The Blue Nowhere

painful chill and looked quickly around the dark, musty room. He shivered in fear.
    That damn ghost again . . .
    Maybe he should just forget the whole thing. He was sick of being scared, sick of being cold. He should get the hell out of here, go hangwith James Nance or Totter or some of the guys from French club. His hands went to the keyboard to stop Crack-er and run the cloaking program that would destroy the evidence of his hack.
    Then something happened.
    On the screen in front of him the root directory of the college’s computer suddenly appeared. Way bizarre! Then, all by itself, the computer dialed out to another one, outside of the school. The machines electronically shook hands and a moment later Jamie Turner’s Crack-er and Booty’s password file were transferred to the second computer.
    How the hell had that happened?
    Jamie Turner was very savvy in the ways of computers but he’d never seen this. The only explanation was that the first computer—the college’s—had some kind of arrangement with other computer departments so that tasks that took a long time were automatically transferred to speedier machines.
    But what was totally weird was that the machine Jamie’s software had been transferred to was the Defense Research Center’s massive parallel array of supercomputers in Colorado Springs, one of the fastest computer systems in the world. It was also one of the most secure and was virtually impossible to crack (Jamie knew; he’d tried it). It contained highly classified information and no civilian had ever been allowed to use it in the past. Jamie supposed they’d started renting out the system to defray the huge cost of maintaining a parallel array. Ecstatic, he peered at the screen and saw that the DRC’s machines were cracking Booty’s passcode at a blistering rate.
    Well, if there was a ghost in his machine, he decided, maybe it was a good ghost after all. Maybe it was even a Santana fan, he laughed to himself.
    Jamie now turned to his next task, the second hack he needed to complete before the Great Escape. In less than sixty seconds he’d transformed himself into a middle-aged overworked service tech employed by West Coast Security Systems, Inc., who’d unfortunately misplaced the schematic diagram for a WCS Model 8872 alarmed firedoor he was trying to repair and needed some help from the manufacturer’s technical supervisor.
    The man was all too happy to oblige.
    P hate, sitting at his dining room office, was watching Jamie Turner’s program hard at work in the Defense Research Center’s supercomputers, where he’d just sent it, along with the password file.
    Unknown to the sysadmin at the DRC the huge computers were presently under his root control and were burning about $25,000 of computer time for the sole purpose of letting a sophomore in high school open a single locked gate.
    Phate had examined the progress of the first supercomputer Jamie had used at a nearby college and had seen at once that it wasn’t going to spit out the passcode in time for the boy to escape from the school for his 6:30 rendezvous with his brother.
    Which meant that he’d stay safely tucked away at St. Francis and Phate would lose this round of the game. And that wasn’t acceptable.
    But, as he’d known, the DRC’s parallel array would easily crack the code before the deadline.
    If Jamie Turner had actually gotten to the concert that night—which wasn’t going to happen now—he’d have had Phate to thank.
    Phate then hacked into the San Jose City Planning and Zoning Board computer files and found a construction proposal, submitted by the principal of St. Francis Academy, who’d wanted to put up a gated wall and needed P&Z approval. Phate downloaded the documents and printed out diagrams of the school itself and the grounds.
    As he was examining the diagrams his machine beeped and a box flashed onto the screen, alerting him that he’d received an e-mail from Shawn.
    He felt the ping of excitement he always did when Shawn sent a message. This reaction struck him as significant, an important insight into Phate’s—no, make that Jon Holloway’s—personal development. He’d grown up in a household where love was as rare as money wasplentiful and he knew that he’d developed into a cold, distant person. He’d felt this way toward everyone—his family, fellow workers, classmates and the few people he’d tried to have relationships with. And yet the depth of what Phate felt for Shawn