Nic checked the time again, it was midnight and officially Sunday, he peered out from the front door of the church into a world of white, wind-whipped snow, driven sideways by the relentless wind. "Dammit!" He muttered under his breath. It was easily ten degrees below freezing and the wind was howling through the bell tower. Even with the Core Environment Department's weather attenuation system running at full power, nature's fury would not be diminished. Nic wondered for a moment how bad it would be outside the walls of the Core.

"Sorry girl," Nic patted Katherine's thorax, which despite being metal, was quite warm to the touch, "this is not a pleasant night to be going out. The good news is, with your camouflage in this weather, you'll be damn near invisible."

Katherine chirped, unfolded her wings and stretched.

"You go on ahead and take a look around, let me know if we are clear to proceed. Then get up on the roof and stay hidden. The cold shouldn't bother your major systems, but if you notice any internal system stats varying too far from nominal, you let me know."

She clicked her mandibles and danced about apparently nervous with excitement.

"Okay, get going then- and be careful!" Katherine engaged her camouflage - a mottled blue, white and grey shifting pattern, as she stepped out into the storm. Twenty meters from the door, she was no longer visible to Nic who closed the door behind her and shivered.

"I'm going to need a warmer coat." He said to himself.

Back at Sean's place, Abi was pacing, Sean was checking and re-checking his climbing gear. Sean wished his uncle was coming along, Sean had not done much climbing outside the gym and never in inclement, winter weather. His uncle was a seasoned veteran with many ascents in the real world under real conditions, his advice would be very welcome right now.

"This weather is not going to make for an easy ascent. You remember what I taught you at the gym?" He asked Abi. They had gone to the climbing gym a few times so he could teach her the basic ins and outs of belaying, she was a fast learner, added to her athleticism, she proved a quick study. She mastered the basics and Sean was more than confident having her on belay.

"Yep," she answered. "Your life is in my hands."

"Right," He grinned, "just remember, straight down to brake."

"Got it." She wringed her hands, Sean saw that she was nervous too.

"I know you're nervous about riding the pod alone, I won't be far behind and Trey will meet you at the KTI pod stop."

"I know, I can't help it, I've been dreading this for days." Her stomach was all knots and butterflies. "It's a long ride, someone else could get on the pod."

"We've been over this Abi, if anyone gets on, it will likely be only students heading back to the quad. But with this weather, I don't know if anyone is going to be out." Sean reasoned, stuffing items into a backpack "If at anytime you feel threatened, get out of the pod and run - go to someplace public, like a bar and send me a message, I'll come get you."

"I'm sorry, I know I'm being silly."

"It's okay Abi." Sean assured her, both their Netpods beeped and displayed a message: Op Manor Cat go.

"Looks like Katherine gave the all clear." Sean said looking up from the Netpod. Abi's hand was shaking a bit and she found her mouth was dry. She pocketed the device and put on her gloves.

"Let's go." She said, determined not to let her fears control her.

They headed out into the frigid night, the weather had not abated and the wind born sleet stung their faces.

"This sucks." Sean said as they walked down the avenue to the first pod-stop.

Everyone managed to arrive without incident and made their way to the Turing building. Nic and Miller had found a seat in the upper mezzanine looking down on the foyer. The shiny marble floor wet with snow melt. They pretended to be studying, but kept a close eye on the entrance. Trey was in the foyer, he found a couple female students just getting back from the bars and had struck up a conversation. Nic wished Trey would keep his head in the game, but he had to admit to himself, his behaviour made him very inconspicuous. He figured Trey's egress plan was now a short trip to the girl's dormitory. Abi had arrived safely and walked with Trey to the building, but she had to use the bathroom badly and was now looking for a fountain to wet her parched mouth. Sean was the last to arrive, he stamped his boots and tried to shake off the cold as he scanned the room.

Nic tapped a message into his Netpod, soon it arrived on everyone else's. Op Manor Cat - phase 2.

