Teral squeezed through the tiny opening that was still the only entrance to
UCirc's control center. He looked up at the gaping hole in the ceiling, and
imagined the tons of brick and cement that comprised the human building
directly overhead. Thought of them coming down in a shower of rock right
on his head. He chittered nervously and scurried down off the pile.

They'd been working on restoring the basic structural strength of the warren
ever since Chris's ill-fated attempt to sieze control, but it was a long job.
Heavy construction was *so* much harder when you had to do it as silently
as possible.

And even harder when the equipment kept breaking down, and half your
mechanics were locked up in security and half the rest were dead. Right now
they were working on stabilizing the hydroponics section, with mixed success.
At least the air supply was still working.

But neither of those were today's problem. He bounced down the hallways until
he came to the factory section. The cavernous chamber was silent, but that 
was normal. What wasn't normal was that it was also inactive. The night
before, the machines had shut down, and no one knew why.

"Any ideas?" he asked one of the techs. The tech, only his tail visible from
underneath the machinery, flicked his tail in reply. Teral sighed. He hoped
it was a mechanical problem, because the only alternative was a control
problem, which was a bit harder to solve.

Normally, it'd be easy. Just tell the damn machines to turn back on. But
ever since the attack he'd been locked out of his high-access account, and
was stuck with a temporary one he'd originally created while debugging the
security systems. It had plenty of access -- to the security systems. But not
much else.

Teral climbed up to the factory's local control center. Laser burns and
bloodstains covered the wall -- the loyal security forces had had a tough
fight keeping Chris's squirrels out of the factory, but they'd succeeded.
So whatever was going on was unlikely to be sabotage... not that that could
be ruled out.

The factory control computer was an integral part of the warren network,
but Teral fixed that in ten seconds by unplugging the connecting wires. That
left the emergency transmission antenna, which he unscrewed and removed. Now
the computer was completely separated from the rest of the network. So if
his hunch was wrong, there'd only be one critical warren system beyond 
repair. He turned on the terminal.

The screen was filled with error messages, and the computer was obviously
frozen. Teral reset it and waited for it to reboot. It finally presented him
with a login prompt. Which, of course, there was no correct answer to, since
the password file was stored in the central computers in the control room. 
He unreeled several wires from his portable and got to work.

----

Ten hours later, Teral looked around, and stared in confusion at the clock on
the wall. The factory computer was unrecoverable, barring a complete reformat
and re-installation, which was impossible now that the backups consisted of
tiny fragments of optical disk and plastic casing buried under several tons
of cement. The best he could do was install Windows, but while the
operating system was nearly as Cute as BUNIX, it was Cute in the evil,
twisted way the bunnies generally reserved for their victims. And it
certainly was not the kind of 'OS' he'd trust with the warren's industry.

He looked at the three linked portable computers. He'd managed to recover
most of the manufacturing files, and there was a chance they could get
everything back in operation. He typed 'start' and hit return.

Whirrr, hiss.... pop!

He manged to get his forepaws in front of his face before the sparks took out
his eyes, and dived behind the big computer case before the major explosion.
When he peeked out, nothing was left but a smouldering spot on the floor and
a few fragments of screen.

A tech rushed into the room. "Are you all right?!"

"Fine," Teral said, smoothing his fur, smothering the smouldering patches.
"I think it's definately a control problem." He flicked his tail at the
remains of the portables. "Better see if you can find the instructions for
manual control."

--------------------------------------------
Teral Acorn      Warren leader, UCirc Warren
                 President, SAADB

It's not my fault the warren's collapsing! Its' a coincidence! Honest! }:(