The apartment in which Rob lived was in more disarray than Dave’s place.

Magazines, food wrappers, and other such clutter was spread out in just about every room. The whole mess made it so that Rob rarely invited people over. In the corner of the tiny living room was the desk on which the sloppy resident’s computer hummed contentedly. Rob sat in the cushioned swivel chair that had been his sole companion in his long nights in front of the screen.

He fingers typed away on the keyboard with a steady chatter.

He ceased in his activity and leaned back. The big man cracked his knuckles and looked at the screen to admire his handiwork. The program he had spent the past two hours working on was ready to go.

Let Dave have his books and spells. Rob preferred to keep his faith in something logical that he could control.

Ever since he was old enough to read the letters that came on the monitor, Rob had been fascinated with computers. In his teenage years, he had learned to make his own games for fun. It was when he got into college that Rob learned the true potential for his talents.

He had no trouble finding his first job after finishing off school. Even with the WMC dominating most industries, Rob was able to find a position with a small independent company where he did graphic designs for video games. The job was great, but the Committee offered considerably better pay. So, Rob went on to greener pastures where he could earn more money.

That was how he legitimately made a living. On occasion, however, Rob had been known to use his talents to acquire funds in another way.

If he really wanted to, he could have called himself a hacker. But Rob didn’t really see the title to be all that appealing. Most of the so-called hackers he had met were a sorry lot. Just a bunch of kids with big egos and long speeches about how great their hard-drives were. The biggest thrill they got was when they had the chance to download some dirty pictures that censorship kept out of reach from most people. Just about all the real hackers were rooted out long ago by the WMC.

The only reason Rob was still a free man was because he knew the difference between what was ripe for the picking and what was simply not meant to be screwed with. People who tried having their way with the government networks had the unfortunate habit of vanishing mysteriously in the middle of the night.

There was virtually no way to get past the Committee’s security. That was why Rob had taken the time to write up what he call one of his "time-buying" programs. Once somebody illegally entered a WMC network, the system would automatically trace the signal to the user and then report the location. What Rob’s program did was wait for the trace. As soon as that happened, the program would upload a virus of Rob’s own personal design. The virus wasn’t powerful enough to knock out the system, but it had enough kick to keep the trace from reporting back while the system dedicated all of its resources to filtering out the virus.

"First thing’s first." Rob said to the monitor. "We need to get us there."

The WMC kept a stranglehold on the entire airline business, so Rob’s program would be likely to come on-line as soon as he began making travel arrangements.

Rob went to work with the keyboard and mouse until he had the listing for a flight scheduled to leave from Chicago to New York.

"Two seats reserved," Rob smiled as he hit the ENTER key. "And they’re already paid for. How nice." Hey, Rob reasoned. We’re on a budget here. Gotta save where ya’ can.

By this time, the lower right hand corner of the screen was occupied by a small timer with red numbers. It told Rob that he had a little over ten before the WMC’s network had fully purged his virus.

"Now to make sure we’ll have somewhere to work when we get there."

Rob keyed up a listing of the local computer firms in the NYC area. He clicked on the first company on the list.

"Let’s just check the want-ads here at good old Darison Technologies." Rob whispered to the screen.

The keyboard clacked noisily as Rob typed out a string of text. The company’s employee directory came up and Rob scanned for any empty spaces representing openings. By the looks of things, Darison seemed like a pretty safe company to work for. They didn’t seem to be involved in research or anything else that appeared likely to put its workers in the limelight, while at the same time it had a payroll that looked unlikely to start laying off people anytime soon.

Darison was also conveniently enough looking for a programmer whose specifications Rob more than surpassed.

"They still hire people who know C++?!" Rob exclaimed in both disgust and dismay. "Ancient bastards."

He keyed his name into the empty space and set himself up to start work in five days, just a day after he and Dave arrived in New York.

"Okay, ya’ sons a’ bitches. You’ve got yourselves a programmer. Now let’s see what we can get for Dave."

Dave worked fine with computers, but Rob knew that his friend wasn’t skilled in much that was beyond your usual office applications. Maybe he could find something in accounting. It was basically what Dave was doing already, so he shouldn’t have any problems there.