Sean and Abi headed out separate exits, Trey followed Abi out. Nic and Miller went down the stairs to the sub-level and used one of the many inter-building tunnels to get over to the lab. From there Miller headed for the switching closet on the second floor, Nic went straight to the lab.

Nic was impressed, KTI had upgraded their lab even since Miller was there and he had no doubt it would suffice for his purposes. The crypto stack was still lacking, but that was not an issue. Nic immediately patched his Netpod into the wired network, nearband would not be sufficient for this work, he required maximum bandwidth for his tools to penetrate the network. It was not long before he had administrator access and had effectively isolated the lab from the rest of the school's networks.

Outside, Sean was having difficulty getting all the gear setup, his numb fingers had lost their dexterity and his bulky clothes were constantly getting in the way of getting his harness hooked up. It was a difficult climb, the icy surfaces of the building made it hard to attach any sort of anchor. It made for a very slow ascent, which affected the overall timetable, but it could not be helped. It was a good thing the lab was one of the shorter buildings on campus at only 6 stories. Sean finally made it to the roof and found a good anchor point for the rappel, he patched the cable into Katherine and carefully descended the other side of the building down to the second floor window that Miller had left ajar. He fed the cable through and ascended back to the roof to find a place to huddle out of the wind.

Miller was able to quickly get the cable hooked up in the switching closet and everything was set. He proceeded back down to the lab to assist Nic on setting up the virtual environment. It was 2:35 AM and the lab was deserted except for Nic and Miller, Nic sent Miller outside to tell Abi to come in from the cold, she at first refused, but eventually decided it was a good idea. She was given the task of monitoring the network for user activity while Nic and Miller configured the connection. The two technical guys argued a bit about protocols and compression, but mostly worked well together and they have the environment setup quickly.

"Session is active and open, Abi let us know if you see anything?" Nic said, still tweaking some settings. They waited.

A message from Trey came through on the Netpods - 'frickin freezin', followed by one from Sean - 'u should try the roof'. Nic fired back 'keep the chatter down'.

"Uh..." Abi began, pointing to her screen. "it says, one user connected."

Nic turned his attention back to his console, sure enough, the session status now read ESTABLISHED.

"We got something." He said quietly to Miller, but nothing happened. "See if you can get me an address. Where is that connection is coming from?"

Miller skillfully commanded his console, bringing up network analysis tools and packet tracers, but he could not find the source. "I have nothing Nic. It's gotta be your ghost, he's using that crazy encryption."

Minutes passed, Miller was checking the status of all the systems. "Wait, what the hell?!" He blurted out, louder than he intended.

"What is it Miller?" Nic asked.

"The storage array is going crazy, a huge amount of data is streaming in."

Suddenly every system in the lab started running searches in parallel, saturating the local network and the storage array. Nic worked his console diligently, trying to get information out of the system to tell him what was going on, but it unresponsive due to the heavy load this new user was putting on all the systems.

"What's going on Nic?" Miller asked, sounding concerned.

"It's a massive media search, all the queries are looking for media files, looks like audio specifically. It's spidering the entire campus network - I think it's penetrating the students personal systems. The logs are filling up so fast, they are rotating every few seconds."

There was a loud clack and the room went dark. It was incredibly silent with all the systems offline, the three sat quietly in the dark for a moment.

"What was that?" Miller finally whispered.

"I have no idea," Nic admitted "I think we blew a relay. Can you go check the storage array and the switching closet to see if we've lost everything. Somewhere out there someone is getting a page about this and when they realize the whole lab is down they'll be hauling their ass in here, blizzard or not. Our time is short."

His Netpod voice channel came on, it was Sean "What is going on down there? Your bug is freaking out, its running all over the roof!"

"Keep her up there - we had an incident, but everything is okay, just be ready to move." Nic instructed.

"Hey guys," it was Trey "My Netpod is acting up, it's like I'm getting interference on the MiST comms scanner or something. It's not detecting anything, but it's all goofy." Trey's non-technical analysis irked Nic.

