by
Nigel Mitchell

Quinn walked down the corridor of the hospital, a large
bouquet of flowers cradled in his arms.  He approached
Maggie's room, then slowed as he came to the doorway.

It was empty.  The bed was neatly made.  There was no
sign she had ever been there.

He backed out, then stopped a nurse walking past.
"Excuse me, where's the woman who was in this room?
Margaret Beckett?"

The nurse glanced into the room, then said, "Oh, she left
this morning.  We tried to stop her, but she insisted on it.
The doctor agreed that the worst of it seemed to be over.
Aside from tying her to the bed, there was nothing we could
do.  And quite frankly, after the way she trashed her room
last night, we weren't too sorry to see her go."

Quinn looked at the flowers in his hand, then let them drop
to his side.  "Well...did she say where she was going?"

"Uh, yes, she said something about needing to do some target
practice."

Quinn looked down the corridor as he repeated, "Target
practice."

-----

Quinn walked down the lonely street to a building with a
sign over the door that read "Sharpshooter Shooting Gallery."
In the window by the front door, a small sign read, "Non-
virtual weapons training.  Increase your gaming skills with
real-life practice!"  Quinn pulled open the door and went
inside.

-----

The shooting gallery boomed with the sound of gunshots.
Quinn walked down the aisle, passing men and women
who stood in rows of cubicles, firing guns at the targets
hanging across the room from them at various distances.
They all wore ear-mufflers against the noise.

In one cubicle, Maggie glared down the sight of a powerful
gun, firing shots at a human paper target across the
room.  As Quinn approached her, she stopped shooting and
popped out the ammo cartridge on the gun.

"Morning, Mallory," she said.  "Sleep well?"

Quinn watched her pull a new cartridge out of her belt.
"Yeah.  You?"

Maggie slapped the cartridge into the handle of the gun.  "I've
had better."

"The nurses told me you tore up your room last night."

Maggie sighted down the gun again at the target.  "Just
releasing some aggression.  That's supposed to be healthy,
right?"

"It can be."  Maggie began firing again and Quinn winced
at the loud report.  He raised his voice to be heard.  "But
you gotta stay in control, too."

Maggie stopped and drew her gun to her shoulder, smoke
drifting from the barrel.  She pushed a button on the wall
of the cubicle.  The paper target began sliding towards her
on a track with a soft hum.

Maggie nodded. "I am in control.  I just...seem to be a little more
emotional now.  I couldn't help it.  But I'm feeling better
than ever.  Before Rickman messed with me, I was an expert
marksman.  But remember on Fog World when I couldn't hit
Rickman only a few feet away with a submachine gun?  Well...
that's all changed."

The paper target slid up to the cubicle's window.  It was
painted with the outline of a human being, riddled with
bulletholes.  Half of the holes were clustered tightly in the
outline of the head.  The other half was grouped together
in the chest where the heart would be.  At the top of the target
was written the word "Rickman."

Maggie tore the target off its rack and held it up for
Quinn to see.  "I've got my shooting skills back.  And
that's not all."

She laid the target neatly on the shelf of the cubicle.  Then
she grabbed Quinn's arm.  With a twist, Maggie flipped
Quinn into the air.  He landed on his back with a bone-
shaking thump.

Maggie leaned over him with a satisfied smile.  "My
martial arts training came back, too."

Quinn looked up at her and spoke in a voice that was more
like a wheeze.  "I'm...happy for you."

Maggie took Quinn's hand and pulled him back onto
his feet.  She grinned at him.  "Sorry about that.  I couldn't
resist.  But you get my point."

She looked down at her hands, eyes wide with wonder.
"All my military training is back.  I feel whole again.  Useful.
I'll be a much better asset to the team.  Have you told
the others yet?"

Quinn rubbed his back, wincing.  "Not yet."

"Good.  I want to tell them myself."  She lowered her hands.
"I've..been thinking about the way I've been acting during
the slide, Mallory.  I'm not proud of it.  Especially the way
I've treated Wade. And you."

Maggie looked up at Quinn.  She pulled off the ear-mufflers
and set them down.  "Mallory...Quinn...on Future World,
I realized how much I missed my husband.  But since I've
got my old personality back, his death has hit me even
harder.  And I realized that the slutty...and that's the way
I'd describe it, slutty...way I've been acting with guys like on
the last world and Rickman, and even you...it was part of
the old Maggie.  What Rickman did to me must have shut
down my inhibitions.  It's not who I am anymore."

Maggie rested a hand on Quinn's shoulder.  "I'm going to
change.  I'm going to go into mourning for my husband.
Better late than never.  That means no more fooling around.
And...I know we settled this on Future World, but I just had
to say it again...it means no more us."

"I gotcha," Quinn said.  "And for what it's worth...it's
good to have you back."

Maggie smiled.  "Thanks.  Now, come on, Mallory...I
wanna paint this town red.  I got a lotta catching up on fun
to do."

The two of them headed out of the gallery with Maggie
spinning her gun on her finger.

-----

Rembrandt walked into the hotel room, his backpack over
one shoulder.  Wade was sitting curled up on the couch,
watching a computer-generated basketball game on the
computer set up across the room.

Rembrandt groaned as he staggered into the living room
and slumped into a couch next to her.  "Man, I got
enough exercise to last me for the next three worlds.
This job is gonna kill me.  Whatcha watching?"

"Basketball game," Wade said.  "One-on-one between
Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley."

Rembrandt watched the polygon-formed people running
around a rendered basketball court.  "Looks like a
video game."

"It is.  They don't play real sports in this world.  Michael
Jordan and Charles Barkley are the computer basketball
champions of the world.  They're playing each other over
the Internet."

"Man, you know a world is screwed up when they don't
appreciate the glory of real hoops."  Rembrandt looked
around.  "Where's Max?"

Wade smirked.  "Where else?  On the computer in his
bedroom."

Rembrandt looked over the couch to the closed bedroom
door.  "He's still on the Net?"

"Hasn't left it all day."  Wade leaned closer and whispered.
"Says he's still developing that theory of his, but I also
caught him looking at some wine and fishing websites."

Rembrandt gave off his high-pitched laugh.  "So much for his
claims that computers are worthless."

"Yeah.  But..."  She lowered her voice and her smile
disappeared.  "I'm kinda worried about him.  I don't
think he slept last night, and I haven't seen him come
out all day for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  I think he's
addicted."

Rembrandt's smile collapsed into a frown.  "Addicted?
To the Internet?"

Wade shrugs.  "It does happen.  I just never thought it
would happen to the Professor."

"Well..." Rembrant said, "Keep in mind girl he may not have all the stubbornness to it ours would..."

The hotel room's door opened and Quinn walked through
it.  He flashed the room a smile, then stepped back to
let Maggie walk in after him.

Maggie still wore bandages wrapped around her head.
She was also cradling a stuffed teddy bear under her arm
and held a Diet Coke in her hand.  She gave Wade and
Rembrandt a finger-wave with her free hand.  "Hi, guys."

"Maggie!"  Rembrandt jumped out of the couch and
hugged her tightly, both of them laughing wildly.

Wade stayed on the couch, glaring up at her.

Quinn jogged past her to Arturo's room and banged on the
door.  "Hey, Max, get out here!  Maggie's okay!"

Arturo's voice emerged from the room.  "One moment,
Mr. Mallory.  Let me just finish this email..."

Rembrandt finally released Maggie and stepped away
from her to look up and down.  "How're you doing,
Beckett?"

Maggie nodded and shot Quinn a nervous glance.  "I'm,
uh...good.  But I need to tell you guys something..."

Arturo's door opened and he strode out, clutching a
handful of papers.  His face was stubbly with a day's
unshaven growth, and his curly hair was wildly sticking
out all over his head.  He was still wearing his dress shirt
and pants, but both were rumpled and he was unbuttoning
the collar as he spoke.

"Ah, Mr. Mallory, I must speak with you about these
articles I found on the Internet.  I've been in a chatroom
with the top five quantum physicists in the country for the
last hour, and we'll be blasted if we can figure this one
irregularity out.  We could use your additional
brainpower."

Arturo turned to Maggie and smiled.  "Ah, Captain
Beckett.  How good of you to rejoin us.  None the
worse for your harrowing experience?"

Maggie clutched the teddy bear to her chest and shifted
on her feet.  "Well...actually...something has changed.  I
need to talk to you guys."

Rembrandt sat on the arm of the couch, next to Wade,
who continued to glare at Maggie under a length of
her hair.  "What's wrong, Beckett?  You came through
it okay, right?"

"Yes," Maggie said.  "But...there's something I
discovered about me.  You see...Quinn and I think that
Rickman might have injected me with something a few
years ago.  Something that caused me to lose some
memories and altered my personality.  That's why I've
been so clumsy and rude to all of you during our slide
together.  And why I was moving in on Quinn...and
had the affair with Rickman."

Maggie looked down at each of the others, smiling.
They all looked back at her - Quinn with a smile, Arturo
and Rembrandt with confusion, and Wade with a deadpan.
"But the knock on the head did something to me.  Put
me back to the way I was.  I'm different now.  Better.
More human.  And you're gonna see some changes from
now on, I promise.  Especially in the way I treat all of you."

