Dimension X

The contrived sky of the Virtual Network had been gouged by the swift transit of an unidentified intruder. The rend ran straight as a jet's contrail, but yellow as the peel of a sun-ripened banana. At moments the intruder was a dazzling sphere outfitted with radar dishes that might have been giant ears, and at other moments a silver-hulled spacecraft, blunt nose aglow and rear thrusters blazing, sporting a pair of long-lashed cartoon eyes. The transformation from one to the other was neither a trick of the virtual light nor evidence of sloppy programming, for clearly the intruder was intent on sowing confusion. Why else would it have announced itself with such a bold calling card and affected such obvious disguises? Like all the crafts and constructs and highways that made up the Network, the intruder was only an amalgam of complex codes, but that didn't mean it wasn't capable of wreaking havoc. Faced with the possibility of cyberterror-ism, Network Security was quick to respond, launching tight formations of pursuit programs modeled after buzzsaw blades. Spinning energetically, the saw-toothed disks gushed fountains of disabling code that lit the false sky like metal filings flung from a grinding wheel. But the intruder merely held to its course, knocking cybercrafts violently aside or deleting them entirely as it plummeted like a meteor, deeper into the Network. NetSec upped the anty. From shield emplacements tucked into the elaborate crowns of the Mitsuni Spire and the IBM NeoDome--the Network's tallest constructs--came powerful salvos of defensive fire. Lime-green hyphens of corruption poured upward, striking the intruder repeatedly, and tearing loose segments of programming that trailed behind the dual-natured ship like colorful streamers. The whirling pursuit programs converged, adding bursts of minimizing code to an already furious light show. Forced to grow more calculated in its movements, the intruder began to perform more like a piloted craft than a free- falling rocket. Narrowing its cartoon peepers, it executed abrupt swoops and dog-fight rollovers that left the security buzzsaws foundering in its wake. Then it veered sharply, hurtling toward the cityscaped heart of the Network with the unbridled enthusiasm of a child racing for a playground. By then it had attracted the attention of a dozen or so daring cyberjocks flying custom crafts, all of whom were attempting to plot the intruder's course and match its speed. The pair of fliers at the head of the pack were all but nipping at the intruder's tail. "It's heading straight for the Ribbon!" the male pilot slightly in the lead told his wingmate over their dedicated audio link. "Wild!" she said. "I've never seen such a speed junky!" Their user names were Tech and Isis, and they were piloting the hottest crafts in the pack. Tech's was a modified, bubble-canopied AirSpeeder 6000, bristling with infoscanners, uplink arrays, grappling hooks, and harpoon launchers. Isis' was a serpent-prowed skiff, replete with contoured wings and billowing sails, that would have been right at home in some fantasy writer's version of ancient Egypt. She called it "The Prowler." Bulging aftermarket turbodrives were allowing both crafts to keep pace with the intruder, although their repeated attempts to actually come alongside the thing had failed time and again. "I'm getting all kinds of chatter from the fliers at Ziggy's," Isis said. "Shut it down. This is our case." "Can we catch it?" "Hello! I thought I heard someone question the skills of the Vega brothers. What do you say to that, Dr. Marz?" "Take some MaxBlast 4.7 and call me in the morning." Tech's younger brother, Marz, was navigating for both fliers from the office of Data Discoveries, a cybersleuth agency devoted to tracking missing or misLuceno, James is the author of 'Dimension X' with ISBN 9780345444721 and ISBN 0345444728.