The Rendering

[DSolomon]

Is Anyone Out There?

Well, I guess you're reading this.
You might wonder why I'm posting bits of my blog on the NG BBS. It's pretty simple: because nobody reads my blog. Maybe they search for my name, but my website isn't even in the top three thousand search results for "Doug Solomon."
Unlike a hundred other blogs, all written by people pretending they're me. But I'm the genuine article:
* the kid with the $100,000 reward on his head, even though he's only got $40 to his name.
* the kid featured on America's Most Dangerous, even though he's not guilty.
Maybe you've heard of me. Maybe you think I killed my aunt. You think I'm a fugitive from justice, a homicidal maniac, or a domestic terrorist.
A thirteen-year-old driven crazy by video games.
Or maybe you're not sure. Maybe you're one of those conspiracy theorists who don't believe everything they see on TV. Maybe you think I'm innocent. That I didn't bomb the Center, that I didn't kill anyone.
The only problem is, if you think that, you probably also think the explosion originated from an alien mother ship.
Yeah, the only people who believe I'm not a killer also believe in flying saucers.
Well, I'm not an alien and I'm not a psycho or a terrorist.
Sure, I'm currently living under a fake name, in an undisclosed location, but I'm just an ordinary kid.
At least, I was.

[TheFarseer]

Lame.

[DSolomon]

A Reply To My Brilliant Replier

Just one reply so far, but at least that one was high quality. Maybe because nobody's reading this. Maybe it really is lame. Or maybe you're scared.

Maybe you heard about someone who disappeared: a random guy online, a fellow gamer, an aunt. That's why I'm writing this: to tell you what's really going on. To explain what really happened to my aunt--and to the others who vanished.

Don't worry about replying. Nobody can track you from this site.

If they could track you, they would've caught me in the past few months since my whole life blew up in my face. Good thing those pictures on America's Most Dangerous were taken when I was in the first grade. And they're the most recent photos, because all digital images of me were altered or destroyed. For my protection.

Anyway, I'll post as often as I can. That is, when I'm not running from monkeybeasts or hiding from my homework.

[DSolomon]

The Regular Spot

I guess I'll begin at the regular spot--the beginning. Back when I was an ordinary kid, my days started like this:

1. Wake twenty minutes late and throw on some clothes. Preferably not the same ones as the day before. Well, preferably not all the same ones as the day before.
2. Wait at the bus stop, playing my GamePod. Sit in the middle of the bus. Not in front with nerds, not in back with bullies.
3. Math: Beat level twelve while playing under desk. GamePod confiscated.
4. English: Stare outside at the playing field.
5. Social studies: Revolutionary War again. Still boring after all these years.
6. P.E.: Run back and forth on the basketball court, trying to blend. Shoot twice, score once. .
7. Art: The kiln goes haywire and melts the sculptures. Pretty cool.
8. Science: Nothing goes haywire. Boring.
9. Play games on NG after school while my best friend researches our social studies project.
10. Dinner and TV, more games, and bed. Oh, and homework. Maybe.

That was my life, in ten easy steps. Probably not all that different from yours.

At least, back then.

But now I'm posting from an anonymous server and routing my messages across the world a million times. And I left that school; I left that town; I left everything behind. I even have a new name now, one I can't tell you.

Because I don't want to look up from my desk in math class one day to see a biodroid swivel its plated head around the room scanning for me.

On the list of things I don't want, that rates pretty high.

[DSolomon]

With the Soul of a Garbage Disposal

Still no replies other than 'Lame' (which, okay, guilty as charged), so I can only guess what you want to know. Let's start with, what's a biodroid?

Think armored and vicious: a cross between a tank and a pit bull. Some are the size of your average ninth grader, others the size of your average dump truck.

Oh, and they have missile launchers.

And flamethrowers.

And short tempers.

And they've hacked into every security camera, database, and computer system in the country.

Before all this started, I worried mostly about school and video games, not an army of killer cyborgs hunting me down. But now? I might look like an ordinary kid, but according to VIRUS, I'm Public Enemy Number One.

That's the bad news.

The good news is, I've got friends.

[DSolomon]

Such a Nice Town

Wait, I meant to tell you about my normal life first.

I lived in a small town not too far from a small city in--you guessed it--a small state. A nice little town exactly like every other nice little town.

With one difference.

Well, maybe you've seen the news, and already know parts of my story. Maybe you know where I'm from, maybe you know about the smoldering crater I left behind.

But you don't know this: tucked away in the outskirts of my nice little town, behind security fences and minefields, you would've found the Biodigital Research Center.