Maggie finally let her gaze settle on Wade.  "I'm sorry,
Wade.  I'm sorry for all the times I put you down for the
crime of missing your Professor...and for feeling emotions
like fear or loneliness.  I was wrong, and you were right...
and that's all gonna change.  Okay?"

Wade's deadpan expression broke into a humorless
smile.  "So...let me get this straight.  You got injected
with something by Rickman that made you act like a
self-righteous bimbo, and now that you got a bump
on the head, everything's all right and I'm supposed to
pretend the last seven months together never happened.
Is that it?"

Maggie's smile twisted a little.  "Well...I mean...I
guess you could look at it that way, but you gotta
understand, I wasn't myself..."

Wade's smile collapsed and she fell into a cold stare.
"I don't care who you were.  You hurt me.  A lot.
And I can't just wave my hand and make that all disappear.
And I can't just accept the fact that you're suddenly
supposed to be this wonderful person now.  If you want
my trust...and my forgiveness...you're gonna have to
earn it."

Wade climbed out of the couch and shoved past Rembrandt
to charge to her bedroom.

"Wade, wait!"  Maggie began to move towards Wade,
but she was too late to stop Wade from disappearing
inside the room and slamming the door behind her.

Arturo took Maggie's arm and gently pulled her back.
"Captain Beckett...I strongly urge you to let Miss Welles
be for the time being.  In time, if you are sincere, she
will see that you have changed and she will forgive you.  But
that time is not now."

Maggie shook off Arturo's hand and looked away.
"Right.  Well...she'll see.  You'll all see.  I'm a better
person now.  My old self.  And I'll prove it."

Arturo frowned at Maggie's bandages.  "And you're sure
you've recovered fully?"

Maggie waved him off.  "Oh, sure.  Doctor gave me a
clean bill of health."

Quinn snapped his fingers.  "Doctor...bill...that reminds
me, we still have to pay off Maggie's hospital visit."

Rembrandt picked his backpack up off the floor and began
rummaging through it.  "Oh, yeah, no problem.  Got my
paycheck right in...hey..."

Rembrandt pulled out a small computer disk from the pocket.
He turned it over in his hands.  "How'd this get in there?"

Quinn, Maggie, and Arturo gathered around him as he looked
at the disk.  Arturo took it from him and studied it.

"You have no idea where it came from?" Arturo asked.

"Nope.  I just..."

The lights in the hotel room flickered and died.  The room
was plunged into darkness, except for the pale white glow
from the moon outside the windows.

As the others looked around themselves, Wade emerged
from the bedroom and stumbled on a table.  "Ouch.  What's
going on?"

Maggie folded her arms.  "Must be a blackout."

Arturo clutched the papers in his hand.  "Good heavens.
I was working on an important email.  I hope the computer
saved it before it was lost."

"Don't worry about it, Arturo.  With computers as
common as they are in this world, they're bound to have
backup generators all over the place.  The power should
kick back in..."

The computer monitor on the table glowed softly.  It
filled with a video image of a man's head silhouetted
against flickering static in the background.

The voice that emerged from the monitor was the deep
rich timbre of artificial enhancement.  "The backup
generators are under my control.  So is everything in this
hotel and your room.  And this city.  And you."

The Sliders gathered around the monitor to glare at
the shimmering image.

Arturo narrowed his eyes.  "Who are you?  What do you
want."

"I'm known as Masquerade," the man said.  "And what
I want is the disk in Rembrandt Brown's left hand."

Rembrandt looked at the disk in his hand.  "Why?  How'd
I get it in the first place?"

"That's none of your business.  You'll insert the disk into
the mailslot on the wall on the left-hand side of the front
door.  You have five seconds."

Rembrandt looked at the slot, then at the disk in his hand,
then at Quinn.  The two men exchanged a look, then a
slight nod.  They looked at Wade and Maggie and Arturo, who
all gave the same nod.

Rembrandt faced the computer camera and held up the
disk between two fingers.  "No deal, Masquerade.  Not until
you tell us what's up."

A moment passed, then Masquerade spoke again.  "Idiots.
You don't understand what you're dealing with, do you?  I
guess I'll have to show you.  I have access to
every computer in the world, including the ones in this
hotel.  For instance, I control the power and can cut off
the supply to everything in this hotel except the outlet this
computer is plugged into.  And I can turn on the power...
to the door locks."

The hotel room's door clicked sharply.  Quinn and Maggie
ran over to it.  Quinn tried the knob, then flashed the
others a grave look.

"It's locked," he said, then rammed into it with his shoulder.
The door shook, but remained firm.

Maggie grabbed his shoulder and pulled him out of the
way.  "Move it, Mallory.  Let a pro handle this."

She took a step back, then lashed out with a foot in a
karate kick.  Her heel slammed into the door.  She spun
and gave the door another kick, crying out at the same
time.  The door shuddered.

Masquerade continued to glare at them from his static
prison.  "I can take over the climate control..."

Air exploded out of the vents in the room.  Arturo was in
front of one of them and lurched out of the way, clutching
his arm where the blast hit it.  "It's freezing cold!"

Wade hugged herself and began to shiver as the vents
roared around her.  Behind her, Maggie took a step
back and kicked the door again, snarling as she did so.

"I'm now lowering the temperature in the room to forty
degrees below zero," Masquerade rumbled.  "You'll all
freeze to death.  All I need to turn off the air and open
the doors is that disk."

Arturo rubbed his arm briskly, breathing hard and
forming clouds of icy smoke from his mouth.  "Perhaps
we should consider giving this man the disk."

Quinn tucked his hands into his armpits.  "No way.  If this
psycho wants it that bad, it can't be good.  You hear me,
Masquerade?  No deal!"

Maggie spun on one heel and drove her other foot into
the door again.  The door gave off a loud crackling snap.
"That's right, Masquerade.  No surrender."

Masquerade's image flickered on the screen.  "Well, I
suppose I'll just have to up the stakes a little."

The complimentary coffeemaker on the desk lit up as the
heating coils began to glow.  Then the pot sizzled.  And
grew runny as it melted.  Sparks flashed all over it, then
flames erupted from inside.

Rembrandt ran over to it, then lunged back as the flames
swelled.  Black smoke poured from the coffeemaker, which
licked the wall near it with tongues of fire.  Then the fire
began to crawl up the wall itself.  Rembrandt ripped the
tablecloth off the dining table and tried to beat the flames,
but they only grew worse.

Masquerade chuckled.  "Fire and ice, all at once.  Choose your
death...or give me the disk."

Maggie took several steps back, crossing to the other side
of the room.  She glared at the door, then began to run
towards it, screaming at the top of her lungs.  Halfway
across, she leapt into the air.  Her foot lashed out and
she formed an arrow, aimed right at the door.

The door was torn out of its hinges on impact.  It collapsed
into the hallway outside the room.  Maggie landed on her
feet, staggered, then yelled, "Come on."

The Sliders dashed out of the hotel room, even as flames
engulfed the walls.

>From the computer screen, Masquerade loomed forward.
His unnaturally deep voice roared.  "You can't escape me!
I'm everywhere!  I'll get that disk, even if I have to kill you
all!"

-----

The corridor was in darkness, the lights still off from
Masquerade's control.  People were banging and yelling
in the other hotel rooms Quinn, Maggie, Wade, Rembrandt,
and Arturo passed.  Apparently, Masquerade had locked
them inside, too.

Arturo ran to the elevators, but Wade grabbed his arm
and pulled him away.  "No, Max, the elevators are bound
to be under that weirdo's control.  We better just use the
stairs."

"Good idea, Wade."  Maggie ran to the emergency
stairs and yanked open the door.  She waited until the
others ran through, then followed.

-----

The stairwell echoed with their frenzied footsteps as
they hurried down floor after floor.  Other people began
to join them in a mad dash to safety.  As they reached the
last flight of steps, sirens began to wail, growing louder
with each passing moment.

-----

Outside, Quinn burst from the doors, followed closely
by Maggie, Wade, Arturo, and Rembrandt.  They ran
out onto the sidewalk, followed by the crowds of fleeing
hotel patrons.

Firetrucks squealed up to the hotel.  Firepersons scrambled
off the trucks.  Some of them rushed into the hotel.  Others
began hooking up hoses to the hydrant on the corner.

A firewoman was hunched over a keypad on the hydrant,
punching buttons on it frantically.  "Hey, the hydrant
won't turn on the water.  Says there's a computer
malfunction."

One of the firetrucks revved its engine.  Then it lurched
forward.  It rumbled towards the hotel, building up
speed.  It was headed for Wade.  She screamed and dove
out of the way.  The truck kept going to crash into the
Dominion.

The crippled truck's siren began to blare out of control
and flash its lights.  The driver climbed out from behind
the wheel and ran over to where Wade was lying.

"Are you okay?" the driver asked.  "I'm sorry, ma'am,
I don't know what went wrong.  The truck's computers
kicked into autopilot.  Must have been a malfunction."

Quinn took Wade's hand and helped her to her feet as
he glared at the fireman.  "Uh, yeah, malfunction.  Let's
go, guys."

Wade limped, supporting herself on Quinn's arm, as
they headed away from the Dominion.  Behind them,
the hotel burned, flames pouring from the windows as
the fire raged out of control.

