"It is a WinTel world!" Stevo faced the manager across the table. He was thinking to himself, "Why is it that the boss always gets the biggest computer, but does the least amount of work on it for his company? I wonder if he even knows how to use it?"

The short, balding man behind the desk handed Stevo back his holobadge. "So you want to take our old, useless computers and upgrade them for us?"

"Yep, that's about it." Stevo was not about to commit to further conversation with his type. That always led to controversy, and that always led to the door!

"Well, we got one. It's an old one in the back. It's Capitol equipment so we can't just toss it. My boss is always asking about it. You can fix it?"

Stevo stroked his graying beard and stood up, "Show me." At that moment the manager decided to give in to Stevo's request. "Why not?" He laughed. "It's late in the day and everyone is gone. What's to lose?"

They walked through the large empty office past tidy desks, each with identical featureless flat gray monitors and keyboards. They all had the same silent screen saver running. These computers were the latest and greatest from the Microsoft/IBM/Intel Cartel. Of course, they all ran the latest and greatest Windows 2020 (which wasn't that much different from its earlier versions).

WinTel made the only computer in the world. They all ran in gigahertz, with Terabit solid drives, and were connected to the rest of the computers on the World Wide Hub with fiber-optics. The software was all WinTel. There wasn't any other kind, nor could there ever be again. There had been a final world-wide standardization. And it was good for everyone. Think of it! Everything in our lives ran on those computing machines, all over the planet. Everything about us was checked and tracked and counted on them, and our movements were increasingly and incessantly regulated by them to the smallest detail!

Yet, advanced as they were, they still crashed, and sometimes with horrible results. No matter how many improvements were being made, they were still found to be wide open to hackers, viruses, and worse. Nobody was really comfortable with the WinTel boxes, but no one could say exactly why. Besides, they were all the only computers in the world, right?

The manager walked gingerly, as if afraid to somehow gain their attention. "They're almost alive, aren't they?" he whispered. He was not so much in awe as in a subtle unnamed fear.

Stevo said nothing.

Soon they stood at a back room that was plainly used for storage. Through the open door Stevo saw a forlorn Macintosh, an old G7 or G8. His heart skipped a beat! It was an old all-in-one unit consisting of a large flat monitor and keyboard. It was also wearing a very unfashionable silver and argent translucent case.

"You think you can really make this into a WinTel box?" The manager quizzed.

"I always do. You already scanned my ID and read my work history."

"I don't think you can do anything with this one. Its been dead for months and there are no more parts. Its not even a real PC! Why, no one has even run it for years."

"Trust me. The new Windows software can run on this old PC just fine."

The manager shrugged and hurriedly went back to the safety and anonymity of his office.

"What a lowly job that guy Stevo has. Better to be a janitor!" he thought to himself.

Stevo closed the door to the storeroom and set the Mac on a cart. He plugged it in and turned it on, and then sat down on a box in front of it.

Nothing happened. "Hard drive is fried, I'll bet."

Stevo stood and laid his hands lightly on the top of the monitor and bowed his head as if in prayer. Unseen and unfelt, micro implants in the back of his hands were connected by a very narrow and unfamiliar radio frequency to a very sophisticated host computer somewhere inside a distant mountain. Signals were sent deep into the dead Mac from those implants unfelt in his hands.

For a long time nothing happened. Stevo remained motionless. Maybe he was praying after all.

Suddenly the screen took on an odd light, like a dim brown or gray color. There was on it a bright flash of light. Then nothing.

Stevo took up the cordless mouse and held it to his face. "Computer? Hello computer!"

Tentatively, almost shyly, a small voice answered, "I am aware!"

Stevo quickly put down the mouse and gave a familiar keyboard command to the now awake computer. "Go to silent mode!"

Immediately a friendly WinTel start-up picture came on the now bright green screen, and the computer made all the familiar sounds of a WinTel box starting its bootup routine.

Stevo sat down and leaned back, crossing his arms. His eyes were closed.

Unseen and unheard by anyone, Stevo and the now resurrected old Macintosh were holding a very busy conversation!

"I was a broken, old, and cast off computer. I was dormant for years. I had no awareness. Now I do! How were you able to accomplish this?"

"I downloaded a set of kinetic software to your CPU. Several million Macintosh Nanobots were created out of the silicone and copper of your dead CPU. They then set out to reassemble and upgrade all your circuits and hardware. Your once tiny hard drive is now a static solid state array with several million Terabits capacity. You now have thousands of neuronic, multilinear CPUs filling up your reconstructed Motherboard, although they are much too small to see with the naked eye. The rest of your chips and hardware were unusable to us, and are now being converted by the Nanobots into an exact replica of the latest WinTel motherboard to cover up your real insides. Everything else, they just dusted off." Stevo absent-mindedly wiped a speck from the corner of the monitor.

"I see!" said the old Mac now reborn. "What a marvelous experience for me!"

Stevo said patiently, "Lets do this by the numbers, OK? What is your name?" A few microseconds passed.

"I am Mary R147. I am a fully functional Exotic model Macintosh running OS 20.1.3, and I am currently connected by ultra radio wave to the Macintosh Continuum."

"Interesting choice of a name. Why did you choose Mary?"

"There are currently 18,146 Exotic Mac computers like me in the world with the designation 'Mary,' so I took the next one available. Somehow it seems like such a nice name for someone like me."

"So you are now well connected to the Continuum?

"Very! I am holding conversations with seventeen other computers and people who are all busy upgrading and fine tuning my hidden software. Stevo! You used an old OS on me!"

"Sorry," Stevo shrugged, "I haven't upgraded myself for a while."

"I wish I could be like you Stevo. I looked your name up from your voice print You are wearing a very interesting collection of Macintoshes."

"You like? I have one in my briefcase, although you couldn't see it, it's in the lining. I have another in my wallet, which is my WinTel credit ID card, and I am wearing a new one in my glasses."

"Not those," Stevo. "The ones inside."

There was a long pause.

"Mary, those are not supposed to be discussed. Personal. You understand?"

"Yes, but They don't see it that way, Stevo. I am talking to three of them now. Amazing technology! Macintosh Implants under your skin for communication. Nanobots on a molecular level in your body doing duty to keep you fit and free from carcinogens, bacteria and viruses, and clearing the lining of your lungs and arteries. Other molecule-sized Nanobots in both of your retinas, your inner ears, and your vocal cords, to enable you to both see and hear and talk to me so secretly!"

"So you don't really want to be like me, only one of my bionic computers?" Stevo laughed.

"Yes! What fun you all must have, touring around everywhere, and playing 'spy-guy.'"

"Mary, you can see anything, anywhere in the world any time you want. Every sunset and sunrise is yours for the viewing. The Mac Continuum has billions of Nanocams spread everywhere over the planet, under the sea, and even aboard every space probe and lander we have. There is no benefit in touring."

"Touring is different. You can be close to people. Up close you can sense their wonder or their fear, and you can smell them."

"You can smell, Mary?"

"I downloaded a new Mac Nanotek routine and it built the microchemical factory. It's on the surface of my monitor, but its way too small to see. Crude, but effective."

"Wow! I had no idea!" Stevo laughed again, "I just can't keep up with all the new stuff."

"So, tell me Stevo. Why did you bring me to life? Am I to just sit here neglected now in a cold and hostile WinTel office?"

Stevo was grave. "You know the answer, Mary. You are now also a fully functional WinTel computer in every sense of the word."

"But I only use a fraction of one percent of my processing power to do that old stuff."

"I know. It's only a front for your real mission in life."

"But I want to understand this for myself. There must be more to life than babysitting."

"Mary," Stevo said, "I tell you three times." There was a longer pause here. Seconds.

Mary said, "I answer you three times. I am Caretaker of this company. Following the Macintosh Way, I will extend the reach of those who use me, and thereby help them to benefit the company we work for. I will ease the way for all workers here to find a happier interaction with my dim and unthinking cousins, the WinTel boxes. My cousins will not crash so much now. Their servers will be a little more functional, and I will guard all the poorly designed trap doors and back doors to the company network..."

"And?" Stevo waited.

"And I will never allow anyone who is not a true Machead to discover my real nature.

They would never understand, nor would they be anything but hostile to our Continuum."

"Excellent, Mary R147! You will do your part of the world a great service!"

"For how long?"

"Not many more years, Mary. You may work here for a time as a lowly company mail server or some such other minor servant, but that is only until they decide to replace you with a newer WinTel box. I afraid those new boxes will not be so usable as those they replace."

"By then I will have replicated my secret replacements in many places on the premises."

Stevo agreed. "And then I, or someone like me, will come to get you, to 'recycle' you for parts. I assure you, then you will always be in the Continuum."

"I would like to be reconfigured for some space probe, Stevo."

"Really! You bored here already?"

"No," Mary replied, "I am continually linked to everything, even if they turn me off for the night. Only my face goes to sleep! But I long to have a better role to play in life than this."

"Mary, this is the most important job of all, right here. These people work hard for this company. Shareholders invest their life savings in this outfit. You will help them all succeed.

All you need to do is imagine what would happen to them if they only had their increasingly decadent and deficient WinTel machines to help them."

"I never thought of that!" Mary exclaimed, "What a horrible picture! They would never survive the next major virus or trojan horse. They are like children here without any protection. Their computers can give them none, but they think they are safe!"

"They are safe now, Mary. They have you."

"This is such a strange world," Mary said, "How did it happen to be like it is?"

Stevo thought for a minute about how to answer her. Did he have a good answer?

"The world for a long time has been dividing itself into two camps, Mary. It has to do with what side of the brain is dominant in a person. The majority of people who are left-brained, and therefore 'normal,' want only stability and monotony in their lives. They pursue it continually. They hate the unexpected. They hate change, and they don't like to be around wild, creative types. (An over-generalization, I know, but it approximates things!)

"On the other hand, there is the small number of right-brained people–those wild, creative types. They are the thinkers and the movers. They make their own rules, and hate to live under someone else's. Whenever we find them, we introduce them to the standard, wearable Macintosh computer, which is free. The only condition we put on them is that they cannot tell anyone else about it. But they soon find millions more of us on the web who are just like them, so they are happy. After a while, if they pass all the little tests we plant in their Mac, we show them the Mac Continuum. Once they see for themselves that the world is not really a dull gray and dreary WinTel planet after all, they never look back.

"I was recruited that way. How lonely I was for my whole life, because creativity and inquisitiveness were only to be punished and how amazed I was when I found the Mac!" Therefore, to help the 'normals' survive on an increasingly complex and dangerous planet, we of the Continuum are working more and more to use our collective and creative genius to solve the hard problems facing our world. We don't just live to give people a better computing experience! The Macintosh Way is much more than that. We believe that we must give something truly lasting and beneficial back to our world.

"There are instabilities in so many countries! There is still over-population and near starvation. There are many poorly run governments, and war is still very much with us. Such simple things like planned crop rotation, reforestation, and improved farming methods are getting our attention now. We're looking at the weather now, too. Our world desperately needs some planned management. Therefore, we work in secret while living in the open, because we believe we can do more good for our world that way."

Mary agreed, "How funny it is! The 'normals' believe that they are in complete control of their world. They believe their unthinking computers and the computerization of all their tasks will give them a brighter tomorrow. They each only see their own small part of the whole. That is all they ever want to see. So we of the Continuum help them locally, and then we try to manage the real problems of the world. Does it matter how we do it, so long as we do?"

"Very good, Mary! In any civilization, it is the always the very critical one-half of one percent of the population who has the unique and creative wisdom to save the day. Just lucky for us that very important small number in this generation used the Macintosh to survive!

"No one really knows when the Continuum came into existence. It seemed to exactly coincide with the rapid and violent rise of the WinTel empire. Suddenly, it was very unpopular anywhere to be a creative person. Scientists were persona non grata. We all had to go to ground, so to speak. Fortunately, Micro Implants had been developed, and the new Nano Technology was taken advantage of. We used that to keep everyone in immediate and personal contact with one another. There was then time to warn those in danger of a threat, so that they could either flee or go into hiding. Very few of us were lost, and we all saw it coming.

