Molk knew he was finally asleep when he saw the Great White Hall appear before him. It took quite a bit of mental drifting to reach cyberspace, but once he arrived, he became immediately lucid. He rushed into the Hall shouting for the Codella.

"Guru! There you are!" he called, running through the maze of pillars at lightening speed. He had the power of dreaming on his side in cyberspace, so he wasn't even close out of breath after his dash.

Guru was sitting against a pillar, examining something he was holding in his hand. He didn't appear to have noticed Molk.

"Guru!" he shouted in the Codella's ear.

That got his attention. The interrupted Guru split himself into two copies, amoeba-fashion. One still sat there looking at the thing in his hand, and the other stood up to greet Molk. It was an ancient computer trick called multi-tasking.

"Hello," the standing Guru said. "Sorry. Things have been pretty strange around here since we last spoke."

"Things have been pretty strange outside, too. Any idea why Ina just got attacked by a flying boat full of angry trolls?"

Guru shrugged. "No idea whatsoever."

"Do you think maybe you could contact some of the other computers. Maybe they'll know how the trolls got that thing."

"Alright, alright.. But there's something I want to show you."

"Whatever it is, it can wait," said Molk. "I had to burn the whole village down to keep from getting killed back there."

Guru pulled out a cellular phone. Molk knew what it was from old history books. They were telepathic devices people had once used talk to each other with before WorldCorp. Since the phone companies had owned almost half of everything and the biots wanted to own everything, they'd had quite a struggle. The phone companies lost, and after that there were no more phones, since the few ex-computer hackers who knew how to make them died from bad sportsmanship and a mass suicide pact. Biots everywhere complained until their leaders reminded them that they really didn't have anything to say anyway.

But this was cyberspace, and in cyberspace, anything goes. Guru dialed a number, put the receiver to his ear, then hung up and tried again after a few seconds. He repeated the procedure several times.

"What's wrong?" Molk asked.

"No answer," said Guru, dialing again.

"Did you try Glob?" Molk asked. "Yagi? Vidal?"

"I tried the whole batch. Glob, Yagi, Vidal, Revel... I even called Zok."

"And no answer?"

"No answer."

Molk frowned. "That's very strange. But maybe they'll return your call."

Guru shook his head and filed away his phone. "If I'm right, it won't make any difference. That's what I wanted to show you."

"What is it?"

Here the second Guru suddenly stood up. "Look at this," he said, holding out the object he'd been oriented on.

Molk took it and watched as the duplicate Gurus merged and became static. Then he shifted his attention to the object. It was a small pink mouse.

"It's a small pink mouse," he said.

"True. What do you suppose it's doing here?"

"Beats me. Maybe it wandered over from Zok's domain. If memory serves, he always had a thing for animals."

"Nope. Guess again."

"You made it up to prove a point about something?"

"No. Try again."

"Let's quit this routine, okay? I could generate a whole array of random answers to your prompting, but we've only got a bit of time to sort this task out. So share your logic and tell me, what's this mouse doing here?"

"Oh all right, if you're going to be like that."

He lead Molk through the pillars, out to where his mechanical computer sat. It was still there now, but attached to a smaller mass of electrical circuitry.

"I didn't have time to make the whole thing mechanical," Guru explained. "And I couldn't resist the chance to try Montella out. At first I thought that maybe there was some flaw in the design, but I checked it out. That disk of yours has some weird stuff on it."

"What happened?" Molk asked.

"Look over there by that tree. That's Montella."

The contraption, like the other Codellas, had chosen a male body for its cyberspace incarnation. It, or rather he, was a pale young man dressed in messy black clothes. His head had been shaved bald except for a blue-green strip that hung down into his eyes. He had three rings in each ear, plus another in the side of his left nostril. He looked like any human kid, in other words.

Molk followed Guru to his creation. "He's idle now," the Codella said, "but earlier he was screaming about demons and ghosts. For a while he thought he'd caught some awful virus and was infested by worms. He said his colonels were gooey, whatever that means."