-----

Rembrandt walked alongside the others down the lonely
sidewalk.  The night felt dead with no streetlights.
Only the moon above them lit their journey.

Rembrandt's eyes, like those of his friends, were
constantly in motion, watching everything around him.
"I don't get it, man.  Who was that Masquerade guy,
anyway?"

Wade looked up at the windows of an apartment
building they passed.  "A hacker.  Someone who knows
how to break into secure computer systems."

Rembrandt turned and looked behind them quickly.
"How'd he do all that stuff to us?"

Arturo rubbed his left arm and flexed the fingers, cautiously.
"In a world like this, where computers are everywhere
and control everything, I would imagine that a hacker
would wield considerable power."

Maggie shook her head and made a cutting motion with
her hand.  "This is not good.  We should have established
a secure stronghold with weapons to defend ourselves for
exactly this contingency."

Wade stared at her.  "Weapons?  You want us to keep
weapons in our hotel room?  I knew it.  You haven't
changed a bit.  You still think of this slide as some sort
of military operation."

"So what?  I told you I got my military training back.  If
anything, it's even clearer to me now that this operation
needs organization and discipline."  She punctuated the
last words with chops of her hand in the air.  "And I don't
see what's wrong with that."

Wade rolled her eyes.  "The more things change..."

Arturo folded his hands behind his back and glared at
the sidewalk beneath his feet.  "I think at this point, our
priority should be to get off the street and find out what is
so important about this disk that this fellow Masquerade
is willing to kill for it."

Wade folded her arms and looked at the others.  "Great.
Where we gonna go to do that?"

Rembrandt snapped his fingers and pointed at her.  "I got
an idea."

-----

Rembrandt pushed the button labeled "Pamela Walker."
After a moment, a thin voice emerged from the speaker.
"Hello?"

Rembrandt glanced at the others standing outside the
apartment building, then spoke into the microphone.  "It's
me, Rembrandt Brown.  I...I delivered a pizza to you
this morning."

A few seconds passed, then the voice came again.  Quieter.
"Yes.  I remember.  So?"

"Well, look...this is kinda awkward, but...me and my friends...
we need help."

Pamela's voice was scratchy through the battered speaker.
"What help?"

"A place to stay.  Access to a computer..."

"No."  Pamela's voice grew louder.  "No, go away.
Leave me alone."

Rembrandt looked back at the others.  Wade closed her
eyes and turned away to face the street.   Arturo shook his
head.  Maggie folded her arms and glared up at him.

Rembrandt seemed to deflate as he turned back to the
speaker.  "Look...I know this must be strange to you, but
we've really got no place else to go.  I got this disk
somehow and there's this guy after us named
Masquerade or something..."

Pamela's voice burst out of the speaker.  "Did you say
Masquerade?"

"Yeah.  Yeah, I did."

Silence passed.  Then the door buzzed.  Rembrandt pushed
it open and looked back at the others.

"This should be interesting," Arturo murmured as he
followed Rembrandt into the building.

-----

The door to Pamela's apartment opened a crack.  Her small
eye peered out at Rembrandt, then looked past him to Quinn,
Wade, Maggie, and Arturo.

"Friends?" Pamela asked.

Rembrandt nodded and gestured towards the others.  "Yeah,
they're in trouble, just like me."

"With Masquerade."

"Yeah."

Pamela looked at each of them in turn.  Quinn and the others
put on broad, non-threatening smiles.  After a few tense
seconds, the door closed.  Soft clicks followed of the locks
being disengaged.

Pamela pulled the door open wide.  She was still wearing the
oversized T-shirt and worn jeans.  Her bare feet shuffled on the
carpet, her toes digging into the fibers like fingers curling into
fists.  She looked up at Rembrandt with her wide brown eyes.

They walked into the apartment, one by one.  Wade looked
around the apartment, then down at Pamela, watching her
close the door behind them.

"You live here?" Wade asked.  "All by yourself?"

Pamela turned the locks, facing away from her, as she nodded.

"Wow."  Wade looked at Quinn, who shrugged slightly.
"That's awful."

Pamela glared at Wade.  "Didn't ask for pity.  You
ran into a hacker named Masquerade?"

Maggie folded her arms.  "That's right.  I assume you've
heard of him."

Pamela strode past them all to go down the hallway leading
to her bedroom.  "Everybody's heard of him.  Don't you
watch the news?"

The Sliders followed her into the darkened bedroom,
glowing with the light of her computers.  Three of them
were lit up this time, two of them displaying Flying
Toasters screensavers.

Arturo's eyes lit up.  "I say, I don't suppose I could check
my email.  I'm expecting a very important..."

Wade slapped his stomach with the back of her hand and glared
up at him.  "Max...not now."

Arturo cleared his throat and tried to look more stern.
"Uh, yes.  Of course.  Some other time."

Pamela crawled onto her bed and dropped into a cross-legged
seat in front of one of her computers.  She moved the mouse to
halt the screensaver and brought up her web browser.

Typing as she spoke, Pamela brought up a new webpage.
"Masquerade is the most powerful computer hacker in the
world.  Nobody knows who he is or where he came from,
but he's on the FBI.Com's Ten Most Wanted List.  As number
one."

The webpage came up as a stark green page with plain
lettering that read "The Masquerade Home Page."  There
was an image of the silhouette they had all seen in their
hotel room on the page, as well as a flurry of text.  There
was also an ad banner at the top of the page for Hanes
Underwear.

Pamela looked over her shoulder at the others.  "Masquerade
has backdoor entry into virtually every major computer
database in the world, giving him control over everything.
He's also a terrorist.  This is his website."

Wade leaned closer to read the text aloud.  "'I am
Masquerade.  I hide behind the mask of technology to
show you all the folly of your ways.  This world must
end.  Purity must prevail.  I will bring down the Internet
and build a stronger society...'  He's a Luddite?"

Pamela nodded.  "He believes the Internet is evil and
is trying to destroy it from within."

"Using the Internet."  Maggie rolled her eyes.  "We got ourselves
a real live one here."

Pamela faced her computer again and brought up a large
screen of plain green text.  She began to type a long string
of characters.  "I took a special interest in Masquerade.  He
uses a password decryption program to hack into his targets.  I
think it's a program I created that he modified.  I've been studying
his tactics to develop a program he couldn't crack."

Pamela sighed.  "Problem is that Masquerade always
kept a low profile and I had trouble finding him.  Some
of his hacks didn't even show up until weeks later when the
trail was cold.  And some of his will probably never show up."

Pamela finished typing, then leaned away from the computer.
"But you say Masquerade is after you. And there must be a
reason why if Masquerade is willing to show himself to get
you.  Which means I can get to him through you.  This might
be the break I'm looking for."

Pamela turned herself around on the bed to face Rembrandt.
"You mentioned a disk?"

Rembrandt nodded and fished around in his jacket pocket
until he produced the disk.  Pamela took it from his
outstretched hand and slipped it into one of her computers.

The screen switched from Flying Toasters to a long flowing
stream of text.  Then a window came up that said "Encryption
Detected.  Standby..."

Pamela muttered to herself.  "Figures.  The contents of the
disk are encrypted...wait...Rembrandt, where'd you get this?"

"I dunno," Rembrandt said.  "I think somebody must've
slipped it in my bag while I was on my route.  Why?"

Pamela pushed some buttons.  A large symbol of an eagle
with its wings spread and a computer clutched in its talons
began to flash on the screen.  She pointed at it.  "This is
a U.S. government encryption key from the National Security
Agency.  Level Ultra.  Whatever is on this disk belongs to
the government."

Pamela climbed off the bed and stretched.  "I'll have this
decrypted in a few minutes.  When we know what Masquerade is
after, we can plan our next move.  Now I need to know exactly
what happened to you."

Rembrandt nodded.  "Sure, we'll fill you in."

Wade moved closer to the computers.  "Uh, could I stay
here and take a look at your setup?  I'm a hacker myself,
and I have a feeling I could learn a few things."

"Sure.  The computer on the left."  Pamela walked out
of the bedroom into the living room.

Rembrandt, Maggie, and Arturo followed her out.  Quinn
hung back, watching Wade drag a chair over to the
unoccupied computer and begin typing.

Quinn glanced over at the others, then walked over to Wade, his
hands in his pockets.  "Can I talk to you for a second?"

Wade studied the monitor as she said, "Sure.  What's up?"

Quinn leaned against the bed next to the computers.  "I just
wanted to know what you thought of the new Maggie."

Wade's fingers hovered over the keyboard, then began to
type.  "She's a little calmer.  Not as rude.  But she still has
an attitude problem."

"Yeah, she does.  But maybe now she'll get over it."

"Maybe."  Wade typed a little more.

Quinn looked down at the floor as he said, "Wade...me and
Maggie had a little talk, too.  Not just here, but a couple
worlds back when we got separated.  We decided...it's over
between us."

Wade slowed in her typing.  "Really."

"Yeah.  We both agreed that it wouldn't work out.  It was
wrong from the beginning, and Maggie thinks it was just
her other personality at work anyway.  So we're just friends
now, the way it should be."

Wade nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on the computer in
front of her.  "That's good.  I think you two wouldn't have
made a good couple, anyway."

