There was absolutely no warning at all. No IC activation, no alerts from the system’s patrol of deckers. One second the system was operating perfectly and the next instant everything was shot to hell. Sam was idly checking some data on a laptop wired into the mainframe when the screen went blank with a soft clicking sound. He cussed and fiddled with the power cable. Then he realized something was seriously wrong. If his planner diary hadn’t just crashed along with the rest of the system, he might have noticed his incipient coronary leaping forward a few months.