turning loose my search program, I drowse off. Deep Sleep City. It is eleven in the morning by now, right – I worked at my computer since seven the evening before. What next? I wake up to find three men searching my office. Mid-afternoon, deep shock. One guy – a hacker, I can tell – is downloading all my personal files on to a hand-held drive I never even saw before. Second guy, an older headmaster type, is making an inventory of my hardware. The third is this fat sunburned foreigner in a cowboy hat leafing through my Zax Omega mangas and drinking my beer. I was too amazed to be scared. The headmaster guy flashes some ID at me – Data Protection Agency, ever heard of that? – and tells me I have violated the Japan/United States Bilateral Defence Treaty and that I have the right to remain silent but that if I don’t want to be tried for espionage under US jurisprudence at the nearest military base, I had better get down on my knees and blab for dear life.’
‘Is all this true?’ Ai asks me.
‘Is all this true?’ I ask Suga.
‘I was wishing to hell that it wasn’t. The buggery scene in Shawshank Redemption keeps flashing before me. The headmaster gets out a matchbox-sized recorder and starts firing questions. I’m expecting him to strap electrodes to my balls. How had I got into the Pentagon in the first place? How had I softjacked their anti-viral OS? Was I working alone? Who had I spoken to since? Had I heard of any of the following organizations – I hadn’t, I can’t even remember them now. They know what schools I went to, where I live, everything. Then the hacker guy talks technical data – I can see he is impressed with my zombie ring. Even so, it gets dark, and I don’t know what they plan to do to me. Finally, the foreigner, who has been flicking through my photo albums and MasterHacker, speaks to the headmaster, in English. I realize he is the one in charge here. I ask if I can take a leak. The younger hacker accompanies me – I ask him for some more lowdown but he shakes his head. We get back to my office and headmaster offers me a job or prosecution under some very scary-sounding law. He describes the job, and the money – serious wooow! Artificial intelligence, missile shield systems—’ Suga bites his lip. ‘Oops. That’s the only downer. I can’t go around telling anyone about it.’
‘What about IBM and your university?’
‘Yeah, that was my next question. Headmaster nods at the foreigner – the foreigner barks an order into his mobile. “Already taken care of, Mr Suga,” the headmaster tells me. “And we can arrange a PhD if your parents are worried about qualifications. Would MIT be acceptable? Other details can be worked out later.” In fact, I fly out the day after tomorrow, so I have a million things to do. I brought you a present, Miyake. I considered tropical fruit, but this is a bit more personal. Here.’ He produces a square case, flips it open and unclips a black flat thing. ‘This is my finest home-cultivated computer virus.’ For the second time in two days I am being given a computer disk. ‘Uh . . . thanks. Nobody ever gave me a virus before.’ Ai mutters something, and then speaks up: ‘If those things get into hospital systems they put lives at risk. Do you ever think about that?’ Suga nods and slurps his tea. ‘Ethical cyberexplorers are responsible, right. Ghosts in the machine, not nerdish vandals. We are a growing breed. Over sixty-five per cent of top-flight systems explorers are ethical.’ Ai gives Suga a black look. ‘And over eighty-five per cent of all statistics are made up on the spot.’ Suga soldiers on. ‘Take this virus – “Mailman”, I call it – it delivers your message to every addressee in the address book of whoever you send it too. Then it duplicates itself and delivers itself to all the addresses in those address books – and so on, for ninety-nine generations. Neat or what? And totally harmless.’ Ai looks unconvinced. ‘Spreading junk mail to tens of thousands of people doesn’t strike me as especially ethical.’ Suga has a proud-father beam. ‘Not junk mail! Miyake can spread whatever message of joy and peace he wants to hundreds of thousands of users. It isn’t the sort of