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PART ONE

I guess the trouble started on June 1, 2005, around 8:53 a.m., when I answered a knock at my front door. It was an unusual knock, long-short-long-short, pause, short-long-short, the Morse Code for “CR.” I remembered that this was the secret knock which Condoleezza Rice and I had agreed to use in case of dire emergency, but that was years ago, when she was still with the NSA, and I was still with the Agency. I’ve gone “freelance,” as they say, since then, and I’m told she is now with State. (I do try to keep informed of these matters.)

I opened the door. Even though the morning was overcast and drizzly, Condi was wearing dark Ray-Ban shades. On her cheeks were two rivulets of eye makeup. She had been crying.

“Been a long time, Condi. Or should I say, Madam Secretary?” Even though I was dying to know what had brought Condi to my front door and back into my life, I couldn’t resist this little dig.

“May I come in, Sean?”

So we’re still on a first-name basis, I thought to myself, as I ushered her in. Without a word, I helped her off with her damp wool overcoat, underneath which she was wearing a white peignoir, which the humidity had rendered largely diaphanous. She was carrying an attache case of some sort, and by the way she handled it, I could tell it was heavy.

“You’re looking good, Condi,” I said, as she sat on my futon and demurely crossed her legs. “Your peignoir is largely diaphanous.” Dang it, I’m always saying what’s on my mind. A tragic flaw, like Coriolanus.

“It’s the humidity,” said Condi, who had still not removed her sunglasses. “Are you going to offer me a drink?”

“That depends,” I predicted. “Suppose you tell me why you’re here.”

“Right to the point, huh? You haven’t changed a bit.” Condi finally removed her Ray-Bans, with a graceful sweep of her right hand. She blinked at me once, then again. I could tell whatever she said next was going to hit me hard. “Sean, your web server is going down today. In fact, it may be down already.”

“Down? But… but that’s impossible!” It’s not exactly common knowledge, but the Gleeson Bloglomerate is hosted by ‘WOPR,’ the U.S. Department of Defense mainframe computer made famous in the 1983 movie Wargames. The blog could only go down if… if our nation’s defenses had been shut down! I ran to the computer in the dining room, and clicked on the Gleeson bookmark icon. Nothing. “Good Lord, Condi, you’re right! Does the president know?”

“Well, doy!” She had cleared away some debris from the coffee table, and was opening her attache. The case housed some sort of gadgetry.

“What…?” I started.

“Shush! Don’t distract me. This thing is armed. If I type in the wrong password, it will blow us to bits!” I shushed. She typed in a password, and the machine hummed to life. I winced and shut my eyes, but instead of an explosion, I heard the voice of President Bush. He was calling my name. I opened my eyes to see George W. Bush himself, standing on my coffee table. He was kind of green, and only 18 inches tall. I realized the device was projecting an holographic image.

“Sean,” said the president, “I’m glad you agreed to help with this vital mission.”

“You know, I’m in the book,” I replied. “You guys could have just called. Um, what vital mission?”

“He can’t hear you,” said Condi. “It’s a recording. Just listen.” Sure enough, the president had already continued speaking, ignoring my remarks.

“…dangerous. But Sean, you’re now our only hope against the terrists.” (That’s how he said it, ‘terrists.’ I’ve always found his accent endearing.) “Condi will scan you in. I won’t lie to you, there’s a 34 percent chance you won’t survive the scanning. If you wake up in Heaven, you’ll know you’ve failed. If you don’t…” He smirked a little. “Hell, Sean, either way, I sure hope to see you soon. Good luck and God bless.” His image blinked and flickered, then disappeared.

I stared at Condi, who was manipulating some of the gadgets in the attache case. “Is there something maybe you were supposed to tell me, but haven’t?”

“Plenty.” She was assembling a raygun-looking thingy.

“What’s that thing for?”

“For scanning you in.”

“Scanning me into what?”

“The Internet.”

“What, like in The Matrix?”

“No,” she sighed. “In The Matrix, their bodies were still in the real world, with a neural connection to the network through their spines. This is more like Tron.”

“Oh,” I said. “Tron. Great. Whose idea was that?”

“Shut up. We haven’t much time. You’ll have to, um, disrobe.”

“But I haven’t even agreed to do this! What am I supposed to do, go into the Internet just to fight some viruses or something? That seems a bit silly. Couldn’t you just do a clean reinstall?”

“No, Sean. If you had listened to the hologram instead of mouthing off, you’d know…”

“Dear Mother of God!” I prayed. The president had said, either way, I sure hope to see you soon, which seemed a bit cryptic at the time, but now it hit me. “The president! Is he…?”

“Yes, Sean. He is being held hostage inside the Internet. We can’t shut it down and reinstall it… until you go in there and rescue the president!”

I thought I heard a horn section play “bum, bum buuummmm!” but it might have been my imagination.

“Now make yourself useful, and get those pants off.”

[Continued on page 2]

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