a TRS-80 set up on the kitchen table. (One side of the room was an impa.s.sable jungle of cables.) I sc.r.a.ped a chair across the floor and sat down behind her.

What I saw made my scalp tighten. Swan had a line into the Department of Motor Vehicles. With a few taps of the Trash-80's keyboard, she was in their database. She had the same access to licence plates, home addresses, and phone numbers as if she was a DMV clerk sitting at a desk in their offices, rather than a hacker in jeans and sweatshirt sitting in a jumbled suburban kitchen.

Swan had jotted down her intruders' number plate. She typed it into the relevant field on the screen. After several long seconds, the computer blinked and disgorged a fresh screenful of information. The van was registered to the university. Swan scowled. 'I was hoping for a home address.'

But she had narrowed the field right down. The van hadn't been reported stolen; whoever was driving it had ready access to the college's vehicles. As well as the technical know-how to set up a Lisp Machine. There couldn't be a whole lot of people who fit that description.

Swan was looking for ways to impress me further. 'Want to see your own record?' For a moment I was tempted as though to prove to myself that what I was seeing was real. I'd investigated a lot of fraudulent use of computers, but I'd never seen anyone with such simple and complete access to public records.

'Uh, no thanks.'

'I can look you up any time I want,' boasted Swan.

'I believe you.' I sure did.

Whoever had hoodwinked Swan, I reckoned they'd be better off in the hands of the police than subject to her tender mercies. In fact, the guy I called next had once tangled with her. That was why he never had the same phone number for more than a week at a time.

Ian Mond known as 'Mondy' to the handful of people who did know him lived a shadowy existence in motel rooms, warehouse corners, and other people's garages. He carried just a trunkful of equipment with him, often sleeping scrunched in the backseat of his second home, a midnight blue Ford Escort, after doing some 'fieldwork': conning information out of telco staff, making unauthorised adjustments to the phone system, and tiptoeing into Ma Bell's offices in the middle of the night. He made a modest living selling cheap calls, 'upgrades' to phone services, and computer equipment that had taken a tumble from a truck. The Mystery of the Lisp Machine was just his kind of gig. I figured if he hadn't done it, he knew who had.

I spoke to him in his mom's bas.e.m.e.nt, a musty s.p.a.ce filled with 'borrowed' phone equipment. Swan had an arcane set of personal ethics that stopped her from messing up the phones or credit ratings of innocents, including Mrs Mond, so Ian was safe as long as he stayed under her roof. We sat on a couple of upturned milk crates while I filled him in.

'Isn't it obvious?' he said. 'It's either one of the staff in the college computer department, or a trusted student. Or both.

You go for a walk through their compute centre and see if you can't spot one of your suspects right away.'

'Already done,' I said. Mondy nodded, satisfied that I was trying to help myself. 'I'm pretty sure I know who at least one of Swan's visitors was. Robert Salmon, the sysadmin, didn't show up for work today. He's a twenty-year-old blond.'

'I've talked to that kid a couple of times. He's OK. '

Mondy peered at me through his thick, square gla.s.ses. 'Don't hand him over to her, Chick P.'

'Relax. I'm a journalist. I'm supposed to observe, not get involved!

He nodded, still peering at me worriedly. 'Good. Good.

Find out what he wants. Find out what she's not telling you.'

'For that,' I said, 'I'll need your help.'

Moody has a devilish smile. 'All right,' he said. let me get a few things together.'

I listened in while Moody coaxed the cable-and-pair number he needed out of an innocent worker somewhere in the telco. It was easy as pie: he picked a phone box at random (at least, I a.s.sume it was random), flipped open one of his collection of pocket-sized notebooks, and dialled up a number at the line a.s.signment office. His voice became gruff 'Hi. This is Danny Heap from Repairs. I'm up a pole...' A few moments later he had the info he needed. 'Thank you kindly, ma'am.'

The phriendly phone phreak made me wait in the car while he did whatever he did to the bridging box outside Salmon's small house. It was for my own protection, he claimed, but I think he just didn't want me to get a look inside his little black bag of goodies. He dressed the part, with denim overalls, a well-stocked tool belt, and what looked suspiciously like a Ma Bell ID badge.

We'd parked where we could get a view through the study window. The venetian blinds were down, but half-open, giving me an occasional glimpse of silhouettes in the dull light of the computer screen. The glove box of the Escort was always well-supplied with junk foods, guaranteed kosher. I munched on a dark chocolate bar, my eyes scanning the suburban street.

A couple of cars went by, but nothing suggested anyone had taken an interest in Mondy or his accomplice.

At last Mondy slid back into the driver's seat. He reached into the back and grabbed the handle of a large black tapedeck, hauling it into his lap. Up went the aerial. He fiddled with the dial until he heard the tone he wanted. 'Hear that? That means the phone's off the hook right now,' he said. He pushed in a ca.s.sette.

We sat in companionable silence for a long time. I stared at the little yellow spots on the back of his head. Mondy gave me a 'What?' glance. 'The embroidery around your yarmulkah,' I said. 'Is that Pac-Man?'

