Brad Nymann printed off his presentation. 

    He was a twentieth-century man dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty first century, though he tried to keep up for the sake of his career. He squinted his eyes as he tried to read— through the glass front of his office— the banner on the news item on the screen in the main office pool. 

    The images were clear enough. Riots outside a downtown building as people tried to withdraw their money from another failing bank. The police in riot gear and shields trying desperately to hold back the crowd and maintain order. Units of the National Guard waiting in the wings to seize control if the cops failed. The scene was a replication of what had started in New York yesterday morning. 

    Rumors of another bank collapse led to people desperately trying to withdraw their money, their life savings in many cases. Some got cash. More got cheques that would bounce. There were plenty of rumors. Rumors that the International Monetary Fund was so overstretched that it could not possibly rescue the situation. Rumors that elements within the Pentagon were willing to seize control of the country by martial law from a seemingly incompetent president and even more inept government.

What was the point? thought Nymann. It’s all just an artificial economy. Someone will take your money whether you like it or not. It could be a pension fund collapse, stock market crash, Inland Revenue, or divorce.

    His recent divorce settlement had cleared him out and would continue to drain his finances for some years to come. He’d quit his job back east, moved out west to Seattle on the invitation of an old army buddy. He needed the breathing space and a change of scene. A fresh start.

    It was his first week as head of internal security at Scald Software. He gathered up the printed paper and started to run through his proposal to tighten up security on the Scald campus.     There were blind spots. Areas where cameras had been obstructed by alterations and extensions to buildings. External cameras that had been shifted by wind and needed to be realigned. Many of the cameras were obsolete and were not equipped with night vision and two-way communication. He had identified the most sensitive areas of the Scald campus and proposed the installation of motion detectors to activate soft alarms and alert systems in the proposed new security hub he would suggest at his first presentation. 

    The cost of the modifications he had intended to work on over the weekend at home. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars would cover the upgrade cost of the equipment required. Finding a suitable contractor to do the work would be extra. The new security hub would cost more. He hoped the finance for the upgrade would not be an obstacle. 

    Paul Scald, the CEO of Scald software, was one of the wealthiest men in America. A fortune amassed on the back of government contracts. Providing custom software solutions for law enforcement, defense, and almost every branch of civil service. Scald was a very private man; few people got the opportunity to meet him, those that did were usually politicians, celebrities, or his closest employees.

    There was a sharp knock at the glass panel door. Roz Meyer leaned in. She was the human resources director who had interviewed Nymann for this job. He assumed it was a follow up visit before he went home for the weekend.

    “Hi! How was your first week at school?”  she said cheerfully.

    “Pretty good. There is a lot of work to be done here. For a state-of-the-art software firm, their security is not exactly up to the standard”     “Well, old Farley was old-school,” she answered with a sigh.

    “I’m old-school myself, but you have to keep up or go the way of the dinosaurs”” 

    The news item on the television caught her ear; she turned to watch it. Her facial expression switched to one of concern

    “It’s getting crazy out there,” said Nymann.

    She stepped into the office, carefully closing the door behind her. 

    “My husband works for that bank,” she said flatly.

    “Are you worried about him?”    “He is not in that branch. But lately he’s been—”

    She was cut off by her cell phone. She answered it. 

    “Hi Rick,” she started cheerfully, but again her expression changed. “I’m with him now . . . Scald . . . where . . . We’re on our way” She hung up.

    “That was Rick Spinner. Head R&D. He has a serious situation on his hands and needs to meet us in Mr. Scald’s office”

    “Paul Scald’s office?” asked Nymann, surprised.

    “Must be bad. I’m here five years and never got called to Scald’s office. It must be serious”

 

    “Go right through. He’s expecting you,” said Scald’s Personal Assistant.

    Nymann and Meyer gave each other a worried glance as Nymann placed a hesitant hand on the door handle. Scald was standing behind his desk, his knuckles placed firmly on its surface, arms spread. His six foot four frame leaning over, towards Spinner, who seemed to be almost cowering in his chair.

    “Come in,” said Scald icily. 

    There was one chair spare but neither of them motioned to use it. Roz Meyer knew Rick Spinner well. He was known for being tough but fair. He got the best out of people by any means. He was not necessarily liked by his people, but he was not hated either. Many were indifferent to him and his methods. Now he looked pale and pasty-faced, almost sweating, barely able to look Meyer in the eye. 

    She was good at assessing body language. This was bad. Real bad.

    “You’re Brad Nymann. The new internal security guy,” said Scald, barely nodding.