Not the "Center for Medical Innovation," despite what the signs said. Not an organization that developed cutting-edge medical technology. Not a building guarded by layers of security to keep the experimental germs inside.

No, you would've found the Biodigital Research Center, funded by a government program so secret that even the CIA didn't know about it.

Because it should've been called the Biodigital Top Secret Weapons Development Research Center.

Get the idea?

Yeah, I thought you might.

My aunt Margaret used to work there. She was an expert in tachyon mapping, subatomic interfaces, stuff like that. I'll skip the technical details, but--

YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE TECHNICAL DETAILS, DOUGLAS.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. That was my aunt--or what's left of her--hacking my Net connection again.

Only to monitor the security of your link and ensure your safety. You know the searchbots never stop hunting for you.

I'll explain later how Aunt Margaret hacks the Net, if she can manage to keep from interrupting.

I WILL TRY TO RESTRAIN MYSELF.

Thanks.

Back when life was normal, Aunt Margaret worked at the Center, doing high-tech top secret stuff. Of course, she never told me exactly what she did other than "medical research"--that's why it's called top secret--but I've learned a lot since then.

I used to hang at her office sometimes, just in the public areas, not the archives or the tech-development labs. And if you're expecting to hear that I followed in her footsteps, that I'm some boy genius, let me disappoint you right now: I'm barely passing science.

I'm not an athlete; I'm not a gifted student; I'm not a singer or an artist or a poet. I'm a regular kid.

[DeftAndEvil]

Maybe you should quit preceding your stories with whiny intros and pleas for attention.

[DSolomon]

A Meltdown in Art Class

Not a bad idea, D&E. Maybe instead of saying how I'm a regular kid, I should mention the way in which I'm kinda irregular?

Because I do have one little quirk.

Remember that kiln I mentioned, that went haywire and ruined all the sculptures in art class? I guess I wasn't completely ordinary, even back then. Things like that sometimes . . . happened around me.

The first time I remember, I was six years old. My remote-control car smashed itself into pieces against the fridge, ignoring the controls completely. Later, cell phones stopped working and cameras malfunctioned. Not always, but often enough that I learned not to stick around for group photographs. I mean, when a camcorder bursts into flames every few years, you start to notice.

Other than that, though? Call me Mr. Ordinary.

Free Fire

You want to know why I'd hang around an office building instead of watching TV at home? I mean, considering I'm not exactly the Einstein Kid, eager for some alone time in a science lab. And considering they didn't let me into the top secret areas, just the parts that looked like any other boring big business.

Video games.

An entire wall of them, a long line stretching down the length of the employee lounge in the Center. All flashing, beeping, whirring, and absolutely free:

Arsenal Five
Smash and Grab III
Xtreme Racer 500
hArp

The employee lounge smelled of microwave popcorn, and sometimes my aunt's coworkers chatted at me, but still: free video games.

Heaven.

So that's why I was there that day.

And, um, I don't want to get all Movie of the Week, but sometimes I don't like being alone. The thing is, my parents died in a car crash when I was a little kid, so I lived with Auntie M, just the two of us. I used to call her that, to make her laugh. Auntie M. And because, you know, there's no place like home.

I guess I'm supposed to be depressed about my parents, but I don't even remember them. So Auntie M is my whole family.

Well, she was. Whatever.

At least I still have Jamie. She's kinda important--mind if I tell you about her before I start with all the gunplay and explosions, D&E? Or should I skip straight to the countdown?

[DSolomon]

The Girl Next Door

Okay, I'll consider myself on probation--and I'll get to the explosions in a couple days--but here goes more with Jamie.

Looking back, I realize that living with my aunt was great. And that was how I met Jamie, because she lived next door. I don't want to give her a big head or anything, but . . . you know how I keep saying I'm a normal guy?

Jamie is different. Abnormal.

Well, maybe she's not that bad, but she was a little too rich and way too smart to fit in at our school. She wore designer clothes while the other girls wore department store stuff. She rode a Diamond Royce bike instead of a Huffy. And I'm not sure if she's officially a genius, but she took calculus in the sixth grade.

Plus she's one of those kids who, for some reason, deal with adults better than they do with other kids.

For example, my aunt's the one who introduced us.

Don't Mess with the Barbie

When I was in elementary school, I came back from dirt biking one day and shoved through the front door. "I'm home!"

"In here," Auntie M called from her study.

I poured a bowl of cereal in the kitchen and found them in the study: my aunt and this girl wearing a floofy pink dress and pink tights. Jamie denies this, but I swear there were at least three bows in her hair. All pink.