Quinn looked up at her, studying the back of her head.
"Yeah.  And I was just wondering...where that leaves us."

Wade stopped typing.  She was frozen, tense, staring at
nothing on the screen.  Then she turned slowly in her chair
to stare at Quinn.  Her eyes were wide, but soft.  She
rested a hand on the back of her chair as she looked deeply
into Quinn's eyes.  Then she spoke.

"Quinn...I think we..."

The computer next to her chimed and began to flash and
speak aloud the message "File decryption complete.  Now
displaying contents."

The bedroom door flew open and Pamela charged in,
followed by Maggie, Arturo, and Rembrandt.

Pamela crawled onto the bed and typed on the computer.
"Let's see what we've got."

Wade quickly got to her feet and moved away from
Quinn.  Quinn himself looked down at the floor again and
hunched his shoulders.

Maggie and Arturo watched Pamela work.  Only Rembrandt
looked at Wade, then at Quinn.  And Rembrandt narrowed
his eyes, setting his lips tightly as he studied the two of them.

Pamela's work brought up a window that filled with text
and graphics.  Her eyes were constantly in motion, studying
it.  They widened.

"No," she said.  "This can't be right."

Maggie leaned closer to examine the screen.  "What is it?"

"A...computer virus."

Wade folded her arms.  "So?"

"Computer viruses are illegal.  A misdemeanor to
even allow one on your computer system.  A felony
to make one, punishable by life in prison or death."

Maggie blinked.  "Death?  Isn't that a little extreme?"

Wade looked at her.  "Not really.  Remember where we
are.  With the Internet as widespread as it is here, a simple
virus could take down the whole thing.  It would be
really dangerous."

Pamela nodded.  "But this isn't an ordinary
virus.  Looks like it was made by the government.  I'm
guessing it was part of some research program into anti-
virus tactics.  Someone must have stolen a copy from a
government lab.  Masquerade must have been behind that.
No one else could do it."

"So what's so special about it?"

Pamela pointed to the screen, where a graphic of a mailbox
opening and closing showed.  "This virus can be spread by
email."

Wade's jaw dropped a little. "You don't mean...you mean it
can be attached to email, right?"

"No, I mean it can be turned into an email message itself.
And all it takes to activate it is for someone to read it with a
standard email program."

"I don't believe it."  Wade turned away, rubbing her
face with a hand, as if exhausted.

Maggie spread her hands.  "Excuse me, could someone explain
to us technological Neanderthals what the big deal is?"

Wade shook her head, then said, "Okay, the big deal is that
normally computer viruses can only be spread by attaching
them to computer programs.  Something that needs to be
started by the user, like a game or something.  But with email...
they could send a copy of this virus to every email address in
the world...every person in the world...instantaneously."

Pamela nodded.  "And they wouldn't have to do anything but
read their messages.  This could infect every computer in the
world in a few hours.  That's why Masquerade wanted it."

Wade began to pace the room.  "This virus could shut down
hospitals, power plants, traffic lights, everything.  The whole
world could grind to a halt."

Rembrandt looked at the others.  "So what'll we do now?"

Quinn straightened and said, "I think we should..."

Maggie interrupted, chopping the air with a hand.  "We should
contact the proper authorities.  If this virus-thing was stolen
from a government lab, then they're probably looking for it.
They can take over and Masquerade will be out of our hair."

Pamela nodded and moved to her computer to bring up her
web browser and access 911.Com.  "Good idea."

Maggie looked over at Quinn, who was glaring at her.
"What?"

There was a beep.  Pamela's fingers flew on the keyboard,
then she said, "It's an email from the FBI's Computer Crime
Division.  They got my message, and they're sending a car
down to pick up the disk and take us to headquarters for
debriefing."

Wade raised her eyebrows and looked up at Quinn.  "Wow,
the feds work fast in this world."

The chirping wail of a siren rang out.  Quinn went to the
window and drew back the thick curtains to look outside.

A dusty brown sedan was pulling up to the curb in front of
the building.  A bubblelight flashed blue and red on the top
of the car.

Quinn looked at the others.  "They're here."

Pamela popped the disk out of the computer and held it
out.  "Here's the disk.  Take it.  I can't go outside."

Arturo took the disk from her and headed out of the bedroom.
"Excellent.  The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can
get back to my email."

Wade jogged out of the room after him.  "Hey, don't you
remember, Max?  Your computer burned up in the fire."

Arturo's voice bellowed out from the living room.  "Oh,
blast!  You're right.  We'll have to return to Lamplighter.Com
after this..."

Quinn walked out of the bedroom, followed by Maggie,
who was walking after him with a puzzled frown.  She shook
her head, then said, "Hey, Quinn, something's bugging me..."

Rembrandt waited until they were out of the room, then
looked at Pamela.  She was sitting cross-legged on the bed,
staring up at him with her large brown eyes.

"You sure you don't wanna come with us?" Rembrandt
asked.

Pamela nodded.

Rembrandt looked back at the others, then down at
Pamela again.  "You know...you don't have to live like this.
I know the world is scary sometimes, but this ain't the
way to get past that.  Everybody needs people.  Real people,
not ones on a screen."

Pamela lowered her eyes.  "I know."

Rembrandt sighed, then said, "Well...look...I gotta go
straighten this out.  But thanks for all the help.  And if
you don't mind, I wanna come back and talk to you some
more.  I'm only here for a few more days, but I have a
feelin' you could use a friend."

Pamela tugged idly at one of her toes.  "Okay."

Rembrandt nodded, then slowly walked out of the room.
Pamela was left alone, surrounded by her computers.

Then one of the computers began to flash an icon shaped
like an envelop.  A cheerful voice said, "You've got mail."

-----

Arturo walked briskly out of the apartment building
towards the police car idling on the curb.  Wade hurried
down the steps after him, watching the car closely.

"Hey, slow down, Max," Wade said.  "We should wait
for the others to catch up."

Arturo charged towards the door of the car.  "Miss Welles,
I for one am quite eager to have this business resolved as
quickly as possible."

"So am I, but we gotta stick together."

"I am well-aware of that, Miss Welles."  The car door
swung open, and Arturo climbed into the backseat.  "But
we are hardly running a marathon..."

Wade froze as she looked behind the wheel of the car.
There was no one there.  "Hey...what's going on..."

Quinn and Maggie came running out of the apartment
building, yelling and waving their arms.

"Get away!" Maggie screamed.  "It's a trick!"

Arturo looked out the open door at her.  "What?"

The door slammed shut.  The tires squealed, pouring smoke,
as the police car shot away from the curb.  It roared off down the
street.  Through the back window, Arturo could be seen yelling
and pounding the glass with his fists.  Then the car screeched
around the corner and was gone.

Quinn and Maggie ran up to stand alongside Wade, both gasping
for breath.  Wade was coughing and waving a hand in the air
against the smoke that drifted over her.

Quinn looked down the street, then grunted with frustration.
"We lost him."

Wade looked up at him.  "What's going on?  What happened?"

"We just got an email from the FBI," Quinn said.  "The _real_
FBI.  They told us to stay inside and not go out...because
Masquerade had stolen one of the Bureau's remote
vehicles."

Wade stared up at him, then looked around the corner where
smoke drifted from the burned strips of pavement on the
road.  "Then that means...Masquerade has the Professor."

Maggie nodded as she shielded her eyes against the sun with a
hand.  "Yeah.  And the virus."

-----

Arturo pounded on the back window a few more times with
his fist, screaming "Get me out of here!  What is the meaning
of this?"

Then he turned around to face forward.  He stared at the
steering wheel of the car, rolling from side to side all by
itself to keep the car on course.  He was shielded from it by
a metal grating over the back of the front seat.  Sliding his
fingers into the mesh, Arturo gave it an experimental
tug.  It held firm.

Arturo looked around the interior of the car.  "What is
this..."

A screen unfolded from the dashboard of the car above the
steering wheel.  It lit up with a face silhouetted against
snowy-white static.

"Hello, Maximillian Arturo," the face said.

Arturo glared at it.  "Hello, Masquerade.  And what is
the purpose of this little kidnapping you've staged?"

"That disk in your hand."

Arturo looked down at the computer disk.  "Ah, yes.
Your precious virus.  And I suppose you expect me
to hand it over to you just like that, eh?"

"You will give it to me," Masquerade said.  "I'm
the puppetmaster that controls the strings of the world."

Arturo's face darkened as he set it in a firm scowl.
"No, you are not.  You cannot control me, you blistering
idiot.  I'm flesh and blood.  I'm not a computer.  You
may be able to take over this car, but you cannot force
me to act against my will."

Arturo wiggled the disk in the air.  "For example.
You want this virus.  And it is simplicity itself for me to
deny you possession of it by dropping it on the floor..."

Arturo dropped the disk on the floor and raised his
shoe.  "And crushing it..."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Arturo let his foot linger in the air.  "And how do you
propose to stop me?"

Masquerade sighed, then said, "Well, let's see.  You're
in the back of a speeding car going sixty miles an hour...
in fact, let's make it...oh, a hundred..."

Arturo was thrown back as the car picked up speed.  His
eyes rolled wildly as the city rushed by the windows.

"Now," Masquerade said, "what if I told you that if
you crush that disk, I'll aim that car at a brick wall?"