Rob ran a check on the accounting division. To his disappointment, there were so many filled positions that the division almost looked overstaffed.

The big man glanced down at the time and was shocked to see that he only had three minutes left to work with.

"Shit!"

He could always leave and come back to pick up where he would leave off. But getting around security would require him to write a new program and come up with a new virus. That would take time that he needed to wrap everything up in Chicago. So Rob decided to risk the trace by staying on-line.

"What the hell is open?"

Rob scrolled down until he was left with the daytime janitorial department. A number of spaces were wide open for anyone who wanted to bother with that kind of work.

If Dave was around, Rob knew that his friend would protest. But Dave was nowhere near Rob’s little apartment and Rob was seriously lacking time.

"Better get ready to push that mop, Dave." Rob said as he keyed the name and starting date into the blank space. "Serves ya’ right anyway for goin’ off to another planet and getting’ some voodoo hex put on us."

With that last bit of business out of the way, Rob was ready to log off. The timer was just passing the fifty second mark.

He keyed the command to exit only to have the computer beep angrily at him.

"What?" Rob snapped irritably.

Angrily, he hit the ALT, CTRL, and DELETE keys at once to reset the computer, thus breaking the connection. Again, the computer gave a loud beep. The timer in the corner of the screen continued to count down.

Realization struck Rob as he learned what was happening. The trace was still active enough to keep him from breaking the connection. It was a counter measure to keep intruders on-line.

Rob almost snickered at the pathetic attempt by the system. Casually, he reached up and hit the power button on the computer.

"Dumbasses." Rob sneered at the monitor. "Think I’m stupid enough to sit back and panic? Well, I don’t go for that shit."

"Though just in case."

He then stood up from the chair and went beside the desk where he could pull the cord from the modem hook-up on the back of the computer.

"And that’s what due at the end of each month?" Dave asked.

He kept the phone propped on his shoulder as he jotted down the price of rent. He had been at home hunting for past two days since returning from Neddel. A list of addresses with prices was scribbled on the yellow notepad on the kitchen counter. So far, this last place he called seemed like the best bet. Two apartments, both were pre-furnished and the rent wouldn’t require the two of them to tighten their belt that many notches. They just needed to move in and buy food to fill the refrigerators.

"It sounds good on this end." Dave replied. "I’ll talk this over with my associate and we’ll probably be down on Tuesday."

He circled the address at the bottom and tore the sheet of paper from the pad.

"Okay, thanks a lot. We’ll see you then."

Dave hung up and stood from the chair to stretch his legs.

As if on cue, the phone rang. Already, he had spent the majority of the past forty-eight hours on the phone making all the legal arrangements necessary to move. Dave indulged the idea of throwing the telephone across the room for a second before actually answering.

"Hello?"

"What’s up Dave?" Rob’s voice said over the line.

"I just got done making some very expensive long-distance calls to New York, for starters. I also got us a deal on two apartments."

"Cool. I thought of callin’ you with the spheres, but I didn’t want to catch you if someone was around."

"Not a problem with that today." Dave said, remembering the magical orb Turoth had given him. "But tomorrow I’ve got an appraiser coming to check out what kind of money I can get."

"Yeah, I’ve got to put up with that shit tomorrow too."

Neither of them had the time or money to take everything they could on such short notice, so they were selling whatever they weren’t planning to take along.

"I’m just taking the book along with the necessities." Dave stated. "What about you?"

"The comp’s comin’ with me." Rob answered. "Along with my laptop. I figure we’ll need ‘em."

"Makes sense. Were you able to get the plane tickets?"

"We’ll get the tickets at the service desk when we leave."

"And the jobs?"

Rob gave no answer. The pause was just staring to get uncomfortable when Dave broke the silence.

"Bobby. The jobs?"

"There’s a long story behind that." Rob said.

"I’m listening."

"Look. How ‘bout I tell you when we get on the plane, okay?"

Dave didn’t like the sound of where this was all going.

"What did you do?"

"Just wait till we get in the air." Rob shot back defensively.

"You’d just better tell me once that plane leaves the ground." Dave rarely like being kept in the dark, and Rob’s strange attitude made it less so.

Rob had just better remember that Dave knew where he would be living in the near future.

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