"This is Jamie from next door," my aunt said. "She's helping with my filing."

"Why?" I asked, crunching my cereal.

"Because you didn't want to."

"No, I mean, what's in it for her?"

"When I grow up," the girl told me, "I'm gonna be a scientist. I'm gonna be just like your aunt."

I ate another spoonful. "I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"Because my aunt doesn't look like an explosion in a Barbie factory."

So Jamie hurled a book at my head. Not much aim, but plenty of power.

Rise of the Root Canal

My aunt had the window repaired, and Jamie outgrew her pink phase. Mostly. And over the next year, we became best friends. I'm still not exactly sure how; doesn't matter anymore.

I just knew that clearing a level on Arsenal Five was more fun when Jamie was at her laptop, memorizing the periodic table or whatever she did before VIRUS destroyed our lives. Kicking back and watching TV was better with her, too.

Plus, in her post-pink phase, Jamie was willing to get her hands dirty. For example, she was up for going to this bunch of empty lots near our street, a good place to race dirt bikes and light firecrackers and rebuild an old laser printer.

Well, that last one was Jamie's idea. I'd wanted to smash the printer with hammers.

Anyway, I went poking around one day and found the basement of a house that used to be there. A dark, mildewed, slimy cave. I was ten years old at the time and thought it was the best thing ever.

My aunt found out and didn't care. Told you she was cool. In fact, she gave the place a nickname: the root canal. Because it was like a root cellar, but painful as a toothache. Don't get me started on my aunt's sense of humor.

For two weeks that summer, Jamie and I worked on the basement: shoveling, laying down a plywood floor, dragging an old couch into the hole.

Jamie wanted to install wireless.

Then a rainstorm hit, and the root canal turned into a mud pit.

The thing is, Jamie didn't exactly love hanging around a nasty abandoned basement, but she spent two weeks remodeling the root canal because she knew I wanted to. And I don't care about science, but if she needs help measuring the effect of magnetism on mitochondrial output, I'm game.

And I don't even know what mitochondrial means.

I guess that's enough background. (Is that you I hear sighing in relief, D&E?) The point is, my life was pretty great back then: good friends, free video games, and no worries.

And I loved my aunt. I never would've done anything to hurt her.

[DSolomon]

An Ordinary Day

So where should I start? That morning, I guess, the morning everything changed.

The alarm went off, as usual. And ten minutes later, my aunt opened my bedroom door: "Time for school."

"Mmph."

She prodded my covers with a hockey stick. "You're going to miss the bus."

I rubbed my eyes. "It's Saturday."

"In what universe?"

I shook away the last bits of my dream. Something about it being Saturday, and me getting the high score on Xtreme Racer 500. "Oh."

"Welcome to Wednesday," she said. "Get dressed."

Downstairs, I reached for the cereal and saw a pizza box on the kitchen table. Three slices left from the night before%u2564but Auntie M didn't usually think pizza was an appropriate breakfast food.

"What's this for?" I asked, looking at the pizza box.

"Breakfast."

"What's the catch?"

She sighed. "I may need to work late for the next few weeks."

"Oh." I grabbed a slice. "You're feeling guilty. Is this a bribe?" I looked at the pizza. "Maybe I should hold out for a Zii game console."

"I could get a babysitter instead," she mused.

"No, pizza's great! We're good."

"You drive a hard bargain," she said.

Which was typical. Auntie M had never wanted kids, but she managed surrogate motherhood the same way she did everything else: like a science experiment.

DOUGLAS!

Kidding, kidding! Wire yourself a funny bone.

No, my aunt and I liked living together. I'm not saying we never fought--we did, but not often. We just sort of . . . got along.

Anyway, after the pizza, I reached the bus stop three minutes early, then took a seat in the middle and watched Jamie's house slip past. Her parents always dropped her at school an hour before first bell, for advanced tutoring.

The day was warm, so at lunchtime Jamie and I and some other kids went outside and ate at the stone fence.

I hardly remember what we talked about. Nothing much, I guess.

YOUR BIOLOGY PROJECT.

Oh, right! Jamie wanted to stay after school to finish the research. "The project's due next week," she said.

"That's plenty of time," I told her.

"What's the project?" another kid asked.

"Entomology," Jamie said. "Insects. We haven't even chosen which one yet."

The Dragonfly

I grinned. "Sure we have. Gimme."

She handed me her laptop, and I tapped a few keys, then showed her the screen. She read aloud:

"The dragonfly spends most of its life in the nymph form, beneath the water's surface. Nymphs use extendable jaws to hunt. They breathe through gills and rapidly propel themselves by expelling water through the ..." (Jamie glanced at me, then changed the next word) "... backside."

