Doctor Who_ Blue Box - Kate Orman [88]
The Doctor was shaking his head. ‘No. Remember what it tried to do to our little computer?’
‘Oh my God,’ said Bob. ‘It’s uploading itself.’
‘Once it copies itself to that new host, it will seize control.
Send more copies of itself to more machines.’ He sprang to his feet. ‘There’s nothing we can do from here. Quickly! We have to get to her minicomputer and stop it.’
‘You want to break into her house again?’ I said from the doorway as they ran into the hall.
Bob said,’We’ve got nothing to lose.’
‘We have the world to lose,’ said the Doctor. They hurtled down the stairs.
I stood there alone for about two minutes. My hands shook a little as I lit a new smoke. It was all happening again, Sydney again, Los Angeles all over again. Every time I promised myself I would never have to go through it again. It was like one of those bad dreams that come back just when you’ve forgotten the last time.
The phone rang. I snatched it up. ‘Yeah?’
‘I want you,’ said Swan, ‘to tell me everything the Doctor knows.’
My voice had turned into a growl. ‘Lady, why the hell should I help you? You’ve already cost me my job.’
‘Because I can do worse. Your old friend in Los Angeles is still pissed off with you. He’s more than happy to tell anyone, any supermarket tabloid, about his encounter with the she-male freak from Aussie. ‘ She pronounced it Awsss-ee’.
‘Jesus, Swan’ I said. ‘The Savant thing is dead. Or broken, or whatever. Its original owners have already taken it back.
There’s nothing left that I can give you.’
‘All I want from you is information. The Doctor knows a lot more about all this than he’s deigned to tell me. I want you to tell me everything you know. Or I make you a star. Take it or leave it.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘All right. Keep your hat on, well talk.
Where are you right now?’
‘At my house. You know where it is.’
‘Not there,’ I said. I named a diner in Rockville. ‘I can be there in half an hour.’
‘All right.’
‘You can pay for the coffee.’
Swan was amused. She could afford to be. ‘My pleasure.’
I chucked the phone into the kitchen, where it knocked a bunch of dirty coffee cups off the counter. It all landed on the floor in a satisfying explosion. When I saw Swan, so help me if I wasn’t ready to hit a girl.
The Doctor broke a window, opened a door and pounced on the minicomputers ‘Where’s it sending itself to?’
‘The university’s machine,’ said Bob.
‘It’ll be all over the country in a couple of days. We’ll never be able to stuff it back into the bottle.’
‘Is there still enough time?!’ said Bob.
‘I think so,’ said the Doctor. ‘Look. It’s only uploading itself at 300 baud.’
‘My God; said Bob sourly. ‘We have only hours.’
‘Let’s not risk a nasty surprise,’ said the Doctor. They bumped shoulders at the keyboard. The Doctor started hammering at the keys. ‘It’s useless! The system’s ignoring input.’
‘Uh, guys?’ said Peri.
They both looked up at her. She was holding up the Eclipse’s power cord, which she had unplugged from the wall.
They both looked back down at the screen. ‘It’s still going!’
said Bob.
‘There must be an alternative power source, said the Doctor.
‘She’s got a UPS,’ said Bob.
‘Guys?’ said Peri.
They looked up again. Now she was holding the modem cord, which she had unplugged from the phone jack. They both looked back down at the screen. ‘That’s done it,’ said Bob.
The Doctor shuffled through the papers and wires and takeout containers on Swan’s table until he found a printout of the program. ‘Bring a soft copy as well,’ he told Bob.
‘Already on it,’ said the hacker, brandishing a floppy disk.
‘You want me to trash Swan’s hard drive? She’ll have hidden copies all over.’
‘If she’s hidden copies in her computer, she’ll have hidden them elsewhere as well. We’ll never find them all.’
‘Point,’ said Bob. He stashed the floppy disk in his jacket.
‘Now we’ve got a copy it won’t take long to work out how it ticks.’
‘The program should tell us something about the Savant as well,’