'Did it myself,' he murmured. 'Aha!'

The sound issuing from the tapedeck had changed. Ian thwunked down the 'record' b.u.t.ton. My first ever wiretap had begun.

Two.

Bob said, 'So what's the Doctor after?' Peri shrugged. 'Oh, come on. He told you, I know he did. I know he did.'

'No, really,' said Peri. 'If I knew, I'd tell you. You'd probably have a better chance of understanding it than me.'

Bob's apartment was small and spartan. Other than a few tidy bookshelves Peri was sure the books were alphabetised and another shelf for record alb.u.ms, there wasn't much in the place. A single Dali print hung over the sofa. She couldn't see a TV anywhere. The kitchen was pristine, but Peri suspected that Bob never cooked.

You would have thought Bob's study would be just as much a disaster area as his office at work. You'd have been wrong. It was squeaky-clean he even dusted behind the computer with a cloth before he sat down and switched it on.

A home-made shelf over the desk held a row of computer manuals lined up like soldiers. They were alphabetised, Peri saw. Another shelf held a row of books on the occult. A mandala postcard hung from the bottom of the shelf by a yellowing square of Scotch tape.

Bob said, 'I wonder what it is... a satellite-based laser?'

'A stolen s.p.a.ce shuttle computer.'

'A suitcase-sized nuclear bomb.'

'Whatever it is,' said Peri, 'it must be something pretty major for him to just vanish like that.'

'And stay vanished,' said Bob. 'I don't remember the Doctor being so paranoid. He was more likely to charge in and make a bunch of noise. He didn't care what anybody thought.'

'Maybe it's not just him. Maybe there's somebody with him that he's got to protect.'

'Maybe he's in jail,' said Bob. 'Sneaking into the guard's offices to borrow the phone.' Peri had to smile.

Bob logged on to check his electronic mail while Peri flipped through a computer magazine. It was full of circuit diagrams and listings of programs, excited ads for a dozen brands of home computer, and pictures of barbarians rescuing damsels. She couldn't find anything about the new network Bob seemed to find so exciting.

'Why is the net such a big deal, anyway? It's just a bunch of scientists and generals sending each other computer messages, isn't it? Why don't they just phone one another up?'

'One day you'll be able to order a pizza over the net,' said Bob, his back to her. 'It won't just be businesses that have modems.'

'You've got one.'

'If they knew I had one, the telco would charge me business rates. But one day soon, owning a modem will be just as normal as owning a phone. This year some people did their Christmas shopping online. You don't just get information from computers now, you interact with other people. Email and Usenet are going to completely change the way human beings communicate.' Bob was getting so enthusiastic he was actually looking at her. 'The written word is far more precise than speech. Imagine conversation without the mumbling, the false starts, the half-chewed ideas. Imagine a world of people talking in sentences that they've actually thought about first.

The net is gonna change how we think think.'

Peri was impressed. 'Is that what it's really like online?'

'Ah, we're still getting the hang of it. It'll work as long as everyone in the world doesn't get a computer.'

'But isn't that kind of the idea? To make computers like TVs, or toasters?'

Bob looked miffed. 'It's not going to make the net a better place if everybody in the world climbs aboard. College professors and scientists talking to one another is one thing.

But garbage collectors? Housewives?'

'College students?' snapped Peri.

Bob looked at her sideways. 'H. G. Wells used to talk about creating a World Brain. Bringing all the world's experts, all their knowledge, into one place. That's what the net is gonna be: a World Encyclopaedia. Pure information from the best minds on the planet.'

'And pizza.'

'Lemme show you something here; said Bob. He fired up a brand-new IBM PC and pushed a diskette into the drive.

'Same technology as the Columbia Columbia. Why don't you have a look at the demo programs?'

What a way to spend Christmas Eve: watching a computer draw spirals. You would never have known the time of year from Bob's house: there was no tree, no cards. No matter where they had happened to be, her parents always arranged something. A bit of tinsel on a twig, carols in the tent. They could make Christmas out of virtually nothing. To Bob, it seemed, it was virtually nothing.

What a relief to be interrupted by the jarring ring of the phone. She s.n.a.t.c.hed it up before Bob could get his hands on it.

'h.e.l.lo?'

'h.e.l.lo, Peri. I trust you're well.'

'Fine, Doctor. Are you OK?'

'Never better. How did things go with your little expedition?'

Peri sighed. 'All I know is that whatever you're looking for, it's not in their computer room. I got to check the whole place before Swan scared us off, and there aren't any locked rooms or secret labs that I could see.' Her voice grew small 'I'm sorry we couldn't find out more.'

'Given the circ.u.mstances,' said the Doctor, 'you've done remarkably well!' Peri relaxed a little. Bob was practically jumping up and down, making 'give me the phone' gestures, but she held on. 'And you've confirmed something I suspected: Swan's project is a private one, not to be shared with her workmates. Even the government is not aware of what one of its contractors has hold of.'