"Butt propulsion," I said.

Everyone started laughing.

"Plus," I continued, "they're the world's fastest insect. Clocked at sixty-two miles an hour."

Jamie rolled her eyes. "Well, that's a rigorous scientific reason to study them. How about we do honeybees?"

"No, listen to this." I scrolled down. "Dragonflies use an optical illusion called motion camouflage to stalk other insects. They look like stationary objects while attacking prey."

I knew she couldn't resist that: Jamie liked strange interactions of complex systems.

Me? I liked butt propulsion.

[DSolomon]

An Ordinary Day, Continued

Then we went inside for more classes; then we went home. You know--an ordinary day, like most of my days before I started living under a fake identity. Before I started appearing in headlines:

VIDEO GAMES DROVE BOY TO MURDER

THE AFTERMATH: FROM HYPERACTIVE TO HOMICIDAL

BOY HOPED TO SLAY 666 NEIGHBORS

Then there were the grainy screenshots on TV, of a blur-faced kid wearing my favorite T-shirt and sneaking a bomb into the Center. It's amazing how VIRUS can manipulate video. I almost believed them myself.

After dinner, I tagged along with Auntie M to the Center. She drove through town, then the two miles of no-man's-land, before hitting the outermost security fence.

She passed the first two guard shacks by flashing her ID.

"If you need to spend the night," I said, "I can take the shuttle bus home."

She shook her head. "Shouldn't take more than a few hours, unless the wetware interface is acting up."

We waited at the automated guard shack while a bioresonant scanner checked that we were actually Margaret and Doug Solomon.

"Jamie said something about a biology project?" she said when the crash gates opened. "On insects?"

"Dragonflies. I'll do some research tonight." The Center had priority access to every database in the world--even from the unclassified areas they let me into--which really made school projects easier.

"Don't expect Jamie to write the paper for you."

"I said I'll do the research."

"E-mailing her search results isn't enough." Auntie M pulled into her parking space. "Don't make her do all the work."

"Yeah, because I'm too stupid to help write the paper."

"Doug, I never said--"

"You don't think I'm stupid." I shoved my door open. "You think I'm lazy."

"You are lazy!"

I slammed the door and stormed through the visitors' entrance. A stupid fight, the kind that doesn't mean anything, just blowing off steam.

Then why did I even mention it?

Because that was our last real conversation.

The Center Cannot Hold

Here's a pop quiz. After slamming from the car, did I:

A) head immediately to the only unclassified library in the Center to start researching dragonflies?

B) find an empty office and sit in the corner weeping, because nobody understood me?

C) go directly to the employee lounge, flick the Start button on Arsenal Five, and blast away with the carapace rifle?

Yeah, too easy.

After I incinerated a few levels on Arsenal Five, I played two arcs of HARP. That stands for High-Altitude Recon Protocol, if you didn't already know, and the game's based on real NASA research of the upper atmosphere using instruments shot from a cannon.

Seriously. That's what they do at NASA.

The game starts at home base, where you're briefed and you choose your gear. Then they launch you into suborbit and you arc through the atmosphere, incinerating the baddies and racing against the clock until--

PARDON ME, DOUGLAS, BUT IS THIS INFORMATION ESSENTIAL?

Well, I guess it's not essential.

IS IT RELEVANT IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER?

Um, not really. I mean, unless you're playing HARP. If anyone's playing HARP, I know some killer shortcuts. E-mail me.

PERHAPS YOU MIGHT FOCUS ON MATTERS MORE DIRECTLY RELATED TO THE UPCOMING EVENTS?

Sure. Good point. Where was I?

Oh, right. After HARP, I started my current favorite game: Street Gang.

I don't know if you've played Street Gang. First you choose which gang you want to be (I chose the Hog Stompers, a biker gang) and which gang you want to fight (in this case, the Fists of Kung Fu, these ninja warriors).

Most people like the Fists better than the Hogs, because the ninjas are, well, ninjas. They've got a killer stealth attack, and their throwing stars are awesome.

But the Hogs can soak an endless amount of damage, and the limited ranged attack with the motorcycle chains is devastating, if you know how to use it.

Which I do.

The best way is by--

AGAIN, DOUGLAS. RELEVANCE?

Hey! You know Street Gang is relevant. I'm living with a ninja-powered biker chick as I type this.

INDEED. BUT THE MECHANICS OF SPECIFIC ATTACKS?

Fine, fine. Just trying to help.