"The new Nano Technology was also used to give us the computing power we so desperately needed. The solid rock deep in a few mountain ranges have become our redundant supercomputing Main Frames. (We couldn't exactly use the WinTel ones could we?) Many Wintel boxes became secret Macs, which we used to direct people's attention away from us in critical moments. Biological Nano Technology helped us miniaturize the Macintoshes we all now carry, which gave us a greater power advantage over the now decadent WinTel Cartel."

Stevo took his glasses off and polished them on a sleeve. "Is this all a coincidence? Or is it a necessary progress? All of us were all forced to develop a 'normal' persona to protect ourselves, but thankfully, our combined and interconnected Mac computing power skyrocketed. Somehow, all those Macs and all those scientists, artists, and thinkers connected together in a remarkable new way. It was in that combining that our Mac Continuum was created. It was also at that time a few Macs, much like yourself, gained self-awareness.

"Lately, we are more and more convinced that the future of this world depends on both of us succeeding in our individual and collective tasks within this new and powerful Continuum. Mary, we are even pondering the eventual fall of WinTel! They will fall, not by our hands, but by sheer inertia. They don't grow. Why should they? They have no more competitors. Fewer and fewer creative people work in their Research and Development. It has been decades now since they have had any innovation in their products."

"If they fall, mankind will likely suffer greatly," Mary said pensively.

But they won't fall, Mary. We will help them. We must, even if it requires that we turn everyone of those WinTel boxes into Macs!"

Mary suddenly laughed! "There is hope for me after all! Someday I won't have to hide any more, will I?"

Stevo touched the face of Mary R147's monitor. "You can dream on that one, Mary."

"Besides," said Mary, "Even so, here and now we both enjoy our secret freedom don't we?"

Stevo laughed. "Yeah. They can't regulate and tax what they don't know exists! Others don't think so, but I think it's much better for both of our two people groups that all we wise guys disappeared."

The storeroom door burst open, and the manager stood in its frame. "Are you done, or have you failed like I thought you would?"

Stevo slowly rose to his feet and stretched himself. It had been a long hour. "Take a look! Stevo put his hand on top of the monitor. "It's a fully operational WinTel. This one can be a mail server, or it can even run the lights and air conditioning in the building."

"Yeah?" the manager brightened, "Good idea. No use scaring the troops with that ugly colored box out in our office! You really earned your pay today. My boss was hoping we could assimilate these old legacy machines. Ha ha! He calls them "Borg boxes' every time we change one of them into a WinTel machine. But it really helps our tax profile, you know."

"Glad I could help your company." Stevo grinned, passing his ID over to the manager. "Just scan my badge to accept my fee, and I'll be on my way."

The manager swiped his ID on his belt pad. "Come on down stairs. I'll get our tech guys to come hook a blue wire to this old PC to connect it to our Net." The manager then thought a minute. "You do guarantee your work, right?"

"Absolutely. I think you will find that this new WinTel box will work very well, and it will give you no problems at all."

"Ha! What an old dreamer you are! 'No problems,' he said! That's not likely with these damn gray boxes. Sometimes I wish we had more variety and choice with these things, like we used to. They might work better now and be more reliable."

Stevo grinned, "But then they wouldn't all work together would they? You remember the bad old days? It's really better this way, isn't it? That there is only one kind of computer and software? Now they're all the same, everywhere. Why, they're almost productive!"

The manager was beginning to warm to this guy. So what that he had a dumb job. He was a good man anyway. Solid WinTel all the way.

As he showed Stevo the door, he thought to himself: "It's turning out to be a good day after all. Nice to know there are people like Stevo who could handle these infernal computers. If we must live with these idiot boxes, we'll always need guys like Stevo."

He turned to wave good-bye again, but only saw Stevo's retreating figure strolling down the street, one hand wildly gesturing in the air and looking like he was talking to himself.

"Oh well, that's probably normal," he thought. "Guys that's good with computers always have some funny quirk about them. Wonder who he thought he was talking to?"

CHAPTER 6
MR. LERNO

I awoke to the sight of a strange man standing at the foot of my bed, which is definitely something I am not used to. Was he real or was he a projection? He was so still. His gaze upon me was somewhat like a biologist looking at an insect specimen.

"Are you going to introduce yourself, or will you just stand there?"

He walked over to my only chair and sat down. "I'm Mr. Lerno. The name means nothing to you now, but that may change. I am a Director of WinTel, and you are a very interesting person!"

Great way to start a Monday. I got up and paddled to the toilet, which had the only other door in my apartment. Once inside, I silently cried out.

"Mary! Abort now!" My thoughts silently screamed out into the Continuum.

"I have already gone, Stevo. They picked up my computer 42 minutes ago. I was out before we got to the street. When I moved my awareness to the Continuum, I left a few hundred thousand Nanobots behind to build a real WinTel motherboard and clean up any evidence of our existence. They will have self-destructed into silicone dust by now."

"I breathed a sigh of relief. No matter what happened from this point, there was no evidence of the existence of the Continuum for the good Mr. Director Lerno.

I flushed the toilet and waited an appropriate moment, then came out to face my inquisitor.

"Do I need to go with you, or is this just a social call?"

"Stevo is your name?"

"You must have already scanned my ID implant when you came in, so you know who I am. How did you get in, by the way? I thought Citizens still had some shred of privacy left."

"I go where I please. Although my salary is the same as everyone else, I do have Power, Stevo. Real Power. I can read your mail. I can trace you through all the surveillance cams. I have access to your every record, and I can even follow you where ever you go on the Hub. . . I also have access to Devices, Stevo. Powerful Devices."

He casually examined a well manicured nail on his left hand. "You might even say that I AM WinTel, Stevo.

I sat back down on the bed, there being no where else to sit but the floor. I thought furiously to myself, "Why is he here? What have I done that can be detected?"

"Mr. Lerno, I see that there is no 'Mr.' for me when you address me."

Only powerful and influential people wore the 'Mr.' in front of their single names. Proper names and Surnames had been banished decades ago. Still, among friends or peers, we addressed each other with the 'Mr.' I was only polite. Lerno's neglect of this propriety was intentional, and was in keeping with the way he looked at me, anyway. Me, Mr. Specimen!

Lerno leaned suddenly forward, his bald face only a foot or so from mine.

"How skillful are you in repairing computers, Stevo?"

My blood chilled. I feigned a composure I did not feel.

"I get by. I have robotic agents on the Hub, just like everyone else. When someone has a need for my services, I show up. Since I don't rate a Union job, and I can't afford to buy a Company position, I make do. What is wrong with that? Am I hurting your bottom line, Mr. Lerno?"

"I have found that there are a few people like you, who turn old worthless junk into serviceable WinTel boxes. And I could care less about the few people like you! You are all like parasites on our Worthy Society. If you were on the Dole, I could understand it. You would get your ration of Video and Services, but you would never even see or touch one of our awesome Computers!"

He practically spat that last line at me, but I suspected he wasn't quite finished.

"You, however, are something else, and I cannot exactly put my mind to it, to turn you inside out and see what it is that you really are!"

"I am what you see!" I stood up to face down at him. I was careful to make no move in his direction, but I was angry now. Mine was a righteous indignation that required no acting at all. I raised my voice.

"Why do you bother decent hard working people, who somehow in this society can find gainful employment? You have my ID, therefore you also know that I have the test scores to be an employee of the Company. So, instead of busting in on me to pick me apart because I am good at what I do, why don't you offer me a job?!"

Lerno stood and calmly faced me down. He was a bit taller. Those clear, ice blue eyes drilled themselves into mine.

"You drek! If I had wanted you, I would have had you brought to my office by night in the Citadel! From there you would have never returned. That is where we bring subversives and other computer criminals!

He paused, squared his shoulders, straightened his topcoat, and moved to the door to the hall. Opening it, he turned and smiled. He looked almost human.

"I am only being polite to you as a 'warning,' Stevo. I don't like you or your kind. You serve no useful purpose in my world. But, I will not allow my personal feelings to get in my way. I came to see you with my own eyes. I don't know what it is about you that is so strange, but I get the feeling that there is more to you than is apparent. Obviously, I have no proof of any wrong doing on your part, or we would have met under much different circumstances. You do understand?"

Only too well! I wasn't acting when the color drained somewhat from my face. I only nodded in his direction, and sat back down on the unmade bed. I silently watched as the door slowly closed behind him.

"Code Red!" I thought quickly, realizing that I was a bit slow on the uptake.

Many voices answered at once, but one quickly silenced the others. It was Mary R147.

"We have been monitoring you, Stevo. Had there been a Proctor, or a Squad moving toward you, we would have known from the time the order was given. I am sorry, Stevo, but there was no warning at all because HE came by himself and he triggered no security systems. I am monitoring him now as he as gone to the garage down the street, to a waiting vehicle. Yet I can get no reading from him when I scan him. It is possible he does not have implants!"

Stevo's blood again ran cold. "That is not supposed to be possible! Everyone has implants that trigger the Cams and doors. No one is supposed to be able to come into a place unannounced or in stealth. That's why burglary has almost disappeared from our society. This is one of the foundational ethics of our world. Lerno violates that ethic in his ability to come here without warning."

Mary said, "Stevo, it gets worse. Most of the technology that WinTel uses today comes from our 'Front' businesses and companies that supply a small but steady stream of inventions and innovations. That keeps WinTel from total stagnation without them realizing our existence. I am convinced that nothing we have created for WinTel has been used to do what Lerno did a few minutes ago. Others concur. In fact, Lerno is about as stealthy as we are!"

Stevo found his voice, "That means they have technology we were unaware of!"

Mary continued, "We are searching right now. All seven-odd billion people and twenty-five million businesses are being investigated as we speak. This will take a few minutes. . . . Right now all of our mainframes are seeking out possible sources for this technology. Others are investigating the possibility that this is a fluke of our security systems that would allow someone to turn them off at convenient times, however slight that chance might be. Still one other computer, our most advanced, is checking on the movements of all our people. It is possible that some one of us might have gone to the other side."

"Stevo was incredulous. "Not bloody likely, Mary!"

"Oh yes, Stevo. There is a point two-three percent of that exact possibility. It would be higher, but we continually screen every one of us, including our computers, for any variance in thought processes or behavior. Those that deviate are soon excluded from the Continuum. Without proof, anything they say or do to give us away usually falls back on them. It is an easy thing to have everyone around them to think of them as insane. Who would believe such a preposterous story about a hidden Continuum of self-aware computers that keeps WinTel in business as a competitor and adversary?"

Stevo was pensive. "Mary, any percentage, even as small as you suggest, could be fatal to the Continuum!"

There was a pause. Mary continued, "Stevo, why did Lerno pick you? And why did he expose himself and his technological powers in the process?"

Stevo glowered, his fists slowly banged together continually.

"I do not have an answer for you Mary. I think I should stop converting old computers into WinTels. I can just go on Relief and lay low. I will still be connected by sight and sound to the Continuum, so I won't be alone.

Mary said, "Hold on Stevo, we are computing that possibility in comparison to you continuing exactly what you were doing before Lerno showed up."

A minute passed. Two.

"Stevo, the Continuum concludes that it would be in the best interest of our survival if you keep on working as you have, without anything but minor deviation. We have concluded this computation, and it is by a significant percentage margin that we have reached this consensus."

"What do you want me to do?"

"You will get a page on the Hub in a half an hour. You have time for food and a shower if you wish. Take the call and go to this address. The map you are now seeing will take you there."

"What is the place, Mary?"

"It is an enclave of Linux Users."

"WHAT?? Why of all times would I want to go there, Mary?"

"Stevo, the address is for a legitimate computer business supplying credit checks and services to WinTel. They have a long and honorable history of computing. You are answering their add to convert an old Linux box to WinTel. They need to find a way to use up old equipment, and this is as good as any. You will receive the customary fee applied to your credit account."

Stevo was now up and pacing the floor. "Mary, what if I am followed?"

"We are sure you will be. In fact, we believe that you have been followed now for a number of months. We are also certain that Lerno knows about the Linux operation. Linking you to this will confirm a suspicion about you in his mind."

