"Doc, what are you doing?" Davic glanced around the darkened lab.

"Trying to make up for lost time. Hold still." Wayne pressed a code sampler against Davic's upper arm. "Caen, do you have a copy of Davic's filedate?"

Caen beeped.

"That's yes, right?" Wayne glanced at Davic for confirmation.

The keytool burbled.

"It says it's got what you want," Davic said, puzzled. "But what do you need another copy of my filedate for? It's in my code." He gestured at the code sampler in Wayne's hand.

"No, it's not," Wayne contradicted. "At least, not if the infection is what I think it is." He pulled another sampler from the rack and used it on himself. "Caen, I'd like a copy of whatever you have on me and Davic's filedate, please."

Caen clicked, then buzzed.

"It's fine with me, Caen," Davic said.

Caen beeped, then slipped out of Davic's hand and shot across the room into the download port of an analyzer. It glowed for a moment, humming, then turned a soft blue, recharging itself.

Wayne hurried to the analyzer, and ran his eye over the data Caen had loaded onto the screen. Caen finished its recharge, and returned to Davic. Wayne fumbled with the samplers in his hurry, but he finally managed to get four columns of data lined up on the analyzer's screen. "You little…gotcha," he muttered, his eyes narrowing.

Davic came up beside him and looked first at the lines of code, then at Wayne's intent face. "What?"

"This is the infection," Wayne said, waving at the screen. "You've got it, too."

"What!" Davic stared at the doctor.

"Don't worry, I don't think it'll manifest in you," Wayne said, his eyes on the displays.

Davic looked at the screen again. "OK, I'll admit it. I don't get it."

Caen buzzed.

"8-bit yourself," Davic said.

"All right," Wayne murmured. "Here, I'll show you." He touched a few keys on the analyzer, and several strings of code turned red. "Here's Caen's copy of your filedate, followed by your timing data. According to this, you've been online for about 27 minutes."

"Yeah. So?"

Wayne indicated another string of code. "This is the filedate and timing data the sampler just took from you. Notice anything odd?"

Davic looked at the display. "It's longer than what Caen has."

"Right." Wayne touched the screen in a few places. "This, this, and this aren't part of your original source code."

"So they're viral fragments?" Davic shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense, Doc. Caen would have noticed anything viral when it returned to me after Daemon was defeated."

"True, but those aren't viral fragments," Wayne said. "Those are bits of none other than Enzo Matrix."

Davic blinked. "You lost me again."

"Think, Davic. Daemon was a chron virus, right?"

"Right."

"She was programmed to complete her function before a very specific time."

"Yeah--?"

"What if her time was already past?"

"Huh?"

Wayne sighed. "What's the weakness of a chron virus, Davic?"

"It's on a schedule," Davic answered promptly. "If you can stop it from fulfilling its prerequisites in time, it won't activate. That's first-level stuff."

"Mm-hm. That's how Enzo Matrix beat the infection."

"You want to run that by me again? Nice and slow?"

"Remember what Bob said about Matrix? That he grew up in the Games?"

"Yeah. So he had a weird childhood. What difference does that make?"

"All the difference in the Net, my friend," Wayne answered. "What happens if a sprite spends extended amounts of time in Games?"

"He compiles faster," Davic shrugged. "That's why Guardians get old so fast."

"Right. So Matrix is actually much younger than he looks."

The door to the lab slammed open, and Turbo, Bob, several security sprites, and Doctor Bingen charged into the room.

"Wayne! Are you all right?" Turbo asked the Net Guardian. "Davic, report."

"What are you doing?" Doctor Bingen cried as she noticed the used samplers on the counter and the files on the screen. "You're carrying a viable infection!"

"So are you," Wayne shot back. "I've finally figured it out. We cured one infection and created another. I can explain all of this."

The hospital security team fanned out and moved in.

There was loud hissing, and the dim room filled with light as Caen extended itself.

"You might want to listen to what he has to say," Davic said in a soft, dangerous tone. He swung Caen casually from hand to hand. "He was just getting to the good part."

"What's this about, Wayne?" Turbo asked quietly.

"I found the infection, Turbo. It's been right in front of me the whole time. I just wasn't looking for it in the right place."

"So you can explain your behavior in surgery?" Doctor Bingen asked harshly.

Wayne's cheeks reddened, but he nodded. "Yes, I think I can." He waved toward the screens. "This isn't all of it, but I think I can fill in the gaps."

Doctor Bingen stepped closer to the screens, putting herself within arm's reach of Wayne and Davic. Davic's red eyes narrowed, but he didn't stop the gray-haired doctor as she scanned the data.

"This isn't viral data," Doctor Bingen declared.

"No, it isn't," Wayne agreed. "But it is evidence of the infection. Take a look at the compilation versus the filedate."

Doctor Bingen shot Wayne a suspicious look, but turned back to the screen. Then her brow furrowed, and she leaned closer. "This can't be right. They don't match."

"Doctor, I'm almost sure that if we take a code sample from Turbo, then ask Copland for its copy of Turbo's timing files, we'll find the same error in him."

Doctor Bingen turned, and folded her arms, leaning on the counter. "Explain."

