The normally passive, cherubic face of Operations Support Officer Matt Stoll was pale as an unripe peach, with Kewpie doll smears of red on the cheeks. He was whining under his breath as he worked feverishly to plug his computer into a backup battery pack he kept in his desk. He couldn't find out why the entire system had gone down until he got it back on-line and crawled into the wreckage-- what hackers humorlessly referred to as the black box system of making your flight safe.

Perspiration dripped to his eyebrows and spilled into his eyes. He blinked it away, spotting his glasses with sweat. Though it had only been a few seconds since the crash, Stoll felt like he'd aged a year-- a year more when he heard Hood's voice.

"Matty--!"

"I'm working on it!" he snapped, fighting down the urge to add, "But this just can't happen." And it shouldn't have. It made absolutely no sense. The main power from Andrews hadn't gone down, just the computers. That was impossible to do from the outside: it had to be a software command. The computer setup in Op-Center was self-contained, so the shutdown had to come from a software command issued here. All incoming software was searched for viruses, but most of the ones they found were nonmalicious-- like the one that flashed "Sunday" on the screen to tell workaholics to get away from the keyboard, or "Tappy" that created a clicking sound with every keystroke, or "Talos" that froze computers on June 29 until the phrase "Happy Birthday Talos" was typed in. A few, like "Michelangelo," which erased all data on March 6, the artist's birthday, were more malevolent. But this one was something incredibly new, sophisticated and dangerous.

Stoll was as intrigued and amazed as he was distressed by all of this-- the more so as the screen blinked back on a moment before he plugged in his battery pack.

The computer hummed to life, the hard drive whirred, and the DOS screen flashed by as his customized Control Central program booted. It locked on the title screen as the synthesized voice of Mighty Mouse sang operatically from a speaker in the side of the machine.

"Are any other programs currently running, Matty?"

"No," Stoll said glumly as Hood swung into his office. "How long were you off fighting Mr. Trouble?"

"Nineteen point eight-eight seconds."

The computer finished accessing the program and the familiar blue screen appeared, ready to go. Stoll hit F5/ Enter to check the directory.

Hood leaned on the back of Stall's chair and looked down at the screen. "It's back--"

"Seems to be. Did you lose anything?"

"I don't think so. Bugs was saving everything. Nice work getting it running again--"

"I didn't do anything, boss. Not unless you count sitting here, shvitzing."

"You mean the system came back by itself?"

"No. It was instructed to do that--"

"But not by you."

"No." Stoll shook his head. "This can't happen."

Lowell Coffey said from the doorway, "And Amelia Mary Earhart had a map."