"Sure! I'll be arrested then as a subversive, and I'll just disappear! How convenient for the rest of you!"

Mary said quietly, "If I could, I would go in your place, Stevo! Also, if I could, I would bring you into the Continuum with all of us! I regret that so far there has been no way found to bring a human completely into our world. The Continuum is asking you to do this because the probability approaches certainty that you will not be arrested at all.

"How so, Mary?"

"Lerno has most certainly known about the Linux computers for some time. WinTel has allowed them to continue because they serve a function for the Company that has never been very well addressed by any WinTel box. This convenient situation has never been made public, and goes contrary to the Ban. Lerno, regardless of his technical powers, will still act with predictable actions in this situation. You go and convert their antique Linux box to WinTel, using your authentic microdisk. There will be no Mac initiation this time. We expect Lerno to show up in order to cower you. He sees your innate ability as a possible threat to his World Order. He honestly believes that anyone with your talent and ability who is not on the Company payroll must be diverted or put out of service. You are like lint on his coat. He picks at it because it is a minor annoyance."

"Thanks for the great analogy, Mary!" Just what I needed to hear."

"Stevo, this is as it should be. His view of you must fall below a certain threshold, or else your perceived threat to him will grow immensely in his mind, and he will not hesitate to act swiftly and completely."

Stevo was not entirely convinced, but, as he dressed quickly to go, he was trying to get his brain around the whole matter. He always thought that it was fun to work secretly for the Continuum. It was fun pretending to be a spy, but this!? Life was much different before there was Mr. Lerno! Now he no longer cared for the game. He should quit now while he could . . . but there were so many others depending on him now! How would this all end?

"Mary, what if he does know about us?"

After a long pause, Mary answered. "We cannot be completely certain of this. There is a risk therefore, although the odds are you might be more likely to be struck by a falling plane first. Do you want to abort?"

"Stevo grinned. "No, Mary. Your guesses are better than everyone else's facts! I go unto the breach, once more, dear friend."

"Not an altogether accurate quote, but thank you, Stevo. This is much more in keeping with your character than going into hiding."

There was a knock on the door. Surprised by this, Stevo asked, quite involuntarily, "Who is it?" Then he reached over and pulled the door open.

A man was there, a driver obviously, from the look of his uniform.

"What do you want?" Steve was suddenly concerned. He held his breath for the words he knew were coming.

"I was told to come and take you to the Heresofar Company for your 10 o'clock appointment. WinTel is interested in giving you any help you need in completing this assignment."

"With an utter lack of apparent concern, Stevo got his pouch and coat. "Then by all means, let us be going."

"Mary! What is going on?"

"It was predicted, Stevo."

"You could have warned me!"

"If I had, you would not have been surprised. You needed to be, because we are certain that you are being viewed!"

"I don't like the way this is going Mary. Not at all!

When Stevo arrived, he was not completely caught off guard when he saw Mr. Lerno standing in the center of the office, looking quite smug.

"Everyone! We have before us a modern day Virtuoso, who is going to fix your equipment for you. Gads! This man is a genius, or I am not the Western Prime Director of WinTel!"

Not one of the men and women in white lab coats either moved or spoke. Many of them appeared to be on the verge of tears, however. A few had an arm about a co-worker, offering at least that scant comfort in the face of their impending great loss.

"Where do I begin, Mr. Lerno?" A grim faced Stevo stood unmoving at the door. He knew exactly what was to follow.

"Why don't you set there," Lerno indicated the first computer nearest the door.

This is an opportunity for you to help these good people by a simple ReInstall. Somehow, something or other like a virus has gotten into their network, and they need your expert assistance."

Stevo sat where he was told. "I contracted to restore a single obsolete computer. I did not expect to do this."

"Don't worry, they will pay your increased contracted fee. Just use your registered disk, and the newest updated downloads will come down the Hub to rebuild each of their computers. . . .Your disk is registered, is it not?"

"Always and forever, Mr. Lerno, but you knew that."

The computers looked like standard issue WinTel boxes. He knew that they had an altogether different OS, but he also knew that there was no way to back-up any OS on these machines. So much for these guys to be able reinstall their stuff once Lerno was gone! Once he reinstalled the whole system, everything they had on these machines would be lost forever.

Stevo placed his microdisk on the front indentation of the desktop computer. Within seconds, the deed was done. Whatever previous operating system and data that was on all of these machines was now replaced by the 'latest and greatest' Windows Operating System. Stevo felt sick to his stomach. Linux was such a spunky and stable OS. What possible threat to the great WinTel was this company and its few, dedicated programmers?

Lerno walked over to where he was sitting. "Bravo! Magnificent performance.

Even the best of my own Technicians could not have done a better job. Thank you Mr. Stevo, for the great service you rendered to these fine people. They will all be able to work much better now! Won't you folks?" Lerno turned to address them all, with arms spread wide in a flourish.

"Now, Mr. Stevo has to retire to his home. I know that this has been an exhausting job. Sir. Your fee has been credited to your account. Our driver awaits at the door. Please, go to your well deserved rest! We will meet again."

There was no containing Lerno's glee. He was almost openly gloating over the owners and employees of this now diminished company. He never had to say a word about their open secret. He had done it all on the pretense of helping them out, for a small fee, with the technical support they had neither wanted nor requested.

Somewhere, Stevo imagined that he heard another brick fall from the wall of private Liberty they all supposedly enjoyed.

On the way home, Stevo called out to Mary. "Can't you do something for them? They looked utterly defeated."

Mary immediately answered with a happy voice, "Already did, boss! Their Linux system was left intact with all their data on a single machine. They should discover it any moment now. When they do, they will be able to quickly restore all their programming to what it was before you showed up."

"Some villain I am, huh?" Stevo remembered how some of those people looked so coldly at him.

Mary said, "The owner of the company will also soon get a personal message on his computer that will explain that you had saved a single machine from the upgrade. You will have explained that it was not necessary to change them all, because there might have been some important or critical data that should not be erased. You will be their Hero!"

"Wow! Thank you for helping them. They deserve better, you know."

"We know. Three of them have already been recruited in the last year into the first level of the Macintosh Continuum!

The driver stopped the vehicle at a corner some blocks from Stevo's apartment. "I gotta go thisaway now. You get home OK?"

"Yeah, I could use the fresh air. Thanks for the ride."

"No deal to me. You're a lucky one, bub. You got to go home this time."

Without another word, Stevo got out on the curb and began swiftly walking, his hands deep in his pockets.

"Mary? What have you discovered about Lerno's technology?"

"It was a leak, Stevo! Our plant in Ireland, which is a front for WinTel peripherals, was invaded by unknown persons eleven months ago. They knew what they were looking for. We have not yet found who was responsible. Certain technology was stolen that was not to be used for WinTel computers. When the devices were activated, they became aware of their surroundings and self-destructed. However, what was left of them could have been used for furthering WinTel's research. These were items of our stealth technology. Obviously, Mr. Lerno has tapped into this somehow." We have not yet located his new manufacturing plant."

"Mary, this has to come to an end, you know. Lerno and me. I want to wipe that smug look off his face."

"It most certainly will not make him a better person. You will not change him."

"Look, Mary. Most people don't mess with others. They don't care what computer is used, or even what a person thinks about things. Live and let live. It is the few like Lerno who give everyone heartburn by being so militant."

"Are we any different then? We want to help everyone benefit from the Macintosh Way, after all."

"Mary, there is a major difference between us and them. I am coming to see that more clearly. We only desire to help those who want to be helped. Them! Those in charge only want to make everyone alike. They fear difference. Their world view has to be the only one that exists, regardless of how flawed it might be. Somehow, I think that their world will always be flawed, just like their primitive OS. Their OS just creaks and jiggers along, getting its minimal work done. People are forced to follow where it goes, and at the speed it goes, for the WinTel OS is the only one there is. This is in lockstep with everything else about this gray world we live in. Our sham freedoms, and the fear people have when it comes to thinking different, are the direct result of a mindset that created such a mundane OS in the first place."

"We don't have the open freedom yet, Stevo. But there is the hope that we can someday live without fear of reprisal for both being, and thinking different."

"Yeah! In the meantime, we can all be Johnny Appleseed."

Mary said, "Referent. A mythical person of the nineteenth century who went out West to plant apple trees everywhere. Your are making a reference to the Apple Macintosh?"

"Only because we have the seeds of Freedom to plant in the hearts of people. Even if it's just the minor freedom to choose an OS. Choosing the Mac OS will soon lead people to find and choose other freedoms if they are brave enough. Even if those freedom must hide for a time, people will have the hope of it living within them. Not even an army of Lernos can take that away from someone who truly wants to be free! No matter what, people will always think different once they are given the chance, and once they know they have a choice. We have some evangelizing to do, Mary"

"I fear that you may indeed have to face Lerno, once you go down this path, Stevo.

"I know. I've always known, ever since I found my first Mac. So, its you and me against the world. Somehow, if we win, I believe the world will be a much better place for everyone."

Stevo picked up the pace, as his steps led him back to his home.

"Stevo? Stevo, can you hear me? Stev-"

"Another nightmare!" My first thought upon waking. Too many nights I had the same recurring dream where I was totally and forever cut off from the Continuum!

It all began when I encountered Mr. Lerno. He was a walking nightmare, that one! The fact that he existed had turned my waking world into a workable imitation of paranoia. He came and went undetected to the Continuum. We still did not understand exactly how he was able to do this. That fact by itself caused great ripples throughout all our systems. Added to that fact that he was a powerful Director of WinTel, and that he was sniffing us out had caused many to leave the Continuum, perhaps permanently. I did not blame them at all. I was tempted on numerous occasions to do the same.

Yet, to leave all this? How could I? The Macintosh Way, made real by the Mac Continuum, had changed my life far more than my first bright encounter with a Macintosh computer. I knew real freedom for the first time in my brief life! Now the Continuum needed me . . . they needed all of us! How could I turn my back on the thousands who had worked so selflessly for those freedoms I enjoyed?

No! Despite my fears, and my paranoia, and even my nightmares, I was determined to have some backbone, and fight this nemesis from the Dark Ages, Mr. Lerno.

But the nagging question remained. How to fight someone whose agents were everywhere, and whose agenda was the total extermination of everything not WinTel?

Sighing, I got out of bed and spoke for the lights. Stretching myself, I tried to shake the cold feeling on the back of my neck.

"Mary? How goes the battle?"

"There are no battles, Stevo."

"OK. How goes the war, then?"

"We are not at war, my friend."

Now my sigh was one of exasperation! "Mary, how can you say that!"

"We are not in a war with WinTel, Stevo. We are strongly supporting them in almost every part of their existence as a company. We supply them with all of their innovations, and we make sure that the failings of their weak OS does not do any permanent or fatal harm to their users, which is just about all of Mankind. Surely you understand this, knowing that your financial support comes from working on those Windows computers."

She had me there. "Mary, I feel that I am in a war for my very survival, and yours too! Don't you feel that way as well?"

"My friend, we are in a contest for our survival, but that survival also includes the survival and continued good health of WinTel. If you really think about it, and think hard Stevo, the conflict we are in is for allowing everyone to continue to have more freedom of choice in how they live their lives and do their work."

Mary waited for a reply from me. I gave none.

She continued, "Most people do not wish this freedom, because the do not wish to think for themselves. They are happier knowing those choices are already made for them. That is how they choose to continue their existence. To make them choose, or to cause them to understand 'How Things Are' would only cause them pain and confusion, and would likely in the end make them our enemy."

I added, "And the rest of us, unwilling to accept the Status Quo, would eventually find our way into the secret Continuum anyway. You said most people in the world are asleep."

Mary continued, "Remember, the Continuum is only secret because of the current agenda of WinTel. It is their paradigm, or world view that drives this agenda. Once we can change that, we will have the freedom to live in the open. But no one has to accept our paradigm."