"Hang tight, keep your eyes open, we're checking something."

Nic used his Netpod to scan for any local nearband, but there was nothing. He noticed a green light on at the far end of the lab, where there was a large table and a wall-integrated video screen, it was for group presentations. It appeared as though the presentation system was online. He got up from his chair and moved to the back of the room, the Abi followed. As they approached, the wall lit up:

init()

runlevel0

system online_

Miller got back just then from the second floor, "What's going on?" He whispered to Abi.

"I don't know, this thing just started up."

The audio system clicked on and a booming voice bellowed, "SAMPLE ONE!", followed by another voice, softer and female - "sample two". The voices continued, each one different, male, female, young, old, some with accents until they reached the forty-second sample. Forty-two was a child's voice, male, sounded to Nic like a ten-year-old, "sample forty-two."

"Volume adjust," the little, disembodied voice was eerily strange and hollow "tonal adjustment set. A quick brown fox... she sells sea shells... bat, bat come under my hat."

Nic and Miller exchanged glances, they looked at Abi, she shrugged.

"Hello?" The voice finally said.

Nic hesitated before answering, "Who is this?"

"My name is Erik. This is not your network. Why are we here?"

"We thought it was safer for us all." Nic began, "How do you know this isn't my network?"

"Easy, I've been in your network, this one is different. I like yours, it's cosy."

"Cosy? That's a strange way to describe a network." Nic remembered time was short, "Look, Erik I don't have a lot of time, a lot of people are likely on their way here right down because the whole lab is down."

"Oh, don't worry, they don't know." Erik snickered, "I stuck gum in the monitoring system."

"What?!" Miller said.

"It's safe, trust me, they don't know."

"Even if that is true, we need to get some answers from you. Who are you? Do you work for the Core?"

"Pffffft! No. I don't work." Erik answered.

"How did you get into my system? Where did this encryption come from?" Nic's mind raced, he had a hundred questions and no time to ask them.

"You have been following me, I followed you back. You're a lot of fun." Erik went on "I think I know what you are looking for, the sickness."

"Sickness?"

"Yeah, that disease that makes people crazy."

"Susan's Plague? You have information on the Plague?"

"That's a funny name. I know stuff, I hear things. I was sick once."

"You survived the plague?!"

"No. Something else. It was a long time ago."

"What can you tell us?" Nic urged.

"I rather show you." Erik said, and an image flashed up on the screen, it looked like a corporate memo, Nic only had time to read a part of the title - 'Protocol 90' - before it disappeared. "What?! NO!" Erik yelled. "Nic, something is wrong, I'm stuck - you need to go."

"Stuck? What do you mean?"

"I'm stuck, I can't get out." The little voice sounded more child like now and panicky. "I think they followed me."

"Stuck where? Who followed you?" Nic's voice was raised and excited.

"Here they've trapped me here!"

Nic thought for a moment, "At the school? You are here at KTI?"

All the systems began powering back up and the lights came back.

"I need a door, find me a door?" Erik pleaded, his voice sounded tearful. "Let me out!"

"Where are you?" Nic yelled?

"In the net." Came the answer, "Run Nic, they are coming!" The presentation system clicked off, many of the computer systems were going wild, even Nic could not discern what they were doing. The Netpod voice channel clicked back on.

"Uh, Nic? We have a problem." Trey's voice came over the system. Trey was looking down at the street where two MCSF troop carriers had appeared almost out of nowhere, they appeared to have active camouflage much like Katherine. Dozens of armed security personnel poured out from them, fanning out across the quad. "This does not look good, there's a whole frickin' army of Core Sec down at the road." Trey pushed himself back further into the shadows.

On hearing that, Sean disconnected the cable from Katherine and hooked himself back up to the rope and prepared to rappel down. "Abi, meet me outside, we gotta get out of here." He turned back to Katherine, "Time to go bug, get out of here." Katherine lingered for a second, then disappeared over the other side of the building.

