Programmed for Peril

calls.”
    Lois’s voice beat at his concentration. She was indignant. She sang her song of outrage into one ear while Louis sang of catfish into the other. He began to feel imposed upon, though he would never dream of cutting Sweetest Sister short. Then to his astonishment she spoke her name. Armstrong and Pire fell away. His attention sank into Sweetest Sister’s words like needle teeth. He had been insulted, too, she cried. He imagined her standing legs spread by the boutique’s pay phone. Sweetest Sister! Five-one by the yardstick, seven-three in her influence on him. Sweet, sweet, Sweetest Sister, glean the rich field of your indignation and share with me tales of her, she of the black hair, eyes gray as seas in storm. Oh, behold their past sorrow like flint-colored current in those whirling waters....
    He sorted wheat from chaff, surprisingly found hard grain. He questioned Lois intently. She wasn’t used to this sort of persistence from him. Oh, no, it wasn’t his style. Normally he listened and did her bidding. Life was so much simpler when she led. Not now, though—not when she loomed large and troubled on his horizon. He felt blessed, called. It was now written that he who had knelt so long at his worship’s private altar should be rewarded for his secret, determined love.
    How he did love her! From that enshrined day when he had beheld her for the first—and last—time. To Foster she walked, white and supple as a willow branch in her spotless Jumpsuit, long-fingered, capable hand outthrust toward Nicholas. Oh, warm, satin skin against his gritty paw! Oh, cunning curve of lip in restrained smile, its inner moisture fainting like dawn dew under angled sun. So suddenly had the bomb of love detonated over the once-arid plain of his heart that he nearly sank to his knees and wrapped worshipful arms around her white-clad calves. Since then that plain had blossomed lush as Eden, cultivated and watered by his undeclared longings.
    How could he dare approach her? Despised as she was by Lois, engaged to Foster, she was declared off limits by two different forces. And by a third, he thought ruefully, his own spidery body with its hairless, gleaming head. A grotesque man could nonetheless long desperately.... So many nights he had lain awake, face to the ceiling, and whispered her name to the conspiring night: Patricia, Patricia, Patricia...
    He cut into Lois’s monologue again. “You have to answer my questions specifically, Lois,” he said.
    She sputtered. “Nicholas, what has gotten into you?”
    “I want to know just what I’m being accused of,” he said. “Tell me—slowly—just what happened to Ms. Morley.”
    His sister wasn’t empirically minded. Getting hard data out of her was as difficult as kissing the First Lady. Finally, though, he found out what he wanted. There had been an on-screen warning, code auto-scrubbed. A virus had migrated from PC-Pros’ software into a customer’s LAN. A telephone warning had been followed by theft and PC bashing. Important point: The machines’ cases had been opened to assure destruction. Not the work of some ignorant vandal. Most interesting was the last harassing event: the telephone “wedding survey.” Mounting that required a specialized computer and software. Whether or not they were commonly available he didn’t know. What was certain: Someone was making a considerable effort to warn Patricia away from marrying Foster. The question that followed from that was how much further was the harasser prepared to go? Or was that the end of it? He didn’t think so. Because he didn’t, he was prepared to do what so recently was unthinkable.
    To approach Patricia and offer not his love, but his assistance. To serve his goddess like the most devout priest.
    Off the phone he tried to return to Pire and Louis, without success. Before him floated a vision of a frightened love in white, turning, searching in all directions for the help that only someone with his talents could give.
    Within an hour he was in the reception area of PC-Pros. He had taken a hand-held chess computer with him, intending to review recent grand master uses of the Pire. But his powers of concentration had been weakened. Further, his heart pounded, and he drew shallow breaths in the face of possibly meeting Patricia for the second time. He knew the dimpled woman at the desk—Michelle she called herself— was covertly eyeing him. He read her mind. Could anyone really be as gangling and