Programmed for Peril

glance he read that she saw him, rather than as her most devoted lover— oh, far more devoted than Foster Palmer!—as a socially inept, possibly dangerous geek.
    What did it matter that she had spurned him?
    He would help her anyway.
     

8
     
    TRISH HAD BEEN SHAKEN BY NICHOLAS’S UNEXPECTED appearance, though she had succeeded in hiding it. She wondered if she could have carried it off in the face of someone not a zero for interactive skills, as Nicholas was. What a strange man, with that huge moon head and long arms! She giggled. He looked a little like a family-sized E.T. Her amusement died quickly. He and his sister were nothing funny together. His behavior had been most revealing. His first mistake was coming to see her at all. The second was protesting his innocence too much. Face-to-face he had rendered his guilt as transparent as plastic wrap. Her instincts had suggested that the Smith-Pattons were behind those nasty stunts. Now she was certain of it. Well, she had personally warned both of them.
    She guessed her troubles were over.
    She went back to her office. She had to check invoices outstanding. Cash flow was in danger of becoming a problem. She flipped the surge protector switch. Her lit PC screen carried a message. She stiffened, remembering the previous warning. With a rising sense of dread she scanned the lines of yellow text.
     
ALL YOUR BUSINESS BACKUP FILES HAVE BEEN DESTROYED. THE ORIGINALS ON THE HARD DRIVE OF THIS MACHINE WILL BE ERASED IN EXACTLY 10 MINUTES. ONLY YOUR INTERVENTION CAN SAVE THEM. TURNING OFF THE MACHINE OR ATTEMPTING FILE ERASURE WILL GUARANTEE LOSS OF ALL FILES. AT THE TONE THE 10 MINUTES WILL BEGIN.
     
    She whirled in her chair. Her eyes sought the shelf across the room where she kept her backup tapes. The boxes were gone! She groaned. She had meant all along to store them off-site, maybe in a fireproof safe. Now it was too late! Her machine was the heart of PC-Pros’ local area network. Without its files her entire business would be brain-dead. What was going on here?
    Beeeeep!
    She had the presence of mind to take off her wristwatch and put it face up beside her keyboard.
    Only your intervention can save them.... She flung herself at the keyboard, mouth gone dry as sand. She brought up the hard disk file directory, scanned it eagerly for a renegade file. There! It was a sizable one. She sent it to the laser printer. It whummmmed to life, spilling out twenty Pages of program code. That was more code than needed. She guessed that dead ends and mazes without exits abounded.
    Three of her ten minutes were gone.
    She snatched the sheets out of the printer tray, scanned the first. She recognized the language—Delphi. It was one of those she had learned at Carson’s feet. Another of the few good things she had brought back from the west coast, maybe, maybe she could unlock the file, pull its teeth.
    She used the intercom. “Anybody in the building know Delphi? If you do, get in here—fast!”
    She dug into the code, looking for the lines that would jigger the erasure. She didn’t see them! Oh, Lord, somehow Nicholas had buried them. How had that gangling weirdo leaked into the building, gotten to the backup files and this machine? How had he known PC-Pros ran on a local network? She had to force her attention back to her immediate problem.
    Tran Lo Dinh came in. He said he knew “some small little” about Delphi. Without looking up she told him what they were up against.
    “Only ten minute?” he asked, eyes widening.
    “Down to six now, Tran.”
    “Ah-yi!”
    It took her three more minutes—damn all the red herrings!—to grasp how Nicholas had tied the code into the PC’s operating system. She understood at once that she had to recode that part of the program so that when the machine was turned off no file erasure would take place. Then she could reboot and kill the renegade lines.
    Tran leaned over her shoulder and tried to help. But she knew Delphi better than he. She turned back to the PC and brought up the program. She would have to take out... those seven lines there—and put in maybe ten new ones.
    They would have to be absolutely correct. She would not enjoy the luxury of being able to test them.
    Two and a half minutes left.
    She busied herself with the keyboard. Her jaw was clenched. Her heart pounded so hard she felt the pulse rising in her wrists and calves.
    “You spell word wrong!” Tran whispered.
    She went back and corrected it. “Keep