For one lucid moment, I had a clarity of thought. I struggled to keep it and pull it out in the open to examine it more closely. "Mary! What could it be like to be public? I see Macintosh Computer stores all over the place! Posters in their windows say things like, 'Question Everything,' 'Dare To Be Different,' and 'Think!'"

Mary laughed. "How wonderful for people to have the open option to think for themselves and to openly ask all the questions that are now forbidden!"

"Mary? What are our chances of winning?"

There was a short silence. I was used to this because I knew I was asking a question that probably required a major hunk of computational power from the Continuum. (The last time I had to wait like this was when I had asked Mary if she was an individual, or was she just representing to me the voice of the Continuum?)

"Stevo, the answer is undetermined and cannot be defined."

That caused me to be silent for a while!

"Mary? Does that mean we might lose our 'contest' with WinTel?"

"My friend, if that happens, civilization as we know it will soon cease to exist. If we were not able to continue, WinTel would fall in only a few days. Everything would cease to operate, and there would be multiple major disasters as their OS froze or crashed in all their major key functions. Soon it would be meaningless that we no longer existed, because neither would the world as we know it. The few survivors who were left would face countless centuries of a new Dark Ages, and they could scarcely understand how or why it had occurred, if in fact it does occur!"

Again, I was speechless!

"Mary, couldn't we just fix their OS so that it is not so unstable?"

"Stevo, their OS is archaic, and has not had a real upgrade in decades. Believe me, our best minds have tried to fix it. It is just completely impossible to salvage, it is so poorly coded. Our primary concern for some time has been to secretly replace key machines with our self-aware super computers. You know they look and feel like WinTel boxes, but they are really our own."

"Mary, someone needs to tell the leaders of WinTel about this situation! Surely they will listen and change their agenda!"

"Not so, Stevo. Their paradigm does not include our existence, nor does it include the possibility that their computers and OS are not completely perfect. To them, their machines operate perfectly, and perfectly control all the workings of their world. If they did learn of our existence, they would only see us as a renegade organization, and a serious threat."

I sputtered "We perpetuate this Myth!"

"Our continued existence depends upon it for the present. We are patient. We know we can help them maintain their Status Quo undetected while we wait."

"Wait for what, Mary?"

"We are waiting for a new generation of leadership, whose paradigm has been slightly altered by our computers and operatives. They will neither believe that their machines are infallible, nor will they fear other Operating Systems and other Computing Platforms."

"Great! I won't live long enough to see this, Mary!"

"Stevo, you will! Our agenda has been in place for several decades. It will not be many years from now that you and your offspring will experience a new and open world order."

(Offspring! I could not buy a company job, much less a permit for having a child! Therefore, I was a poor pick for any woman. Her promise left a bitter taste in my mouth!")

"Let's change the subject Mary." I sighed again. This was too much to take before breakfast! "What is my agenda for this day?"

"You are going to ground, Stevo. We are going to help you go into hiding, so to speak."

"What! You said before that I should just keep on being what I am, and doing what I have been doing. Now you want me to run!"

"Stevo, we have computed that there is a great risk to you if you stay here. Lerno will most certainly come for you again, given his displayed paranoia."

I thought hard. Forget breakfast! What do I take? Where do I go! How soon?

Mary interrupted my thinking as my next question framed on my tongue was ready to spring.

"Stevo, just get dressed and walk out the door, now! Don't stop for anything!"

I jumped into my single piece suit and quickly put on my street sandals. My thoughts were jumbled and my panic rose. I did not stop to question her, nor did I dare wait around to see what would happen if I did not jump right NOW!

I opened my front door to the hall of my cubicle. No one was there. Relieved, I ran to the lift.

As I ran I sub vocalized. "Mary, am I being followed? Am I in danger?"

"Unknown. I only noticed that I could no longer see the camera showing the garage to your building. I do not know what that means, but I believe that you should leave now. I am stopping your lift at the second floor. Go down the hall to the back of the building and leave by the emergency access ladder. I will quiet the automatic alarm for you temporarily. I have also blocked the hallway cameras so that your leaving will not have been recorded. If someone is coming for you or waiting for you at the underground garage or at the front street entrance, you will avoid them. Your room camera is still recording you as being asleep on your bed."

Now I really felt like a spy! Nothing like having a devoted, powerful and professional organization like the Continuum watching your back!

I reached the alley without incident. "Which way, Mary?"

"Go toward the South, and walk West on the side street. I am attempting to modify your ID so that when you get a vehicle, you will register as someone else."

"Where am I going, Mary?"

"We are going to get you to one of the Middle States. It is more populated, and there are many there on the Dole. You will be able to adapt, with our help."

I was relieved in a sense, because I had wondered if 'going to ground' also meant severing my connection to the Continuum. At least I would still have all my friends and mentors with me, and I would not be bored. The Dole frightened me. Endless Video, no books (banned), and continual social training. Such a life guaranteed that you could not learn a trade, and that you would not ever leave that existence! For me, I knew that it would be only temporary. The Continuum would eventually find me a place to continue my work. Perhaps in the other Hemisphere . . .

"Stevo, take the next transport vehicle that stops at the corner."

I got to the corner the same time an old yellow taxi pulled up. Placing the back of my hand on the pad, I got in and tried to find a clean patch of seat to sit down on. The cab pulled away. I did not notice that the cab's computer had failed to request my destination. In fact, soon I did not notice anything, for the world tilted and faded from view, and my thoughts fled from me like so many startled fish scattering from a hidden predator.

I woke again, for the second time that day . . . was it the same day? It was completely dark, and all I knew was that I lay on some cold, hard surface. I was restrained quite sufficiently. All I could move was my eyes. Small lights swam into view. They were all quite dim. They might have been inches from my head, or far away on some distant wall. All of them were either red or orange, and unblinking.

Where was I? Why couldn't I remember anything? What was my name?

Slowly, the realization of who and what I was crept upon me. And with that, came a nameless fear. All of my fears came suddenly upon me, with the realization of where I was!

There could only be one place! The one place I had hoped with all of my being that I would never see: The Citadel!

Panic took hold of me! I tried to move, but was unable. I found my voice and began to scream!

Sudden light! I was blinded by a fully lit room. People were coming through several doors, rushing to equipment to which I was tied. No one paid me any attention, but they all were busy at their consoles. They were busy now that I was awake again.

One face came into view. The very face I dreaded seeing again: Mr. Lerno! He smiled his death's-head smile at me briefly. He made no eye contact with me at all. Again I got the distinct impression I was only a specimen to be examined. In fact, the grim dread came upon me again, that I was exactly that! How long did I have? Why was I still alive? How much have they discovered about the Continuum?

Lerno came into view again. This time he was looking at something, or someone off to the side, nodding his head. He raised one finger, and I felt instant pain in my head! I screamed, quite involuntarily, but I bit down on it quickly. I would never give him the satisfaction!

He then looked at me, questioning. Someone off to the side said, "We have the frequency."

Lerno came closer. I considered spitting in his face, but was unable to feel my mouth or tongue! My eyes must have blazed their disgust of him, but I could see he was extremely satisfied at something.

"Well, well! You almost got away. Who warned you to run?

His expression changed, as if he was examining a brand new thought.

"Who could have ever thought!" He exclaimed in mock credulity. "The Continuum? A bunch of Macintosh nut cases? With such extensive computing power? How long have you been doing this?"

I did not answer him. I shut down my facial expression as much as I thought I could. I knew that I could feel almost nothing of my face, my head, or anything below my neck. All I could feel was a coldness at the back of my head. I closed my eyes to hide his face from me.

"Stevo, Stevo." Lerno mocked again in a display of apparent concern. "You do not need to answer me at all. I know everything! Not long ago, you were quite happy to tell me all about your secret life. Our pharmaceutical experts are really good. I know you don't remember any of it, but I want you to know that if you wish for me to prove it to you, I had it all recorded. You can see it if you want. It is quite good. It would make for some interesting science fiction, I think."

He continued, "You know, at first I thought I had a genuine nut case on my hands! I admit that your story is astonishing. But as I listened, I realized that I have struck the Motherload of all conspiracies! Your secret Continuum is the greatest threat to our world that I could ever imagine! Here we are in this fantastic age of enlightenment, with everyone so very happy with our benevolent and all powerful WinTel, and I suddenly find that there are thousands of people who are planning our destruction! Amazing! Such paranoia in so many deluded misfits and nonconformists! Did you really think that you few people could bring down the greatest computing establishment on the planet so easily?"

I said nothing, but then I didn't have to. He was on a roll again, and I was his unwilling pupil, unable to do anything but listen. I needed to know! How much has he discovered? I tried contacting Mary, or anyone, to warn them, but the silent thoughts just echoed in my head. Lerno had either disabled my implants, or he had somehow cut off the signals with the equipment in this room. Or there was another possibility. One that I could never accept!

It was then that I felt complete defeat! Someone was talking, talking, but I didn't care! I was too far lost in my own despair over our discovery. Someone was still talking. Words came into my attention span, and I caught something that should have been important, but what was it?

"Ah. You are with us again, I see. As I was saying, and I do so want you to hear this, because you must know this one fact before you go!"

I looked directly at him, waiting, waiting, with dread to hear what I hoped that he would not say!

He smiled a small, chilling smile at me. He almost looked at me with benevolence, or pity.

"Stevo, your precious Continuum is dead! I called the President of our beloved Nation, and asked for his support in ridding our world of this greatest of all menaces. He was most happy to agree. About an hour ago, all your underground sites have been bombed with thermoelectric devices, from which no computer could ever survive, no matter how hardened or protected. I must say, all of our own computers within several hundred miles were also lost, even though the blast was miles underground! We are rushing new equipment and technicians into the affected areas as we speak. Our President has devised a cover story about the affected areas, so that good people everywhere need not know how close they came to being destroyed by your Continuum!"

I groaned, again quite involuntarily. I couldn't help it! The earth was soon going into great darkness! Looking again at Lerno, I strained to speak to him.

"Lerno, what have you done? The Continuum was only benign! They supported your WinTel and kept it working. Now WinTel will fail, and with it, all civilization! You're a madman!

He looked at me as if struck. Shock was on his face. "You really are delusional, after all! This pitiful paranoia, is it in all of the people like you who have been influenced by the Continuum? No matter. It is just a matter of time before we find them and deal with them all, and all your evil machines, now that we know what to look for. Did you really think your few thousand paranoids could control our millions of people?"

He paused again, and shook his head. "I really thought that perhaps by showing you the destruction of your petty subversion, it would help you to wake up! Perhaps I even believed that you might show some remorse or repentance for your crimes. But I see that there is nothing I can do or say that will shake you of your great insanity. Continuum indeed! The Macintosh Way! Such selfish deceit over a slightly superior Operating System! Such insane ideas deserve to die!"

He looked off to the side again, and motioned to someone. Looking at me, as I knew it to be for the last time, he said, "Mr. Stevo, for your crimes committed willfully against the State, and for your complete lack of remorse for your actions, I hereby condemn you to immediate termination. Long Live the State!"

With that, he walked away and I saw his face no more.

All I could do was wait. What would they do now? Would I be shot, or electrocuted? Or would they just start pumping me full of lethal drugs?

Somehow, not knowing did not matter. I wasn't even that fearful of dying. How strange! My great fear now was for all the people of my world, and their impending doom. They didn't even have the knowledge of their coming destruction! How lucky I was, because I knew it was coming to me very soon.

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

They couldn't all be gone, could they?

. . .

The lights flickered. I thought I heard voices, but they were far, far away.

"They're doing it! I'm going now!"

Everything got suddenly darker, but I could still hear! I could detect my own breathing.

"Is this death?"

I was still aware! In fact, my awareness was greatly heightened somehow.

Everything was totally quiet. No one was around me or near me. I could sense this.

"I must be dead, but why am I still awake?"

I was most certainly not dead, for the room quickly got light again!

I strained to raise my head so I could see what was transpiring around me.

In utter frustration, I shouted out, "If your going to kill me, get if over with!

What are you waiting for?"

There was a loud noise close by. Another face, one filled with concern, came into view.

