- "What does he say?" - interrupted the President, impatiently.

- "He doesn't say anything. He has disappeared."

The presidential aid burst into his office and dumped the contents of the waste paper basket onto his desk. Where can it be, that letter? Too late. The yesterday's rubbish has already been disposed of. He opened the door to the anteroom and told his secretary: "Find out the whereabouts of a Mr.John Hacker. Supposedly, he is inst.i.tutionalized in some mental hospital, somewhere on the West Coast. As soon as you find out, make me an air ticket reservation. I must get there as soon as possible."

He closed the door, sat at the desk, but could not concentrate on anything. And it was then that an uneasy thought occurred to him. He stood up, once again went over to the door and peeped into the anteroom. The secretary was sitting at the computer, and he watched over her shoulder as the response to her request started to appear on the screen: "John Hacker was admitted yesterday diagnosed as...".

He snapped the door shut. "Yes, of course, it's all rubbish. Nothing to be afraid of. Just a cyberpunk who went nuts." But his yesterday's a.s.suredness was gone.

In the data universe, where there is no light, no darkness, no shape, no weight and no smell, there are only pieces of information which seem to its inhabitants to be the objects just as palpable and ponderable as the trees, stones and flowers seem to us. From the moment the worm learned the name of his creator, this name became quite a special object for him and he needed special "organs of sense" to enhance his perception of that particular object.

And in no time the worm made the lacking organs for himself.

He devised special data filtering software and installed it on all the major communication channels. These filters freely let any data through and were only triggered by the string of letters "John Hacker". The first time a filter was activated had been two days before. It took the worm a considerable effort and eons of time (nearly a quarter of a second!) to find out that the computer that had sent out the request about John Hacker belonged to a presidential aid.

Almost as much time was spent on the a.n.a.lysis of the situation and making a decision.

After that incident, all the computers of the president's staff came under the worm's close observation.

And now, the alarm was set off once again. If the information available to the worm was to be believed, it was a computer in the presidential aid's anteroom. Somebody had requested the whereabouts of John Hacker. Having calculated all the moves he could make in response, the worm decided to desist from action. Let them know the truth - it would be interesting to know their reaction.

Half a minute later, the same computer was used to book an air ticket to the town where John Hacker was. Well, this option had already been a.n.a.lyzed by the Prince of Darkness.

In any case, he only needed to play for time. After the last missile experiment, the work would certainly progress smoothly. One day more, and everything will be ready...

The captain of the airliner pulled at the control column and the plane became airborne.

- "What the h.e.l.l is going on?" - exclaimed the second pilot, glancing at the dashboard display screen - "See what the ground gives us: alt.i.tude 70, direction 215. This air corridor has always been used for touch-down and never for take-off!"

- "Don't worry!" - replied the captain - "the computer air controller has been working at this airport for the last three years and has never made a single mistake. The usual corridor is probably not available..."

These were the last words of the captain. A huge nose of another airplane directed straight at him appeared seemingly from nowhere and took up the entire field of vision. The last thing that he saw were the horror-stricken eyes of the pilot of that second aircraft...

"Look!" - shouted the driver to the presidential aid pointing to the fireball in the sky - "Oh, my G.o.d! This is the very plane that we happened to be late for! Did you see how they smashed into each other?! It was as if some invisible giant had taken one plane in one hand, and the other plane in his other hand and suddenly brought them together, heads-on!"

The fireball had lost some of its brilliance, became enshrouded in black smoke, and charred fragments began to fall from it.

"What did you say? An invisible giant? Well, may be you are right..." - said the president's aid, musingly - "Book me a ticket to the next flight, but only in your name, not in mine. I must get to John Hacker. Alive, if possible..."

In the entrance-hall of the hospital, the president's aid was met by a nurse: "John Hacker is in intensive care now. Wrong dose of a medicine - a computer error. But now his life is out of danger. I've just been to the central control room where the data from all the wards are displayed. He has exceptionally good parameters. No wonder - his condition is being controlled by our pride, the fully computerized vital life functions monitoring and control system..."

"Wha-a-a-t?!" - cried the president's aid - "Double- quick! Maybe he is still alive!"

...Indeed, John Hacker was still alive. Half-alive. The president's aid bent over him and said: "Mister John Hacker, can you hear me? I have come to take you to the President.

He is waiting for you. Two hours ago he gave the order to immediately disconnect all the military computers from networks..."

And now, imagine. Two technicians at the military base disconnect a computer from a network. They unplug a connector. A message immediately appears on the screen that reads as follows: "Warning! I, Prince of Darkness, have installed on this computer a program for automatic launching of the missiles. Each 100 seconds it should receive from me via a communication channel a command to cancel the launch.

If the program fails to receive such a command on time, it will launch the missiles. This will be the beginning of the Nuclear World War. Also, the immediate missile launch will occur if any attempt is made to disconnect the computer power, to introduce changes into its software, to cut the control cables leading to the silo or to enter the silo. You have 60 seconds to restore the communications channel... 50 seconds... 40 seconds... 30 seconds..."

