01-01-00 by R. J. Pineiro Page B

were in a similar state of ignorance.
    Reid leaned back and rubbed his eyes. He had been here almost thirty-six hours and couldn’t wait to wrap up the report for his boss and head on home to his wife of thirty years. She had called him an hour ago to see how he was weathering the storm.
    He stretched and yawned, feeling fortunate to have such a loyal and understanding wife, who had stuck by his side through the years, putting up with his second love, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where she was used to him working long hours. As a young and tough field agent in the seventies and eighties he had been on assignments for weeks at a time, on many occasions sleeping in the backs of cars or in the street. And his wife had always been home waiting for him, as well as sitting by his bedside when he had been hospitalized twice with pneumonia from exposure, and several more times after he had been kicked, stabbed, punched, and even shot once in the shoulder from behind by a twelve-year-old punk. The round had broken his clavicle before exiting just above his left pectoral, nicking the bottom of his chin, chipping the bone, and shaving a square inch of flesh. But Reid didn’t care. He wore the scars of his profession with pride. The strain on his wife, however, had been pretty severe, which was part of the reason he had applied for retirement at fifty-five instead of sixty, to try to make up for some of the lost personal time. His wife was already counting down the days until his retirement next summer. Oddly enough, he found himself looking forward to a change of pace, figuring that three decades at the Bureau was long enough.
    Reid rubbed the discolored tissue on his chin while glancing at his report. He leaned forward and began to tap the keys to conclude his daily update but the system did not respond. He pressed several keys with no effect. The system had hung up. He frowned and was about to press the CTRL, ALT , and DEL keys to reboot it when he noticed the frozen time on the system clock: 8:01 P.M. —the exact same time of yesterday’s event.
    Damn! It’s happening again!
    He grabbed the phone, but the line was dead. By the time he stood, walked around his desk, and reached for the door, his phone rang.
    Puzzled, Reid turned around, staring at the black unit next to the PC. The event must have ended already. He picked it up while checking his system. The PC was alive again.
    â€œSir, we’ve just had another—”
    â€œI know. Get Sue on the phone right away. Let’s see if her software traps caught anything.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    Reid returned to his desk, sitting down. “Bastard,” he said, staring at his screen. “Who are you? What do you want?” He tapped the side of the monitor with a finger while he considered the significance of this second event. The hacker had been cocky enough to try it two days in a row and at the exact same time. And, like yesterday’s event, Reid could see no apparent damage done to his system. He browsed through his main directories, looking for signs of data loss, but found nothing abnormal. Next, he launched his virus scan software, which checked every file in every directory in the PC, also coming up empty-handed.
    The phone rang.
    â€œSue?”
    â€œIt’s busy, sir.”
    â€œMust I have to do everything myself?”
    â€œBut, sir, she is not—”
    â€œForget it. I’ll call her. Get back to work. I want answers on this damned hacker!”
    â€œYe—yes, sir.”
    Reid slammed down the phone and dialed her number, cursing when he got a busy signal. He dialed the operator, but she could not pry into the line. Susan had the phone off the hook. He slammed the phone down again and buzzed one of his assistants.
    â€œYes, sir?”
    â€œSend a car over to Sue Garnett’s, NOW. ”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    3
    Heavy knocking on the door pulled her away from her thoughts, the TV tuned to