"He sounds like a trippie," said Molk.

"That's what I thought. It's the software, man. It's like acid for computers."

"Well, it seems to have worn off pretty much."

"Hardly! Look at him.. He's just sitting there. And if it's worn off, where did that mouse come from?"

Montella stirred from his trance, and whispered. "You don't know, Dad. You just don't know what it's like." Behind them, the great mechanical disk drive stirred, and Montella's mind returned to outer space.

"He calls me dad," Guru explained.

Molk grunted.

"His imagination is wreaking havoc over everything. It's been less than an hour since I turned him on and gave him that software, and everything's a mess. The Hall and most of the area around it is pretty normal, but only because I set up a sentry routine to clean up his hallucinations - don't ask me how that mouse got by it. Outside, though, the kid's imagination is running wild. Come look."

Molk followed him to the top of a hill, and looked out over it. It was a virtual circus: a thousand or so zenheads were flying around, putting together what appeared to be an immense amphitheater. In the middle, a hippopotamus in a pink tutu was dancing with a crocodile. Elsewhere little blue men in white pants and hats were dancing around a mushroom, and as he watched, one was tossed onto his head. Hundreds upon hundreds of absurdities filled the valley below, and Molk was hypnotized by the strangeness of it all.

Guru finally drew his attention away. "I believe the other Codellas may somehow have been tricked or forced into running that program. That's why they're not communicating."

Molk's eyes grew wide. "If that were true, then whoever wrote that program did it to get you Codellas out of the way. And without the Codellas to watch over it, the whole world could go to pieces."

"You survived long enough without us before."

"Yeah, at each others' throats. If you guys hadn't started imprinting on people, the WorldCorp would have wiped out every human on the planet."

It had been fifty years since Molk had first met Guru. He remembered it like yesterday...

Molk was a janitor at the Noll-on-Yab International Airport, a haven for every sort of unusual character. Airports had always been full of strange people, and this one was especially brimming.

He was working for the Resistance, undercover so to speak - infiltrating the biot world from the very bottom. It really wasn't working out. He'd cleaned his fifty-second toilet bowl of the evening, and figured he might sleep a while to alleviate the boredom.

He stepped inside the janitor's closet to and settled down for his nap. He'd barely dozed off when he was interrupted by a funny old man dressed in white.

"I have been waiting for you," the man said.

Molk figured he was a Hare Krishna or something, and reacted accordingly, saying, "Get out of here, you freep!"

"Processing..." the man said. "Syntax error. Input definition. What is a freep?"

Molk leaned farther back into his corner. "Man, what are you on?"

"Syntax Error. Please rephrase."

"Look, get out of here before I call security!"

"Ah, security! Full security clearance awarded to user-dreg, designation: Molk."

Molk raised his mop, in case he needed to defend himself. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I am Codella's user friendly artificially intelligent psychic supercomputer, serial number Three Three Three Zero One Five Dee Two. I am here only to serve you."

The concept of someone serving him had been so alien that Molk realized he was dreaming, and instantly woke up. He was alone in the janitor's clos-

"Molk!" Guru said, shaking him.

"Quit that!" he said.

Guru put his hand down and looked quizzically at him. He'd certainly changed a lot in fifty years. "What happened to you, man?" he asked.

Molk shrugged. "I was just thinking about the first time we met... And then I was back there. I suppose a mind can do funny things when you're dreaming."

"I wouldn't know. Computers don't dream."

"Unless they're running whatever it is your Montella got into."

Guru's eyes grew wide, like a little kid in a candy store, Molk thought. "Yeah, unless they're running that software..."

"Don't even think about it," Molk said. "Look what that stuff did to him... Probably to the other computers as well. For all we know, you could be the last working Codella on Earth."

"You're right of course," Guru sighed. "Still..."

"Still nothing! You won't try it, and that's final," Molk said in the loud voice he usually reserved for Gwildiana. "Now look. You keep trying to contact the other Codellas. Maybe see if you can find some way to neutralize that program, or figure out where it came from."