Anyway, that's the employee lounge: basically a video arcade with a snack bar attached. Plus an exercise room and a bunch of couches and a digital banner right below the ceiling:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Happy 37TH BIRTHDAY ELISE N!!! . . . Don't forget--Softball Practice is now on Wednesday . . . congrats to Walter P, Employee of the month! . . . Happy 37TH BIRTHDAY ELISE N!!! . . . Don't Forget--Softball Practice is now on Wednesday . . . congrats to Walter P, Employee of the ...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As for the Center itself, picture an enormous warehouse with an office building attached, surrounded by two miles of no-man's-land, four fences, and a minefield.

And for that extra layer of security, a dozen biodigital tanks.

What are those? Picture an Abrams tank with steel plate armor and a rotating turret--except run by an artificial intelligence as vicious as a junkyard dog.

[DSolomon]

A Biodigital Interlude

I'm not gonna pretend I understand exactly what biodigital means, or Auntie M will interrupt again. But the basic idea is transforming biological stuff--brain stems, nervous systems, animal instinct--into digital code.

And I can only think of three reason why you're still reading this:

1. You've heard of me, and want to know why I killed my aunt. You want to look inside the mind of a killer, to discover what turned a regular kid into a terrorist.1.

2. You figure I didn't kill my aunt, and want to know what happened to her. What happened to my entire town? And are you gonna disappear next?

3. You heard about the skunks. Maybe you saw one of the video captures and didn't dismiss the whole thing as a hoax.

Well, biodigital technology is the key to the skunks. So if you're here for reason number three, this is how it works:

First you translate biological systems into digital code. Then you combine that code with cutting-edge hardware (and wetware and fluxware). And congratulations, you've stumbled through a hidden door into the future of technology!

Maybe an example will help.

Say you want to create a world-class fugitive tracker. First you digitize a bloodhound's sense of smell, to get a scent-hunting ability that's generations beyond anything you could invent. Then you build a handheld "sniffer" that uses that bloodhound-based software, and ta-da!

A fully networked, portable man hunter that doesn't stop to pee on trees. Plus you throw in night vision, maybe sonar from a bat, and whatever else strikes your fancy.

That's the basic idea, the beta version of biodigital tech. The more advanced applications are endless, and dangerous. And like nothing the world's ever seen.

You know those videos of the skunks that appear on YouTube for a few minutes before someone crashes the whole site? They're not hoaxes. They're not jokes.

They're snapshots from a secret war.

[DSolomon]

Back to the Center

Inside--at least in the public areas, the unclassified zones where the secretaries worked and the nephews visited--the Center looked like a regular office building, with watercoolers and workstations and cubicles. My aunt was the head of research, so her office, on the second floor, had windows and a Persian rug and a comfy couch.

Wandering around, you wouldn't stumble on anything interesting. Well, except for the armored doors and NO ENTRY signs. And the guards with assault rifles.

Other than that, though, just your ordinary office building.

To tell the truth, I'd never wanted to get behind those locked doors. I figured you could search for a month and not find anything cooler than a Bunsen burner.

Well, I learned later that night how wrong I'd been. Because behind those doors, down wide bright hallways, you'd walk right into:

* the BattleArmor development lab,

* virtual reality combat simulators, and

* the animal research section.

In the BattleArmor lab, they'd built a prototype suit that would turn an ordinary soldier into a tank. Think RoboCop meets Iron Man. There was just one problem: nobody could wear the armor.

They needed a soldier genetically designed for the suit, and that was generations beyond their abilities. Or so they thought.

As for the virtual reality combat simulators: if I'd known that those were behind the locked doors, I'd have broken in somehow. Because they were the ultimate video games, offering complete immersion in millions of combat scenarios, to train elite Special Forces [J50]soldiers.

At least, in theory. In practice, they hadn't deployed the sims, because they were too realistic. Users might actually die of simulated wounds. That's like if you really broke your leg every time you fell off a roof in Smash and Grab III.

And finally, the animal research section. They had rabbits and parakeets and snakes and monkeys and beetles and on and on.

Yeah, and skunks.

They used the animals for digital imaging. They'd scan them, digitize them, basically reduce them to binary code:

100101011
0100101100
11101010111
010011000101
1001010111001
11000010010101
101110010101110
0010110010101110
11110010100110001
111001010111001010
0001001010111100101
00111010010101111101
110001010111100101011
0100101100101001100010
10111001110100101011110
001100010101111001010111

This was supposed to have all kinds of medical and military applications--like the bloodhound--but sometimes the information would degrade, and there would be problems. My aunt said they were decades away from digitizing a human.

