David Mansell's concentration was broken at a crucial moment by his communicator signalling a new urgent message. He flinched and jabbed the cranes load release lever. The final roof section that he was positioning fell down inside the hollow cylindrical plasti-crete data fortress. The huge slab hit the floor edge first and shattered it. He cursed the fact that the virtual construction materials behaved as their real-world counterparts. Mansell was about to issue an undo command when he saw a huge, opaque, black dome which had been concealed beneath the false floor.

"Jain, what the hell is that doing in my data fortress?" he asked his software agent co-worker.

"I believe it's a data store. It's protected by a type of encryption I've never seen before."

"I don't recognise it from the specification schematics."

"That's because it isn't on them."

"Where on earth have my data stores gone?"

A scaled image of the data fortress intended structure appeared in his retinal screen to re-enforce Jain's point. An alarm sounded.

"David, I think you'd better logout. An automatic link has just been triggered. Someone has just performed an executive override on your access rights."

"Jain, the link has triggered a security lock in."

"Yes, I know. I'm attempting to divert the defence programs."

Mansell scrambled out of the cabin of the crane and started climbing down the ladder. He looked around, trying to anticipate where the defence programs would appear and what form they would take. Whoever had set up the security on the dome intended to make sure that anyone who saw it wouldn't live to tell the tale. He activated his own personal defence program. A shimmering globe of energy encircled him. It was then he saw a storm super-cell appear in the sky above. Lightning flickered and crackled between the slate grey clouds. He could taste the electricity. The heavy clouds began to rotate, forming the beginning of a downward pointing funnel.

"Jain. It's starting." ...