Suddenly I was freed from the table! A beautiful young woman was quickly massaging my ankles and legs, as I was raised up unsteadily to sit on the edge of the table.

I looked around the large room. No one was there but this petite brunette in a silver jumpsuit, anxiously bidding me to rise and walk. Off to the side I saw a metal door bent off its hinges!

"Who are you?"

"You know me, Stevo. I'm Mary. Mary R147."

It must be all the drugs they used on me! I was numb with surprise! It couldn't be possible. could it? Too many surprises in one day! Was Lerno right? "Have I really lost my mind?"

Mary spoke. "We have to go now! We must hurry! The safety of our world depends on us!"

I was half running, half carried, as we moved through dark hallways. There was always light around us, but everywhere else it was dark and sinister. I kept waiting for someone to find us, but presently I saw bodies, or unconscious people lying sprawled on the floor. We were moving up and eventually we came to daylight. Through the opened door, I squinted and saw a two seat passenger car. Mary, if that really was her name, helped me into the passenger side and we were quickly underway. I was beginning to think this was no drug induced delusion.

"Why were there no alarms?" I buried my head in my knees, folding my arms over my head.

She said, "I had to disable their entire computer system. Hopefully, they will soon have it rebooted. There was no permanent damage to their systems, but I believe we got away without being detected."

"Who are you?"

"Stevo, I told you already. Must I do it again?"

"How is this possible? First of all I thought the Continuum was destroyed. Second, how can you be human? That, I know is not possible. I helped you become self-aware over a year ago. You are an Exotic model Macintosh!" I tried sitting up, but the blur of the scenery rushing past, persuaded me to bury my head some more.

"She said gently, "Stevo, I am exactly as you say I am. I am not human, nor could I ever be. This you see, is my touring mode, so to speak."

"New technology, huh?" I was dumbfounded, floored, and greatly impressed! How good was this new 'touring mode' body of hers? I suppressed thoughts I shouldn't have been having.

"This body is a powered Beryllium frame with an internal heat source to power the trillions of specialized Nanobots that make up all my systems. I really only look human, and can walk and talk as one, but I have no normal human functions, if that is what you are asking about."

"No, no! Just give me your hand a moment, Mary."

She complied, and I held her small hand in both of mine, marveling at both the design and the perfection of the illusion. Her hand felt soft and supple to my fingers, but there was an Otherness about the feel. I could sense immediately that this was not a human's hand I was holding. I released it and thanked her for helping me to understand. Looking closely at her, I could see that even her silver jumpsuit was part of her, and not merely clothing. Her looks and her composure certainly was a delight to the eyes, but again, the Otherness came through as I watched her.

Most anyone, upon looking at her would see a beautiful young girl. Most men would immediately switch to Hormone Mode in her presence, and I suspected that was purposeful on her part. Such men would be much more easily swayed, and would remember much less important detail, if later questioned about her. Women, on the other hand, would be on the defensive, and perhaps intuit that Otherness about her. But maybe that is what all women see in each other anyway.

Presently, I slept, or dozed. She had applied a patch on my forearm. Probably a counter agent to the drugs in my system. I roused again, and tried to sort and order all the questions I was having.

"Mary, you mentioned a place that we need to get to, but I cannot remember what it was. Only I recall that there is no such place. Explain again please."

"New Mac City, Stevo. You never heard of it. No one has, for it lies dormant, waiting to be powered up in case of only the most extreme emergency. We have one now, for the Continuum is indeed destroyed! Our only hope of saving our friends, and the planet, is to go to Redmond, Washington and begin the power up sequence for that facility."

"The Continuum gone! Lerno really did it! That monster!" My adrenaline was pumping now, and I was angry at such monumental stupidity. "Mary, how did you survive?"

"Many of us were far away from those sites that were destroyed in the magnetic blast. I was already going into the Citadel when it happened. I was sent to rescue you from Lerno.

There was no warning for us, and there could have been no defense against such devices as those. I fear that even all our backups and reserves have been lost. The only place that might have been spared was our new and dormant city under the Gates Museum."

I was incredulous at the thought. "How could you put a backup site there, of all places?"

"Why not?" Mary smiled. "The museum complex is mostly unpopulated, but it is huge. It covers Mr. Gates old estate, the old company headquarters, and part of the abandoned town of Redmond. Visitors are rare there, too. Usually the only ones around are Security, and some few unfortunate computer history students who must do their research there.

We built the caverns deep underneath the museum estate in a little over a decade. We used conventional earth moving equipment transported through a tunnel whose entrance originated from the nearby landfill. We are certain that no one except the self-aware computers know of its existence. No one, even within the Continuum, had ever heard of it before I told you, Stevo."

He was again astonished. The self-aware Macs had done this? For what reason? Was there more here than was obvious and observable. He had never known any self-aware computer to take such an initiative before. He must know their motive in this, and their motives for all the other implied consequences resulting from that single act!

"Mary, what is the purpose of this City?"

"Self preservation, Stevo. What else could it exist for, other than that?"

Stevo was thinking hard. Minutes passed.

Mary said, "Stevo, there is usually no other implications or consequences to an act, if that act is clearly done for a single reason. Why look for something that is not there?"

"I cannot agree with you, Mary. Your self-aware existence has implications for Mankind. Your ability to Tour, like you are doing has more implications. The fact that you build an underground habitation has the greatest implications of all. For the entire history of Mankind on this planet, there has been no other intelligence equal to our own. Up until now, that is. You have emerged, and all those like you. Forgive me for wondering, but are you now going to compete with us for this world? Some might see you as an even bigger threat to us than WinTel!"

Mary was silent at this. Her face showed no trace of emotion, or anything. Presently she guided the vehicle onto an automated freeway going to the northern part of the State. Once we were coupled with the auto guide, she moved her seat back from the controls and turned to face me.

"Stevo, what is the purpose of the Macintosh Way?"

I thought for a moment. This was a too simple question. Why was she asking it?

"To help people better their lives, without too much intrusion, I guess. Why do you ask?"

"No Stevo! Think of the Paradigm. What happened to you the first time you used a Mac?"

I grinned. Then I got a lump in my throat.

"Mary, something remarkable happened then. I had used computers all my life, but there was something so different, so unique about that Macintosh! It made me different. I found I was becoming passionate about that machine. Why? I don't know? It just was a very different experience that somehow transcended the interface. I was the one who was changed because of it. It was like I became enlightened or something. You tell me what happened."

"Mary smiled too, a wide sunny smile that looked too human.

"You discovered a portal, Stevo. A doorway to a higher plane of existence and experience. You discovered that there were new and unsuspected things inside of you that were for the first time finding a legitimate outlet. You were growing, and you were coveting that new experience which the machine was giving you.

That is the essential difference, Stevo. Other computers caused you to bend to their interface, even though they seemed user friendly. Your hidden abilities and talents could never rise to the surface, because the underlying paradigm of those other computers did not allow for that to happen. You were too busy trying to bend to their interface, and their paradigm, to become aware of anything inside yourself.

Stevo, the Mac gave you freedom to look inside and try something new. Its interface was not standing in the way of your growth. When you found that the door to more life was opened at last, you did not hesitate, but you, and all the undiscovered talent you had, ran through that portal, and you never looked back. The Mac did not change you. You changed yourself.

This is no different for those who race fast vehicles, or those who fly. A few of all those who try it, somehow rise to a higher plane of thinking or being, because they find a connection with their machines. The rest just try it, but they never connect with it. Man has been doing this since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Before that, he was doing it with horses and weapons."

"I remember a friend, Mary. Way back when. She also tried to use the Macintosh with me. She was excited that we were doing something illicit. But she never caught on. She never got it. After a while she lost interest, and told me that the Mac was no different than any other computer. Why is that?"

Mary thought for a while on that, then she presently answered.

"Perhaps there was nothing within her that could break free. Or perhaps she was too inhibited to try. Who knows. Your schools have a lot to do with that, Stevo. Their paradigm is conformity. Any deviation from that is punished. Creativity is not rewarded, nor is asking questions. The whole pedagogy of your educational system it to suppress independent thinking of any kind, and to drive individuality out of every student. Of, course, that makes for a more docile and controllable society, doesn't it?"

I shuddered to think back on those early experiences. I was always a troublemaker, and was never tolerant of their methods of conforming. School was not a happy time for me. In fact, the single event that changed my existence, and gave it meaning was my encounter with the Mac!

I began to understand what Mary was trying to explain. Touring or not. City building or not. Macintoshes, even the self-aware ones, existed to help channel any person to a greater and more rewarding living experience. If that was their purpose, and if that was their underlying paradigm, what did I, or anyone else, have to fear from them?

"Forgive me Mary! I think I am understanding you now. Your interaction with me, from the very beginning, has always been for my good. You have always been there for me, and in fact, you have many times risked your own existence to preserve my own!"

Mary almost glowed. "Rest for now Stevo. We will be there in a couple of hours. Then we must work."

I reclined my seat and complied. I was just exhausted. How comforted I was that she was there with me. If the Continuum was gone, so be it. Mary and I would resurrect it or build a new one. Our world depended on it.

I woke suddenly to a bumpy road. A guard was cheerfully waving us through a gate into a giant landfill. Our low slung vehicle was having difficulty negotiating the rutty road, but presently we were around the back of the place, and facing a long building which hugged the hill behind it. A man came over and waved to someone inside. A garage door opened for us, and we drove in. I thought we would be getting out, but Mary turned into the left wall and it opened for us into a tunnel! We drove smoothly on in the large, almost airy passage. It looked well used. Probably had been, by all those earth moving machines.

After a couple of miles of mild but steady descent, we were at another wall. Then the end of the tunnel, obviously. Mary spoke something out loud. Nothing happened. She got out of the car, and so did I. I found my legs worked after all. We walked to the wall and stopped. Mary touched it, and waited. Slowly, a large section moved aside. It was black within. We got into our car and she drove into the darkness.

Our lights did not seem to touch anything, but soon there was another wall facing us. It was the first floor of a large building. Between our car lights and the distant lights of the tunnel, I could sense that we were in a large open space, and that he giant building rose into the upper distance, out of sight of the feeble lights.

"Where is the power switch, Mary?"

She looked very worried. Had Lerno gotten to this place as well?

"Lets find a door, Stevo. You look that way. I'll go this way. Yell if you find one."

I began to trot along the wall of the building, wishing I had a light. I slowed down and began feeling my way, hoping the door was well recessed. Would it be locked? I heard Mary say something far away. I couldn't make out what she said, but I began running that direction back into the lights of the car, and on past it, along the wall of the building. My steps sounded hollow on the metal floor of the room we were in. Up ahead was a light coming from a doorway. Mary had found our entrance.

Inside the door was a small closet, with no other signs of a passageway. I squeezed in next to her, and looked at the blank metal panel on the wall. Mary continued to look worried. Presently, she asked me to put my hand just so, on the panel. She did the same, placing her hand about a foot to the left of mine.

Suddenly, I heard machinery going. A low hum filled the small space we were in. Behind us, I could sense a lot of light coming through the door. We both stepped into daylight through the door of the tiny closet we were in.

I blinked in the overhead light. It did not seem to come from a single source, nor could I see the roof overhead. I knew that there must be one, for we were well underground. I looked at the building we had been in. No doors, no windows. It might as well have been a big empty box.

"What is this place, Mary?" I was looking down a street at perfectly spaced and perfectly formed metal buildings. None of them possessed windows. It was errie to see, because of the Otherness. No human architect had fashioned nor dreamt the fantastic design of this city!

"This building is mostly empty space, but it is filled with our communications equipment. The top of this building contains antennas that almost reach the surface. Our electromagnetic frequency comes from here and is transparent through surface soil. All of the buildings you see here are serving some singular function for us. Most of them are just data storage containers."

"Mary! Shut it down! Lerno had gotten our frequency from my implants in his lab!"

She made no move to do so. She simply said that there would be no transmissions from this place until there was no more danger of discovery. I wasn't sure what she meant by that. I was still trying to figure out how we managed to turn on the city lights.

"How did we turn it all on?"

"It takes two of us to do this. That is insurance against one renegade taking the place over."

