True Believers by Maria Zannini Page A

the beam. He slid away from his lighted prison, and the world faded to black.
    His nose twitched when he caught the faint whiff of something familiar, comfortable. Electronics. He brightened. Electronics meant computers, and computers were one of the few things he understood intimately.
    The sound of muffled voices murmured underneath him. He froze in place for what seemed like a lifetime before moving another muscle. The smell of the warm circuitry lured him away to safer ground.
    The static in the air puffed his hair out as if he'd stuck a finger in a light socket, and his ears twitched when he caught the recurring pop of a circuit going through a surge. A computer.
    With the edge of a fingertip he pried up one corner of the ceiling tile. The room glowed, the dim eyes of red and yellow lights dancing in a row across a control board. A whiny whir from the hard-drive's fan told him his movements had created enough vibration to nudge the computer to wake-up mode.
    He dropped down with all the finesse of a three-legged dog, making more noise than he could afford. If anyone heard him, this was going to be one short escape. Paul held his breath, but no one came running. To sweeten the deal, the door was locked. Whoever worked here was through for the day.
    The soft purr of the computer called to him. All computers did. They knew he spoke their language and he was one of few who could enter their realm at will. Paul crept back to the terminal, drifting his fingertips over the keyboard. He passed his hand over an activation grid and slipped past the curtain of the operating environment. What he looked for was on the inside. His fingers whirred over the keyboard and keyed-in an override code.
    Paul smiled when the screen blinked benignly. Security protocols for military systems were his specialty. He'd cut his teeth on them when he was a teenager, hacking into high-risk systems just for kicks. They had caught him once when he got sloppy, but that was enough to earn him a job offer from Congress. He was safer to them on the inside than out.
    The computer chimed at him and opened a new window. Text scrolled across the screen. Welcome, Paul Domino.
    Paul froze, not happy at seeing his name displayed so prominently across the screen. Without thinking, he blinded the computer with a blanket code to mask his presence. Hesitant fingers splayed out over the keyboard.
    Damn it. There was only one way it could have recognized him. Paul had keyed in a unique string of code authorizing access. He had written the original script years ago. Only a computer with an embedded trigger could have identified him as the user.
    No alarms had been raised, and his access hadn't been denied. Was he safe? There was only one way to find out.
    One trembling finger hovered over the enter key. He bit one corner of his lip, then hit Enter, releasing the blanket. Without hesitating, he keyed for entrance into secured administrator files, using the same pass phrase he had used more than two decades earlier. The computer chimed at him in approval.
    He was in.
    Reams of information cascaded down the screen in a code that was both familiar and foreign. This was no mere operating system. Several computer languages were cobbled together and virtual memory was encapsulated in separate cells so that one couldn't corrupt the other without the proper access codes. Paul held his breath as his eyes scanned the layered code.
    Sonovabitch. This was artificial intelligence. The good stuff.
    The cursor blinked at him and flashed a new message. Welcome to Lambda Core. He stared at the name in disbelief.
    Lambda Core was a state-of-the-art virtual reality game company that went bust after its inventor turned up decapitated. The body was found seated in front of his computer, while his head stared up at him blindly. Lambda Core.
    The story still sent shivers down his spine. Lambda Core had offered him the job first with a promise he could write his own ticket. He turned it down.
    For