The blackout lasted fifteen seconds. Before the screen of his laptop flickered back into life he was already out of his chair, through the door and yelling bloody murder down the corridor even as the phones started ringing furiously on his desk. A white-faced technician almost ran smack into him, escaping from the computer labs and running around in a fair impression of beheaded poultry.

“What the frag is going on?” Sam yelled, clutching the man’s arm. Any reply beyond the man’s initial stammering was drowned out by a chaotic swirl of yells and shouts as Renraku’s finest tried to figure out just what the mother-rubbing hell had fragging happened to their megabillion-nuyen Matrix systems.

By the time some kind of calm had finally descended again, Sam was back in his office with his heartbeat still an unhealthy 105 and a gaggle of ashen scientists clucking around him. Feedback came mainlining back up on to his laptop and the larger displays in his office. He tried to take in the mass of data streaming into his senses.

“It wasn’t a power failure,” one of the whitecoats said helpfully.

“Brilliant, that was fragging obvious. That’s what the quadruple backup systems are for,” Sam snarled. “Frag, we’ve even got our own generators in the basement and more power stabilizers than you’ve had therapy sessions with your shrink. Surprise me more: tell me they worked too. Come on, come on. Tell me something I don’t know yet!”

Nearly tripping over a wad of printout that cascaded down his legs as he struggled in with it through the half-open door of the office, Dmitar Radev finally arrived, and Sam thought he might at last get a sensible response out of somebody.