The car skidded around a corner and headed down a
blind alley.  A brick wall hurtled towards the front
windshield.

Masquerade continued in his calm, deep voice.  "A brick
wall that will collapse on impact into the apartment of
a young single mother of three.  Named...Laura Hague,
according to my records.  With her sons Jason and Marcus,
and her daughter Stephanie.  The daughter is three months
old."

The car screamed towards the wall, every bump in the
road sending the vehicle bouncing wildly.  Arturo
gripped the wire mesh in front of him, his eyes wide.

"All right," he gasped, then yelled, "All right!  I won't
crush the disk!"

The car's brakes engaged.  Arturo was thrown forward
into the mesh, crushing his face against it.  The entire
alley rang with the squeals of the tires on the road.
Smoke poured from underneath them.  The car tipped
forward.  It skidded to a piercing halt and came to rest
inches away from the wall.

Arturo pried himself off the mesh divider and stared
at the glowing screen.

Masquerade's silhouette nodded.  "Very good.  Now
pick it up."

Arturo looked down at the disk under his heel.

The car's engine revved as Masquerade spoke again
in his inhumanly deep voice.  "I said, pick it up."

Arturo reached down with a trembling hand and picked up the
disk.  He held it up in full view of the monitor.  "There.  See?
I've done it.  The disk is intact."

"Very good, Arturo."

The car lurched as it slowly backed out of the alley.
When it was in the street, its wheels turned and the car
rolled off again on its journey.

Arturo glared at the flickering monitor as it said, "You
see, little puppet?  I control the Internet.  That's why
I control the world...and everyone in it."

The car roared off down the lonely streets of San
Francisco as it was filled with the deep booming
laughter of Masquerade.

-----

Smoke was pouring up from a trashcan on the
sidewalk that belched flames into the air.  Around it, a family
huddled, wrapped in blankets.  A grubby young man was
spooning a thin soup into bowls that he passed down to his
children.  The young mother was trying to calm a baby
nestled in dirty rags in her arms that wouldn't stop crying.

The sedan rolled slowly along the battered concrete of a
desolate street.  All around it, houses and shops stood
crumbled.  A sign marked Fresh Seafood hung over the
shop's doorway, bent and pocked with bulletholes.  A
man in rags was huddled there in the door, shivering slightly.

Arturo leaned close to the window, watching a woman in
tattered clothes shuffling along the sidewalk.  "Where are
we?"

Masquerade flickered on the screen, his somber voice
resonating through the interior of the car.  "The underpass
of the information superhighway.  These people are the
houses that got bulldozed to pave the way for the so-
called technological revolution."

The car rolled past two men yelling and wrestling with
each other.  Clutched between them, being yanked back
and forth, was a dented can of tomato soup.

"They're those without computers," Masquerade
sighed.  "Some were too old to learn the new ways,
others lacked the technical skill, others just didn't catch
up fast enough.  But most of them are people from
homes where food was what they needed most, not
computers.  Schools where they couldn't afford glass
for the windows, much less T3 connections.  So as
the Internet took over, they were forced out.  And they
live here in these ghettos, cut off from the information,
the entertainment, and the jobs that the techno-fascist
elite take for granted."

Arturo's frown deepened as he watched the slums roll by.
"Quite disturbing."

"That's one way of putting it."

The sedan pulled off the road to the curb of a crumbling
apartment building.  The building was flanked on both sides by
rubble-filled lots.  The engine switched off and the door of
the car swung open on its own.  Arturo looked up at the
building, where sheets of plastic ruffled over the shattered
windows.

"I take it this is our destination," Arturo murmured.

Masquerade's image flickered.  "Yes.  Get out and walk in
through the front door.  And don't try anything, otherwise I'll
have to give you another show of my power."

"I believe I've learned my lesson.  For now."  Arturo climbed
out of the sedan.  The car door slammed shut behind him.  He
looked down at it, then headed up to the front door of the
building.

-----

The apartment building was gutted from years of fires and
neglect.  The floor of the upper levels were mostly torn or
burned away.  Sunlight shone down in beams through holes that
could be seen through all the way from the roof down to the
ground floor.  The ground floor was the only one left intact.
And it was occupied.

As Arturo pulled open the door, sunlight fell into the room
onto piles of machinery.  Metal boxes were scattered
everywhere, interconnected by a spiderweb of wires and
cables.  The web's center was a large, battered armchair.
Its back was turned to Arturo and the front door.  The chair
faced a semi-circle of monitors that showed a dizzying variety
of images.  On one, a 3-D model of the world revolved.  On
another, images of various cities labeled "Paris" and
"Chicago" cycled, one after the other.  On yet another,
nothing but endless rows of text swept past.

Arturo faced the ragged back of the armchair with a frown.
He gripped the disk in his hand tighter as a soft voice
emerged from the chair.

It said, "Glad you could join me, Mr. Arturo.  Gimme a
second, I'll make us more comfortable."

There was a click, followed by a beep.  Behind Arturo, a
metal door slammed into place over the wooden one he
had walked through.  Beside him, metal gratings rattled down
over the windows, then locked into place.

Hums over his head drew Arturo's attention upwards.  And
he saw machine guns being aimed away from him and
towards the ceiling.

"Can't be too careful with security," the person in the
armchair said.  "I'm the most wanted human being on the
planet, you know."

Arturo took a few steps forward.  "Masquerade?  Is that
you?"

"Yes.  It's me."  The armchair swiveled on its base, turning to
face Arturo.

A young boy looked up at Arturo, overwhelmed by the
size of the chair he was in.  His feet, clad in small but
expensive shoes, didn't even touch the floor.  In an Italian
suit tailored to his size, the boy looked older than the
seven-year-old Arturo guessed him to be.  And his eyes
held a weariness that normally took decades to acquire.

"I'm Masquerade," the boy said.

Arturo's frown deepened.  "A child?"

The boy smiled and leaned back in his chair.  "Don't be
fooled by appearances, Mr. Arturo.  I'm a product of
my environment.  I was born in the Age of the Internet.
Computers were my parents, instead of my real ones who
were too busy with their own lives to care about
me.  I'm not even sure they noticed when I ran away
from home to this place."

Masquerade surveyed the hollow interior of the
building.  His voice echoed slightly off the walls.  "I
learned to type before I learned to talk.  I was browsing the
Web before I learned to walk.  There was a time when it
would have taken a decade for someone to master the
art of computer hacking.  But with my mind and the
resources of the Net, I was hacking into the White House
on my third birthday.  And once I had that control, I didn't
need parents.  With a few hacks into a clothing supply
store, I got this suit.  A few more, I got all this equipment.
Computers are my life."

Arturo clasped his hands behind his back and began to
walk around the young boy, slowly.  "And so you've
decided to destroy them?"

Masquerade followed him with his piercing blue eyes.
"I've decided to destroy the impersonal society that
computers have created.  A society where people don't
relate to each other except through a phone line.  Not
even with their own kids."

"But you've chosen the medium of computers to bring
that about.  Somewhat ironic."  Arturo glared at one of the
monitors showing a wireframe model of the White House.

The boy's smile widened.  "Isn't it?  I'm a living example of
what technology can do.  With every hack, I show how
weak the infrastructure really is.  How much control we've
given up to these soulless machines.  I'm going to make
them sorry they ever heard of a modem.  And hurt them
so badly that they'll tear down the Internet, and no one will
ever touch a keyboard again."

Arturo stopped with a sigh.  He settled his gaze onto
Masquerade.  "My boy, I wish I could say you have good
intentions, but even that escapes you.  I agree that this
world seems to have lost sight of its humanity, but I have
also seen first-hand the power of the Internet.  The
resources it can hold for people like me...and you.  When
used wisely.  And listening to you, I see that you do not
care about people or humanity.  You only care about
yourself and your narrow world-view."

Masquerade smiled up at him dryly.  "Whatever.  I'll take
that disk now."

Arturo looked at the disk in his hand.  "And of course, you
can make me give it to you."

Masquerade leaned over the arm of his chair and punched
keys on one of his keyboards.  The machine guns mounted on
the beams of the roof whined as they snapped down to aim
at Arturo.

Arturo stared at the guns glinting down at him.  And
swallowed.  "That's what I thought."

-----

Maggie paced the floor of Pamela's bedroom, her arms folded
across her chest.  As she walked, Maggie shook her head and
muttered, "I dunno about this.  We should be doing something, not
just sitting around."

Pamela was sitting hunched over the keyboard of one of her
computers.  Wade was peering over her shoulder, but looked
up to glare at Maggie.

"We are doing something," Wade said.  "We're fighting fire
with fire.  Masquerade got us with computers.  It's time we
used computers to fight back."

Pamela stopped typing and pointed at her computer
screen.  "Okay, I think I got it."

Rembrandt leaned over her other shoulder.  "Got what?"

"Managed to access the logs of the FBI. Tracked down
Masquerade's hack into the system to steal the car.  He ran
the signal through Germany, Hong Kong, and Paris.  And he
used an encryption routine to hide his tracks.  But I managed
to identify the fake ID he used.  It's..."

Wade pointed at the screen.  "No, wait...look at the
time log.  If Masquerade was using all those reflectors,
there would have been a greater lag.  But these response
times are too fast.  This one must be a smokescreen.
Let me see the list of users again."

