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Jordan stared at the white paint of the stall door, losing himself like he sometimes did at the screen. Nothing seemed real. He remembered a word of wisdom that he had once, delightedly, checked out in a lucid dream: If you can fly, you’re dreaming. He thought about it for a minute, and no, he didn’t float upwards…

Just as well, because his trousers were around his ankles.

When he stepped through the door of the office he found everybody yelling at everybody else.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

That got all those in earshot yelling at him. Mrs Lawson pushed her way through. He was relieved to see she looked relieved to see him. She grabbed his elbow and tugged him towards his own screen. He stared at it. Bands of colour warped and writhed, almost hypnotically complex patterns appearing momentarily and then changing before he could appreciate them.

‘This has got to be a terminal malfunction,’ he said. ‘Either that or the world economy has gone to h – Hades!’ He recalled the window displays. ‘It’s not, uh, some designer’s palette that’s got its wires crossed with our system?’

‘Nice try,’ Mrs Lawson said. ‘Just don’t suggest it to the designers – they’re practically hysterical already.’

She glared around and several people slunk back abashed.

‘The engineers have been in all lunchtime and assure us there’s nothing wrong with the hardware. And, yes, we have checked and it isn’t – hee hee – the terminal crisis of capitalism, either.’

A lowercase thought slid along the bottom of Jordan’s mind.

our sleeper viruses have survived twenty years

The room swayed slightly. Get a grip.

‘It’s all right,’ he said, loud enough to be heard by enough people to amplify and spread the phony reassurance. ‘I have an idea as to what’s behind this. I’ll just have to check over some of your files, Mrs Lawson.’

He looked her in the eye and gave a tiny jerk of his head.

‘OK.’ She raised her voice to a pitch and volume that reminded him she’d once been a schoolteacher. ‘Do something else!’ she said to the rest of the room. ‘Read a manual if you have to!’

She shut the office door firmly behind them.

‘This place secure?’ he said immediately.

‘If it isn’t, nowhere is.’

‘Do you have a landlink to the security forces? The real ones I mean, uh, no offence to the Warriors—’

‘None taken.’

She smiled at his visible shock. Jordan continued hurriedly: ‘Could you check that the subversives aren’t starting a big push?’

She said nothing.

‘Look, I’m not suggesting that any of their, uh, black propaganda is true but they might be getting into sabotage…’

He trailed off, feeling he’d said too much.

‘That’s a point. Besides, it could be more, well, local forces, shall we say? Some anti-Christian faction.’

Mrs Lawson picked up a phone and walked about with it, talking in the clipped argot of the security professional. (God, he’d never suspected she was a cop!)

‘—sitrep update request, BC. Check ECM on LANS…yes…OK negative on target specificity…copy, got you, logging out.’

She clicked the phone off.

‘We’re not the only ones. Some of our commercial rivals and ideological opponents are getting system crashes as well, but none of the core state or corporate networks have any problems. Doesn’t fit any known attack profile, doesn’t fit anything apart from the issue I raised this morning.’

‘Well, I certainly didn’t expect anything like this…so soon.’

Mrs Lawson nodded briskly, as if not paying attention.

‘You couldn’t be expected to. You’re not a big loop, Jordan – you’re not my main source of ideas. I want you to watch out, yes, you have a knack. But to be honest I’ve had the same theories run through by the leading Warriors already. I was just checking that the projections held.’

She paused, her face suddenly bleak.

‘I know I can trust you to keep this to yourself – not because I know you’re clean, but because I know for a fact you’re not. Take that spiritual-virgin look off your face! Do you think – no, you’re far too smart to think – an outfit like BC survives in this tough world on censored