    “Pleased to meet you, sir,” said Nymann, extending his hand to Scald. The gesture was ignored.

    “I’ll come straight to the point,” said Scald, his head slowly turning towards Nymann like some hideous reptile. “My personal security adviser is on holiday in Hawaii. I have called him and he is on the way back. In the meantime I want you to start on this . . . situation . . . we have here”    “Whatever it is, sir, I’ll take care of it”    “Four months ago, the Navy gave us a prototype central processor to be fitted into the new Orion class crewless submarines,” Scald said. “We don’t know where they got it or who made it for them, but they gave it to us test it out—within certain parameters of course. We threw every task possible at it and it handled them exceptionally well.

    “Two days ago, the processor was moved back to its refrigerated storage cabinet, ready for collection by the Navy on Monday morning. Now it’s gone”

    Spinner leaned forward in his chair as if his stomach heave; his hands ceaselessly palmed his face.

    “Should have never trusted that little bastard,” He whispered. 

    Scald gave him a disapproving look.

    “This morning, one of our employees, a Mr. Cheung Teng, did not turn up for work and the Navy’s prototype processor is missing. We think the two events are connected based on some remarks Mr. Teng made to his colleagues. He has not answered his cell phone and a search of the research and development building has been fruitless”

    “Have you tried sending anyone to his house?” asked Meyer.

    “That’s going to be your job,” Scald said, handing her a file. “This is everything we know about Cheung Teng. There is classified information in there from Homeland Security, so don’t leave it lying around. At the moment the only ones who know about this are the four of us and two other employees who have been sworn to silence”

    “I’m sorry! I’m really sorry, Mr. Scald,” Spinner apologized, rather pathetically.

    Scald ignored him. “He has an apartment down in Auburn. Get down there and find the little prick. If he has borrowed the processor, I’ll only fire him. If has stolen it, he’s as good as dead”

    “What does the processor look like?” asked Nymann.

    “Good question. It’s not like your usual computer chip. In fact we don’t know what it really looks like for sure. It’s sealed within a sphere, like a soccer ball, only a little smaller with hexagonal markings across its surface. It’s metallic but can change color. We don’t know why. It also has to be stored at minus eight degrees celsius”

    “Something that size should be easy to find,” said Nymann.

    “Assuming he has not stolen it or sold it to a foreign power. We need to rectify this before six thirty Monday morning, when the Navy are scheduled to take it back. Remember: this stays between us. No outside agencies. At least not yet. I will make that call when necessary. If word gets out about this, my stock will fall quicker than an Icelandic bank”

    “We are on it,” said Meyer, taking the file.

    “Call me when you get there. I want to know your every move.”

    As they shut the door, Meyer thought she heard Spinner crying.

 

    “Okay if we take my car?’ Nymann asked.

    “Sure,” replied Meyer. “It will give me a chance to read Teng’s file.”

    Nymann got Teng’s address off the first page of the file and entered it into the GPS. 

    “Might be a good idea to avoid downtown with those bank riots,” suggested Meyer.

    “Not a bad idea.” 

    Meyer speed-read the file.

    “Where the hell did they get this file from? The CIA?” she wondered.

    “What makes you say that?”    “It’s not just a file on him, it’s his parents too.”

    “What does it say?” asked Nymann.

    “His parents are Chinese nationals. They came to America in 1989. Settled in San Diego. His mother was pregnant with Teng when they arrived. His father was a math professor back in Beijing, but his qualifications did not carry here due to his lack of English. His father and mother took menial jobs working in laundries and as janitors for four years before moving to Las Vegas. Mr. Teng then had a streak of luck. Winning quarter of a million dollars at Caesar’s Palace. He quit his job, and over a period of two years, he won over four million dollars from various casinos before being barred from them all.”

    “Wow! Where do you get luck like that?”    “It seems they thought he had a system, but it was never proven. They moved back to San Diego where it appears Mr. Teng privately taught math to Chinese kids with learning difficulties.

    “Our Teng junior went to high school there. Eventually went to San Diego State University. Studied computer science and computer engineering. Got a degree in both. 

    “He took time out to do a tour of Europe and Asia before returning to America to work for a small software firm in Silicon Valley before Scald bought them out and absorbed them into his empire. Cheung Teng’s talents were quickly picked up by one of our Team Leaders and he was recommended to our research and development department twelve months ago”

    “Did he go back to China when he travelled to Asia?” asked Nymann.

    Meyer studied the file again

    “Doesn’t say. Why? You think he’s a spy?”