Pamela glanced up at Wade.  Then she turned back to
her computer and clicked the mouse pointer through a
series of menu. Text scrolled past.

Wade pointed to one.  "There.  Max Jerod.  Check that."

Pamela typed.  Then nodded.  "That's it.  That's
Masquerade."

Rembrandt clapped Wade on the shoulder.  "Hey, good
thinkin', sweetheart."

Wade smiled at him, then nodded at the computer.  "Okay,
what've you got, Pam?"

"The set of instructions Masquerade sent to the car by
remote.  And the address the car was driven to."  Pamela
punched a key.

A computer graphic filled the monitor with an image of
the FBI sedan.  It overlapped an image of San Francisco,
along with a red line that traced itself through the streets.
It finally stopped on one location that blinked as a red
box.  The box swelled into a three-dimensional cube that
rotated on the screen.

"Was an old apartment building," Pamela said.  "Records
show it was condemned and demolished two years ago."

Wade folded her arms and glared at the screen.  "But I'll bet
it wasn't.  Another one of Masquerade's little tricks.  Can you
check the U.S. postal service and delivery companies and see
if they made any deliveries to this place?"

Pamela nodded and typed quickly.  After a moment, the
box "Restricted Access" flashed on the screen.  Pamela
typed some more and the box was replaced by the words
"Access Granted."  Then text scrolled by, along with the
logo of the U.S. Post Office.

"Good thinking," Pamela murmured.  "There have been
four hundred deliveries to this location in the last two
years...the first a month after the building was supposed
to have been demolished."

Pamela nodded as her eyes roamed the screen.  "Most
of these orders are computer hardware and software.  This
is definitely Masquerade's work.  He's been building a
supercomputer."

"How'd he pay for it all?" Rembrandt asked.

Wade shook her head.  "He's a hacker, Remmy.  He didn't have
to pay for it.  Probably forged credit accounts and stole
everything he wanted."

Pamela highlighted some entries on the list with her mouse's
pointer.  "But...some of these don't make sense.  Infrared
sensors, semiautomatic weapons, liquid nitrogen, sheets of
titanium, sirens..."

Maggie sat down on the bed behind Pamela to look at
the computer's screens.  "It makes sense.  If you're building
a security system to protect that fancy supercomputer.
And yourself.  This is serious hardware.  If I'm reading this
right, he must have that place set up to make Fort Knox look
like a piggy bank."

"Guess he didn't wanna take any chances," Rembrandt said.

Quinn looked from Wade to Maggie and back again.  "So
what's it mean?"

Rembrandt sighed as he said, "It means we ain't getting the
professor or that virus back so easy."

"Can't we just call the police and let them handle it?"

Wade dropped onto the bed, causing it to bounce slightly.
"We've seen how Masquerade handles the fire department, the
police, and the FBI.  He must have every government agency in
the country wrapped around his little finger with those
computers of his."

Maggie crossed her arms over her lap.  "Not to mention the
fact that right now we have the advantage of surprise.  If
we tell anyone we know where Masquerade is, and he
finds out about it...there's no telling what he could do."

Quinn ran his fingers through his unkempt brown hair.  "So
it's up to us."

"Exactly."  Maggie sprang off the bed onto her feet and
began to pace again.  "Okay, we need to figure out the goals of
our mission."

"We have to save the professor," Wade said.

Maggie looked down at her as she walked past.  "That's right.
But we also have to accept the fact that Arturo...might be
dead by now."

Wade followed Maggie with her eyes.  "You can accept that,
but I can't."

"I know."  Maggie looked away from Wade to glare at the
computers by Pamela's bed.  "That maniac also has the
virus.  This whole world is at stake.  He might already have
deployed it by now."

Pamela crossed her legs under herself as she shook her
head.  "No.  I don't think so.  I decrypted the virus so quickly
because I wrote the government software that encrypted it
in the first place.  Even with the most advanced equipment
like he has, I'd say it would take Masquerade at least two
hours."

Rembrandt leaned against the back of a chair.  "Two hours.
It's been a half-hour already.  We ain't got much time."

Maggie stopped pacing.  "You're right, Brown.  We'll need
to work fast.  Okay, we'll need some equipment.  Pamela, see
if you can find us a hardware store or something nearby on
that thing, will you?  Brown, take this down.  We'll need about
thirty feet of rope, some copper wiring and alligator clips..."

Quinn raised his hands as he approached her.  "Hey, hey,
hey, wait a minute.  Since when are you giving the orders
around here?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mallory."  Maggie tilted her head to one
side as she turned to look at him.  "I forgot you're the
boss in this outfit.  What's the matter?  I step on your toes?"

"Nobody's the boss here.  We're a team.  And you didn't
'step on my toes.'  I just don't think you should be
bossing us around like you're in charge."

Maggie chopped the air with her hand.  "Look, we don't
have time for this, okay?  I was an intelligence officer.  It was
my job to infiltrate high-security installations like what
Masquerade has set up.  And if I miss my guess, he
has some pretty lethal systems in that place, not something
an amateur should fool around with.  So if anybody's
gonna go in there and rescue the Professor and get that
virus, it'll have to be me.  Correct?"

Quinn glanced over his shoulder at Rembrandt and Wade
standing behind him.  They looked back at him with blank
expressions.  Quinn tightened his jaw as he looked back at
Maggie, stared at her for a moment, then growled, "Yeah."

"And if it's my butt on the line out there, I need total
cooperation to pull this off.  So I call the shots.  Correct?"

Quinn glanced at Pamela, who had him fixed in a blank
stare.  Then he said, "Yeah."

Maggie smiled.  "Good.  Then, as I was saying, I'll need
thirty feet of rope, some copper wiring..."

-----

 Maggie rolled through the bare and desolate streets on
Rembrandt's bicycle.  She was a moving shadow dressed
in black pants, shirt, and gloves, wearing a black ski mask
pulled over her blond hair.  Her riding was thrown slightly
off-balance by the large and heavy knapsack slung over one
shoulder.

She braked to a halt and glared at the battered apartment
building ahead of her.  A sedan was parked in front, the
same sedan that had kidnapped Arturo.

Maggie reached up and brushed the edge of the ski mask
away from her ear.  Then she whispered into the cuff of
her sleeve.  "Okay, I'm at the address.  I see the building.
You were right, Wells, it wasn't demolished, after all."

A small earpiece lodged in Maggie's ear whispered back
in Wade's voice, "I knew it."

-----

Wade and Pamela were sitting side-by-side on the bed,
each facing one of Pamela's computers.  Both of them
typed quickly as they watched jerky video clips on their
monitors of Maggie's point of view.  Standing behind
them, Quinn and Rembrandt watched nervously.

Wade touched the headset around her ears that connected
to a microphone in front of her mouth.  "Okay, Beckett,
you should be at the junction.  It's got to be under the
pavement around there somewhere."

-----

Maggie nodded and slung the knapsack off her shoulder.
"Got it."

She glanced around, then dug through the pack until
she found a crowbar.  Maggie climbed off the bike,
braced her feet, and jammed the end of the crowbar into
a crack in the sidewalk.  Prying up a square of concrete
exposed a network of wiring and cables.

"Now what?" Maggie whispered.

Pamela's voice filled her ear.  "A large grey cable with
the serial number GHS-2345.  That's what we want."

Maggie knelt by the open pavement as she drew out
a length of wires from the knapsack.  The wires ended in
alligator clips that Maggie took in each hand.  After
studying the cables running through the hole in the concrete,
she clipped the wires onto one of them.

Maggie stepped away from it.  "Done."

-----

Wade's screen blinked with the words "Interface
Successful."  Then text and colors flowed by.  She
smiled and began to type as she said, "We're in."

Pamela nodded.  "I'm bypassing the first security system
now.  You're on the second."

"Gotcha."

Rembrandt watched them work.  "What's goin' on?"

Wade smiled, but kept her eyes on the screen.  "It's time we
turned the tables on this guy.  Maggie made a direct connection
to the line Masquerade is using for his computer.  He hacks
other computers, now we're hacking his computer."

"First system down," Pamela snapped.

Wade nodded.  "Second system down.  Coming to the third
security block.  It's password-protected.  Eighteen-digit code.
I'm skipping it, gonna see if I can go around it.  Must be an
Easter egg in here somewhere."

"On the fourth system, encryption.  Running a decrypter.
Better get ready.  There must be a warning system
in here somewhere."

Wade typed furiously.  "I hope not.  But if Masquerade
does show up, maybe the two of us together can beat him."

"Maybe," Pamela whispered.

Wade froze as her screen lit up with pleasant colors and
text.  "That's it.  We're in."

Pamela nodded, still typing on her keyboard.  "Pull
up a schematic of the security system.  I'll see if I can
stop Masquerade from finishing the decryption."

"Come on," Quinn whispered.

Wade watched a three-dimensional wireframe model of
the apartment building appear on her screen.  Red dots
blinked on key points on the building.  Labels appeared on
them marked "cameras" and "sensors."  She blinked,
then whispered, "Whoa."

-----

Maggie watched the building from across the street,
touching her earpiece with a finger.  "Come on, guys,
what've you got?"

