Psychotrope

09:51:13PST

Seattle, United Canadian and American States

Ansen had tried everything he could think of. He'd plugged in his spare VR goggles and sensor board, changed the fiber-optic cables, checked all the ports, and run a diagnostics test on the deck's utilities. Now he had the case off the deck and was arm-deep in the Vista's hardware. He checked each of the computer's MPCP optical chips but didn't see any signs of damage. There was none of the burned-plastic smell associated with a chip burned by gray IC, and under a magnifying scope the complex tracery of molecular circuitry didn't show any signs of fusing.

Even so, he popped out the four chips that were the heart of the MPCP and replaced them. Then he began the task of re-booting the persona programs, one by one. He drummed his fingers on the frayed denim of his jeans as the seconds ticked away, then executed the deck's self-diagnostics check. And smiled, as the sensor board came back to life, its panel fully illuminated. The problem must have been with the MPCP, after all.

"Well, kitty," he said to the purple kitten that sat beside him on the futon, its head butting against his thigh as its sensors homed in on the warmth of his body. "Wish me luck."

He yanked the data gloves back on, snugged the VR goggles over his eyes, and made a dialing motion with his right index finger. This time, he'd try visiting a different LTG and would stay away from the one that gave access to the U-dub system. The IC that had crashed his deck was probably confined to a single SAN-hopefully not the one he used to access the Matrix itself. But he wouldn't know for sure until he tried to log on…

Ansen resisted the urge to cross his fingers. It would only screw up the data glove's signal.

"I'm in!" he crowed with delight as the wrapscreen of the goggles flared to life. But the image they projected was not the familiar checkerboard of the Seattle RTG. Instead he floated in a field of black that was splattered with blood-red stars. Drops of red liquid fell on the outstretched arms of his persona, and before him hung a disembodied face that was twisted in a mask of terror. One eye was an empty socket that wept black tears; the other had a pupil shaped like a fly. Worms writhed where there should be hair, and the lips were stitched crudely together with coarse black thread. Ansen didn't even want to think about what this icon would smell like to someone whose deck included ASIST circuitry.

Then the lips came apart with a shuddering tear as the face began to scream…

The agonizing wail was still echoing in Ansen's mind as he tore the goggles away from his face. Just as it had before, when he had confronted the mist-filled tunnel icon, the system had dumped him. The goggles were dead, their speakers silent.

Had Ansen turned to look behind him at the flatscreen monitor that served as his apartment's "window" on the world outside, he would have seen an image similar to the one he'd just seen on-line. Down on the street below his building, a woman in a tailored skirt and jacket staggered down the sidewalk, her face twisted in agony and her hands clenched in her hair. Oblivious to the traffic that surged past her, she turned suddenly on her heel and ran out into the street

The window did not show what happened next, for the woman had disappeared into the gray static that obscured the center of the display. But the traffic came to an abrupt halt, and in another moment drivers closest to the blank space were spilling out of their vehicles with grim looks on their faces.

Ansen, bent over his deck, was oblivious to the drama that was unfolding on the wall screen behind him. He frowned down at the Vista, trying to puzzle out what had gone wrong. The sensor board still glowed with life. And the flatscreen display was active. But all background color had been leached from the screen, leaving it a blinding white. Across this blank field scrolled blocky red letters. The same message repeated itself, refusing to clear no matter what commands Ansen executed with his data gloves.

ACCESS DENIED. LEAVE ME ALONE. GO AWAY.

Ansen frowned. The first part of the message made sense. Some glitch in his deck was routing him somewhere strange, then dumping him before he could log on to any system. He thanked the spirits that he didn't have a direct neural interface; suffering dump shock twice in one day would have given him a serious skull ache, for sure. But the second part of the message made no sense. Who was "me"?

It was starting to sound like his deck had picked up a virus. And the only way to be rid of a virus was to replace every meg of memory in the Vista. To re-slot every single chip.

Ansen sighed. He wished he knew another decker well enough to call on the telecom unit at the end of the hall. Brother Data would be able to tell him what to do. Or Digital Dawg or Sysop Sarah. But he was used to interfacing with them only over the chat stations of the Matrix. He didn't even know their real names, let alone their telecom numbers.

Grabbing his tools, he began to replace the optical chips that made up his deck's active and storage memory banks.