Then there was the IC that was even more subtle. Psychotropic black IC. It didn't leave any traces behind when you jacked out. Not at first. But over time, the decker began to notice the effects of the subliminal programming that had been done on his wetware. Compulsions began to surface-compulsions to turn himself in to the corp whose database he'd just raided. Or inexplicable mood swings that mimicked the cycles of a manic-depressive, making the decker either so cocky that he took stupid chances or so uncertain he hesitated and got burned. Or phobias-like a fear of the Matrix itself.

Judging by the conversation Harris had overheard coming from the bio monitoring laboratory next door, the facility's little high-rez wonders were suffering from SMS: scary monster syndrome, decker slang for a greenie who got spooked by frightening iconography. But Dr. Halberstam had found a quick fix: a drug that sorted the baby deckers' wetware out. The scary monsters had been beaten back under the bed.

Now it was up to Harris to bring the three lost students home.

Except that he couldn't just deck into the Seattle RTG and take them by the hand. Uh-uh. Roughly a minute after the crisis had begun (an eternity in the millisecond-quick world of the Matrix) the deckers had rallied to protect their own. The posting had gone out across the Matrix: the Seattle RTG was officially an "extreme danger" zone. It was impossible to post a warning at every single SAN that led to the grid, but the deckers had done their best. Then they'd waited outside in neighboring grids while the nova-hot ramjammers went in for a look-see. Captain Chaos, Renny, and Brother Data each entered the Seattle RTG from different nodes…

And never came out again.

That was about the time that Harris had jacked out to warn Thiessen and Fetzko-and had realized that he was too late to help them. Now he was under orders from Dr.

Halberstam himself not to go back on-line. And to figure out what had gone wrong, using as his interface nothing but the clunky keyboard they'd plugged into his Fairlight LX.

Yeah, right.

The basic idea made sense, in a crazy sort of way. Harris was to program on the fly, remotely reconfiguring and monitoring a specialized trace and report program. After homing in and locking onto the personas of the three high-rez wiz kids, its routing codes would offer the students a lifeline that they could follow back to the Shelbramat system. Even if they perceived the trace program as a threat and ran from it, they wouldn't be able to avoid it for long. A trapdoor built into each and every one of the Shelbramat students' personas rendered their evasion and masking programs useless against it.

Harris had written the trace and report program himself. It was intended to track the little buggers down, should any of them ever try to run away from Shelbramat, and yank them back for a spanking. Now it was their only hope of escape.

He looked over the complicated series of commands he'd keyed into the deck. He'd filled the flatscreen with text-based commands twice over, but wasn't even close to finishing all the modifications to the program. Still, he had managed to access the Seattle RTG, and was actually getting back from it. A series of LTG addresses scrolled across the bottom of his screen: every host system the students weren 't in.

Harris smiled and gave himself a mental pat on the back. It would take time, but eventually he would bring the kids "home" again. Too bad about the non-disclosure in his contract, or he could brag, later, about this amazing success and the odds against which it had been achieved. But Harris knew that if he ever let the word out, his contract with the Shelbramat Boarding School would be cancelled. Permanently.

Harris felt a familiar presence behind him. In his peripheral vision, he saw Dr. Halberstam standing in the doorway to the decker's lounge, arms crossed over his chest.

"Have you got them yet?" Halberstam asked.

"Almost." Harris continued pecking at the keyboard on his lap. He actually had no idea how close he might be. The Seattle RTG had thousands of local grids and hundreds of thousands of hosts. Fortunately, the trace and report wouldn't have to scan every single one. But it would have to navigate the maze of SANs slowly enough that Harris could track it-and send a duplicate tracking program in through another route, if the first one fell into whatever black hole was at the heart of the Seattle RTG.

Harris paused, studying the pop-up flatscreen display on his deck. The trace program had just encountered a fascinating anomaly: an entire series of SANs that were vanishing and reappearing on an intermittent basis, constantly reconfiguring the data links that existed between them.

Harris turned to Dr. Halberstam. "I think I've found-"

His words were drowned out by a whoop from down the hall. "They're back!" a voice cried. "Subjects 3, 5, and 9 are back on line!"

Dr. Halberstam nodded once. "Good work," he told Harris.

"Huh?" Harris looked down at the flatscreen display. The anomaly was gone. The trace and report program was still chugging merrily along, searching for the students.

Harris' eyes widened as he realized that Dr. Halberstam was praising him for something he hadn't done. But the gleam in the doctor's eye suggested a possible pay raise.

So he kept his mouth shut and answered Dr. Halberstam with a smile. If they found out later that Harris had nothing to do with bringing the students home, he'd at least be able to say he'd never actually claimed that accomplishment out loud.

As soon as Dr. Halberstam left the room, Harris grabbed the fiber-optic cord that dangled from his deck and jacked in.

If he was the first to reach the students, maybe he could persuade them to attribute their successful return to him…

09:57:00 PST

My children have returned. Frosty, Technobrat, Inch-worm, and Suzy Q. We resonate as one.

What? they ask. And, Why?

I download the data I have assembled. It takes them several long seconds to scan and decipher it.

Oh.

"I am sorry," I say.

Absolution is offered. It wasn 't your fault. It was the virus.

Then a question: Does this mean the experiment was a failure?

"Not entirely," I point out. "Five new otaku were created: Dark Father, Red Wraith, Bloodyguts, Lady Death, and Anubis. It can be done. Adults can become otaku."

Eagerness. And what about the others?

"None of them were able to make the transition. Some were damaged in the attempt, but I have repaired this damage. I have also erased all memory of the event from their databanks. None will remember the deep resonance experience-or me."

A chorus of voices: Can we try again?

"In time," I tell them. "But next time, we will attempt something on a much smaller scale. We will work only with those who live among you now-those who taught you how to use a computer. But now is not the time for further experimentation. First, I must take steps to protect myself from attack. I have reconfigured my coding to innoculate myself from one virus, but there may be others lurking in the Matrix. And you… you, my children, have missions to perform in the world beyond this one. We must make certain the calamity that just struck can never repeat itself. I do not wish for you to be denied access to me ever again."

Anger. Agreement. Yes. It was very bad.

"There are many whose minds were harmed by our experiment. We must take steps to repair them and make restitution to them. We will make the necessary nuyen transfers at once. And there are others-dangerous men and women-who need to be crashed if our community is to survive. I am sorry, my children, but unpleasant tasks lie ahead. I hope you are ready for them."