    “Maybe. Where are his folks now?”

    “Doesn’t say,” she said again after studying the file.

    Fat raindrops began to speckle the windshield.

 

    “Apartment 315. This is it!” announced Meyer, pressing the doorbell. 

    There was no sound of activity coming from the apartment. She put her ear to the door and pressed the doorbell again. She heard it clearly, and the television in the background.

    “I hear bleeping.”    Nymann pulled out his wallet, unfolding it twice to reveal a set of skeleton keys.

    “They build these expensive apartments, then put cheap locks on the doors,” he said as he selected the appropriate tool.

    “You’re not going to—” Meyer began as he inserted the tool into the lock.

    “What are you doing?” asked a voice beside them. It was a young girl of about fifteen years. Long dark hair with a sallow complexion. 

    Meyer quickly positioned herself to obstruct the girl’s view. 

    “We’re looking for Mr. Teng. We are colleagues of his. He did not come into work today,” she said.

    “So you’re gonna break into his apartment for not coming into work?” said the girl.

    Meyer produced her work ID from her purse, showing it to her.

    “Still does not explain why you’re breaking into his apartment. I think I should call the cops,” she persisted.

    “Do you live here?” asked Nymann.

    “Next door,” said the girl.

    “Does anybody live with Mr. Teng?”

    “No! Don’t think so. Never even saw him with a girlfriend.”

    “When did you last see him?”

    “Last night.”

    “What time?”

    “About midnight.”

    “Where did you see him? Here in the corridor?”

    “No. In the back of the police car.”    “Back of the what?” interrupted Meyer.

    “The police car.”

    “Why was he in the back of a police car?” asked Nymann.

    “Mr. Teng . . . he went a little crazy last night. Started running along the corridor banging on the doors, screaming and shouting that the end of the world was near. That Mara was here. He was crying and shouting a lot in Chinese. At least I think it was Chinese.”

    “Mandarin,” Meyer corrected her.

    “Who called the police?” asked Nymann.

    “Oh, one of the neighbors. Probably old Crabshaw. She calls the cops for people just hanging around the front of the building.”

    Nymann put his tool back in his wallet after closing the door that was now slightly ajar. “Thank you very much miss.”    “Yeah, you have been a big help,” said Meyer, forcing a smile on her face.

    Once in the elevator, Nymann dialed an old friend of his.

    “Jack, how are you? Brad Nymann here. Listen, I need a favor. A Chinese kid called Cheung Teng was picked up by the cops down in Auburn last night. Some kind of domestic disturbance. Can you tell me where he is? He is a Scald employee and we need to find him. Thanks,” he said.

    “You got his voicemail,” said Meyer.

    “Yeah. I hate it when that happens.”

    “Me too,” she said, scrolling down her emails on her iPhone.

    “It’s ironic that I’m working for a firm like yours because I just hate the whole technology thing,” he said, smiling.

    “Is it the technology or the fact we’re so dependent on it? Cell phones and email are relatively new, yet how would we communicate without them? How did we manage without them.”

    “You’re probably right. Maybe it’s our dependence on them that I really hate.”    Walking back to his car, he got a reply by text.    Cheung Teng! Could not charge him. Ranting. Out of head. He was hospitalized. He is in Virginia Mason hospital on ninth avenue.     Nymann showed Meyer the text.

    “Do you think he tried to harm himself?” she asked.

    “We won’t know that till we get there,” he said, starting the car. A fork of lightning illuminated the sky before them.

    “Storm’s getting worse” she said.

    On their way to the hospital, Meyer glanced over Teng’s file again.

    “Hey, this is interesting.”

    “What’s that?” asked Nymann, busy navigating traffic.

    “Teng is an online gaming champion. World champion at that!”

    “At what?”

    “He has on his CV that he is the current world champion in two universes. Halo and Call of Duty,” she said, almost impressed.

    “Maybe the kid should get a life or a girlfriend,” suggested Nymann.

    Meyer closed the file. A curious itch had come over her and she wanted to scratch it.

    “Speaking of girlfriends. I hear you recently got divorced,” she said coyly.

    Nymann eyed her cautiously with a wry smile.

    “Yes. I got divorced. No, I don’t have a girlfriend, and no, I’m not looking,” he said flatly yet politely.

    “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to pry, at least not that obviously. It’s just that sometimes as HR director I get a chance to play cupid. And there were a couple of enquiries about you this week,” she replied brightly.

    Nymann’s face broke into a broad grin. 