They were.

Doc Roach was another story.

[DSolomon]

Eyes Everywhere

Two more things before I get back to that night.

First, I've changed some details to protect myself--and Jamie, and the skunks. So no, Roach and VIRUS can't track us down with anything posted here. Maybe I'm living on the outskirts of a new city; maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm in the seventh grade now; maybe I'm in the ninth.

And second, you might wonder how I know what happened when I wasn't around. Like when I was miles from the action.

You'll probably think I'm lying.

I'm not. If I didn't personally witness something, my aunt digitally reconstructed it, using technology she'd developed at the Center. With satellites, security cameras, resonant audio pickup from telephone wires and radios, there's almost nothing she can't reconstruct. Trust me on that.

ACTUALLY, DOUGLAS, APPROXIMATELY 4.22 PERCENT OF THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES HAS HIGHLY, EXTREMELY, OR ABSOLUTELY LIMITED SURVEILLANCE-RECONSTRUCTION POTENTIAL.

Well, I said 'almost.' Sheesh.

So that's the setup. And theneverything came crashing down.

[DSolomon]

The Bad Doctor

Other than me, my aunt, and a few guards, the Center was empty. At least, that's what the sensors recorded . . . but they missed the man in the animal research section.

Dr. Ronald J. Roach: a bony, thin-lipped creep with cold eyes and a colder heart. And an IQ too high to measure.

There's no record of how he entered the building. He used to work at the Center, until he was fired for conducting unauthorized experiments. Security cameras--which cover every inch of the place--went mysteriously dark and Auntie M presumes he smuggled himself inside during that period, hidden in one of the biodigital tanks he designed.

I PRESUME NOTHING. I SIMPLY STATE THAT THE PROBABILITY OF HIS HAVING DONE SO APPROACHES 91.62 PERCENT.

Anyway--

I WOULD BE PLEASED TO SEE SCORES EXCEEDING 90 PERCENT ON THE PAPERS YOU BRING HOME FROM SCHOOL, DOUGLAS.

Okay, okay, I'll finish my homework as soon as I'm done with this.

YOU MEAN START YOUR HOMEWORK.

Do you want me conjugating Latin verbs or warning people that the country--the world--is in danger?

PREFERABLY BOTH.

Anyway, my aunt thinks Roach used a secret override code to hitch a ride inside one of the tanks. Then he let himself into the animal research section and walked down the rows of cages, rattling his pen along the bars. The animals knew him, and they feared him. They cowered and hissed as he passed.

"Seventeen minutes," Roach said, glancing at his watch. Yeah, he's such a mad scientist he actually talks to himself. "Then the second stage begins."

He rattled a few more bars, and a little white rabbit bounded away and trembled in the corner.

Roach glared at the bunny. "I should take your foot for good luck." He didn't do anything to the rabbit, though. Instead, he checked the device in his hand and said, "And now for the final procedure." His icy gaze probed the room. "Should I use the hamsters? The monkey?" He crept down a few rows, then stopped. "Ah! The skunks."

He tapped on a keypad attached to the cage containing three skunks. There was a label on their cage:

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+-+-+
|L|A|R|K|S|P|U|R| |C|O|S|M|O| |P|O|P|P|Y|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+-+-+

Some clown had named the skunks after flowers.

Hilarious.

A robot arm scooped the skunks from their cage and deposited them in a clear tube. They scrabbled against the sides but couldn't grab anything, and in a moment, the tube retracted into the center of the Quantum Bio-Map Generator.

Roach dialed the power to critical levels, and a warning light flashed. He didn't care; he wasn't running a real test. He'd already taken control of the automated security and now needed to overload the communications systems so nobody could call for help.

Then he entered a password and a computer voice said, "Test authorized. Scanning bio-forms . . . Digitizing . . . Imaging . . . Please wait. . . ."

[DSolomon]

Graybar and Gunfire

"Scanning . . . Digitizing . . . Rendering . . . Rendering . . ."

Inside the machine, the skunks were being transformed into patterns of subatomic particles and encoded as digital information.

Sure, that's clear.

Basically, the machine downloaded three skunk brains into computer files. Every instinct and memory was written onto software. Meanwhile, their furry little skunk bodies went limp, into a deep unnatural sleep, with only the machine keeping them alive.

Nothing could live for long after having its brain digitized. Well, not yet.

But what was happening inside the machine wasn't very important right then. Because outside the machine, a warning chime sounded on Aunt Margaret's computer.

"'Test authorized'?" Auntie M murmured to herself. She knew that nobody was authorized to run tests, not right then. "'System overload'?"