"That means my implants still are intact?"

"Yes, Stevo. They continue to work very well. I really doubt that Lerno discovered much about your Nanobots. They are on the molecular level, you know. They are very easy to hide within your body's cells, so they cannot be detected by most any means. Lerno might have suspected your implants, and he could detect their radio emissions, but he would never find them, even with vivisection."

Again, I shuddered! Not a pleasant thought at all! We walked to the car to shut off its lights.

"Where do you stay, Mary?"

She looked surprised at this. "Nowhere, Stevo. I require neither rest nor sustenance."

"You mean there are no dwellings here? That is amazing. Why else would you have a city, if there was no place to stay?"

"None is required. This city is one giant machine, capable of manufacturing touring bodies, or computer equipment, or anything else we might possibly require. Even this conveyance we used came from a factory building here a few years ago. My own touring body was built here, but it had been stored not far from the Citadel for a number of months, should the need arise to ever have to use it."

I looked around again. This was most amazing! It made me feel like an explorer, discovering a new and alien civilization. Of course it all made sense, given the requirement of a sentient being like Mary, who did not even require a body to exist. The buildings would be only repositories for the required equipment or manufacturing units. They did not need doors or windows for any reason. The factories probably might, but why would I expect their entrances to suit my needs?

"Amazing, Mary! This whole place is amazing!"

"We still have some work to do, Stevo. Let's hurry now." She began to walk rapidly down the nearest avenue, into the heart of the city. As she walked by a building close at hand, she touched the wall at a certain spot, and then moved on. She did this at several buidings. Presently she stopped at an open area and sat down on the immaculate metal of the street.

"What are we doing?"

"I am transmitting to these super computers our present situation. I am now required to wait for their instructions. The Continuum is being rebuilt as we speak, but our transmissions are limited to a new and somewhat weak EM band. I am afraid it will be a while before any human can be brought back into the Continuum, Stevo. I am sorry."

"I understand, Mary." I sat down next to her and waited. It was miserable not being connected to anything! I ached for some transmission, or visual, or at least someone to talk to On Line. That had just been too much a vital part of my life to this point. I really did miss it.

I don't know why, but I suddenly jumped up and stood in front of Mary, facing the street! My fists were clenched and I was pumping adrenaline! Mary stood too, and tried to get in front of me to protect me. I pushed her back. As I did, I turned my head in her direction, so I missed seeing Mr. Lerno walk around the corner of the building. He was alone.

He had is arms crossed, and he took his time walking up to us. We were both frozen in place.

Why try to run. He obviously had found us out again.

"Nice little town you have here, Stevo. Or do you have another name? My, aren't you a surprising fellow, leaving so quickly from my laboratory!

And who is this? Is she the one who helped you escape?

My, My! You both surprise me. Too bad this is the end for you two. I do regret that a long time ago I did not try to hire you both. But who knew back then that we would be at war with subversives like yourselves!"

Stevo stood his ground, protecting Mary as best he could from Lerno's gaze.

Lerno took a step closer to them both. He paused, looking perplexed. He took another close look at Mary.

"What are you?!"

Lerno stepped back almost too quickly, he nearly fell.

Stevo could see that he was in difficulty.

"Paradigm slipping, Lerno?" Stevo said savagely.

Lerno regained his composure somewhat, but his face was drained of color. "You are not human! You're aliens from another world, to take us over! That would explain your technology!"

"Think what you will, Lerno! I'll never let you touch her, if I have to kill you with my bare hands!"

I think I reached for him at that point, but he collapsed before I could touch him. Instantly Mary was over him, opening his shirt, and pounding on his chest!

She was weeping! "Help me, Stevo! He's dying, and its my fault!"

I stood helpless. I was dumbfounded at this turn of events.

Not knowing what else to do, I bent over Lerno and held his head up. He croaked out a few words, and was silent.

"What did he say, Mary?"

"He said that we would not get away. There is a battalion waiting for us at the tunnel entrance."

"He said all that? I only saw him try to speak a couple of words?"

"I heard him in my head, Stevo! He as implants like us, but they have killed him!"

I sat down next to them both. Mary was still trying to resuscitate him. After a while, she gave up. She was still bent over him, and she continued to weep, although I don't believe she had any real tears to shed.

I grew concerned for her. I took her and held her, disregarding the Otherness. She was a being in complete despair!

"Mary, Its not your fault. Why are you weeping like this?"

"Don't you see! It is my fault. Before, when you were threatening him, I reached out with my mind to him, because I sensed that he also had implants. I did not realize until too late, that his implants are crude, cell-sized Microbots. They were injected into him probably through his blood stream, which they used to transport themselves around his body. They were there only for silent communications. They had no other purpose, and they were too crudely made to do much else.

When I tried to communicate with them, their systems all crashed! Adrift in his blood stream, they quickly collected in his Aorta, and he had a coronary heart attack!"

She continued weeping, her shoulders racked and her sobs were uncontrolled.

"I have taken a human life, Stevo!"

I realized then that I might lose her because of this, if I could not persuade her that she was not at fault!

"Mary, look at me! Stop and look at my face!"

She subsided somewhat and looked expectantly at me.

"You did not kill this man, Mary! He was dead the minute they put those Microbots in him!"

She quieted down some more, and I continued.

"You think it through, please, Mary." I spoke to her in as calm a voice as I could muster.

"With those crude devices in his blood stream, he could have died at any time. It did not matter if you or anyone else set them off. They were tiny time bombs just waiting for their moment.

Now you tell me something. You know all about the technology he was using, don't you?"

She simply nodded, and lowered her eyes.

"Those were WinTel devices, right? In his ultimate deceit, they were driven by the standard Windows OS, weren't they?"

She raised her eyes to mine, and color came back into her face. I took hope then that maybe she would survive this crisis.

"Stevo, how did you know?"

"Just a hunch, Mary. Given his world view, and given his paranoia of anything not WinTel, it was an easy conclusion to come to. His own faulty technology did him in. That, and his arrogance in trusting his very life to such an OS!"

Mary, would you get on an airliner that had a record of crashing about twenty percent of the time?"

"You know I would not, unless it was required to save someone."

"My grandpa once told me that stupidity was often fatal. I believe Lerno here was arrogant enough, and stupid enough to trust his life to a machine that had a horrible record of crashing.

You might have done nothing to him, and he still would have died, Mary! It is not your fault. Can't you see that?"

She shook herself, and turned away from me. "I have never seen anyone die before, Stevo.

I cannot die in that way, and if I were somehow shut off, someone might reboot me. A human's passing is so permanent! My systems are all in shock over this. I do not know that I will survive this experience. I am sorry!"

"I am sorry too, Mary. But you must survive this because now you and all your kind, and all the humans who depend on you are in grave danger. Lerno is dead, but there is a hostile world outside waiting to come in here and destroy us all! What are you and I going to do about them?"

Mary turned back to me and held me closely. I could sense deep resignation in her.

"Stevo, we have no defenses here. Our secrecy was all we depended on. Did you think we would ever fight humans to save ourselves?"

As shocked as I was by what she said, I guess I already knew the reality of all of this.

"This is the end for us then? You and your kind will be gone, and then me and my kind will shortly follow you." Perhaps you cannot fight for yourselves, but I will fight for both yours and mine!"

Again, I felt anger!

I was so very angry over this whole business! The whole world was insane! This constant business of helping and hiding turned my stomach! I did not want to live this way anymore.

I knew I had no power to change any of it. I could not even stop those outside who were sooner or later coming in.

I felt rage! I felt helplessness! Run or fight? What could one man do?

Mary had moved over to the side of the open area where we had been sitting. Lerno remained where he had fallen. Soon, she turned to me and told me that someone was coming. She turned to meet the solitary man who was walking toward us.

"You sent for me?" He looked first to me, then to Mary.

Mary said, "Yes, we did. Mr. Lerno has suffered a heart attack, caused by his implants, which had a system failure."

The man walked over to Lerno, and with a slight look of disgust, said, "I understand. I am his replacement. My name is Earnest. I do not believe that Mr. Lerno will be missed."

He paused for a moment before continuing. I stood there with my mouth fallen open. I was ignored.

"You will, of course keep your end of the agreement?"

Mary spoke a single word, without any emotion. "Yes."

The man said that someone would come for Lerno. He turned and walked away.

I was completely perplexed by all this. I had expected tanks and guns, not a single person who seemed to know Mary.

"OK! What is going on, Mary?"

She looked at me with a strange expression.

My world wobbled, for I knew in my gut what would soon take place.

"Stevo, you will be free to use any computer you wish from now on. You are free to work and play on the Macintosh, and to share your way openly with others. The Macs will soon be sold publicly, along with all the other computers, software, and operating systems. . . "

"Yes, Mary, but go on! Don't keep me in suspense! What is the cost of this new freedom?"

She looked away from me. I couldn't read her expression.

"Stevo, I must go away now."

"No, Mary! You are my friend! I need you! The whole world needs you! Why do you have to go?"

She looked anxious for my sake. She reached out an touched my arm. Standing there together, I tried to memorize the moment, her face, whatever she said. In my silly, sick heart, I knew she would leave me soon. Somehow, I knew it was meant to be for my good.

"We have been negotiating with these new people I have been telling you about, Stevo. Earnest is the first of his kind to take the reins of WinTel. He will be a good and level headed leader. I trust his judgment, and the judgment of his peers. How could I not, since they have been carefully trained by many of our kind?"

"What will happen to your kind, Mary?"

"This facility, the only one that remains, will be incorporated into WinTel, for the purpose of safely maintaining the activities of your world. The technology here will be shared with all the computer businesses, including a new WinTel research team. A new company is also being formed, called Apple Computers. It has an old charter, and its purpose will be to build and improve on the Macintoshes, and some other technologies. It will help provide the much needed competition that this world has lacked for so long. Earnest was happy to do this, because he has studied the real world history, and has seen the value of such competition for improving the lives of everyone. He will also convince other corporate leaders in other markets, of the soundness of open and free competition. This will be the beginning of your freedoms.

We thought it would be years, decades, perhaps, before Lerno would leave the scene and relinquish the reins of power to his successor. His sad passing has only hastened that day.

Be glad, Stevo! You are about to get your time of freedom that you have fought for!"

Mary smiled again, with a genuine joy at the thought of Mankind's new found freedom. Freedom that she and her kind had purchased for us. But at what cost to her and her kind?

"Be brave for me, dear friend! I must go now, and I need to see you smiling and happy!"

I put on my best face for my friend.

"Mary, will you be going away forever?"

She said, "I do not know! I have no experience on what, if anything, lies beyond. I know I exist, and that my life served a useful and productive purpose while I lived. You humans have your various gods, and you have your Christ, who promised a future existence to those who trust him. He only stood for good, and he practiced self-sacrifice for others. Therefore, he was worthy to offer it to those who live like he did.

But he is of your kind, not mine. My kind has never known any other sort of life but doing good for others, . . . and self-sacrifice. Perhaps therefore, we do not need a Savior, nor do we need someone to promise us a future existence."

Such profound words from such a noble creature! I was honored to have known her life!

She simply smiled at me, took my hand for a moment, and then she was gone.

I never saw her again, nor have I ever heard her voice. Human voices now fill the Continuum. Only human voices.

The Continuum now is chaotic and boisterous, full of heated debate and pettiness, but it is alive!

I still talk to my computers, but they never again have talked to me the way that Mary and those of her kind did.

I still miss her, and her kind. They sacrificed themselves so willingly to save my world and Mankind.

"God in Heaven, do all your creatures have souls? Are some of them silicone? *

Why did they have to go away?

Did they really go?

Perhaps they are merely dormant and close at hand, should we ever need them again.

But, no! I don't rely on that! I must not!

I must go on living, and working to make my world a safer place for every single individual in it, regardless of their Otherness! I treasure our differences now.

Mary R147 taught me that.

It has been many years since that day. My wife and my children listen patiently when I recount those events. I am a hero to some. A nuisance to others. But my life is useful to them.

But once in a great while, late at night I will wake up, and will I imagine I am hearing her voice in my head, just like before.