Wade's voice crackled softly.  "Well, we've got iron
bars on all the windows, all the way up to the fourth floor.
The walls have all been reinforced with sheets of solid
titanium.  The only door is reinforced with a second door
made of three inches of steel.  And the entire building is
surrounded by a network of infrared and motion sensors.  But
that's not the best part.  All over the building, Masquerade
has machine guns set up to target and fire on any
intruder they detect, inside or outside."

"Terrific."  Maggie rested her hands on her hips as she
glared at the apartment building.  Her eyes drifted over
to the building next to it, separated by an empty lot
choked with weeds.  She blinked.  "Hey...what about
the roof?  Any defense there?"

After a moment, Wade said, "Well, according to this,
there's nothing on the roof except a camera and a locked
skylight.  But the nearest buildings are too far away to
reach it."

"Don't bet on that.  That's how I'm getting in.  Can
you guys do something about the camera, guns, and
motion sensors?"

"We'll try."

"Good.  Go for it."  Maggie picked up her knapsack
and sprinted across the street to one of the buildings
looming alongside Masquerade's.

-----

Wade glanced over to her side.  "How's it coming, Pam?"

Pamela frowned at a screen which showed a dizzying
stream of letters and numbers pouring by.  "Farther along the
decryption than I expected.  Managed to put a bug or two
into his program to slow him down, but he'll be done
in fifteen minutes."

"Then we have to work fast.  This whole security
system is run by his computers.  We have to shut it
down for Maggie without drawing Masquerade's
attention.  We'll have to work together, two against one."

Pamela hunched over her keyboard.  "I'll handle the roof
camera.  You handle the motion sensors that would be
triggered by your friend."

Wade smirked.  "Oh, great.  Give me the hard job."

-----

The trapdoor on the roof swung open with a bang.
Maggie climbed up through it, squinting against the
blowing wind and afternoon sun.  She looked across
to Masquerade's building in the distance.

As she pulled herself up, Maggie asked, "How's it going?"

"We're working on the camera.  Pam's going to set it
on a continuous loop so Masquerade won't see you.
Once I get the motion sensors down, it should be
clear sailing for you."

Maggie hurried across the roof and slung her
knapsack off her shoulder.  She drew out of it a length
of heavy rope that ended in grappling hooks.  Standing
at the roof's edge, Maggie swung the hook through the
air in a wide circle, then let it go.  The hook whistled
across the vast divide between the two buildings,
then landed onto the opposite roof.  Maggie pulled on
the rope until the hook dug itself in.

Maggie hooked the other end of the rope onto the
open trapdoor in her roof.  Then she pulled a pulley
device out of the knapsack.  Maggie jogged back to
the edge of the roof and looked down at the four-story
drop that awaited her.

"Okay," she said, "I'm going for it."

She hung the pulley onto the rope stretching across.
It had two handles that Maggie took hold of.  Leaning over the
edge, she took a deep breath, then pushed off.

Maggie rolled down the rope towards Masquerade's
rooftop, legs dangling below her.  The ground swept below her
as the apartment building hurtled closer.  As she did, a siren
began to wail.

 "What's going on?" Maggie yelled.

-----

In Pamela's bedroom, her computer were flashing red
backgrounds and beeping sirens.  Wade and Pamela typed
at a frenzied pace, closing down windows that popped up
on the screen.

"It's Masquerade," Wade said into her microphone.  "We're
busted."

-----

Arturo sat in a wobbly chair with ropes wound around
his chest, along his arms to pin them behind his back,
and down to his ankles.  He glared at the back of the
armchair where Masquerade was sitting.  On three of the
monitors, animated chessboards were at work.  Pieces
slid across the board in a smooth ballet.

"Three games at once?" Arturo asked.

Masquerade's voice came out of the chair.  "Yup.  I'm in
a tournament with the top three players in the world.  None
of them know I'm Masquerade, of course.  And I find
playing only one game at a time boring."

Arturo raised his head slightly.  "I say, exactly what is the
point of all this?  Why don't you just send out your little
virus, kill me, and let us both get on with our lives?"

"I have to decrypt the virus first.  That's number one.
Number two, I want someone to be here to watch my
triumph.  You're going to have a front-row seat to the
destruction of the technological empire.  You should be
proud."

"Trust me, I'm in ecstasy," Arturo snarled.  "And afterwards,
you will release me?"

"Maybe.  I haven't decided yet."  The pieces on the
chessboards moved in one sweeping gesture, then all four
boards began giving off a trilling music.  "Checkmate.  Um,
I mean, checkmates."

The wall of monitors suddenly flooded with a harsh red
light.  Then, one by one, they began to flash a message
that a feminine voice read aloud.  "Intruder Alert.
Intruder Alert.  Unauthorized User."

"What?"  The armchair shifted and tiny hands appeared
at the sides to type on the massive bank of keyboards.
"Who would hack into my computer?  What's this...
an anomaly in the security logs.  Someone's running
a continuous loop on the roof camera."

The clicking of keys followed.  Then one of the screens
lit up with a shot of the roof.  The camera turned to
show Maggie sliding down a rope towards it.

"Well, well, well, the cavalry arrives.  But just one
person?  That's a let-down.  I thought the moment when
someone finally tracked me down and tried to get
through my defenses would be more exciting.  Oh, well,
I'll take what I can get."  Masquerade began to type,
humming to himself.

-----

The pulley hissed as Maggie rushed down it.  She was
squinting against the air hitting her face at such a high speed.
But she was able to see as rows of small doors opened up
on the side of the building.  And the barrels of machine guns
came out.

"Guys," Maggie yelled.

-----

Wade and Pamela were huddled over their keyboards, typing
as quickly as their hands could move.  On the screens in
front of them, windows containing the words "Access Denied"
exploded, then shrank, only to be replaced by more.

"We're trying," Wade said, "but Masquerade's locking us
out of every system manually.  The gun control, motion
sensors, targeting..."

-----

Maggie tightened her grip on the pulley as she said, "Okay,
I'll handle it myself."

She let go.

The guns burst into fire.  A storm of bullets flashed through
the air, punching holes in the apartment building behind
her.  Maggie herself was carried through the air by the
momentum of her slide to the building in front of her.

Maggie slammed into the wall, the air forced out of her
lungs on impact.  But she acted quickly to grab hold of
the brickwork and hang on.  The guns blazed around her
for a few more seconds, then fell silent.  They began to
turn towards her.  But came to a halt.  Their motors
whined as the guns struggled to reach her, but they weren't
designed to fire so close to the building where she was..

Maggie took a few deep breaths, then looked up.  An
open window was a few feet above her.  Maggie grit
her teeth and began to climb.

-----

"Back in," Pamela yelled.

Wade glanced at her.  "Great.  Now that we're in, what
do we do?"

"Have to stop those guns.  Even if your friend manages
to get inside the building, they'll cut her to ribbons if
we don't."

Wade typed as she yelled, "Shut down weapons systems.
All of them!"

Pamela shook her head.  "Can't.  Masquerade is locking
me out manually.  We're losing it."

Wade glared at the menus on her screen that took the
form of yellow boxes.  One by one, the boxes turned red
and flashed "Access Denied."  There was only one box
left that read "Target Identification."

A grin spread across Wade's face.  "I got an idea."

Wade typed again, bringing up a new screen that showed
a glowing outline of Maggie.  Wade clicked on an arrow
several times.  Another outline of Maggie appeared next
to the first, then another and another.

Wade touched the microphone held in front of her mouth.
"Okay, Beckett, we can't shut down the guns.  But we're
sending them multiple signals to confuse them.  That's
the best we can do."

-----

"It'll do," Maggie grunted.

She reached the windowsill and tore away the plastic sheet
covering the window.  Then she grabbed hold of the
windowsill desperately with one hand.  She pulled herself up.

Maggie was on the third floor.  The rotted planks of the
floor gaped in front of her.  And several machine guns
mounted in the corners of the room squealed and turned
towards her.

Maggie's eyes widened.

Then there was a chirp.  The guns wheeled around towards
the center of the room.  Then one of them turned towards
its partner and fired.  The targeted gun and the wall around
it shattered into pieces.  Then the other guns began to fire,
spinning wildly.

Maggie grinned and hauled herself through the window.
She ducked as one of the guns swept its chain of fire
towards her, then dove for a hole in the floor.  Maggie
swung down through the hole onto the second floor.

-----

Masquerade's frown deepened as he watched his screens.  One
of them showed a model of the building's interior.  Human figures
danced and ran all over it.

"This can't be right," Masquerade said.  "I'm detecting hundreds
of people up there, but I only hear one.  Someone must have
duped the signal.  Now I'm getting mad."

Masquerade typed quickly.  "Your friends won't win, Arturo.
I'm switching to heat-sensors."

Arturo smiled.  "My friends are more resourceful than you
might think."

"Maybe.  But I have insurance."  Masquerade turned his chair
so Arturo could watch him drag out an Uzi from a holster
under his desk.  "If worse comes to worse, I'll do the job
myself."

-----

Maggie let go and dropped onto the second floor.  The guns
were firing and whirling all around her.  The hole leading down
to the first floor was across the room.