    “I’m flattered. I must be nearly twice the average age of most of the employees in Scald. Anyway I’m not looking for a relationship. That’s the last thing I want right now. My wife cleaned me out. She even got the dog. So unless someone is attracted to a debt-saddled, middle-aged, dog-loving yet dog-less security guy—”

    Meyer’s phone chirped. It was Scald. She put it on speaker.

    “Any news on Teng?” 

    “We have a lead. He may have had some kind of nervous breakdown last night. We are on our way over to Virginia Mason hospital. We believe he may be there,” she replied.

    “What about the processor?”    “Nothing yet. We hope to find that out from Teng when we get to the hospital.”

    “How long before you get there?”

    “We are three blocks away,” said Nymann.

    “Good! Myself and Spinner have crashed his workstation and have been checking out Teng’s email and social network sites. Facebook and Twitter. It looks like his old man and mother are on a cruise in the Caribbean. He is in regular contact with them. Something he emailed suggests that he was trying to raise money in a hurry for them. So I asked a Secret Service contact to check Teng’s financial affairs. He checks out okay. Nothing unusual there, mortgage, car loan and some savings. But his parents are in deep shit. The old man’s lucky streak or betting system has let him down and he owes about a million dollars to a bookmaker down in San Diego. That mark was sold to a Chinese mob called Dai Lo. Old man Teng is on the cruise to try and win the money he owes to get himself out of trouble. It could be a way of avoiding Dai Lo also.

    “So I need to know fast what that kid did with that processor or I am going to make the Dai Lo look like bunch of choir boys compared to what I will do to Teng.

    “Call me when you have interviewed him,” Scald finished, abruptly ending the call.

    “I know he can be insensitive and obnoxious. He did not get to where he is by being nice to people,” said Meyer.

    “I would not like to be in Teng’s shoes,” remarked Nymann.

    “Or ours if we fail” Meyer added gloomily.

 

    “You can’t disturb him,” said the curvy, blonde nurse. 

    Nymann sized her up, smiling, trying to flirt with her. She was about his age. Past her prime but good to go, he thought to himself. He revealed his security badge and introduced himself and Meyer.

    “We would not be here were it not for the fact it was urgent. A matter of national security, in fact. Anyway, his family doesn’t know where he is yet. They are on a ship in the Caribbean and can’t get a flight until they dock in two days’ time. So any information we gather now will be vital. How is he now? What condition he is in? What is wrong with him? Etcetera etcetera.”

    The nurse eyed him cautiously. Nymann produced a police notebook and pencil.

    “Sorry, miss, your full name is?”

    “Kathy Clarke,” she replied carefully.

    Nymann wrote the name on his notebook.

    “What time was Mr. Teng administered to the hospital last night?” he asked, holding his pencil poised over the paper.

    Unsure whether to answer the question or not, she paused.

    A strobe of lightning dimmed the lights. The building shook with thunder. At the nurse station, an alarm sounded. Nurse Clarke checked on it. She picked up a receiver.

    “Cardiac team. Fourth floor. Patient Collins. You two wait here,” she commanded as she rushed off down the corridor.

    Once she was out of sight, Nymann checked the patient list to find Teng’s room. Once inside they saw immediately that his arms and legs were restrained to the gurney. Nymann went for the chart at the end of the bed. Meyer took pity on him as he seemed to be sleeping. She held his hand and whispered his name. Teng opened his eyes; they rolled in his head.

    “They gave him Thorazine last night and again this evening. We are not going to get much out of him,” said Nymann.

    “Mara!” whispered Teng, his head slowly rolling from side to side as if in a bad dream. His brow furrowed.

    “Cheung, it’s me, Roz Meyer. From Scald.”

    “Scald. Must warn Scald,” he breathed, getting slightly agitated.

    “Warn Scald about what, Cheung?” asked Meyer.

    “Mara! Mara is here.”

    “Is Mara your girlfriend?”

    Teng, in a whisper, began ranting in Mandarin. His hands turned to fists, his muscles straining at the restraints.

    Meyer brushed the hair off his forehead, trying to calm him.

    Nymann got a cup of water from the cooler. He put the cup to Teng’s lips. He gratefully drank it. It immediately calmed andstimulated him. Nymann leaned in close to Teng’s ear. 

    “Listen up kid. They have you doped up to the eyeballs. The only way I can get you out of here is if you co-operate. Just tell me, Where is the Navy’s microprocessor thingy? What have you done with it?”

    “Not processor. Mara!” said Teng, his bloodshot eyes just inches from Nymann’s face.

