"Well, then I guess I'd be lookin' out for Big Bird's data dump." Joan laughed in appreciation of the comedy. "No really. A little bird flew all over my computer and ate up all the letters and words on the screen. Seriously." "Y'all are putting me on, right?" Maggie's voice lilted. "No. No, I'm serious. It was like a simple video game, Pac-Man or something, ate up the screen. I couldn't get it to come back so I turned my computer off and now it won't do anything. All it says is COMMAND.COM cannot be found. Now, what the hell does that mean." Joan Appleby now took Angela seriously. "It may mean that we have some mighty sick computers. I'll be right there." By the end of work, the Treadline Oil Company was essentially at a standstill. Over 4,000 of their internal microcomputers, mainly IBM and Compaq's were out of commission. The virus had successfully struck. Angela Steinem and her technicians shut down the more than 50 local area networks and gateways that connected the various business units. They contacted the National Computer Virus Association in San Mateo, California, NIST's National Computer Center Laboratories and a dozen or so other watchdog groups who monitor computer viruses. This was a new virus. No one had seen it before. Sorry, they said. If you can send us you hard disk, we may be able find out what's going on . . .otherwise, your best bet is to dismantle the entire computer system, all 4,000 plus of them, and start from scratch. Angela informed the Vice President of Information Systems that it would be at least a week, maybe ten days before Treadline would be fully operational again. Mary Wallstone, secretary to Larry Gompers, Junior democratic representative from South Carolina was stymied. Every morning between 7:30 and 8:00 AM she opened her boss's office and made coffee. Most mornings she brought in Dunkin' Donuts. It was the only way she knew to insure that her weight would never ebb below 200 pounds. Her pleasant silken skin did not match the plumpness below. At 28 she should have known that meeting Washington's best and brightest required a more slender physique. This morning she jovially sat down at her Apple Macintosh comput- er with 3 creme filled donuts and a mug of black coffee with 4 sugars. She turned on the power switch and waited as the hour- glass icon indicated that the computer was booting. It was going through its self diagnostics as it did every time power was applied. Normally, after a few seconds, the Mac would come alive and the screen would display a wide range of options from which she could select. Mary would watch the procedure carefully each time - she was an efficient secretary. This time, however, the screen displayed a new message, one she had not seen in the nine months she had worked as Congressman Gompers' front line. RAM OPTIMIZER TEST PROCEDURE....