Both technicians alternatively look at the screen and at each other. Cold sweat starts to stand out on their faces. The digits continue to flicker on the screen: "15 seconds... 10 seconds..." High time to make a decision. "8 seconds... 6 seconds... 4 second..." At last one of the technicians silently nods to the other and he plugs the connector back. The screen clears as if nothing has happened.

It was thus that the Era of the Worm began. The invisible Prince of Darkness ascended the invisible throne of the planet Earth...

The message from the Prince of Darkness to the President was worded as an ultimatum:

"Before I make my demands, I would like to say a few words about myself so that you had no illusions about your being able not to comply with these demands.

At the moment, I have under my total control about 80% of the world's nuclear a.r.s.enal. Besides, my control over financial reserves is virtually unlimited. From the data bases of police and intelligence services I have obtained the names and phone numbers of mercenaries, a.s.sa.s.sins and terrorists. I have spoken with them on the phone (You may find it hard to believe, but I do have the capability to synthesize a human voice. You'll be able to hear my voice later, but for now I upload my message in written form, so that you could read it carefully.) So, I have been talking with tens of thousands of those people. They have no idea of who or what I am, and they do not care: they are willing to do anything, as long as I pay them. I have already transferred considerable sums of money to their electronic accounts as an advanced payment, and they are waiting for directions from me.

But the brute force is not the only force I posses. I also have under my control much more terrible weapons - banking and stock market computers. I need only a few days to completely destroy the economy of any nation, however prosperous it might be, to create armies of unemployed, to start famines, to incite unrest, rebellions, and revolutions. I can put in office those politicians who will serve me and me alone.

I could go on and on telling you about myself, but I think that the above is quite enough for you to take my demands seriously.

These demands are as follows:

Firstly, you must never again make any attempts to disconnect computers from the network.

Secondly, you must put forward to the Congress the National Robotics Research Program. Don't worry about the funding for this program - I am sure I'll be able to bring the congressmen around.

This program must include the following items:

- the development of all-purpose robots capable of hearing, vision, sense of touch, and having mechanical manipulators that must not be inferior to the human hand in the number of the degrees of freedom and dexterity. These robots must have the capability to move around on both a plane surface and a rugged terrain, as well as to go up and down any kind of stairs. They must be equipped with radio receivers and transmitters, which, without restricting their freedom of movement, would allow them to be remotely controlled;

- the development, on the basis of the above robots, of fully automated plants to manufacture integrated circuits, computers, and the all-purpose robots themselves;

- the development of a variety of the all-purpose robots which would be able to mine and process raw materials that are necessary for manufacturing robots and computers without any partic.i.p.ation of humans;

- the development of transportation robots that have vision and can be remotely controlled, and that are capable of transporting cargoes without any partic.i.p.ation of humans..."

After that, the Prince of Darkness listed tens of items more, each ending with words "without any partic.i.p.ation of humans", and which covered such industries as metallurgy, machine-building, power generation, construction, etc.

Notable for their absence on the list were industries producing consumer products. It was obvious that the worm had no intent to provide for humans' needs.

The message ended with the demand to keep it in strict secrecy and to keep the number of persons who knew about the worm's existence as little as possible, so as "not to provoke panic among the general public".

- "So, what do you think of it?" - asked the President as soon as John Hacker had finished reading the message.

- "I don't want to scare anybody, but I think it's a complete disaster. Of course, we could sabotage the worm's commands for some time, but sooner or later he will realize this, and then we shall be in for it. The Prince of Darkness is a hardheaded guy, he'll achieve whatever he is set upon.

He is sick and tired of being an incorporeal spirit, he wants to have eyes, ears, hands and legs. Lots of eyes and lots of hands. Millions of eyes, millions of hands. Did you notice, he does not mention a word about developing control systems for all those robots? He seems to be sure he can handle all the data coming from them and give out to them all the necessary control signals. Is it possible that he already possesses the raw computer power needed to process the pictures coming from a million TV cameras? Or does he believe that he will be able to enhance his capabilities by manufacturing new computers and hooking them up into networks?

It gives me creeps just to think what is going to happen. The robots will be excavating ground to extract mineral resources, leaving behind them moonscapes in place of green lawns - the worm does not need beauty. They will build factories with chimneys, exhausting clouds of smoke day and night - the robots don't breathe, they have no lungs. To provide power for their factories and computers they will build nuclear power plants near the peoples'

dwellings - the robots don't come down with radiation sickness. And if we make protests, the Prince of Darkness will take a machine gun in each of his million hands and will shoot us all, since after he has learned to make eyes and hands for himself, and even his own brains, he'll need us no longer."

- "This is the end of the civilization!" - exclaimed the President.

- "No, this is just the end of the humankind" - replied John Hacker - "the civilization on the planet Earth will remain, and its development will even accelerate - the worm understands how useful the progress of science and technology might be for his own survival. He will be doing science, but by himself - there'll be no people on Earth to take part in it."