A map of the Center appeared on her screen, with the animal research section flashing. She frowned, stood from her workstation, and headed into the hallway.

She trotted around a corner, through a sliding security door, and past one of the guard stations. Maybe if she hadn't been distracted by wondering who'd authorized the test, she would've noticed that the guard stations were empty.

The guard stations were never empty.

But she didn't notice. She hurried into the animal research section, where she heard the Quantum Bio-Map Generator humming. She crossed toward the machine, then saw that she wasn't alone.

"Roach!" she said. "What are you doing here?"

He smiled coldly. "Tidying up some loose ends."

"You were banned from the Center. Get out."

"After all the trouble I took to get in?"

"You're lucky they only banned you," she said. "They should've tossed you in jail. Your reckless experiments--"

"Those 'reckless experiments' are the future," he said. "Who are they to fire me, the greatest mind in ten generations? I'll show them. I'll show you all. Did they think I'd crawl into a hole to lick my wounds? No, I sold my technology to the highest bidder. I bought equipment on the black market and I continued my work. My scanning booths are operational. You'll see--all you meatpeople, you'll see what true genius is!"

"Stop with the crazy talk," Auntie M said, crossing to the security button on the wall. "You're breaking the law just being inside the perimeter."

"I write my own laws."

She pressed the button, but nothing happened. No alarm, no alert. She turned slowly back to Roach, her eyes worried.

"Ah," he said with another cold smile. "You begin to understand."

"You disabled the security."

"You can't imagine I'm here on a whim." He glanced at his watch. "No, this is planned to the millisecond."

"What do you want, Roach?"

"First the Protocol," he said. "Then the HostLink. How does that sound?"

Auntie M snorted. "Over my dead body."

"Now that," Roach said, taking a gun from his pocket, "is a deal."

And he pulled the trigger.

[DSolomon]

The Vocab

Okay, so what are the HostLink and the Protocol?

The Center's top technicians had been working on the HostLink for years, trying to build a machine that could digitize minds from a distance. They planned to use it as a research tool so scientists in the United States could work with teams in Japan and Norway.

They'd just gotten a prototype working--which, I later realized, was why Roach finally attacked. He knew how to make the HostLink hijack any device connected to the Net, scanning in minds through Web-enabled cell phones and desktop PCs. Thousands of minds at a time. Maybe millions.

And you've probably never heard of the Protocol, either--the Biogenic Protocol, the most advanced software produced by the Center. My aunt and Roach had slaved over that code for years, before Roach went insane.

Or more insane. He was never what you'd call a poster boy for mental health.

So what is the Protocol? Some kind of programming wizardry that switches seamlessly between digital and biological systems.

In other words, I'm not sure. But my aunt said the Protocol was the closest thing to a magic wand you'd find in the digital world. Kind of a universal translator, able to convert brain waves, for example, into software.

THAT IS HARDLY WHAT I SAID, DOUGLAS.

Well, close enough. If anyone wants more info <coughgeekcough>, that's what Google is for.

All that really matters is this: in the right hands, the HostLink and Protocol are stunning technological advances. But in the wrong hands, they're deadly weapons that bring biodigital monsters to life and transform real people into digital code. And when people are reduced to code, they don't just die: their minds are stolen, transformed into processors more powerful than the most cutting-edge computer, and exploited by the person who scanned them.

Only two things limited the HostLink and Protocol's power: the user's skills and imagination. Which kinda sucked, because Roach coded better than anyone alive, and he imagined bloodthirsty hordes of biodroid soldiers.

[DSolomon]

Ready, Fire, Aim

Back to Roach, pulling the trigger.

Now, nobody doubts that Roach is a stone genius. As far as pure brainpower, the guy's basically unrivaled.

But you know what? He's still a crappy shot.

He fired at my aunt and hit the wall behind her. Then he fired again and hit the ceiling. No kidding. He took a breath and steadied the gun, and my aunt ducked behind an aquarium, and the next shot missed her and shattered the fish tank.

Water sloshed everywhere and dozens of guppies splashed to the floor.

Auntie M raced for the exit.

Roach fired three more shots as he ran toward her. He missed and missed and missed and lost his balance on the wet floor. He fell onto his butt and slid across the tile, through all the guppies flipping and flopping in the shallow puddles.

By the time he stood up again, Auntie M was long gone.

Doc Roach pressed a button on his communicator and said, "Commander Hund?"

