The story so far...

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Who's there?
Whoever's looking down on me via this interface had better be
careful.  I'm the boss in here.  At least in this sector.  Well,
maybe in only one segment.  Yeah, OK; in reality I'm a prisoner.  A
prisoner in Broadspace.  Hey Groop!  Put your HMD straight and take
a good look!  What do you see?  A monster with tentacles?  A metal
vehicle?  I have absolutely no idea what my humble data looks like
on your display.  And don't get too close.  Leave the MeltSensor
alone.  Otherwise you'll end up in here as well.  Looks like a
prison cell, doesn't it?  Metal walls all round; you wouldn't
believe you were stuck inside a computer.  But sometimes everything
changes around here:  mist swirls over the virtual floor and stars
appear in the sky.  It's all just simulation.  Sometimes towers
shoot up out of the floor and transmit signals that I don't
understand.  And I run around the towers and try to throw myself off
the battlements.  But there's no point!  There's no such thing as
suicide in cyber space.
VICTOR MARAZZO! ACTIVATE THE EXIT CONSOLE AND GET OUT!
What? Who's there? Nobody's talked to me for three years!
VICTOR MARAZZO! ACTIVATE THE EXIT CONSOLE AND GET OUT!
Yes, OK! Since when has that been active?
FOR 12 SECONDS!
Oh, I see! I'll press the button. Wow! I'm going home!

When I came round, the world was full of flashing lights.  It only
took me a few seconds to work out where I was:  it was one of the
most modern wards in the Western hemisphere, the dreaded coma
clinic; it was made almost entirely of glass and steel.  But
strangely enough, it was unusually dark.  A freckled nurse pulled a
number of tubes out of the various apertures of my body; a really
bloody awful feeling.  Her dark-skinned colleague removed the
contacts from my body, rubbed my chest with a pretty potent cream
and gave me a friendly pat on my left cheek.
	"Hey comie! Back amongst the living?"
	"I don't really know. Why is it so dark?"
	"Emergency lighting, comie.  Would the gentleman perhaps like
	bright sunshine?"
	She grinned.  She looked stunning.  But she	should stop calling
	me comie.  I was after all conscious.  And why emergency
	lighting?
	"Try to get up Marazzo!"
There was that commanding voice from Broadspace again!  But it
	wasn't talking in block capitals this time.  As I turned my
	head, I saw a skinny man with thin lips and horn-rimmed glasses.
	Light darted back and forth over the supersmooth surface of the
	lens:  reflections of the apparatus all round.  He was about as
	humorous as a tub of barbiturate.
	"So you're the network anarchist from cyberspace" he said
without the slightest hint of friendliness.  "When you are finished
here, report to corridor 42, laboratory ZeroEight.  And get a move
on!"
He stomped off and left a flat-faced bodyguard who stared at me
silently.  The two nurses helped me out of my stretcher.
	"Let's get you something proper to eat first" exclaimed the lady
	with freckles.  It was supposed to sound cheerful but there was
	a worried undertone.  It didn't sound like unpaid bills, but
	more like the voice of a woman who was trying to do her job with
	a hurricane going on outside.  They bolstered me left and right
	and we stumbled to the canteen, the body-g at the rear.  In the
	neighboring room, a comie was having fits on a bed.  He was
	wired up like the cockpit of a space shuttle.
	"What's the matter with him?" I asked quietly.
	"That him's a her" answered the pretty nurse in a husky voice.
	"She was on duty in Broadspace.  And that's where it got her."
	"What?"  I stared at this picture of misery whilst the nurses
	kept on dragging me.  The woman's eyes penetrated a nameless
	nothing above the room ceiling.  Her hands were shaking as if
	they were trying to protect the creased up body from something.
	And the lines on the screen flimmered like some kind of insane
	tribal dance.

