* 9l. EXT. ROAD. DAY. * The EMBRSSY MAN drives along, the case of viruses beside him. A little way behind, and unnoticed, * is BECKETT's car, the flare-gun beside him. * 92. INT. MD'S OFFICE. FACTORY. DAY. ** ** ** ** ** ** ROS stands alone. She presses a button on BECKETT's camcorder, wired into the lash-up. An image appears on one side of the wraparound screen. ROS Here's the first thinq I tried. This is the video record of the break-in You can see this machine in the backqround. " Enhance two-twenty-four to one-seventy-six" A grid superimposes, and the fascia of the Connection Machine zooms out to fill the image. ROS ** Now, watch for this burst of ** activity here. We see the increased flurry of lights that preceded the wiping of the file. ROS A routine late-night compression of files. Which means thst all the information in the memory at that moment ... She hits a button and freezes the frame. rewinds a second and then replays. ROS . . is represented in visual form right here. But we're talking about millions of instructions per second: too fast for the camera to catch. So we need something else. She moves to the RAID array. ROS These disc drives fail after ** about ten thousand hours of use - ** but you are careful to replace them ** before they fail. There's nothing ** actually wrong with the discs you ** take out, so you recycle them to ** less important machines. These ** came out of that machine within the ** past month. ROS holds up some recycled disc drives. MARASCO Where did you get them? ROS The typing pool. Some of the data will have been overwritten, but not all. Most of it will still be readable. IRENE is smiling and shaking her head; she really thinks that ROS is a hopeless case. ROS Irene thinks I can't do this. What about you, Mister Marasco? MARASCO looksat IRENE. IRENE shakes her head firmly. But then MARASCO looks at ROS again; he just doesn't know. ROS (quietly) Your boss can't tell you what to do right now. How * do you deprogram Ed's virus? * IRENE rolls her eyes at the ceiling. MARASCO swallows hard. ROS By the way, there's one more thing. You see these? From one of the bage she pulls out a blackened DISC DRIVE with burnt wires hanging. ROS They're the fire damaged backups from your own warehouse. The one you torched. I lifted what I could and that gives me a total of three sources, all incomplete. But together, there should be enough to reconstruct the files. Let's see what happens when we merge them. Merge and run the Assassine Files. The enhanced recorded imaqe runs on the left of the wraparound screen, while the right-hand side is a mass of changing binary digits. ROS Lists of clients. Lists of weapons. Lists of payments made. IRENE's expression is changing to one of disbelief. ROLAND My God. She's doing it! MARASCO Wait a minute. If you call up the Asaassins File ... Irene's voice is right on the head of it! ROLAND He's right, Ros. It'll trigger the bomb. ROS (fiercely) So how can I save Ed? MARASCO (floundering) * Stop! Pause! * ROS * It's only recognising me. * MARASCO * You make it stop! * ROS Tell me! Suddenly and dramatically, the entire screen fills with the face of the COMPUTERISED IRENE. No breakup of any kind, it's perfect. Eyes lowered, she raises her face and is about to speak . . MARASCO (suddenly) X-rays! ROS Pause. The computerised image freezes on the very brink of speech; everyone's looking at MARASCO, who's almost fit to burst. MARASCO They're programmed in a field of X-rays. One high-intensity dose converts the virus to a tailored antibody. ROS flicks a switch in the tangle of wiring on the desk, and the automatic doors open. ROS She's all yours, Roland. Briskly, she walks straight out of the room.