[DSolomon]

An Unfortunate Introduction

At that point, I'd never even heard the name Hund, much less seen the man. Still, here's a little preview:

Hund probably isn't seven feet tall, but I bet he's close. He has dark hair and a scar across his face and usually about a hundred pounds of killing machines strapped to his body--a dozen weapons, each one deadlier than the next.

But that's not the worst part. The worst part is his eyes.

One glows yellow under some kind of an implanted lens. And the other stares at you like Randy Pinhurst (this freaky kid I knew in fifth grade) used to look at flies before he ripped off their wings.

Hund is the commander of Roach's mercenary army--and a recurring character in my nightmares.

[DSolomon]

Everything's a Blur

Roach murmured into his communicator: "Commander Hund?"

"We've neutralized the guards," Hund reported. "The building is ours."

"Not quite. Dr. Solomon is on the loose. I'm pushing the timetable forward."

"The explosives will be armed in five minutes," Hund said.

"Then I'm setting detonation for ten."

Roach tapped a few times on his communicator, and a digital display started running down in a blur.

10:00

9:59

9:58

9:57

9:56

You know how in movies the good guy always stops the timer when it's at 00:02 or something? I hate that. I always root for the bomb, and the bigger the explosion, the better.

Not this time.

This time, I wanted the timer to stop at 9:56.

Still, here's a little spoiler. Plenty of stuff happened in the next ten minutes: armed mercenaries, technological miracles, and digital murder. But one thing that didn't happen? A hero swinging into action and stopping that clock.

So pretty soon, that timer showed

00:09

00:08

00:07

00:06

00:05

00:04

00:03

00:02

00:01

Then the detonator fired.

[DSolomon]

Back Up

When Roach had started scanning the skunks, I'd been sitting in Auntie M's office. Not her lab, of course; that was off-limits. But she'd given me a pass to visit the low-clearance offices, after I'd tagged along on an official tour the year before. I think she'd wanted to get me interested in science class.

Anyway, I'd finished playing Street Gang, and I was bored.

I'd surfed the Web for a while, but that had gotten stale fast, so I'd called Jamie.

"Hey," I said when she picked up.

"Don't tell me," she said. "You finished playing games and now you're bored."

"That is completely unfair."

"So what's up?"

"I finished playing games and now I'm bored."

Jamie laughed. "Then start the biology project. Unless you want to get a C-plus again."

"You sound like Auntie M."

"Yeah, and I'll be a world-famous cybernaut when you're just a loser video gamer."

We bickered for a while, like we usually did; then I decided to do what she said, like I usually did. I logged in to the Center's library on my aunt's computer. "I'll search the databases for dragonfly stuff," I told her, "and e-mail you what I find."

"Focus on that stealth flight ability," she said. "And their eyes. They have thirty thousand lenses in each eye."

"Is that a lot? How many do we have in each eye?"

"One."

"Oh." I snorted. "Insects."

"You ought to love this project," Jamie said. "Bug."

Yeah, the other kids sometimes called me Bug, because it rhymes with Doug, obviously, and because of what I said before. Things happen around me. Electronic stuff breaks down. Computers crash and DVDs freeze up. Kilns go haywire in art class and melt all the sculptures.

Have you ever walked down a sidewalk and the streetlights flickered when you passed? Happens to me all the time. And forget about using a microwave. I mean, usually they're fine--but every six months, one bursts into flames while nuking a pizza bagel.

That's why I like my pizzas delivered.

Amazingly, nothing had ever gone haywire at the Center.

Until that night.

"Let's see . . . eyes and flight," I said, tapping a few words into the search field. "Gimme a minute, I'll send you the results."

"Sure, and I'll end up doing all the work."

"You like work," I said.

"Doug . . . ," she said warningly. "Not this time."

"Fine. We'll work on it in school tomorrow."

She said okay, and I found a bunch of information about dragonflies. More than a bunch, actually: six gigabytes, including partial DNA mapping and six hours of video.

I liked the common names best:

devil's needle/vagrant emperor/scarce chaser/waterfall redspot/sigma darner/
azure hawker/golden spiketail/wandering glider/dark mossback

"Ready for the file?" I asked, and clicked Send.

"I've got CircuitBoard open," Jamie said. CircuitBoard is a girl game--no fists, no knives, no guns, no blood, no violence. You just try to connect these circuits before the time runs out. Thrilling. "Wait a second."

"Um," I said.

"Let me finish, or you'll mess with my Net connection."

"I already hit Send," I said. "Here it comes."

"Bug! I was at my high score."

And right then, the timer hit 00:00, and--

[DSolomon]

The Detonator Fired

The floor c o l l a p s e d

beneath

me

and

I

f
e
l
l
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