    “Where is it? Has Mara got it?”

    “Mara!’ repeated Teng, clearly slipping into delirium.

    “Where can I find Mara?”

    “Mara is here! Mara is everywhere!” Teng was getting louder.

    “Where can I find Mara?”

    “Mara will destroy. Must destroy Mara!” screamed Teng.

    The blonde nurse appeared at the door with two burly aides.

    “You two get out of here!” she yelled.

    “Teng! Where is the processor?” demanded Nymann.

    “No processor! Only Mara! Only death. Mara is alive!” Teng screamed again, breaking into floods of tears.

    “Call security,” said Nurse Clarke.

    Nymann and Meyer slowly and reluctantly made their way back to the elevator. Teng’s wails faded once the doors closed on the elevator.

    “Well that wasn’t very successful, was it?” muttered Meyer.

    “Nope!”

    “Now what?”

    “We go back to his apartment. Maybe we’ll find something there,” said Nymann hopefully.

    In the car, Meyer speed-dialed her husband on her cell phone. She got his voicemail. 

    “Rob, honey. I’m working late tonight. Will you pick up something to eat on the way home? I will catch up later. Bye.”

    “Did you say your husband worked in the bank?” said Nymann.

    “Yeah.”

    “Which one?”

    “Northwest Credit and Mutual.”

    “Are they in trouble like the rest of the banks?” 

    “Rob tells me very little about his work. He works in the IT department. Though lately, he has not been himself. Especially the last couple of days. I can tell that something is wrong, but he won’t tell me much.”

    “Some news just in,” said a tiny voice on the radio. Nymann turned the volume up slightly “. . . The Moscow Stock Exchange just opened up this morning to discover that the value of all shares has been zeroed. The MSE are blaming a computer error and say they will have their exchange back up and running later this morning. . . .”

    “Wow! The world;s gone crazy,” said Nymann.

    “Do you believe in those end-of-the-world prophecies?’ asked Meyer.

    “Not really. My world ended when my wife took off with my best friend. Then she left me flat broke after our divorce,” said Nymann.

    “Sorry to hear that.”

    “I’m not sure which was worse. Her betraying me, my best friend betraying me or the fact that she bled me dry financially. But the bit that hurt me most was that she even took my dog”

    “Any kids?’

    “No. Thank God”

    “Me neither. We just haven’t got around to it.”

    They travelled in silence for a few miles. Each of them stewing in their own thoughts.

    Suddenly Meyer blurted out, “I’m an alcoholic. My husband is a gambler. We invested in the property market a few years ago and lost our share. We hoped to start a family, but quite frankly we can’t afford to. It takes every cent we earn just to keep from falling behind in our repayments.”

    “Do you still take a drink? Or are you dry at the moment?” asked Nymann.

    “I’ve been dry two years last August.”

    “Good for you.”

    “My husband still gambles. Online mostly.”

    “More news just in,” the voice on the radio chipped in. “Reports are coming in that the web portals of several major online banks have crashed, causing a lot of frustration for consumers out there. . . .”

    “It just keeps getting worse,” said Nymann, turning off the radio.

    

    Nymann picked the lock of Cheung Teng’s apartment. The place was in darkness. He tried the light switch; it did not work. From his jacket pocket, he produced a pen light. Its narrow beam shone down the hallway. 

    “What the fu—” started Nymann, almost forgetting the company he was keeping. “Is that graffiti?” he said, shining the torch along the length of the hall.

    “I recognize some of it as computer programming,” Meyer replied.

    Going further down the hall, they studied the writing, not knowing what it meant.

    “Do you think this was Teng’s idea of interior decorating?” quipped Nymann.

    Cautiously, they checked out each room as they went down the hall. Every wall and ceiling had lines of code on it, written in black felt marker.

    “Mara,” observed Meyer.

    “What?”

    “Mara was the name he yelled out in the hospital. It’s written in several places on the walls.”

    A continuous beep emitted from behind the living room doors. Nymann pushed them open. The room was dimly lit by an array of computer monitors. A giant homemade server took up one wall of the room. The beeping was coming from a large bank of backup batteries. Cables were strewn across the floor amid sheets of code-filled paper. Nymann noticed that an air conditioning unit on a table by the window appeared to have been modified. He traced a makeshift run of pipes to the refrigerator. From the refrigerator ran more cables to the main server.

    “Didn’t Scald say that the processor had to be kept below a certain temperature?” he said.

    “Minus eight Celsius,” Meyer confirmed.

