Molly opened the door to Heidi's apartment with the keys she still had from the day before. At first glance, Tom and Nancy could hardly tell that anyone actually lived there. The place could have been the manager's model apartment. In fact, it was completely furnished with a rental interior. Heidi brought her own clothes and her own computer to school. Everything else was picked out of the rental company's catalog. Even the books on the shelves were a random collection whose only value seemed to be the bindings they displayed. Weekly maid service maintained the never-been-lived-in look.

Nancy: It's not going to take long to look around here, is it?

Tom: I want to bring my daughter down here and show her this place. If I could get her to live like this, I think my wife would start sleeping again.

Molly: She's got the second bedroom setup as her office. That's where I found her. Come on, I'll show you.

The 10' x 12' office had a cozier feel than the main living areas, but it was still the same basic furnishing plan. Modular desk components, bookshelves, file cabinets and a stiff-backed modern chair with rollers that moved easily across the hardwood floor. Heidi's school books occupied this shelf space. All three visitors noticed the one unexpected finding at the same time. Heidi's computer was not still on. Someone had turned it off. Nancy flipped on the power switch as Molly shrugged to say she didn't know how it had been powered down.

Tom: What, is it some kinda big deal that the machine is turned off?

Nancy: It just means that we can't tell exactly what she was working on when whatever happened happened.

Tom: Can't we look at some log files or something?

Nancy: We could try poking around, but I think I'd like to get some help doing that. We might also want to check some other machines she accesses for things like e-mail and publishing her Web page.

Molly: Heidi is pretty careful with passwords. I don't how we'll get into those without her help. Maybe we should wait 'til she gets out of the hospital...

Tom: I don't think they're going to release her for another couple days.

Nancy: We can't wait that long to find out what happened. If anyone else gets hurt, it would be our fault for not acting more quickly. I think we need to do whatever we can, as soon as we can.

Molly: Okay, Nancy, how do you propose we do it without Heidi's help?

Nancy: Let's go back into the living room. I've got a plan I want to tell you about.

Nancy needed Spike to help investigate. She thought about having him do it anonymously so that she wouldn't have to share his secret with Tom and Molly. But she knew it was just a matter of time before she would have to fill Tom in. She decided that this was as good a time as any and Molly would just have to be trusted.

Tom and Molly sat on the stiff sofa as Nancy paced back and forth across the room in front of them. She told them her story of meeting Spike Webb. She explained his situation and told them about some of the things that had happened to them since Spike arrived. She filled in the facts Tom had been wondering about from the John Lexicon case. Nancy finally stopped talking after almost an hour of completely uninterrupted explanation. Tom and Molly turned to look at each other for a moment as they considered how they should react to Nancy's fantastic story.

Tom: You're putting us on, right Nancy?

Molly: She's gotta be, Tom. You're kidding aren't you?

Nancy: You don't believe me? You both know I'm not the kind of person to make this up.

Tom: Nancy, do you think it could be some trick that Roger Tango is playing on you?

Nancy: I met Spike before you even set me up with Roger, Tom.

Molly: You're dating a guy named Roger Tango?

Nancy: I'm NOT dating him! We needed some help, Spike and I did, and Tom referred us to Roger as a sort of... contractor.

Molly: Okay, okay, you're not dating him. Is he a real person though?

Nancy: Yes, he's real! It's Spike that's... Oh, never mind.

Tom: Look, getting upset isn't helping us with the problem at hand. Were you going to recommend that Spike Webb could look into Heidi's equipment and computer accounts?

Nancy: That's what I was leading up to.

Tom: Okay then, why don't you have him do that and we'll figure out what we think of him as we go?

The plan was adopted. Nancy e-mailed Spike from Heidi's computer by accessing her own personal account with a Telnet session to MicroLabs' gateway server. She outlined the case and gave Spike the information he would need to check on Heidi's accounts. Nancy and Molly began looking for clues on the workstation by searching out the most recently updated files and logs. Nancy was hoping to hear back from Spike quickly, but had no way to tell when he would get the message she had sent.

Jeremy and Zeke weren't waiting around for anyone. Jeremy was lining up the players he would need to put a plan into action. He spent hours on the phone making call after call to friends and family across the country. Revealing none of his intentions, Jeremy was the consummate networker. His ability to manipulate another individual through the strength of his own convictions was only slightly diminished when the work was done via telephone.

Zeke was oblivious to everything around him when he was programming. He would study Dr. Donaldson's research for few minutes then switch to the keyboard where his fingers would pound out line after line of code. Zeke never even seemed to backup and rethink a code section's logic. He just typed it in after he had visualized the entire sequence in his mind. Suddenly, Zeke stood up from his computer.

Zeke: Jeremy.

Jeremy: Yeah, what's wrong?

Zeke: How are we going to test this version?

Jeremy: It works?

Zeke: I don't know if it works, I'm not going to try it on myself.

Jeremy: But all the pieces are there? It should work?

Zeke: Most of the pieces are there. We're missing a page from Dr. Donaldson's journal, so I had to kludge it some. We really need to get the missing page. Until we do, the program's power is going to be like, half of what it could be.

Jeremy: Zeke, that's great! You're a genius. We are on our way!

Zeke: I still want to know how we're going to test it.

Jeremy: I've got a little plan in mind for that. Don't you worry.

Zeke: That's all I needed to hear. Now I am worried.



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