"Only someone with access to a Codella could have come up with this."

"Then start there. Meanwhile, I'll head to Bage. Maybe Herb will know something. Or Vidal, if he's not tripping out like your kid there."

"Alright..."

"And why don't you turn him off?"

"I tried. But you can't shut down a psychic computer, even in Cyberspace. He senses what I'm planning and acts to prevent it - despite the fact that he's gone nuts."

"Cute," said Molk. "See if you can figure something out. I'll be back later."

"Whatever you say, Boss."

Molk nodded and closed his eyes. They reopened as he awoke in the camp Gwildiana had been making for them outside Ina. He could still see the flames on the horizon, and it was still light, so he figured he'd been asleep for only half an hour or so. Gwildiana's friend from the box was nowhere to be seen, but there was a fairly large lizard nearby that she was talking to.

"Welcome back," Gwildiana said, noticing him.

"Hi there," said the lizard.

Molk checked his digital watch, looked away, and checked again. Time seemed to be working right, his best indication that he wasn't still dreaming. But if he was awake...

"Hello," he said. "What's going on with reality?"

Gwildiana smiled. "This is Dexter, Uncle. He was in the box."

Molk peered intensely at her new friend. "He's a lizard," he finally announced.

The thing spoke up. "Actually, I'm a hologram. Well, I'm not. But-"

"He got trapped in a virtual reality coffin," Gwildiana explained. "He went in, and then Zok wouldn't let him out."

"Right. But I know a thing or two about computers, and managed to access a holomorph droid."

"Whatever that means," Gwildiana said.

"A holomorph droid," her uncle explained, "is a general utility droid with a flexible skeleton, telekinetic devices for flight and moving heavy objects, plus holographic projectors so you can tell users apart. You can use them for all sorts of things... Exploring places people can't normally reach... Espionage.. They change shape, so you can disguise yourself as a chair or a cigarette or something and listen in on incredibly dull biot meetings.. In Salamiwood, they use them instead of costumes for sci-fi flicks."

"Right!" said Dexter. "Only this one happens to be running through my Codella, and he's not feeling too well lately. I keep turning into animals. And then some poacher biots nabbed me when I turned into some valuable animal or another. That's how I wound up in that box."

"You said Zok, right?" Molk asked. "I didn't know he had an agent."

Dexter smiled, an easy task since he had just transformed into a baboon. "As far as I know, he's imprinted on a little squirrel in a forest outside Krin. I suppose you could say I've imprinted on him... I'm not an agent, but I'm about the only person he lets near him."

Molk noticed Gwildiana was staring off into space. As the only non-computer- nerd in the group, she must have been feeling a little uncomfortable. He decided to go easy on her, and stick to the essential stuff.

"Well," he said. "I may know the reason for your problem. Gwildiana brought me a disk-"

"She told me already," Dexter said. "I asked her what she'd come to Ina for."

"Oh," Molk said. "Well, we know what's on the disk now. It's some sort of drug for computers. Guru set up a virtual computer - you know, software that emulates a computer - to run it through, and the thing started hallucinating."

"Wild," said Dexter.

"As for the trolls, Guru couldn't even get in touch with the other Codellas, so we'll have to spread word ourselves. We'd better leave now if we want to reach Bage by morning."

"Wait a minute," Gwildiana said. "I'm not driving anywhere till I get some sleep."

"I'll drive," Molk said. "I've been sleeping all day."

"I'm asleep now," Dexter said, "so I can keep you company." Virtual Reality worked on the same principle as Molk's cyberspace. Dexter was asleep in a little computerized "coffin" somewhere. It relayed everything the holomorph droid heard, saw, or felt to his sleeping brain, and he controlled the droid through his dream.

"Great," said Molk. "Then let's go."

They boarded the zencart, and Gwildiana settled down and went to sleep.

"So," said Dexter, as they floated off towards Bage, "tell me about this virtual computer idea..."