“So you screwed up,” Guido said with satisfaction, when Justin led him to the scene of the disaster.

“Did you go into her mailbox?” He was already tapping the keys.

“Of course not. I wouldn’t know how to. What are you doing?”

“Did you add any material and forget to save it?”

“Absolutely no. Neither, nor. I wouldn’t.”

“Then it’s nothing. You didn’t lose any,” said Guido serenely in his computer interglot, andwitha few more gentle taps, nursed the machine back to health. “Can we go on-line now? Please?” he begged.

“Why should we?”

“To get her mail, for Chrissakes! There’s hundreds of people out there sent her e-mails every day and you won’t read them. What about the people who want to send you their love and sympathy? Don’t you want to know what they said? There’s e-mails from me in there she never answered! Maybe she never read them!”

Guido was on the verge of tears. Taking him gently by the shoulders, Justin sat him on the stool before the keyboard.

“Tell me what the risk is,” he suggested. “Give me the worst case.”

“We risk nothing. Everything’s saved. There isn’t a worst case. We’re doing the absolutely simplest things with this computer. If we crash, it’s like before. I’ll save any new e-mails. Tessa saved everything else. Trust me.”

Guido attaches the laptop to its modem and offers Justin one end of a length of flex. “Pull out the telephone line and plug this in. Then we’re all hooked up.”

Justin does as he is told. Guido taps and waits. Justin is looking over his shoulder. Hieroglyphics, a window, more hieroglyphics. A pause for prayer and contemplation, followed by a full-screen message switching off and on like an illuminated sign, and an exclamation of disgust from Guido.

Hazardous Zone!! THIS IS A HEALTH WARNING.

DO NOT PROCEED BEYOND THIS POINT. CLINICAL TRIALS HAVE ALREADY INDICATED THAT FURTHER RESEARCH CAN ATTRACT FATAL SIDE EFFECTS. FOR YOUR SAFETY AND COMFORT YOUR HARD DISK HAS BEEN CLEANSED OF TOXIC MATTER.

For a deluded few seconds Justin has no serious concerns. He would have liked, in better circumstances, to sit down at the counting table and pen an angry letter to the manufacturers objecting to their hyperbolic style. On the other hand, Guido has just demonstrated that their bark is worse than their bite. So he is about to exclaim something like, “Oh it’s them again, they really are the limit,” when he sees that Guido’s head has sunk into his neck as if he has been hit by a bully, and his upturned fingers have bunched like dead spiders either side of the laptop, and his face, what Justin can see of it, has returned to its pretransfusion pallor.

“Is it bad?” Justin asks softly.

Flinging himself eagerly forward like an air pilot in crisis, Guido clicks through his emergency procedures. In vain apparently, for he flings himself upright again, slaps a palm to his forehead, closes his eyes, and lets out a frightful groan.

“Just tell me what’s happening,” Justin pleads. “Nothing is this serious, Guido. Tell me.” And when Guido still does not reply, “You’ve switched off. Right?”

Transfixed, Guido nods.

“And now you’re unplugging the modem.”

Another nod. The same transfixion.

“Why do you do this?”

“I’m rebooting.”

- Hozzányúltál valamihez? – kérdezi Guido.

- Mire gondolsz?

- Ez nem normális jelenség.

- Micsoda?

- Valaki belepiszkált.

- Ki? – az első gondolata, hogy talán Adrian, de az nem lehet, hiszen egyetlen percre sem hagyta magára. Ráadásul Justin nem is érzi jól magát, a bor a fejébe szállt és elszédítette, a pisztrángnak sem volt jó íze, mintha félidőben kiugrott volna a füstölőből. Olyan érzse van most, mintha vasgolyó lenne a gyomrában és ráadásul most ez, hogy a számítógép nem indul el, a képernyő közepén egy felirat azt jelzi, hogy szabálytalan behatolásműveletet hajtottak végre a rendszerben.

- Elveszhetnek adatok?

- Nem, semmi sem veszhet el – biztosítja õt Guido. Kikapcsolja a gépet.

- Mit csináltál?

- Újragerjesztem.

“What does that mean?”

“We wait one minute.”

“Why?”

“Maybe two.”

“What will that do?”

“Give it time to forget. Settle it down. This is not natural, Justin. This is real bad.” He has reverted to computer American. “This isn’t a bunch of socially inadequate young males having some fun. Very sick people have done this to you, believe me.”

“To me or to Tessa?”

Guido shakes his head. “It’s like somebody hates you.” He switches the computer on again, lifts himself on his stool, draws a long breath like a sigh in reverse. And Justin to his delight sees the familiar line of happy black kids waving at him from the screen.

“You’ve done it,” he exclaims. “You’re a genius, Guido!”

But even as he says this the kids are replaced by a jaunty little hourglass impaled by a white, diagonal arrow. Then they too disappear, leaving only a blue-black infinity.

“They killed it,” Guido whispers.

“How?”

“They put a bug on you. They told the bug to wipe the hard disk clean and they left you a message telling you what they’d done.”

“Then it’s not your fault,” says Justin earnestly.

“Did she download?”

“Whatever she printed out, I’ve read.”

“I’m not talking printing! Did she make disks?”

“We can’t find them. We think she may have taken them up north.”

“What’s up north? Why didn’t she email them up north? Why does she have to carry disks up north? I don’t read it. I don’t get it.”

- Az mit jelent?

- Várj egy percet. Vagy kettőt.

- Mi fog történni?

- Lehet, hogy elfelejti. Megnyugszik. Ez, ami történt, Justin, ez nem természetes.

Csendben ülnek néhány percig, aztán Guido újra bekapcsol. A gép zümmögni kezd, a képernyõn megjelenik a bevezető címlap.

- Zseni vagy, Guido – öleli át a fiút.

Az öröm azonban korai. A címlap egyszerre folyékonnyá válik, az ikonok mintha elúsznának egy végtelen, száraz tengeren.

- Mi ez? – dermed meg Justin.

- Ez nagy aj, Justin – feleli a fiú.

- Mi történt?

- Valaki egy vírust telepített a rendszeredbe, hogy ne tudj hozzáférni a tartalmához. Érted?

- Nem.

- Minden számítógép árammal mûködik. Nem csak te kapcsolódsz be a rendszerbe, a rendszer is rád kapcsolódik. Most érted?

Justin megvonta a vállát.

- A hálózaton megtaláltak téged, ez ilyen egyszerû – mondja szomorkásan Guido. Ha tudják hol vagy, akkor az ilyesmi, az gyerekjáték.

Justin hallott már ilyesmirõl korábban is, persze. Hogy hogyan lehet leszívni számítógépek teljes anyagát sok ezer kilométeres távolságból. De soha nem feltételezte volna, hogy ez vele is megtörténhet.

- Nem másolta át az anyagait lemezre? – kérdezte Guido.

- Nem. Legalábbis nem találtunk lemezeket. Meg tudsz menteni még valamit?

- Legfeljebb az elektronikus leveleit. Kimásolom õket a lemezre, és azután csak nyomtatnod kell, ha olvasni akarod őket.

- Rendben.