In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

as a dream, as she often fell asleep at her desk. Then after the concert
she had begun to wonder. She still had to figure this out. So much to
figure out
"I'm going downstairs. Say, Ula, did you bring your laptop?"
"It's next door, want me to get it?"
"Yeah, I would, actually."
"Okay, be right back."
"What are you doing?" he asked, as soon as Ula was gone.
"Bet hers is infested too."
"I thought we weren't going to say anything."
"We're not, leave it to me." It was hard to think.
"Are you okay? Dinner will help." He hugged her, rubbed her
back. He reeked of patchouli.
"Ti amo, dun' be jealous," he whispered as Ula returned with
her silver sliver.
"What do you want it for?" Ula asked suspiciously.
"I found a virus in mine yesterday. Have you been on the
Internet recently?"
"Yeah, of course. You mean like Lucy or Code Red?"
"Uh huh."
"Shit, what can we do?"
"I can flush it, I got a program."
"Now?"
"Yeah, well, later, if that's okay."
"Wow, thanks. Hardware, software, I don't know squat."
"No, you're wetware."
"Excuse me?"
"Never mind."
They filed down the stairs to get ready for dinner. The three of
them ate in silence. Signora must have been accustomed to this,
because she carried on as if they weren't there, racing through a
Georges Simenon roman policier as she ate.
Penny ran every piece of debugging software she had and after
a few hours found the bug. Ula probably had Maia's entire CD cabinet
ripped to MP3's on her hard drive so there was no telling where it had
come from.
Her head felt as if it had been through a blender the next
morning when she woke up around noon. Sandro was off somewhere
in the big house. She made some tea in her room and ate one of those
tasteless energy bars, then lay down and fell asleep, on her own bed,
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