Wayne looked back at the data. "Daemon's infection forcibly reset her victims' timing algorithms. She had to synchronize every system on the Net to her timetable."

"Because she could only activate once," Turbo murmured.

"Right. A system that wasn't synchronized when her time came would be beyond her power."

"You're saying that what Matrix's cure did was desynchronize the Net?" Bob asked.

"That's what I'm saying."

"But how did he defeat the infection in the first place?" Davic asked.

Wayne turned to Bob. "How old is Matrix, system time?"

"11, give or take a second or so," Bob answered. "Why?"

"But in terms of compilation, he's nearly twice that age. Right?"

"Right," Bob said. "But--oh."

"You see?" Wayne asked excitedly. "As far as his code is concerned, the date is somewhere around ten minutes from now. Daemon's time came and went while Matrix was still a child, subjectively. When Daemon infected him, her code started decompiling him, because it had to move his internal clock backward, not forward, in order to synchronize him. It needed to remove more than ten minutes from his timing files."

"But if that's true, why didn't AndrAIa fight off the infection, too?" Bob asked. "Her filedate's close to his."

"She doesn't have a Guardian protocol," Wayne answered. "Daemon's infection mimicked an upgrade. Resetting a sprite's timing files is a fairly common system-maintenance function. Daemon only took over the sprite's mind after the infection had run its course. It's brilliant, really. Ordinary source code didn't recognize the infection as an infection, and once the changes were complete, it was too late."

"So that's why she took the Collective first," Turbo murmured.

"Because she had to have the Guardian upgrade-authorization codes to get around the protocol's file-protection measures," Wayne finished. "Yes."

"OK, so that's how the infection worked," Davic said. "That still doesn't explain why Bob's cadet was the only one who could beat it."

Wayne tapped a few keys on the console in front of him. "No mystery about that. A Guardian protocol will always take the longer life," he replied, watching data flow across the screens.

"Come again?" Davic said.

Wayne rolled his eyes. "Game time runs differently than system time, Davic. Clear so far?"

"I'm not stupid, Doc."

"Prove it. What happens when you ReBoot in a Game?"

"I download useful skills and tools," Davic shrugged. "I'm also a viable target for the User."

"And time passes more quickly in Game Sprite mode," Bob said, comprehension dawning on his face.

"Exactly. And when the Game leaves, your icon is reset to normal system mode." Wayne shot all of them a look. "There's an algorithm that runs during every mode change. It compiles the timing data accumulated during the Game, and integrates it into the sprite's source code. Guardian algorithms go a step further and check for damaged or corrupted files during the compile." Wayne grinned. "The infection didn't destroy that algorithm, because it was used to lock in Daemon's moment."

"So when Matrix changed his icon—" Bob started.

"The infection let the algorithm recompile his timing data," Doctor Bingen said. "And Daemon's time was past."

"The infection went dormant." Wayne said. "Matrix was still technically infected at that point, but he wasn't under Daemon's control. He used his Guardian protocol to copy his own recompiled timing files, and desynchronize the Net."

"OK, so that's how he beat Daemon's infection," Davic interrupted. "But what's that got to do with you running around like a fragmented virus?"

Wayne looked back to his screens. "That's a side effect of the delivery method."

"You mean Hexadecimal?" Bob asked. "She was the carrier virus."

"Yes," Wayne said. "She was a chaos virus, wasn't she?"

Bob nodded.

"It shows," Wayne said ruefully, rubbing the back of his head.

"Are you saying Hex corrupted the cure?" Bob said. "She wouldn't have done that."

"Whether she meant it to happen or not, strings of her processing code were carried along with the infection programs and Matrix's cure." Wayne sat back in his seat and turned to face Dr. Bingen. "Some got larger sections of viral code than others. That's why it doesn't strike everyone."

"But we didn't find any viral activity in you," Doctor Bingen protested. "Nor do I see any viral data here." She waved at the screen.

"Of course not," Wayne said reasonably. "The traces are over ten minutes old, according to my reset timer. They're all the way back—" he touched a control, scrolling the binary data backward, "—here, where no one would think to look for traces of a recent infection. In my case, it's here--" he pointed at the screen "—and here, meshed in among old versions of Matrix's energy-regulation subroutine and some of my cognitive data from right before Daemon infected me," he finished clinically. "Not too hard to fix, if the patient's in the hands of a good surgeon." He threw a sidelong glance at Doctor Bingen.

"No," she murmured. "A very simple outpatient procedure…" She trailed off, then turned to Wayne. "I could do it right now, if I didn't have one question on my mind. How did you find all this?"

"Caen gave me the last clue," Wayne replied. "It copied my filedate and timing data while I was file-sharing with Davic. It noticed that Davic and I both had a long string of identical timing data. The odds against that happening by sheer coincidence are in the millions. Caen pointed that out, and the rest of it sort of fell into place. I don't know why I didn't see it sooner," he shook his head. "I should have known—Daemon was a time, so she could only be beaten by time."

"No one else would have seen it at all," Turbo told him. "Or even thought to look at simple timing data. Most viruses go straight to the cognition files."

"Speaking of most viruses," Bob put in, "I'm going to go check on Matrix and Dot."

"I'll come with you," Davic said. "This is giving me a headache."