Abi threw on her coat and hat and headed straight outside. Nic sent Miller back to the second floor to disconnect the cable, while he stayed to see if he could pull any log data.

"Trey, execute your egress plan, get out of here now!" Nic advised. "Same for everyone else, we are compromised!"

Trey slipped out of the shadows and around the back of the Turing building, he headed hastily to the on-campus, underground pod stop. At the bottom of the stairs he was met by three armed men in winter camouflage, Trey understood it would be futile to run.

Sean was edging carefully down the icy rope, he could not crane his head far enough to see Abi below, he could not see the security detail approaching her. Abi's attention was on Sean as he made his treacherous descent, one of the men grabbed her front behind, for a second she was back in the rendering district, lying on the sidewalk, she screamed. Sean heard her and turned to try to see and as he did he lost hold of the rope and plummeted to the snowy, frozen ground some 10 meters below.

Nic was still reviewing logs when he saw two armed men roughly escort Miller into the room. He surreptitiously initiated a mass kill command on his Netpod that would wipe all the data from all of their devices and casually knocked it into the waste bin as he gathered his coat from the desk and stood. He approached them, arms raised, "There's no need for violence." he said.

The nearest soldier butt-stroked him, knocking him to the floor, "Shut up!"

"Polaris one-six, this is Polaris four, over." The other soldier called on his comm set.

"Go ahead four"

"Lab has been secured, we have detained four possibles, two in the building, two outside."

"Bring them out, we'll roll up with the wagon."

A large, eight-wheeled vehicle thundered up the road and came to a stop near the lab. The two soldiers ushered Nic and Miller out into the cold when more Core Sec forces were waiting with Abi and Sean. Sean, dragged by two large men, appeared to be badly injured.

"What did you do to him?!" Nic shouted at the guards.

"He fell!" Abi cried out.

"All of you shut up!" Polaris four yelled, "-and you" he turned to Nic "you already got your one warning." With that he gut-punched Nic, dropping him into the snow. Polaris four produce a stun gun and pressed it to Nic's neck as he put one knee on Nic's chest. Nic let out a painful groan, the MCSF soldier stunned him, full charge. Nic writhed beneath him, convulsing uncontrollably, high voltage pulses playing havoc with his nervous system. "Rotten, little bio-born." The man cursed, "you need to learn when to shut your damn mouth!"

"Stop it!!" Abi screamed, "You're gonna kill--"

There was a thud, the ground shook beneath them, a split second later Polaris four was hoisted high in the air and flung into the wall of the lab with a sickening crunch. The security detail realized something large and very well camouflaged had descended into their midst. Another team member began to raise his weapon, Katherine struck out with her forelimb and neatly severed his arm at the elbow, the weapon dropped to the snow, inert.

"Contact at the lab, man down! Man down!" Another soldier yelled into his comm set as he backed up shouldering his firearm. The two men carrying Sean dropped him to the ground and did the same. Twin kinectic cannons on the nearby APC swiveled toward them.

Katherine scooped up Nic and dashed off into the night, using her wings to accelerate her escape. Shots rang out behind her, bullets deflecting harmlessly off her armored body. In an instant she had disappeared into the blizzard. Everyone dove for cover as the APC lit up the night with a long burst from its cannons, none of the rounds found their mark and the smoking guns fell silent. Lights began flickering to life in dormitories across the quad as students were awaken by the din.

"What the frang was that?" One soldier exclaimed.

"Med tech requested at the lab, we have two men down." The second in command called into his comm. "We need to move out double-quick, this was suppose to be a low-profile takedown."

The security detail hurriedly loaded Trey, Abi, Miller and Sean into one of the vehicles. Several Core Sec soldiers sat nearby, weapons at the ready, while another placed wrist and ankle restraints on the detainees. When he finished he banged on the bulkhead that separated the driver from the rear cabin, the vehicle lurched forward and rumbled off into the night.