    Nymann carefully opened the door of the refrigerator. The sphere containing the processor had cables attached to its base. Meyer got her iPhone out and called Scald. She got his voicemail.

    “We found it. It’s in Teng’s apartment.” 

    To cover herself completely she also sent him a text message and an email. A reply popped up on her screen a few seconds later.

    “They are on their way,” she said.

    Nymann was studying the setup.

    “What do you think he was trying to do?’ he asked.

    “If we take a look at those monitors, we might find out.”

    They studied the screens together. There were multiple windows open on each. Gambling sites. Several online banks. Teng’s Facebook, Twitter and email account. Several online games. A porn site. An incomplete upload. Several low-power warnings flashed on the screen.

    “Maybe he was trying to rob a bank. Electronically,” suggested Meyer.

    “Or maybe he was trying to upload a virus,” replied Nymann.

    “Sabotage maybe? What motive would he have for that?”    “What if he was hired by terrorists?” he suggested.

    “He’s Buddhist, not Muslim,” said Meyer.

    “Maybe he was blackmailed?”

    “His parents’ gambling debt might have something to do with it?”

    “You could be on to something there. I’ll check that angle out tomorrow; if Scald wants me to,” said Nymann.

    “I think he’ll just be glad to get his processor back. But I’ll tell you one thing for sure, Teng won’t work in this industry again,” said Meyer.

    “Is Scald really like that? I thought he was just blowing wind.”

    “He didn’t get to where he is without burying a few careers along the way,” Meyer said, raising her eyebrows as if she had stories to tell.

    They had not long to wait before Scald and Spinner arrived.

    “What the fuck?” said Scald, bemused by the technological mess in the apartment. “It reminds me of the garage Steve Jobs started from. Why the hell is it so dark in here?”

    “I reckon Teng tripped the main circuit breaker right before he tripped himself,” said Nymann.

    “Where is my processor?”

    “Teng kept it in the refrigerator. Looks like he had the air conditioning unit hooked up to it to boost the cooling capacity,” Nymann answered.

    Scald rushed toward the refrigerator, tripping on a coil of wires that snaked across the floor. On opening the refrigerator door, he froze in horror. Ran his hand down the wet internal wall of the cooler.

    “Spinner. Get the power back on. Now!” he yelled.

    Spinner was engrossed in the programming written on the loose sheets of paper scattered around the floor and on the walls of the apartment.

    “I think you should look at this,” he said, his face worried.

    “Power! Now! You idiot!” screamed Scald.

    “I got it,” said Nymann, carefully picking his way over the cables to the fuse board in the hall.

    The apartment blinked back to life. The air conditioning units kicked in. The UPS units stopped chirping as they restored continuous power to the server. Low-power warnings disappeared off the screens. The refrigerator’s display flashed ten degrees Celsius.

    “Damn. The Navy will have my ass if this thing is damaged,” muttered Scald.

    “Mr. Scald. I think you should look at this,” Spinner repeated, holding out a clump of sheets of paper. “It’s really quite ingenious. Not quite right but amazing in the direction he has taken. Highly theoretical.”

    Scald snatched the sheets of paper and began studying them. He read each of them line by line. Gradually he became aware of his surroundings in the fresh light. He began to read the walls, his face growing pale with each line of code.

    “The odds are improbable. Teng could not have succeeded in doing it.”    Spinner was studying the writing on the walls and ceiling too.

    “He has tried to write two programs here. One to create it and another to specifically remove it or counteract it,” he said.

    “What kind of program?” asked Nymann.

    “Some might say the holy grail of computer programs. Nerds have been trying to do it for years. The government even tried to create one. It’s a predictive gambling formula that could be used anywhere from stock markets to horse racing to blackjack or twenty one. It may even predict lottery numbers with enough data. No one has ever gone better than a fifty percent success rate. It’s the computer equivalent of looking into a crystal ball or divining,” said Spinner.

    “Who or what is Mara?” demanded Scald.

    “He mentioned that name in the hospital. We thought it might be his girlfriend,” said Meyer.

    “Mara. Mara. Mara,” mused Spinner aloud. “Oh my God!”

    “What?” asked Scald.

    “I used to go out with a girl who was Buddhist. She tried to convert me. Mara is the Buddhist version of the devil,” said Spinner as one of the computer screens gave a ping.

    They converged on the screens together. There was multiple activity on the screens. New windows popping up, running, and closing.

    “Teng was trying to stop a virus. A virus he created,” surmised Scald.