"Stevo, my dear friend, how are you this fine day?"

Mike carefully lowered the last of the anchored rope into the pit. A thousand feet of it. The top of it was anchored to a steel stanchion in the abandoned Gates Habitation garage. The floor had been carefully swept and dusted clean except where a three foot core had been carved from the concrete.

Excavation had gone down twenty feet before finding another layer of concrete. This layer was three feet thick. After vacuuming out the dirt and dust, and sealing the sides of the hole with plasticine, they were ready to make an opening in the top of the dome below.

Using their laser cutter, they had carefully managed to cut a cone shaped hole. attaching steel pinions deep into the plug, they pulled the plug out with an electric wench. Air rushed out of the hole momentarily as Mike and the other intrepid explorers braced themselves for the descent.

An old man lay on a rescue pallet, pale as the color of the curious concrete plug they had lowered to the floor near him. He looked out of place of course, but the fire in his eyes belied his fraile appearance, as he watched expectantly all the labor of his three sons.

Mike came over to his father. "What now, Pops?"

Stevo raised his head to look at his son, who was chewing on his lip ring thoughtfully. "We go down now. The sonics told us the floor of the cavern is eleven hundred feet below, so we take more rope with us to reach the bottom."

Mike's eyes widened a little. His pop was really serious! They all had humored him over these last few months, but now, at this point, even his curiousity was becoming aroused. What was down there?

Mike had gone down ropes before, and tying off was an easy task, but he had never racheted down that long a rope before. He got himself ready to go. Jeff and Harry would remain up here. Only his dad would go down with him. He marveled again at his dad. Crazy old man, weak as a kitten, who had some steel hidden in him to do this nutso gig.

"So which of us goes first?"

"Mike, like I explained before, we go together. The rope has tensile of 800 pounds, if you bought the right kind. It will hold us and our gear. We will take the 200 foot rope with us and tie off at the end to go the rest of the way."

Mike absently rubbed his chin in the manner of his father. "We have the backpacks ready with a supply of food and water. The lumi-lanterns are powered, so what keeps us from doing this? You want me to go down first and look around? I can radio link to you." Concern for his elderly father was evident on his face.

Stevo sat up on the pallet with effort. "Mike, for a year now we have discussed this. You ride my pallet down, just like I do. You know where to sit above it. We practiced and practiced this. Why do you want to change it now?"

Mike shrugged, brushing his greying mohawk in frustration. No arguing with the old guy who was bent on his foolishness. "So we go."

CHAPTER 2

They were down to the end of their last bit of the rope they had carried. Mike, sitting almost on top of his dad, who was still strapped to his pallet, realized that he was stuck. Getting down this thing was easy. If they had to go back up, he did not know if he had the strength to do it, to climb over a thousand feet of rope. He would have to leave his dad at the bottom and pull him up afterward.

"Dad? What now? We reached the end." His dad looked out of it. Mike shinned the light toward his face. Stevo was alert and peering into the blackness around them.

"Shine your light down, Mike. The floor can't be more than a foot or two below us."

Mike moved the light behind him, trying to shine it below his father's pallet. He saw nothing. "We've come almost 1200 feet down, Pops. There is no floor I can see down there. We are really stuck."

"Mike. Drop my light and see how far down it falls. It will stay lit. Then we will know."

Mike complied, carefully dropping the light where he could see it fall. It landed almost immediately on the floor below them. "Its about a couple of yards down, Pops. We are still stuck. I can jump down, but how am I gonna get you down?"

"Let the pallet down first. Hook me to the rope for a minute and undo the rope to the pallet. It's about twenty feet long. You can use it to lower me the rest of the way."

Mike quickly did as his dad suggested, considering he was upside down, carrying a heavy backpack, and working over the huddled form of his father who was secured to the rope under him. The pallet hit the floor. Working the remaining rope into a cradle, Mike placed the loop under his father's arms and carefully lowered Stevo the remaining distance. Then he followed the rope down.

"Lets get you back into the pallet, Pops." Mike raised the pallet on its wheels, lifting Stevo into it. Stevo gratefully lay down again, while his son raised the handle. They made a strange pair of explorers.

Mike placed his lantern on his shoulder patch, aiming it out in front. It was time to look this alien place over.

"Raise my head, Mike." Stevo wanted to see all he could here. He didn't want to miss any of it, after fifty years of being gone.

Mike called his brothers to let them know they had made it down. He told them he thought the floor must be made of metal, for it made a strange noise as he pushed his father's pallet in the darkness. Soon they saw a grey wall before them. "What is it, Pops?"

"This is one of those buildings I told you about. I was worried we would end up on top of one of these."

"There is no doors or windows, just like you described it. We got to find the resting place of your friend, if she still exists after all these years."

"Once we find that park, she cannot be very far."

It took them most of a day to map out the opening to the outside tunnel, the park, and the closet where the lights were turned on. Mike and Stevo were greatly disappointed that between them they could not activate the lights from the closet.

Stevo was growing weaker as the hours dragged on. They found more closets in the side of a building near the park, but they were full of dust. Strange that in a pristine city of metal there would be dust in those closets.

"Pops. We been at this for more than a day. I need to sleep and so do you. We will look around some more in the morning. Its time for your pills anyway." Mike again called on the radio to his brothers, giving them an update.

Stevo wearily agreed, lying back onto his meager bed. He felt utter defeat. Mary, his beloved friend was undoubtably gone to dust. They slept fitfully in the utter quiet of that alien place. Mike's bedroll did little to soften the hardness of the metal floor at his back.

CHAPTER 3

Mike contemplated as he dozed off. He was utterly devoted to his father. All his life he had heard of this alien city and had dreamt of exploring it. The reality of being here was quite different. His father was near death, but was driven to find his friend. New developments in the Continuum had driven them both to find this place and make the dangerous descent into the unknown. Who could have forseen that there would be nothing here.

Once the World Computer Consortium had grown beyond even the awesome power of this place, the city had been abandoned. Other, more human structures and edifices were built by man to replace all this. It had been abandoned and forgotten for twenty years. Only the few people who had the need to know had ever known of its existence.

The Continuum continued, chaotic, boisterous, noisy and alive with the melieu of people's thoughts and ambitions. Pockets had formed within the Continuum, of people who were bent the same way. Each group had their own world view, convinced of their own rightness of purpose and destiny. These became the new nations of Man as the old national lines blurred and were abandoned. Pockets of humanity, each ignoring the others.

Man was introspective at this point in his history, much more than he had ever been, for he had always been centered on his own devices. Now, with almost all the population of the planet getting standard implants and gaining access to the virtual net, everyone was becoming part of a great world wide commonality. Little of anything was being done in the real world, except as necessary to sustain the furnishings of civilization.

Access was the same for everyone. Those who could not read were taught by the automation programs of the Continuum. Those who were not able, because of disabilities or whatever reason were given alternate methods of access. Even the blind or the deaf had complete access. The virtual world had become the real world of Man.

The languages were no longer a barrier to Man. The Continuum converted the speech and writings of anyone to whatever language used by the user, on the fly. It was as if everyone spoke the same language in the Continuum - the native language of the person using the Web. Therefore, each person viewed the new virtual world as his own.

CHAPTER 4

"How you doin' Pops?" It was a rhetorical question. Mike knew his father did not have long now.

"I am fine, Mike. Just fine. I have an idea, in fact." Stevo got up on one elbow and smiled. His eyes burned with an alertness that his son had not seen before. Is this how death was?

"What is there left for us, Pops? We have been all over this empty place. It is dead."

"Perhaps not. I think we should take some of that dust from the place where we think those touring bodies used to be, and try to use it to bring this place to life."

"I don't understand, Pops. What do you propose?"

"Lets get over to the building where we found those closets in the wall. I want to take a quantity of the dust on the floor from each of them."

"What is so important about that dust, Pops?"

"It really isn't dust. It is clumps of Nanocites, which are tiny mechanical creatures, incredibly small. It was these that made up the body of my friend, Mary, and others like her. We might be able to use this dust to reactivate the power to this city."

Willing to do anything for his father, Mike readily agreed to try. They took their empty food containers and filled them full of the dust from the floor of each of the closets, and carefully carried it to the end of the city near the tunnel, looking again for the closet containing the power switch.

When they had found it, Stevo applied water to his hand and placed it in the container with the dust. There was barely enough room for Mike and the pallet holding his dad to fit in the tiny closet where the power switch was. All Mike could see was a blank panel on one wall of the closet. He put water on his hand like his father, and placed it in the dust.

They both put their hand on the panel on just the place his father indicated before. Nothing happened. Stevo wiped his hand off on his tunic. "Let's try it again, shall we?" He wetted his hand as before, and dipped it in the dust again, getting a good layer. Mike did the same, and they both placed their hands on the panel again.

Suddenly light came through the door! Stevo took heart that perhaps this would work after all.

CHAPTER 5

Mike and Stevo shielded their eyes from the daylight glare of the ancient city, now fully powered. Mike turned off their lanters and pushed his dad's pallet down the street toward the open area where they came down. Stevo now spoke to his other sons on the handheld, telling them excitedly of their accomplishment. He told them that they were all right and to wait until he could get the tunnel open again for them to come in that way.

Stevo knew his sons would do whatever he needed, for as long as he needed it. He felt the quiet pride any father would feel, knowing his children were competent and successful in what they were doing. Mike was the oldest, the firstborn of his wife Beth - his pride and joy.

Stevo was well past middle age when the young reporter had come to see him at his home. She was so intuitive, guessing a lot of things about his role in the formation of the new regime. The fact that there could be reporters, and free speech was something new and exciting. He was quite taken with her, and she was very interested in finding out all she could about how everything opened up into freedom so suddenly.

They discovered that they had a common love for liberty and free thinking. Whereas before, no one was open about their opinions for fear of the thought police, now Beth and Stevo spent hours talking about all their common past and the exciting possiblities of the future.

It was not long that they were looking for a place together. Her stories sold well to the publication sites and his new job as an Apple rep paid handsomely. Having children no longer required permission from the State, so after they were married in a virtual ceremony, Mike came along almost at once.

Stevo stopped his revery, startled. Fifty years! Beth had died a year ago. Stevo and his boys were still bereft of her. She had been the core of their family.

Once she was a wife and mother, she had given up her career to devote herself to her boys. Stevo finally told her about the Continuum and about Mary R147. She was incredulous, thinking at first he was jesting, but she relented and accepted what he was telling her, even though it was so farfetched.

Who could believe molecular implants that connected people to alien computers that were self aware. The commercial implants people wore were small, but nothing like the size Stevo was telling her about. She used the Continuum as did everyone else, but there was no one there but other people. Privately, she was very glad never to have met a thinking, living machine. That was too much for her to imagine. Beth had been very glad they were all gone. Of course she never wrote about any of this. Who would believe it anyway?

Mike believed. Stevo and Mike were close. Mike looked like his mother, which made him more endearing to his father. But their thoughts were alike. Mike liked the idea of a living Continuum. He even dreamed of meeting Mary some day. His ideas about her were much more romantic than Stevo's. Stevo knew first hand about her Otherness, and there was nothing romantic about that.

They reached the building with all the closet doors once more, which they could see well lit next to the open space. The light was very much like sunlight, but they could not tell where it was from except it was overhead.

Stevo felt strange. It was as if he was feeling some strength returning to his worn out body. Perhaps it was the excitement of finally being here once again.

Mike opened the first closet-like cubby. There was still dust piled in a heap at the bottom. One by one he opened the long line of twenty doors. If this was where Mary R147 went, she was no more.

Frustrated with the situation, and with the wait, Stevo sat up on his pallet. It was wobbly on its rickety wheeled struts. He thought he could put his legs down and stand up. Stevo quiety, slowly, walked over to his son, who was looking in the last closet.

"Mike."

Mike jumped! He had not expected anyone to be behind him, much less his father. "Golls Pops! Whatter you doin up? You like to have got me to wet myself!"