	The body-g led me through the metal corridors of the firm.  I
	couldn't help feeling that there was some invisible threat
	lurking there.  Something was wrong.  My footsteps sounded
	hollow and muffled, and all you could see out of the porthole
	windows was gray mist.  My guide stopped outside of laboratory
	ZeroEight.  A seemingly unimportant door strengthened with metal
	braces.  And behind it, infinity.  He pressed the code switch
	and the pneumatic system hissed like an antiquated decompression
	chamber.  The room behind it was only lit by the device control
	lamps and was as narrow as a submarine.  I saw monitors on which
	curves flashed in zigzags.  To the right of the door, or rather
	the entry hatch, there was a spinning hologram of a strange,
	black and yellow striped vehicle under a green ray of light.  It
	looked like a cross between a bulldozer and an armored tank.  In
	the middle was a cyber chair like the ones I knew.  The HMD was
	hanging over the arm of the chair like a drying hood in a
	hairdressing salon.  And the narrow arms were full of thin
	cables.  The only thing that was new to me were the foot pedals.
	To the left of the door was old Whitecoat from before, sitting
	at a subduely lit control desk.  When he saw me, he stood up and
	laconically extended his hand and I shook it.  It felt damp and
	cold like a dog's nose.
	"Do you know what to expect?"
	I shook my head.
And then he smiled again. It was far more the clone of a smile.
	"Did you see the woman in the clinic?"
I nodded.
	"Viruses" he said calmly.
	"Aha," I returned.  "These damned viruses can realy get to you.
My mother died of one."  He wiped the smile off his face.
	"You don't understand.  I'm talking about computer viruses."
	"Computer viruses?"
I must have looked completely goggle-eyed because he sat back down
	behind his control desk and fiddled with a few buttons.  Network
	structures and statistical block graphics appeared on the
	monitors in front of him.
	"As you no doubt know, Marazzo, our energy supplies, food
production, air cleansing system etc, all depend on the perfect
functioning of the data paths.  If one of our mainframes goes down,
it's not terribly serious.  But if the network software goes
haywire, then we have massive malfunctions on our hands.  Look!"  He
pointed to a diagram of lines and patterns on a monitor.  "These are
the energy supply lines in our region.  The red lines are clean.
Normally 96% of the lines should be like this.  The blue and green
lines are faulty lines or lines which are not carrying the correct
voltage.  At the moment 50% of our lines are in this state.  Do you
know what that means?  Hospitals are without electricity, lifts are
stuck, freezer compartments are down, food is going off.  And what's
worse:  if the big freezer storage systems start thawing out, the
supply network for the entire region is under threat.  Do you know
what famine is?  Here, take a look at this screen."  He pointed to a
monitor that was divided into different-col ored fragments.
	"Hereyou can see the different control sectors of the transport
teledisposition.  Goods are being transported the wrong way.
Railway points are being reprogrammed.  Plane and spaceship
autopilots are becoming totally unpredictable!  Marazzo, do you
understand what kind of situation we're in?"
I swallowed hard. "And what is the cause of this chaos?"
He leaned back and gave a short, hard laugh.
"Computer viruses.  That's old hat.  But now we're dealing with
	mutant forms.  They can cripple the energy supply, destroy the
	administration programs and are haunting the whole network.
	They are really a threat to our existence!  Josie was one of our
	network agents and she is the second one to have caught one of
	these viruses when she was in melt mode.  Her brain looks like a
	boiled marshmallow.  Can you imagine what will happen if none of
	our agents want to go into the network because he has to accept
	that at any time he can end up with a mental debility?"
	"Damn!"
	"You, Victor Marazzo, are going into Broadspace to kill the viruses."
	"I'm going back in there? No way!"
Whitecoat's expression froze like a mask.
	"Marazzo.  We incarcerated you in Broadspace because you
	penetrated our network without authorization - you are ......you
	were - a spy!"
	"Oh come on!  The only crime I ever committed was to break your
	code.  Everything else was completely harmless.  Just a bit of
	fun!  The practices of the firm are about as legal as the taking
	of protection money."
	"The firm did feed you artificially for three years though," he
	countered sarcastically.
	"Oh well thanks a bunch.  I'll recommend you to everyone I
	know!"
	"Are you going to cooperate or are you going to sit there and
watch our civilization go to ruin because you are chicken?"
I fell silent defiantly.  Then I nodded.  He sighed audibly.  Then
he said, in a much quieter, calmer tone of voice:
	"OK, fine - but this time you are not defenseless.  And you have
access to all the sectors.  You have a virtual vehicle at your
disposal - a Skaphander.  Do you know what a Skaphander is?"
I shook my head. He pointed to the hologram with a laser pen.
	"A Skaphander is a protective case.  But our Skaphander is more
	than that.  It is something like a virus eradicator, a magnetic
	sledge and a tank.  And we have tried to channel as many
	protective programs as possible into the system.  These programs
	have implemented a number of energy stations and repair
	workshops.  They have deposited weapons, ammunition and special
	equipment for your Skaphander at strategic places.  Your task is
	simple:  eradicate all viruses and repair as much of the damage
	they have caused as possible.  We will beam you directly into
	the main system computer.  This is the center of all the
	simulations.  The Queen has got to be somewhere in the heart of
	the system.  You've got to eliminate her - somehow!"
	"What other kinds of tools have we got, Doc?"
	"Since you are dealing with programs, you also have program
	tools as part of your equipment.  But they look like mines and
	time bombs.  You sometimes have to shoot your way through walls
	and sometimes it's a good idea to submerge in Matma.  But only
	if you're really sure."
	"What is Matma?"
	"Matma is an energetic defluctor.  A type of liquid, pretty
	corrosive.  Your Skaphander can only cope with it for so long."
	"Now I understand.  I have to cross barriers and make new
	connections, that kind of stuff, is that right?"
	He nodded coolly. "That kind of stuff. Exactly. And one other thing."
	"Yes?"
	"These viruses mean business.  We can only revive you a few
	times.  After that, you'll have permanent brain damage.  You
	might still be capable of tying your own shoe laces but I
	wouldn't count on it!"
I thought about Josie.  Dr. Whitecoat stood up, sat me down on the
clumsy-looking chair and started to wire me up.  As the HMD was
thrust onto my head, everything went dark.  Then I saw the
firm's emblem:  a two-headed, red snake on a black background.
	"Press ENTER a few times!"
I felt for the control knobs.  And then:  COOL!! Drop-in!

************** Original story by Reinhard Rael Wissdorf *******************