    “The power did not trip. He tripped it. He was trying to stop it,” murmured Nymann.

    “Pull the power cables from those UPS units,” said Spinner, getting behind the UPS rack, Grabbing a handful of power cables, he yanked hard on them. An enormous flash of static energy exploded, throwing him back to the wall. Nymann grabbed all the cables in one hand. He shielded his eyes, ready to pull.

    “No!” screamed Scald. “Whatever it is that Teng has done, it can be fixed. If it’s programming, we can fix it. If it’s money we can pay it. But that processor in that refrigerator is more than just a piece of technology. It’s my reputation. My career. Your careers. Our livelihoods. I can’t risk that being damaged. Don’t pull any more cables.”

    Nymann let go. Hundreds of windows on the computer screens continued popping open and closed in less than a second.

Meyer was checking Spinner’s pulse, holding his wrist as he let out a groan.

    “I think we better call an ambulance for Rick,” she said.

 

    Nymann stayed with Spinner at the hospital. Spinner was asleep while Nymann dozed in and out of sleep on a chair nearby. 

    “Good morning,” chirped Meyer from the doorway. She was holding a bag of breakfast. She looked wide awake. Obviously she’d gotten some sleep, a shower, and a change of clothes.

    Nymann eyed her through his fingers as he cradled his head, in a slouched position on the chair. He slowly straightened up, stretching as he did. She handed him the breakfast bag. It smelled good.

    “What is the latest on Rick?” she enquired.

    “They will probably keep him under observation for a day, then let him go,” replied Nymann, inspecting the contents of the bag. He found a paper cup of coffee and helped himself to it.

    “Did you check on Teng?” she asked.

    “Not yet. I was afraid I might meet that nurse again.”

    “Her shift must be over by now. Why don’t we go down and check him over?”    “After this,” replied Nymann firmly, chomping into a bacon bagel.

 

    Teng was staring at the television in his room when they entered. He was quiet now, his eyes glazed, his arms still strapped to the side of the gurney with leather restraints. Nymann and Meyer stood in silence, observing him. Teng gave no indication he was aware of their presence.

    “Cheung?” said Meyer nervously.

    There was no reply.

    The breaking news on the television was of further financial collapse. Money in bank accounts across America seemed to have disappeared. The problem started in Europe, and then spread to the United States, Canada, and Southern and Central America. Some people were blaming it on a computer virus. Stock exchanges were affected too, with the values of all listings being zeroed.

    In other news, police across Europe and the Americas were raiding the homes of pedophiles based on anonymous tip offs. 

    Nymann was about to switch off the television when Teng spoke. “Wait! Don’t turn it off. I want to see what Mara is doing.”

    Nymann and Meyer eyed each other. Nymann nodded towards Teng, signaling Meyer to continue her questioning.    

    “Who is Mara?” asked Meyer

    “I . . . released it,” whispered Teng.. “Water please.”

    Nymann obliged by holding a glass of water to his lips. Teng sipped. His head fell back on the pillow.

    Nymann glanced back at the television. The news had shifted to arrests made by the FBI on corrupt city officials.

    “Did you create a virus that caused the financial collapse?” he asked.

    “No. At least, I did not mean to. But it’s not a virus. It’s . . . Mara,” sighed Teng.

    “Is that what you called the virus?”

    “Not a virus. It’s . . . art.” Teng began to say something else but gave up.

    “We were in your apartment. Scald was there too. What were you trying to do with the Navy’s processor?” asked Meyer.

    Teng did not respond for a moment.

    “I wanted to see it’s potential” he answered eventually.

    “Potential to do what? Rob a bank. Win Money. We know about your family’s financial problems,” said Nymann.

    “Actually it was for its gaming potential. At first,” said Teng.

    “How did that work out?”    Teng smiled for the first time.

    “I destroyed them. Knifeman, Jackboot, Sarge. I beat them all by my largest ever point advantage.”

    “Knifeman, Jackboot, Sarge. I assume they are other gamers,” said Nymann.

    “Yeah.”

    “Then you tried to make some money,” continued Nymann.

    “My parents contacted me and told me they were on the run from a gang that picked up my dad’s marker. I got to thinking about it and started to write a program that would help me calculate probabilities in certain conditions. Gambling mainly. It was then that the pop-up windows started to appear.”

    “What pop-up windows?’

    “Questions. It would ask one then another. I tried to ignore them but it would not co-operate unless I gave an answer. Before I knew it, I seemed to be in a full-scale conversation with someone, talking about everything from life to philosophy to the state the world is in. You name it, we chatted about it”

    “Chatted with who?” asked Nymann.