"He's switching to heat-sensors," Wade said into her ear.
"We can't stop him or confuse the signal!  You're on your
own!"

Maggie did a series of flips that carried her across the
building.  The guns struggled to keep pace with her,
rushing around in their metal sockets.  Bullets whizzed around
her.  She finally ducked and did a slide that took her to the
edge of the hole.
 
She yanked off her ski mask and looked down the hole
into the room below.  A network of cables spread across
the floor like the threading of a spider web.

-----

Masquerade glared up at the hole in the ceiling in front of
him.  "So that's how they want to play."

Arturo began to breathe quicker, then called out, "Look
out..."

Masquerade swung his gun around to aim at him.  The Uzi
seemed too big for the boy to even hold up straight.  But
it was aimed unflinchingly at Arturo's head.  "Shut up.
Or I'll do you first.  Then I'll erase the medical records in a
few hospitals for good measure."

Arturo swallowed, looking slightly pale.
Masquerade whirled and aimed the gun at the hole again.
Above them, the mass of gun had fallen silent.  The only
sound was the low hum of the computer's fan.

Then something fell from the hole.  Masquerade opened
fire.  Bullets punched into the ski mask, knocking it off-
course until it finally fluttered to the ground.

The ceiling above Masquerade crashed down.  He threw
up his arms against the rain of plaster and wood splinters
that rained down on him.  The Uzi flew out of his
hands.  It clattered onto the floor.

Maggie landed behind his chair.  She spun it around
and brought up one hand which held one of the machine
guns from the rooms above, torn from its base.  She aimed
it into the chair.  For a moment, she was frozen as she
looked down at the small boy.  Then she glanced away at
Arturo.  Her gun remained on the child.

"Max?" she asked.  "Where's Masquerade?"

Arturo jerked his chin forward.  "My dear
captain, the elusive super-hacker we seek is right before
you.  That is Masquerade."

Maggie looked down at the boy again.  The child
glared up at her and idly brushed off his dusty collar.
"This little pip-squeak?"

"I'm ten times smarter than you are," Masquerade
snarled.

Maggie lowered her gun slightly.  "I don't believe
this.  I've been jumping all over this place, risking my neck,
over this little thing."

"Do not underestimate him, Miss Beckett.  He is
ingenious and ruthless.  I've seen it with my own eyes.
This place is more than enough to support his
malicious intentions."

"Then I'll put a stop to that."  Maggie swung around
and aimed her gun at the wall of monitors.

Masquerade jumped to his feet in the chair, his eyes
popping open wide.  "No!"

Maggie fired.  The monitors exploded one by one in a
shower of sparks that pattered onto the floor.  She
swung her rattling gun around to punch holes into the
towers, piles of disks, scanners, speakers, and other
assorted hardware scattered around the room.  It all
went up in a blaze of flames and lightning.  When
she finally released the trigger, there was nothing left
but smoldering piles of twisted metal.

Masquerade stared at it all with his mouth hanging
open.  He blinked.  Then whispered, "What...have
you done..."

Maggie glared down at him.  "Pulled the plug.  And I'm
sure by now the police have been called and are on
their way here to handle you."

Wade's voice crackled in her ear.  "You bet they are."

Maggie strode over to Arturo and began untying the
knots.  "Although, as far as I'm concerned, what this
kid needs is a good spanking."

Arturo watched the ropes loosen around him until
he could stand up.  He massaged his wrists as he
shot a look at the boy.  Masquerade's attention was still
locked on the piles of battered equipment.

"No," Arturo sighed.  "What this boy needs is a life."

-----

EPILOGUE

Arturo and Wade leaned against the statue of Abraham
Lincoln in the park.  They watched as Quinn and Maggie
walked along the bank of the nearby lake.

"Well," Arturo said, "with that Masquerade business
sorted out, this has been a somewhat calmer week."

Wade looked up at a bird sailing overhead.  "Yup.  I
think I'm gonna kinda miss this world.  It was so
convenient."

Arturo reached into his pocket and drew out the
Lamplighter.Com matchbook he had taken.  "Well, I for
one shall not.  After that little bout of Internet addiction,
I'm more determined than ever to stay away from
those infernal contraptions.  There is such a thing as
too much access to information."

"Well, the way I see it, computers are tools.  They're
not bad or good.  Just how you use 'em."

Arturo turned the matchbook over and over in his fingers.
"Perhaps.  But I hope the next world is more sensible.
I say, what are those two talking about?"

Wade shrugged.  "I dunno.  But I know what they're
_not_ talking about."

Arturo frowned at her.  "What's that?"

Wade smiled and watched the bird settling in a nearby
tree.  It was moving towards another bird sitting in a nest.
"Oh, nothing."

-----

Quinn sat on his heels, watching a swan floating across the
water.  Behind him, Maggie was sitting on a bench.  She
sighed.

"Okay," she said, "so are we gonna talk about this now
or not?"

Quinn looked over his shoulder at her.  "What?"

Maggie leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees.  She
smiled at Quinn.  "You've been giving me the silent treatment
since we freed Arturo and got back the virus days ago."

"You mean since _you_ freed Arturo and got back the virus,"
Quinn murmured.

A smile spread across Maggie's face.  "That's what I
thought.  I stole your thunder, didn't I, Mallory?"

Quinn looked back at the swan again.  The bird fluttered
its wings, then paddled farther away, leaving ripples in its
wake.  "It's not like that.  I just didn't appreciate you
taking over the group like that.  We're a team.  Always
have been, always will be."

"Right.  Everybody's equal.  But like Orwell said, some
people are more equal than others."

Quinn watched the ripples as he said, "I don't get your
point."

Maggie leaned back against the bench.  "Let's face it,
Mallory.  You're a scientist.  I'm a soldier.  When it's
time to mess with the wormhole or pull a McGyver,
you're in charge.  But when it comes time to kick some
butt, I'm in charge.  And since we seem to spend an awful
lot of time kicking butt on our slides..."

Quinn pivoted on his heel to look up at Maggie grinning
down at him.  "So you wanna take over, is that it?"

Maggie shrugged.  "The way I see it, every good team has to
have a command structure.  And I'm the best qualified to be
at the top."

"I think Wade's gonna have a problem with that."

Maggie's smile broadened.  "I'll deal with that when
it comes.  You guys have to face facts.  I'm not the
same gal I used to be.  And there are gonna be some
changes."

Quinn glared at her.  "Maybe.  Then again...maybe
not."

Wade's voice carried over to them.  "Here they
come!"

Quinn rose to his feet to watch as Rembrandt approached
the statue.  Walking close by his side, almost touching
him, was a young girl huddled in black clothes.  It was
Pamela, looking around herself wildly through the lenses
of large sunglasses.

Wade smiled.  "I'm really glad you came."

Pamela looked up at her with her head lowered.
"Rembrandt made me."

Rembrandt put his arm around her shoulder and gave
her a little squeeze.  "I can't make you do anything,
girl.  I just gave you a little nudge in the right direction."

Pamela folded her arms over her chest tightly.  "I just
want you all to know that Rembrandt's told me about
your whole sliding thing, and I think you're all crazy."

Quinn shoved his hands into his pockets as he smiled
down at her.  "But you still came to watch us slide."

Pamela looked over the top of her sunglasses at him.
"I came to watch what you think you're sliding.  I
figure it'll be good for a laugh."

Rembrandt took hold of Pamela's shoulders and faced
her squarely.  His eyes met hers intensely.  "Look...I
know I can't make you get out into the world and
stop living through your computer.  I can't make the
pain you've been through disappear.  Although I wish I
could.  But what I can do is show you somethin' you
ain't ever gonna see on a computer screen.  And somethin'
you'd have missed if you hadn't left it."

Rembrandt looked at Quinn and nodded.  Quinn drew
the timing device out of his pocket and looked at the
display, which counted down from five to four to three
to two...

Quinn aimed the timer at the edge of the lake.  He
pushed the button.  It spat a beam of light out to strike
the air.  The water of the lake ripped in time with the
empty space that rippled until it finally buckled into a
circular blue hole.

Pamela's mouth fell open as she watched the hole
hovering above the lake, light pouring into its interior.

Maggie walked towards the wormhole and gave
Pamela a little wave.  "Nice meeting you, kid.  Hope
the whole get-a-life thing works out for ya."
Then she jogged forward a few steps and jumped into
the vortex.  She disappeared in a flash of light.

Arturo ran forward and followed her into the light,
along with Wade, and Quinn.  Only Rembrandt was left
behind to face Pamela.  He stood there for a moment, his
clothes flapping in the wind of the wormhole.

"Don't give up, Pam," Rembrandt yelled over the howling
wind.  "That's all I ask.  Just don't give up."

Then he turned and dove into the vortex.  It closed behind
him with a rushing noise that abruptly became silence.

Pamela stood there for a moment, staring at the lake where
the wormhole had formed.  Then she looked down at the
swan paddling gracefully across the waters.  For a moment,
she was frozen, watching it, then she took slow steps
towards the park bench.

Pamela reached down and touched the solid wood of the
bench.  Then she sank slowly down onto it.  When she
was seated, Pamela took a deep breath.  Her eyes closed.
She smiled.

When she opened them, her large eyes turned towards
the horizon and the sun that was setting over the trees.
 

THE END