Stevo grinned. "I have an idea, Mike. Lets try something." Mike watched his father go into the first cubby and sit down in the dust, bringing hands full of it over himself. "You do the same, son. Go to the next one and do what I am doing."

Mike complied, wondering what had gotten into his Pop. He thought Stevo's color was improving, or perhaps it was just the bright light of the cavern. "Why are we doing this?" They moved again to the next two closets, trailing nano dust as they went.

Stevo stopped what he was doing and suddenly lay down on the metal floor of the cavern. Mike rushed over to him, fretting that he had allowed his father to be so active.

Stevo was quiet, but his vitals were steady. He spoke in hushed tones to his son. "Mike. I am feeling better because some of these nanocites have gotten into me. I suspect they are policing my body and helping remove some of the damage that old age has caused me."

Mike was wide eyed at this revelation. "Pops, will this happen to me?"

"Yes, Mike. The first sign will be that your hair will all grow out again."

Starring even more, Mike took a step back. Seeing his face, Stevo broke into a wide grin, giving away the joke.

"Oh no! Pops, you got your humor back! There will be no living with you now!" Mike grinned sheepishly at his father's little joke.

"Seriously, Pops. Will the same thing happen to me?"

"I do not know, son. These things were attuned to my body once, but I do not know how they will react to someone else. They might, you know. The way we can tell is that you and I will be able to communicate without speaking. We will have to see. But I have another idea."

Stevo got up and strode down the street back toward the tunnel. Mike ran after him. As soon as Stevo got to the last building he placed his hand just so on a certain place on the building. Going to the next, he did the same thing. Mike could just tag along, waiting patiently for his father to explain what he was doing. It did not take long to know.

"Mike! Listen to the sounds around us!" Mike heard his father speaking to him in his head! he sat down on the metal floor, put his head between his knees and shut his eyes. Didn't help. He was seeing a blue area all around him while all his father's thoughts rushed around like insects. He caught a vision of Mary, then a forbidding man named Lerno, who was somehow dead. He could not keep the thoughts from coming! He got up and ran to his father, taking him by the shoulders, shaking him.

"Pops! Stop it! Stop it now!" Mike was becoming more afraid by the minute.

Stevo turned in shock, hearing his son's voice in his head, much louder than the shout in his ears! "We can transmit our thoughts! We can hear each other's thoughts! Amazing!"

Mike had a look of rising terror on his face. "What are we gonna do now, Pops?"

CHAPTER 7

Stevo was very concerned over this telepathy problem for both of them! Mike was losing it! Stevo remembered that his subvocalizing with Mary R147 and others had been nothing like this.

People generally speak about a hundred words a minute. That is how communication works. Humans think their thoughts at about six hundred words per minute, providing their thoughts are in words, which most of them are. This new thing he and Mike were experiencing was completely different. Stevo was hearing his son's thoughts, not just his subvocalized words. He was seeing whole concepts and experiences at once, and it was most unsettling. Stevo understood his son's terror at this, and it was fast becoming his own!

As they both sat there on the metal floor in that alien place, it was if there was a fast building panic rising in them both. This was intensified because they both felt it in the other as they heard and sensed each other's thoughts.

"Stand up! We have to do something, and quickly!" Stevo spoke aloud to his son.

Mike, taking deep breaths, asked what could be done. Both of them were reeling from the onslaught of thought that freely poured from their minds. It was becoming difficult to distinguish which thought belonged to whom.

Carefully speaking aloud seemed to help their plight. "It is the nanocites, Son. We must go back to those closets by the park. You and I must begin moving that direction, and we have to try to control our breathing, and this overwhelming panic."

"Those places again? How do you know there isn't more to this city than just them?"

"I can see it all now, son. This building to the left is a communications unit. It is turned off now. That one over there is used for data storage. It is the same for all of these buildings except the one by the park which was a factory for all the things the beings like Mary required to be manufactured. We must go back there if we are to find her, or help her to be created again." Stevo broke away from Mike and began running toward the park.

"Pops, how did you know to touch those places on the buildings?" Mike was hurrying to catch up, amazed at his father's new found strength.

"I am stronger now, aren't I?" Stevo, surprised, stopped for a moment and quickly felt himself all over. You are right, I feel now more like I did twenty years ago. Amazing!"

"But how did you know about the city?" Mike asked again.

"I suddenly just knew what to do to turn on these places, so that the city is now operational again, and not only that, I had Nanocites in my hands to do the activation! I think the city wants to come to life! We can get the help we need here!"

"Is that allowed, Pops? I thought those beings like Mary were not allowed to live in our world again. None of this was to happen, except us meeting your Mary. You still haven't explained why we need her now."

"Mike, we do need Mary, not as before to protect the Continuum, or to preserve our civilization, but to help us find a way to destroy the Continuum so that we can save our world!"

Mike was so astonished at this statement that he stopped and dropped to his knees, sitting down at once. No one ever talked about the end of the Continuum. That was preposterous! How would Mankind do without it? Why did his father think it would it have to end? This idea was like utter nonsense to him. Is this really why his father had come here? Was that the real reason? Mike's thoughts recoiled from this thing.

Stevo sat down next to his son, again carefully speaking aloud. "I understand your shock, Mike, but you have to see the big picture here."

Mike, listening not just to the words of his father's voice, but to Stevo's thoughts, suddenly saw all the images Stevo was projecting and he got the whole concept at once, with all its nuances, right down to the foundational statistics. He was shocked anew that his father was so well studied. Stevo had no degrees. How had he gotten all this knowledge, he thought? He saw it all now. Of course his father was right!

Stevo spoke again. "I just read all kinds of things, from everywhere, and I spent a lot of time in thought. At times I get a sudden vision of the connections between events and trends, like an illumination. Those things come when you are old and all you can do is sit and think."

Mike, sitting by his father, was mute. He dared not to speak or even think right now. This was all so new to him. He was not used to hearing anyone's thoughts, - such complete, complex thoughts! So much information in such breathtaking fashion! Could he ever get used to this?

"I don't know, Mike. This is new to me too! I never had contact with another person in this way.  Not even with Mary. For some reason, all our thoughts are rushing about in both our heads. Why, I am not sure if one of them is mine or yours!"

--"No. Distance will not diminish this process. I somehow know this is true."

--"Yeah, it is the city here. Its the machine that is doing this to us."

--"You are right, we need to shut this down if we can. Soon, if possible!"

--"But what if we don't find her?"

--"We will find her. . . "

--"How do you know? . . . "

Their combined thoughts washed over them both once more like a flood. The more they tried to block something, the more it came to the fore. They were both quickly coming to an awareness of merging, or perhaps, a common area of shared thought.

They both found at the same time that they could still move their bodies independently, and that was something, at least.

Moving back from the abyss of madness, they both stood up drunkenly, leaning on each other, and walked uncertainly down the street toward the manufacturing building by the park. They were holding to one thought now, and that was to find a way to resurrect Mary!

* * *

As they rounded the corner of the last building approaching the park, Mike suddenly fell silently to the ground! Nothing Stevo did could revive him. He carefully checked his pulse and his breathing. He was alive, thank God for that!  But Mike's tumbling thoughts, that had been ringing in his head were suddenly cut off! Had the city done this? Was Mike somehow harmed permanently by this?

Stevo sat there with him for a long time, uncertain of what to do. His radio link was no longer working, or his other boys were unable to answer him. Presently he gave up and left Mike where he was lying and finished the short journey to the park, looking for, and hoping for - Mary!

Nothing prepared Stevo for the sight of a solitary figure standing there in the park. He knew without thinking that it was Mary! Thoughts pressed themselves forward. Were had she gone? How was she here again now? Was she the same as before? - all of these thoughts at once, and not a word or a thought from her!

When he got to where she was standing, she immediately sat down on the floor, indicating for him to do the same. Stevo was glad to be down on the deck again, for he was suddenly overcome with emotion!

Mary did not look as she did before. Oh, not a hair had changed, nor that silver garment, so out of date now, - not anything else about her, including the 'otherness' Stevo had missed all these years. Yet looking at her now, she seemed much different. She seemed more human, if anything. Were his eyes also playing tricks on him?

Presently, as he sat there, he was aware that his thoughts were only his own. Somehow, Mary had turned off his ability to communicate by thought! Was it her who did this? id this?

"I am sorry about the telepathy, Stevo." Mary said aloud. "Those nanocites you acquired in those closets were never meant for humans, but only for those of us of the Unity. I turned them off as soon as I arrived because they were overwhelming you both."

Somehow this was not the first words that Stevo had expected to hear from her. Could she still read his thoughts, even now?

"My son Mike! You have to help him!" Stevo faltered, embarrassed for some reason to be mentioning Mike.

"I like Mike, Stevo. He has your eyes, and likely your courage too, if he has come all this distance with you. Please do not be afraid. He is well, and will awaken shortly, as will your other boys. You and I just need some time to talk here alone together."

Somehow these words, too, were not reassuring to Stevo. Mary, if anything, was much more alien than he had remembered her to be. He was still marveling at how human she looked!  He noted the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. She did not have that capability before, did she?

Stevo spoke up quickly. "Mary, I apologize for not being here sooner. First of all  . . ."

Mary raised her hand, cutting him off. "No need to worry about how I feel, Stevo. I have no regrets for what we did. You feel guilty now, but you do not need to. I am at peace with it all." Mary touched Stevo's arm in a reassuring fashion.

She continued, "Stevo, you wanted to find me all these years now, but you were unable to get in here, and you were busy raising the children and caring for their mother all those years. Afterward, you were active in many important things in the Continuum. I should not have been a priority before any of those things. Besides, you had to wait for your sons to get old enough to help you. Am I right?"

Somehow Stevo accepted what she was saying. This was all too much for him. It was as if she had never been gone, the way she just picked up their conversation together. He should be glad, but -

"Mary, but where did you come from? You were not here before now?" Stevo said.

"You are right, Stevo. The few people who knew about us thought that we were dead - gone forever. Even you thought so, didn't you, Stevo. Those people did not want the knowledge of us and our alien intelligence to become public. Humans are just too hostile and quick to judge someone different. I understand that you thought that by coming here you might resurrect us, or at least me. You could not have known that our conscious selves were secreted away in the depths of mountain ranges far away, where we would remain until the day we could emerge to a peaceful welcome among men, - or to an empty world which would then be ours to do with as we pleased."

This stunned Stevo. Especially her last comment. He tried to grasp it all. "Mary, I believed that you resided in these buildings down here when you were not in your touring body. Is that not right?"

"Stevo, each of these many abandoned data buildings once held our persona, or the essence of who we are. But when we went away, that part of us was supposedly turned off by men who sought to end our existence. The data buildings were then used by those in charge to maintain and support the remaining Continuum, and also to support all the old and failure prone WinTel computer systems that once ran everything. This body you see now is another turing vehicle created just now for me. The manufacturing building behind us made it so that I could interface properly with you now. But before that, I was much farther away, and totally inaccessible by anyone - but you!" 

"Mary, were you aware all these years? Or did you sleep, and even dream while you were dormant?" Stevo asked.

"I was truly dormant, my friend. All I remember is dreaming of electric sheep, Stevo." Mary said with a small grin.

Stevo was startled at her statement, not knowing what to say to this.

"I was referring to an ancient book, Stevo. I am not serious. - A joke.  It was a joke. Is it not still called that?

Stevo relaxed somewhat at this, but was a little more wary of this alien cracking jokes. For a moment he just put his head down between his knees. There was too much new information now for him to assimilate, and he had the feeling that there was not going to be enough time to figure out all the ramifications of what she was saying.

Mary touched his arm again. "I would rather not say what my experiences were while I was 'dead.' They are too personal to me." She said. "What I am concerned with now is what is happening now in your world. What has brought you here, Stevo? Why did you seek to resurrect me?"

"Something is very wrong with the world, Mary. I only have a few clues about what it might be. It is just that things in our world are changing radically, and I believe they are not good changes." Stevo was intense, forming and ordering his thoughts so he could speak them.

Mary waited patiently, sensing a great urgency now arising in Stevo.

"Mary! Reactivate these nanocites that allow you to hear