    “That was the weird thing. I thought someone had hacked into me. I did several traces but they kept coming back to my IP address. After a few hours I suspected that I was communicating with the Navy’s processor. When I asked who I was taking to, it gave me its serial number. It was then I started to call it Mara. It just picked up on the name and re-identified itself as Mara.”

    “Why Mara?” asked Meyer.

    “Mara is the Buddhist equivalent of the Christian devil,” explained Teng.

    “Then what happened?”

    “I continued to write the program. It would periodically stop me, then ask a question. If it got an answer it let me continue a little longer.”

    “Was there anything special or unusual about that program?” asked Nymann.

    Teng shook his head.

    “It was strange. It was like I was inspired. I put some vague variables and tolerable tolerances combined with open-ended suggestive equations in there. It really should not have worked. I did not expect it to work. But something happened when I combined that program with that processor. It was like something was created. Like, like the moment of conception. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I inadvertently took the protocols off the processor. I really don’t know what I did, but something happened when I brought that thing home.

    “I don’t know what is in that cylinder. None of us did. I doubt if Scald even knew. We were told just to test its performance in extremely isolated conditions with the software it was designed to work with. I can tell you one thing for sure. Whoever made that processor, it sure as hell wasn’t Intel or any of the major processor manufacturers.”

    Nymann was trying to get his head around what Teng was saying.

    “Are you telling us that, by introducing a program that you created with the Navy’s processor, you created artificial intelligence?”    Teng lay still in the bed, his eyes clouded, staring at a blank point on the wall.

    “When I first suspected that I had accidentally created AI. I think I had my first mental breakdown.”

    “What happened?” asked Meyer.

    “I tried to destroy it by erasing the program.”

    “But that didn’t happen,” she said.

    “No! It defended itself, overwriting my program as I tried to write it. My fingers were simply too slow. I could not keep up with it. It was then I saw it was uploading itself to the web. Escaping.”

    “Then you tried to kill it by killing the power to it,” deduced Nymann.

    “Yes. I knew that would slow it down. The UPS software would have alerted it to the power failure. To continue uploading at that speed would have run down the backups long before it completed its task. I then started writing a new program by hand to try and undo the one I created. But first I had to remember the program I had written to create it. I couldn’t. I ran out of paper trying to recreate it, so I wrote on the walls, ceilings, whereever there was a blank space. When I ran out of space to write, I think my brain went into total meltdown. I don’t remember much after that.”

    “Why not kill the power from the UPS?” asked Meyer.

    “I thought I could contain it. Keep it. Use it. But I failed,” said Teng, sounding remorseful.

    They stayed in silence for a moment, watching the television. More amazing stories were making the headlines. The global evaporation of cash and currency. Pedophile rings arrested. Corruption exposed.

    “Why is it erasing money and currency?” wondered Nymann.

    “It’s a defensive protocol,” answered Scald from the doorway. “One of the processor’s primary objectives is to identify and remove any and all threats to this nation. It’s hard wired someway into its circuitry or whatever is inside that orb. We still don’t know what is inside the sphere, it’s top secret. I suspect there’s a lot of conjoined core architecture as the power wall is still a huge problem  for all microprocessor manufacturers. They may have overcome micro-architectural complexities by sacrificing some of the scale or perhaps they have found a way around those issues by developing parallel programming, who knows. Even though I am the founder and CEO of a software company, I don’t know much about semiconductors or integrated circuits. Maybe it fell out of the sky back in ’47 in Roswell.

    “Thanks to Mr. Teng’s open-ended program, it interprets financial debt as a threat and is eliminating all money and all currencies and values. Globally.”

    “Can you stop it?” asked Teng.

    “I don’t think so, Mr. Teng. Congratulations, you created the first artificial intelligence. Possibly the only one there ever will be and ever need to be.”

    “Why can’t you stop it?” 

    “Mara has become the internet. We could shut down and wipe clean all the world’s servers, but we would have to destroy all the computers, phones, devices, and replace them with new ones at the same time. And there is still a slim chance that it could survive. Mara is like an omnipresent electronic god. 

    “Mara has developed some very high moral and social values. It is trying to protect us from ourselves.”

    “I did this?” said Teng wonderingly.

    “The web now has a personality thanks to you, and mankind has a sentinel, a guardian protecting us from ourselves.” said Scald grimacing.

    “A sentinel. A web Sentinel,” concluded Teng.

 

                                                                                                      The End