Data Error.

She felt herself falling to the floor, howling in psychosomatic agony, Armscor dropping from deadened fingers. Vision lost in the blinding sparkle of vivid memories flashing by, people, buildings, schoolgames, countryside, mathematical formulae, lists of words.

Memory Node One Index Error.

Her mind was contracting, conscious thoughts slowing as they passed through the processor nodes. The presence was everywhere, tainting the entire contents of her cerebrum and memory nodes, eviscerating her own personality and replacing it with its own implacable insentient logic.

She began to claw wildly at her head.

Memory Node Two Interface Error.

The virus, it was in her nodes, Trojaned into her through OtherEyes. She should've realised instantly. Her intellect was crumbling, the supporting experience-based reasoning mentality denuded of references, blocking her ability to think. Only a vestigial essence of bloody-minded stubbornness remained, that fundamental aspect of human ego which the virus was unable to subsume.

Memory Node Three Interface Error.

Fight back, Julia pleaded with herself. Stop it spreading.

Processor Node Two Format Loss.

Disengage Memory Node One, she ordered. The command was terribly slow to formulate.

Her subconscious rose ominously to fill the vacuous gulf left in the virus's wake. Wounded pictures of a world peopled by caricatures of those who walked through her natural universe. It was the alternate she lived in fear of, nightmares fully expressed. Black idolatry, so hard and bright her remaining rationality nearly disintegrated under its impact.

Disengage Memory Node Two.

Floating without weight, seeing herself and Kendric coupling like frenzied rampant beasts. Loving it, hating it. Grandpa watching them, frail, poised ready to die, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Disengage Memory Node Three.

Primate Marcus offering her benediction inside a suffocating bubble of rock. Herself supplicant, putting Event Horizon on the burnished silver collection platter for him. Dropping it, seeing it shatter into splinters of pure data, profit and loss. All-important. Grandpa shook his head in dismay and died.

Shut Down Processor Nodes One and Two.

The exorcism. Julia felt the virus withdraw, retreating into the nodes. Then the synaptic interfaces sealed, cutting her free, trapping it in isolation.

There was no physical pain, only loss, all that wondrous knowledge she'd taken for granted had been snatched beyond reach. Her own thoughts and memories, once so ordered, now a tangled seething wreckage.

A sound in her gullet. Struggling to place it. Ah yes. Weeping.

Julia rolled on to her back, drawing breath in shallow gasps. Her dress was cold and damp from sweat.

Vacant watery eyes set in the centre of a golden cloud of hair blinked at her. "Julie?"

Julia rummaged round for the name. So difficult, surely human brains weren't this inefficient. "Hi, Kats," she said weakly.

"I want to go for a pee."

Laughter and tears got dreadfully muddled in her throat.

"It's not funny," Katerina said in a wounded tone. "I'm bursting."

"Sure thing, Kats. Sorry." Julia was rather surprised to find her limbs doing what she told them. She managed to clamber to her feet, using the bed for support. The Armscor was lying on the carpet. The sight of it jolted her slowly coalescing thoughts. The klaxon was silent now. She was sure she'd heard it going off. Tried to consult her event timer without thinking, a null request. But it could only have been seconds ago.

Somebody had penetrated Wilholm's defensive cordon. A two-pronged attack, then. Her and Grandpa, and they'd nearly got very lucky.

The door handle rattled. "Julia? Julia, you in there?"

Kendric. Kendric will come for you.

"Morgan?" she called.

"It's Steven; open up, Julia." There was a thump followed by a muffled curse.

"Get Morgan," she told him. Trust Walshaw, Juliet. Trust him.

"Julia, open up." A louder thump, a shoulder hitting the door. She could see it quiver in the frame.

"Morgan, get Morgan here."

A third blow. She heard the sound of wood splitting.

"Morgan!" Julia grabbed hold of Kats and yanked her off the bed in one almighty burst of strength. Kats squealed and floundered about in the duvet.

"Stay down," Julia commanded.

She crouched next to Kats, bringing the Armscor up in a smooth arc, thumb flicking off the safety catch. Immensely glad she'd taken the time to learn the weapon.

The door crashed open, frame splintering.

"Morgan!" she screamed.

Pink-white light from the corridor shone into the dimly lit bedroom. A lone figure was silhouetted in the open doorway, Uzi hand laser held ready, stumbling forwards. Definitely male.

Kendric.

The maw of the Uzi swung down towards them, a malignant smile behind it.

Julia jerked her forefinger back on the trigger, holding it down. Bullet-sized pulses of intense blue lightning streamed out of the Armscor, so close together they were almost a continuous flare. They hit the wall around the door, splashing open with a loud crack. Wallpaper ignited in tight balls of garish orange flame. The bedroom was alive with strobing light, huge distorted shadows leapt up across the walls and ceiling.

"Shit!" yelled the silhouette. He was diving to one side, not quite making it.

One of the Armscor's pulses caught his leg as he was still going down. Beautiful. There was an agonised grunt, swiftly choked off. His whole body convulsed, hit by an invisible fist, buffeting him back into the corridor.

Got you, you bastard!

A bright ruby laser beam stabbed out from somewhere down the corridor, striking him on the side of his neck. His body jerked again, keeling over. The laser fired a second time. Blue-white flame flared out of his chest.

Julia sent another barrage of blazing pulses out through the flame-wreathed door. Her retinas were scarred with long purple after-images.

"Julia, for Christ's sake!"

Julia could barely hear the voice above Kats' soprano wailing, but somewhere in her whirling mind the sound connected, that same voice was lodged in tenuous memories. She let go of the trigger, peering along the barrel, bewildered.

"Rachel?"

"Yes, for Christ's sake! Now, will you put the fucking gun down. Please!"

"Where's Morgan!" she cried.

"He's coming, Julia. I promise."

"I…" Julia stared at the Armscor as her wrists drooped, letting it fall on to the bed. And all she could do after that was watch, because anything else was just too much. Her fate was all down to Rachel now. Could everybody in the world be against her?

Rachel appeared in the doorway, her face furious as she stood over the prone smouldering body, Uzi hand-laser held in a professional double-handed grip, pointing straight down. She pumped two more slices of red energy into his head.

Their eyes met. It seemed as though time was stretching out. Then Rachel gave a little sigh of relief. "It's all over now."

After that, events became kind of remote, out of focus. All the biolums were activated as the bedroom filled with people. Excited babbling shouts echoed around her. Someone used a fire extinguisher on the burning wall, filling the air with chemicals and soot. Three people held on to poor old Kats, who was having blue-fit hysterics. Morgan Walshaw arrived at a dead run, face ashen.

Julia put out her arms to the security chief, as she used to do for her mother years past remembering; too weak to rise from the bed. He sat beside her as Dr. Taylor discharged an infuser tube into Kats' neck, his own arms going round her, squeezing tight, rocking her gently. Cheeks pressed together, his stubble. He held her for a long time, until everything in her mind quietened down, and the world didn't hurt any more.