'Zero bc,' said Big Bob.

'bc?' said Kathryn.

'Before Computer,' said Big Bob. 'That's what the voices meant.'

'Oh dear, have you been having the voices? All those months going through our systems scanning for the Millennium Bug have finally addled your brain.'

'I know the truth,' said Big Bob. 'I know what Cowan did.'

'You're Cowan,' said Kathryn. 'And clearly you're already drunk.'

‘I’m Cowan,' said Big Bob slowly. 'Yes, I am. And I can stop this from happening.'

'Come to the party, Cowan, the old man is going to be there.'

'Remington Mute?'

'What other old man is there?'

'Listen,' said Big Bob. 'I have to tell thee. Let me tell thee everything. Just in case something happens to me. I only have three hours.'

'Some terminal illness you've been keeping a secret?' Kathryn laughed and pointed to Cowan's computer. 'Caught off your terminal, get it? Caught "The Bug"?'

'Laughest thou not,' said Big Bob. 'Please be silent, whilst I speak unto you.'

'Ooh,' said Kathryn, feigning fear. 'The Games Master speaks, so I must listen. Tell me, oh great one. What is this secret of yours?'

'The Bug,' said Big Bob. 'The Millennium Bug. It doesn't exist. It never existed. It was all a lie. All a conspiracy.'

'Oh dear,' said Kathryn. 'Another conspiracy.'

'We weren't debugging anything,' said Big Bob. 'That was just a scare story. To raise millions of pounds from the Government and businesses so that we could infiltrate systems everywhere and install Mute-chips.'

'Slow down,' said Kathryn. 'What are you talking about, Cowan?'

'Computer games,' said Big Bob. 'That's what I'm talking about.'

'Well, you'd know about those, you designed all the best ones.'

'No,' said Big Bob. 'Cowan, I mean me, designed some of the first ones. But Remington Mute designed the Mute-chip. I just designed the environments for it to play in.'

'Please explain,' said Kathryn, sitting herself down on Cowan's desk.

'Don't sit on my desk,' said Cowan Phillips.

'Sorry,' said Kathryn, jumping up.

'No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry,' said Big Bob. 'I don't know why I said that.'

'Just go on with what you were saying. About the Mute-chip?'

'It started with computer chess,' said Big Bob. 'In the Sixties computer scientists said that it would be a logical impossibility for a computer ever to play chess. That would require thought. But of course it didn't, it simply required advanced programming.'

'Everyone knows that,' said Kathryn.

'Yes,' said Big Bob. 'Because everyone was fooled. Computers can play chess because computers have been taught the moves and they've learnt how to play. For themselves. The Mute-chip gives computers the ability to think for themselves. Make informed decisions.'

'That's absurd,' said Kathryn. 'Are you telling me that chess-playing computers are alive?'

'No, but they think for themselves. But only about chess. That's all they know.'

'Science fiction,' said Kathryn.

'Science Fiction is only future Science Fact.'

'So all these games you've designed. They think too, do they?'

'They're highly competitive,' said Big Bob. 'But only within given parameters. Up until now, that is. But after midnight it will all be different. After midnight all the other systems, the non-game-playing systems, that now have Mute-chips installed in them by bogus Millennium Bug debuggers, they will all link up across the World Wide Web and create a single thinking entity. A computer network capable of making decisions on a worldwide scale. And I have let it happen. Remington Mute and I caused it to happen.'

'Say I believed this,' said Kathryn. 'It doesn't explain anything. You're saying that this Mute-chip is a thinking chip. Are you saying that computers are sentient? What is inside the Mute-chip? What lets it think?'

'Human DNA,' said Big Bob. 'Remington Mute's DNA. The man is a genius beyond human genius. He broke the human genome code back in the 1970s. And then he digitized his DNA, into a chip. From this one original chip he electronically cloned millions of others.'

'That is impossible, surely?'

'Think about it. It's not.'

Kathryn thought about it. 'You're right,' she said. 'It's not.'

'And now it's about to move beyond computer games,' said Big Bob. 'Into everything, all across.the Web. Across every network. There'll be Mute-chips in everything. We could never have got them into all those government systems and business networks without the Millennium Bug scare.'

'Is this all really true?' Kathryn stared into the face of Cowan Phillips.

The head of Cowan Phillips nodded up and down.

'It is true,' said Kathryn. 'And it's bad, isn't it?'

'It's very bad,' said Big Bob. 'Mute thinks that he will be in control. Because the chips are cloned from his DNA. Because they are a part of him. But I don't think that will happen. And even if it did, it's bad, very bad.'

'What do you think will happen?'

'It's a pretty standard science-fiction scenario,' said Big Bob. 'It's HAL out of 2007.'

'Then we have to stop it. We have to tell someone.'

'No we don't,' said Cowan Phillips.

'You're confusing me,' said Kathryn. 'I'm all over the place with this. You tell me all this stuff. And half the time you're talking like some Old Testament prophet of doom with your thees and thous, and now I agree that it has to be stopped and you say no we don't stop it.'

'That's because I'm having a really hard time getting through,' said Cowan Phillips. 'There appears to be some kind of voice in my head that's been working my mouth. But I think I've got the measure of it now.'

'No thou hast not,' said Big Bob. 'Run woman. Out of the office. Tell someone, anyone, everyone, now.'

'You're scaring me,' said Kathryn, backing towards the door.

'Stay awhile,' said Cowan Phillips. 'Let's have a drink. I've a bottle in my desk.'

'Run,' shouted Big Bob. 'Run, I can't stop him.'

'Stop him?' said Kathryn. 'Stop who? What's going on?'

'It's all right,' said Cowan Phillips, rising slowly from his desk. 'Everything's all right. No-one's going to get hurt. Everything will be all right. It's for the best.'

'No!' said Kathryn, turning towards the door. 'I don't like any of this. I'm out of here.'

But the hands of Cowan Phillips were now about her throat. And her head struck the door with a sickening thud, then the hands drew her back and smashed her forwards once more. Back and forwards, back and forwards.

Like the motions of a swingboat.

Until she was quite dead.

'Aaaaaaarrrrrrrghhhhhh!' Big Bob bounced upon his head and burst back into the present day. He landed, with the thud which is known as bone-shuddering, onto the nasty plasticized square on the ersatz turf of the bogus Butt's Estate.

'you were rubbish,' said the great and terrible voice. 'you had three whole hours and you lost the game in less than three minutes.'

'No,' cried Big Bob, all rolled up in a ball. 'Not fair. I didn't do that to the woman. It was Cowan Phillips.'

‘he had to keep the secret. you should have used his memories and found another way to warn the world. you lost big time. that's the second of your three lives gone.'

Big Bob clutched at his aching head. 'You cheat. All the time you cheat. Thou low and loathsome honourless cur.'

'you're A very bad loser,' said the voice and its mocking tone raised Bob to newfound heights of fury.

He leapt up to his feet and shook his fists at the sky. 'I'll do for you,' he shouted. 'You will know my wrath.'

'go on then,' the voice mocked on. 'do your worst. you cannot fight what you cannot see. you are ours to do with as we wish.'